Three Coins for Confession

by Scott Fitzgerald Gray

  “Chriani, what…?”

  “It’s all right. I won’t be long.” His gaze flicked to Dargana, saw her watching him intently. Questions there, but none of Kathlan’s uncertainty.

  He swung down off his horse, heard Kathlan and Dargana do the same. With a nod, Maron led the two of them and the horses toward the wood even as Chriani paced away. Following Irdaign where she had disappeared from sight.

  The Leisanmira. The accent he couldn’t place. The wandering folk of the Ilmar, crossing all four principalities but never at home in any of them. The spell-singers, whose magic Lauresa had channeled in secret. Magic her mother taught her. Chriani had heard the accent only once before, in a song Lauresa sang. Irdaign bore no trace of it that he had ever heard, though these were her people. Her past carefully reshaped by Chanist’s advisers when she had married the prince high and left that life behind a generation before.

  She was sitting on dry ground at the side of a small fire, set back from the larger central blaze. The other members of the wagon camp nodded to Chriani as he passed, smiling greetings but not speaking. He heard their voices ringing out in melodic whispers beyond him, though. Building songs in the shadows.

  “It is good to see you, Chriani.” Irdaign beckoned him to sit, Chriani nodding to her as he did. She offered him wine in a steaming mug, heady with the scent of fruit and spices. He shook his head, though. Already enough uncertainty to his thoughts.

  “Why are you…” He took a breath, tried to focus. He fought the urge to make the moonsign again, knowing the insult it would seem to her. The fear of things he didn’t understand. “How did you know I would come here? Or did you make this happen?”

  “No one does my bidding against their will or knowledge, Chriani. Or at least not except by craft more subtle than what you would call magic. But I do have gifts, which speak to me at times. Small gifts that tell me of things that might come to pass.”

  Irdaign’s tone was even as she spoke, the musical quality of her voice joining somehow with the songs rising around her. But to Chriani’s ear, it carried an edge of something else as well. A thing he couldn’t quite place.

  “Do you know why I’m here?” he asked.

  “I know some of it. I have no need to know all of it, if you worry that I have brought you here for questioning.”

  “I don’t know what need for questioning you’d have so long as you can see what I do. See what I am with your sight.”

  Irdaign shook her head with a sad smile. “My sight does not see into you or any other, Chriani. And even if it did, overhearing word of secret envoys from Brandishear from couriers in the halls of Castle Osthegn is more dependable than the sight by far.”

  Chriani nodded, but he felt the shift in his mind that came with new knowledge. Something changed. “We were to be met by troops of Prince Vishod’s from Aleran. What does Osthegn know of our mission?”

  “Vishod has made his own alterations to Chanist’s requests, I gather. He finds a measure of power in being able to accept a plan, then to alter it with impunity so as to not seem like Chanist’s servant. The games princes play.”

  It sounded strange to Chriani’s ear to hear her speak Chanist’s name. A darkness to it as it churned his thoughts of what bound her and the prince high together. He couldn’t look at her, stared to the fire instead.

  “I have been told you travel south?” she asked.

  Chriani nodded, not sure what he could tell her. Not sure what he should tell her.

  “I warn you that the duke was not entirely happy with Vishod handing off Brandishear’s request. But the rangers he has assigned to you know the southlands well, and they are blindly obedient to the duke. As he likes them.”

  “So why are you worried?” Chriani looked up again to meet her gaze. Saw acknowledgement there in the blue eyes. That worry was the edge he had heard in her voice before.

  “The trinket you wear,” she said. “At your belt. I sense its dweomer. New magic, and powerful. It seems out of character for you.”

  He thought for a moment of how to explain it. Decided in the end for the truth. “The Valnirata are hunting me,” he said. “Because of… things to do with what happened before.” He saw a flicker of pain in the blue eyes that told him Irdaign knew what he spoke of. “The badge keeps them from finding me.”

  “How long will you wear it?” Irdaign asked, and the question caught Chriani by surprise simply because it hadn’t yet crossed his mind.

  “I don’t know.” The fire was warm. Chriani’s cloak had been soaking wet when he sat down, his clothes damp beneath his jacket and armor. They were almost dry now. “Why are you here, Irdaign?”

  When she laughed, Chriani heard the sound spread around her. Unseen children picked it up as if it were some kind of game, their own laughter echoing back and around him as Irdaign spoke.

  “I am here because I saw you here, Chriani. You are the reason, if reasons are something you feel compelled to pursue. I saw you seek me here, whether you knew it or not, and sensed that you had need of me. So speak that need, and I will help you if I can.”

  As Irdaign’s words slipped through him, Chriani felt the moment seize around him. Against the firelight, the voices seemed to congeal like mist, hanging as echoes whose colors reflected the lamps shimmering in the wood. A child’s voice rose above all the others, singing words he remembered.

  Cal lun tau seryan ede to maynd

  Lun tau seryan neld to caynd…

  It was part of the only words of Leisana he would recognize. The language of the Leisanmira, and a song Lauresa had sung while he traveled with her. The “Ode of Seilonna” was a lament of leave-taking, the princess had said. It spoke of the road that leads endlessly away from home, never leading to what the traveler truly seeks.

  Until Irdaign spoke, Chriani wouldn’t have understood what his need was. He knew now.

  “When I last saw the princess,” he said carefully. “I gave her a gift.” Irdaign made no response. Waiting. “No one knows where it is. Not even those few others who know of its existence. But some might try to find it. Tell Lauresa…”

  The princess’s name sounded wrong on his tongue. He felt a weight to it as he spoke, realizing how that weight came from the length of time since the princess had truly left his heart, left his thoughts. And even as she had left his thoughts, Chriani realized how those thoughts were clinging to a version of her that no longer existed.

  Lauresa was a duchess’s name now. Not a princess anymore.

  “Make sure she understands that it’s safer where it is now, safer with her, than it could be anywhere else.”

  “And those who seek it…?”

  “Are my problem,” Chriani said.

  The degree of resolve in his own voice surprised him. The fear of having been hunted, the fear that came with magic he didn’t understand, had been riding alongside him like an unseen companion since that day of stumbling upon the shrine in the deep wood. But Dargana’s sudden interest in her Ilvani children’s tales had muted that fear somehow. Reminding him that it was easy to be afraid of what you didn’t know, but that simple fear would never stop him from fighting.

  Irdaign nodded. “I understand. And what else?”

  Chriani stared to the fire. He felt a different fear twist through him, of the weight of assessment and expectation in Irdaign’s voice. He knew his fear of that voice and the power of the mind behind it, even as he hated himself for it.

  She wouldn’t need the sight, he told himself, to know his mind right now.

  “Is she happy?” he said at last.

  “As she can be, yes. Her daughter is a blessing in all ways, though a son would have suited the duke better. All things in time, though.”

  Chriani noted the subtle shift in Irdaign’s voice. A sudden brightness to her words. A moment of a mother speaking of a daughter and granddaughter, setting aside other concerns.

  There was no sign in that voice that she knew the truth, but Chriani couldn’t look at her. Didn
’t know if he could accept seeing the recognition of that truth in her eyes.

  The rain had lessened, he realized. The songs had shifted around him, punctuated by laughter. He felt an unexpected lightness threading his mind, and a warmth that was more than the fire.

  He was happy for the fact that Lauresa could be happy. Knowing how that was all he’d ever have.

  “I need to go,” he said.

  Irdaign stood as he did. “I’m sorry to have kept you, Chriani. But I am glad we spoke.”

  He nodded as he turned for the wood and the horses, but Irdaign stopped him with a hand to his shoulder.

  “Do you trust me, Chriani? Enough to set aside your fear for a time?”

  I’m not afraid of you. The urge to lie came quick and instinctive, but the words went unsaid. Only three meetings he’d had with Irdaign, and she had seen through to the truth of his heart from the first.

  “I do.”

  “I would leave you with a charm of song. If you will allow me.”

  Chriani forced himself to nod. Knew he couldn’t give himself time to think about it. Then Irdaign sang.

  A warmth spread from her hand where it still touched him. Chriani felt that warmth trace its way across his shoulder, down his chest. It rested there for what seemed a very long time to the reckoning of his fear, though his distant consciousness counted out the song Irdaign sang in a measure of moments.

  When she took her hand away, he looked down to see a mark at his armor. A sigil of light whose lines were Ilvani but not Ilvani traced themselves around the outline of a flower, five white petals ranged around a brilliant point of pure light. The mark vanished, but as it did, Chriani sensed its brightness follow the warmth, pushing down through armor and tunic to his skin. He felt it spread inside him, surround and press against the other magic he held. The steel ring worn openly at his finger, the golden disk hidden but exposed. The black ring tucked within its secret pocket at his belt, the dead talisman next to that.

  “We would have you be safe in all things,” Irdaign said when the sensation had passed. “It is a small magic that flows in me. A personal magic. But it might help you in time. Until our next meeting.”

  The question forced its way from Chriani’s mind to his voice without him being able to focus it. He heard the words twisted by the fear still settling in him. “Have you seen that already? Our next meeting?”

  “No. I only hope it.”

  Irdaign stretched up to kiss him on the cheek, Chriani realizing how slight the princess precedent was when she stood at his side. At all other times, he felt a power in her that made her presence seem larger. He walked away from her but glanced back once to see her standing tall again, drifting back into the shadows.

  He touched his chest as he walked, felt nothing there but the warmth of the fire traced into his leather. He didn’t make the moonsign, though. He felt a kind of false pride in that as he found Kathlan and Dargana at the bonfire, motioned that it was time to go.

  The horses were dry and suspiciously well rested, Chriani recognizing Kathlan’s handiwork but suspecting that the Leisanmira who waved their goodbyes as they saw them off had some part in it. All of Kathlan’s questions showed in her expression as they set off, lanterns deployed against the night and the rain that was starting heavy again. Chriani said nothing to her as they rode.

  At the cairns, he saw light waiting that told him they were the last ones back. He ignored the rangers’ dark looks, heard from Walaric — the real one this time — that they had found a roadhouse that would suit. Only two rooms left, but the innkeeper had promised to hold them and offered a stable with loft space for the rest.

  “We were worried at your absence, lord,” Wilric called out as they rode. Chriani heard the same challenge in his voice that he’d heard in the forest earlier that day, but he made a more measured response this time.

  “I had arranged to meet with a messenger from Teillai. Word on our mission. I apologize for the secrecy.”

  When he spoke, it was with the clear purpose of Kathlan hearing, so Chriani wasn’t surprised when she responded.

  “Why Teillai? I thought our orders were to meet with Vishod’s force out of Aleran?”

  “Vishod changed the order,” Chriani said. “Sotting princes playing games.” Even as he said it, he felt himself hoping that Irdaign’s information was correct.

  The run-down condition of the roadhouse made it clear why two rooms had been open so late on a night of rain. However, the stables were dry, the stew piping hot, the bread fresh, and the ale better than Chriani had hoped. He ordered the squad off duty at once, letting them eat while he oversaw the stable grooms tending to the horses. He paid for two rounds at the bar in advance, the dark looks of at least a few of the rangers softening even as he left.

  He arranged for Kathlan and Dargana to take one of the two rooms, then assigned the three rangers who would do watch for the night to share the other. It was part of the routine for any patrol, though Chriani doubted it would be necessary this deep into settled lands. He was fine with the stables, anxious to not undo whatever peace he’d made with the squad by taking the best for himself.

  But at the back of his mind, lurking where he didn’t want to have to see it, Chriani understood also how anxious he was to not talk to Kathlan. Not now, not tonight at any rate. He needed time for rest and silence in the aftermath of what Dargana had said that morning, and his conversation with Irdaign. Gathering his thoughts before the questions he knew were coming.

  But as he entered the stables after eating, he saw Kathlan look up from where she was tending his horse.

  Chriani had watched her go upstairs with Dargana at the end of the meal, was positive she hadn’t slipped past him in the common room while he ate by himself. Out through the window, he guessed. Knowing she needed to catch him off guard. He made a note of the proximity of the two other rangers bunking in the loft, heard them talking quietly to each other. He tried to find the appropriate tone to ask what Kathlan was doing, but she beat him to it.

  “I wanted to check his feet before I slept, lord.” She spoke just loud enough for the rangers above her to hear. “A lot of running in the woods today.”

  “You should be with Dargana.” All Chriani could think to say.

  Kathlan’s voice quieted, pitched only for his ears now. “We’d best make this quick then.”

  Her dark eyes met his, Chriani silent a moment. Then he nodded as he knelt beside her, made it look like he was inspecting her handiwork as she used a hooked awl to pick debris from his horse’s hooves and shoes.

  “What did you and the Ilvani talk about today? What is it she doesn’t want me to hear?”

  “The same as you already heard in the throne room, plus some thought on where we’re headed and what we might meet there. She won’t talk in front of Chanist’s rangers or Vishod’s. Doesn’t want to give up what she knows of the Ilvani in case the others turn on her before this is done.”

  “Who was it you met with tonight?” She asked the question almost before Chriani had finished speaking, no sense of how she had judged his first answer.

  “I said it true before. An agent from Teillai. She wanted to tell me about Vishod’s change of plans so I didn’t look a fool when we meet the escort.”

  “She didn’t look much like any guard scout to me.”

  “She wasn’t. She’s with the duke’s household, came to us of her own accord. It’s not important.”

  “Then how did you know to look for her there? The middle of a rainstorm, the middle of nowhere…?”

  “The badge the prince’s mage gave me does other things. Court magic. Messages.”

  The lies came too quickly sometimes. Too easily. Chriani saw Kathlan glance to the steel ring at his finger. He saw the question in her mind, was relieved when she asked another instead.

  “So why did the message not come from Vishod himself?”

  “I said before, it’s princes’ games, Kath. It’s not important.”

&nb
sp; “Chriani…”

  “I said it’s not important.”

  His voice was barely a whisper, but the sharp bite of the command in his tone brought Kathlan’s hand to a stop. She stared at the horse’s hoof for a time as if searching for something. She picked at it a while longer, then collected her tools.

  All of it was wrong, Chriani knew. He felt the anger churning in him. Recognized the particular darkness released in the act of him hating himself.

  Kathlan needed the truth. He owed her the truth.

  “Thank you, squire,” was all he said as he stepped to the stable doors and slipped outside.

  He shifted into the shadows between the stables and the inn’s dark front door, so that he was waiting for Kathlan when she emerged just shortly behind him.

  “Kath…”

  “Sleep well, lord.”

  “Kath, don’t do this.” Chriani caught up to her fast pace, tried to slip in front to slow her but she was having none of it.

  “Get out of my way…” Her elbow in his ribs came at full force, his boots digging in as she drove him back in the mud.

  “Then stop and talk to me…”

  “I can’t talk when you’ve got nothing to say, Chriani.”

  “That’s not fair. I’ve got things I can’t say because I’m under orders, and I don’t know what you want…”

  “I want the truth!”

  She stopped dead in the faint light from the inn’s front windows. Chriani checked that well-fogged glass, scanned the shadows around them. No one there.

  Kathlan’s hands were locked to her side, one of them still holding her awl. Chriani fought the urge to step close to her, fairly certain how that would end.

  “In the throne room…” Kathlan stumbled with the words, as if she was trying to sort them as she spoke. “You told the prince that you came to Rheran because Captain Rhuddry didn’t believe Milyan about what happened with the Valnirata. Only you decided you were going to Rheran that night before you ever talked to Rhuddry or set eyes on Milyan’s reports.”

  Chriani felt a chill settle in his heart. He tried to force his mind back to the events of that meeting with the prince, to remember exactly what he’d said. It was all shadow now, though. Too many lies told that night. Too many lies since.