The Shattered Vine

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Even if Eulálio could do such a thing, he would not.

  It was a fool’s wish, a madman’s request. Spellwines coaxed and cajoled the elements, from aether to fire, flesh to stone. There was nothing—not even the memory-wine Lethe—that could force a man to do something he would not.

  There were rumors, true. Vinearts did not mingle nor gossip, they shared no confidences and built no alliances among each other, but even before these uncertain times they watched, and they listened, and Eulálio had heard things: A student, too strong for merely one master. A Vineart who disdained the Commandments, and challenged the Washers themselves. Rumor claimed that this student had killed his own master, that his quiet-magic was not quiet at all but shouted its power to the skies, healing and destroying like the silent gods themselves.

  Impossible. Mortals could no longer work such magic—Sin Washer had ensured that when he shattered the Vine, blooded the first growth and left them only the legacies to work with. But such power was exactly what Lord Diogo asked for.

  For two weeks he had been a valued guest in Diogo’s home, treated with respect until the question—no, the demand was made. That had been three days ago. Three days, two nights, and the Vineart had not slept in all that time, had not eaten, had only the occasional sips of bitter ale to keep his body going and his head fogged.

  Another man, in Eulálio’s position, might give up the rumor, give up a name, the promise of someone who could do what Diogo asked, to deflect the lord’s cold anger away for at least a while. If this Vineart was so powerful and so strong, then he could save himself.

  But Eulálio could not bring himself to be that man, any more, he suspected, than Ranji. If the rumor were true, then such a Vineart should not be the servant of one such as Diogo. And if it were not . . . Eulálio would bring no other soul to this end, not by his words or actions. He had that much honor left.

  Diogo had not been foolish enough to bind him: nothing so crude, or so visible. But the Vineart had no illusions that he was free to go; the burly man standing at the door could snap his neck without sweating, and even if he were able to call on his quiet-magic . . . what could he hope to accomplish? He could strengthen young bones and clear water, but not as he was, dry and exhausted and confused.

  The only thing in the room, other than himself, the lord, the chair he sat on, and the burly guard, was a single, simple bowl of water. Just a bowl of water, shaped like a basin, barely a handspan deep. It could have been made for any bathhouse, to rinse hands or splash a face.

  There was no reason that the sight of it, sitting on a low table barely an arm’s length away, should fill the Vineart’s bowels with the need to empty themselves. He was no fool, however, and did not think that any hands would be clean when this was done.

  He also knew that he would not—could not—do what the lord wanted of him, even if his quiet-magic were strong enough.

  He would do anything to survive. But not that.

  “An it please you to give me such solace,” he whispered. “Sin Washer, make it swift.”

  OUTSIDE THE DOOR, a hired solitaire making her patrol heard the muffled sounds of splashing, like a man at his bath, but the quickly muffled cry that accompanied it was nothing at all of pleasure, only fear. Her hound stopped, its flopped-over ear even with her knee, and looked up at her inquiringly. She was not uncertain, merely undecided.

  There was another splash, this one heavier, more sodden, and a hoarser sound, like the pained drawing in of breath, and then a third splash.

  There was no sound after that. She hesitated a moment longer, then heard the low noise of one voice, male, asking a question, and another, deeper, answering; then a low, water-choked cough, and the sound of water being poured from one vessel into another.

  Another place, another time, she might have stopped to investigate, rapped on the wooden door and inquired if someone within needed aid, if only to let the villains know that they had been heard, observed. Her position protected her: anyone who harmed a solitaire in their own employ would never hire another, nor would they work within his lands—save with his enemies.

  Here, now, she stepped forward, moving down the hallway again, her hound without protest trotting at her side.

  Bahn might accept her decision without hesitation—that was what starhounds were bred and trained to do—but she was less certain, even as her steps took her away from that door as though nothing at all were wrong.

  Much was wrong in this place.

  Her contract with Diogo was to guard against strangers, not against things that happened to those already within—particularly not within the lord’s own chambers. Her own personal thoughts had no place within the bounds of the contract: that was the solitaire’s way.

  But she did not like it, did not like the mutter and swirl of this place, had not been comfortable here since the day Diogo turned the Washer away at the door, had become uncomfortable the morning she was told that Vineart Ranji had departed, without a word to anyone, his belongings suddenly, mysteriously gone. And now the new Vineart, who seemed a kind, soft-spoken man . . . no one had seen him in two days. His belongings were still in his chamber, but she did not give good odds that being the case come morning.

  Whatever darkness haunted her contract-lord, it infected others close to him as well. She shuddered, as though the fact of their contract was enough to taint her, too.

  She took some comfort that the Washer was safely away and none of his cloth had come to the city since. The people might suffer by that, but she could not blame the Brotherhood. The moment her contract ended, she, too, would depart this place, and find somewhere else to serve. Surely, somewhere, there was a place in all the Vin Lands that had not gone insane?

  IN THE CLOSED room behind her, Eulálio, his throat and lungs filled with water, let the quiet-magic seep onto his now-wet tongue, and brought it forward one last time. When the pull came again, sharply yanking him by the hair back into the blessed, burning air, he opened his eyes and looked up, his water-sore mouth curving in a grin that made the lord drop his pose of indifference and raise his hand to the guardsman, intending to cry an alarm.

  Earthvines, his legacy. Growspells, his gift. His voice was gone, choked and drowned, but Eulálio did not need his voice to send the magic, deep into the lord’s head, deep into his skull, and command, with all the violence a dying man could muster, Grow.

  And as his face plunged back into the bowl for the last time, his vision graying at the edges and his thoughts turning to mud, Eulálio felt the quiet-magic leave him, wending its way through the flesh and bone of Diogo’s skull, the enlarging tissue already pushing against the skull from within. It would not be swift, no. First, a headache. Then a stutter, a slowness of speech. Weakness, vomiting. A shame, a disgrace. Then . . .

  Revenge.

  Chapter 7

  HOUSE OF MALECH, THE BERENGIA

  Fallowtime

  Acrash startled the predawn silence of the House, then a flood of cursing, a woman’s voice, irate without actually being angry. A flock of birds that had been roosting on the roof over the kitchen took flight, their wings rustling shadows in the dark air.

  Jerzy, who had gone outside to let the morning air soothe away the sweat of his dreams, shook his head and sighed. In the days since they had returned to The Berengia, the calm, peaceful House he had lived in under Master Malech had been replaced with a place of noise, confusion, and barely controlled chaos.

  “What did he do this time?”

  It was not his fault.

  The fact that the Guardian took Ao’s side did not surprise Jerzy. Ao’s new-gifted legs were stumps of vines that had born their last fruit before Jerzy was born, grafted to the flesh sealed to them by healspells crafted from that same fruit. Magic now tied him directly to the House, making the Guardian inclined to include Ao within its protections just as it did the servants and slaves, and Jerzy himself.

  The sun reached the point it became visible over the far ridge, a pale glow touc
hing the cobalt sky, casting the ridge of ancient trees into shadow and touching the rows of winter-dormant vines with a faint glow. From the House to the farthest reaches, where the low stone wall marked the ends of Malech’s—his—yard, the ground was clear. He had walked every pace of it the past week, dropping to his knees to dig his hands into the cool dirt, to make sure. Beyond those walls, into the copse of trees that had stood since before Malech’s master Josia cleared the land? Jerzy dared not go beyond to check.

  “But what did he do?” Jerzy asked again.

  The Guardian did not sigh, or show any signs of true emotion, but there was a sense of a sigh and a laugh, all the same, like a low wind under leaves, and the visual of copper pans scattered over the stone floor, and Lil, her hands on her hips and her pale hair backlit by the fire so that she looked like Jacia, the goddess of the hearth, glaring down at someone.

  “The chair needs fine-tuning,” Jerzy said, shaking his head. Ao still had little control over his new limbs, and the pain when trying to stand kept him confined to the chair. A week before, Per had appeared at the edge of the training ground, stared at Ao and Mahault trading awkward blows, trying to maneuver the chair over the rough ground, muttered something nobody could understand, then disappeared again.

  Jerzy had told the others not to worry about it: such behavior was not out of character for Per, who lived almost like a wild beast outside the House by his own choice, preferring to spend his time tending to the grounds rather than interacting with other people. The next day, however, he had returned with a smaller, lighter version of Josia’s chair, not carved from solid wood, but woven together with branches and rope, narrow enough to fit through all the hallways without scraping and light enough that Kaïnam or Jerzy—or even Mahault—could haul it somewhere, when Ao wanted to work on controlling his new legs.

  The one thing it couldn’t do very well, however, was turn quickly. If Ao was not careful, he would either knock into something or, more often, knock himself sideways. Ao, as ever, was impatient, and in the two days he’d had the new chair, Lil had threatened to burn it under him at least five times.

  “Why was he even up so early?” Jerzy wondered now. “No, never mind, I know that you don’t know why.”

  The Guardian, not being hostage to uncertainty or fear or uneasy dreams, could not understand, but Jerzy did: the same reason he was standing out here, staring at rootstock he had checked thrice already. Because it was better than not sleeping, lying abed and thinking of everything that needed to be done, everything they did not know how to do, the tension winding inside them like a rising storm. Within these walls there was an almost uncanny peace, but they all knew what waited beyond.

  Eleven days since they had come home.

  Jerzy let his gaze fall over the yard spreading out in front of him, trying to see it as a stranger might, as Kaïnam or Ao or Mahault did: the gentle downward slope that ran all the way to the banks of the river Ivy, the wooded slopes of the ancient trees, their leaves now orange and brown, that bordered his lands. The low stone structure of the sleep house and work shed. The ordered, gathered clusters of vines, their fruit stripped, their leaves shading to match the trees up on the hill, preparing to sleep for the winter.

  His lands. His vineyard. Jerzy wasn’t prepared for the rush of emotions that filled him: pride, possession, worry, affection . . . fear.

  Normally in the Fallowtime, a Vineart would be working with the mustus from the Harvest, crafting it into that season’s vintage. But with no Vineart to handle it, the mustus had not settled. He trusted Detta, that she had done exactly as she said, but she had admitted herself that she was no Vineart and the mere action of crushing and vatting did not a spellwine create.

  Without the Vineart’s skill and sense . . .

  The fourth day after their return, Jerzy had forced himself to siphon off a small dose, intending merely to test it, to see if anything could be salvaged. As he had feared, the magic was too wild to handle, refusing to settle to his touch, and the effort had left him shaking and ill for hours after.

  Since that attempt, every night he slept, he had dreamed—terrible dreams, torn from his worst fears and memories. This morning he had been convinced that Master Malech again sat behind his desk; only his master had risen from the pyre the others had burned his body on, down in the vineyards, after his murder. In the dream, a crumbled, soot-covered hand reached for Jerzy as though to administer one of the familiar cuffs to the head that had been as much a part of his training as the wine itself, familiar and comforting, but when the hand actually connected, it cut like Kaïnam’s blade, slicing open the top of Jerzy’s head and revealing not spluttered brains and blood, but the same thick flesh as the serpents, covered in the wine-blood goo of the bespelled birds.

  Jerzy woke covered in cold sweat and reeking of spoiled mustus, the taste of the taint deep in his mouth, so thick that even repeated rinsings with clear, cold water had not been able to clear it.

  A Vineart was meant to be focused, centered within his own vineyards. A Vineart stood alone and did not meddle with the world beyond his walls. A Vineart did not take power, but crafted it for others to use. . . .

  He was apostate, and there was a fear, deep within him, that the vines would know that, would turn from him as the mustus had; that in trying to save others, he would never become master of his own vines.

  The bitter taste of his dreams showed him that fate.

  A vision, not his own: a vat, dumped into dark soil, covered with more soil, and set afire.

  Jerzy shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

  Magic that cannot be tamed must be diluted.

  Once, the Guardian had been silent, when Jerzy was still a slave. Now, Jerzy often thought he would enjoy those days returned.

  I was not silent. You could not hear.

  “I don’t trust this mustus,” Jerzy said, ignoring that last comment. “Not to release it like that.” Pouring the mustus—powerful but unformed—loose back into the soil . . . a more experienced Vineart might have been able to tell him what might happen, but Master Malech was dead, and Jerzy could not, dared not reach out to another. Not without knowing if they were in Agreement with a land-lord, or partnered with the Washers, or a puppet to their unknown enemy . . .

  He could trust no one save those within his own House.

  They do not have the knowledge you need.

  “I know.”

  The Guardian was silent after that. The responsibility lay on his own shoulders. The Guardian would support him, share with him whatever it knew, but it was not a Vineart and could not tell him what was right or proper. It was a creature of tradition and what-had-been, not what-would-be.

  Tradition. Commands. Words that had shaped the world for two thousand years, since Sin Washer was born of anger and despair . . . words the Collegium had used to keep the world balanced, a three-handled wheel of power. The earlier emotions were joined by a more familiar one: despair. How could you maintain balance when tradition worked against you and commands were broken?

  A raptor flew overhead, no longer looking to feed a nest, it might merely have been stretching its wings or looking for an early-morning snack. Jerzy, the memory of the deformed birds that had attacked them still clear in his mind, tracked its progress over the fields until it dove down and disappeared into the tree line that ran across the upper ridge.

  They had not seen nor heard anything from the lurker on the road, although Kaïnam, after a quick sortie, was of the opinion that he yet lingered, watching them. For what purposes, nobody could say, and Jerzy saw no reason to send anyone out looking. If the Washers wanted to find them, well, here they were.

  Jerzy had come home for a purpose. The beast-bird, Ao’s injury, all necessary elements to be dealt with, but they were done. The Guardian was correct. Jerzy’s fear and uncertainty, like mustus, needed to be punched down, and crafted into something useful.

  He was Vineart. It was time to act as one.

  The air was fil
led with noises now; the slaves waking, the distant voice of the overseer getting them moving, the clatter and crunch of the livestock being fed, up the hill, and the sound of footsteps behind him. He recognized the feel of Mahault’s presence even as her voice reached him.

  “They’ve started dishing up breakfast in the hall, if you’re hungry.” Her voice took on a slightly scolding tone. “And even if you’re not.”

  He turned then, and shook his head. “Second to Detta as well as Kaïnam?”

  He meant it as a tease, but it was truth: since they had returned, every aspect of life in the House now seemed to run through Mahault, no matter who managed it. A true Second, she knew where everyone was at any given time, what they could be called from, and when they were not to be disturbed. And, in his case, when they had not eaten recently. Between Mahault and the Guardian, he had even less space for secrets than he’d been allowed as a slave.

  Mahault, as usual, refused to be baited. “If you won’t sleep, you need to eat. And not just tai, either. And Kaïnam wants to see you in the practice square this afternoon, for weapons practice.”

  Kaïnam. Sober, dry-humored Heir, denned up in a vintnery far from home and need. It would not have surprised Jerzy if, at any point, Kaï had left them, gone hunting on his own. Instead, he stayed, using his skills and knowledge to find them allies with the same solid determination he approached everything, one methodical step at a time. Including, it seemed, beating a Vineart and a trader-boy into half-decent fighters.

  “I’ll be there,” Jerzy said, because if he didn’t she wouldn’t go away, and if he wasn’t, Kaïnam would come into the study and drag him by the scruff of the neck anyway. Vineart dignity meant little to weapons masters; Mil’ar Cai had taught him that.