The Shattered Vine

by Laura Anne Gilman

Jerzy leaned back, resting the fingers of one hand against his lips as though to keep himself from saying anything before he had thought it through. Things had changed, indeed, in the time they had been at sea, and far worse than Oren was admitting, if seven—seven!—Vinearts had come forward publicly.

  How many more were silent? How many, caught between frost and rot, were too afraid to move?

  Remembering the muttered gossip he had overheard in the streets of Aleppan, of distrust, confusion, and fear among the merchants and workers, Jerzy leaned forward again and stared directly into Oren’s face across the polished map table. “Let us be perfectly clear: in these days, when Vinearts are under attack from an unknown enemy, you wish me to reject any offers I might or might not receive from a land-lord, and cast my lot instead with the Washers. Yes?” He drew in a soft breath and asked, “To what purpose?”

  The Washer didn’t blink, his dark gaze steady on Jerzy’s face. “We are asking you to remember your training, and the Commands, and do what is right, for the well-being of all the Lands Vin, to show the rest of your kind that there is still solace and order to be found in tradition.” Oren’s words, despite his obvious unhappiness, were well-rehearsed, with the weight of belief behind them.

  Jerzy distrusted that weight, on instinct. He had seen too much, come too far from the ignorant slave in the fields. Tradition benefited the Washers more than it ever had Vinearts. More, Ao had taught him to beware any offer that spoke of what one side might gain, and not the other. What would he, or indeed any Vineart, gain by standing with the Brotherhood? While his master had been gathering evidence of things going wrong throughout the lands, the Washers had done nothing. When Jerzy had uncovered potential evidence of someone working against the Lands Vin, they had attempted to destroy it, and him. The Washers had accused him of apostasy in an attempt to draw out and destroy Vineart Giordan for petty politics, destroying a vineyard of such potential it made Jerzy weep to think of the loss.

  And now they asked him to think of the Commands? To come to heel like a puppy, and settle for what scraps of protection they might decide to offer?

  Now, when Giordan and Malech were both dead?

  The taste of bile filled his throat.

  What would Master Malech say? No, what would Ao say? Think like a trader, he could hear Ao telling him. Let the other person spill their guts before you commit to a single agreement.

  “I will consider your words,” Jerzy said, standing up without moving his chair to give the impression of a seamless flow, the way he remembered Master Malech doing. He was shorter than his master, and far less impressive, but Oren was no Washer Neth, either.

  “But . . .”

  “I will consider your words,” Jerzy repeated, and with that the Washer had to abide.

  “THEY WANT WHAT?”

  Mahault’s reaction mirrored his own, a gape-jawed incredulity that, unlike Jerzy, she made no effort to hide. The moment the Washer had left the Heart, the other three had crowded into the cabin, out of sight of anyone watching from the dock, waiting to hear what had transpired.

  “They want Jerzy. That is interesting.” Kaïnam had a faraway expression on his face, looking out and turned inward at the same time. The others left him to it, while Jerzy told them the rest.

  “Seven Vinearts? Out of how many?” Ao frowned, his quick-ranging mind already worrying at the numbers.

  Jerzy recalled the tapestry-map in his master’s study and the paper one unrolled on the desk, with markers and colored stones placed across the Vin Lands, marking Vinearts whom might be counted on . . .

  “There were eleven Master Vinearts a year ago,” he said. “Including Master Malech. Now . . .” He did not know how many of those who had died or disappeared had been Masters, or if any new ones had come into their title since then. Mastery was not given, but earned; a Vineart grew into it, and none had ever claimed such before their time. Tradition, again.

  His master had said that Giordan would have become a Master, given time. The Washers had taken that time away.

  “And Vinearts who are not Masters?” Ao was still worrying at the numbers, trying to make something out of them.

  Jerzy shook his head, frustrated at not having the information immediately in hand. He’d not had enough time to learn, before. “Thirty, mayhap, that I knew of. That Master Malech had noted. Far fewer now.” Esoba, whom they had not known of until too late. Giordan, killed by Washer decree. Poul in the desert lands, struck down by their enemy, and his slaves stolen. Sionio, the first known to disappear . . . how many others, gone?

  It hurt, like a hot blow inside his chest, to think of the knowledge lost, the vineyards abandoned. If the Washers had listened, had done something, could that have been stopped? Jerzy did not think so, but he would never know, and that not-knowing was a continuing pain under his ribs.

  “And now they want you to . . . argh!” Mahault threw her hands up in the air, her entire body seething disgust. Ao, on the other hand, started to laugh.

  “It isn’t funny,” Jerzy said, annoyed.

  “No . . . but it is. Suddenly, you’re holding all the power, in their eyes, they need you to play along . . . and we haven’t an idea what to ask for, in return. To a trader? That’s terribly funny. Or just terrible. I’m not sure which.”

  Put that way, Jerzy could see Ao’s point, and, reluctantly, the edge of his lips turned up and he shook his head. Even in the worst, most frustrating moments, when Ao should have had every reason to give up . . . he didn’t.

  “How do you do it?” he asked. The question lacked specifics, but Ao didn’t pretend to misunderstand.

  “What other choice do I have? What other choice do any of us have? You either laugh at something, or you let it laugh at you.”

  “I don’t like it,” Mahault said. “This change in their thinking. I can’t tell you why, but I don’t like it. Something makes my skin prickle.”

  “I don’t like it, either,” Jerzy said. “I have no love for the Collegium, any more than they feel love toward me.” He tapped the table in front of him, frustrated that there was no room in the cabin to pace without bumping into someone else. “Rot and blast, I don’t like any of what we’re hearing. Vinearts are Commanded to stand apart for a reason. A good reason.” Power and magic should not stand together; even with the best of reasons, it seemed all too often to go wrong. With bad intentions . . . “Master Malech poked his nose beyond our walls because there was no other choice. Not because he believed the old ways were wrong.”

  “Standing with the Collegium would force them to support you in turn, yes?” Mahault was weighing the options, her face tight with concentration. “No more risk of apostasy . . . and maybe they could help us?”

  “If they chose to. But if I agreed . . .” Jerzy tried to imagine it, and failed. “It would not soothe fears, as they wish. Not now. It would merely inflame them, each group seeing only the other gaining advantage, building fear out of suspicion. That is what our enemy wants, what he has been doing all along. To undercut traditions, to set us against each other. If I take this offer, I do his work for him. A Vineart cannot be part of the greater world, may not form alliances. Sin Washer commanded it.”

  Jerzy’s words sounded hollow even as he spoke them; had he not already broken that Command, over and again? What had he done, here, if not forming an alliance, however informal?

  “Aren’t we already?” Kaïnam asked, returning to the conversation, picking up on what Jerzy had been thinking. “Look at us. Lord and Vineart. Trader and . . . solitaire, by heart if not training. If you added in a Washer and a farmer, we’d be every-folk represented at this table.”

  Exaggeration—a trader was not a guildsman, and a farmer could not represent the fisherfolk, but that did not make it false. Jerzy had formed alliances, had added his abilities to those of others, had used magic in ways forbidden. The fact that if he hadn’t, he would be dead now, and no one would know that there was danger until it was too late, did not mitigate those fact
s.

  The responsibility pressed against him, and Jerzy found himself instinctively reaching for the distant touch of the Guardian, the stone dragon who protected House Malech.

  He had told himself to stop reaching, to not depend on that support: on the seas, in distant lands, the connection had been so faint as to be useless. But now that they were here, docked on the shores of The Berengia . . .

  You are Vineart.

  The reassurance came through, clear and steady, tasting of dry stone and fresh rain. It was raining, back home.

  For the first time, the knowledge that the Guardian—as well as the Washers—considered him full Vineart was neither soothing nor disturbing, but merely another weight on his shoulders.

  “I’m not supposed to be making these decisions,” he said, hating himself for the too-familiar sound of uncertainty and fear in his voice. “I don’t know enough . . . I don’t know anything.”

  There was silence in the cabin, and then Ao, unexpectedly, slammed his hand down flat on the table, making it rock back and forth under the blow.

  “Rot,” he announced. “Twice-rotted. You think any of us know? You think Malech knew? I listen for my livelihood, Jer. I listen for survival. You know what I am hearing? I’m hearing that all the rules we ever knew have gone into the midden; everything’s not changing, it’s already changed. And us? Us four? We probably know more than anyone else what’s really going on.”

  Everyone except the enemy who drove all this.

  Jerzy felt the weight of the Guardian’s confirmation push at his spine, and the pressure literally shoved him out of his chair. Once up, there still wasn’t enough room to pace, the way he had back in his master’s study, so he strode to the far wall and stared at it, not seeing the maps and instruments stored there, but his own convoluted thoughts.

  The unknown Vineart, Ximen, had set all this in motion, attacking vineyards, using pawns to influence men of power, setting magic-born beasts to terrorize the common folk, undermine the ground the Lands Vin were built on.

  How was Jerzy to know what the proper counter to all that might be? If he agreed to the Washers’ terms, he would be safe . . . but at what cost, and for how long? He did not trust the Collegium, he would not take orders from a man of power. But was he strong enough to stand on his own?

  So many others, more experienced, more powerful, had failed and died. What arrogance—what foolishness—to think that he could make a difference.

  And yet, they had. The four of them had stopped Ximen’s attack in Irfan, denied him access to the unblooded grapes he so clearly desired. They had kept one pace ahead of the Washers, had stayed alive despite sea-serpent attacks, and had made it back here . . . to do what?

  “I could have stayed in my father’s house,” Mahl said, and her tone was quiet, as if she were speaking to herself, and the others overhearing by chance. “I could have stayed, and told myself I had no choice. But each thing we do is a choice.”

  Something in Jerzy rebelled at that. He had been a slave, taken as a child for the flicker of magic within him, sold to Malech for that flicker. He had no choice, had never had a choice in his entire life . . . and yet, Mahault was right. Everything had always been a choice.

  He chose to live rather than die. He chose to learn rather than fail. He chose to run rather than be punished unfairly by the Washers. He chose to kill, that others might live. He chose to travel with these companions, rather than standing alone. And, now, he had to choose again.

  A Vineart had no control over when the fruit was ripe. But his choice of when to harvest made all the difference.

  Jerzy lifted his head, and his voice, when he spoke, was firm. “The first thing we need to do is get home.”

  AWARE THAT THE Washer’s party was waiting for Jerzy’s answer, the four did not hesitate once a decision was made. Most of their belongings had already been offloaded before that interruption, waiting only for the cart and hire-horses to be delivered. The Heart had been prepared for an indefinite stay at dock, and Kaïnam had paid her fees for the winter out of the last of his coins. If—when—they needed her again, she would be ready. All that remained was for them to leave the ship itself.

  To do that, now, they needed magic.

  “I wish there was some other way,” Jerzy said, as they were preparing to disembark. “It’s too . . .”

  “Obvious? Noticeable?” Ao asked. “As opposed to the masthead you can’t help but see and yet nobody notices?”

  Jerzy looked back involuntarily. Their masthead was a living thing, dark-skinned hands stroking a wreath of vine leaves, the unexpected result of Jerzy’s spell of protection when they had to leave the ship anchored and unguarded in Irfan. He did not know if the figurehead actually invoked any particular protection . . . but anyone looking at it would certainly assume that it did. They were counting on that to keep the ship safe again, since they did not have the additional funds to hire guards.

  Jerzy touched the marker still hung around his neck. Once, merely showing it within the borders of The Berengia would buy him whatever aid he needed, on his master’s reputation. Now, his master was gone, and he himself could not stand surety, not when he did not know if he would have anything to repay it with.

  “Jer?”

  “Yes, all right,” Jerzy replied, finding the wine sack he needed and weighing it in his hand, estimating how much liquid remained within. The masthead had been unexpected, to say the least, and it still disturbed him to think about too closely. In contrast, what they were about to do wasn’t even outside the realm of the usual . . . if anything these days could be considered usual or common. He unstoppered the wine sack, and then offered it to Ao.

  “Me?” The trader looked half-horrified, half-fascinated. Behind them, Mahl let out a muffled laugh.

  “You. You’re the one the magic will be working on.”

  Ao swallowed hard, his throat working noisily, and then nodded. Like the Kingdom of Caul, although for different reasons, his clan eschewed the use of spellwines. Even though Ao had become comfortable with what Jerzy could do, the thought of it being worked directly within him was only now sinking in. The realization made him clearly uncomfortable.

  When he was a slave, Jerzy had been forbidden by law to so much as taste an unripe grape, or breathe too deeply of the fumes during crush. He had some sense of what was in Ao’s mind.

  “It will do only what you tell it to do. That’s how spellwine works: the incantation frames the magic the . . . the same way you frame an Agreement, so that every detail is considered and every eventuality taken care of.”

  The explanation seemed to soothe the trader. In truth, it was more complicated than that, but Jerzy rather suspected a trader’s Agreement had loopholes, too.

  “So how do I . . .”

  “You’ve seen me do it often enough. Take a sip, just a small one, and hold it on your tongue. Let it sink into the flesh, and the aroma rise up into your mouth . . .”

  He watched, his gaze intent as Ao did as he was instructed. The other’s movement was awkward, too aware of being watched, and he took too much wine with the first sip, choking a little as it ran out of his mouth and down his chin.

  “It’s all right. Everyone does that the first time.” He hadn’t, but he had made a fool of himself in other ways. “Hold it, and then say the decantation, the way I taught you.”

  Ao swallowed again, letting only a little of the liquid run down his throat, and then his lips moved. The words were barely audible, as he tried not to spill more spellwine, but that didn’t matter. Loud or soft, the spellwine was crafted to respond to the shape of the words as much as the sounds.

  “To the legs, flow. The legs, lift. Carry me, go.”

  The look on Ao’s face as the windspell rose to do his bidding, lifting him upright as though carried on invisible legs, was worth every penny the spellwine had cost them.

  “It won’t last long,” Jerzy cautioned him. “And you’ll ache when it’s done. But for a while, you’ll be
able to move by yourself.” Enough to get them through the crowd and, with a carefully placed cloak over Ao’s shoulders, without anyone seeing that the man was a cripple. The arrival of the Washers, and their demands, had changed plans beyond the need for haste: they could afford no indication of weakness, no hint of vulnerability others might try to use—or use against them.

  Ao took a gleeful step forward—and pitched over into Jerzy’s arms.

  “Carefully!” the Vineart said, setting him gently upright. “Carefully. You’re out of practice and these aren’t your legs.”

  Ao nodded, and took another, more cautious step.

  “But it doesn’t last?”

  “You know it doesn’t,” Jerzy said, picking up his own rucksack, keeping his free hand on Ao’s arm to steady him. The words lingered in his mouth, like the feel of a spell, an ominous warning. “So don’t waste it. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 2

  The dockside, like most fishing villages of any size in The Berengia, was a bustle of people minding their own business, intent on their own problems. Jerzy noted a few older men, able-bodied enough to be out fishing, instead mending nets. They sat not down by the water’s edge but up higher, where they had a clearer view of the horizon. As their small party passed, Jerzy saw fish spears on the ground next to them, and horns or drums at their feet. Sentinels, ready to warn the village should anything come at them from the sea. Serpents . . . or men? Jerzy felt a shudder of anticipation run down his spine.

  Although a few folk stopped to watch them go by, curious, no Washer appeared to stop them. Despite that, all four were tense until they were out of the village itself, far enough along the rise and fall of the road that a man on foot could not catch up with them. Mahl relaxed first, settling deeper into her saddle with a sigh as they crested the first hill, while Kaïnam’s shoulders eased a fraction with every step they took.

  The ocean was hidden behind the ridge, although the tang of seawater and fish still carried in the air, when the spell wore off. Ao felt it just in time to brace himself, and then collapsed a little on the wagon’s bench.