by Carol Berg
On our way across the trampled grass of the open valley with my supplies, I saw Blaise and Elinor galloping off together toward the south end of the valley. “They seem in a hurry,” I said.
“Just off to see the old ones, I’d guess,” said the boy.
“Old ones?”
“Oh!” Mattei flushed as scarlet as the ajilea flowering in the grass. “I thought Blaise would have—We’re not supposed to talk about them, even among ourselves. I’m sorry. But I’m sure it would be all right if I told you. Blaise honors you so—”
“No, no. I don’t want you to speak of things you’ve been told not. Don’t worry about it. Blaise will tell me everything he wishes me to know.”
I had Mattei leave the water jar at the edge of the clearing by the stone hut, saying I’d come back for it. “I’ll introduce you to my companion another day,” I said. “He could use a good friend. He’s lost his home, seen his father and friends murdered, and heard people crying out and been unable to help them. It’s going to take awhile for him to learn to live with it. Right now he really doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”
“He’s in his quiet time,” said the boy.
“Aye,” I said. “That’s exactly it.”
CHAPTER 23
All of Taíne Keddar was subdued on that first afternoon, not just Aleksander. The six deaths in the raiding party had cast a shadow over the outlaw settlement, and most of the afternoon had been devoted to the burials. The Prince and I spent several jars of water, two towels, and a goodly while cleaning ourselves, then took a few minutes to visit the burial site of each of the fallen. Derzhi tradition bade a warrior honor those who had died fighting at his side, even if he didn’t know their names. Understanding how little Aleksander would be welcome, we did not intrude upon the funeral rites, but arrived just after and stayed just long enough to toss a handful of dirt on the grave and salute the fallen rider with our swords. This duty done under a barrage of silent stares, we retreated to our stone hut and slept.
Just after sunset, I walked up the path toward Blaise and four other men who stood beside a healthy blaze outside one of the larger tents at the valley’s edge. The evening breeze was damp after a brief shower, and I welcomed the prospect of a good fire and a hot meal, if not the uncomfortable society that was sure to accompany them. Aleksander was slow in getting his new boots back on, so he’d sent me on ahead, saying he would catch up.
A short, solidly round man was stirring a pot hung over the fire, but when he caught sight of me, he thrust the spoon into someone else’s hand and raised his arms in greeting. “Seyonne! Spirit’s flesh, it’s fine to see you.” Before I could get out a word, he was across the wide expanse of trampled, muddy grass, thumping me on the back, almost toppling me to the dirt in his enthusiasm. “The instant I heard the tale of the winged Ezzarian, I knew it was you come back.”
“I’d wondered if you were hiding from me,” I said, unable to restrain a grin at Farrol’s clumsy welcome. Ever since I had helped save Blaise’s reason and salvage his own grim future, I had suffered no more enthusiastic devotion than Farrol’s.
“Nah. Just running Blaise’s everlasting errands. With the size of our company, there’s no end to it. And more folk come to us every day.”
He put his arm around my shoulders and was practically dragging me toward the group by the fire, but before we got so far, I pulled him to a stop, took his hands, and examined them. They were wickedly scarred, and two fingers on his left hand were curled stiffly. He wiggled them, as if to demonstrate that he had some use of them. “I never had a chance to thank you, or to find out about your injury,” I said. “You saved—”
“I’m a bumbling oaf,” he said, pained sobriety dousing his exuberance. “Got a fine man killed and came near leaving myself a cinder because I didn’t know what I was about—first sending assassins after Blaise and then not knowing how to control the fire. But we did what we could, eh? It’s all a man can do.”
“You had no way to know, no reason to expect what happened. But I’ll never forget what you did. Never.”
“Have you seen him?” Farrol lowered his voice, as if the ones by the fire might be listening.
I shook my head. “Elinor’s not too happy about my being here.”
“She’s got a number of—”
“I don’t blame her,” I said, rushing ahead, not wanting him to feel he had to defend her. “I just can’t bring myself to ask it yet. Don’t even know if I should. But just to hear a word of him . . .”
Farrol’s broad face was filled with sympathy. “He’s well. A fine lad. Talks your ears numb when he gets after it. Runs and climbs and keeps healthy. Bright as sunlight on snow.”
I could not speak my relief and gratitude.
Aleksander limped out of the grove just then, and I waited for him to reach us. “My lord, this is Blaise’s foster brother Farrol. Farrol, this is—”
“I know who he is.” The round man’s jaw thrust itself out like the rocks that edged the valley. “If you weren’t with Seyonne, I’d introduce myself with a sword in your gut. Prayed for the opportunity to do that since I was a boy.”
With a stare that could have frozen a volcano, the Prince spread his empty hands wide as if inviting the man to do exactly as he said.
“The Prince is here under Blaise’s protection as well as mine,” I said hurriedly. “We’ve a great deal to learn from each other. Perhaps we’d best get to it.”
Farrol turned his back and walked away.
I glanced at the Prince as we followed Farrol across the meadow. His face was stone. Indeed his expression did not change during that whole evening, and he said nothing beyond the most necessary politeness as we ate and listened to Blaise and his friends talk about the raid on the slave caravan and those who had died.
In addition to Blaise and Farrol, Roche, the commander of the caravan raid, shared the supper pot. Out of his paint, he was a stringy, pockmarked Ezzarian of twenty-five or so, born demon-joined like Blaise and Farrol. As Blaise questioned the young commander about the problems with the raid, Roche cast sidelong glances at Aleksander and me, as if we might contradict him or laugh. He told how the Veshtar had fought more fiercely than he expected and how the Nyabozzi had been able to react to the surprise without a pause. Indeed, anyone setting out to fight the Derzhi and their allies should have known better what to expect, but neither Aleksander nor I offered any comment.
Gorrid, a squat, muscular Ezzarian in his mid-thirties, whom I had met briefly in Karesh, returned my greeting with a hostile glare and spat on Aleksander’s boots. His position made clear, he proceeded to ignore us both, neither addressing us nor acknowledging my abortive attempts at conversation.
The last of the company was a bearded Suzaini named Admet. Admet was clearly not a warrior. His long robes draped over a severely twisted back. He had the pleasant, outgoing, and authoritative manner of a merchant, and while Blaise and Roche discussed the raid, he stared with unembarrassed curiosity at the Prince and me. As the general conversation moved on, he asked us a few polite questions. Had someone found us a place to sleep? Did we need weapons or clothing or blankets? Had we injuries that needed tending? Once these exchanges were completed, he turned back to Gorrid and was soon laughing with the other man over some private amusement.
Farrol served out the supper of flet, a thick mush of boiled millet stuck together with pig fat and flavored with onion and scraps of meat. A poor man’s staple, it sat heavy in the gut, but would hold a man through lean days. As we ate, the talk turned back to outlawry, with Gorrid and Admet berating Blaise for poor scouting, insisting that better knowledge of the terrain was needed before commencing such large-scale ventures. I felt, rather than heard, Aleksander’s snort of disdain. No one else seemed to notice—except perhaps Admet, who flashed a sharp glance our way.
Elinor was not present, and no one mentioned her whereabouts. I listened to the conversation with only half an ear, preferring to let my mind dwell on a child as bright
as sunlight on snow, who ran and climbed and talked ears numb. Aleksander and I took our leave early, thanking Blaise and Farrol for the meal and returning to our beds without so much as a word between us.
As Mattei had recognized, the next weeks were indeed Aleksander’s quiet time. I had brought him to Taíne Keddar to heal and think, and he worked diligently at the physical healing, at least. He was off before I woke in the mornings, trudging up and down the hillside tracks to strengthen his leg. Sometime near midday, he would return to the hut, build a small fire, and make himself a cup of nazrheel. Then he would grab flatbread and honey or fruit and take it with him out to the grassy spots between the olive trees, where he would bend and squat and stretch, working to regain his flexibility. I assumed he was also doing a considerable amount of thinking during this time, but he shared none of it with me. When we were alone together, most often at night as we lay on our grass pallets in the stone shed, I tried to draw him into conversation, telling him what tidbits of news I had learned. He listened without comment, but did nothing to prolong the conversation. He was not rude or sullen, only distant, withdrawn from the intimacy of the past months, as if I were already departed on my long-delayed journey.
Because Aleksander occupied so little of my time, I tried to make myself useful around the encampment: helping with the building and hauling, cleaning the kill brought back by hunters, whatever was needed. I saw little of Blaise during those first few days and nothing of Elinor. From Mattei I gathered that Blaise’s sister was also one of his chief lieutenants, well respected among the company. Elinor and Admet, the Suzaini with the twisted back, set the timing of the outlaw ventures and chose the targets from the reports of scouts and sympathizers throughout the Empire. Unlike my earlier sojourn with the outlaw company, I was not invited to sit in on the sessions where they planned their activities, nor was I asked to teach the men and women fighting skills or sword work. I understood their feelings. How could I be trusted when I kept company with the living symbol of everything they detested?
After a few days I took up running again. Rising early as he did, Aleksander would throw himself on his pallet and fall instantly asleep as soon as we returned from Blaise’s fire. I was increasingly shy of falling sleep, however. My dreams had not abated, and rather than spend an unsatisfying night repeatedly waking myself up, I would run the length and breadth of Taíne Keddar under the stars until I dropped onto my pallet like a dead man.
Not long after our arrival, as Aleksander and I were seeing to our horses in the common pasture, a man rode into the valley with news. The Prince and I joined the hundred people who quickly gathered to hear the appalling tale. By the Emperor’s order, every village within ten leagues of Andassar had been burned, the man reported. Every field had been salted, every beast slaughtered. What few souls remained in the villages had been killed or sold. “What of the local lord?” said Aleksander, ignoring the surprised gawking of the crowd, who drew away from him when they realized who stood in their midst. “Did you hear news of the Derzhi Lord Naddasine?”
“I did,” said the rider, clearly not understanding who was asking. “The Naddasine first lord was accused of harboring the Kinslayer, for the tale had got back to the Emperor that the missing Prince was seen near Andassar. The old man was gutted and hanged as a traitor in Zhagad. The rest of the lot—his five sons and three daughters—were rounded up and given to the Veshtar.”
“Given? Enslaved?”
“Aye. Imagine it! Derzhi nobles sealed into slave rings. Though I’d say if they were only enslaved, even to the Veshtar, they got off lucky.”
Aleksander shoved his horse’s lead into my hand and walked away. No one who looked at him at that moment would have noticed anything out of the ordinary, but I had touched his cold hand and felt its trembling.
Every evening Aleksander and I walked the path through the gnarled olive trees to share Blaise’s food and fire. On the fourth evening of our stay, Elinor had joined the dinner company. She served a pottage of beans, carrots, and onions, and nodded politely when I thanked her. Later I saw her frowning, eyes narrowed, as I talked to Gorrid and Blaise about how Aleksander and I had come to be in Andassar and get involved in the raid on the slave caravan. I told myself not to worry so much. Time would reassure Elinor that neither Aleksander nor I was a threat. As to the past ... I knew I could have done nothing more to save Gordain, and that the horror I had wrought on the namhir was but a product of my madness. There was no need to feel guilty whenever I was around her. But of course I did. Such feelings are not subject to reason. She was the guardian of my child, and I longed to see him. I wanted her to think well of me.
As the others grew accustomed to our presence, conversation flowed more freely. Those who gathered at Blaise’s fire spoke of politics and hopes, of worries about supplies, of questions of geography, or of their small victories of the past months—the brutal overseer replaced when his lord’s almond harvest mysteriously vanished, or the peasants who had used their own lord’s wheat to pay their village’s crushing tax levy. The lively discussions provoked a number of arguments. Every person in Taíne Keddar fought for a different reason, some benevolent, some vengeful, some that were little more than a preference for creating havoc over following anyone else’s rules. While Blaise was the soul of the Yvor Lukash, infusing even the most mundane concern with the eloquence of true passion, Elinor was its head, her intelligent questioning leading the others to think beyond the limits of their education and experience. To see her argue Gorrid, the fiery debater, into confessing that it was probably useful to have one person to govern, rather than letting every man do as he pleased, or to watch her nudge the shy Roche into demonstrating his facility with verse, was unexpected pleasure.
Though I enjoyed listening to the exchanges and occasionally found myself tempted to offer an observation, I rarely did so. Elinor carefully avoided any repeat of our initial confrontation. She was polite, but cool, accepting the Prince and me, I believed, only because it was Blaise’s wish. But my active participation in the group seemed to force her behind a wall of reserve, depriving the whole company of her delightful conversation. So unless directly invited to add my comment, I took my pleasure by watching and listening.
Aleksander remained aloof, never speaking beyond an occasional “well enough” to Blaise’s inquiries as to his health and comfort. He always sat to the side, out of the firelight. Sometimes he watched the group of comrades as they talked and teased and argued, prodding one another to be better and wiser. Sometimes he kept his back to them, facing out into the camp where other men and women clustered around other cook fires, their laughter and serious talk blending with the distant bleat of goats and the calls of night birds. I worried about him, but he had closed me off along with everyone else, and I could find no word or deed to open the way again.
On one evening when we had lived in Taíne Keddar almost a month, Farrol asked me how to enchant a fire to burn brighter and longer, and I was taking him through the rudimentary steps, working at the difficult task of dissecting an action that had been second nature since I was seven. “No, the word is ‘felyyd,’ which means flame, not ‘flydd,’ which means damp,” I said when the supper fire hissed and almost went out, and then flared up hugely, threatening to melt the iron pot hanging over it. “And you don’t say it aloud.”
“But when I just think it, nothing happens ... not even when I think the right word,” said Farrol, his round cheeks drooping. No one could portray an image of dejection as could Farrol.
I smiled at him despite my frustration at being unable to explain something so simple. “Well, you see that’s the difficulty. You can’t just think it. You have to feel it, express it with melydda rather than thought or tongue. That’s the secret to simple enchantments. I’m sorry I can’t explain it better.”
We’d been at it for almost an hour, and by this time Blaise and Roche were engaged in the lesson with little success but great good humor. Gorrid was trying to boil chicken bones
for soup, and he kept grumbling at us to leave off, for he was either being singed by soaring flames or having to throw more sticks on the fire to keep it from going out. Admet, the Suzaini who had no melydda, sat on a log and laughed at us all. Eventually, the fire took on a slight silver-edged cast that told me someone was getting close to success, but I couldn’t figure out who it was.
Only Elinor and Aleksander remained aloof. Elinor sat in the light of a lantern, intent on some sewing project. Aleksander sat expressionless at the edge of the group, his chin propped on his fists and his eyes half closed.
“Linnie, why don’t you try it?” said Blaise, after Gorrid threw down a lid in exasperation when a sudden geyser of sparks threatened to set his arm afire. “You were taught some of this. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.”
“Why would I want to do such a thing?” she said, glaring at me as if I had made the suggestion. “Fires burn as they will, and one learns to control them with fuel and air. Only a fool cares about such tricks of magic.”
“This ‘trick’ can keep you warm if you’ve limited fuel,” I blurted out, caught off guard by the vehemence of her retort. “Or allow you to sleep safely when you’re desperate and there are wild creatures about, or enable you to eat or to cleanse wounds when you might not otherwise. Only a fool would refuse to learn what could save a life.” During my last two years in Ezzaria, I had fought continually with those who believed that sorcery should never be used to serve human purposes, but only to further the demon war. I thought I had left my resentments behind, but clearly I was wrong.
Elinor’s cheeks flamed scarlet and her lips tightened as she returned to her sewing. Our exchange had quenched the playful mood like a cold rain.
