“I will mention that to the Circle,” answered the mage levelly. “But my purpose here today was only to ask for—”
“I am nim,” Maru blurted. Please—I nursed your ill daughter! But what do you want with us? “I am nim.”
His heart hung in his throat as the mage approached his cell. Did the mage know that the Ryuven who’d helped his daughter was here? Or had he come for one of the experiments which had claimed other prisoners?
The White Mage looked narrowly at him, frowning through the bars. Maru flinched from the unshaded torchlight. At last the mage spoke. “I am looking for one who has some experience in carrying messages.”
Did he remember the letter Maru had left beneath his door? But he could not have known it was Maru. Did he want someone to carry documents of war to Oniwe’aru? No, they would want a sho or rika for that. “I...”
“My name is Ewan Hazelrig.” The mage drummed his fingers on his crossed arms. “What are you called?”
Maru gulped. “My name is Maru.”
The simple words did something to the mage. Maru could see the shift in his shoulders, and the crossed arms loosened. “I’ll want you for my work. If you—”
“No!” Cilbitha struck the rusty bars at the front of his cell, inches from Maru and invisible behind the stone wall. “You’ll kill him as you did the others!”
The mage did not turn his head. “If I wanted merely to kill him, I could do it here. And I don’t want him for—”
A pale arm stretched from beyond the stone partition and clawed toward the mage’s throat. The torch bobbed as the guard jumped, startled, but the concussion was already spreading, rolling over Maru with a percussive burst through his skull, chest, and wings. He grunted with the diminishing force of it and opened his eyes to see Cilbitha’s arm falling, dropping to the damp floor with a weight which implied it would never move again.
“’Soats, my lord, that was fast,” breathed the guard, staring at the body.
The mage had hardly moved. “They are fast.”
“But you... He’s dead, my lord mage.”
“I’m aware of that,” the mage answered flatly. He looked unhappy. “Spend thirty years on a magical battlefield against a superior foe, and see what reflexes are left to you.” His eyes shifted to Maru. “What’s wrong with this one?”
“What?”
“He’s injured. How?”
“I don’t know. He’s been like that, I guess. We just feed them, that’s all.”
The mage crossed his arms again. “I need to disable the ward at the gates. When I’m finished, I’ll want to take this one to my workrooms.”
“What? Er, my lord mage, we were told they wouldn’t be going anywhere. Most of the work’s done, eh?”
“And do you think,” the mage demanded, peeved, “that with the shield, the responsibility of the Circle ends? That we mages will simply sit back and wait for age and death to creep upon us without accomplishing any more?”
“No, my lord! I didn’t mean that.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Maru stared at the pale, singed arm. Dimly he realized that the White Mage would take him from the prison. He glanced up worriedly.
“I will return shortly,” the mage said clearly, looking at Maru, “with my servant Tam. I trust you’ll be ready for us?”
Tam! Was that Tamaryl? Had Ryl sent the mage to find him? Was it too fantastic to believe—had desperation and hope made him guess too wildly?
“Someone will be here with the keys,” the guard answered promptly.
“Good.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
MARLA GLANCED THROUGH the window to the front gate again, but the repetition didn’t bring Cole home. The slave had not yet returned, and given that it was three hours’ walk to Ivat, without counting time to ask directions and find the Roald house, he might stay the night and not return until morning. He had no duties to demand otherwise.
She bit at her lip. Without Cole, she was alone with her master’s guest. Even if Cole returned, his presence in the outbuilding meant nothing. She had to navigate this shoal alone.
This afternoon had frightened her—not only because of how familiar she had been with the visiting freeman, but because of how comfortable she had been doing so. It wasn’t until he pulled back that she realized exactly how comfortable she had been—and yet, she couldn’t say it had happened without her knowledge. It had just felt... natural, as if they were friends rather than acquaintances of only a couple days. Rather than freeman and slave.
She had not spoken of Demario to many. Her master knew, but few others did. She wouldn’t have mentioned him today if not for the guest’s tentative overture... but she was waiting still for Demario. She had not lost hope.
This man would not press her, though. She was sure of that. He knew too keenly a slave’s helplessness, and he did not seek to salve his own hurt by inflicting it on others.
She stirred the pot, noting the thickening consistency. She could not delay any longer, if she wanted to serve a decent meal. She drew out a wooden tray and picked up a bowl.
She did like him. He was a freeman, a master of slaves, and yet he wore humility where most wore pride and superiority. He had been wronged, but he was not wholly bitter, only wounded and uncertain of how to reconcile himself. He had not used atrocity to justify his own offense but had sincerely regretted his lack of judgment. In short, he was a principled man, and that he had been a slave made it easier to think of him as an equal, one of her own. She ladled stew, thick with remaining chicken and winter vegetables, into the bowl and began to slice the crusty bread. She would not mind his friendship, if a freeman and a slave could be friends.
She loaded the tray with stew, bread, and ale, draped a cloth over it to keep the warmth, and left the kitchen.
He was not in the sitting room, nor in her master’s tiny office. She did not find him in the garden or the sleeping chamber. Finally she climbed the stairs to the roof. “My lord?”
He was there. She stopped, sloshing the ale, and stared at him on his knees, scrubbing at a stain on the tiled terrace. He sank back onto his heels and let the brush drop splashing into the bucket beside him. “Hello.”
“My lord,” she stammered. “What are you...”
He looked ashamed. “I just couldn’t sit still, and so...” He shrugged. “I think I did well enough, though. I didn’t make more work for you.”
“No,” she answered numbly, “no, it’s fine.” She approached him, still holding the tray. “I’ve brought supper...”
“Supper,” he repeated. “I’d not even thought of supper.” He looked about the rooftop. “When I was newly a slave, only a few months into my first place, I was told to scrub a patio. I protested that a tutor—that was my position—a tutor should not be given such a menial task.” He rested his arm on the lip of the bucket, faintly smiling at his foolish pride. “Our steward disagreed, and he said I shouldn’t eat until the chore was finished.”
“I think you’re near enough, my lord. Will you come downstairs to table, or will you eat at the bench here?”
“I haven’t quite finished. I want to have it done.” He looked a bit sheepish. “It’s ridiculous, I know.”
“My lord...”
“I would have preferred an enormous table of ciphers, but there was none handy.” He gave her a self-mocking smile. “There’s nothing like arithmetic to set the order of the universe right.”
“My lord, please eat something.”
“If you insist.”
The tile was drying in the evening air, showing matte patches in the shiny damp surface. Luca sat on the bench and Marla set the tray beside him. “I will go down and—”
“No.” His voice had changed, quiet, pleading. “Please, don’t leave me.”
She hesitated.
“This afternoon—I’m sorry for what happened. I didn’t mean to frighten you, or to touch on private matters. But, if you can overlook that, I would very mu
ch like to speak with you.” His words were coming faster. “You’re the only one here who hasn’t seen someone else in me. Only myself.” He looked away. “I am not asking you for anything. Only conversation. I am neither slave nor master; let me be someone for a short time at least.”
She hesitated and then sat down at the far end of the narrow bench. “What would you like to converse about, my lord?”
“Anything. Tell me a story from your childhood, I don’t care. Only say something.”
Marla smoothed her skirt. “A story about me as a child, or a story someone told me as a child?”
“Whichever pleases you more.”
“You’re not eating, my lord.”
He surprised her by chuckling. “See, I am no respected master, if you admonish me so. You needn’t be formal—Marla.” He tested her name tentatively. “I need no honorific, please.”
This was unfamiliar and dangerous ground. “But—”
“Please. I want to be Luca, for one evening. Not a slave, not a former slave, not a pathetic cringing drudge, not an inconvenient and shameful younger brother, not a freed slave who should be grateful, not a freeman who must be confident in everything, not anything but Luca.”
She looked at him, thinking that perhaps she understood. “If you like.” It was a heady rush to leave my lord from the address, a daring flaunting of position and convention. “But you’ll have to eat your supper.”
He laughed, a quick release of nerves. “I eat, I eat.” He dutifully tore a piece of bread and dipped it into the stew.
“When I was a little girl,” Marla began, “my mother taught me my numbers, of course. She was educated and saw that I was, too. And she taught me how to count to thirty-one on one hand—”
“Oh!” cried Luca through a mouthful, startling her. He gulped and then continued, “No, you can’t surprise me with this one. I was a trained accountant, and I know all your number tricks.” He held up five fingers and wiggled them. “One, two, three, four, five, six—”
“All my tricks?” she repeated, raising one eyebrow. “I’ll bet not. Think of an animal, and—”
“A chicken,” he supplied.
“No, don’t tell me! That will spoil the joke. Think of another animal and keep it to yourself.” She grinned. “Now spell it out in your head and count the number of letters.”
“And you’re going to have me add them together, right?”
“Not in this one! Not yet, anyway. Multiply by nine and subtract five. Got it? Now sum the digits.”
He hesitated. “Wait... they’ll all work out to four, eventually. So your trick must be based on that.”
“Oh, you are clever, aren’t you? Try this one, then.”
It was not so hard to forget Luca’s station. As he was caught in the game, he leaned forward and his eyes shone with delighted laughter, resembling not at all the self-important men who came to her master’s main house to talk of business. Nor did he resemble the shrouded, taciturn guest who’d followed her master through the gate. He was nearly one of her fellow students under Master Thalian, joking over some lesson.
The sky darkened into night, and the air grew chilly. He noticed when she rubbed briefly at her arms. “I’m sorry, are you cold? We should go down.”
“Oh, not for me. I’m all right.”
He shook his head. “No, I promised you I would ask nothing, and yet we’re sitting beneath the stars. Whether I intended it or not, that could be seen as... We must go down or it will compromise my word.”
“And sitting before the warm hearth no less so?” She tipped her head back to look at the starry sky. “No... I love the stars. I cook every day when I’m alone. The kitchen fire holds no romance.”
“I’m afraid the stars don’t move me,” Luca replied, leaning backward himself.
“No? How could they not?”
“Too many nights under them and nothing else, and they never answered my questions.” He straightened. “But we’ll both be warmer by the fire, and I’ll try to keep my indifferent mood from beneath the indifferent stars.”
“The kitchen hearth is more moving?”
He sobered. “Yes,” he said. “But I don’t quite know how to explain. It’s very... warm. Not from the fire, but—it’s comfortable.”
She busied herself straightening his tray. “My mother used to tuck me in before the kitchen fire, and brush my hair, and sing songs for bedtime. Is that what you mean?”
There was a long pause. “I think so,” he said finally, his tone thoughtful. “I think so.” He picked up the tray before she could. “Let’s go.”
The fire had burned low, so she built it into a merrier blaze than was strictly necessary after the cooking was finished. She turned to find that he’d dropped two bags of meal from their high storage against rodents and had settled on the floor against them, stretching his legs before him. “I’ve never done this,” he mused. “I’ve never sat on the floor in a kitchen and watched the fire.”
She sat on a nearby bench and propped her chin in her hands, looking at him. “No? Not in either of your lives?”
He smiled sardonically. “My two lives; that’s one way of putting it. And no. A merchant’s son does not loiter in the kitchen, and I never served in a capacity which kept me there.”
She stared past him to the fire. “What was your best situation?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Serving Master Shianan, of course.” He glanced up. “It was cleaner work being a tutor, I suppose, but if I had to choose...” He shifted his legs. “I’m not quite sure what to say. He remade me after the Gehrn.”
“He was a soldier?”
“He is a soldier,” Luca confirmed. “And he was instructing me in the staff. Teaching a slave to use a weapon, and he was at Furmelle—can you imagine it?”
“He must have been a fine man, as you said.”
Luca nodded. “I will write to him, of course. Only, I want to tell him good news. I’ll wait until then.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
EWAN HAZELRIG COULD feel the tension in Tam’s slight body, stiffening as the heavy door ground open before them. He wondered that the guard did not grow suspicious—but then, a prison guard was hardly likely to give a second glance to a slave. If he did note the boy’s discomfort, he would attribute it to a rational distaste for the deep prison itself.
The guard picked up a torch and gave Tam a glance, making Hazelrig’s chest tighten. But he said only, “He coming with us?”
“The Ryuven is injured,” Hazelrig said, seeing Tam’s shoulders rise another notch. “Ryuven aren’t heavy, but this one is filthy with captivity. I don’t want to carry him, if he needs help. The boy can handle him.”
The guard nodded, satisfied. “I guess a mage’s boy knows how to keep his mouth shut.” He turned and lit the first steps.
Tam followed a half-step behind Hazelrig, but the mage could see his expression tighten as they descended. Ryuven were creatures of air, and the dark underground must seem a very tomb to them. It was disconcerting enough to Hazelrig himself.
Torchlight flickered down the narrow corridor between cells, and something long and pale showed in the path. Hazelrig extended his hand to block Tam and halted. “Why is he still there?” he demanded quietly.
The guard looked at Hazelrig and then at the arm of the dead Ryuven, stretching between the iron bars. “I hadn’t got to him yet,” he answered defensively. “He wasn’t going nowhere.”
“So you left a corpse alongside—between—the remaining prisoners?” Hazelrig could hear a cutting edge in his voice. This was difficult enough for Tamaryl; he did not want additional indignity and abuse. “Leave the key and take care of him. Now.”
The guard blinked, but he’d heard the edge in Hazelrig’s voice as well, and he did not argue with the White Mage. “As you say, my lord mage.” He fingered through his ring of heavy keys until he found the one he wanted and went to unlock the second cell. Tam stared in silence, unmoving. The guard returned and hande
d the key to Hazelrig, and then he went to retrieve the body.
Hazelrig stepped to one side, making room for him to pass with the dead Ryuven. He touched his hand to Tam’s shoulder—a master guiding a slave boy out of the way, or the conciliatory touch of a friend—but Tam had eyes only for the marred corpse as it passed. He watched, stone-faced, as the guard passed, and he continued to look as the guard carried the dead Ryuven up the steps.
“He died by magic,” Tam said at last. His voice was flat, incongruously young in the dark.
“He attacked me.”
Tam made no answer. Hazelrig half-expected him to protest, to argue, but he said nothing.
Hazelrig extended the iron key. “He’s in the third cell.”
The words broke Tam free from his seeming spell, and he snatched the key with a strangely boyish alacrity. Hazelrig remained where he was as Tam hurried past the empty second cell and spun to face the bars of the third. The mage turned to one side, but he could not avoid hearing the draw of breath. “Maru!”
The Ryuven rose toward the bars. “I... Ryl!”
They clasped arms through the bars, and Hazelrig closed his eyes, glad of their chance at reunion without the guard’s presence. He could hear their excited, pained exchange, low voices of surprise and outrage. Hazelrig wished again that he had found Maru unharmed instead of crippled as he was.
But at least he was alive.
He could hear Maru’s amazed questions. He had needed only a moment to recognize his disguised friend, but the guise was strange to him. Tamaryl had drawn on Hazelrig’s power to change his shape, and there had been no need to seal his own pathetic strength. It had been easy enough to bend temporary cuffs about his wrists, giving him a slave’s invisibility.
They left the cell and came up the corridor, and Hazelrig turned back to them. “My good Maru,” he said quietly.
The Ryuven regarded him warily. Hazelrig didn’t blame him. He had seen the White Mage kill a fellow prisoner with one quick bolt. Tamaryl’s presence would not be enough to assure him just yet.
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