The line of communication was not as clear as with a full thrall’s bond, but the reply was clear enough. It will be done, Bright One.
The wagon disappeared through the gate. Berosus smiled. Soon Talen would be in hand. Once he was secured, there was only one piece left—he needed to know the identity of the real power behind Argoth and the others, the one who had actually defeated the Sublime Mother in the stone-wight warren. He’d visited the warren when he’d first arrived, but this Grove had emptied it. There was very little there that would give him any clue as to what had happened.
So what he needed was someone to tell him the truth. Of all those who had been present, it was clear who the weakest link was—Legs is where he’d begin his investigation.
He turned back to the candidates. One almost tumbled into him. Berosus helped the man up. “Think of it like a voice,” he said. “Start off with a whisper. Move up the scale of volume slowly until you get control.”
20
Suckle
SUGAR WOKE TO something pulling on her toe. She kicked at it, but found it too large to be a ferret.
“Good morning,” Legs said and pulled her toe again.
She opened her eyes. The cellar door hadn’t been shut all the way, and a sliver of early morning light shone through the cracks.
“The others have gone to eat,” Legs said.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Last night the Creek Widow said you needed rest. Who am I to gainsay her?”
She turned and sat up. She had been tired to begin with, and the chaos with the Mokaddian dreadmen had only kept her up longer. She couldn’t quite believe Mokaddian dreadmen were already here. The upcoming battles had seemed so far away. “I’m famished,” she said. It felt like she’d been fasting for two days. Then she noticed in the wan light that Legs was wearing the necklace.
“What are you doing with that?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
Her alarm rose. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know how to use it,” he said.
“That isn’t an answer.”
He was silent, which meant he had tried to do something.
“We’re playing with lions,” she said. “If we’re not careful, one of us is going to end up being eaten.”
“I didn’t quicken it.”
“Legs,” she said.
“Would you deny me sight?” Legs asked. “I want to see. And not just the enemy. I want to see you, sister, even if it is only with the eyes of my soul. I want to see Mother and Da.”
“Give it to me,” she said.
Legs removed the weave and handed it to her. “Don’t deny me this,” he said.
“It’s not about denying. The vitalities are not to be toyed with. The last thing I need is to lose you. Whatever Urban teaches me, I’ll teach you. But you need to be patient.”
“Patience is overrated,” he said and put a few mint leaves in his mouth to chew.
“So says Legs the Wise. Come on.”
Sugar dressed, and they exited the cellar. The morning air was clean from last night’s rain. Much of the ground was cobbled, but where it wasn’t, the earth was still dark with moisture. All about the bailey, soldiers were moving things, loading up wagons. Two fists of candidates worked with Ke and Eresh. Then she saw what they were doing and corrected herself—they weren’t candidates any longer. These fists had been forced some time during the night. They were dreadmen, albeit of the first level, but dreadmen all the same.
Part of a dreadman’s training included running various courses designed to increase strength, speed, and endurance. The saying was “multiply a runt and you just get a bigger runt.” So you wanted to do everything you could to increase your normal base strength. The courses also taught you how to move at those higher levels, for, as she had learned, it was one thing to run through a forest. It was quite another to try to run through that same forest at double the speed.
Ke had a fist of dreadmen working on the platforms. One of the new dreadmen jumped from a standstill straight to the six-foot platform. That was like jumping over a man standing straight up. And he didn’t squeak by—he had room to spare. He sprang off the other side. Another followed him up. A third candidate didn’t quite make it. He tried again and failed and moved down to the five-foot platform and succeeded.
Eresh worked with another group scaling a fortress wall with ropes. Each man climbing the wall wore a fall harness made of rope around his waist and legs. A man above on the parapet reeled that in as the man below climbed. The men were scampering up the walls like squirrels, and Sugar wondered if they needed fall harnesses. But then Eresh started shouting at one man above him. “Breath!” he yelled. “Watch your breath!”
The man didn’t seem to hear. He was wavering, barely clinging on.
“Breathe, you idiot!”
The man collapsed and would have fallen to some damage if it weren’t for his harness and the man above slowly letting him to the ground.
Eresh bent down next to him and put his ear to the man’s mouth to see if he was breathing. A moment passed, then Eresh said, “He’s alive. The fool.”
Sugar made her way over to the great hall where she assumed her fist was since they’d been helping with the forcing the night before. A fist of candidates waited their turn by the entrance. Inside, Argoth and the Creek Widow were taking a breather by one of the massive hearths. On the far side of the hall, a dozen or so men lay unmoving on tables and cots. They were bundled up in quilts and blankets. And all about them godsweed braids burned, filling the hall with smoke to keep frights and other creatures away.
“Are these the last?” Sugar asked.
“Those are the ones that broke,” one of the waiting candidates replied.
Sugar remembered the night Talen had almost died. His da had forced him on accident, and he’d bled out a horrendous amount of Fire. He would have bled it all out if River hadn’t been there to stop it. Talen must be made of tough stuff, for he’d survived and was using the lore. She hoped these men here survived. Her heart went out to them. Yesterday, they’d been dreaming of what they could do as loremen. Today that was now gone. She knew she’d be devastated if she’d lost the chance to learn her mother’s lore.
“There you are,” a woman said.
Sugar turned to find the Mistress.
“You’re with me today, slug-a-bed.”
“Where’s my fist?” asked Sugar.
“They’re with me too. Come on. Have you taken your breakfast?”
They hadn’t, so the Mistress led them over to the cook’s for a generous helping of swamp and hard bread.
“Can you believe it?” the Mistress asked. “There were Mokaddian dreadmen on this very ground, swords clashing, men shouting, and I slept like a baby through the whole thing. Slept late, and I never sleep late.”
“Maybe that will teach you not to dip into someone else’s wine,” said Sugar.
“Ach,” said the Mistress, “that Creek Widow doesn’t want you drinking spirits. Besides, the wine was fair payment.”
“For what?”
“For having to be fistmaiden over you, the other fell-maidens, and Master Legs.”
Sugar furrowed her brow. River was their fist leader.
“Temporarily, of course. River’s gone. The Creek Widow is still working with the candidates. She didn’t sleep a wink last night. Just worked right through. I tell you that woman is iron. If Shim weren’t here, I think she’d be running this whole show. Anyway, with both of them gone, you are assigned to me. The rest of the fist is already out working.”
“Where did River go?”
“That’s the question on everybody’s lips. It appears both she and Talen were sneaked out sometime last night. Disappeared like ghosts.”
“Sneaked? Why would they need to be sneaked?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you? Those dreadmen were after him. Not Shim or Argoth or that fine piece of beef that’s his brother. That’s the word. I tell you, there’s something about that boy you’re keeping mum.”
They had been told not to reveal all the details of what happened in the Devourer’s warren. It would not play well to spread it about that Talen was some tool of the same master that controlled the monster that had terrorized the land. She didn’t like lying to the Mistress, but what else could she do? “I’m sure I don’t know what it is,” Sugar said.
The Mistress turned to Legs. “And what about you, Master Legs? What do you know?”
“Me?” Legs asked. “I’m blind. What would I know of such things?”
“Plenty,” the Mistress said in a tone that clearly revealed she wasn’t buying any of that. “There are many secrets not meant for the chief washerwoman’s ears. I’ll grant you that. But, sooner or later, I find them out anyway.”
Sugar said, “Then you must tell me when you solve this mystery.”
“Oh, I shall,” she said.
Sugar changed the topic. “Did the Creek Widow convince that Kish to force the fell-maidens?”
“I heard tomorrow,” the Mistress said. “But I wouldn’t depend on it. That Kish has Shim’s ear. From what I hear he convinced our warlord that the women’s fist should be the last to go. Mark me: with all that’s going on, he’ll push it out for weeks.”
“I don’t know that I like that man,” said Sugar.
The Mistress shrugged. “If the old badger is as good as Argoth thinks he is, we don’t have to like him. And after yesterday’s demonstration, I’m inclined to think he might be. I can tell you I don’t intend to fight him. I suggest you do the same and content yourself with slaying piles of laundry and an equal mound of ducks instead.”
The Mistress told Sugar to fetch a bowl of swamp. When she and Legs finished, the Mistress led them to the outer bailey. A number of crows congregated on the wall.
“They’ve got the dreadman that Flax beheaded out there on a pole next to Pinter,” said the Mistress. “He’s holding his head in his own hands. Want to have a look?”
Sugar did. They walked out of the fortress to view the spectacle. The naked body was already beginning to stink, but she held her hand under her nose to mitigate the smell. Half a dozen crows flew about trying to get their chance at the flesh. Flies and wasps buzzed about too. She described the man to Legs, including the strange tattoos.
“No mistaking Lord Shim’s defiance now,” said the Mistress.
“He’s clearly Mokad’s,” Sugar said of the dreadman. He’d also been very clearly a powerful man. Even in death his muscled limbs and torso looked fearsome. And Mokad would be sending hundreds more. They contemplated him a bit longer, then went back inside.
The Mistress assigned some of the women to gather firewood and others to pick more wild rosemary for the laundry. Sugar and Legs she assigned to the group scalding and plucking a large quantity of ducks that would be roasted for the candidates. The hunting boys had brought back more than a hundred of them. The pile was mostly green-heads with some smaller browns mixed in and a half a dozen geese. Big as it was, the candidates would eat through this pile in short order.
The pluckers kept a small cauldron of water hot, not boiling. Sugar sat and dunked her bird in the hot water, holding it by its head. When it was good and wet, she hauled it out and began with the big feathers of the wings and tail. Once those were out, she held the bird belly-up in her left hand, picking and rubbing out the feathers from breast to tail, careful not to break the skin since it was what would keep the meat moist while cooking. Once the belly was done, she did the same to the back and sides, going from neck to hind, in the direction the feathers grew.
After the fourth bird, her hands stunk of the duck’s feather oil. After a dozen more, the muscles in her shoulders and back tightened up and began to ache. She plucked on, wet feathers clinging to her tunic and trousers and catching in her hair, but her mind was not on the ducks.
The whole time she tried to find and follow a thread of her mother’s weave about her neck. Twice she thought she had found one, but both times it slipped from her. It was like trying to hold a pea on a knife.
Candidates rode past. Some called out greetings to the women. To others, the women made their own calls. At one point Commander Eresh rode out along the path to the bridge, a fist of men with him. When he was only a number of yards away, he turned to the Mistress. “Good morning, Mistress,” he said. “I’ve talked to Shim. You’ll be given a rank in short order. Captain, I would think.”
The Mistress rose and bowed to him.
“You tell those women the army’s built on the backs of the laundresses,” he said. “Tell them they’re saving lives! I’d trade a whole hammer for a good crew of washerwomen. Remember it!”
“Aye,” the Mistress said and put her fist to her chest in salute.
He rode on.
“Captain is it?” one of the other women teased. She was plump and missing a tooth at the side of her grin. “And when did you have time to get into his bed?”
“This has nothing to do with his bed,” said the Mistress.
“Is he mocking us?” Sugar asked.
“He’s an odd one, to be sure,” said the mistress. “But he’s not joking. He made it a point to visit with me earlier. After looking me over quite openly, he proclaimed that if I were to marshal my troops correctly, I’d save more of Shim’s army than he would.”
“I don’t think that one’s rowing with all his oars,” said the plump woman. “Did someone hit him in the head during last night’s fighting?”
The Mistress continued. “He said disease and pestilence can do more damage to an army than most foes. He said a clean army is a healthy one. ‘I’ll train them to fight flesh and blood, my good woman, but it won’t do a lick of good if you don’t keep the vermin out.’ Those were his very words. And he was particular in verifying how we go about our wash and the consequences if we failed to follow his odd demands.”
“If you’re a captain,” the plump one asked, “what does that make me?”
“The captain’s boot polisher,” another of the women said.
Sugar laughed along with the other women. But she wondered about this Kish even more. She would not complain about fewer lice and fleas, but to say the army was built on laundry?
“So, my lovely warriors,” said the Mistress, “back to work.”
They turned back to the ducks and conversation. As they approached lunch time, the Mistress nudged Sugar. “You keep watching the road. Who are you pining after? Certainly not that foreigner.”
Sugar realized she had indeed been continually glancing up the road. “I’m going to be working in his crew,” she said. “Nothing more.”
The plump woman said, “Oh, dearie, that lie is written plain on your face.”
“It’s not a lie,” Sugar said innocently.
“How many hares are you trying to catch?” another woman asked and brushed a curly lock of hair out of her face with the back of her hand.
“None,” Sugar protested.
“Sweet Pie,” said the Mistress, “you can’t hide it from the likes of us.”
Sugar thought of Talen. He’d certainly become more attractive to her. And then the weaver from Koramtown, although now that Talen had pointed it out, he did have a nose that was fairly dainty. There might be others. But she couldn’t tell these ladies. It would fly through the camp before dinner. “I’m training for battle,” she said. “I don’t have time to be worrying about men.”
“So who are you looking for then?” asked the Mistress.
Sugar sighed, rolled her duck, looking for any pin feathers she might have missed. “I admit I was looking for Urban, but—”
“Aha!” said the Mistress.
“That Urban’s a long side of beef,” said the plump one longingly.
The Mistress waved her finger at Sugar. “A word of advice. Foreigners are tempting. And I’m as liberal as they come, but I suggest you stick to what you know. It’s always best that way. A man who’s got his feet planted here is likely to stay. Someone just in off the boat, well, who knows if the next day he’ll step back on again and sail away, leaving you behind with another responsibility growing in your belly?”
Sugar was not going to get pregnant.
“You’re one to talk,” said one of the women.
“I am,” declared the mistress. “I’ve learned by hard experience.”
The curly-headed woman guffawed at that comment. Sugar expected some coarse joke to follow, but the mistress said, “Don’t you go letting a set of good teeth and an interesting accent mislead you.”
“You underestimate me,” said Sugar. She picked up another duck and dipped it in the pot, holding its head out of the water. Legs sat beside her plucking with the rest of the women. He couldn’t always catch all the pin feathers, but he did a good job on the ones that were easy to feel with your hand. “Legs,” she said, “help me out here.”
Legs shook a couple of feathers from his hand. “Well, if the truth be told, he did call her ‘your loveliness’.”
That brought a round of titters.
“But Sugar wouldn’t have any of his nonsense,” he continued. “I was there. I heard it all. Still, I don’t want her to shun him just yet. I believe he has a song I want to learn. A singer’s always got to be increasing his basket of songs.”
“What song is that?” asked one of the women.
“A tale about soft women,” said Legs.
The mistress looked at Legs. “And what would a little whip like you know about soft women?”
“Nothing,” said Legs. “That’s why I wanted to learn the song.”
The mistress laughed. “And why haven’t you sung for us? Is all your entertainment reserved for men?”
Curse: The Dark God Book 2 Page 20