The Singer of All Songs by Kate Constable Page B

between.’
    ‘Steady,’ muttered Tonno. ‘He’ll promise to sail you from one moon to the next if you let him.’
    ‘Mithates is the land of the guardians of the Power of Fire, isn’t it?’ said Calwyn hesitantly, struggling to remember what Darrow had shown her on the little wooden globe.
    ‘It was so, once,’ Darrow corrected her. ‘But now chantment is outlawed, and the colleges of Mithates spend their days making weapons to sell to whoever will buy them.’
    For once Xanni looked serious. ‘Aye, they pride themselves on having no enemies. They’ll sell spears to Rengan and swords to Baltimar, and call them both friend, and the two lands jumping to cut each other’s throats.’
    ‘With friendship like that –’ Tonno left his sentence unfinished, and spat out of the hatchway.
    ‘But if there are no more chanters in Mithates, why are we going there?’ asked Calwyn.
    ‘I said that chantment was outlawed, not that there were no more chanters. There are chanters in every corner of Tremaris, if you know how to find them.’
    ‘You think we’ll find someone there to help us fight Samis?’ ‘I am sure of it. The Power of Fire is the third of the great Powers. If we can find a master of fire to help us, perhaps we will be almost strong enough.’
    ‘When would you have us sail?’ Xanni ran an eager hand through his curly hair, as if he would be happy to start at once.
    ‘As soon as we can be ready.’
    Xanni nodded. ‘All we need is one day to buy provisions. And find some clothes for the lass. We could be gone by nightfall.’
    From the steps, Tonno said, ‘Perhaps Enna’s clothes will fit her.’
    ‘I was thinking the same thing.’ Xanni turned in his chair. ‘Enna was our sister. She was a tall lass too, like you, and not yet in skirts.’
    Calwyn had not seen a single woman in the city streets wearing a tunic and trousers like her own. In Kalysons, it was the custom for girls of marrying age to wear long full skirts and aprons. Calwyn couldn’t imagine what it would be like to walk or run or climb, dragging those cumbersome wide skirts.
    Shyly she asked, ‘What happened to your sister?’
    Tonno gave a grunt, tapped out his pipe, and abruptly hauled himself onto the deck. Xanni said, ‘Enna died of a fever when we were young. She wasn’t even sixteen summers.’
    ‘Oh – I’m sorry –’
    Xanni smiled sadly. ‘Aye, well, it was a long time ago. Tomorrow I’ll go to the house of our aunt, where our childhood things are stored, and we’ll make you look less like a priestess and more like a fisherman’s daughter.’
    ‘Thank you.’ Calwyn’s face was split by a sudden yawn she couldn’t suppress.
    ‘She is falling asleep where she sits,’ said Darrow. ‘You had better show her a place to lay her head.’
    Xanni laughed. ‘Never fear, my friend! We have quarters fit for your little priestess.’
    Calwyn had already glimpsed the lower cabin with its four deep bunks, each screened by a curtain. But Xanni opened a small hatchway she hadn’t noticed, in the bow of the boat, and revealed another tiny cabin. The space was cluttered with nets and coils of rope, which Xanni hauled out, clearing two more narrow bunks lying along the prow. ‘It’s a long time since we had a cabin boy,’ he said. ‘We can tidy this better in the morning light.’ He stood aside to let Calwyn through the little hatchway. ‘I’m sorry it smells so strong of fish,’ he said doubtfully, but after nights of sleeping on bare planks or straw, with only her cloak for shelter, Calwyn was beyond caring. Rolled in a blanket, with the luxury of an old feather pillow beneath her head, her eyes were soon closing. Faintly she heard Darrow’s cross voice say, ‘not my anything’, and the explosion of Xanni’s laughter. But gently rocked by the boat, and lulled by the soft slap of water against Fledgewing ’s sides, she was asleep before she had taken ten breaths.
    When Calwyn woke, it was broad day, and Darrow