Loved Him to Death: Haru of Sachoné House

  Loved Him to Death

  Haru of Sachoné House

  by

  K.M. Frontain

  Freya’s Bower.com ©2007

  Culver City, CA

  Loved Him to Death: Haru of Sachoné House

  Copyright © 2007 by K.M. Frontain, pseudonym. All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration © 2007 K.M. Frontain. All rights reserved.

  Editor: Marci Baun

  ISBN: 1-934069-58-2

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  This book contains graphic sexual material and is not meant to be read by any person under the age of 18.

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  Chapter One

  Every port has its odour. Verdant’s odour tainted the sea air before a ship reached the harbour. It created a light vapour over the city, settled on the water, floated over surf, enveloped ship and crew. It sank into the awareness and did not leave. Each change of the breeze would sail the stench aloft, but seconds after, the reek would ooze down to assault the nose again. It was never so strong as to provoke illness. It just remained at the front of awareness, the eternal alchemy of Verdant: sea and air and paint.

  On the day the schooner stalled before the harbour mouth like a fly caught in a web, the chemical stench did not influence the air as usual, and I frowned at the docks across the water, wondering what had happened to Verdant’s primary industry. In the hold, terebinth resin awaited unloading, destined for turpentine production and, therefore, the thinning of paint, but the cargo couldn’t be delivered while the ship played odd games with the wind. The sails filled, but wooden notes of protest sounded, as if the bow pressed into solid matter.

  First Mate shouted from below. I sat on a yard high up the mainmast—a favourite position—and glanced down to watch sailors run by, intent on adjusting the sheets. I looked out again, toward the invisible that had halted the ship, and wanted it gone, just gone. Now.

  Naturally, nothing changed, and the ship screamed all the louder, spoke of warping wood and impending breakage. Kima bellowed more stridently, and I contemplated the port we could not reach. I wanted there, and I would go there, before Kima altered course and sailed the ship back out to sea.

  I touched the mainmast and prayed.

  Go there. Slip through. Ease on by. Let me be to the invisible as it is to me: non-existent.

  The ship ceased screaming, ploughed down at the bow and came up again, jerked me forward and snapped me back. I clung on, marvelling that calm prayer had forced the impediment to ease its grasp.

  The bow passed the volcanic spurs that formed the harbour mouth, and an odd heaviness enveloped me, washed over and around, clung to my body and squeezed to my bones. I felt movement to my rear, looked backward, and watched my braid lift off my back and hang in the air as if something held it. My neck began to stretch most painfully.

  I struggled to remain on the yard, grimacing and thinking my scalp would tear loose. Then the midsection of the ship entered the harbour, and my braid dropped so suddenly I canted forward and almost fell from my perch.

  “Vaal poke His snout in my innards,” I whispered. I scrabbled back to rights, every body hair I owned prickling to a stand.

  A shout billowed up from the deck. I started and slipped on the yard a second time.

  “Festive colours up the mount! Careful up there! What’s the matter with you?”

  “Shit,” I gasped, heart thumping hard enough to crash out of my chest. This time I’d tangled rope up to my armpits to keep aloft, and hooked a foot for good measure. I must have looked like a netted bug, splayed wide and waiting for the spider.

  “Nothing’s the matter with me except that my first mate wants to startle me off the yard!” I shouted, then carefully drew my limbs out from each snarl.

  I looked down at Kima. He’d moved to where I could see him easily, over on the port side near the rail, red trousers bright against wood and water. Like me, he wore no vest. Despite the sea breeze, the day had become hot, but I would dismount from my favourite perch soon, to don an upper garment and hide the indelible mark of a faith the people of Verdant held in low esteem.

  And besides, the incident with the invisible had put a chill in me.

  “Don’t blame me if you let your mind wander off to the horizon,” Kima called up. “Did you notice the ship all but halted just before we entered harbour?”

  “Yes, I noticed,” I called back. “Did you feel that thing just now?”

  “Feel what thing?”

  “Something heavy in the air, worse just as we came in.”

  “I felt nothing.” Kima’s tan face turned shoreward, then pivoted back up. “Verdant smells funny today.”

  Yes, it did. It smelled normal, and that was strange indeed. I glanced to starboard, at the massive blue dome claiming the east side of the harbour.

  There. A sense of expectancy bloomed from the holy edifice. People lined the white marble walkway along the perimeter, moving in a single file from balcony to tunnel to balcony again.

  “Are you coming down?” Kima shouted.

  My gaze fell toward him once more. “Do I have to?” I shouted back.

  Kima laughed and walked away to the wheel. Words breezed up to me. “Indolent captain! You’ll make yourself fat from lack of work and overbalance the ship one day while you’re sitting up there.”

  I chuckled and grabbed for the rope ladder, swung over and clambered down to the deck. Even there, lower in the air, the normal odour of Verdant failed to greet me.

  Kima had taken position next to the helm. One of the juniors had the wheel. I approached.

  Kima opened his mouth to speak, but checked himself. I wondered why, then noticed my cabin boy at my side, in his hands the bronze vest that matched the embroidery on my blue trousers.

  “Thank you, Gari.”

  He smiled and retreated. I continued on toward Kima, shrugging into the garment. Kima frowned, and I thought his face might crash into the planks. Such heaviness, worse than the oddness that had stricken me when we’d passed into the harbour. I attempted to keep my tone light despite the obvious disapproval.

  “Gari must be dredging information from his predecessor,” I said, “to know that I would want my vest here in Verdant.”

  “You shouldn’t do that,” Kima replied.

  “Do what?”

  “Cover Little Brother’s mark as if you aren’t proud to have it.”

  A single glance from me sent the junior at the helm away. Kima grabbed a peg and kept the wheel steady. “Kima…” I said.

  “I’m sorry, but you make it seem that way, here in Verdant. You’ve been dealing with Deyer Halva and the others for over a decade. Just let them see it! They’ll get over the shock.”

  “I will not second guess my instincts on this matter,” I said. “You know full well these people resent our god.”

  “For reasons they will not reveal. Why should we care, then?”

  “Kima. Don’t second guess my instincts either.”

  He was taller t
han me. Most men are taller than me, but Kima’s gaze dropped before mine did.

  “You’ve been my friend for longer than I’ve been a captain,” I said, “and you’ve been my first mate for as long as I’ve had this ship. Have my instincts ever led us wrong? Have you gained nothing of value from our association?”

  Kima scowled at me, at the deck, the men to the fore of the ship. The lines of wind and sun along his mouth and above his eyes deepened with temper. I said nothing, merely waited, and Kima said nothing, just scowled and scowled, and the sailors in my employ continued their tasks as if we weren’t arguing.

  I pondered my toes, curled them up, curled them down, considered my ratty ship sandals, thought about replacing them, but decided not again. They were like Kima. Comfortable. Worth the years spent breaking them in. A little repair to a frazzled strap here, another there, and they’d be fine.

  “Are we anchoring, then?” I said after a bit. Through the efforts of our more experienced sailors, the ship had slowed sufficient to heave the anchor overboard, and Kima had steered us to a good position where we could await our turn to dock.

  “You’re the captain,” Kima responded, voice gone gruff with displeasure. “It’s for you to say.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes, Lord. You’re the captain.”

  “Very well.”

  I called the command, looked up at Kima, caught him inhaling a breath of disgruntlement through flared nostrils. He had a nose common to our people, somewhat wide and flat. I’m an oddity for having a smaller version of it, a tad less wide than usual. I’ve never liked my nose much, and especially not after one of my lovers had described it as adorably boyish. I’d almost ended the paternity contract over it.

  Vain. I know, but I dislike being described as boyish.

  “What?” Kima said, at last noticing my fixed stare. His flesh took on a pink warmth under the tan surface, and I wished things were different between us.

  “Nothing,” I muttered and looked away. My gaze glanced off the family bracelet of braided leather on his left wrist.

  Things would never be different between us. The second shark’s tooth dangling from the bracelet had slaughtered any greater warmth we might have had.

  “Lord,” one of the men shouted. “There is a man waving at us on the docks. He’s coming along from Celestial Path.”

  I pivoted to face the docks nearer the holy walkway. “Ah, that looks like Deyer Halva.”

  “He’s bulky enough to be the Deyer,” Kima replied. “Why’s he in such a rush?”

  “No idea. Perhaps the celebration…”

  “What about it?”

  “I just have this feeling. Something important is happening here in Verdant, something more important than usual.”

  “Let’s sail out at once,” Kima said.

  I blinked, my gaze even yet fastened to Deyer Halva’s rotund figure. Kima turned toward me.

  “Haru. Let’s leave.”

  Leave? With a hold full of terebinth waiting to be offloaded? “What are your instincts telling you, Kima?” I asked.

  “That we’re better off elsewhere. You know how these people are about any faith but their own. We’re Vaal’s children. Let’s be at sea while these people do whatever they do to worship their dragon god.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Haru, please. Let’s sail. The terebinth can be traded elsewhere.”

  Kima spoke wisely, but I knew something significant had happened when the schooner broached the harbour mouth. The heaviness I experienced had dissipated, but it had pressed a certainty into my bones. Vaal did not want me to sail from this port. This celebration, whatever it entailed, interested Him.

  “Funny how the ship all but stopped before we entered harbour,” I said.

  “Heh? Yes, it was the oddest thing, because the winds blew as before, and there we were, as if ramming our bowsprit into an invisible cushion. It was like to bounce us backward.” Kima set a palm on my shoulder. “Haru, I don’t think we’re wanted here. There was magic at work in the harbour mouth.”

  “Yes. I know.” I backed off a step, and his hand fell away. My gaze veered toward Celestial Dome. “There was magic at work getting us in.”

  “Haru?”

  I looked up at him, said nothing. Kima’s earnest expression clouded with comprehension. “What did you do?”

  “I prayed us through the cushion.”

  “Vaal,” he cursed, but I took him literally.

  “Yes, Vaal,” I confirmed. “He wants me here. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Fuck,” Kima whispered and stalked off to stand at the rail facing the route seaward.

  I stared at his stiff back, sidled my gaze down a muscular flank and onto an arm, settled on his family bracelet again. Two shark’s teeth, one that had murdered any deeper warmth than captain and first mate, lord and trusted servant, one that signified a day of passage, of peril, of heartbreak. Vaal, and a tragedy I loathed remembering, stood between Kima and me, and this day in Verdant’s harbour, a divinely appointed task thrust us farther apart than before.

  Vaal’s will governed the lives of the Brellin, and my life more than most. Kima knew it and had stepped from my path.

  I looked shoreward again. Deyer Halva waved more strenuously, now standing on the dock closest to the schooner.

  “Lower a boat,” I called. “Let’s bring the Deyer on board and discover what he’s so excited to tell us.”

  My men set to the task, and I watched, at the opposite rail from Kima, the fetching of Deyer Halva and his arrival on my ship.

  ***

  “An investiture? Of a new Oradhé?” I repeated.

  “Exactly so. You must hurry,” Halva said and shoved me a step further toward the rail and the boat waiting below. “What you’re wearing is fine. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going in ratty ship sandals and with my hair frizzing out of my braid,” I protested. I sidestepped him and made for the captain’s cabin. “Kima! Are they flagging us to come into dock?”

  “Yes, and men are rowing out to tow us in,” Kima called back.

  Already? And during a celebration so important Verdant’s industry had halted?

  “Choné!” Halva said, trundling along at my side and blocking my view of the dockside. I frowned at an expanse of green tunic with orange embroidery worked everywhere, then set my gaze on the steps of the hatch. “Please,” Halva continued. “Let your first mate worry about the disposition of the ship. Just come with me to the dome.”

  “Not until I’ve rebraided my hair and put on boots.”

  “Ah! You Brellin and your long hair, but if you must, you must. Just hurry, Choné.”

  “I will, Deyer. I will.”

  Deyer means merchant in Halva’s tongue, and Choné isn’t my name. It’s Haru Sachoné. Halva’s folk ordered their names opposite from the Brellin manner, with family names first and given names last. Hence, I had become Sachoné to Halva who, with the typical absent-minded arrogance of his people, never bothered remembering otherwise and spoke down to me as if I were not his equal.

  Worse yet, he practiced the island laziness of dropping first syllables when friendly with a person. Truncating a family name isn’t polite, but for the sake of good profits, I suffered Halva’s informality. I had done for over a decade, but it did make my temper smoulder now and again.

  “Hurry, Choné. Hurry.”

  Ah, the man was a walrus barking in my ear, but compared to other men of Verdant, he was a friendlier walrus than most. “I’m hurrying, Deyer. I’m hurrying.” I angled to the side of Halva’s bulk and bellowed up the hatch steps. “Kima! Have the crew throw dice for a night of shore leave. Half may go.”

  “It’s done already! Just go!”

  “See? Your first mate knows what to do. Hurry, hurry,” Halva urged me.

  Hurry, hurry, into my cabin I went, Halva crowding me all the way to my wardrobe, which had drawers up the length on one side. I pulled one open, reached in for a brush and a blu
e silk ribbon.

  “Are you certain my outfit will do?” I asked.

  “Of course. It looks fine. On you. I’d never wear trousers so tight at the waist or with cuffs at the ankles, but the style suits your people.”

  “My navel is showing. I could wear a proper shirt and jerkin.”

  “No, no. You look fine. Truly. And we must hurry.”

  “Very well.” I was glad he’d demurred, for I’d have had to invent a reason to send him from my cabin before shrugging out of my vest. The timing couldn’t have been more inappropriate for explaining Little Brother’s mark on my chest.

  Sidling around Halva to get at my desk, I stared at green and orange again. Halva wore the traditional long tunic and wide-legged, loose-ended trousers of his people, the perfect costume to hide an under-worked body with rolls of fat sagging down from the ribs and gut. I’d seen under Halva’s tunic before. He had a share of rolls that seemed borrowed from two other men. Fortunately, he was a tall man and carried it well.

  I put the brush and ribbon on the desk and worked my hair free of the old braid. We men of Brellin like to grow our hair long and sometimes have braids that fall to our waists. Mine hung below my hips. I brushed the strands straight and commenced to weave them back together with the blue ribbon twisted within. Meanwhile, Halva rocked up and down on his toes and poked about in my top drawer.

  “So many ribbons,” he muttered at one point. “If you weren’t so perfectly ferocious when it comes to fighting off pirates, I’d worry about this girlish tendency.”

  Walrus, a very narrow-sighted walrus, with rolls of fat blinkering his eyes.

  “Do you remember that time I sailed with you to the port of Underly and we were beset by pirates?”

  “I remember,” I said.

  “How many years ago was that?”

  “Nine, I think.”