Three Coins for Confession

by Scott Fitzgerald Gray

  “There’ll be no rough justice.” Kathlan stepped up between Chriani and Madoc, pushing Chriani back with the flat of her hand. He stumbled as he put two more steps between them. “We’re bound for Teillai to deliver the prisoner. That’s captain’s orders, and don’t be telling me you didn’t hear him as well as I did.”

  Madoc leered. “Saved by your woman, half-blood. Story of your sotting life, I’m betting.”

  “I don’t think I heard you straight, Madoc.”

  Though Kathlan had to look up to see the scarred warrior a full head and a half above her, even he heard the steel-sharp edge to her voice. Madoc sneered, though, as he took a step back.

  “Begging your pardon.”

  “That’s Begging your pardon, lord. Or is there an officer in Aerach stupid enough to have granted you promotion?”

  Madoc’s hands flexed to fists. “I’ll ask after whatever sot stuck your insignia on, then?”

  Chriani felt the tension twisting through him, whipcord tight. He started to shift, wanted to get past Kathlan and to the side, get a clear shot at Madoc. There was no way she could have seen him, but her hand flashed up behind her to warn him away just the same.

  “That sot would be your captain,” she said sweetly. “Shall we take it up with him?”

  Madoc spat. “I’ll take orders from him if you like. But I don’t take a dressing down from any treason-bastard’s whore…”

  Kathlan punched up with a shot that even Chriani hadn’t seen coming. Taking advantage of the size difference between herself and the larger warrior, she put all the strength of body and legs behind the fist she buried in the soft underside of his jaw. It sent his head back with a disturbing crack. He was still reeling from that, stumbling a half step back to regain his balance, when she spun with a roundhouse kick that took him cleanly between the legs.

  Madoc cried out with a voice that caught the ear of every other soldier in the camp. He hit the ground hard.

  Chriani stood stock-still, watching for the warrior to move, but he stayed where he was. Partly for the pain that hunched him over nearly double, but partly also from the sheer shock of Kathlan’s assault.

  Standing over Madoc, she flexed her hand. She was breathing slowly. Cautious, Chriani saw, but carried by a control he recognized as the deepest, strongest part of her.

  “Just so it’s clear,” she said. “The second shot was for the insult to me, and I’ll be using your leather-cured cock to pick my horse’s teeth if I ever hear it again. The first shot was for calling Chriani a traitor.” She turned now to the two guards behind Chriani, pitched her voice for anyone else who was listening to hear. “Lieutenant Venry and your duke are wrong in this. But if it takes a trial to prove it to you, then that’s what’s to happen. By your Duke Andreg’s orders. Or do you answer to someone else?”

  Chriani felt as though he could touch Kathlan’s anger in that moment, knowing it matched the best rage that had ever burned in him. Knowing also that Kathlan would never let it get the best of her. Would never let it control her. She would use it to push herself, just as she’d always done.

  He understood in that moment not just that he loved her, but how much. He understood why. Understood how she made him better than he was, better than he could ever be on his own. The anger that had broken him, always, was a strength in her. The stone that shattered his ambition whetted hers.

  He didn’t know whether that made any difference now. Didn’t know whether it was too late.

  “Sergeant Kathlan, is there a problem here?”

  Shara’s voice rang out with a subtle strength that told Chriani he’d heard everything Kathlan said. The captain was pacing toward them from the center of the camp, the horses tethered around a stand of scrub pine there. Madoc shot to his feet, but Chriani noted that he had to strain to stand straight.

  “No, lord.” Kathlan’s tone was even, but Chriani heard the caution in her voice. Not sure if she’d gone too far.

  “Did I not see one of your rangers on the ground a moment ago?”

  “We’ve ridden hard today, lord. We could all use rest.”

  Chriani saw three of the guards behind Shara smirk, though no one dared to laugh.

  “Carry on, then.”

  The captain passed by without another word. Kathlan waited until he’d gone before she spoke. “Madoc, you’re with the horses. Stay out of my sight, and unless every Ilvani in Crithnalerean comes out of the Ghostwood tonight, don’t let me hear your voice.”

  Madoc’s gaze spoke volumes but he held his tongue. He turned from Kathlan, limping away from the fire and toward the trees. She turned her attention then to the other three who had been sitting with the scarred warrior. Chriani noted that they had all shifted back a few paces.

  “Does anyone else have any problems following my orders?”

  “No, lord.” All three of them, speaking at once.

  “Then guard the prisoner. Two on watch, one resting. Set whatever schedule you like. Anything happens to him, you answer to me.”

  She turned without another word, stalked off toward the next watch fire. Chriani picked up his cloak and wrapped himself with it as the others settled into watch positions. None of them met his gaze.

  He could see Kathlan at the edge of the firelight where she set her watch with three other guards. She kept her distance from them, pacing until the deep night, the Clearmoon thin and cold when it finally came. When she and the others were spelled off, she sought out a bedroll, lying down near the fire as the guards banked it high.

  Only then did Chriani sleep.

  THEY LEFT ILVANI TERRITORY at dusk the next day. The land around them had turned from wild grass and scrub pine to overgrown meadow earlier at the sun’s height, which yielded at sunset to the first tilled fields dotted with frontier farmsteads, buildings set low and solid behind rough stockade walls.

  The long day’s ride had been all but silent, Chriani in the van close behind Shara, like the captain meant to undercut any additional discussion of the troop’s orders and Chriani’s fate. Kathlan was farther behind, so that he saw her only when they stopped to water and graze the horses. In all the time he was alone, he tried to keep her in his mind, tried to focus the emotion that had cut through him the previous night. Understanding that nothing mattered except her. Understanding how much he wished he could have had more time.

  They would be in Teillai the following day. The weather was still clear, nothing to slow them. Chriani didn’t know what a trial for treason before the duke would look like, but he expected it would be brief.

  If he was found guilty, he’d be executed. Kathlan would be there to see it. Irdaign as well. Lauresa.

  Over the two days it took them to ride out from the Ghostwood, Chriani had kept escape in his thoughts the whole time. Not focusing on it. Not plotting it specifically, for fear that his anger would push him to try it before it was time. He had been watching the rangers as they rode, though. Had assembled in his mind the makeup of each squad, the tone and tenor of their sergeants. He knew how many outriders Shara liked to deploy, and how often. He noted which of the guards outside Madoc and his entourage were strongest in their intrinsic hatred of him. Which ones were merely indifferent. Which ones seemed most likely to back down from a fight if their lives were on the line.

  He recognized the landscape around them, judging that they were within easy ride of the farmstead where he had challenged Venry’s rangers for their threats against Dargana. It seemed a long while ago. Though he hadn’t seen the river yet, Chriani knew they were close to the Hunthad where it defined the border between Aerach and the Valnirata lands. The farm tracks that crisscrossed the area would hide his own tracks.

  If he was taken to Teillai, it was even odds he’d be dead before the next sunset. If he broke from the troop and fate was in his favor, he might make it. He had the black ring to conceal him. He had the Greatwood waiting for him. Perhaps not better odds of surviving than the trial, but they’d be his odds at least. A chance to di
e on his feet, hands bound or no.

  He’d been watching Kathlan, noting when she rested. Not just the previous night, but the nights before and each time the troop had stopped. Because for all the logistical impossibility of escaping the watch of thirty seasoned rangers, there was only one of those rangers Chriani was worried about.

  If he tried to escape, if he was pursued and brought down, he wouldn’t let Kathlan see him die.

  They set a full camp with tents that night but kept well clear of any settlements, Shara not wanting to stop near the frontier farmsteads in case they were pursued. A carontir patrol shadowing them unseen would wait until deep night to attack, at which point having to protect civilians and livestock became a liability. It seemed a fleeting concern, though, with the troop’s outrider patrols catching no sight in two days of anything moving out from the Ghostwood behind them.

  Chriani had a double tent to himself. They had set him away from the other rangers and the perimeter fires, but with the flap sealed against the wind, he was warmer than he had been sleeping rough the previous two nights. He wasn’t sleeping this night, though. He was sitting in the center of the tent, twisting his arms and shoulders carefully, as he had been over the two days of their ride whenever he thought he could get away with it. With his wrists bound, he knew his arms would begin to weaken even after so short a time. He needed to be limber, needed to be ready for whatever might happen.

  He was studying the restraints that bound him. A thing he hadn’t done while they rode, not wanting to give anyone a chance to see him. The ropes were retied twice each day, their steel cinch checked and locked. Chriani knew he had no hope of opening that lock even with his picks, the keyhole set too far from his fingers. They hadn’t changed the rope, though, and Chriani had long since noted the weak spots where the cinch bound it.

  He was working those spots carefully now, knowing his time was growing short. But in doing so, he was distracted, so that he heard movement outside the tent only as the flap was drawn. He started back, cursing himself silently for not listening.

  Kathlan slipped inside. She quickly sealed the flap behind her.

  When he had first entered the tent, Chriani noted two guards sitting close to the fire a dozen paces away. In the quick glimpse through the open flap, he’d seen darkness there now, cloud covering Clearmoon and stars, the guards gone.

  Kathlan had a knife in hand, was working at his restraints before Chriani could react. “I took this shift of the watch with Madoc. Show him there’s no hard feelings. But he’s on a trip to the trees. Licorice root in his wineskin means he’ll be there a while, but not all night.”

  As the ropes parted, Chriani felt his wrists come away raw from each other. With his arms moving freely for the first time in two days, he shifted to embrace Kathlan, but she held him back.

  “There’s no time,” she said. The sense of finality in her voice was something Chriani had never heard before. “I begged Lauresa to talk to her duke for you, but she said that convincing him to send rangers after you was all she could do. She could twist that to make him see how it granted advantage over Vishod and Chanist alike. Him capturing their lost traitor envoy. But for your fate, Andreg won’t be taking any counsel but his own.”

  It was near dark in the tent, Chriani knowing Kathlan couldn’t fully see him even as her face in shadow was clear to his eyes. Her hand was trembling at his shoulder, fingers tracing out the war-mark unseen beneath his leather.

  “Lauresa and Irdaign promised instead that they’d send word to Prince Chanist,” she whispered. “Ask him to entreat Andreg to send you back to Brandishear for trial. Get you out of Aerach.”

  Chriani felt an unexpected anger rise in him. His fate suddenly in Chanist’s hands was a thought that would never have crossed his mind. Something he would never have sought for himself, even to save his own life. “You shouldn’t have done that…”

  “Chriani, if they get you to Teillai tomorrow, it’s your life. There was no other way.”

  It wasn’t true, he knew. He could think of a dozen different ways it might end, though most of them were far from good. But he remembered also his warning to Chanist, and the threat that still hung between them. If the prince high acquiesced, it would be because in doing so, he would see Chriani hand back the only power he had ever held.

  “It doesn’t matter, though,” Kathlan said. “Irdaign said she’d make sure riders from Brandishear would catch us before Teillai to keep it out of Andreg’s hands. But they haven’t come, so you need to run.”

  “Kath…”

  “Run, Chriani. Use the ring. You need to get away.”

  “Do not let the fear of what you cannot see control you, Ilmari,” came a voice from behind them both. The words were in Ilmari, heavily accented. “For fate leads us to futures seen and unseen, and is yet in both your hands. There is still time.”

  All the words Chriani could have said in response to Kathlan turned to ash in his mouth. He twisted to get in front of her, felt her press close, the knife in her hand up and beside him. The blood was hammering in his head, the taste of metal in his mouth. He wasn’t afraid, though.

  “What are you doing here? How did you…?”

  Chriani’s voice was cut off as Veassen set a faint light to his fingertips, the seer’s blind eyes gleaming in the shadows. He was sitting cross-legged a single stride away, the wall of the tent at his back. Chriani felt the air shift as if tugged at by a faint breeze.

  “The Aerachi cannot see us,” Veassen said. “They will not hear us. My magic protects us, even as it has shown you to me and brought me safely here. But we must be quick.”

  I have learned and forgotten more spells than are known among all the Ilmari. Chriani remembered the seer saying it, remembered how he had come and gone in two councils without Chriani seeing him. His hand shook from two days of being bound as he made the moonsign.

  “Chriani…” Kathlan’s voice at his ear was a faint whisper.

  “He’s named Veassen. He’s of the Laneldenari. I know him.” It was far too brief an explanation, but it was all Chriani had the strength to say. “What do you want?”

  “To ask what you mean to do, Chriani. And to offer you sanctuary if your choice leads you back to the Ilvani.”

  The absolute silence that followed Veassen’s words was stark enough that Chriani could hear a faint hissing from the light that blossomed from the seer’s hand.

  He thought of Barien, unexpectedly. A timeless moment of memory that carried a conversation with the warrior, and talk of the choices in life that a person could make. Chriani wondered briefly what choice Barien might make if the warrior had been in his position right now, even as he understood the stupidity of the thought. Because Barien would never have allowed himself to be named a traitor in the first place. He would have prevented it, would have fixed it somehow.

  That was Chriani’s problem. Had always been. Thinking always too late about the things that challenged him in his life. The things he wanted, and how to reach for them. Realizing the answers to the questions only after the questions had come and gone.

  “No,” he said.

  Kathlan’s hand was at his shoulder, squeezing hard, but it was Veassen she spoke to. “Can you take him from here? Use your spellcraft?”

  The seer nodded even as Chriani shook his head. “No,” he said again.

  “Don’t be a fool for the first time in your life, Chriani.” Kathlan twisted herself around to meet his gaze, but he shifted to keep his eyes away from her. “Take the road that’s offered you.”

  He remembered Tician’s words within the respite of her sanctuary. When the road behind is closed, you can look only ahead. “I know my road,” he said. “I go where you go, Kath. I stay at your side until the end.”

  It was an admission of failure, he knew. Not the strength he had wanted to believe was in him. The strength to break from Kathlan, to make sure she wasn’t there to see him die.

  If living meant living apart from her, he was
n’t strong enough to do it. Not anymore.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Chriani, please…”

  “Did you lie to me?” He pushed his thoughts from Kathlan because he had to, his eyes finding Veassen’s. Locking themselves to the seer’s blind gaze. The thoughts of Tician unfolding in his mind let slip the things the assassin had said. “If Laneldenar had captured the coins, it would have meant the same end as the Calala Ilvani holding them. Was that your plan when you sent us to find the temple? To claim that power for yourself?”

  Veassen smiled. “But you were not sent, Chriani. I saw you make that choice, and in so doing, place the fate of both your peoples above yourself. I saw that you would do what you were meant to do. As you do now.”

  “Please take him.” Kathlan shifted forward toward the seer, hand clutched to her heart and fighting the urge to make the moonsign with a strength Chriani could feel. “If it’s in your power, don’t let him do this…”

  “This is not my fate, child,” Veassen said. His white eyes drifted to Kathlan, a sad smile tracing his face. “I hope you understand. Now, do not tarry. My power goes with me, and the dawn is near.”

  The seer was gone. No sense of him vanishing, no lingering presence of his sorcery. Just again the faint stirring of air, and a silence that seemed to hang for a long while before Kathlan spoke.

  “Chriani, please…”

  “Get some sleep,” he said. “It’ll be a hard ride to Teillai. Shara and the rest won’t want to be late in.”

  He was looking to the back of the tent, staring at the spot where Veassen had been, when Kathlan slipped outside and away.

  He was sitting there still when Kathlan came through the tent’s door flap again at dawn. He hadn’t slept.

  As she slipped inside, she pulled a short length of rope from inside her tunic. Under the guise of checking Chriani’s bonds, she retied him tightly, pocketed the remnants of the rope she had cut the night before. Neither of them spoke.