Bursts of Fire

by Susan Forest

  The midwife’s tiny frown and nod gave him to understand that she comprehended his meaning. “I will inform the mother. I have no doubt but that she will agree.” She curtseyed again. “Do you wish to name the child, Your Grace?”

  Wenid considered. “Call him Dannle.” His father’s name.

  “And a surname?”

  “Lock.” No reason. Or, perhaps, a wish to finalize his grand work.

  Meg’s fingers stilled on the pot of mushrooms, and she counted them for the third time. Thirty-four. She dipped her quill in the tiny pot of ink and got the number down on her precious sheet of paper before she drifted off again. By Kyaju, she was tired. The smoky candle flickered in the gusts of wind and rain that slapped her tent, making the bins and jars of ingredients she had collected jump and dance. Harder to count.

  There were five hundred uprisers already camped here in the woods, a day’s ride south of Coldridge, and more arriving daily. She needed to make scores of charms—mostly worldling potions—but some would need to be more powerful and magical. Dwyn Gramaret was rumored to be bringing a thousand men from Canyondell, and who knew how many Sulwyn would bring. She was to arm a special cadre of light infantry with curses to be delivered at close range, and all the troops would need Heartspeed, likely for many days running.

  Sulwyn had left the upriser camp in the Orumon valley the same day he’d uncovered the priceless information in King Artem’s high camp. The details he’d discovered were critical to the uprisers’ mission, and Dwyn Gramaret needed to hear them directly from him as soon as possible.

  Meg hadn’t seen him since. A messenger came from Dwyn Gramaret two weeks later. An attack. On Coldridge. A big one, but no details about why Coldridge, or why now. Fearghus led them out of the Orumon valley, and she’d been here ever since, doing what she did best, and waiting for her king to call for her.

  But winter softened and days lengthened, and the tarn haunted Meg’s thoughts. She’d have to let Fearghus know she was leaving, but the timing was bad: the equinox fell just about the time the upriser armies were to be assembled. He wouldn’t be happy. And Dwyn. She didn’t want to fail him. But her first loyalty had to be to Mama.

  Then, the news came.

  Archwood had fallen. And, therefore, Orumon had fallen.

  Mama. King Ean. Everyone she knew there was dead. The Amber, like all the other prayer stones, had been crushed. A public ceremony. No question, the messenger said.

  Her rage, oddly, filled her with fire and hate but did not escape to energize her muscles or flinch her expression. Even the report of Artem’s inevitable death, from a single well-placed arrow, gave her no joy. She’d sat after listening to the messenger, listening to the questions and debate and speeches. Numb on the outside. Hopeless inside.

  Everything. Everything she’d worked for, believed in. Gone.

  Except her work with the uprisers.

  Meg crouched, shivering, in a doorway next to a cobbled lane as the sun rose. A few early risers brought carts up the street to what might have been a market square. What city, Meg didn’t know, though something about the place seemed familiar. She was too tired to try to work it out. No one approached her. She must look like one of the many homeless refugees sleeping in corners, now so common.

  Then—

  She was running down a muddy street beneath overhanging buildings, almost out of breath, in a rainstorm. Janat, dressed in rags, ran ahead of her, slipping in the mud, dodging around a corner. Gods, she was usually careful to hide herself away after using magic, some place safe. She willed her flagging body to sprint, round the corner behind her sister. A jog, and the alley opened out into a wider street. No place to hide, here—

  And she jerked awake among sheepskins on a pallet in a canvas tent. Winter sunshine glimmered through canvas joins, and someone sat nearby, a silhouette. Her tent in Fearghus’s camp, though whether she was back in her own time or not, she had no idea.

  “Meg?” The voice was Sulwyn’s. She must be close to her own time. She’d heard he’d joined the camp late yesterday afternoon. She let her eyes slip closed. Gods, she was exhausted.

  “Are you here?”

  Sleep. If only she could sleep. “Yes.” She tried to speak, but the word came out, faint, even in her own ears.

  He lifted her head and she smelled the beer on his breath, felt the cold metal of a cup at her lips. She brought up a hand to guide it. She was thirsty, and the icy water was sweet. She lay back. “Thank you.”

  “Dwyn was worried about you.”

  Dwyn? “He’s away.”

  “He’s here. Arrived two days ago.”

  Two days...

  “I’ve been here three.”

  She rubbed her face with her hands. “How long...until we attack?” She had spells to make. Dozens, perhaps hundreds.

  He pushed her back onto her pallet with a gentle hand. “You’re not to worry about that. You’ve been working too hard.” He turned and spoke to someone outside the tent. When he returned, it was with a small wooden tripod and pillows to create a back rest for her. “By all reports, you haven’t left this tent for near a week.”

  She looked at the chamber pot in the corner. She smelled no waste in the close confines, so it must be clean.

  A boy arrived with a steaming bowl, filling the space with a savory aroma. She was famished. She sat up and took the trencher, spooning delicious gravy and turnips into her mouth.

  “Good.” Sulwyn sat back. “King Gramaret’s armies need potions, but not every one must be made with magic. He needs you to be alert and awake when the attack comes.”

  She flicked her gaze up at him and stuffed a bit of flat bread into her mouth. He looked good. Thin and unshaven, but everyone in the upriser camp was all thin. He sat back at the foot of her pallet, and spoke as though the moment in the woods had never happened.

  “Actually, I’m surprised...you’re here.” He gave her a curious look, the statement almost a question.

  She gave him a small frown of puzzlement and washed her meal back with water.

  “The equinox is only three weeks away.”

  Mama’s plan. The defeat she’d shoved from her mind, the shock she’d worked so hard to repress, flooded back. “The Amber was smashed,” she said bitterly.

  “Was it?” His words in the gloom were not a query but a challenge. “How do you know?”

  She shot him a black look. “Don’t mock me, Sulwyn.” Again, she saw the Amethyst. On the granite stone before the castle in Coldridge. Shattered under a sledgehammer.

  “And...if Artem, or his advisors, didn’t find the Amber in Archwood, do you think they would admit it?” he asked. “Or might they find another gem close enough to the Amber to be mistaken at a distance?”

  She stared at him.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Could this be true?

  “But I wouldn’t fail to meet your obligations to your mother based on a rumor. Especially one announced by Artem. Or Huwen.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Rennika had roamed no more than a few days’ travel from Colin’s hut all winter, but when he twisted his ankle and they had exhausted their winter’s supply of flour, Colin had no choice but to fit his snowshoes to her feet and send her to Highglen with her winter’s weaving to sell.

  Though the sun shone fitfully between flying clouds, and the gurgle of melt water ran beneath the snow down sun-freed rock, spring had not yet laid claim to this high valley. It was past noon when she entered through the upper gate used by highlanders bringing wool and milk and meat for trade, a sack of fabric heavy on her shoulders.

  Within the gate, close to the castle, stood the largest, richest houses. The occasional grocer or butcher carried sacks or guided flocks or carts pulled by sturdy mountain ponies through the trampled snow, supplying the cooks of the petty aristocracy. Rennika’s gaze climbed the castle walls, lingering on the turrets within. Once, she’d stood at windows of glass like these and looked out over the jumble of roofto
ps, and down on workers in the street. Not once had she been curious about them.

  Now, she wondered if Hada Delarcan stood at one of those windows and looked down on her, or if the princess was far away in Holderford with her mother. Rennika’d only met Hada once. She remembered King Artem’s youngest daughter as a spoiled child. Hada had only been nine when the war started.

  No matter. Rennika bore her bundle down the icy cobbles in pig fat–coated boots, through softening snow, heading toward the lower town where artisans, tradesmen, and pedlars bought and sold their goods. A street branching from the main road opened onto a square where a gaggle of townspeople gossiped by a well. Here, amongst the signs for cobblers, butchers, chandlers, fletchers, and furriers, Rennika found a shop that sold dyed fabric.

  “Hello,” a friendly voice greeted her. “I’ve seen you before.” A man—or a boy a few years older than Rennika—stood in the door to the shop, his smiling face freckled and curious. Over his loose pants he wore a bleached linen shirt, open at the collar, sleeves rolled up despite the cold. His hair, a wiry copper red, was neatly tied with a ribbon at his neck.

  Rennika searched her memory. “I—don’t think so.”

  “Sure! I remember you. You came here with Colin Cutter when he bartered his yearlings last fall.” He leaned on the jamb. “And in the summer, too. I’ve seen you.” He grinned, and his eyes flicked briefly to the crowd by the well, then returned to her.

  His smile made her laugh.

  “You’re a summer girl.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Why don’t I see you in the winter? Colin comes down sometimes.”

  “I tend his place.”

  “Aha. You smell like a yak herder.” His eyes glinted. “Yak dung cook fire?”

  She blushed.

  “My name is Yon.”

  She smiled. “Rennika.”

  He tilted his head. “Unusual name.”

  She shrugged, but before she could think of anything to reply, he lifted the weight of her bundle from her shoulders.

  “Here, that’s heavy.” He set it on the doorstep. “You’re a weaver?”

  “Yes.”

  He lifted a corner of the bundle and flipped through the upper layers with a practiced eye. “You must be looking for my master. You’ve come to sell your wares?”

  “Yes. You’re an apprentice—textile trader?”

  “Sure am.” He brought the bundle into the shop and Rennika followed. “Almost a journeyman.”

  Her eyes adjusted to the low light.

  “Stay here. I’ll fetch my master.”

  Before she could respond, Yon disappeared back into the common.

  The shop was narrow, its walls lined with shelves stacked haphazardly with a scattering of fabrics, mostly undyed yak wool, but bleached and dyed wool, too, and linen, and a few swatches of rare fabrics that looked as though they might’ve been cotton and silk. It was a long time since she’d seen and worn—such rare fabrics. A door led to a back room with vats for bleaching and dying, and a staircase, likely to the master’s living quarters and his apprentice’s attic.

  “So, what have we got?” A burly, balding man strode into the shop, Yon trotting behind him. Without looking at Rennika, the master opened her bundle. He flicked through the stack of folded fabrics, stopping to point to one. “Knots,” he said. He nudged his apprentice. “Here. And here. Look.”

  Yon nodded.

  The trader flipped down the stack and setting the top several pieces aside, pulled a length of fabric from the rest and looked closely at the weave. “Threads of different thicknesses. See? Here?” He opened the piece out and held it up. “Weave is uneven.” He lowered the fabric. “You’re lucky,” he said to Rennika. “It’s early yet. Not many yak herders down from the hills. How many pieces?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  He thrust his tongue into his cheek. “I always pay the women too much. Twenty-four chetra.”

  “Twenty-four—”

  The trader took a purse from his belt and gave it to Yon. “Put the bundle in back with the others. We may be able to do something with the best pieces.” He nodded at Rennika. “Yak wool. Very common.” He strode back out into the square.

  “For the whole—”

  Yon took her hand, palm up, and counted the chetra from his master’s purse. “There you are.” He smiled.

  Her stomach churned. “It was my whole winter,” she managed. “My whole...” Her throat closed off and her eyes prickled.

  Yon’s smile faltered. “The yaks are shedding. You’ll strip good under wool before summer. Come back in a few weeks. Maybe you can get a better price.”

  She shook her head, unable to speak. In Seedmarket, she’d heard that good Gramarye wool was worth a fortune. She turned and gripped her money, not wanting him to see how her face burned. She had to find her way out of the shop, out where she could breathe.

  She stumbled into the snow.

  Too many people hovered about the well, gossiping. She turned back the way she’d come, toward the main road. There was no question of staying the night in an inn, and Ide was ill and Rennika couldn’t impose. She must return to Colin’s hut before the sun sank lower. As it was, she would arrive long after dark. It would be a cold night, and one with no supper.

  She stopped where the lane met the road and wiping her nose, took a deep breath. What would she say to Colin?

  “Wait! Rennika!” Yon’s voice, behind her.

  She turned in confusion. Had she left something behind?

  He caught up to her, his steps slowing.

  She swallowed back the tears and tried to look presentable.

  “Do you need work?”

  She looked at him. “What?”

  “My master needs a job doing. I can do it—”

  “I have to get back.”

  He held up his master’s purse. “Five chetra.”

  Five—

  “It won’t take long. And it’s easy.”

  “Doing what?” she asked suspiciously.

  He smiled and turned back down the lane. “Trader work. Buying and selling. The work I do.”

  She caught up to him. “Why don’t you do it, then?”

  He pushed his thumbs into the top of his pants. “I can. I will, in fact. But I think you could be good at it. I can show you how.”

  She walked beside him. Five chetra. That would take the sting out of her loss, a little. “Why? Why would you do that for me?”

  He stopped in the street. He looked toward the crowd at the well.

  Night would come on too quickly. She needed to go. “I should—”

  He put a hand on her arm. “My master wasn’t fair.”

  She felt her nostrils widen. Heat flashed in her chest. The master stood amongst the other craftsmen, arguing.

  Yon’s hand stayed her from marching over to the well. “Listen. It wasn’t fair, but you agreed to it. I think he expected you to barter. Most yak men barter pretty fiercely. You took the money, so the contract’s sealed. He’d call it...” He shrugged. “A lesson.”

  Ranuat.

  “He’ll get more than what he paid you on his first trade, even without bleaching or dying. In fact, if I make the trade, right now, without bothering him, he’ll give me half the profit. If you do the work—make the trade—I’ll give it to you. Five chetra, I swear.”

  “But—you could have the money. Why...”

  “Come on. Before I change my mind.” He led her back into the shop.

  The fabric lay on the table where she’d left it. Yon bundled it up again and lifted it onto her back. “This way.” He led her though the back into an alley and by a circuitous route to the main road. “First of all,” he said as they walked down the hill, “our shop is the first one you came to.”

  “I was looking for others when you—”

  “Never mind that. The best traders know which shops to go to. I’ll bring you to one I know, where the old man will give you a good price. Second, you start the trading. Tell him you’r
e offering him a bargain at four chetra apiece.”

  “Four!”

  “And when he offers you one, act insulted and close up your bundle. I know other shops if this one doesn’t work out. Leave.”

  Four chetra! How could—but she nodded, stumbling to keep up to his quick pace. “Leave. Yes.”

  “But don’t leave too soon. He’ll come around, make another offer. Tell him your mother is sick and you have to care for the twin babies—”

  “That’s a lie.”

  He stopped in amazement. “You want your money?”

  She blinked. This was pickpursing. Only with words.

  “Then tell him you haven’t eaten more than a crust since the last blizzard.” He eyed her. “That’s true enough, isn’t it?”

  She laughed in puzzlement. “You’re funny.”

  He grinned and led the way into a side street. “Remember, if you’re to get the five chetra I promised, you can’t settle for less than thirty-four for the bundle.”

  Rennika shook her head and followed him to a row of shops.

  Yon stopped her. He looked her over with a practiced eye, pulled a bit of her hair over one eye to give her a more bedraggled look and pointed her toward a shop with a weaver’s sign over the door. “Remember. None of the other yak men have come down from the meadow yet. Too much snow. The shops have only the dregs of last year’s fabric to sell. And Highglen is known all over Shangril for its wool.” He gave her a nudge. “Do it.”

  So she went.

  He was waiting in the street, jerkin pulled tightly around him against the coming chill of night, when she returned with five gultra and twenty-two chetra.

  She stopped in front of him. “You were right. On every point. He paid three chetra apiece.”

  His freckled face lit up. “I told you. I’m almost a journeyman.”

  “And what will make you a journeyman?”

  He ran his tongue across his teeth. “The money to prove my worth to one of the lords.” He held out his hand.

  She lifted a finger. “Twenty-four chetra for the bundle.” She placed the two gultra and four chetra in his hand. “Half the profit for your master—” She counted out another two gultra and four chetra. “If I take five, you get nineteen.”