Ammonite

Marghe dredged her memory. “Blood sister to Hilt.” Like Hilt, she was taller than average, though not by much. Her skin was darker than the sailor’s, and differently textured: close-pored. Her features were planed to bones and hollows and looked strong, like the exposed roots of a mature tree. Unlike Hilt’s, her hair was long, coiled up on her head, dark and glossy, like the wood of massive trees that were too dense to float: mahogany, teak, silkwood.

“Gerrel tells me you’re a viajera.”

Thenike smiled. “I bet that’s not all she’s told you.”

“True. Though she couldn’t tell me how I can repay your family for my care.”

Thenike said nothing for a while. “As you say, I’m a viajera. Your story would be worth a great deal to me. If you feel up to it, telling me how you came here would pay part of the debt to the family.”

“My story in exchange for all this?” Marghe gestured around her.

Thenike studied her. “Mine isn’t the only say. If it was, then, yes, it would be your story in exchange for all of this. It’s not always easy to give a story to a viajera. But I do have some say, and if you give me what I need, then part of your debt will be discharged.”

“Who decides the rest?”

“The family. All of us. In this instance, because Leifin was the one who brought you, she will have a great deal to say. But back to your story. It won’t be easy, but if it’s done right, both of us will benefit, I think. Are you willing?”

This was a good opportunity to see firsthand the way a viajera worked. “Yes.”

“Then we’ll begin today.” She looked up at the shutters of the unglazed slits that passed as windows. “It’s stuffy in here. Outside, it’s cold, but sunny. Perhaps you would like to breathe some fresh air, see the sky?”

“Yes.” She would have to do better than just yes. She made an effort. “I’d like that.”

“I’ll find you some clothes.”

Thenike lifted the lamp off the trunk and rummaged for a while. “Here.” It was an enormous tent of a cloak. She pulled back Marghe’s covers. “Swing your legs out. There. Yes. And I’ll help you with these.” Marghe recognized the fur leggings: her own, cleaned. “Now, put this on. Over your head. Put your arm over my shoulder, no, lean on me, and up.” And Marghe swayed onto her feet, draped in the felt cloak.

“How’s that? Can you try a step?”

Marghe nodded, and did. Her feet hurt ferociously. It must have shown on her face.

“It’ll hurt, but a few steps won’t do any harm. Time you were up and about.”

Marghe took another step, winced. “Lean on me,” Thenike said.

After being inside for so long, the sharp, clear air made Marghe cough, which hurt her feet even more. The sun shone—a thinner yellow and from a lighter blue sky, but it was sunshine and the world was still here. She stood and wheezed and not all the tears that she wiped from her cheeks were from her coughing.

“I’ve prepared a place for you, as you see.”

Thenike helped her sit on the pallet that waited on a sunlit patch of moss by the wall. Marghe leaned back, eyes closed, and soaked up the illusion of warmth. She knew Thenike was watching.

“Do you get a lot of sun here in Ollfoss during the winter?”

“This will be the first winter I’ve spent here for four years,” Thenike said, “and the last time it was nothing but cloud until the Moon of Aches.” Marghe opened her eyes to find Thenike smiling. “But, yes, all the other winters I’ve been here, the clouds unwind now and again, and the plants in our gardens and nurseries unfurl their bright new leaves, and we eat well. How is the winter where you come from?”

“I come from many different places.” So many.

“Whichever you choose. It’s in my mind that I’ll have seen none of them. Tell me what you wish.”

And Marghe told her of winters in Macau when the sky was the gray of an upturned fish pot and the air smelled to her six-year-old self of rice wine and sea, and carried with it the excitement of the casinos and the sharp fear-sweat of men gambling more than they could afford to lose. She told of the whiter hills of Portugal as she remembered them from the last time she had visited her father: the cold blue skies, the wind that slid through her clothes when she walked a goat path in the morning. She did not know what winter would be like at Port Central.

The sun disappeared behind a bank of cloud that looked as though it had been carved from slippery gray soapstone. Marghe watched, tired after so much talking.

“A suke sky,” Thenike said.

“Suke?”

“Like the belt sukes some of us wear.” Thenike reached under her cloak and pulled out a round disk, drilled through at the top and threaded with a thong. She untied it, handed it to Marghe. “My suke.”

It was half the size of Marghe’s palm and unpainted, smooth on the back, slightly rounded, carved on the front with a fish. The carving was clean-lined, stylized, well-executed. An emblem of some kind.

“You did this?”

“It was my mother’s.”

“She’s dead?”

Thenike smiled. “No. Her lover carved her another one, this time with two nerka instead of one.”

“Nerka?”