The Promise of the Child

Part 17 (updated daily)

The sun beat the backs of their ruddy necks as they reached the top of the first hill, stopping in the shadow of a copse of thin palms to look back at the view. The cove was partially hidden – only its encircling arms of rock visible beyond the hazy white towers of the house. Lycaste sat looking down into his gardens, thinking of how everyone called him handsome or beautiful to cheer him up, and how it had only just begun to feel like praise after all.

He studied the orchard and wondered if this was the very place his stalker came to watch. It couldn't be – the far side of the garden beyond the house wasn't visible from here. He let his gaze run along the hills until it swept the sea near where he thought the caves must be.

A huge shadow was moving ponderously beneath the jade surface down there. He tapped Impatiens lightly on the arm, but the other man was too busy rummaging in his satchel and didn't look up. Lycaste punched his shoulder lightly.

'Ow! What?'

'Look!'

Impatiens followed his pointing finger, his eyes widening. The shadow turned, sickle-shaped in the waves, moving towards the edge of the outcrop.

'It's heading out of the bay,' Impatiens whispered. He suddenly stood, as if somehow it would give him a better view, and picked up his bag.

Lycaste didn't like the look of this. 'What are you doing?'

Impatiens ignored him, staring. 'It's big, it's a big one. Look, when it stretches out . . .' He waved his finger at the cliff. 'He's half as long as the rock!'

'It's not a shoal of fish, is it?' Now Lycaste was standing, nervously clasping his elbows in each hand.

'No, that's definitely . . . there's the fin.' They saw a slip of white puncture the green. The shadow disappeared under a rocky arch and they both walked forwards into the sunlight, shading their eyes to see. It reappeared and followed the curve of the outcrop. Unless it changed course it was going to disappear from view soon. Impatiens began to run along the hill.

'I think it's only a lot of fish, Impatiens,' Lycaste called out. 'Let's just stay here.'

They hadn't made any weapons yet. He watched Impatiens, suddenly afraid that the man would go rushing off to get the boat anyway.

But Impatiens was already walking slowly back to the ridge. 'Gone,' he said, sitting down again.

Lycaste sat down, too. 'I thought you were about to run down there and jump in the water.'

His companion said nothing at first, settling his eyes blankly on Lycaste. 'It's all right if you don't want to be part of this. I'm sorry if it felt like I was forcing you last night. Drimys and I can manage just as well without you, I expect.'

Lycaste didn't know what to say. 'I don't think we're ready yet, is all.'

Impatiens sighed. 'And you never will, Lycaste. I'll find someone else. Don't worry yourself.'

He fell silent a moment, considering this. 'You think I'm a coward.'

'It's not that. You're . . . sensitive.'

Lycaste flushed. 'I'm not afraid.'

His friend took a long look at him. 'If you can do this, you know, you can do anything.'

You think so?'

'When we catch that shark – and we will catch it – love and all its mysteries will appear easy to you, nothing in comparison to the ordeal we'll have been through.' He spread his hands, one tufted, unruly eyebrow raised wickedly. 'You never know, Pentas might even change her mind after seeing the great hunter with his prize.'

Lycaste exhaled long and hard, unable to avoid picturing the scene. He knew he was playing into Impatiens' hands, as he always did. 'Well, if you put it that way,' he slipped a fingernail into his mouth, chewing at its ragged edge. 'Perhaps we could try tomorrow.'

'Someone,' Impatiens said, beaming, 'just became a man.'

Lycaste smiled dutifully. The two looked at each other and back out to sea, Impatiens grinning, his mind already visibly leaping ahead to the possibilities.

'And lots of people will want to come and see it?' asked Lycaste finally.

'Hundreds!'

'Where will they stay? Mersin?'

'Who knows? Who cares? We'll be famous!'

It was true that the last thing Lycaste wanted was fame, for he had more than enough of that already. As far away as the Fifth Province, Lycaste was known as the Great Beauty of the Tenth, someone so uncommonly handsome and angelic in features and form that he received callers to his house on the cove at least once a year, come to see if his face was as perfect as the rumours insisted. He had received more offers of marriage in his fifty-one years than everyone he knew combined, rejecting as a matter of course every single one of them. He had always seen his coveted reflection as a curse, not a gift, and hardly any use now that he'd managed to drive away the only girl he'd ever loved.