“I have been eager to meet you,” Isbael said. “Taryn speaks highly of you.”
“He is kind,” Kieve said. “Is he here? I have some business with him.”
“He will return.” Isbael sat back in her chair. “The Lady Esylk and I were discussing Cherek’s future. She is most persuasive.”
“Far Merinam, where blue water spills against white beaches and it never snows,” Kieve said.
“You remember,” Esylk said.
“Of course, lady.”
“But Merinam is a distant place,” Isbael said. “I am more interested in Dalmorat Province, and the Smith’s steam engines, and the telegraph.” She leaned toward Esylk. “And there perhaps Myned and Dalmorat are aligned, in this near future concern. For in a world of such machines, what do we have to barter? What do we have to trade?”
“Woolens and mutton will not be enough,” Esylk said. “There are ore deposits in both our provinces, there is a seam of coal running through Myned’s lowlands that might, perhaps, rival Moel’s. We have wood. Pah!” She slapped her palms against the arms of her chair. “Isbael, you know this as well as I. A woodsman fells a tree and the mill owner pays him a few stivers for it. He mills it and sells it to a woodworker for a few stivers more. The woodworker turns it into a stool, or table, or a bed, at perhaps a quent. If he sells it to a broker, the broker charges double that. Who makes the money here? Not the woodsman. Profit comes to those who exploit the worked materials, not to those who have it or obtain it.” Esylk paused for a breath. “Unless the materials are rare, hard to come by, important. Precious.”
“The lady Esylk,” Isbael said to Kieve, “proposes to find these precious things across the border. In Trapper lands.”
Kieve’s breath caught. Isbael nodded.
“Even so. And she believes that you can help convince me that such resources exist.”
“I told the lady Isbael that you spent some time on the Myned borders before you were apprenticed,” Esylk said.
Kieve spread her hands. “I was a child, ladies. I hardly know—”
“About this, for instance.” Esylk reached to the table beside her and held out a small carving. Kieve recognized it immediately.
“It is a periapt,” she said, taking it in her hands. “A Trapper fetish, worn to guard against—this one is to guard against the illnesses of children. It is an owl, see, here is its head, and these crescents are its closed eyes.” Owl, she remembered, saw all and could not hide the truth, so harm could look in her eyes and find the children out. But if Owl’s eyes were closed, harm could not see the children and they would be safe. She turned the rounded shape over in her palm. “See the faint lines to show the wings. And here, if you hold it to the light you can see the tiny lines of feathers.” She touched the two small holes behind the head, where a leather thong could be threaded, and wondered who carved this tiny thing, and around whose neck it had been hung, and whether it had worked. She held it for a moment longer before giving it back. Unpainted, smooth, eloquently austere. “I had not thought to see so fine a periapt again.”
Isbael was smiling. Kieve looked at her and let her face go smooth.
“Oh, I do not laugh at you,” Isbael said. “But see this, Rider.”
She rose and opened a small cabinet. It held rows of periapts: bears and wolves, sleek creatures from the far North Sea, the slender shapes of hawks and the round ones of tundra mice. Behind them, Raven and Snow Wolf loomed. Isbael picked out one of the largest, a fat bear rearing, its forearms folded against the barrel chest. Its face had no detail beyond the blunt snout but it seemed nonetheless to be laughing.
“I enjoy them,” Isbael said. “Such beautiful objects, to come from such a brutish people.”
“Are they?” Kieve murmured. “Brutes, I mean? Could brutes create these?”
“Of course,” Esylk said. “They simply copy old forms, there is no thought to these. Old forms, old superstitions. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a Cheran taught them this, originally.”
Kieve pressed her lips together.
“Who is this, Rider?” Isbael said, holding the figure out to her.
“Bear, uncertain,” Kieve said. Isbael looked at her, head tilted. “Bear has two aspects and three forms,” Kieve continued. “Crouched, Bear hunts and must be appeased or avoided. Bear as Death. Lying still, Bear gives suck and in that aspect Bear nurtures and can be appealed to for bounty and protection. Rearing, Bear has yet to make up its mind. It is most dangerous then, for you cannot tell whether to appease or appeal, and can only wait.”
“Bear, uncertain,” Isbael repeated. “I collect them. I find them beautiful.”
“As indeed they are,” Esylk said. “In part because of their material.”
“Ivory,” Kieve said. “The bones of leviathans and the tusks of the valros.”
“Beautiful and durable materials, which can be used for buttons and boxes and inlay work, jewelry and torques and even periapts and icons. And springs, lady. The material has great strength.” Esylk picked up the owl. “This is but one of a number of riches the north lands hold for us, if we have the courage to explore them and take what we find.” She tapped her fingers against her chair arm. “Ivory, yes, and of course furs, which are difficult to come by in Cherek. Trappers are good at fur-taking, say of them what you will, but the furs come dear. I see no reason why we could not step in to that trade and take it for ourselves. My people have reported gems to be mined in the outlands. I would like to explore that before the rumor becomes reality for some other province.”
“Gems,” Isbael repeated.
“The outlands are a treasure box, Isbael, waiting for the hand bold enough, and strong enough, to reach in and take these riches—furs and ivory and gems. Warmth and strength and beauty. And as for the ivory—” She pulled a pin from her hair and held it out. It was slender and intricately carved into the shapes of sleek sea-creatures. “These items lack a market now because they are difficult to come by and insufficiently known, but let them become popular, let their benefits be seen, and they will be worth a fortune. And will make a fortune for the province that controls them.”
“And trains its people to fashion them,” Isbael said. “Who will train them? Who in Cherek knows how to work these materials?”
“No one in Cherek,” Esylk said. She and Isbael looked at each other evenly.
“And so we come to your treaty with the Trappers,” Isbael Marubin said. “Who will then come ravening into my province to teach my peasants how to make springs and buttons?”
Esylk, still smiling, shook her head. “You mistake me, Lady. I only explore options, as I hope the Rider will agree to explore them, in the outlands, in my behalf.”
Kieve looked at her. “Explore?”
“I believe you are interested in that? I could pay you well.”
“Lady, my guild—”
“Apart from your guild, if need be,” Esylk said. “I have discussed this matter with your guildmaster, who is unwilling to second you. It leaves me with little choice.”
“Apart from the guild,” Kieve repeated. It was unthinkable, that she or anyone would leave a guild.
The door opened. All three turned to look as Taryn came in and bowed.
“My ladies. Rider. I trust I am not interrupting.”
“Not at all,” Isbael said. “The Lord of Myned was promising me a future in ivory buttons and the Rider was, I trust, going to agree to direct the enterprise. If not in the outlands, then perhaps here in Dalmorat itself.”
“Begging your pardon, Lady, but I think not,” Kieve said. “When your father dies I ride his death to Koerstadt, and nothing this side of the Mountain will return me to Dalmorat Province.”
“Indeed.” Isbael’s eyebrows rose. She looked, at times, like her father made younger, but no softer. “Have you broken this news to my cousin Drysi?”
Kieve frowned. “Do I need to? She called me once to come speak to her, and it seems that every tongue on Sterk has wagged o
f little else since.”
“Oh, not entirely,” Isbael said. “There has been great entertainment at the sight of the Rider in pursuit of her misplaced asset.”
“My lady,” Taryn said.
“Am I mistaken?” She turned an innocent gaze from her steward to the Rider. “We thought it plain that you were shopping the boy through the castle and much upset at the idea that he may have slipped your grasp. But no, I see that this is not the case, and I do apologize. Rest assured that the rumor ends with me.” She smiled.
Esylk’s hands were tight on her chair. Taryn, behind Isbael’s chair, looked at Kieve and shook his head, his expression almost pleading. Kieve drew in her breath and when she let it out she had pushed the anger deep inside.
“My lady Isbael,” she said, rising. “My lord of Myned. I thank you for the posset, the company, and the conversation, but I have obligations. With your permission, then...”
“Of course. Go.” Isbael waved her off.
“Kieve,” Esylk said.
Kieve shook her head and bowed. As she passed Taryn she paused.
“I would speak to you,” she said, and waited for him in the guest hall, a few paces beyond the door. He joined her.
“Kieve, I’m sorry. She didn’t know—”
“Hovath’s Compendium. Do you still want it?”
He blinked at her. “Pardon?”
“Do you still want it? I am willing to sell it. Today. Do you want to buy it or not?”
“I, well, yes, of course, it’s—”
“Forty capits.”
“Forty! That’s a fortune.”
“Thirty-five. Do you want it?”
“Kieve, Mother above, will you be still!”
She folded her arms and stared at him. He ran a hand through his ginger hair, disarranging it.
“I also wish to sell the crystal bowl, and my porcelain. If you are not interested I would be grateful to know who might be. I need to sell them now.”
He cursed. “Is this because of Isbael?”
“No. The thirty-five is for the Compendium only.”
“It’s not worth it,” he said. “Not even for friendship’s sake. Don’t be a fool, Kieve. Stop. Wait a moment.”
“I don’t have a moment,” she said. “I won’t sell for less than thirty.”
“Damn it! Twenty, not a stiver more.”
“That’s not good enough. Twenty-eight.”
“Be damned! Twenty-two!”
“Done. I’ll have my servant deliver it and receive the money.” She stalked around him.
“Stop it!” he said with fury. “What are you doing?”
“Using my assets,” she said, and left the room.
The wind had found its way into the corridor. It muttered down the stones and pulled at the flags along the walls. Kieve stalked down the passageway, slamming mental doors and counting paces. Her throat felt tight and hot.
Twenty-two and nine and two left her seven and a half still to make up. She could sell the porcelain bowl, the glass sculpture, perhaps the crystal lamp. To be sold to—who? Who else on Sterk cared about such things?
Cairun. Of course.
He wasn’t difficult to find. A servant met on the stairs told her that he lodged in the clutter of rooms behind and above Hueil’s Garden. When she crossed the bridge above the Garden, freezing rain slanted in through the arched windows. The stones underfoot were slick with ice. She pulled her hood closed, leaving only a slit for her eyes, and tried not to think about Bredda and Pyrs. In the intense cold her injured eye wept a little.
A sharp right-hand turn, another twisting flight of stairs, another corridor. The wind whined around her. These torches were encased in glass but someone had already doused them. In the weak light Cairun’s banner, blue and ivory, lay above a door. She rapped on the wood with her belt knife hilt and put the knife back. Her fingers didn’t want to release it.
To her surprise, he opened the door himself.
“Rider! Great Father, come in, it’s vicious out there. Come. Are you all right?”
He took both her hands and pulled her into a crooked hallway, and opened her hand to release the knife.
“The boy is all right?”
She discovered that she couldn’t talk. He brought her into a small room and sat her on a wide chair before a fire. He laid the belt knife on a table beside her.
“I have some people here, give me a moment to send them away,” he said. “Can you wait? Will you be all right? A moment, only.”
She hunched within the cloak. He went out, closing the door on her. She took a deep breath and let the air out again, slowly, until her throat unclenched a little. The room was warm and bright near the fire. On the small table by the chair her knife lay beside a book marked in place with a long white ribbon. Hangings against the wall kept in the warmth, but she could not see their designs in the dimness. Her eyes ached. She shut them against the light of the fire and tried to think of nothing at all.
He seemed to return between one breath and the next, and pressed a cup into her hands. It held cold water, which shocked her mouth a little.
“He’s gone,” she said. “He is away from here, and safe. I hope. My asset.”
“Idiots. Bored idiots. And you are frozen. Give me your hands.”
He sat beside her, peeled off both sets of her gloves, and rubbed her hands between his. She looked at his hands busy over her own, at his long fingers.
“I need some money.”
His hands paused. “From Gadyn?”
“No!” She pulled her hands back but he caught them and laughed a little.
“You frightened me,” he said, turning her palms up. “No, you don’t need anything from Gadyn.”
“I have some porcelain and crystal, I think you must have seen them in my rooms. I need to sell them. Will you buy?”
“I don’t need your porcelain—”
“I don’t want a loan, or a gift,” she said to his busy hands. “I need the money, but I need it honorably.”
He smiled. “Honor? In Dalmorat?”
She looked into his rich brown eyes. The smile disappeared.
“Rider. I will be pleased to buy your porcelain, and anything else you wish to sell.”
“Eight capits?”
“Eight. Is it enough?”
“Yes,” she said, and took a deep breath. “Yes. Thank you. Yes. I will send them.” She picked up her gloves and rose to walk toward the door.
He rose with her and hesitated before saying, “One thing more, Rider.”
“My lord?”
She turned to him and he put his hand along her cheek and leaned to kiss her. She closed her eyes, feeling the softness and the tension of his mouth, the presence of his hand along her face. For a moment the world seemed suspended, then words and noise and apprehension poured from her as if from a tilted cup, replaced by sensation only. He turned his face and her lips, parted, passed over his smooth, hard cheek. His mouth touched her ear and he breathed in, and she began to breathe too.
“Kieve,” he whispered.
She heard the word over the slamming in her chest. She turned her face against his to find his mouth again. He drew a ragged breath before their lips met. She put her hands on his shoulders and pressed them down the length of his body until her hands curved around his hips, and she pulled him tight against her. His hands cupped her head, opening her braid.
She raised her hands to his tunic and he tugged a little at her cloak until he found the clasp and opened it and the cloak fell around their feet. They pulled at each other’s clothing, awkwardly, until they had bared enough skin to press together again. The touch shocked them and for a moment they were motionless. She felt him press against her belly. She kicked her breeches aside. He murmured and moved his hips to open her legs. She was ready for him and lifted one leg to wrap around him. She held his waist and spread her hands along his buttocks, pressing him into her. They paused there for a moment, at the long border between desire and desire
’s end, before the rhythm took them.
When it was over they lay together in the tangle of her cloak and their clothes, still joined. He put his face into the hollow of her neck.
“I—I am sorry—a sheath, I should have stopped to—”
“Hush. I have herbs. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” he said. “I should not be careless.” He cupped her cheek in his palm and kissed her and moved a little inside her, as though asking a question. She held him more closely and rocked her hips, caressing him. He thickened.
“There is my bed,” he said. She turned her head to look across the room to his narrow abstemious bed, and wanted to laugh.
“You are reading Calton’s treatise on cosmology,” she said. “And you sleep on a shelf. You are not as advertised, Lord Cairun.”
“No? No, I suppose not.” He propped himself up on his elbow. “Nor, I think, are you.”
She shook her head against the fur of the cloak. “I don’t want to talk about it. There will be time later, when it will all come shouting back at us.”
“We can run away from it,” he said. “We can run away to Koerstadt.”
“Perhaps.” She rocked her hips again. “But for now, let us run away to this.”
Chapter 7
They had between them made a mare’s nest in Cairun’s bedroom, pulling cushions and padding from his bed and spreading them out before the fire. Kieve tented over that with blankets and they covered the cushions, and themselves, with the warm black fur of her cloak. When she opened her eyes it was to the blackness within the cloak, then she turned her head to the dim red glow of embers in the fireplace. The air was sharp against her cheeks. Cairun slept with his face pressed against her shoulder. She moved her arm.
“Don’t,” he mumbled.
“I must,” she said. “It is near dawn.”
His hand responded, moving along her body from breast to hip.
“Stop,” she said. “We will wear ourselves to bruises. Let me up, my lord, while I still have skin left at all.” She pushed him over and eeled out of the piled bedding. The room’s cold made her gasp. She pulled at her cloak but he had rolled himself up in it, so she wrapped herself in his cloak while she found kindling and blew the fire to life. A clutter of boots and spoons and clothing lay piled against the door, where they had thrown them first to drive the servants away and later as a game, to see who was best at getting this into that while doing thus. She smiled, looking at them, and reached for her clothes.
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