“Yet another proposed trade agreement?” Tam’s eyes flicked over the page as he read and reread. “Indeed, leaping directly into central marketplaces would be very efficient. But for what?”
“What do the Ryuven have to offer us?”
Tam sighed. “Exactly. The question of generations: who would trade with a Ryuven, and for what?”
“But few believe you raid out of hunger,” Ewan Hazelrig put in. “They see the raids as destructive as well as thieving, and at times battles occur with no seizure of goods at all.”
“That’s a function of vain glory-chasing by our idiotic sho,” grumbled Tam.
“Regardless, I think most nowadays believe the Ryuven take the warehouse stores simply to wreak damage rather than for their own use. And the Ryuven haven’t done much to alter that impression.”
“But one-sided demand will lead to nothing.” Tam gestured in frustration. “There’s a chance Oniwe’aru will listen now, but we must find something which humans want and the Ryuven can provide. Trade requires viable demand.”
Ariana sighed. “I wish you could bottle your magic. That might be useful.” She drew the paper back and began doodling in the margin. She wanted to speak to Shianan, to confirm he was truly safe after the Court of the High Star. She wanted the Alham court to forget his bastard status and their suspicion. She wanted to hear Oniwe’aru’s assurances he would not send Tamaryl again to pillage their farms. She wanted Tam to be safe in their world. She wanted so many things, and so few of them would be granted….
She rubbed her eyes tiredly; she would think of nothing useful soon. “I can’t solve a crisis of kings tonight.”
Her father looked at her with concern. “Go on to bed; you’re still recovering. Tam and I will let you know if we find anything.”
She did not believe they would, and neither did they, but none of them would say so. “Good night.”
Chapter 66
Shianan gave a small wave to the attendant as they left the baths and went into the frigid air. Moonlight glistened off wet stones, and they shivered in the wind.
“Rain?” Shianan winced as ice struck his bruised cheek. “Sleet. Splendid.”
Luca ducked his head against the wet, stinging wind. “I’ll build up the fire when we arrive.”
Shianan drew up his hood and tucked his hands beneath his arms. “And while you’re doing that, I think I’ll sleep. Again.” He shivered and shook his cloak so that it overlapped around him. “Or, perhaps, I’ll eat something and then sleep. I’ve only just realized I haven’t had a proper meal in days. Is there anything left from the merchants?”
Luca shook his head. “No. But I’ll find something.”
Shianan slipped on an icy cobblestone. “The kitchen won’t be open at this hour.” Around them the streets were nearly empty.
“I’ll go to a bakery. There will be someone preparing dough for the morning baking. They’ll sell a loaf.”
“Thanks.” Shianan slipped again, and he adjusted his pace. Luca nodded and turned away to a cross street.
Shianan watched him go. Let’s go home, Luca had said. It was a comfortable phrase.
Shianan looked ahead and saw a sheen of ice on the bridge. He shivered—he hated the rain, and cold rain in particular. What fortune that this freezing sleet had not come two nights before, when he was chained on the parapet, he thought acidly. He did not want to relive that night.
He glanced down, picking his footing on the slick stones, and started across the bridge. Twenty feet or so beneath him, the water moved sluggishly, pushing thin sheets of ice across its surface. The steep walls of the river’s channel, cut by centuries into the stone, glistened with freezing rain. Shianan looked down the river, bright in the moonlight, and wished he were already home. He wished he’d thought to ask Luca to put a warming stone in his bed when he’d gone for fresh clothing. After his night on the walk and two days beaten and hungry, Shianan craved warmth.
Some instinct warned him to turn just as the men behind him fanned across the bridge. Two held staves and one had a sword. Shianan gulped cold air and seized initiative. He could not allow them to attack in a concerted effort.
He tore the cloak from his shoulders and snapped it toward the nearest staff, slowing the weapon long enough to lunge within its reach as it spun against his back. The attacker retreated but not quickly enough, and he did not know how to defend himself from someone within the circle of his weapon. Shianan snapped the man’s head upward sharply and took the staff from him.
He whirled, expecting to see the others closing on him, but they held their ground. Shianan had one heart-pounding instant of joy in seeing them respect the distance, and then he saw the archer.
It was only a small crossbow, a thing for hunting, but it would be enough. He had not seen it at first, but it was undeniable now, raised and targeted on him. The man beside the archer held no weapon. He was the leader. And he, Shianan realized, was the merchant Jarrick Roald.
“What do you want?” Shianan growled, keeping the staff ready. The crossbow could kill, but if the bolt missed he would have a few precious seconds before the archer could reload.
Roald looked unhappily determined. “I’m sorry, commander. I liked you, I think. But you’re in the way of our alliance, and you have to go.”
“What alliance?” Shianan stayed still. “I even offered you the contract. What else do you want?”
“You never signed it.”
“I’ve been busy.”
Roald didn’t acknowledge the grim humor. “Even with the contract, the alliance won’t profit as much as when their own men were in place. You ended that, and so they decided to replace you with someone more agreeable.”
“They?” Shianan repeated. “This alliance of yours?” He had to find a way to discharge that crossbow without taking the bolt himself. “Roald, think. You can’t kill me without drawing attention.”
Roald shook his head. “They say you have to die tonight. Karlm is in prison for your attempted murder. If you die while he’s under guard, it clears him from suspicion.”
“This is madness. Roald, your house will profit with the contract I offered. You don’t need to do this.”
“It isn’t my choice.”
He should have died immediately, Shianan realized. The delay was evidence the reluctant Roald could be dissuaded. But if the archer released, even Roald’s regret could not help Shianan.
As if hearing Shianan’s thoughts, the remaining man with the staff moved impatiently. “Are you going to talk him to death? Do it, if you will!”
Roald looked at him sharply but said nothing. His throat worked and after a moment he began, “Then—”
“Stop!” Luca’s voice shrieked from the end of the bridge. “Stop! Jarrick, don’t!” Luca plunged across the slick bridge, slipping. “Jarrick, don’t do this!”
Roald spun around, jaw hanging. Luca ran toward him frantically, arms pumping and flailing as he slid on the ice. “Stop!”
“Get back!” snapped the archer, turning toward the approaching slave.
Roald whipped toward him, reaching for the crossbow. “No—!”
“Don’t!” shouted Shianan.
“Jarrick, don’t—!”
The mechanical snap was crisply loud in the night air as the crossbow released. Luca recoiled and slipped on the ice. His momentum and the slight crest of the bridge carried him easily the arm’s reach to the edge, where he clawed wide-eyed at a pillar and then slipped from sight.
“No!” screamed Jarrick and Shianan together. Shianan leapt forward, intent on reaching the archer before he could reload. The archer reached for a bolt and jammed the endcap into the track with wide eyes, knowing the danger. Shianan closed the distance and the archer made a fair attempt to block the staff with the half-loaded crossbow, but Shianan reversed it and drove the other end hard into the man’s face. He wheeled and evaded a sword slash, using the staff’s superior reach to ram the swordsman’s abdomen. He followed by closing and hitting hard, st
unning the swordsman. The remaining attacker was not closing.
Shianan did not wait to finish his attackers or even to see if they meant to continue. He bolted for the end of the bridge, already calculating. There was an old, narrow street which dropped to the level of the river, known appropriately enough as Old River Street, and from there he might be able to find Luca and pull him from the stone channel before he was carried into the sea. But he had to hurry—the water was icy, Shianan was not sure if the bolt had struck him or not, and Luca might have been further injured in the fall.
“Wait!” called a frantic voice behind him. “Your lordship, wait!”
Shianan had no time for Roald. He took a corner to a street which ran downhill.
“Bailaha!”
Shianan took the next corner too fast and slipped on the ice-glazed street. He landed hard, awakening every ache and bruise he’d collected. He sucked air through his teeth and scrabbled painfully to his feet. He could hear Roald’s steps echoing through the empty streets. “Wait!”
Shianan started limping downhill again. The older roads curved and dipped, darkened by leaning buildings and stinking with garbage. A couple of dogs barked from the shelter of their alley. Shianan hurried as best he could, cold air ripping at his lungs. He was taking too long. How would Luca survive the water?
Then he was within sight of the river, and he rushed to the dirty paved edge where the poor threw their trash into the water. The current here pushed debris toward the bank as the river bent upon itself. He sank painfully to his knees and peered across the moonlit river, straining his eyes. Bundles of trash and clumps of garbage tormented him. Where was Luca? Had he clung to some other part of the channel? Was he swimming somewhere, looking for a place he could climb out of the river? The sleet-iced walls would not permit that….
There! He stared at a larger dark shape in the water, not far from the bank. That was a man, certainly. He leaned forward, but the shape was beyond the reach of his staff.
The clothing and cloak bulged with trapped air, keeping him mostly afloat as he drifted with the current. But the man’s face was hidden in the water as he floated unmoving.
Shianan fought down a surge of panic and reached again, straining forward as far as he could. The tip of the staff touched the ballooned cloak. He twisted and teased and toyed until the staff caught in the cloak, and he began to coax the body toward him.
It couldn’t be Luca, he breathed. Sweet Holy One, let it be some poor murdered soul who was dumped in the river. Luca wasn’t floating this still, he was swimming somewhere around the bend, he was fine, he was not drifting face down in an icy river….
The body reached the edge, bumping gently into the stone and paving bank, and Shianan reached down for it, seizing a handful of cloth. But he could not haul it clear of the water. He tried again and again, grunting with the effort, but the body was too heavy with water and he was too weak. He sobbed a prayer and tried again and yet again.
Someone moved beside him and another hand groped for a hold on the body. “It’s Luca?” breathed Roald. “That was Luca?”
They pulled together and the limp form came reluctantly from the water. Shianan fell backward with the momentum and then scrabbled forward, helping Roald roll the body so they could see the face.
It was Luca, icy to the touch. There was no sound of his breathing, and his open eyes showed wide, dilated pupils.
Shianan was unable to move. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible that Luca could be dead….
Roald stared mutely, dull shock over his features. Shianan fell forward and jerked at the laces of tunic and shirt, baring Luca’s pale chest. He put his ear to the chest—the skin was cold, far too cold—and heard nothing.
No. Please, sweet Holy One, no.
There was a tiny whisper of sound—Shianan was not sure if he’d imagined it or if he’d heard only the pulse of his own ear. He laid his hand across Luca’s throat and felt nothing. Luca did not move. Shianan remained frozen for a long count of ten, when the whisper of sound came again.
Was that a heartbeat? It was far too slow to be a heartbeat…. There was no pulse. Luca could not be living. But….
Shianan had frozen to near-death on the outpost walk. He might have died in such exposure, but he had lived.
He rocked upright and grabbed Luca with shaking hands. “Help me.” His teeth chattered. “Help me carry him.”
Roald looked at him with a tear-streaked face. “Who near here will hold the body until—”
“No! Help me carry him. We have to take him to the baths.”
Roald stared, uncomprehending, but he obeyed. Shianan took Luca’s legs, knowing he could never manage the shoulders, and staggered toward the hill. The Kalen baths were not far from the river, and the gate attendant might still be present. If he could hear their calls for help….
It was an arduous journey uphill with Luca’s sodden, frigid body, but they did not pause except for the times Shianan slipped and fell to his knees, clutching Luca’s ankles one-handed as he pushed himself up again. They dared not waste a moment. If that faint, faint sound had been a heartbeat, if there were a chance, they could not lose time. He prayed he was not deluding himself.
He led Roald to the Kalen baths and fell against the ornate gates. “Help,” he called weakly, realizing no one would ever hear his thin, cracking voice. “Help us….”
“Hello!” shouted Roald. “Open the gates! Hurry!”
It seemed a long time until the gates opened, but the attendant hurried to grasp the limp body slumping between them. “What is it? What’s—” His eyes fell on the cuffs exposed as Luca’s body dangled. “A slave?”
“Never mind that,” snapped Shianan. “We need him inside.”
The attendant looked at Shianan, apparently recalling that despite his battered appearance, he had been invited by the prince and was probably too important a personage to irritate with questions or protests that the baths were closed. He nodded and took Luca’s legs at the knees, relieving Shianan’s burden.
He took them to a room near the front where the bath water steamed and they eased Luca onto the couch. Shianan began ripping feverishly at Luca’s sodden clothing. “Get these off him. And we need hot drink. Lots of hot drink.”
“I’ll send for it.” The attendant ran from the room.
Shianan glanced after him and then turned toward Roald. “Bring Captain Torg. We need him here.”
Roald shook his head as he yanked a boot from Luca’s lifeless leg. “I’m not leaving.”
“We need Captain Torg!”
“He’s my brother! I won’t leave!”
Shianan had no patience for this. “Be realistic—I barely made it here. I’ll never make good time. You have to go.”
“I can’t—”
“Go!” Shianan commanded in the voice kept for stupid, hesitant soldiers. “If you want your brother to live, bring Torg now!”
Roald hesitated, opened his mouth as if to protest, and then with a quick glance at Luca he pushed himself back from the couch. “Where do I find him?”
“His quarters are in the east end of the south barracks. Use my name to bring him. Run.” The last was unnecessary, as Roald was already hurrying from the room.
Shianan turned his attention back to Luca and his numbed fingers tugged at the shirt. When it clung wetly to the frigid skin, he found a seam and ripped it loose. Luca’s body moved loosely with the motion, never showing sign of life. The skin was slick and faintly blue. Shianan sagged weakly against the edge of the couch, suddenly hopeless. “Oh, Luca,” he breathed. “I never asked for this kind of loyalty.”
But he could not wait—if Luca were dead, there would be time enough to mourn. If there were a chance he could be recalled to life, Shianan did not have the luxury of misery. He peeled away the wet leggings and then, concentrating all his depleted strength, he gathered the limp cold body and staggered toward the bath, dropping it into the hot water. He sorted out the limbs, pressing Luca gent
ly beneath the surface with only his face above.
“Not like that,” Torg’s voice instructed from the door. “Pull his arms and legs out.” He came into the room with Roald tripping on his heels. “That’s what I did with you, but Inuk traders told me later it’s better to let the arms and legs stay cool while the body warms first. They should know. Keep his torso in the water.” He moved to the side of the bath and helped. “How long was he in?”
“Ten minutes, maybe fifteen,” Shianan supplied unhappily. “I’m not sure.”
“Did he go under immediately?”
“I don’t know! I couldn’t see. I was busy fighting off assassins.” Shianan threw a dark look toward Roald, whose fault this was, but the merchant was looking at the floating slave.
Torg left off feeling for a pulse and held his hand close over the slave’s mouth, trying to catch a breath. He looked grim. “King’s oats, sir, this is—he’s not there. I don’t see how he can come back from this.”
Heat burst through Shianan. “We’ll give him the chance! What can it hurt to try? Would you have us just watch him die?”
Torg exhaled and shook his head. “No, sir, I wouldn’t. You had more breath, but you were near as frozen. What do we have warm to give him?”
“I sent for hot drink long ago,” Shianan answered in frustration, “but nothing’s come yet.”
Torg looked at Roald. “Then go and—”
“No,” Roald said firmly. “I went for you, and I’m not leaving again.”
Torg blinked in surprise and looked at Shianan, who gave him a quiet look of command. “I’ll see what’s keeping the man, then.” He closed the door behind him.
Jarrick Roald looked at Shianan. “You knew,” he said. “You knew who he was, and you didn’t tell me.”
Shianan tore his eyes from Luca. “That was not my choice.”
“What?”
“He didn’t want to see you.”
“You kept him—”
“He didn’t want to see you! Can’t you understand that? He hid from you!”
Roald stared, disbelieving. “You can’t—that’s not true. Why would he… Why would he do that?”
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