“Walk that way”—Amnachudran pointed into the woods—“fifty paces. Sit down with your back to the fire. Stay there till I call you. Go.”
Gereint turned immediately and walked into the woods. Carefully, because it was dark under the trees. And chilly. He counted off fifty paces, found a rock, sat down. Wrapped his arms around himself for warmth. His imagination populated the darkness with wolves. Griffins—no, griffins would, like the one they’d seen, have headed for the desert as dusk fell. If it had been headed back to the desert. But surely it had been.
Dragons, then. Did dragons hunt by night? Would fire keep a dragon away or draw it? He knew there was almost no chance of dragons this far south, but he nevertheless half believed he heard some vast creature shift its weight away off in the dark.
Probably there was a better chance of wolves. Fire would definitely keep wolves away. Though not from fifty paces behind him. He tried to think about poetry instead of wolves. Gestechan Wanastich’s measured cadences came to mind, unfortunately. Fire and the dark and women weeping: not what he wanted in his mind at this moment. And hadn’t Wanastich actually written something about wolves? Ah, yes: the part of the Teranbichken epic with the snow and the black trees and the wolves’ eyes glowing in a circle… Imagination was a curse, Gereint decided, and closed his own eyes. He knew perfectly well there were no wolves.
He wished he’d had a chance to eat that fish. He might have picked up a blanket, at least, if he’d been quick. Amnachudran might have let him keep it. He wondered whether the man meant to leave him out here all night. Probably not. Maybe. The command had been sit. Gereint would not be able to lie down. Though he probably would not have found a dry spot to stretch out, if he was going to be left out here all night, he was going to regret his inability to try.
Behind him, Amnachudran shouted his name.
Gereint jumped to his feet and, despite the darkness, walked back to the fire much more quickly than he had left it. Once he stepped out into the light, the idea of wolves seemed ridiculous. He walked more slowly back to the fire and stopped, facing his master.
“Well?” asked Amnachudran, looking shrewdly up at him.
Gereint dropped at once to his knees. “Pardon my insolent tongue, master—sorry. Forgive me, sir. I won’t—”
“Stop it!” Amnachudran stopped, took a breath, and continued more mildly: “I don’t want you to, um. Grovel. What I was asking for was simply your opinion.”
Taken aback—again!—Gereint asked cautiously, “May I get up?”
“Yes!” Amnachudran gestured toward the blanket on the other side of the fire. “Sit down, get warm, eat your fish. Tell me, are you going to stop prodding me for a reaction? Are you satisfied?”
Gereint settled by the fire, poked at the fish. Ate a bite. Amnachudran had boned the fish for him and had a mug of hot tea waiting along with the beef broth. Gereint had more than half expected his master to call him back to the fire. But this additional small kindness was so far outside anything he had expected that he did not even know what to feel about it.
He looked up, met the other man’s eyes. “You asked for my opinion and whether I’m satisfied. Very well. You certainly haven’t lost your temper. I’m satisfied you won’t, or not easily. Or did you wish my opinion about the punishment itself? Very well: It was effective. I don’t want you to do that again, for all you avoided brutality very neatly. Thank you for calling me back to the fire.”
“What you said. About being made to kneel while someone beat you unconscious. Someone did that to you?”
Amnachudran might be a clever man. A perceptive man. But judging by his tone on that question, he was in some ways surprisingly innocent. Gereint controlled an impulse to laugh. He answered, with considerable restraint, “Oh, yes.”
Amnachudran looked revolted. “I’d thought… You’re right that I don’t want a geas slave. Now less than ever. I’d thought, once we get back to my home, I might find out your old master’s name, send you—”
Cold struck through Gereint’s body like death. There could not be many geas-bound men of his size and general description. Even if he refused to give Amnachudran his old master’s name, the man could easily find it out. He put the mug of tea down, stood up, came back around the fire to where Amnachudran sat, and knelt. Put his palms flat on the ground. Bent to touch his forehead to the earth.
“Gereint—”
“I know you don’t want me to grovel.” Gereint straightened his back, looking the other man deliberately in the face. “My most recent master, now. He likes a man to grovel. I’m sure he was very angry when he realized he would have to leave me behind. He would be very grateful to you if you returned me to him. He’s a powerful man; his patronage could probably be useful to you. Me… he would expect me to plead for mercy. He would expect me to eat the dirt in front of his boots. I would do that for you, except you wouldn’t like it. If you were searching for an effective threat, you’ve found one. Don’t send me back to him. Please, don’t. Just tell me to walk—”
“Away into the mountains, I know—”
“—back to Melentser. I would rather that than go back into that man’s house.”
There was a pause.
“What did he do to you?” Amnachudran asked, his tone hushed.
Gereint said gently, “Eben Amnachudran. You’re a decent man. You don’t want to know.”
This time the pause was longer.
Gereint bowed his head, drew a slow breath, let it out. He didn’t get to his feet, but said instead, “I know you won’t free me. You’ve made that clear. I won’t ask again. I’ll ask this instead: What can I do to persuade you to keep me yourself? Not sell me, nor give me away, nor above all send me back to my old master?”
Amnachudran stared at him.
“You were right, of course: I have been pushing at you. I’ll stop. I’ll be respectful—I can be respectful. I’ll call you by name, if you prefer. I won’t grovel, since you don’t like that. You can treat me as a hired man rather than a slave, if you wish. I can play that role. I can play any role that pleases you. You were right: I’m a maker. I could be useful to you—”
“Stop!” said Amnachudran, rather desperately.
Gereint shut his mouth. Rested his hands on his thighs, deliberately open and easy. Waited.
“What was it that you did?”
Gereint flinched, he hoped not noticeably. He began to speak, hesitated. Said at last, “If I tell you again I did nothing, you’ll think I’m lying and be angry. I don’t want that.”
“Just tell me the truth!”
“You’re waiting for me to lie to you. Are you so certain you would recognize truth, when you’re listening for lies?”
Silence. Finally, Amnachudran made a disgusted gesture. “Eat your supper. Go to sleep. I’ll think about your request… later. When we’ve gotten to my house.”
The geas could compel Gereint to eat the rest of the fish and drink the tea. But even the geas couldn’t force him to sleep, though it could make him lie quietly with his eyes closed.
* * *
The morning came watery and pale through the mist that rose from the river and the damp woods. There had been no sign of wolves or griffins or dragons. Or if there had been, it must have been in the small hours near dawn, when Gereint had finally slept a little.
Amnachudran had coaxed the fire back to life and made tea. He glanced up as Gereint got to his feet. “There’s plenty of cracker. I’m sorry there’s not time for you to catch more fish. But we should be home by evening.”
Home. His, of course. Did he mean that it would be Gereint’s home as well? Probably not. Gereint didn’t ask. He went down to the river and washed his face and hands. Came back and began to roll up the blankets and stow away the little pot and other things. Ate a piece of cracker. Drank the tea. He couldn’t tell what Amnachudran was thinking. If he was thinking about anything other than his home.
“I know you’re much stronger than I am. But I think I could
carry—” Amnachudran began.
“No, sir. That’s not necessary. Just carry the packs,” Gereint said. But respectfully. He inspected the straps on the saddlebags and spent a few minutes lengthening some and shortening the others. “We’re crossing the river, are we? How waterproof are these bags? I brought some tallow candles. If you have a little oil, I can probably improve them.”
“Thank you, Gereint. Yes. When we stop.”
Gereint nodded, slung the straps over his shoulders, and straightened. The bags seemed to have grown heavier. He didn’t let himself groan, but only glanced politely at the other man, waiting for him to lead the way.
The sun came out. The mist lifted. The river dashed cheerfully down the hill beside them. There was even a deer trail to follow. All in all, a pleasant morning. Gereint only wished he was alone, less burdened, and heading the other way.
On the other hand… on the other hand, he could be in Breidechboden. In Perech Fellesteden’s house. Compared to that, Amnachudran’s house, whatever it was like, would surely prove a perfect haven. Probably the man hadn’t yet decided whether to grant Gereint’s plea. Gereint glanced at him, a cautious sidelong glance. He did not want to annoy him. But he did not seem easy to annoy… Gereint asked, “Is it Tashen? Where your house is?”
“Near Tashen,” Amnachudran agreed. “My house is out in the country, between the mountains and the city. Near the river, in fact. After the ford, we’ll turn almost due east, walk fewer than ten miles. My house is at the base of some low hills, where a stream comes down year-round. It’s easy country there, open and level, good for orchards and wheat and pasture. The apples are just beginning to ripen now. My wife loves apples; she’s collected dozens of varieties…”
Gereint made an interested sound, listening with half an ear to descriptions of orchards and gardens and the new pond they’d just built and stocked with fish. Amnachudran was clearly wealthier than Gereint had guessed. And there was a wife. Gereint wondered whether she would object to the presence of a geas-bound servant. Would it be possible to win her over, make himself so immediately useful that she would object if her husband wanted to get rid of him?
But there were grown children, too, he gathered. With children of their own, in and out of their grandparents’ house. Geas bound or not, Amnachudran or his wife might reasonably hesitate to bring a murderer into the house where their grandchildren played. Or a rapist.
Gereint’s thoughts tended darker and darker. He doubted he could persuade Amnachudran to release him, but the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that the man would keep him either. Even if he did not send him back to Fellesteden… If he sold him, what were the odds Gereint’s next master would be kind? Kind men did not buy geas slaves.
What were the odds, if he was sold, that it would be to someone from the city? The court nobles and the lesser nobles, the rich men angling for power and influence… Those were the men who liked to own geas-bound slaves. He might very well be sold and re-sold until he found himself in Breidechboden after all. If he were sold to anyone in the king’s city, Perech Fellesteden would almost certainly learn of it eventually.
Gereint was very silent by the time they reached the ford, about an hour past noon. The river was wider here, still fast but not deep. Rocks thrust up through the water. A man would not be able to walk from one bank to the other without getting his feet wet, but he might come closer to that than Gereint had expected. In the spring, the river might be impassable. But now, only one thirty-foot channel looked difficult, and even that did not look actually dangerous.
And on the other side, fewer than ten miles away, Amnachudran’s house. Perhaps forty miles from Melentser as the falcon flies. It seemed both infinitely farther than that and, at the same time, hardly any distance at all.
Amnachudran stared at the river and grunted. “Could be worse. I thought it would be worse, in fact. That’s lower than we’d usually see, even this time of year.”
Gereint, not very interested, nodded politely.
“I’ll make tea,” Amnachudran said, “if you’ll see what you can do about the saddlebags?”
Gereint got out two of the tallow candles and found Amnachudran’s jar of oil. And the broken mug, since his master was using the pan for the tea. He melted the candles with the oil over low flames, rubbed the hot tallow between his palms, and nodded toward the first of the saddlebags. “It would be easier if they were empty.”
Amnachudran opened the first bag without a word. It contained books. Maskeirien’s eclogues, Teirenchoden’s epic about the nineteenth war between Ceirinium and Feresdechodan. Histories and poetry, natural philosophy and political philosophy. Leather embossed with gold; fine heavy paper illuminated with dragons and griffins and storm eagles and slender sea creatures with the tails of fishes and the proud, fine-boned faces of men. Nothing common. Not a single volume that was not beautiful and rare and precious. They made the two books he’d stolen look almost common.
Gereint wondered why he had not guessed. Heavy and valuable, but not breakable; valuable for themselves and not merely for their market price. Exactly the sort of riches a man might risk the new desert to recover. Especially if he’d thought, A few hours in and a few hours out, how difficult can it be?
No wonder Amnachudran was willing to wait in order to enhance the waterproofing on the bags before he carried those books across the river. Gereint rubbed the tallow across the leather. He gazed dreamily into the air while he rubbed it in, thinking about waterproof leather, about tight seams, about straps that closed tight and firm. He tried not to let himself be distracted by the books themselves, although he couldn’t resist a glance or two as Amnachudran unloaded the second bag.
“The oil won’t stain the books?” Amnachudran asked. He touched the first cautiously, inspected the tips of his fingers.
“It might if someone else did this,” Gereint answered. “Not when I do it.”
“A knack.”
“It’s a matter of knowing exactly what I want the oil to do and not do. And yes, it’s a knack.”
Amnachudran grunted and, finding his fingers clean and dry, began to replace the contents of the first bag and unload the third. “Just how waterproof can you make these?”
Gereint, massaging melted tallow into leather, shrugged. “It would probably be better not to actually drop a bag midriver.”
Amnachudran grunted again and went to get the fourth bag.
Midchannel, the river was chest deep. And very fast. Gereint took his boots off and waded out cautiously, leaving the books behind while he tested the footing and the strength of the current. He came out shaking his head. “I don’t like it… It’s not too bad when you’ve got your hands free and no weight to carry…”
“I have rope,” Amnachudran offered.
They slung the rope from shore to shore; it just reached. Then Gereint took the packs and his boots, and Amnachudran’s boots, across first. The technique seemed sound. He could brace an awkward weight on his shoulder with one hand and cling to the rope with his other. He took three bags across, one after another, while Amnachudran watched anxiously. Then he came back for the last, standing back to allow Amnachudran to precede him into the water.
“Be careful,” Gereint warned him as they came to the deepest part of the channel. “Chest deep on me is—”
“Just about over my head. Yes, I know. Even so, it’s the nearest thing to an easy crossing anywhere above the bridge at Metichteran. I admit, it looks easier when you’re ahorse than it does when you’re on foot.”
Gereint shrugged. “Keep hold of the rope. I’ll be right behind you.”
Amnachudran went ahead of Gereint, hand over hand along the rope, gasping with cold and sputtering as the racing water dashed into his face. He made it to the first of the broad stones on the other side of the channel and began to pull himself out of the water.
Gereint, ten feet behind the older man, saw the log come spinning down the river just too late to shout a warning.
It hit Amnachudran’s legs with a thud Gereint could hear even from that distance, tearing the man away from the rope. He cried out, falling, but the cry was choked off as the water closed over his head; Gereint, appalled, saw him come back to the surface in time to smash against one stone and then another and then go under once more.
Gereint heaved the last saddlebag toward the rocks without watching to see where it landed and flung himself into the current. He fended off a rock with his hands, followed the rushing current by instinct and luck, glimpsed the log, hurled himself after it, found himself in a great sucking undertow, went down. Found cloth under his hands. An arm. Stone beneath: He kicked hard and broke into the air, rolled to drag Amnachudran up as well, slammed back first into stone. Cried out with pain and at the same time clutched for any handhold he could find. The current pinned them against the stone. Gereint got an arm around the other man’s chest, dashed water out of his own face, and found pebbles rolling under his toes. The river was fierce, here, but not much more than shoulder deep. And he could see where another stone offered support against the current.
Amnachudran was limp. Gereint tightened his hold, got his feet against the rock that supported them, and lunged for the other stone. Made it, and now the water was only chest deep. He dug his toes into the river’s rough bed, heaved Amnachudran up onto the stone, made his way around it to where the water was still shallower, grabbed the man’s arm, dragged him across his shoulder, and slogged for the shore. Dropped him—not as gently as he’d meant—on a shallow shelf of pebbles and sand. Fell to his knees beside him and felt for a pulse in his throat. Found one. Rolled him over and pressed to get the water out of his lungs; made sure he was breathing on his own. And only then realized what he’d done.
Gereint climbed to his feet. Everything had happened so fast; too fast. He felt dizzy and ill. His back and hip hurt, his knee hurt with a deep ache that told him it was at least wrenched, maybe sprained. The palms of his hands were raw—how had that happened?
But Amnachudran had suffered much worse. But he was still breathing, though the sound had a rattle to it that suggested water in the lungs. His pulse was rapid and thready with shock. There was a lump the size of a small egg above and behind his ear. Gereint thought one of his legs was probably broken.
Land of the Burning Sands Page 4