The Sea Peoples(38)
Which is why I’m not bandy-legged like a lot of people in my neck of the woods, he’d said with a grin.
Moving into the circle in middance was hard, and órlaith concentrated on letting the music take her body and move it as if it were playing directly on muscle and nerve. She turned a gliding side-step into a skip forward, and that meant instantly doing the high-knee sideways motion into another wedge. Alan matched it effortlessly, and then they were fully into the rhythm. Everyone followed Karl into a pirouette, turning in a complete circle in a wave of plaids one after the other without changing the pace and then ending with another shift:
“Pile the bonfire
Join the dance
Come raise your voices high—
Lord Winter can no more advance
His hold on Earth and Sky!”
The pipes and bodhrán picked up the pace, and she could feel the unified scuffing of six pairs of boots on the turf as if the soles of her feet were the skin of the drum:
“For soon the sap will rise again
The mute once more will sing—
And the heart will wake anew
To the promise of the Spring!”
With the last note they all stopped, then bowed deeply by extending the right leg back and extending the right hand, first to each other and then turning and repeating the gesture outward to the audience half-glimpsed in the light of the flames.
The gathering broke the silence after the last dying note of the pipes and tap of the bodhrán with a storm of laughter and applause. órlaith returned to the upper table, parting from Alan with a long glance and a wink; Karl would get him into the villa easily enough later and she could sleep late tomorrow.
The smile died on her face as she saw the expression on the messenger who’d knelt behind the Hawaiian monarchs and was speaking urgently as they leaned in to follow him. The more so as their faces took on the look of his.
Kalaˉkaua turned to her. “A courier boat from Australia has arrived,” he said. “From Darwin. They say they’ve a message from your frigate Stormrider, and then to you personally from King John . . . King Birmo . . . of Capricornia.”
órlaith hissed between her teeth and exchanged a glance with Reiko as the Hawaiian handed her an envelope. She nodded slightly to the Tennoˉ who was also her friend. The Stormrider had been blown in John’s wake by the same blast, but evidently she’d lived up to her name and survived the journey to . . .
All the way to Capricornia!
That was a very long way indeed. There was some direct trade between Montival and Capricornia, but only recently and only by the more daring skippers . . . such as Moishe Feldman of the Tarshish Queen. Most were content to use Hilo as an entrep?t, paying higher prices to the Hawaiian middlemen in recompense for lower costs and risks on the long dangerous voyage to the pirate-infested Asian waters.
The message was certainly on Royal Montivallan Navy stationery, and sealed with blue wax and the stamp of an RMN captain, a stylized ship’s wheel and sextant. The seal looked intact. . . .
“We’ve had it brought directly to you, Your Highness,” Kalaˉkaua said. “The Capricornians are standing by for you to interview.”
The Sword of the Lady rested by her side, sheathed and with the belt wrapped around it. She knew he spoke the truth . . . as far as he knew it.
He was frowning a little, too. That was one of the better-known abilities the Lady’s gift conferred on the one of House Artos who bore it, but she wasn’t sure how much of that was known here. Or believed, even if the facts were known. Back home everyone knew it, and virtually everyone believed it right down in their bones, too—by the time her father reached his second decade on the Throne, men had been known to flee to the wilderness or jump from high places rather than face a monarch who couldn’t be taken in by even the most cunning and convincing lie, because he could sense the intent to deceive.
That was one reason he’d used it less than he might have. As he’d put it, having that ability required restraint if you weren’t to convince a fatal number of people that the only way to make life tolerable was to kill you.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said soberly. “That’s appreciated, and it will be remembered.”
She took a deep breath, then cracked the sealing-wax and opened the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven structure of heavy water-resistant cream-colored paper.
Her eyes went quickly down the lines of text—it was typewritten, but had Captain Russ’ signature at the bottom of four single-spaced pages. Another was from King John I of Capricornia—or King Birmo as he was more commonly known, apparently.
“Stormrider’s intact,” she said; her own party had their ears cocked, and so did Reiko and her commanders. “They took some damage from the storm off Topanga, but they’ve been repaired in Darwin’s own naval yards . . . which means we owe the King of Capricornia a favor.”
Her eyes went to the date-stamp.
“Goddess gentle and strong, they made a fast passage! And they have news of the Tarshish Queen, hence of John. No direct contact, but strong circumstantial evidence that she was afloat recently, and where that was. The Korean warships chasing them have definitely all been destroyed, apparently by the Tarshish Queen’s catapults and by . . . chance circumstances, about which they’ve sent evidence. They and a supply ship from Darwin are heading for the area to search further.”