It took him a moment of trying to decipher the euphemism before he realized it wasn't one. Laundry-lines cloaked the area beyond the first few buildings, as if to shield the rest of the women's area from the sight of their required service. “Oh. Can I go see her?”
“Can't stop you, sir.”
There was something hard in her voice, and he remembered that the matrons were slaves too. For all their show of authority, they would be executed like any other if they harmed a freesoldier. He nodded, then unlinked his arm from Nerice's with a mumbled, “Wait here,” and cut through a thin part of the crowd toward the hanging sheets.
A few steps along, he remembered where he had seen the matron. The infirmary. One of the medics' aides who had watched over him while he was sick.
Did they all end up here? he wondered as he brushed past the sheets.
Beyond was another open area, with a crowd of a different kind. Laundry-lines ran from bunkhouse to bunkhouse, creating a labyrinth of garments that stirred in the breeze, while at the open center stood great vats being stirred by women with poles. Young children—girls and boys—fed the occasional goat-chip or chunk of charcoal into the brick furnaces beneath them, the smoke threading up from central pipes to avoid the laundry.
At first, Weshker thought they were boiling the clothes, but as he pushed clear of the forest of sheets he found other women arrayed around the furnace-space, sweating as they scrubbed garments in much smaller basins. Each had a basket of dirties and a basket of cleans, replaced regularly by the children, while another handful of women went around to empty old washwater into barrels and refill the tubs with new. Around the fringes, a few crones and some heavily-pregnant girls worked with needle and thread, mending gear. The air reeked of lye and smoke.
A handful of women looked up at his entrance, but most kept their heads down, feigning disinterest. He pretended he didn't see them either, and skimmed the crowd for Sanava. It took a while; he almost thought the matron had lied, but then he spotted her rust-colored eyebrows under the edge of a white kerchief.
“Hoi! Sanava!” he called, and she looked up sharply. One eye was swollen shut, purple.
His heart clenched, but it was all the more reason to take her from here. He beckoned and she rose, casting a glance to a watching matron who gave a nod. As she stepped around her neighbors and drew close, he saw more bruises on her neck and arms, up to the edges of her rolled up sleeves.
“Yeh all right?” he said as she halted just in reach. Her cold look told him it was the wrong question. “Who did that? I'll get 'im.”
“Dun matter,” she said.
“I'm wi' the Field Marshal's guard. I can kick his ass inside out fer yeh.”
She didn't answer, just stared at him flatly. He shifted on his feet.
“Look,” he said, “beside that, I wanna... I mean, d'yeh wanna come with me?”
Silence. He wondered if she still wore knives under her skirts, or if whoever had beaten her had taken them away.
“Sanava, say yes. I can get yeh outta here fer permanent. Yeh stay with me until yeh declared free, then we can do that thing we were talkin' about that time. Yeh remember?”
If she did, she didn't show it, and he dared not speak it more clearly. Even surrounded by slaves, it was unwise to talk about escape. He was a freesoldier now but that didn't make him duty-bound, and when he won Sanava's release, he knew he would desert the army to follow her. This new life had its appeal but he couldn't trust it.
Her gaze slid past him, and his skin prickled with alarm. He looked back and there was Nerice, half a step behind him—silent, smiling, with eyes like a hunting cat's. Pendriel waited at the sheets.
Trapped, he looked back at Sanava, flailing for something that would appease both sides. “These, uh... These're some new friends. Nerice here, she says there en't gonna be a problem with yeh joinin' me, and—“ Suggesting a threesome was clearly verboten now. “—So...I think we can all get along...”
Sanava spat in his face.
He recoiled, not exactly startled. Her good eye was like a knife, a snarl trembling on her lips—but she wasn't looking at him, and he realized suddenly that this wasn't about him at all.
Nerice stepped by, still smiling. “I'll teach her a lesson.”
He saw the baton in her hand, saw Sanava's face turn murderous, and flung himself in the way to act as a shield. Sanava didn't want to let him; her eye flashed in his peripheral vision, arms bracing to shove him away, but he managed to bull her a few steps back.
Then she snapped from his grip, shrieking in Corvish, and he felt his escorts converging. He turned toward them, raising his arms defensively. “It's nothin', it's nothin'!” he said, expecting a beating of his own. Both had their batons out, Pendriel's expression hard, Nerice's eager, but to his relief they halted and traded a look.
Sanava bolted from the yard.
“She's insulted a member of the guard,” said Pendriel coolly.
“That's—” Just an excuse, he thought, and cast a nervous look around. All the women were concentrating on their tasks, ignoring the altercation. “No one was watchin'. No one's gonna tell.”
Pendriel snorted, but loosened her stance and slid the baton back into its loop. Nerice rolled her eyes and said, “She still needs punishing. Slaves don't have the luxury of rejections.”
“No, no, yeh...ye jes' surprised her. I told yeh t'wait. She'll come around, I know it.”
The amused look Nerice gave him made him wonder if he was wrong—if they were after Sanava, or just defending his honor, or something else. But nothing about his situation made sense, let alone her giving him that one-shouldered shrug and saying, “You're the boss, Wes.”
“Yeh,” he said, but it felt like a lie.
*****
Sergeant Erolan Linciard threw his cards down on the table in disgust. “I fold,” he said, then reached for his mug only to find it empty.
“That's you out of everything, eh?” said Houndmaster-Lieutenant Vrallek with a chuckle. Linciard grunted in response, and the ugly Houndmaster grinned as he scraped the last of Linciard's coins into the pile.
Across the table, a thick-set Amandic corporal said, “You can go in debt to me if you still want to play. I don't mind lending.”
Settling back in his chair, Linciard eyed the pile of coins before the corporal. Herrick, his name was—one of Houndmaster Vrallek's many subordinate ruengriin, with that golden pendant just visible at his shirt-collar. Reliable enough, but Linciard was not about to go into hock with a monster.
“No, but you could treat me with the generosity of a victor,” he said, shaking his empty mug. The corporal smirked and nodded toward the pitcher, and Linciard grabbed it before anyone could move it from reach. “I'll just sponge off you lot for the rest of the night, since you've got all my coin,” he said as he refilled the mug.
“Fine, fine,” said another corporal, “just don't puke on anything. Last person to puke on our cards learned the taste of his own teeth.”
“Shat 'em out a week later, still bloody,” drawled Vrallek as he fingered his cards. “Idiot.”
“If hyou get queasy, say, and ve haul hyou outside,” said a third ruengriin corporal, this one hunched low in a pair of chairs so as to not loom over the rest of the table. When standing, he was nearly eight feet tall and almost half that in girth, his dark olive complexion and nub-like tusks bespeaking an ogrish heritage different from the ruddy Vrallek and Magus Voorkei. Linciard thought his name was Renkurr.
He had no desire to see that one with his illusion off.
It was Specialist Platoon night here at the Velvet Sheath, just down the road from the city garrison. This back lounge was full of Vrallek's men, buzzing with talk and laughter and shouts for refills as they waited for the opening of the night-rooms at dusk. Scantily-clad ladies and toyboys ran service and occupied laps almost equally, heeding the flash of coin. The stink of ogre-blood and ruengriin hung heavy in the air, alongside a fug of perfume, rashi and other herbs.
&nbs
p; The haze added a pleasant looseness to Linciard's alcoholic buzz. He felt pretty good, all told. It had been a week since the scuffle and his suspension, and he had spent most of the time camped out here or in the Truncheon Tavern next door, talking, observing, drinking. He'd had a sit-down with just about every man in the company now, though mostly in groups.
But that was fine. Men gave away more when they were gathered than alone, especially when the topic turned to escapades. Everyone wanted to top the previous man, to make the others laugh—to look big and be respected even if for something stupid. And stupid was the name of the game here at the Sheath. The prostitutes made sure of that.
He lifted his mug carefully, mindful of the tingle that ran through his fingers. The cuts Weshker had made were all scabbed-over but the internal damage was slower to heal. He'd lost some grip-strength and his handwriting was a mess, to the point that the sight of the quill-feather shaking between his fingers nauseated him. He had a squeezy thing with a spring in it that he was supposed to use when his hands started tingling, and Medic Shuralla checked his progress daily, but he wasn't allowed at sword-practice. Light exercise only.
Focusing on this task helped him to not think about it.
“Question,” he said as Renkurr claimed the pot, the others groaning and tossing their cards to the dealer for the next round. “How come half your piking platoon is ogre-bloods?”
“Make great soldiers. Too sexy to die,” said Renkurr.
Chuckles went around the table, and a woman wearing little more than sequins and floss smirked at them as she passed with a tray of mugs. “I'm serious,” said Linciard once their stares unhitched from her. “It's not like you pikers are common in the Empire.”
“For one, only a quarter of my men are ogre-blood,” said Vrallek. “For another, your best lancers are the Jernizen, so you can stuff it.”
“A quarter of your men, including you.”
“What's it to you, blondie?”
“Nothing, I'm just curious. I know why the Jernizen are here.” He gestured at the various prostitutes serving drinks or perched on laps. “So how about you? You speak Gheshvan, yeah?”
The Houndmaster's eyes seemed to catch a gleam from the hanging lanterns. “You sure you want to have this conversation, sergeant?”
Linciard paused, suddenly aware that the whole table was watching him—and a couple other tables beside. Scouts in their blacks, big burly ruengriin in their red jackets or civvies, and even the three lagalaina holed up at their spot by the door. Many, many eyes in troubling shades of amber and orange and rusty-brown and red, not angry but intent.
“I...didn't mean to offend you,” said Linciard, raising his hands slowly. He'd had the feeling they were just tolerating him, but this was like he'd woken up a den of wolves. “I'm sure you're great Imperials. Blessed, right? Captain says that's what makes you specialists.”
Vrallek snorted. He and Linciard didn't get along, though they didn't clash much either; they just grated on each other. At first, Vrallek had belittled Linciard at any opportunity—maybe because he was younger than the other lieutenants, maybe sensing weakness and uncertainty in the role—but Linciard had held his ground and it had tapered off.
For his part, Linciard had come to understand that Vrallek was more than just an ugly bastard: he was smart, and dangerous, and very in control. The captain had warned him that the Houndmaster might push him further—challenge him. He was already too drunk for that.
“Blessed, yes,” said the Houndmaster in a bone-dry voice. “We have seen the Light. Are you looking to join us?”
“Not specifically...”
One of the ruengriin rumbled something in Gheshvan with Rallant's name in it. The ogre-bloods snickered, and a corner of Vrallek's mouth crooked up. It wasn't a smile. “Best keep your curiosity to yourself, then.”
Linciard spread his hands in acceptance, though he didn't understand, and stayed silent as the game resumed. The specialists bickered and sneered and laughed over their cards, but Houndmaster Vrallek—though he played—did not join them in their chatter. His gaze kept moving back to Linciard between bids, hooded and unnerving, and Linciard feared he'd crossed some unknown line.
So he drank. If he was going to get beaten, the numbness would be a boon.
It was a few hands and three mugs in before Vrallek spoke again, and when he did, the rest of the table hushed like scolded children. “The priest,” he said, and it took Linciard's sozzled brain a moment to recognize that the words were aimed at him.
“The priest?” he echoed.
“Enlightened Messenger Cortine. If you want to know about the blessing, ask him.”
Linciard blinked. He'd already received Cortine's winged-light benediction, as he had many a time back home. It was a Linciard family tradition to trek to the county seat at Cantrell to watch the Yearthaw parade: the great procession of priests and petitioners that bore the Risen Phoenix effigy from county to county on its beribboned palanquin, its wings of glass and gilt casting dazzling reflections across the crowd. Then they would all receive the Spring Blessing from the visiting priests and pray in the temple, and have a day out among the city sights before marching home the next morning.
All the traveling priests had seemed the same back then: pale-haired, sunburnt men in white, with placid features and summer-warm hands. Not like the temple priests or, later, the Border Corps chaplains, who were varied and often dull or petty. He'd thought the quality of the parading priests was a child's misremembrance, but Cortine was exactly like them.
Except for those white eyes.
The benediction was a comfort, but nothing that would unhinge him at the knees. He supposed he wasn't as good a Light-follower as the specialists and the captain.
“I've had it,” he said. “It didn't do much.”
From either side of him came the corporals' low growls.
“Didn't do much?” said Herrick. “You don't feel the presence of the Light? What are you, some kind of a Dark follower? Maybe a friend of that medic-witch you're always visiting?”
Linciard lifted his bandaged hands half as shields and half as exhibits. “Witch? She's the piking medic, she's been fixing me up. I follow the Light, I don't know what you're—“
“Ve should do test,” said Corporal Renkurr, looming up from his pair of chairs. “Vring to the Enlightened One for proper scouring...”
“Look, I've been under the priest's hand already. If there was something wrong with me, he would've noticed, right?”
“Not necessarily,” said the unnamed corporal on his other side. “You've never basked in the truth of the Light. You've never been burned through and through. There are infinite places for the Dark to hide in someone who hasn't been scoured clean, and not even a Messenger can see them all at a glance. We should take you in, sergeant. See what's to be seen.”
“Then take you apart if we don't like what we find,” said Herrick.
Linciard eased his chair back, all too aware of the eyes on him and his less-than-sober state. He wouldn't get two steps before they piled on him, and then it would be all over. They would drag him to Cortine and—
What? What was there to fear in the Light?
He had his secrets, but they weren't that bad...
“Peace, the lot of you,” came Vrallek's rumble. He hadn't moved from his seat, cards still clutched in one knuckley hand and mug in the other, and the look on his ugly face was annoyance, nothing more. “Captain said we're not to mess with the other platoons. The Messenger being here doesn't change that.”
“But sir—“ started Herrick.
“No. Sit your arses down and play the game. He's a Wynd, for pike's sake. He's probably never been east of Thynbell in his life.”
A grumble went through the corporals, but they eased back into their chairs and turned away from Linciard as if he was anathema. Only the Houndmaster-Lieutenant kept an eye on him, thick black brows quirked in a manner that was nearly wry.
“What does being a W
ynd have to do with anything?” said Linciard, incapable of leaving well enough alone.
The Houndmaster smirked. “You've never been to Daecia, never seen the Palace. Like Corporal Kelfar said, you haven't been scoured. You can't understand what it means to us, to be seen—known—and called to service. To claw your way back to life.”
“Back...?”
“Twenty years ago, I was a prisoner—caught fighting the Empire in Krovichanka. I was taken to the Palace, where I gazed upon the Risen Light, and it gazed also into me. And I saw the folly of my ways. The spirits—what had they ever done for us? They were neglectful parents, and weak. We mixed-bloods weren't people to them, just swordfodder in their stubborn resistance to the Empire. But the Light, ahh...” His gaze slid upward, a weird expression of rapture crossing his heavy features. “The Light knew me. It accepted me. It had a use for me—a place, a tailor-made design. And here I am, doing its work.”
Linciard stared. The Houndmaster's words seemed to have triggered something in the others, for they stared at the table or their cards or thin air with that same dazed expression. Warily, he prompted, “You were Krovichankans? You mean, the ogre tribes?”
Houndmaster Vrallek blinked and looked toward him, ruddy eyes still unfocused. “Voryeshki people, Hesseljak tribe. Renkurr there is a Leshya-Naanja, the greenies. Mixed-bloods, obviously. Full ogres can't bear the Light. It kills 'em.”
“Why?”
“How should I know? They're Dark-hearted pikers, following their Dark-loving beast-lords, so that must be part of it, but so was I back then. Some people...even when you pry their eyes open, they can't be shown, so they just burn up in his gaze. Poof, ashes.”
“The Emperor?”
“Who else? He's the Prime Scion of the Light. What he sees, it sees. What it wants, he wants. Anyway, you keep asking questions like this, you'll find out soon enough.”
“Maybe he should ask Sergeant Rallant, eh lieutenant? Eh?”
That was Corporal Kelfar. Vrallek gave him a reproving look, but Linciard felt the name like a finger trailing up his spine. He had barely seen Rallant at all this week, and when he did it was only in passing, with Rallant never meeting his eyes.
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 49
