by S G Dunster
The Rising Scythe
The Dumenon Chronicles Book 1
S.G. Dunster
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Afterword
Also by S.G. Dunster
About the Author
Thessalyart Productions novel
Published by Amazon KDP
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination.
Text Copyright © 2019 Sarah Dunster
Cover and internal art © 2019 L.K. Blackham
Created with Vellum
To Jeffrey, Emma, Winna, Meaza, Ruth, Sam, Hazel, Daniel, David, and Fern, who have taught me that power is not to be avoided but instead, wielded kindly. To mothers, fathers, healers, prophets, seers, priests, priestesses, friends and disciples: may your vessel remain strong and unbroken. To my group of loud, joyful, mature, generous, talented girlfriends: you give me the persistence of the wind, the flexibility of the water, the passion of the fire, the calm of the earth, and the perspective of the falcon.
1
“He saw ye up in the crow’s nest,” a voice rumbled, startling her out of her reverie. “Ye didn’t climb down fast enough.”
Thessaly turned and sighed. “I was trying to see land. And no surprise he saw me. What doesn’t he see? You’d think he’d learned to use an inner sight just as I have.”
Bellccior, boatswain in charge of all the small shipmen, grinned at her. He’d lost three teeth on this last spice run—not enough limes this time to ward off the bone-sickness that came with too much time away from shore. “When it comes to the wench of his loins,” he lisped, “Your Da’s inner-sight couldn’t be bested by any bruha.”
“Is that what I’m called now?” Thessaly said it lightly, but the twist sharpened. It was rather unfortunate that just then, Nur wheeled in, a span of wings long as a person, and lighted on her shoulder, staring at him with a disturbingly human-like gaze.
Bellccior only laughed and reached out with one huge, scarred hand to swat at Thessaly’s cheek. He grabbed the bird with the other, digging into its back with thick fingers. Nur protested but took the abuse just as Thessaly did. “Change into finer feathers, sweet one,” he said. “And your father’ll likely be softer on you. Maybe your skin’ll sport red stripes for a day this time, not a week?” He walked away guffawing, and Thessaly shrugged, her temper spiking.
He was teasing, her uncle. All these men in the fleet; uncles, cousins. Men with a right to swat her around a bit. But his words hit too close to the heart of the issue.
Land, she thought as she ran up the wooden staircase toward quarters. And my father. He’d bind me with alliances and sell me as he would a sack of civet, to make himself a better and surer fortune. Antonio is Antonio, and always will be a father who sees his daughter as a pretty object, not a wise woman, even with sisters who are. Even with his sisters. Even though he, of all men, should know better.
The fire of her anger rose up in her suddenly, flaring hot to touch her skin with flushes of the blood it pushed in its wake. She brought a tendril of cool wind out of the sail above her and touched it to her cheek to cool it. Careful, she told herself. You’re still on a wooden ship.
If anything would bind her, it was not the flesh and fire magicks, it was her father, Antonio de Vasco. Son of the great explorer Dom Vasco, who won the spice wars for King Manuel. He was a merchant extraordinaire, richer than any Dom in Portugal. But not, as yet, a member of any royal court. And this was something that ate at him.
She entered her small stateroom. Red brocade curtains, red brocade coverlet, goose-down mattress and pillows, rearing mahogany posts. Her father was determined she’d be a princess. Feathers, Thessaly thought, shutting the door behind her, stroking her forefinger along Nur’s crown. Peacocks and falcons alike have them and look beautiful in them. But Falcons make better use of them.
Cerdic sat at the small table by the round window. He had his quill, ink, blotter, and sheaf of papyrus, along with a book open on the flat surface in front of him. He gave her a small smile and gestured for her to join him.
Guzal, too, was in the room. She sat sedately by the bed, mending one of Thessaly’s linen shifts. Thessaly knew the girl well; whenever Thessaly was on ship, Guzal was given care of her.
Guzal was an odd creature. Exotic, and capable of a great many skills. She sewed well enough that Thessaly never hired a seamstress even when clothes had to be made, and often other ladies in Goa had asked for Guzal to make up something at the same time she made Thessaly’s things.
Guzal traveled with the crew. She was a companion to the men on the ship, in a way Thessaly knew about but did not ask about. Antonio was a godly man, and when it came to Thessaly’s virtue, as unbendable as iron. But the sea was wide, and his men spent most of the months of the year on journey. And he was a wise businessman. Even though most of the crew were his relations, he knew it would be hard to keep men aboard a ship with no women.
And Guzal herself seemed, to Thessaly, an odd conflict. She was in demeanor and dress very conservative and demure. She was lovely to look at, of course—a Tatar with the requisite tip-tilted blue eyes and thick, caramel hair, high cheekbones and heart-shaped face. And she was religious, though not of the religion Thessaly’s father so fiercely practiced. She was, Antonio had declared when he bought her from the Sforza court, “no catholic,” and the way he said it made Thessaly think he was using it as an excuse. Why he could make her of use to his men—she was headed to the fiery pit anyway.
She had crosses, and a Bible. Thessaly did not know how that was different. She, herself, had not had much of religion or the catechism; she knew mostly fire and breath, flesh and blood. That was her religion.
And Guzal, sitting on her bed, her thick, golden braid down her back and glittering square-shaped cap on her head, was a lovely picture. She was always calm, always had something of a smile hidden in her face when she was not smiling outright. That made Thessaly hope she didn’t mind her life—both as Thessaly’s servant and as a favor dispensed to the men of the Espada fleet. But it could be the smile was part of her art, a way to set men’s consciences at ease and make them feel wanted, and a way to make Thessaly feel comfortable. Women had that art in the Sforza court. And most of all, women in Guzal’s position.
Thessaly tried again, watching Guzal, threading just a little bit of the spirits of the air—the force that moved around the ship, trapped in the sails and the wisp of it even now that flowed through the cabin....
She found the wisp, and gently directed it to Guzal.
As always, the feelings that came to her were not consistent... just flashes of emotion, a word here or there that sometimes she could make out. It would be different when she chose. Then, the visions would flow free and clear, and more so as she learned to see them.
Guzal glanced up at Thessaly, and chuckled. “Trying to wytch me again, then?” She set the shift she’d been stitching lace on aside, and went to Thessaly, adjusting her overdress and putting a hand up to her hair, then blowing breath out her mouth and shaking her head, her almond eyes tipping up at the corners. “I
t’s hopeless aboard ship. Especially when you refuse to plait back your hair or use the multitude of jeweled snoods you've at your disposal. We’ll have half-a-day's brushing once we’re in port, though.”
Cerdic looked up from his book. “And while she’s doing her brushing, you may go over your catechism.”
Thessaly flinched a little. “A joy, Cerdic. Thank you.”
“I’m funning,” he said. “You’ll have catechism aplenty when you go to your lady’s education. Here, it is time for some reading, though.”
Thessaly sat down next to him with an audible grunt.
“A true ogre’s grimace, your face carries,” he said, giving a laugh. He slapped the book in front of her and pointed. “Read, then, wench. Read away all the grave tidings and dark missives. You look as though you’re headed to gaol, not your sweet aunt’s garden.”
“I’m headed to a garden of more poisonous plants than lavender and mallows,” Thessaly replied, and turned her eyes to the page. English today, it was.
“A pretty speech and rendered quite like the poet. Now speak it in King Henry’s tongue.”
“I’m not sure you’d want such words as that fouling the small air of this cabin,” Thessaly replied, though obediently, in English this time.
Cerdic merely smiled. “It sounds to me as if you’ve got the language of any court at your tongue’s tip. Now, read. No more dark looks. And you, maiden,” he said, giving Nur the eye, “go and perch somewhere less distracting.” He took a piece of salted cod from his pocket and offered it to the bird.
Nur dug her claws into Thessaly’s shoulder, making her hiss, and turned her head away. “She had a nice meal of hot-blooded sparrow,” Thessaly said in Portuguese. “No salted death is going to tempt her right now.”
“In English,” Cerdic snapped. Thessaly repeated the phrase in English, then shook her shoulder so Nur took off for her perch in the corner, glowering down at them all in dissatisfaction.
Thessaly read, King Arturus and his knights taking over her thoughts. English came easily to her now. It was her tutor’s first language. Or second, if the art of the long-bow could be counted, which he’d begun before he could form words. Thessaly had learned both bowing and the language of the Britains from him, and also a small amount of Latin and a little Greek. With the Portuguese that was her first language, and the Italian she had learned as an older girl in the court of the Sforzas, Thessaly had three languages at her disposal and a limited use of two more.
None were the language her father most wanted her to learn.
Thessaly bent over the page, lost in the story of a great king and his loyal knights. It was pleasant, simple. Wars between usurpers, where winning was a matter of blood and steel. Where was her battle going to end? In the arms of a poxed man with gold rather than manhood bulging his braies? A house with stone walls, and food brought to her on a tray? A bed, where she gave her duty, then expelled children, she thought idly as the light began to wane and the great blot of land took over the view from her window. Mornings spent in a dark chapel, afternoons spent at a great table, and only a few decorous words allowed to her between times.
Her mind was wandering again. At the end of a passage she looked up and saw Guzal was dozing, her mending folded neatly and set on the foot of the bed. Cerdic was sitting back against the wall with the window, a book in his hand—Petrarch. Philosophy, humanism.
Thessaly studied the gilding on the spine, the soft leather with its pressed lettering, and her mouth grew wet. That’s what she wanted. Philosophy. To be a great healer like Margarida, not a courtesan like Umbra. To be a teacher, a healer. She could make things whole with bound magicks. She could see what needed healing with loose magicks. And with books like Petrarch, she could know the world down to its seeds, and people down to their deepest lights.
Cerdic looked up, his eyebrows rising, and glanced at the dozing Guzal. Quietly, he passed her the book. Gratefully she took it, placing it amidst the pages of King Arthur, and as the light grew dimmer, was so absorbed she did not even notice the candle Cerdic lit and placed on the table beside her so she could continue to read.
“Terra!” The call came out, ripping Thessaly from a passage about sun setting, stars and sky.
Cerdic stirred suddenly from the doze he’d fallen into. He held his hand out for the book, and Thessaly reluctantly gave it over just as a purposeful rap sounded on the door, and then without a pause, the door opened and her father, Antonio de Vasco, stepped in.
For all his love of refinement in his daughter, Thessaly’s father had the look of his trade. Unfashionably long hair hung over his shoulders and down his back in matted strands. His beard touched his collarbone. A complexion like olive-wood, and eyes gleaming dark in his face like ink—dragonlike in their long shape—betrayed his mixed nationality. These eyes traced coolly over the room and lifted at the corners as he gazed at his daughter. “Lovely,” he said. “And it’s time for you to lace yourself into something lovelier than you are wearing. Also, brush the top-castle wind from your hair.” His fearsome brows drew together, and he fixed her with a penetrating glare.
“I wanted to see,” Thessaly said simply, crossing her arms at her waist, glowering back at him.
“See or See?”
Thessaly didn’t break countenance. She kept his gaze held in hers. Both were calm on the outside but really waiting to see whose temper would break the surface first.
Antonio sighed, leaning back against the door. “I may be doomed to share blood with wytches,” he said. “But I’ll be flayed if I allow my own daughter to run like a wild beast over the land. Dress.” He pointed at her. It was more of a jab—sharp, like the sword slung at his hip. “And be ready. We dine tonight at Manuel’s court.”
“Joao,” Thessaly corrected him. Manuel, who had been Thessaly’s father’s greatest sponsor, had died two years before, and his son now reigned. Antonio, so often at sea, sometimes forgot who was holding court on land.
His brow wrinkled, and a touch of concern crept into his face. “Of course. Joao. My dear cousin.” He put a hand to his chest, and the ruby he wore, dull and red in the shadows, gleamed as he stepped into the lantern-light. “You must impress him. Joao is a new element. We must win him.”
“Yes, papa,” Thessaly said when he paused, waiting for her answer.
“It is your duty, daughter, to show how much refinement the Vasco blood carries. Spices alone won’t carry us. Though they taste well on the tongue, it’s the pale,” his gaze flicked unappreciatively over Thessaly’s sun-toasted face and arms, “the lovely, the graceful, we need to display tonight.”
“Milk-sops are pale,” Thessaly snapped.
“Ladies love a good milk-sop,” her father pressed. “They used to love blood and fire. But nowadays,” he shrugged, and gave Guzal a rakish look. “It’s good I’ve no need for marriage myself. Ladies today do not like adventure. They prefer sitting still.”
“Because they drink themselves stupid on wine to forget the cage they dwell in,” Thessaly muttered.
Antonio’s temper was rising. His lips drew tight and his eyes flashed.
“Are we stopping at Margarida’s first?” Thessaly asked, heading him off. She preferred to be able to sit that night without wincing.
“We shall visit her after the cargo is safely unloaded,” her father responded. “We’ve a large load of spices. It’ll be two days unloading at least. Guzal, get her into a proper state. Shift, the gold silk underdress, the overgown of velvet black, and the slashed velvet sleeves with the cloth-of-gold. Bind her breasts tightly; they have bloomed more than is fashionable.”
Thessaly glared at him. He glared back, turned, and slammed the door behind him.
Guzal stretched and gave Thessaly a lively grin, her honey-colored, almond-shaped eyes gleaming in her pale face.
“This is a treat for you,” Thessaly grumbled.
“It’s not often we get to wear finery,” Guzal replied.
“We?” Thessaly asked.
“I’ll be taking my leave, then.” Cerdic bent, kissed Thessaly’s cheek, and gave her shoulder a pat before he left.
They all think this is what’s best, Thessaly thought darkly. Even my teacher who lets me read philosophy books aims to put me in a cage.
She glanced up at Nur, whose flashing eyes seemed to reflect Thessaly’s frustration. “Qad yuhariqun jamieana,” Thessaly said, employing the only curse she knew in Berber. The merchant who’d sold Nur to Thessaly told her that the bird spoke that language only, and so Thessaly had taken care to learn a few words. Nobody, not even Cerdic, knew what she was saying when she spoke them.
“And there,” Guzal said a while later, tightening the flattener over Thessaly’s chest, smooshing her breasts flat so they throbbed. “A proper figure you have. Your waist needs no help. Likely your father could span it with his hands.”
“Aye,” Thessaly said tiredly. “On with the silks and velvets, then.”
Guzal studied the billowy soft white cotton of Thessaly’s shift flowing down from the tight corset, so soft and light it drifted in the air. The bolts of cotton were bought in Alexandria just for Thessaly’s underclothes—luxury to the skin, her father insisted. Guzal had gasped when she felt the fabric in her hands for the first time. Softer than a cloud, she’d declared.
