Philip Athans - Whisper of Waves

Devorast let Hrothgar help him to his feet, then he clapped the dwarf on his back again.

“Can we go to a gods bedamned pub now?” Hrothgar asked.

Devorast nodded and they both looked back in the direction of Innarlith. A signal fire burned from the top of the tall guard tower at the northwest corner of the city, where the huge curtain wall ended at the lakeshore.

“It’s a mile back to the city,” Devorast said.

“We’ll freeze to death before we get a sip of ale,” grumbled the dwarf.

“Not to worry,” Devorast replied, and he started off in the direction of the city, his strides long and steady. “Another wave will get us before then.”

Hrothgar stared at his receding back for the space of a dozen deep, rattling breaths. Devorast never broke stride. He knew the dwarf would follow him.

And Hrothgar did just that.

21 Alturiak, the Year of the Wyvern (1363 DR)

SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

Willem stared down at the tea cup on the table in front of him. Holding his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the table, he pressed his palms against his temples in a pointless effort to block his mother’s words from entering his brain.

“You see her time and time again,” she prattled. “This whole filthy city is abuzz, you know. One social occasion after another with her on your arm, and no, she’s hardly the easiest girl to like. She can be difficult, can’t she? She should be. She should be difficult, Willem, and you should be too. That girl knows how to behave with people to make them know that her needs, her desires, are more important than theirs. She takes charge of a room. I’ve felt it. I’ll admit I don’t like it overmuch when I’m in the room with her, but it’s that kind of woman who should be seen on the arm of a man like you. She’s the kind of a woman who could-Did you hear that?”

He hadn’t. His hands had slipped down to cover his ears. There was something unclean about his mother talking about Phyrea like that.

He had been seen with her all over Innarlith. He would call on her, ask her, sometime through a household servant, to join him at one function or another, and she always accepted. She always appeared looking more beautiful than the last time he’d seen her. Perhaps it was her age, that age when a girl is a girl one day and a woman the next. They saw each other often, and he thought about her more and more, but when the gala or the ball, the wedding or the cotillion was ended, they would go their separate ways. She shrugged off his advances as if he were a fly that momentarily buzzed in her ear. When she chose to turn her attention away from him, he felt utterly alone.

That’s when he would go to Halina.

“Willem!” his mother said, insistent, slapping him lightly on the forearm.

He looked up at her and said, “Yes, Mother, you’re quite right.”

“What are you talking about?” she said. “Were you sleeping? There was a knock. Someone is at the door and at this hour.”

Willem stood as if in a trance. Perhaps he had fallen asleep. It must have been very late. After middark, easily. He went to the door and opened it without looking through the little window.

“Halina,” he mumbled.

“Willem,” she panted. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her eyes red and puffy.

“You’ve been crying,” he said, hearing just how flat and uninterested his voice must sound.

“I know it’s terribly late,” she said. Her voice was raw and quiet. “I’m sorry. May I come in?”

Willem didn’t know what to say or do. He just stood there, looking at her.

“Please, Willem?”

He stepped aside and said, “I’m sorry. Of course. Of course. Come in.”

She stepped in but not past him. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. He could feel her tears, hot against his skin.

“I haven’t seen you in so long,” she sobbed into his neck. “I just … I just woke up tonight with the worst feeling. I can’t shake it. I just know that something terrible …”

If she was anyone else-if she were Phyrea, or his mother-he would have thought that she’d trailed off like that for the dramatic effect of it, as a way of demanding that he ask her what was wrong, and play into whatever lace-fringed trap she was setting.

But she wasn’t Phyrea or his mother.

He pushed her away gently and closed the door. She turned away from him and dabbed at her eyes with the back of a trembling hand. With great care he drew the weathercloak from her shoulders. She must still have been cold from the night air, and she wrapped her arms across her chest, squeezing herself. Willem hung her cloak on a hook.

“I want to get married right away,” she said in a quiet voice that trembled as violently as her shoulders. “Marry me now, Willem. If you don’t-if we wait even another tenday-something bad will happen. Something will keep us from …”

She started to cry harder and Willem stepped behind her, taking her shoulders in his hands. She spun on him so fast he startled away. Happily, she didn’t notice and instead pressed herself into him again.

“I love you,” he whispered to her. “Halina, my dear, dear, patient love. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me. Tell me you can forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” she whispered back, having no idea what Willem wanted most to be forgiven for.

“I’ve been beastly,” he said. “I’ve been monstrous.”

Halina giggled a little though she was still crying.

“You hate me,” he said.

“No,” Halina replied. “Willem, I could never hate you, and you’ve hardly been monstrous. You have reasons for waiting, and I understand, but … but …”

“But you’ve waited long enough,” he said.

“No,” Halina whispered. “Yes.”

“Then that’s it,” he told her, looking her in the eye and lying, though he so wished he wasn’t. “We’ll be married straight away. I’ll speak with your uncle at his earliest convenience.”

“Willem,” she cooed, “do you mean it?”

He meant to answer her but just then he saw his mother, her arms folded in that way she had of telling him he was making a terrible mistake, standing in the doorway to the sitting room.

“Really,” Thurene said, her voice like freezing rain. “I suppose I should be thankful that this is happening in the middle of the night so at least the neighbors will be spared the unseemly melodrama.”

Willem could feel Halina stiffen in his arms. He watched her try to gather herself, having no idea what to say to her or to his mother.

Halina made sure not to look at Thurene but gave Willem a moony-eyed glance then took her weathercloak and ran out the door, down the steps, and into the dark street.

“Close the door, my dear,” Thurene said, her voice still unthawed. “You’ll catch your death.”

He closed the door and leaned against it, his eyes falling to the floor as if attached to heavy weights.

“Really, Willem, the Thayan?”

Willem didn’t bother to sigh. He was so tired.

“Please tell me you didn’t mean that,” she pressed.

“I love her, Mother. I’ve already promised her-”

“What, my dear?” Thurene almost shouted, then calmed herself. “You’ve promised her what? That you’d ruin your life for her? Throw away your career and your fortune for her? Sacrifice your future for her? Is that what you promised?”

“You know what I promised,” he said. “It’s a promise I made a long time ago.”

“And the master builder?”

“What about him?” Willem asked.

“Does he know about this promise you’ve made to a foreign girl, the niece of a man you’ve told me yourself is some sort of rabble-rouser?”