On the Isle of Sound and Wonder (16 page)

“Your ship went down, yes, but it set you free. This is your chance to be what you will, not what others tell you that you are.”

“I was supposed to be king someday, but I never thought—I never thought I’d be very good at it.”

Mira took a few steps back up the embankment and looked at him without judgment. “What did you think you were good at?”

“The natural sciences,” said Ferran, without hesitating. “Studying plants and animals. I wanted to travel the world and find new species, to understand the delicate balance between mankind and its natural environments. My father thought it was no place for a prince to become a scientist, and although my mother didn’t mind, she tried to get me to study something else, something more likely for my father to approve.”

“Was your mother also on the ship?” Mira asked. Something about the lowering of her head made Ferran think of a deer tentatively passing through an open clearing.

“No.” Ferran shook his head. “She stayed in Tunitz with my sister for an extra week, hoping the climate would affect her conditions. She took ill after I was born and has been battling with the illness ever since. She was quite well for a while, but the last several years have been difficult for her. Her doctors recommended she stay longer.”

Mira fell silent, apparently unsure of what to say after that. Ferran swallowed. “So, the trunks?” he offered.

“Yes,” said Mira, and moved off quickly down the dunes for the others.

Ferran let out his breath in a frustrated sigh. He wished that there was someone else with him. Someone who wasn’t a strange-minded, island-raised girl with a penchant for long stares and heavy silences. He thought about his Uncle Bas and his throat tightened.
No
, he thought, bending down to examine the locks on the large trunk.
Don’t dwell on it. Move forward. Always forward.

The trunk was a leather-bound steamer trunk, large enough for him to fit inside. It appeared to have been battered about quite a bit in the shipwreck, but even with the new scrapes and dents, Ferran did not recognize it.
So, it isn’t mine
, he thought.
Duke Tor’s? Or . . . Father’s?
He pulled out the pocketknife and set about trying to pick the first lock.

Mira reappeared, dragging two smaller trunks with her. Ferran glanced up as she approached.
Even if those aren’t heavy, she’s still stronger than I am
, he realized, glancing at her arms and the ease with which she moved.
No marvel, then, she was able to drag me to shore.

“What about these?” Mira slid the trunks onto the sand near him, and Ferran’s eyes widened.

“Yes! I mean, I think so. That one looks like mine.” He abandoned the large trunk and scooted over to work on the smallest trunk.

Mira perched on top of the abandoned trunk like a lizard on a warm rock, watching him in silence. After a few minutes, she said softly, “I am sorry you’ve lost so much. I hope you find some of it again.”

Ferran paused his lock-picking and looked over his shoulder at her, but her eyes were closed and her face was turned up toward the sun as though she hadn’t spoken at all. “Thank you,” he said, then added just as quietly, “I’m very grateful that you found me. I owe you my life.” He turned back to the trunk, and after a moment more, the lock sprang open and he unhitched it. “Let’s see,” he said, warily opening the lid. “Ah! It is mine!”

The air which belched forth from the trunk was musty, like the closet in his cabin on the
Brilliant Albatross
, with a faint hint of campfire smoke from the wedding feast. The trunk was full of clothing he’d worn on the way down to Tunitz and during the festive week before the wedding.

“Your clothes?” Mira was peering over his shoulder at them with intense interest.

“Yes. I never thought I’d be so happy to see my dirty laundry,” he laughed. She looked at him quizzically.

“Laundry,” she echoed.

“Yes, laundry; it’s . . . clothes that I have worn recently and haven’t washed yet.”

“Washed.”

“Yes, with soap and scrubbing and such. They aren’t clean.”

Mira stared at a shirt he was holding, and then looked down at her own strange tunic and short trousers, most of their color and movement lost over time and weather. He suspected she didn’t have much else to wear.

“Here,” he said, “look at this.” He unfolded the shirt and held it up. “That might fit you. We aren’t too different in size. And let’s see about trousers.” He dug through the clothes. “I’ll want to change, too, but we can share, there’s no reason not to.”

“You want me to wear your clothes?” asked Mira, looking deeply confused.

“Why not? I know they aren’t entirely clean, but I thought they might be more clean than . . . well, I mean . . . if you want to, that is, you don’t have to,” he added hurriedly.

“I have never seen new clothes before,” Mira explained slowly.

“Well, this isn’t really new. It’s not what the ladies are wearing nowadays, but it’ll do. And you won’t want skirts anyway right now, I’m sure they’d only be a burden on the island. I don’t even want to think about a bustle or a corset,” he added.

“What are those?” Mira wondered, pulling the shirt on over her own tunic experimentally. It was a pale, canary-yellow linen thing, with festive dark blue and green embroidery at the collar and cuffs. She ran her fingers over the stitching incredulously.

“That? That’s blackwork. Well, it’s called blackwork, but it’s obviously not black. It’s a kind of embroidery.”

“No, bussel. Corzit.”

“Bustle? Corset? Underthings. Ladies underthings,” he added apologetically. “They’re complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Mira reached past him for a handsome gold and green sleeve, one of his fancier doublets. As she passed him, Ferran caught the scent of her hair, which smelled of sea salt, moss, and some flower whose name he did not know. It was unusually pleasant, and caught him off-guard.

“They’re . . .” he faltered. “Corsets are like a very stiff shirt that laces up the back very tightly to make your waist small. The bustle is like a cage you wear on your backside to . . . to . . . floof up the skirts, I guess.” He picked out some brown trousers for himself and a plain white shirt.

Mira’s face was a wrinkled raisin of disbelief. “I don’t know what half that means, but it sounds ridiculous. Why don’t ladies wear pants?”

“I don’t know, they just don’t, really. Some do, I suppose, if their occupation calls for it, but they generally don’t.”

“What else do they wear?”

“Big hats,” Ferran told her, then added, “or tiny hats. Depends. Lots of feathers and ribbons. Ah . . . I don’t really know what else.”

“But you know about bussels and corzits and underthings.” Ferran flushed, but her expression was oddly bright, and he realized after a moment she was teasing him. He laughed awkwardly, but the brightness in her gaze only increased, her mouth curving until a smile broke like a whale breaching the surface of the sea.
So she does have a sense of humor!

“How old are you?” he blurted out.

“I don’t know. How do you know?”

“You count. You, or someone, keeps track of how many years you’ve been alive.”

Mira looked down at the handsome sleeves of the doublet, which were still unbuttoned and hung down like wings from her shoulders. “I don’t know. It seems like a long time, but I am not so old as my father is, of course, so maybe it hasn’t been so long.”

“Your father,” Ferran pressed curiously. “What’s he like? Why haven’t we seen him?”

Mira did not answer right away. She tipped her head back toward the forest, as though listening intently for something. After a moment, she seemed satisfied, and looked him in the eye. “He can’t know you’re here.”

Ferran was confused by her sudden dark tone. “Why?”

“He’ll . . . he just can’t. That’s all.” She pointed. “Trousers?”

Ferran turned back to the trunk and offered her his dark green breeches. “I expect you don’t want long pants.”

“You are observant,” she told him approvingly, and accepted them, pulling them on over her home-made short pants. “How do I look? Like a man? Like you?”

Ferran sat back and looked at her. She certainly did not look like a man. She did look a little silly because of the way things fit her, but with some adjusting and coaxing, it would be quite a handsome look for her. Strangest of all, perhaps, was that before, when she had been in her own sand-stained, sun-bleached rags, she had seemed much less . . . real. Like some wood nymph from the fairy tales. Or like Hartemys, goddess of the hunt. But now, wearing a motley assembly of his own clothing, she seemed like an illustration in a book come to life, ungainly, but suddenly solid and real.

“No, you rather look like a storybook character,” he admitted, blushing a little. “Like a heroine who’s had to dress in men’s clothes to disguise herself while she’s on some journey.”

Mira’s expression of amusement faded into curiosity and she moved toward him, the long sleeves flopping. “Why would she disguise herself? What story is that?”

Ferran paused, trying to decide how to explain. “In some stories, when bad things happen, the hero, the girl-hero, has to go on a long journey to make things right. Sometimes she dresses up like a man so that no one will bother her when she travels.”

“Why can’t a woman travel alone? Why must she dress like a man?” There was something insistent about her voice, something intense in her gaze that made Ferran nervous.

“Because—well, in many places it isn’t safe for a young woman to be alone. There are bad people in the world, who do bad things, or, people make mistakes, or—”

Mira’s brow grew dark, her green eyes clouding over into a bluer tint. “What bad things? What mistakes?” she asked, her voice very quiet and deeply serious. “What do they do?”

Ferran’s words stuck in his throat, and he realized what it was that was giving him trouble about the explanation.
How do I explain this? I don’t want to upset her.
“They . . . hurt . . . or they might take away a woman’s innocence. Her freedom, her . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know how to . . .” He swallowed, his mouth dry, the sunlight suddenly too hot on the back of his neck and the top of his head, which he was positive were already sunburnt. Mira peered into his eyes, her mouth a thin line, and after several moments, she lifted her chin a little.

“Ah. I know what they do,” she said quietly. “Those kinds of monsters.”

Ferran flushed hotly, but couldn’t look away from her hard green eyes. “You—you do?”

“There is a monster here. I told you this before.”

Ferran’s eyes widened. “You mean . . . you didn’t mean a monster-monster, you meant . . . you mean . . .”

“I try not to think of it much. My father cursed the monster to never lay eyes on me again, nor come within my sight for the rest of his days. That is why you have not seen his face. And my father keeps to himself. He cannot know you’re here.”

What isn’t she telling me?
Ferran searched her expression for further clues. “Mira . . . did the monster hurt you?”

Mira fixed her eyes on his like a bird of prey targeting its supper, but her mouth was still a thin, weary line. She nodded.

“Oh, my gods,” Ferran muttered. “I’m . . . so sorry. I’m so sorry, I-I shouldn’t have said anything. That’s terrible. It’s just awful.” He looked sharply away then, his eyes burning from having stared into hers for so long.
No wonder she didn’t like it when I tried to take her hand before. I shouldn’t have assumed I could just . . . touch her.
He felt suddenly cold all over, as though the sun had gone out, and strangely helpless. He didn’t know what else to say.

“You didn’t know,” she said simply, at last. “And it wasn’t you.” Her tone had grown brusque. “Do these hang down like this, or are they worn differently?” She flapped one of the green sleeves at him.

“There are buttons,” he said, his eyes still averted. “You button them over your shirt sleeve, so the shirt pokes out.”

Mira held out her arm. “Show me,” she said, and he looked up. She seemed as calm and unperturbed as though they’d never discussed the presence of monsters in the world.

“All right,” he agreed, and reached for the first button.

* * *

Aurael left a while after the foolish castaways had convinced Karaburan to drink from the bottle of wine. He soared away, leaving them carousing on the beach, whooping and cheering themselves on in an increasingly drunken blur. Each man thought he would be a king, and all three were committed in wine to murdering the unnamed tyrant of the island.

Ah, and I will be free as the sun when Dante’s blood flows down the rocks to the sand
. He flew toward the forest in search of Mira. He had been hard at work both for and against Dante’s will all day. Did he not then deserve a glimpse of his beloved, his guiding star?

He startled some birds from a fruit tree as he soared by, rattling the round yellow fruits to the ground. Soon, all would be ready, and soon, all would unravel. His burden and his enslavement would be reversed, and he would be free to do as he wished. Although Ouberan had trapped him indefinitely in the tree, loopholes in the laws of faerie magic had allowed his escape: if any should come that were strong enough to free him, he should be enslaved to them until such time as he was freed by their will, not Ouberan’s.

Dante’s conditions for freedom, of course, had involved a period of service, though that period grew longer and longer with each passing year. Aurael was convinced that Dante never meant to free him at all, and so the only reliable path was for Dante to die.

It would be so much simpler if I could do it myself,
he thought on more than one occasion.
But if I kill him, my lord will surely know, and I may as well be dead myself.

It had been a long time building up to this. Aurael had hoped to mold Karaburan into a murderer years ago, but as a child, the misshapen creature had been so overly gentle, so unjaded by the balance of his life on the island, that no nightmares or sweet dreams could coax him to mutiny. Karaburan had doted on Mira and worshipped Dante, no matter how many times Aurael slipped into his mind in the form of his dam, the Psychorrax. He had plagued Karaburan’s darker dreams with a fervent constancy, dangling the things the monster longed for before his eyes and then tossing them away again into darkness, sending Karaburan chasing them uselessly night after night.