Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [188]
“Those men,” Kwinto said. “What are they?”
“Kinsmen of your father's,” Marka said. “I don't know much more than you do, actually. Your father's not told me much.”
“Papa looks happy,” Tillya said, but doubtfully. “I should be glad, Mama, but I'm frightened.”
“So am I.”
Kivva did cry at that. When Marka held out her arms, Kivva scrambled up and ran to her. Terrenz and Delya sat up, leaning against one another, while Zandro began to suck his thumb.
“I keep thinking about Evandar,” Marka went on. “Do you remember how he talked about your grandfather in Deverry, and how Grandpapa wanted to see your father again? I think this ship must come from there.”
“Mama, you're not thinking!” Kwinto said. “We see Deverry ships all the time up on the north coast. They don't look like that, and they never sail this far south, either.”
“Well, that's true. I just don't know where else it could have come from.”
“I don't want to go to Deverry.” Tillya's voice shook. “It's way too far away, and it's full of barbarians. I want to stay here with our show.”
“What about you?” Marka looked at Kwinto.
“Well, yesterday, you know? Vinto told me that I'm about ready to take over the acrobats.”
Indirect, but Marka understood him all too well. Kivva snivelled with little whimpers, while Delya and Terrenz merely looked miserable.
“Well,” Marka said at last. “We don't know yet if Papa's going anywhere.”
“But if he does,” Tillya said, “we'll all have to go too, won't we?”
“You and Kwinto are old enough to stay here if you want.”
“Oh, Mama!” Tillya burst out sobbing. “I'd have to lose you then.”
Marka wondered why her own eyes were staying dry. She realized, listening to her children cry, that she was too furious for tears.
It was so late when Ebañy finally returned that the children had given up waiting and gone to sleep without having to be nagged. Marka had taken the lamps outside and was sitting on a ground cloth when he came back alone, walking unsteadily and smelling of wine. He sat down beside her on the ground and smiled, considering her, while dancing light from the lamps dappled his face. She tried to find some normal thing to say, but questions about ship's provisions seemed too ominous to ask. Finally he sighed and held out one hand.
“I can't think of how to put this,” Ebañy said, “except baldly. My heart, my beloved, the time had come for us to leave the islands, you and me and our children, and sail away.”
“I thought that was coming.”
“Did you? Why?”
“Evandar, and his talk about your father.”
“Ah. That's true.” He pulled his hand back. “Meranaldar is most desirous of meeting my father, you see.”
“He doesn't know him?”
“No. This ship—it's not from Deverry. They don't want me to tell you more until we're out to sea, and no one can overhear.”
“Overhear? What do you mean? What is this? You want us all to just pack up and go off somewhere with these strange people in a strange boat with barely any time to think?”
For a long moment he sat blinking at her, his mouth slack.
“Well, what about the show, the troupe?” Marka went on. “You worked years to build up this show, and so did I, years and years of performing for coppers in ugly little towns and doing without things and travelling all over, until finally we have what we wanted, the most famous show in all Bardek. And now you want to just sail away from it.”
“You're angry with me.”
“Well, are you surprised?”
He shrugged and stared at the dapples of light, dancing a little in a waft of breeze.
“Oh by the Wave Father!” Marka said at last. “You haven't even told me where we'd be going!”
“Oh. Now that was a nasty oversight, omission, lapse, and breach of all good manners on my part.