Shadowless: Book 1 of the Ilmaen Quartet

by Helen Bell

  She had realized they were sharing with someone but had assumed it would be the driver, and that had discomforted her enough. It came as a shock to her when a bundled up heap in one of the bunks squawked shrilly at her. Eventually she understood that the squawks were an instruction to shut the door she had come through and she did so hurriedly. That kept out the wind, while the unshuttered windows still let in enough light for Renia to see by. At one end of the heap she saw the grey hair and rheumy eyes of an old woman. Half her face drooped out of shape; Renia recognized the marks of a stroke. With her lack of Ilmaenese and the old woman's difficulty in expressing herself, it was a wonder she had understood anything at all.

  Renia dumped her pack and herself into the lower bunk opposite and leant forward to the old lady. The old eyes were bright and alert in the seamed dark face, suggesting the damage done by the stroke was physical only. Still Renia spoke as slowly and clearly as she could, allowing for the possibility of bad hearing and for her own poor Ilmaenese accent.

  ‘Hello. My name is Renia. My friend and I will be sharing your wagon. I hope it is not too much trouble to you. Can I get you anything?’

  The rheumy eyes glared back determinedly, and the old woman said something. Renia had to get her to repeat it twice more.

  ‘Someone else’s right half. Stick it on to the side of me that still works.’

  Renia had to smile. It was bitterness, but at least it was fighting bitterness. This old lady had some chance of making a recovery. ‘Anyone you’d prefer?’ she asked, encouraging the fighting spirit. The old woman's left hand wavered a little way off the coverlet.

  ‘Ah, not important. Just make sure they’re under twenty.’

  ‘Oh, but your poor left half, having to keep up with that!’ Renia pointed out.

  The eyes sparkled as the old face twisted into a parody of a smile.

  ‘Hah! If it can't cope, you can replace that too.’

  Jesral came in, hearing the conversation. She screwed up her nose fastidiously at the faint dirty linen smell, dropped her stuff on to the top bunk and sat down next to Renia, who explained the old woman's condition. Jesral must have stared at the sagging features for two minutes before she jumped up from her seat with a start and went to kneel by the old woman.

  ‘Atune! I didn't recognize you. I thought you’d be in your old wagon. Nina said you'd been ill. It's good to see you again.’

  The way she looked didn’t bother her now, Renia noticed. There was worry but also unfeigned affection in Jesral's smile, and she took hold of the woman’s clawlike hand without a qualm.

  ‘It's good to see you too, Jesral. Your friend here, she's Britillaainen too? Ah. Thought I recognized the accent.

  ‘Well, it's a nasty turn this time, Jesral. Not a little one, not like I was when you left. You see my right side? Useless. It's frustrating. So much I want to do...’

  ‘It's about time you had a rest, you crazy old woman. Rushing about getting up to the things you did, at your age. Cedas can manage perfectly well, from what I've seen. I'm sure Nina has told you so.’

  ‘Yes, she's a good girl. She looks after me; moved me to this wagon when the other one got impossible to manage. She comes over here often, makes him pay some attention to me. But he's a cocky sod. He needs keeping in his place, you know. Yes. You know.’

  When they had made camp that evening, Cedas came to the wagon. Atune hurled a mixture of advice and abuse at him the instant he stepped through the door, even if half of it was unintelligible. The bits that weren't proved her mind was still alert. Cedas's replies were ostensibly polite and courteous, until you stopped and thought about them, when you realized he was jibing back at her. Atune caught the meaning of every veiled insult at once and loved it, her cackling laugh making all the china in the wagon reverberate alarmingly. They finished their exchange, happy that they had struck level, and Cedas turned to the other two.

  ‘You still doing the same acts, Jez? Never mind, they’ll fit in. You'll have to see Nina, she wants to have a go at some of your old double acts again. And what about you - Renia, is it? What do you do and can it be worked around with your bad leg?’

  She looked at him blankly.

  ‘I'm sorry, I don't understand.’

  ‘Your act,’ he snapped, impatient with her slowness. Then he fathomed it.

  ‘You don't have one, do you?’ Renia looked at him: they both looked at Jesral. She was suddenly engrossed in picking fluff off her skirt.

  ‘Jez, you know the rules. What was the point of bringing this girl along when you know we’re going to have to dump her?’ He turned back to Renia then, his explanation blunt: ‘You perform or you're out. That's the way it's always been, that's the way it still is.’ He made for the door, stopping by their packs.

  ‘Which is yours?’ he asked Renia, plainly intending to throw her out right now, in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘Wait! Give her a chance at least. You gave me a chance – or have you completely forgotten those days?’

  ‘No, Jez, I've not forgotten. There are long parts of them I try not to remember.’ Jesral started and looked hurt at that. Renia sat uncomfortably, holding herself responsible for the tension between them.

  Atune's crackly voice broke the atmosphere.

  ‘Go on, give her a chance, you miserable perse. Always complaining about the lack of new blood in the show. I'd have given her a try in my day.’ Atune's glare would have burnt holes in the best blanket, but then so would the look Cedas threw back at her.

  ‘In your day, I recall, you spent six months giving me hell for landing you with a certain complete novice not a thousand miles away.’ Jesral raised her head at this mention of herself.

  ‘Aye, and as it happened, right you were. She took some work, but I got her there. But I told you then, I expect the favour back some day. I like this one so I think I'll call the favour in now. After all, it's less of a challenge than the one you set me. She's not half as silly, and she has the language better – gets her grammar right, at least. She can't possibly be as hard to teach as Jesral. No one else could be that difficult.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jesral testily.

  ‘You mean, you expect me to train her?’ Cedas protested.

  ‘You expected me to train her,’ Atune retorted, referring to Jesral. She almost had him now; a proud old woman, no pleading in her voice, she made a request seem like an order.

  Cedas blinked uncertainly under her gaze and turned away to think. Doubt looked to be an alien emotion for him and it did not last long. He did not turn back to face her, but flung out one finger behind him. A theatrical gesture; she was starting to get the measure of him.

  ‘You… are you a quick learner?’ He fired the question at Renia.

  ‘Yes,’ she shot back her answer when normally she might have given it some thought. That was due to nervousness. It was an honest answer nonetheless.

  Cedas turned now, lifting his head to make a pronouncement.

  ‘You'll learn a mind-reading routine then. All it takes is a quick brain and a clear voice. I used to do one with Jez.’

  ‘Oh, yes! I can teach her the codes,’ put in Jesral.

  ‘You will not! You'll have forgotten them all and teach her wrongly. Besides, I've refined the code system since then.’ Then to Renia again:

  ‘First I want you to attend tonight's rehearsals. You must watch the performers. Watch how they carry themselves; watch their gestures. It’s all part of the act. Then tomorrow I want you on my wagon at ten o'clock for an hour's study, and again straight after the afternoon show to check what you covered in the morning. The same times the next day, then we'll see.’

  He started to go, but swung back angrily at a chuckle from Atune.

  ‘This pays for all, old woman, you remember that.’

  Atune only chuckled harder.

  ‘Cedas, I give you leave to make my life hell for as long as it takes to train her. After all, we want the exchange to be fair, don't we?’

  He
was almost out of the wagon by now, but Atune's comment to Renia must have carried to him.

  ‘Now, girl, you need to get this act right by the end of the week, do you hear?’

  Chapter 16 – A Raw Deal

  Renia tried to concentrate, but it was hard. The blindfold on her eyes was too tight and the elaborate costume she wore, encrusted with paste jewels, was oppressively heavy and hot on such a close evening. It was one of the Company’s prized stock of costumes that served for many roles, and was supposed to make her look like an exotic Eastern princess. It was the right size for Renia's figure but not her height; still, Cedas had liked it and wanted it in the act somehow.

  It was not the only problem to work around; there was also Renia's bad leg. She’d taken her stitches out now but still limped badly and would for a long time, which hardly made for a regal entrance. In a stroke of inspiration Cedas had found the answer to both problems: a litter. She sat cross-legged on it and two suitably dressed ‘royal retainers’ bore her in, shoulder-high, and set the litter down on a high platform. There was no reason for her to stand, as the crowd could see her clearly, and appearing too proud to rise fitted the role she was playing perfectly.

  Renia hated the role. She hated trying to pick up the key words that Cedas used as prompts, certain that she would remember them all wrong. She hated using the voice projection she had been taught to make her voice carry to the back of the crowd. Granted it worked but afterwards it made her hoarse, and it sounded to her as though she was shouting, although the others kept telling her she had proper control of her voice now. She hated the stiff-shouldered stance she had to keep up while pretending to be in a trance, though for that she had only herself to blame. What with being so uncomfortable and nervous when they began and having the ornate headdress to balance as well, she had adopted the stance automatically, and now Cedas would not let her fall out of it, claiming it added to the effect. All she could see that it did was give her a stiff neck. And above all, after the last week, she hated Cedas.

  The trouble had started that first night, when she had attended the rehearsal as Cedas had told her to. They had camped in a dell off the road, far from any villages, and set up for a full rehearsal. As the night looked set to stay fine, they had not bothered with awnings for either the stage or the audience, merely set out the benches. At rehearsals the players who were not on stage or preparing to go on were the audience, which made it small enough to be intimate and inclined to be friendly. Renia might have enjoyed it if it weren’t for the knowledge that in a few days she would have to perform herself, in front of a paying audience. Jesral, on the other hand, loved it and sat with her pointing out everything the players did, be it right or wrong.

  Renia found she could quickly work this out for herself, simply by watching Cedas. She could not pin down precisely what it was he did, a look or a gesture, but she could tell what did or did not please him, and to what degree a mistake irritated him. She was a quick learner, and bright, but she was not sure if she would be able to overcome her nervousness sufficiently to avoid any mistakes. She was also in terror that she would have a fit onstage – mainly now because of what Cedas would say or do if she wrecked the show. But she would have to put up with it all; she certainly couldn’t tell him about that risk. Jesral had grabbed a lifeline for Jastur here, if they could only persuade Cedas to take the caravan east. Renia dared do nothing to threaten that.

  The rehearsal finished, the last act came off: but despite the late hour everyone then gathered on the benches where they all reviewed the show, praising and criticizing as they saw fit. They could be harsh in their criticism, though to be fair only where it was due, and no one took offence but listened to each suggestion for improvement. Cedas took the chance to introduce Jesral and Renia to the others, and they received a friendly welcome: most of them already knew Jesral and greeted her as an old friend. The review put Renia much more at her ease.

  That lasted only until they returned to their caravan. There they found Atune in a state of high agitation. Once they had calmed her down, she revealed that Eddir, the boy who drove their wagon, had come in during the rehearsal and, thinking Atune was asleep, had rifled through their packs.

  Atune was more outraged by the boy's stupidity in assuming she slept than by his crime. It seemed he was some distant form of blood kin and she took it as an insult to the family pride that his pilfering had been so inept. It was the loss of the money needed to ensure Jastur's safety that concerned Jesral and Renia most, and they grabbed the packs and turned them out at once to see how much was missing.

  It was all there still; the best part of three hundred Internationals, and anything else that might have been considered of value. Puzzled, they asked Atune if the boy had been disturbed in his snooping. She was adamant that he had taken his time, repacked the bags carefully, and left with no apparent haste.

  It made no sense; even worse, soon afterwards they heard their would-be thief scramble back on to the wagon bench and settle down to sleep. He plainly had no fear of discovery. They decided that they would not leave the packs alone with Atune again in case his plan was to come back for the money later. Settling down for a night when they knew they would get no sleep, they resolved to tell Cedas next morning. If it rubbed him up the wrong way, so be it. They could not afford to lose that money.

  oOo

  Jesral elected herself for the task, on the grounds that she was better at being self-righteously angry than Renia was. Renia was too nice. She probably had difficulty even imagining how it felt to be that angry, Jesral concluded as she arrived at Cedas's wagon the next morning.

  Cedas always exercised for an hour before most of the camp was even up, then had his breakfast. He was still eating when she arrived; Nina was cooking for him. Jesral took in the whole scene at a single glance: Nina in only her shift and skirt, the rest of her clothes scattered around the floor, the smell of cooking thick in the air. However well they might be turned out when they were in public, indoors neither of these two could be called house-proud. Still, Jesral had to admit she and Cedas had been no better in her day...

  Long past now, and best forgotten. If only there weren't so many reminders here. Cedas had not changed his wagon much; he still lived with a minimal amount of furniture. His life revolved – a raw irony for Jesral - around the mattress in the centre of the floor. Anyone who came in had to sit either on the floor or on that mattress. There was a little fold-out table on one wall, but it was hardly ever used.

  The bedsheets were still rumpled, neither of them having bothered to smooth them yet. Cedas sat cross-legged on the mattress, his trousers on but nothing else; his plate was balanced in his lap and he was mopping up the last of his meal with bread, every little movement drawing her gaze to the muscle definition of his bare chest and arms. If he had known she was coming, she would have laid odds this was deliberate. Cedas's taste might have changed from redheads to brunettes, but he was the sort of man who would happily remind her what she was missing.

  It took some determination to cast that thought aside and sit down with them. She accepted some breakfast, although it almost stuck in her throat. Nina would keep curling up against Cedas on the mattress and hanging around his neck. She might once have been a dear friend, but she could be a real bitch when she put some effort into it.

  Even so, Jesral managed a few pleasantries before getting down to her real business. And it was not the rifled packs. Oh, no. She had something far more important to thrash out first before she brought that up. She wanted the caravan turned east and she was going to get the caravan turned east, because she had the trump card; knowledge of the one thing Cedas would put before the Company.

  She knew that for years before joining it he had risked his life as a mercenary, and he had done it for money. It had never been clear to her why he’d given it up; she could only assume that, given a good performance (which Cedas always did give), the show life paid well enough, but with less risk. Goodness only knew what he wanted
with money; he did not seem to live extravagantly beyond always being immaculately dressed in public. His reasons mattered little to her. She had money, and she was going to use it. Well, some of it. She knew they would have to hide Jastur if – no, she corrected herself , when – they got him out. There was no telling how long for: so at least half of what they had was emergency money for food, horses, bribes, whatever it took to ensure his safety.

  She did not make small talk for long. Cedas had cunning but very little patience, and she was in no mood to play games of wit at the moment.

  ‘Cedas, I know it's going to be disruptive, but I want to ask the Company to do something important. Very important,’ she reiterated, as the other two glanced at each other with unreadable expressions. Nina untwined herself from Cedas and he turned to face Jesral full on, like a brick wall. Jesral had seen that stance before. She was not about to be put off by it.

  ‘I told Nina, Renia and I have to go east. But we also need help, and cover. In short, we need the Company too. I'm asking you to divert the caravan, and come with us. I can promise you, it will be worth your while if we succeed.’ Again a look passed between the others, barely perceptible this time. Nina set about retrieving her scattered clothes and moved away to get dressed, leaving the business to him.

  ‘How far east?’ His question was non-committal, so she did not let her hopes get too high.

  ‘To Karn. After that, I don't know.’ Something flashed across Cedas’s face, too fast for her to identify it.

  ‘If it's going to be worth our while, that means it's going to be risky. So how much is worth our while?’

  ‘I'm not in a position to give you a final figure – but trust me, those involved will pay any sum we agree and more.’