Gallel's Heir

Chapter 15: The Light in the Eye

No rest exists in the universe
All is rotating, twisting, turning
All is troubled and weary

Only the Creators,
Who stand in the center of everything,
Who see all and know all,
Only they may rest.
—Bennion tim Alwood Albayar of Butu

It’s not as though Siri shen Liri was a proper sort of woman, not like San Dorelle Firelle, and being not proper, she could go anywhere she liked at any time of day or night. Whellung was open countryside at the north of Fal Dara, with fresh air tinged with salt and trees. A clean and proper sort of smell. The sun had set hours ago, and the scullery maid left the areas of Fal Dara that anyone bothered to light. Who needed street lamps? Her own eyes, with the bright moonlight overhead, suited her well enough.

As the streets got darker toward the Narrows, the air became heavier. Three- or four-story buildings, hundreds of years old probably, tilted towards each other, blocking the sky and giving the Narrows its name. Trees wouldn’t grow there, though people had tried, and pathetic little saplings with handfuls of brownish leaves dotted street corners.

She’d heard that places in Galia, the whole world too, probably, cooled down at night. Not Feer, never the Narrows. People said that in some places, water got hard and cold during the winter; that was hard to imagine. San Dorelle ordered ice to be shipped for her summer cordials, but Siri wasn’t convinced the white blocks were actually water.

In the Narrows, the homely smell of old fish, sour ocean, and trash filled her nostrils. Disgusting to most, and she wouldn’t want to live in this rundown place again, but familiar. The smell really was bad, but she couldn’t imagine Stan coming to Whellung.

People milled around. Familiar faces and figures, familiar cloaks with familiar tears and wear. Some of the finer men she made eyes at, and they smiled at her. Maybe they liked her nice clothes, probably not her weathered face. Well, she was pretty enough, but not in a proper sort of way. She was getting older, and had needs. Stan satisfied some of those needs for now. It’s not like she would bond him, certainly not at her age. Too many men in the world to bond only a few.

 Skinny, mangy dogs fought for scraps of food, or street boys cheered them on in pens lit by bonfires. Cats screeched in lovemaking. Proper people with nice clothes would be in bed. If she’d come during the day, the Narrows would have been much quieter. Her kind of people followed their own times, rather than the sun’s, and she relaxed, even untied a few laces of her blouse.

 Only one street in five was paved in the Narrows, those of dirt often smoother than those of stone because stones jutted randomly and feet smoothed dirt. Not an easy place for carriages to travel, but few here owned a horse anyway. She lifted her gray linen skirts gingerly over mud puddles. She earned enough at Whellung to afford a few nice shawls and dresses, but that didn’t mean she wanted to get them dirty, even if she could get more. Not that Stan cared what she wore, if anything at all.

Siri clutched her satchel to her chest. The people here were hardly trustworthy. The Kel’s Robe lit the dusty street, and she stood in the doorway. Singing, drums, and laughter rang inside the inn. No kel would ever look at it, with sweet, intoxicating smoke swirling out broken windows, and a crooked sign she couldn’t read because she never had any mama to teach her. Everyone in the Narrows knew it was The Kel’s Robe, though, because the sign had a faded picture of a fat man in a purple dress. Her nerves twitched for the intoxications and entertainment the inn offered, for Stan’s touch. He would come soon enough, buy her what she wanted.

A man passed the inn, head high and darting as though he were looking for something. A shorter man than most, his clothes, a shirt and trousers, were clean. It was that kel Canubal or whatever his name was. Can be as impertinent as he likes in San Dorelle’s house indeed! Impertinent with a village boy’s hairstyle. What in all the Ancestors’ lore was he doing in the Narrows? Nothing proper, that’s for sure. Stan could wait. She stepped into the street and followed the kel several paces behind. She didn’t particularly want to be noticed, but if he did say anything to her, she’d ask him his business.