“I—I don’t know, Rider. I have also been sent to the Lord of Myned. My master just says you are to come. Now,” he said, gesturing behind him at the door.
Kieve thought a moment, then nodded. “Gaura, we’ll need supper later. Pyrs, you—you may come with me.” She plucked her cloak off the rack. “Where is the Guildmaster staying, Lapsi?”
She went out the door, the boys behind her. Lapsi skipped to catch up. “In the apartments above Hueil’s Garden, in the corridor with the ravens. Do you know it? I have already been to Lady Esylk’s, and I am to fetch Daenet Rider, too.”
Kieve stopped half-way down the stairs. “Daenet,” she repeated.
Lapsi nodded, his lower lip tucked between his teeth. After a moment Kieve continued down the stairs.
“He is in the rooms with the balcony? Yes? I know them. You may go.”
In the yard, Lapsi bowed and ran toward the main yard. Pyrs also ran, until he came up to Kieve.
“Mistress?” He caught at the cloak and pulled. She stopped to look at him.
“What is it?”
“A—a guildmaster?”
“Yes. He didn’t tell you, did he?”
The boy swallowed. “I was—I was rude to him.”
She nodded. “He told me. He won’t hold it against you. Come.”
She led the way through the Scholars’ Garden and down the slender tunnel, this time staying in it until it intersected a narrow alley. She turned left along the alley, then up a flight of exterior stairs, through a door, and to a wide stone corridor flanked by columns and hung with tapestries. Stone eagles and ravens peered down from the column capitals, wings spread wide and draped with cobwebs. Heavy wooden doors faced each other along the hallway, guest flags hanging above some of them. At the last one, where the hall turned to the left, she saw the pen and stirrup. She stopped and took a moment to run her hands over her hair and tunic, tugging herself into shape. Pyrs copied her. She grasped the beaked head of a raven that served as knocker and brought it down.
The door swung open and a servant in castle livery bowed and stepped back.
“The Guildmaster will be with you soon,” the woman said, and bowed again, and stood by the door. Pyrs followed Kieve into the room.
She had never been in these apartments, although she knew of them. The rooms were large and well-proportioned, with a fireplace along one wall and a woodstove opposite. A long table fronted the woodstove. Before the fireplace stood a collection of chairs and benches. Light streamed in from three tall windows. Out of curiosity, Kieve pushed open the balcony door.
“Rider, it is not recommended,” the servant by the door called. “The stones are weak there.”
Kieve nodded and stood on the threshold, looking out. Below her Hueil’s Garden lay mantled in snow. The smooth walls of the Nobles Apartments rose from the other side of the Snake and between them she saw a sliver of the Crescent Bathhouse’s broad promenade.
The knocker sounded. She stepped back, closing the balcony door, and turned. The servant knelt and rose as a slender woman in a deep blue cloak came into the room, looked about, and came toward Kieve. Two men-at-arms followed her. The Rider went to one knee.
“Kieve Rider,” the woman said. “You are Kieve, I think?”
“Yes, my Lord,” Kieve said and rose and smiled down at her. “It is good to see you again, Lady Esylk. I was told you were on Sterk.”
“I told her,” Leyek said, leaning around his lord to smile at Kieve. “But she already knew.”
“I would not have recognized you,” the Lord of Myned said. “Not surprising. We last met—what is it, sixteen years ago? When Jenci brought you out of the Clenyafyds. You’ve become civilized. Who is the child?”
“Pyrs,” Kieve replied. “My bondslave.”
“Indeed.” Esylk looked at him with curiosity. “History repeats itself. He’s a handsome boy.”
Pyrs blushed to the roots of his hair. Esylk smiled, delighted. “Stand up, child. Malecan, you and Leyek may leave me here. Master Jenci can provide me with a servant for my way back.”
“I will gladly stay,” Leyek said, starting to take off his cloak.
“No.” Esylk said.
“But Lady—”
“Or I will tell your father.”
Leyek put one hand over his heart. “My soul weeps,” he said to Kieve, sighed with great emphasis, and followed the other man from the room. Two more servants had joined the one by the door. They stopped staring at Esylk long enough to open the door for the men-at-arms.
“Is that how you control him?” Kieve murmured. “I wish I had known.”
“You’ve met my man Leyek?” A fourth servant took the lady’s cloak. “When?”
“Pyrs, fetch wine.” The boy bowed and went across the room. Kieve turned back to Esylk. “Last night, in the barracks.” She tucked her hands behind her back under the cloak. “I thought perhaps he had no bed of his own, he was so eager to share mine.”
Esylk groaned. “Was he drunk and loquacious?”
Kieve smiled. “Yes, Lady. No trusts were broken publicly.”
The lady looked at her. “I am much relieved.” She lowered her voice. “What did he tell you?”
“He told me about his father the headman and some treaty.” She tilted her head. “Is that true?”
“True enough. It’s one of the reasons I’m in Dalmorat, to gather support for it.”
“Lady, send him home. He’s going to get himself killed.” She leaned closer. “He spoke Akeguruk to me. You know what will happen to him if he’s discovered. And he may be.”
“Perhaps not. For an Inguruk he is almost civilized, and clean. And his father asked it of me,” Esylk said. “I need his favor.”
“A dangerous way to seek it.”
Pyrs approached, carrying two wine cups. Kieve leaned away from the Lord of Myned and watched, interested in how the boy would handle the protocol of serving both a Lord and his mistress. The boy put one cup down and, kneeling, presented the other to Esylk. She took it and smiled at him and he beamed back at her. Kieve cleared her throat. Pyrs glanced at her, blanched, and offered her the other cup.
The boy backed away a little. Behind him, the servants had become very busy doing very little and watching Lady Esylk. Pyrs watched too. The Lord of Myned ignored them, at peace with being the object of attention. She had taken the sword at thirteen after her father died in an Inguruki raid. She had descended on Koerstadt, demanding and receiving a cache of the Smith Guild’s deadly but unreliable firearms. Then she pursued the Inguruki summer and winter until she destroyed the main tribes and left the rest in such ragged confusion that raids from the north almost ceased throughout her province. For this she was known throughout Cherek, especially in the northern border provinces where she was treated like a heroine.
Jenci had been her Herald Rider from the time she took the sword to the year after she broke the Trapper threat to her borders. He was present at her wedding, rode one last raid into the outlands, and returned to Koerstadt with sullen, silent Kieve at his side. Watching Esylk now, Kieve thought the legend more formidable than the woman, who was small, slender, self-possessed, and neat as a pin. And pale. Fine-boned, beautiful Leyek and his lord could have been brother and sister.
Lapsi came in from the corridor, alone. One of the servants disappeared into another room and a moment later Jenci entered. He wore his robes of office, the Guildmaster’s escutcheon bright on the breast of his spreading cloak and the crimson and black robes under that. He carried his black cap in his hand and for the first time she saw him not as her old master but as the full embodiment of his office.
Without thinking she went to her knee. Esylk alone remained standing, as equal to equal. Jenci frowned and gestured them to their feet, and turned to his apprentice.
“Lapsi? Where is he?”
The boy clasped his hands. His fingers were white.
“I went to the Lord of Kyst’s chambers, master. He, the servants, they said Daenet was�
��that he was busy, master. That he was ill. That he could not leave his sickbed, and could not come. That his Lord was also ill. That he—that he could not—that he...” The boy’s voice trailed off.
“I see,” Jenci said after a moment. “He defies me.” The guildmaster turned toward Esylk and Kieve. “You see it. He defies me.”
“He may indeed be ill, Guildmaster,” Esylk said.
“He is not! Kieve, you spoke with him yesterday. Was he ill yesterday?”
Kieve hesitated. “I do not know, master.”
“Did he say he was ill?”
“No, master.”
“You see!” Jenci took a winecup from the table and drank and slammed the cup down. Wine splashed onto the table. “I will expel him for this defiance!”
“For being improvably ill?” Esylk said, her voice mild.
“For bringing disgrace on this guild,” Jenci thundered back.
Esylk sighed and, sweeping her skirts to one side, sat in a chair before the fire. “Has he? He is oathed to follow his Lord’s commands. I believe that he has not violated that oath.”
“Then his Lord should not be allowed a Rider!”
Esylk’s eyebrows rose. “Do you want to follow that logic, Guildmaster?”
There was a moment of silence while they stared at each other. Kieve followed the logic herself. If one lord could rule without a Rider at his side, then any lord could follow suit.
“Daenet is not Kyst’s Rider, he is his—”
“His lover?” Esylk said. “He is not the first.”
“But he is nothing else! And if he can continue as such and as a Rider, then who is not to say that all Riders are nothing better than—than playthings, than badges of office with less honest utility than a cloak or a cap? We become nothing, Esylk, we become the remains of something outdated, as useless as—as the tatters of a flag.” He frowned down at her. “Shall I leave him be, to proclaim us obsolete?”
“Shall you drag him down, to proclaim the guild so weak that it must descend to petty vindictiveness?”
“Enough!” Jenci turned to Kieve. “And you!” he continued. “You, whining and wailing about your lot, about the supposed evils of your dying lord! I tell you now that Lord Cadoc is a valuable friend to this guild, that he brings us honor and treats us with respect. That Lord Cadoc’s Rider is not reduced to guarding children, as is Bergdahl’s, or left languishing with a border regiment in Moel, or made to serve as a glorified bodyguard as Denere uses her Rider. And you complain! Tell me what he has done, Kieve Rider, that makes you tell me that Cadoc threatens the future of this guild!”
Kieve filled her lungs and, on the precipice of telling him, said instead, “I swore an oath, master. I can’t!”
“Indeed you can’t,” Jenci said, and nodded. “Indeed. You can’t.” He let his breath out explosively. “Not the least of Daenet’s sins,” he said, “is that he reduces our reunion to this.”
They stood looking at each other for a moment. Kieve reached a hand to him. “Jenci. Master. I am sorry.”
“For what, child? These are matters beyond your control, although not beyond mine.” He gave his hands to Lord Esylk and helped her to her feet. “I have promised myself at dinner to the Lady Isbael and must go. I had expected this meeting to be different. But no matter. It shall happen, Esylk, and I will again ask you to witness. There is only a small time between now and then.”
Esylk raised her cheek for his kiss. A small frown rode between her eyebrows.
Jenci put his hand to Kieve’s shoulder. “Kieve, ikume, perhaps tomorrow we can dine together.”
“Master.”
“Yes. And child—if you see Daenet before then?”
“Master?”
“You may tell him that when I see him, and I shall, at that moment he will cease to be a Rider.”
“Jenci, if he is not a Rider, he can be nothing,” Esylk said.
“That,” said the guildmaster, “is not my concern.”
* * * *
“I am quartered near the White Tower,” Esylk said as they stood in the corridor under the eagles and ravens. “Will you escort me there?”
Kieve bowed. Pyrs trailed them as they walked down the wide corridor.
“He doesn’t change, does he?” Esylk said. “Still fat and oblivious and opinionated. And often wrong.” Kieve’s eyebrows rose. “I know about Dalmorat,” the lady continued. “Most of us do. That is why we have come to watch this passing. What Cadoc has done is unique. We’ve come to see if the network survives him, to see whether the new lord can control it.”
Kieve thought about that. “To what end, Lady?”
Esylk clasped her hands behind her back and stared at the flagstones. “Jenci doesn’t see a world of people,” she said. “He sees a mapmaker’s world, graticules and latitudes, legends and symbols and the perfect compass rose. If he can muster the proper tools, if the straight-edges and protractors and compasses all behave as they should, then the world should run as steadily as a fine clock.” She paused by a set of windows. Outside the watch was changing near the barbican, accompanied by the slap of hands on spear butts and the staccato syncopation of boots. Esylk rested her hand along the window ledge. A stone had worked loose and wobbled under her palm. “The Merchants Guild sent out a fleet three years ago. Do you remember?” Kieve nodded, waiting. “I learned this morning that one ship has returned to Mayne.”
“The rest of the fleet was lost?”
Esylk smiled. “Oh, no, Rider. Skaith came into Mayne with a cargo even the Merchants couldn’t have dreamed of, and news of a country beyond Mother Sea. A country of fine cloth and delicate jewelry, of maps and books and a strange, warbling music. But no steam engines, no telegraphs, no clocks. They want to trade with Cherek, Rider. They’ve sent an ambassador to meet with Koerstadt Council. Skaith’s sister ships leave for Cherek next spring, all their cargoes sold and their holds filled with wonders.” She clapped her hands together to shake stone dust from her gloves.
“This other country,” Kieve said. “It has a name?”
“Merinam,” said Esylk. “Where the water is blue against white beaches, and it never snows.”
Kieve grimaced. “It sounds dreadful,” she said.
“Perhaps. They are too far away to attack us, or to be attacked by us, but close enough for trade.” Esylk glanced at Kieve. “We thought Cherek changed after the Dancing Plague, after Constain’s defeat, after the Guilds Wars. I tell you that we have not begun to see change.”
They walked on in silence for a while. Kieve shoved her fists deep in her pockets, absently counting paces.
“If we cannot make peace with Uruk,” Esylk said, “how can we expect to deal with strangers from Merinam? We may have to learn to accept the known and different before we can accept the unknown and different, and at worst we will use our energy and resources battling the Trappers while Merinam slips through our hands.” She touched the white fur of her collar. “Cadoc has created something new in Dalmorat, something at the very edges of the Council and the guilds. If his power passes intact to his heir, half the lords in Cherek will be planning to copy his rule and his province, and the rest will be making plans to defend against it. Cherek will become as it was centuries ago, before Mistit Lawgiver, before the Koerstadt council and peace.”
“And Merinam?”
“Merinam is the door to the future. Cadoc is the door to the past. Whatever happens, Cherek will change. It remains to be seen whether it changes for good or ill.” She smiled. “I am pleased that I am alive to see it.”
“You have an explorer’s soul,” Kieve murmured.
“As do you.” Esylk stopped again and this time put her hand on Kieve’s arm. “The ban still rankles, doesn’t it?”
“Lady,” Kieve said, and stopped and took a deep breath. “I am trained in mapmaking. I know the language. I know the people. I know the land. It makes no sense to deny me this.”
“I don’t understand the desire,” the lady said, shaking her
head a little. “It is a brutal life amid a brutal people, violent and filthy. And you would have to live among them, at least some of the time.”
It was not true, Kieve thought, about the brutality and the filth, but Esylk was a Cheran and would not understand. Instead, “There are lands that none of us has seen,” she said. “I could see them, and map them, and bring them back. Of what possible use is it to refuse me to go?
“I do not know,” the lady said. “But only a guildmaster can lift the ban. And Jenci will not do it for you.”
“Why not?” Kieve cried.
Esylk waited for the echo to die away.
“Because he loves you,” she said. “And is afraid that if you go back to the outlands, you will never return.”
There seemed nothing to be said to that. They passed through the flying bridge over Hueil’s Garden and along a portico to the White Tower. At the door of Esylk’s rooms she stopped and faced the Rider again.
“I don’t know the politics of this castle,” she said. “And I honor your oath enough not to ask you. But if you need help, if you need anything, come to me.” She paused. “There are many roads to a goal, Kieve. Even yours.” She straightened her shoulders abruptly. “Your eye. Will you see my physician?”
“Thank you, lady, but it has been physicked.”
Esylk nodded a farewell and went in her door. Kieve turned away and Pyrs looked at her with shining eyes.
“You talked with Lady Esylk,” he said. “She’s your friend.”
Kieve stared at him, then reached out and ruffled his golden hair.
* * * *
She came through the Great Hall late in the afternoon, to find that the castle’s visitors, and many of its inmates, had elected to fill the time with music and dance. A page with a drum joined Furcos on the dais; Furcos himself wielded a large sackbut, a bombard, and blew mightily into it. Between the two of them the hall rang with the measures of a Northern chain dance, men in the outer right moving widdershins, women in the middle moving to the right, and all shouting and stamping their feet in rhythm. A group of the southern lords stood at the hall’s side, watching with practiced stolidity. She leaned back against a tapestry, watching Cairun watch the dance, and wondered what he thought of it.
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