Shield of Stars

by Hilari Bell

  No one showed any sign of waking, so Weasel rose and made his way through the camp. It was tempting to turn in to the shelter of the woods, but it would be too noisy, and too dark, despite the rising moon. He picked his way between the tents as quietly as he could, with Arisa a shadow at his heels. She made less noise than he did, he noticed. But if she could have moved faster than his snail’s pace, she betrayed no impatience.

  Concentrating on his feet, Weasel had cleared the last of the tents before he realized that Arisa was no longer behind him. He spun to look back.

  She stood over the sleeping sentry, right next to the fire, and the knife blade flashed as she turned it. Her expression was detached, calculating. She looked at Weasel, gestured to the guard, and made a swift, slashing gesture. Shall I cut his throat?

  Weasel shook his head. No!

  She scowled. She walked two fingers across the air. Then all her fingers scurried along the same path.

  Weasel frowned incomprehension, but he kept shaking his head to make sure she got the message. Don’t do it.

  She pointed the knife at him, then to herself, and walked the two fingers again. Then she pointed to the road. The two of them, escaping.

  Even as she waved her knife at the tents, Weasel understood the rest of it. If I kill them, they can’t follow us.

  Weasel felt the blood drain from his face. The crazy cutthroat meant it! She was going to kill four men so they could make a clean getaway.

  Weasel couldn’t shake his head any harder. He opened his mouth in a silent scream, then clamped his right hand over his left wrist. One yell, and we’re caught! He waved her forward, urgently. Come here, right now! He wished he had a signal to add you lunatic but his expression probably conveyed that part.

  Arisa frowned, as if someone had insulted her craftsmanship. She held a finger to her lips and gestured with the knife across her own throat. I can do it quietly.

  Perhaps she could. Weasel was no longer certain what this madwoman could and couldn’t do, but it was also possible that she wasn’t as good as she thought she was. And even if she was that deadly, these men didn’t deserve death.

  Weasel didn’t know how to sign “Over my dead body.” He started toward her, back to the most dangerous part of the camp, which he’d already passed through twice. You stupid, bloodthirsty …

  His expression must have revealed his determination, because Arisa sighed and tucked the knife into her belt. Then she gestured for him to stay where he was and walked toward him, silent as a passing breeze.

  He grabbed her wrist when she reached him, ignoring her silent snarl, and drew her firmly down to the road. The packed earth made no sound under their feet, but Weasel didn’t break into a run until they were several hundred yards from the camp.

  They ran till they were both gasping for breath, and too far from the camp for anything but a shout to reach the sleeping guardsmen. The live, sleeping guardsmen—no thanks to her!

  “Why did you stop me?” Arisa demanded. “They’ll start hunting us as soon as they wake! And I have to say, whatever you drugged them with, it wasn’t strong eno—”

  “You lunatic!” Weasel managed to keep his voice low, but it was a near thing. “You were going to kill those men! Just on the chance they might be able to catch us. You’re mad. You’re absolutely, raving mad. Who in the One God’s name do you think you are?”

  Her face was serene, her voice calm, but he saw laughter in her eyes. “I’m Arisa Benison, just like I told you. But my mother is the Falcon.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The Seven of Stones: the woman. A gathering of women. A woman’s power.

  “Your mother’s what?”

  “My mother is the Falcon,” Arisa repeated. “I’ll take you to her now. It will take a while to get there, but—”

  “You’ll take me to her now?” Weasel’s voice rose incredulously. “Do you mean … You could have taken me to her from the start! Do you mean to tell me we didn’t need the Hidden? We could have skipped that mess in Coverton? We could have saved weeks! You lied to me!”

  “Be quiet!” Arisa hissed. “You’ll wake up the guards. I don’t take strangers to my mother.”

  Weasel tried to lower his voice, but it wasn’t easy. “I’m not a stranger! I was in jail with you!”

  “Pettibone put you into that cell with me,” Arisa reminded him coolly. “A cell from which you, conveniently, knew how to escape. And the first thing you did was declare your intention of looking for the Falcon! Not to mention how often you said you didn’t care about the rebellion, didn’t care who ruled, didn’t care about anything but your friend and your own precious skin! Pettibone didn’t know who I was, but he knew the buyers were linked to the Falcon. He could have offered you Justice Holis’ life in exchange for my mother’s. I’d have to be mad to have trusted you—and you know it.”

  She was right. Eventually he’d been forced to admit it. He’d forgiven her for lying, for delaying him, for risking both their lives, as well as Justice Holis’. He just had to keep reminding himself that he’d forgiven her.

  And she was taking him to the Falcon—finally. It had been Arisa who directed them off the main road, heading south on a rutted track till they stopped at a farm, a few hours before dawn, to steal a horse.

  “This way, if they hear about the stolen horse, they’ll look to the south,” Arisa explained. She paused in extracting a bridle from the tack shed to pat the dog once more. Weasel thought she was checking on its continued health, as much as trying to reassure the beast. Only one drop of the sleeping syrup, on a bit of broken meat pie, had rendered the farm dog groggy enough to accept them as friends—or at least to keep him from barking his head off as they purloined his stablemate.

  Arisa had fussed about the dosage—though why someone willing to kill four men would be so careful of a dog baffled Weasel. He might have complained, except he wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her right now. Besides, he already knew what she’d say—if she’d killed those men, it would have been “for the rebellion.”

  Weasel had already grown tired of those words, and he had a feeling he’d be hearing them again. As they rode through the night, Arisa refuted all he’d been told about her mother.

  “She’s not a road bandit,” she told him firmly. “She’s the leader of a rebellion against the tyrant Pettibone. Just like Justice Holis, except she’s going to succeed instead of getting caught.”

  “If you think she’s going to overthrow Pettibone with a few hundred bandits, you’re crazier than she is!” Weasel retorted furiously.

  Arisa opened her mouth to answer, then compressed her lips tightly. “Your Justice Holis didn’t have the support of the country people either,” she said finally. “Only some shareholders, and justices, and university men. He didn’t even have the right church!”

  “He had the support of the people who cared about … Wait a minute. What do you mean, he didn’t have the right church?” The Hidden had said the same thing, Weasel remembered, but he’d been trying so hard to persuade them that he’d forgotten about it.

  “You said that your Concordance of Nobles could only banish a king’s adviser if they were summoned by the church leaders, right?”

  “They weren’t my concordance. And so what? The church leaders were part of the conspiracy.”

  “But it’s the wrong church,” Arisa repeated. “At the time that law was written, everyone followed the Hidden faith.”

  “But …” Was she right? “What does that matter? A church is a church. And the concordance can’t happen now anyway.”

  “I’m just saying that Justice Holis was depending on the wrong things. None of the people of Deorthas were behind him.”

  “At least Justice Holis and his friends didn’t rob innocent strangers,” Weasel snapped. “Or shoot them for not handing over their purses. And the trial starts day after tomorrow!”

  If Arisa hadn’t assured him that she could get him to the Falcon’s camp before tomorrow’s sunset he’d
have been frantic. As it was, he was merely … almost frantic. He reminded himself again that he’d forgiven her.

  “Most of the deaths you’ve heard about were caused by other road bandits and attributed to my mother’s men,” Arisa told him. “That happens when you have a reputation. Mother’s men hardly ever shoot anyone. They only fire if they have to, to keep someone from shooting them. They never kill just for money.”

  “So if someone pulls a pistol to defend himself and points it at the man who’s robbing him, they’re only killing him in self-defense and not for the money. I see. But even if they weren’t killing anyone, you do admit they’re robbing people?”

  Arisa’s brows rose. “You’re looking for my mother because you want men who’ll shoot people. And rebellions have to be funded, just like any government. How is robbing people on the high road, for the contents of one purse, which they probably won’t miss, worse than sending the guard with swords and pistols to arrest people who can’t pay their taxes?”

  She waited for a long moment. “Well?”

  “There has to be a difference,” said Weasel. “But I’m having trouble coming up with it.”

  Arisa laughed. “One difference is that all the money my mother collects goes to the rebellion. No fine palace full of servants. No silk and velvet clothing. No feasts, feeding a hundred shareholders dove hearts in aspic, which cost enough to feed a hundred poor families for a week.”

  The Falcon’s method of tax collection started to look better, but he still didn’t like it. He didn’t have to like it. The Falcon might be able to reach Justice Holis in time—that was the only thing that mattered.

  Weasel was relieved when they crossed the main road just before sunrise without anyone having seen them. Almost as relieved as he’d been to learn that Arisa was a good rider, who controlled the big mare with ease, so all Weasel had to do was sit behind her and cling to the saddle’s cantle.

  Of course, a road bandit’s daughter should ride well, and fight well—though he was grateful when she confirmed that her knowledge of killing silently with a knife was theoretical.

  “I’ve never killed anyone,” she admitted, in response to Weasel’s nervous query. “But if I had to, for the rebellion, I’d do it.”

  She didn’t say it with any particular emphasis, which somehow made it more convincing. Weasel shivered. He was glad he’d mostly succeeded in forgiving her.

  The road bandit’s daughter also knew the countryside as well as Weasel knew the city alleys. Arisa took the mare north and west for most of the day, on roads so small they seldom saw another person. On the rare occasions when they did meet someone, Arisa offered them a smile and a cheerful, “Good day t’ you.” Just two youngsters, riding double on a farm horse.

  By the onset of dusk, they’d passed out of the area that was all fields and into a region of rolling, wooded hills. The trees were large enough to make Weasel stare—he’d thought they had big trees in the palace parks, but some of these were enormous. And the forest itself was so large that they’d ridden for over an hour without seeing fields, or any other sign of human presence. Weasel was just thinking that it would be good country for a bandit lair, when a bird’s shrill whistle cut through the growing dark.

  Weasel thought nothing of it—birds had been whistling and shrieking and squawking all day. But Arisa pulled the mare to a stop and whistled in return.

  “What was that?” Weasel asked.

  “First sentry,” Arisa told him. “You think we don’t post guards?”

  “But don’t they know you? Their leader’s daughter, and all?”

  “Of course they know me. It’s you they don’t know, and you’re sitting right behind me. I could have a pistol in my ribs, or a knife at my throat, and half an army trailing behind me.”

  “You still could, for all they know,” said Weasel uneasily.

  Arisa shook her head. “If I was under duress, I’d have replied with a different whistle.”

  Weasel hoped she had her whistles memorized correctly. He could feel eyes in the brushes, in the shadowed places beneath the pines, watching him.

  There were three more whistled challenges, and three different replies, before they rode into a large clearing, filled with men. At first Weasel thought a clearing was all it was, but the more he looked, the more he saw.

  There were tents inside the bushes, so well disguised that it took him a moment to realize they were there, and several more moments to see that they weren’t real bushes. The screens of cut branches were woven around the tents so thickly, so cleverly, that a troop at a gallop could ride right through and never notice them.

  The horse pen was equally well concealed, with several real bushes incorporated into its irregular shape. Even the men, and the small handful of women, were clad in browns and golds that mimicked the colors of the autumn woods. Most of Ansa’s clothes, Weasel realized, reflected those same colors. In the towns and villages her coats had simply looked a bit drab. Here in the forest, she could have vanished into the undergrowth, invisible as a crouching hare.

  Then a woman emerged from the largest brush pile, and Weasel’s attention was riveted to her.

  She wore a man’s clothes, and her muscular body was held straight as a soldier’s, but there was no doubt of her gender. Hair black as midnight was pulled back from a face of such angular beauty that Weasel felt his jaw sag in astonishment. Ansa’s ordinary, freckled face bore no resemblance to this terrible glory.

  But Arisa slid from the saddle and ran forward, and the Falcon—there was no doubt in Weasel’s mind where that name had come from—opened her arms. For a moment the sharp planes of her face softened in a way that made her less beautiful, but far more human. Human enough for Weasel to turn his eyes away and think about dismounting.

  A rough-looking man, who’d taken up the reins Arisa dropped, was grinning at him.

  “She takes folks that way at first,” he confided. “Least, she takes men that way. You’ll get over it soon enough. Prob’ly as soon as you say something stupid and she tears a strip off your hide.”

  “That doesn’t reassure me,” said Weasel. “But thanks for the warning.” He swung one leg over the tall mare’s rump, staggering a bit when his feet hit the ground.

  The man shrugged. “We owe you something for helping the little mistress get back.”

  He led the horse toward the pen, and Weasel approached the bandit leader.

  She looked up as he drew near, and he bobbed his head in a small, instinctive bow, which was odd since he’d never had the least desire to bow to Prince Edoran. One hand still caressed her daughter’s hair, but the softness in the Falcon’s expression had vanished. “Introduce me to your friend, Ris.”

  Weasel blinked, for her accent was as thoroughly city-upper-class as Justice Holis’. He’d noticed that Arisa used her city accent when they were alone, but somehow he’d expected country speech from the Falcon. For the first time, he wondered who she’d been before, and what had brought her to such an unlikely job.

  Arisa released her mother and stepped back.

  “This is Weasel, Mother. He helped me escape from the palace, and we’ve been traveling together since. He’s been looking for you.”

  “So I’ve heard,” the Falcon said dryly. Weasel wondered how, but she went on. “I notice you didn’t bring him here very quickly.”

  It was sufficiently dark under the trees that the Falcon’s men were kindling fires—too dark for Weasel to be certain, but he thought Arisa blushed. “I wanted to make sure of him before I brought him in. And now I am,” she added.

  The Falcon looked him over. “In that case, we can probably find a job for you. You’re a bit young, but we can—”

  “I’ve got a job,” said Weasel. As he spoke, he realized that it really was his job, and he wanted it back. “I’m Justice Holis’ clerk.”

  On anyone else’s face, Weasel might have taken that expression for compassion.

  “Then you may not have a job much longer,”
the Falcon told him. “I hear Holis and his friends go to trial tomorrow. And it’s going to be over pretty quick.”

  “I know.” The relentless count of days was ticking in the back of his mind. If Arisa hadn’t lied to him … Weasel fought down a surge of resentment. She’d had reason enough to be wary, and if he could persuade the Falcon to act, they might still be in time. “Even if they convict on the first day, they won’t hang anyone till the next morning,” said Weasel, trying to sound dispassionate. “The condemned are always given one night to put their affairs in order. I’ve got a plan … well, an idea, at least, for a way your men could break into the palace and seize Regent Pettibone.” His heart raced.

  The Falcon wasn’t jumping for joy, but she didn’t laugh in his face, either. “Getting Holis out in one piece is your price?”

  “That’s all I care about,” Weasel confirmed. “What you do with Pettibone, or the prince, is up to you.” Though he suddenly wondered what she would do. Pettibone probably deserved to die, but the prince … he might not be much loss to anyone, but he was only a year older than Weasel.

  No. Rescuing Justice Holis is all that matters.

  “Come into my office,” said the Falcon, with quiet irony. She led them into the big brush pile that concealed her tent.

  If it was an office, it bore more resemblance to that of a military commander than to the law offices with which Weasel was familiar. To one side stood a single cot, with a small chest at its foot. A sturdy-looking traveling desk, currently closed, occupied another corner, and chairs were scattered along the walls. Most of the room in the tent was taken up by a large table, with several maps spread across it. The one on top, its corners pinned with river-smoothed stones, showed a detailed stretch of coastline. Weasel couldn’t tell if it was in Deorthas or some other land, for the Falcon rolled it up and put it into a chest filled with similar scrolls. Arisa lit the lamps.