The strange moment was interrupted when Ill’Nath stomped into the building, Cryden cradled in his arms. Without giving anyone a second glance, the big islander pushed aside a few potted plants, gently laid his charge on the table, and grabbed a loaf of bread and started chewing. Mane raised an eyebrow.
“I trust you can pay for that, vagrant?”
Ill’Nath paused his mastication, yanked out a tiny pearl piercing from above his eye, and tossed it at the baker with disdain. Then he returned to his meal.
“The company you keep, Lisan, is revealing, to say the least. Now, tell me, what brings you, a lovely, filthy waif, a rude giant, and a probable corpse to my humble bakery amidst this humble town, all amidst a fucking cesspool of treachery, murder, and war?”
Lisan sat heavily in a chair and Merigold joined her, running her fingers through her tangled hair. She was, indeed, embarrassingly filthy. Dear Yetra, what she would do for a bath. Lisan sighed next to her, perhaps coming to the same conclusion. “Trust me, Mane, when I say that none of us would be here, in your bakery, in Terranice, if we could have avoided it. Per my contract with my employer, I am escorting Merigold and her companion to Agricorinor.”
Mane’s calm mask slipped. Shattered, for a moment, really. “Are you fucking kidding me, Lisan? You’re traveling to Agricorinor right now? Have you not taken heed of what is going on in Rafón? In Sestria? Have you had a conversation with a merchant? With a soldier? Are you daft?” He gestured with the passionate expressiveness that Sestrians were known for.
Lisan lowered her eyes. “We have had to travel less populous roads for a reason or two, and we weren’t exactly on speaking terms with the guards.”
Mane paused, scratching at his beard. He walked over to the table where Cryden lay, stroking the potted plants that Ill’Nath had pushed aside. They were yellow lilies, beautiful and likely extremely difficult to maintain in this cold. They reminded Meri of summer in Dunmore.
“And who is this half-dead man you’ve dropped on the counter in my bakery? Should I assume he has been taken with a plague, and…”
“Merhaba, asik misin?” A chubby Sestrian women pushed into the store, ignoring the ‘Closed’ sign hanging from the door. Lisan bounced to her feet, Ill’Nath hefted his bread, and Meri grasped her nail-knife under her shirt. The Sestrian woman looked at the apparently fierce customers, blanched, and stumbled back out the door. Mane sighed as dramatically as the star of a Rostanian play.
“Lisan, alone, could scare away my business, let alone with the rest of you. Now, who is this?” He pushed aside the hood that had painted Cryden’s wasted face with shadows. “By Pilene’s watery teets. Cryden Renshaw? What’s wrong with him? I think it’s time for some explanation.” The charming, enthralling smile vanished from his face, to be replaced with the familiar, confident authority of a pasnes alna. “Now.”
Merigold glanced at Lisan out of the corner of her eye. The warrior woman stood with hunched shoulders, looking for all the world like a beaten child. Meri was stunned that this Mane could disarm a woman who had killed, assassinated, or otherwise skewered Yetra knew how many people. Merigold, though, had gained some level of comfort around pasnes alna, and she felt surprisingly unintimidated by the handsome and powerful… baker.
“The story starts in Ardia, Mr. Mane. You have heard of the civil war, by now?” He nodded curtly. “Well, the Army of Brockmore… the rebels… were decimated at Florens. And, there was…” How to describe it? Rage. Anger. The chorus of fearful cries as the Feral had torn through their exhausted army. Cryden had said not to tell anyone of these demons, though, save a pasnes alna named Ellel Dietz. She fumbled her words. “And Cryden had recently found me; he wanted to recruit me as a pasnes alna. He decided to enlist Lisan, Ill’Nath, and a couple of Sestrians to protect us on the journey.”
“The cautaton is not welcome in Agricorinor,” Mane told her, his tone like an armored boot stamping on an insect.
Merigold felt herself blush. “What?”
“The cautaton is not welcome in Agricorinor,” Mane repeated more slowly, as if she were a dullard. “Why would he bother trying? There is something you are not telling me, someone who Cryden recruited to be a pasnes alna.” The sarcasm lacked some of the previous goodwill. Merigold did not appreciate his tone, either, and Lisan still said nothing.
Meri gritted her teeth.
“Listen here, baker. I don’t care if you are a pasnes alna, a baker, or a Yetra-fucking king. I keep my own counsel, and…”
“Asik misin?”
Again, a man had pushed in, also ignoring the fact that the bakery was closed. The grizzled Rafónese warrior wasn’t wearing a helmet, but his muddied white coat, trimmed in silver, betrayed his allegiance. A Sun Guard, here, in Sestria! The warrior paused, meeting the eyes of each wary occupant in turn. His eyes widened when he saw Lisan’s distinctive, flat face, and they expanded even more when he noticed Merigold’s platinum, albeit greasy, hair.
“Mamatay!” roared the man, hand on his sword. Merigold did not speak Sestrian, but the meaning was clear. Killer. Slayer. The Sun Guard didn’t draw, though. Ill’Nath spat out his bread, grabbing a nearby rolling pin as he did. More conventionally, Lisan drew her own sword. The man took two resistant steps back, and then spun to flee.
Lisan shook herself from her stupor. “Get him!” she shouted, and began to give chase. But it was a futile effort, as a finger-thin beam cut through the air, piercing the man in the back of the head and sending him sprawling against the bakery door. Ill’Nath quickly grabbed the body, dragging him out of sight of the glass store front, leaving a trail of blood and brains like an arrow pointing to the murder.
Mane withdrew his hand from one of his beautiful yellow lilies, though it was now little more than an ashy gray stick. He frowned, first at his plant and then at the body. Then he strode over to the door and drove home the bolt with a harsh click.
“I hope you will tell me why I just killed a Sun Guard for you, Lisan.”
She cringed at his arctically cold tone and even colder stare. He leveled that same withering gaze at Ill’Nath.
“And put down my godsdamned rolling pin.”
***
Cryden lay moaning on a decorative carpet, as Mane refused to allow the cautaton to rest on his bed.
The others reclined on comfortable chairs in Mane’s fairly lush apartments, which were built above the bakery and certainly not impervious to the sweet smells indigenous to such establishments. Closing her eyes and breathing deep, Merigold could almost pretend that it was early morning at the Duckling, with the scent of warm, rising bread filling her nostrils as she woke from her comfortable bed. Ragen had always risen before first light to get the day’s bread going, knowing that his daughter loved to wake to the scent.
But, he was gone, and Mane was here. The pasnes alna baker had regained his earlier calm, and he sat comfortably, one leg crossed over the other. He sipped from a small porcelain cup of tea, though he’d not offered such refreshment to the others. Merigold supposed she couldn’t blame the handsome man for a touch of rudeness; he had committed murder—quite casually—on their behalf.
Amazing, how he had shaped the life of that single flower into a beam strong enough to kill a man. Merigold, when creating her own weapons of death and destruction, drained entire human lives, ending hopes and dreams to summon a handful of colorful, burning discs. Though the Sun Guard had died in an instant, and that was a terrible loss of life for a man who had not really wronged them in any way, Meri had really just felt a sickening pang of jealousy at Mane’s power and precision. She still felt shameful in remembrance of that jealousy.
Ill’Nath continued chewing on the hunk of bread that he had squirreled away. Complementing the crackling of a fire, the annoying, sticky mastication split the air, made louder by the hole in the islander’s face. Even so, a memory of warm bread filled Merigold with a hollow hunger. And yet the handsome baker made no offer of food.
“Why do you bake?” Mer
igold asked abruptly. Cryden had said pasnes alna tended to be in positions of influence. Advisors to kings and wealthy merchants, or at the very least researchers who would be widely consulted in matters of politics and war.
“Why do I bake? That is the question you ask? You are in an unfamiliar country, being pursued by the authorities of another, and I just killed a man twenty feet below us and chucked his body into the basement. Not to mention, the strangling noose of war is drawing ever closer to our necks. And you ask why I bake?” Merigold felt her cheeks redden at Mane’s words, but she didn’t relent.
“Yes, why do you bake? Someone of your obvious talents should undoubtedly be having some impact on the future of this country, helping in preparation for this war, or helping its people. And yet, we find you standing behind a counter, rolling dough and wearing a lady’s apron.”
“Lisan, your little hopeful pasnes alna must learn some manners and boundaries.” Mane gently stroked the leaves of a red-vined plant that grew from an ornate pot next to his chair. The whole room, in fact, was full of well-kept foliage, with bursts of color coming from a dozen varieties of lovely and exotic plants. “Merigold is a lovely name. Perhaps you should seek to emulate the grace of your namesake flower rather than adopting the coarseness of a whore.”
Merigold found herself on her feet, striding toward the cocky, arrogant man. He gripped his plant more firmly as she grasped her nail-knife. She would kill this man. Whore? She was not a whore!
Before anything more could happen, Merigold was brought down by powerful arms and dragged off into the corner of the room. She fought the rage that boiled just beneath the surface, struggling mightily against the need to draw the life from her assailant. It would only lead to more death. And, Yetra’s fucking asshole, she needed to learn control.
Ill’Nath slowly released her, holding the hand that gripped Merigold’s charm. She squeezed shut her eyes and released her weapon reluctantly. The big islander placed both his hands on her shoulders in an odd and seemingly intimate gesture, as if between siblings. His eyes, the color of swirling oceans, met hers.
“The past cannot control you. You are more than what has happened to you. You are more than the things that you have done,” Ill’Nath said in a hoarse whisper, his voice barely more than a steamy breeze on her cheek. The fact that he’d spoken at all shocked her out of her rage.
“Ill’Nath, you speak?”
He simply grinned back at her with a mouth full of metal. She might well have imagined the words. He led her back to her chair and went to kneel beside the ailing Cryden, beginning to prepare a mixture of broth and herbs to force down the unconscious man’s throat.
“Are you under control now, want-to-be-a-pasnes alna?” asked Mane, his voice as condescending as that of a mother responding to an emotional child. He sipped at his tea like a Yetra-fucking Rostanian count, holding his pinky at just the right angle.
She did not like Mane, but they still needed information. She could be pleasant, if needed. She would just treat him like a rude customer at the Duckling.
“My apologies, good sir,” she began. “That particular phrase resonates poorly with me, but it is no excuse for my actions. Can I ask you a better question? Why would the Sun Guard be here, in Terranice?” Lisan nodded at her, encouragingly. It made Meri angry, but she kept a smile on her face. Mane set down his tea, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and shrugged disarmingly.
“For you, of course. Everyone in Terranice has heard of the Polanice Massacre, where a petite Ardian blonde slaughtered dozens of the Sun Guard in broad daylight. A contingent arrived not two days ago, seeking permission of the prince to conduct an informal search and remain stationed in Eneral, the old barracks that Sestrian forces refused to man. The prince acquiesced, although not without a vow of loyalty, that these Sun Guard would have to stand in defense of Terranice in the case of an attack or siege.”
“The Menogans,” Lisan muttered. She was still not herself, behaving as if she were small and insignificant.
“Yes, your friends, the snow-skinned Menogans. They’ve found, or created, a consistent way past the Great Barrier, and here they are. It seemed fairly insignificant at first. People going missing, ships dashed upon the rocks, occasional farms burned. Pretty common around here.”
“The Rafónese would blame the Sestrians,” Lisan said, sitting up and leaning forward.
“Yes, and vise versa. In the twenty years since the Grasp was taken by Sestria, things have been tense, to say the least. It was a wager poorly made, and a wager poorly lost,” Mane said with a shake of his head at the stupidity of kings.
“What is this wager everyone has been talking about?” Merigold asked, leaning forward in her chair. It would be just like nobility to wager the lives of the less-worthy in pursuit of their own gain.
Mane laughed, and it sounded like the soothing strumming of a harp. “Prince Albun, then a young man, publicly wagered with Region Lord Temps Merinto that he would fuck his wife, Lady Garns. Merinto, of course, was confident in the fidelity of Lady Garns, a storied beauty and fierce politician. He blustered, quite publicly I might add, that he would give up his very holdings to the man who could bed his wife. In front of international ambassadors and domestic lords, the laws stated that this was a binding contract, witnessed by too many persons to be discounted. Lady Garns, of course, was already sucking the cocks of Albun and half a dozen other lords for political favors. It took little effort for Album to make her a deal—substitute the cocks of many for the cock of one. And Sestria’s Grasp was born of that infidelity.”
Lisan shook her head at the stupidity of it. “They say Lord Merinto took his own life after the Sestrians moved in, but I’m reasonably certain Albun ended him as a loose end. Or perhaps Lady Garns did, removing the source of her shame. But the Grasp is ever a troubled place.”
“And more troubled now, since your Menogans landed.” Mane stroked his plant with a frown.
“What do you know about them? Why are they here? Why hasn’t anyone stopped them?” Merigold asked, thinking of the group that had ambushed them. It had been a fairly small number of men, though they’d had power. “Surely, the Rafónian army, or the Sestrians, would be able to fight them off.”
Ill’Nath snorted loudly, rose from Cryden’s side, and went to stand by the window overlooking the street. Apparently, he had a poor opinion of the military here. Mane agreed.
“The powers-that-be have been so busy pointing fingers and undermining each other that no one mobilized any real combative force. And now there are enough Menogans on the mainland, scattered all over like fleas on a dog, that there’s about as good a chance of dislodging them. They are outmaneuvering the standing military at every turn. Yet, even now, Prince Albun assumes the monarch is partnering with them in a ruse, and certainly the monarch assumes the same, so any truce between the two countries is loose at best.”
“So, will there be war?” Lisan asked, massaging her temples. “Are these people that stupid?”
“They’re scared,” Merigold interjected. “Captain Tinto spoke of fear, and the common folk are looking for an enemy they understand.”
Mane gave her an appraising look. “Yes, and the Menogans are inscrutable. No one knows why they are here or what their goal is. Few even know of the empire, on the other side of the Great Barrier, since it takes a great deal of testicular fortitude to even approach the western stretches of the Vissas Sea, let alone seek a gap in those thousand-mile reefs. Even fewer speak Menogan or have any concept of the language.” He stared at Lisan, bright intelligent eyes seeming to strip her down to whatever lay beneath the skin.
“I only know a few words and phrases,” she muttered, glancing at her hands as if remembering her servitude.
“Where are the pasnes alna? These Menogans fight with miernes, but the Rafónese told us that the pasnes alna have fled. Why are they not helping the people?” Merigold asked.
“A father must feed his own children before sharing food with the vill
age. They are looking after themselves.” Mane, despite his confidence, almost sounded ashamed. He brought his teacup to his mouth and found with a frown that it was empty.
“But you are still here…” murmured Lisan.
“I am still here.”
A silence permeated the room—a thick and sickening lack of sound. Lisan continued to rub at her head, fussing up her hair but not seeming to care. Mane considered his empty teacup, a wry smile newly drawn on his face. Ill’Nath stared out the window, standing like a great marble statue. And Cryden lay on the floor, making no noise aside from some ragged breaths. Yetra didn’t give a shit about his fate, or any of theirs.
“Mane… can you help Cryden? He’s been unwell. A wound soured…” Merigold said, expecting very little, but feeling obligated to ask.
“Yes, the smell makes that evident.” Mane wrinkled his nose in disgust. None of them could smell good at this point in their journey, but Cryden did have a tang about him. “But, no, I’ve no affinity for the health of men. I doubt he would survive my touch, and I’ve little desire for another death on my hands—for today, at least.”
Merigold hung her head, letting her dirty hair cover her face. It was a girlish, old habit that was ill-suited to her life these days, and she knew it. It wasn’t like she could hide away from the reality of her life through a tangled knot of filthy locks. And it wasn’t like Ragen would feel guilty and soothe her, complying with whatever she needed. Aside from her bodyguard, she was alone, without friends and without family.
She could feel Mane’s eyes on her, but refused to look up. The weight of everything seemed to be settling more deeply onto her weary shoulders. They would not be safe in Agricorinor. They were unlikely to even survive the journey. Cryden, potentially her only remaining friend, if he was even that, had not showed signs of consciousness for days. Mane could not or would not help. Remy had fallen to her own uncontrolled and disordered mind, releasing his tenuous grasp on life when Marius had succumbed to his own wounds. Their group was already shattered.
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