The Shattered Vine

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Are you all right?” Jerzy, next to him, glanced sideways with a worried frown.

  “Yes. Ow. No. You said ache, not . . .”

  “Bad?”

  “It could hurt less. It could hurt more.” Ao’s cheerfulness was strained enough to let them know that, in fact, it hurt a great deal, but he waved off any assistance, leaning against the cask packed up behind him and tucking the blanket around the stubs of his legs with a forced casualness.

  The cart they had hired was larger and far more comfortable than the one they had been offered in Irfan; a full wagon, in fact, large enough for all their belongings and the remaining half-casks of spellwine they had taken from Vineart Esoba, from the now-fallen House of Runcidore. Jerzy held the reins of the placid piebald draft horse that pulled the wagon, barely having to guide it along, while Mahault and Kaï rode alongside on slighter-built brown geldings, their blades now lashed to the saddles, in reach—and, more important, in clear view, despite the apparent ease of their departure.

  The others might have relaxed, but Jerzy found himself growing more tense as the road passed under their wheels. Once, those working in the field would have stopped to watch when a stranger passed by, their curiosity an open, easy thing. Jerzy himself, moving back and forth between the smaller yards owned by his master, rarely received more than a lazy wave if recognized, a long stare as he passed if not. Even the occasional troop of soldiers under Lord Ranulf’s command, the lord who claimed these villages and fields, did not excite comment; there were enough villagers who had served, or sent their sons to serve, that the sight was familiar, if never entirely comforting.

  In the time Jerzy had been away, that had changed. The few stooped figures working the fields now were conspicuous in how they did not look up, not ignoring the wagon and horses clattering by, exactly, but giving the strangers no cause to stop and notice them, either. There was a tension in their bodies that should not have been there, not here, where Sin Washer’s Commands had kept strife to a minimum for more than a hundred years.

  These were not trained warriors ready for battle, but ordinary folk, fearful of things they did not understand and could not predict. Unlike the fisherfolk, alert for trouble, Jerzy realized, these folk held themselves like slaves, aware that at any moment, without warning, the lash might come down on their heads.

  Once Jerzy saw that, other changes were impossible to ignore. The comfortable, sloping fields and thick-leafed groves that Jerzy had grown up with remained . . . but it wasn’t the same. The colors of encroaching autumn were the same, and yet the leaves seemed duller, the villages seemed more tightly built, once-open meadows now fenced to keep livestock contained, the areas between houses smaller, the herds grazing closer in, and more than one child visible, tending the flock or herd.

  In less than a ten-month, the land had shifted.

  “Something’s wrong,” Jerzy said, his voice tight as they left one such village, a cluster of a shared barn and five houses, three of them with their shutters closed against the mild weather. “The villagers . . .”

  “They’re afraid,” Kaïnam said, swinging his gelding around to ride alongside the wagon. His voice was low, his free hand resting on the hilt of his blade. Mahault fell behind slightly, on the other side of the wagon, keeping pace with the back wheel, her sword now ready on her hip.

  “They’re not afraid,” Jerzy said. “They’re hungry.”

  Kaïnam was a princeling, Mahault grew up in a city, and Ao had more experience with roads than roots. But Jerzy had spent his entire life working the land, his fingers and toes in the dirt, and he could feel it oozing out of the land, and in the faces of the people they passed, their eyes too wide, their mouths too tight. He had thought to return home to gather strength. Instead, that strength had been sapped away.

  “The crops are failing, the livestock not grazing the way they should,” Jerzy went on, voicing what he saw so clearly now. “The land is under a blight.”

  A sudden fear for his vines shook him to the bone, and the urge to gather up the reins and cluck the beast to a faster pace had to be fought down: it would do him no good, not now. He had been away this long, another day would change nothing.

  And yet, the feeling remained: unsettled and anticipating all at once, like hunger spiraled around his rib cage, the almost-forgotten wait for the overseer’s crop to land on unprotected flesh. How could he not have felt it, before? Was it . . . was it because of Master Malech’s death?

  Even as Jerzy considered it, he rejected the thought. Vinearts died; the land lived on. This was Ximen’s doing: the land itself sensed unrest.

  They rode in silence, each wrapped in their own thoughts, the only noise the calls of birds overhead and the comforting sound of hooves on the packed-dirt road, and Jerzy had almost managed to convince himself that the fear was merely his own uncertainty and exhaustion playing tricks on him, when Mahault’s voice carried forward from her post behind them.

  “We’re being watched.”

  “What?” Jerzy’s entire body tensed up again, and he felt Ao shift in the wagon behind him, bracing his body against the sudden jolt of the wagon as the horse, sensing the change, slowed down.

  “Don’t stop, don’t look around,” Kaïnam said. Then, backward over his shoulder, still quietly, to Mahault. “Yes, I know. One?”

  “One,” she confirmed. “Hanging back a bit. On horseback, but staying off the road. I think he’s one of our Washer friends. They can’t seem to let go of the red, even when they’re trying to be stealthy.”

  Jerzy chewed at his lower lip, instinctively pulling a hint of spittle from the flesh there into his mouth, feeling the bitter tang of quiet-magic waiting to be called. “Oren didn’t like my leaving without an answer.”

  Kaïnam did not look impressed. “He’s going to follow us all the way back to the vintnery? Poor use of available men. Why merely shadow us, if they’re that worried? Why not force the issue?”

  “They don’t have the authority.” It was the only thing that made any sense, their meeting him at the docks, using surprise and his own exhaustion against him, hoping to catch him off guard, before he realized that they could not force him to do anything. Whoever wanted him did not have the entire Collegium’s support. But the thought raised another worry: if a smaller group within the Washers was looking to claim a Vineart of their own, if control of magic had become that contested . . . they would not rely merely on someone like Oren to woo him. What might a Washer with more authority do to those who rejected their offer?

  True, Washers had always stayed clear of the battles other men might engage in; that did not mean that the Collegium could not be deadly in its own right. Even though Jerzy had been cleared of charges they had levied, he did not trust that would keep him or his companions safe if the Collegium again deemed him a danger. Or a risk.

  “Lurker up front, too,” Ao called, hard on that thought. Sure enough, a man had come to the side of the road, still as a tree. Unlike their follower, he was in clear sight, and obviously waiting for them. He wore a leather smock over his clothing, and his hair was close-cropped and gray, his face clean-shaven and jowly with muscles beginning to age.

  “Blacksmith?” Kaïnam asked, squinting a little.

  “Farrier,” Jerzy said. “And he brought friends.” There was a group gathered farther off the road, four figures . . . no five, although one was slighter than the others—a child, or a dwarf, perhaps, standing by a slight rise that looked recently built rather than natural, as though ready to duck behind it if they should prove unfriendly.

  “Mahl. Come front. Ao, are you ready with that bow?”

  “I haven’t learned how to use it yet,” Ao said, even as they could hear him pulling the small crossbow Kaïnam had given him during the voyage home. It looked like a toy, but Kaïnam claimed it was deadly, and more to the issue, did not need the archer to be standing.

  “They don’t need to know that,” Kaïnam said, urging his horse forward a pace. Jerzy noticed
, as he would never have months earlier, that Kaï’s new position blocked Jerzy from a direct blow from the newcomers. Without turning to look, Jerzy suspected Mahault was guarding their rear in the same manner. The weight of the wine flask hanging from his belt and the warmth of quiet-magic ready in his mouth, waiting to be called upon, reassured him that he was not without defenses of his own, if need be.

  “This road was safe enough for a child to walk it,” he said. Not quite true—there had always been wolves on both two legs and four, and dangers besides, but once . . .

  “Was,” Ao replied. “Many things were, and aren’t anymore.”

  The words stung, although they were not meant to. This was The Berengia. Even with the blight evident, Jerzy could feel the pull of the soil under them, smell the familiar notes in the air around them, hear the subtle sounds that told him he was home. Nothing should have changed . . . and Ao was right. Everything had.

  The wagon and riders drew closer and the man’s shoulders, tightened in expectation, slumped, as though he had suddenly realized they were not whom he was waiting for. He took a step back, ducking his head and lifting his arms to show that he carried no weapons. Out of the corner of his eye, Jerzy saw the small group with him likewise move, their disappointment as clear to him as though they had shouted it in his ear.

  “Halt,” Jerzy said to the horse, his voice carrying enough for Kaïnam to hear as well. Kaï lifted his reins, and the horse paused, obediently, just before the waiting stranger.

  “You look for someone?” Jerzy asked the man in Berengian.

  “The healer, m’lord.” The man’s gaze flicked over them, then his head lowered again, as though worried about being caught looking. Something in his pose shifted when he heard Jerzy’s voice; he was no longer quite so ready to run.

  “Someone’s ill?” The only chirurgien in the area would not come to a small village, but there were a number of lesser trained herbalists who wandered from village to village, treating all but the most desperate or severe cases.

  “You are a healer, m’lord?” The man looked up at that, and his gaze went first to Jerzy’s face and then, with a widening of his eyes at Jerzy’s red hair, dropped down again to his waist. Seated, it was impossible to see the flask and tasting spoon hanging there, but the man made the assumption nonetheless.

  “Vineart Jerzy? ’Tis you, come home?” The man’s voice was . . . Jerzy could not place the tone, and from the way Kaïnam cocked his head, neither could he. A hint of fear, tinged with . . . hope? Jerzy dared not look behind him to catch Ao’s reaction, but he heard the sound of the wooden bow being lowered to the floor of the wagon and took his cue from that. Ao knew people, better even than Kaï.

  “How did he know . . .” Kaïnam asked, bemusement overcoming his caution.

  “The hair,” Jerzy said. Among the slaves gathered from all corners of the Lands Vin, his dark red hair and high cheekbones had been odd but not terribly unusual. It did mark him, however. Especially on this road.

  “I am Vineart Jerzy,” he told the farrier, laying the reins down in his lap and resting his left hand on his belt, just above the wine sack and spoon, drawing attention to them rather than Kaï’s sword or the implied threat of Mahault, coming up alongside the wagon.

  These were no brigands. Someone was ill, or injured. Badly enough to warrant a healer, and a welcoming party to ensure the healer made it there safely.

  A flutter of panic hit him, like one of Mahault’s practice blows. Master Malech had been the true healer; it had been he who kept the plague from overrunning this area years before Jerzy was born, he who could coax every drop of magic from healwines to save those otherwise at death’s door. Jerzy did not have that same skill . . . but they would expect him to be, to do what his master had done.

  Jerzy had killed more than he had saved. The memory of the plague ship still festered in his memory, never mind that they had been dead men before he ever saw it, that he had halted their suffering. He had taken their last hope away. He had snuffed the life of a slave injured in a wagon accident, had set fires to burn, risking the lives of innocent sailors, and . . .

  The face of a villager child in Irfan returned to him, the crusted edge of an eye clearing under his fingertips, others crowding around him, curious and trusting. He had made a difference there, in a foreign land, outside the Lands Vin.

  This man, with his diffident posture and cautious voice, was Berengian. His responsibility. His legacy.

  Master Vineart Malech was dead. He was Vineart of House Malech now.

  He was no more free than he had been as a slave. “If I may be of aid?”

  JERZY’S OFFER of help quickly ran into one difficulty. To reach the village, they would need to cross fields where the cart could not go.

  “We should not split up,” Mahault said, the four gathered off to the side of the cart while the villagers waited, impatiently, for them to come to a decision.

  “I’m the only one who needs to go—”

  “No.” Kaïnam and Mahault both overrode Jerzy’s offer, in unison.

  “I don’t need guards—”

  “Yes, you do.” Kaï’s voice was flat, hard, and refused argument. “You think this is not a trap, but we can’t be sure. You go nowhere unguarded until we have you back in your yard.”

  “I’ll stay,” Ao said. “Not as though I could travel with you, anyway.”

  “You can’t . . .” Kaïnam hesitated, unsure how to state his objection without giving insult or sharing information these strangers should not know.

  “Can’t what? Can’t defend the supplies? Can’t keep someone from driving off with our cart?” Ao lifted his eyes to the skies, as though asking for patience. “Fine. Leave one of these stalwart folk with me, to be the legs if anything should happen.”

  “I will stay.” A square-shouldered farmer, with a patient expression and a steady way of standing, volunteered. “Between the two of us, we’ll have brawn and wit.”

  “Half a wit, perhaps,” one of his companions said, and the tension broke slightly.

  “Will that satisfy, O warrior?” Ao asked, and Kaïnam, with a sideways look at Jerzy, lifted his hands in surrender.

  Without further delay, the others took up their packs and set out across the field, the child running ahead to alert them someone was coming, while Jerzy questioned their leader on the nature of the illness.

  There was not one person in the village who was ill, but a dozen or so, in varying stages of misery. The farrier, Justus, also doubled as their healer, having learned how to set bones in his younger years, but he knew when he was helpless. When the illness appeared, he had sent a message to the herbalist who covered this area, asking him to come with haste.

  “That was four days back,” Justus said as they moved diagonally away from the road, following a narrow trail through the crops.

  The remainder of the party—three men carrying glaives that had clearly and clumsily been made from plow blades—followed before and behind, their attention not only on the field around and underneath them, but the skies overhead. Kaïnam and Mahault took note and followed suit, forming an oddly shaped, moving guard around Jerzy. He felt like reminding them that he was perfectly capable of defending himself, but the look in the farrier’s eye stopped him.

  Hope, yes, but also a despairing sort of helplessness. If protecting the Vineart from some unknown threat gave him reason to feel useful, Jerzy would not take that away from him. No more than he would have pointed out how little defense Ao could give, if someone were to attempt to steal the wagon.

  His earlier observation was not true for these men. They were not acting like slaves, accepting whatever was meted out to them. They needed to take action—to stand against what threatened them, however they could. He would not wrest that opportunity from them.

  That thought, gruffly practical, sounded so much like Malech that Jerzy felt a sudden pang of loss, all over again. He had so focused on coming home, on healing Ao, and being somewhere he co
uld finally, somehow, turn and fight, that he had almost managed to forget that he would be returning to an empty House.

  Not empty.

  No. Not empty. The Guardian was there. Detta and Lil, and Per and Roan were there. And he was not coming home alone. That thought did not ease the pain, but made it bearable.

  Trying to escape further doubt, Jerzy focused his attention on their destination, quickly coming into view. The village was small, a series of two-story, red-roofed cottages between two roads, surrounded on three sides by fields and on the other by a longer, one-story building. In the distance beyond, a small herd of red-coated cows grazed on the sloping hill. The group entered the town proper without notice, other than a few sheep that gazed at them and then went back to pulling at the browning grass of the green.

  The ill had been gathered in the main hall, kept away from the others and tended by volunteers, who also made their beds there. Jerzy nodded approvingly. Master Malech had taught the local folk that, back during the plague, and they had remembered, years later.

  The farrier went into the main hall with them while the others stayed behind, unwilling to risk contact with the ill.

  “This is your healer?” A woman rose from where she had been crouched at the side of one of the beds, her voice cutting through the faint gloom even as she moved toward them. A shadowed figure moved beside her, knee-high and muscled. Even before they could see the sigil on her leathers, that hound had identified her as a solitaire.

  The dog stopped, and bared its teeth, shockingly white and sharp against black gums. The newcomers stopped as well, taken aback.

  “Stand and let him approach you.” The woman’s voice was firm, not allowing any room for dissent.

  The farrier passed by them, intent on checking the ill or spreading word of Jerzy’s arrival, as the hound padded forward, deep-chested, the body covered with a rough, golden-brown coat that curled slightly, its tail a straight upward plume that did not wag but held itself still, a flag in windless air. Jerzy had heard of these dogs but never seen one up close. The hound, suspicious, extended its great, broad-skulled head to sniff at Jerzy’s hand.