The Promise of the Child

Part 7 (updated daily, glossary included)

Cove

Lycaste watched as the fish darted about his ankles, standing as still as he could. Garishly painted and about the length of his smallest finger, he had seen this kind many times but couldn't remember their names. He crouched slowly for a better look, reflections darkening the water. One of the fish had something, a worm or parasite like a long white thread, dangling from its eye. Where the thing was attached, a milky cataract had formed.

He reached in, startling them away, and took a cupped handful of water to splash on his neck and forehead. He liked the salt on his face, the sting of it on his cheeks when he looked at the sun. Today, of all days, he needed time, silence. Silence to think, perhaps, silence to hide away. But that wouldn't be possible. Lycaste shook his head and started back, gazing at the outcrops of the bay beyond and feeling the water dry on his hot, rust-coloured skin.

Even in the sheltered bay he wouldn't swim, his overactive imagination seeing shadows move, staining the perfect turquoise around the far-off crags. His friends swam nearly every day, but they'd long since stopped asking him to join them. Huge migratory sharks had been spotted out there, coasting silently between the baking rocks. Fat, pearl-coloured monsters five times the length of him; what they ate or where they came from he couldn't say.

It was later than it seemed, time to go in. He wandered up the stony beach, his feet skipping on hot pebbles as he looked for patches of cooler sand to walk on. Lycaste's estate included the small cove, his orchards taking a weak hold at the edge of the beach, a thin strip of mottled eggshell between rich swathes of sultry green. Further down towards the next bay the water became a light, chalky blue as it washed against the suddenly white pebbles of a separate beach. He preferred his land, his colours.

He saw Sonerila and the boys sitting beneath a Midsumnal wine tree, chopping bulbs from its silver lower branches and dropping them into a basket. Lycaste crept close, hidden now and then by the sculpted topiary.

'Just the largest ones,' the servant said, taking the scissors from the taller boy, Papaver. 'Just enough to fill the basket.'

The boys sorted through the bulbs while she watched.

'That's enough. You can take the smaller fruit home with you.'

'Why does he always eat alone?' asked the younger of the brothers after a moment, sitting and staring out to sea.

'He doesn't always eat alone.'

'Pentas doesn't join him any more.'

Sonerila looked at him, finally placing her scissors into the basket beside the pile of pale silver bulbs. 'Take these to the solar – leave them on the table.'

Lycaste watched them carry the bundle into his house while he rubbed at the sand on his long legs.

'Why not just give everything away, Sonerila?' he suggested, walking out from behind the tree.

Her elongated face turned to him without surprise. Sonerila always had a talent for knowing precisely where he was at any particular time; perhaps that was why his mother had chosen her to stay on. 'A reward for their help. I get precious little from anyone else around here.'

He moved out of the shadows to examine a manicured tree. 'They came for the gossip.'

'And I gave them fruit instead.'

'You should have given them these.' He held out a branch dangling off-white berries. 'They're turning.'

Sonerila looked at him, her long head dappled in shadow. 'Is she coming tonight?'