by Anthony Ryan
“Your bow arm’s still too stiff,” he said. “Remember, push and pull, don’t just pull.”
She frowned in annoyance but did as he said, the arrow smacking firmly into the circle. She gave him a smug grimace, the closest she ever came to smiling, and went to retrieve the arrows. Her hair was growing in and she had lost much of the whippetlike leanness he recalled from her abortive attack outside Warnsclave. Ellora’s cooking was a considerable help in building muscle.
They hadn’t spoken of the outlaws since leaving Rhansmill. He knew it would do little good to lecture her, the strength of her attachment to her god was such that any suggestion she had done wrong would invite only scornful rejection, plus another diatribe on the love of the Father. The men had been an obstacle on her path to the Trueblade’s sword, an impediment to the will of the World Father. So she removed them and the burden of killing seemed to weigh on her soul not at all. But he knew she felt it, deep down. The blood-song’s music was always sad when his thoughts touched on her, the notes discordant and sombre. She was damaged, twisted by someone into this unhesitating killer. He knew she would feel it eventually, but after how many more years and more deaths he couldn’t say.
Then why didn’t you stop her? He had lain awake as she rose and stole away, casting the blood-song after her, listening to the rise and fall of the tune, the harsh tumult of sharp notes that always denoted killing. But he hadn’t gone after her, the song had warned against it, flaring in alarm as he started to rise intending to follow, disarm the men when they found them and fetch the guards. But the song said no and he had learned to heed its music. The outlaws were scum, deserving of death no doubt, and they were as much an obstacle to his mission as to hers. Recognition now would be a burden, one he had always detested. So he had lain awake, eyes closed when she returned, slipping into her coverings and falling into an untroubled sleep.
“Ready for the off, my lord?” Janril Norin called from his wagon; the rest of the players had packed up and were already trundling off towards the road.
“We’ll walk a ways,” he called back, waving the minstrel on.
Reva tossed the straw sack onto the back of the wagon and they fell in step behind. “How much longer?” she asked, a question that had become something of a daily ritual.
“Another week at least.”
She grunted. “Don’t see why you can’t just tell me now. This lot offer all the disguise you need.”
“We have an agreement. Besides, you haven’t mastered the bow yet.”
“I’m good enough. Brought down that deer the other night on my own didn’t I?”
“That you did. But there are other weapons than the bow.”
Her gaze took on the sullen reluctance he knew signified an internal debate. She wonders why I train her when she intends to kill me. It was a question he had also asked himself. With or without his aid her skills would grow, and she was already formidable. But the blood-song’s tune was emphatic whenever he trained her: this is necessary.
“The sword,” she said after a few moments wrangling her conscience. “You’ll teach me the sword?”
“If you like. We’ll start tonight.”
She gave a small huff of what might have been pleasure and darted forward, leaping onto the back of the wagon and hauling herself up onto the roof, sitting down cross-legged to watch the country go by. Strange she should have no notion of her own beauty, he thought, watching her auburn hair shining in the morning sun.
◆ ◆ ◆
“The first thing to learn,” Vaelin told her, touching his ash rod to hers, sweeping it up then around in a blur, twisting it from her grasp to spin in the air. He caught it as it fell and tossed it back to her. “Is the grip.”
She learned fast, as he knew she would, mastering the grip and the basics of parry and thrust on the first evening. By the end of the third day she could perform the simplest of Master Sollis’s sword scales with near-perfect form, and no small amount of grace.
“When do I get to use that?” she asked at the conclusion of the fourth day’s practice, pointing at the roped canvas bundle propped against the wagon wheel. She was sweating a little from the sparring, the part she enjoyed most since it gave her the chance to inflict some pain on him, though as yet all her attempts had been frustrated, not without difficulty.
“You don’t.” She looked away and he could read her intention without any help from the blood-song. “And if you take it out when I’m sleeping, these lessons will stop. You understand?”
She glowered. “Why do you carry it around if you’re never going to use it?”
A fair question, he knew, but not one he wanted to discuss. “Ellora’s cooking supper,” he said, walking back to the wagon.
The dancer’s frostiness had thawed somewhat as they travelled north, but he knew he still made her nervous. Every sixth day she would spend an hour alone beyond the circle of players’ wagons, sitting with her eyes closed, lips murmuring a whispered chant. Although he was no longer a brother his story was well-known and those with her beliefs had good reason to fear the Order. Though he had been surprised to see her performing Denier rites so openly.
“Things have changed in the Realm, my lord,” Janril explained that evening. “The King abolished the strictures on Denier beliefs a year after ascending the throne. No more tongueless unfortunates hanging in the gibbets, so Ellora can recite her Ascendant creed openly if she wishes. Though it’s best not to be too open.”
“What made the King do it?”
“Well.” Janril’s voice dropped into a whisper, even though they were alone. “The King has a queen and she, some say, has more than a passing interest in all things Denier.”
The Queen of the Unified Realm is not of the Faith. He wondered at it. Much can change in five years. “And the Orders had no objection to this?”
“The Fourth certainly did, Aspect Tendris made speeches aplenty on the matter. There was some grumbling amongst the commons, fearing a return of the Red Hand and such. No more riots though. There was a lot of discord after the war. My last two years in the Wolfrunners were spent putting down riot and rebellion the breadth of Asrael. Since then most people just want a quiet life.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The next day saw them travelling across the flatlands covering the regions south of the Brinewash River, great fields of wheat and goldflower stretching away on either side of the road. Vaelin asked Janril to stop at a crossroads a few miles short of Haeversvale. “I have business on the east road,” he said, climbing down from the wagon. “I’ll meet you in the town tonight.”
Reva leapt down from the top of the wagon and fell in step alongside as he took the easterly road. “You don’t have to come,” he told her.
She raised a sardonic eyebrow and gave no reply. Still expects me to run off leaving her swordless, he thought, wincing internally at the likely reaction when she heard what he had to say about her father’s sword.
A few miles’ walk brought them to a small village nestling amongst a copse of willow. The buildings were run-down, window frames empty and doors either vanished or hanging from rusted hinges, rafters showing through thinning thatch. “No-one lives here,” Reva said.
“No, not for years.” His eyes roamed the village, picking out a small cottage beneath the tallest willow. He went inside, finding bare dust-covered floor, fallen bricks piled into the fireplace. He stood in the centre of the room, eyes closed, and began to sing.
She laughed a lot. Little giggler her father called her. Times were hard, they were often hungry but she always found reason to laugh. She had been happy here. The song changed a little as he went deeper, the tone more ominous. Blood spattering on the floor, a man screaming, clutching at a wound in his leg. A soldier from the look of him, the crest of an Asraelin noble house on his tunic. A girl of no more than fourteen took a glowing poker from the fire and slapped it to the wound
, the soldier screamed and fainted.
“Got a talent for this girl,” another soldier said, a sergeant by his bearing. He tossed the girl a coin, a silver, more money than she had ever held in her life. “Put even the Fifth Order to shame with skills like that.”
The girl turned to the woman who stood in the corner casting nervous glances at the soldiers. “What’s the Fifth Order, Mumma?”
“Vardrian,” Reva said, breaking the vision. She was standing by the fireplace reading a wooden plaque nailed to the wall. “The family who lived here maybe?”
“Yes.” He went to the plaque, fingers tracing over the letters, finely carved, painted white, the colour peeling away.
“You’re bleeding.”
It was just a spot on his upper lip. It had happened sometimes back in his cell, when he sang rather than listened. The louder the song the more the blood would flow from his nose, or on one occasion as he had sought to reach across the broad ocean to the Far West, his eyes. It is the price I pay, the blind woman said. The truth of it was becoming ever more clear: We all pay a price for our gifts.
“It’s nothing,” he said, wiping the spot of blood away, leaving the plaque in place and going outside.
◆ ◆ ◆
Two more days and the bridge over the Brinewash came into view. What had once been wood was now stone, broader and sturdier than its predecessor. “The King likes to build,” Janril said as the wagon rolled up to the toll-house, tossing the bridgemaster a purse with enough coin for the players’ wagons. “Bridges and libraries, healing houses. Tears down the old, builds the new. Some call him Malcius the Bricklayer.”
“There are worse names to earn,” Vaelin replied. He sat in the wagon’s shadowed interior, wary of showing himself even in his hood this close to the capital. Butcher, madman, schemer, invader. Janus earned them all.
They made for the great expanse of grass where the Summertide Fair made its home every year. A large number of other player caravans had already gathered, along with numerous hawkers and craftsmen come to sell their wares, and a group of carpenters had begun construction of the wooden arena where the Renfaelin Knights would assail each other in the tourney. Vaelin waited for evening before leaving the wagon. He offered Janril his remaining coin, knowing it would be refused, and embraced the minstrel in farewell.
“You don’t need this place, my lord,” Janril said. His eyes were bright and his smile forced. “Stay with us. The common folk may sing their songs about you but few nobles will relish the sight of your return. There’s only envy and treachery inside those walls.”
“There are things I must do here, Janril. But I thank you.” He gripped the player’s shoulders a final time, hefted his canvas bundle and walked off towards the city gate. Reva quickly appeared at his side.
“Well?” she said.
He kept walking.
“You may have noticed we’re at Varinshold,” she went on, casting a hand at the city walls. “In accordance with our agreement.”
“Soon,” he said.
“Now!”
He stopped, meeting her gaze squarely, voice soft but precise. “You will have your answer soon. Now, come with me or stay here. I’m sure Janril can use another dancer.”
She eyed the city gate with a mix of distrust and contempt. “Not even inside yet and it stinks like a fat man’s outhouse,” she grumbled but followed as he walked on.
◆ ◆ ◆
His father’s house had once seemed huge, a mighty castle in his boy’s mind as he raced around hallway and grounds in a tireless frenzy of imagined heroism, his wooden sword a terror to servants and livestock alike. The great oak that stretched its branches over the slanted roof had been his arch-enemy, a giant, come to tear down the castle walls. Childhood fickleness sometimes made a friend of the giant, and he would nestle in his thick arms as he watched his father put a warhorse through its paces on the acre and a half of grass between the stables and the riverbank.
It never seemed strange to him that he had no real friends, that the only children he knew were the sons and daughters of the servants with whom he was permitted only the briefest playtime before his mother shooed them away, kind but firm. “Don’t bother them, Vaelin. They’ve better things to do.” He realised later she deliberately kept him from other children, forming a true friendship would only make it harder when the time came for him to join the Order.
The house had shrunk in the many years since, and not only to his adult eye. The roof sagged and had sore need of a slater, the walls dull and grey with aged whitewash. At least half the windows were boarded up, and those free of boards lacked more than a few panes. Even the branches of the great oak were drooping, the giant was getting old. He could see a fire burning in one of the windows, just one flicker of warmth in the whole house.
“You grew up here?” Reva asked in surprise. The rain had come in earnest as they made their way through the northern quarter to Watcher’s Bend, droplets falling thick from the hem of her hood. “The songs say you are of the common folk, risen from the streets. This is a palace.”
“No,” he murmured, walking on. “It’s a castle.”
He stopped in front of the main door. The quality door, one of the maids had called it, a jovial plump woman he was ashamed to find he could no longer name. Quality door for quality people. Looking at the bell, tarnished and dull, the rope threadbare, he wondered how many quality people had been through it recently. He watched the rope sway in the rain as Reva gave a loud and deliberate sniff. He drew a breath and pulled the rope.
The echo had died away for a good few minutes before there came a muffled shout from beyond the door. “Go away! I’ve got another week! The magistrate decreed it! There’s a mighty hero of the Alpiran war upstairs who’ll hack your hands off in a trice if you don’t leave us in peace!”
There was a faint sound of retreating footsteps. Vaelin exchanged a glance with Reva and rang the bell again. This time the wait was shorter.
“Right! You were warned!” The door swung inwards and they were confronted with the sight of a young woman drawing back a bucket, the contents looking both moist and unfragrant. “Week’s worth of slops for you l—” She froze when she saw him, the bucket slipping from her hands, eyes wide as she slumped against the wall, hands going to her face.
“Sister,” Vaelin said. “May I come in?”
◆ ◆ ◆
He had to half carry her to the kitchen where it seemed she made her home, judging from the chill emptiness of every room they passed. He sat her on a stool before the range, clasping her trembling hands, finding them cold. Her eyes seemed unable to leave his face. “I thought . . . you were hooded . . . for a moment I thought.” She blinked away tears.
“I’m sorry . . .”
“No . . .” Her hands came free of his, reaching up to touch his face, a smile growing as the tears fell. The dark, earnest eyes of the little girl he had met on that distant winter day were still there, but womanhood had given her the kind of comeliness he knew could be dangerous, especially when living alone in a ruined house. “Brother. I always knew . . . I never doubted . . .”
There was a loud clatter as Reva dumped the slop bucket in a corner.
“Alornis, this is Reva. My . . .” He paused as she raised an eyebrow at him from the depths of her hood. “. . . travelling companion.”
“Well.” Alornis used her apron to wipe away tears and rose from the stool. “Having travelled, you must be hungry.”
“Yes,” said Reva.
“We’re fine,” Vaelin insisted.
“Nonsense,” Alornis scoffed, bustling off to the larder. “Lord Vaelin Al Sorna welcomed back to his own house by a snivelling girl who can’t even offer him a meal. Won’t do at all.”
The meal was small, bread, cheese and the heavily seasoned remains of what was at most half a chicken.
“I’m a
terrible cook,” Alornis confessed. Vaelin noted she hadn’t eaten anything. “That was mother’s skill.”
Reva cleared the last crumb from her plate and gave a small burp. “Wasn’t so bad.”
“Your mother?” Vaelin asked. “She’s . . . not here?”
Alornis shook her head. “Just after last Winterfall. The bloody cough. Aspect Elera was very kind, did everything she could, but . . .” She trailed off, eyes downcast.
“I’m sorry, sister.”
“You shouldn’t call me that. The King’s Law says I’m not your sister, that this house isn’t mine and every scrap Father owned his by right. I had to beg the magistrate to stay on a month before the bailiffs come for the rest. And he only did that because Master Benril said he’d paint his portrait free of charge.”
“Master Benril Lenial, of the Third Order? You know him?”
“I’m his apprentice, well more of an unpaid assistant in truth, but I’m learning a lot.” She gestured at the far wall where numerous sheets of parchment were pinned to the plaster. Vaelin got up and went closer, blinking in wonder at the sight of the drawings. The subjects were wide and varied, a horse, a sparrow, the old oak outside, a woman carrying a bread basket, all rendered in charcoal or ink with a clarity that was little short of astounding.
“By the Father.” Reva had moved to his side and was staring at the drawings with the kind of wide-eyed admiration he thought beyond her. The gaze she turned on his sister was awed, even a little fearful. “This touches the Dark,” she whispered.
Alornis managed to hold her laugh for a second or two before it burst from her. “It’s just marks on paper. I’ve always done it. I’ll draw you if you like.”
Reva turned away. “No.”
“But you’re so pretty, you’d make a fine study . . .”
“I said no!” She went to the door, face hard and angry, then paused. Vaelin noted how white her knuckles were on the doorjamb and there was a soft lilting note from the blood-song. He had heard it before, fainter but still there, when they first began travelling with Janril’s players and he noticed her watching Ellora as she practised one of her dances. Her gaze had been rapt, fascinated, then suddenly furious. She closed her eyes tight and he saw her murmur one of her prayers to the World Father.
