“Sir?”
Marcus looked back. The Tralgu was already sitting on the cart’s bench and wrapping the wool around himself in the style of Pût nomads to keep his body warm and his sword arm free.
“Don’t let what happened at Ellis affect your judgment. She’s not your daughter.”
The emotion in Marcus’s chest shifted uneasily, like a babe troubled in its sleep.
“No one is,” he said and walked into the darkness.
A cup of warm cider, Master Kit’s sympathetic ear, and half an hour got the full tale. The Medean bank, the original carter’s death, the desperate smuggler’s run to Carse. The girl wept through half of it. She’d left the only home she’d known and the nearest she had to family. Marcus listened to it all with arms crossed, the scowl etching into his face. What caught him were the small things about her—the way her voice grew stronger when she talked about letters of exchange and the problem of capital transport, the habit she had of pushing her hair out of her eyes even when it wasn’t there, the protective angle of her shoulders and her neck. Tag the Carter had been beneath his notice. Cithrin bel Sarcour, amateur smuggler, was a different matter.
When she was done, Marcus left her with the actors, took Master Kit by the elbow, and steered him out through the thin stone corridors that laced the stones of Bellin. The darkness was broken by candles at each turning; enough light to see where they were going, if not the individual steps that would get there. But walking slowly fit Marcus’s needs at the moment.
“You knew about this?” Marcus said.
“I knew the girl was traveling in disguise.”
“You never mentioned it.”
“I didn’t think it was odd. In my experience, people take on roles and put them off again quite often. Consider my own position with the caravan.”
Marcus took a long, slow breath.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll have to take this to the ’van master. We can’t stay here.”
“No offense meant, Captain, but why not? It seems to me that the caravan’s mission remains what it was before. Now that we know the situation, perhaps we could help the girl maintain her illusion. We could hide her cargo until spring, and carry on as if nothing were different.”
“Doesn’t work that way.”
“What doesn’t work that way, Captain?” Master Kit asked. Marcus paused at a sharp turn. The single candle gave the carved lines of the wall the aspect of life and awareness. In the dim light, the actor’s face was dull gold and blackness.
“World doesn’t work that way,” Marcus said. “You never have that much money without blood coming out of it. Eventually one of us would get greedy. And even if we didn’t, there’s someone looking for that cart.”
“But how would they find it, if they didn’t also know to look for us?” Master Kit asked. Marcus noted that the man hadn’t argued against the dangers of greed and betrayal.
“At a guess? They’d hear stories about a ’van being guarded by the hero of Gradis and Wodford. And with a cunning man who can turn aside arrows and command the power of the trees.”
The chagrin on the actor’s face told Marcus that his point was clear.
“This isn’t what I hired you on for,” Marcus said, “but I need you to stay with me.”
Master Kit pursed his lips, hesitated for a long moment, then turned and walked farther into the darkness between candles, heading toward the ’van master’s lodging. Marcus followed him. For almost a minute, their footsteps were the only sounds.
“What are your plans?” Master Kit said, his voice cautious. Marcus nodded to himself. At least it hadn’t been no.
“Go south,” Marcus said. “West is snowbound, east is back toward whoever follows us. North is the Dry Wastes in winter. We let it be known we’re taking the goods to Maccia or Gilea, trying to sell at the markets there instead of wait for Carse. Move off east, then cut south.”
“I don’t know of any roads going south until—”
“Not roads. We have to get off the dragon’s roads and take farm tracks and local paths down to the Inner Sea. There’s a pass along the coast hardly ever freezes. Put us into Birancour in four weeks if it stays cold. Five, if it thaws enough to get muddy. They don’t take well to armed bands crossing the border, so anyone following us might be turned back. Another week and we’re in Porte Oliva. It’s a big enough city to disappear into for the winter. Or if the roads are decent, we can push on for Northcoast and Carse.”
“It seems like the long way around,” Master Kit said. The hallway opened out into a wider chamber where several passages came together and an oil lamp hung from a worked iron bracket, and Master Kit stopped in the light, turning to face him. The man’s face was gentle and sober. “I wonder whether you’ve considered the other option?”
“Don’t see there is one.”
“We could all visit the cart, fill our pockets and purses, and vanish like the dew. Anything left, we could put in a warehouse as someone else’s problem.”
“That might be the wise thing,” Marcus said. “But it’s not the job. We keep the ’van safe until it gets where it’s going.”
Marcus could see the skepticism in the actor’s long face, and the grim amusement. It was, Marcus knew, the moment that would decide all the rest. If the actor refused, there weren’t many options left.
Master Kit shrugged.
“Then I suppose we should tell the ’van master that his plans have changed.”
The caravan left just before midday under low, grey skies. Marcus rode fore. His head still ached from a night of dreams as familiar as they were vicious. Blood and fire. The dying screams of a woman and a child who were both twelve years’ dust now. The smell of burning hair. It had been years since he’d woken calling for his wife and daughter. For Alys and Merian. He’d hoped the nightmares had passed forever, but clearly they had returned, at least for the time.
He’d lived through them before. He could again.
The ’van master sat at his side, their white-plumed breaths falling in and out of time. Crows watched them from snow-caked trees, shifting their wings like old men. The snow was wet, but not more than a foot thick on the road. It would be worse once they turned off the dragon’s roads.
“Can’t believe we’re doing this,” the ’van master said for the hundredth time. “They didn’t even tell me.”
“They didn’t think of you as a smuggler,” Marcus said.
“Thought of me as a dupe.”
“Me too,” Marcus said. And then to the Timzinae’s outraged look, “No, they also thought I was a dupe. Not that I also thought you were.”
The ’van master sank into a bitter silence. The cliffs of Bellin faded behind them. It promised to be a miserable winter. When they stopped for the night, putting up tents in the fast-fading twilight, Marcus walked through the camp with Yardem at his side. Conversations paused when they came near. Smiles grew false and unconvincing. Resentment soaked the caravan like oil on a wick. He’d have to be sure nothing happened to light it. It was no worse than he’d expected. When he came to his own tent, she was waiting for him.
Tag the Carter was gone, vanished from the world as if he’d never been. The actors had helped her wash the worst of the dye from her hair, and without the lichenous whiskers her face seemed almost unnaturally clean. Youth and her Cinnae blood conspired to make her coltish, but a few years would change her into a woman.
“Captain Wester,” she said, then swallowed nervously. “I didn’t get to say how much I appreciate this.”
“It’s what I do,” Marcus said.
“All the same, it’s more than I could have asked, and… Thank you.”
“You aren’t safe yet,” Marcus said, more sharply than he’d meant. “Save your gratitude until you are.”
The girl flushed, her cheeks like rose petals on snow. She half bowed, turned, and walked away, footsteps crunching in the snow. Marcus watched her go, shook his head, and spat. Yardem, still at his side, clea
red his throat.
“This girl’s not my daughter,” Marcus said.
“She’s not, sir.”
“She doesn’t deserve my protection more than any other man or woman in this ’van.”
“She doesn’t, sir.”
Marcus squinted up into the clouds.
“I’m in trouble here,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Yardem said. “You are.”
Dawson
The King’s Hunt pressed through the thick-falling snow, the calling of the hounds made fainter and eerie by the grey. Dawson Kalliam leaned in toward his horse’s steaming neck, feeling the great animal launch itself into the air. He saw the icy ditch as a blur beneath them, and then it was gone, and the impact of their landing gave way again to the wind-swift chase. Behind him, half a dozen voices rose, but not the king’s. Dawson ignored them. To his left, a grey horse with red leather hunter’s barding loomed out of the snow. Feldin Maas. Others rode close behind, nothing more than snow-drowned shadows. Dawson leaned closer to his mount, digging heels into its flanks, urging it faster.
The hart had run long and hard, nearly outwitting the hunstmen and their dogs twice. But Dawson had ridden the hills of Osterling Fells in all weather since he was a boy, and he knew the traps of them. The hart had turned down a blind canyon, and it would not return from it. The kill, of course, would be King Simeon’s. The race now was to be the first to reach their prey.
The lower branches of a pine stood startling green against the void, marking where the hart had passed. Dawson turned, feeling Feldin Maas and the others crowding close behind him. Someone was shouting. The howls and yaps of the hounds grew louder. He set his teeth, willing himself forward.
Something surged on his right. Not the grey. A white horse without barding. Its rider had no helmet or cap, and the long red-gold hair announced Curtin Issandrian as clearly as a pennant. Dawson dug his heels again, and his horse leapt forward. Too fast. He felt the drumming, pounding rhythm of the gallop roughen and the horse struggled to keep its feet. The white surged forward, passing him, and a moment later the grey with Feldin Maas was at his shoulder.
If the hart had gone another thousand yards, Dawson might have retaken the position of honor, but the doomed beast stood at bay in a clearing too near. Two dogs lay dead at its feet, and the huntsmen held back the rest of the pack with their voices and short whips. A point had broken off the hart’s rack, and blood marked its side. Its left hind leg was blood-soaked where an overeager hound had ripped off its dewclaw, and its patchy winter coat gave it the aspect of a traveler at the end of a journey. It turned toward them, breath white and exhausted, as Curtin Issandrian pulled to a stop, Dawson and Feldin Maas just behind him.
“Well played, Issandrian,” Dawson said bitterly.
“It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” the victor said, ignoring him. Dawson had to admit the hart had an air of real nobility to it. Exhausted, beaten, and facing death, there was no sense of fear from it. Resignation, perhaps. Hatred, certainly. Issandrian drew his sword and saluted the beast, and it lowered its head as if in acknowledgment. The second group of riders pelted into the clearing, six together each with the sigils of their houses. The hounds leaped and barked, the huntsmen shouted and cursed.
And then the king.
King Simeon rode into the clearing on a huge black charger, the black leather reins braided with scarlet and gold. Prince Aster rode a pony at his father’s side, the child’s spine straight with pride and his armor still a little too large for his frame. His personal master of the hunt rode behind and behind him: a huge Jasuru in green-gold armor that matched his scales. King Simeon himself wore dark leathers studded with silver and a black helm that hid the beginnings of jowls and his skewed nose.
Dawson had been on hunts with him since they had both been boys younger than Maas and Issandrian, and he could see the weariness in the king’s spine, even if no one else could. The rest of the hunting party rode behind him, the casual hunters more interested in gossip and a clean day’s ride than the sport of it. The banners of all the great houses were present, the court of Camnipol come to a clearing in Osterling Fells.
The Jasuru huntsman lifted a spear from his back and held it out to King Simeon. In the king’s hands, it seemed longer. The Jasuru huntsman called, and the dogs surged forward, leaping at the hart. Distracting it. King Simeon set the spear, spurred his mount, and charged. At the impact, the hart staggered back, the spear’s point deep in its neck. As it fell, Dawson had the visceral sense that the beast was surprised more than pained. Death, however clearly foretold, still came unexpectedly. King Simeon’s arm was as strong as ever, his eyes as keen. The hart died fast and without the need for an arrow’s grace. When the huntsmen called back the hounds and lifted fists to confirm that the beast was dead, a cheer rose from the noblemen, Dawson’s voice among them.
“So who took honors?” King Simeon asked as his huntsman went about unmaking the hart. “Issandrian? Or was it you, Kalliam?”
“It was so near at the end,” Issandrian said, “I would say the baron and I arrived together.”
Feldin Maas dropped down from his horse with a smirk and went to examine the killed dogs.
“Not true,” Dawson said. “Issandrian arrived a good length ahead of me. The honors go to him.”
And I will not carry a debt to you, even something as small as that, he thought but did not say.
“Issandrian will have the horns, then,” King Simeon said, and then, shouting, “Issandrian!”
The others raised fists and swords, grinning in the snowfall, and called out the victor’s name. The feast would come the next day, the venison cooked at Dawson’s own hearth, and Issandrian given the place of honor. The thought was like a knot in his throat.
“Are you all right?” the king said, softly enough that the words would not carry.
“Fine, Highness,” Dawson said. “I’m fine.”
An hour later, as they rode back to the house, Feldin Maas trotted alongside him. Since Vanai’s fall and the defeat of the Maccian reinforcements, Dawson had pretended that the news from the Free Cities meant nothing particular to him, but the charade chafed.
“Lord Kalliam,” Maas said. “Something for you.”
He tossed a twig to Dawson. No, not a twig. A bit of broken horn, red with the dog’s blood.
“Small honor’s better than none, eh?” Maas said with a grin, then chucked to his mount and moved forward.
“Small honor,” Dawson said bitterly and under his breath, the words white as fog.
As they rode back to the holding, the snowfall turned from deep, feathery flakes to mere specks, and the mountains to the east reappeared as the low clouds thinned and broke. The scent of smoke touched the air, and the spiraling towers of Osterling Fells stood in the south. The stone—granite and dragon’s jade—glowed with sunlight, and the garlands that hung from the battlements left the impression that the buildings themselves had come to welcome the moment’s brightness.
As host, Dawson was to oversee the preparation of the hart. It meant little more than standing in the kitchens for half an hour looking jolly, and still his soul rebelled. He couldn’t bring himself to descend into the chaos of servants and dogs. He stalked to the wide stone stairs beside the ovens and stood on the landing that overlooked the preparation tables. Along the wall, pies and loaves of bread cooled, and an ancient woman pressed peacock feathers into a pork loaf that had been sculpted to resemble the bird and candied until it shone like glass. The smell of baked raisins and chicken filled the hot air. The huntsmen arrived with the carcass, and four young men fell to preparing the meat, rubbing salt, mint leaves, and butter into the flesh, carving out the glands and veins that the unmaking had left in. Dawson scowled and watched. The beast had been noble once, and watching it now—
“Husband?”
Clara, behind him, wore the pleasant expression she adopted in the early stages of exhaustion. Her eyes glittered, and the dimples that framed her
mouth dug just a fraction deeper than usual. No one would know who hadn’t spent a lifetime looking at her. He resented the court for putting that look in her eyes.
“Wife,” he said.
“If we might?” she said, taking half a step toward the back hall. Annoyance tightened his mouth. Not with her, but with whatever domestic catastrophe required him now. He nodded curtly and followed her back toward the shadows and relative privacy. Before he left the landing a new voice stopped him.
“Sir! You’ve dropped this, my lord.”
One of the huntsmen stood at the stair. A young man, wide-chinned and open-faced, wearing Kalliam livery. He held out the bit of broken, blood-darkened horn. A servant, calling Baron Kalliam back like a child for a lost bauble.
Dawson felt his face darken, his hands clench.
“What is your name,” he said, and the huntsman went pale at the sound of his voice
“Vincen, sir. Vincen Coe.”
“You are no man of mine, Vincen Coe. Get your things and leave my house by nightfall.”
“M-my lord?”
“Do you want to be whipped in the bargain, boy?” Dawson shouted. The kitchen below them went silent, all eyes turning to them, and then quickly away.
“No, my lord,” the huntsman said.
Dawson turned and stalked into the gloom of the corridor, Clara at his side. She didn’t rebuke him. In the shadows of the stair, she leaned in speaking quietly and almost into his ear.
“Simeon asked for a warm bath when he came in, and instead of kicking everyone else out of the blue rooms, I had the janitor prepare Andr’s house. The one by the eastern wing? It’s a more pleasant space anyway, and it has those clever little pipes to keep the water hot.”
“That’s fine,” Dawson said.
“I’ve left orders that no one else be let in except you, of course. Because I knew that you wanted a moment with him.”
“I can’t intrude on the king’s bath,” Dawson said.
“Of course you can, dear. Only tell him I didn’t remember to warn you. I was very careful to mention that it was the place you’ve always preferred after a hunt, so it won’t be at all implausible. Unless, of course, he asks the servants and they say you actually use the blue rooms. But prying like that would be rude, and Simeon’s never struck me that way, has he you?”
Leviathan Wakes: Book One of The Expanse Page 66