Shard & Shield

by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

  He smiled up at her. “As soon as I can be.”

  Once he had been the chosen champion, a high prince doniphan, and half-brother to Oniwe’aru. He was far too valuable a political piece to let lie, and so a match had been arranged. Tamaryl had no objections; Daranai was of a wealthy and powerful family, and she was beautiful, and vivacious, and ambitious. Any worries he might have had regarding a dull conjoining of political convenience had been laid aside. A match with Daranai could never be dull.

  And then he had gone to protest the unceasing battles, and all had changed.

  “Daranai’rika,” he said, “I have something to ask of you.”

  “Yes?”

  “I brought a human woman with me, a mage.”

  She grimaced. “Oh?”

  “She is ill with the between-worlds and our atmosphere. My house is—not yet open, and I do not want to leave her in the Palace of Red Sands. Could you keep her here?”

  Daranai looked discomfited, the first time he could remember seeing her so. “A human?”

  “I will leave Maru to tend to her, so you will not need to see to anything. But your home will be a better place for her than Aktonn or the Red Sands.”

  Daranai exhaled and nodded. “If you wish, Tamaryl’sho.”

  He clasped her hands. “Thank you, Daranai’rika. I will bring her this evening. And we shall dine together?”

  “Won’t you be with Oniwe’aru? Perhaps we could dine with him.”

  Tamaryl shook his head. “Not tonight. I am free to dine with you.” It wasn’t surprising that Oniwe had put off his official welcome. Tamaryl’s return was potentially embarrassing for the ruler who had offered a price for his death, though Oniwe would surely have a solution soon.

  Daranai seemed to catch his thought. “It is still Tamaryl’sho, yes?”

  “I am returned to my rank and titles, yes, provided I complete this task to satisfaction.”

  “Then you must not fail it!” Daranai took his hand and pulled them close. “How long will you be gone?”

  He shook his head. “I do not know.”

  She stood near him, pressing his hand, so that he could smell her, feel the warmth of her body in the cool evening air. Fifteen years….

  Daranai was a head taller than Tamaryl, with high, curving wings, and when she stood near him he had a delicious sensation of potential envelopment. He looked at her neck, tantalizingly close before his eyes, and felt years of loneliness for his own kind suddenly pressing upon him.

  Too soon, she drew away a little distance, smiling playfully. “But it has been so long—I don’t even recall what you like. Perhaps a different glamour? What do you think?” She turned, tossing red-gold hair for effect and looking with a smile for his response.

  Beautiful women had never so much as glanced at the slave boy Tam. They certainly had never flirted with him, seeking compliments as they sought to charm. Tamaryl swallowed and yet heard his voice husky as he responded, “You look splendid, Daranai’rika. As always.”

  “As you remembered me?” She drew close again.

  Tamaryl’s pulse quickened. “Yes.”

  He was a guest in her home; she led the evening. She could take him into the dining room, or she might lead him into a garden or private alcove….

  She bent her face toward his. “I missed you, Tamaryl’sho.” She reached for his face, letting her fingertips trail along his jaw. “For years, I have missed you.”

  Tamaryl caught his breath. “Daranai’rika….” He felt wooden with resisting the urge to take her in his arms. Her eyes gripped his, and he could almost feel her silky skin against his own.

  A few droplets from the fountain spray reached them. She regarded him with artfully widening eyes. “But do you even want me, Tamaryl’sho? You have not so much as embraced me since—”

  Slaves stood immobile until instructed otherwise—a prince doniphan did as he pleased. Tamaryl swept his arms around her, seeking her mouth which met his enthusiastically. Her hands wrapped around his back, teasing the sensitive roots of his wings. For a long moment they kissed, waking Tamaryl’s memories of feminine delights.

  Finally she pushed him away, laughing. “Did they have no females in the human world, Tamaryl’sho? You are a thirsty traveler in the desert!” Her fingers ran lightly over his bare upper arms.

  Tamaryl’s muscles twitched beneath her play. “I was not in a position to know many human women. And none were like you, Daranai’rika.”

  She smiled, pleased. “And yet you brought a human woman here with you.”

  “That is different,” Tamaryl said, mesmerized by the way she ran her nails down the underside of his arm to take his hand. “That was to save her life.”

  She tugged him toward one of the alabaster archways. “If it pleases you. Now come—I would have had a lovely supper if I’d known you were coming, but we’ll have to make do on my usual fare.”

  After her flirtatious teasing, Tamaryl was not hungry for supper, but he was embarrassed at his susceptibility and said nothing. Daranai was right: he had come through fifteen years of famine to be suddenly offered a feast. He was too eager.

  They sat across from one another, and he let his folded wings settle over his chair’s low back. Wine had already been poured into crystal bowls. Tamaryl took a drink and rolled it on his tongue, savoring it. Daranai offered a splendid wine…. Briefly Tamaryl wondered how his Ryuven body would handle the drink.

  Daranai rang a small bell and a nim entered, this one a young male with fine features and hair so pale it shone silver, bearing a tray of steaming dishes. The food was excellent and plentiful, and Tamaryl ate with relish. Mage Hazelrig had never shorted him, of course, but Mother Harriet’s meals for the household servant were not equal to Daranai’s exalted house, and he had missed Ryuven delicacies.

  “Thank you,” he said, “for allowing Ariana and Maru to stay while I am away.”

  Daranai waved her hand. “It is no trouble. And if we are joined, Maru will need to understand my household.” She smiled. “Do what you must. Things will be fine here.”

  Chapter 24

  Luca woke at the sound of the latch. Shianan pushed back the door, grey and exhausted, and Luca got to his feet. “Master?”

  “That amulet works pretty well. I hardly feel these blasted ribs. That, or I’m too tired to notice.”

  He had not corrected Luca’s address. “Shall I bring you something?”

  “No, I want nothing.” He looked longingly at his bed. “Only sleep.”

  Luca resisted the urge to kick his blanket behind him. “Should I tell any who come you are—”

  “No, no. No, don’t do that.” Shianan closed the door. “‘Soats, if anyone hears I’m sleeping through this crisis—no.” He cast another long glance at the bed. “Still….”

  The man needed rest, that was plain enough, and time to heal. Suggesting a slave knew best was dangerous ground. But some part of Luca saw his master was too exhausted for anger, and some deeper part recognized something else in Shianan. He spoke before he could lose confidence. “Some say matters are clearer after sleep. There may be better news after you have rested.”

  Shianan looked at him a long moment, and Luca felt the ground cracking beneath him. But then Shianan gave a small, sick chuckle. “You’re right. Tell anyone who comes I am—invent something. King’s oats, I’m tired.” He went to the bed and lay down, careful of his bruised side.

  He stirred in his sleep, like his troubled dreams of the night before, occasionally catching his breath as his injured ribs shifted. Luca settled himself against the wall, intact shoulder taking his weight, and drowsed.

  Two hours later, the commander woke. He sat up carefully, rubbing at his head, and looked at the high windows admitting light while guarding the room’s privacy. He groaned. “So late?”

  Luca stood from his place against the wall.

  Shianan shifted, holding his breath as he moved. “Bring me some water.”

  “The pitcher is empty
, master.”

  “Then you have your first duty.”

  Luca glanced at the door. “I….”

  “Go.” Shianan’s voice was hoarse and irritable. “Bring water. And food. That’s not beyond your injuries. And your own, too; you’re scrawny and you’ll need food to heal.”

  Luca went out.

  He stood awkwardly in the courtyard, aware of how little he knew his new surroundings. Across the wide yard he could see the entrance to the palace itself, busy with couriers and guarded by armed men. To his left was a fountain, where someone was filling a pitcher, and a series of long, low buildings. Men in uniform were moving among them, talking, laughing, jostling one another. That would be the military grounds.

  The last time he had seen so many soldiers…. He swallowed, as if the chain collar pressed his throat. They had been penned within a hastily-built solid panel fence, bunched together like so many sheep awaiting shearing. Archers waited outside with nocked arrows, ordered to aim for any flesh which appeared above the boards. They had been shoved close together, without room to sit, with barely room to breathe the suffocating hot air full of sweat and urine and blood as they shuffled forward, and as the hours passed and the sun climbed overhead some of the captured rebels had fallen senseless. What became of them Luca never knew, because he was pressed with the others into a narrow chute which squeezed them to one or two abreast, and at the end of the chute was a roaring hot smithy where a dozen soldiers waited to seize the prisoners as they stumbled out, twisting their arms and forcing them to their knees as chain collars were forged onto their necks and wrist cuffs fitted on those who did not have them.

  A few enterprising merchants waited outside the forge, pointing at some they felt might be a worthwhile investment, but most would waste neither time nor money on those taken at Furmelle. Luca had been chained together with nineteen others and left in a stall for auction, sold two weeks later to replenish the army’s funds after the campaign. They had brought poor prices among hundreds of rebellious slaves dumped on the market at once, but the army had been more concerned with being rid of them.

  Luca pushed the image from his mind. Now he must think on serving his current master, if he meant to avoid the auctions again. Twice on the block was enough.

  The dining hall stood open, showing long tables and benches. At the far end he saw the kitchen itself, separated by a wide stone arch. There was a knot of men laughing among themselves. Luca circled them, but of course they saw him anyway. “Who are you?” one called, still chuckling at his friend’s last joke.

  “I serve Shianan Becknam, the—”

  “You’re the bastard’s boy? I didn’t know the commander kept a slave.”

  “He might as well,” another commented dryly. “Being he’s a count and all, now.”

  “What’s this?” Someone reached to pluck at the chain collar. “Furmelle?”

  Luca shrank from the grasp. “I wasn’t….”

  All humor left the group. “How many of our men did you kill, boy?”

  Panic rose. “I killed no one. I was taken by mistake.”

  “Heh! You and every other pignut we took.” A soldier stepped forward to fill Luca’s vision. “But you thought you could take us, didn’t you?”

  “No!” Luca was sweating. “I need to bring the meals.”

  “We feed soldiers,” the cook said roughly, “and we don’t give their food to dogs of Furmelle. Come back when the serving’s done and you can have yours like the other slaves.” He shouted over his shoulder. “Andrew! Something for the commander!”

  A kitchen slave beckoned Luca to one side, and a moment later he offered a tray with vegetable soup, half a fowl, and a large chunk of bread. “I know the commander has a healthy appetite,” he said, eying Luca as he produced an additional tin cup of soup, “so here’s a little extra.”

  Luca gave him a tight smile. “Thanks.”

  “Watch your step. A lot of these men fought at Furmelle. Some of their fellows didn’t come back.”

  Luca nodded soberly. He did not know how he could be anything other than what he was, but the warning was well-received.

  “If you’re with the commander,” Andrew said, “is it true, what they’re saying, that something happened to the shield?”

  Luca blinked, unable to believe he might not know. The ritual, the scorching whip, the purple iridescence, the collapsing hemisphere—they were so vivid, how could anyone have missed them? “Yes,” he answered. Then he hesitated. Shianan had warned him not to mention the Ryuven, but the shield itself?

  Andrew’s eyes were on him. “Are the Ryuven coming?”

  Luca hadn’t yet considered the inevitable result of the shield’s destruction. “I don’t know.”

  “Andrew!” barked one of the other cooks.

  “Thanks for the food,” Luca said quickly. “I’ll bring the dishes later.”

  He paused just outside the door and hastily drained the second cup of soup before starting back. He was nearly to the office when he saw three uniformed soldiers coming toward him. He dropped his eyes, telling himself they weren’t coming for him. They were only walking past him, they did not want him….

  But one of the soldiers sidestepped and struck Luca’s shoulder with his own. Little shoots of pain jolted through Luca’s back and soup leapt from the cup. The soldier spun. “Watch where you’re going!”

  Luca took a step back. “I—”

  “About what you’d expect from a Furmelle,” observed another of the soldiers.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” demanded the first, stepping closer. “You think you can step into a free soldier and then just walk on?”

  The three were fanning around him. “I’m sorry,” Luca tried. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Shut up!” The soldier struck at him, but Luca ducked with long habit and felt only a glancing blow. The second struck the side of Luca’s head, making him stumble back. The roast fowl tumbled to the ground.

  “Soldiers!” snapped a voice. Luca, reeling, sensed the three drawing themselves upright and he retreated a few steps.

  Shianan Becknam tugged at his tunic as he strode toward them. There was no hesitation in his step; if his ribs pained him, he hid it well. “What’s going on here?”

  The soldiers shifted. “We were just—telling this slave—keeping him out of the public way,” one offered awkwardly.

  “Out of the way?” repeated Shianan. “It looked to me that you were interfering with his work.”

  The soldiers glanced at one another. “No, no. He can still do his work, sir. We just wanted him to watch where he was going, you see, and stay out of soldiers’ way.”

  “Is that so?” Shianan faced the man. “Because I saw you pushing him the other direction, making me wait for him.”

  Something registered in the soldier’s mind. “Making—you wait, sir?”

  “Would any of you,” Shianan asked pointedly, “consider disobeying my orders ordinarily?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Then I’d expect you would not interfere with the orders I give others. And that includes my slave.” Shianan’s expression was flinty. “Am I understood?”

  “Perfectly, sir!”

  “Luca!”

  Luca straightened. “Yes, master?”

  “Do as you were told.”

  “Yes, master.” Luca retrieved the fallen meat and hurried toward the office. If Shianan said anything more to the soldiers, Luca did not hear it, but when he glanced back, they were slinking away.

  Inside, Shianan looked over the cup of soup as Luca tore the dirtied skin from the roast bird. “They saw the collar, I suppose? Well, we were already going to the slavers, so it’s no matter. How’s your back?”

  Luca, stunned, could hardly answer. “Uh—it’s—well enough, my lord.”

  “Let’s go then.” Shianan tossed down the rest of the soup and took the chicken to eat as he started out the door.

  Chapter 25

  Luca stared after
him for a shocked moment before following. The slave market? But why? How had he displeased his master already—or had he been saved merely for profit?

  He considered running, but only briefly. He would not be able to escape, not in a crowded street where Shianan needed only to shout, not with wrist cuffs and a Furmelle collar to mark him wherever he went.

  Endure, Luca.

  Luca clenched his fists. Liar. Liar.

  His footsteps slowed, putting off the stables and auction block that awaited. Shianan paused at a carved sign displaying a chained wrist and spoke to the man standing beneath it. The man leaned on a heavy staff and nodded.

  Shianan turned and seemed surprised to find Luca so far behind him. He gestured, and Luca went obediently to them.

  “And the collar,” Shianan continued.

  The trader with the staff nodded. “But these cuffs aren’t unusual, your lordship,” he said, taking Luca’s wrist and turning it. “They’re very typical for field labor, actually. You want something smaller?”

  “He’s not field labor,” Shianan said, “and I don’t like the look. A friend of mine fitted his slave with smaller cuffs, and I think I’d prefer that.”

  The trader nodded. “Customer knows what he wants. Come on back.”

  Luca glanced at Shianan. Was he not being sold, after all?

  They followed the trader through the chained slaves waiting for sale to the small stone forge that accompanied every slaver’s stables. The trader rapped on the stone with the staff to draw the smith’s attention. “Customer wants smaller cuffs.”

  The smith glanced at Luca’s wrists and shook his head. “Nope. Don’t have any smaller than that, not ‘til tomorrow or the day after.”

  “You could come back then, your lordship.”

  Shianan shook his head. “Go ahead and take these off. We’ll be back for the others later.”

  The smith snorted. “Even if you wanted to, it’s against the law.”

  “I am the law,” Shianan answered with a faint smile. “Aside from my current position, I was a commander at Furmelle. I don’t think anyone will complain against my slave.”

  The smith frowned dubiously. “If you say so, sir.” He motioned Luca into the building with a jerk of his shaggy head. “Wrists on the table, and don’t move.”