Allystaire snorted. “As if I would know a nightjar from a barn owl.”
“I thought as much. Even so, listen for some screeching.”
“I will.” He took a deep breath, looked around, as if seeking a task, his hands opening and closing once. “What do we do about this?”
“Little we can do,” Torvul said. “This was bound t’happen. You’ve already made contact with Braech’s Temple, and Urdaran’s. Was only a matter of time till Fortune came calling. It’s a sign they’re taking us seriously.”
“Or see us as a threat that needs stamping out,” Allystaire countered.
“We are a threat.” Gideon didn’t take his eyes off his book as he spoke. “We are preaching a faith that threatens most everything Fortune, Urdaran, and Braech stand for. However,” he suddenly sat up, sticking a finger in his book to mark his place, “we have a chance at making common cause with Fortune’s clergy.”
“How do you figure that?” Torvul asked. “I don’t see our esteemed guests making common cause with anyone that can’t pay them well.”
“Perhaps,” Gideon said. “As I have not met or spoken to them I can’t really guess at her specific intentions.”
“I can guess at some of her intentions,” Idgen Marte suggested, smiling wryly at Allystaire.
He felt his cheeks grow warm. “You are not going to see them, Gideon, not if I can help it.”
“Why? I am one of the Ordained. I have a duty to represent Her.”
“I know, Gideon.” Allystaire closed his eyes in frustration. “You do have a duty. Yet I have a duty as well, laid upon me by the Goddess Herself, to protect you. You are safer if they do not know you. Not yet.”
“It is better if they don’t see you unless they have to,” Idgen Marte said. “It’s simple strategy. You don’t show an enemy everything you have.”
“Who’s to say they are enemies?” Gideon carefully set his book down on the cot as he stood up. “Have they made any threats, or come in force?”
“You said yourself that we threaten their faith,” Allystaire pointed out.
“Aye. Yet Fortune’s dogma speaks of the distribution of goods and wealth, the shifting balances of power. Perhaps diplomacy could convince them that this is such a shift, simply on a massive scale.”
“How does diplomacy do that, boy?” Torvul found a stool and sat on it. “It’s a bit naive to think they’ll treat with us like equals.”
“No more than it is paranoid to automatically treat them as enemies. Nor is it honest to call them our guests and spy upon them and plot against them.”
“The Goddess didn’t ordain a Shadow for no reason, Gideon,” Idgen Marte reminded him gently. “Sometimes what we do must be done out of sight.”
“There is a difference between Shadow and darkness. The former requires light; the latter often begins with lies.”
“Gideon!” Allystaire didn’t raise his voice so much as pitch it to demand attention. “We are not lying to them. We are not lulling them so that we may fall upon them in the night. If the Archioness wants to know what I think of her and her kind she will merely ask me. There is not much I can do to prevent it. We are in the weaker position; we may hope for the best, but we must prepare for the worst.”
“So we must think the worst of everyone we meet?” Gideon’s cheeks flushed at the scolding, but he bore up well, kept his eyes locked on Allystaire’s.
“It is not that simple,” Allystaire said. “Surely you can see that.”
“It is complex, but we do ourselves no favors by making it moreso with our own actions,” Gideon said. “Ask them what they want. Tell them whether they may have it.”
“Gideon,” Torvul began, “what you say is not without ore among the silt. We can’t treat everyone like an enemy, but there’s an old Dwarfish saying—now bear in mind I have to amend it a little and your tongue does a poor job of handling complexities. In short, though, it says that when you sink a new shaft, hope to find ore, but be prepared to find clay. D’ya understand?”
“Hope for a good outcome, but prepare for a poor one,” Gideon said.
“Aye,” the dwarf replied. “We can hope that she’s here to be our ally, but we have to be ready if she’s not.”
Allystaire crossed his arms and spared a glance for Idgen Marte, whose frown nearly matched his.
“Any sense of optimism is misplaced, I think,” he said sourly. “I have known priests and priestesses of Fortune, and gold sticks to their fingers the way ice sticks to the top of a mountain. Her arrival portends nothing good for us. Interpret it how you will, any of you.” He waved a hand at them all. “But the defense of this place and its people is my charge. I will go about it as I think best. Each of you will always be free to speak your mind to me and offer whatever counsel you have. I will listen to it, and consider it—but I will, in the end, make these decisions. Her people will be watched. We will remain on our guard.”
He went to the edge of his tent and reached for the flap. “We will offer them no offense, and strike no first blow. We all have work. Go to it.”
Idgen Marte and Torvul both nodded sharply, and Allystaire could read her approval in the set of her shoulders, her stride. Torvul he found harder to read, but the alchemist patted Allystaire’s arm as he passed.
With the tent now empty but for him and Gideon, Allystaire said, “Continue thinking on the problems I have set you, lad. We will talk about all of them and more. And I want to make sure you understand—you may always speak your mind to me, on any subject, no matter how much you think I will disagree.”
Gideon sat back down upon the cot and picked up the book he’d been reading, but he didn’t open it. “Will I always know your mind? With no dissembling?”
Allystaire nodded. “Always.”
The boy thought a moment, then nodded and opened his book. Allystaire watched him for a moment, then exited into the noonday autumn light.
Chapter 21
Finery
Allystaire’s shoulders bore a deep, comforting ache from turns of work with shovel and mattock, but his mind buzzed relentlessly at the obstacles that he could not move as easily as he could a pile of earth. Having taken time to wash, he retreated back to his tent to find Gideon napping on his cot. In place of his armor lay fresh, new clothes: a long-sleeved blue shirt with the sunburst that was displayed upon his shield and pennant embroidered over the left breast, as well as a pair of breeches of finer and cleaner cut than any he currently owned. He fingered the material. Good linen, he thought. Expensive. Would feel better in armor.
Sighing, he pulled off his work-soiled clothing and carefully pulled on the new garments. He stopped, contemplated his belt and the hammer hanging from it, then tugged it around his waist and cinched it tight. Then, he contemplated what pieces of armor Torvul hadn’t absconded with, and picked up his iron-banded gloves, slipping them behind his belt.
“Does that send the right message?” Gideon hadn’t sat up from the cot, but apparently knew what Allystaire was doing.
Allystaire looked down at the hammer in its ring. It was a plain thing, a rough steel sledge bound to a thick hardwood handle, the bottom third of which was bound with iron bands. “I am so used to its weight that I feel wrong without it. Besides, it is as much a badge of office as I intend to carry.”
Allystaire rolled his shoulders inside the linen shirt, feeling it settle lightly against his skin. Would still rather wear armor. “I will bring you back some food. Do not light a lamp.”
“Don’t need to,” the boy said, a bit smugly, and Allystaire left him with a chuckle.
It wasn’t a long walk to the inn, where the dinner was being held, but Allystaire had hopes of making it alone. They were dashed when he saw the Archioness exit her pavilion just as he passed.
Her white and blue silk had been traded for a simpler but just as richly made dress of dark green, a
nd she carried a matching fur-lined wrap around her elbows, for the dress left her arms bare, and the square neckline was scooped rather low. Her hair was no longer bound up, but fell in a long, dark wave to the small of her back, though it still glittered with gemmary.
Allystaire found himself pointedly not looking too closely at her, though some instinctive remnant of his prior life forced him to stand and wait, then to stiffly offer his arm towards her as she approached, smiling thinly, with a twist of her newly reddened lips. Might not melt iron, some part of his brain noted as it appraised her, but she’d get it nicely red.
“And once again you show gentility,” Cerisia murmured, as her arm slipped through his and her bosom brushed against him so faintly and so expertly he couldn’t help but admire her. “You are not the roughly-worked blunt instrument you wish us to think, Sir Allystaire.”
“I have no claim to the title you give me, Archioness,” Allystaire replied stiffly. He found matching his stride to hers a challenge, and took a false step, causing them both to stop and teeter slightly.
“How long has it been since you walked arm in arm with a woman?” Her tone was gently chiding, but the intrusion of the question bothered him.
Nevertheless, he felt compelled to answer. “It has been the better part of ten years.”
“Well,” she said, setting off again, and managing a slightly longer stride, allowing him a bit more comfort, “that is a long time. And unusual for a knight. You are a knight, no matter how you may deny it.”
“I have denied nothing,” Allystaire said. He cleared his throat and an uncomfortable silence reigned, broken only by their staggered steps on the path. “Why do you ask? What I am now is what concerns you, yes?”
“Indeed, yet there is value in knowing your past, part of which I can guess. Your accent is northern, and your speech and manner are educated. Forgive me if I insult your home, but there are not so very many well educated folk farther north than where we now stand, and all of them are Oyrwyn nobility.”
She leaned close to his ear—close enough that he had to try very hard not to shiver as he felt her breath fall warmly on his neck—and she murmured, “You are doing a poor job of hiding, Lord Coldbourne.”
Her words broke the spell of her contact, and Allystaire mystified her with a peal of loud laughter. “Hiding? You think I am hiding?”
He stepped away from her, pulled his arm free, and held her eyes, reading confusion in their cast. She was caught off guard and doing a poor job of hiding it. Lovely. I wonder how much weight she spent on the topaz for her mask to match her eyes, he couldn’t help but note.
“Archioness, if you have come here thinking you will expose some great secret, you have come in vain. The Young Baron in Wind’s Jaw knows where to find me if he wishes, though of the six knights he sent to find me this summer, only two rode back to him alive. Lionel Delondeur made me a guest of his seat at the Dunes not a month ago, and I am sure he could follow the trail back here if he wished. So if you thought that my past, and my name, and my presence here was some secret you could peddle, some weapon of influence?” He shook his head, his lips twisting with a bit of scorn. “If anyone wants to know who I am, or where I am, tell them. Draw them a map and lend them a horse. Make sure they understand that they will find the Arm of the Mother waiting for them. Not Lord Coldbourne.”
She leaned back as he harangued her, raising the fingertips of one hand to her neck and taking a deep breath. A calculated move, he realized, just as much as drawing out his declaration had been. Her eyelashes flickered, then suddenly she met his eyes again.
“Of course a man like you wouldn’t hide,” she replied, sliding her arms around his again, and pressing rather more firmly against him. “You are a master of yourself and much of what surrounds you, no matter what titles you carry or renounce. I will remember that.”
Why do I feel like I’ve just been outflanked? Allystaire cleared his throat and they resumed their walk to the inn, passing it in silence.
When he saw the lamp-lit oilskin windows of the inn, he felt a little like a lost soldier finally stumbling back into camp.
Once he was through the doors, pausing to allow Cerisia to enter first, he caught sight of Torvul and Mol. The dwarf’s freshly shaved scalp gleamed in the lamplight, and he wore, to Allystaire’s surprise, something like Mol’s sky-blue robe, though of a slightly darker color and more generous cut. The sleeves, in particular, were very short and did not impede his hands. Allystaire was comforted to see a few nondescript potion-pouches hooked to the alchemist’s belt, however.
A long table had been set out in the common room, with four mismatched chairs set out to either side. His stomach rumbled at the smell of bread rising from a cloth-covered bowl, and he went around the table to stand next to Torvul. The dwarf gave a subtle tick with his eyes, indicating Allystaire’s seat, to the far left. As far as possible from Cerisia, he noted.
Mol came from the kitchen, bearing a pitcher in one hand and a platter of mugs in the other, and set both down expertly. The Archioness, to whom Allystaire’s eyes were continually drawn, despite himself, arched a brow.
“The Voice of the Mother herself serving at table? I would think you had weightier, more exalted duties.”
Mol turned her smiling face to the woman, and for a moment the girl Allystaire had come to know so many months ago was looking up at them all. “Nothin’s more exalted than beer. Had t’be sure we were gettin’ the best.” Her smile beamed a brief moment more, and then she sat delicately, her back straight, and the cool, poised face of the priestess replaced her girlish grin.
Cerisia swallowed, allowing her hands to clasp briefly. Then one of her servants, the imitation beggar who had carried the Wheel on its staff, pulled out a chair for her. She sat gracefully, briefly managing to arch her back so that Allystaire had a quick, tempting glimpse of the plunge of her neckline.
“I hope it will not offend anyone if we provide wine,” Cerisia said mildly, even as her servants, who’d apparently preceded her, began to unpack a wicker basket they’d set upon a bench pushed against the wall, producing two corked jars.
I thought they clinked promisingly, Allystaire thought, certain there was more. He caught Cerisia watching him as he looked at the bottles for identifying marks. They bore Innadan crests, a greathelm wreathed in green vines, carefully painted. Expensive. And she expects me to react—how much about me does she know?
“I do hope it will meet with your approval,” the Archioness said nominally to Mol, though her eyes flicked to Allystaire as she spoke.
“Never touch the stuff,” Mol said, brightly. “But I am sure Allystaire and Mourmitnourthrukacshtorvul will appreciate it.”
Cerisia betrayed herself, perhaps, by sneaking a glance down to where Allystaire sat. The woman, it seemed, didn’t know how to deal with a child priestess who deftly matched even her mild opening gambits.
She was even less prepared for Idgen Marte to suddenly materialize at the head of the table. Allystaire had to hide a smirk by biting the inside of his cheek. Idgen Marte lifted her swordbelt clear over one shoulder and slung it carefully over the back of her chair, grabbing the beer pitcher and a cup, then filling it before she sat. Much like Allystaire and Torvul, she wore new clothes: a leather jerkin over a loose shirt, and tightly fitted trousers, all of it a blue so dark it was nearly black. No symbols or sunbursts gleamed upon it anywhere that he could see. There wasn’t even a glint of metal on the straps fastening the jerkin closed; they were as dark as the rest of it.
That was not necessary. Mol’s voice echoed in Allystaire’s head, all three of their heads, he was sure.
Idgen Marte’s response was quick. Doesn’t hurt to keep her off balance.
By the time all four of the ordained had seated themselves, Cerisia rallied and indicated for her female companion to open one of the bottles of wine, which she did with practiced efficiency. Wine was po
ured into three cups, one of which was placed before the Archioness, while the lesser priestess took one each to Allystaire and Torvul.
Allystaire took the cup in one hand. It was a delicate thing of hammered silver that Fortune’s party had provided, plate apparently being among their baggage. The Archioness raised her own cup. Gems glittered around its stem, though he could not identify them in the lamplight.
“To the meeting of differing faiths in peace,” she said, her voice as smooth and sweet as honey.
Mol raised her mug of beer and echoed her solemnly. “To peace.” The other three murmured the same and all drank.
The gods are good, Allystaire inwardly swore, as soon as the wine swirled around his tongue. It was a better vintage than he’d had in years. One of Innadan’s best reds, strong and rich in the mouth and nothing about it sour. His pleasure must’ve shown on his face, even as the lamps began to lose ground to the night encroaching outside, because Cerisia spoke to him.
“I must say that your neighbors to the east do know how to grow grapes, don’t they?”
Allystaire carefully set his cup down, but not before taking a deep nose of the wine’s breath, which had a pleasant hint of smoke. “That they do. Despite nearly two score years of war an unspoken accord has protected the main part of their vineyards.”
“Foolish way t’go t’war,” Torvul piped up, after having tossed back his entire cup in one go. “Why leave an enemy a way to pay his soldiery?”
Idgen Marte snorted. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d had Oyrwyn or Harlach wine. It’s all sickly sweet.”
“Those are the only grapes that will grow in our climate,” Allystaire replied.
“The colder north does produce hardier, if somewhat rougher specimens,” Cerisia said, moving smoothly on before Allystaire could puzzle out whether she meant grape vines. “Of course, any of the baronies are quite cold enough for me. I hail from the Archipelago.”
“Never been to Keersvast,” Allystaire said. “Sounds entirely too warm and wet and salty for my taste.” Before he could even realize what he’d just said, Idgen Marte and Mol’s voices both sounded in his head, variations on the theme of closing his mouth, with Idgen Marte adding, Unless you are trying to bed her.
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