by Sarah Remy
Everin schooled away surprised. “Four days ride, you say.” He unslung his bag from his shoulder and began the business of repacking. “What of the tunnels? If time is of the essence, surely the sidhe roads are more efficient.”
Faolan moved about the common room, investigating Everin’s small treasures. He picked up pieces of gray stone and brick, only to replace them exactly as they were. The odd metal scraps Everin had collected from the blacksmith’s home he avoided, but he paused to examine the battered fabric doll retrieved from a traveling tinker. The summer heat had cleansed the beribboned doll of plague fleas by the time the tinker passed through Stonehill, but not before the Red Worm had killed the man’s wife and two young daughters.
Faolan’s regarded the doll with distaste. “We’ve had enough lately of strangers on our roads, don’t you think?”
Everin added hardtack, apples, and two flaccid waterskins to his pack. He’d fill the skins on the way down into the valley. He unearthed a round of gently molding bread from beneath a pair of leather gloves. He added both to his bag before cinching it tight and returning it to his shoulder.
“Four days’ ride,” he repeated.
“If we’re fortunate,” Faolan agreed. “Five if the horses tire too quickly in the heat.” He pursed his lips at the letters and pouch on the now-lit hearth but refrained from comment.
“Horses don’t tolerate sidhe, not even aes si.”
“Neither does humankind,” Faolan pointed out. “Yet just today you fed me rabbit stew and Black Coast cheese and gave me your floor to rest upon. There are always outliers.”
Everin, who had come to love the sidhe out of enforced loneliness, caught himself feeling sorry for Faolan’s horse.
“What’s at the end of four days on horseback?” he inquired.
Faolan showed his pointed teeth. The firelight threw his shadow long across the inn’s floor. “A gift,” he said, “fit for a flatlander king.”
They snuffed the hearth before stepping into the night. The air was brisk. The sun set quickly on the Downs, but Everin had eyes made keen in the dark by growing up beneath the skin of the earth and was sure-footed in the fading light. Faolan had the certainty of his kind; Everin knew the sidhe relied as much on nose and ears for navigation as they did any other sense.
Together they passed back through the center of town. Sheep stirred restlessly on the hill when Everin took time to secure Avani’s cottage. Stonehill’s unlucky reputation would do as much to protect the witch’s home from thievery as any lock. Even so Faolan paused to sprinkle a handful of earth scooped from the ground over the cottage stoop, murmuring as he did so. The earth glittered in the dusk as it fell on stone; the yellow gem set in the sidhe’s torque shone in response.
“She was kind to me,” Faolan explained when Everin raised a brow. “I haven’t the resources to keep predators from her sheep whilst you’re away but I can nudge trouble from her door.”
“Another outlier,” Everin suggested, amused.
Faolan shook the remnants of dirt from his long fingers. “Mock me as you like,” he said. “But we both know allies are precious in days such as these. Avani is a puzzle. For the nonce better she’s in debt to me for a small effort than resentful that I lacked the foresight to ward her home whilst I could.”
Everin grunted. “You’re a canny bastard.”
The old trail cut into the Downs was more stone than sand or grass, treacherous even in daylight. Wide enough for horse or wagon, the path dropped almost straight down into the valley below, making for a wearying climb either up or down the crags. Everin wished he’d thought to bring a walking stick for balance; it had been so long since he’d left the Downs without the aid of sidhe magic he’d forgotten the trick of maneuvering slippery shale.
It was a slow descent. True dark seemed to rise up out of the rock. Bats left their burrows for the hunt; Everin heard the flap of their wings close above his head as they scoured the sky for insects. The chill of the mountains receded as Everin and Faolan crept downward. Small trees and low-lying shrubs grew alongside the trail, many struggling to find purchase on sheer stone. Orange light twinkled in below: the fires stoked at Mors Keep, meant to welcome travelers and deter barrowmen at the same time. Most of the valley floor was black, dominated by the curve of river and the encroaching forest, but here and there the flames of individual cook fires sparked: travelers pausing on the road to eat or sleep.
Half a day’s walk was made longer in the dark. Everin saw the sun rise over tall brown grasses as he and Faolan reached the foot of the Downs. Not far away Mors River crashed along stony banks. Everin was glad of the sound of it. With the flatland came a heat to rival Everin’s memory of desert sands.
“We’ll stop here until twilight,” Faolan decided. Without waiting for a response, the sidhe lay down in the long grass off the trail, pulled his scarf low over his face, and curled knees to chin.
“Mors Keep is just across the river,” Everin pointed out. “Gavin will have a spare bed and an egg or two for a welcome visitor.”
“For you an egg and a blanket,” Faolan said, spine curved eloquently in the grass. “For me a pitchfork and fire. Besides which, the keep’s old wards have been recently recharged. Even one so old as I would have difficulty breaching that fortification.” He sighed, making the grass quiver. “Go, if you prefer. Be back before dark. We’ve already lost more time than I like. Too many years aboveground have dulled your senses.”
Everin swallowed a retort. He knew from experience arguing with Faolan was a waste of time. The aes si cared nothing for the opinions of mortals. Still, Everin couldn’t help growling as he stomped away in the direction of the river. His throat was dry, his tongue felt coated with grit, and he looked forward to a flagon of the keep’s best summer wine. Gavin and his wife and son were a peaceable sort. Everin looked forward to few hours spent in their company.
Mors River ran low but lusty midsummer. The water was pale in the dawn. A bridge spanned the banks near the keep but Everin ignored it, instead stepping off the road and between drooping willow trees. He crouched in the mud to drink deep then filled his waterskins before splashing his face and the back of his neck. The river tasted sweeter than its earthier source spring Everin knew from inside the sidhe mounds. There the water flowed deep and cold and left strange, colorful, scaled deposits in its wake.
A turtle broke the surface of the shallows then clamored atop a dammed log, stretching its wedge-shaped head toward the scant first light. It watched Everin with one unblinking eye as he left the river and crossed the bridge. Timbers shook beneath his feet but the parapet and wings were solid gray stone and had likely stood as long as the keep. The waterwheel on the far bank was less sturdy and had in fact collapsed sideways into the earth. Abandoned, it rotted.
To Everin’s great surprise, Lord Gavin awaited his arrival just outside the keep, beneath a toothy portcullis. It was early enough still that he expected the family to be abed, and had planned to rely on houseman or kitchen maid for his eggs. But there stood the lord of the stronghold, dressed still in his nightclothes but for a pair of muddy boots. He held a candle stub in one hand and a basket of bread and meat in the other.
“Helena said you’d come down off your roost,” Gavin greeted him. “I swore I wouldn’t believe it until I saw you for myself. Sooner the river changes course than the craftsman leaves his bricks.”
Everin frowned, baffled. The last he’d heard Gavin’s wife was called Eliza.
“You’ve not been chased off, have you?” Lord Gavin continued, equally puzzled. “Why, last my John was up with your supplies he said things were settled as could be, up on the crags, no sign of trouble.”
“Nay, no trouble,” Everin agreed. He couldn’t help but notice Gavin stood firmly in his way to sleep and breakfast. “I’m only off traveling for a bit. John will look after the sheep? If I’m not back by first frost, bring them down into the valley, aye?”
“First frost you say?” Gavin’s brow wri
nkled even as his interest sharpened. “You’ll be gone some time, then.”
Everin nodded. “Might be. Will you let me in, man? I could do with a kip and a drink.”
His lordship shook his head sadly. “It’s sorry I am, Everin. But when Helena woke me to say you were fording the river she said you mustn’t—come in, that is. You’ve got the stink of them about you, she says, for all the time you’ve spent on the Downs, mayhap. She can’t let you in, not even if I say to her otherwise.”
Everin shifted his pack from his shoulder to the ground. The trek from the Downs had left him tired and in short temper. “What has Helena to say about where I take my rest? You’re lord of this keep, Gavin. You’ve never turned me away at the gate before. Or has your wife forgotten the bales of good wool I gifted the household with just last winter, to keep your family warm?”
“Of course not!” Lord Gavin huffed. “It’s my wife who packed you this basket of victuals, man. She’d welcome into our home if she could, as she has done many times past—before Lady Avani recharged our castle wards and set dead Helena to minding our walls as she did when Mors Keep was fresh built.”
Everin scrubbed a hand over his beard to keep from shouting. Gavin appeared sound of mind. He met Everin’s glare without flinching.
“As it was meant to be when Helena’s bones were set into stone, so it is again,” he said. “She keeps watch, and we’re better for it.” He jerked his chin, looking back into the bailey. “Aye, it took some getting used to it first, the way she moved things about to her liking and sang nursery songs into my ear at night. She frightened Eliza near out of her head when she tried to help with the washing, but John’s taken to calling her Granny and we haven’t had a barrowman in our fields since she woke, not even one.”
“Bone magic such as this died with the magi. It’s forbidden.” Everin too stared past the portcullis, but if a ghostly guardian lurked there she kept herself hidden. “For good reason. It’s abhorrent.”
“Helena says otherwise. It was a willing sacrifice, she says, for the good of the family that first lived inside these walls—her children and her grandchildren. She showed me the books wherein the contract was writ, with her own X set in ink beside the old vocent’s scrawl.” Gavin pursed his lips in and out restlessly. “If it’s forbidden, Lady Avani wouldn’t have charged the bones as she did. We’re grateful. Helena, too. Tell her so, when you see her next.”
“You can be sure I will,” Everin replied past clenched teeth.
Lord Gavin thrust the hamper in his direction. “With Eliza’s love,” he said hastily. “Safe travels. My John will see to the sheep. And, Everin, you’re welcome to rest where you like, so long as you’re outside the walls. Don’t test the wards. I’ve seen Helena strike but the once and it was powerful, ugly work indeed.”
Chapter 4
Baldebert sent Russel to fetch Avani from her chambers for tea.
“Ai, does the man think I cannot find my own way through the palace?” Avani asked, amused and irritated both, when she found Russel standing outside her door.
The soldier spread her hands in resignation. “To be fair, Renault’s got them tucked away in a wing that must date back to the palace’s original cornerstone. Every corridor looks the same and, except for Roue, the wing’s deserted. Mayhap he feared you’d take a wrong turning and be lost for hours.”
Avani shut her door with more force than strictly necessary. “Lead on, then.”
“For all that he calls himself ‘admiral’ he’s a prince in captain’s clothing,” Russel said, walking at Avani’s side. “Don’t let the frippery fool you; beneath the show that man’s sharp as my sword. If he’s invited you to sup in his chambers it’s because he wants something of you.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t mean the sort of something you might be thinking a man usually wants when he invites a lady to his chambers.”
“You do me disservice,” Avani replied tartly, “if you think I truly believe the prince of Roue has invited me to tea for wooing.”
Russel stared down the corridor, jaw set. “I’m only looking after your interests—as a friend should.”
Avani softened. “Then, thank you,” she said more gently. “But you needn’t worry. I’ve known from the beginning what sort of man Baldebert is.”
But Russel only seemed to grow more uncomfortable. She drew up straight as a poker and her stride grew hitched. Her fingers beat a restless rhythm on the pommel of her sword. Avani thought the soldier would elaborate, but at that moment the corridor emptied out into a wide hall. At once they were interrupted by a throng of folk going industriously about palace life. With the mass of bodies came a blast of fetid heat.
“By the Aug! At least it’s less crowded in the old wings,” Russel said instead, waving Avani on. “This way. Down the stairs. Try to keep up.”
A Kingsmen stood at attention outside the admiral’s chamber, pike in hand. Four more ranged the narrow corridor. Tassels decorated their weapons, etchings made the spearheads beautiful. The three men and two women had the glossy look of an honor guard but Avani saw past the elegant livery to the fortitude beneath. Renault had sent hardened soldiers in the guise of ceremony to guard Roue’s door.
The man on the entry thumped a gloved fist against wood. Avani heard the click of the latch. The door cracked, spilling a wedge of bright light into the hall. A woman squinted out through the gap, eyes narrowed.
“It’s me,” Russel said. “Move aside.”
The door cracked further, making just enough room for Russel and then Avani to squeeze through. Brilliance sharp as a summer afternoon made Avani blink away tears. For a moment she was blinded. She cupped her palm against her forehead to ward off the glare. Slowly her vision returned. When it did, she couldn’t help but gasp.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Russel sounded anything but dazzled. “I’m told one of the old kings had it built so his children could enjoy a piece of the outside safely in wartime. Seems to me a terrible waste of glass and magic both.”
Avani, gazing around the large, sunlit chamber, disagreed. It was true she’d never seen so much glass in one place—three of the four walls and the rectangular, slanted roof were naught but a latticework of stone and window. Even the panes behind Renault’s throne were not so tall, the glass in Mal’s rich bedchamber not so perfectly cut. Glass—like good tea—came shipboard from the Black Coast. It was rare for large pieces to survive the trip intact.
Avani, gaping through panes as wide as any door, marveled that any merchant marine had dared try the task.
“There are sixty pieces in total,” Russel said. “I’ve counted. More than once, because I didn’t believe it, not at first.”
“Rare craftsmanship,” the sailor on the door agreed. “I’ll confess I’ve never seen such luxury in my life.” Tall and redheaded, the woman had a crooked nose and a dangerous smile. She held a dirk in one hand and wore a green silk sash over her sailor’s gray shirt and trousers. She was barefoot; there were gold rings on her toes.
“Captain’s in the outside bit of the garden,” she said. “He’s expecting you.”
“His Majesty says it’s called an orangery,” Russel offered quietly as she led Avani into the glass room. Overhead the clouds scuttered across blue sky. The panes were clean, clear as to be almost invisible. For all that the room shone bright as the outside world no heat breached the glass; the air was artificially mild.
“It’s like the cold-rooms,” Avani said. She couldn’t see the glyphs she knew must be hidden somewhere in the room—or in the panes themselves—but she could feel the magic like an itch across the palms of her hands. “Only spelled to spring instead of winter.”
Roue had claimed the glass room. Bedrolls and journey packs obscured much of the tiled floor. A single, battered chaise was buried beneath a tangle of discarded clothing and dusty boots. An incongruous coil of thick rope hung from one of many hooks set in the interior wall. A colorful collection of scarves, sashes, and leather armor dangled from t
he rest. A small round table near the chaise seemed to bow beneath a collection of books and papers. A single white conch shell weighed the papers in place.
“I’ve seen tidier barracks rooms,” Russel said. “Mariners are an odd lot.”
There was a dead man in the room. Avani took him at first for one of the handful of sailors lounging in the brilliance, but Baldebert’s people radiated watchfulness even as they pretended leisure, taken with quiet conversation or solitary tasks such as mending and tatting. They watched Avani and Russel from their places propped against the glass or crouched on the floor without appearing to, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice. Their covert glances weren’t unfriendly, but the restrained tension in their sun-browned limbs spoke eloquently of distrust.
The ghost against the interior wall paid the sailors no mind. His unfocused blue regard brushed past the living without recognition as he walked with private purpose beneath the hooks. Rope and sash cut through his cloudy form; bars of sunlight pierced his flesh thoroughly as any blade.
A broad-brimmed hat shaded the spirit’s bearded face. He carried an insubstantial gardener’s spade in one hand. His shirt and trousers were stained in places with grass and soil. If not for the flare of inhuman eyes beneath the brim of his hat and the man’s tendency to walk through chaise and bedroll instead of around, he might have been one of Renault’s own greenskeepers gone about private palace business.
“Avani?” One of the wide panes of glass was a shrewdly camouflaged door onto the outside garden. Russel, catching Avani’s hesitation, paused with her hand on the lever. “What is it?”
Baldebert’s sailors stopped pretending indifference and looked openly in Avani’s direction. The redheaded woman left her station by the outer door. Her bare feet slapped smooth tile as she strode in their direction. One by one the sailors on the floor rose as she passed.