Ammonite

Marghe nodded. If Vine said so.

“And when the wind gets too much,” Vine was saying, “we can furl the sail. No boom, you see.”

The Nemorastill looked like something from the Bayeux tapestry, but maybe they would survive the Mouth of the Grave after all.

Marghe and Vine stood in companionable silence for a while.

“You found each other, then.” Thenike’s eyes were soft with sleep, and there were creases on her face. She was wearing a pair of short breeches and her hair was up inside a cap. “Hot out here.” She slid one arm around Marghe’s waist, the other around Vine’s.

“It’ll get worse before it gets better.” Vine was sca

“How long have you two known each other?”

“Long enough,” Vine said, without turning, but she smiled out at the horizon. “Hasn’t she told you how she got that scar on her thumb, yet?”

“No.”

“Well, then, story for story, viajera. I’ll tell you how I met Thenike, here, if you tell me how she found you.”

“Let’s find some shade if we’re going to talk all afternoon,” Thenike suggested.

“I like the heat,” Marghe said.

“Good, but sun and water can burn you faster than you think. We need shade.”

Marghe wondered if the scars on Vine’s back burned more easily than the rest.

“And something to occupy our hands,” added Vine. “We can work while we talk.”

Soon they were seated in the shadow of the wicker wall, splicing rope. Marghe watched the other two; she did not have their skill and speed born of long practice, but after a while she was able to do a passable job.

“It was fourteen summers ago,” Vine said, “and I came into South Meet after my first voyage to Eye of Ocean. The trading had gone well, and the island was a beautiful place, but the voyage was long and we’d hit some bad weather on the way back. We’d been on short rations for a while, and had had to work hard to get home, which made me bad‑tempered. I climbed up out of the ship’s boat and onto the wharf, and nearly tripped over a young woman with the thickest, blackest hair I’ve ever seen.”

“Thenike,” Marghe guessed.

“Thenike,” Vine agreed. “She was lying down in the sunshine on the grass that grows by the wharf, half asleep. Drums getting tight in the heat. Leading the life of leisure, I thought. I was young–”

“And foolish,” Thenike said with a smile. “The two generally go together.”

“I was young,” Vine said, ignoring the interruption, “and not as knowledgeable as I am now, and it seemed to me all of a sudden that viajeras never had to do much for themselves. Always eating other people’s food and getting free rides. Just for telling stories. And here was me, having almost starved to bring back things that this young woman would use but not appreciate.”

“You made those feelings quite plain, as I recall.”

“I made some loud comments about lazy good‑for‑nothings and how some people had never done a useful day’s work in their lives. And this woman, who I thought might have been quite pretty if she hadn’t looked so lazy, opened one eye and said, “Well, sailor, what is it that you think you can do that I can’t?”

“I was angry,” Thenike said. “I’d been up all night helping a local healer with a difficult birth, and here was this… this lout disturbing my rest. She was good to look at, too, which somehow made it worse.”

“So I challenged her to a contest. And she–”

“I was really cross by this time, and wanted to beat her at something she probably thought she was superior at.”

“So she challenged me to a fish‑gutting contest. She was good, too,” Vine said, admiration in her voice for that young woman of long ago, “but I’d spent most of my life gutting fish. There could only be one wi

“I couldn’t accept that, though, and just went faster and faster.”

“Until the slick fish guts proved her undoing. The knife slipped, and suddenly there was red everywhere. Blood all over the fish, all over the docks, all over my barrel of fillets. And there was Thenike, hand gaping wide and bleeding like a stuck taar, looking furious.”

“I was furious. It hurt. And I knew I’d been stupid.”

“But she was still clutching the filleting knife, and I thought she was going to attack me with it, so we both just stood there, while she bled more.”

Thenike and Vine were both quiet for a moment, remembering. A sail flapped noisily overhead. The wind was picking up.

“And then?” Marghe prompted.

“She threw down the knife and stalked off, and all I had left of the encounter were two barrels of fish and a puddle of blood and fish guts. I thought that was that, until the next day. We were at the i

Marghe did. She loved to listen to Thenike sing, with her smoky, rich voice and multiple harmonics.

“Well, it seemed to me all of a sudden that she was beautiful, and I kept her singing half the night.”

“Which is what I wanted, of course,” Thenike said smugly.

“And then it seemed that she thought I was beautiful–”

“Which you are.”

“–which I am, to some. And I ended up inviting her to come to my room and play the harp. And four days later when we left to sail to the Necklace Islands, I asked her to come along. We sailed together for two years. As lovers, then friends. Then Thenike decided it was time to move on, go where she could work properly as a viajera, where she was most needed, and we’ve seen each other only five times in the last twelve years.” She put down the rope she was working on and leaned over to hug Thenike. “It’s good to be sailing with you again, even if it’s only for a little while.” She released her, held her at arm’s length. “You’re looking good.”

“I’tn feeling good, better than I have in years.”

And Marghe felt a sudden, fierce love for Thenike, and the heat seemed softer, the sea more blue, and the world more alive than it had been.

They took half a day tacking back and forth to find the right current, then shot through the Mouth of the Grave, passing within spitting distance of rocky teeth sharp enough to rip the bottom out of the Nemora. Marghe was more exhilarated than scared by the danger and the heady rush of white water.

Once they were past the Summer Islands, the weather changed dramatically: the light breezes were replaced by hot winds heavy with moisture. The days were languorous and thick, and Marghe spent hours at the taffrail, gazing out on a sea that shimmered like a dragon’s wing and a sky that was glazed with soft light. Once, Marghe saw a bird with a wingspan of more than three meters skimming the swells; its third, fixed wing was the color of ci

The Nemoraplowed steadily southwest, and the sea changed slowly from blues and grays to a deep, sliding palette of greens and azures: Silverfish Deeps. Marghe saw thousands of silver fish, gliding beneath the surface in great shoals that flickered and swung silver like a bead curtain as they changed direction.

Marghe and Thenike were on deck, Marghe sitting comfortably on the sun‑warmed planking near enough to the rails to watch the wake curve out behind them, Thenike stretched out with her head on Marghe’s thigh. It was morning, and a sailor, Ash, was in the bows with a sandglass and a log attached to a length of rope tied off at intervals with knots. Ash threw the log, counted, and when another sailor in the stern shouted, tipped the sandglass and hauled the log back aboard. They did this three times.