Our Lady of the Islands Read online

  “Yes, I will — delicious. I believe I recognize this vintage?”

  “Indeed you do. A certain well-traveled sea captain brought me a case on his last visit. I hope he’s brought more; my stores could use restocking.”

  “It’s eminently possible that he has.”

  After checking to see that their bouillabaisse from the tavern was still warm, Sian brought the bottle to the table. “You’re right, though: matters here aren’t what they should be, and not just on the docks. I can’t retain my workers either — I need new weavers, and probably a new dyer, if I can find anyone suitable. I’ve been to the hiring hall four times this season already.” She smiled wryly. “Not that anyone is happy to see me there these days.”

  “I cannot imagine who would not be pleased to see your lovely face at his doorstep. Show me these ungrateful men!”

  Sian laughed. “Ah, flatterer, you warm an old woman’s bones.”

  Reikos gave a half-bow, elegant even from his seated position. “Always happy to be of service. Though you are not old.”

  Sian raised an eyebrow. “Nor am I young.”

  “You are ageless, a creature of great and abiding beauty.”

  Sian gave him a long look calculated to wither.

  Reikos cleared his throat. “So, what are these marches, then? Some sort of protest?”

  “Our work force abandons honest labor now to roam the streets in prayer, begging their Butchered God for a more equitable distribution of wealth. As if coins might just fall on them with the rains!” She shook her head. “I don’t know what they hope to achieve. But they seem reasonably peaceful. Enough of this gloomy talk. You must be famished — shall we dine?”

  “Eager as I am for fish soup, my lady, I find myself in the grasp of a … different hunger at the moment …” He glanced beyond the small kitchen to the daybed behind its gauze curtain at the back of the townhouse. The fabric around the bed stirred gently in the fragrant evening breeze. “I was a long time at sea, far from the comforts of shore.”

  Laughing, Sian got to her feet and gave Reikos a hand up. “A man after my own heart. So we shall have dessert first, and dine afterwards.”

  The bouillabaisse had kept perfectly, making a fine late supper. Sian found a bottle of Stone Coast claret to accompany it, hoping indeed that Lost Port’s blight should pass. When the meal was done, Reikos carried his dishes to the sideboard, then took the empty wine bottle downstairs and set it outside the back door for the glass-scavengers.

  It was not his custom to stay the night when he visited. A ship’s captain had responsibilities early in the morning that required a well-rested body and an alert mind. This equally suited Sian, being well past the age when sleeping like piled pups in the townhouse’s small daybed would leave her refreshed at dawn. And though the place was no storefront, clients and associates did happen by with some frequency when she was in town; it was just easier, and more professional, for her to rise alone there.

  When he returned from the alley, Reikos nuzzled the back of Sian’s neck, planting a few small kisses on the tender skin there. “When shall we dine again?”

  “How long are you in port this time?” Sian scraped the soup-bowl into the covered scrap container, lest she encourage the islands’ large roaches, and set it aside for return to the tavern. A bright green gecko climbed the wall behind the sideboard, ever alert for mosquitoes.

  “A fortnight, perhaps; until I can turn over my cargo. I have you down for one case of kiesh, at the very least.”

  “I thank you.” Sian thought a moment. “I need to go to Little Loom Eyot tomorrow, but business will bring me back to Viel within three or four days.”

  “I look forward to it.” He kissed her again, pulling her close. “Such a brief respite this was from the desolation of my days. Will you not come with me this time?”

  Sian smiled, turning around in his arms to face him. “My dear, your shipboard bed is even smaller than mine.”

  “No, not just tonight. Sail with me when I leave. I will show you the world!”

  “And what will all your other women think when I show up?”

  “There will be no one but you, Sian.”

  Laughing, she said, “Now that is going a bit far, even for you.” She gave him a gentle push. “Go on, get back to Fair Passage. I shall see you in a few days.”

  Reikos let go of her and took up his jacket and satchel. “I hope your husband knows what a lucky man he is.”

  Sian looked up at him, a little surprised. “Of course he does. As I know how lucky I am. Comfort, and freedom, and interesting work — I have it all.”

  “Yes, you do.” Reikos gazed at her. “He truly does not mind your … independence?”

  “We have long since passed the time of caring about such things. Our arrangement is clear: he runs the manufactory, and I manage the business in town. Our free time is our own.” She frowned at her lover. “As I believe I have explained to you.”

  “Yes, you have.” Then he grinned, the mischievous glint returned. “May your dreams be filled with delightful adventures involving dashing sea captains.”

  “You sleep well too.” She walked him down to the front door, then kissed him farewell as he slipped quietly into the night.

  She watched his trim form retreat down Meander Way, then bolted the door.

  Sian spent a productive morning visiting a new dye-seller on Three Cats, buying several sacks each of ochre and indigo and putting in an order for some rare carmine at a decent price. At least some businesses were still thriving. After closing up the townhouse, Sian walked through Viel’s crowded streets to the public dock, looking around for Pino, finally spotting him near the end of the wharf, waving madly at her. She and Arouf had hired the young man just a few years back, but he was proving to be a very dedicated worker, cheerfully filling in anywhere the firm of Monde & Kattë required — from hauling supplies to the storehouse, to general repair and maintenance, to fetching whatever Sian acquired in town, as well as ferrying her back and forth between home and Alizar Main.

  Resting her feet on the dye-sacks piled in the bottom of the boat, she let herself daydream during the hour-long passage across the smooth waters of Alizar Bay to their private island — perhaps she had had less sleep than she’d realized — only noticing their approach when the boat bumped against the dock at Little Loom Eyot. “Thank you, Pino,” Sian said, alighting. Unencumbered, as usual. No matter that she managed fine in town; Pino would never let her carry her own bags when he was there.

  “Happy to have you home, my lady,” the boy answered, pushing his dark brown hair out of his eyes and grinning at her.

  After a perfunctory glance around the lush grounds, she went to her little office upstairs in the loom house to file and sort the documents, orders, and purchase receipts she’d brought from town. Always so much paperwork! Once again, she resolved to hire clerical help.

  When the bell chimed for change of shift, she looked up, startled to see the afternoon entirely passed. She straightened her desk, then began the short walk up the hill. She passed alongside the loom house and in front of the dye works, the two largest buildings on the island. Blue-and-red macaws shrieked and hopped about in the chinaberry trees above her head, scolding her for disturbing their evening congress — without offering food. “Peace, you little beggars,” she chuckled at them as she turned beside the unmarried women’s dormitory, nestled in a riot of blooming lacuina vines next to the refectory for her workers. Beyond that came the cottages of the older, married employees, and the few bachelor couples of whom she did not inquire so much.

  Her own house stood on the highest part of the island, an often cloud-capped bluff situated on the rain-shadowed western face of the peak. Like the compound’s cottages, it was built raised on poles in the traditional Alizari style, albeit with the modern conveniences of plumbing and a decent indoor kitchen. Its sweeping teak gables were pierced with tall windows and wide, elaborately carved lattice shutters to close against ocean st
orms or open to the sun’s benediction.

  The walk might be short — the entire island was little more than a thousand paces north to south — but the rise was of a steepness, and Sian was of an age (no matter what Reikos might say), as to leave her half out of breath by the time she’d passed the stand of bony Dragon’s Blood trees outside their gate, and slid aside the soft peg that held the front door closed. No need for guards or even locks when you owned your own bridgeless island.

  Inside, a warm glow came from the kitchen, bearing with it the welcoming aroma of food on the stove. “That you, wife?”

  “Yes, Arouf, it is I.” Sian unwrapped her elaborately patterned silk shawl and hung it on a hook by the door, next to its many mates. Today’s had been blue, with the spectacular image of an iridescent morpho butterfly picked out along its length.

  In the kitchen, she found her husband standing over a large pot, a long wooden spoon in his hand. Bela was nowhere to be seen; Arouf must have given their cook-housekeeper the evening off. “That smells good,” she said, going to kiss him on his damp and bristly beard.

  “It’s cold enough out for a spicy sweetprawn stew, I should think.” He gave her an affectionate pat on the arm, his attention still on the pot.

  “Cold?” She lifted an eyebrow, smiling as she went to the cool box to find an open jug of tart white wine. She poured herself a glass, then refilled Arouf’s. “Only a man from the farthest reach of Malençon could possibly call this weather cold.”

  “Or perhaps one who had a particular craving for spicy sweetprawn stew.” Arouf sipped his wine. “It should be ready soon, don’t wander far.”

  “I won’t.”

  Without mentioning any names, she began to tell Arouf about conversations she’d had with ‘several trading partners’ — news of the Stone Coast grape blight, the increasing labor shortage, the stagnation at the harbor at Cutter’s. “And the city feels … less civilized all the time. Jamino Fanti tells me that his runner-cart was ambushed by a mob of angry vagrants last week, demanding money from him.”

  “Or what?” Arouf asked.

  “Or they’d push the cart over and break its wheels, they said. That’s what he told me.”

  “Did he give in to this? Where was his runner while all this happened?”

  “There were too many of them for the runner to fend off, apparently.”

  Arouf shook his head, his dark eyes flashing. “I do not like you going there.”

  “Oh?” She gave him a wry smile. “Does that mean you will go next time?”

  He scowled at her. “That is your world, down there, wife. This is mine.”

  Such a powerful-looking man, Sian mused, and yet such a child, to be so upset by even a mention of the outside world. She bit her lip and went to set the table, refraining from telling him that someone in the crowd had flung a fistful of mud at her as she had left the townhouse in Viel to meet Pino that afternoon. They had missed. So what did it matter?

  “Did you do any entertaining while you were in town?”

  Sian looked up at him. “No. Why do you ask?”

  Arouf shrugged, not looking up from the cutting board where he was dicing firefruit. “Why doesn’t the Factor do something about all this unrest?”

  “I don’t know.” She thought a moment. “He might be too distracted. I hear his son is not recovering quite as quickly as they’d hoped.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” He dropped the peppers into the stew and stirred vigorously. Then he lifted the spoon to his lips, frowned, and returned to the board to dice another.

  “Indeed.” Sian thought about their own daughters, with the mingled love and fear that fills any mother when she hears of a child’s illness. Because they would always be her babies, no matter that they were grown and gone. Maleen, at least, still lived in Alizar; Sian had been meaning to visit her and the grandchildren for far too long. Life just seemed to crowd out every space she tried to clear for such things lately. She shook her head and resolved more fiercely to do it — soon.

  “Well, supper is ready,” Arouf said, ladling stew into a serving bowl. A good measure remained steaming on the stove when he brought the filled bowl to the table.

  She dipped her bread in the fragrant broth as the first bite seared pleasantly down her throat. “Your best yet.”

  Arouf patted his belly and swallowed his own generous spoonful. “A little bland.” Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes and his cheeks flushed slightly. “But, it was the best I could do with these poor ingredients.”

  “Any better and this old body could simply not stand it.”

  “Well, then. It must be exactly good enough.”

  “Exactly.”

  As they ate, Sian asked Arouf about matters in the dye works. He had nothing much to report, beyond complaining of being short-staffed, and soon enough they were passing their supper in silence.

  “I’ll take the sacks out to the shed, if you’ll see to the dishes,” Arouf said, pushing back from the table with a contented sigh.

  “Of course. Go ahead.” Sian rose and gathered the bowls, carrying them to the washbasin. “A one-pot meal shouldn’t be much trouble.” Though if you wouldn’t keep sending Bela home early, I wouldn’t have to do even this, Sian thought. It had been a long day, and she had more to do before bed.

  Her husband pulled his boots on and went out the kitchen door. He hefted the sacks of dye two at a time, which made Sian cringe in sympathetic pain. Small as they appeared, they were dense and weighty. Arouf must not be feeling arthritis in his joints, like she was.

  Or maybe it was all the spicy meals he ate. Sian felt her insides burning as she scraped the bowls into the bin for the flamingos and tamarins. Not an unpleasant burn, exactly; but she couldn’t make three meals a day of the peppers as Arouf could.

  The dishes done, she moved to the sitting room and lit a lantern by her reading chair, batting off a Luna moth that fluttered toward it through the window. After going to pull the shutters closed, she sat down, took a report from the large stack on her side table, and began to read, making occasional notes on a small sheet of paper as she went. The reports were gathered from everywhere Sian could acquire informants, and spoke, in one way or another, of the future of the market for silks and other luxuries. Unfortunately, this general topic was the first and last thing they had in common. It seemed nobody knew what was going to happen: demand would increase; it would most certainly decrease; unrest would interrupt the supply channels, or facilitate them as nervous investors dumped inventory; no two reports could agree.

  Some time later, she had filled her sheet with notes and marked up a handful of other documents, putting several aside to keep. She looked up as she started to ask, “I wonder whether we should —” but her husband wasn’t in his chair as usual. Come to think of it, she hadn’t even heard him come in from the shed. She stretched and rubbed her eyes, glancing down the hallway that led to their sleeping chambers. Arouf’s door was closed, and no light burned under it.

  Extinguishing the lantern, she went back into the kitchen and checked that the shutters were pulled down there as well against invading night-tamarins, then plodded down the hall to her own room. It was, in theory, the marital suite, though Arouf had not made this bed his home since Rubya, their younger daughter, was born. He did tourist here on occasion, sometimes by entreaty, sometimes in a burst of drunken ardor, and once for a long, sweet passage of nearly six months, during which time Sian had let herself believe that their distance had passed. But, eventually, he had complained of his head, and of her shifting while she slept, and of her cold feet, and returned to his own chamber.

  Sian let down her hair and rummaged through her overnight bag for her brush and sleeping shift, wondering just when, and why, their desire for one another had cooled. Their nights had once been as passionate as any she now shared with Reikos. Would she and Reikos drift apart someday as well? She shook her head with a wry smile. No. More likely she would just lose him sooner and more quickly t
o some younger woman — or some dozen of them. These were not questions to be pondering just before sleep. If ever.

  She climbed into the tall, mosquito-netted bed, stretching her legs out across the cool, soft sheets. It did feel good to get into bed of a night.

  She thought about reading a while — there were always more reports — but instead extinguished the lamp, and was asleep before she’d had a chance to reconsider.

  Arouf lay awake, listening to his wife move around her bedroom, unpacking from her trip. Sian did so love her journeys to town, enjoyed dressing up in her fine silks, being the social and business face of Monde & Kattë. Arouf was more than happy to cede her the responsibility. He had no taste for mingling with the traders and merchants; it was an unwelcome change of pace, as far as he was concerned. It was very convenient that she had been willing, even eager, to take this task on. And she was very good at it, better than he’d ever been. The smartest thing he had done was to promote her to the counting house.

  No: the smartest thing he had ever done had been marrying Sian Kattë in the first place, followed closely by agreeing that she should keep her own name. As Sian Monde, she would have vanished into obscurity; as Monde & Kattë, their dye works claimed an undeniable family connection to the ruling Alkattha house, which had hardly hurt the business.

  That wasn’t why he had married her. Of course he loved her, and their two magnificent daughters perhaps even more. Arouf was still taken by surprise at times by his wife’s beauty — her long dark hair, still thick and glossy even as it grew streaked with gray; her smooth copper skin; and those startling eyes, so dark as to seem almost black, until lamplight lit them up, revealing the amber glow within. And when she laughed, she became a girl of twenty again, her cheeks rosy and glowing, her whole face shining.

  That she didn’t laugh so often these days — that was simply a matter of the inevitable aches and weariness of growing older. Arouf understood growing older; he didn’t fight against it as so many men of his generation did with dyes and perfumes, and squeezing into confining clothes to hide the evidence of a healthy appetite. Youth had been lovely. It was over now. Fighting the inevitable was a foolish waste of time. He did the best he could to remain active, for he knew that the longest-lived men in his home village on the eastern shores of Malençon were the ones who chopped wood and dug post-holes to the very end of their days, refusing to let the younger men take these tasks from them.