Dangerous Waters

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Zurenne knew she must be grateful lifelong for the Karpis troopers who’d charged down the highway during her family’s escape, driving off the pursuing corsairs before their headlong flight had taken them more than a league from Halferan.

  Several stable lads had got through with word of their plight and Baron Karpis, or rather, his captains, hadn’t hesitated to saddle up and ride out. They had arrived just as Zurenne had given up hope, after Jilseth had vanished so shockingly.

  ‘Taw Ricks.’ Raselle’s forced smile was wholly unconvincing. ‘Of course, my lady.’

  Zurenne didn’t blame the maid for such a lack of enthusiasm. She had only ever visited the cramped and aging building at the turn of Aft-Summer to For-Autumn, to celebrate the rites honouring Talagrin and to acknowledge the tithes paid by the local villages. Her husband had been far too willing to overlook its inconveniences on his more frequent visits with horses, hounds and guests to share in the thrill of the chase.

  She blinked away the faint threat of tears. ‘We will soon see the lodge refurbished. Mistress Rauffe and Jora and the others will have already made a start.’

  Hopefully. If being set this task for the living could drag their grieving thoughts from all those who had died in their nightmare flight from the manor, Jora’s mother and father among them.

  Zurenne fought to stop her hand shaking as she reached for the carriage door handle. All those murdered here and out on the road had been decently burned. Licanin’s men had promised her that. There would be no dead faces to reproach her. They would only appear in her nightly dreams.

  ‘My lady.’ The door opened and Master Rauffe pulled down the folding step.

  Lord Licanin offered his hand to help her down. ‘Zurenne.’ Then he stood in front of the door to bar Ilysh’s way. ‘The children must wait in the carriage,’ he said sternly.

  ‘Mama?’ Ilysh looked past him.

  Zurenne lifted her chin. ‘My daughter is Lady of Halferan in her husband’s absence. She should see what’s become of her inheritance.’

  Everyone heard the contempt in Lord Karpis’s wordless exclamation, unconvincingly turned into a cough.

  Licanin shot him an impenetrable look before narrowing his eyes at Zurenne. ‘That will be for the parliament to discuss, if Captain Corrain fails to return before the Equinox. In the meantime, you will ruin her future prospects if you allow this scandal to spread.’

  All the same, he stepped aside and allowed the girls to leave the coach. Raselle followed close behind.

  Zurenne saw Ilysh’s face harden, refusing to yield to whatever emotions she felt. She heard a murmur stir the Halferan guards and could readily guess at its meaning. The girl had seldom looked more like her father.

  Esnina was too young for such fortitude. Her little face crumpled as she looked around. Raselle hurried forward to gather her into her arms, muffling the child’s wailing in her embrace.

  Up on his horse, Lord Karpis coughed again. ‘There is nothing to be gained by picking over this rubble. Get into your carriage, my lady, and you should make Taw Lodge by nightfall.’ He recalled his own troopers to their well-drilled ranks with a gesture of his riding crop.

  ‘Lady Ilysh.’ Zurenne held out her hand, seeing that her daughter’s hard-won poise was in dire peril. ‘Let us pay our respects at our shrine. Raselle, please sit with Esnina in the carriage.’

  Zurenne’s first glimpse of the courtyard had shown her those accounts of utter devastation had told no more, or perhaps, rather less, than the brutal truth. Only the shrine still had its roof. What devastation lay beyond its closed door remained to be seen.

  Would the shrine ledgers be there? Zurenne could have slapped herself for a fool. Why hadn’t she thought to grab those before their headlong flight? She had to have some written proof of Ilysh’s clandestine marriage, if she were to stand the faintest chance of persuading the barons’ parliament that Lord Licanin’s grant of guardianship should be considered afresh.

  Did she even have until Equinox? From what Lady Diress had said, a great many barons were calling for an extraordinary summons of the parliament, despite the coastal lords’ reports of the galleys burned by their valorous captains and the daily reassurance from scouting parties that no more corsair ships had been seen on any horizon. Just these past few days, so Lady Diress had said, Baron Karpis had received letters from merchants in Pinerin and Claithe, claiming that the raiders had abandoned the sea lanes running along the Caladhrian coast between Col and Relshaz.

  Zurenne stole a glance over her shoulder at Lord Karpis. If Licanin’s grant was challenged, whenever the parliament assembled, he wouldn’t hesitate to propose himself as Halferan’s most logical guardian. For all her kindnesses, Lady Diress had behaved as if that question were settled by the mere fact of Zurenne’s arrival beneath their roof.

  Ilysh’s hand gripped her fingers painfully hard as they approached the shrine’s closed door. Zurenne opened it awkwardly with her off-hand. She wasn’t about to shake Lysha loose.

  ‘Oh, Mama!’ Ilysh’s voice broke on a sob of distress.

  The shrine hadn’t burned like the great hall, though the inner door was grievously charred around the edges. But some great shock had jarred the gods and goddesses from their plinths. Statues had toppled this way and that, their heads, arms and feet lying broken on the floor.

  Not all the funeral urns had fallen from their shelves but most of those to survive unbroken had fallen over, their covers lost. Their contents had poured unhindered down to mingle with the haphazard fragments scattered over the cracked tiles. The draft from the doorway stirred the drifts of ash, filling the shrine with a pale haze.

  Zurenne cleared her throat. ‘Your father has long since passed safely to the Otherworld. That’s what matters most. We will see this shrine resanctified. Let’s make that vow together, in his name.’

  Now she did take her hand from Ilysh’s, trying not to wince as fragments of plaster and gritty ash crunched under her sturdy shoes. What remnant of her husband was she trampling underfoot?

  She took the soiled linen cloth from the shrine table. Drianon be thanked, the box holding the shrine ledgers was underneath. The lock had been forced but when Zurenne lifted the lid, she saw the leather-bound books were intact.

  ‘Call Master Rauffe,’ she said to Ilysh. ‘That needs to go in the carriage. This can stand as token of our vow.’ She walked swiftly to the door and knotted the linen through the ring of the handle.

  ‘Yes, Mama.’ Ilysh turned on the threshold. As she did, she gasped.

  ‘What is it?’ Zurenne hurried to join her.

  A column of sapphire light shone in the centre of the courtyard, as tall as a man and seemingly no thicker than a single hair.

  Standing behind her daughter, she wrapped the girl protectively in her arms. As Ilysh looked up, Zurenne realised her child was taller than she was now.

  ‘Mama? Is that magic?’

  Curiosity distracted Ilysh from her distress. Zurenne could even see Esnina peering open-mouthed from the carriage window.

  Before Zurenne could reply, several figures stepped through the azure magelight, one after another. She recognised Jilseth at once and one of the other two. The unassuming, bearded young man with an unfortunately weak chin was unknown to her but the curly haired girl with Tormalin features had appeared in Zurenne’s bedchamber in Karpis Manor, barely a chime after their chaotic arrival.

  Merenel, that was her name. She had assured Zurenne that Jilseth was safe in Hadrumal. Zurenne had wanted to scream at the lady wizard. Why had she and her innocent children not been rescued? She had restrained herself. What was done was done.

  Besides, Halferan owed Hadrumal a debt of gratitude for that uncanny darkness sliding up and down the troopers’ swords, making the merest touch of a blade so deadly. Despite all those who had died on the road, the survivors would never have escaped without it.

  ‘My—’ Zurenne released Ilysh from her embrace and led the girl forward to curtsey at he
r side. She addressed herself to Jilseth with a determinedly courteous smile. ‘Madam mage.’

  It was plain the lady wizard had suffered in her own way. Her face was drawn and sallow, the whites of her eyes unhealthily clouded.

  ‘Lady Zurenne.’ Jilseth took a step forward from her companions. The shaft of blue behind her flickered. ‘Lady Ilysh.’ She inclined her head respectfully to the girl. ‘I am so sorry for your distress, your own and the barony’s.’

  Zurenne heard Lord Karpis hurriedly stifle that false cough as Jilseth looked affronted at his mockery. For a fleeting moment, she savoured the thought of his humiliation at a wizard’s hand again. No, they had far more important concerns.

  ‘Might I hope for some assistance from Hadrumal as we rebuild? She gestured at the ruination. ‘Labouring by hand, we’ll be lucky to clear the ground before For-Winter.’

  There could surely be no argument. Wizards had helped with raising half the great halls in Caladhria, if baronial lore was to be believed.

  ‘By all means.’ Jilseth smiled. ‘We can also offer you far more immediate and practical help.’

  She turned to that searing blue light and another figure stepped through it. He was an older and far more robustly built man. He had to be. He carried a bound and gagged figure slung over one shoulder.

  ‘He tried to make a fight of it.’ The newcomer dumped his burden on the dusty cobbles.

  As the man found his footing, Zurenne belatedly recognised him. So did a great many others, judging by the astonished whispers hissing around the courtyard.

  ‘Master Starrid.’ Zurenne let everyone see her contempt.

  The unassuming young man stepped forward. ‘We have also recovered the coin which this scoundrel stole from Halferan, as well as the revenues embezzled by the thief and deceiver Minelas.’

  The young wizard’s words were pure Caladhrian and of the noblest blood besides. That prompted more whispers among the dumbfounded troopers.

  ‘Baron Licanin. Baron Karpis.’ He bowed to the lords in turn, unabashed at being the focus of such shameless curiosity.

  Zurenne honestly wondered if Karpis was about to fall victim to apoplexy. His complexion was the colour of the crumbling bricks heaped on all sides.

  Licanin was swifter to recover. ‘You have me at a disadvantage, my lord?’

  ‘Master Nolyen of Hadrumal, these days.’ He smiled. ‘I imagine you’ve met my father Baron Pardal at some parliament or other.’

  Was that somewhere up near Duryea? Zurenne hastily gathered her wits. While Master Nolyen had been talking, the heavy-set wizard’s gestures had summoned successive iron-bound coffers to make an impressive stack in the courtyard.

  ‘We will stow your funds wherever you want, my lady Zurenne. Or keep the coin safe in our own vaults, to be brought forth as and when you need it.’ Quizzical, the older mage contemplated the gaping hole by the baronial tower. ‘You seem to have the most remarkable rats if they can dig holes like that.’

  The roar of laughter that swept the courtyard was out of all proportion to the joke, prompted far more by relief and unlooked-for hope.

  Zurenne allowed the merriment to run its course before she replied. ‘My thanks, Master—?’

  ‘Tornauld,’ he supplied, in an accent straight from Ensaimin’s markets.

  ‘Master Tornauld. We will let you know.’ After smiling at Ilysh, Zurenne looked boldly at Karpis. Let him mock now if he dared.

  ‘What do you want to do with this offal?’ Tornauld shoved Starrid’s shoulder, sending the erstwhile steward stumbling forward.

  Close-linked manacles secured his hands behind his back. He showed no sign of mistreatment; his clothes were clean and tidy, quite unlike his appearance in Jilseth’s scrying.

  Nevertheless Zurenne wondered what magecraft had been wrought around him or on him. His eyes bulged, white-rimmed, above the clean and efficient linen gag. She was glad of that. She had no interest in anything he might say.

  Once she had wanted him hanged, she recalled distantly, with him knowing she was there to witness it. Not anymore. Not after all that she had endured. What was to be gained by another death, even the loss of a life as utterly worthless as this one?

  She even felt a pang of compassion. Starrid was staring at the ruins of his former dwelling. Behind the gag, his face twisted with grief.

  ‘Why?’ Zurenne realised this was the only thing she wanted from the wretch. ‘Why did you betray my husband’s memory?’

  The linen unknotted itself from Starrid’s mouth, prompting a shiver around the courtyard. He looked blankly at Zurenne. ‘I never betrayed my lord. But when Master Minelas came and Lord Halferan was dead?’ Some colour returned to his pale cheeks. ‘Why shouldn’t I take some recompense? I had worked hard and done my best and my only reward was always being told I was never good enough.’

  Now, absurdly, he was growing angry with her, even as he stood there in chains with the threat of wizardry hovering over him.

  ‘I never betrayed my lord but he made a laughing stock of me.’ Starrid spat out a linen thread. ‘He should have whipped that Corrain from these gates for making me a cuckold. Not just dropped him down to ride as a trooper, all winks and enjoying his favour just the same at every season’s turn.’

  ‘You had wronged your wife first.’ Zurenne remembered Halferan’s anger. ‘Everyone saw her bruises.’

  Starrid stared at her, uncomprehending. ‘Why shouldn’t I do as I saw fit inside my own doors? She belonged to me. She was nothing—’

  Zurenne couldn’t tell which of the mages promptly gagged Starrid with the linen again. She was merely grateful.

  Could it really be that simple? This stupid, selfish man had taken out his petty resentments on her and her daughters, for the sake of whatever wrongs which he imagined he had endured at her dead husband’s decree?

  Zurenne found that profoundly depressing, even amid the ruins of her home. Then she realised that particular rune definitely showed two faces. This knowledge was unexpectedly liberating. She had no faults to answer for here. She owed nothing more to this mean-spirited sneak-thief. She could spend her energies on those who deserved it, freely and guiltless.

  ‘As long as he quits the bounds of Halferan, I have no interest in punishing him further.’ She dismissed Starrid with a gesture of absolute finality. ‘If he sets foot in the barony again, then his life is forfeit and any man who takes it may claim his reward from me.’

  The murmur which that provoked among the troopers satisfied Zurenne that her words would soon spread far and wide.

  ‘He is not welcome in Karpis,’ the baron said swiftly. ‘Any man seeing him should whip him on his way.’

  ‘And in Licanin.’ The grey-haired lord’s expression led Zurenne to suspect similar decrees would follow the length and breadth of the realm once the Caladhrian parliament next met.

  Old Fitrel stepped forward, unconsciously squaring his shoulders as he addressed the wizard Tornauld. ‘By your leave, master mage? The keys?’

  Tornauld grinned and the shackles simply dropped from Starrid’s hands. Zurenne could swear she heard him whimper even through the linen gag.

  ‘You can be on your way,’ Fitrel said with relish. Seizing Starrid by the elbow, he propelled him towards the village road and the highway beyond.

  Acknowledging Karpis and Licanin with a brief nod, Jilseth came over to Zurenne and Ilysh. ‘We’ll leave you to set about your business.’ She handed them each a silver necklace. A triangular sigil of their birth runes hung from the fine chain. ‘Hold the pendant tight and say my name. Then I’ll know you wish to speak to me.’

  ‘My thanks.’ Zurenne could say nothing else, given that she would have to take up the merchant wizard’s offer to keep Halferan’s wealth in Hadrumal.

  She looked at the coffers of coin and wondered exactly how much gold and silver they held. There did seem to be rather more of them than she recalled in Halferan’s strong rooms. Were the wizards paying her recompense for Minelas’s
crimes? If so that was all well and good. They should help with more than merely the practicalities of clearing up this devastation.

  She caught sight of Baron Karpis, thin-lipped with dissatisfaction. Let him try claiming dominion over Halferan, Zurenne thought with rising courage, when she had the means to summon advocates like that noble Caladhrian wizard so readily to hand.

  ‘My lady! My lady!’ Fitrel came running back through the roughly cleared wreckage of the gatehouse. ‘My lady! It’s the captain! It’s Captain Corrain!’

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Halferan Manor, Caladhria

  24th of Aft-Summer

  CORRAIN VERY NEARLY turned tail and ran. The shock of seeing Starrid shoved out into the road was only surpassed by his disbelief at hearing Fitrel shouting as he ran back inside the walls. Then he heard what the old man was bellowing.

  He was calling out to their lady. Zurenne was alive? Corrain’s unwilling feet forced him closer. He saw the assembled men and horses, the Halferan coach in the desolation of the courtyard.

  Then he saw the wizards. The lady wizard Jilseth and three more besides. Corrain stumbled to a halt, transfixed by the shimmer of magelight. He couldn’t go on. He couldn’t retreat. He could only stare at the unearthly radiance. He didn’t even glance at Starrid when the man staggered past, fleeing towards the high road leading to the woods and beyond.

  ‘Corrain? Lad? Where have you been?’ Fitrel was at his side, all anxious solicitude. ‘Poldrion forgive me, but we’d given you up for dead. Again!’ The old man tried for a grin to make a joke of his words.

  Corrain couldn’t manage a hint of a smile, nor any attempt at reply. What a fool he’d been, to come back. He should have foreseen the possibility of finding someone, if only a stray tenant salvaging bricks for rebuilding.