Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  “But I need to speak with Safia. . . .”

  “Too dangerous. We can’t lose any more of us if we’re going to spread these.”

  Sweet Goddess! “Then, please, find her. Tell her that when Siever’s spellwork is ready, I’ll have to come here the old way. I need to travel away from the hospice, so she must let me through the boundary when my magic thins it.”

  Without a word, Signé slammed the bronze door behind me and her brisk steps vanished.

  • • •

  Leaving Fortress Evanide in the deeps of the night was far more painful than I had imagined. Rather than just another step on an impossibly long list that could be titled Impossible Matters for Greenshank to Deal With, it felt a lonely and fearful break. No matter my words to Juli, I wasn’t sure I would ever have a place here again. Or if anyone would.

  A group of squires huddled around a magelight lamp in the Hall, laughing and telling stories of their days as stupid tyros, while exhausted tyros slept or shivered, wakeful beneath the tables. A knight sat on a stool picking out a pensive melody on a cittern. On another night, I would have stopped to listen, or tell a stupid training story of my own, or comfort one of the terrified beginners as Cormorant had comforted me. But I wasn’t one of them any longer. They must not see me, lest someone pinpoint the hour of my leaving.

  I wished I could speak to Inek. But the Archivist worked at all hours, so I dared not venture the Archive Tower. Nor could I do my duty by Dunlin and Heron and pass off their training to someone else. Everyone would believe I’d run away after the beating. I hated that. Had Fix wiped Conall’s mind of the night’s events as well? Safer if he had.

  I left my useless half relict behind, along with my dagger and sword bearing the Order blazon. Of Order garb, only my gray mask with the green threads came with me. The Marshal hadn’t said one way or the other and I felt naked without it. Someone—maybe Conall—had left a clean shirt of thick gray wool on my pallet. It went on over my filthy layers, and my bloodstained leathers over that. A sketched map of possible routes to Cavillor lay on my clothes chest. Fix? Or the Marshal?

  My bow went into its canvas case. My supply of a dozen arrows, in their own canvas wrap, would have to do. A flask of clean water and a few provisions stolen from the kitchen went into a small rucksack. The Marshal’s token went into my waist pocket along with the few coppers I’d been allotted for the mission to Ynnes. Heavy cloak. Thick gloves. I hated being weighed down with them, but snow would fly any day now, especially in the upland vales where I was headed.

  Fix’s cottage was dark as I passed it by. I didn’t stray from the deepest shadows of the quay to see if Siever was yet working, and I let the currents carry me away from the dock before setting to with the oars, so none could say they heard me go. It felt as if yet another piece of my soul was ripped away.

  PART IV

  THE GLORY TO BANISH GRIEF

  CHAPTER 36

  Demon winter arrived with the Hunter’s Moon—the last full moon before autumn—descending with a fury the third morning of my trek to Cavillor. Scouring wind drove sleet so violently, it could cut flesh. By midday, I had to shelter in a mound of rocks lest I lose the road.

  I’d already chosen to parallel the coast road up through Ynnes, the fish town where I’d glimpsed Bayard and Sila Diaglou, and on toward Tavarre. From there it was straight east to Cavillor. It was a slightly longer route than cross-country, but easier going for a man afoot and easier to keep my bearings in bad weather. With a day given to the Ciceron rescue and another to the storm, I could afford no more delays.

  Only a lunatic would consider strict obedience to the Marshal’s orders. How would he or Damon know if I slept in a sop-house in Tavarre or begged bread from a farmwife? But as with so much I’d done at Evanide, I believed the journey to be a test of some kind. The reason for it might be worthy, might not. But this was Damon’s game and I was determined to play it. It was late to be reconsidering.

  Two great strands of history had converged in me, warping my life beyond recognition. Against all belief, my peculiar combination of magics could dissolve the separation of the human world and the world of sacred myth, and I held a secret that could change the order of pureblood lives . . . all lives . . . in Navronne. Woven together, those strands spoke the possibility of the divine gift cleansed of corruption, and redemption for the terrible wounds my people had caused. If I were to break either of those strands now, if I refused to move forward or gave up the fight to save both Xancheirans and the Danae, I would spend the rest of my days wondering what might have been had I pushed a little further, a little harder. And for better or worse, arrogant, calculating Attis de Lares-Damon sat directly in my path, whether a gateway or an obstacle I still was not sure.

  Snow and sleet reverted to cold, drenching rain, and I began to think the weather would defeat me sooner than Damon or the Danae. By the fifth morning my cheese and barley-flour biscuits had given out. Hunting hare or roe deer took far too much time, yet I dared not skimp on food or what sleep I could get. Nor did I dare use more magic than what kept me alive. Imagining the amount of power it might take to inflame twenty thousand silver splinters left me edgy. Fix and Siever could signal me at any moment.

  My fitful sleeps were filled with dreams of Morgan. Lustful dreams, fearful dreams of crushed bones and hard green eyes, dreams that spilled into waking, for I imagined flickers of lapis and indigo among limestone scarps or deep in thickly treed gullies. But no one answered my challenges. Nor did I smell meadowsweet, or sense Morgan’s presence or hear the eagle’s yip that signaled her friends’ approach. But I never closed my eyes without an arrow in hand.

  One triumphant morning, I shot a wayward ryegoose. The wood I could find in the scattered copses was so wet, even magic could not keep it burning, so I ate the fatty bird half raw and was grateful for it.

  Filthy, unshaven, and cold to the marrow, I felt increasingly raw, too, not just in every place wet wool and leather abraded tender flesh, but in spirit. I longed to gut Damon like a fish next time I saw him. That Damon would be unbothered by such hatred made it all worse.

  Nine days on and no signal had come from Fix. Had Siever failed? Had Signé been able to distribute the splinters? What if she, too, was a tree by now? No alternatives came to mind. The anger I’d managed to keep buried behind schemes of rescue and salvation devoured me, driving me onward through the bitter night until my every bone ached.

  Please gods, the next night I would be in Cavillor. Please gods, Bastien would tell me Juli was safe and had discovered what all this was about. Please gods, Damon’s throat would be under my hands. Was anyone ever such a fool?

  Sometime near midnight, after I had ensured, yet again, that no Danae lurked in the trees, a large insect whizzed past my head. And then another. A third stung my cheek. A beast started braying as exhaustion consumed me. . . .

  • • •

  Gods, my head! It hammered like the armorer’s favorite mallet. Even my eyelids ached. Nasty grit caked lips and tongue. I spat and drew in my forearm to wipe my mouth, only to find it slathered with . . . muck?

  “Doan ye move, cocksman!”

  The girl wasn’t on top of me, but was close enough to be a danger. And someone near my feet tugged on my cloak. The stink and a nearby wattle fence named the half-frozen ground under me farmyard.

  “Not moving,” I mumbled. “Just getting my face out of the mud.”

  Twisting my neck, I squinted into wan sunlight. A scrawny girl, her flimsy cotte and drooping hat stuffed with straw, tugged at a goat by a rope around its neck. The damnable beast was chewing my cloak.

  I booted the beast in its muzzle.

  The goat bawled as the girl hauled it backwards, leaving both of them well out of arm’s reach. Rough-skinned and bony, the girl might have been twelve or twenty.

  I made to rise. She wrapped the goat leash around one arm and yanked a matt
ock from her belt.

  “Doan git up or I’ll crown ye with my friend here,” she said. Her mattock reminded me of how abruptly sleep had overtaken me.

  “Crowned me already maybe,” I snapped, feeling around for a bump on my head. “Prince of Dunces. What kind of witch are you?”

  One who could sneak up on an Order paratus and clobber him? Gods, had I even set wards last night? Stupid, stupid to drive myself to carelessness.

  “I’m no witch. And I didn’t whack ye. Found ye just now when come to milk here goat. Figgered ye for a drunk.” She jutted her sharp chin my way. “What’s wrong with yer face?”

  No use explaining that drunk wasn’t possible. Or that a goat with the wrong parts wasn’t going to give her much milk. Instead of scaring the girl into answers, I remained where I was, ready to spring should events warrant. She’d likely talk more if I let her keep the upper hand.

  “Just cold, wet, and ugly,” I said.

  Her eyes slid away from the mask, diverted by its obscuré. My head felt like to split, and my left cheek was grossly swollen. Pressing it rattled boulders in my skull. There had been insects whizzing. . . .

  “You see anyone with me?” I said.

  “Naught. But ye best scat afore my da comes to trim ye like an irksome donkey. Da’s a brute with any’s lustin’ after me.”

  “I don’t tangle with fierce girls. I’m just a traveler got whacked by highwaymen.”

  Highwaymen with a poison dart of some kind and such practiced aim as to hit me by starlight. I assessed my possessions. The straps of the rucksack were in my hand, as if I’d been carrying it. My gloves, soaked with goose blood, were gone. My cloak was tangled under me in the mud. To my relief and puzzlement, my silver bracelets were intact, as were my boots, the Marshal’s token, and my few coppers. Only one other object was missing.

  “I want my bow back.” I’d no time to waste hunting it. “Give you a copper for it.”

  “Did’n see a bow. Wudda took the copper were I a thievin’ kind. I work; I get paid. Now git.” She raised the mattock again. “Best you waked when you did. I were gonna trim yer balls myself. Or maybe just crush ’em. Done my uncle. Done my cousin.” She slammed the mattock against a section of wattle fence, sending stakes and twigs flying.

  I believed her. The bow was longer than she was tall, and no matter her strength with the mattock, she’d never be able to draw it. Best she forget about me.

  So I crawled away, reprising Siever’s song of merry, merry Cilla, as if pickled in mead. Once through a wide gap in the fence, I scrambled to my feet. The girl stood there alone, clutching the bleating goat. The slovenly cot behind her had half its roof caved in, and not a wisp of smoke rose from it. A crow settled atop the broken peak squawking, mocking us both.

  “Are you lone?” I called back to her. “Do you need help?”

  “Git!”

  I didn’t begrudge the girl my gloves did she have them. Maybe she’d burnt the bow to keep warm. But I’d wager someone had dragged me into the farmyard. Hoofprints—some that looked like horse prints, some like donkey prints—and fresh droppings marked a well-used tread through an ash copse. A fold of ripped canvas poking out from the muddy track proved to be my canvas bow case.

  Why would a mounted thief, a practiced person with access to a poison dart, steal my bow and—I quickly counted—three arrows, while leaving me three silver bracelets, one set with rubies?

  The trail led all the way to the road. And at the point just before the track and the road intersected in the trampled grass of a wagon camp, my bow dangled from a leafless beech, as if the thief had hung it in the tree after dropping me in the farmyard. As if to make sure I saw it.

  There was certainly no use to it anymore. The springy yew was snapped a third of the way down its graceful curve. And there were marks . . . blood?

  A closer examination revealed words scratched awkwardly in the smear of dry blood:

  For the girl child.

  Not the goat girl, who was an accident. No one would call Juli a child. We’d lost no Ciceron children that I knew. This deed spoke of deliberation, not vengeance. I’d been left alive and away from the road where little harm could befall. I rubbed my cheek, where only the prick yet stung. The swelling and the headache already seemed less. A girl child . . .

  And then my sluggish mind recalled a scrap of parchment, a portrait of world-weary eyes, and a fierce young man’s pledge of service. Fallon de Tremayne, Damon’s military aide, had promised to repay me for identifying his young half-sister’s murderer. Which suggested who, but not why or why in such odd fashion.

  The unresolved mystery left me doubly wary that day. I kept entirely to the stands of trees alongside the road, and I stretched my senses farther—forward, behind, and to every side. A snapped stick, a rustle of leafless twigs, a plop of mud, a soft footstep . . . every sound fired my nerves.

  Damon wanted me alone, raw, angry, and armed with a bow. He had accomplished all but the last. When my route joined that of the deep, fast-flowing river Oscur that twined around the town of Cavillor and the castle that overlooked it from a rocky height, I broke the useless weapon into smaller pieces and threw it in.

  • • •

  Cavillor was crowded between a thick forest of oak and beech and the river Oscur. Its massive walls and the hilltop castle embraced by a bend of the river left it in little danger from marauding Harrowers or common bandits. Even three years of war had left it unscarred. No doubt the fact that its lord was a pureblood sorcerer had a deal to do with that.

  As the town bells rang the twilight warning, I joined the queue of travelers hoping to spend the night inside those thick walls. Following close behind a twitchy drover and his cartload of squealing piglets, I watched the gate. The guards seemed quite attentive to those passing. The Marshal had commanded I wear no symbol of the Order, and the guards served a pureblood lord, so caution bade me slip my mask off.

  A scuffle broke out at the gate and a man was drawn aside, though I couldn’t hear what caused it, as two blowsy women blocked the pig cart at the same moment, shouting that the pig man had stolen their weanlings. The drover thumped one of them in the breast with his staff, and yelled for an old man on a donkey to bear witness that he’d raised the pigs. The donkey rider agreed, and the two women retreated to a barrow stopped at the side of the road.

  “The guards seem testy,” I said to the nervous pig man, as he kept an eye on the women.

  “Summat’s gone on today,” he said, tongue darting over his peeling lips. “They’re looking for someone particular. Ought to pay attention to thievin’ hoors!” He bellowed this last when the two women headed back his way dragging a brutish younger man.

  I drifted away from the argument and stayed to the edge of the slow-moving crowd. Best not risk a veil or any other enchantment. Not in a pureblood’s town.

  My skin flamed as I drew closer to the gatehouse. A man in a wine-colored cloak and a half mask the green of unripe plums stood aloof, observing each person who passed. As protocol demanded, no one looked at him or even acknowledged his presence. I followed their lead. Guards queried travelers and poked inside wagons and carts. They gave no indication of what they were looking for.

  My turn came. The pureblood’s cool eyes turned to me. Though all the magic I carried was buried in unspeaking silver, my gut tried to crawl into my throat. I made sure my shirt covered my bracelets, but kept my hands clearly visible.

  “State your business in Cavillor.” The young guard’s nose flared at my filthy turnout. Indeed, I reeked.

  “Heard there was work here in the counting houses,” I said. “I’m deft at numbers.”

  The young guard snorted. “You look better suited for deadhouses.”

  “Fell into a terrible storm a few days since. Lost my mule.”

  They didn’t care. Guards and pureblood were already looking to the p
ig cart.

  “Move on.”

  I quickly shouldered my rucksack and moved toward the verge of the gatehouse tunnel, where guards in crimson livery were subduing a shackled prisoner. Tall, dark-haired, built strong, the man fought them with a panicked frenzy until a blow to the head flattened him. His chains rattled on the cobbles as they dragged him into the dark tunnel. A ripped black cloak was left behind, and beside it a fine bow of yew and a scattering of arrows.

  Skin creeping with dread, I bobbed my head at one of the remaining guards. “Stars and stones, what’s that fellow done?”

  “Planted a shaft straight through a pureblood’s eye,” said the guard, poking a sword into the pig cart before waving it onward. “The fool will die for it, less’n he can come up with a good story. An ugly death, certain. Our good lord’ll see to that.”

  “Gods grant him mercy. . . .” Or a witness. Or powerful friends. Or a pureblood historian who could determine whether or not his weapon had slain the victim—one who might be believed as I would not.

  Every step through the gatehouse torched my nerves. An arrow in a pureblood’s eye! And they’d been watching for a dark-haired man with a particular kind of bow. It could be no coincidence. I’d no orders to kill anyone. And even angry and stretched as I was, no potential victim had crossed my path. Yet, I could not believe Damon had provided me two and a half years of training and done such purposeful twisting of my soul to make me the goat for a single murder. What of serving as his righteous voice and strong right arm? What of Registry cleansing?

  One thing sure . . . by ruining my bow, Fallon de Tremayne had spared my life. For the moment at least.

  I halted before leaving the gatehouse, just long enough to settle my demeanor. My hand strayed to the mask tucked into my belt, but jerked away again. The better disguise here was no mask at all.

  A narrow, twisting, walled street led from the gatehouse into the city, a discouragement to any who broached the gates and thought to charge easily toward Canis-Ferenc’s castle. Pent enchantments hung on those walls like the winter-dead vines, ready to blossom in the heat of battle. Watchmen, unseen above glaring torches, called clipped reports.