Flesh and Spirit tld-1

by Carol Berg

  The lords seemed attentive, but not deferent. Voushanti was clearly not one of them. Though his manner and accent witnessed to his Evanori blood, his mardane’s rank was an Ardran grant, not Evanori inheritance. His authority was strictly Osriel’s.

  “His Grace will see you at Ygil’s Moon. Do not disappoint him.” Such woe and ruin as Voushanti’s tone promised would have sent Magrog running from his throne of skulls.

  The proud warlords dispersed slowly, eyes hooded, mumbling among themselves. A round-headed lord in a steel cap and tall boots glared at Voushanti as if to argue, only to think better of it. He tightened his mouth in disgust and turned his back sharply. Perhaps more warlords than Stearc of Erasku viewed Eodward’s youngest son as an abomination.

  Two of the Evanori turned to intercept the man in the steel cap, thereby facing me straight on, not ten paces distant. A flood of pleasure warmed my veins, and I fought to keep from laughing outright, which was a wholly unreasonable reaction to encountering a warrior who would prefer me dead and his daughter who had betrayed me.

  Elene controlled herself well. After one startled blink, she averted her gaze. But little more than a touch of her father’s arm drew Thane Stearc’s eye my way. The frown lines about his mouth and hawkish brow deepened. He, too, glanced away quickly.

  Though a sword hung at her waist, Elene no longer stood as Stearc’s squire, but as a woman of Evanore, a descendant of warlords like these. Her wide-legged trousers were suitable for riding, her breasts unbound beneath her copper-colored shirt and fine-linked habergeon, her cropped bronze hair now grown long enough to twist in numerous tiny braids laid flat to her head. I might have been looking on the goddess Mother Samele herself, the exemplar of the earth’s health and strength. My hands ached to touch her cheeks, flushed with the cold, and stroke the hips that filled her trousers so delectably…

  Great gods, I felt like a witless pup, after a month imprisoned, with no hopes to spare for pleasures of mind or body, and before that a novice vowed. Of a sudden my grievances with the woman seemed of no more substance than the frost vapors rising from the sunlit tents. Somehow I found myself willing to believe that she had acted out of devotion to her cause—at least while I stood so near that tantalizing flesh and bright spirit. So much had changed since I’d seen her last.

  The man in the steel cap snapped orders to break down the large tent. Elene stood by as her father and Voushanti exchanged stiff courtesies. No love lost between those two men. Stearc’s arched nose flared as they spoke. When Voushanti moved on, Stearc began arguing with a bear-like man about whether their party should travel together or take separate, shorter roads to their strongholds. Elene joined in, her cinnamon eyes flashing. No demure maiden she.

  As custom and protocol prescribed, no one spoke to me or acknowledged my presence with anything but sidewise glances. Only a pureblood or his contracted master could initiate interaction with ordinaries. Pureblood discipline required me to maintain that distance. After his pointed warnings, the mardane would surely be watching. And these two…I could give no one cause to suspect their divided loyalties. No matter their opinions of Osriel, I had no illusions that others of these fearsome folk conspired to preserve books and tools in preference to their duc and his gold mines.

  I tore my attention from Elene and wandered through the rapidly dwindling camp, seeking any sign of Brother Victor. Cheered to discover the emptied coffin abandoned in the trees, I drifted toward the three wagons. One was packed with household goods, one with hay and grain sacks. A severe woman in a plain cloak was helping the older servants climb into the third wagon. Before I could sidle close enough to peer inside, the woman looked up—and did not drop her eyes. Her look of scorn near torched my cloak. Donning my own best disdain, I strolled on past her and her charges, hoping she cared more for Karish monks than purebloods. I’d have wagered my prick that poor, battered Brother Victor lay among the bags and bundles in that wagon bed.

  I retreated and sat down on a fallen tree. Elene stood listening to a tall woman with iron-gray hair and cheekbones as angular as the crossguard on her sword. Happy for once to be ritually ignored, I stared at Elene and imagined and yearned until her rosy flush expanded to her neck and ears, and she yielded me a sidewise glance. Ah, if only we were back under that dolmen in the rain…

  A dark-haired man bundled in a thick black cloak hurried out of the great tent, lugging a worn leather satchel. He caught sight of me at once. Of course, Gram would be here, too.

  I winked and twiddled a finger at the sober secretary. Gram whipped his glance around the company until his gaze settled on Voushanti’s back. He raised his eyebrows and flashed me a grin, then ducked his head and moved on about his business.

  I buried my grin in my hands. How fine to discover friends here. I’d no expectation of seeing anyone I knew ever again—save perhaps Brother Victor. Of a sudden I found myself anticipating the coming journey with excitement. Somehow I’d find a way to speak with them.

  When Gram strode past her field of view, Elene scowled at his back. No softening of that enmity. For some perverse reason, that consideration cheered me even more.

  By the time the cumbersome party moved out, some fifty of us altogether, the rare blue sky had skinned over with clouds, and snowflakes flurried like dandelion fluff. “Stay close, pureblood,” said Voushanti, as I tried to find the right combination of knee and hand, curses and cajoling to prevent my beastly mount from shedding me. “I’m charged to keep you healthy.”

  The mardane moved into the vanguard beside the iron-gray woman, the lord in the steel cap, and Stearc. They scarce looked at him. Someday I would insist someone explain why Voushanti’s presence made a man’s bowels churn.

  Elene rode two ranks behind, alongside two younger men who eyed Voushanti’s back with a mix of awe and terror. Over the course of the first hour, I maneuvered my balky mare to her side, close enough we could speak with little risk of being overheard. “May I ask where you are bound, mistress? ’Tis a wretched season to trade hearth fire and good company for a perilous road.”

  “My father and I have business southward—a Karish school in which he takes an interest.” A glance my way, quickly controlled. “And then, as do all those loyal to the Duc of Evanore, we return home for Lord Osriel’s war-moot, the first he has summoned. We’re curious to learn if Evanore’s position of neutrality in this vile conflict is to change. Perhaps his pureblood advisor could enlighten us?”

  I imagined Voushanti’s ears straining to hear my disobedience. I kept my eyes on his broad back. “Alas, I’ve no leave to discuss my master’s business. In truth, having been in my lord’s service only a single…unhappy…day, I’m not even sure of our destination, save that it be south—which seems to leave half of Ardra and all of Evanore a possibility.”

  She bit her lip and bowed her head, which made me believe she knew of Luviar. “My sincerest apologies, sir. I’m not accustomed to pureblood company, or what is proper to ask. So often we can give offense…hurt, even…when none is intended.” Her voice shook a little. “I’d suppose you bound for Prince Osriel’s great fortress at Angor Nav or, perhaps, his smaller house at Renna.”

  I nodded with as much hauteur as I could summon. “My life has changed dramatically of late, mistress, and I find life more pleasant when I forget unintended slights. You know, though we’ve not been formally introduced, you resemble a lad I once knew—a squire of marginal talents, though exceeding fair for a boy. I would not be surprised to see his position vacant.”

  She kept her eyes on the road, snowflakes dusting her flushed countenance. “Indeed, sir, the portion of your face that I can see resembles that of a man I once knew—a monk of marginal piety and excessive interest in matters he had forsworn. I would not be surprised to see his habit uninhabited.”

  “Thank all gods that men grow wiser as days pass.” I could smell her even in the cold…fennel and lavender and leather. But for the snow, one might have imagined us on a pleasure outing in happ
ier times.

  Impelled by dreary wisdom, I left Elene and dropped back to ride in the fourth rank for a while, sharing curses of weather and Harrowers with a new-bearded youth who rode as if soul bonded to his mount. The weather worsened by the hour, blowing snow and increasingly cold. We passed several villages burnt to ash. Other cots gaped open to the weather, perhaps one in five showing signs of habitation. In the distance, dark shapes—wolves or wild dogs—loped across the snow-covered fields, which did naught to soothe our unhappy horses.

  Gram rode several ranks behind me, his cloak and hood bundled about him. At every stop I tried to draw him aside, hoping he might hint at what use the cabal would make of my grandfather’s story, but we were able to exchange only a few empty words. The warlords demanded his attendance. His bottomless well of facts about Navronne’s history fueled the lords’ never-ending arguments of politics and war. By evening, the rigors of the journey had sapped all conversation.

  We sheltered that night in a burnt-out inn, its broken walls blocking the wind. I maneuvered a seat next to Elene as the company shared out hard bread and bean soup. “The boy and the Scholar,” I mumbled into my bread. “Safe?”

  She bobbed her head over her soup.

  “And the book?”

  Elene turned to the iron-gray Thanea Zurina, who sat on her right. “No matter how difficult the journey, I’m happy my father chose to leave Palinur,” she confided. “When one sees both Temple priestesses and Karish practors deserting the place, one must think the gods themselves have given up on it. With so many clerics, the roads south should be safe enough for children and valuables!”

  I smiled and drained my bowl. Thalassa had book, boy, and Scholar and was taking them south.

  On the next morning, once we persuaded the horses to move out of their huddle, four of the seven lords split off and headed west on the Ardran high road, taking all the wagons and two-thirds of the soldiers. I had caught nary a glimpse of Brother Victor, but assumed he traveled with them. The rest of us, perhaps twenty in all, continued on the less-traveled way that led south past Gillarine toward Caedmon’s Bridge. We kept a slow, steady pace, stopping only to water the horses or pick ice from their hooves. Just after midday, one of our scouts reported a disciplined cadre of orange-blazed Harrowers bearing down on us, he said, like Magrog’s chariots of doom. We spurred our mounts and fled.

  For a day and a night of driving snow and merciless cold, we forced our way southward across rolling, frost-clad barrens of dead fields and vineyards. Every time we believed we had shaken the pursuit and slowed to ease the strain on our mounts, scouts raced from the rear with the news that they had come up on us again. Fifty Harrowers, the men said, led by a squat, ugly man with a face very like a dog. Voushanti forbade me to go back with the scouts to confirm that he was Sila Diaglou’s henchman—one of Boreas’s executioners. The warlords were spoiling for a fight, but the lord in the steel cap agreed with Voushanti that Prince Osriel would wish neither his neutrality compromised nor his noble supporters slaughtered in a useless confrontation with lunatics.

  The relentless pace and ferocious weather took a toll on all of us, but most especially Gram. The cold flayed him. Skin gray, his features like drawn wire, he rode with back bent and head dropped low to deflect the wind. At noontide on the third day of our flight, when we stopped in a snow-drowned glen and scattered grain for the beasts, he clutched his mount’s mane and whispered hoarsely that he’d best remain where he was unless Prince Osriel’s pureblood could magically transport him from the saddle and back into it again. Stearc pressed him to drink some medicament from an amber flask, but he waved it away. “I’d rather have my wits,” he croaked. “I can hold until we find shelter. All the way home if need be.”

  We had little prospect of shelter. The towns of Cressius and Braden had refused to open their gates to us. No village had defenses enough to withstand a Harrower assault while we slept. Everyone was exhausted—save perhaps Thanea Zurina—and we’d had three horses pull up lame that morning. I feared for Gram’s life if we didn’t ease up. And if the Harrowers took Stearc, Elene, and Gram—saints forbid—what would become of the lighthouse cabal or their hopes of appeal to the Danae? Not an hour later, a solution presented itself on the horizon.

  “We divide our forces,” I said, sketching a map in the snow. “While a few of us lure our pursuers into Mellune Forest, most will remain out of sight at the forest boundary. There’s good cover and Lord Voushanti is very skilled at…hiding…people for short periods of time. Once we’ve got the Harrowers into the wood, the rest of you can continue on the road south at a more reasonable pace…stay alive…”

  Even Aurellia’s imperial road builders had declared Mellune Forest impassable. A snarled swath of beeches, pines, and scrub, inhospitable Mellune traversed a jagged ridge that split Ardra into the wine-growing plateaus of the west and the dry, rock-strewn grazing lands to the east. Its unstable landforms, altered by frequent avalanches and raging floods, provided no reliable markers for guides. Except, perhaps, for a Cartamandua.

  Using my bent to devise a route, I could divert and delay our pursuers, keep them on a short leash while getting them thoroughly lost in the wood. After a suitable time, I would abandon them to find their own way out of trackless Mellune, and lead my companions off to rejoin our company for the remainder of our journey to Evanore.

  I thought Voushanti would split his hauberk. “You’ve no leave to go off on your own,” he snapped, when I stopped to take a breath. “Prince Osriel—”

  “—would not wish Thanea Zurina, Thane Stearc, or Thane Gar’Enov’s only son and heir to fall captive to Harrowers,” said Gram hoarsely. “Will you tell us that a single pureblood has more value to the Duc of Evanore than three of his warlords? If so, then offer us a better plan. Even if you leave me to rot at the roadside as you ought”—scarlet spots stained the poor fellow’s pale cheeks—“you’ll be but fourteen men and two women against fifty. And the scouts say these are no rabble, but Sila Diaglou’s disciplined fighters.”

  The mardane had no answer. The snow kicked up by the onrushing Harrowers swirled on the stormy horizon. Unwilling to allow me off on my own, Voushanti insisted on accompanying me.

  Faster than a frog could take a fly, I was kneeling in the snow, pressing my hands to the frozen earth, and releasing magic through my fingers to seek out the beginnings of our route. When the guide thread took clear shape in my head, I sat back on my heels and looked up at Gram and Voushanti standing over me.

  “I don’t like this, pureblood,” said Voushanti. His wide hands flexed and fisted. The red core of his mutilated eye pulsed like coals. A red crease at the corner of his mouth looked like blood. “Only fools split their forces.”

  “Complain to Prince Osriel,” I said. “I won’t see these people—his people—run to ground.”

  The mardane stomped away toward the gully where Stearc, Elene, and the rest had taken cover. His three warriors awaited Voushanti and me at the forest boundary. Only the secretary lagged behind.

  “We’ll see you in six days at Gillarine,” said Gram. He offered me his hand, feverishly hot, and steadied me as I got to my feet. “Unless…Perhaps the gods have sent you this opportunity. With your skills and the weather to hide you, you could take your own road at the end and stay free of the Bastard. Osriel treads perilous paths, Valen. No one knows his plans or the extent of his power.”

  “I’ve given my oath not to run,” I said. “It was necessary; Gildas can tell you. But my soul has acquired stains enough all these years without my sitting on Magrog’s lap. So you can be sure the Bastard will have little good of me. Godspeed, Gram. Teneamus.”

  “Teneamus. I’ll not forget this, my friend.” He turned his back and trudged slowly toward the gully, his shoulders racked with coughing. Wind and snow and failing light erased his footsteps as if by a sorcerer’s hand. I shivered and headed into the trackless wood.

  Chapter 31

  “Up with you, pureblood. The hounds
are baying. No time for sleep.” The hand on my shoulder shook me so hard, the blanket slipped off my head. Bitter cold bit my cheeks and plumed my breath as I squinted into the night. Trees. Snow. Unending trees and snow.

  “Leave off the bone rattling, Mardane,” I said, groaning. “As if a man could sleep with his blood frozen and his backside raw…”…and his hipbones throbbing from too long astride, and his stomach devouring his liver for want of a meal not eaten on the run, and his mind a roiling backwash of questions, mysteries, and anxieties that neither misery nor exhaustion could quiet. Not the least of which mysteries was how to shake the fiendish Harrowers, now the time had come to leave them behind. We just couldn’t seem to move fast enough.

  When I had suggested this diversion scheme, I never expected it would mean six god-cursed days of lacerating briar tangles, ice-coated avalanche snarls, unending hours in the saddle, no fire, no sleep, no respite. We’d had to keep our pursuers close, but not too close. If we got so far ahead as to discourage them, or they realized too soon that we had split our party, they might double back on their tracks to escape the forest and hunt down the others. Gram. Elene. Stearc. Every hour I could give them was a boon. But next time I had such an idea, I would stuff a boot in my mouth.

  “We can’t wait for Nestor.” Voushanti’s proffered hand hauled me to my feet. “The orange-heads are already coming up the gorge. Maggot-ridden halfwits must have legs like mountain goats. I’ve sent the last of the horses downslope, but that won’t confuse them long. So let’s make an end to this. Lead us out of this tangle and onto high ground, where these two and I can take them on, and you can run like hell’s own messenger to join the others.”

  Voushanti’s temper sounded far more equitable than my own. The crash of brush, grunt of horses, and shouts of oncoming Harrowers bounced through the darkness from tree to tree from every direction at once, clawing at my already shredded nerves.