A Song for Arbonne. Guy Gavriel Kay
sail against the starry sky, skimming through the waves around the island. In the skiff eight men held their breath. They were inside the circling path of the sailboat, though, very near—dangerously near, in fact—to the rocky coast. Someone looking towards them in this faint light would almost certainly see nothing against the dark bulk of the island; and the guards, Blaise knew, would probably be looking outward in any case. He relaxed his fingers on his oar as the small boat continued past them, cutting across the wind, a beautiful thing in the moonlight.
‘The goddess be praised!’ Luth murmured with reflexive piety from up front beside Hirnan.
Cursing himself for not having sat the man next to him, Blaise flung a furious look over his shoulder in time to see Hirnan’s hand shoot out and grip his benchmate fiercely on the arm in a belated effort to silence him.
‘Ouch!’ Luth said. Not quietly. At sea. In a very calm night.
Blaise closed his eyes. There was a moment of straining silence, then:
‘Who is there! In Rian’s name, declare yourselves!’ A grim male voice rang out from the sailboat.
His brain racing furiously, Blaise looked over and saw the other boat already beginning to swing about. They had two choices now. They could retreat, rowing frantically, and hope to lose the guards in the darkness of the sea. No one knew who they were; they might not be seen or identified. But the mainland was a long way off, and eight men rowing had little chance of outracing sails if they were pursued. And this one sailboat could have others with it very soon, Blaise knew.
He hated retreating anyhow.
‘Only fisherfolk, your grace,’ he called out in a wavering, high-pitched voice. ‘Only my brothers and myself trawling for lampfish. We’re terrible sorry to have wandered out so far.’
He lowered his voice to a snarled whisper. ‘Get three of the ropes over the side, quickly! Hold them as if you were fishing. Hirnan, you and I are going into the water.’ Even as he spoke he was removing his boots and sword. Hirnan, without a question asked, began doing the same.
‘It is interdicted to come so near the goddess’s Island without leave. You are subject to Rian’s curse for what you have done.’ The deep voice across the water was hostile and assured. The boat was still turning; it would begin bearing down upon them in a moment.
‘We are not to kill,’ Maffour whispered anxiously from beside Blaise.
‘I know that,’ Blaise hissed back. ‘Do what I told you. Offer them a tithe. Hirnan, let’s go.’
With the last words he swung his feet across the low railing and slipped silently over the side of the skiff. On the other side, balancing his motion exactly, Hirnan did the same. The water was shockingly cold. It was night, and early yet in the spring.
‘Truly, your graces, as my brother says, we had no intention to transgress.’ Maffour’s apologetic voice carried across the darkness. ‘We will gladly offer a tithe of our catch for the holy servants of blessed Rian.’
There was a silence from the other boat, very much as if someone were weighing a sudden temptation. That, Blaise had not expected. To his right he spotted Hirnan’s dark head bobbing towards him. He motioned, and the two of them began swimming quietly towards the other boat.
‘Are you fools?’ The second voice from the sailboat was a woman’s, and cold as the ocean waters. ‘Do you think you can make redress for trespass in the waters of the goddess by offering a load of fish?’
Blaise grimaced. The priestesses of the goddess were always harsher than the priests; even a short time in Arbonne had taught him that much. He heard the sound of flint being struck, and a moment later, cursing silently, saw a lamp lit in the sailboat. A glow of orange light fell upon the water but offered only slight illumination. Praying that the six corans in the skiff would have the sense to keep their heads down and faces hidden, he gestured for Hirnan to move closer. Then, treading silently in the sea, he put his mouth to the other man’s ear and told him what they had to try to do.
HOLDING THE LAMP HIGH while Maritte guided their craft, Roche the priest peered ahead into the night. Even with the flame, even by the light of the waxing pale moon, it was difficult to see clearly. Certainly the skiff they were approaching was one such as the fisherfolk of the shore used, and he could make out the lines of the trawling nets over the side, but there was still something odd about this encounter. For one thing, there seemed to be too many men in the skiff. He counted at least five. Where were they going to put their catch with so many men on board? Roche had grown up by the sea; he knew more than a little about trawling for lampfish. He also loved—more than a little—the taste of the succulent, hard-to-find delicacy, which is why he’d been shamefully tempted by the offered tithe. Maritte, mountain-born, had no such weaknesses to tempt her. Sometimes he wondered if Maritte had any weaknesses at all. He would not be particularly unhappy when their shared tour of duties ended next week, though he couldn’t claim to regret the three obligatory nights in bed together. He wondered if she had conceived by him, what a child born of the two of them would be like.
It really did seem to be a fishing boat. Manned by too many men most likely because they were afraid, venturing so near the island. It happened more often than it should, Roche knew. The deep waters around Rian’s Island were a known ground for lampfish. A pity, he sometimes thought—aware that this was perilously near to heresy—that all fish and fauna on or about the island were sacred to the goddess in her incarnation as Huntress, and so not to be pursued in any way by mortal man or woman.
One really couldn’t entirely blame the fisherfolk of Arbonne for occasionally yielding to the lure of that rare and delicate taste and once in a while venturing perhaps a little nearer the island than they ought. He wondered if he dared turn to Maritte and offer that thought, in the spirit of compassionate Rian. He forebore to do so. He could guess what she would say, mountain-born, hard as mountain rock. Though not so much so in the dark, mind you, surprisingly softened by passion and its aftermath. The three nights had been worth it, he decided, whatever she’d have said now to his suggestion.
What Maritte did in fact say in that moment, her voice suddenly harsh, was: ‘Roche, these are not fisherfolk. Those are only ropes, not nets! We must—’
That was all, lamentably, that Roche heard. Even as he leaned quickly forward to peer more closely at the skiff, Roche of the Island felt himself pulled bodily out of their small boat, the lantern flying from his hand to douse itself hissing in the sea.
He tried to cry out, but he hit the water with a smack that knocked the wind from his lungs. Then, as he desperately sucked for air, he went under an advancing wave, swallowed a mouthful of salt sea water and began retching and coughing. There was a hand holding him from behind in a grip like a blacksmith’s. Roche coughed and gasped and coughed, and finally cleared his lungs of water.
He drew one normal breath and then, as if that had been a patiently awaited signal, received a blow from the haft of a knife on the side of his head that rendered him oblivious to the icy chill of the water or the beauty of moonlight on the sea. He did have an instant to realize, just before all went black, that he hadn’t heard a sound from Maritte.
BLAISE WAS BRIEFLY AFRAID, as he manoeuvred the unconscious priest back into the sailboat with Hirnan’s help, that the other man, anxious not to err, might have killed the woman with his blow. After he had clambered with some difficulty into the boat he reassured himself. She would have a lump like a corfe egg on her temple for a few days, but Hirnan had done well. He spared a moment to grip the other man briefly on the shoulder in approbation; such things mattered to the men one led. He had some experience of that, too—on both sides of the equation.
The sailboat was neat and trim and well equipped, which meant plenty of rope. There were also blankets against the night chill and an amount of food that might have been surprising had the priest not been so plump. He stripped the unconscious man of his sodden shirt, then swaddled him in one of the blankets. They bound and gagged both the man and the woman, though not so tightly as to cripple them, and then steered the boat towards their own skiff.
‘Maffour,’