by Carol Berg
“To make a life in such a place must be very difficult.”
“Our families have been in Yennet for five generations. Once we sent wool carts by the dozen to Montevial, Vanesta, and Yurevan, but now we’re lucky to send three a year. Our flocks have not flourished nor our people. But times will change if we work hard enough.”
“I hope they will.”
I hoped. What would happen if D’Natheil could not do what was needed? There was little enough hope in the world. Baglos was the very image of despair, leaning heavily on the table and staring into his cup, unspeaking. I likely could have pricked him with a needle and elicited no reaction.
Marika poured the third cup of tea, dropped a tiny pinch of sugar in it, added two spoons of milk, and then laid a rag on the top. “Rilia!” she called, and a tiny, curly haired girl ran to the doorway. “Take this to Old Ghouro and see he drinks it.”
“Aye,” said the child, in a whisper, her dark eyes fixed on Baglos and me.
“We have to watch the old man,” said Marika. “He don’t want to eat. Took his flock too far into the mountains two years ago. When he didn’t come back before snowfall, we thought him dead. But didn’t he wander into the village in the middle of winter, half starved and off his head? I hope your friend don’t come to the same.” She finished pouring and returned the tins of tea and sugar to the shelf. “I got to get back to my work now. You can spread your wet things out back if you want or poke up the fire.”
“Thank you again for the tea.”
Rowan joined us as Marika left. He picked up his cup of tea and drank, looking at me as if expecting another bash on the head. I didn’t know what to say. He had fought at Avonar.
“So the mysterious ‘servant” has gone missing again,“ he said, at last. ”Have the priests taken him?“
“I don’t know. He would not go willingly, but we’ve no evidence that he’s been forced.”
Rowan had left his laughter behind. “Why did you think me allied with the villains? I thought we understood the same thing about what they are.”
So I detailed the case I had built up against him: his meeting with the Zhid in Grenatte after pretending not to know them, his appearance at Kellea’s shop on the night of the fire, the brass button in the dead professor’s library, and, of course, Teriza’s testimony about the Leiran wearing a dark coat with shiny buttons. “You’re right that I despise you,” I said. “To my mind, you have willingly participated in acts that are beyond forgiveness. So I refused to believe you. Then, two days ago, Paulo very simply and innocently confirmed everything you’d said.” I told him how I’d sent Jacopo a warning of Rowan’s accusations. “… and so, because of me, they know you were trying to warn me. I’m afraid I’ve put both you and Jaco in more danger than before.”
As the sheriff considered what I had told him, his fingers nudged the button I’d laid on the table. His response, when it came, was wholly without rancor. “If a petitioner had brought me such a case, I’d have needed no trial to pass judgment either, especially with what you know of… my past.” His skin was as red as his hair. “I’m grateful to Paulo for being such a good witness. As for Jacopo—I don’t think there’s anything you could have done that would put him in more danger than he’s in already.”
I couldn’t bear thinking of Jaco. My determination to spite Darzid had made me reckless, dragging my only friend into this horror and leaving him in the path of these murderous Zhid. And now I had given the Zhid reason to believe he was of no more use to them. Yet self-recrimination would not help him. Defeating the Zhid might. “Tell me what really happened, Sheriff. Why didn’t you say you knew the priests? And how do you come to be here?”
“The reason I didn’t say that those you’d seen in During Forest were the same who had come to Dunfarrie hunting for the two strangers was simply that, until I looked through the doorway into Bartolome’s common room, I didn’t know it. They weren’t dressed as priests when Captain Darzid brought them to me, talking of Isker spies. I overheard the captain say he would meet them in Grenatte. It sounded as if the whole world was traveling to Grenatte, and I was damnably curious. When I saw you there, I knew the matter had nothing to do with spies. Only sorcery could have drawn you out. If Captain Darzid caught sight of you, you were going to be arrested.”
And Graeme Rowan had saved me from it. A hard truth. “You rushed me away.”
“When you confronted the priests so recklessly, I guessed you didn’t know about the captain’s dealings with them—”
“—and I wouldn’t listen.”
“To me? It’s certainly not your custom.” Grim amusement touched his features, fading as he continued. “Giano was full peeved that you three had escaped him, and when Jacopo told him that you’d taken the fugitives off to Yurevan, they were riding out after you before I could spit. I thought it odd they didn’t capture your friends on the road. You were easy enough to track at the beginning, but I never saw the priests behind you. They must have ridden straight through to Yurevan. When I lost you after Glyenna, I did the same, hoping to intercept you before you ran into them. I must have reached the house just as your servant girl was watching from the other side. It was just as she said.” His eyes clouded. “I’ve been a soldier. I’ve seen men do things… shared in things… no thinking creature should be capable of—as you well know—but that… There are no words to speak of it.”
“Jaco was there?”
“Yes.” Rowan cast a sidelong glance at me, grimaced, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Before I could go into the house to see if anyone was left alive, your gentleman friend rode in. He appeared to belong in the place, so I left matters to him. It was only later that I discovered that he was a man the law of Leire believes to be dead.”
Blood rushed to my face. “You won’t—”
“Father Arot and his sons do not grant us life beyond death,” he said without changing expression. “How could an ignorant village sheriff contradict the gods?”
I breathed again, and he continued. “I wandered in circles for half a day, hoping to warn you, but I ended up back at the house. When I let myself in, I found only the dead man. I couldn’t leave him like that, so I buried him in the orchard. That’s probably when I lost the button— the damning evidence.”
And then he had followed us to Yurevan and tried to save us from the fire. “How did you know we survived the fire, and how did you follow us here?”
“You’ve not guessed it?” He stepped to the door and waved his hand. The slim young man I had seen sitting on the fence sauntered down the road toward us. Only it wasn’t a young man; it was a young woman who could find any herb, no matter how rare—Rowan’s friend with a knack for following people. Kellea.
“This must be worth a story,” I said.
Kellea offered no greeting when she stepped through the door, nor would she sit when Rowan pulled out a stool for her. He remained standing as well.
Rowan glanced over at Baglos. The Dulcé had looked up when Kellea walked in and then quickly returned to his own thoughts, eyes fixed on his cup, though it was long drained. “I wasn’t sure what was happening in that house,” said the sheriff, “or even whether the ones who attacked were your friends or enemies, but I saw the girl creeping out of an alleyway down the road from the burning house, covered in soot and blood, and decided to ask her. She had no more use for me than you ever did. I foolishly tried to persuade her that I was a friend of yours.”
“And that did you no good,” I said. Kellea’s sour look told me nothing had changed on that score.
“She insisted that she’d as soon kill you as look at you, which pleased me in a way, since it told me you were still alive. She got away from me, and for a most of a week she led me a merry chase over half of Valleor. When I finally caught her, it took several days of disagreement for us to come to a truce. I told her what I’d seen, and why I thought we needed to help you fight these priests. She knew your friend, the professor. Eventually, she took pity on my
ignorance and told me your guests’ story, and something of the history her grandmother had taught her, and how it all fits together. I don’t understand it all, but the business got stranger yet again when I tried to figure out where you’d got off to after the fire. She hadn’t bothered to mention that she was herself one of… these sorcerers… and she let me spend three days chasing my own tail before telling me that she could find anyone if given enough to go on. She just needed to be in a place where you’d been. So I took her to that charcoal burner’s—”
“You knew about that?”
“I followed you there from Yurevan the afternoon before the fire. Your sturdy friend never left off his watch long enough for me to speak to you. I thought it odd he spent the whole night making fires and letting them go out again. It was several hours of watching before I realized he had no flint…” Rowan’s expression was subtle as always. Awe might rob him of words, but it left only a crease in his brow and a slight shake of his head to reveal its depth.
Outside the open door children squealed with laughter. Something—a rock or a ball—thumped against the side of the house, and Marika’s quiet command shooed the giggling group farther away. So much to consider. I mouthed some feeble apology for Rowan’s injury and my misjudgment of his motives. To say more would be to acknowledge that somehow the honor of a man sworn to exterminate a race was worthy of respect. I could not yet bring myself to do that. But he had surely earned my gratitude. His dogged pursuit had brought me exactly what I needed.
“Kellea, we need your help.”
“It seems a permanent condition. Who will die this time?” The girl dared me to make her care.
“Your grandmother and Professor Ferrante believed the stakes were worth the risk.” I did not blink.
Kellea stood in the doorway, her shoulders square, her back as stiff and angular as the granite peaks outlined against the sky. “Go on.”
“Yesterday in the storm, D’Natheil left our shelter and never returned. Can you find him?”
“Unless he’s worked some sorcery, I can. I would need something of his, something personal. I’ve been following the group. Without something that belongs to him alone, I might lead you back on your own tracks.”
Shirts, weapons, even his own cup… D’Natheil had taken everything with him. “I don’t know…”
“My lord’s woodcarving.” I was startled when Baglos spoke up. “He left it out two nights ago, and he’s not wanted it these two days.” Rummaging in the pack at his feet, he pulled out the chip of birchwood.
A sober grief had enveloped the Dulcé since D’Natheil had gone missing. All day his dark eyes had been luminous with unshed tears, his endless chatter and questioning stilled. And now his short, warm fingers spoke eloquently of his sorrow yet again, holding tight to the carving even as he laid it in my hand. I could not understand his reluctance to yield the wood… until I looked at it.
The face of the smooth square was half covered with a fine tracery of lines. Flowers—a veritable garden of miniature blooms of infinite variety and simple grace, delicately traced in the white wood. As I ran my finger over the fine work, the images took on new depth, subtle shadings, and a velvety texture. The scent that rose from them was not that of newly carved wood, but of a spring garden. Such enchantment. Such artistry. I glanced up at Baglos, but he had turned away. I held the piece a long while before offering it to Kellea. “What you do won’t damage it?”
“What I do has nothing to do with its substance. I only look for him in it.”
Kellea held the wood with both hands and closed her eyes. After a few moments she set the carving on the table and wandered across the room, arms folded. She stepped out of the door and stood alone for a long time, head bowed.
Rowan leaned across the table. “It takes a while for it to happen,” he said, his voice quiet, filled with wonder.
“She says she’s not very good at it.” His eyes were fixed on the girl.
“She never had a mentor. A ”third parent“ they called them, one who would teach her how to use her gift, and how to hide it, the ethics of it, how to bear its burdens.”
“It’s hard to get used to the idea.”
“But you’re not afraid?” Not ready to arrest her or bind her to a stake and set her afire…
“I’ve spent ten years learning not to fear those things I don’t understand. Though the tutor had no such intent, I’m grateful for the lessons. But I can never go back—” He broke off, his lined face bleak and honest, speaking things a soldier was never taught to say.
I shoved our empty mugs to the center of the table. “Jaco always told me I should trust you.”
The corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. “He always told me that you were pigheaded, but that eventually you’d see the error of your ways.”
Before I could formulate a proper retort, Kellea reappeared in the doorway. “He’s not far.”
CHAPTER 30
We found him in the ruined castle, half a league south of Yennet. Kellea had led us down a narrow track that wandered across the green hills toward the mountains. The bronze sun was low over the western peaks when the crumbled ruin came into view at the crest of a rise. Kellea pulled up and waited for us, pointing at the hilltop. “I’ll go on alone,” I said.
“I will go,” said Baglos. “I am his Guide.”
“He commanded you to follow my lead,” I said. “You’ll wait.” The Dulcé, more like himself again, went into a pout, but I trusted it would last only until his worry got the best of him. He didn’t hold tempers long.
Rowan didn’t like the idea of my going alone, either, but I refused his company as well. “If I’m not back in an hour, you may ride to my rescue,” I said. “But carefully, please.” We had seen no signs of a fight. No guards. No hoofprints or corpses or blood to hint at hunters or sorcerer-priests. Whatever had brought D’Natheil to this place, I didn’t think swords were going to repair it.
A warren of collapsed stone crowned the green hilltop. The exaggeration of evening shadows evoked a ghostly remembrance of the round towers and thick walls that had once dominated the countryside. Only one end of the ancient keep remained intact, three walls and a few sagging roof beams that created a shadowy shelter. The wind, heavy with the scents of damp earth and verdure, had picked up with the cooling hour and rustled the tall grass from behind me, and as I tethered Firethorn to a shrub that had sprung out of the rubble, an uneasy flock of sparrows swarmed upward in a fluttering mass. I picked my way carefully through the silent ruin. It didn’t seem proper to call out in such a place.
A quick survey from atop a ruined wall told me that D’Natheil must be inside the keep if he was here. Neither he nor his horse was anywhere to be seen. I climbed over a fallen beam and up a crude staircase of stone blocks to a raised remnant of stone flooring. This would have been the great hall of the long-dead lord. Here had stood the huge hearth, back in the days when the fire would blaze through the night while the lord’s soldiers and courtiers, children, cousins, and dogs ate, drank, and bedded down on the rush-strewn floor. Had I believed in ghosts I could have found them in the sun-drenched stones or, at the least, conjured the remnants of old songs and drunken jests and good fellowship.
The end of the keep where the roof still held seemed as deserted as the rest of the ruin. Disappointed, I was on the verge of turning back, when I caught a slight movement in the deepest shadows of the farthest corner. He was huddled against the wall like a child in disgrace, his head buried in his arms.
“D’Natheil,” I called softly. “My lord prince.”
He didn’t move. I approached quietly and knelt beside him, relieved to feel the warmth of life still pulsing from him.
“D’Natheil, tell me that you live. We’re afraid for you.”
“Go away from here,” he whispered. “Far away.”
I released my breath. “Why should I?”
“Please.” He spoke with his jaw clenched, as if to keep himself from screaming.
“I’ve never heard you say please in all these weeks, and if my going would encourage it, I might consider the matter. But I also do nothing without a reason. Why should I leave you?”
“I can’t hold them back any longer.” He drew in a shuddering breath.
“The Zhid, you mean? The Seeking? Are they after you again?”
“Unceasing.” A wrenching groan slipped through his control, and he shrank further into his corner, as if driven by the lash of an invisible taskmaster.
Unceasing . “And you’ve been shielding us from it.”
“They’re coming for me.” He raised his head. His eyes were pits of blackness, his skin stretched across the bones of his face. Exhausted. “You must be far away.”
“We won’t let them take you. Baglos would give his life for you. And we’re two more now. Graeme Rowan and Kellea have offered their help. If we’re together, we can protect each other, find a house, a forest—”
“Numbers, houses, forests. Those things don’t matter if I invite them. They force me to look into my mind before the running, and I can’t do it without madness. They’ve promised to give me back my life.” He shook his head. “You mustn’t be here when they come.”
“They do not give life. You’ve known that since the beginning,” I said. “You demonstrated it for me with two blades of grass. You’re a warrior. So fight.”
“There is nothing in me.” The haunted ruins around us were not half so bleak as his words. No lingering ghosts of joy or pleasure walked D’Natheil’s mind. No grace of evening sunlight bathed the stones of his being. His pain was palpable in the dimness.
Walk away, I told myself, rebellion prompting me to my feet. Leading him on a journey is one thing. Using your intelligence and experience to set him on the road to his destiny is only right. But this … To draw a soul from despair is such an intimate thing. I would need to know more of him than Baglos’s meager tales. Something of his dreams or desires. Something of the person hidden behind the changing seasons. How could one forge such a link with something that didn’t exist? Impossible. Walk away.
