Northern Storm ac-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  ‘We’re nowhere near a thaw, my lady,’ objected Ken-in, shifting from foot to foot.

  ‘Did I ask for your opinion?’Velindre raised her brows at him in spurious enquiry. No, I thought not. Can you do what I want or does this lackey earn the commission I’m prepared to pay?’

  The lackey’s eyes brightened.

  ‘I can do it for you,’ Ken-in assured her hurriedly.

  ‘Leave me your belt.’ She pointed at the tooled leather strap cinching his sheepskin tight to his waist. ‘My lady?’ He was confused.

  ‘Leave it or just leave,’ she said coldly. ‘As long as I have something of yours, I can find you with my magic. In that case, I’ll trust you with my gold. If not, you can be on your way and this lackey can see to my needs.’

  The lackey suddenly looked rather less than eager.

  The boy chewed lips chapped from the long winter cold. ‘All right.’ He slowly unbuckled the belt and laid it on the round table in the middle of the room.

  ‘What’s your business here, my lady mage?’ asked the lackey fawningly as he stirred the banked fire and added fresh logs from the basket.

  None of your concern,’ she told him crisply, fighting the weariness threatening to tighten across her brow into a headache. ‘I shall be on my way before nightfall as long as this boy can find me a horse and provisions. Until then I want some peace and privacy. Provide it and you’ll be handsomely paid.’ She turned her attention to Ken-in and held out a handful of weighty gold coins. ‘Waste your time and mine idling with your cronies and you’ll regret it.’ She glanced at the lackey. ‘I shall want a shallow bowl of cold water and some ink for scrying after the boy.’

  ‘Yes, mistress.’ The lackey took his opportunity to depart.

  ‘I’ll be quick as I can, my lady.’ Kenin ran a finger around the inside of his collar, sweat beading his forehead.

  ‘Your tisane, madam.’ The maid Ametine nudged the door open with an elbow, a heavy wooden tray balanced on her other hip. She set it on the table and the tall silver jug breathed a puff of steam. Her eyes widened at the sight of the gold Kenin was tucking inside his glove. ‘Can I blend you a tisane, my lady?’ She smiled eagerly, brushing her hands on her skirts. ‘We have borage and chamomile, linden, dog rose, valerian—’

  ‘A scant spoonful of dog rose,’ Velindre inten-upted, ‘with just a touch of chamomile and the same of valerian.’ She snapped her fingers to regain Ken-in’s wandering attention. ‘When you’ve found a suitable horse, bring it here. I’m not paying up till I’ve seen it for myself.’

  The maid spooned dried herbs into a hinged ball of pierced silver, setting it in a tall glass with a silver holder and pouring in hot water. ‘Honey, my lady?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Velindre nodded before fixing Kerrin with a penetrating stare. Well, what are you waiting for?’

  Ametine brought the tisane over, ducking a curtsey. Will that be all, my lady?’

  ‘A bowl of plain water,’ Velindre said again, ‘and some ink.’

  Kerrin’s shoulders flinched as he left the room.

  ‘At once, my lady.’ Ametine bobbed her way backwards to the door and disappeared.

  Velindre blew the steam from her drink and sipped it carefully. Grimacing at the heat, she cooled it with a breath of enchanted air. That was better. Now she had better get some rest, if she was to be out of the city by nightfall. There might not be many mages who could travel such a distance with a single translocation spell but she was no more immune to the draining effects of working such magic than any other wizard. Careful to keep her boots off the cushions, she drank down the tisane and set the glass cup on the floor. Lying back against the padded headrest of the day bed, she let her eyes drift closed as she waved a hand at the door. The lock snicked and vivid blue light ran around the frame before vanishing into the wall. Velindre was already asleep. A tentative knock at the door stirred her.

  ‘My lady?’ It was the maid Ametine.

  Velindre woke at once and was pleased to find that she was well refreshed. She was less well pleased to see that the winter sun had already quit the sky outside, leaving only its golden afterglow on high, pale clouds. ‘Come in.’ She waved a hand and the door unlocked itself, swinging open.

  Watching it with some misgiving, Ametine hovered on the threshold with a tray holding ewer, bowl and snowy towel.

  Velindre realised belatedly that no one had brought her water and ink for scrying. Was she going to need it?

  ‘He’s back, the boy,’ the maid stammered. ‘With two horses.’

  ‘Is he? Come in, girl.’ Velindre swung her feet to the floor and stood up, shrugging discreetly to ease uncomfortable rucks in the chemise beneath her bodice and skirt. ‘I wonder, is there a man born who can do exactly what he’s asked, no more and no less?’

  ‘Sure I don’t know, my lady.’ Ametine offered a hesitant smile, setting the tray down on the table. Velindre carefully washed the sleep from her eyes and dried her face. ‘I wonder what he’s brought for my gold. Where is he?’

  ‘Out the back, my lady.’ The maid bobbed an uncertain curtsey.

  ‘Let’s go and see.’ Velindre found her gloves and rebuckled her bag. ‘My cloak, if you please.’ She left the boy’s belt on the table. Let him ask for it back, if he had the nerve.

  ‘This way, my lady.’ The maid led the way through the kitchen passages to the Rowan Tree’s extensive stable yard, collecting Velindre’s brushed cloak from a peg as they went. The lackey she’d encountered earlier was nowhere to be seen but Ken-in was waiting on the swept cobbles, a horse’s reins in each fist. He grinned widely as Velindre appeared in the doorway. ‘Here we are, madam mage.’

  ‘Good evening to you.’ A dour-faced man was standing nearby, muffled up against the cold. ‘These are your beasts?’ At the man’s nod, Velindre set down her bag and pulled on her cloak, considering the animals in the light of the lamps already lit around the stable yard. Both were unrelieved brown with black manes, their forelocks falling over blunt, undistinguished faces. Heavy-set beasts, they were none too tall in the shoulder but deep in the body and thick in the leg. Their rugged coats ran down to feathery wisps falling over wide, black hooves shod with sturdy steel.

  Velindre walked forward and held out a hand for the first to sniff It shied away from her, a rim of white around its dark, liquid eyes. Velindre turned to the other horse, which sniffed the fur-lined kidskin without reaction, shifting its hooves with a grating noise. Velindre rubbed her hand down the horse’s thick neck and felt it quiver beneath her as the animal nosed forward, ears pricking.

  ‘Good lad,’ she soothed as she pulled off a glove, bending to run her hand down the front of his foreleg. With wizard senses to augment her touch, she could be certain there was no heat or swelling in the leg. At her prompt, the horse lifted his sturdy hoof for her inspection. After checking all four legs and feet, Velindre stood upright and rubbed the animal’s velvety muzzle with a smile for the obliging animal. ‘I’ll try this one,’ she said to the horses’ owner.

  ‘As you like,’ said Ken-in readily. ‘This one’s a bit flighty, I’ll grant you, but he won’t give me bother.’ Velindre looked quizzically at him. ‘I don’t recall offering to buy you a horse.’

  Ken-in chewed his lip. You’re not going up into the hills alone, my lady, surely?’

  ‘I certainly am,’ she assured him, moving to check the girth on the saddle of her chosen horse. She pulled it tight and poked the animal in the ribs just for good measure in case it was inclined to hold its breath. ‘Where’s the mounting block?’

  ‘You’re not setting off now?’ Ametine gasped, wringing her hands in confusion. ‘It’s nigh on dark.’

  ‘What has that to do with anything?’ asked Velindre with ominous calm. ‘Or with you, for that matter?’ She settled herself in the saddle and, walking the horse carefully around the yard, she nodded with satisfaction at the animal’s well-schooled responsiveness. ‘You’ll do, won’t you?’ She patted his shoulder and tu
rned her attention back to the disgruntled youth now leaning against the wall by the back door of the inn. ‘Did you get the provisions I asked for? And everything else?’

  The boy rubbed a hand over his head, knocking his knitted cap awry. ‘Well, yes, but—’

  ‘Go and get them,’ Velindre invited with a hint of irritation. Now, Ametine, isn’t it? My luggage, if you please?’ Ametine brought the heavy leather bag over and Velindre secured it to the metal rings attached to the front of the saddle.

  Ken-in appeared from a tack room by the outer arch of the yard carrying an oilskin bundle bound with leather straps in his hands, bulky furs slung over one shoulder and a small sack hanging from the other arm. ‘I did what you bid, but you can’t be thinking—’

  ‘The cloak, if you please.’ Velindre held out a commanding hand. ‘Tie everything else to the back of the saddle.’

  ‘But madam ‘

  She cut off his protest by pulling the cloak off his shoulder. Standing in her stirrups, she settled the heavy fur around herself. She found a round hat in one deep pocket and gauntlets in another, beaver pelt, wonderfully warm and silky. She pulled them over her kidskin gloves, ignoring Karin who was muttering under his breath as he secured the food and grain on the horse’s rump. She wouldn’t go hungry, Velindre noted. In fact, she’d best discard what she could as soon as she was outside the city, lest the horse prove overburdened.

  ‘You can’t set off now. You’ll be dead and froze by dawn.’ Ametine’s breath smoked in the lamplight and she was shivering in her indoor maid’s livery. Now that the sun was down, the temperature was falling like a stone.

  The bells of the city proclaimed the end of the day with ten brisk chimes as Velindre offered the silent horse-trader a double handful of white-gold crowns. ‘That should pay for the horse. What’s his name?’

  ‘Oakey.’ The horse-trader tipped his hat briefly to her and clicked his tongue to get the unwanted horse walking out of the stable yard. Oakey whickered briefly after his stable mate and Velindre soothed him with a pat beneath his mane before fishing in her purse again. ‘Ametine, here’s payment for your time and trouble. You can share it with your absent friend or not, as you see fit.’

  She tossed a couple more Tormalin crowns to Ken-in, who looked up at her sullenly. ‘I appreciate your offer of an escort and I’m sorry if you’ve made a fool of yourself telling your friends you’re heading into the wilds on some adventure.’ It was too dark to see if the boy was blushing but his ducked head suggested to Velindre that she’d guessed right. ‘Believe me, boy, you don’t want to go where I’m heading,’ she said sternly. ‘And any mage worth the name doesn’t need an escort, whatever the weather, so don’t think of following me in some misguided hope of riding to my rescue in case of marauding trappers. I shall see any such trouble long before it finds me. I’ll also see you if you’re fool enough to try coming after me, and I will be seriously displeased.’

  Satisfied to see apprehension replace the mulishness in Kerrin’s face, she carefully gathered up her reins in her double-gloved hands and drew the horse’s head around towards the open archway. The inn’s ostlers watched her ride out, shaking their heads in bafflement. Several turned questioning faces to Ametine but she had already disappeared inside the warm inn.

  Out on the road, Velindre turned the horse’s head up the hill. ‘Come on, Oakey.’ The reluctant animal was evidently none too pleased to be heading away from a companionable stable yard with a bitterly cold night coming rapidly on. She used her heels to convince him otherwise, urging him to his fastest walk, wary of the cobbles in sheltered corners already slick with frost. Best to be out of the city gates before dusk, when some watchman was bound to take it into his head to ask where she was going, laden for travel at such a time. Not that any watchman could stop her. All the same, any gate-ward mentioning such a meeting to some superior among the Guilds would increase the chances of her visit being reported back to curious ears in Hadrumal.

  The inns of Inglis were doing a roaring trade satisfying fur trappers eager for light, warmth and companionship. Velindre soothed Oakey with a firm hand as a riot of song spilled out of one tavern door along with golden candlelight and a man who’d tripped over his own feet. A linkboy with his lantern swaying on a pole stared open-mouthed at her. Velindre ignored him, forcing her recalcitrant steed on..

  She soon reached the long bridge that snaked across the wide expanse of the River Dalas on a succession of tall, solidly built pillars. Ice gathered in the narrow arches shone pale against the black water in the fading light. What would a water mage be doing in the far north in winter? she wondered idly. Was Azazir curious as to the nature of freezing?

  The bridge was strewn with sand though there were few enough carts or carriages out to take advantage of the Guilds’ forethought. Most people were content to stay by their own firesides, counting the days till the festivities of the Spring Equinox. Did the Aldabreshin celebrate the Equinoxes? Velindre realised she didn’t know. No matter. Dev would know all the local customs and playing the guide was the least he could do in return for the lore she’d be bringing him. She only hoped Azazir would be able to explain his secrets without too much of the rambling and digression that so many of the oldest wizards seemed prone to indulge in. She didn’t have time to waste and she certainly hadn’t come this far to fail.

  Oakey slowed as the animal sensed that her thoughts were elsewhere. Velindre prompted him back to a faster walk with hands and heels. With a shake of his head, the horse pressed on through the empty streets of close-shuttered, primly respectable houses. Velindre paid closer attention to their route. She’d only had a few occasions to come this way on previous visits to Inglis and had never had cause to go far inland before.

  A gate-ward was warming himself by a brazier beneath the towering gatehouse astride the highroad. ‘We lock up at second chime of the night,’ he warned as Velindre passed by him. You’ll have to find another way in if you’re late back.’

  ‘I’ll remember.’ She nodded perfunctorily.

  There were plenty of houses beyond the pool of light cast by the torches smouldering above the archway.

  Inglis had gates for the better collecting of tariffs and dues, their tall towers serving as lookout posts, but there were no walls warranting serious defence. Who was there in these northern wilds to attack the city?

  Is that what Azazir is seeking? Velindre wondered. She found herself increasingly curious about meeting this notorious wizard. Solitude and freedom to explore all aspects of his affinity, away from the noise and nosiness of Hadrumal. Otrick had always said he learned more from a day out on the storm-tossed headlands of this ocean coast than he did from half a season in Hadrumal’s libraries. She had certainly outstripped every other apprentice of her affinity among her contemporaries once Otrick had accepted her as his pupil and taken her away on those voyages of startling discovery.

  Though there had been the few times when she had wondered if their wild trials of wind and wave were going to end in disaster. Best not forget also that Azazir’s experiments had resulted in his banishment from Hadrumal. Her father would be content to see the mage dead and it must have taken something considerable to stir him to that degree. She shivered, not cold inside her cocoon of fur and wool but just a little apprehensive. Oakey slowed again with a whicker of protest and she felt his muscles tensing obstinately beneath her legs. As she let the animal come to a complete halt, he laid his ears back irritably. ‘We’re going to make a good start on this trip tonight, whatever you might think, my friend.’ As she spoke, Velindre leaned forward to stroke the horse’s coarse, bristly mane. Magelight glimmered between her fingers and spread to wrap horse and rider in a shimmering aura, no brighter than the moonlight now shining from above. Velindre glanced upwards. The sky was clear, pricked with bright stars, and the Greater Moon was rising in a golden half-circle above the dark, featureless mass of the forested hills before her. ‘Come on, Oakey,’ she encouraged.

  Insul
ated from the deepening cold by the subtle magic now enveloping them, the horse gave a grumbling snort and plodded obligingly on.

  Chapter Ten

  Concentrate on the omens. This is your first arrival here as warlord of this domain. Will there be portents to offer some clue as to Chazen’s future? As to your future?

  Kheda stood on the bow platform of the Gossamer Shark and surveyed the bustle in the anchorage sheltered by the great green bulk of the island of Esabir. The vessel stood out from the shore, flanked by the Dancing Snake and the Brittle Crab, all on guard as the three great galleys that had brought the warlord’s household north were unloaded. Small boats ferried coffers, bundles and crates ashore or brought food and water to the grateful crews of the heavy triremes. Low conversations in the belly of the boat behind Kheda were punctuated by the rattle of bowls as freshly steamed sailer grain mixed with shreds of meat and green herbs was dished out to the oarsmen.

  He resolutely ignored the disturbances, concentrating on the vista before him. The little boats filled the bay so densely that the dark-blue waters were barely visible.

  Itrac could almost walk ashore dry-shod over their decks. Could an enemy make an assault so easily? The steeply shelving beach allowed ships to anchor close in to this shore, a boon to the domain’s galleys when the rainy season storms wracked the seas. Under other stars, an enemy might exploit such a vulnerability, so a formidable embankment had been built along the edge of the beach, topped with a thick wall of pale-grey stone. The wall zigged and zagged so that arrows from every bastion could defend its neighbours. Massive catapults squatted on the forward-thrusting platforms to secure a commanding view of any approaching ships.