The Noshian harbor was a wide body of filthy water sheltered behind a long spit of low ground jutting out into the sea, built up with boulders and stonework to hold it together. All sorts of filth floated behind the breakwater, as many of the street gutters of the city ran straight to the bay. Quays of fitted stone hemmed the harbor-sides, punctuated by jutting docks for smaller vessels. Out in the center of the bay, ships lay at anchor, waiting out their quarantines. Jareen saw activity on only one ship along the quays, with sailors preparing to get under way. Gyon led them around the edge of the harbor and to the east end, the least sheltered and consequently poorest portion of the harbor, where the docks were in ill repair but the disreputable swill houses kept a lively business at night. A few sailors, reeking of debauchery, lay propped against the sides of low buildings, now sleeping off whatever foulness they had committed in the dark.
It was down one of these wooden docks that Gyon led them, but there was no ship moored there. For a moment Jareen was confused, but then she saw it—running into harbor under a close-reefed sail was a low Vien ship, with a carven rail curving gently down from peaked bow and stern. The length of the ship was pavilioned beneath a spreading canopy of cloth that shifted from viridian to indigo as the inconstant harbor breeze swelled and deflated it.
“Where are we going in that?” Jareen asked. Such craft cruised the coastal waters of Findeluvié, as much for the pleasure of sporting in the sea and air as for any other purpose, but she did not think they crossed the sea. Or at least, that they should. Such ships had no steerage, no cabins at all, and little cargo space. She could see one vien at the tiller, head just elevated above the pavilions, and another leaning over the rail, sighting the depth.
“Home,” Gyon answered her. It approached with the faintest swish as it cut the water before its keen keel. The mainsheet of the sail slackened, and the boom turned with the wind. The ship’s speed faded. Slowly and with grace, the craft slid up along the dock, where eager Vien hands received her. They did not bother to throw lines. There was no name painted on her prow. Unlike the humans, the Vien did not name their ships, for Vien did not lavish affections on that which could not last. They made what they made with skill and care, but the result of their craft was merely a reflection of themselves, and one doomed to fade.
Out from the pavilion stepped a vien with long and free hair, moving with the fluid grace that often served as a hint of age among the vien. He placed a hand on his chest and inclined his head.
“After you,” one of Jareen’s guards said, extending a hand. She had no choice, so she took the proffered help, gathered her skirt, and stepped carefully over the rail. The vessel sat so low in the water that the dock was now at the level of her waist. In moments, all were aboard, and for the first time she saw smiles on the faces of the embassy vien.
With a whisper, the mainsheet tightened again, the boom righted, and the ship lurched forward. She tensed, thinking they would crash into the shore, but they traced a graceful arc. She watched overside as the light vessel skimmed just above the murky bottom. Its draft was shallow, and the sailors handled their task with finesse. It felt a shame for the white planks of her sides to touch such foul water, so full of trash and sewage.
“Your head, lielu,” one of the vien said, and she ducked just in time as the ship came about and the boom swung across the breadth of the vessel. Standing back up, she squinted at the sailor, but he was already hurrying down the ship’s side. Was he being polite calling her lielu? None of the embassy vien had addressed her as such. Perhaps the sailor did not know her name. She hoped that was all.
They tacked northwest first, skimming close to the spit of land that guarded the harbor, and then coming about once more, they tacked at a sharp easterly course until past the spit. With a final turn, the ship angled out just beyond the rocky end of the harbor spit. Open sea lay to the north, but they cruised along the outer side of the harbor, the western suburbs of Nosh ahead along the shore. She could see the Manse, now, and she wondered again about Coir. The free breeze moved the waves inland beneath their keel.
“What about the harbor master?” Jareen asked one of the embassy vien still standing nearby.
“All was prepared in advance.” With that, he walked fore where the other embassy vien appeared to be gathering.
Jareen balanced on the heeled deck and watched Nosh slowly slip past. At last, even the western suburbs were left behind, giving way to the fishing villages on the harborless shore, where the skiffs were hauled up onto the rocks and the nets spread to dry in the morning sun. All those years in Drennos, and she had never gone so far from the city. The small villages were an unfamiliar world. When Gyon and one of the sailors approached her, she was still staring at the shore. The sailor’s expression was grave, but he spoke kindly:
“We will be tacking much with this wind today, until we can clear the headlands. It will be more comfortable to rest within.” The sailor motioned toward the opening in the forward portion of the pavilion. “We have prepared a repast.”
“Come,” Gyon said. “I know you did not get to refresh yourself well this morning.” With that, he led her under the foremost section of the pavilion. Internal walls of canvas divided the pavilion into separate portions. In this portion, a colorful woven rug spread across the deck, with a low table and cushions for reclining in the Vien fashion. The other Vien of the embassy had already reclined about the table, but they had not begun eating. Upon the table were broad-based wine-flutes and bowls full of mangos, coconuts, and even pineapple. The sweet scent of the fruit filled the pavilion and set her mouth watering. The fruit was still fresh. Fresh fruit from Findeluvié!
Gyon reclined on a cushion and motioned for Jareen to take the place next to him. She sat, folding her legs beneath her as was polite for a vienu—at least, it had been in her youth. She had not dined with Vien in so long, it felt unnatural, now.
“For the Blessing and the Synod, we are thankful,” he said. At that, all eyes turned to Jareen. She realized that they waited upon her. She felt suddenly nervous, but she reached out and grasped a mango. With the meal initiated, the others eagerly fell upon the fruit. Though she was the first to take, she was not the first to bite, and sighs of relief were heard in the pavilion. It occurred to her that they, too, had missed the fresh fruit. Jareen peeled her mango with fingers that barely remembered. When she bit into the fruit, the juice burst in her mouth, and tears filled her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Blessings of Findel, I’m glad to leave that desolate place,” someone said. Jareen only ate, tears running down her face.
“Try the wine,” Gyon said. She opened her eyes again and took the flute he was holding out to her. “You have been long without.”
Jareen did not refuse and drank of the deep coolness. She felt as if fresh-bathed after walking long in the dusty Noshian grime.
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There was little conversation. Speaking over-much was rude while Vien ate—contrary to the Noshian habits. She had never truly grown comfortable with the way the other Voiceless Sisters had carried on in their dining chamber, with food in their mouths and cups in their hands. Dining was for tasting, not for talking. But then, perhaps the fare of humans lessened the desire to taste.
One by one, the vien departed, having eaten and drunk their fill. Though Gyon had ceased to eat, he still sipped from his wine. At last, only the two of them remained in that partition. Jareen had eaten freely of the feast of fruit, though she stared at a few slices of pineapple, not wishing them to go to waste but feeling stuffed.
“It is a blessing to go home,” Gyon said. “I did not ask for this assignment, but we all serve as we are called.”
Jareen realized that she was alone with a vien. As a youth, her mother would never have allowed it. But such ideas felt strange, now. She had seen death, had seen the forms of men—humans, at least—so many times it meant nothing to her. For years, she had lived a life apart from the Vien ways.
“Why did you bring me against my will?” she asked.
Gyon smirked.
“Is it humorous to you?” Her eyes narrowed.
“No, not your question,” Gyon said. “Your speech. You have lived so long among the humans, you speak like them.”
“I am speaking Vienwé.”
“Your melody is flat like the speech of humans.”
Jareen was flushing with a mix of anger and embarrassment. As an Insensitive, any flush was quickly apparent in her complexion. Gyon did not miss it. “Forgive me,” he said, putting a hand on his chest.
“Why did you bring me against my will?” she asked again.
His expression grew more serious.
“The Synod does not require your permission or your understanding.”
“So it was the Synod?”
Gyon hesitated.
“In a sense. As ambassador, I was invested with the Synod’s authority in matters pertaining to Nosh. I spent ten years there, but it feels like a hundred or more. I am tired like I have never known.”
Jareen was not too interested in how tired Gyon felt.
“So the order did not come from the Synod? Not directly?”
“Your presence in Nosh was brought to the embassy’s attention years ago. Whether the Synod or my predecessor, the choice was made to leave you be. When I found out. . . that you are an Insensitive. I think I understood, in a sense. So I left you be as well. . . until now.”
“Did someone ask? Someone from Findeluvié?”
“The Synod has recalled all from Nosh.”
“Why?”
“That is in their wisdom, but there are concerning events at home.”
At home. Maybe it was not a threat to Nosh, as Coir imagined.
“What events?”
“There is a. . . nodroth.”
It took Jareen a few moments to place the word.
“Of what crop?” Jareen was struggling to see how this related to her. A nodroth was a term used to describe troubles that befell crops, whether from insects or fungus or blights. Such were rare in Findeluvié, but not unknown. It was strange speaking Vienwé. Yes, she had spoken bits to Coir, but that hardly counted. His understanding was good, but his speech was rudimentary. It had been many decades since she had held a conversation in her native tongue. Gyon’s earlier criticism had stung her more deeply because she knew it was warranted. Had it not been for reading so many of Tirlav’s letters, her fluency might have been worse.
“No. Not of crops. They have a word in Noshian—a disease.” His nose wrinkled as he said the human word. “A nodroth of people.”
Jareen stared at him. The Vien did not have diseases; she had never heard of such a thing.
“It began last year,” he said. “It started among the companies in the Mingling. It took a long time, but they died. Some believe it is Canaen sorcery. Then it came to a few in Miret. They were tended by their families, but to no avail, and it spread.”
“How many, now?” she asked.
“Hundreds.”
That was all? Hundreds hardly amounted to a significant plague, not in the span of time it would have taken for word to reach Nosh.
“Have any survived?”
“A few, but . . . they have not recovered fully.”
“What are its. . . symptoms?” she asked, switching into Noshian. The words she used to understand and think about sickness were Noshian words. She had no such vocabulary in Vienwé. She didn’t even know if the words existed.
“I. . .” Gyon said, pausing. He shook his head.
“What is the nodroth like. Do they cough? Do they vomit?”
“Yes, they cough,” Gyon said. “But. . . You are familiar with the Change?”
Memories of her mother passed through her mind. The mutations, the pigmented skin with its unnatural vibrant hues, the textured papules and plaques of the face and arms. She used to fear her mother’s visage and long for it all at once.
“I am.”
“They say it is like that, only not.” He shook his head again. “I do not know.”
“In what way is it like the Change?” Jareen’s self-confidence was returning. Illness was something that she knew.
He sighed.
“I have not seen it.”
“How long is the course of the nodroth from first sign until death?”
Gyon held up his hands again.
“I do not know. Just that it has spread. Something like the Change comes upon them, and they struggle to breathe.”
It was Vien belief that the Change only occurred to those who “grasped the Current,” which was an idiom referring to the supposed magical powers of the Synod. She had believed it all as a child. She had seen the Change all her young life, after all. Yet since then, she had learned about hereditary disease through her training in Nosh. The Change only occurred in certain families—the High Trees. There was little about Vien belief that couldn’t be explained. Was it possible that this hereditary predisposition was somehow involved in this illness? Even as her confidence returned, she felt a thrill of fear in her stomach. The disease affected the Vien—which meant it could affect her. It was a fear she had never felt before.
“It may be your time to be of service to your own people,” Gyon said.
“So you want my help?” she asked. “You want a Voiceless Sister to help with this disease?”
They had her expulsed from the Order because they wanted to use her? There was an edge in her voice as she spoke, an edge more human than Vien. “And you couldn’t request aide without having me expelled from the Order? If you had only asked, I could have told you that human Sisters would be safer!”
Gyon’s eyes narrowed. He was obviously not a man used to being spoken to with disrespect.
“We will not have humans attend to our people when our own can. And this is not for the humans to know.”
“If the disease afflicts us, it would likely be harmless to humans.”
“It will be harmless to you.”
“I am Vien!”
“The disease has its origins in the Canaen Current, of that we are confident,” Gyon snapped. “And you are Insensitive. Insensitive and trained in such care. You can attend to the Trees without affliction.”
Jareen gaped at him. Was she truly going to be sent among an unknown contagion under the false belief that her own disorder would protect her from some magical plague?
Then she noticed something else.
“Why do you say, the Trees?”
It was a bit odd to say "Trees" rather than saying. . . well, the Vien did not have a word for sick or Departing—not quite, anyway. Were they doing something akin to bricking entire families? Unused to any illness at all, any disease must strike the Vien as a disaster. Safe in their blissful isolation, they had no sense of the suffering she had witnessed among the humans.
“Two High Trees are afflicted.”
“Which ones?” Jareen asked, dread gripping her chest.
“Shéna and Yene.”
She relaxed a little, her worst fears allayed. Yet it made more sense now why he said Trees. Even in Findeluvié, the powerful received special treatment.
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