Daughter of Blood

by Helen Lowe

  She spoke as though she had a right to know, using the Grayharbor dialect as she had throughout, and the watching locals shuffled their feet. As though they recognize her right, Kalan thought, intrigued. He glanced at the Sword warriors, curious to see how they would respond. Kelyr’s lips were compressed, but his tone gave nothing away. “The brat stole from our table, Navigator.” The look he shot Kalan was hard. “But our brother of Blood took exception when Orth sought to punish the fault.”

  “The boy snatched half a pastry,” Kalan said. “If Orth’s blow had connected, it would have killed him.”

  “Theft is theft,” Kelyr replied. “If one overlooks small infractions, larger ones will quickly follow.”

  “Punishment should also be appropriate to the crime.” Che’Ryl-g-Raham extracted a copper coin from the wallet at her belt. “Perhaps I bade the thief depart too soon, but will this make good the House of Swords’ loss?”

  “The coin will pay for the food,” Kelyr agreed, taking it, then switched to Derai. “But the Haarth vermin stole from Derai, when our Wall and our watch are what keep these scum and their world safe. A copper coin doesn’t set that right.”

  Kalan glanced at the clerk, but if the man understood spoken Derai, as well as reading it, he was giving nothing away. Che’Ryl-g-Raham frowned. “You would have me invoke our treaty with Grayharbor and get the boy taken up for theft?” She shook her head. “I am of Khar of Blood’s mind: your reaction is out of proportion to the provocation.”

  “Unusual.” The weatherworker’s voice was deep and filled with nuance—like the ocean, Kalan thought, aware of Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s inquiring expression and the two Sword warriors’ distaste. The weatherworker’s eyes looked past Kalan rather than at him, the wind plucking at the sea-green robe. “I would not have expected a Blood warrior to intervene for one not of his own House, let alone a pastry thief who is not even our kind.”

  So much, Kalan thought, for not drawing attention to myself. The weatherworker might appear indifferent, his eyes continuing to gaze into the distance, but Kalan could feel his psychic scrutiny. The sensation was similar to a spider crawling across his skin and he had to fight to keep his expression unchanged, letting his thoughts take their texture from the timbers of the wharf and the soft slap of the water below it, their color gray as the sky.

  The crawl of power vanished, although outwardly the weatherworker remained exactly as he had before, his eyes focused on the middle distance. The onlookers, as if feeling that the Derai drama had run its course, began to disperse. Madder took a step forward, butting his head into Kalan’s shoulder.

  “Ah, Rayn told me there were horses as well as Derai requiring passage.” Che’Ryl-g-Raham glanced at the clerk, then back to Kalan and the horses. “That need not preclude our reaching an agreement, so long as the rest of our Grayharbor cargo can be accommodated.” Her gaze returned to the Sword warriors. “I will need to consult with Rayn and his clients over that. If you come to the ship tomorrow morning, I will let you know then whether we have berths, and set the fare.”

  Her tone was neutral, but Kalan sensed that the cost was likely to be high, especially if the ship was pushed for hold space. Tawrin shifted his weight, while Kelyr cleared his throat. “Our journey,” he said, still speaking in Derai, “is a Matter of Kin and Blood.”

  And that, Kalan thought, as Che’Ryl-g-Raham bowed, acknowledging the claim, will override all other considerations—including whatever the navigator has heard about Orth. A Matter of Kin and Blood was one of the first and oldest rights acknowledged by the Derai, and warriors returning to their House under such circumstances would always be given priority. Reluctantly, he inclined his head, accepting the Sword warriors’ claim as the navigator had done. “Until tomorrow,” he said, but rather than the gray sea road, he suspected his future held the long slow route north through the Barren Hills.

  7

  Fire and Water

  The mariners retired with Rayn to the shipping office, while the two Sword warriors departed in the same direction their comrades had taken. Curious to see a Sea House vessel, Kalan led the horses back past the Halcyon until he sighted the lean lines of the Derai ship, berthed at the far end of the wharf. The tall black prow rose above the dock like a swan’s neck, although unlike the ships of Haarth it was not carved into any shape of beast, bird, or mythic creature. Once Kalan came right up to it, he saw that the ship’s name, Che’Ryl-g-Raham, was indeed the same as that of its navigator. Was it the same for all ships and navigators? he wondered. At the same time, he noted the eyes painted on either side of the black prow. The lines were drawn in sea-green, indigo, and silver to resemble the dawn eyes of Terennin, the far-seeing god, but when Kalan looked away from them to study the rest of the vessel, he found that he was being observed in return.

  The watcher, a woman in a sleeveless, sea-green tunic and leggings, was standing on the fo’c’sle deck with one hand resting against the ship’s prow. She had lines about her eyes but otherwise her face was smooth, and her head was shaven, which made it difficult to place her age. A fine silver chain, hung with charms, shone against one ankle, and silver bracelets twisted up her arms. More silver gleamed in her ears, but like the weatherworker she kept her gaze fixed on a point somewhere past Kalan’s shoulder. He felt the spider’s crawl across his skin again, but inclined his head as courtesy demanded. “Honor on you and on your House.”

  She did not reply, just continued to stare. Madder shifted, trying to turn as footsteps sounded behind them. Turning himself, Kalan saw one of Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s marines, who stopped clear of the horses. “Temorn.” The newcomer indicated himself, before his gaze lifted to the woman by the prow. “She won’t speak to you,” he said. “Best if you stand clear, Khar of Blood, until you’ve been accepted as a passenger.”

  If I’m accepted, Kalan thought. The marine’s look was neutral as he took up position by the gang ramp, but his manner, while not unfriendly, made it clear that he was serious about Kalan leaving. Neither he nor the woman on the fo’c’sle deck spoke or moved again, but Kalan felt their eyes at his back for the length of the quay. The female marine watched him from the ship chandler’s door, nodding as he passed, but she did not speak either, and although the ale drinkers glanced around, none showed any further interest.

  The tangle of godowns at the town end of the quay was quiet, and Kalan guessed that the urchins must have gone to ground. Once clear of the quay, he swung into Madder’s saddle, checking the roan’s sly attempt to nip a passerby who brushed too close. Now that the adrenaline from the wharf confrontation was subsiding, he realized that the swaying sensation had dissipated as well and decided he could wait to eat, after all. When he paused at an intersection close by the Anchor to let a bustle of apprentices and warehouse clerks pass, his attention was caught by a temple down the side lane. The frontage was constricted, comprising little more than a narrow portico with a weathered door, and the stone facing was so worn that even his keen sight could not make out what god it was dedicated to. The statue niches to either side of the door were empty, too, although the obscure location suggested a shrine to the Haarth deity, Karn.

  Except the people here will say Kan, Kalan reminded himself, as they do on the River. Thinking of the dark god, however he was named, put him in mind of Malian, who had followed Kan when she served as an adept in the Shadow Band of Ar. “What are you doing now?” he thought, while knowing there was little chance the mindspeech would reach her at such a distance. “Did you find the sword, I wonder? And will it lead you to Yorindesarinen’s shield more readily than Nhenir led you to her blade?”

  He had been angry with her when he left Caer Argent, believing she had held out the illusion of choice about his return to the Wall, when her seer’s vision showed him back there all along. Yet if what Tarathan had said about foreseeing being uncertain was correct, then Kalan could see that, by her lights, Malian truly had been trying to leave him free to choose. “When,” as Jehane Mor had pointed out, b
y one of their quiet campfires on the road to Port Farewell, “she has very little choice herself. Who asked her if she wanted to be Heir of Night, let alone the Chosen of Mhaelanar, the One of your ancient prophecy?”

  “She accepts her duty,” Kalan had replied, all three of them using mindspeech so the only sound was the whisper of the flames, and the small rustlings of the Emerian night. “As do I. But—”

  “If you may affect your fate, despite her foreseeing, so too may she. That is our hope also.” The heralds’ mindspeech had whispered together as one, but when Tarathan leaned forward to place another branch on the blaze his expression had been so—Guarded, Kalan thought now, memory paring away any concealment afforded by that distant fireside’s light and shadow. As though there might be some part of the foreseer’s truth that Tarathan had been withholding.

  Kalan twitched his shoulders, much as the horses would if a fly settled on them, and put both the small temple and the past out of his mind. Right now he needed to concentrate on the present: stabling the horses and then eating, checking his weapons, and trying to ensure he was on the Che’Ryl-g-Raham when her prow turned north again. Even, he told himself, as Madder moved forward, if it means sharing a cabin with Orth.

  The inn-wife’s lips compressed when Kalan asked about the midday meal, her pointed glance traveling to the position of the sun, however muted by cloud cover. Yet by the time she looked back at him, her expression had relented. “I suppose the cook could make you a sandwich, but the common room’s closed until dinner so you’ll have to eat in the kitchen.”

  “Our candlemaker’s lad was on the wharf when the ruckus happened,” the cook said, explaining the inn-wife’s willingness to make an exception as he sliced a generous amount of bread and cold beef onto a plate. “Those wharf larrikins are nothing but trouble and need to be set to proper work.” He laid the knife aside, adding pickle and salad greens. “But young Myron said that northern brute might have killed the lad he caught if you hadn’t stopped him.” The cook paused in the act of putting the plate before Kalan, his face uncertain. “No offense intended.”

  Since I’m a northerner myself, Kalan thought. “None taken,” he said.

  The cook set the plate down. “I didn’t think so, given you intervened. But you nor—” He stopped, looking conscious again.

  We northerners can be a touchy lot, Kalan interpreted, concentrating on the serious business of eating as the cook became busy, rewrapping the beef. “This is good,” Kalan said, checking a thank you.

  The cook’s expression eased. “There’s more bread and cheese here if you want it, and I’ve a slice of pear pie left over from yesterday.”

  Kalan wanted both, very much, and when he had finished, the tapster pulled him a beer, which he drank on a bench outside the common room door. The gray morning had given way to an afternoon of intermittent sunshine, but the tapster’s opinion was for rain tomorrow. “Still, the wind should stay fair now we’re coming into the more settled time of year.”

  After his years in northern Emer—where even before the Ash Days that marked the turning point between Autumn’s Eve and Karn’s great festival of Autumn’s Night, chill rain would have turned the few roads into bogs—Kalan found it hard to adjust to fall bringing more settled weather. But the Wall of Night had its own distinct weather system, with spring and summer turbulence driving the great storms—so perhaps the shadow of the Wall really was stretching south, if Grayharbor was influenced by the same pattern. He found that possibility disturbing, even if it could work in his favor now.

  “And,” the tapster added, “the good weather means we get more Sea Keep ships in port.”

  Kalan resisted the offer of a second beer, leaving his armor and most of his weapons in his room before returning to the stable to groom the horses. Despite the cool day he warmed up quickly and was soon working in his sleeveless undershirt as he had during the Normarch days. The tune he whistled beneath his breath was from one of the Emerian songs of springtime love. For a few moments he could have been back in the small gray castle with Audin and Jarna working close at hand, while Girvase and Raher sparred in the yard and the damosels called out encouragement. The suppressed giggles, too, usually meant damosels at hand—and then both his whistling and the brush paused as Kalan realized the giggling was real and not memory.

  When he glanced up, two stable lasses grinned back at him from the loft. The taller of the two held a pitchfork, although he did not recall hearing the sounds of hay being shifted. Taking a mid-afternoon break, he guessed. The oldest would be no more than fourteen, while her companion appeared several years younger, her thin face eager beneath a dusting of freckles. “Hello,” he said, and they giggled again.

  “Hello,” the younger girl replied, bolder than her companion, whose face had suffused with a mix of color and shyness. “Myron said you must be strong, to stop that giant hitting Faro. We didn’t believe it could really be you, though, when we saw you bring the horses in.”

  Kalan kept his face serious. “But now you do?”

  She nodded, her expression equally solemn, although the grin returned as soon as she glanced at her companion. “Without your armor you look as strong as Andron—doesn’t he, Leti?” Leti nodded. “Andron,” the speaker informed him, “is the watch’s smith and the strongest man in Grayharbor.”

  “I’m honored you think I could be as strong,” Kalan said as he resumed grooming Tercel. “You said Myron knew the boy this morning. Faro, was it?”

  Both girls nodded as one, but this time it was Leti who spoke. “We all know Faro. He used to help us here sometimes, when his mam was still alive.” Her frown made her look older. “We were all in the Dame School together.”

  “He always said his mam taught him more,” the younger girl said. “She mostly repaired armor, but Andron said there was nothing she couldn’t make or mend. He wanted to marry her, too.” Again she addressed Leti. “I heard Andron’s sister telling our mam so—but that she wouldn’t have him. ‘Too good for the likes of us,’” she added, in what Kalan suspected was mimicry of Andron’s sister.

  “Stefa!” Leti said, but the younger girl shrugged.

  “That’s what she said.” She picked up a hank of straw and began to plait it.

  “What about Faro?” Kalan asked, as Leti looked away. When she looked back, her eyes were troubled.

  “He was turned out of their rooms after his mam died of the fever, but was sleeping in the old Seruth temple and earning coin from odd jobs and running messages, enough to eat. So he seemed all right.”

  “We told him to come here,” Stefa put in, without looking up from her plaiting. “But he said that would be charity, because our mam didn’t have a real job for him.”

  ‘Our mam,’ Kalan realized, must be the inn-wife. “Stiff-necked,” he observed, with a parting pat for Tercel. He moved into Madder’s stall and the roan rolled an eye at him, but otherwise stood quietly, his ears swiveling between Kalan and the girls’ voices. “So what was he doing with today’s miscreants?”

  The question was as much for himself as the girls, but Leti looked away again, as though she might find an answer caught between the pitchfork’s tines. “We don’t know. He disappeared a few weeks back. At first we thought he’d gone completely, but then Myron saw him down by the docks. But Faro ran away as soon as he called out.”

  “Hiding,” Stefa added.

  Hungry and terrified as well, Kalan reflected, although the latter could simply have been because of his proximity to Orth’s fist. He was not quite sure why he was giving the vagabond further thought, except that he knew what it was to be both outcast and exile, thrown on the kindness of strangers. In both cases he had been fortunate, first in the Temple of Night under Sister Korriya’s tutelage—although he had not appreciated his fortune at the time—and later as Falk of Normarch’s foster son. But he had seen enough of the world to know that it could be far from kind, especially to those without money, or kin and clan to call on in need.

 
; The girls returned to their work, while Kalan checked the horses’ hooves and shoes. The rest of the afternoon he spent in his room, going over his weapons and armor. His hands were as busy as Stefa’s had been, about her plaiting, but random images kept reasserting themselves: the woman on the Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s fo’c’sle, with her unfathomable expression; Faro’s scrawny body, his face contorted into a scream but no sound emerging; and stealthy movement about a grain bin, unobtrusive as the warehouse mice. A hungry intruder . . . But here Kalan shook his head, because every urchin on the dock was probably equally hungry, so that on its own did not make the pilferer likely to be Faro. He frowned, too, remembering Lord Falk’s maxim that starvation was as great an enemy on the Northern March of Emer as anything a knight might slay with arrow or sword.

  The reflection made him take his time over the plain meal put before him in the Anchor’s common room that evening, savoring every mouthful. The room was half full, with a scattering of farmers come in from the surrounding countryside, townsfolk either going on or just off shift, and a handful of sailors and traders from other ports. Without his armor to draw attention, no one took any notice of Kalan. The talk was desultory, although he did hear a few remarks about the incident on the wharf, with opinion evenly divided between amusement at the urchin gang’s impudence and headshaking over the entire business.

  Afterward, Kalan went to bed early. He slept deeply, the dreams taking a long time to intrude. When they did, the first images were jumbled: a house with a mer-horse’s head above the door, a slender horn projecting from its forehead. A storm blew up and lightning crackled, exploding down through the horn. The front door disintegrated into ash and flaming splinters, and he smelled burning metal and burned flesh—before the dream shifted and a young woman turned against a halo of fire, her expression as shy as Leti’s in a face tinted by the flames.