He was sick for the rest of the afternoon.
At suppertime, the boy was back with the tray. This time Torien did not sit up from the bunk. His stomach had settled down to a wary peace, and he lay very still with one arm draped over his eyes. “Leave the wine,” he said. “Take the rest of it.”
The boy came over to set the wine jug on the floor by the head of the bunk. He took the tray back over to the doorway. Torien said, “Wait.”
The boy froze at the curtain.
Torien slid his arm from his eyes and flicked his fingers to the tray in the boy’s hands. “Sit and eat.”
When the boy did not move, he repeated it in Cesino. He saw a sudden flash of recognition. The boy’s chin came up, his eyes going almost hungrily over Torien’s face. He saw, also, the shields which went up immediately after. The recognition slid into careful blankness. The boy shook his head once and fled.
He had not left a cup for the wine. He had, Torien reflected, followed his orders very literally. Torien considered and dismissed the barbarity of drinking straight from the jug. He dug for his mess cup in his pack and poured the wine in the cup, slowly and carefully so as not to spill it when the ship pitched. The wine was thin and cloudy with impurities and very nearly gone to vinegar. It was not much improvement on the water, but he supposed at least it was antiseptic. He drank enough to sleep and woke much later disoriented in pitch-blackness, the jug cradled at his elbow and his head aching fiercely. He slept again only very slowly, and by the time he had really gotten to sleep the sun was glaring white-hot off the water through the porthole.
The curtain was sliding back on its rings, and the boy was ducking in with breakfast on the tray.
Torien shifted the wine jug and sat up. He motioned for the boy to put the tray on the bunk. He picked up the bread from the tray and tore it in two. He held one half on his lap and held out the other half to the boy as the boy straightened. The boy looked at it hollowly. He swallowed without taking his eyes from it. His arms hung stiff and straight at his sides. His fingers were curled to fists.
Torien gestured with the bread. “Take it.”
The boy swallowed again. A muscle jumped in his cheek.
“Take it,” Torien said, in Cesino.
The boy reached very slowly, one-handed, and took the bread, careful as before that he did not touch Torien’s fingers. With the bread in his hand, he darted a stricken glance over Torien’s face.
“Sit and eat,” Torien said.
The boy sat down cross-legged on the floor at Torien’s feet. He bent his head to eat. He ate very slowly and delicately, tearing the bread with his fingers and lifting it in little pieces to his mouth, making it last, making no noise as he chewed and swallowed.
“Tell me your name,” Torien said.
The boy swallowed his mouthful. He held the remainder in his hand. Without looking up he said, softly in the same tongue, “Ædyn, Lord.”
“Of which tribe? Dobryni?”
“Of the Charysi, Lord.”
“How did you come to be so far from home, Ædyn?”
“They sold me at Arondy port, Lord.”
“They—Vareni?”
Ædyn said nothing. His eyes had strayed across the cabin to where Torien’s kit sat against the bulkhead.
“Punishment for a crime?” Torien said.
“Yes, Lord.” The boy was still studying the kit.
“You’re young for a convict.”
“I mean it was my father’s crime, Lord.”
“Explain to me.”
Ædyn fumbled with the bread in his hand and said nothing.
Torien bent and took Ædyn’s bony elbows in his fingers and drew the boy up to his feet. “Explain to me.”
Ædyn said, looking at his feet, “He couldn’t pay the tax, Lord. They took me instead.”
“Your lord sold you to make up the debt?”
“Yes, Lord.”
And did well out of it, Torien thought: a slave went for well more than a dirt-poor Cesino barley farmer owed in the yearly tax. He let go Ædyn’s elbows. He took the clump of dates from the tray and held it out. “Here. Eat.”
The boy shook his head. The bread was unfinished in his hand. “I must go, Lord.”
“Take it for later.”
The boy said nothing. Torien took the boy’s free hand and put the clump of dates into it and closed the boy’s fingers. He kept the water cup and slid the empty tray under the boy’s arm. “You might as well eat them,” he said. “They’ll only come up again if I do.”
He alternated the water with wine and in that way managed to get most of it down. The rest he splashed over his face and sore eyes. He took the half of bread down into the hold and held it on his palm for the black horse to lip. With nothing else to do, and no desire to go up on deck, he sat down cross-legged against one of the posts and spent the next few hours oiling and polishing his tack—working at the sand-scuffed leather of the saddle until the horns glowed softly red-gold and the knee-flaps were creamy-smooth and pliable, rubbing the bosses of the bridle until the metal was hot under his fingers.
He went back to his cabin at noon. It was not Ædyn who brought the meal, but a florid, balding, tight-lipped slave whom Torien took to be the cook himself. Torien took a little broth and bread and spent the afternoon in anticipation of bringing it up again each time the ship tossed. It was tossing more roughly now than earlier. Through the porthole he could see the waves like rows of white heads bent against the wind.
The sea was still rough at sundown, and he lay in the bunk listening to the creak and groan of the ship’s timbers and the whistle of the wind down the ship walls, not realizing the tightness in himself until the boy came in through the curtain and he had to make a conscious effort to unclench his muscles and sit up. He propped himself up with one hand on the bulkhead. The boy brought the tray over from the doorway, moving slowly and carefully across the banking floor. “We are off Istra?” Torien said.
“In an hour or so, Lord.”
“Is it common to be so rough off Istra?”
“Storms build over the point in summertime, Lord. It will be a good wind for Gola.”
The floor banked sharply. The wine jug toppled from the tray and broke open on the floor. Wine splashed over the floorboards, running in rivulets down the chinks. Ædyn put the tray down very quickly on the floor. He knelt beside it and bowed over his knees, pressing his palms and forehead to the floor. “Forgive me, Lord. I’ll clean it.”
He stood with the tray in his hands and put the tray on the end of the bunk. He turned back to the doorway. “Ædyn,” Torien said.
The boy spun around quickly. His face was white. “I’ll bring another jug, Lord.”
“Show me your back.”
“The wine, Lord.”
“Show me your back.”
The boy swallowed, looking at his feet. Very slowly, he turned to the doorway. The back of his loose tunic was striped red with blood from shoulders to waist.
Torien said, at length, “It has been dressed?”
“Yes, Lord.”
“Look at me.”
The boy turned again and fixed his eyes on the bulkhead above Torien’s ear.
“Tell me why,” Torien said.
The boy said, studying the bulkhead, “I am not to ask my lord for food.”
Torien did not say anything.
The boy bowed and said, “Please, Lord. I will bring more wine.”
It was a good wind for Gola. They came into Modigne with the tide on the fifth morning. In the ship master’s cabin, while the crew lashed the ship to its mooring stones and lowered the gangplank, Torien wrote out and sealed a draft note to the amount of twenty-four thousand eagles. He gave the note to the ship master. “I’ve another offer to make you,” he said.
“As you will put a knife between my ribs otherwise,” the ship master said, “I will listen.” They had come into port a full day ahead of schedul
e, and with the draft note in his hands he was in a good mood.
“Your cook’s boy. The Cesino. I’ve a mind to buy him of you.”
“Perhaps I haven’t a mind to sell him.”
“I’ll give you two hundred eagles for him.”
“Unlike the passage,” the ship master said, complacently, “you cannot demand him of me by law. He is not for sale.”
“Three hundred eagles.”
“A pittance, considering what I paid for him at Arondy.”
In all likelihood, the ship master had paid no more than one hundred for the boy at Arondy. Ship labor was plentiful and cheap. “He wasn’t half-starved then,” Torien said.
“Neither was he trained for service,” the ship master said, “nor could he speak a civilized tongue. These things came of my time and effort.”
“Four hundred. Anyone can use a whip.”
“He is not for sale,” the ship master said. “I’ve taken loss enough on your account.”
“Five hundred.”
The ship master smiled over his shoulder as he locked the draft note in his strongbox. “I wish you well in Modigne, Lord.”
“And my word as Lord Risto that your docking tax at Vessy will be waived henceforth,” Torien said.
The ship master paused. “At Vessy and at Alchys, and the fare for the river passage.”
“I will give it to you in writing.”
Under the ship master’s eyes, he wrote it out on papyrus and signed his name and scrolled the papyrus and sealed it. He handed it over wordlessly. The ship master held the scroll in his hands for a moment before he locked it with the draft note in the strongbox. “A pleasure to do business with you, Lord.”
“I’m sure. Give me the key for the boy’s collar.”
The ship master bowed as he gave Torien the key. “A word of advice for the future, Lord Risto, if you will have it. It pains me to say it, but as an honest man I am compelled.”
“Go ahead.”
“Hire an agent, Lord, to purchase your slaves and make your travel arrangements. There are those who take advantage of nobility.”
“Your sense of honesty has impeccable timing.”
“You see I am not only honest but prudent,” the ship master said.
He tied a cloth over the black horse’s eyes and walked close against the horse’s neck down the gangplank and onto the quay, one hand on the halter strap under the horse’s chin, but even so the horse was nervous at the crowd and the noise, and it was all his effort to hold the horse in and keep him from tearing his head away. They went up the waterfront, he walking ahead with the horse, the boy following silently. It was mid-morning, and the crowd was thick along the quay, the air ringing with the clamor of voices—Modigno and Vareno and the off-shot dialects of the islands—and Tasso was suddenly very far away and hazy as a dream in the heat.
He took the horse off the street into a smith’s shop. Ædyn tagged at his heels like a shadow. The shop was open-faced to catch the breeze off the water, but there were coals smoldering on the wide, open hearth, the heat curling off the hearthstones and hanging heavy on the air under the leather awning. The smith was bare-chested at his anvil. He saw Torien across the anvil and put his hammer down and wiped his dripping face with the back of one hand. He pulled his tunic over his head as he came over to the doorway. He bowed, but he was looking at the black horse. “You will want him shod, Lord, if you mean to use him in the city.”
“He won’t be long for the city. I came for this.” Torien reached with his free hand for the lead tag hung on the collar around Ædyn’s neck. He indicated it to the smith, running his thumb over the name etched on the face of the tag. “It can be amended?”
“It is a simple thing, Lord.”
“My name is Risto. I want it to read thus.”
“For a bronze, Lord.”
He explained to Ædyn, in Cesino, “For your protection, until I can file your manumission.”
The boy looked as though he had been struck across the face. His skin was pale under the tan. “My lord is the governor’s son.”
“My mother told him so, anyway. Listen to me, Ædyn. I’ve business in the city. I shouldn’t be long—an hour, maybe two. I’ll be back for you here.”
The boy did not say anything. He was standing as rigid as death at the horse’s shoulder.
Torien put two bronze pieces into Ædyn’s hand and closed the boy’s fingers over them. “Buy yourself something to eat,” he said. “Don’t stray too far. These streets can be rough.”
The Guard barracks were built into a stretch of the old city wall which crowned the rim of the hill, the city falling away below and spreading out like a cloak to the water. Beyond the wall, north and east, the hill sloped down to barren flatland and then swelled up again to the mountains. There were cloud-shadows moving slowly on the hot wind across the flatland and chalk dust blowing along the northeast road. The earth was baked red and brown and white in the heat. The street was cool in the shade of mastic groves and quiet except for the trickle of water from the drinking fountains along the wall and the tinkle of shells strung in pieces in doorways and open windows.
At the barracks gatehouse, holding the black horse’s halter in one hand, he took off his seal ring and passed it through the slot into the gateman’s hands. “For Dio Valle,” he said. He had not realized, until then, how very dry his mouth was.
The ring went away out of his sight. There was a stretch of standing and waiting, the tightness knotting up in him, the sweat running down between his shoulder-blades despite the shade of the mastic trees and the wind along the street. Then he heard a bolt being drawn back. The gate doors swung inward to the barracks yard. A black-clad Guardsman was standing just inside the gate. It was not Valle, but a tall lieutenant with an angular, harsh-mouthed, olive-skinned face, remarkably like Alluin’s, which Torien knew to mean he was of old Choiro family. If one did not know it by his face, one could see it in the set of his shoulders and sense it tangibly on the air around him. One could practically taste money.
The lieutenant jerked up his chin by way of greeting. “Commander Risto.”
Torien walked the black horse in slowly through the gate. He glanced around the yard. There was no sign of Valle. The brick-faced yard was empty and quiet. A stable-boy appeared noiselessly from somewhere and slipped the black horse’s lead from his hands. “Is Valle here?”
“I’ve been instructed to show you to the Commander’s office.” The lieutenant held out Torien’s ring on his palm. “Your weapons.”
Torien took the ring and put it on his forefinger. He made no move for his weapons. His heart was thumping against the inner steel plate of his cuirass. “My business is with Valle, no other.”
“Your business was finished at the gate. Once inside the gate it becomes our business.” The lieutenant’s voice was careless. “It wasn’t a request. The Commander will speak with you. To what degree it is a pleasant conversation depends very much on your cooperation now.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see another Guardsman watching from the doorway of the gatehouse, and though he could not see the gate wall he knew there were others watching from the arch. It had been foolish to come, and it would be just as foolish to attempt resistance now. He unbuckled his sword belt and wrapped the belt around the sheath and handed over the sword, hilt-first. He slipped off his knife and laid it on the lieutenant’s palm. The lieutenant tucked the weapons under his elbow. He turned on one heel and started away across the yard for the headquarters at the end of the barrack block.
Just inside the headquarters vestibule, he came up so shortly that Torien, following, nearly stumbled into him. With his free hand, the lieutenant unbuckled the chinstrap of his helmet. Holding the helmet in the crook of his right arm, he bowed his close-shaven head to the image of the Emperor which faced them solemnly in white marble across the room. Torien watched and did not move. The lieutenant glanced at him as he straighte
ned. “An inconvenience to bow, Commander?”
“My oath is to the Senate and People.”
“As a soldier. As a citizen, your prior loyalty is to the Emperor.”
“To the Empire. Not to the Emperor.”
“It is an unnecessary distinction. The Emperor is the Empire.”
“You’ve informed the Senate?”
“Commander Risto.” A new voice broke in. Another officer emerged from the far doorway. He was grayer and stouter than the lieutenant, but just as obviously Choiro-bred. The lieutenant saluted him stiffly. The newcomer acknowledged it with a languid flick of his fingers. His eyes were on Torien. He turned his chin over his shoulder. “My office, Risto, if you please.”
The office was small and austere, the walls of white adobe and the floor of bare, hard-packed earth. There was an un-shuttered slit of a window on the far wall, and through the slit Torien could see the flatland and the chalk line of the road and the distant piney heads of the mountains. The Guardsman shut the door when they had entered. There was no other chair than the stool behind the desk, so Torien stood. The Guardsman crossed the room, limping, and sat down behind the desk. He shut the tablet that had been open on the desktop. The lamp flame at his elbow jumped with the breath of wind. The Guardsman glanced up at Torien’s face. “I don’t believe you came to argue political theory with Lieutenant Aregne,” he said. His eyes were the color of blued steel and just as hard.
“No.”
“You wanted to see Guardsman Valle.”
Torien noted the use of the past tense. The knots in his stomach drew up tighter. “I thought I might find him here. The harbor master told me his ship came in yesterday morning.”
“Tell me why you wanted to see him.”
Blood Road Page 16
