“How could you possibly understand my pain?” Rojer snapped.
Jona smiled. “I love her, too, Rojer. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who didn’t. She used to come almost every day to read at the Holy House, and we would talk for hours. I’ve seen her shine on men who didn’t deserve her, never even noticing that I was a man as well.”
Rojer tried to keep his Jongleur’s mask in place, but there was an honesty in Jona’s tone that cut through his defenses. “How did you deal with it? How do you stop loving someone?”
“The Creator didn’t make love conditional,” Jona said. “Love is what makes us human. What separates us from the corelings. There is value in it, even when it is not requited.”
“You love her still?” Rojer asked.
Jona nodded. “But I love my Vika and our children even more. Love is as infinite as spirit.” He put his hand on Rojer’s shoulder. “Do not waste years lamenting what you do not have with her. Instead, cherish what you do. And if ever you need to speak with someone who understands your trial, come to me. I promise to leave the Canon in its satchel.”
He slapped Rojer on the shoulder and walked off, leaving Rojer feeling as if a weight had been lifted from him.
The lamps were lit in Leesha’s cottage when Rojer arrived, and the front door was open. Neglecting his warded cloak, Rojer had held the corelings off with his fiddle, which meant Leesha had heard him coming long before he arrived.
It was a ritual they shared. Leesha was always awake and working, but she would leave the door open when she heard his fiddle in the distance. Rojer would find her with her nose in a book or embroidering, grinding herbs or tending her gardens.
Rojer stopped playing when he reached Leesha’s warded path, and the cold night grew quiet save for the distant shrieks of demons. But in the silence between the sounds of corelings, Rojer heard weeping.
He found Leesha curled in an ancient rocking chair, wrapped in a tattered old shawl. They had belonged to her teacher, Bruna, and Leesha always went to them when she had doubt.
Her eyes were red and puffy, the crumpled kerchief in her hand soaked through. He looked at her and understood what Jona meant about cherishing what they had. Even when she was at her lowest, she left her door open for him. Could the other men in her life say the same?
“You’re not still mad at me?” Leesha asked.
“Course not,” Rojer said. “We both did a little spitting, is all.”
Leesha gave a strained smile. “I’m glad.”
“Your kerchief is soaked,” Rojer said. He flicked his wrist, pulling out one of the many colored kerchiefs in his sleeve. He held it out to her, but when she reached for it, he tossed it into the air, quickly adding several more as if from empty air. Rojer began to juggle them, creating a circle of colored cloth floating in the air. Leesha laughed and clapped.
Arrick, Rojer’s master, could have juggled anything in the room, but with Rojer’s crippled hand, kerchiefs were the only thing he could keep going indefinitely. “Pick a color.”
“Green,” Leesha said, and faster than her eye could see his hand snatched that cloth and tossed it her way, making it seem to have leapt from the circle of its own accord. Rojer caught the rest and tucked them back away as Leesha dried her face.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Bad enough that demons hunt us at night,” Leesha said, “but now men are killing one another in the daylight. Arlen wants us to make war with both, but how can I support that?”
“I don’t know that you have much choice,” Rojer said. “If he’s right, the Daylight War will find us whether we support it or not.”
Leesha sighed, hugging the shawl tightly even though the heat wards around her yard kept things comfortably warm. “Do you remember the night in the cave?”
Rojer nodded. It had been the previous summer, a few days after the Painted Man had rescued them on the road. The three of them had taken shelter from the rain, and while there, Leesha had learned that Rojer and the Painted Man had killed the bandits who had robbed them and ravished Leesha. She had been furious with them, and called them murderers.
“Do you know why I was so angry with you and Arlen?” Leesha asked. Rojer shook his head. “Because I could have killed those men if I’d wanted.” She reached into her dress pocket, producing a slim needle coated in some greenish mixture.
“I carry these needles for putting down mad animals,” Leesha said. “I keep them in my dress pocket because they are too dangerous to leave lying in the herb cloth, or even my apron, which I take off sometimes. No man would long survive a puncture from one of these, and even a scratch might kill him in time.”
“I’ll ware my tongue around you in the future,” Rojer said, but Leesha didn’t laugh.
“I had one in my free hand when I threw the blinding powder at the bandit leader,” Leesha said. “If I had struck the mute with it when he grabbed me, he would have been dead before the leader recovered, and I could have struck him, too.”
“And I could have handled the third,” Rojer said. He lifted an empty hand, and suddenly a knife appeared in it. He thrust quick and twisted the knife in the air. “So why didn’t you?”
“Because it’s one thing to kill a coreling,” Leesha said, “and another to kill a person. Even a bad person. I wanted to. Sometimes I even look back and wish I had. But when the time to do it came, I couldn’t.”
Rojer looked at the knife in his hand a moment, then sighed and slipped it back into the special harness on his forearm, rebuttoning his cuff.
“Don’t think I could, either,” he admitted sadly. “I started learning knife tricks when I was five, but it’s all mummery. I’ve never so much as cut someone.”
“Once I knew I couldn’t do it, I just stopped fighting when they pushed me down,” Leesha said. “Night, I even spit on my hand to wet myself when the first one fumbled with his breeches. But even when they left me sobbing in the dirt, I didn’t wish I’d killed them.”
“You wished they’d killed you, instead,” Rojer said.
Leesha nodded.
“I felt the same way, after Master Jaycob was killed,” Rojer said. “I didn’t want revenge, I just wanted the pain to end.”
“I remember,” Leesha said. “You begged me to let you die.”
Rojer nodded. “That’s why I went with the Painted Man to the bandit camp.”
“For me?” Leesha asked.
Rojer shook his head. “Those men needed to be put down like any mad horse, Leesha. We weren’t the first folk they robbed, and we wouldn’t have been the last, especially once they had my portable circle. But we didn’t kill them. The Painted Man walked in and stole your horse, I grabbed the circle, and we ran. They were all breathing and relatively unbroken when we left.”
“Food for the demons,” Leesha said.
Rojer shrugged. “The Painted Man had killed most of the demons in the area. We didn’t see a one when we walked to their camp, and dawn was only a few hours away. It was a better chance than they gave us by far.”
Leesha sighed, but she said nothing. He looked at her. “Why do folk call an Herb Gatherer to put down an animal? Any axe or mallet will do the job.”
Leesha shrugged. “Can’t bring themselves to kill a loyal animal, or they hold out hope I can heal it. But sometimes I can’t and the animal is suffering. The needles are quick and kind.”
“Maybe the Painted Man is, too,” Rojer said.
“Are you saying you think we should fight the Krasians?” Leesha asked.
Rojer shrugged. “I don’t know. But I think we need to keep a needle in our hand, even if we don’t use it.”
CHAPTER 16
ONE CUP AND ONE PLATE
333 AR SPRING
LEESHA WATCHED AS WONDA and Gared faced off in the Corelings’ Graveyard, circling slowly. Wonda was taller than any other woman in the Hollow, including the refugees, but giant Gared dwarfed her regardless. She was fifteen, and Gared near to thirty. Still, Gared wore a l
ook of intense concentration, while Wonda’s face was calm.
Suddenly he lunged, grabbing for her, but Wonda caught his wrist in one hand and pivoted, pressing his elbow hard with her other hand as she sidestepped and used the force of his own attack to throw him onto his back on the cobbles.
“Corespawn it!” Gared roared.
“Well done,” the Painted Man congratulated Wonda as she gave Gared a hand to help him up. Since he had begun giving sharusahk lessons to the Hollowers, she had shown herself to be his best student by far.
“Sharusahk teaches diverting force,” the Painted Man reminded Gared. “You can’t keep using the wild swings you would against a coreling.”
“Or a tree,” Wonda added, bringing titters from many of the female students. The Cutters glared. More than a few of them had found themselves defeated by female students, something no man was used to.
“Try again,” the Painted Man said. “Keep your limbs in close and your balance centered. Don’t give her an opening.
“And you,” he added, turning to Wonda, “don’t grow overconfident. The weakest dal’Sharum still has a lifetime of training against your few months. They’ll be your true test.” Wonda nodded, her smile disappearing, and she and Gared bowed and began to circle again.
“They’re learning quickly,” Leesha said as the Painted Man came to join her and Rojer. She never trained with the other Hollowers, but she watched carefully each day as they practiced the sharukin, her quick mind cataloguing every move.
Again, Wonda threw Gared onto his back. Leesha shook her head wistfully. “It really is a beautiful art. It’s a shame its only purpose is to maim and kill.”
“The people that invented it are no different,” the Painted Man said. “Brilliant, beautiful, and deadly beyond reckoning.”
“And you’re sure they’re coming?” Leesha asked.
“There isn’t a doubt in my mind,” the Painted Man said, “much as I wish otherwise.”
“What do you think Duke Rhinebeck will do?” she asked.
The Painted Man shrugged. “I met him a handful of times in my Messenger days, but I know little of his heart.”
“There’s not much to know,” Rojer said. “Rhinebeck spends his hours doing three things: counting money, drinking wine, and bedding younger and younger brides, hoping one of them will bear him an heir.”
“He’s seedless?” Leesha asked in surprise.
“I wouldn’t call him that anyplace where it might be overheard,” Rojer warned. “He’s hung Herb Gatherers for less insult. He blames his wives.”
“They always do,” Leesha said. “As if being seedless somehow makes them less a man.”
“Doesn’t it?” Rojer asked.
“Don’t be absurd,” Leesha said, but even the Painted Man looked at her doubtfully.
“Regardless,” Leesha said, “fertility was one of Bruna’s specialties, and she taught me well. Perhaps I can win favor by curing him.”
“Favor?” Rojer asked. “He ’d make you his duchess for it, and get the child on you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the Painted Man said. “Even if your herbs can awaken his seed, it could be months before there was any proof of it. we’ll need more leverage than that.”
“More leverage than an army of desert warriors on his doorstep?” Rojer asked.
“Rhinebeck will need to mobilize well before it comes to that, if he’s to have any hope of stopping Jardir,” the Painted Man said, “and dukes are not men apt to take such risks without great convincing.”
“You’ll have Rhinebeck’s brothers to contend with, as well,” Rojer said. “Prince Mickael will take the throne if Rhinebeck dies without an heir, and Prince Pether is Shepherd of the Tenders of the Creator. Thamos, the youngest, leads Rhinebeck’s guards, the Wooden Soldiers.”
“Are any of them likely to see reason?” Leesha asked.
“Not likely,” Rojer said. “The one to convince is Lord Janson, the first minister. None of the princes could find their boots without Janson. Not a thing goes on in Angiers that Janson doesn’t track in his neat ledgers, and the royal family delegates almost everything to him.”
“So if Janson doesn’t support us, it’s unlikely the duke will, either,” the Painted Man said.
Rojer nodded. “Janson is a coward,” he warned. “Getting him to agree to war…” He shrugged. “It won’t be easy. You may have to resort to other methods.” The Painted Man and Leesha looked at him curiously.
“You’re the ripping Painted Man,” Rojer said. “Half the people south of Miln think you’re the Deliverer already. A few meetings with the Tenders and the right tales spun at the Jongleurs’ Guildhouse, and the other half will believe it, too.”
“No,” the Painted Man said. “I won’t pretend to be something I’m not, even for this.”
“Who is to say you’re not?” Leesha asked.
The Painted Man turned to her in surprise. “Not you, too. It’s bad enough from the Jongleur eager for tales and the Tender blind with faith, but you’re an Herb Gatherer. Knowledge cures your patients, not prayer.”
“I’m also a ward witch,” Leesha said, “and you made me so. It’s honest word I put more store in books of science than the Tenders’ Canon, but science falls short of explaining why a few squiggles in the dirt can bar a coreling or do it harm. There’s more to the universe than science. Perhaps there’s room for a Deliverer, too.”
“I’m not Heaven-sent,” the Painted Man said. “The things I’ve done…no Heaven would have me.”
“Many believe the Deliverers of old were just men, like you,” Leesha said. “Generals who arose when the time was right and the people needed them. Will you turn your back on humanity over semantics?”
“It ent semantics,” the Painted Man said. “Folk start looking to me to solve all their problems, they’ll never learn to solve their own.”
He turned to Rojer. “Everything set?”
Rojer nodded. “Horses laden and saddled. We can leave when you’re ready.”
It had been over a month since spring melt, and the trees lining the Messenger road to Angiers were green with fresh leaves. Rojer held tightly to Leesha as they rode. He had never been much of a rider and generally mistrusted horses, especially those not hitched to a cart. Fortunately, he was small enough to ride behind Leesha without straining a beast too far. As with everything she turned her mind to, Leesha had mastered riding in short order, and commanded the horse with confidence.
It didn’t help his churning stomach that they were returning to Angiers. When he had left the city with Leesha a year ago, it had been as much to save his own life as to help her get home. He wasn’t eager to return, even alongside his powerful friends, especially when it meant letting the Jongleurs’ Guild know he was still alive.
“Is he overweight?” Leesha asked.
“Hm?” Rojer said.
“Duke Rhinebeck,” Leesha said. “Is he overweight? Does he drink?”
“Yes and yes,” Rojer said. “He looks like he swallowed the whole beer barrel, and it’s not far from the truth.”
Leesha had been asking him questions about the duke all morning, her ever-active mind already working on a diagnosis and potential cure, though she had yet to meet the man. Rojer knew her work was important, but it had been close to ten years since he had lived in the palace. Many of her questions taxed his memory, and he had no idea if his answers were still accurate.
“Does he sometimes have trouble performing abed?” Leesha asked.
“How in the Core would I know?” Rojer snapped. “He wasn’t the boy-buggering type.”
Leesha frowned at him, and Rojer immediately felt ashamed.
“What’s bothering you, Rojer?” she asked. “You’ve been distracted all morning.”
“Nothing,” Rojer said.
“Don’t lie to me,” Leesha said. “You’ve never been good at it.”
“Being on this road again has me thinking about last year, I guess,” Rojer said
.
“Bad memories all around,” Leesha agreed, casting her gaze off to the sides of the road. “I keep expecting bandits to leap from the trees.”
“Not with this lot around,” Rojer said, nodding ahead of them to Wonda, who rode a light courser and had her great bow strung and ready in a sheath by her saddle. She sat up straight and alert, eyes sharp within her scarred face.
Behind them, Gared rode a heavy garron, though the giant man made the huge beast look a more normal size by comparison. His huge axe handles jutted up from either shoulder, ready at a moment’s notice. Trained demon hunters both, there was little to fear from mortal foes with them on guard.
But most comforting of all, even in daylight, was the Painted Man. He rode his giant black stallion at the lead of the small column, shunning idle talk, but his presence was a silent reminder that no harm could come to any of them while he was near.
“So is it the road that bothers you, or what lies at its end?” Leesha asked.
Rojer looked at her, wondering how she could just pick thoughts right out of his head.
“What do you mean?” he asked, though he knew full well.
“You never told me how you came to be at my hospit last year, beaten near to death,” Leesha said. “And you never went to the guard over it, or told the Jongleurs’ Guild you were still alive, even after they buried Master Jaycob.”
Rojer thought of Jaycob, Arrick’s former master who had been like a grandfather to him after Arrick died. Jaycob took him in when he had nowhere else to go, and put his own reputation in the hat to start Rojer’s career. The old man paid a heavy price for his kindness, beaten to death for Rojer’s crime.
Rojer tried to speak, but his voice caught, and tears filled his eyes.
“Shhh, shhh,” Leesha whispered, taking his hands and drawing them tighter around her. “we’ll talk about it when you’re ready.” He leaned into her, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair, and he felt himself grow calm again.
They were two days from the city, not far from where the Painted Man had first found Rojer and Leesha on the road, when he turned his horse and rode into the trees.
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