He’d folded her into his arms then. “It’s not a deception,” he promised her. “And what we have will last. Perhaps some days you will be disappointed by me; perhaps eventually you’ll tire of me and seek someone cleverer or wealthier. But for now, sweet summer lady, I plan to enjoy my days with you wholeheartedly.” They had been standing in his stateroom, face-to-face, as they spoke. And on his final words, he stooped and picked her up and deposited her on his bed. She gave a whoop of surprise as he scooped her off her feet, and then, as she landed safely on the bed, she had given a throaty chuckle that sent a flush of pleasure through him. There was a bit of the bawd in this Bingtown lady, he was discovering to his delight. He suspected that discovery was new to Alise also.
Now, as they stood and looked out over the water, quiet stretched out around them. When she finally spoke, she asked her question gently. “Are you sure Tarman was correct when he brought us this way?”
He lifted his hand from the railing, catching hers as he did so. The ship was irritable enough without him doubting it. “I’m as certain as he is,” he said. More quietly he added, “What else do we have to go on, Alise? If the dragons had felt strongly that it was in the other direction, I think they would have objected.”
“I just thought, well, it appeared to be more of a navigable waterway. And so I thought it likely that a large city, such as Kelsingra must have been, would be built on a navigable waterway.”
“That would make sense.” That idea had occurred to him, more than once. He consoled her as he did himself. “But everything has changed since the days of the Elderlings. This might have been a deep lake then. Or perhaps a lazy river wandered through low banks of farmland. We can’t know. Trusting Tarman makes just as much sense as ignoring him and going the other way.”
“So. We have an even chance of being right and finding Kelsingra.”
He scratched at his beard. “As even as any other chance. Alise, we might have passed its sunken ruins days ago. Or the tributary that led there might have silted in and grown up as forest a hundred years ago. We don’t know. Do you want to give up and go back?”
She thought for a long time. “I don’t want to go back ever,” she said quietly.
“Then we go on,” he said. He squinted. “Look at that, over there. Something wrong with that patch of reeds?”
She leaned past him, pressing against his arm to do so. Boyish and silly to enjoy that so thoroughly, but he did. Then she shocked him by gripping the railing and saying, “Tarman, we need to go over there and see what that is! Right away!”
He didn’t know whether to laugh aloud or feel affronted when he felt his ship heel over to obey her.
“It’s a perfect rectangle. And look over there. Another, smaller one.” Despite her efforts to be calm, Alise was grinning insanely and her voice shook. She leaned so far over the edge of the small boat as she peered down through the water that Leftrin leaned over to grip the back of her shirt. “I won’t fall in,” she responded to his touch, but did not straighten up.
“DO YOU THINK they’re roofs of sunken buildings?”
“That could be, I suppose, but they’re flat and from the tapestries and preserved images from Elderling times, I know they seldom built plain, flat-roofed structures. Some cities, such as the sunken one at Trehaug, were more like interconnected warrens rather than the freestanding buildings that we create in our cities. One of the difficulties in excavating Cassarick is that the structures are not all connected as they were at Trehaug. Why they built one way in one place and differently in another is something we don’t know.” Alise lifted her eyes and scanned the shallows. Plant life was thick on the surface of the river. The flat leaves of lilies barely moved in the sluggish current here, and ranks of reeds lifted tasseled heads. At the oars, Leftrin held the small boat in position over a perfect rectangle of shorter rushes. The uniformly stunted square of plant life was unmistakably unnatural. She eyed the shallow water beneath the boat and announced, “I’m getting out.”
“Alise!” Sedric objected before Leftrin could, but she was already pulling off her shoes and rolling up her ragged trousers.
“It’s clean water, remember? And so shallow here that not even reeds can take root and grow tall. That’s what first attracted Leftrin’s attention. Don’t worry so much.” She clambered out and was pleased that she hardly tipped the boat. Nonetheless she landed with a splash that flung water up to her thighs. Her feet sank into the muddy bottom.