The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [125]
“Hwas ist thata?” someone shouted. “Hwas fol? Airic?”
“Ne, ni mih.”
Neil grimly kept stroking with dogged determination. He knew the language—it was Hanzish, the tongue of the enemy.
The sound of voices receded. Once he thought he heard Swanmay’s voice, but he wasn’t certain. Then there was only his own struggle with the waves.
His arms became leaden all too quickly, and despite the fire in his ribs, he felt the warmth draining from his body. If shore was not near, then he would complete the death Swanmay had saved him from.
Was she right? Did he want to die?
He summoned an image of the queen, her pale face and dark hair, and hands reaching for her from every direction, but he could not hold it. Instead, in the half-face of the moon, he saw Swanmay’s blue eyes. A strange despair seized him, and more questions, always questions. If she was Hanzish—and he was now certain of that—then why had she helped him? Whom was she fleeing?
The ocean swelled beneath him, and his face went under. He sputtered the water from his mouth and nose and turned to swim on his belly. He heard a faint shushing that might be surf and might be the dying beat of his heart.
He swam on. It was all he could do.
He woke to a blue sky and the warm crackle of a fire. For a moment he thought he’d been dreaming, but then Swanmay’s voice broke through it. He felt immensely better, as if he had slept for ten days. The pain in his side was only a dull ache now, and for a moment he thought that perhaps everything that had happened since he had left Eslen was merely a dream.
But then he heard the chatter all around him, in Hanzish, and reached for his sword.
“You are a very stupid man,” Swanmay’s voice informed him.
He opened his eyes and sat up. He lay on a blanket. The fire was nearby, and beyond it there was a sandy shingle and the sea. Two langschips were pulled up on the beach, and Swanmay’s ship was anchored a hundred kingsyards offshore.
In the other direction was a plain covered in short, wiry grass. Swanmay sat beside the fire, on a small stool. Her men seemed to have set up camp. Nearby, two of them were dressing a small, odd-looking deer.
Swanmay wore a broad-brimmed hat, as if she really were a Sefry, but her face looked drawn and weary. The blue in her eyes had dulled, as if something vital had left her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had to try.”
“I understand that now,” she replied. “It makes you no less stupid.”
He conceded that with a nod.
She shrugged. “We weren’t able to fully provision at z’Espino. My men are remedying that now.” She cocked her head. “How do you feel?”
“Wonderful,” he replied.
“Good. Do you remember anything?”
“The last thing I remember was hearing the sound of the surf.”
“We found you on the strand. Your wounds were open, and your breath was faint. You were very cold.”
“But now—what happened?”
“As I told you, I know some arts. I hesitate to use them, because there is a price.” She smiled fiercely. “You are fortunate that the walls between life and death are so thin.”
A sick dread fluttered in Neil. “Was I dead? Did you—?”
“You were not dead. The life in you was a flickering candle, but it was not extinguished.”
“Lady, whatever sorcery you used, you should not have. Tell me its price, and I will pay it.”
“It isn’t yours to pay,” she said softly. “And it is already done.” Her voice grew firmer. “And I make my own decisions. Have no fear, you are not cursed or possessed of spirits unhultha. You will not walk the night and do evil at my bidding.”
“I could never imagine you doing me harm,” Neil replied.
“No? Yet you spurned my company when you owed me your life.” Her voice rose. “Do you understand? You threw your life away in z’Espino, and with it any duty or obligation you ever had. You threw it away and I picked it up. Can you not concede that it is mine now? Do you feel no duty toward me?”
“Of course