Shadowless: Book 1 of the Ilmaen Quartet

by Helen Bell

  Something was caught between the dishes in that set, and she separated them to find a fold of cloth, and inside that a single flower. The dishes were Vel's; the flower was from the water meadow they had stopped in, that day back in Mhrydain. Jesral and Vel had been gone together over the slope above the meadow for a while, she recalled. Vel must have kept this flower, planning in future years to use it as a memory of a day long ago. Plans come to nothing; but the memory of that day still survived. It was a memory for Jesral really, so Renia replaced the flower in the cloth and laid it aside in the 'things to keep' pile for her.

  Vel's kit for repairing leatherwork was kept, and his sealed tinderbox as a spare lest their matches got damp. She also put the swords and an oiled cloth to clean them in the 'to keep' pile. They would be useless to her and Jesral, but Vel's in particular had meant so much to him it would seem a form of betrayal to leave it behind or sell it – unless the need was truly desperate.

  Soon only clothes remained, rather creased now in spite of careful packing, even their best which had been at the top to avoid getting crushed. There lay the shirt Kerin had briefly worn the day they rode into Greatharbour. It still bore the faint smell of him. It reminded her of the busy night they had all had at the Three Villages. The smell conjured up the sensation of being carried by him. Never again, she told herself; nor another bear hug from Vel.

  She was on the verge of tears but of frustration, not grief, for still she could not make herself believe they were gone. There ought to be grief by now. Why was there no grief?

  All the clothes went in the 'to go' pile in a frenzy of blind activity, but when she turned again to the 'to keep' pile she had somehow put that one shirt of Kerin’s there.

  She sat down on the floor this time, which put the stuff on the bed at eye level. She had long ago run out of nails to shred and was forced to tear at the cuticles instead. The shirt sat on the pile where it had no right to be, and she stared at it.

  It had to go. This was stupid. One minute she was refusing to admit that they were dead, the next she was clinging with desperate sentimentality to their things. She got up again and stood over the shirt.

  He should not be more important than Vel, no matter who he was, not to her. It was not right, not respectful to her brother. She put her hands on the shirt – but she could not discard it; and tears fell in earnest now, the first shed in grief. She realized what the problem was. Kerin had been way beyond her, always. She could never have had him, but like an addiction she could not give up the wanting, not just like that, to the point that her mind wouldn’t let her think him gone. Given time, perhaps...

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and calmed down a little. Jastur came back to mind again then. He might need clothes, and from her visions she knew little of his height or build. So, she put aside clothes from Kerin and Vel to keep, including the troublesome shirt. It covered her weakness to others, if not to herself. She could only hope Jesral would not guess at the truth.

  The things that they would be taking with them would not fit into two packs now, so she made up a smaller pack to carry by hand. Finally she set the packs aside and lay down on her bed, miserable beyond words.

  oOo

  Fate had given Renia a good companion in Jesral. She would often panic over unimportant things. But she could be a rock in a crisis, and she knew a crisis when she saw one. Abandoning Renia never even entered her mind. Renia was in shock of some kind, so Jesral planned to stay around while this continued, to keep things moving, and then to pick things up when it finally sank in for Renia. Less nobly, she saw it as a matter of her own survival also. She did not care to travel Ilmaen on her own, not like before. Such risks had seemed nothing when she was seventeen; she shuddered now to think of the dangers she had put herself in. Going home she had ruled out already. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was she would never board a ship again! But there was more to it than these practicalities: this adventure she had joined in through chance opportunism had become as much her mission as theirs. She had never really felt a strong commitment to anything – except to one person, and he had let her down badly. Since that time, she supposed, she had been avoiding commitment. Yet in just a week she had become entranced by this powerful friendship between the other three. With it they had faith that they could pull off this crazy task, a faith so strong that even on her own, Renia was not going to let it go.

  With an effort Jesral pictured how Renia must see things. She had this special vision; to her Jastur was someone she had met, a creature of flesh and blood. He was Kerin’s brother, so Kerin would have stood Hell on its head if it would help him. And Vel – well, he was after adventure, like Jesral. Or had been, until the adventure turned awry. He would have made the journey fun, she knew, all long-limbed and keen-eyed and so full of life...

  Enough, she told herself. Leave the grieving to his sister. She walked on through the streets, slowly but purposefully, scanning street-corner noticeboards and neglected, flyposted walls for the poster she wanted to find. She was looking for the familiar, but with an eye open for other possibilities too. It was over a year since she’d last seen them, after all; they could have changed the colour, the picture, the words, anything.

  To think that two days ago, she had been praying heart and soul not to meet them. Now all she could do was look and hope. Hope that their route hadn’t changed and they still travelled the north coast in May and June. Hope that she would receive a welcome, given the things she had said when she left. Hope that she could persuade old Atune to take the entire caravan east to give them cover. And finally, and probably most unlikely, that the old woman would agree to the Company actually helping with the rescue. We don’t touch politics with a midden shovel, Atune used to say to any song or act or joke that could imply any kind of political bias. Jesral could see her now, tiny birdlike eyes glinting in the lined, laughing face. You can insult their morals, their family, their looks and their town, but mention politics and like as not there’ll be a riot. And even if we didn’t start it, it’ll be us they run out of town, and the wagon wheels won’t touch the ground.

  Jesral was most of the way to the marketplace when she saw a flash of the distinctive blue paper on a wall and hurried over. Yes! The old woodcut was still being used, so the little printing press the Company carried must be working yet. But the poster was in tatters, part torn off and someone else’s poster over the top of it. The date they had performed here was lost. Biting back her disappointment, she walked on.

  She kept looking, but what little optimism she’d had for the idea was fading. From the state of the poster they could easily be too far ahead to catch up with, and she had no other ideas. She’d pinned more hope on this than she had realized. There didn’t seem any other way they could make the journey without drawing attention to themselves, two women travelling unescorted. And the idea that the two of them alone could get Jastur out of Karn was ridiculous.

  But Renia wasn’t going to accept anything else.

  Jesral wandered through the food stalls, brought fruit and bread and preserved meat and a few bottles of the weak beer she knew Renia would drink. She could have done with something stronger herself, but this was no time to be without a clear head.

  If they were going to head east on their own, the best thing would be to move as fast as they could. That meant staging coaches. To pay for the whole trip they’d need to use the Internationals, large-denomination money. Should she buy enough journey stages for the whole trip or just a few at a time, as though only going to the next big town? Which would draw the least attention, leave less of a trail? She tried to think what Kerin would do.

  The whole journey, as open stages. Then you stay out of the staging company offices. Only the coach hands and other passengers will ever see you and they won’t know where your next stage takes you. It will help if you cover that hair up, and Renia wears her long skirt to hide the bandage.

  But remember, you will be the one buying all the stages at t
hat first office, not me. Can you carry off such a transaction convincingly? One of his honest, look-you-straight-in-the-eye questions. The type where even if he was implying nothing, you inferred everything.

  She stretched her neck and pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the headache still. He was gone. It wasn’t his decision any more. It was hers. She’d check the staging timetables and charges, see how much was needed, then make the call on what she felt she was capable of.

  She mounted the town hall steps, threading her way among the other folk there. It was through a chance gap in the crowd that the vivid blue of a poster to her right caught her eye. She rushed over. It was complete and undamaged, being on an official board, and those were changed weekly; she recalled Atune telling her so. They were less than a week away! She scanned the performers in the picture fondly, especially the girl juggler Atune had said was her, when she was first accepted into the show. Good memories flooded back and Jesral clung on to those, knowing that in another mood she’d remember the bad ones and this was not the time. She checked the date of the shows they had given, here in Wistram.

  Three days ago, the last performance. They would have come up from Corsay and set up the night before; rehearsal in the morning; shows at three and seven. Pack up at dawn and on the road to Cabuc. That had been the route for the three years she had been with them. If she was wrong, they could only have gone inland to the next nearest town. They were no more than two days away, probably less than that, as the coach could outrun them.

  Hope renewed, she walked across to the staging notice boards.

  The trip to Cabuc was listed as one stage, and a reasonable sum. But the next coach was leaving from the market inn at two o’clock that afternoon. Christ, it was gone one o’clock now! She almost elbowed people aside in her haste to get into the stage office, bought two tickets, and ran hell for leather back to the garret room.

  Chapter 14 – Routes East

  On the coast road ten miles north-east of Wistram, a covered wagon pulled up.

  Naylan and Partners

  Cutlers and Tinkers

  the painted canvas sides read. It was driven by a swarthy thickset man of some forty years, who spoke to the boy who sat beside him and jerked his chin towards the beach, swept last night by the storm. The youth jumped nimbly down; maybe fourteen but slightly built and as dark-haired as the man, but even darker-skinned. He crossed the sandy beach to where a long bundle lay some way above the high waterline. It hadn’t been thrown there by the storm; marks in the soft sand showed the movement from where it had originally lain in the surf. The boy prodded the bundle with one foot; it groaned and rolled over, sand caking blond hair and one side of the face. The eyes flickered open.

  ‘Uhhh... a beach. Hell has beaches?’

  The boy grinned at him.

  ‘Mebbe it has but you gon’ have put up wid Ilmaen a bit longer. Come, tamaani. You feel like hell now, but you soon be glad you alive.’

  ‘Bighur!’ roared the man on the wagon. ‘I don't need you to get all his details including date of birth. Just get him up here!’

  Bighur pulled a face and helped the man on to unsteady feet, and then back to the wagon. There were steps to the rear; Bighur walked him up them and, on hearing yet another rumble from the driver, unceremoniously tipped him inside. Arms caught and steadied him, lowered him to the floor gently.

  ‘Hello, Vel.’

  He was looking into a face upside down and having trouble focussing, but he recognised both voice and face as Kerin's.

  ‘Uhhh. Hello again. No, don't get me up. It was a long, tiring swim and I drank a lot of seawater on the way. I think I'd best lie on the floor for a while.’ The wagon started up, and took away any benefit lying still might have given him. He continued to lie there though, while Kerin helpfully moved to where Vel could see him the right way up. That did a little to settle Vel’s stomach. Only a little.

  ‘That boy tells me I'll be glad to be alive soon, but I have reason to doubt him. Kerin, please – if you're going to make a habit of falling off ships, do the rest of your travelling by land.’

  oOo

  Vel fell asleep far sooner than he’d expected his sick feeling would allow. When he awoke, in one of the wagon's cots and covered with a blanket, the light from outside suggested that evening was coming on. The wagon had stopped. He got up, aching and disorientated for a few moments before he remembered where he was and why.

  The door of the wagon stood open. He could hear the crackle of a fire outside, and voices; one of them was Kerin's. But what really brought him awake and suggested to him that he was feeling better was the smell of food.

  The taste confirmed it. Kerin was solicitous and relieved to see him set to his portion, strange though the meat was. It was some kind of bird, presumably a sea bird as the meat was decidedly fish-flavoured; certainly something new to Vel.

  Kerin had adopted a new false name in Greatharbour, Anken Hedgresten. Vel had struggled to remember it on the Dawn Wind; but it fell off the others’ tongues now as if it had always been his name. Vel listened to him asking skilful questions of their rescuers, in between teasing out their life stories. Naylan was a big, friendly-mannered man despite his weathered, almost fearsome looks. A few days’ stubble, black shot with grey, sat on his cheeks. He had travelled the roads of Ilmaen and beyond most of his life, mostly tinkering but occasionally turning his hand to smithing, where there was a forge to work at. The life clearly suited him; he was a man happy with his lot.

  In comparison the boy Bighur had not had much of a life, though he beamed as Naylan told them what he had been able to piece together of his story. Naylan did not speak the boy’s native language, and for a bright lad Bighur had never managed or else had never chosen to speak Ilmaenese very well. As far as Naylan could work out, Bighur had been thralled by his parents to pay a debt when he was no more than six – a custom still too common in the lands both north and south of Ilmaen. Bighur's master had been a hedge bandit; to him the lives of others were expendable. The man had not even been prepared to halt to pull one of his own gang, this mere boy, out of a bog. It was pure chance that Naylan had passed by in time and got him out. Despite so many years spent living that kind of life, Bighur had, in Naylan’s opinion, still turned out a good lad.

  ‘I one lucky bastard, to meet Boss,’ Bighur told them earnestly.

  ‘Language!’ retorted Naylan, rolling his eyes at the others. ‘How come kids always master the swearwords before the grammar?’ He chatted easily with Kerin, answering his questions and asking his own without apparently noticing how little real information Kerin was passing on. Vel sat half listening, but something else was nagging at his attention. An uncomfortable, unprotected feeling. Unable to give a name to it, he dismissed it and continued listening.

  Kerin was trying to find out which way Naylan was travelling, but without asking directly. He was subtle and Vel's Ilmaenese was still limited, but knowing Kerin's need to head east showed up his intentions. Naylan appeared unaware.

  From off the sea, the breeze quickened. Vel felt the skin on his back tighten at the cold, sharply aware all of a sudden of the lack of Jesral's presence behind him, as it had been for so much of the previous week. She had been a nuisance at first, clinging on round his waist with a grip fit to crush him, until she had got used to riding double. She had been a nuisance at second, come to that, either leaning out to see round him and complaining how it made her back ache, or else sitting upright and frequently banging her sharp chin into his back at that sensitive point right between his shoulder blades. He'd raised her makeshift saddle after a day of that, which had improved both their tempers considerably. Now he missed her light hold on his beltloops, the unconscious sensuality of her tucked in behind him, covering him like a cloak. Even her cursing as she tied his long blond hair back with a piece of rag to stop it whipping in her face would not go amiss now.

  He looked at Kerin again. Bighur was talking now and Kerin watched the boy, but once again he
had that frown on his face that indicated his mind was elsewhere. Vel knew where.

  All Kerin's questions had been geared to getting underway again, getting to Jastur. Even in his concern for Vel's health he was just establishing how soon they could be on their way to Karn. Karn, where Kerin might never have thought to look had it not been for Renia. He had taken great interest in her welfare when her presence had been a potential delay to his plans. Now she and Jesral no longer figured in his thinking. It probably did not occur to Kerin that they had any obligation to go looking for them. For the first time Vel looked at him with some dislike, and wondered if he had done the right thing in accompanying him.

  Eventually Kerin succeeded in his aim; Naylan asked him about their own travel plans. Kerin named the province, carefully avoiding naming the town, but dismissed their chances of getting there now that they had lost everything, and pondered aloud on alternative plans. He didn’t even mention the existence of Renia and Jesral, let alone raise searching for them as one of those alternatives. Naylan, ignorant of the manoeuvring, countered by pointing out that his own route would at the least get them part of the way there and offered them the ride, in exchange for their work when he set up stall in the markets on the way. Subtle as ever, Kerin didn’t say yes and didn’t say no; he said the two of them would sleep on it.

  Vel didn’t sleep so much as fester, sheltering under the wagon on a borrowed blanket that night. When they exchanged watches Kerin came and lay down where he had been with a cheery goodnight and never a suspicion of Vel’s feelings. He was sleeping like a baby in minutes.