Dangerous Waters

by Juliet E. McKenna

  ‘Caladhria’s concerns are none of wizardry’s, as we have told you, first to last.’ Jilseth looked at her, heavy-eyed. ‘He tells me to use my judgement in accordance with Hadrumal’s edicts.’

  Licanin’s disgust was as eloquent as it was inaudible. He strode past Zurenne to push the withdrawing room door wide. Jilseth snapped her fingers and a scatter of sparks shot through the air. Zurenne blinked as scarlet streaked across her vision to light the lamp and candles.

  ‘You can tell us what we’re facing?’ Licanin demanded of Jilseth.

  ‘Of course.’ She flung out a hand and emerald magelight slopped over the rim of the basin left unheeded on the table.

  Zurenne half expected the wizardry to stain the embroidered cloth. It merely faded to prosaic dampness.

  Licanin hurried over to peer into the glowing bowl. Green magelight cast upwards to make an eerie mask of his drawn face. ‘Saedrin save us.’ His voice tightened with strain.

  ‘What is it?’ Zurenne took a step towards the table.

  ‘See to your children, my lady,’ Licanin snapped at her.

  ‘They are safely abed.’ As she’d opened the door to Jilseth, Zurenne had heard Neeny snoring, worn out by tantrums born of panic the previous evening.

  Her indignation faltered as Licanin glowered. ‘Lady Ilysh isn’t. She’s downstairs tending her wounded tenantry.’ His sarcasm indicated he hadn’t forgotten the wedded dignity her daughter had claimed. He shook his head. ‘I wager she’s ordered every linen closet and blanket chest emptied by now.’

  ‘What?’ Zurenne stared at him.

  ‘Their grasp is closing around us.’ Jilseth was studying the bowl intently.

  ‘Show me.’ Licanin tugged a carelessly folded map from the unbuttoned breast of his tunic. He spread it on the table; some draughtsman’s painstaking work marred with smudged charcoal scrawls.

  ‘They’re here now, here and here.’ As Jilseth touched the parchment, her fingertip left a precise brown dot.

  ‘Can we hope to slow them there?’ Licanin’s dirty fingernail traced a short line. ‘That’s where our last riders are making for.’

  ‘You sent riders to Karpis and Tallat last night. Have we had word of them sending help?’ Zurenne swallowed cold apprehension. Those boys were no older than Lysha. Had they fallen prey to corsair swords as they raced to summon aid or to bring back its promise?

  Neither Jilseth nor Licanin replied. They might as well not have heard her.

  ‘I can give them pause for thought as soon there’s light for me to see.’ Jilseth studied the sky through the window. It was the colour of whey. ‘As long as I can find a good vantage point.’

  ‘A pause.’ Lord Licanin looked grimmer, deep lines creasing his face. ‘What can we do with that?’

  Zurenne knew nothing of tactics or strategy. Warfare was men’s affair, even if only in theory, pondered amid bottles of wine by recent generations in Caladhria, played out in the games of white raven that were considered so unsuitable for women.

  Perhaps women didn’t play white raven because their concerns were never so notional. The multifarious tasks of managing a household, of seeing all within it decently clothed and suitably fed, tending their ailments real and imagined; such duties demanded attention and action day in, day out, year round. When would a woman have time to squander saving a painted bird hidden amid wooden trees from a flock of equally imaginary predators?

  Zurenne’s lips pressed tight together. She wasn’t going to humiliate herself by asking what the two of them planned. She would go and ask Lysha what she was playing at, she decided, resentful. She was lady of this manor, not her daughter.

  Lord Licanin slapped the table. ‘This tower’s roof must be the highest point in the manor. My lady, the keys?’

  Zurenne was meanly pleased to see his sudden gesture had startled Jilseth as much as her. Her hand went to the chain dangling from her girdle. ‘Yes, I have the keys to the ladder.’

  Licanin picked up his parchment, addressing Jilseth. ‘I’ll send you a runner. I need to know what you see and what you are doing, at the very least to warn the men.’

  ‘If I may?’ As Jilseth held out her hand to Zurenne, it shook with fatigue.

  Zurenne closed her fist around the keys. ‘I will come with you.’ She challenged Licanin before he could object. ‘I can carry messages back and forth. You can’t spare a man who can hold a sword.’

  He looked at her dubiously before finally nodding. ‘Don’t fall and break your neck.’

  Before Zurenne could find a response, Jilseth was heading for the door. ‘Let’s not delay, my lady.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Zurenne shot Licanin a fulminating look as she swept out of the room.

  By the time he caught up with them at the stairs, she was already drawing up the sides of her gown’s skirt and petticoat. Tucking thick swags of cloth through her chain girdle left her feet unencumbered. Jilseth hitched up her own skirts as Lord Licanin hurried down to the hubbub below. Zurenne was callously amused to see him colouring with embarrassment at the sight of their stockings and garters.

  She unlocked the door to the ladder leading upwards. Zurenne had always insisted on keeping this key. She hated to think what calamity might befall them if Lysha or Neeny found this door unsecured. Halferan had gently mocked her fears but she had insisted that some forgetful handyman might leave it so, his hands full of tools, his head full of whatever repairs needed doing to the broad strips of lead or the wood beneath their folded joints where some rain had seeped in.

  A faint glow illuminated the darkness as Zurenne locked the door behind Jilseth. So this was another use for magelight.

  ‘After you, my lady.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Zurenne started climbing, cautious in her soft leather shoes. Thankfully this fixed ladder had flat, wide rungs. She was soon reaching for the bolt securing the trapdoor that led to the roof. Flinging it open, she blinked in the strengthening daylight. As she climbed carefully out into the open, she smelled smoke ever more thickly on the gusting air.

  The lead-covered roof was easy to cross, with only a shallow pitch to carry rainwater to the gutters and thence to the bird-faced spouts poking through the decorative parapet. As long as they took care not to trip over the leading’s raised seams, they would not stumble.

  Zurenne remembered Halferan bringing her up here on their very first day together at the manor, newly arrived as his bride. All that they could see was now theirs to share, he had told her fondly. As his father had bequeathed it to him, prosperous and peaceful, so they would see their son inherit. So much for those hopes.

  ‘They’re falling back across the demesne.’ Jilseth had gone to the southward parapet.

  Zurenne joined her to see a ragged line of men retreating across the pasture. The low sun smeared their shadows across the grass.

  ‘The enemy?’ She looked beyond that fragile cordon to see the horde already menacing the stragglers. The only reason that the corsairs hadn’t already overwhelmed the Caladhrians was the raiders were pausing to set more fires along the hedgerows and in the carefully tended coppices.

  ‘This burning is some new villainy.’ Distraught, Zurenne contemplated the smouldering horizon. ‘They used to leave what they couldn’t carry away. Why wreak such destruction?’

  ‘I can’t say.’ Jilseth stared intently at the closest thicket which was now blossoming with flames. ‘But I can make them think twice about it.’

  She raised a hand and Zurenne breathed blessedly fresh air. A breeze chilled the exposed backs of her knees and plucked at her looped skirts. All at once she saw corsairs come bursting out of the copse. Some collapsed after a few strides. One was caught in a lethal flare as the trees were instantly consumed by white-hot fire.

  ‘I thought wizards were forbidden to kill.’ Zurenne spoke aloud without realising.

  ‘There’s no edict against shifting a wind’s direction.’ Jilseth raised her other hand. ‘Or to set it carrying smoke. They’ll escape a choking
if they run fast enough.’

  Zurenne rejoiced at the coldness of the lady wizard’s words. Only for a moment. While the corsairs had slowed, recoiling from the fires lashing them, the Halferans were flagging as they fought to give ground as slowly as possible.

  When a fresh force of corsairs hacked their way through an unburned hedgerow, the Caladhrian line broke. The men fled, trampling haphazard tracks across the grass glistening with dew. The corsairs pursued them like lurchers after leverets.

  ‘Licanin!’ Jilseth leaned over the tower’s parapet. Though she didn’t raise her voice, Zurenne saw the baron look wildly around and then upwards, open-mouthed.

  ‘Open the rear gate,’ Jilseth urged, ‘or your men will be cut to pieces.’

  Zurenne saw Licanin hesitate. She grabbed Jilseth’s arm, stricken. ‘We cannot open that gate. If the corsairs see, if they force their way in, they’ll be at the very steps of the hall!’

  Where Lysha was striving to live up to her father’s example. Once they had taken the great hall, they would storm the baronial tower where Neeny slept beneath this leaded roof. That was to say, Zurenne fervently hoped her younger daughter was still asleep. The last thing she needed was a hysterical child clinging to her skirts.

  ‘They won’t,’ Jilseth said with compelling conviction before calling to Lord Licanin again. ‘Send your men out to support them. I will do whatever I can.’

  With the wind whispering around her, Zurenne couldn’t hear what Licanin shouted below. Action all around him spoke louder than words. Troopers scrambled into their saddles and rode for the gatehouse. Men without mounts followed after as close as they could without risking a hoof in the face. The wagons barricading the archway were hastily hauled aside.

  Anguished, Zurenne looked back to the routed defenders. Those coming to their aid must circle all the way around from the opposite side of the manor before they’d even see the foe. Even on horseback, she couldn’t see how the men whom Licanin sent could possibly arrive in time to save anyone.

  Jilseth muttered something and a shower of splinters exploded from the dark hollow in the enclosing wall that marked the rear gate.

  ‘No!’ Zurenne screamed, horrified.

  Too late. The remaining Halferan guards, stiff-jointed, balding or grey, were running through the archway, drawn swords in hand. All that achieved, as far as Zurenne could tell, was to spur the raiders on. Even with the wind at her back, she could hear the barbarians’ bloodthirsty howling.

  The corsairs’ baying was cut short. They stumbled and fell with the ground rippling beneath their feet like water. As Zurenne gasped, the grass split open. Archipelagans toppled into vast cracks yawning at their feet.

  Jilseth hissed through her teeth. Drawing back from the parapet, she flexed her fingers. ‘Closing the ground over their heads would doubtless break the edict.’

  Zurenne wondered if Jilseth knew how savage her regret sounded. Unnerved, she turned her attention to the fleeing men. ‘Saedrin save them,’ she breathed.

  Those gashes ripped through the turf had slowed pursuit, even if precious few corsairs were stopping to help their comrades. The Halferan guards were spread out in a half circle defending the gate, brandishing their weapons. As they gestured with frantic encouragement, the routed Caladhrians spent their remaining strength on running towards that flimsy offer of protection.

  The mounted troopers rounded the curve of the wall and charged for the corsairs. Zurenne pressed her hands to her mouth, too appalled to even cry out. Those pitfalls would be the death of those horses if their riders couldn’t pull up in time.

  They didn’t have to. A baulk of green turf, waist high to a man, reared up ahead of the galloping horses. Startled, men and mounts alike recoiled to mill around in confusion.

  The corsairs recovered swiftest. Some were already scrambling up over the unforeseen rampart. Too late. A solid line of horseflesh now defended the routed Caladhrians as they scrambled over the shattered remnants of the rear gate.

  How was that to be closed now the gate itself lay in pieces? Zurenne looked at Jilseth. The lady wizard’s attention was fixed on the dark archway. As soon as the last man was through, golden light filled the void. As the Caladhrians backed away, astonished, the mage-wrought radiance faded.

  The wall was now a solid barrier of brick and plaster. If Zurenne hadn’t known there’d once been a gateway, she would have believed it had never existed.

  For a long moment, utter silence held the courtyard in thrall. Then she heard Licanin’s voice as clear as if he stood beside them on the rooftop. ‘Can you—?’

  Zurenne saw him break off as the first of the horsemen came thundering back through the gatehouse. Women unencumbered by children hurried to shoo back inattentive youngsters in danger of being trampled unawares. Others ran to help hold the flat-eared horses snorting angrily at the crowd. The last stable boys had long since been sent out with the night’s despatches. Maiden aunts and widows were already tending those wounded Caladhrians whom Jilseth’s magic had saved from the corsair blades.

  As the final trooper returned, the iron-bound wooden gates were slammed shut and barred, almost catching his horse’s tail. The baron looked up and gestured, his question plain.

  ‘I don’t want to block our only escape.’ Jilseth looked down at him. ‘We cannot stay here much longer. I will do all I can to defend the walls and gates while you prepare the people to leave.’

  ‘How—?’

  As Licanin stared up, dumbfounded, Zurenne saw more corsairs storming across the fields. They were coming from all directions.

  ‘How can we leave?’ she shrieked at the lady wizard. ‘We’re surrounded.’ That was no more than the simple, lethal truth. ‘Where will we go?’

  ‘North,’ Jilseth said judiciously. ‘The road to Karpis is largely free of corsairs as yet. There are too many raiders to the south and west of us and they’re already roaming further inland. We must leave soon enough to stay ahead of their main force.’

  ‘Heading for Karpis?’ The thought of throwing herself on Lord Karpis’s mercy made Zurenne want to vomit. She gritted her teeth. She would humble herself before him, if she must in such extremity, for the sake of her children and her household. Would that be enough? Zurenne wasn’t the only one he had a grudge against.

  ‘He will surely recognise you for the lady wizard who humiliated him. What if he bars his gates against us?’

  ‘I will unbar them.’ Jilseth promised with a wan smile. ‘And invite him to balance any wish for revenge against the benefits of a wizardly ally in the current crisis. Then there’s the prospect of explaining himself to Planir if I should be injured or killed.’

  That should suffice. But now Zurenne was alarmed by more immediate concerns. The lady wizard was deathly pale. ‘Did you get any sleep last night? When did you last eat or drink?’

  ‘No, and honestly, I cannot recall eating anything since I arrived here.’ As the wind tousled her hair, Jilseth dragged stray locks from her face with crooked fingers.

  ‘Let me fetch you some food.’ Zurenne knew without asking that she wouldn’t persuade the lady wizard to leave the rooftop. Another realisation struck her as she hurried towards the open trapdoor. She looked back. ‘You didn’t need anyone up here to carry messages. Why let me come with you? Why have me stay?’

  Jilseth shrugged wordlessly. Baffled, Zurenne climbed down the ladder as fast as she could. She fished the keys out of the fold of her skirt and, unlocking the door, found herself face to face with Raselle at the top of the stairs.

  ‘My lady!’ Scandalised, the maid dropped to her knees to tug Zurenne’s skirts into more seemly order around her ankles.

  ‘Where are my daughters?’ Zurenne remembered who had been supposedly watching over their slumbers. ‘Where is Jora?’ she snapped.

  ‘Below in the hall, with Lady Ilysh.’ Raselle looked up, fearful. ‘Jora’s family came in from the village and her mother is ailing, my lady. I said I would watch over Esnina, since I
would be here to serve you.’ She choked on her final words.

  Zurenne smoothed her skirts over her hips. ‘Is Esnina awake?’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’ Raselle scrambled to her feet.

  ‘I will sit with her while you fetch bread and wine, any fruit or cheese, whatever the kitchen can muster. The lady wizard needs breakfast.’

  ‘Can she save us?’ Tears stood in Raselle’s eyes.

  ‘I believe so.’ Zurenne spoke with all the conviction she could muster. ‘Hurry, please!’

  As Raselle fled down the stairs, Zurenne locked the door to the roof ladder. If Jilseth needed to get down, she couldn’t see that hampering her.

  ‘Neeny?’ She went quickly to the girl’s bedchamber, uneasy. This silence was out of character. Zurenne would have expected to see her little daughter’s curious face peering around the door as soon as she heard voices.

  Esnina was in the window seat, hugging her knees with her bare feet drawn up under the hem of her nightgown. She didn’t stir, simply looking at Zurenne with mute appeal.

  ‘Sweetheart, it will be alright.’ Zurenne rushed to wrap her arms around the trembling child. She tried to find some further reassurance. She couldn’t, mortally afraid that whatever she said would be proven a lie.

  Halferan had always insisted that he wouldn’t lie to their children. If it was ever necessary to keep something from them, even to deceive them, he would rather keep silent and leave them guessing, even if that distressed them, rather than tell an outright falsehood.

  Zurenne could only honour his memory with silence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The Great Forest

  10th of Aft-Summer (Caladhrian Parliamentary Almanac)

  12th of Lekinar (Soluran calendar)

  CORRAIN WOKE WITH a start. Rubbing a hand over his face, bristles rasped beneath his grimy palm. Unwashed and stale-mouthed, he longed to go back to sleep. He was constantly fighting to stay awake now. These woods were shady by day and mild at night, tempting him everywhere with drifts of dry leaves softening sheltered, peaceful hollows.