So. It weakened trolls. It had killed Dreas. Were there other disadvantages? Keir had to admit that there were. Lesser ones, but real. Carbraes could order every troll in Belzetarn to undergo healing, but how would she gain access to all the rest? And given that trolls and humans would continue to fight one another, wouldn’t it be wrong to strengthen the trolls?
I am not a warrior! I am a healer!
And healers healed. The day she started deciding who deserved healing and who did not . . . No. To do that was to encroach upon the territory of the gods. A healer treated all who came to her.
But how would Gael see it? He was not a healer, but neither was he a warrior.
Surely he would see that the chance to work steadily against the truldemagar that slowly turned humans into monsters was worth . . . almost anything. No matter the logistical difficulties, no matter the history of strife.
No. That was how she saw it.
If this were any other matter, she would have no doubt. Gael was probably working toward her release even now. Or if he could not gain her release, he was doing what he could to ensure her safety and a fair judgment from the regenen. She could trust Gael with her life.
She had trusted Gael with her life.
She would be dead and burned, her ashes scattered on the wind, had Gael not preserved her upon her entrance into Belzetarn.
* * *
When the trolls who captured Keir in Olluvarde had first burst around the corner in that marble underground passage, she’d been terrified. They’d seemed savage, monstrous, and intent upon brutality.
When they’d plucked her from the base of the column where she’d sought temporary refuge, they’d seemed more clumsy and inept than vicious.
During the journey from Olluvarde to Belzetarn, their demeanor had changed yet again. They bantered, teased, and told jokes, including Keir in their camaraderie as though she were one of them, and boasting to her about all the amenities available to them in their troll home. The shift had surprised her, but she’d taken full advantage of it to insinuate herself in their good graces. She bantered back, participated in the rude insults they enjoyed, and even joined a pair of them in devising a prank that involved the blankets of the lead scout.
After more than a deichtain of traveling through forested hills, they emerged from the trees into the meadow before the gatehouse in Belzetarn’s curtain wall.
“Whadya think?” asked Irren, the troll who – upon first acquaintance – had accidentally knocked her senseless when attempting to slap her back in greeting.
The ruins of Olluvarde had prepared her a little for what she would see, merely because they intimated what was possible when building with stone. Her home on Fiors was a round hut constructed of woven withies, as were all the dwellings of her people. The grandmother who governed the tribe inhabited a more impressive structure, five conical huts connected together! Olluvarde had prepared Keir a little, but not enough.
Constructed of massive blocks of dark gray stone, the gatehouse loomed malevolently, huge and dark and brooding, buttressed by guardtowers and fanged with crenellation. Beyond it, a vast grassy bailey within the curtain walls sloped gradually upward to an inner wall, with yet another gatehouse on the right, and a terrifyingly tall tower of the same dark stone on the left.
A strange rounded bulk with conical roofs and hulking chimneys clung to the roots of the tower on one side – the kitchens, as she would learn later – but she barely heeded it, following the great height with her eyes, up and up and up to the four claw-like prongs on the top battlements and a central spire that breathed wisps of smoke or steam.
Fiors was flat. The Hamish wilds, she’d seen as she passed through them, were hilly, with mountains on the horizon to the northeast. But this tower . . . was it as tall as those mountains would be were she to stand at their foundations? It seemed so indeed. She hardly knew how to answer Irren.
When she entered the passage through the gatehouse with her escort, she learned yet more of the properties of stone edifices.
The passage itself was generously wide with a high, arching ceiling, but the trolls stopped right at its inmost point, with the entrance too far behind her, and the exit too far ahead. The dark stone seemed to weigh upon her, pressing her down, squeezing the air from her lungs.
Woven withies, though water-tight when fashioned correctly, possessed an airiness to them. And white marble illuminated by magelight was positively elegant. But dark granite – was this granite? – was suffocating.
The lead scout was asking a gate guard something. She couldn’t hear their words, but the scout’s reaction was clear enough. He tensed and acquired a jittery manner that communicated itself to his fellows. The two nearest Keir gripped her arms when they started forward, manhandling her into the bailey in a way they had not since they seized her from the base of that column in Olluvarde.
The bailey possessed numerous lodges and workshops and stables along its edges, but Keir was focused on the change in her escort. Had they received unwelcome news? Did it bode ill for her reception by this Carbraes they’d talked of? She was worried.
At the base of the impossibly tall tower, they dragged her up a wide flight of steps to a generous landing, then up another flight to the terrace before the entrance and under its barbed portcullis into a passage considerably longer and gloomier than the one below the curtain wall gatehouse.
Stained holes the size of her thumbs dotted the vaulted ceiling. What had dripped from them onto enemy heads? Arrowslits pierced the highest reaches of the walls. Did archers stand in them, ready to shoot her down?
Keir felt as if she might faint. The entire tower rested above her now.
Her faintness fled abruptly a few steps later when her escort halted before an aristocratic troll with a strangely thin straight nose – the scouts all had blunt noses with an exaggerated upcurve. The aristocrat’s lips were equally thin, his pale skin lined, and his shoulder-length hair silver. He wore gorgeous robes of turquoise suede embroidered with silver thread.
Keir was forced bruisingly down onto her knees, while the scouts bowed deeply.
Was this Carbraes? He was clearly very important.
The aristocratic troll sniffed, looking disdainfully down his thin nose. “What is this?” he asked contemptuously.
“A prisoner, m’ Lord Theron,” answered the lead scout. “He says he’s a troll, but we can’t tell by his looks, you know. He looks human. So, since th’ regenen is away with th’ legions, we brought him to you.”
Theron scrutinized Keir, his eyes very cold. He sniffed again.
“Of course he’s human. There can be no doubt.”
“Please, m’lord. Lord Carbraes wouldn’t want a death when there needn’t be one. Could you – would you check with th’ inner seeing?” said the scout.
Keir’s stomach chilled. This troll could order her death? Just like that?
Lord Theron lifted his chin slightly. “Really,” he drawled. “Do I hear defiance?”
The scout bent his head and shuffled his feet. “No, m’ Lord Theron. But I believe the boy. I think he is a troll.”
“I say he is not,” snapped Theron. “Kill him!”
The scout’s mouth opened, then closed.
“Do you understand me, sir?” barked Theron. “Sever his head from his shoulders!”
Keir began to shiver, her limbs trembling.
As the scout swallowed uncomfortably, another robed troll stepped from behind Lord Theron.
He possessed a similar demeanor of command, but in every other way he differed from the troll who had ordered Keir’s death. His suede robes were of a muted hue – sage green – and lacked any adornment, save for the bronze fibula at his waist which secured a hefty ring of bronze keys. His hazel eyes were kind above the fleshy blade of his nose – curving down like a beak, rather than up. His skin was a clear, pale olive, lined around the eyes and firm-lipped mouth. He was of a medium height, but sturdily built, with muscular shoulders. His shoulder
-length hair was very dark, with a few strands of gray. Most importantly, his assurance seemed more thoroughly rooted, not depending on any display of power.
“I beg your pardon, my Lord Castellanum,” said this new entrant, calmly authoritative, “the lad is afflicted. Although his nodes occupy exactly their proper spots, they float unanchored. It will be several years before his affliction is visible in his lineaments.”
Lord Theron’s nostrils flared slightly. “Do you say so, my Lord Secretarius?” he asked, his tone unfriendly, but not actively adversarial.
“I do,” said the secretarius. “And I could use a notarius. The lad looks intelligent.”
Lord Theron’s lip twitched. “Very well, my dear Gael. You may have him.” He turned from Gael back to Keir. “You will take your oath of fealty to the regenen when he returns to Belzetarn. In the meantime, the Lord Secretarius will be answerable for your conduct.”
With that, the castellanum swept away.
And so had Keir come under Gael’s wing, the perfect place – as it chanced – to interfere with the weapons borne by the troll-legions.
She never did take the oath of fealty that Theron had mentioned, whether it was because Carbraes was a good four deichtains returning from the field and the formality was forgotten, or some other reason. Technically, Keir owed him no loyalty. But that was mere quibbling. She’d accepted his protection for two years. She’d accepted her quarters from him. She’d eaten the food provided at his table. In all honor, she did owe him . . . something.
And her sabotage of the swords wielded by his warriors was treason.
But if she could heal those warriors of their truldemagar, perhaps even heal Lord Carbraes himself . . . mightn’t that atone for her treachery?
She pulled herself out of her memories of the past, aware of movement in the bailey on the other side of the bars in her window, aware of the pressing stones of her cell behind her.
Was the gong yet intact? Had Gael preserved it? Could she persuade Lord Carbraes to let her master its usage, to let her try again to restore a troll’s nodes to their proper anchorages? She’d succeeded once, with Gael.
As she sat there wondering, a low throbbing swelled on the air, deep and groaning, reverberating across all of Belzetarn and into every nook and cranny.
Strength flooded Keir’s sinews, her very bones, and she felt triumph cresting on a wave of well-being. The gong flourished, and all she dreamed of might yet come to pass!
* * *
Gael hurried down the several short flights of stairs that connected the tower’s entrance to the bailey, noting that two mounds of wood were rising in the lower flat near the main gatehouse. Pyres for the morrow’s funerals: Dreas’ and Arnoll’s.
He grimaced. His task was to prevent the necessity of a third such heap of wood. Or was it?
He had to talk with Keir.
He’d realized the necessity of such a conversation too late last night to seek it then. This morning, his duty to Carbraes and the gong had been paramount. Then Arnoll’s death – Gael swallowed hard – had torn all his coherence asunder. And then Carbraes had required his presence.
If any other obligation or summons sidetracked him now –
His jaw clenched. He was going to Keir and nowhere else. He had to be sure that she was well, that Dreben’s brutal guards had not broken her arm. Or broken something else.
Except . . . if Keir were a traitor – and all his logic pointed to it – her fate would be far worse than a noisome cell, a broken arm, or even a violation of her person. And he should not be vowing that he would protect her.
He quickened his pace, striding across the top of the bailey, where the grass was worn a bit bare, then along the massive wall dividing the bailey from the yard, and then nipping in under the first portcullis of the upper gatehouse. The shadows beneath the stone vault were chilly, and the sunlight of the exit arch beckoned, but Gael turned aside at the heavy bronze-bound door in the tunnel wall that led into the guardroom of the prison.
The prison opteon sat behind a broad counter and barely had time to rise and bow before Gael swept past him, through the inner guard chamber – with its complement of guards – and into the stair hall. The spiral stair winding upward in the center of the space possessed steep risers and narrow treads, the better to hinder an escaping prisoner. Not that the brig was ever especially full.
Dreas had always encouraged the cleaning of latrines for punishment, the digging of trash middens, or even flogging, over imprisonment.
Gael barely noticed that his weak ankle failed to click, despite the demands of the stairway.
Keir’s cell was immediately obvious when Gael’s line of sight brought the upper level into view. Multiple arrowslits shed plenty of light into the square stair hall. From it led a dark and narrow corridor lined by locked doors. The nearer doors were solid bronze-bound wood. The farther ones each possessed a small square grating in the upper portion. Beyond them, another large square hall with arrowslits allowed light in. Only one door was flanked by two guards. The nearest one on Gael’s left.
Gael halted before the pair and gestured to the door. “Unlock it,” he ordered curtly. “I am come to inspect the prisoner’s well-being.”
The skinnier of the two gulped, his larynx bobbing. “We haven’t the keys, my lord Secretarius.”
Gael observed that fully three locks – all imbedded in the dark wood – secured the door.
“Then get them,” he said impatiently. This was what came of hurry: inefficiency and annoyance. In all likelihood, he should just return to the opteon in the front guardroom himself to requisition the necessary keys, rather than waiting for the guard to return – keyless – and then waiting for the guard to fetch the opteon.
But Skinny had already departed.
Gael shifted his weight from one foot to the other and glowered.
The remaining guard cleared his throat. “My lord Dreben cautioned us that the prisoner was not to have visitors,” he said.
“I am not a visitor,” said Gael flatly.
The guard frowned.
“I am an auditor, come to inspect your work.”
And then Skinny was back. With a keyring holding three keys. Apparently the opteon was wise, recognizing that there was nowhere Belzetarn’s secretarius could not go, if he so desired.
The locks were balky, their stiffness worsened by Skinny’s shaking fingers, but they surrendered soon enough. Gael pulled the door open, stepped through it, and gestured for the guards to close it behind him.
Keir was seated on the deep sill of the barred window, looking out. She turned. Even with the light behind her, Gael could see her face change, from cool intentness to something lighter. Relief? Gladness? Her tunic and hose were rumpled and grubby; her chin-length blonde hair slightly tousled; her face smudged. But that was not what Gael was seeing.
He noted her straight and undamaged limbs, the way her body moved easily and without hurt, how her confidence remained undimmed, evident in her composed gray eyes, the firm set of her finely curved lips, and the lift of her gracefully strong chin.
And then he realized that he hadn’t the faintest idea of what to say to her.
Are you well? Manifestly, she was.
Are you a traitor? Gaelan’s tears! How could he accuse her of such?
Can I trust you? Tiamar’s throne! What was the matter with him? Gods, but she was beautiful!
Keir apparently knew no such awkwardness. She stepped toward him, her hands held out, her expression changing still, from a mere lightening to positive happiness. Radiance?
“Gael! You saved it! You preserved it! Thank you!” she exclaimed.
Abruptly his tongue-tied speechlessness vanished under a flood of scalding rage. Keir was unharmed. No one had hurt her in any way. Thank Tiamar. But Gael now wanted a nice fresh switch of birch with which to apply ten swift strikes to the palm of one of her outstretched hands. The ridiculousness of the notion – Keir was no school child – merely increased
his anger.
“I trusted you!” he grated.
All her glowing happiness eclipsed. Her hands dropped. Faint hurt dilated her eyes for an instant, and then she withdrew into chilly composure.
Gael ignored all these symptoms of distress. His own face felt like stone, adamant and condemning.
“The secret you feared I’d discerned was not the secret of your gender, was it, Keir?” His voice came out very flat. “You feared I’d learned of your treason, did you not?”
Keir paled, but said nothing at all. Her whitening skin, so like the other two times she’d blanched, goaded him anew.
“Did you not?” he ground out, repeating himself.
Keir lost some of her poise, her voice catching. “Gael, it’s not – I didn’t mean – Gael, I am loyal to you!”
“How is it not?” he demanded savagely. “How did you not mean it? How are you in the least loyal to me?” His throat burned with his fury. “You stole tin ingots from my tin vault, disguised them to mimic copper, stowed them in my copper vault, and treasonously sent them down to my bladesmith, there to become weapons that would slay your fellows. You stole copper ingots from my copper vaults, disguised them as tin, secreted them in my tin vault, and funneled them into my privy smithy, thus to hide your perfidy. How is that not betrayal?”
He’d not thought she could pale further. She swayed, and he wondered if she would swoon.
Leaving her no opening in which to respond, he snapped, “Did you think my word to Lord Carbraes meant so little to me? Did you not realize that as my notarius your deeds became my deeds? Did you think my loyalty to my regenen of so little account that it could be ignored?”
His breath, labored and quickened, seemed not to bring enough air to his lungs.
“How dare you! How dare you!” he thundered.
Was that heartbreak in her eyes?
Stifling a gasp, she wrenched away from his accusing gaze to stare out through the bars of her window. Her shoulders hunched, but did not heave. Then her neck bent, and one hand went to her eyes. She stood, silenced and very still.
Gael reached one hand out to her – unseen – horrified. Through all her trials, she had passed undaunted, maintaining her composure upon capture, while concealing her sex, even while bilking the tally room at her utmost risk. Only now, confronted by Gael’s rage, had she broken. He had broken her.
The Tally Master Page 43
