“SO, THIS IS WHAT you did when you were living in Navra?” Mar raised her head from the poem she was copying. She couldn’t tell which of her two new cousins had spoken. Their voices were very much alike, and now they both wore the identical wide-eyed look of innocent interest. The three of them were sitting on stone benches set around a stone table topped with small colored tiles that formed a picture of a flowering tree. The morning sun was bright, the garden protected, and here against the south wall it was warm enough for cloaks to be laid aside. A hard embroidered cushion protected her from the cold stone she sat on.
The question sounded polite enough, but in the last two days Mar had answered many questions that had hidden stings in their tails. Still, it was easier to answer with the truth.
“No,” she said, dipping the end of her pen-a beautiful thing, carved from a single piece of inglera bone, with a real gold point fitted on the end-into the marble inkwell. “The Weavers didn’t own any books for reading. I kept the accounts for their business. You know,” she added, determined not to let them make her feel ashamed, “lists of inventory, of customers, and orders, estimates for work, records of bills. That kind of thing.”
“But why didn’t the clerk do this work?”
There it was, the sidewise glance from one set of blue eyes to the other as Nor-eNor and Kyn-oKyn exchanged a not-so-private look.
“I was the clerk.” Mar looked back at her work just in time to prevent a large drop of ink from falling to the tiled tabletop. She bit the inside of her bottom lip. At the Weavers’ house, it would have been a serious and costly offense to waste ink and spoil table, paper, or parchment. Here, it would probably go unnoticed. But Mar wasn’t used to being here, copying poems instead of doing accounts.
“Ohhh.” Nor’s tone of enlightenment rang archly false. “So these weavers weren’t working for you, you were working for them!”
“I’ve explained it several times,” Mar said as innocently as the growing lump of unhappiness in her throat would let her. “Was I speaking too quickly?” She moved her eyes back to her work and kept them there until the two girls had gone off, their noses in the air.
The knots of tension in Mar’s shoulders loosened a little. Her moments of solitude had been few and far between since she’d been whisked out of the presence of the Tenebroso-and away, incidentally, from her friends the Mercenary Brothers-and rushed away to bathe and dress properly in time for the midday meal. Her own clothes had been taken away to be “laundered,” and she’d since had to be very insistent to convince the lady page assigned to help her that she wanted the clothes back. She wasn’t sure herself why she wanted the clothing, worn and out of place here as it was, she’d only known that she’d wanted something familiar around her. As for her new clothes, Mar was still not used to the sheer amount of them. The hose, the chemise, the long gown with close-fitting sleeves covered by the loose tunic in the House colors that was so clearly unfashionable when compared to the tighter bodices of Nor and Kyn.
Mar wrote three careful words on the parchment in front of her. She wished she didn’t mind looking poor and frowsy next to the glittering sisters… but she did. Would it scandalize the lady page even more if she were to ask for needles and thread with which to stitch her clothes into a more up-to-date look? Or was that a task some other servant was supposed to do for her? Mar sighed. This was an area which Parno Lionsmane hadn’t touched on.
“Those two couldn’t be more ignorant and foolish if they took lessons, and I hope you don’t let them bother you more than you can help.”
Mar jumped, startled into looking directly at the older woman sitting on the far end of the bench, where the sunlight shone on the embroidery she held in her lap. Mar had forgotten that Lan-eLan was even there. A widowed cousin-by-marriage Mar had been told, Lan was older than herself, but still young, small, and pretty, with smooth olive skin and thick dark hair.
“The Weavers were all I had,” Mar said. “I’m not ashamed of them.”
“If you were, you’d be even more foolish and more ignorant than those two.” Lan snipped off a hanging thread with a tiny pair of gold-handled scissors. “Do you think the Tenebroso can’t read and write? Can’t add up figures? Can you imagine how those two are going to be cheated by their servants, if we’re ever lucky enough to find Households for the conceited little half-wits?” Lan-eLan turned her embroidery over and frowned at it. “They wouldn’t know accounts from a country dance.”
Mar could feel her mouth hanging open with shock. Lan-eLan looked up and smiled, and suddenly Mar burst out laughing.
“Is there anything else worrying you, my dear?” Lan asked when the laughter had finally died away. “Anything important, I mean?”
Mar smiled at her older cousin. Somehow Lan’s sweet-voiced “my dear” was better than her formal name, but not as warm and comfortable as the Wolfshead’s gruff “my Dove.” Which reminded Mar of one of her worries.
“I didn’t get a real chance to say good-bye to the Mercenary Brothers who brought me here, and to thank them,” Mar said. “I was with them almost a moon, and they were dismissed so quickly…” Mar hesitated to ask anything directly. So far, at least, no further mention had been made of her part in bringing Dhulyn Wolfshead and Paron Lionsmane to Gotterang. Was it possible they were still in the House?
Lan’s dark brows drew together as she thought, head on one side. “Oh, yes, I remember seeing them. Most impressive, I must say, particularly the Outlander woman. I think they had a short interview with the Kir, but then they left.” Lan smiled, turning her attention back to the embroidery in her lap. “Perhaps you could send a message to their House. It might catch them before they take their next assignment.”
Mar nodded, conscious of an unexpected disappointment; she hadn’t realized how much she was counting on their still being in the House. But either the Mercenaries hadn’t been wanted after all, or they’d turned down whatever work the Kir had offered them. No point in us all being stuck here. Mar blinked, half surprised and half frightened by a feeling she hadn’t admitted before.
“You still look a touch worried, Mar. Are you sure there isn’t anything else?”
“There is something.” Mar took a deep breath and looked directly at Lan. “I know the Tenebroso is… is very busy,” Mar substituted for the more honest but less tactful “very old” she’d been about to say. “But when would it be right to ask about the restoration of my Holding? And who should I ask? I don’t even know if the land still belongs to the Family, or…” Mar let her question trail away.
The older woman had recovered her poise very quickly, but not before Mar had seen the look that crossed Lan’s face.
“Well, it would be the Kir you should ask, though Dal-eDal handles a great deal of the House business for him just lately,” Lan said with her warm smile. “But you know what my advice is? Let it be for now, give yourself a chance to settle in. After all, it’s a great honor to be received in the House, and you don’t want to look unappreciative. I know you don’t feel so at the moment, but given the chance you might come to like it here, and you might prefer, as I did, to remain a part of this House.”
“Of course,” Mar cleared her throat and forced her lips into a smile to match Lan’s. “That’s very sensible. I thank you for your counsel.”
And all was as it should be. Except that Mar had seen how Lan’s face had changed, how surprised she’d been by Mar’s question. Obviously, Lan-eLan had absolutely no idea what Mar was talking about.
When a servant came to call them in to luncheon, Mar was able to smile pleasantly, rise, and follow her cousin-by-marriage into the House. Not at all as if her whole world had just been turned upside down.
THE TALL THIN MAN STANDS BEFORE HIS MIRROR THAT IS NOT A MIRROR. THIS TIME IT SHOWS HIS REFLECTION. HIS HAIR IS LONG AND UNKEMPT. IT APPEARS HE HAS NOT SHAVED IN MANY DAYS, NOR EATEN. HIS EYES ARE NO LONGER THE COLOR OF OLD ICE, BUT THE COOL GREEN OF JADESTONE. HE HAS THE SAME LONG SWORD IN HIS HANDS AND HE CUTS DOW
NWARD, SLASHING AT HIS IMAGE IN THE MIRROR FRAME. IT IS AS IF HE LOOKS AT HIS REFLECTION IN A POOL OF WATER. THE SWORD PASSES THROUGH IT AND LEAVES IT RIPPLING AND DANCING UNTIL IT SETTLES AGAIN.
THE MAN SLASHES AT HIS IMAGE AGAIN AND AGAIN…
A CROWDED STREET, A HOUSE WITH A SQUARE TOWER. PEOPLE WEARING CRESTS OF TEAL AND BLACK ARE KILLING GUARDS DRESSED IN DARK RED. THE BLOOD LOOKS BLACK IN THE MOONLIGHT…
A GOLDEN-HAIRED CHILD IS RUNNING WITH A SHORT SWORD IN HIS HAND. HE TRIPS OVER HIS DOG AND CUTS HIS CHIN…
Fresnoyn was the thought that chased the Vision through her head and followed her mind to consciousness.
From the taste in the back of her throat, and the way the inside of her head felt like a very large space, the drug One-eye had given her was fresnoyn. But from the way her hands and feet seemed so remote, the basis of the mixture was poppy, so perhaps there was not so very much fresnoyn in the mix. She began taking long slow breaths. Breathing alone would not clear the drug from her body as quickly as sleep or heavy exercise, but it would help somewhat.
Fresnoyn was a truth drug, and Dhulyn wondered how the Kir had managed to obtain a supply. Made from the mold which grew on the bark of a particular tree in the rain forests of the lands across the eastern sea, fresnoyn was ruinously expensive. She herself had trained with it twice while studying the poison Shora. She only hoped she could remember what she had been taught. Even though Dorian the Black had been given his particular supply of fresnoyn, he could not afford to waste any in extra training.
Dhulyn continued to breath deeply and slowly, and in her mind began a chant which, if she remembered it correctly, was intended to help channel her thoughts. She would have to answer with the truth, otherwise her skin would flush a deep red as the drug reacted to the lie, but clarity of thought would enable her to answer with the truth she chose.
“Dhulyn Wolfshead.” The silky voice had already said her name twice.
Dhulyn opened her eyes. There he was, right in front of her, the one-eyed son of a diseased inglera.
She smiled her wolf’s smile. One-eye pulled his head back. Dhulyn laughed. That was fun. She resumed her measured breathing. She could not really afford such tricks.
“Wolfshead,” he said. “Will any of your Brothers come for you?”
She considered the question for the space of a slow breath.
“Parno Lionsmane will come,” she said. That was easy, no more than the real truth.
“Parno Lionsmane is captive and cannot rescue you,” the Scholar said. “Will someone else come for you?”
“Yes,” she said, responding to the question and not the statement. “Parno will come,” she repeated. “He will always come.” That should do them, she thought, watching them exchange looks. What’s the best lie? A truth that won’t be believed.
One-eye nodded at the Scholar. “You see? So much for your fears of Pasillon.” The boy sat on the edge of the armless chair. His hands were at his mouth. Clearly, he was regretting his decision to stay, but even as she watched, his hands fell to his knees, and he straightened in his chair. His face relaxed, the frown of concentration melting away as his features grew slack, and his eyes glowed a soft jade green.
There, she thought, the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rising, sure she was seeing what Parno had seen. Green eyes again. What makes your eyes so green, little Scholar?
One-eye had already turned back without, Dhulyn was certain, seeing what she had seen. She settled her face to show no reaction.
“Who are you?” he said.
Dhulyn smiled as softly as she could. There was only one answer to this. Clearly, they must have tried this only on the unSchooled, otherwise they would have learned to ask better questions. “I am Dhulyn Wolfshead the Scholar-” She stopped at the man’s abrupt gesture.
“And before?” One-eye leaned forward again in his eagerness.
Dhulyn drew her eyebrows together and pretended to have difficulty focusing on the Kir. Again, this one was easy. For Mercenaries there was nothing “before”-or shouldn’t be; she dragged her thoughts away from Parno. They had no history before they joined the Brotherhood, no country, no House, no family. When they received their badges, their real lives began. This was their truth.
“There is no ‘before,’ ” she said.
“What was your tribe?”
Now she did smile. “I am Dhulyn Wolfshead,” she repeated. “Called the Scholar-”
She saw his arm tense and braced herself for the blow, but One-eye did not actually raise his hand.
“The Scholar tells me you are Espadryni. What the common folk call the Red Horsemen.”
It was not a question, so Dhulyn did not have to answer.
“What do you remember of that tribe?”
Wrong question, Dhulyn thought as she shook her head and then pretended she couldn’t stop shaking it. All too easily done. Maybe the drugs were more effective than she’d thought.
“Nothing,” she said. Again the strict truth-if not all of it. She remembered sitting astride behind her father on the back of his horse. A woman wearing leathers and furs, with her face completely wrapped in cloths, only her ice-gray eyes showing, leaning over to me from her own mount, adjusting the scarf around my face. That woman is my mother, that I know, but I never remember her face, only her eyes, peeping out between the wrappings of scarves. And never anything more of my father than his wide back in front of me. Of the tribe, nothing. Just my mother’s eyes, the color of ice. But warm, very warm. She shook herself. But of her band nothing, of her tribe, nothing. And Lok-iKol, Kir of House Tenebro, had asked no questions about her family.
“I think you people must be insane,” she heard herself say in a bright friendly voice. One-eye glanced at the boy behind him but without noticing anything.
“The eighth book of the Rhonis tells of a city named Shpadrajh, so old that the book claims it dates to the time of the Caids.”
Dhulyn made a rude noise with her lips. “No one’s read the Rhonis,” she said. “Are you telling me you’ve read the Rhonis? There’s only-what, two copies of the Rhonis in the whole world.” What were they trying to prove?
“One of those copies is at Valdomar.”
“Really?” Dhulyn’s thoughts skittered down a path all their own. “Would I be able to come there and read it?”
Lok-iKol smiled. “Of course. If you answer our questions thoroughly, I’m sure I’d be able to arrange that.”
“What questions,” Dhulyn said, twisting her head and squinting her eyes at the green-eyed Scholar. “Blood, old One-eye’s ugly, isn’t he? I mean, uglier than a one-eyed person generally is, don’t you think? Listen, I’ve seen some ugly one-eyed people in my time, but really… What? Did I speak aloud?” Dhulyn grinned. “Sorry, my lord Kir. But really, you must own a mirror. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I? And you’re the Kir of a High Noble House, for blood’s sake-it’s not like you’re going to have any trouble getting lovers, is it? Oh, all right.” Seeing that she’d made the impression she wished to make, she stopped talking. This would teach them to give her drugs. Give her a headache, would they? “Sorry, what was the question?”
“Spadrajh was a city of Seers. Tall, red-haired people. Lords of Clans and Households, Great Houses, even Tarkins, even the High Kings when they still ruled in the north came to Shpadrajh or sent their First Children to speak for them, all asking for a glimpse of the future.”
“No,” Dhulyn said, throwing as much skepticism into her voice as she could. “Where are they, then?”
“The Seers began to tell of a coming plague and finally an ambassador of Kadrath came to find the city deserted, the Halls of Sight empty. Shpadrajh was no more. All felt that the plague they had spoken of had finally come upon them. But our Scholar here does not think so.” The One-eye gestured behind him without turning. “There is no plague that doesn’t leave bodies, bones, behind. He thinks they Saw something else and fled before it could destroy them. The first ment
ion of your tribe, the Espadryni, comes after this time. The Shpadrajha had been nomads in their time, and it is his theory that when the thing they called the plague neared, the Shpadrajha abandoned their urban lives and returned to a wandering, reclusive existence. And so they survived until the present day, as the Espadryni.”
The space in Dhulyn’s head was suddenly larger, more echoey and very, very cold. And her hands and feet were cold, too, and she hoped her mouth would freeze solid before they asked her again the question she saw coming.
THE SCHOLAR GUNDARON IS STANDING OFF TO HER LEFT, WATCHING, BROWN EYES DARK WITH FEAR AND LINES OF HORROR ON HIS FACE. THE SCHOLAR GUNDARON IS AT THE DOOR, PULLING AT THE LATCH, BUT HIS HANDS PASS THROUGH THE MECHANISM WITHOUT TOUCHING ANYTHING AND THE DOOR
REMAINS CLOSED. THE SCHOLAR GUNDARON IS SITTING IN HIS CHAIR, LEANING FORWARD WITH HIS JADE-GREEN EYES FOCUSED ON HER, HUNGER IN HIS FACE. THE GUNDARON AT THE DOOR LOOKS OVER HIS SHOULDER, SEES THE ONE IN THE CHAIR, AND REDOUBLES HIS EFFORTS TO OPEN THE DOOR…
THE SCHOLAR GUNDARON, THIN AND DRAWN, STANDS WITH THE LITTLE DOVE, SHOULDER TO SHOULDER. THEY ARE LOOKING DOWN AT THE TOP OF A TABLE, BUT DHULYN CAN’T SEE WHAT THEY LOOK AT. A MAP? A BOOK? MAR MAY BE CRYING.
Dhulyn blinked and took in a ragged breath of air. Where was Mar? Hadn’t she seen the little Dove just now? But the Scholar was looking heavier again, and Mar was nowhere in the room. What had just happened?
One-eye leaned toward her again, his knuckly hands with their long fingers grasping the back of her chair to either side of her head. Leaned forward until his face was only a few fingerwidths from hers. Dhulyn could see the hairs of his beard growing in crookedly where his face was scarred. Smell wine on his breath.
“I think you can see the future, what do you think?”
Dhulyn wanted to laugh, but was afraid it would not sound real. “I think you’re foolish and stupid, too, as well as ugly. Get your Scholar to read less and think more.” She had shaken her head. “If I could see the future, how could you have captured me? Why did I walk into this trap?”
The Sleeping God Page 16
