Winter Be My Shield

by Spurrier, Jo

  When Harwin lost interest in the incomprehensible text and signalled to Lucia to pour him a bowl of tea, Delphine decided her girls had been distracted enough. ‘Pass it to me, Alameda,’ she said. ‘It’s no good to you until you learn the letters, so you had best attend to your lessons.’ Alameda pouted but didn’t argue as she closed the heavy tome and handed it to her teacher.

  The book was plain and hastily constructed, lacking even the most basic metal fittings to hold the enchantments protecting the pages from fire and mould. The stones had merely been pushed into crude pockets sewn to the leather covers. Back in Akhara they would be rebound with sturdier end-pieces, but now time was more important than presentation. As soon as the ink was dry on the last page the army would be on the move again, marching for the place known as Demon’s Spire.

  The days until then were an opportunity Delphine could not afford to waste. Torren still hadn’t forgiven her for spiriting the slave away and he wasn’t the only one working against her. The other academics resented her for swooping in and discovering the device while they had been occupied with the decoy caches. Noises were being made about the propriety of allowing a woman to work so closely with a barbarian male and some muttered that her investigations of Aleksar’s peculiar manifestations of mage-talent were straying perilously close to the crime of teaching mage-craft to a slave.

  The fact that it was she who had discovered the device had bought her some grace, but unless she quickly followed the discovery with some tangible results, those whisperers would win and she would lose possession of the slave. Delphine desperately needed every hour the scribes spent scribbling away in the dark.

  With the heavy book in her arms Delphine turned to the rear of the tent, where Aleksar was tethered once again to one of Harwin’s trunks. He sat in utter silence with his back pressed against the wood, his elbows propped on his knees and his head hanging low.

  Delphine bit her lip. It was becoming harder to ignore his grief. Until that day in the caves he had merely been trying to survive, but now she suspected it had finally struck him that he would never see his loved ones and his kin again.

  She ought to be able to dismiss his despair. He was a slave after all, and she a free woman. A slave was a walking, talking tool, nothing more. What he thought and felt should have been utterly irrelevant to her. She knew she ought not to concern herself with it, but she simply couldn’t block it out any longer. There were few enough people in the world that she loved, and the idea of being stolen away without hope of ever seeing them again was enough to bring her half to tears.

  Delphine perched on a corner of the chest and laid her hand on his shoulder. He stiffened at her touch and lifted his head, craning it back to meet her gaze. ‘Madame?’ he murmured.

  His eyes were such a dark brown as to be almost black. Now that she had grown used to his barbarian features, the high cheekbones and the wide-set eyes with the epicanthal fold, Delphine was willing to concede he was quite handsome. Or at least he would be, if he ever smiled. Not that she could ever admit to such a thing.

  She had tried ignoring his grief. She had tried jollying him along or badgering him out of it, but all to no avail. Now she knew there was nothing she could do but let it pass, although she could perhaps offer him some distraction in the meantime. She only hoped it would be enough to draw him out of his bleak despair. If she failed to make him produce the information the Collegium and the general demanded, he would be taken from her and she would no longer be able to protect him from the Battle-Mages and their interrogations.

  ‘Here,’ she said and passed him the book. ‘Before we reach Demon’s Spire we must compile a catalogue of the books from Milksprings. I will need you to read through this as best you can in the next day or so and then write a brief report of its contents before the scribes deliver the next one. There is a great deal of information to go through, Aleksar. You’re about to take a very intensive course in Ricalani mage-craft.’

  He looked so weary that for a moment she thought he would set the book aside, but then, almost with reluctance, he opened the cover and began leafing through the pages. After a long moment, the lure of knowledge drew him in as she had hoped. He sat up a little straighter and fumbled inside his shirt for the lantern-stone around his neck.

  Delphine had work of her own awaiting her, but she stayed where she was and watched as he leafed through the pages. She ought to be studying the Ricalani syllabary she had made him write out, or working to find another translator, but she couldn’t bring herself to do either, not if it meant that Aleksar would be free to face Torren’s interrogations again. She didn’t want to see him bruised and bloody from another session, or worse, broken down as he had been when she first saw him chained like a dog in the supply tent. He deserved better.

  ‘Don’t sit up with it all night,’ she told Aleksar and with a final pat of his shoulder she stood and stretched just as someone rang the bell on the ridge-pole outside. Hiding a yawn behind her hand, Lucia scrambled up to open the door.

  ‘Is Madame Castalior in this tent?’ a man outside said. Delphine had been half afraid it would be Torren, but instead it was one of the general’s functionaries.

  ‘I am she,’ she said, heading to the door. ‘Who is asking for me?’

  ‘The general requests your attendance, madame,’ the messenger said. ‘Along with your translator. The general has come into possession of a high-ranking captive and he wants your slave to question her.’

  Isidro’s worst fears were confirmed when he saw the bright red flash of Mira’s hair.

  At first he had been irrationally afraid it would be Sierra, but he knew that fear was absurd. She would never be foolish enough to allow herself to be taken by the Slavers. Still, he couldn’t imagine how Mira had been in a position to be captured — she ought to be miles away, safely ensconced within the Wolf Clan’s army.

  She was kneeling on the floor of the general’s tent with her braids in disarray and her hands bound behind her back as she glared furiously at the spruce beneath her. She was dressed in a clanswoman’s finery: a jacket with full, wide sleeves intricately decorated with layers of coloured fabric and a shirt woven with a fine pattern of coloured threads. Each of her braids was tipped with a golden bead and she wore wide bracelets on her wrists and a necklace at her throat. Isidro couldn’t imagine why she would be dressed in such a manner out here in the war-torn north.

  He tried to guard his expression, but Delphine was nothing if not observant. While they were still at the back of the crowd that had gathered in the general’s tent she caught his arm and held him back. ‘Who is she?’

  He warred for a moment over telling the truth. If he lied and said she was of no importance it would put Mira in a terrible position. A slave woman was free game to any man who wanted her and Mira’s exotic looks meant she would catch many eyes. He couldn’t subject her to that, not if there was anything he could do to prevent it. ‘She’s heir to the Wolf Clan, the family that rules this region. I have no idea what she was doing out here, to be captured by your men.’

  ‘Really?’ Delphine breathed, her eyes wide. ‘A tribal princess?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Isidro said. There was a cluster of men standing behind Mira. In the warmth of the tent they had stripped off their outer furs and the insignia on their uniforms were not the same as the ones he had grown familiar with. ‘Madame, may I ask, who are those men with her?’

  She stood on her toes in an attempt to see them. ‘It looks as if they’re from the Seventeenth! How interesting!’

  ‘Madame?’

  ‘The commander of the Seventeenth married the general’s daughter. Actually, she ran off with him after the general promised her to a friend of his. It was an awful scandal and Boreas tried to have the marriage annulled, but they reached some sort of agreement in the end and now Druseus, that’s the commander, must be trying to repair some bridges by sending such a valuable prize to his father-in-law. My, she’s a pretty thing. Such a shame. She’s a
noblewoman, you say?’

  Delphine had sidled around so she could see Mira in profile. As her voice came closer Mira glanced up furtively and her eyes fell on Isidro. She registered no surprise on seeing him, giving him a glare full of venom and disgust.

  Delphine went very still and turned to him with a frown. ‘A noblewoman. Your nobles all speak Mesentreian, do they not?’

  Isidro felt ill. Mira could translate from Ricalani to Mesentreian as well as he could. She wouldn’t willingly help her captors, but the Akharians would have no hesitation in doling out the sort of treatment that would bend her to their will. If the rapes and beatings were enough to make her capitulate then he would be freed to face Torren’s interrogations again.

  Delphine grabbed his arm, her fingers clenching tight, and she pulled him down until she could whisper in his ear. ‘Don’t mention a word of it,’ she hissed. ‘I will not have you sent back to Torren to be tortured. And that girl — do you know her? You must do if you were noble-born yourself.’

  Isidro held himself still, wondering if he dared trust her. It would give her something to hold over him, but what did that matter? She held near-total power over him anyway. He nodded his head, moving just a fraction of an inch.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what can be done to protect her, but I can’t promise anything. Now, stand at my heel and don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.’

  He fell into step behind her as she shoved her way through the crowd to the head of the tent to await the general.

  When General Boreas finally arrived, he tramped through the entrance without bothering to stamp the snow from his boots. ‘Now then, what is this all about?’

  ‘A gift from Commander Druseus, sir,’ the leader of the newcomers proffered. ‘This barbarian noblewoman was captured by his men this morning and he presents her to you with his compliments.’

  ‘Yes? And what exactly am I supposed to do with her?’

  Isidro studied Mira’s reactions while the men talked over her. The Akharian language was close kin to Mesentreian so she may have been able to pick out a word here and there but probably not enough to understand what was being said.

  ‘General, my slave tells me this woman is the daughter of a clan chieftain,’ Delphine said, once the men from the Seventeenth had said their piece.

  ‘Really?’ The general was a short, bullish man with a shaved head and a close cropped beard. He looked more like a labourer than a soldier, but his eyes were sharp and intelligent and Isidro had seen enough of the man to suspect he had earned his command. ‘Well, she looks the part, I suppose,’ Boreas said. ‘What in the hells is she doing all the way out here?’

  ‘With your permission, sir, I will have the slave ask her.’

  Boreas gave his assent with a wave and sat himself down in his fur-swathed chair.

  Delphine motioned for Isidro to step forward. As a slave he was required to kneel before speaking to his superiors and at her gesture he sank to the ground beside Mira. In Ricalani, he said, ‘Lady, they want to know what you are doing out here and where you were going when you were captured.’

  ‘I’ll tell you nothing, traitor,’ Mira snapped and she spat in his face.

  It happened so quickly Isidro didn’t have time to flinch. The tent erupted with laughter as he wiped the spittle away with his sleeve.

  ‘Well, we need no translator for that,’ Druseus’s man said with a grin. ‘What do you think, sir? Is your cripple a match for a barbarian girl or should we give him a hand?’

  ‘Well, Madame Castalior?’ Boreas said. ‘Is your servant up to the task?’

  ‘I suggest we let him get on with it, sir,’ Delphine said, keeping her expression severe and unamused.

  Isidro leaned towards Mira. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he told her. ‘They’ll get what they want one way or another. It’s in your best interest to cooperate. Why were you out here in the north?’

  ‘Why don’t you tell them yourself, traitor?’ she hissed.

  ‘How would I know?’ he said. ‘I was nothing but a destitute cripple sheltering in a temple,’ he said. ‘I have no idea why a clanswoman would be out here in the wilderness. They want an explanation, but whatever you do don’t let them know you speak Mesentreian.’

  She closed her mouth with a snap and Isidro shoved down the urge to shake her. She’d had hours in which to come up with a story and he knew Mira was clever enough to know she ought to have one ready.

  ‘I was on a pilgrimage to prepare for my betrothal,’ she said, grudgingly. ‘In the bad weather my escort must have travelled off course.’

  He repeated her words to the general.

  ‘Betrothal?’ Boreas said. ‘Isn’t she a little old to be a bride?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Ricalani girls marry later than Akharians do, sir,’ Delphine broke in. ‘And it’s not uncommon for the noble-born to hold out for an alliance that suits them. Does she come from a wealthy clan, Aleksar?’

  ‘Yes, madame, one of the wealthiest. Her family would pay a fine ransom for her return. More than she would fetch on the block in Akhara.’

  Boreas chuckled. ‘I think you underestimate what Akharians will pay for a barbarian princess. What ransom could a Ricalani tribe possibly pay that would be valuable to civilised man?’

  ‘Furs, sir?’ Isidro said. ‘I am told that sable and mink fetch a high price in Akhara. Her clan would pay you several hundred-weight of each. Then there’s the matter of gold and jewels. The northern ground is rich with both. You could use her as a bargaining chip, too, to keep her clan from attacking your men. But she is worth more to them if she’s untouched and in fair condition. They will not want to break the betrothal.’

  Boreas stroked his bristling chin. ‘Well then … perhaps this is a matter worth considering.’ With a flick of his fingers he signalled his men to come and take charge of her. ‘I’ll think it over. In the meantime take her to the slave camps but put her in with the women and children and let it be known that I want her untouched. If any man trifles with her and lessens her value I’ll take the difference out of his pay.’

  When Delphine was dismissed a short time later Isidro followed her in a miserable silence as she led the way back to the Collegium quarters. ‘You did a good thing there, Aleksar,’ she told him. ‘You have spared that poor girl a great deal of misery. You should be pleased with yourself.’

  ‘I’ll be pleased when she’s back with her family,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to see her sold into a brothel in Akhara.’

  ‘Oh, she’s far too pretty for a brothel. They only buy ugly women. They’re cheaper. Brothels make their money on quantity, not quality. The good-looking ones end up in rich men’s households.’ She glanced at his face and grimaced. ‘I’m not helping, am I? Well, come on, then, it’s time I let you get back to your work.’

  It was in the early hours of the morning that Sierra stood motionless by the door of the tent, trying to sense the world on the other side of the hide. She could vaguely feel the men, who seemed to have been chosen so as not to feed her any power, but the rest of it was a blank void to her senses.

  Rasten could pick up an object on the other side of a locked door. He would be able to find the thongs that bound the door closed and untie them with a touch, but she could do no such thing.

  Standing behind her she heard Ardamon fidget and Cam hissed at him to be still. She wanted to yell at them both to be silent, but instead with a mental curse she simply slashed through the flap, aiming for where she remembered the ties to be and slicing through leather and fur indiscriminately.

  She threw the door open and before the men standing guard could do more than turn in surprise, she grabbed them by the arms and dropped them with a bolt of power. Then she turned to the men warming themselves by the fire.

  They were on their feet and reaching for their weapons when Sierra dropped them, too. With her power riled up like a dog expecting a hunt, it took her several moments to bring it back under control, while Cam and Arda
mon picked up the fallen men and carried them into the tent where they would be safe from frostbite and hypothermia.

  ‘Right then,’ Cam said to Ardamon. ‘How long are you going to give us?’

  ‘Half an hour or a bit more if I can manage it,’ Ardamon said. ‘You had best move quickly. I’ll have a small group of men with me. Dremman won’t hear of me riding off alone, but it shouldn’t be hard to convince him she’ll react badly if she sees a troop of warriors charging after her.’

  The way he spoke about her as if she weren’t present still put Sierra’s teeth on edge, but she now believed Ardamon was on their side, convinced by his genuine fury over what had happened to Mira.

  The plan, when Cam and Ardamon returned to camp without her, was for them to spread the word that she was too wary of more spies to remain in the camp and had gone to infiltrate the Akharian camp and to strike at them as she had in the village.

  Cam wrapped his sword-belt over his coat and picked up the light packs that were all he and Sierra would be carrying. His contained only the most minimal of supplies but Sierra’s held a small tent and a tiny brazier. She hadn’t wanted to carry that much until Cam had pointed out that any warrior worth his salt would be suspicious of a captive taken without even the most basic gear for survival.

  With their gear, she and Cam walked swiftly through the camp, heading for the tether-lines. Several times they had to duck between the tents to avoid early-morning wanderers but at this hour the camp was mostly quiet and still.

  There were two men standing watch over the horses. Sierra felt guilty when she dropped them both with a bolt of power and made sure their coats were well wrapped to protect them from the cold before she went to help Cam with the horses. He had already saddled Rasten’s black, which tugged at her sleeve with velvet lips and eagerly snuffled a piece of bannock she offered from her palm. The horse lifted its feet obediently when she knelt to fasten the snowshoes around its hooves and offered no protest as she turned its head away from its herd-mates and nudged it out into the night.