by Spurrier, Jo
‘It strikes me as strange, madame, that this should bother you now, but not when your countrymen were raiding and pillaging villages this winter past —’
‘And what would you have had me do about it?’ Delphine demanded. ‘One scholar against a legion of soldiers and mages? If there was something I could have done to prevent those horrors, please do explain it to me. If you think bearing witness to all that didn’t cause me grief, then you’re very much mistaken. And if you have a problem with whom your brother chooses to share his bed, then I suggest you take it up with him!’
‘Isidro would feel honour-bound to defend you, and you know it,’ Cam replied. ‘It’s your motives that concern me, not his. Why would an Akharian woman of your standing take up with a penniless outlaw still recovering from his wounds and grieving the woman he loved? Surely, madame, you can understand my suspicion. Why should I believe that you did anything other than wait for a moment of weakness and use it to manipulate him?’
‘To what end?’ Delphine demanded.
‘To deliver a prize back into the hands of your countrymen and atone for the actions that brought about their defeat in Demon’s Spire. Do you expect me to believe they wouldn’t snatch at any chance to even the score?’
Delphine opened her mouth to retort, but at once her mind went blank, and all she could do was gape at him foolishly. It took a few spluttering moments for her to get control of herself again. ‘Just what kind of woman do you think I am?’ she asked. ‘Do you have any idea what the empire would do to him in revenge, not just for the defeat, but also for the cost of losing all those slaves? If I were to hand him over to that fate, I’d have to despise him! What sort of woman sleeps with a man she despises for the sake of revenge?’
Cam straightened and tilted his head back, watching her with narrowed eyes. Delphine suddenly had the sense that she’d surprised him greatly, but then his face tightened with anger. ‘Are you talking about Sierra? She saved my life,’ Cam said, speaking softly but with deadly intensity.
‘I wasn’t thinking of her at all,’ Delphine said. ‘Sierra seeks to destroy Kell to prevent him from harming others — that’s a matter of mercy, not revenge. And as for Isidro — not that it’s any of your business — I wouldn’t say I seduced him. I have fallen in love with him. With Sierra gone and you captured, I couldn’t bear to see him in such pain. I did what I could to keep him from despair, and I won’t be made to feel ashamed of that.’ Delphine took a deep breath. ‘But you’ve made it perfectly clear that my welcome here is over, and I will not stay where I’m not wanted. Do not fear that my presence will trouble you for much longer.’
She stood up and stormed out of the tent, dashing tears from her eyes with the scratchy sleeve of her jacket.
An uncomfortable silence hung over the camp site. People were gathered around the central fire-pit — men mending clothing or tending to weapons or armour, Rhia and Amaya leaning over a book while one of Mira’s women sewed nearby. None of them looked up as Delphine emerged; they all politely averted their gaze, pretending that they hadn’t heard a word of the heated discussion just a few feet away. Delphine had completely forgotten that the walls around her were only hide and fur, not wood and stone.
That heavy, pregnant silence was unbearable. Delphine turned on her heel and walked blindly out of the camp, heedless of the direction she took.
Cam had every reason to suspect her and none to trust her. Intellectually, she knew that, but it did not lessen her fury or humiliation. It stung deeply to have this man who Isidro respected so highly look upon her with something like disgust, and Delphine was furious that it hurt. Why should she care what he thought of her? And after all the setbacks and betrayals he and Isidro had suffered, wasn’t he justified in scrutinising such an unexpected source of help? Such logic did nothing to ease her anger or her sorrow. Delphine was torn between the desire to scream down the hills around her and her urge to curl into a ball and cry. But instead, she gritted her teeth and kept walking. The camp was still too close, and anything she did would be remarked upon. She would not give them the satisfaction.
It was only once she was well away from the camp on the chill northern slope of the hill that she sat down on a boulder and wept. It wasn’t just Cam who had upset her, she realised. That interview had merely been the final straw. This sorrow had been building for days, ever since the night Cam had been found and she’d felt Isidro pull away from her.
You wretched little fool, Delphine told herself. What did you think would happen? He was lost, utterly lost. Didn’t he say that he desperately needed something to cling to? Now Cam is found and the crisis is over … It was foolish to think things could just go on as they were. We both knew this was temporary, and it’s your own cursed fault for forgetting that.
She wept herself to hiccoughs, and when she could weep no more, Delphine rose on shaking legs and picked her way to the stream to wash her face in the icy water.
Perhaps it was finally, really time that she returned to her own people. She should leave now, of her own volition, rather than face the indignity of having the man she loved tell her she was no longer wanted. Pull yourself together, woman, she told herself. Are you some green girl to make yourself sick over a man who loves another? You knew this was coming — you knew what you were getting yourself in for, and he never pretended otherwise. You’ve done what you came to do; now it’s time to go.
There came a sound behind her, the clatter of falling stones, and boots sliding over scree, and then a familiar voice ringing down the tiny valley. ‘Delphi?’
She stiffened and bit back a curse. This was the last thing she wanted right now, but he was coming towards her. Delphine knew she must look a wreck. She had to steel herself to turn and meet his gaze.
At the sight of her swollen and bloodshot eyes, Isidro frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
She couldn’t speak — the words wouldn’t come, and she was afraid she would begin to cry again.
Isidro wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close against his chest. ‘Delphi, you’re freezing. We should get you back to the camp —’
‘No!’ Delphine said, the word muffled against his windproof coat. ‘I won’t go back there looking like this!’
He paused, and Delphine half-expected him to tell her not to be so foolish, no one cared how she looked, but instead he said, ‘I’ve a fire going up above. Let’s go up there instead, and you can warm up while you tell me what’s wrong.’
He’d found a little crevice between the boulders, sheltered from the wind but still open to the last few rays of the day’s weak spring sun. He had refilled his water-skin from the icy stream, and Delphine drank thirstily even though the chill made her colder. As she gathered her thoughts, willing herself not to begin weeping again, Isidro just sat with his arm hooked around his knees, studying her with an unreadable gaze.
She didn’t want to tell him what had sent her from the camp. It would serve no purpose to drive a wedge between him and his brother, not if she was going to leave anyway. Instead, Delphine surveyed this tiny niche. ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding out these last few days …’
Isidro flushed and looked away. ‘I … I needed some space to think. Delphi, there’s something I need to talk to you about —’
Delphine hurriedly tried to wave him to silence. ‘There’s no need, I know what you’re going to say —’
‘Let me speak,’ Isidro said. ‘I’ve come to care for you deeply, but … I have to be honest. I still love Sierra, but I …’ He rubbed a hand over his face and looked away.
‘Look, just spare us both the awkwardness,’ Delphine pleaded. ‘It’s time for me to leave, I can see that —’
‘No, Delphi, I want you to stay!’ Isidro said. ‘I just … I know it’s unfair to ask it of you. You don’t share our ways; you’ve never expected to have a man who wishes to bed other women as well. Perhaps you don’t want this thing between us to go on — you always said it was only for the moment �
� but … I want you to stay. You deserve better than what your people will give you. You’re worth more than their slights and their scorn. But if you’d rather go back than stay with a man who can’t be faithful just to you, I’d understand.’ He looked down at the fire, his dark eyes shining in the flickering light.
Delphine sighed. ‘I can’t stay. I just can’t. I don’t belong here, I don’t know your ways. By the Good Goddess, I’ve spent my whole life in a city that never sees snow! I’ve seen how your people live, Isidro, and I can’t do it. I don’t know how to survive in a forest, or how to find shelter in a snowstorm —’
‘You can learn those things, though it doesn’t matter if you don’t. You have a great deal to offer, just as you are.’
‘Look,’ she said gently, ‘I’ve seen how much you worry about being a burden on the people around you, and I’d be a far greater weight on their backs than you ever would. I’d always be an outsider, Isidro, and I can’t live like that. I want to belong somewhere, I want to have a family I love as dearly as you love your brother, but I can never have that here, where the colour of my skin and the way I speak will always set me apart.’
‘But your people will punish you when you’ve done nothing wrong,’ Isidro said. ‘You’ll lose all you have and be alone anyway. If you stay here at least you’ll have friends, people who respect you and value you, not treat you like a criminal and a traitor.’
Delphine closed her eyes. ‘The empire is a big place, and there’s always work for a mage of my power. I’ll find somewhere where the people won’t care about my past.’
‘But your work, your studies — I know you, Delphi, you won’t be happy without those —’
‘I’ll find a way to continue them. Issey, please don’t argue with me, please don’t make what we have turn sour —’
‘I wouldn’t, if I thought you truly believed what you’re saying,’ Isidro said. ‘But you’re basing the decision on fear, not hope. Believe me, I know the difference; I’ve walked that trail.’ He sighed and rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘But I know it’s pointless to argue with you. Will you at least think about it? You wouldn’t always be an outsider. Rhia is one of us now. There’s no reason you couldn’t be the same. Just answer me this, Delphine — what do you want? What do you truly want your life to be?’
‘I want what you have,’ she repeated. ‘I might be banished from Akhara, but I think I could work my way back there eventually, with all the knowledge I’ve gleaned from you and these books, but if I play things right it may not even come to that.’
‘But you could have that here,’ Isidro said.
Delphine cocked her head. ‘What would you want from me, anyway? To share you with Sierra, if she ever comes back? Is that how it works when you Ricalani men have two wives? I still don’t really understand your rules of marriage. Don’t women have to be sisters to marry into a household? Or is it enough to marry a set of brothers? And what if Sierra comes back, and you have her as well as me — could I have another man besides you, if I wished?’
He blinked, as though he found her question surprising. ‘Of course. And women become sisters when they marry, if they weren’t before; just as men become brothers.’
‘And what about folk like Harwin, or Rhia, those who bed their own kind?’
Isidro shrugged. ‘What folk do in their furs is their own concern. Being able to live and work together matters more in making a household. But I doubt this would ever be a matter of marriage.’ Isidro tweaked the brace around his arm. ‘For one thing, I can’t contribute much to supporting a family. And then there’s Cam to consider … Our tastes in women are so different, it would be difficult to make it work.’
‘Is that how it happens?’ Delphine asked. ‘The women can have whichever of the husbands they want, and vice versa?’ She pursed her lips with a frown. ‘Interesting. I’m not sure I’d like it, it’s so different from everything I know. But even if it weren’t, you’re quite right, it would never work. I wouldn’t want your brother in my bed any more than he would want me in his. He’s made it quite clear he doesn’t even want me in yours. We … had words.’
Isidro broke in with a curse. ‘Tigers take him, did he upset you like this?’
Delphine shook her hair back from her face. ‘He thought I’d taken advantage of your grief to seduce you.’
‘I’ll set him straight,’ Isidro said. ‘And he’ll apologise, too.’
‘Oh, don’t bother,’ Delphine said. ‘In his place I’d have been suspicious. Issey, do you mean it? You really want me to stay?’
He nodded. ‘I do. I’ve been on the verge of losing my mind these last few weeks, and even with Cam safe I hardly know what I’m thinking. What I do know is that I care about you a great deal. You’re too good to lose to whatever pit of obscurity they’ll send you to for what happened at the Spire. I want you to stay and help us recover our lost mage-craft. I want your help to train the next generation of mages and make sure Kell’s like can never take hold here again.’
Delphine watched him steadily across the flames. ‘Have you forgotten that mage-craft is still outlawed in Ricalan? If this alliance between my people and the Wolf Clan holds, that’s not likely to change. I expect the treaty demands all talented Ricalani children be handed over to serve the empire.’
Isidro covered his eyes with his hand. ‘I know. I said this is what I want, Delphi, not that I can see any way to make it happen. If you’d rather go back to your people than stay and listen to a madman prattle on about hopeless plans, I couldn’t blame you.’
Delphine raised one eyebrow. ‘You’ve had mad plans before and managed to pull them off. And with a good rate of success, I might add.’
He lowered his hand to meet her gaze again. ‘What are you saying?’
She fidgeted with her damp and clammy sleeve. ‘I … oh, very well, I’ll think about it. But I’m not making any promises. I’ll stay a little longer, but … if I think you’re throwing your life away on a hopeless cause, I won’t stand back and watch you die, Isidro, I just can’t. But for now, I’ll stay.’
He gave her a smile that warmed her far more than the fire did, but Delphine deliberately pushed that sentiment aside. ‘But Issey, you must tell me, why have you been hiding yourself away up here? I can’t believe you’ve been brooding so long over this.’
His smile vanished, and his eyes grew troubled once again. ‘I’ve been trying to decide what to do about Sierra.’
Delphine nodded, though inside she sighed. ‘I know you’ll never be content when someone you love is in danger. But how can we possibly help her?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve spent the last two days trying to think of something — anything — we can do, but Delphi, I’ve got nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘You’ll think of something,’ Delphine said. ‘You always do.’
Valeria gently touched the cold, stiff cheek, feeling the prickling stubble that had grown since the last time this man would ever shave. ‘My poor dear boy,’ she murmured, her breath misting in the cold air of the chamber. She’d insisted on seeing him as soon as she’d arrived, not even pausing to change out of her travelling clothes. The rain, beaded on the oiled wool of her cloak, was slowly turning to frost.
Her son, standing behind her by the doorway, shuffled his feet. ‘Mother, please let me explain —’
‘Shut the door, Severian.’ As the hinges creaked, Valeria bit her cheek to force back the threatening tears. Osebian was a warrior, and warriors were born to die. But on a battlefield, not strangled like a common criminal in some dank cell. She smoothed his fair hair back from his forehead, with her riding crop still dangling from her wrist on a gilded strap, and then pulled the sheet up to cover him. ‘You will be avenged, my sweet, I promise you that.’
‘Mother! How can you even be sure it’s him? None of us have seen Cammarian in ten years.’
Valeria turned on her heel, snatched up the handle of the crop and struck him across the face. ‘Hold your tongue, you
wretched mongrel! Of course it’s Osebian, or have your eyes rotted away along with your balls? How could you let this happen?’ She struck him again and again, while the king cowered under the blows.
‘Mother, please, I swear I didn’t know! He never told me what he meant to do, never!’
‘Stop your wretched whining! How did this happen? Surely you’ve had the matter investigated?’
‘I asked Lord Kell to determine what went wrong, but he turns my messengers away empty-handed.’
Valeria hesitated, and then lowered her upraised arm. ‘Kell has given you no answers? No explanation at all?’
‘No, Mother, but now you’re here I’m sure he’ll answer to you. You’re the only one he listens to, you know that. I’ll send for him at once.’
‘No, don’t,’ Valeria said. The wretched mage had always been a slave to lust. He had no concept of how to govern himself. Without her to set guards over his door, he would have been poisoned years ago. ‘Where is he now?’
‘I couldn’t say, Mother. Either downstairs with the girl or up in the tower with his new plaything.’
Valeria gritted her teeth in a rush of anger. Amusing yourself while my dear boy lies down here like a beast on a butcher’s slab? You have forgotten your place, old man. You’re still my servant, and I’ll cursed well remind you of the fact.
‘Let him stay where he is, for now,’ Valeria said. ‘Osebian was killed in his domain: the blame must ultimately fall upon him. He knows as much; no wonder he avoided your demand for an explanation. I’ll set my own people to uncover the truth of this matter. Soldiers gossip like old women — surely someone saw something of what happened that night, and it must be all over camp by now.’
