Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered

by Orullian, Peter

  “Business elsewhere,” Jastail repeated.

  “Is that so?” the leader of the group replied. “Well, perhaps. But I don’t like what this means to those of us you leave behind.” The man raised his hand to his mouth and bit at a fingernail before continuing. “What information do you have that causes you to forfeit the price of a boy on the block? It isn’t like you.” His eyes narrowed. “And it isn’t fair to those prepared to pay good money for him, either. And what of this one?” He walked past Jastail and laid his hand on Wendra’s thigh. She kicked him in the chest, and would have put her boot in his face if the stirrup had not inhibited her blow. The man stumbled backward.

  When he regained his balance, he rushed toward her, one arm brandishing a deeply curved knife. Orange sun glinted on the beveled edge as Wendra tried to shy away from the charge. Instantly, Jastail was off his horse and between them. He ducked beneath the man’s arm and drove a leg into his ankles. The other went over on his face. His jaw slammed into the hard-packed earth. The report rose in the mellow evening like the striking of river stones together.

  Wendra had seen men cower when their leader was put down, but these men rushed in on Jastail the instant he swept the first man off his feet. Two smaller fellows tried to flank him as the largest among them came directly on, a moronic grin showing but five existing teeth. Two more drew short blades and skirted the edge of the fray like dancers anxious for a turn with a courtesan.

  Jastail lunged for the largest man, feigning an exaggerated roundhouse toward the man’s face, and drove his knee into the fellow’s groin. The lout doubled over with an airy whoosh. One blade swept near Jastail’s face, but before the man could recover to strike again, Jastail drew his own sword and struck a deft jab to the man’s sword arm. The wounded brute dropped his weapon and turned tail.

  The other swordsman rushed at Jastail’s back. Wendra saw the blindside attack and bit her lip against warning Jastail. The instant seemed very long, but finally she yelled his name. Her captor did not look back. He fell into a forward roll and narrowly missed a jab at his spine. He came up and whipped his sword around in a deadly, level arc, catching the man in the neck as his momentum carried him toward Jastail.

  The fight had drawn the attention of nearby traders. Troubled shouts rose, and the faint clink of blades and armor accompanied bellowed questions sounding from the tents. Wendra realized she needed Jastail to win. Whatever the highwayman had planned for her and Penit, he was their only chance of escaping Galadell. If they were captured, these ruffians would show no mercy toward her or Penit.

  Wendra turned her mount on one of the men trying to flank Jastail and spurred the horse. In a burst, the mount leapt, trampling the man before he could cut Jastail. A frenzied whinny erupted to her left. Penit had followed her lead, knocking the other thug to the side with his horse’s broad chest.

  As running steps and calls of concern flooded the street, the last man slowly backed away. Jastail jumped into his saddle and rode toward the shadows. Wendra and Penit raced at his heels. She’d saved her captor’s life once again, but she expected no gratitude from the man leading them past the last tents of Galadell.

  * * *

  When the tents disappeared behind them, Jastail immediately took them off the trail and into untraveled patches of trees. He sped through gullies and over hills, sometimes turning left, sometimes right, as though he were not wholly unacquainted with the terrain. But he forged through low intertwined limbs, and twice forded rivers deep enough to require the horses to swim.

  Wendra suspected Jastail of trying to take them far enough from possible rescue to discourage hope. But more than once she saw him stop on a rise or bluff and look away to the west through the gathering darkness. The highwayman feared pursuit. Perhaps he’d violated the code she’d seen pass unspoken among the traders while the bidding had gone along—cutting your own kind with a sword might defy their ethical mores (if they had any). But Wendra reminded herself that the highwayman had always seemed to be a cult of one. Every association she’d seen him acknowledge had been used to further his own ends. Among those who appeared to know him the best, he acted with the most deceit, putting the most at risk. The thought of it made her eager to test her chances with the boy in these wild hills.

  The final traces of light left the sky to a faint moon.

  “Can we stop now?” Wendra asked. “The boy is tired.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Jastail said in a rough whisper. He looked up. “The starfire is bright enough. We will keep moving.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  He drew his horse to a quick halt and shot an unnerving glance at her. “I’m afraid of you dying before you prove useful to me,” he said. He threw one leg over his horse and slipped to the ground. “Rest then, but keep quiet. The night sky is a better friend to the pursuer than the pursued.” He left them and began scouring the ground.

  Penit came close, leaning toward her. “We could run now,” he said so faintly she could barely discern his words.

  “No,” she replied. “Running a horse in the dark is foolish when you don’t know the way and have no road for your horse to follow.”

  “What if they come for us?” Penit’s shoulders slumped. His tireless enthusiasm appeared at last defeated.

  “Then we’ll fight them,” she answered, giving his arm a reassuring squeeze. “But it isn’t the traders that concern me.”

  “What then?”

  “If he stood to gain from your sale at the auction,” Wendra said, “then why forfeit his bounty? He fought his own thieving friends to keep silent rather than answer the question.” She stopped, looking back over her shoulder toward the horizon and a dozen hills they’d already passed. “Perhaps we should have left his fight to him and not interfered.”

  Penit laid his own hand on Wendra’s forearm. “I know I’m just a boy, but I’m not helpless. I learned a lot on the wagons. And I won’t let anything happen to you again.”

  Wendra smiled at the naive promise of the child. It sounded like something Tahn might have said. “I believe you,” she answered. “For now, be ready. We shouldn’t forget that we’re here because of the Bar’dyn and other Given. If they come again, Jastail’s friends will be the least of our worries.”

  Penit nodded. They dismounted and sat together on a fallen tree while Jastail worked at something behind them. Wendra put her arm around Penit and felt his small body’s warmth. He nestled closer to her in what looked like a very uncomfortable position. But he did not stir. For the briefest moment, Wendra thought to sing the song from her songbox the way Balatin had sung and played for her. She imagined that this was the kind of moment she might have shared with her own child. The mixture of love and regret caught in her throat. She inclined toward the boy and kissed the crown of his head.

  Looking back toward the horses, she saw Jastail watching her. In the darkness, she could not see his eyes, but he clearly took note of the tenderness she showed Penit.

  He got up and walked close so that she might see him gesture toward their horses instead of having to speak. He had fastened several fallen limbs to his saddle horn with a length of hemp. He meant to drag the branches to cover their trail, but he’d have to be careful that it did not make their passage more evident. The highwayman pointed ahead. “To the next ravine and then north,” he whispered. “Slowly.”

  They rode another three leagues before stopping.

  Jastail said nothing, tethering the horses and throwing his blanket near the base of a tree. Wendra and Penit slept close together but far from Jastail.

  A rough boot at her calf awoke her the next morning. “Pack and eat,” the highwayman said. “Stretch your legs and arms before you mount.”

  Jastail had already seen to his blanket, and had allowed a small fire over which a pot of black tea heated. Wendra saw a handful of juniper berries laid on a clean rock near the pot to spice the tea once it brewed. He sat reading from a book, making notations with a thin piece of grap
hite.

  Penit insisted on packing both his and Wendra’s blankets and fetching food from their packs. She allowed him the task and sat opposite Jastail on a low rock, watching him.

  Jastail lifted his eyes. “Did you assume a ruffian like me did not read?” he said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “No,” Wendra replied. “I just did not expect to see you reading poetry.”

  Jastail partially closed the book, his brows rising in interest. “And how did you know it was poetry, dear lady? Have you been rummaging through my things without my knowledge?” His voice held a hint of humor.

  “No. Your eyes move unevenly to each line. History and fancy run the width of the page.”

  “How astute. And why do you wonder at my choice of literature? No wait, let me guess. Is it because the dreams of a laureate would be lost on one like me, who trades in living commerce and kidnaps women and children? Because if it so, lady, then you make an ardent case. And I may be at a loss.”

  Wendra wanted to scowl, but she did not let the desire reflect in her aspect. Her silence seemed to disconcert Jastail more than her words might have. His charming demeanor fell like an ill-fitted mask at a folliet.

  “I was not born near the blocks, dear woman.” This time the appellation came bitterly from his lips. “And not every scop looks heavenward when he contrives his rhyme.”

  “You want me to believe in the noble savage,” Wendra said tersely.

  “Not at all.” He rubbed the binding of the book the way Balatin used to touch Wendra’s hair before he kissed her good night.

  “What you think of me is none of my concern. And the differences between nobility and savagery aren’t as clear to me as they are to another. I’ve sat at fires where a man who doesn’t read is distrusted and shunned. In other lands my knowledge would not even earn me the shoveler’s spot in the court wastery.” Jastail’s eyes flared. “But that is precisely why I read these works, precisely why I don’t care what you might think of me.”

  “I see,” Wendra observed in an even tone. “Your education has confused your morality. You are like water left atable overnight, neither cold to refresh nor hot to brace. A hallmark of mediocrity.”

  Jastail smiled sourly. “Perhaps,” he said. “But it is that very place you name, that very … temperature, that gives meaning to more than a few of these bardic phrases.” He tapped the book. “These men did not scribble about with dirty quills because they hoped to profit by it. They bared their torment at being caught in between.”

  “You feel tormented?” Wendra interrupted. “You think you appreciate such reflection?”

  Jastail sat with his mouth slightly agape, his words apparently lost to him. With a pleasant grin, he closed his lips and opened the book with ready familiarity to a page that Wendra could see was often read. She expected him to recite a verse to her, something to prove his point, answer her accusation. The highwayman read in silence, a curious twist upon his lips that tugged his mouth into a slight frown. In that moment, Wendra thought she saw a glimpse of the unsure child this highwayman had once been. Then he closed the book again, setting it aside near his bedroll.

  “Shall I talk to you of being caught in between?” Wendra said. She sent Penit back to the horses to retrieve the waterskins. “What of being taken into the company of thieves by one who barters you upon the table like a loose coin, or of watching a child marched upon the block before a crowd to be auctioned like a hog or goat at breeding season? Do these things strike you as being in between?” Her voice continued to rise as she lashed at him with vicious accusations. “Tell me how as a child you offered your hand to your elders to find an ally, elders who used you to cheat another, a friend, as you did the boy.” Wendra stood, her hands clenched into fists.

  Jastail shot a menacing glance at her. “My answer to that might surprise you. But you forget yourself, woman. We are not in a place you should dare to be bold.” His glare did not falter, but his voice softened subtly. “And none of what you speak tells of being in between.” He rose and kicked dirt into the fire. His broad mouth and bright eyes again shifted to the inscrutable expression he’d worn at the card table where he’d wagered Wendra’s life. The look sent a shiver up her back. The heat of their exchange still burned in her, but the utter indifference of the man robbed her of focusing the anger into action.

  Without a word, he mounted and led them north. He would not give her a clear opportunity to escape. Sooner or later she would have to make a gamble of her own.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Memory of an Emotional Scar

  As a boy Braethen had once taken down a crystal goblet Author Posian kept high on the shelf in his study. It was the only fine thing the man owned, something he’d gotten as a young apprentice himself.

  Early in his own readings, Author Posian had traveled south with his own mentor, Author Selae, to the court at Kali Firth during the high festival of Summer Eve. There, A’Selae read the work of his winter’s pen. People came from every corner of Reyal’Te, many from neighboring nations, and some from dominions and principalities far distant, to the celebration. The artists of cloth, parchment, and song gathered there each year to entertain and edify and remind the celebrants of the harshness of the most recent winter and celebrate the warmth of summer sun. Musicians played every hour of the day, and tables assembled in the great square were kept filled with early harvest vegetables, roast goose, smoked fish, and chilled wine.

  Posian remembered the tables of nuts and fruit candied with syrup and molasses, and the sweet punch ladled out to children whose cheeks showed the red-orange stain of several glasses. The air filled with the sweet smells of food and the haze of sunset; men and women danced and clapped as fiddles played lively tunes and tambourines marked time. Women strolled and skipped, their blouses falling off their shoulders and their hair let down from the pinch-combs he usually saw them wear.

  At night, large torches lit the square nearly as bright as day, and the food was continually replenished, but the gaiety abated as people gathered to witness the shapes and fancies of authors and dramatists and sculptors.

  Sometimes a burst of laughter would swell from one small crowd here or there. But on one night, Posian listened near a group of people whose eyes glistened wetly in the torchlight. That Summer Eve, Author Selae had drawn a large group to him at the steps of a tall building. Standing within the stone entrance, Posian’s mentor used the natural echo to add resonance to his voice as he read aloud from his pages. Late in the evening, Posian had gotten the signal from Author Selae that he needed something to drink, and had rushed to the tables at the Center Square to draw him a cup.

  In his haste to return, Posian dodged around a coach and ran into a tall woman wearing a white satin dress. The mug of red wine splashed and spattered across the perfectly white gown. Posian looked up to apologize, and was immediately forced to his knees by two guards wearing heavy chain mail and holding spears. The woman looked at her gown, a stern frown on her lips. Suddenly, at her side, a third man appeared, this one dressed in raiment as fine as the lady’s. He wore at his side a sword in a sheath encrusted with colored jewels. His cloak, trimmed gold and red and bearing the mark of sheaf and scythe, hung loosely from his shoulders. At the sight of the stain, a scowl narrowed his eyes, and he began to direct the soldiers to take Posian away.

  Just then the woman raised her eyes from the ruin of her dress and saw Posian kneeling in front of her. The boy had never seen her, but knew from the descriptions uttered by all that he had just spilled Author Selae’s wine on the queen’s dress. She was an exceedingly beautiful woman, and it worried Posian, because the stories he’d read in the books always equated beauty with vanity and an intolerance for imperfection. He was sure the king prepared to have him cast into prison, or at least taken from the festival; either would earn him disfavor with Author Selae. The queen and king were not known to come to the festival, not due to arrogance it was thought, but because they believed their presence might distract the
revelers. Their appearance any other time would have been fortuitous for Author Selae. But this was disastrous.

  In an instant, the queen raised her hand to stop the guards. She gave them a commanding stare and then turned her eyes back to Posian.

  “What have you to say for yourself, son?” Her voice did not shrill, and she did not bark her question. Posian immediately felt hope that he could extricate himself from this situation.

  “I was sent to fetch a cup to moisten A’Selae’s lips while he reads his winter’s pen, and in my haste I did not pay attention to my path.”

  The queen’s eyes did not waver as she considered his words. She touched her sodden dress and rubbed the moisture between her fingers. “Author Selae, where is he from?” she asked.

  “North from the Hollows,” Posian replied.

  “Are you scolito to Author Selae from the Hollows? And do you pursue your study diligently?” she asked.

  “Yes, for two years now,” he replied.

  The queen dismissed the guards with a slight elevation of her chin and motioned for Posian to stand.

  Humbly, he rose to his feet but found that he could not meet the queen’s gaze.

  “Then you shall be pardoned for this infraction upon one condition,” she said.

  Posian could think of nothing he could do to redeem his error. He licked his lips and stared into the spreading wine stain on the beautiful satin of the queen’s dress.

  “You will create for me a parable,” she said. “Something new. It must be something you’ve never heard, written, or thought before.” She raised her brows to determine if Posian understood the terms.

  “I am a novice, your Majesty,” he protested lightly. “I do not write well, and I am not gifted with fancy.”

  The queen held up her hand, wet with wine. “I’ll not have bargaining,” she said with the authority of her office. “I am convinced you can entertain me, remind me … teach me. It is a royal request, scolito. Will you deny your queen?”