Steelflower in Snow

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “Gavridar,” I replied, just as stiffly. But I took care to make my inflection as respectful as possible. “If you wish to slap me, very well, I shall stay still for it.” It was, I told myself, only fair. If I could say there was no satisfaction in striking her, I would not have offered.

  She shook her head. Her ear-drops, fine silver and dark-red stones, swung. She and Emrath Needleslay could decorate themselves thus; there was no risk of the gems being torn from her head during battle. “Perhaps later. Your s’tarei fears your temper.”

  “So he sent you to sweeten it?” It stung me, briefly. Then again, D’ri had reason to be wary. I could not be the adai he wanted, the twin all s’tarei were raised to expect, and that disappointment was all the more deep, I suspected, because he would not give it voice. I wondered if I should speak to her in tradetongue, simply to drive my point home.

  “That seems to be my task.” Her mantle sleeves, deep-folded and prettily shaped, fell at exactly the right angle on either side. Faint light striped her face from the casement’s gaps. “I hold little belief it can be done.”

  You would not be the first to despair of such a thing. I sought levity, and tried a crooked, cheek-sore smile. “Then you are wise for your age.”

  Her somberness did not crack. She regarded me with large, liquid, beautiful eyes. “And you foolish for yours. The witching-gem is dangerous. My s’tarei and yours are in accord: it would be best to leave this place.”

  “You should have thought to flee before the walls of this very keep were sieged, then.” My own eyes were too light, a golden gaze that had earned me trouble along the Rim. It was merely another flaw, one of the many. “I know Gavrin has no sense, and Diyan even less, but you, Yada’Adais.” The honorific did not choke me; she had earned it with her patience. I knew I was not the best of students, but I could call flame now and keep the borders of my mind inviolate. “You were to keep them in Antai for the winter, where I would not have to worry. Now how am I to bring you all through this mess?” I used the word for a tangle of bramble that could be avoided if one had simply looked ahead, each syllable accented high and sharp.

  “The little one took fright, and hied himself off after you alone.” Janaire’s shoulders went back and her chin came up. She did not look conscious of having the lower ground in this particular battle. She did not even look cold, but perhaps her grasp of the warming breath was greater than mine. “Gavrin did not wish to come, nor did I wish him to, but he was the one who had…oh, it is useless explaining to you. You will not listen.”

  I could have pointed out that I would listen, I simply did not care what excuse was offered. She, of all of them, should have had the sense to stay in safety, and Atyarik would do so at her bidding. A fully trained adai and s’tarei could have kept a wayward lutebanger and a Vulfentown wharf-rat inside the city, I was certain of that much. “And you did not drag Diyan back to Antai? Why not?”

  “Well, we had already started. And I…I feared you would meet some mishap, and that surely it were better for us to face it together than apart.” Her chin set stubbornly, I almost felt it in my own body, like a s’tarei’s pain. “It is impolite for you to treat those who wish to aid you so harshly.”

  My patience slipped a fraction. “If aid was what you could offer, I would not! A child, a lutebanger, a half-grown G’mai girl and a s’tarei unconcerned with anything but keeping her skin whole—what would aid me would be a full division of regulars, or even a cadre of experienced thieves.” And, while I am dreaming, a few assassins and a Pesh fire-slinger or two might not be amiss. My hands were fists, and my frustration trembled at the edge of my grasp. “How am I to protect you all, if you will not stay where I place you?” And now, how I would keep my little troupe whole when—not if, I was beginning to think, but when—the Keep fell?

  “Where you place us, Anjalismir?” She almost blanched, and there were shadows under her pretty eyes. The mark on her cheek had faded completely, but battle-shock and a strike to bring you forth from its clutches are neither restful nor pleasant. “Like toys.”

  “Like those I care for!” I bellowed like a Shainakh serjeant taking new recruits to task, like one Antai fishmonger fighting another for stall space, like a drunken sellsword.

  It did not seem to affect her. She merely turned thoughtful, staring up at me. Her hands fell loosely to her sides, no longer laced before her belly. “Ah. I see.”

  No. You do not. “I cannot bear the thought of harm coming to you.” Each word was a knife, and I flung them at her. “I undertook to protect you all, but now there is an entire army at the walls, and you are no help, Gavridar Janaire. Would that I had sent you back to G’maihallan.” The urge to shout again rasped at my throat, and every muscle on me knotted itself. There was no battle here, I reminded myself. But dear gods, I longed to strike something, anything, to relieve this awful pressure.

  “Oh, aye. Would that you had, princess.” The term for an Heir’s adai was just as sharply accented as my own speech. Janaire half-turned, presenting me with her perfect profile. “But we are here now, and if you do not wish our aid, perhaps there are others who do.” With that, she sailed away down the stairs, a graceful ghost whispering over rude-carved Skaialan stone, and I considered driving my fist into the stone wall.

  I did not, but only because it was too cold. And because soon, very soon, I—and both fists—would be needed elsewhere.

  Before a Night Patrol

  Winter in the Highlands means night comes swift, early, and cold. Darkness drops from an iron-grey sky like a hen brooding over eggfruit, and with it and snow comes the sky-breathing they call faure-gauithhe or, if they are irreligious, Kroth’s wind. The latter term holds a play upon their term for a certain bodily function, much as the phrase for dropping a lamp into an ill-ventilated privy does in Shainakh. Some of the truly foul-mouthed among them have another term, centering on a certain female cavity of their goddess of childbirth and illness, and I heard the latter more than once during the siege of Kalburn Keep. On that first night, though, in the kitchens, there was no bellowing, no boasting, and no servants scrubbing. Emrath Needleslay lifted her skirts free of the floor-rushes and watched while I prepared myself for a night patrol.

  How far was I from the Danhai plains? I could count the horse-steps during a day’s travel like the barbarians there did. I could even, did I have the head for it, count the Shainak ells or the Hain li, or the Freetown milus or the Pesh granik, all different divisions of how far one could travel in a quarter-candlemark on their respective roads. Except a Shainakh ell was a measure of grain-ground too, and there was also the Freetown banus, how far a ratbird could fly in a tenth of a candlemark.

  The Needleslay’s nose wrinkled at some of the preparations. “I cannae promise ye any help.”

  At least there was no shortage of cooking-fat yet, or soot. “Good,” I said, smearing a dollop of rancid grease across my cheeks, then rubbing fat-mixed chimney-crumb over it. There was not even the prospect of a bath afterward to cleanse myself, just the oil and the skauna. When I returned to civilization—if I did—I would drown myself in baths thrice daily for a week. It was a pleasant thought. “Anyone your size would merely get in the way.” I glanced at D’ri, changing to G’mai. “Darik, are you certain you wish to—”

  “Why must you ask?” Darik, grim-faced, spread the foul mixture on his own cheekbones. It made him look fierce, bringing out the fey glitter in his dark gaze and accenting the planes of his Dragaemir-strong face. “Atyarik wished to come night-hunting as well.”

  Now that was an uncomfortable prospect. “Unless he’s forgiven me for striking Janaire, I think it unwise.”

  “He was…unhappy.” It was all D’ri would say of the matter. Twin dotani hilts over his shoulders, a bow with its string treated for the cold, a quiver of black-fletched arrows—he was skilled at coney-hunting, my s’tarei. Tonight there would be different prey. “But he had to admit it worked.”

  A laugh caught at my throat—the sharp
, half-swallowed chuckle I’d heard too many times before on the Plains before a battle or ambush. I had thought to leave the mud, and the blood, and the tribes behind. How many of the irregulars I served with were still alive?

  Were the plains pursuing them, too? What would Ammerdahl Rikyat say of this?

  Probably just the usual. Tie down the jangles, blacken your blades, and let us be done with it. His voice drifted in memory-halls, a thin cricket-whisper.

  My left hand jumped, made an avert sign. Ill-luck, to hear the dead before a night patrol.

  “Ye do not have enough arrows.” Emrath’s knuckles whitened. Not as calm as she liked to appear, the Lady of Kalburn nevertheless stayed to watch our preparations. Very likely she imagined we would be dead before sunrise, and wished our shades not to return crying of ill-treatment by our hostess.

  “We do not need many tonight.” I examined the blacking upon my largest knife. The Moon was in her waning half, there would be little but torchlight to wring a betraying gleam from metal or eye-white. “Only enough to frighten.”

  “I would speak with thee.” The lady of Kalburn cast a nervous glance at Darik. “Alone.”

  Now is not the time. I shrugged. Perhaps she wished to bless me before battle. “Whatever you have to say to me, my s’tarei may hear.” I glanced at D’ri, but his head was down as he ran his fingers over the arrows, brushing the fletching and making certain he knew where each individual, heavy-headed or fine, had settled.

  Emrath glanced at him too, but forged onward. “It concerns Rainak.” Another nervous look, this time at me; her blue-stone ear-drops swayed. A fine dewing on her forehead—well, she had every right to be nervous. Her city was under siege and her husband was a ravening sorcerer with a witched Pensari gem.

  “Does it?” I slid the knife into its home, careful not to disturb the blacking. “How long have you been working against Dunkast?” It was an easy guess. Oh, Corran Ninefinger had only been a stalking-goat for the Ferulaine; the evidence for Emrath’s plans lay elsewhere, in Dunkast sending men to watch Karnagh’s inns and Kalburn’s trade-routes, and the Black Brother entering her Great Hall. None of her tain seemed surprised by Dunkast’s attack—certainly they thought him mad, and dangerous, but they were not taken completely unaware.

  She was a weaver, the lady of Kalburn, and that craft requires patience. And planning.

  “Since he destroyed his own adopted clan, put Rainak in chains, and forced marriage upon me.” Grey eyes, wary and worried in equal measure, met mine. She dropped her fine blue skirts and pushed her shoulders back, facing me as if we stood upon a dueling-ground. “Do ye love him?”

  What? I tried to replay the sentence inside my head, and found my Skaialan lacking. “What?”

  “Rainak. Do ye love him?” She cast yet another nervous glance at Darik, who stopped his own preparations, returning her gaze with no little astonishment.

  I thought perhaps I had misheard her Skaialan again. “Redfist is my friend,” I said, carefully. “What do you ask me, Emrath Needleslay?” It was strange to put a kin-name before a given-name, but everything in the Highlands was backward.

  “I ask if ye wish him for yerself, Lady Gemerh.” Brittle and formal, and now her sly looks at Darik made a mad manner of sense. Her hem draggled in dirty rushes and spent sweetstraw. “We were contracted, the Conniahgt Crae’s son and I. Then Dunkast made his own clan, and since then, all has been for naught.”

  “Kaia?” Darik, perplexed, paused in the act of slinging his quiver. “What does she ask you?”

  “I…” For a moment, none of the languages I knew seemed fit to suffice. “I think…oh.” I chose Skaialan, and hoped I could make myself understood. “I have no marriage-interest in Redfist, Lady Needleslay.” I pointed at D’ri, whose bafflement now deepened. “That, as you Skaialan term it, is my husband.”

  “Do yer kind take more than one?” She smoothed her skirts, a quick, habitual, soothing motion. Perhaps that is how a woman who wears such things readies herself for battle. “I do not know much of the Blest.”

  I struggled with the urge to laugh. I could explain that the Hain contract group marriages, and so do many in the Freetowns among the merchant clans; Pesh men take several wives or concubines if they can afford them, and two or three shield-husbands if their god moves them to that affection. In Antai there are trade-marriages and adoptions to strengthen the great merchant houses, and in Shainakh a woman might marry her husband’s brother to get heirs if said husband proves impotent…but I did not think now the time for a discussion of the many forms cohabitation or affection might take. Even among the G’mai there are terms for affection between two s’tarei, or two adai who wish to share more than polite regard or even deep friendship.

  Love should never be wasted.

  “D’ri is my s’tarei,” I said, firmly. “There is, and will only ever be, only one. Redfist is my friend. I hold no, er, wish for him to be as a Skaialan marries.” Clumsy, but what I knew of their language was not meant for this manner of discussion.

  “I have seen the way he looks at ye.” Emrath, unsatisfied, leaned forward, and were she a sellsword I would think her close to drawing a blade. “I have seen it.”

  What, did she think he wished to lie with me? The very idea was laughable, even if I would consent to let him there was still the matter of his bulk crushing any woman not his size. “He looks upon me as a strange pet that has a human tongue. If there is one he would take as twin—I mean, wife, Needleslay, I believe it is you.” It cost me nothing to say it, and I could even believe it true. After all, the first thing he had done was kiss her, and his feelings on her ‘marriage’ were obviously anything but calm.

  She nodded, her shoulders sinking. Her cheeks had reddened, perhaps with embarrassment.

  “What does she ask you?” Darik was interested, now, and wished an explanation in G’mai instead of tradetongue. At least he appeared just as baffled as I.

  “She asked me if Redfist was my s’tarei. Or if I wished him as such.” I could not help it, a short laugh boiled free. I sobered almost instantly, though—those who laugh too much before a night patrol will weep after. My hands moved of their own accord, stowing knives, making certain of no betraying clink or clank. I doubted we would be heard over the wind, but you could never tell when moving air would carry the sound of metal meeting upon its back far enough to make mischief.

  “Ah.” His brow knit. Darik bounced on his toes a few times, to make certain all his own gear was not likely to rattle and to test his quiver’s weight. “Well?”

  I halted, and regarded him across a great block of wooden table, now scattered with implements and dark cloth to wind around hilt, head, or wrists. “Well, what?”

  “Do you wish for him?” He resettled his quiver, ran his fingers over the fletchings again. There was no term in G’mai for such a thing, instead, he used the phrase for a child’s longing to have a toy. “I have wondered.”

  “Mother Moon, no.” My jaw threatened to drop to my chest. “He is a great red brainless lump, D’ri, and I have a s’tarei.” I stared at him, frankly astonished. “Why, in the name of every god, would you ask me this?”

  He shrugged, bouncing on his toes twice again, seeing how the straps settled. Satisfied, he dropped his weight into his heels, and finished tidying the table, his hands moving sure and graceful among the detritus of preparation. “I have wondered. I shall wait for you outside.”

  He finished, turned on his heel, and strode for the door with nary a sound. I stared at his weapons-laden back; Emrath Needleslay eyed me with a great deal of bright interest. “So he saw it too,” she remarked. “How did you not?”

  “There was nothing to see.” If we were dueling, I decided it was time to stop parrying and make a cut or two of my own. “You did not think Redfist would be able to call the Clans, did you.”

  “Oh, I did. Kroth love that big red bastard, I knew he was fine enough to strike the Anvil.” She rubbed at her eyes, delicately massaging the skin
. “We planned to rise against the Ferulaine in spring after the mud and planting had passed, and Ninefinger was to tell Rainak as much.”

  Ah. That answered more than one question, and made sense besides. “You should not have trusted him.”

  “He was part of Redfist’s tain.” Emrath glared at me, but there was little heat to it. “And what do ye know of who to trust in the Highlands, lady Gemerh?”

  Now she was formal. It was an unexpected relief. “Simple. I treat you all as if you mean to kill Redfist, or me.” I gave her my dueling-smile, wide, bright, and unsettling, driving her back a step as her hem brushed aside rushes and straw. “Go to bed, Needleslay, and sleep well. Tonight death will walk in your city, and take the Ferulaine’s men.”

  I left her in that under-kitchen, and perhaps I should not have been so dismissive. We were, after all, depending on her orders to let us back into the Keep after our night’s work.

  Below the Ridgeline

  The Skaialan sing of the Breaking of Kalburn, how the Needleslay’s faithful tain put up flaming barricades and made the bastard clans fight for each curve in the cobbled streets, each corner, each vantage point. They were quick and canny, the Needlelslay’s men, and supplemented by Jorak Blacknose and his fellows, for Highland bards have a witchery all their own. A true Skaialan bard may exhort men to fight with capacity beyond mere flesh, or sing a song that drags at their opponents, chaining limbs and muddying the will. Precious few things are proof against the wall of sound a Skaialan harper may raise from a throat trained in their old ways. I heard long after that the test for those who wish to be called bard is to swallow molten lead, and I more than halfway believe it.

  When night came, however, both sides retreated to what shelter they could find. The darkness was full of ice, and howling, and those sent on watch at the barricades or in high windows shiver and curse their luck, relieved every quarter-candlemark and carried inside half-frozen.