is first impression of the Ibutatu plantation was the soft ruffling of linen. Noises wafted in from an open window somewhere, men calling out to one another. There was a warm, dry breeze, and it carried a faint burnt smell, earthy and darkly sweet.
He was curled on his side, one hand cupping his eyes against the light.
After sleeping on the Uccello di Hurte, he was used to the pop and groan of wood buffeted by the wind, the muffled thump of feet on the floorboards. It was strangely still; he did remember the moment he’d stepped off on the platform and nearly fallen, ‘cause his legs still expected the tilt and shift, and the ground was nothing like an aeroship. But if the stillness unsettled him, he’d been too tired to care.
Now, it made him feel hungover. When he thought he could bear the light, he rolled over onto his back and squinted up at the ceiling. His mouth was dry, and there was a tight ache in his stomach; he couldn’t tell if he was hungry or sick.
His neck was cramped where he’d fallen asleep in the study, and he felt like he’d taken a tsuter of a beating. He hadn’t felt that way in a damned long time, and he almost forgot— It was a pleasantly familiar sensation. He lay in it for he couldn’t’ve said how long, shutting his eyes and listening and breathing in the scents. The wind only carried up snatches of voices, but he tried to separate them and make sense of the words.
Then the wind picked up proper, and the drapes rippled and snapped, and the room was full of the smell of strong kofi. Tom shifted; he rolled his shoulders, wincing, laughing softly.
The boards were warm under his feet. He tested his weight on his hip and found his back stiff, but serviceable. There was a light robe folded up at the edge of his bed, untouched, and he took it as he stood up.
He pulled his robe closer about him, then padded curiously to the window, feeling the soft creak of the old boards underneath the soles of his feet. The breeze caught the thin white drapes and filled them; he had to move them aside, brushing his fingertips soft and light as cloud, to see out. He felt it comb fingers through his hair and dry the sweat from his brow, and then he felt the warm sun on his face. Holding onto the sill, he shaded his eyes and let them adjust to the daylight.
The sun was fair high, and the air was warm. It wasn't morning anymore; he was wiping a little sweat from his brow. The landscape that spread out before him was unfamiliar, and for a few long moments, he struggled to make sense of it. He knuckled the matter from his eyes. Neat, long rows of what must’ve been cane, dotted here and there with broad, bobbing hats, buildings here and there whose purposes he could only guess at.
At some distance, he could see part of some kind of grove, disappearing out of sight around back. A path winding along rows of — tsug trees, he recognized. He remembered they grew in Quarter Fords, in the wealthier neighborhoods closest the coast; he’d slipped on a shell once and near broken his erse. The sunlight shivered down through whorls of long, glossy green leaves, dappling the ground.
He glanced down. Below, near hugging the wall, he could see more rows of a plant he didn’t recognize.
He leaned out just a pina to watch a dark shape wheel against the broad blue sky, the sill creaking underneath his hands. The wind tugged at his collar and his sleeves. It died down, and he heard, drifting up from below, a chatter of voices — a woman’s and a man’s, soft — long, lilting vowels.
When he stepped away from the window, he could still smell coffee, mingled with other, less familiar scents. The ache in his stomach tightened, and he found a name for it quick enough.
There was a mirror in his room, with the washstand. He couldn’t’ve said why, but after the last long night on the Uccello, it was too much. He found his coat in his things. Like he was sneaking up on a house hingle with a net, he came at the mirror with it from the side, and covered it before he’d got the chance to see hide or hair of himself.
After that, it was easy going, and he found himself in a tentatively cheerful mood. He didn’t need to shave; he cleaned up quick enough, and found a fresh shirt and trousers in his things. By the time he stepped out into the hall, he’d fairly steeled himself, and he was of a mind to follow the scents the wind’d been so kind as to show him with the nose and diligence of a hound.
He remembered the trip from the ship to the house like something that hadn’t happened, something that’d happened to someone else, or in a novel. The bed underneath him felt unfamiliar, and if you’d asked him how he ended up in it, he wouldn’t’ve been able to tell you, aside from the vague notion of halls and a mant staircase it'd been hell to climb.
Now, even half-alert as he was, the place felt awake. Tom’d always thought of big, old houses as stuffy, dark places, disrepaired and full of ghosts. He had wondered what ghost might live in these walls; on the ship, he’d wondered how it would be, to sleep under this roof, knowing. He had almost dreaded it. He did wonder, glancing up the hall, where Niccolette was, and he decided not to dwell too much on it.
But the distress here was loving; it was a body with a soul, he thought idly, a living body. Great open windows filled the hallways with light and motion and sound, and he kept expecting to round a corner and see someone, though he never did.
He found the broad staircase again without much trouble, and he tackled it slowly, holding onto the old wooden banister. At the bottom, the smells were stronger. Down another hall, and he heard another snippet of voices, one familiar and one strange. A woman laughed.
They’d fallen silent by the time he found the doorway. When he peered round, there was only one person he could see.
The imbala hadn’t yet looked up; he thought he might be able to slip off silently, light-footed as ever, back up to his room. But the prickle of anxiety faded fast, and it was replaced by an odd sense of gladness, a familiarity that didn’t sting so much as it’d done on the platform in Vienda. Something about the last long night in the captain’s study made it hard to feel as skittish as he had. It was becoming almost mundane, and Tom found he was just happy to see him alive.
He was sitting at the table and working intently at something; he looked tired, Tom thought, but well, and in his element. There was an empty plate near the hand with the pen.
Tom moved into the doorway, holding onto the frame. “Ayah, Ada'xa,” he said, then cleared the frog from his tired throat. He bowed reflexively, though the motion ached. How’re you feeling? he wanted to ask, but didn’t; he didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. The you felt damned personal. “I hope I’m not intruding, but I could smell the coffee from upstairs,” he offered instead, trying a smile, and looked around.