by Carol Berg
Evanide’s infirmarian was an adjutant—one who had completed a part of his training and withdrawn with honor, but had petitioned to stay on and serve the Order with his bent. His oaths were strict and his past naught but dust.
“Are you bleeding or fevered?” Adjutant Tomas gave me a sour glance as he hurried past the door where I stood. He didn’t like people wandering in and out of his demesne. His capable hands were the color of good earth, a rich contrast with the five large rolls of linen bandage he held.
“Neither,” I said to his back. “I’ve come to visit Commander Inek.”
Tomas set a bandage roll and towels beside each of five vacant sling beds, where bowls, potion flasks, and leather packets that looked uncomfortably like surgeon’s tools already waited. The sixth bed at the far end of the long room was hidden by a folding screen.
“There’s naught to gawk at,” he said. “The commander maintains. The Archivist has finished three hours of trials and says he needs to ‘work out more glyphs,’ whatever that means. So be off. I’ve work to do. The Tyros’ Tourney begins today.”
The infirmary would indeed have a bloody afternoon.
“I’m not here to gawk. Can Inek hear?”
“Hear?” Tomas was already on another visit to his linen cupboard. Laden with sponges and extra sheets, he made another distribution pass. Each bed was set by an embrasure. Whatever sunlight it captured shone on the sick man, even while the narrow opening helped keep out the cold. “Can a memory-strangled man in stasis hear? However would you tell?”
“Perhaps one tries and then asks him when he’s healed.” I grabbed a load of blankets and ten more towels from the cupboard and dropped a share at the end of each bed. Tomas stared, then deigned a jerk of his head. I stepped behind the screen.
I wanted to avert my eyes. They had stripped Inek naked and laid him on a clean sheet, but despite a raw morning, they’d not bothered to cover him. The infirmarian believed excessive heat was unhealthy and promoted malingering.
Ensuring Tomas’s back was turned, I fetched a blanket I’d just dropped at a vacant bed and spread it over Inek. If one supposed a memory-strangled man in stasis could hear, then it was easy to conclude he might feel the cold.
“Knight Commander,” I said, quiet enough none could overhear, “this is Greenshank . . . Lucian de Remeni. I need to speak to you about several matters.”
This seemed foolish now I was at it. He didn’t move, of course. Not even a hint of breath. But his pallor was more ivory than gray. He wasn’t dead.
“First, I hope you don’t suffer.
“Second, I pray for your recovery, though as you well know, doubts about the gods plague me. Perhaps I pray to the universe or the forces of nature, though that would include Danae and they are not at all benevolent. Indeed if there are gods, I believe they’ve sent us the Archivist, yet praying to the Archivist would be most uncomfortable. Did you know he is your cadre brother from your days as a tyro? He called you Silverdrake. Though my mind screams doubts and mistrust about everything nowadays, I believe he deems you friend and brother and works diligently to help you recover. If something in you fears what he attempts, thinking he means you harm, and if you’re willing to accept my whim on a matter of trust, do not resist him.”
Gods, this was babbling idiocy. Yet, I couldn’t abandon it, now I was here.
“Third, I sincerely believe what you told the Archivist, that you didn’t destroy my memory relict. I would swear to Kemen Sky Lord, seated on his chair of judgment, that Damon did so. He sent me here . . . drove me here like a stupid sheep. He has a plan for me, and it does not include any weakness derived from family or personal connection. He forbids himself the same. On another day I’ll tell you how it is a failed paratus knows Order secrets.
“And last, by strange and unlikely chance, I’ve recovered my bents. I used them to draw your portrait, which the Archivist thinks might be of use in deciphering your malady. Thank you for your faith in me. I beg you hold that faith, no matter what you hear of me while lying here or after your recovery. Believe me, that in everything I do and every choice I make, your voice reminds me of strength and honor and how to make hard choices. This is the foundation of my new life, as I attempt to carry out the mission we took upon ourselves.”
They had wrapped Inek’s hands in linen and barrier enchantments, likely to ensure there was no residue from the terrible trap spell to pass along. So I touched his shoulder and bade him peace.
“Did he hear you?” asked Tomas, escorting a limping, blood-streaked tyro to bed one.
“We’ll see,” I said. “I have faith in him.”
• • •
After a brief visit to the chart room, I sought out Dunlin and Heron in the sparring arena. They were finishing a bout with polearms in a masterful, vicious, bruising draw. I brought them water and let them recover their breath, then relayed the Marshal’s command.
“I swear to give you my best,” I said, “to drive you hard and myself no less, to judge in equity, and to refer all questions of technique to an appropriate master. If you’ve a difficulty with my appointment, go to the Marshal now. I’ll not interfere and will bear no grudge. But once you accept the state of things, that will change. That is, I’ll consider any complaint offered to the Marshal and not to me as deception, and it will reap appropriate punishment.”
“I hope you’ll take better care with our lives than you do with yours,” grumbled Dunlin, nudging Heron. When they broke into laughter, I laughed with them. It would likely be the last time.
“Inek gave me a hard lesson about that,” I said. “If you’re stupid, I’ll pass it on to you. So?”
Heron, naturally more sober, straightened his back and sank to one knee, fist to his breast. “I accept the Marshal’s wisdom and your vow, First. Command me.”
Dunlin followed. My hand gestured them up as if it already knew what it was supposed to do. The weight of the moment settled on my shoulders right beside Inek’s fate, my sister’s, Bastien’s, Morgan’s, and perhaps a bit of the world’s.
“Your orders, First?” They spoke in unison.
“Proceed today as you would any day Inek is away. I’ll review our schedules, speak to the Archivist about our additional memory work, and post any changes before tomorrow morning. At sixth hour I’m going to bed, as I’ve had no sleep in more than two days and I’ve the seaward watch at midnight. Inek’s unable to rescind the order, so I’ll finish out the remaining nights.”
“But that’s daft. The Marshal could—”
One twitch of my finger silenced Dunlin’s natural outburst. We were no longer equals.
I would miss that. Did knight commanders ever join together in comradeship? I’d never witnessed it. Every time I’d sought out Inek, he’d been at work with his students or alone.
• • •
My application to see the Archivist before supper was refused, so said his edgy assistant. The slender Second Archivist’s hands reached for things that weren’t there, and the eyes looking out from the dusky blue mask darted hither and yon, as if he were missing something.
“He’ll see you tomorrow at midday in the place he saw you last.” His off-kilter face twisted into even more confusion. “I s’pose you know where that would be?” Clearly he didn’t.
“Yes. Thank you.” Who could forget the dust of one’s past? Which reminded me I needed to dispose of that dust safely.
With no memory work instruction scheduled, I saw no need for Dunlin, Heron, and me to deviate from Inek’s plan for the next day. So I stopped into the barren little cell where Inek had shredded tyros’ fears, squires’ foolish pride, and parati’s doubts and prepared to scrape the wax tablet he kept for schedule changes. Two entries remained on it in Inek’s slashing script.
KC. 1M Aerie—Corm
KC. 11E SW—Bearn
This would have been changes for th
at last day. KC meant Knight Commander. Cormorant’s vigil in the Aerie began at first hour of the morning watch. When Inek abandoned Cormorant in the Aerie, he had gone to SW—the southwest tower? the seaward wall?—and met with this same Knight Bearn who had been pestering Fix about me. Curious that Inek had given him some of the precious time he’d arranged for his venture into the archives.
The Archivist was the person most likely to know about this Bearn, and I couldn’t query him until the next day. As I scraped the tablet and wrote my own brief status message, weariness took hold. Even scribing the cold wax was an effort.
Unfit for service? Close to it. I planned a long, hard night and could not afford to be dull. So I skipped afternoon sparring and the regular run on the mudflats. Rather a visit to the kitchen garnered a massive wad of bread and butter and a bowl of whatever was in the pot on the hob. It might have been washing water, but vanished too quickly to judge. I took extra bread for later, then went to bed.
• • •
The tide horn woke me, as I’d planned. The single short blast—high tide. Eleventh hour of the evening watch.
I ate the extra provision I’d brought from the kitchen and prepared what was needed for my night’s venture. Armor for the seaward wall and my spare cloak, three flasks of water, two of ale, and some dried fish I kept handy for missed meals went into a leather bag. Then the bells were ringing the second quarter before midnight, and I had to don the damnable armor.
By my reckoning this was my twenty-second night on the seaward wall. I believed I was the only one counting. We would see about that.
If anyone was interested, they could have watched me charge through the Hall cursing Inek’s nasty punishments and clattering helm and mitons against the plate pauldron because I’d not put them on as yet. I wanted to be noticed heading for my useless duty.
As I ticked away the endless first hour, focusing on darkness and balance and staying alert, I brought Inek to mind. Ever straightforward and supremely skilled. Exceptionally private. Though he spoke of how a knight’s bent could shape his service to the Order, none of us even knew what Inek’s bent was. What had brought him to his state?
He’d planned the venture to the archives for days—to take my relict or borrow it to review—for he’d told Cormorant to choose me to stand his vigil. The meeting with Bearn had not precipitated the act, for he’d told Cormorant of his destination well before he’d met with the mysterious knight. And he’d left the message for me, knowing something was going to happen to him. Then why did you touch the dust, Knight Commander? Of all people, you would have noticed its virulence.
Gods’ grace . . . had he done it apurpose? He’d wanted me to draw him. Not just to find the way to save his life or reveal that someone wanted my mind wrecked. I was certainly the logical person to examine my own relict, yet I would have listened to any warning he spoke. No, he wanted to demonstrate something. About the Archivist—whose loyalties were so oddly tangled? Or did he think his portrait might reveal more than just how to cure him? I needed to examine it again.
But that had to come later. Some matters could not wait for another opportunity. I needed to warn Bastien that Damon was destroying all links to my past. And if I could get a look at the Xancheiran artifact he’d buried, perhaps we’d know why. I knew only one way to get a message—not to mention a coroner—halfway across Navronne in time to help.
When first hour struck, I shucked my armor and left it tucked in the slightly wider spot on the wall. A dollop of magic doused the weak torch in the courtyard below. Wrapped in my spare cloak, I shouldered my provisions bag and crept carefully down the wall stair, through the quiet fortress, and down to the docks to steal a boat.
CHAPTER 21
Fix was nowhere to be seen when I slipped away with the ancient flat-bottomed squinch he kept in the back of the boathouse. It was the only boat that might not be missed should sea or circumstance make me return later than I planned. The squinch was watertight, but could tip easily if not well laden. But that was only one of my problems, rowing from Evanide to the Gouvron mouth in the nightwatches.
What little light the crescent moon provided was unreliable thanks to the patchy fog hanging low over the water. The crossing stretched my navigational skills beyond comfort. I had to depend on magic, locating the beacons affixed to rocks drowned by the high water, drawing theoretical lines between them, and using the familiar patterns to navigate between the bay’s multitudinous hazards. Sea and storm could displace the beacons at any time or distort their lines of magic. Magic is of nature, too.
At least twice while fighting the drag of downspouts, I lost hold of the patterns and had to rebuild them quickly before my sense of where to look escaped me. Errors likely wouldn’t drive me out to sea, but grace of the Mother, I’d rather not be plowing up and down the coast until dawn, searching for the estuary.
After the long, nervous row, it was good to feel the deep undercurrent of the Gouvron joined with the growing ebb in its battle with the sea. The whisper of reeds and dank, ripe odors of fish and sea wrack welcomed me to the estuary. Morgan had said I’d find her there.
Steady rowing and an occasional push off intrusive reeds kept me moving up the deeper channel. No need to go far, just enough to prevent getting lost in the reed forest and find a semblance of solid ground. Time pressed hard. The trip back was always longer than the outcrossing.
A little way upriver, I found a placid shallows and planted an oar in the mud. Holding tight with one hand, I dipped the other in the water. “Morgan!”
A hurricane of squealing birds erupted right over my head, startling me in turn, so that I lost my grip on the oar. My anxious grab tipped the boat.
Righting the cursed squinch before it took on too much water, I grabbed the planted oar before the lazy current could swirl me out of reach. Boots and cloak slurped up more water than I could bail. Between sweat, spray, and flooding, I was drenched. The night was dark as pitch and the scent overtaking the sweet rot of boglands warned of rain in the offing. Heart thumping, I rowed farther up, until I could tie off to a clump of reeds.
The scheme had seemed so simple. Slip across the bay in the middle of the night, stick my hand in the estuary water, and a naked woman of surpassing beauty whom I dared not touch though she made my body hunger so fiercely I could scarce breathe, would instantly appear and agree to take my urgent warning halfway across Navronne, convincing a man to bring a mysterious bit of my past all the way back here. Next time I visited Inek, I would tell him of my plan. Surely the shock of my idiocy would force his disciplined mind to function, just so he could wake and assign me a lifetime on the seaward wall.
The imagining roused a hoarse chuckle. I could be a fixture on the damnable wall, like old Fix at the boathouse. Navronne might go up in flames, but no marauder would dare attempt Evanide’s western flank, for Greenshank’s armor has rusted and holds him there for all time.
What would Damon think of his righteous voice and strong right arm foundering in the Gouvron Estuary, his great plot to reform the Registry undone by a flock of birds?
But then again, on the afternoon I’d come here to find Morgan’s portrait, I’d hit my head on the gunwale. Perhaps I was the one lying naked in the infirmary and everything that had transpired since was a concussive nightmare!
I reached over the stern, both hands this time, and splashed as hard as I could, soaking the last few bits of me that were dry. “Morgan! Come find me! If I’m in a dream I need to know it now!”
“Tsk! Art thou a husk again, Lucian de Remeni? Come, sweet friend, let me tend thee. . . .”
No need for magelight. She sat crosslegged on a sandy islet in the middle of the river, the blue flame of her gards painting streams of sapphire and lapis in the flowing river. Her invitation arced across the water to my boat like the token magic and erased every thought in my head.
Never had oars dug so deep into a river.
Never had boat moved so straight across a current. Never had wet clothing been shed so swiftly or bone-deep hunger been so gloriously satisfied.
• • •
“I shall convince the worthy coroner that his safety is precious to thee,” she said, kissing my fingers and bundling my hand in hers. “And I shall bring him to speak with thee and ensure he carries thy grandsire’s artifact of the lost city.”
I unwrapped her fingers and gently extracted my hand, so that I could continue pulling up my soaked woolen braies. But in a lissome glide, she curled around behind me and traced a finger up my spine. Such heat spread across my back that the thought of dragging the cold, sodden wool shirt over my skin was near unbearable. “Lady . . .”
“Recall, my name is Morgan, not Lady. And it grieves me sorely to see these ugly, stinking garments cover thee. Do I not protect thee from the cold?”
Her arms twined round me, crushing her breasts to my back, nearly losing me in frenzy yet again. But the islet had not changed in size. Every moment I stayed made my return to Evanide riskier. The tide charts testified this ebb would not leave the mudflats barren. But rocks one could ignore in the flood became your enemy when exposed. Did I dally too long, I would face the rise.
“Would that I could offer you half what you’ve done for me,” I said, pressing her glowing hands to my brow before disentangling her. “You’ve warmed me in uncountable ways. Gifted me a new memory that is not terrifying, but kind and generous, and most assuredly warm—everything of beauty. You’ve no idea what that means. . . .” Words were insufficient to explain how low I had been. “You remind me of why I must make these terrible things right. But to do that, I have to go. I just— If I’ve made matters worse between you and your father—”
Her finger silenced me. “This was no simple lusting, Lucian. Never think that. The long-lived nurture and heal the living world, and we are free to choose the recipient of our gift, whether it be a field, a grove, or an estuary. Why should I not choose a human man? Tuari cannot blame me for doing what I have been birthed to do. Go with my blessings. Come back after the moon is reborn, and if thy worthy ally Bastien is not too stubborn, he shall be here. I know a sea cave where I can house him if he chooses not to bide in the estuary.”
