The Warrior's Bond

by Juliet McKenna

  “After all those polite conversations relayed by wizards I’d have expected you to have more to say than this, now we’re finally alone.” Livak tilted her head on one side and looked quizzically at me.

  I laughed. “I could hardly promise you endless delights behind the bed curtains with Casuel passing on every word.”

  “He might have learned a few things,” she commented caustically.

  “Or died of shock. So what did you learn over this summer?” If we were going to swap comparative successes, she might as well go first.

  “Try this for weight.” She handed me her bag and I felt a solid weight in the bottom that could only be coin. “That’s what I finally managed to chisel out of that skinflint Planir.”

  “So you brought back aetheric lore?” I reminded myself that it was a good thing one of us had managed to satisfy a patron. “From the Forest or the Mountains? Was that song book all you hoped it might be?”

  “We brought back a Mountain girl adept in their form of Artifice,” Livak said with that same evasion that was starting to make me suspicious.

  “How did you manage that?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later, over some wine.”

  “So I’ve got something to take the edge off the shock?” I slung her bag over my shoulder.

  “Something like that,” she admitted, slipping her arm round my waist. “How was your summer? Have you made yourself indispensable to Messire? I’ve got lots to tell him about that song book and I’ll expect him to pay up handsomely.” Livak halted, looking up with concern in her green eyes. “Casuel told Shiv you’d performed signal service to the Emperor or some such?”

  “I suppose that’s one way of putting it. It’s certainly been an eventful Festival.” I hugged her round the shoulders and we started walking again.

  “What about the Sieur?” Livak persisted. “How much further up that ladder have you climbed?”

  I took an abrupt breath. “I saved his life, him and Camarl, when ruffians hired by an enemy tried to kill them both.”

  Livak’s expression brightened. “That must be worth a fair few Crowns.”

  “He paid handsomely,” I assured her. “And handed me my oath back along with the gold.”

  Livak’s arm dropped away and she turned to me, vivid eyes searching my face for any hint of my feelings. “He dismissed you? After you saved his fat neck? How dare he?” Her indignation warmed me.

  “It’s a bit more complicated than that.” I heard a rueful note in my voice. “I’d been helping Temar find those artefacts of his, looking out for D’Alsennin interests. The Sieur decided I’d find myself forced to choose between D’Alsennin and D’Olbriot and didn’t want me backed into that corner.”

  Livak snorted with contempt. “That sounds like a flimsy excuse.”

  “It’ll hold long enough for me,” I assured her.

  She looked at me for a long, considering moment. “You’re not angry? Hurt? Insulted?”

  “I was, all of those things,” I sighed, “but I’m mostly relieved. And the Sieur was right, in some ways. Accepting chosen status, when all I really wanted was a way of turning service to the House into some means of securing us a future together—that wasn’t true to my oath. I was looking out for myself, not committing myself to the Name, and that’s not entirely honest.”

  “Not at all honest when the price of loyalty’s no more than a bed and a full belly for nine men out often,” Livak mocked. Her voice turned serious. “But you didn’t foul the nest? You’re still on fair terms with the Sieur? If we’re thrown on our own resources we’ll certainly need him to pay what he owes me and I’d rather he handed over the coin himself.”

  “Or you’ll go in through an upper window some dark night and find yourself a suitable settlement?”

  “Something like that.”

  I returned her mischievous smile but we both knew it wasn’t a joke. “I imagine the Sieur will see the logic of paying you your due,” I said drily.

  Livak slid her arm through mine and we walked a little further along the quayside, pausing to let laden dockers pass, looking at the waiting ships with idle curiosity. The harbour was so close packed that we could barely see the water, the peaceful sea churned into a sandy green and dotted with flotsam.

  “If we’re not taking the Sieur’s coin for the next few years, what are we going to do?” Livak gnawed her lower lip but she didn’t seem overly distressed at the prospect of freedom. “Is Charoleia still in town? She always knows how to double a Crown in no time.”

  “We’ve had this conversation before,” I reminded Livak gently. “Whatever we do, wherever we go, I’m staying on the sunshine side of the law, and Charoleia’s just a little too fond of the shade for me.”

  “Didn’t you like her?” Livak asked with narrowed eyes.

  “I liked her well enough,” I said placatingly. Dast knows, I knew just how important Livak’s friends were to her. “And she was a tremendous help, to me and to Temar. It’s just that I don’t intend taking up her trade.”

  Livak smiled broadly. “You’re not pretty enough for one thing.”

  “You forgot to mention that, didn’t you? That she’s such a beauty?” I prodded Livak with an accusing finger. “Did you want to see if I’d fall down that bear-pit?”

  “You gave that Aldabreshin woman what she wanted, didn’t you?” she challenged.

  I managed an injured expression. “I was being a dutiful slave, doing as I was ordered.”

  “You want to watch that tongue,” Livak commented. “If it gets any longer someone’ll hang you by it.” But she was smiling.

  I drew her to me and kissed her soundly, ignoring a flurry of whistles and catcalls from appreciative dockers. I might have been tempted to a mistake with Charoleia, just for a few moments, but any man can mistake a thrush for a nightingale if he’s got other things on his mind. But he’ll never mistake a nightingale for a thrush, and now I had her in my arms I knew Livak was my nightingale. I might even tell her so, if I could find some words that wouldn’t have her laughing at me for a sentimental fool.

  “Ryshad! Well met!” A familiar voice called to me and then faltered as Temar saw I was otherwise engaged.

  “And good day to you.” Livak turned in my arms and waved to him, unconcerned.

  I held her close, my arms beneath her breasts, her hands on mine. I leaned closer to her ear. “Temar on the other hand, fell right into Charoleia’s honey pot.”

  She glanced up at me and opened her mouth on a question but Temar arrived before she could frame it. Allin was with him, her usually open face closed and weary.

  “Hello.” Livak’s voice was warm with sympathy. “I don’t suppose it makes it any less hard to bear, but I’m so very sorry about Otrick.”

  Allin’s face reddened. “He was always so nice to me.” She swallowed hard and didn’t seem able to go on.

  I looked at Temar as he put a comforting arm round the lass’s shoulders. “How’s Velindre taking it?” The mage woman had been visiting every other day or so with a new chart or some alterations to an old one, offering advice on the winds and currents of the ocean deeps. I still hadn’t fathomed her game.

  “She tells me she cannot take passage with us to Kel Ar’Ayen in the circumstances.” Temar smiled without humour. “She has to return to Hadrumal, since Planir no longer has any excuse to avoid appointing a new Cloud-Master—or Mistress.”

  The notion that the Archmage might find himself too busy to interfere in our affairs wasn’t unwelcome as far as I was concerned.

  “Are you going back to Hadrumal?” Livak looked at Allin.

  The girl sniffed defiantly. “No. I’m going to Kellarin. I said I would and I’m going. I don’t care what Casuel says, I can be useful there.”

  “You are always useful,” Temar told her with warm approval. “And I can settle Casuel’s objections.”

  “How?” I was curious.

  Temar grinned. “By telling him I�
��ve remembered that last D’Evoir he’s so keen to tie himself to had both sons and brothers. The man married into Den Perinal and his brothers took wives from Den Vaedra and Den Coirrael.”

  “So by the time Cas looks up from whatever archives he can trace for those Names, your ships will be the barest memory of foam on the horizon,” I concluded. “Cas has ambitions to noble rank,” I explained to Livak, who was looking puzzled.

  “Good luck to him,” she scoffed.

  “Quite so.” Temar hesitated. “But if we want to set sail this side of For-Autumn I have a great deal to get shipped down to Zyoutessela and then carried over the portage way to the ocean harbour. Please excuse us.”

  Livak and I stepped aside to let them pass, Temar absently taking Allin’s hand.

  “I wonder how long it’ll take for those two to realise they really should be more than friends?” she mused.

  “It depends whether or not he’s still got eyes for anyone else once he’s back with Guinalle,” I commented. “Allin’s a very minor moon to outshine her glamour. Though Charoleia’s little game certainly seems to have given him something to think about on that score.”

  “Halice will make sure Temar notices Allin, if I ask her,” Livak said slyly. “And it’ll do that Guinalle no harm to have her nose put out of joint. If you sleep with a lad and then cast him off, you do it properly. Guinalle’s not playing fair by encouraging him to keep hoping when she’s no intention of taking him back. Usara’ll be only too glad to console her, anyway.”

  I looked down at Livak. “Don’t you like Guinalle?”

  “I barely know her.” She was unconcerned. “But she’s too much like certain wizards for my taste. Why does magical talent of any ilk make people think they’ve the right to tell other folk how to live their lives?”

  “Temar’s not about to let Guinalle do that any more, not if the straight talking I heard him giving her the other day’s any indication.” I laughed. “Avila Tor Arrial was using Artifice to help him contact her and the enchantment nearly got away from her, she was so indignant.”

  Livak frowned. “That’s the skinny old woman who always looks like she’s biting a sour apple?”

  “She’s not so sour now,” I smiled. “And she’s not going back to Kellarin either, it seems. She’s staying here to look after D’Alsennin interests and, if I’m any judge, to be wooed by a certain Esquire Den Harkeil.”

  But Livak’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Halice said she always found the Tor Arrial woman’s judgement pretty sound.” Which was high praise from Halice.

  We walked on again and finally came to the end of the long stone-built quay. Below us the sea lapped on shelving sands where red-legged gulls picked over the line of weed and jetsam along the high-water mark.

  For lack of anything more important to do, we stood there in close embrace while the busy life of the port went on all around us. Livak said something and I leaned back to lift her chin with one finger. “I don’t know how you ever expect me to hear anything, when you insist on talking into my shirt laces.”

  She looked at me, new purpose in her emerald eyes. “We could go to Kellarin. We could be useful there, like the mage lass said.”

  “We could,” I said slowly. That notion had already occurred to me, but I’d wanted to see how the land lay with Livak before suggesting it.

  “Halice is there and I miss her,” Livak continued frankly. “I love Sorgrad and ’Gren like brothers, but it’s not the same. And you’re going to be wondering what D’Alsennin is up to wherever we are, aren’t you?”

  I was about to protest then thought better of it. “True enough.” But I still wasn’t going to swear service to him. The Sieur was right; it was time to be my own man, and where better than in an untested land where no one knew me. I’d certainly had enough of the whispers that were scuttling after me in Toremal.

  I looked more closely at Livak’s wide-eyed innocence. “And there’s something else?”

  She smiled winningly. “You know this Mountain girl I mentioned? She was one of what Sorgrad calls Sheltya, Mountain Adepts in Artifice. She didn’t exactly come willingly, and it mightn’t be a bad idea to get an ocean between me and the rest of them.”

  I tried and failed to stop myself laughing. “Let’s go home. I think you’d better tell me all about it.”