Shattered Dance

by Caitlin Brennan

  “I expect you to follow your heart,” he said.

  She clenched her fists and drew deep breaths, fighting for calm. As satisfying as it would be to pound that smiling face to a pulp, it would not get her anywhere. “I told you, no games. I want the truth now. You brought me here as bait. For what? What is the trap?”

  “Love,” he answered.

  It was so direct and so succinct that it caught Valeria flatfooted. Her mind spun on for a while before she could reel it back. “What—”

  “Love is a god more powerful than any on the Mountain,” Pretorius said. “It can destroy nations, but it can also save them. If a rider is high queen of the tribes, what might she not do to gentle them to her hand?”

  Valeria had already seen that. She needed more. “What if I fail? They keep their women in the duns here—which might as well be cages. I can’t see him suffering me to ride with him on his hunts or his wars. Especially his wars.”

  “I think,” said Pretorius, “that he would give you whatever you asked. He’s besotted with you, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  Valeria caught herself blushing. Nevertheless she shook her head. “He’s not a simple man or a stupid one. He’s high king at his age, which is not common. Even allowing for the losses of the last war, he had to fight hard and win hearts to take that office. He may dote on me, but he loves his people more.”

  “Surely,” Pretorius said. “Even so, a lover can do things an ambassador can’t. How often have you persuaded an unwilling stallion, a god no less, to do your will? It’s the same art for much the same purpose.”

  “He knows that,” said Valeria. “He’s thinking the same thing.”

  “So you use one another,” said Pretorius. “It’s to both your benefits—and it serves Aurelia.”

  “Does it serve me? How can I be a rider if I’m mewed up here?”

  “You have three white gods to be your teachers,” said Pretorius, “and you have me.”

  Valeria could not deny that he was a fair teacher. The stallions were much more, and always had been. “Nikos knew, didn’t he?” she said.

  Pretorius’s head tilted. It was barely a nod.

  “He must have been glad to get rid of me. I’ve been a thorn in his side.”

  “It grieved him,” said Pretorius. “He argued strongly against it. Still, in the end he admitted that this was your fate and your task. You were Called not to the Mountain but to the empire—and the empire needs you here.” His eyes were bright, dancing on her, seeing things no one else could see. “It’s not so onerous, is it? He’s a match for you. The children you will make together…it’s a wonder to see.”

  Valeria’s breath came short. She had not thought that far. Of course children came of what she had been doing all morning. She had a daughter in Imbria to prove it.

  And what of her daughter? If Valeria chose this, she might never see Grania again. Could she bear that?

  Grania would not suffer. She had her nurses and her grandmother, and her father would never forget her. She did not need her mother.

  With utmost care Valeria buried that thought before Pretorius or any other mage could find it. She did not know why she was still so careful—if Euan had her, he was unlikely to go hunting for her firstborn—but some deep instinct drove her to keep the secret as safe as she always had. Euan was not the only or by any means the worst threat to a child of that particular breeding.

  “I’m not ready to think of children,” she said. “It’s hard enough to see myself as anyone’s queen. I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “You of all people can,” said Pretorius. “Believe that, lady. No one else is better suited.”

  Valeria bit her lip. There was one more question she had to ask. “Why you? What do you get out of this?”

  “I?” He spread his hands. “I get a decent night’s sleep. The dreams go away when their prophecy is fulfilled.”

  That might be the truth, but it was not all or even a significant part of it. Valeria had had enough of pulling facts out of him. She let him think he had won the bout.

  Maybe he had. She had to think. If she could have run away she would, but that was not possible here.

  She settled for staying on the wall after Pretorius left. Her belly was knotted with hunger, the effect of a great working on a sorely taxed body.

  She ignored it. Even more than a breakfast big enough to feed a troop of starving soldiers, she needed to be alone. She had to face the truth apart from pleading eyes and calls to duty—and above all, the simple physical presence that was Euan Rohe.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Enough,” Kerrec said. “I’m going to find her.”

  “You will not.” Briana had been waylaid between one council and another, and her mood was no better than her brother’s. “She has three white gods and a master mage to look after her. She does not need you. Whereas we do.”

  That was almost word for word what Master Nikos had said when similarly confronted. Kerrec stiffened in frustration, but before he could speak, Briana continued, “If that doesn’t sway you, think of this. Valeria left because of you. If you go galloping after her, you’ll only make it worse.”

  “You don’t know that,” Kerrec said sharply.

  “Of course I do. I know you both. Besides,” she said, “if you really meant to go, you wouldn’t have bothered to get our permission. You’d simply leave.”

  “I would not—”

  “You have before,” she said.

  “That’s why.” His fists were aching. He unclenched them. “Call her back, then. She’s in danger where she is, and it’s getting worse with every day that passes. Get her back here before she loses everything.”

  “Everything? Or just you?” Briana met his glare. “We don’t see it, Kerrec. As soon as she crossed the river, the patterns shifted. A few aren’t quite so dark. Here and there is even a ray of light.”

  “Whereas I don’t see that,” he said. “I see false hope and deceptive brightness—and beyond them a worse darkness than we’ve seen before.”

  “That’s the quarrel between you,” said Briana. “If you pursue her or we pull her back, she may never forgive you. At least let her finish what she’s started before you go chasing after her like a jealous lover.”

  “I am not—”

  This time Kerrec stopped himself before Briana could do it. As much as he hated to admit it, there might be some truth in that. He had been dreaming of her every night and thinking of her through the days, seeing patterns of ill fortune locked tight and choking the life out of her.

  It had been a month and a fortnight since Valeria left and a good half of that since he lay with Theodosia. He dined with her each night, for courtesy and because she was pleasant company, but after dinner and conversation he went back to his bare ascetic room in Riders’ Hall.

  Theodosia did not seem to mind. She spent her days in the empress’ council, where she spoke for Elladis, or else in her hall entertaining guests and petitioners of her own. At dinner she undertook to show interest in Kerrec’s riding and the school that, even through all that had happened, was taking shape. She was becoming a friend, but she was not, duty aside, a lover.

  All of that ran through his mind in an eyeblink. Briana’s voice cut through it. “Be wise for once in your life, brother, and let be. You’ve both made your choices. If she’s meant to come back to you, she will.”

  Kerrec shook his head. His sense of foreboding had not abated. Maybe he was not healed after all. Maybe old scars and never-forgotten torture had left him twisted inside.

  He stood back to let his sister go on with her duties. She was walking well, he noticed. She too would never be the same, but she would do well enough.

  So would he, if he could bear to. He had duties of his own, for which he was already late. He disciplined himself to face them.

  There were a dozen young men waiting to be instructed. Each day one or two more came sidling into Riders’ Hall, saying he had heard from a frien
d or kinsman that the riders were teaching their art. They were not all nobles, either, though most were sons of wealthy houses. One or two were tradesmen, sent by fathers driven to distraction by their sons’ importuning.

  It was a call of sorts, though far from the Call. One did not need to be a mage to be a horseman. As one of them said when he presented himself, “I could hire my own riding master, but he wouldn’t be a master from the Mountain.”

  The stable was full. Briana had sent geldings this time instead of mares. They were handsome animals, not too badly trained, well suited for instructing these boys in the art of horsemanship.

  Gunnar and Quintus oversaw the saddling and bridling that was part—often to these lordlings’ disgust—of their instruction. They greeted Kerrec with a nod and a glance. Kerrec nodded back.

  Outside in the riding court, Cato had one of the geldings on a line, instructing a boy whom Kerrec had not seen before. The boy had the stiff posture and increasingly dismayed expression of an aristocrat who thought he could ride.

  Even in the mood Kerrec was in, he bit back a smile. A rider should not indulge in pettiness, but young nobles were terribly predictable. Although some never did learn, most learned to try. A few even became competent riders.

  This one had a long way to go. Kerrec turned to acknowledge the slightly pale, slightly shaking young thing who held the rein of a placid bay. As kindly as he could, Kerrec said, “Here, up. We’ll begin with simple exercises.”

  The child nodded, tongue-tied. Kerrec sighed inwardly. He never meant to be terrifying, but somehow he always was.

  He softened his expression even further, softened his voice to match and set about unlocking all that tension and turning it into properly toned art. It would be slow with this one, but Kerrec had time.

  The boy who followed that one was cocky, which needed a dose of the terrifying glare. The one after that was Maurus.

  He had come in late, slipped around the edge of the court and gone quietly to fetch a horse. Gunnar, who usually caught the tardy ones, was preoccupied with a pupil. Kerrec might not have noticed, either, if he had not happened to look up just as the boy ghosted past.

  That was not a casual choice of word. Maurus looked haunted, pale and shadow-eyed. Kerrec did not recall having seen him for some days. Not as much as a month, surely—but it had been a while since he came to ride.

  It was understandable. Maurus’ brother had been sent to exile and probable, painful death. That was a blow, no doubt worse because Maurus had helped to cause it.

  Yet here he was, presenting himself to be instructed. Kerrec nodded without comment, waited for him to mount then began to lesson as if there had been no interruption since the last one.

  It went well enough, all things considered. By the time it ended, Maurus was the only rider left in the courtyard. The rest were long since done and gone.

  That was intentional, Kerrec was sure. At the lesson’s end, when he would have taken the rider’s flying dismount and crisp bow of thanks, he stopped Maurus with a hand on his knee. “Tell me now,” he said.

  Maurus blinked. “I—what—how did you—”

  He was better at hiding it, but he was at least as terrified of Kerrec as young Harinus. Kerrec shook him lightly. “Easy, lad. I don’t bite.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Maurus clapped his hand over his mouth.

  Kerrec laughed—painfully, but the mirth was real. “Truth, sir. I’m as human as you. I’m just better at pretending I’m not. Now get down and let’s cool this gentleman out, and you tell me why you braved the terrible First Rider after avoiding him for more days than either of us wants to count.”

  “Twenty,” Maurus said in a strangled voice. “Twenty days.” He lifted himself in the saddle, balanced and sprang down with unconscious skill that could in time be transformed into art.

  Once he was on his feet, he drew himself up with visible effort. “Sir, it’s not what you’re probably thinking. It’s not—it’s not her, either. Though she did leave because of you.”

  Kerrec’s shoulders tightened. “Valeria? What do you know of her?”

  Maurus paled but stood his ground. “Just that she’s gone east with my brother, sir, because you did what you had to do, and she couldn’t stay and watch. I understand it, all of us do, though we miss her terribly.”

  “So do I,” said Kerrec.

  He should not have said it, but there was no taking it back. Maurus’ face twisted in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We know you did it for the empire—the same as we all do, sooner or later, whether it’s marriage or war or an embassy to the edge of the world. That’s what I came to say, sir. My brother got what he deserved. My mother has not been taking it well, but even she agrees that for what he did, it was a fair sentence.”

  Kerrec began to walk around the edge of the court. The gelding and the boy followed.

  As he had expected, his silence drew the rest of it out of Maurus, though it came in fits and starts. “I haven’t been running away, really, sir. I’ve been hunting. It took a long time because now my brother is gone, the rest of us are watched constantly. Nobody wants to lose another one of us to bad company.”

  Kerrec nodded. Maurus jittered a bit, dancing in place like a restless horse. “The only time I could get out without at least two guards was when they delivered me here. I’d talk them into not coming in—then I’d slip out the back.”

  “Clever,” Kerrec said.

  Maurus shied, nearly colliding with the horse he was leading. The horse took it with good grace. “I wasn’t trying to be clever, sir. I was trying to find the priest who hurt the empress. Yesterday I think I found him.”

  Kerrec stopped. “You think?”

  “I couldn’t stay to be sure,” Maurus said. “I was already late getting back to the guards, and they were about to storm the gate. Today I was going back to see, but then I thought I’d be safer with help. I don’t expect you to help me, sir, but if one of the other riders will come, maybe you can find a way to keep the guards off the scent?”

  “Is there a particular reason why they can’t come with us?” Kerrec asked.

  “No, sir,” Maurus said. “Not really. It’s just, sir—us?”

  “It’s barely noon,” Kerrec observed. “Do you need to rest or eat before you go? Think before you answer. If there’s a long hunt or a fight, you’ll wish you’d taken the time.”

  “I could eat,” Maurus said faintly.

  “Come, then,” said Kerrec. “Horse first, then kitchen.”

  Maurus trailed after him. Kerrec saw to it that the horse was unsaddled, rubbed down, fed and stabled, then that the cooks filled the boy full of bread and cheese, meat, fruit and a cold tisane of mint and lemon.

  Maurus had a noble hunger once he acknowledged it. Kerrec was somewhat empty himself. He did not remember eating breakfast. He had been too distraught over Valeria.

  That was still there and still strong. This hunt of Maurus’ might be utter foolishness, but it gave him something to do that might in some small way avert the future he kept seeing.

  Just as everyone else insisted that Valeria was in no danger, so did they declare that the priest had gone back over the border. Kerrec could not see that, either. Whatever power had attacked Briana, its pattern was still in the city. There were numerous other patterns superimposed on it, a web of glamour and deception, but Kerrec kept sight of it easily enough.

  Once Maurus had eaten his fill, he led Kerrec out of Riders’ Hall by a door Kerrec had not known was there. The guards were on the other side of the hall, waiting with amazing patience. Kerrec opened his mouth to point this out, but changed his mind. He was inclined to give the boy his head, at least for the moment.

  Walking was never a rider’s favorite mode of transportation. It did allow a closer view of one’s city and a more circuitous route through alleyways too narrow or too thoroughly closed in with low balconies to allow a horseman passage.

  Maurus seemed remarkably familiar
with the twists and turns of Aurelia’s less savory quarters. He trotted through them like a hound on a scent. Kerrec was careful to follow closely behind, with every sense alert and all his defenses at the ready.

  Even so, when Maurus halted, Kerrec was taken by surprise. There had been no change in the patterns and no indication that the hunters were drawing near to what they hunted. As far as Kerrec could tell, the wall in front of him was exactly like every other wall on that narrow and fetid street.

  The street was deserted, which was not usual. Not even a rat disturbed the stillness. Streets on either side were full of the sounds of voices calling, cartwheels rattling, feet passing swiftly or slowly.

  Here the only movement was a scrap of torn linen hanging from a nail. Kerrec felt no wind on his face, but the bit of cloth was fluttering.

  His eyes sharpened. Maurus tugged at his sleeve. The boy’s face was white and scared, but his jaw was set and he radiated determination.

  “There?” Kerrec asked almost soundlessly.

  The boy nodded.

  Kerrec frowned. At the very least he should fetch the nearest detachment of the city guard. It was rank folly to go into this unknown place unarmed, unprepared, not knowing what he would find.

  He was a master mage. He had weapons that few outside the school even knew of. The land of Aurelia was in him with all its power.

  He shrank from breathing too deeply in that alley with its reek of dung and urine and ancient middens, but he drew himself up and gathered his courage. He nodded briskly to Maurus.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The boy’s hand trembled as he opened the door that hid behind the fluttering cloth. Chill air wafted out. Kerrec had expected black darkness, but there was light at the end of the passage.

  The outer wall was brick but the inner walls were stone. They were very, very old. The floor underfoot was so heavily worn that it must once have been part of the street.

  Something about that place made Kerrec think of the tombs of emperors beneath the imperial throne. It also reminded him of the ancient and now destroyed temple in which Briana had been attacked.