Reave the Just and Other Tales by Stephen R. Donaldson

called
Horizon’s Daughter
by its master, proved to be a vessel of commerce which plied the River Kalabras, carrying trade and passengers wherever they wished to go. As soon as the felucca’s master, Mohan Gopal, saw Fetim fall among the reeds, he put about, anchored
Horizon’s Daughter
against the current, and commanded two of his men into the river to bring Fetim aboard.
    By this time, Fetim’s condition would have aroused pity in a heart of stone. Far from having a heart of stone, however, Mohan Gopal was a man of such kindness that he would willingly have accepted a diminution of his profits in exchange for an opportunity to do a good deed. And on this voyage he was accompanied by his only child, Saliandra, a woman whose instincts of compassion exceeded his own. When Fetim had been dragged from the Kalabras, Mohan and Saliandra were so struck by his tattered garments and mangled feet, his emaciation and his look of madness, that they at once vacated their cabin under the felucca’s stern for his use and devoted all the resources of
Horizon’s Daughter
to his care.
    As it chanced, Saliandra was not a beautiful woman. For that reason—and because her father loved her extremely—she was unwed. On the other hand, she was not ill-favored. Though her features were plain, her form was comely. When Fetim first opened his eyes and turned on Saliandra a gaze bright with illness, he believed that he had at last been lifted out of perdition into the realm of the houris.
    “Be at rest,” she cautioned him gently. “You are among friends.”
    Prostrate and feverish, he replied, “You are the only friend I will ever desire.”
    Had I been mortal, I would have gnashed my teeth and torn my hair.
    Unable to do otherwise, however, I watched as
Horizon’s Daughter
slid down the River Kalabras, and Saliandra tended the young man’s broken health, and Mohan Gopal and his men made Fetim of the lost al-Hetal welcome among them as though he were an honored comrade.
    The felucca was on its way downriver to great Qatiis, the storied and corrupt city of the Padisha, bearing a nearly priceless cargo of saffron—a cargo which had been entrusted to Mohan Gopal rather than to a flotilla of defencers by reason of his honesty, and also in hopes that
Horizon’s Daughter
would not attract the notice of the river pirates.
    Of this Fetim knew nothing, of course. To do him justice, it must be admitted that he had never felt an unreasonable interest in wealth. And now he was simply an invalid, scarcely able to hold his head up unassisted—deaf and blind to other considerations. His experiences in Niswan had taught him a deferential manner; his days in the desert had taught him gratitude. These qualities made him a satisfying invalid for whom to care. By the time he became able to sit up on his pallet and sip a bit of soup, he was so well regarded aboard the felucca that Mohan Gopal had begun to consider offering him a share of the cargo’s profits to help set him on his feet when
Horizon’s Daughter
reached Qatiis.
    The master’s regard was reciprocated. The comradely feelings of the crew were shared—a bit shyly, perhaps, but not insincerely. And Saliandra’s attentive concern was welcomed. To all appearances, Fetim was not the man he had been.
    Now he noticed that Saliandra was not indeed a houri. Recovering enough strength to stand on his legs and converse, he also recovered enough clarity of vision to perceive that she was plain. But, oddly, this did not disconcert him. For the first time in his life, he considered that a woman’s virtues might be of more importance than her face. And he was flattered by the fact that she was unmistakably smitten with him. Because of her great kindness, she thought highly of all things that needed her. Additionally, his sufferings had given his handsomeness a pensive and poetic cast, which she found impossible to resist. She would willingly have laid down her life for him. This was not lust; it was