The Seven-Petaled Shield

by Deborah J. Ross

  The man’s eyes flickered in response. “If you’re the one who’s been asking about a Sand Lands woman, came here three-four year ago. And offerin’ a reward.”

  Zevaron hesitated. Until he was certain, he could not afford to pass up any possible trail.

  “Interested?” the man asked.

  “Could be. Depends on what you have. If it’s good…”

  The man grinned, showing two missing teeth and the rest dark with decay. “Maybe it’s the one you’re lookin’ for, maybe not, price is the same. But this woman, my brother bought her as a slave to cook and clean, y’know. He treats her all right. If her family were to reimburse him, he’d sell her back, he’s got such a soft heart.”

  That much, Zevaron did not believe. The brother would want a good deal more than what he’d paid. Zevaron would deal with that problem once he had found her. “Fair enough,” he said. “You’ll get your fee whether she’s the one or not. But you’ll get it once I’ve seen her for myself.”

  The man shrugged, “Come on, then,” and led the way.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  ZEVARON watched carefully to see if the other men loitering outside the inn might follow, but they remained behind, continuing their desultory conversations. Of course, they might trail him once he was out of sight. If they did, however, they would be too far behind to take him by surprise.

  At first, Zevaron’s guide kept to the open streets. Only a few men were about at this hour, making their way by the light of the occasional lantern hung over the lintel of a tavern. Soon they passed beyond the corners marked by inns and wine-shops. The buildings ran together, blocks of cracked stone walls and splintered eaves. The air turned stale, laden with the smells of unwashed bodies and garbage. At one corner, they surprised a dog pawing through a pile of refuse. The animal cringed and slunk away, but the man only laughed.

  “What kind of work does your brother do?” Zevaron asked. If the man could afford to buy a slave, why was he living in this place?

  “Tanner,” the man replied. “Can’t live among higher folk, not the way he smells.”

  Zevaron did not know enough about the trade to tell if this were reasonable or not. He touched the hilt of his sword, making sure he could draw it easily, and went on.

  Shadows clung more thickly as full night closed in. Clouds veiled the half-moon. Outside lanterns were few and widely spaced. Here and there, usually on a second story, Zevaron spotted dim, wavering lights, the kind cast by small oil lamps. It would not be enough to read by, but was probably all these families could afford.

  The thought diverted Zevaron’s attention just as he and his guide entered a particularly dark corner. Zevaron’s senses snapped back into focus as his fighting instincts roused. He’d heard no sound, caught no flicker of movement. Alarm, hot and silvery, danced through his veins. The little space, bounded by walls on two sides, was too still, too quiet.

  His hand sped toward the hilt of his sword even as the first figure launched itself at him.

  No light reflected off the assailant’s knife, yet Zevaron gauged its size and length, knowing exactly where it would be in the next moment. His sword slid free as his body pivoted. The thrust missed him by a hair’s breadth. Propelled by his own momentum, the attacker stumbled forward. Zevaron continued his spiral movement, weight balanced like a dancer’s, sword curving through the air. The blade whispered through crude cloth and met flesh. He reversed the stroke into a sweet arc. A second attacker screamed.

  Zevaron acted without thought, driven by years of drill and then more years of actual fighting. He whirled, blade singing, and felt the slight catch of skin, then the smooth liquid slash through muscle and sinew. Curses and ragged footsteps disappeared into the night.

  Then he was standing alone in a pool of darkness, reeking of blood and piss and fear-sweat. Adrenaline shrilled along his nerves, and breath hissed between his teeth. His body shook with the pounding of his heart, the sudden dryness of his mouth, and most of all, with anger at himself.

  Fool! Fool and pig-brained, slack-bellied son of a fool! He cursed himself silently in the manner of the gutter denizens of Tomarzha Varya.

  All in all, he’d gotten off lightly. He might have a few sore muscles in the morning, but he didn’t think he’d been touched. He was too wrought up at the moment to be sure. His vision had sharpened, as it did in battle, and adapted to the dark. Though he searched the area, he found no bodies. He might have gut-cut one of them, which meant lingering putrefaction and death. There was nothing to be done about it.

  Out of long practice, he wiped his sword on the tail of his shirt and sheathed the weapon. He was a distance from his inn, but the walk would do him good. He needed time to calm down and let the fever drain from his muscles. The chance of finding Tsorreh now seemed even more remote.

  The street lay empty and quiet, except for the wavering voices from a tavern at the far left side. It was so dark, Zevaron could not make out the sign, although voices and flickering lights indicated the place was still doing business. A man emerged, pausing in the door. His form, slender under the typical Gelonian tunic and short cape, was silhouetted for a moment against the dimly lit interior before he passed into the darkness of the street.

  Zevaron walked faster, aware that he had ended up in perhaps the worst district of the city. While he didn’t fear a second attack, neither did he want to invite one.

  Silent and swift, two figures broke from cover. They converged upon the man who had just left the tavern. They judged the distance nicely, just out of easy hearing for anyone inside. Zevaron heard a cry of alarm, quickly silenced, accompanied by the sounds of fists on flesh, scuffling, and a body thudding against stone wall.

  This was none of his quarrel, Zevaron told himself. He’d had enough senseless fighting for one night. He did not have time to get involved, and the attack would be over in an instant. The thieves would soon be off with the victim’s purse, leaving no lasting harm beyond a few bruises.

  The attack did not break off as Zevaron had expected. The victim’s cries turned to those of real pain, not just surprise. That settled the matter. Zevaron freed his sword and bolted in the direction of the fight. The two assailants had dragged their prey into an alley, very much like those Zevaron had darted down during the fight at Gatacinne. Both smelled of rotten food, stale wine, and urine.

  Zevaron caught the sound of a body sliding along rough stone to the ground. He rounded the corner of the alley. By chance, the clouds parted at that instant. Moonlight revealed two bulky figures bending over a fallen third.

  “You lift his shoulders,” one muttered, “and we’ll—”

  “Riya! Riya!” Shouting the Denariyan war cry, Zevaron burst upon them. They whirled to face him.

  Light gleamed on the edge of a long knife. Zevaron sent it spinning away. He sank into a fighting stance, sword lifted and ready.

  “If you value your lives,” he growled in Gelone, “you will depart while you still can.”

  They turned and ran. In that moment, Zevaron saw that they were masked.

  The fallen man moaned, pawing at his chest. Zevaron secured his sword and knelt beside him. The light was too weak to see if the poor fellow was badly injured. From the noise he was making, he could breathe well enough.

  “It’s all right,” Zevaron said. “I doubt they’ll be coming back. We’d best leave this place. Can you walk?”

  The stranger cursed mildly but, with Zevaron’s help, clambered to unsteady feet. He bent over, twisting to face away, and vomited noisily.

  “I’m afraid I must prevail on your good will for a little longer.” His voice was pleasant, and Zevaron realized with surprise that the other man could not have been much older than he was. “Could you—if you could help me home, my father will give you a reward.”

  “I didn’t help you for money,” Zevaron said tightly. “But I can’t leave you here for the next scavenger. I think a newborn kitten could have the better of you just now.” He slipped the other
man’s arm over his shoulder. The other was a little taller, but slender. “Which way?”

  “Turn right here, and then straight until Old Fountain Street, then up along the Avenue of Bronze to Cynar Hill. The house of Jaxar.”

  “I’m a stranger here, as you see,” Zevaron said as they limped along. “I don’t know where that is.”

  “You don’t know…” The other man sounded astonished. “You truly don’t know who I am.”

  Zevaron felt a surge of irrational impatience. “You’re the son of the Ar-King himself, for all I know. I told you I didn’t chase those thugs for any hope of gain.” All I want now is to get you home and off my hands.

  “It’s best not to make jokes about my uncle.”

  “That kick to your head must have been pretty nasty.”

  “As you wish. Don’t believe me if it suits you.”

  They went on for a time in silence. Zevaron was mildly impressed when the patrol stepped aside to let them pass without a single question.

  They reached the hilly area and began to climb. The compounds here were large and, even in the uncertain light, Zevaron noticed the smoothness and grace of the stone walls, the carvings, and the immaculately kept gardens.

  “That one,” the young man said, pointed to a long wall that gleamed as if moonlight had been woven into it. He fumbled with the latch and the gate swung open. An old man, bald and thick-bodied, stood there, lantern in hand.

  “Blessings unto the gods! You are safe!”

  The servant urged them inside and through a garden where sweet fragrances arose from the beds of night-darkened flowers. Beyond lay the house.

  “My lord! He’s home! He’s safe!” the servant called as they made their way through an entrance hall. The interior courtyard was like a garden, lined with planters and open to the sky. Beyond it, they entered the main part of the house. The servant rushed ahead, craning his head toward the top of a flight of stairs.

  A woman rushed through the largest of the doors, her peacock-bright gown in disarray, golden hair tumbled about her shoulders. In one arm, she held a mass of white fur, clearly a small shaggy dog.

  “Danar?” A second, older man appeared at the top of the stairs, moving slowly with the assistance of a crutch. His form was shadowed, but relief resonated in his voice.

  “Father, I’m s-sorry.” The young man pulled himself upright and stepped away from Zevaron’s support. “I behaved rashly, but I’m not hurt.”

  “Jaxar, I told you he would be all right.” Behind the man at the top of the stairs, a woman appeared, slender and dark. The little white dog in the arms of the golden-haired woman began barking and struggling, quieting only when its mistress cuffed it about the head.

  The second woman stepped forward, and the light from the steward’s lantern burnished her features. Zevaron, glancing up, caught the honey-gold skin, the slightly tilted eyes, the braided midnight hair.

  She cried out his name in a voice that shattered the air.

  It was Tsorreh.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  ZEVARON bolted up the stairs, taking them three at a time. Heart pounding, he wrapped his mother in his arms. She was smaller than he remembered, slim and wiry, yet her fingers closed around his shoulders with surprising strength. All the fear and grief he had buried inside himself during the last four years came surging up, washing away all other thought. He could not speak. He could barely breathe.

  She laughed as they rocked one another. “Zevaron, it’s you! It’s really you!”

  He found his voice. “You’re alive!”

  Tsorreh drew back, looking directly at him. He was struck at once by how young she was. Only a shadow below her eyes, a tautness in her arched brows and at the corners of her mouth betrayed a deeper feeling. Whether it was anxiety or sorrow, or both, he could not tell. That was only to be expected, here in the stronghold of her enemies. She did not look like a slave, in her well-made gown, clasps of ivory and pearls at her shoulders. He glanced at her wrists and saw no manacle scars.

  She was alive, that was all that mattered. This Jaxar was clearly a man of consequence. The lady must be his wife, and the young man Zevaron had rescued, his son. Danar had mentioned a reward. Zevaron had little use for money, but now he fully intended to collect quite a different favor.

  Meanwhile, at the bottom of the stairs, Danar was fending off the attentions of a servant, declaring that he was unharmed.

  “You ungrateful child!” the richly-dressed lady shrieked, looking as if she would like to strike him. “You have given your father such a fright!”

  “I heard you were captured.” Ignoring the commotion below, Zevaron turned back to Tsorreh. “And then, someone—a Gelonian officer—said you were dead. He showed me your braid with the Arandel token.” He pulled it out from where it lay hidden against his chest, slipped the cord over his head, and handed it to her. “They said—” His throat closed up.

  “Hush, it’s all right.” Her fingers closed around the token. She touched her hair, as if remembering. It was shorter than when he’d last seen her.

  “The Source of Blessings has preserved us through a terrible time and brought us together once again,” she said.

  Zevaron pressed his lips together. It was by his own efforts and a good deal of luck, and not supernatural intervention, that he had found her.

  “What are you doing here? Are you a—” he stumbled over the word, “a slave in this house?”

  “Officially, I am a prisoner, given into Jaxar’s custody. I’ll explain more about it later. Jaxar, this is my Zevaron.”

  Jaxar’s puffy face spread into an expression of delight. “My boy, I cannot tell you how welcome you are. To be separated from you was a great sadness for your mother.”

  “You are Tsorreh’s Zevaron?” Danar said. “Father, this man came to my rescue. Two thugs, down by The Blind Pilot—”

  “Really, Danar, what do you expect if you go wandering about in such disreputable areas!” the lady broke in. The dog in her arms had stopped barking and subsided into an occasional growl.

  “I’ll go where I like!” he shot back at her. “I’m no longer a child!”

  “Then stop behaving like one!” she replied, her voice becoming even more shrill.

  Zevaron tightened his grip on Tsorreh. The animosity between son and mother scoured his nerves like salt.

  “Father, they were lying in wait for me, I swear—” Danar said.

  “And where were your bodyguards, to whom we pay a small fortune? You sent them off so you could go off on one of your little adventures, didn’t you?” the lady snarled. “Then you deserve whatever happens to you!”

  “Enough!” Jaxar interrupted her, then continued in a calmer tone. “Lycian, my dear, will you be so kind as to arrange a bed for our guest—”

  “Father, I must tell you what happened,” Danar persisted. “These were no ordinary thieves—”

  “I suppose we can find him a place with the servants.” Lycian glared at Jaxar.

  “—and treat him,” Jaxar continued, “with our most gracious hospitality.”

  Despite the late hour, Zevaron had no intention of remaining within these walls. But he would not leave without Tsorreh. Never again would he desert her. She had said she was Jaxar’s prisoner. One way or the other, he would get her out of here.

  “—a pallet in my chamber,” Danar was saying. “We could—”

  “Out of the question!” Lycian interrupted. She gave Zevaron a look that said she thought him little better than the thugs who had attacked her son. “It is—”

  “It is too late to stand here arguing.” Jaxar shifted his weight on his crutch. Gray tinged his jowls and the hollows around his eyes. “Just for tonight, put him in the guest quarters. We will make other arrangements, if need be, in the morning.”

  “Nothing would please me better,” Lycian sniffed elegantly, “but the chambers are not adequately aired, and I cannot awaken the servants at this outrageous hour to make them ready.” Settin
g the little shaggy dog on the floor, she reached out one graceful hand. “Come to bed, my husband, for you are weary and this pointless argument has tired you overmuch. The boy can sleep in the gardener’s shed. It is better than he is accustomed to, I am sure.”

  Zevaron set his jaw to keep from shouting them all down. He didn’t care where he slept, as long as it wasn’t here. Yet he had learned from Chalil that demands, especially difficult or unpleasant ones, were best presented in a temperate manner. It would be prudent to wait the right opening, to emphasize the debt owed to him.

  “Mother!” Danar said, “I will not have you insulting the man who just saved my life! Don’t you understand? This wasn’t just a little roughing-up and the loss of a purse. They didn’t care about my money, they wanted me. They were about to drag me off when Zevaron came by.”

  “And do what to you?” Lycian asked. “Really, Danar, your imagination—”

  Jaxar descended the stairs, a stiff, awkward maneuver. “Even if Zevaron had not done us a great service, he is Tsorreh’s son and we cannot treat him with less courtesy than an honored guest.”

  “Please,” Tsorreh said, her voice low and gentle. “Do not trouble yourselves on the account of either myself or my son. A second pallet in the laboratory will not, I hope, inconvenience any member of this household.”

  Lycian looked astonished, for the moment without a reply. The white dog whined.

  Zevaron began, “That will not be necessary—”

  Jaxar glanced up at Tsorreh. “Are you sure it will not discommode you? No?” He chuckled. “I suppose the two of you have much to say to one another. Lycian, will you at least have a meal sent up?”

  “If I may be allowed,” Tsorreh said, “I myself will tend to my son.”

  Everyone looked pleased with this, and in the momentary pause that followed, Zevaron saw his opportunity. He delivered a full Denariyan bow to Jaxar, along with his most charming smile.

  “My gratitude for your hospitality, Lord Jaxar. However, there is an obligation between us. You say you are indebted to me for preserving your son’s freedom, if not his life. How far does that gratitude extend? Does such a service not merit a reward?”