Flesh and Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Up you go!” a voice called out of the pounding rain, and before Jerzy could process it, Giordan disappeared. In the next instant, something grabbed him by the belt, and hauled him up as well. His feet instinctively tightened around the object he was dumped on, his arms reaching around to grasp onto the cloak of his. . .assailant? Rescuer? The horse seemed not to even notice an additional rider, galloping madly for the safety of the city walls, and its dry roofs.

  The gates were open, and the market was in chaos as everyone scrambled for cover, although they rode past it too quickly for him to see details. Only when the horses thundered past the palazzo’s inner gates and were hauled to a stop, servants racing to take the reins, did Jerzy catch his breath long enough to realize that he knew one of their rescuers.

  “Sar Anton.” They huddled under a canopy two of the servants brought over, moving to the better shelter of the side entrance. No grand arrival for Jerzy this time, and he was just as thankful.

  “I take it this is your work, Vineart?” the courtier demanded, removing his sodden cloak with a grimace and handing it to a servant.

  “Ah, yes, my lord.”

  “No.” Jerzy felt like a significant idiot, but he would not hide behind another, nor let the Vineart take the scorn. “It was me. I. . .miscalled the spell.”

  “Hah.” Sar Anton sounded as though he had expected nothing less. “This,” he said, turning to the fourth rider, “is the. . .youth we were discussing. Jerzy, of House Malech.”

  The man Jerzy had been riding with was tall, with broad shoulders and close-cropped hair that could have been blond or gray, it was difficult to tell. He wore an odd sort of cloak made of fine-woven wool that left his arms free, but then fastened underneath to protect his body, then hung loose again around his legs, dyed dark red and without any kind of decoration. Jerzy had seen the sort of cloak before.

  The newcomer was a Washer.

  “Ah,” the man said now, blinking away rain and staring at Jerzy curiously. “And so he is.”

  Giordan rushed into speech. “This is not the time or place to be making introductions of a social nature, Sar Anton. Inside, inside! You, Arda! Sar Anton and his guest need towels and a place to rest themselves, and bring warm food as well, for they must be famished.”

  The servant made a quick bow, and waited for the two men to follow her.

  “Jerzy and I shall take ourselves off to our quarters, yes, and rejoin you soon, once we are likewise dry and redressed,” Giordan said, taking Jerzy by the soaked-through sleeve and leading him away even as he was chattering. “Yes, later.”

  As they went down the hallway, away from Sar Anton and the Washer, Giordan muttered under his breath, “much later.”

  The Vineart’s wing had a small bathing space set aside for them, something Jerzy was thankful for right that moment. Unlike the bath-house at home, the tub here was set into the floor itself, and two channels ran from the wall to the tub. You lifted the slide in the wall opening, and water flowed from the tanks into the tub itself. The left channel was for cool water, the right for heated.

  Even better, there was a fire pit built into the floor next to the tub, so the room stayed comfortable no matter how long you soaked. Today, Jerzy was more interested in the fire than the tub, having already gotten wet down to his skin.

  “I do not like this, I do not like this at all,” Giordan was saying, even as they shed their wet clothing and hung them on the rack, shivering a little while the fire did its work. “I do not like that Sar Anton mentions you to others, and I do not like that the Brotherhood takes notice.”

  “Because my being here bends the Command?” Jerzy pulled the latch and watched while heated water ran down the channel, steaming a little. He sat on the edge of the tub, his bare skin twitching at the feel of the cool slate, and let his feet take in the liquid warmth. The older Vineart had an ugly scar across his back, running from one sun-darkened shoulder to the opposite hip: a lash mark. Jerzy’s own scar from the overseer’s lash was a small thing, a barely noticeable white scar against his skin. Giordan had made someone terribly angry, once.

  If Giordan was aware of Jerzy’s scrutiny, he gave no sign. “Bends, yes. Does not break, does not counter, but it is not the usual; it is not the norm. Washers, they are good men, they are well-meaning men, but they have their ways and they do not like those ways to change. Bah. It may be nothing; Sar Anton has news of your coming and he will sell it for whatever he may achieve, and Washers, they talk to people as we harvest grapes, no? It may be nothing. Still,” Giordan continued, and sat down beside him to dunk his feet as well. “The Washers, already they look askance at me for my Agreement with the lord-maiar. They come to speak to me often, to test my obedience to the Command, and I cannot avoid them, but you should stay clear as much as you can, especially in light of the most recent little to-do.”

  As though to punctuate his comment, a clap of thunder sounded, audible even in the bath-space, and Jerzy flinched.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said miserably, reaching back to take a now-warm towel off the pile and drape it over his shoulders. “I thought I did the spell properly. . .did I misspeak it somehow? Did I take too large a mouth of the spellwine?”

  “I do not think it was your wording, or the wine,” Giordan said. “We all have our specializations, yes, and we train and grow with them. My own fault, for putting you to a task you could not but fail. No, no, there is no failure, only learning. Your master sent you here to learn how other vines are grown, to see if our ways might enhance your own, and perhaps teach us some of your ways. This we will do.”

  Jerzy’s sense of guilt didn’t go away, but he tried to console himself with the fact that Giordan didn’t seem too concerned about the rain damaging the grapes, so he, Jerzy, should not steal trouble. There would be time enough tomorrow, when the storm was over, to go out and see firsthand.

  “And the Washer? If he is interested in me. . .what do I do?”

  “Answer his questions,” came the answer, without hesitation. “Yes, answer his questions and do not shy away from conversation, but do not tell overmuch. Give him no reason to argue against the sharing of knowledge, in Sin Washer’s name. If he has no cause for concern, he cannot cause trouble.”

  Good advice, Jerzy knew. But a more pressing thought came to him, even as Giordan warned him away. What had Giordan said, that Washers talked to people? Talked, and listened, as people gave their worries to Sin Washer. Jerzy hadn’t gotten anywhere nosing around on his own. Maybe, while this Washer questioned him, he might also be able to question the Washer?

  STORM PASSING OVER the eastern ridge.

  Malech grunted, barely hearing the Guardian’s comment. He was on his knees in the field, his fingers digging into the soil to reach the base of the root-ball. “Steady the post,” he instructed the slave working with him, as he adjusted his hand slightly and poured a measure of spellwine over his fingers, letting it drip onto the dirt-tangled roots until the dirt was moist and he could feel the tingle of the magic starting to work. The rich red wine smelled of loam and new-mown hay and warm summer afternoons, and for a moment he could almost imagine that the potency was moving not into the plants, but his own tired body. . ..

  “All right, there.”

  The post came down with a muffled thump, and Malech slid his hands away just in time. Only then did he look up at the sky. It was pale blue, without a cloud visible. He frowned. There had been clouds there that morning, when he’d arrived at the vineyard. The winds were not hard enough that the sky should have cleared that much.

  A bad storm over the ridge, to the north and west of them, might have sucked up the clouds, but. . .why would Guardian have thought it important enough to mention?

  Weathervines. And a storm moving toward Aleppan.

  It might be coincidence, but he doubted it. He doubted everything, these days. Especially with the stone dragon bringing it to his attention. The Vineart had long suspected that Guardian kept a close eye on Ho
use Malech—even the members who were not currently in residence.

  “Ah, Jerzy. Whatever it is you two are doing, I hope you’re being careful. . . .” Giordan was a good Vineart, talented and open to new ideas, obviously, but Malech had been having second thoughts about allowing his student out of his sight for so long. More, the boy had not reported back; had the captain of the Baphios not sent back confirmation that the boy had been handed over into Giordan’s care, Malech would not have known for certain he was there. Had he made an error? Was the boy too young, too green still for the responsibilities placed on him?

  Idiot, he chided himself. The boy had been gone only a little over a week. If he had heard anything to report. . .if he had heard anything, it would mean the entire city was in uproar. That would have been far worse than silence.

  Malech got to his feet, slowly and with more aching and creaking than he remembered feeling the year previous, the side effects of the spellwine fading quickly. This was a job for Jerzy to be doing, with his far younger bones. Thankfully, this was the only field he needed to re-root; the others were all well established and needed only a basic mix of fertilizer and spellwine to be scattered at the base. He should be done and home by nightfall, and still have time to go over the accounts with Detta. He had been sadly neglecting those of late, and she was giving him meaningful looks that usually meant a lecture was forthcoming.

  She had already lectured him on the folly of sending the boy away, thinking—as did all others—that it was merely a quirk of his mind, to give the boy exposure to other grapes.

  Would that it were such innocent folly.

  “What are you up to, boy?” he asked, louder than he meant to, and the slave looked at him, startled and fearful. “No, not you. The old man is talking to himself. Go pull the next mothervine and wait for me.”

  The slave ducked his head in acknowledgment and scurried a few feet away to the next grouping, while Malech stared into the cloudless sky again, his face creasing in worry lines.

  The news from his messengers had dried up; whatever was happening—if anything at all was happening—had gone dormant for now. Either that, or they were not able to pass along word. Malech wasn’t sure which thought disturbed him more.

  A little over twenty years earlier the plague had struck Berengia, killing entire villages in a matter of days, leaving bodies even the carrion eaters would not go near, and no one knew until it was too late. Then, Malech had been able to study the symptoms and craft a healwine that stopped the plague from spreading. There was no spellwine that would work against an unknown enemy. He needed information!

  Sadly, his mirror would not work beyond the limits of the House, and the smaller mirror Jerzy carried could be triggered only in person. He had no choice—other than sending a messenger directly—but to wait.

  He would wait.

  Chapter 18

  Have you known Sar Anton long?” Jerzy asked, as, baths done and better clothing donned, they left the Vineart’s wing and made their way to the main hall.

  “Since I first came to Aleppan,” Giordan said. “He was not sar then, no, but a favorite of the lord-maiar and his lady, and held their daughter in his arms when she was a child. You are wondering why he came to gather you at the docks and takes such an interest in you now, yes?”

  “Yes.” It had seemed odd at the time, but so much had been happening, it had been crowded from his mind.

  “Sar Anton plays many games, juggling the favors of one, then another, to keep himself forever foremost. It is not a vicious game he plays; I do not doubt his loyalty to my lord-maiar, and he has never given me cause to doubt his intentions toward me. But he sniffs the winds constantly, and anything new must be determined: is it threat? Is it useful? He does not yet know what you are. Once he does, all will be well.”

  Jerzy wasn’t quite as reassured as Giordan intended. If Sar Anton caught Jerzy out, or found something objectionable in his questions to the Washer. . .could he cause trouble for Master Malech? Unlikely, but he would continue to be careful.

  There was the sound of feet moving at a fast pace on the floor, and a voice hailed them. “Ah, Jerzy!”

  “Ao.”

  The trader was dressed well, but his short black hair was ruffled as though he’d been running a hand through it, and his round face was flushed. “Ah, is it true? Did you call up this storm?”

  Jerzy groaned. Ao’s excitement just made him feel more like an idiot, especially if the story was spreading over the entire city so quickly.

  “I had him call up rain, and things got a little overdone,” Giordan said, trying to downplay it. “And who might you be, young master?”

  Jerzy shoved his shame down long enough to make the introductions. “Vineart Giordan, this is trader Ao of the Eastern Wind trade delegation. Ao, this is—”

  “Vineart Giordan! And now I have met two Vinearts! Most wonderful.” Ao looked wide-eyed and enthusiastically innocent—exactly the expression he had chided Jerzy for, at their first meeting. “Vineart, if I may borrow Jerzy? We have not had a chance to speak recently, and. . .”

  “Of course.” Giordan was nodding as though this were the best suggestion he had heard in a tenday. “Go on. No, Jerzy, everything else can wait. I have been driving you hard, and it is good for a boy to have friends of his own age, yes. I will make your apologies to Sar Anton and his companion. They will understand, I know.”

  Jerzy thought that Giordan looked just a trifle relieved to be rid of him, but couldn’t blame the older man at all. Despite his plan to use the Washer, he hadn’t been looking forward to rejoining the other men, either.

  As though worried Giordan might change his mind, Ao took Jerzy’s arm and led him down the hallway, walking quickly.

  “Are they really saying I caused the storm?”

  Ao dropped the wide-eyed look once it got him what he wanted, and instead looked wickedly excited. At Jerzy’s question, he shrugged. “Some are. Mostly they’re impressed, Jerzy; why do you look so worried?”

  “A storm like this . . . rain is good, but too much rain can rot the grapes, or flood the soil, or—”

  “Oh.” Ao’s expression flickered to concern for a moment. “I hadn’t thought of that. Still, the rain’s almost stopped, so it wasn’t that bad, was it?” He dismissed Jerzy’s worries, and the spark of excitement came back. “And it did some good, because the presentation-of-goods ceremony I was supposed to be at was postponed, everything’s been running late, so I was able to find you, the way I promised. Now come on, over here.”

  “Here” was a narrow wooden door set into a passageway. It had a lock on it, but swung open easily when Ao pushed at it. Behind the door was an equally narrow stairwell that led up to a gallery. It was dark and dusty, the only light coming in through a lattice against the far wall. A single bench set by the lattice suggested that at one time someone had waited there.

  “A good snoop should always have at least one place where he can listen without being disturbed. I found this one my second day here—it’s over the maiar’s public rooms,” Ao whispered, his voice barely carrying to Jerzy’s ear, a handspan away. “You can sit here and not be seen, but hear everything.”

  Jerzy looked around dubiously, then back down the stairs. “Ao, if we’re found—”

  “Shhhh. If we’re found, they’ll skin us alive. Or just box our ears. What are you afraid of, Jerzy? It’s not like we are listening on his bed-chamber! If you don’t risk, you don’t earn!”

  Jerzy wasn’t quite sure that was true, but the lure of listening in on something he had been shut out of overcame any other hesitations, and he moved forward to join Ao at the screen.

  “And so, my lord,” a man standing several feet below them was saying, in the tone of someone who is summing up a foregone conclusion, “it behooves us to read closely into what the esteemed Negotiator is asking, and determine what it is that they truly desire.”

  “My lord-maiar! To imply that we desire anything other than—”

&nb
sp; “Negotiator, we all want more than we ask for. The implication is a fair one, if not kindly phrased.” The voice, deeper and older sounding than the others, had to belong to the maiar himself.

  The Negotiator protested. “We ask only for what is fair and just, no more. What we may desire is of no consequence—all men have desires they do not bother to name, my lord.”

  “You have already been given what is fair. You ask now for more than is fair, and that is no treaty but a demand that cannot be met,” the first man retorted, snorting with his disdain for the other man’s words.

  “They’ve been chewing over this treaty for a week or more, already,” Ao told Jerzy. “Back and forth until even I’m dizzy with the talk.”

  “What is it a treaty for?”

  Ao lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Something to do with water rights between two villages. A spring ran dry, and now they have to share a single well until a new one is built, and arguments broke out, and so the smaller village brought a Negotiator to speak for them. Their taxes will go up for his hire, that’s for certain. Someone must have near gotten killed, otherwise the council would have heard it, not the maiar. Aleppan will make money on this, no matter how it falls out.”

  “How? How do you know all this?”

  Ao gave an exasperated sigh, and his whisper was louder than before. “I’ve been trading since I was fourteen, Jerzy. I told you, if you listen and watch, you can learn almost anything. Aleppan, as the maiar’s seat, holds the leash on all negotiators in Corguruth. The maiar is not the sole authority—he has to deal with the city council on most things—but he has the final say, and the only say on matters of the villages surrounding the city, like these two.”

  Below them, the first man was speaking again, painting a picture with his words of a village being asked to give up their own rights to the fresh water for the benefit of others and not being compensated fairly in return. Listening, Jerzy thought that the man made a good argument, but something about it felt unfair, nonetheless. It wasn’t the smaller village’s fault that the well had run dry, was it?