The young Dhaurian scholar beckoned them over, and within minutes an impromptu market stall had opened on the side of the road. Women from all over the town brought cloth, and in some cases complete garments, for the strangers to cast their eyes over. The prices asked were high, but no one complained. Heredrew’s supply of Bhrudwan coin seemed inexhaustible, and the fabric was good quality. Each Falthan accepted a complete outfit—some of the garments were mismatched but even the worst of the clothes was more suitable than the filthy and frayed robes they wore. Heredrew and Phemanderac were the only exceptions: Phemanderac because his robes had been protected by travelling in the dray; Heredrew due to the fact that no garments came anywhere near fitting him.
New clothes would be made overnight, the women promised, in addition to the garments they had purchased. Stella shuddered, picturing the women working by dim candlelight into the small hours, but none of the seamstresses looked displeased at the prospect. They bade the visitors farewell and hurried to their homes.
The town, though substantial, apparently had only one public eating place: the aptly named Boiling Waters Tea House. Steam rose from behind the low thatched-roof buildings of the tea house, borne away on the wet wind, but despite the wind and rain the buildings seemed to give off an even more concentrated unpleasant smell, as though rotten eggs were stored inside. Apparently the tea house kept a small cottage where travellers could stay overnight, but, despite the rain, none of the party appeared keen.
‘Perhaps we could try our luck in the next village,’ Robal said, a hand over his face. ‘I wouldn’t want to dine in a place that smells like this.’
‘The next village,’ Heredrew said, ‘is a long way north of here and a great deal less civilised. Besides, you have resplendent new robes waiting for you here. Who wouldn’t want to be seen in that orange tunic?’ He paused, then added thoughtfully: ‘It seems this place has improved since last I was here.’
Stella gave Conal a sidelong glance, but the chastened priest did not rise to the bait. Good boy, she thought; and the thought must have been reflected on her face because Conal turned away, his own face twisted.
He loves me and he hates me. Not good news. He could do anything and justify it.
As they entered the tea house, two or three of the closest groups beckoned them further in, broad smiles on their faces. Many wore no tunics, not surprising in the sudden, oppressive heat of the room. ‘Cummin ’n shut the hole behind yer!’ one young man cried. ‘Man could freeze his stones orf out there!’ His companions laughed at his wit.
The interior of the Boiling Waters Tea House took their breath away.
Rather than a standard wooden floor, a series of boardwalks wound around open grey earth, brown pits of mud and pools of steaming water. What had looked from the outside to be a series of buildings was revealed to be one vast structure with many roofs, interspersed with gaps open to the sky, and no interior walls. Groups of Bhrudwans sat around talking, laughing and singing; a surprising contrast to the way the more solemn Yacoppica Tea House far to the south had been. Here and there tall, thick poles of pale wood supported the roof, and around them were hung dozens of labelled bags filled with herbs.
They were approached by a smiling woman wearing a garland of flowers around her neck. ‘Welcome,’ she said. ‘For one fena each you can have your own cauldron and choice of herbs, or for—’
Smiling even wider than the woman, Heredrew took her arm. ‘We’ll have your premier service, in the seats closest to the Matron.’
‘Ah!’ she said, not at all discomfited by his interruption. ‘Are you a regular visitor to the Tea Chain?’
He laughed. ‘Regular, yes. But my visits, though regular, are spaced out longer than I’d like. Last time I was here this was open ground. I remember the Matron though. I trust she is as timely as ever?’
‘But…but sir, the Boiling Waters Tea House has been up for thirty years or more.’
‘I’m older than I look. Now, our seats, please?’
‘Payment?’ she responded.
Heredrew pulled out his Seal of Andratan. The woman paled visibly, then nodded and beckoned them forward.
‘Finally some respect,’ he said as they followed the woman along a narrow boardwalk between two mud pools.
‘Fear, more like,’ Conal muttered, but Stella didn’t think the Undying Man heard. He couldn’t have: he was not the sort of man to ignore an insult—accurate, as this one was, or otherwise.
Her fellow Falthans were clearly uncomfortable in the presence of the Destroyer, though not as uncomfortable as she. But the discomfort went both ways. Stella suspected that if not for their company, Kannwar would have punished many of those who had dealt with them with such insolence. He was trying to act even-handedly, presumably because he needed her cooperation to fulfil the task he had accepted. He had been forced to lay aside his pride. Stella smiled to herself. She could not conceive of a more fitting punishment for the man.
The pale young woman indicated their seats. Unlike other seating in the tea house, these were fixed to the floor, and arranged in a semicircle around a small pool. The rear seats were raised somewhat, as though to afford people a view of the pool. A few people, better dressed than the average patron, had congregated there, sitting, talking and generating an air of expectancy. Above them the roof was open to the darkening sky: rain hissed into the steaming pool by their feet.
‘The Matron will be along shortly,’ their host said.
‘Thank you.’ Stella smiled reassuringly at her. She was unsure why they needed a matron, or why they had to be seated here, in a very public part of the tea house, in order to be served by her.
Phemanderac and Moralye sat closer to the pool, engaged in a conversation in a language Stella did not know. The native language of Dhauria, she supposed. Probably debating some esoteric philosophy. The dominie did not seem to be getting the best of it either.
Kilfor and his father were quiet. The older man had been experiencing pain in his joints, brought on by the damp weather, he said. His son kept a close and loving eye on him, fussing terribly over the old reprobate whenever he thought people weren’t watching. He was doing it now, adjusting Sauxa’s collar.
The woman who had guided them here remained standing nearby. Stella had just begun to wonder why when the woman gathered herself and knelt in front of Heredrew. ‘Please, sir,’ she said, ‘you have the seal. Our family has lived here for generations, and we understand the power Andratan wields. You are undoubtedly close to the Undying Man, an adviser perhaps. Thus I would ask a boon, sir, an answer to a simple question.’
The Undying Man’s eyebrows rose. ‘Ask your question.’
‘My brother was recruited fifteen years ago and taken to Andratan to serve the Undying Man. His name is Porcaro Nobe. He had long black hair and was a well-favoured man, powerful in magic and loved by all who knew him. Have you any news of him?’
Stella watched Heredrew carefully. He was not able entirely to mask his reaction: his eyebrows twitched when the woman gave her brother’s name, and he focused an intense stare on her. She noticed it too, Stella was sure.
‘Woman, I am but one of many in that vast fortress. There are a thousand servants, a hundred jailers, dozens of tutors and recruiters, and more students than I have ever bothered to count. Andratan is more like a city than a castle. Surely the chances of me knowing your brother must be slim?’
The woman bowed her head, and for a moment Stella thought she would accept his words. Then she looked up, and the intensity of her gaze almost seemed to burn the air.
‘Sir, forgive me for speaking, but I must. The sum of your words is nothing, yet your eyes tell me something else. You know him, or at least what happened to him. Please, sir, if you have even a mite of compassion, and wish to honour the noble name of Andratan, tell me of my brother.’
A squawk of derisive laughter from Conal, quickly disguised as a cough. That one still treads close to the cliff, Stella thought.
The
girl’s eyes were wells of misplaced hope. Courageous, undoubtedly magically gifted at least to a small degree, and about to be cruelly rejected.
‘I’m prepared to do better than that,’ Heredrew said. ‘I can take you to see him.’
‘No, Drew!’ Stella cried. ‘Don’t be so cruel!’
Her words were almost obscured by the shouts of pleasure from the woman, who began jumping on the spot and clapping her hands. Then moisture sprang up around her eyes. ‘You wouldn’t be teasing me, sir?’
‘Trying to ensure good service, more like,’ Conal muttered, in a voice more distinct than he no doubt intended.
Heredrew fixed Stella with his grey eyes—grey today, they might be any colour tomorrow—clearly asking her to take responsibility for her companion. She nodded, took Conal by the arm, and led him a few paces down the boardwalk.
‘Conal, you are alive only on his sufferance and by my sacrifice,’ she said to him, reverting to the Falthan common tongue. ‘For someone who has expressed such a strong wish for everlasting life, you do take the most extraordinary risks. Don’t you understand he could erase you from existence? Or entrap you in an eternal agony of torment? Why do you do it? Why do you bait him so?’
‘Perhaps my death would bring you to your senses,’ he replied, his chin jutting in defiance, an altogether ridiculous sight.
‘It is not I who needs to find good sense,’ Stella said. ‘Yes, you have an excuse for your actions, but being overpowered by the magician in your head is starting to wear thin. Do you not yet understand? The latter gods are about to burst back into the world, to its ruin, and the man you and I despise may be our only hope. So, priest, you face the age-old dilemma about means and ends. Would you prefer the world to end in fire over acknowledging the Destroyer as our saviour?’
‘Those aren’t the only choices,’ Conal said stubbornly. ‘The Most High will have many plans. Did He not say to Leith, your husband’—he hissed the word—‘that he was but one of many called to walk the path? Do I have to remind you of the Castle of Fealty and the prophetic painting there, which showed Leith as one of many potential saviours? And, when ultimately he failed, did Hal not step in and take his place?’ His eyes flashed. ‘So it was then, so it will be now.’
‘Oh, Conal, so many of the Most High’s plans have been opposed by those believing themselves right. I remember a young girl running to the arms of the charming Tanghin rather than remain obedient to her village headman, only to discover Tanghin was in reality Deorc, the Destroyer’s henchman. How many of the Most High’s plans did I turn over that night?’
‘Your argument makes my point,’ Conal said. ‘You trusted a man in disguise and were enslaved by him. Well, I will make no such mistake. I do not see Drew, the suave charmer who apparently fills your eyes and your heart, but rather the Destroyer, the torturer of innocents like Arathé of the Bhrudwans.’
He turned on his heel and found a place to sit behind the group, on the highest level of seating. Stella stared after him, forcing her hands into rigid fists at her sides, reminding herself that even he was not the true enemy.
The woman who had dared ask Heredrew her question had vanished, no doubt to make preparations for a journey from hope to bitterness. As much as Stella opposed Conal’s rejection of the Undying Man, she was not blind to his essential wickedness. Conal was right, in a way. ‘Drew’ did fill her heart, but with fear, not love. She had not forgotten, would never forget, what he had done to her.
How he had allowed her to escape him, how she had fought for a week through the cold and privation of the Bhirinj highlands in winter, barely surviving, believing she was free; only to find a cottage with smoke rising from the chimney. She had thrust open the door to see him standing by the fire, laughing, as he revealed he had engineered her escape for his amusement and her education.
How he had demonstrated his ruthlessness to her and to his entire army by commanding his most loyal and upright general to put a defiant village to the flames. The man—she could not remember his name, only that he had been known as the Red Duke—refused, and he had been staked and burned, along with his staff. Their cries had been horrible.
How he had then put the entire village to death as a demonstration of his power, nailing the men to the doors of their houses so they could watch his soldiers cut the hands and feet from their children, and rape their wives and daughters. ‘I have something to show you!’ he had cried before the slaughter had begun.
These and other memories cascaded through her head as she returned to the seats around the pool to await the arrival of the mysterious matron. No, she would not forget what sort of monster lurked underneath the so-attractive skin of the man Heredrew. Conal was right, in a way, but could not have been more wrong.
Yet she had seen little of the Destroyer’s evil since Heredrew had joined them north of the Great Desert. Nor had her companions, Conal’s complaints notwithstanding. For example, when they emerged from the blue fire into the caustic lake, Sauxa had been ready to take to the sorcerer with his knife, despite the fact it had only been the Undying Man’s magic that had saved them. But now the old man talked with him as with any other companion.
It is very difficult when a legend is revealed as simply a man, Stella reflected. No, strike that. This man is anything but simple.
Even Phemanderac had come to some understanding with the man. Stella would not have believed it possible that a Dhaurian, the mortal enemies of Andratan, could have found a place of commonality, yet she had listened to them talking about the times of the First Men as though they were lifelong companions. She recalled one scene: Phemanderac laughing in his reedy way as Heredrew mercilessly dissected Dhaurian theories about the Vale of Youth.
Kilfor, younger and perhaps more self-reliant, seemed less enamoured of the sorcerer, no doubt confident that the edge of a sword rather than foul-tainted magic would bring them victory. His friend Robal shared his view. Yet even they made no overt protest at his continued presence with them. Why?
Expediency was the answer. Whatever else this man was, he was powerful. All the legends agreed on that. There was likely no one more powerful on three continents. ‘He might be evil,’ Robal had remarked to her late one afternoon a day or two north of Foulwater, ‘but at least he’s strong. And while he’s working with us, he’s not working against us.’
They all saw him as a tool, then, to be used and discarded. Perhaps even the Most High saw him like that. But not Stella. She viewed him differently: after all, she was cursed, eternally cursed, because of his juxtaposition of cruelty and love; destined to live forever with his god-cursed blood in her veins. He would not prove a tool comfortable to the hand, nor would he be easy to discard.
While she had been brooding, cauldrons had been brought and placed in small pools off to one side. Heredrew asked her which herb she favoured, and she sent him to fetch her a relaxant of some potency. It wasn’t until she caught herself watching his upright back disappearing into the crowd that she began to wonder just how strong his influence over her remained.
He’d loved her in his own fashion. Her capture was serendipitous, he’d claimed: she had been pulled through the blue fire a few hours earlier, an accident caused when his attempt to speak through flame had burned out of control. The Destroyer had known her for one of the enemy, one close to Leith, and so ransacked her mind, wresting from her everything she knew about the Falthan War effort, which wasn’t much. Instead he found there something he admired and coveted—and evidence of his lieutenant’s treachery. Evidence Stella had planted deep in her own mind. The Destroyer’s subsequent drawing of Deorc was no accident. Enraged, he gave his lieutenant no chance to explain himself. Stella had watched in open-mouthed horror as the Undying Man destroyed Deorc, burning his body until it was unrecognisable, then binding him in cords of agony and preservation to endure as a pain-raddled husk for all time.
His regard for her had been cemented when he’d saved her life by giving her a transfusion of his own blood.
She had become his unwilling queen-to-be.
After letting the herb steep for the recommended time, Stella drew out a cupful of the flavoured water and sipped at it. Chamomile and thyme blended nicely on her tongue, with a smooth ginger aftertaste. She shrugged her shoulders, letting her cares go for a moment. A little time for herself.
Others in the tea house began gathering around the pool, either finding a seat or standing on the far side, ignoring signs in the local language. Stella supposed them to be warning signs—certainly the pool looked dangerous, bubbling and steaming the way it did—although they could equally be telling the locals where to stand in safety.
A rotund woman, clad in an unflatteringly short dress and wearing the garland of flowers that seemed to symbolise employment at the tea house, came forward and stood by the pool. The matron, at last. But no; she took up a long stick with a container on the end and emptied the contents onto a small prominence poking above the waters of the pool. She then withdrew.
‘Matron needs soap in order to erupt,’ said a man next to Stella, leaning over to speak to her, one hand extended. ‘They say it was discovered by a woman who came here many centuries ago to wash her clothes in the hot water.’ He grinned. ‘Yours could do with washing, eh, after all that dirt and rain out there. I’ll wash ’em for you later, if you want to slither out of ’em.’
An invitation of some sort. The man was handsome enough, but not her type; a little rough, a little dangerous. Not her type? A small part of her mind laughed. Just how dangerous was the man she’d taken up with?
But oh, a chance to be human again. If only she could take it.
‘No, thanks,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘You wouldn’t like what I’d give you.’
The man snatched his hand back and turned to his fellows.
And so it goes.
A mystery solved, though. This pool was the Matron, and was about to erupt.
Dark Heart (Husk) Page 38