The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [153]
“Creslin?” Creslin . . . you idiot . . .
He sets the yoke and buckets inside the storage alcove and walks to the terrace, where Megaera waits, wearing a faded thin shift.
“You know, that’s not exactly effective.”
“Oh?” He wipes his forehead, looking over her shoulder. Heat waves, like half-visible black snakes, already undulate over the browned hills to the west of the Black Holding.
Megaera smiles. “Can’t you let someone else carry the water?”
“Habit . . .”
“But you’re the only one who can separate the salt out.”
“You can, and so can Klerris and Lydya.”
“Fine.” Exasperation edges her voice. “It’s work desalting the water. That’s something only a few of us can do. Can’t you understand? Let somebody else do the manual work. You have to do the things that only you can do.”
“Like rule?”
“That was unfair, best-beloved.”
“You’re right. But in some ways, I’m not cut out to be a ruler, to watch other people work. It’s hard to sit here and watch the sun burn everything up. It’s hard to wait for ships to arrive—”
“That’s not what I said.” Idiot!
A white flamelet sparks from the unseen blackness that now enfolds her, a stubborn remnant of chaos triggered by anger. “You equate manual effort with work. They’re not the same. You know that. Being a ruler means working with your mind, not with your body. You can do it. But whenever you get frustrated, you start going back to the physical.”
“But I’m not frustrated,” he mock-pleads.
“You are frustrated. You just said so.”
“All right. I am frustrated. The inn is almost finished, but we have no visitors to use it. The crops are in the fields, but we don’t have enough water and they’re dying. The pearapples are dropping fruit because they’re too dry. I’m tired of eating fish, and so is everyone else. Lydya tells me that we won’t have any spices until fall, if then. If I carry water, at least there is some result. What am I supposed to do? Wait until the sun bakes us into cinders?”
“You’re the one who brought us here.”
Creslin glances from the browning hills to the almost unnoticeable swells of the Eastern Ocean. In every direction he looks, he can see heat waves forming, dancing across hilltops and dusty, sandy ground, across the dry, green brush that is all that seems to thrive in the heat, and even across the beaches that contain the Eastern Ocean. Overhead, the sun blisters its way through a cloudless sky.
“You’re right. I’ll just bring enough water for us from now on.”
“I can carry some water.”
He returns her smile.
“And you should eat before you wash up.”
He turns his hands upward in mock helplessness but walks up onto the stones of the terrace and sits on the wall. A loaf of brown bread and two pearapples rest on a plate on the wall between them. So do two mugs of redberry.
“You planned this,” he comments.
“You need something before you go to work on the ship.”
“Ship?”
“You said you were going to meet that Hamorian . . .”
“Oh . . .”
“Don’t tell me you forgot?”
Creslin nods, sheepishly.
Megaera grins. “I don’t believe it. You actually forgot.”
He breaks off a corner of the tough, hard bread, scattering dark crumbs across the black stone. Bread in hand, he sips the redberry. “What are you doing today?”
“We’re going to try for glass for goblets. That’s harder than what we did for windows, but Lydya says there’s a market for goblets in Nordla.”
He crunches the dry bread, sipping from the mug to help moisten both crust and mouth.
“As you have pointed out, best-beloved, we need as many markets as we can develop.”
“We also need ships in which to carry the goods,” he mumbles through another mouthful of hard bread.
Megaera nods.
When he has finished eating, he stands, bends over, and reaches for the platter.
“I’ll take it. You need to get to the wreck.”
“Ship . . . I hope.”
“Whatever.” She stands, gives him a quick hug and breaks away before he can prolong the gesture, scooping up the platter and mugs as she leaves. She stops by the doorway.