Winter Be My Shield

by Spurrier, Jo

  ‘I couldn’t say, madame.’

  ‘There were books in there. Now they’re nothing but ash. I tried to find some fragments but they crumble the moment you touch them. Do … do you think Vasant meant to destroy all of them rather than let them fall into the Slavers’ hands? Isn’t that what you call us Akharians?’

  He was too weary to play games with words. ‘Yes, madame.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, you will likely be coming back here with us in the morning. If any of these caches were meant to be found by Ricalani mages you might be able to sense the difference between them and the traps.’

  Isidro dozed in the saddle as they rode back to the camp only to dream of heat and flames and wake with a start that made his horse baulk and toss its head.

  At the edge of the camp Delphine dismounted and handed the reins over to one of the men escorting them. ‘Thank you, soldier. I will manage the slave on my own from here,’ she said as Isidro carefully slipped down to the snow.

  ‘Pardon me, madame, but didn’t anyone tell you?’ the soldier said. ‘Mage-Captain Castalior wants to see you and the slave both. He has ordered us to bring you to him as soon as you returned to the camp.’

  ‘Oh, by all the Gods, can’t it wait?’

  ‘Sorry, madame, but those are our orders. This way, if you please.’

  A knot grew in Isidro’s belly as the soldier led them through the neat and orderly rows of tents to the Battle-Mages’ quarter. His nerves were already frayed and he wasn’t sure he had the strength to face this on top of everything else.

  The tent the soldiers brought them to was the one Torren usually used for the interrogations. The soldier ordered Isidro to kneel and then stood guard over him while a servant was dispatched to find the captain. Delphine paced and fumed at the delay.

  When Torren arrived scowling and sombre, Delphine pounced on him. ‘Is this really necessary? It has been a long day and the boy is exhausted. I need him tomorrow and I cannot have him shaking and puking all day.’

  ‘This is more important.’ Torren had brought a pair of aides with him. He gestured to Isidro and the aides set about the usual preparations for an interrogation, stripping him to the waist and binding his hands, while Delphine watched in shock. While she had seen the aftermath many times, she had never been privy to the process of an interrogation before.

  ‘Torren,’ Delphine began with a scowl, but before she could launch on a tirade, Torren shoved a sheaf of papers in her direction.

  ‘Here. Read.’

  She snatched the pages from his hand and held them up to the light. After a moment her eyes grew wide and Isidro’s heart sank. ‘When did you get this?’ Delphine demanded.

  ‘The messenger carrying it arrived this afternoon. This wretch has been lying to us from the moment he arrived here.’

  ‘Torren, no. There must be some other explanation. The slave has never given me reason to think him untrustworthy. He has never been the slightest bit of trouble or shown any tendency towards rebellion …’

  Torren shook his head with a low chuckle. ‘I know you’ve lived a sheltered life, but think about what you just said. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that an unseasoned barbarian slave, one who used to be a warrior at that, has bowed his head to service so readily? I’ve seen enough of this fellow to know he’s no coward, despite the way he shakes and trembles when we bring him in here. He’s hiding something. I’m certain of it.’

  She shoved the papers back to him. ‘I don’t believe it!’ she snapped. ‘You’re just trying to renege on our deal now that I’ve nursed him back to health for you!’

  ‘Fine, then. I’ll prove it.’ Torren turned to Isidro, his eyes tight with anger. Isidro almost drew in a sharp breath out of reflex. It usually took the Battle-Mage some time to work himself up into a state of such anger. Depending on what proof he had, this could be a very long night.

  ‘Tell me again, slave,’ Torren said. ‘How many apprentices does the Blood-Mage Kell have?’

  This time Isidro kept his eyes fixed on the Battle-Mage’s face. It did not matter what the papers said. He had to keep to the story he’d told. Admitting to a lie now would only make things worse. ‘Just one, sir, a man named Rasten.’

  ‘And how long were you kept as a prisoner of the Blood-Mage?’

  ‘About a week, sir, as near as I can remember.’

  Delphine shuffled her feet and gave a short, sharp sigh.

  ‘Then perhaps you can explain, slave, why a number of captured Mesentreian soldiers have all sworn that Kell had a second apprentice, a woman. They say she escaped during a blizzard some weeks ago and fled to the east. Well? What do you say to that?’

  ‘Nothing, sir,’ Isidro said. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re saying imperial interrogators are incompetent?’ Torren turned on his heel and struck him with the back of his hand. Bound and kneeling, Isidro could do nothing to deflect the blow. It knocked him sprawling and the aides stepped in to haul him up again. ‘The lies are written on your face as plain as day. Why else would all these men have the same tale to tell?’

  ‘Sir, rumours spread like wildfire through a camp,’ Isidro said. ‘Kell has no interest in women, but Rasten does and his master supplies them for him. Having mage-talent is a capital offence under Mesentreian law. It’s likely that a woman with mage-talent was captured and given to Kell to dispose of. If she lingered a while and was seen around Kell’s camp, it might have given rise to rumours. I know little about mages, sir, but I know Kell would sooner cut out his own heart than train a woman to be his equal in power.’

  ‘Torren,’ Delphine said.

  ‘Be quiet, Delphi!’

  ‘The hell I will! He is telling the truth —’

  ‘He is not! Another mage wiped out the Seventh, not the one who massacred the scouting party all those weeks ago. The manifestation of power is quite different. This wretch knows something. The tale of his rescue from the Blood-Mage’s men doesn’t ring true. How could a handful of desperate fugitives wipe out an escort of the king’s Guard? They must have had help. He knows something about this. Either he’s trying to protect someone or he’s hoping to somehow draw us into facing this third mage.’

  He signalled one of the aides. ‘You, strip him and string him up. And you,’ he gestured to the other servant. ‘Escort Madame Castalior back to her tent. This is about to become unfit for a lady’s sight. I’m going to get to the heart of this, no matter what it takes.’

  Chapter 29

  It proved to be a very long night, but Isidro survived it. From time to time he felt Rasten looking in on him with a clinical, assessing eye, but he never spoke or did anything other than simply observe.

  Torren lacked the talent for cruelty Kell possessed and cultivated in his apprentice. He lacked the stomach to delve right to the depths of a man’s soul, to identify the pillars he built himself around and set about cutting them away. There had been no broken bones this night, no sodomy or excision. It left Isidro aching and exhausted, but with his secret and his will intact, for the moment at least.

  When Torren gave up in disgust he had Isidro chained in the storage tent once more with his back to a crate and his arms outstretched, taking no chances this time that he would find a way to end his life. Torren had ordered he be given no food or water in the hope that privation would loosen his tongue, where pain had not.

  Isidro dozed for a while despite the discomfort. He woke once, when Rasten looked in on him again, pushing his way into Isidro’s awareness like a man shouldering open a door.

  Why is it you can do that now, but you didn’t know I was alive after Cam killed your men? Isidro demanded of him.

  They were the king’s men, not ours, Rasten corrected him. And you were close to death then. Your life-force was running low.

  That makes a difference?

  Inside his head, Rasten snorted. Of course. The connection was tenuous, too, but then you went and fucked Sierra and burned it deeper.

>   It made a vague sort of sense, he supposed. Or at least, what passed for sense in Rasten’s mind. Any advice? He asked Rasten. It still felt decidedly odd to realise they both wanted the same thing here, even if only in part.

  I never thought I’d be thankful for your strength of will, Rasten said. You’ll manage so long as you stay lucid. Once you start raving from thirst or cold, it will be a different matter. Rasten took one last look around and left with Isidro no more able to halt his departure than he was to obstruct his arrival. Alone again, Isidro hung his head with a sigh. For a while he tried to contact Sierra, just to hear her voice and maybe ask her to pass a message on to Cam. But he had no real idea how to go about it, even if he’d had the power to reach that far. His crude attempts felt as though he was shouting into an empty well. In the end he gave up and just sat, silent and still. There was nothing to do now but wait.

  There was no way to measure the passage of time. When Isidro heard someone fumbling with the cords that bound the door of the tent he couldn’t tell if he’d been there a few hours or for most of a day. He went tense as he listened, certain it was Torren come to fetch him for another session, but the Battle-Mage usually burst through the door with a confident stride. These people were tugging tentatively at the cords and he could just make out a low conversation held in fierce whispers on the other side of the leather and canvas.

  The flap opened in a brief spill of daylight made murky by heavy clouds.

  ‘Delphi, this is madness! You’ll be court-martialled!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to set him free or anything stupid. And anyway, it’s always better to ask forgiveness than permission.’

  ‘Always, Delphi? Really?’ There was a rustle of fabric and leather, then the warm yellow light of a mage-lantern streamed around the edges of the crates stacked in front of him. Delphine came around the pile and Isidro winced away from the glare with a mumbled curse.

  ‘Well,’ Delphine said. ‘What have you got yourself into, Aleksar?’

  ‘Dear Gods,’ Harwin said from behind her. Delphine may have had a nasty streak but Harwin was a gentle soul and he stared with horror at the fresh welts on Isidro’s chest and his bruised and battered face.

  ‘Hold this,’ Delphine said to Harwin, thrusting the lantern into his hands. She marched across to Isidro and unlocked the manacles one by one then glared down at him with her hands on her hips while he tried to work the blood back into his arms.

  ‘Now tell me the truth. What is the story with this girl, Aleksar?’

  ‘There is no girl, madame.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Of course there’s a girl. You’re far too clever to delude yourself into thinking you can nudge an army as large as this one into danger, so you must be protecting someone. You’ve done it before, after all. You young men and your romantic notions …’

  It was rich for her to be calling him young. She was his elder by only a handful of years and had spent all her life sheltered by the Collegium’s walls. But Isidro held his tongue.

  ‘Anyway,’ Delphine went on. ‘I’m not going to let Torren back out on our deal now, not when we’re so cursed close. I want you to give me your word you won’t try anything stupid, like running away.’

  Isidro sighed and held up his splinted arm. ‘Where would I go? It’s not as though I could survive on my own in the snow.’

  ‘I’m glad you realise that.’ She disappeared behind the wall of crates and returned with a rough bundle of his clothing, which she dropped into his lap. ‘Get dressed, quickly now. I want to get you to the caves before anyone realises you’re gone.’

  He hesitated before pulling on his undervest and shirt. If they were stopped it would be him who was punished. It would make no difference that Delphine had ordered him. Technically she had no authority over him now, but he knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer. And really, what difference did it make? There was nothing they would do to him in punishment they wouldn’t eventually try in order to make him talk. He pulled the knitted vest over his head. ‘May I ask where we’re going, madame?’

  ‘There’s something in the caves I want you to see,’ Delphine said. ‘And I’m not saying anything else until we get there.’

  The soldiers Delphine found to escort them back to the caves didn’t so much as blink at Isidro’s presence. This time he was allowed to guide his horse himself, although he was flanked by a pair of soldiers for the entire journey.

  When they dismounted at the mouth of the cave and the soldiers led the horses away, Delphine jammed her fists against her belt and scowled up at the dark crevice in the rock. ‘Harwin, you go in first and find my girls. Torren’s in there somewhere and if he sees us there’s going to be a nasty scene. Find him and keep him away from the main passage as if your life depends on it. Once the coast is clear, send the girls out here to find me. When we’ve passed the main passages and are on our way to the springs you can come and join us.’

  ‘It’s not my life I’m worried about, Delphi, it’s my career,’ Harwin grumbled. ‘But I suppose we may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’ He trudged up the switchback path while Delphine and Isidro followed more slowly behind.

  ‘Madame, wouldn’t it be simpler just to have him tell you when the passage is clear?’ Isidro said.

  Delphine gave him a strange look. ‘But Harwin won’t be here,’ she said carefully, as though talking to a child. ‘He’ll be where Torren is. How would I talk to him?’

  ‘You can’t talk to him mind to mind?’ Isidro cursed himself silently. It hadn’t occurred to him that the Akharians didn’t have that particular skill, although perhaps it should have, given it had taken Torren this long to receive the report of the Mesentreian soldiers’ interrogation.

  Delphine frowned. ‘No. How do you even know about that? It can be done, of course, but it’s far too difficult to be used for anything other than an emergency. So what do you know of it?’

  ‘The Blood-Mages communicate in that manner, madame.’ If they didn’t know about it, then they couldn’t have guessed that Rasten had been in contact with him. So either Rasten was mistaken in thinking the Akharians could overhear any such communications or he didn’t want the Akharians to know he and Kell could remain in contact without relying on a slow and vulnerable messenger.

  ‘Fascinating!’ Delphine said. ‘I suppose it must be a hold-over from the power-transfer rituals.’

  ‘It never happens between Akharian mages?’ Isidro asked.

  ‘No …’ Delphine said. ‘And if it had ever been reported you can bet it would have been studied by now. That sort of communication would revolutionise the army. Well, it can’t simply involve sexual contact — mages are always marrying or having affairs with other mages. And it can’t just be power-transfer; Sympaths do that all the time, often with folk with some base level of talent, and they’ve never reported anything like it either. Then again, Sympaths aren’t exactly known for their discipline and ability to focus. It’s a fascinating bit of information, though, and something we will have to investigate further when we’re back in Akhara. You’re going to love it in the Collegium, Aleksar. A man with your mind will do well there.’

  Isidro looked away, trying to conceal a sudden rush of anger and despair. The way things were going it seemed there would be nothing he could do to keep from being taken to the heart of the empire to spend the rest of his life in servitude.

  Delphine gave him a none-too-gentle thump on the arm to bring his attention back to her. ‘Oh, don’t get all morose again. You don’t have to be a slave forever. If you put your mind to it and work hard you could earn your freedom in ten years or so. With your knowledge of languages you could have a position for life in the Collegium. They’ll even find you a wife. You could have a family and your children will be Akharian citizens.’

  ‘Really, madame?’ Isidro couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice. ‘Even with Mage-Captain Castalior howling for my blood?’

  ‘Oh, you’re far t
oo valuable to be cast aside once he’s finished with you,’ Delphine said. ‘And the Collegium is full of ex-slaves. Just look at Alameda. She was a slave once. I identified her myself when I was serving as a talent scout. She was only six years old. The Collegium found fostering for her until she was old enough to begin her training.’

  Isidro straightened with surprise. He had heard that slave-children with talent were taken to be trained, but he hadn’t realised it meant being plucked from the lowest ranks of society and elevated to one of the highest. ‘What happened to her family?’ he said.

  Delphine shrugged. ‘Who knows? She doesn’t remember her mother and she has a new family now anyway, the folk who fostered her. And you’ve seen how brilliant she is with enchantments — that girl has a great future ahead of her. I know it must be hard to leave all the people you knew behind, but you have to grieve for them and let them go and get on with life as it is.’

  Isidro knew children were sold away from their mothers every day in the slave markets. The grief of loss would have been no less sharp than if Alameda was sent to the auction block, but at least this way her mother would have known the girl was going to a better future than she could ever have provided.

  He wondered if Delphine had any idea how callous she was, but doubted it. This desensitisation probably began in the cradle.

  They waited in silence a few minutes more, standing just inside the entrance of the cave before Alameda and Fontaine came trotting down the passage to find them. ‘There you are, madame!’ Alameda said breathlessly. ‘Mage-Captain Castalior is with the men trying to dismantle one of the traps. They will be at it for hours the way they’re going, so we have a clear run.’