Kurt shrugged cheerfully enough. “I will learn.”

“Go bandage your hands,” said Kta. “You have little whole skin left. You are due to lose what remains.”

17

The clouds had gone by morning and Phan shed his light over a dead calm sea. Tavirolled with a lazy motion, all but dead in the water, her crew lying over the deck where they could find space, wrapped in their cloaks.

Kurt walked to the stern, rubbing his eyes to keep awake. His companion on watch, Pan, stood at the helm. The youth’s eyes were closed. He swayed on his feet.

“Pan,” said Kurt gently, and Pan came awake with a jerk, his face flushing with consternation.

“Forgive me, Kurt-ifhan.”

“I saw you nod,” Kurt said, “only an instant ago. Go lie down and I will stand by the helm. In such a sea, it needs no skill.”

“I ought not, my lord, I—”

The youth’s eyes suddenly fixed on the sky in hope, and Kurt felt it too, the first effects of a gentle southern breeze. It stirred their hair and their cloaks, touched their faces lightly and ruffled the placid waters.

“ Hya!” Pan shrieked, and all across the deck men sat up. “The wind, the south wind!”

Men were on their feet, and Kta appeared in the doorway of the cabin and waved his hand in signal to Val, who shouted an order for the men to get moving and set the sail.

In a moment the night-blue sail billowed out full. Tavicame to run before the wind. A cheer went up from the crew as they felt it.

“ Ei,my friends,” Kta grinned, “full rations this morning, and permission to indulge,—but moderately. I want no headaches. That wind will bear Edrifalong too, so keep a sharp eye on all quarters, you men on watch. You rowers, enjoy yourselves.”

The wind continued fair and the battered men of Taviwere utterly content to sleep in the sun, to massage heated oil into aching limbs and blistered hands, to lie still and talk, employing their hands as they did so with many small tasks that kept Taviin running order.

Toward evening Kta ordered a course change and Tavibore abruptly northwest, coming in toward the Isles. A ship was on the western horizon at sunset, creating momentary alarm, but the sail soon identified her as a merchant vessel of the house of Ilev, the white bird emblem of that house shining like a thing alive on the black sail before the sun.

The merchantman passed astern and faded into the shadowing east, which did not worry them. Ilev was a friend.

Soon there were visible the evening lights on the shores of a little island. Now the men ran out the oars with a will and bent to them as Tavidrew toward that light-jeweled strand: Acturi, home port of Hnes, a powerful Isles-based family of the Indras-descended.

“Gan t’Hnes,” said Kta as Tavislipped into the harbor of Acturi, “will not be moved by threats of the Sufaki. We will be safe here for the night.”

A bell began to toll on shore, men with torches running to the landing as Taviglided in and ran in her oars.

“ Hya!” a voice ashore hailed them. “What ship are you?”

“ Tavi,out of Nephane. Tell Gan t’Hnes that Elas asks his hospitality.”

“Make fast, Tavi,make fast and come ashore. We are friends here. No need to ask.”

“Are you sure of them?” Kurt wondered quietly, as the mooring lines were cast out and made secure. “What if some ship of the Methi made it in first?” He nervously scanned the other ships down the little wharf, sails furled and anonymous in the dark. “Hnes might be forced—”

“No, if Gan t’Hnes will not honor house-friendship, then the sun will rise in the west tomorrow dawn. I have known this man since I was a boy at his feet, and Hnes and Elas have been friends for a thousand years—well, at least for nine hundred, which is as far as Hnes can count.”

“And if that was not t’Hnes’ word you were just given?”

“Peace, suspicious human, peace. If Acturi had been taken from Hnes’ control, the shock would have been felt from shore to shore of the Ome Sin.— Hya,Val, run out the gangplank and Kurt and I will go ashore. Stay with the ship and hold the men until I have Gan’s leave to bring our crew in.”

Gan t’Hnes was a venerable old man and, looking at him, Kurt found reason that Kta should trust him. He was solidly Indras, this patriarch of Acturi’s trading empire. His house on the hill was wealthy and proper, the hearthfire tended by lady Na t’Ilev e Ben sh’Kma, wife to the eldest of Gan’s three sons, who himself was well into years. Lord Gan was a widower,—the oldest nemet Kurt had seen, and to consider that nemet lived long and very scarcely showed age, he must be ancient.

Of course formalities preceded any discussion of business, all the nemet rituals. There was a young woman, granddaughter to the chanof Hnes. She made the tea and served it—and seeing her from the back, her graceful carriage and the lustrous darkness of her hair, Kurt thought of Mim: she even looked a little like her in the face, and when she knelt down and offered him a cup of tea he stared, and felt a pain that brought tears to his eyes.

The girl bowed her head, cheeks flushing at being gazed at by a man, and Kurt took the cup, and looked down and drank his tea, thoughts returning in the quiet and peace of this Indras home that had not touched him since that night in Nephane. It was like coming home, for he had never expected to set foot in a friendly house again; and yet home was Elas, and Mim, and both were gone.

Hnes was a large family, ruled of course by Gan, and by Kma, his eldest, and lady Na; and there were others of the house too, one son being away at sea. There was the aged chan,Dek, his two daughters and several grandchildren; Gan’s second son Lel and his wife Pym and concubine Tekje h’Hnes; Lel’s daughter Imue, a charming child of about twelve, who might be the daughter of either of his two wives: she had Tekje’s Sufak-tilted eyes, but sat beside Pym and treated both her mothers with respectful affection; and there were two small boys, both sons of Lel.

The first round of tea was passed with quiet conversation. The nemet were curious about Kurt, the children actually frightened; but the elders smoothed matters over with courtesy.

Then came the second round, and the ladies left with the children, all but lady Na, the first lady of Hnes, whose opinion was of equal weight with that of the elder men.

“Kta,” began the lord of Hnes cautiously, “how long are you out from Nephane?”

“Nigh to fifteen days.”

“Then,” said the old man, “you were there to be part of the sad tale which has reached us.”

“Elas no longer exists in Nephane, my lord, and I am exiled. My parents and the chanare dead.”

“You are in the house of friends,” said Gan t’Hnes. “ Ai,that I should have lived to see such a day. I loved your father as my great friend, Kta, and I love you as if you were one of my own. Name the ones to blame for this.”

“The names are too high to curse, my lord.”

“No one is beyond the reach of heaven.”

“I would not have all Nephane cursed for my sake. The ones responsible are the Methi Djan and her Sufaki lover Shan t’Tefur u Tlekef. I have sworn undying enmity between Elas and the Chosen of Heaven, and a bloodfeud between Elas and the house of Tefur, but I chose exile. If I had intended war, I could have raised war that night in the streets of Nephane. So might my father, and chose to die rather than that. I honor his self-restraint.”

Gan bowed his head in thoughtful sorrow. “A ship came two days ago,” he said. “ Dkelisof Irain in Nephane. Her word was from the Chosen of Heaven herself, that Elas had offended against her and had chosen to remove itself from her sight. —That the—true author of the offense was—forgive me, my guests—a human who did murder against citizens of Nephane while under the guardianship of Elas.”