The day's shower had turned out to be twins, bracketing noon. Now, in midafternoon, the sun was out and the shay's top folded back, sacrificing shade for view. The matched kaabors trotted briskly, hooves thudding on the firm, wet soil of the highroad, splashing occasional puddles. The plateau tilted slightly toward the seacliff nearby, its soil thin atop basaltic caprock, its thick stand of bunchgrasses grazed down by scattered roan and white gleebor, dehorned and well-fleshed.
It seemed to Brokols the nicest landscape he'd ever seen for riding in, and he wished he was in a saddle instead of the shay. He was not an avid rider, but a rather skilled one. As a youth and a member of a noble family, he'd ridden a lot, and his military service had been as a junior officer of cavalry.
The day was moderately hot and the humidity high, but with breeze enough to keep Eltrienn comfortable in kilt and sleeveless tunic as he drove the team. Brokols, on the other hand, wore a woolen formal suit in preparation for their stop at the Hanorissio villa, and even with his jacket off, useless sweat ran down his face.
They crossed a slight rise. Before them, a broadly rounded draw breached the caprock and sloped away southwestward, opening on the sea. A slender ribbon of brook glinted along the bottom, and the highroad, crossing it, sent well-worn wheel tracks branching toward the sea.
Eltrienn pointed. "The road to the villa," he said. Minutes later they turned off on it, the brook beside them clattering and splashing downward toward a sea indigo blue beneath the sun. For a few minutes, the view and the brook music took Brokols' attention from the heat and sticky sweat.
Where they rolled out of the draw, the flank of the plateau was steep but less than cliffy, toeing out to broad sandy beach. Brokols shrugged reluctantly into his jacket as they approached a walled compound open toward the sea. A guard motioned them through the gate and, while they dismounted, called a second to take them to the villa and a third to care for their kaabors.
Within the outer wall and forming part of it were stone sheds, a low stone barn, and what seemed to be a smithy; these opened onto an outer bailey. A second wall separated the outer bailey from an inner—the grounds of the villa itself. Entering the grounds, Brokols found them subdivided in turn by screens of hedge and whitewashed sections of low wall. A large fountain splashed; honeysuckers darted gold and scarlet among blossoms; and massive, sprawling-limbed trees shaded much of the villa. Eltrienn and Brokols followed their guide across a patio furnished with movable cushioned chairs, and into the building.
A servant was just now opening doors and windows. The midday heat had gradually penetrated the thick walls, layered roof tiles, double-floored loft, overcoming the lingering coolness of a dawn long past. The two visitors waited briefly in a reception room until a large, black-haired woman came in to them, russet-cheeked, strangely amber-eyed, wearing loose, white trousers and sleeveless shirt.
"Hoo! Eltrienn!" she hooted, and embraced the centurion. "You vagabond! I haven't seen you since Leonessto sent you Hrum-knows-where, years ago. How many? Four? Five? I suppose you've eaten lunch."
"On the road," Eltrienn answered. "Rolls, cheese, and a strawbag of greenberries. What we need more than anything is to move about on our feet a bit; we've been jouncing in a shay for too many hours." He half-turned to Brokols. "Zeenia Hanorissia, this is His Excellency, Elver Brokols, Ambassador to the Court of Hrumma from His Highness Dard, Emperor of Almeon. I'm sure you've heard of His Excellency's arrival. Elver, this is Zeenia Hanorissia, the amirr's sister."
Brokols bowed. The tall woman looked him up and down, her eyes even with his own, taking in his exotic features and foreign garb. "Honored," she said, then gestured toward Eltrienn with her head. "I'd heard this scoundrel was assigned to be your guide." She motioned them to follow, and led them into a hall. "I hadn't expected to meet you," she told Brokols over her shoulder. "I go to Theedalit no more than I need to, which blessedly is seldom. It bores me silly." She gestured around as if to indicate the house and beyond. "I manage this place for the family, cattle and all. Daratto runs the home plantation, while Leonessto prefers government to managing a livestock operation."
Great Kaitmar! Brokols thought to himself, have they no protocol here? He'd never seen an aristocrat so unreserved about family affairs. And with a soldier and a stranger—a foreigner.
A broad door entered a sitting room built on two levels; she ushered them in. "Eltrienn used to be guard captain here," she said to Brokols. "He's a marvelous swordsman; we badgered him into demonstrations now and then. Back before my husband died—a merchant, lost at sea." She went to a desk-like work table where a journal lay open, and turning the chair, sat down facing them. They took seats on a couch opposite. "I'm indisposed today," she went on. "Happens every few weeks; Hrum's way of getting me to stay in and update my records. Otherwise you'd hardly have found me home; I'd have been off in the saddle somewhere. You'll stay the night, of course."
Eltrienn nodded, grinning at her volubility. "That's why we stopped. And to see you, naturally."
"That had better be part of it. I don't make houseguests of just anyone, you rascal. Only my friends, and theirs if I like 'em. Incidentally, Juliassa is here, probably down by the mouth of the brook. She's got a sellsu she spends a lot of time with, learning to talk their language. Found it on the beach, close to dead, and been nursing it back to health. It could have returned to the sea by now I suppose, but they both enjoy her language lessons. She sits by a lamp all evening till after I'm in bed, writing down what she's learned."
Learning to talk with the sea people? Brokols' interest was captured. The possibility had never occurred to him.
"And Tirros," Eltrienn said. "Is he around?"
Her jaw clamped. "I threw the rotten little troublemaker out two weeks ago," she snapped. "Somehow he'd heard about Juliassa's sellsu and came to visit. She caught him down on the beach, tormenting it, jabbing at it with a pitchfork. I heard her screaming clear up here; then she came up and got a bow and quiver. He thought it was funny! I've told Leonessto to keep him away from here or I'd have him thrashed."
She changed the subject then. "Two of the men brought in a pail of fresh skulter a bit ago; a favorite of yours I recall. Cook's making a salad of them. Now if I don't get back at the records, they'll have to wait another five weeks, and I'll have forgotten too much. We'll have supper the same time as always here, and talk later."
"Well then," said Eltrienn, getting up, "we'll go out and see Juliassa's sellsu, and then bathe before we eat."
* * *
When Juliassa had brought the sellsu home, she'd had some of the household staff build a weir across the mouth of the brook, curving like a deep U around the lower reach. Enough, she thought, to keep a weakened sellsu from escaping. After a few days of enclosure though, she'd had the sides of the U removed, making it easy for the sellsu to depart around the weir if he wished. What was left would keep predaceous fish—sarrkas and sea lances—away from him. The sellsu had been content to stay, at least until he'd recovered his strength.
The weir was of saplings tied with rope and anchored to posts driven into beach and stream bottom. Brook water flowed out through it, and the high tides flowed freely in. Here, where the stream gradient was low, the brook was fifteen feet wide, three times its width a hundred yards upstream, and several times deeper. Except when the tide was in, the water was pure brook water, but the sellsu had suffered no ill effects from the freshwater environment. The ocean itself was not very saline, not nearly as much as on planets with two or three times the relative land surface.
As Eltrienn and Brokols strolled along the beach toward the stream, they could see Juliassa sitting in it, head and neck above the water. And shoulders; as they got nearer, Brokols could clearly see her shoulders. With no sign of clothing on them. He'd noticed the sellsu, too, its head, neck, and upper back showing sleek and dark. The girl and the sea mammal were making noises back and forth, noises that didn't sound much alike.
Juliassa, glimpsing her visitors from the corner of an eye, turned and waved.
"Eltrienn!" she called. "It's you!"
"Juliassa! I've brought a visitor! An interesting one."
She looked at the sellsu and briefly exchanged words with it, then stood and waded toward them. Brokols was both aghast and relieved. Here was a princess, in a sense of the word, standing bare-breasted to greet a stranger, but she did have a garment on—short loose breeches that covered her clingingly from just below the navel to the mid thighs.
And she was lovely! Utterly lovely! Tanned despite reddish-blond hair. Startling green eyes. And young, not yet fully matured, with pointed breasts the size of pinkfruit. In Hrumma the breasts of mature women, even as young as Lerrlia, seemed generally more the size of sugar fruit or larger.
But she was simply—lovely!
Juliassa stood looking quizzically at him, and so did Eltrienn. Brokols realized then that Eltrienn had been talking, had introduced them, and that he himself hadn't said a thing in return. "I—it's a pleasure. I'm afraid you're quite the loveliest young lady I've ever seen."
He could hardly believe he'd said that! His face turned hot; he was sure it must be crimson. Perhaps purple. "In my country," he explained, "we're not used to seeing ladies without clothing. I'm sorry if I stared."
For a moment he felt wild-eyed then, horrified that his traitor mouth could have babbled what it had.
"Oh," Juliassa said, and her smile melted him. "Well then . . ." she walked out onto the sand, picked up the shift she'd laid there, and slipped it over her head. Brokols was awed by her poise, her face, her dimples.
Suddenly, the smile was gone, replaced by a frown. "You came on the great ship," she said.
"That's right. I did."
"And you killed two sea serpents." The words were accusatory. There was nothing sweet about the way her eyes pierced him.
Brokols shook his head, dismayed. "Not I! The captain ordered it, and some marines did the . . . how did you know?"
"Sleekit told me." She gestured at the sellsu. "Some sullsi saw it happen—not him but others—and it's known far and wide among the children of the waves. Don't you know that sea serpents are the Children of Hrum? And His Messengers? That they harm no one? And saved Hrum's daughter? Even the Djezians wouldn't kill a sea serpent!"
Brokols realized that Eltrienn too was staring at him, his expression startled, concerned.
"I know that now," Brokols said. "I've learned a lot since I've been in your land. In our waters, there are no serpents, and to our captain, they looked simply like dangerous creatures that might snatch a sailor overboard. They were swimming right alongside us, their heads higher than our rails. And their teeth are quite fearsome, you know. We had no idea . . ."
Her severity lightened, though her expression still was serious, and briefly she exchanged sentences with the sellsu. Then she gave her attention to Brokols again.
"I told Sleekit what you said. He wasn't very impressed. I didn't actually suppose that you killed them yourself, but what one's countrymen do, one's fellows, tends to reflect on one's self. Shall we go to the house? I'm ready for some shade."
They started back. "Your speech and the sellsu's don't sound much alike," Eltrienn observed.
"True. I do the best I can though. I started out repeating him, of course, so he knew what I was trying to say, and got used to the way I copy his sounds. I've even talked to other sullsi a couple of times, when they came up to the weir. After they got over their surprise, they understood me too. And I them, of course." She chuckled. "Sullsi laugh, you know; they couldn't help themselves a time or two, listening to me savage their language."
Back at the villa, she paused to rinse her feet in a garden fountain, then excused herself to clean her hair and put on other clothes. Eltrienn and Brokols sat on a shaded patio to talk.
"So your marines killed two serpents." The centurion's tone, though not indignant, was serious, as at some enormity.
"Not in malice," Brokols answered quietly. "They were so near, near enough to snatch one of us in an instant."
"They never would have," Eltrienn said, then added thoughtfully, "I can see why someone might be frightened though, who didn't know them. I remember the first time I ever went boating on the firth while they were there. One swam not ten feet off our side and raised its head to look us over. I was intimidated; I admit it.
"But a Child of Hrum! Only his daughter was closer to him. We're just his foster children, and apparently your people are not even that." He looked intently at Brokols. "I don't know whether Hrum can forgive you."
"I don't know either," Brokols answered, "but it was done without intention to offend." I won't worry about it though, he added silently to himself, as long as you don't mention it to anyone when we get back to Theedalit. For though Hrum might be myth and superstition, Hrummean belief in him was obviously very real.