“Stop that,” Bredda said.
Kieve clenched her teeth. Dirt and dried tears adhered the patch to her skin. Bredda loosened it with quick, competent fingers.
“Tell me what happened,” she said as she worked.
“Got ice in my eyes, crossing above the Morat. A new route.”
“I don’t suppose you were ordered to go that way.”
Kieve didn’t answer. The maid came back, holding a bowl of water and a small box. The boy entered after her. Bredda looked at him while she took the bowl and box, then turned back to the bed.
The water burned Kieve’s skin. She tucked her lower lip between her teeth and gripped the mattress. The patch came away. Kieve blinked and her right eye watered. Bredda put her loupe to her eye, squinting to hold it in place, then pulled at Kieve’s upper lid, pushed at the lower one, and flashed the candle’s light into her eye. Kieve yelped. Bredda examined the left eye too.
“You’ve scratched the corneas, but not badly. They’re already healing.” Bredda let the loupe drop into her palm. “The right eye worse than the left, but you know that.”
Kieve lay back and put her arm over her eyes while Bredda issued more instructions to the maid. The door opened and closed again.
“You’re the Rider’s boy,” Bredda said. “Your name?”
“Pyrs, mistress.”
“Um. When did this happen?”
Kieve contemplated the darkness behind her lids while the boy told Bredda about the ice and what he had done. Her muscles felt slow and heavy, the voices above her distant, irritating whines. Her sleeve, trailing over her nose, smelled of horses and sweat.
“Good,” Bredda said at last. “You did well. Who taught you?”
Sadik, Kieve thought, but the boy didn’t answer. The door opened and closed. Bredda spoke to the maid and after a moment the bed shook again as she sat, pried Kieve’s arm away from her face, and dropped something into her right eye so quickly the Rider had no time to protest. Kieve cursed and tried to move away but the maid pinned her to the bed, hands pressing on her shoulders, while Bredda doctored the other eye.
“How does that feel?”
“Horrible.” The pain faded. “Better.”
“Hungry?”
“No.” The maid released her. Kieve put her arm over her eyes again. “I want to sleep.”
Bredda pulled Kieve’s arm away again and put a new, clean-smelling patch over her right eye. “Don’t take it off. You’ll have to wear it for a few days at least.” The bed moved. Kieve heard the sounds of things being put away. “I’ll leave the salve. Use it twice a day. Both eyes. You won’t go blind. I assume you’ve been worried about that.”
Kieve said, “Has Jenci come?”
“Yes. He hasn’t bothered to stop by. Supper’s in an hour.”
“Not interested.”
Bredda’s uneven footsteps moved out of the room. The bed shook again and Kieve squinted through the haze of salve to see the boy at the foot of the bed, unlacing her boots.
“Who was that woman?” he said, his hands busy with knots.
“Bredda.” Kieve yawned. “She owns the inn.”
“Oh.” He pulled her boot off. Kieve dropped her arm to cover her face again. “Is she a friend of yours?”
“Um. She was a Rider before she lost her leg.”
He paused. “In Dalmorat?”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t talk about it.” She yawned again.
He resumed unlacing the second boot. It came off and she wriggled her toes. The bed warmed.
“Rider?” he said.
She grunted.
“Where should I put your compass? And the map?”
That brought her awake. She lay still, breathing the scents of clean linen and medicine, and thought about the cold of the mountain pass, the sounds he made moving around the campfires, his fingers opening her fist to give her meat or bread. Traveler’s gait as he led the horses through an unknown and frozen countryside. Her own anger and the sharpness of her tongue. She pushed the pillow away and sat up. He stood beside the bed, the compass and map in his hands. The skin under his eyes looked bruised with weariness.
“You saved my life,” she said.
He looked at her without speaking. She took the compass and map with her left hand and reached her right to him.
“Pyrs,” she said. “My name is Kieve.”
After a moment he extended his own hand and put a crumpled paper on her palm. When she opened it, she saw her note to Unig, rescinding her promise to pay.
* * * *
She woke in darkness and lay for a moment listening to the pre-dawn bustle of the city. Someone had removed her breeches and put her under the covers. She yawned and stretched and turned onto her back. The boy was a warm lump against her side. He snorted as she swung her legs from the bed and lit a candle. Bredda’s bed was empty, but the pitcher of water by the basin was full. Kieve stripped off her shirt, cracked the thin ice in the pitcher, and washed. Her skin tingled and she rested her fingers for a moment on the guildmark tattooed onto her right shoulder before pulling the shirt on again, grimacing at the dirt. She plaited her hair into a sticky braid and pinned it to the top of her head. Bredda had left the pot of salve by the bed and Kieve sat to use it. Her eyelids kept clamping shut and by the time she had dosed herself, her cheeks were slick with medicine and her eyes hurt more. She wiped her cheeks, put on the patch, and searched the room for her doublet. The boy mumbled and twisted to cocoon himself in the blankets. She blew out the candle.
Salve clung to her lashes and blurred the vision in her left eye. She put her hand to the wall for balance, feeling the warmth of wood overlying the solidity of stone. Dawn light crept over the tables and benches in the public room. She stopped at the door and squinted. The floor gleamed where someone stood, pants legs rolled to the knee, sloshing a mop across the stone. Someone else knelt by the fireplace, a bundle of aromatic wood nearby. Flames danced in the dark recess. A child skipped through the kitchen doorway and began hanging tankards on the wall racks. The floor scrubber, looking up, saw Kieve.
“Bredda! She’s up.”
“Kieve?” Bredda called. “In the kitchen.”
She dabbed at her eyelashes with her sleeve. The fog cleared a little as she picked her way across the floor, nodding to the young woman before the fireplace and the young man with the mop. Light from the ovens and hearths filled the kitchen. Undercooks and cleaning folk scampered about brandishing pots and rags, a fire roared under the huge water tank, someone in the pantry sang a song with remarkably bawdy lyrics. Bredda’s cook growled and poked at a side of meat, shaking her head. Fresh bread filled the cooling racks and a spitted sheep turned above the fire, fat dripping to hiss on the coals. Kieve’s mouth watered. The noise level muted a moment, then rose; Bredda’s staff was used to her. The Dagger and Plow was as close to a chapterhouse as the Riders maintained in Dalmorat, and its uneasy welcome was better than any other she received in the province.
“You look better.” Bredda picked up a teapot. Morning light revealed the network of fine wrinkles on her face. “Hungry?”
“Starving. Is Endres here?”
“Left last night.”
A small knot between her shoulder blades relaxed. She slid onto a bench at the end of the long table and put her hands out for the mug. Bredda pushed a jar of honey across the table. While Kieve spooned some into her mug, a scullion put a plate before her. She reached over the mug and speared a piece of mutton with her belt knife. It was hot enough to burn her tongue but she ate it anyway.
The innkeeper sat opposite her. “You slept well?”
Kieve nodded and swallowed. “You put me to bed?”
“Both of you. The boy fell asleep before dinner. Libit,” she called. “Go waken the Rider’s boy.”
“No, don’t,” Kieve said around another bite. “He’ll waken when he’s hungry.” She reached for the mug. “I’m the only Rider here?” Libit brought her a plate of eggs scrambled with o
nions and garlic, and a thick wedge of new bread. She pushed the mug away again.
“At the inn? Yes. How did you know?”
“No other guild cloaks on the mantel. Since when? Dalmorat should be crawling with us.”
“Since you left Cadoc forbade the heirs to bring their Riders or their troops with them.”
Kieve thought about that. “Should I worry?”
“Not about that, no. He doesn’t want competing armed factions on Sterk, which makes sense. And by excluding their Riders—”
“They can’t declare war,” Kieve said. It was one of the Riders’ ancient duties, the declaration of war or of peace. “I had been hoping for some company.”
“You may get it yet.”
A commotion erupted across the kitchen. Bredda rose and stalked across the room to deal with it. Without Bredda’s acerbic care, Kieve knew she’d have broken or disappeared the way Cadoc’s previous Rider disappeared, riding into a winter storm and never riding out. In his forty-seven years in power, Lord Cadoc had gone through seventeen Riders. Kieve felt a stab of pleasure at knowing she would be the last. She stuck her finger in the honey jar, twirled it around, and put it in her mouth.
“Four of the other provincial Lords have come,” Bredda said when she returned. She ticked them off on her fingers: Bergdahl, Moel, and Myned, which together with Dalmorat comprised Cherek’s northern border, the poorest provinces in the country. And Kyst, a province on the southern coast well beyond the capital at Koerstadt. “So aside from you and Jenci,” Bredda continued, “there are only four Riders on Sterk. And three of them are off on missions.” She paused and added, “The remaining one is Daenet.”
“From Kyst? The drunk?”
“The same. His master arrived with gifts.”
Kieve tilted her head.
“Fruit,” Bredda said with frank envy. “Vegetables. Fresh ones, from the fields along the sea.”
Kieve shook her head. “I don’t suppose Cadoc thought to share them with anyone.”
The innkeeper laughed. “There is some talk,” she said, sobering, “that Kyst tries to hide his Rider from a summons from Koerstadt. He couldn’t know that Jenci would be here.”
“Is Jenci the summoner?”
The innkeeper shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Kieve speared another piece of meat and asked about Cadoc. He had taken to his bed twelve days ago, Bredda said, and was not expected to rise again this side of the Mountain. The land-barons had so far declined to select one heir over the others.
“Why not? They can elect a new lord before the old bastard’s dead.”
“Everyone assumes that Cadoc favors Gadyn, of course, as do his cronies, but he has not said so, not directly. And the land-barons are enjoying their moment of power, being courted by all of them. They may not decide until Cadoc is well into the Mountain.”
Kieve grimaced, not surprised.
“You remember, just before you left, old Moranth died?”
Kieve nodded. Baron Moranth held lands in the south of the province, a large holding and, for Dalmorat, a rich one.
“Cadoc took it for himself, despite Moranth’s two nieces. And gave it to Gadyn.”
“Ugly,” Kieve said. “But he’s done that before.”
Bredda waved this away. “Gadyn has been portioning it out, making new land-barons. Cadoc confirms them, grinning. If someone has lands already, Gadyn increases them. The other land-barons don’t know whether to complain or shove their hands out. Most of it is already gone.” Gadyn had also, Bredda reported, come to the city of Abermorat with a cart full of weapons, which the soldiers had confiscated before he could take them onto Sterk.
“And a fine dust-up too,” Bredda said. “He said they were his collection, for enjoyment only.” She arched one eyebrow. “He can enjoy them when the passing is over, for they are locked into a store room on Sterk, and under guard. Commander Ilach Shadi takes no chances.”
“I’d heard about that collection, although I never heard Gadyn was any good with them.”
Bredda snorted. “You and he had some difficulty a while back, if I remember right. About weapons.”
Kieve laughed. “He came to Sterk one summer and Cadoc sent him to spar with me in the practice yards. Because, he said, I am as bad with a sword as a scullion. Which I am. And Gadyn lost to me.” She shook her head, still grinning. “He could not speak, for anger.”
“Well, he may have practiced since then. Don’t underestimate him.” She grimaced, moving a little on the bench, and said that Isbael, Cadoc’s daughter, had come up from Koerstadt and announced for the sword.
“She must have left Koerstadt the moment she heard the news,” Bredda said. “Rumor has it she took the Iron Road to the Falls, and almost killed two horses coming around them until she reached the Water Road.”
“Was her father delighted to see her?” Kieve said.
Bredda snorted. “She was here four days before someone poisoned her dog, the one she kept to taste her food for her. She is not much seen in public since then.”
Rumor said that anyone important, and that meant the land-barons and out-province visitors, had been invited to the small gatherings Isbael held in her rooms. Musical evenings, poetry readings, select dinner parties and, rumor said, other even more private events.
“So either she’s seducing anyone who might help her to the sword,” Kieve said, “or she bribes and plots. Or both.”
“You’ve been in Dalmorat too long, Kieve.”
“So have you.
“Yes. But you weren’t born here.” Bredda wrapped her hands around her cup. Cadoc’s nephew Cairun, she said, created lavish entertainments for every district delegate he could find and all the whores in Dalmorat had been busy for the past fortnight at his expense.
“Rumor has it that he uses none himself,” Bredda said. “But he may have paid somebody to say that. He has paid guest visits on Isbael and Gadyn. He’s the only one to bother.”
Kieve shrugged, refilling her cup. “At least he observes the formalities. And the Guard?”
“I haven’t heard much. They’re mercenaries, after all. I believe their service expires when Cadoc dies.”
“Like mine.” Kieve stirred the honey in her tea. “Do you know her? Isbael, I mean?”
Bredda leaned back. “I did. She hated being here. Cadoc sent her to the University in Koerstadt, and she stayed as his emissary to the Council. She’s smart and sharp and silent. A bad enemy and an uneasy friend. She hasn’t been home in twenty years. I don’t know if she’s changed.” Her frown cleared. “And the Lady Drysi, for the edification of the masses, has sponsored a clockworks exhibition at City House. She brought her personal seminarian—she is reputed to be a pious lady. She has also brought her divination machine.”
“Her...?”
“She calls it the Circles of Infinity.” One corner of her mouth twitched. “I won’t try to describe it. She has it up castle and four days ago she announced that it announced that the true heir to the sword ‘Rides water to Dalmorat and is of Marubin blood but not of Cadoc’s body’.”
Kieve grinned. “And the response?”
“Laughter. But the Lady Drysi came overland to the city.”
“She’d have had to cross water to Sterk, though, like everyone else. And she’s not Cadoc’s child.”
Bredda shrugged. “Neither is Lord Cairun, but Cadoc had them come anyway. To give the illusion of choice, I assume. The Lord has hired a battalion of seminarians. I hear that they pray for him day and night and one can’t think around them for the noise they make.”
Kieve opened her mouth.
“Hush,” Bredda said. “He’s not dead yet. And even if the seminarians call down a miracle and Cadoc doesn’t die, you have only a year of your Oath remaining.”
Kieve gestured this away. “A year is too long. A day is too long.”
The innkeeper shook her head again. “The council’s complete,” she said. “I have an inn full of guildspeakers and so doe
s everyone else. Lady Mother, you’re not going to cut that?”
Kieve put the meat back on the plate and began cutting it into smaller pieces. “Any problems?”
“Nothing unusual.” Bredda put her hands in her lap and massaged her stump. “The land-barons are all up castle. A few of the guilds are represented too. I don’t know how Jenci got himself appointed, but he came in a week ago by icerunner.” The corners of her thin lips turned down.
“He doesn’t like you any more than you like him.” Kieve refilled their cups. “Or so rumor has it.”
Bredda frowned at her. “Speaking of rumors,” she said, “I heard a fine one last night. A Rider came to one of the mountain towns, took a dislike to the innkeeper’s son, beat him, took him with her into the mountains, and killed him. The rumor doesn’t say whether she ate him or not.”
“Lies travel fast,” Kieve said. “He’s a bondslave. I bought him. He tried to damage my horse.”
“Traveler? What did he do?”
“Put a burr under a shoe.” Kieve dug it out of her pocket and handed it across the table. “I caught him in time.”
Bredda turned the pieces over in her fingers. “Primitive. He made it himself?”
“I think so.”
Bredda handed it back. “For that you bought him? If I hadn’t seen the boy, I’d believe the rumors.”
Kieve pocketed the burr. “I was only going to take him a day out and send him back. Then—” She touched her eye patch. “His father was a baker. He wants me to find him a place in a guild. He made me promise.”
The innkeeper rose. “Send him home, child. He has no place here, and no guild will accept him if his parents were... Do you want more to eat?”
Kieve shook her head but put her hands around the teapot. The yard door opened and the boy walked in, stamping his feet to shake away the mud and snow. He looked around the kitchen, saw Kieve and Bredda, and came over to them.
“Nobody’s touched the horses since I settled them last night,” he said. “The stablehands said they’d curry them.”
“We’ve been busy,” Bredda said.
He wiped his palms on the seat of his pants. “Then tell them not to make promises they can’t keep.” The boy’s hazel eyes were dark with fury. Bredda looked down at him.
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