What’s the game? she thought, studying the barrel. I’m not entirely sure. But she said nothing.
Braden scratched his beard. ‘Not my business, but you’re a rich woman. What need you got for ripping off merchants?’
‘You’re right,’ said Mara. ‘It’s not your business. And you’ve been very well paid for your trouble.’
If that hurt, it didn’t show. Mara felt guilty anyway. He was doing her a kindness and didn’t deserve to be treated sharply.
‘I appreciate your help, Braden,’ she told him. ‘And your concern. But I know what I’m doing.’ Even as she said it, she wondered if that was true.
Braden grunted and fell silent. Mara spotted her cue to leave, but something was keeping her here. I won’t ask. I won’t ask.
‘You didn’t tell Danric about this?’
Braden tensed at the name. He was uncomfortable around other people’s emotions. No doubt he’d hoped to avoid this conversation.
‘Course not,’ he said. ‘It’s between you and I.’
‘But you feel bad, having to keep it from your oldest friend. I’m sorry I put you in that position. There was no one else I could trust.’
Braden shrugged it off. ‘We’re friends, too, ain’t we? What passed between you and Danric don’t affect that.’
Except that it does, she thought. So I’ll ask no further. I won’t.
‘Is he well?’ She tried to sound nonchalant, but neither of them was fooled.
‘Well enough.’
‘And his family?’
He gave her a pitying look. Don’t do this to yourself.
‘Are they also well?’ she prompted.
Braden let out a heavy sigh. ‘Aye. Thriving. Little Jad never stops running. He wants to be a smith like his da. Minda’s three now, charming all who see her. Ariala’s heavy with their third.’
A third? Mara kept the shock from her face and forced a smile to cover the ache of grief that followed. ‘I’m happy to hear that,’ she said. ‘Please pass on my congratulations.’
‘I’ll do that,’ he lied.
‘I must go. Appointments to keep. Can you deliver the barrels tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow it is. You take care of yourself, Mara.’
‘You too.’
Mara stared listlessly at the Uplanes through the carriage window. The skeleton of the old city reared above the great houses, built taller and bolder than they could ever manage now. Great arches of pink stone, some still intact, spanned Victory Way. The crumbled bowl of the Mummery held up one windowed wall to the sun, casting shadows across a sandy floor where the greatest actors of the Second Empire once trod. On the battlements of the Old Wall, outlined by the falling day, stood the Lost Colossus, broken off at the shins, its identity never to be known.
The works of their ancestors loomed everywhere in Ossia, but in Morgenholme they were inescapable. Only Carradis, capital of the Second Empire, was greater; but Carradis was a cursed and haunted place now, where only the mad or desperate went.
How can we ever move on, when we won’t let ourselves forget the past?
She shouldn’t have asked after Danric. What foolish urge made her probe old wounds that way? What did it bring but pain?
Truth, she told herself. The truth was always worth the consequences. Knowledge was to be faced, never evaded, and she wasn’t capable of being wilfully ignorant. That was for the weak-minded, the kind who’d toast the arrival of a Krodan prince to crush their last hope of freedom. It wasn’t in her nature to shy away from the reality of things. Her feelings were always secondary to that.
What would it be, this third child of theirs? Boy or girl? She thought of Jad, with his curly, corn-coloured hair, and Minda with her dimples and plaits. She’d never seen them, but they’d lived in her mind a long time. She indulged herself in fantasy for a while, playing with them in the snow on a winter’s day, relishing the sweet hurt of it.
Gods, she was tired. Tired of the struggle, tired of the anger and disappointment, tired of battling through the years. She’d been swimming against the current for so long, and she felt her losses keenly today.
Perhaps she’d been too hard on that man. She taught only girls, that was the rule; but perhaps, if the boy was all he said, she could bend the rules just this once. She didn’t want to be so inflexible. At her core were kindness, care and love. It was the world that had made her tough.
Why not? she thought. Teach the boy. You have his name, so Clia will find him easily enough. You can make time for one more, can’t you?
The carriage rattled round a corner, and as it turned, Mara saw a smartly dressed man in black velvet with a polished oak walking stick and an artificial leg. It was an ingenious contraption of leather and metal and wood, with a hinged, locking knee and a flexible heel and ankle, allowing him to walk without a crutch. A Malliard Limb.
Mara only saw him for a moment, but when she drew back from the window, her face was grim and all kindness had withered in her heart.
She didn’t teach boys, that was the rule. She’d stick to it. To soften was a betrayal of herself. To flex was weakness.
No compromise. Never again.
She stared at nothing as the carriage rolled on, her thoughts bitter as acid.
Mara’s house was on a broad avenue on the edge of the Uplanes, set back from the road, with a ruined section of the Old Wall rising behind it and the grey peaks of the Catsclaws in the distance. Another wall, considerably smaller and newer, surrounded the house and its gardens, setting it apart from its neighbours, who claimed similarly grand and spacious territories.
The wheels of the carriage crushed rust-coloured leaves into the cobbles as it approached the wrought-iron gate and clattered to a stop. Tied through the bars of the gate was a black handkerchief. Mara gazed at it as Clia climbed down, untied the handkerchief without comment and put it in her pocket.
So it begins, she thought.
‘Have Laria prepare the house,’ she told Clia. ‘We will have visitors tonight.’
64
They carried Vika into the bedroom on a litter of wooden poles and sailcloth, Harod in the lead and Garric behind. Ruck howled from down the corridor, where she’d been locked in another room by Grub and Aren. Mara closed the door on the racket, but Ruck howled nonetheless.
‘Gentle now. Gentle,’ Garric murmured as they lifted her from the litter onto a bed finer than they’d seen for months. He had no need to. Harod was a careful and precise man, and he treated her like porcelain.
‘Let me examine the wound,’ said Mara as soon as Vika was safely on the bed. ‘Garric, help me undress her.’
‘I should return to milady,’ Harod said quickly, alarmed by the prospect of nudity. He gave Mara a stiff bow and left the room as fast as he decently could.
‘How long?’ Mara asked as they unfastened her blouse.
‘Thirteen days. She’s been out since the arrow hit.’
‘Thirteen days?’ Mara said in amazement.
‘Aye,’ he said grimly. Thirteen days since they’d left Wracken Bay in the storm. They’d made it upriver as far as Jurlow where they caught the first passenger ship to Westport, arriving just in time to catch another heading to Morgenholme. That one went at a leisurely pace with several stops on the way, delivering them to Morgenholme a day before the cargo promised by Katat-az was due.
Garric didn’t mind. He was glad they’d got here at all. The Iron Hand were swift, and they’d been looking over their shoulders every moment they’d been in port.
They pulled off Vika’s shirt. They’d taken out the arrow on Jadrell’s boat – Garric had some experience treating battle injuries – and afterwards washed the paint from her face and removed all signs of her faith. Transporting an injured woman was suspicious enough; were it known she was a druidess, the Krodans would surely have found them. Lying there, eyes closed and injured, she was no longer the imposing figure who’d first emerged from the darkness on a windy mountainside. Garric thought it wrong to se
e her so diminished.
The wound in her shoulder was a puckered red circle, edged with putrid black tendrils that extended some way under her skin. Mara made a noise of faint disappointment as she saw it. She examined the wound closely, stretching and prodding it, sniffing the clear, rancid fluid that wept out.
‘It was an arrow?’
‘A dreadknight’s arrow. There was some kind of poison on it, we think.’
‘Help me lift her.’
They half-turned her so Mara could see the exit wound. ‘She’s not woken at all?’
He shook his head. ‘We pour milk and honey into her mouth and she swallows it. She rants in her delirium, sometimes in Ossian and sometimes in another tongue.’ He felt a coldness settle on his heart. ‘She speaks of Kar Vishnakh, the Citadel of Chains, and converses with the Torments.’
Mara hmmed at that, and said no more. Garric stepped back while she finished her examination, taking a moment to look around the room. Silver candelabra pressed back the dark, spilling soft light across embroidered pillows and sumptuous drapes newly hung in advance of the winter. There were thick rugs from Caragua in the Far West, and the furniture was crafted with a delicacy and elegance rarely seen in common houses. In his younger days, he’d often visited places like this, but decades on the run had hardened him and he distrusted luxury now.
‘The prognosis is not encouraging,’ said Mara at last. ‘See these black tendrils around the wound? Her blood has turned bad and it will only get worse. The rot is too close to her heart to cut out. By all means, send for an apothecary, but I have studied medicine and—’
‘I’d be a fool to doubt your knowledge, but you haven’t heard all of it. Five days ago, the corruption was all over her chest and back.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘I saw it with my own eyes. That arrow would have killed any one of us, but she has fought the poison back, and she is healing.’
Mara gave him a sceptical look. Ruck was calming down at last in the other room, her howls fading to sorry whimpers.
‘I swear it, Mara. She’s a druidess.’
‘Oh, that explains it, then!’ said Mara sarcastically. ‘I expect the Aspects themselves are looking after her.’
‘Scoff if you will. If you’d seen what I have, you’d sing a different tune. None of us would be here if not for her.’
‘I thought better of you,’ she said, with undisguised scorn. ‘Taken in by parlour tricks and imaginary gods.’
‘There’s more in this world than can be measured by your experiments. You say it’s impossible that she will heal. I say you’ve always used that word too readily.’
Mara sniffed, dismissing his observation. She wasn’t one to take criticism or advice from her intellectual inferiors. ‘Be that as it may, there is little that can be done for her. I will have Laria change her dressings and feed her. She will die, or she will not.’
‘She will not die,’ said Garric. ‘I’ll tend her myself.’
Mara gave him a strange look. ‘As you wish.’
Once they’d made Vika comfortable, they left her to rest and went to Mara’s study. There she poured them glasses of rich red Carthanian wine, and went to stand by the tall arched windows, looking down onto the gardens where the others wandered in the moonlight, stretching their legs after so long aboard ship.
‘You’ve lost many,’ she said. ‘And gained others.’
Garric sipped his wine and the exquisite taste sent guilty pleasure flooding through him. ‘We’ve travelled a hard road,’ he said.
‘How are they?’
‘The Sard and the Harrish I don’t know; we just needed their cart. We can’t trust them, but they know too much to send them away.’
‘Keep them close, but not too close?’
‘It’s only for a short while. Perhaps you can persuade them to accept your gracious hospitality?’
‘I’ll see what I can manage,’ she said wryly.
‘Fen wavered, but I think she’ll stay. Helps that there’s some her own age with us. She’s tough, but she’s young, and not as grown up as she thinks. I wouldn’t trust the Skarl as far as I could throw him, but he’s in too deep to dislodge, and the boy won’t let him go anyway.’
‘Which boy?’
‘Aren.’
‘Who is he?’
Garric’s pause was a beat too long. ‘Just a boy.’
‘Can we trust him?’
‘As much as we can trust anyone.’
‘How reassuring. And Keel?’
‘Keel’s falling apart. After what he saw in Skavengard … and now his family …’ He sighed. ‘He’s not faring well.’
‘What do you intend to do about that?’
‘Nothing I can do. He’ll stand firm till Hammerholt. That’s all I need.’
He let his gaze roam the study. It was cosy and dim, lit by wall lamps, with Mara’s desk in the brightest spot. An angular iron candelabrum of urdish design, from the days when humans were slaves in this land, stood in one corner. Shadows gathered between laden bookshelves, and at the feet of pedestals that held stuffed birds and the skulls of foreign animals. An architectural plan was framed on the wall, Mara’s work, describing a building that only existed in her mind.
He took another mouthful of wine. Gods, it was good. Maybe he’d have another after this. What harm in a bit of pleasure, after all? He took little enough of it.
‘You got my letter?’ he asked.
‘The barrels are coming tomorrow,’ said Mara. ‘The cart is already here, an exact copy of the kind the Master Vintner uses, with the requisite alterations. I had a friend make the barrels; the cart was built by an artisan on the other side of the city.’
‘Never let the right hand know what the left hand is doing,’ Garric said.
‘I find it’s usually wise. Speaking of which, how do you plan to switch your cart with the Master Vintner’s?’
‘Wilham the Smiler will handle it.’
‘Ah,’ she said, communicating boundless disdain in a single syllable.
‘Question his motives if you will, but he’s yet to let me down.’
‘He doesn’t fight the Krodans because he believes in Ossia. He fights for the love of chaos and discord.’
‘Chaos and discord are what we seek, are they not?’
Mara conceded him the point with a flick of her wrist and an irate moue.
‘And what of Yarin?’
Mara sipped her wine and turned away from the window. ‘There we have a problem. Yarin has disappeared.’
Garric’s grip tightened on his glass. ‘What happened?’
‘The Krodans moved into the ghetto a week ago and began clearing everybody out. They packed the Sards onto trains of prison carts going east. Yarin was taken with them.’
Garric felt a hot ball of rage growing in his belly. Not now! Not when they were so close! Why couldn’t the Krodans have waited one more week? Why did the Aspects always conspire to foil him? ‘We need those plans!’ he barked angrily.
‘Yarin would be touched by your concern,’ said Mara sarcastically. ‘However, there is hope yet. Before he was taken, he found the information we need and stashed it in a secret location in the ghetto. I can only presume it is still there.’
‘Then we must go and get it!’
‘Easier said than done. The Krodans have sealed it off to keep looters out while they search for hidden Sards. There are patrols day and night.’
‘We’ll risk it. We have no chance without those plans.’
‘Agreed.’
Garric drained his glass. ‘Where did the Sards go?’
‘I don’t know. Nobody does.’
More clearances, more Sards taken east. The Krodans were up to something, but he was gods-damned if he knew what, and he had no time to investigate. He couldn’t afford any distractions.
An image of Yarin appeared in his mind, that wily old Sard with his seamed face and gnarled hands, his green eyes paled by the years. He’d been their con
tact among the Landless, many of whom were as eager as Garric to see the Krodans driven from Ossia. Garric never knew how extensive Yarin’s network was, whether he was the mastermind or the agent of some hidden operator, but he’d been a valuable ally. Garric regretted the loss of a useful resource, but no more than that. They hadn’t been close, and it was hard to care about anything now beyond what had to be done.
‘What’s going into the barrels?’ she asked.
The question caught him off guard. He sensed her watching him keenly and avoided her gaze. He poured himself more wine instead.
‘Amberlyne,’ he said. ‘And water. We’ll swap a dozen barrels that are only one-third full of wine for a dozen full ones. Eight barrels profit. That’s Wilham’s payment for his services.’
‘I could have just paid him the money and saved myself the considerable trouble of having them made. Not to mention the risk.’
‘Never let the right hand know what the left hand is doing,’ said Garric, raising a newly full glass to her.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘And this mysterious cargo arriving on a Xulan ship that I’m to pay for?’
‘That’s the Amberlyne to go in the casks.’
‘Thirty falcons for a few barrels of Amberlyne?’
‘Only the best for the prince, and at such short notice the price was high.’
Mara didn’t believe him for an instant. ‘What an incredibly convoluted way of doing something very simple,’ she observed. ‘Give me my due. I play castles a lot; I see you moving your pieces into place for the endgame. What do you really intend?’
Garric swigged his wine. ‘Shouldn’t have picked such a smart right hand,’ he grumbled.
‘I’m no one’s right hand, Garric, and I won’t be kept in the dark. Not if you want that shipment paid for.’
Garric stewed on that for a moment. She had him, it seemed; but why shouldn’t he tell her? If there was any among them who might see things his way, it was Mara. She prized sense over sentiment and understood the need for sacrifice. Besides, it would be a waste of time trying to convince her that ignorance was for her own good. He never knew anyone so loth of ignorance as she.
The Ember Blade Page 54