by Gayle Greeno
The arrogant rattling of the door set her off, screwed her anger a notch tighter. Had he always gotten his way as a child, a rich, spoiled, arrogant brat, heir of one of the richest and most respected merchanter houses of Canderis? And now a Seeker as well, and if truth matched even a fraction of the tales and boasts she’d heard and the few times she’d seen him on leave, a seeker of pleasures—women, wine, gaming. She’d passed him one night prowling when the pleasures at Myllard’s had proved too tame, strolling the streets suave and sleek and considering, sword cocked at his hip, alert for activity, eyes measuring the women he passed as Rawn padded beside him. She’d heard Jenret’s high, cultivated voice ordering the best wine, the most costly any inn had to offer, then his disdainful sniff when it did not meet his standards. This was the Seeker she was supposed to welcome with open arms as a partner on her quest?
Yet for all his flaws, his dissolute ways, he possessed a cutting intelligence that she could not deny. Worse, she could envision him at her side, a partnership of minds. What unnerved her, chilled her with a deep distrust was his erratic oscillation between pleasure and duty. Would he stay true to the task at hand. or tire of it as quickly as he did any other whim? Her ambivalence took her aback. No, not ambivalence, I have to measure the facts, think of the consequences.
She studied him and for a moment thought she had penetrated the mask, the careful shielding, to the pain within. So much hurt buried within the black-clad facade, need so like her own she tried to disbelieve her intuition. Something more lay buried there deep inside to help her, complement her strengths and weaknesses.
Her response surprised her, came unbidden to override her rational concerns and fears. “Come, then. It’s easier if no one has to eat the other’s dust.” His sudden smolder of hope and excitement, the quick damping down to hide the flame of need, caught her off guard. This search meant something to him, something he refused to publicly acknowledge. Sifting through the supplies Jenret had gathered, she shook her head, disapproving of a few choices, conferred in a quiet undertone and sent him to search for other necessities. Best to get him out of her sight before she changed her mind again.
“What about us? We want to go with you as well.” Harrap’s deep voice trembled, with emotion or fear, she wasn’t sure. Parm pressed tightly against his knee, radiating physical support as well as intimate mindspeech.
“No, Harrap,” she picked her words, not wishing to wound. “You and Parm and Mahafny had best return to town. You’ve still much training to undergo and decisions to make beyond that. I’m sure Bard and M’wa will transmit another message to alert the Seeker-Guidancer pair to hasten there and continue your training. You’ve made great strides, but you aren’t a full Seeker yet. The offer is well meant and gratefully received, but far too early.”
She turned to involve the other woman in her complicity to protect Harrap’s innocence and hoped she’d meet no resistance. “Mahafny, you’ll drive him back to town, won’t you?”
“Of course. And then I’ve business of my own to attend to. I’m sure our paths will cross again sometime in the future, Doyce.” Putting a consoling arm around Harrap’s shoulders, the eumedico began to clear the table of cups, straightening and cleaning in tribute to Asa’s wife who had bequeathed a meticulous kitchen to her unmet visitors.
“We must leave soon, all of us. Let’s make ready.”
“So they’re coming with us.” Khar wound her way through the pile of supplies, sniffing and poking. “Interesting.”
Doyce rocked back on her heels from her kneeling position, face clouded. “Khar, what have I done, asking them to accompany us? Why didn’t you stop me? We can’t get along with each other, I know it.”
“Stop you? You were caught up in something beyond yourself ... and maybe between yourself and Jenret.” The ghatta’s mouth curved as if she smiled, but then Doyce always thought that ghatti mouths turned that way naturally, revealing their endless amusement at the human world. “Besides, it was interesting to watch you both.”
She knew no way to erase that feline smugness. “Then you think it wise for Jenret and Rawn to accompany us?” Please let the ghatta agree with me, convince me that I’m not second-guessing myself.
Khar stuck her head inside the open saddlebag, popped out again. “Wise may not be the exact word, but prudent, yes. Highly prudent.”
“Why?”
“Because you need help, and for once you’ve acknowledged that you need help, been willing to share the burden. Ma’ow reminded me that we ghatti cannot do this alone, and neither can you.”
Still stubborn, Doyce insisted, “But I wouldn’t have been alone, not with you and Saam. He will come, won’t he? I should have had you ask him, I’m sorry.”
“He insisted on coming even before you spoke, beat Jenret and Rawn to it, much to Rawn’s chagrin.”
She began to slide various packets in the saddlebags, trying to work and think at the same time. “Then you think it will be all right? That we’ll get along?”
“Whether the sum is greater than the parts remains to be seen.” Khar looked over her shoulder, through the open door in the direction of the kitchen. “But then, you’ve always told me that we ghatti can’t count, let alone do sums.”
“Khar, stop teasing. This is serious,” she protested. “Deadly serious.”
“Of course it is serious. Serious enough for me to be thankful to have others around to protect us, and we them. Just as we strive to protect the Seeker-Bond community as a whole. Do I make myself clear?”
“Eminently, my dear ghatta. And thank you for reminding me.”
Khar ducked her head into the other saddlebag, checked Jenret’s pair. “Speaking of reminding, do you think Asa kept any smoked fish? We’re running low. Saam likes it.” She added the last as a confidence, head tilted, amber eyes demure.
“Not half as much as you do, you little beggar. But I’ll check.”
Jenret curried the horses, both his black stallion and Lokka. After the brushing, he’d let them have some more water, he decided, but not too much or they’d slosh like the very devil. “You, there!” He slapped his stallion on the shoulder, hard but affectionately. “We’ve a lady joining us and I don’t want any trouble out of you, you hear me?”
Rawn sprang from the water trough to the stallion’s back, draped himself there. “Why should he bother Doyce? She’s a Seeker, not a lady,” he asked, face almost level with Jenret’s.
“Ninny, not Doyce, Lokka. We don’t need Ophar deciding on a romantic interlude in the middle of everything.” The stallion tossed his head as if he knew they were talking about him. “Remind him in no uncertain terms. No, remind him in certain terms, very vivid terms, of what I’ll have done to him if he lets passion rule him. ”
Rawn drew himself up, discomfort clear on his face. “Not nice! Not nice at all! You wouldn’t?”
He relented, ever so slightly. “”You don’t have to tell him I wouldn’t really do it, but you can still remind him of the possibility. I want his ardor cooled. ”
“When I finish explaining, his ardor won’t be just cooled, it will be iced.” Rawn hesitated, chose his next words as ginger-cautious as a bear trying to flip a porcupine. “I understand why we must go, but I am not sure if you truly comprehend your own reasons. Do you?”
“It seems patently clear to me, but if it isn’t to you, then please feel free to read my mind.” Jenret stood at ease, face expressionless, waiting for the black ghatt to probe. “Well?”
“Superficially acceptable, but there’s more, isn’t there? Things that you prefer not to admit. Do you wish me to remind you?”
Jenret leaned his weight across the comfort of Ophar’s broad back, buried his head on crossed forearms. “No, thank you,” the words came muffled. He saw things all too well, had seen things far too lucidly since he had entered the deceptively quiet barn. “Let me work it through myself.”
He had been squatting on the floor, one hand gripped tightly to the back of his nec
k, pressing it between his knees, forcing it down. Bright spangles of light exploded before his eyes, turned into a blood-red wash that swept to blackness when he tried to raise his head. Stay down, he urged himself, stay down or you’re going to pass out cold. Worried, Rawn butted against his knee, threatened to overturn him, then sniffed at the lowered head and moved off, exploring while he kept an eye on Jenret.
Blood, he didn’t know there could be so much blood, that it could spread with such profligate liberality. He had had his share of fights before—sanctioned and un-sanctioned—a few official ring bouts and numerous tavern brawls, some that he’d instigated himself when the anger rose in him too hot to control. The anger always terrified him, made him fear bursting into another dimension, another being, and he had seen the results of that, and the reverberations of that past time still resonated through his life and the lives of the rest of his family.
But the killings he had witnessed before, so long ago, hadn’t had blood in abundance like this. His mouth filled with saliva, he swallowed. prayed he wouldn’t vomit. No, when Jared had killed the two servants there had been practically no blood, though the twisted shells that remained reminded him of the body he saw here, a man trying to escape himself, escape the pain. And this new death, the wantonness of it, reinforced his need for atonement, to do something to make it right, just as he must have done something to make it wrong that day so long ago when he’d goaded Jared, taunted and teased, until Jared had spun around and lashed out with his mind—not at him, not at his little brother—but at the two servants who had come running to separate them in response to the shouts. Jared had toyed with the servants, a small boy twisting at their minds, wrenching the essence from them, the charge of their fears energizing him, driving him further, fueled by their pain, until the two servants had dropped lifeless, contorted, puppets with the cut strings of their sanity in Jared’s hands. And Jenret had hidden in the wardrobe, the smothering weight of his father’s winter cloak across his face, frail protection from the wrath he saw outside. How could an eight-year-old boy have such power? And if Jared had such power, did it lurk inside him as well? He tried to reach inside his mind to see, but forced himself back. If he found it, what would he do with it? Would he master it, or would it master him?
“Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,” he didn’t realize the little groaning sounds had found their way between his compressed lips until he felt the hand on his shoulder, bringing him back to the present. The pressure shifted to his neck, and he felt himself being inexorably pressed downward, lower yet.
“Jenret.” And he groaned in relief, recognizing the voice. It was Mahafny, his aunt. “Jenner, kneel, don’t squat. Drop your head lower.” He obeyed, felt the strain on his thighs and calves diminish. The blackness receded minimally and he risked opening his eyes, taking a sidelong glance.
He tried for humor, knew it fell short. “I’d ask what you’re doing here, but I hate impeccable explanations.” A weak gesture with one hand. “Have you looked around?”
“Enough to know it’s too late. If you think you’ll be all right, I’d like to further examine the body. I take it the poor man was a Seeker? At least the dead ghatt over there indicates the probability of such a relationship.”
“Yes,” he swallowed hard, raised his head a fraction, waited to see if the faintness returned. “Certainly unexpected, but perhaps not unanticipated, given the givens. Not that poor Brandt anticipated his own death.”
The faintest hint of scorn touched her words. “But you Seekers should have anticipated the possibility of another death, is that what you mean? Well, you aren’t mind-readers or mindstealers.”
The final word set him trembling. How could she flaunt it in his face like that, if she knew what he had been remembering, reliving? “Leave it in peace, aunt. We’ve enough to worry about right here and now.”
“That’s true enough, but you’re the one who can’t leave the past in peace. And perhaps I can’t as well. We’ll see.”
He started to rise, felt her hand gripping him above the elbow, ready to break his fall if he fainted again. “You know that Doyce Marbon is outside, don’t you?” She gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Is that what brought you here?”
“Yes and no. I’m putting the past to rest, exorcising it, as our friend Harrap would say.”
“Who? Oh,” comprehension dawned on him. “You mean the Shepherd who charged in and out of here? Where did you collect him?”
She fixed him with a gimlet look. “I don’t ‘collect’ anyone, as you so quaintly put it. Not Harrap, not Doyce, and not you. Just remember that. You’re not specimens.” He turned, unresisting, with the pressure of her arm. “There is one favor I’d like to ask, though, that you don’t say anything to Doyce about our relationship, at least not yet, not now.”
He couldn’t see her face, only the top of her silvered head. “I don’t see why it matters.”
“Mayhap it doesn’t, but I’d prefer to let it rest for now. Will you? She might feel as if we’re united against her in some way. Let her react to each relationship as she knows it, not throw any new permutations at her.”
The fact that he couldn’t see her face worried him, but still, he had to trust her, believe in what she asked. “Fine.” The one word sounded brusque in his ears, but she accepted it as sufficient.
“I want to look at the body again. Are you up to it?”
Without answering, he turned and led the way.
He jerked himself back to the present, felt the rough texture of horsehair under his fingers, against his cheek. What had possessed him to insist on accompanying Doyce? Lady knew, he didn’t especially care for the woman; she was stubborn and unyielding. He stopped, revised that—not unyielding or she would never have agreed to let him join her. Or had she simply made the best of a bad situation, him being the bad situation? He rather liked her mind, but her looks certainly didn’t live up to his standards, more like a little gray heron with her slim body, the way her neck and head sometimes jutted forward, searching and still, awaiting an unwary minnow. No, he preferred a woman with more beauty and grace, more rounded curves, the sweetness of a full-blown rose.
“Herons, roses. What marvelous comparisons,” Rawn gave a husky chuckle. “Will you try caterpillars next?”
“Why caterpillars, my friend?” He asked the question out of idle interest, more concerned about what else remained to accomplish before they left.
“Because they turn into butterflies.”
“Spare me your ghatti aphorisms, Rawn. There’s no butterfly inside Doyce Marbon, of that I’m sure. A nice little moth at most. Now, can you get them moving? It’s almost noon.”
The sun slid toward its zenith behind growing cloud cover when Jenret and Doyce, both mounted and with their respective ghatti in position on their pommel platforms, bade the others farewell. Saam perched on a postern platform on Lokka, his seat hurriedly cobbled from Wwar’m’s old platform which they’d located in the barn. Lokka twisted this way and that, turning herself in a circle to verify the newcomer who rode on her back. Saam had greeted her nose to nose before he’d jumped up and settled himself, but Lokka still craved reassurance as to exactly whom she carried.
Clouds scudded in from the mountains to the north, and the air hung heavy, seeded with unshed rain, the humidity as oppressive to humans and animals as it was to the sky. Bard had already departed, his lean form arrowing along his gelding’s neck as if he would outrace his mount to his beloved twin, relief plain in every stride that took him closer to Byrta. Harrap and Parm, Mahafny, and the old man Cummins and Ma’ow stood nearby, Cummins with a tiny, towel-wrapped bundle awkward in his hands. The bundle contained the drugged ghatten.
“Don’t worry, sir, he’ll sleep for a while longer,” Jenret assured the old man. “Just give him to your son when you get back and he’ll know what to do. Don’t worry, he won’t ’Print on you.” He grinned in boyish delight and doffed his hat, holding it close to his heart in promise.
Doyce ac
hed so to be gone that every dawdling moment tormented her. Mahafny, ever perceptive, made the smallest, slightest of shooing gestures and smiled in sympathy.
Finding her voice as she heeled Lokka, Doyce cried out, “Lady bless you all and thank you, my friends. May we meet again in better times!” And she and the mare sprang from the yard toward the wooded copse where old man Cummins had pointed out the direction in which the nightstalkers had retreated. Jenret wheeled his stallion and waved, and in a few strides they had settled comfortably shoulder to shoulder with Doyce and Lokka.
“May they not bear the scars of what they’ve seen and learned.” His eyes were somber as he spoke, more to himself and Rawn than to her, she decided.
The swift departure proved ironic only a few moments later. Rigid with impatience, Doyce and Jenret sat their horses, reins slack, while the three ghatti cast back and forth just beyond the wood’s edge, prowling the undergrowth, sniffing here and there to pick up a scent, anything to mark their course.
