One's Own Shadow (The Siúil Book 2)

by Randall P. Fitzgerald

  “Bring the next.”

  Faces upon faces were brought before her. The bulk, guards who still swore loyalty to Briste in the face of their own deaths. Scaa leaned to her when a woman had been bled.

  “They fear her more than death?”

  Óraithe’s face was hard and her words the same. “They are right to.”

  There had not been a body worth saving through the whole of the morning. Óraithe was offered to have a break for lunch, but she refused it. She had no taste for food and if the people wished to see her dispense cruel justice she would sate them. The parade of prideful highborn had made her remember the way of the Bastion City. She understood their hunger for blood and it had not waned as the hours passed.

  “Bring the next.”

  A shout, not sooner than the masked men had taken their first steps.

  “Kill the shiny bastard!”

  A shout of agreement and another.

  “What good’s he done? Just put the knife to him!”

  Cheers rang out. Óraithe bolted up from her chair.

  “Stop!”

  A plume of dust shot from below the platform with incredible force. She had not made any such command with her mind and Óraithe froze there, watching as it settled. The eyes of silent, terrified elves lay on her and so she remembered her anger.

  “Is that what you wish?! Blood for blood’s sake? To what end?! That you might become them—” her hand swept toward the Palisade— “when they are all dead?! If blood is what you wish, then take a cudgel or whatever you find and see yourself to the Palisade. You will find enemies there, sure. As many as you can stomach and more.” She came to the edge of the platform, where the hanging post had been. “This platform I stand upon, I have not forgotten what hung from it. My mother, my father, my grandfather. All that I had. And how many of you the same?” A few dozen bitter shouts. “And no matter your thirst for blood, I will not see it become that thing again. We will hear their voices. Each of them. We will have justice, so much as we can, for those in chains!”

  The boy they brought before her was round-faced, clearly terrified. Maybe fifty or so, young. Borr began his readings. A highborn boy, said his name was Cáil. He kept his eyes on the platform below him. None of the others had been so shameful. He looked like to cry. His parents owned a jeweler’s in the High District. None of those asked knew of him. The first new recruit in three dozen faces. She expected there were many more. The seniors may have banded together and been captured together for it. The readings were done. There was hardly anything to damn the boy other than his birth and stolen food.

  “What say you, Cáil?”

  “I am—” His meek voice gave rise to shouts that he speak up from the onlookers. “I am sorry. Sorry for what I stole. Sorry for my work in service to Briste. I hold no love for the Tre— for that woman. My family were sent away and I was given choice of joining the guard or serving in the Bastion. I chose the guard.”

  “And killed and raped, I bet. Highborn scum!” A single voice, followed by the cheers of others.

  He turned to them. “I never did! I know nothing about swords or the duties of guards! They locked me here! I do not wish to harm anyone! Please believe me!”

  The bulk of the crowd booed and shouted at the boy. He crumbled to his knees. Óraithe looked at Borr who shrugged.

  “Pick him up.” The masked men obliged, turning the boy to face her. “Denounce her as a tyrant.”

  “Of course. She is. Briste is a tyrant. A curse on our land.”

  “He only begs for his life! A coward!”

  Óraithe came to her feet again. “And you would not?”

  “He stole food!”

  “I stole food. Often. Scaa as well. And nearly every Low District child before us and since.” She stopped there, waiting. Silence. “Well? Would you have your crimes weighed against this highborn?” She turned to Borr. “Put him to work. He has done nothing that should cost his life.” Óraithe returned her eyes to the silent crowd. “What is he now? Highborn? Working at my command? What are you? Lowborn?” She spit at the word. “A brand applied by an iron that has gone cold. I will not hear of it anymore. I will not live under the yoke of my birth. Any who wish to live along those old divides can help fill the barrel.”

  She whipped around, the cloak following her, catching in the wind and spreading wide. The cheers were immediate but sparse, growing as she returned to her chair and a mighty thunder when she sat.

  “Bring the next.”

  There was no more complaint from the crowd, though it thinned as she kept up her work. The night came and fires were lit. More blood was spilt, and some were sent to work, to be watched. They could live, but not without a careful eye upon them. Scaa finally complained of hunger and Óraithe relented in the work she had been called to do. They returned to the alehouse, Borr joining them and saying Callaire was like to be there, cooking with Earráid. He had taken a fancy to her and was bothering her to teach him to do nearly everything.

  “She fancy him back?” Scaa put her arm through Óraithe’s and pulled her close as they walked.

  “Sisters, no. Don’t think the girl knows what fancying means. Near as it seems, she sees him like another of the little ones she teaches. Even talks to him the same.”

  They laughed at Callaire’s misfortune and Borr told them more of the smith’s dream of a wholesome love. Scaa called it sweet but naive and they all agreed.

  Dinner was simple but better than Óraithe had ever known. Lamb in butter and soup and potatoes and sugared beets for dessert. They sat and laughed and talked well into the night. When the food was eaten and the drink was done, they all left Óraithe and Scaa. All but Naí who stayed, sitting quietly at the table, looking at the pair of them.

  “I should see to her arm.”

  Óraithe nodded and Scaa hopped onto the table, spinning and pulling off her shift, letting her breasts out into the open air. Óraithe leaned her chin on a hand and poked idly at Scaa’s firm stomach with the other.

  “So little here, and so much up there.”

  Scaa laughed. “Jealousy suits you, love.”

  Naí came to Scaa’s front and took her arm. “The two of you are simply precious when nobody’s watching.”

  “We’re precious she says.” Scaa nudged Óraithe with her knee.

  Scaa’s armed was lifted above the shoulder and she yelped, hoarse and rough as any other sound she made. “Fires take you, what’re you doing?”

  “You’re favoring it,” Naí said flatly. “Now keep quiet and let me work.” The skin on the healer’s fingers shimmered like distant sands in the bright sun. “Óraithe, you’ve worked hard today.”

  Óraithe crossed her arms on the table and laid her chin on them, sighing. “There is so much more.”

  “Good that you know. I worried that you did not consider it. You have plans then?”

  “I do,” Óraithe said lazily, wondering at Naí’s intentions. The healer’s voice had hardened just the slightest bit. It was moving toward a lecture, she felt. “I mean to kill the Treorai and dance with the corpse.”

  Scaa laughed and Naí slapped her arm to keep her quiet and still. “And that is all? What of the thousands of High District elves? The lack of food? How will you solve those things, since you seem so eager to take a place before the masses?”

  Óraithe rolled her head to the side. “You have answers for those questions?”

  Naí dropped her hands and sighed, trying to collect herself but failing. “I do not, but I have not been chosen by those people as you have. Nor would I wish to be.”

  “And you believe I relish the place?”

  Her voice rose, anger came plain now. “I do not know what you feel. But I saw that child that you were a season ago. Scared and stupid and unsure. You have changed, I see that, but not enough. What if you should succeed? You could go an
d sit on Briste’s chair and play Treorai while the lowborn slaughter the highborn. A passionate speech and some magic dust are not enough to erase the divide in our people. They will tear each other apart and you will play ruler over a city of dead.” Naí picked Scaa’s shift up and tossed it at her, walking around the table and making for the door. “You must understand, Óraithe. I believe in you as they do. Even having seen that girl a season ago. I believe because I have seen the change in you. But you must become more if you will heal us.”

  Scaa quietly put a hand on Óraithe’s shoulder. A warm hand, welcome and comfortable.

  “Come,” she said after a moment. “We should sleep.”

  R

  Rianaire

  As if her time of late had not been full enough with exhausting necessities, word had come to the Bastion that the representatives from Cnoclean had arrived the day before. They were demanding an audience with her and with so little time in her day, it was decided that it would have to be a dinner. A fine way to ruin a meal. There had been an increase of people supposing to lecture her or issue demands in recent days, as though their fervor or outrage or panic somehow entitled them to be catered to. The college heads, their replacements, and even Síocháin. The gulf between them was regrettable, but one that had opened a dozen times or so across their lives together. Rianaire always seemed to be the one to try to close it, as much as she may have been the one to open it.

  In its way, Síocháin’s stubborn nature was a warm reassurance of a sort. Rianaire felt, at times, that she could forget what Síocháin had been in their youth. A vibrant, nervous girl who never failed to make the most precious faces when provoked or dragged into some scheme. She was bashful, entirely proper as an elf in service to the Treorai lineage. And more, she believed in the whole of it. “A lady must be proper,” she had said. Rianaire laughed to think of it now. That still rested in Síocháin somewhere, the beautiful young girl so fun to tease. She had been in love with a boy then. The son of some Binseman or some Regent, perhaps, sent to the Bastion to win favor. Rianaire could not remember it well. But she remembered the unceasing fun of forcing the vivid stories from Síocháin. Living through them as she remained locked in a room when she had no new learnings being forced upon her. Neither loved the other then as they do now. Friends, Rianaire thought. The best of friends. Were they still? No doubt Síocháin would say she had been taken for granted, but was there any other way about it when two were together for so long? Síocháin was no less a part of the air around her than the parts she breathed. And did Síocháin truly never take Rianaire for granted in her own way? That she would come to the side of closed doors and offer her apologies each time? That the affirmations of love would be made? Could one only be taken for granted when asked to bear things they disliked or that caused them frustration?

  She put the memories and their questions out of her mind as they came to the courtyard around which the colleges stood. The new heads awaited her there, the boy from Fásach’s school standing at the front of them, the others behind, though Tine’s representative kept well to the side. A de facto leader. In this case, likely chosen for his bluster and overconfidence. They had sent a strong letter insisting that she meet with them in person. Snow fell around the yard, lightly, some of it beginning to stick and pile.

  “What serious faces. I do hope you do not intend to annoy me.”

  The boy looked back at the three behind and then to Rianaire. “That is not our intention, Treorai. But there are concerns within the college…”

  “Say them quickly, I have more to do than explain how you might tend to your own people.”

  “There… is resistance to expanding recruitment. From all ages.”

  Rianaire rolled her eyes. She felt she had been entirely clear on the state of this discussion, but it seemed she still had words left to give. “Then expel those that complain and let them find the value in their pious learnings in the world outside your sacred walls, I do not care.”

  The girl from Spéir’s college spoke. “Is that not too cruel?”

  Whatever softness had remained in Rianaire’s expression drained, replaced by cold. “What have you children known of cruelty? You all have soft hands, minds weak from too much praise.” Her words cut and the wind rose at her back. “I will explain it for you then, since your eyes cannot see beyond our walls. Hippocamps come for us. They will kill all they see. Rape what does not die, and kill it then. They will not ask politely, they will not offer sorries.” She took a step toward them. “If you believe cruelty is such a soft thing as being told to find food with your own hands, rather than be handed it, we are ruined.” The wind whipped to a frenzy and she raised her voice, the anger in it rising. “The vicious come to kill us, and you ask me to hear this?! To hear the complaints of children?!”

  “Tre—”

  Her temper failed her and she stomped the ground. The courtyard split beneath the Fásach boy and he dropped into the hole, his chin catching the edge. She flung the Spéir girl away, her arm snapping against a tree as she clipped it in passing. The snow around the terrified representative of Abhainn’s school came together, melting and refreezing at the girl’s mouth. The last one’s black robes came alight, sending their wearer dancing. Only a second passed from the start to the end. None of them had a chance to move against her.

  The wind in the courtyard came dead and Rianaire watched until they all groaned and slowed. They licked their wounds, ignoring her presence as best they could.

  “Do not misunderstand what I am. Do not misunderstand my words. I do not ask you for favors or comments. I have given you instructions. Commands.” She turned away from them. “There is no cost I would refuse to see this land through the coming war. Your lives, nor the lives of every soul in the college would so much as budge the scale. Raise the army I need or remove yourself for one who will. It needs be no more complicated than that.”

  The pain in the back of her mind soared. She had been thoughtless in her use of the Gifts and paid for it now. It had been too sudden, too much. Spéir’s Gift never seemed to trouble her. The others, though… they raised the strange ache if she was too quick with them or tried too much.

  The courtyard was a memory to her already, back among the walls of the Bastion. Inney had been taken from her by Gadaí to assist Eala and Síocháin would not see her. It was lonely. A feeling she avoided as best she could. She hated the feel of it. She had sought the brothel and the alehouse before when the feeling came to her and she had no other recourse. Thin blankets in a snowstorm.

  Inney came to her as the sun came down, and she went to dress, stopping at the room Síocháin always slept in when they had such fights. She ignored the apologies and Rianaire’s promises to explain or answer whatever questions were asked. It was not so strange. Time was required, which was fair enough. Síocháin’s door was left and a dinner dress was worn.

  A girl came from the dining room to fetch them for pre-dinner drinks as was traditional for such meetings. Rianaire sent her away, telling her that they could wait alone with their drinks. Dinner would be more than enough and she had no intention of suffering them before then. It was the better part of an hour before they were called down. Cnoclean’s representatives could not have been a more awful looking pair. A narrow-eyed man, balding, his mouth sucked into a perpetual frown and a woman, somehow worse. Her jowls hung loose around fat lips and on top of her head was curly red hair, short and thin. Rianaire very briefly considered abandoning them there and flinging herself from some high window in the Bastion. She could see no way to a pleasant meal with these two so close to her. Rather than sit at the head of the large, rectangular table, she sat across from them to increase the distance. Inney stood at her side, insisting she was not hungry.

  The first course came and went without much in the way of complaint. It was pleasantries spoken through curled lips and updates about the status of Cnoclean that tread back over reports she
had been sent weeks before. Rianaire ignored them nearly entirely, choosing instead to focus on the food rather than the pair who held her hostage in some sort of wasteful political dance.

  The meat was served and the truth of their reasons for coming came clean. The woman spoke almost exclusively, her chins shaking with each self-important syllable from her mouth.

  “I know it is a frightful business, oh ho ho, such serious things. You hate them, it is well-known. But the Regent has sent us to discuss things with you in hopes of an amicable solution.”

  She hated serious things, was it? Rianaire tensed. Síocháin was not there to offer distraction or keep her from overstepping. The woman had stepped onto ice.

  “Well, you see… there has been much… oh… how to say it. Much discussion of your decision to pluck a child from the coast and name her Binse of War. And now you mean to find a rural elf for the Binse of Lands?” She chuckled haughtily. “It is strange, do you not think?”

  “I do not.” Rianaire’s voice was flat, her eyes stared at the woman unblinking. Still the coming words went undeterred.

  “Well, certainly, perhaps you do not know of land provisioning as we do in the west. The Regent has become very concerned.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Oh, but it is. She has expressed such concern as you would not believe. She is compassionate and wise. And so we have been sent to discuss her perspective on the matter with you, so that you might understand where you have taken a misstep.”

  Rianaire gritted her teeth and dug her nails deep into the wood of the chair below her. She felt Inney shift at her side.

  “Your Regent presumes to send me directions, does she?”

  It was as though the tone of her voice could not be heard, only the words. The woman tittered and the man only wiped his mouth before returning to the meat before him.

  “Well, she means to help you, is all. She is very kind, as I’ve said. Have I not said so?” She said the words cheerily, looking at the man who nodded, mouth full, in agreement. “And just in time, if the rumors we hear are true. They say you’ve allowed a satyr to walk free inside the city! How dreadful. It would never be allowed in Cnoclean, no. Such a decision and after you failed to see Spárálaí for what he was. It’s near—”