Blood Road

by Amanda McCrina

  A line of trade ships lay moored at the quay ahead of them: tall sailing ships and long, low galleys, rising and falling gently against their mooring stones in the hot salt wind. The quay crawled like an ant hill. Streams of slaves, stripped to the waist under the sun’s glare, flowed up and down the gangplanks from quay to ship-holds and back again, shoulders bent under jugs of wine and oil and bushels of grain and bolts of silk and linen cloth. Merchants and clerks crowded under the awnings at a short remove from the water’s edge, ledgers in hand; ship masters and pilots huddled together in clumps over navigational charts and cargo manifests. A little way down the quay, a group of slaves bound for auction sat chained at the foot of a gangplank, silently waiting, while their ship master haggled prices with a dealer and a harbor official hovered by to collect the sale tax.

  From out of the crowd, someone tugged at Torien’s left elbow. The blood cracked and welled up fresh. Pain lanced down his arm. He sucked a breath through his teeth, stumbling against Alluin, reaching belatedly for his sword, but Alluin had already dropped the horses’ reins and pushed past him to jerk a stunned Modigno boy forward by the arms. The boy’s unslung skin of milk slipped from his hands and burst open on the paving stones.

  Around them, the crowd withdrew at once, falling back in a wide circle. The woman stood at the far edge of the circle, her hands cupped over her mouth. Down the quay, the ship master and the slave dealer looked up from their haggling at the sudden silence.

  Alluin let go the boy’s arms. The boy dropped wordlessly to his knees and folded over to press palms and forehead against the paving stones at Torien’s feet. Torien met Alluin’s eyes over the boy’s shaking body. After a moment’s hesitation, Alluin dipped his chin. He bent down and drew the boy up and crouched beside him with an arm around his shoulders. He spoke to him in awkward, broken Modigno: “No matter, no matter, it’ll be all right—”

  Torien picked up the horses’ reins. There was a sickness inside him. Of necessity, the boy must cower. Of necessity, the boy must fall on his face against the street and wait wordless for judgment, because it was in his, Torien’s, power to open the boy’s throat and send his family to a slaver’s block for the mere offense of his touch—and no matter how they might speak of justice, they all of them understood that, deep down.

  He said to Alluin, “Ask him how much in compensation for the milk.”

  Alluin pulled over the dripping skin with his free hand and showed it to the boy. “Cuenta?”

  The boy shook his head against Alluin’s shoulder.

  “An eagle,” Torien said to Alluin. He looked into the boy’s tear-streaked face. “Sente,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  The circle was breaking around them, the crowd spreading out again over the quay. Alluin came to take the reins. “Enough. You need a surgeon, Tor.”

  “When this is done.”

  Alluin’s eyes ran down his arm. Torien followed his gaze. There was blood dribbling in a thin line from his sleeve down to his hand, over his wrist-guard. He shook his head. “If the jente kills me anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

  “If that’s the kind of logic they teach you in Cesin, I begin to understand how we made such short work of your people under Taigo.”

  “I have to do this, Alluin.”

  “Because you’re an idiot,” Alluin said. “I know.”

  When they reached the woman, Torien said, shortly, “How much further?” He did not want to talk about the boy, and particularly he did not want to talk about his shoulder.

  The woman said nothing of either. Perhaps she saw it in his face. “The two-masted ship it sails today. I see them load the slaves in the night.”

  He could see it moored further down the quay, lying a little way out on account of its draft. It was full-laden and riding low in the water: a deep-hulled sailing ship, bigger by far than the ships which came up the river to dock at Vessy, but he recognized the shape. “Wine?”

  “The harbor master he thinks so.”

  He studied the ship. The gangplank had been taken up; he could see the crew moving about on the deck. The ship was waiting for the tide. “If I inspect cargo and manifest, I’ll find less wine and more water than I should—provided you’ve told me the truth.”

  “Yes.”

  “If cargo and manifest are equal, then I can assume you’ve lied to me.”

  The woman hesitated. Then she said again, “Yes.” Her voice was low but firm.

  “The boat,” Torien said to Alluin.

  There was a single-masted fishing boat tied up at the quay below them. The boatman and a boy who must be his son sat cross-legged at the water’s edge, mending their nets. Alluin looked at the boat and the bent-headed pair, then at the ship beyond. His mouth was a thin, tight line. “I’ll go—and the woman.”

  “We’ll all go,” Torien said.

  Alluin was silent, for a moment. When he spoke again it was in Cesino, which he spoke well but carefully. “One of us should stay behind. Otherwise this is suicide.”

  “Stay behind, then.”

  “Listen to me, Tor. On land, it would be different. On land, we’d have an outlet, however bad the odds. This way they’ve got us against a wall from the start.”

  “If you’re right and the woman is on the jente’s coin, then we’ve a hostage.”

  “If I’m right and she owes him the tunic off her back, then she won’t make a difference to them.”

  “I’m valuable to them—you said so yourself. They’ll keep me alive any way it goes. Logically, if either of us stays behind, it should be you.”

  There was another stretch of silence between them. He could see in Alluin’s face both the counterargument and the realization that it was useless. The woman, who had understood none of the exchange but had guessed its meaning, shifted on her feet, uneasy. Alluin swore at last in Vareno and put the reins in Torien’s hand. He went down to the water’s edge to speak with the boatman.

  They left the horses in the boy’s keeping. The boatman kept the sail furled and sat in the stern to row. They moved out slowly and rhythmically across the water, the little boat rising and falling on the waves in the stiff wind. Torien sat at the prow, gripping the sides of the boat in white-knuckled hands, keeping his eyes fixed on the stretch of floor between his feet. When they came up beside the ship, the boatman rested his oars and leaned out over the water to knot a line on one of the mooring rings. He stood and called up to the deck in Modigno. A dark head appeared over the railing above them. Another line came tumbling down into the boat. The boatman caught it and drew it taut and stood holding it while the boat settled gently against the ship.

  Alluin was first up the ship’s side, casting a savage glance to Torien as his feet left the boat. He moved slowly and carefully up the holds and swung over the railing, vanishing onto the deck. The woman followed him. Torien stood, unsteadily. His heart was quivering in his stomach. He took a bronze from his belt and held it out to the boatman. “Bayas,” he said. It was effort to speak; his mouth was dry.

  The boatman bowed and took the coin, still holding the line. Torien pulled himself up one-handed onto the holds. He clung to the ship’s side with the boat bobbing a foot below him, the deck railing unbearably far above him. He fought the sudden panic and made himself move. He lunged and got his right elbow over the railing and hung for a moment kicking against the ship’s side, scrabbling with his feet for a hold. He found a ledge under his toes and pushed himself unceremoniously over the railing. He landed on his knees, his right hand spread flat against the deck, his left cradled against his stomach, the blood pounding in his head.

  He stood, blinking in the bright sunlight. Someone took his elbow to steady him. He thought it was Alluin, but when the dizziness cleared he saw Alluin standing with the woman a little way across the deck, flanked by two armed crewmen. The man at his elbow was Modigno. From the quality of his dress, Torien took him to be the ship master. His bearded face was as brown and blunt and humorl
ess as weathered wood. His fingers around Torien’s elbow were thick and stubby, but even so Torien could tell he knew the use of the curved blade hung naked at his belt.

  The Modigno said, in smooth Vareno, “You’re a fool to come, Commander.”

  There were two more crewmen watching carelessly from the foremast. Otherwise the deck was empty. If this was an ambush, it was a poor one. “I could put your own sword through your gut before you let go my arm. You’re a fool to stand so close.”

  The Modigno smiled. He dropped Torien’s arm and bowed, ironically. Torien darted a glance to Alluin over the Modigno’s head. Alluin was scowling. Beside him, the woman was as rigid as a spear shaft.

  The Modigno straightened. He waved a hand. The two crewmen, moving quickly, took the woman by the elbows and flung her to her knees on the deck. In one smooth motion, one of them slipped his blade from his belt and cut her throat.

  Torien stepped forward out of instinct, reaching for his sword. He froze in mid-step when the woman fell, still fumbling one-handed at his sword hilt, and for a moment he stood blinking dumbly at her crumpled body. He saw it in peculiar detail—her coarse black hair spilled loose over her shoulders; her arms spread wide; her head turned on one cheek against the deck; her blood crawling across the boards from the red gash grinning under her chin. He straightened, slowly. Alluin had managed to get his sword from its sheath; it dangled loosely in his limp fingers. There was white shock in his olive-skinned face.

  Torien swallowed. He let go his sword. “She was to be kept alive.”

  The Modigno pushed past him toward the quarterdeck. “You may carry my apologies to the fort.”

  “You misunderstand the nature of my business here.”

  The Modigno swung around to look at him from the foot of the quarterdeck steps. His face was blank, but his eyes on Torien’s were sharp and cool. “Explain to me, then, the nature of your business.”

  “You’re to give me passage to Tasso. I’ve horses on the quay. You can send one of your boats for them.”

  Alluin had recovered himself. He sheathed his sword and stepped carefully over the spreading blood to Torien’s side. The Modigno followed Alluin’s movement with his eyes. “I’ve no room for horses.”

  “Put some of your cargo overboard. Do you think I care?”

  The two crewmen, who had taken up the woman’s body by the arms to drag it to the railing, paused at their work.

  “I imagine you know the cost of refusing me,” Torien said.

  A flicker of emotion passed over the Modigno’s face: hatred, fear. The Modigno jerked his chin to the crewmen. “Finish it. Ready a boat.”

  Something dark and wet dropped beside Torien from the railing. He turned to see the girl pulling herself up against the railing, seawater puddling at her feet. She threw herself at him, limbs flailing, heedless, screaming in Modigno, sobbing intermittently. He caught one of her wrists and held her away from him while Alluin slid his arms around her from behind. He let go her wrist. She squirmed in Alluin’s grip like a caught fish, twisting against his chest, kicking his ankles with her sound foot. “Bastard! Cobarte! I tell her you lie!” There were tears mingled with the seawater on her face. She slumped exhausted against Alluin’s chest. She bowed her head over his arm. “I tell her you lie,” she said. Her voice was broken. Her shoulders shook. Alluin let her go, gently, and she sank to her knees on the deck and folded over to weep softly and bitterly into her hands.

  The Modigno had come down from the quarterdeck. He knelt beside the girl and lifted her up from the waist. He brushed back her dripping hair from her face and knotted his fingers in it, jerking her head up. He ran a finger over the girl’s cheek and said something in his own tongue.

  Torien said, “Enough.”

  The Modigno let go the girl’s hair. He stood. “Fool. Do you think I’d lay a hand on her? She’s worth a thousand eagles or more untouched.”

  “If she were yours to sell.”

  The Modigno’s face hardened. “My payment. In return for doing your dirty work.”

  “That you and your kind aren’t hanging on the fort wall is payment enough. The girl is mine.”

  He half expected the Modigno’s blade across his throat in response, and judging from Alluin’s face Alluin expected the same, but the Modigno only looked at him. At length, he bowed, too deeply and too long. “As my lord wishes.”

  “Tell one of your crewmen to show us our berths,” Torien said.

  The Modigno’s lip curled. “This is a trade ship, Commander, not a pleasure boat on the Breche. You’ll berth with the crew.”

  “We’ll berth in your cabin,” Torien said, “and you can lodge a complaint with the harbor master.”

  “You realize,” Alluin said, when he had drawn the curtain across the cabin doorway, “how easy it would be for you and I both to take a sudden fever and die between here and Tasso?”

  Torien slid down against the bulkhead with his helmet in his hands. There was pain hammering a steady rhythm against his temples, pulsing black in his eyes. “Fever?”

  Alluin came over from the doorway and knelt beside him and started loosening the buckles of his cuirass. “I mean you didn’t exactly make a friend.”

  “I don’t exactly want him for a friend. But if he were going to kill us he’d have done it already. Why wait and let the inspectors see us? He’s not going to kill us. He’s too afraid to kill us. Afraid of the fort? Of the governor? I don’t know. Afraid of someone more important than we are.” He flinched as Alluin’s fingers worked at the shoulder buckle. “Anyway, you keep—keep forgetting how valuable I am.”

  Alluin tugged the cuirass down his arm and spread open the jerkin underneath. He studied Torien’s shoulder without touching it. His mouth was tight. He sat back on his heels. “I’m going to see if these pirates have a doctor among them.”

  “Wait.” Torien indicated the girl with his chin. “Bring her here.”

  She had sunk down against the opposite bulkhead when Alluin had first let her go and sat now with her knees drawn up, her cheek pressed to the wall, her hair falling loose over her looped arms. She had stopped crying. She was sitting very still and tense, her eyes flat, but when Alluin reached for her arm she lunged away from him with a choked cry. He caught her by the elbow, pulling her back. She made to get to her feet. He slid his left hand easily under her knees, his right across her shoulders. He brought her in his arms across the room and put her down on her knees in front of Torien. He sat behind her with his arms around her, his hands clamped over her forearms to hold her still. “Quickly,” he said.

  Torien looked into the girl’s face. She met his eyes unblinking, though she was shaking with anger, muscles fluttering in her jaw and throat. Her hands were clenched to trembling fists under Alluin’s hands. He said, quietly, “It’ll be dark enough when we pass the point that you can swim for it.”

  “Cobarte.” Her voice was low but bitter. “If you want to be rid of me, then you must kill me, and if you do not kill me I swear I find a way to kill you. I swear it on her body. I swear I open your throat. I do not care what they do to me for it.”

  “Opening my throat isn’t justice for your mother any more than opening my shoulder was justice for your brother.”

  “You bring her to them. You let them kill her.”

  “If I’d known what would happen, I wouldn’t have made her come. I was trying to help her.”

  “I hear what you say to them. I hear you say to them I am yours.”

  “It was pretense. If I hadn’t said it, you’d be down in the hold with the rest of their cargo, bound for an auction block in Tasso. I swear to you I’m trying to see justice done.”

  “There is no such thing as justice.”

  He sat up from the bulkhead. He took her upper arms in his hands, ignoring the twinge in his shoulder. “Listen to me. I’ll speak to you plainly because you deserve as much. I will see this thing ended, or I will die in the attempt. I promise
you that. I ask you give me the chance for it.”

  The girl said, very softly, “Vareno promises are nothing.”

  “It isn’t a Vareno promise.” He let go her arms. He unsheathed his belt knife and laid the edge of the blade on his left palm. “Vareni don’t swear oaths in blood. This is a Cesino promise.”

  Alluin said, “Tor.” But he said nothing else.

  Torien opened the skin across the breadth of his palm. He had seen the chieftains of the hill tribes do it when they came down to Vessy to swear fealty to his father and to the Empire. He had seen, too, the reckoning for the breaking of a blood oath—the earthly reckoning, at least—because when the Dobryni had risen in failed rebellion five summers ago, and the survivors had been brought by the allied chieftains to Vessy, his father had let the chieftains execute their own manner of justice, and he had watched at his father’s side while they did it.

  He waited until the blood had welled up in a dark line. Then he held up his hand for the girl to see. “My body to Death,” he said, “my soul to Hell, if I do not keep my word.”

  The girl looked at his hand in silence, her jaw clenched. Then she raised her eyes to his face. She searched it over as the woman had done on the quay—as though she were trying to read something written there. He waited, unmoving, the knife against his thigh, the blood running in thin ribbons over his palm. Through the curtained doorway, he could hear the ship master shouting orders from the quarterdeck and the shuddering groan of the ship’s timbers as the anchor was drawn up.

  Alluin shifted at the girl’s back. “Torien,” he said.

  The girl said, “It is your name—Torien?”

  “Torien Berio Risto. My father is Lord Risto of Cesin.”

  “To know a name is to know a person true. Among my people we say this. We do not give our names so easy.” The girl swallowed. There was a tear slipping down her nose to her lips. “My name is Lida,” she said. She pulled her hand from Alluin’s hand. She reached and touched Torien’s palm, tracing the gash with her fingers. “I accept your oath, Torien Risto.”