Human nature is always interesting... And it's curious to see how certain types always tend to act in exactly the same way. -- Agatha Christie, The Thirteen Problems
Hariye was silent for the whole journey to the nearest watchtower. Ketevan hadn't expected anything else. In an undertone she explained that she'd accused him of theft, and in the morning she'd take him to her own manor in Onomi. She took the time to add that Onomi was inland and far from the sea. As for how she'd keep this from Great-Aunt Gulisa... Well, she could cross that bridge when she came to it.
The watchtowers had been set up on the cliffs to watch for smugglers or pirates. They had fewer rooms than the fortresses along the coast, but when the commanding officer heard who Ketevan was she immediately agreed to let her and Hariye stay the night. Ketevan came up with an explanation for why he had to stay in her room instead of in a cell.
"He overheard something my cousin would prefer to keep quiet, and I don't want him shouting what he knows to anyone who'll listen."
"Of course, your highness," said the commanding officer.
Hariye made no attempt to speak to anyone. Nor did he eat anything, not even when Ketevan went to the trouble of paying the commanding officer to give them freshly-cooked fish.
"You are a most ungrateful young man," she said rebukingly.
Then finally Hariye spoke. He looked up at her through eyes that suddenly seemed twice as large as usual. Quietly he said, "Boy."
Ketevan raised an eyebrow and waited for him to elaborate.
"I'm a boy. Not a man. I'm fifteen. And you're... You're old!"
"I'm twenty-seven," Ketevan corrected him, more amused than offended. "Is that what bothers you? The idea of marrying an older woman? Because you will have to marry me," she added in response to his appalled expression. "I must keep you near me to keep you safe, and the only way to do that without causing a scandal is to marry you."
"Is this not a scandal?" he snapped. "You've held me prisoner, I know you've lied to me about some things, maybe everything, and you kissed me last night when you thought I was asleep!"
Ketevan poured herself a cup of tea. She offered the teapot to Hariye, but he refused to take it. "You're overwrought. Go to sleep. You'll feel much better in the morning."
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Hariye didn't sleep at all that night. Ketevan oh-so-generously let him have the bed while she slept on the settee. That didn't make him feel any safer. Not when she was between him and the door. It was locked and she had the key in her pocket. She also had a sword by her side. Trying to escape was hopeless.
When he thought she was asleep he risked sitting up to examine the window. Even from a distance of several feet he could see that it was the sort of window that couldn't be open. He slumped down in despair.
Something heavy pressed against his side. Hariye reached into his pocket to see what it was. His fingers touched cold metal. At once his eyes snapped fully open. He bit his lip to stop from giving a delighted exclamation. Until now he'd completely forgotten about the knife Rusudan gave him.
It was a small knife, barely more than a penknife, and not very sharp. He ran his fingertip along the blade and didn't cut himself. But if it was stabbed with force it would certainly break someone's skin.
His thoughts raced. For the rest of the night he was in such a state of excitement that he could hardly lie still and pretend to sleep.
Ketevan lay so motionless that he strongly suspected she was also awake, waiting for him to make a move. He wanted nothing more than to jump up, stab her in the heart, then take the key and unlock the door. But he forced himself to do nothing. Ketevan was armed with a real weapon and she was much more experienced in using it than he was. Even if by some miracle he managed to kill her, he still had to run the gauntlet of all the guards outside who believed he was a criminal. No, he couldn't take action here. He had to wait until they left tomorrow.
Through the window he watched the sky turn grey, then purple, then pink. Finally the sun's first rays fell into the room. Ketevan either woke up or gave up the pretence of sleep. Hariye heard her sit up and put her boots back on. She crossed to the table and he heard the sound of rustling paper.
"I know you're awake," she said. "Get up. We have a long journey ahead of us."
Hariye sat up without a word. Ketevan was wrapping up the remains of the food in a sheet of paper. She put it in her bag. Then she jerked her head sharply to tell him to follow.
"Let's go."
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Ketevan's horse whickered a welcome as she opened the stable door. Hariye had to stand next to Ketevan as she put its tack on. She grabbed his arm and dragged him closer if he tried to move away. He could have fought her off, but that would have meant fighting all the guards too.
Stolen story; please report.
When the horse was fully saddled and bridled she lifted him into the saddle. For a split second Hariye considered jumping down and making a run for it. Then Ketevan climbed up behind him. When she took the reins he was bracketed in by her arms. She urged the horse to a walk, then to a trot as they reached the watchtower gates. The soldiers opened the gates. Then they were out on the road, heading up the road towards the bridge.
After the initial panic of being trapped wore off Hariye found himself able to view the situation almost calmly. Calm wasn't quite the right word for it -- it was closer to indifference, as if he was watching something happening to someone else -- but it allowed him to think.
Rusudan's knife was in his pocket. Ahead of them was the road leading along the top of the cliffs. Below those cliffs was the sea. And he could breathe underwater. He craned his neck to see down over the cliff-edges. There were places where the rocks reached out into the water. But there were also places where the cliffs rose out of the water with no rocks beneath them.
"Don't worry," Ketevan said, misinterpreting his thoughts. "Someday I might let you visit the sea again. If you prove I can trust you."
Hariye said nothing.
With every step the horse took they drew closer to one of those sheer cliffs and rockless stretches of water. He counted down from a hundred silently. By the time he reached thirty-one they were at a part of the road that ran close to the cliff-edge. He felt Ketevan tense behind him.
She expects me to make a run for it now, he thought.
He didn't move. Slowly he continued counting. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the knife, moving less than an inch at a time so Ketevan wouldn't notice. The knife was small enough to be fully concealed in his hand. Its blade pressed against his fingers. It was too blunt to cut them like this, but he knew that if he tightened his grip it would break the skin.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Hariye clenched his fist around the knife's handle. He drove the blade into the horse's shoulder. It reared with a shocked, pained neigh. Ketevan, caught off-guard, lost her grip on the reins. Hariye flung himself off the horse's back.
The impact of hitting the ground knocked the wind out of him. He forced himself to stand up as soon as he could breathe again. In the background the horse was still screeching.
Hariye ran. He ignored the pain all along his right side where he'd landed on the road. He ran from the cliff-edge. Without pausing to think or worry or even realise what he was doing, he flung himself off the edge.
The sea rushed up to meet him.
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Ketevan jumped off her horse as soon as she saw Hariye get up. She wasn't fast enough. For a second she saw him on the cliff-edge. Then he was gone.
By the time she reached it there was nothing to be seen in the water below.
Ketevan stared intently down at the sea. Waves broke against the cliff. A gull wailed overhead. No body floated up to the surface. Not even a mer could have survived a fall from that height. Hitting the water would have been like falling off a castle tower and landing on stone. Probably Hariye's body had been destroyed beyond recognition by the impact.
And yet she refused to accept such an obvious solution. He had already escaped her once. She would wager everything she had on him surviving.
Was that foam or was it the sunlight reflecting off scales? There it was again, further away this time. Ketevan watched and watched. Whatever she'd seen, it didn't reappear.
Her horse had recovered from its shock. Ketevan checked its shoulder and found a shallow puncture wound. She could have kicked herself for not thinking to search Hariye for weapons.
She waited on the top of the cliff for hours, staring out to sea. Eventually the sunlight reflected on the water grew too bright for her to see anything. Reluctantly she turned away.
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"I need your help."
"Do you indeed? I thought you despised me and everyone associated with me."
Rusudan listened to Ketevan's story and mentally compared it with Hariye's. She thought of Hariye as she'd seen him that evening: so young, so innocent, so convinced Ketevan had his best intentions at heart. It seemed he'd finally woken up to her true nature.
"In my experience someone who disappears without trace doesn't want to be found. My advice to you is give up, go home, and mind your own business. I won't help you."
She could say a whole lot more, but she didn't to commit a murder in a public place. Too many witnesses to pay off. Too much trouble when someone identified the victim.
Ketevan left, clearly thinking things not lawful to be uttered. Rusudan stayed seated and continued spinning a stone on the table. Her mind was a thousand miles away.
Where was Hariye now? She would like to believe he was back home, safe and sound where Ketevan could never touch him. That would be the sort of happy ending found in a novel. But she knew better than to hope for a happy ending in real life. Hariye was probably keeping a low profile under an assumed name, still trying to find his way home. For all she knew he might even have fallen in with someone worse than Ketevan.
I wish you luck wherever you are, Hariye Zinoth han-Teyar, she thought.
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The fishing boat Kajalik had come back empty-handed after almost every expedition lately.
"I think something's scaring the fish away," one of the sailors opined to anyone who'd listen.
The captain, unconcerned with fanciful ideas about scared fish and very concerned about being able to pay his bills, ordered the boat to go further than usual out to sea. They let down the nets. Minutes later something jarred the whole boat. When they pulled up the nets they found them shredded to pieces.
The merchant ship Queen Ketevan I had made an uneventful journey from Vakaryan to Sui. On the way home one of the look-outs spotted something odd.
"Hey, are there dragons in these waters?"
Everyone laughed at her. "Dragons? Don't be ridiculous. No one's seen a dragon here for centuries."
"I know I saw a long, scaly creature off the port bow," she insisted.
The night before they reached the port a strange scraping, tearing sound kept the sentries awake. None of them could find where it was coming from. The next morning everyone knew. The name Ketevan painted on the ship's side was now illegible. Something with long, sharp claws had torn up the boards.
A rumour started in one of the ports. No one knew which boat it had happened to or which sailor had first told it.
"There's a strange creature lurking in the Blood Water. If I didn't know better I'd say it was a mer. My brother saw it sitting on the rocks near Boruyaan Lighthouse. When his boat got too close it turned and snarled at them. And he said -- I know it sounds impossible, but he swears it's true and my brother isn't a man to invent or imagine -- he said its face and throat and torso split open to reveal thousands of teeth like a shark's."
Rusudan overheard that story in a pub late one night. She thought of everything she'd ever heard about merfolk. She thought of a young boy who'd jumped, apparently to his death, off a cliff shortly before the monster sightings started. And she wondered.
END OF BOOK ONE