My eyes snap to Oke’s and his are hard as green jade, but his mouth twists with humor, and his expression is narrowing to something like appraisal.
I straighten my shoulders. If he expected swooning or simpering, he should not have married a queen. Even a drowned one.
I draw myself up to my full height, keeping my expression stony even as he lifts his eyebrows. He can judge my reaction all he wants. I am not the one making a fool of myself in pearls. Besides, there’s little he can do with all that appraisal when he’s still dripping blood from the bite of his enemies.
With as much dignity as I can muster, I slide from the bed, ignoring how I am now the one dressed raggedly, and hold out a hand.
He looks at my hand silently as if he does not know what I’m asking for.
“Where’s your filleting knife?” I ask, and he finally realizes I’m reaching for the fish and shoves it abruptly into my waiting hand.
“In the other chest,” he says, wrenching his gaze away from mine and frowning.
“You could spend some of those pearls for pillows without holes in them. Or a proper boat,” I tell him calmly as I lay out the fish on the table and open the other chest. The fish arcs upward. It’s still fresh enough to be longing to live. I know the feeling. I press it in place with one palm and feel the slickness of its skin meet mine.
The sailor’s chest is a tangle of mismatched things, all of which could be replaced by much better items by spending just one of those pearls. I am irrationally annoyed by this.
“Or you could spend them on an army to defeat theseenemies you want ruined,” I say as I rise successfully with knife in hand. I give him a wry look. I think we both know his enemies cannot be defeated by mortal men.
“The pearls aren’t for spending. They’re for keeping.” His voice is thoughtful, as if he is working out a puzzle. “Here. Fill this. If you can.”
I look up and he’s thrusting something else at me. A brass thimble. It’s patterned all around the outside with waves and swimming squid. How odd. I take it in my fish-slimed hand.
I frown at him. “Fill it withwhat?”
He shrugs, looking away with sudden shyness. His brows pull together.
“Riches.”
I stare at the thimble. Oke’s beard may be gone, but he is no less cryptic than he was before. And no less mad. I shake my head.
“Why don’t you just put some of your pearls in it?” I suggest practically.
“Not that kind of riches.”
“If you say so.” I set the thimble on the table and go back to looking in the chest. I’m hungry. Maniacal tasks like filling thimbles with riches can wait until after I butcher, cook, and eat this fish.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “I must be fishing. I will return as soon as I may.”
I’m still looking for a board to cut the fish on, and by the time I look up again he’s gone.
I walk over to the door and watch him retreat down theboardwalk. He’s moving at speed despite his wounded leg, as if he’s fleeing a fire, practically sprinting through the striped morning shadows of the judging statuary.
I bite my lip. I’d like to figure this man out. Oke may be an ally, he may even become a friend. But right now, he is a riddle, and unless he soon tells me who he serves and who he opposes, I must discover it for myself.
Besides, I cannot live my life overwhelmed with grief, and a puzzle will give me something else to fix my mind upon. Already I feel the rolling breakers of loss threatening to sweep me away again, as they did last night, and I know if I let them, I might not be able to claw my way back to the surface.
My lower lip is already shaking and tears are welling in my eyes, but I don’t have time to dwell. I give his bookshelves a determined glare. They are incongruous in this vagabond place, and they are where I will start once I have filled my belly and made something of this hovel where I am to live. Surely there will be some clue to his allegiances there.
I work to light the small fire set in the hearth. I cook the fish. I’m not much of a cook. I had servants for that when I was queen. But I’m blessing my mother’s soul today for deciding it was important for my education that I spend one year helping each branch of the palace servants for a week. Most of my time in the kitchens was spent chopping vegetables and washing dishes, but Iwatcheda fish cooked and so I can cook one. To a degree.
What I can’t do is anything else about the state of this house. There are supplies—a broom, needles and thread, abucket and rags—but an examination shows me it’s not dirty, merely shabby. Not in disrepair but rather extremely old.
That’s fine. I’m not here to keep house or charm a husband. I’m simply biding my time until I’m ready to destroy a few gods. I wonder if they can be killed. There’s tale after tale about it, and where would such tales spring from if not history? And yet I’ve never known someone before Oke who claimed to even meet a god, never mind hurt one. It seems an almost impossible task.
But “impossible” has never been a word that applied to me.
I’ll take this little by little, like the old proverb. How do you eat a great whale? One mouthful at a time.
