She jerked her shoulder away, still in silence. He took a deep breath.
“It is, it is. But if your Lord requires you to go against your own self, your friendships, your beliefs—are you within your rights? Your oath, my oath, is obedience. So tell me, Kieve Rider, if you were required to come for me—would you say no?”
She put her head between her raised knees. “Don’t you think I have been through the Guild’s guiding documents? Carefully, parsing each sentence? Over and over? Our Guild,” she said, and paused to take a deep breath. “Our damned sacred Guild says nothing about this, nothing about a Lord using his Rider thus, nothing about the contradiction between obedience to the Lord and obedience to the Guild and obedience to one’s conscience.”
Into the following silence, he said “So you would resolve your dilemma by doing nothing at all?”
It took a moment to force her mouth to work. “Shut up, Daenet. Just shut up. Shut up.”
He pushed the bottle of apato into her hands. She gripped it and raised it to her lips.
* * * *
She woke in the still air before dawn and lay without moving, remembering where she was and whose body pressed tight against her own. After a little while she moved away and disengaged her cloak from his, and sat with her arms around her legs, facing east. The sky lightened slowly.
“My reputation is in tatters,” Daenet said from the depths of his furs.
After a moment she said, “But your virtue is intact. Will Kyst care?”
“No. No, he brought a new plaything on this journey, and hasn’t tired of her yet. And he knows I only go with him.” He twisted up to sit beside her and they huddled together under both cloaks. It was warmer that way. Light crept up the bowl of the sky. Her head hurt. The winter world seemed very quiet.
“When did you know you were in love?” she said, surprising herself as much as him.
“With Kyst? The moment I set eyes on him, in that great gaudy garden behind the palace, him covered in satin and sunlight and me just turned sixteen and ready at that moment to lift my heart out whole and give it to him still beating.” He laughed, remembering. “And when he took my oath he steepled his hands over mine and I made the oath and he didn’t let me go, just held my hands and looked at me and then he laughed and I did too, with the joy of it.” He laughed again and shook his head. “And you?”
She hesitated and said, “I never have.”
“Never?”
She shrugged. “I never found satin and sunlight that impressive.”
“You never found satin and sunlight.”
She brooded about that, hunching her shoulders.
“I am sorry for last night,” he said after a long time.
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does,” he said. “There is little comfort in the world, and wrong to deny it to each other.” He hesitated. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know. Ask me in a week.”
“Time cures all ills, then? I doubt it. I think time pays little attention to us.”
She frowned, remembering something. “I heard a story about Ebek, Cadoc’s great-great granduncle I think. He was also Lord in Dalmorat. When he woke one morning he thought he had fallen through a pinhole in time, that’s what he called it, and was repeating over and again a day already lived a month ago.”
“Truly?”
Further, she told him, Lord Ebek believed that unless he lived that day precisely as he had before, the universe would end. He scripted each minute detail and insisted that this design be followed without variation. His terrified courtiers and staff complied, but obedience proved beyond the abilities of the seasons and his wife’s advancing pregnancy. He coped with the first by ignoring it; the castle grew used to seeing him out in all weather, meandering through his garden for eighteen and three-quarter minutes and admiring the roses and marigolds that his staff imported from the warmer provinces.
“But even Kyst cannot produce roses in winter,” Daenet said. “Not real ones. Did he demand real ones?”
“Yes,” she said. “He was a Marubin, so nothing less would do.”
On the day his youngest child was born he rose, was dressed, and ate his morning meal in his wife’s solarium, chatting for forty-two minutes on the usual subjects. All the while she lay in her room downstairs laboring to bring forth another oversized Marubin and the staff came to the grateful realization that their lord had so fallen into his own past that nothing else existed for him.
“The castle resumed its normal life, around him but without him,” she said. “He lived another eleven years, repeating a day in which nothing in particular had happened. For which everyone was grateful.”
“Which shows that Cadoc’s family tree is liberally fruited and leaved with maniacs,” Daenet said. “So, Kieve Outlander, you tell me this story in aid of—what?”
She shrugged. “Time pays little attention to us, you said. Does it? What if he was right and the rest of us wrong?”
“There are more of us,” Daenet said, “than there were of him. I think in this case, we win by sheer force of numbers.”
The sun’s upper rim touched the eastern horizon, behind a layer of cloud. Kieve said, “Do we? Not all the land-barons and servants and shadeen on Sterk, all agreed that days pass into nights and into different days, not a one of them could change time for that Lord.”
The sun rose further and the cloud glowed peach and yellow.
“So, this sunrise is no different from yesterday, or tomorrow?”
“Perhaps. If we believe that.”
“And all the world is governed only by what we believe? Is truth a matter of opinion?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Is it easier that we act as we do because we choose to, or because we believe we must? If we choose what the truth is to be, we are responsible for it, aren’t we? But if the truth exists outside of us, then we are not responsible. We are free.”
“Of responsibility, perhaps. But if we have no choice, then we are not free at all.” He shifted a little. His shoulder touched hers. “If Cadoc sent you to Take me, would you do it?”
“It is still a stupid question,” she said, annoyed. “You are not his subject, and your Lord would object.”
“That, I think, is not what I asked. If Cadoc sent you to take that child, the boy, your bondslave. Would you?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Which reality do you choose, Kieve? His, or yours?”
“I—I swore an oath, Daenet. Just as you did. And I am bound by it, as you are.”
Daenet shook his head at her. “That’s not what I meant. That’s not what I meant at all. Have you never broken an oath?”
She was silent, thinking of Pyrs in the snow above Minst. I am not the ferret-master.
“If,” she said after a while, “if you make an oath not to say something which is true, and you then say it, you are breaking your oath. If you must lie to keep your oath—”
“Thircularithy,” Daenet said, pruning his face, “ith no exthuth.”
Kieve refused to laugh.
He said. “Would you give him the boy, if he required it?”
She turned her face away. The sun cleared the horizon, a crisp white circle behind clouds.
At the foot of the steps she put her hand on his arm to stop him. He looked down at her, his eyebrows raised. She slipped a key into his hand.
“To my rooms. If you need to be—unavailable for a while.”
He curled his gloved fingers around the key before stooping forward and kissing Kieve’s lips. Then he turned and left, striding toward the castle.
A few small lights glimmered between the overhang and the top of the wall. In a continued silence Kieve walked under them, through the wards, past the kitchen where the bakers had been at work for hours already and the air smelled of fresh, hot bread. The smell faded as she walked through The Neck and into the yard before the Lords Stables, deserted this early. She went up the stairs to her rooms.
Th
e boy’s bedding was rolled up and put away, but neither Gaura nor the boy answered when she called. Doubtless gone together on some errand to the kitchen or laundry, she thought. She laid aside her cloak. Embers glowed in the firebox. She put some kindling atop them and fanned until the splinters caught. She laid on a couple of logs, closed the firebox door, and adjusted the flue.
The salve in her room was stiff with cold. She put it in her pocket to warm up and unpinned and unbraided her hair. It had tangled during the night and picked up bits of twigs. She pulled at it with her comb.
When the salve was warm enough she took off the eyepatch and blinked. The eye didn’t hurt and, when she closed her good eye and looked around the room, only the faintest traces of light outlined the world. Perhaps by tomorrow she would not need the salve at all. She medicated the eye and settled the patch over it, pushing her hair behind her ears to do so.
In the outer room, she found that the kettle had water in it. The fire pulsed in the firebox. She adjusted the flue again and set the kettle on the stove, and shook leaves into a teapot.
Unless Cadoc sent for her, which was unlikely, she would be at leisure. She could work on the map of Stormbringer and direct the rest of the packing. She needed to divide the maps, separating the ones that belonged by rights to Dalmorat Province from her own maps, which would go with her to Koerstadt together with her clothes, her sculptures, and Hovath’s Compendium. By nightfall the only items left unpacked would be the clothes she needed for the next day. Perhaps, by nightfall, Cadoc would be dead. Water boiled in the pot on the woodstove.
The tea steeped. She spread the map of Stormbringer across her worktable and looked at the slender lines and angles on the uncompleted part of the map, shaking the bottle of pale ink to mix it. As she did so, she conjured up a mental picture of the land. The picture grew more detailed in her mind, until she could almost smell the sharp air. She put her fingertips to the map, following the elevations and twists she saw behind her eyelids. After a while the door opened.
“Mistress?” Gaura said.
“What is it?” The servant’s tone came to her and she raised her head. Gaura stood shaking and pale behind the bulge of her stomach. “What is it?” she said again.
“The boy, mistress. He’s gone. I can’t find him.”
Her breath stalled. “Say that again.”
“Pyrs, the boy.” She twisted the cloth of her skirt. “He stayed in these rooms as you said, mistress, until yesterday when we knew you were back. You said until you were back, mistress. He stayed here but he is just a boy, mistress, and restless. When we knew you were back he wanted to see the horses and I let him go. He went to the stables, mistress. I stood and watched to make sure that he did and he did, and when time had passed and he was not back I went to find him and—”
“When?”
The material of Gaura’s skirt made a knot over her belly.
“Yesterday, mistress. Last night. Before dusk. When we heard—you had just put Traveler in the stables and he saw and wanted to go... I have looked, mistress, but I cannot find him.”
The stairs were empty. She shrugged into her cloak as she came down them. A few stablehands had brought horses out into the yard and walked them in the sharp air. Fog puffed from their long noses. Kieve stalked into the stable. Lud, seeing her, came over, frowning.
“Rider. Is anything wrong?”
“I am looking for my bondslave. A small boy, blond.” She gestured to show his height.
“I remember.” Lud brought his hand up to echo her gesture. “Bright as plate, that one. He was in yesterday to curry Traveler and the new one.”
“When, Lud?”
The stablemaster stepped back from her. “Just after you came in, Rider. He finished and put the brushes away, and he left. I told your servant.”
“If he comes, send someone to bring him back to my rooms.”
“Of course, Rider,” Lud said.
She left the stable. The kitchens, perhaps, in search of muffins. Her stomach rumbled.
Balor had posted a man at the door, one of his larger undercooks, probably to keep bored shadeen from stealing food. He filled the generous doorway, arms akimbo, but moved away from Kieve’s scowl. She strode into the bustling confusion of the kitchen, collaring workers.
“A boy, this tall, blond,” she demanded of them, but they shrank back, shaking their heads. “Balor! My bondslave, is he here?”
The cook shook his head. She rushed through the kitchen hells, searching each blistering alcove, and strode out the far door where serving folk carried platters of food into the Great Hall.
He wouldn’t have run away, she thought, coming into the Hall. He knew the punishment for that, and where would he go?
She winnowed through the mass of hungry courtiers and visitors, but did not see the boy. Drysi giggled at a land-baron and Kieve hesitated, remembering the woman looking at Pyrs, remembering Humka. She pushed the thought aside. Why would Lady Drysi steal the boy, when she could have him with a gesture?
Perhaps Jenci’s rooms. She took the steps two at a time and stuck her head into Adwyr’s chamber. The heater hissed and spat but the room was empty. A few servants moved along the corridor of eagles and ravens. They pressed themselves against the walls to let her pass, following her with wide eyes. Gone since last night. Reaching Jenci’s chambers, she pounded on the door until a frightened servant pulled it open. She pushed the servant aside and went in.
Jenci sat before the fire, a plate on the small table beside him. He raised his eyebrows.
“Where’s Pyrs?” she demanded.
The guildmaster shrugged. “I’ve no idea, my dear. He’s your tidbit, not mine.”
She tightened her lips and went into his bedroom. Lapsi stood by the bed, his arms filled with Jenci’s cloak. He wore the plain black tunic of an apprentice Rider and when he looked at her his smile disappeared.
“Good morning, Rider.”
“My bondslave, is he here?”
Lapsi’s eyes widened. “No, I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”
“You’re sure? Jenci didn’t send you for him?”
“Rider!” Lapsi flushed.
“I was his apprentice before you were. Did he?”
Lapsi shook his head, his teeth sunk in his lip. Kieve swung back to the parlor.
“Such melodramatics!”
“He’s not been with you? At all? You swear it?”
“I don’t dine on infants either,” Jenci snapped.
“No, but you apprentice them,” she retorted, and left. If he had not gone of his own volition... She shook the thought away.
Esylk’s rooms, perhaps. She almost upset a string of serving folk bearing steaming, covered dishes. They sprang out of her way. She sprinted along the walk above Hueil’s Garden, pausing once to look down at the deserted ward and again to stare up and down the twisting length of the Snake. But Esylk was not in her rooms and the servant swore that he had seen no small blond boy last night or that morning. Kieve came out of the White Tower behind the Crescent Bathhouse, hesitated for a moment, and crossed the promenade. Lost. He was probably lost. The castle was a maze, entire wings had not been inhabited in generations. A light wind picked up her hair and pushed it across her face, and she remembered that she had not re-braided it. She did so now as she walked, creating a sloppy plait that she shoved under the collar of her cloak. The shadeen could help her search for him. She tried to remember what he might be wearing—his shortcoat, she thought, the one that dwarfed him. He wasn’t a very large child.
She picked up her pace, trying to outrun a sense of blackness. She crossed the main ward and came up through the Neck.
Ilach was not in the barracks but Pren listened between mouthsful of eggs, and nodded.
“I’ll tell the watch and the duty officers. If he’s spotted, he’ll be brought back here.”
At the barracks entrance she stopped, her hand still on the door, remembering the way Drysi had looked at Pyrs, remembering Humka�
��s face as he watched Pyrs and Drysi’s page, beside him. “They are a handsome set,” the seminarian had said. Kieve’s fingers curled into a fist. No transfer would be legal without her signature on the boy’s deed of bond. Drysi Marubin. When had legalisms ever stopped one of Cadoc’s family? Drysi. She walked toward the Great Hall, stretching her long legs until she almost ran across the ward.
“Rider!”
Captain Endres stood by the door of the Guards quarters. She ignored him.
“Kieve Rider!”
She waved him off and from the corner of her eye saw him open his cloak over a gleam of bright gold. She swerved sharply and came to him and he opened his cloak again. In its darkness Pyrs’ hazel eyes looked huge in his pale face.
“Are you all right?” she demanded. He nodded.
“One of my men found him in the Warrens,” Endres said.
“In the Warrens?” Kieve echoed. “What was he doing down there?”
Endres shrugged. He kept his hands on the boy’s shoulders.
“I want to talk with you,” he said.
She looked from his large, blunt hands to his face. “Now?”
“No.” He lifted his hands away from Pyrs, and the boy flew to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Take care of the boy first.”
He didn’t have to say that she now owed him a favor. The boy burrowed under her cloak and she turned away with him, hesitated, and turned back. Endres watched her but the words of thanks stuck in her throat. She took Pyrs across the yard and upstairs to her room.
Jenci leaned above her worktable, eating a sausage. Gaura stood before the curtain covering the door to Kieve’s bedroom. She caught Kieve’s glance, made her eyes big, and tilted her head a little toward the curtain. Kieve glared back at her. At Kieve’s gesture she shrugged and waddled out of the room. Kieve slammed the door closed with her hip.
“Good, you found him,” Jenci said. “Just off wandering, was he?”
Kieve flung her cloak over a chair and sat, pulling the boy around to face her. “What did you do?” she said, shaking him a little. The outer door opened again. Cairun came in, saw the boy, and closed the door behind him. Kieve started to rise.
Mapping Winter Page 20
