by Matthew Ward
“At least set Apara free,” said Sevaka. “Surrender her to my custody.”
“If she escapes, she’ll carry word to Tregard. I can’t risk that.”
“Escape? Look at her, Viktor!”
“I told you, she’ll recover soon enough.”
“That you speak with such confidence makes me wonder how often you’ve done this, and to whom.”
Viktor stiffened. “The spy stays, under the watch of my Drazina. Do not test me on this, Sevaka. We’ll discuss this again when the war is settled.”
“It’ll be settled without me.” Zephan’s voice shook. For the first time, Sevaka realised his wrath was directed not at her, nor even Apara, but at Viktor. “And it will happen without Essamere.”
Izack grimaced. “Zephan—”
“No, Izack.” Zephan stood before Viktor, eye to eye, a face habitually calm crowded with anger. “You sold me this endeavour on the promise of taking back our land. Freeing our people. That’s done. Tregard passed from our hands before my great-grandfather was born. It is a wound long closed. Essamere is a shield, not a sword. That will not change under my watch.”
“Then perhaps that watch should belong to another?” rumbled Viktor.
He started forward. Icy air stung Sevaka’s lungs.
Izack moved between them, his face riven by rare unhappiness, and rarer uncertainty. “Enough! This doesn’t do anyone any bloody good, does it?”
Lip curling, Viktor turned away. “Get out of my sight, Tanor.”
“Gladly.” His eyes dwelling briefly on Izack’s, Zephan offered Sevaka a stiff bow. “Can I offer you escort back to Brackenpike, Governor Orova?”
Sevaka’s throat bobbed, sick at the prospect of leaving Apara thus. But what could she do? Nothing yet, but she’d damn well find something. “I’d be honoured, Master Tanor.” She turned her gaze on Viktor’s back. “Rosa was right about you, Viktor. I should have listened.”
Offering silent farewell to Apara, she followed Zephan up the jail’s long stair and into fresh air. Only when the place was far behind did she tug on Zephan’s arm, bringing him to a halt.
“What happens now?” she asked.
He didn’t meet her gaze, his eyes instead on the fingers of his left hand as they clenched and unclenched. “I must speak with the others of my order. If they don’t agree with me, Viktor will have his wish.” He let his hand fall and stared back toward the jail. “I expected better of Izack.”
“Of them both.” Sevaka hesitated. They’d spoken so easily about treason barely an hour before. There was little humour in the prospect now. “Whichever way it goes, find me when you’re done. I have a request.”
Maladas, 11th Day of Dawntithe
Says I, we’ll strike Endala’s pact, before we run aground.
Though damned I be, and all my line,
’Tis better cursed, than drowned.
Volro’s Lament, The King of Fathoms
Forty-Eight
“This is hopeless,” said Constans. “Might as well go grubbing around in a rockfall for a specific pebble.”
Altiris stifled a yawn and leaned back against a lamp post. Twanging knees and sore heels spoke to a day and night of fruitless trudging from beggar’s nest, to hovel, to hospice, to workhouse. “And I thought you were good.”
Constans made play of rearranging his cloak against the cold and stared up at the ailing moon, pale in a greying sky. “A fearless seeker of ne’er-do-wells and vagabonds, am I, dear Devn.” Florid theatrical tone yielded to his normal speaking voice. “But we’ve been at this all night, and not a sign. At least I think so. You still haven’t told me who we’re looking for.”
“I told you. A woman who speaks little and hides her face. Probably trying to leave the city, or at least lose herself in it.”
“And I told you that matches half the beggars in Tressia. Don’t you know anything more?”
“Only that she’s more slender and graceful than those beggars. And that she’s in danger.”
For the dozenth time since dusk, Altiris considered making full confession. For the dozenth time, he decided against. Constans’ loyalty to his adopted father notwithstanding, it was increasingly clear that the Lord Protector was engaged in business that was unwholesome, if not downright wicked. Ignorance was a shield.
By rights, he shouldn’t have gone to Constans at all, but Hawkin had missed a handhold on the downward climb, and joined a broken ankle to a broken wrist for the privilege. The city was a big place, and Altiris had few folk he trusted enough to involve – especially if the tower’s erstwhile captive truly had been Calenne Trelan. Involving Lord Trelan without certainty was surely inadvisable. If only Sidara had still been in the city. Her pride of simarka would have found Calenne within hours. Almost three days since she’d left Tressia. She might already be…
He shook away the ghoulish thought – a useless gesture, for it always returned readily enough – and stared anew at the dark spires and brooding windows of the Waycross Theatre. Despite the facade, it was little more than a shelter for those on the run from the constabulary. Another dead end, probably, but what choice did he have but to continue the search? There’d be little chance of making fresh entrance to the clocktower. Calenne was the proof Zarn wanted – that Lord Trelan needed, even if he didn’t know it.
“Leave me to it,” Altiris offered. “I can manage.”
Constans snorted. “When has that ever been true?” He swept a hand towards the theatre, the actor’s diction returning. “No faithless friend am I to abandon thee in needful hour.”
Altiris shook his head, certain that the boy was no longer even offering quotation, merely expositing what he considered to be fitting words. Yet he was grateful for Constans’ presence. Burdens were better shared than shouldered alone.
“Besides,” Constans went on. “A knight should aid a damsel in distress, should he not?”
He stared at Altiris, eyes agleam but wary still. What a strange place the Republic had become where a son of storied line expected mockery for doing what was right. Or perhaps it had always been so? Either way, the friendship of those who held honourable course was the most valuable of treasures… even if Constans kept his own honour carefully concealed from most. That he offered even a glimpse of it now was touching in a way that Altiris couldn’t wholly explain.
“He should.” Pushing away from the lamp post, Altiris clapped the boy on the shoulder. “But let me do the talking this time? All those thees and thous attract attention.”
“Methinks thou art roused to envy most unseemly.” Constans shrugged. “Have it your way.”
The door creaked open. A handful of men in long, tattered coats filed through the tiered seats and clambered onto the stage. It had been a beautiful place before decades of grime had obscured the patterned walls. Calenne’s heart, already at low ebb, sank further. Wolfish eyes gleaming in the lantern light told her all she needed to know. She drew the hood of her stolen cloak tighter, hiding immobile features already in shadow.
The leader, a man in threadbare jacket and worse beard, folded his arms. The others peeled off, two to either side.
[[You’re Kiril?]]
She spoke softly, having learned through trial and error that it best concealed the singsong hollowness of her voice. Hours of false leads and hurried conversations from the shadows had at last offered up hope.
“I am indeed.” He offered a sly smile. “Malia at the Hooked Hound says you want out of the city. That right?”
[[Yes. Can you help me?]]
“Maybe.” He shrugged. False disinterest, for his eyes didn’t waver. “Where are you bound?”
[[Eskavord.]]
“Eskavord?” The others readily joined Kiril’s laughter. “Eskavord’s gone, love. Nothing there but cyraeths and ash, not for years.”
[[Still, that’s where I want to go.]]
“Won’t be cheap. Drazina have gone from the streets, but the gates remain guarded. Three crowns.”
So
much? [[I can pay one.]]
And that had been gathered painstakingly enough, slipping coins from drunkards’ pockets – far easier than when she’d played a similar game with Josiri, when still a girl.
Kiril narrowed his eyes. “You can do better, well-spoken lass like you. That dress alone’s worth a hundred times what I’m asking.”
[[I’ll trade you: the dress for new clothes, and passage south.]]
He stepped closer, head tilting side to side as he sought a glimpse beneath her hood. “Who are you, lass? What’re you running from?”
Calenne backed away. [[That’s not your concern.]]
“It is if someone’s paying to get you back.” Kiril snorted and spread his hands. “What? You reckon you’re the only bride who’s bedded down with regrets?”
A shape blurred to the left. A hand closed about Calenne’s wrist. She spun around, balled fist crunching into the fellow’s face. He dropped back with a howl, fingers clasped to a bloodied nose. It might have felt good, had not her hood slipped free, laying bare a porcelain face that would never pass for human.
“Demon!”
The shout came from Calenne’s right, the dull whistle of a sweeping cudgel sounding a heartbeat before the blow set her staggering.
Kiril drew back, eyes wide. “Kill it!”
Others closed, raining down blows on Calenne’s head and arms. As with the strike of Tzila’s sword, they awoke no pain, but a buzzing, grinding vibration almost as bad. As she grabbed at a cudgel, a dulled sword chimed against her skull. A second cudgel cracked against her leg. The knee buckled, pitching her to the floor.
She lashed out with a foot and set an attacker staggering. A sword hissed down. Without thinking, Calenne raised a hand to ward off its strike. The scrape of steel on clay tore the glove free and left a jagged crack on the polished alabaster skin. Golden light tinged with smoky vapour seeped from the wound, its brilliance casting malicious shadows across the attackers’ faces.
Another cudgel-blow landed across the back of Calenne’s head. The world faded beneath buzzing vibrations of light and shadow.
The door slammed open. A familiar voice rang out. “Leave her alone!”
Five men. One clutching a bloodied nose. Three in the prosecution of a beatdown. A huddled shape in torn gown and tattered cloak, daylight streaming from cracks across her forearms and skull. More than enough to banish Altiris’ weariness and uncertainty. “I said leave her alone!”
The leader – for weren’t the leaders of such men always the ones who hung back? – spun to face him. “Ain’t your business, boy!”
“That’s what your watchkeepers said. They’re sleeping off our disagreement.”
“Brave words,” sneered the leader. “This your demon, is it?”
Another crack crazed across Calenne’s brow. Caged daylight set shadows flickering. Altiris’ knuckles whitened on a sword as yet undrawn. “I won’t ask again.”
A dagger glinted in the leader’s hand. One of his thugs pulled back from beating the defenceless Calenne. “Strong words too, for a man alone.”
Altiris jumped onto the stage. “I’m not alone.”
Shadows pulsed in the stage’s wings. The rightmost thug grunted as Constans buried a fist in his stomach. Before he righted, the boy locked his hands and brought them down on the man’s neck.
“Can’t miss an entrance like that, can I?”
The second able-bodied thug cried out as Calenne yanked away his leg. Constans sprang towards the third. Altiris closed on the leader.
The dagger dropped, the fellow backing away with hands raised in surrender. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Let’s not.”
Altiris’ punch jarred every bone between fingertips and shoulder, but felt glorious. The leader vanished over a chair’s scuffed upholstery and didn’t rise. Shaking his fist to soothe stinging knuckles, Altiris looked across the stage in time to see Constans boot the bloody-nosed one between the legs, and again in the head as he doubled over.
Without missing a beat, the boy spun around and offered his habitual showman’s bow, one hand tucked to his stomach, the other at his spine. “Ta da!”
Calenne reached her feet and backed away, the light seeping from her wounds by turns blinding and unseen as she turned this way and that, trying to keep them both in sight.
Constans stared at her, brow furrowed and corner of his mouth curled. “This is who we were looking for? You might have said. She’s hard to miss.”
[[Who are you?]] snapped Calenne.
Dipping, she retrieved a fallen cudgel and brandished it first at Constans, then at Altiris.
He held out his hands, silently urging her to calm. “We’re friends. This is Constans. My name’s Altiris Cz… Altiris Trelan.” Constans favoured him with a look that differed only in degrees to the one recently offered to Calenne. Altiris returned it with a nod. “Thank you for not killing anyone, by the way.”
The boy flashed a grin and a flourishing salute. “You see? I do listen sometimes, whatever my sister says.”
The thug at his feet groaned, his hand reaching for a discarded sword. Constans stomped on his fingers, the crackle of snapping bone lost beneath the fellow’s howl. A kick to the head, and the thug went still. Constans offered Altiris a shrug.
Still very much a work in progress.
Altiris turned his attention to Calenne. “If you’re who I think you are, I suppose that makes you my aunt.”
She gave a hollow snort. [[That makes me sound ancient.]]
The cudgel dipped. Altiris chanced another step. “Are you hurt?”
Porcelain fingers glinked against forehead. [[I’m not sure I can be hurt. But I think I might be harmed.]]
“I don’t understand. They shouldn’t have been able to do that. Not if you’re like Ana—”
Dark eyes swirled. Her body went taut. [[I’m nothing like Anastacia Psanneque.]] Calenne broke off, perhaps recognising the ridiculousness of the words. [[What happens now? Will you take me to Josiri?]]
Altiris took a deep breath. She seemed rational enough, but if she chose not to cooperate…?
“No. At least, not yet. But there’s someone who’d very much like to meet you. It’s safe.”
She glanced between him and Constans, who for his part had returned to regarding her with suspicion. Perhaps it would have been better to tell him, after all.
[[How do I know I can trust you?]]
“Because I give you my word as a Trelan and a Phoenix,” Altiris replied.
Calenne’s fingers slid from her forehead. [[Those who claim that plumage end badly.]] She sighed. [[Very well. Take me where you will.]]
Kurkas, as was increasingly his wont, was already up and around when Stonecrest’s doorbell chimed. Silently bemoaning aching bones, he opened the door to the rising dawn and offered a nod to the tousle-haired boy waiting on the porch, folded letter in hand. Not a city herald. Not even a herald at all. In fact, he looked all too much like the guttersnipes and keelies Kurkas himself had run with at that age.
“Letter.”
Kurkas snatched it from the boy’s outstretched hand, surprised to see his own name scrawled on the front. He didn’t believe the contents on the first read, so read it again, slower. They didn’t improve on the second, nor the third. Trouble risen with the dawn.
No life for an honest soldier.
When he looked up again, the boy was still there.
“And what do you want?”
“Was promised a penny.”
“Course you were.” Might even have been true. Nonetheless, Kurkas dug in his pocket for a coin and tossed it into waiting hands. “Go on, get.”
Closing the door, he found Anastacia tottering down the stairs, swaddled in a thick housecoat. Dark rings under her eyes spoke to overindulgence in hours not so very long past. Only her hair looked at all presentable, and that by dint of not being hers.
“Must you make that unseemly racket?” Brittle voice allied well with dishevelment that
went beyond tiredness.
“I’m sorry.” Kurkas pitched his voice just a hair too loud for someone wallowing in a hangover. “Late night, was it? Finding wine a bit less friendly when you’ve only a mortal’s constitution to rely on?”
It should have been a straightforward enough revelation – especially as Anastacia had taken every opportunity to self-tutor since becoming flesh and blood. But so far, that lesson hadn’t taken. Or at least not enough to vanquish desire for pleasures too long denied. Far as Kurkas could tell, she’d made determined assault on every form of temperance going. He found the prospect exhausting.
She clung to the banister. “Don’t be tedious, Vladama.”
“Lord Trelan about?”
“He’s gone for a walk to clear his head.”
Kurkas grunted. Burdens of work, or reluctance to linger in bed with a hungover Anastacia snoring like a drain? Either way, it saved him the prospect of running around behind his lordship’s back. “Put some clothes on. We’re wanted elsewhere.”
“I’m not going anywhere…” She swayed and pressed knuckles to her lips. “Except back to bed.”
Kurkas stifled a flash of annoyance. He considered getting her to read the letter, but found he’d no patience for it. Anastacia, Lady of Aristocratic Disdain, he knew how to deal with, and even liked. Anastacia, Queen of Hangovers, was a very different prospect, and one he was much less inclined to humour. Besides, it’d be some hours before she was anything other than a liability. Especially if there was trouble waiting.
If? There was always bloody trouble waiting.
“Suit yourself. Wouldn’t want you to put yourself out or anything.”
Ignoring her belligerent stare, he stepped out into the morning and slammed the door behind.
Zarn pinched the bridge of his nose. “I still don’t believe it. Not that I doubted your word, Altiris. But you must admit that to see her in the flesh…? No offence, my dear.”
He stared across what he’d wryly referred to as The Merrow’s Lair. A broad cellar beneath Woldensend’s west wing that by its contents had in times past served as both dungeon and armoury, before finding employment as a wine cellar. Why he’d insisted on conversing there, Altiris wasn’t sure – especially as he’d by all evidence dismissed the servants.