Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [33]
The captain stroked his beard. His left eye stared at a point past Cauvin’s shoulder while the right wandered a while before he sighed, and said:
“A life in exile’s too long and twice as bitter—that’s what my mother told me. They never belonged here, never meant to stay past the first tide home. She was a sailor, born on her ship—died there, too, if the Mother was willing. The sea’s the same for every sailor; they got on all right with Sanctuary’s sailors. Not like the court. There was blood in the street every night—gods’ blood and worse—until the ships started coming again.
“My own eyes were open then. I saw them myself. Big and graceful. They sailed closer to the wind than any ship before or since, but they shipped oars, too. Old Lord Torchholder, he never set foot on a bey-sib ship that I saw, but he took one look at ’em and knew what they were meant for. When pirates from Scavengers Island took to harrying our ships, he sent those ships after them. When the tide went out, it took the pirates with it. When it came back in, Scavengers Island was Inception Island—because Sanctuary was going to grow greater than Ranke or Ilsig together—”
“That’ll be the froggin’ day,” Cauvin interrupted, though the captain’s tale held his attention. The only mother-goddess he knew was Dyareela, and no one ever spoke of Her with the reverence in Sinjon’s voice.
Cauvin knew the hell he’d lived through, but folk who’d survived the Troubles didn’t talk much about what had gone before. Ashamed, he figured, because he’d smashed apart too many wellbuilt walls not to realize that there must have been a time when Sanctuary wasn’t a froggin’ wreck of a city. He wanted to know what had happened—no froggin’ good reason, except the same sheep-shite curiosity that got him whipped in the pits and kept him coming back for Bec’s gods-all-be-damned tales about the stoneyard chickens.
Captain Sinjon leaned forward. “You hear,” he whispered, “if you hear anything at all—that it was the sack of Ranke that did in Sanctuary’s hopes. Even Old Lord Torchholder, he can’t see past his great Empire, his great city, but nothing born on land can rule the sea, my friend. Sacrifice—that’s the only way the sea can understand. ’Twas pride—lubber’s pride—that laid Sanctuary low. Tell me, my friend, tell me the sea-god’s name!”
Startled by the shouted demand, Cauvin nearly unbalanced himself. “How in froggin’ hell should I know? Do I look like a sheep-shite priest?”
The captain sat back, nodding smugly, as if Cauvin’s blurted answer had settled everything. “You live cheek by jowl with the sea, but do you worship? No, of course not. Temples aplenty alongside the whorehouse. Two for the sky and the storm, two for women, and others for the land, wine, and lesser things, but for the sea, only the little altars to Larlerosh in the well of every ship. You can catch fish with Larlerosh. You can run grain up and down the coast, timber and even stone—”
Cauvin’s ears pricked at the mention of stone.
“But rule the sea with Larlerosh? Not from the back of a boat!” Sinjon pounded the checked table with his fist. The Torch’s token and his box both jumped and landed on different-colored squares.
“After the usurper fell in the Beysib Empire and her influence was purged from the land, my mother’s ships took the bey-sah and her people home; took Mother Bey with them. No sooner was the fleet gone when the sea and sky together turned black. We prayed, but Mother Bey was gone, and there was none to take Her place. We suffered winds so