by Greg Keyes
“I doubt Spendlove will make the same mistake twice,” Stephen said. “Next time, he'll be sure.”
“Next time could be anytime. These two might have just been to lull us. We're riding out of here, right now, and not the way they'll expect. We know where they're going, so we don't need to trail them.”
Once they were mounted, Aspar chuckled.
“What?” Stephen asked.
“I notice you aren't arguing we bury these, like you did those last.”
“A holter's burial is good enough for them,” Stephen said.
“Werlic,” Aspar allowed, “at least you've learned something.”
CHAPTER THREE
PLOTS
“WELL, SISTER MULE,” Serevkis said. “The greencrafting has become much more interesting, hasn't it?”
Anne glanced up from her examination of the double boiler and the fermenting ewe's milk it contained. She loved the scent of it, still warm from the sheep, and even more the anticipation of the magic that was soon to occur.
“Why do you still call me that?” she asked absently.
“Wouldn't you rather be a mule than a little cow?”
Anne smiled. “There's that,” she admitted. “Yes, green-craft is more interesting now. Everything is.”
“Even numbers?” Serevkis sounded skeptical.
“Yes. If they'd told me from the start that we were studying numbers so we could manage the moneys of our households, I might have paid more attention in the beginning.”
“But greencraft is the most interesting,” Serevkis insisted. “Who knew how many poisons lie right beneath our feet or in garden walls, and requiring only a little alchemy to make them potent.”
“It's like a lot of things,” Anne said. “Even this cheese I'm making. To know we have the power to change things, to make one thing into another.”
“You and your cheese. Is it doing anything yet?”
“Not yet,” Anne said.
“But you're right,” Serevkis went on. “To be able to make something harmless into something deadly—it's wonderful.”
“You're a wicked girl, Sister Serevkis,” Anne said.
“Who will you kill first, Sister Mule?”
“Hush!” Anne said. “If the mestra or one of the elders hears you talking like that …”
Serevkis yawned and stretched her long limbs. “They won't,” she said. “The mestra and her favorites went off through the gates four bells ago, and the rest are teaching. No one ever comes to the creamery. Who will you murder in the night?”
“No one comes to mind, except a certain long-necked name-caller.”
“I'm serious.”
Anne met the girl's casually evil gaze. “Do you have someone in mind?”
“Oh, indeed. Several someones. There's Dechio—he'd be first. For him it will be the pollen of the witherweed, cooked into a gum with nightshade. I'll put it in the candles in his room.”
“That's a slow, cruel death. What did this Dechio ever do to you?”
“He was my first lover.”
“And jilted you?”
“I was ten. He was twenty. He pretended to be my friend and made me drink wine until I couldn't stand, and then he had his way with me.”
“He raped you?” Anne asked, incredulous.
“There's the word,” Serevkis said. Her mouth twitched, after.
“And your father? He did not avenge this?”
Serevkis laughed, a bit bitterly. “What use to a father a daughter so early despoiled? No, it would have been better to leap to my death from the moat tower than tell my father what Dechio did that day, and continued to do until I grew too old to attract him.”
“I see.” Anne didn't see, though. She couldn't imagine. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Certainly.”
“Black widow spiders, fatted on corpse flies. Glue little threads to them and the other ends under the edge of the sitting-hole in his privy. When he dangles down …”
Serevkis clapped her hands. “Wonderful. It would rot like an old sausage, wouldn't it? But it might not kill him.”
“True. But there are other ways to finish him off. After all, the candles might kill someone innocent—the girl who cleans his chambers, or another of his victims.”
“Or I could leave him to live with a rotted poker,” Serevkis said. “Clever, Sister Mule.”
“Thank you.” She glanced back at her boiler. “Look!” she exclaimed. “See! It curdles!”
Serevkis got up to see.
A solid white mass had formed in the pot, shrinking slightly as it did so, so that it pulled away from the edges of the container. It floated there like an island, surrounded by clear, yellowish liquid. Anne inserted a wooden skewer into the solid part, and when she withdrew it, the hole remained.
“The thick part is the curd,” Anne explained. “The rest is whey.”
“What worked this change?” Serevkis asked, suddenly interested. “What broke the milk in two?”
“Rennet, taken from a cow's belly.”
“Appetizing. What else might it clot, I wonder? Blood? I suppose I see why you find this interesting.”
“Of course. It once was one thing—milk—and now it is two.”
“It still doesn't look much like cheese.”
“True. There is more magic to be worked.”
“You know,” Serevkis mused, “when I was young, we had a servant from Herilanz. She had the pretense of religion, but in fact she was pagan. Once, she told me her god, Yemoz, created the world from milk.”
“Separating curd from whey, sea from land,” Anne mused. “It makes a sort of sense. After all, the saints did separate the world into its parts.”
“Saint Mule, the woman who brought curd and whey from milk,” Serevkis said, and laughed. “You are like a goddess now.”
“You may laugh,” Anne said, “but that's the point. When we learn to create these things—your poison candles, my cheese—we partake of creation. In a little way, we do become like the saints.”
Serevkis pinched a skeptical frown. “You've been listening to Sister Secula too much,” she said.
Anne shrugged. “Cruel she may be, but she knows everything.”
“She put you in the cave!”
Anne smiled enigmatically. “It wasn't so bad.”
Everyone had been surprised at Anne's composure when they brought her up from the shrine of Mefitis, and Sister Secula had given her more than one suspicious look and remarked on her color. The matter hadn't been pursued, though. Anne didn't expand now to Sister Serevkis. She hadn't even told Austra. She felt somehow that what happened in the cave and beyond were her secrets, and hers alone.
It certainly would not do for Austra to know that she'd sent a letter to Roderick; though it wasn't a violation of the oath, Anne still suspected Austra would be anything but pleased.
Cazio had been good to the first part of his word. When she cast the letters down from the window her first evening back in the coven, he'd appeared near sundown, waved to her, and taken the correspondence with him. Time would tell if he was truly honest.
Meanwhile, she was content. Everything was suddenly interesting to her, and she'd begun to understand what Sister Secula meant when she called Anne's presence at the Abode of Graces a privilege.
She still hated the mestra, but she'd begun to grudgingly admit that she was worth listening to.
“Now what?” Serevkis asked.
“Now we cut our new-made world into cubes,” Anne replied, “to let the whey still within it seep out.”
With a sharp ivory knife, she did just that, slicing it first lengthwise, then crossways, then at an angle toward the bottom of the crock. When she was done, and had stirred it once, a jumble of neat cubes floated in the yellowish whey.
“Now we cook it a little longer and put it in a mold and press. Six months from now, we eat it.”
“Creation takes a long time,” Serevkis said. “I'm hungry now.”
“That's
why saints are patient,” Anne told her. “But there's plenty of food around—”
Austra, dashing into the creamery from the garden outside, interrupted her.
“Have you heard?” the blonde girl said excitedly.
“Hello, Sister Persondra,” Anne said, rolling the rs comically.
“I have heard,” Serevkis remarked. “I continue to.”
“The news, I mean,” Austra said. “The girls are all talking about it. We're going out.”
“What do you mean?”
“To a grand triva in the country. The casnara there hosts an annual fete for the women in the coven, and it's happening in three days' time!”
“Really?” Anne said. “I can hardly see Sister Secula allowing that.”
“No, it's true,” Serevkis confirmed. “The older girls have spoken of it. It's said she throws a lovely ball, albeit one without men.”
“It still sounds fun,” Austra said, a bit defensively.
“If it's not,” Serevkis replied, “we'll make it so.”
“What sort of party can we have with everyone dressed in these habits?” Anne wondered.
“Well, you have your things, Sister Mule,” Serevkis said. “But I've heard the countess keeps gowns enough for all of us.”
“A borrowed gown?” Anne said distastefully.
“But not for us,” Austra exclaimed. “As Sister Serevkis says, thanks to your stubbornness, we at least may wear our own things.”
“You may,” Anne replied. “I brought only one dress, and I gave that to you.”
Austra's mouth hung open for a moment. “But your other chest. It's even heavier than mine.”
“That's because my saddle is in it.”
“Your saddle?” Austra said.
“Yes. The one Aunt Fiene gave me, the one I rode Faster with.”
“You worked all night and earned the mestra's displeasure for a saddle?” Serevkis asked.
Anne merely nodded. She didn't feel like explaining.
But Austra, of course, would not let the matter rest.
“Why?” she demanded, that night in their room. “Why did you bring the saddle? So you could run away?”
“That was one reason,” Anne allowed.
“But you dragged it up the stairs, after you promised me you wouldn't try to leave.”
“I know.”
Austra was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again it seemed almost as if her voice crept out of her reluctantly. “Anne, are you cross with me?”
Anne sat up in her sheets and looked at her friend's face in the faint moonlight. “Why would you think that?” she asked.
“Because you—you're different,” Austra answered. “You spend so much time with Serevkis, these days.”
“She's my friend. We're studying the same subjects.”
“It's just—you never had any other friends in Eslen.”
“You're still my favorite, Austra. I'm sorry if you feel neglected, but—”
“But I cannot discourse of the same things you and Serevkis do,” Austra said flatly. “You learn sorcery while I scrub pots. And she is gentle born. Naturally you prefer her company.”
“Austra, you silly diumma, I don't prefer her company to yours. Now go to sleep.”
“I don't even know what you just called me,” Austra murmured. “You see? I'm stupid.”
“It's a sort of water spirit,” Anne told her. “And you aren't stupid just because you don't know a particular word. If you were allowed to study what I do, you would know it. Enough of this! Austra, I will always love you best.”
“I hope so,” the younger girl said.
“Just think how you'll look at the ball. The only girl in her own gown.”
“I'm not going to wear it.”
“What? Why? It's yours.”
“But you don't have one. It wouldn't be right.”
Anne laughed. “As a lot of people—you included—have been fond of telling me, we are not in Crotheny anymore. I am not a princess here, and you are not a maid.”
“No?” Austra said softly. “Then how is it you learn magic, and I beat rugs?”
For that, Anne didn't have a comfortable answer.
The blade darted toward Cazio, faster than he had imagined it could, cutting his cheek slightly. The pain brought everything into sharp focus, and with a shout he stamped, sidestepped, then ducked quickly back in the direction he had come from, and committed himself to a shallow fleché.
It proved an unwise commitment. Z'Acatto parried in prismo, deflecting Cazio's attack and stepping in close, his free hand clenching in the cloth of Cazio's tunic. In a continuation of the parry, the swordsmaster lifted the hilt of the weapon above his head, so the blade slanted down to rest its bright sharp tongue in Cazio's navel.
“What in Lord Fufio's name is wrong with you?” the old man barked in his face. “Where is your brain? You can't fence with just your hands and feet!”
Z'Acatto's breath was rancid with the wine of the night before. Cazio wrinkled his nose in disgust.
“Let go of me,” Cazio demanded.
“Is that what you'll say to your next opponent when he has you in this position, or worse?”
“I would never allow that to happen in a real fight,” Cazio asserted.
“Every time you pick up that sword it's a real fight,” z'Acatto roared. He let go and stalked off. “You're hopeless! I give up!”
“You've been saying that for ten years,” Cazio reminded him.
“And it's been true the entire time. You're hopeless as a dessrator.”
“That's ridiculous. I've never been beaten, except by you.”
Z'Acatto whirled to face him, eyes bulging. “Now you're going to tell me you know more about being a dessrator than I do?” He held his sword level to the ground, pointed at Cazio. “On your guard,” he snarled.
“Z'Acatto—” Cazio began, but the older man launched himself forward, and Cazio was forced to bring his blade up. He gave ground, parried, and launched a riposte with a step-lunge, but his master caught the blade in a bind and pressed, then released in a lightning-fast disengage.
Cazio backpedaled and parried again, riposting desperately. Almost contemptuously, z'Acatto danced nimbly aside and counterattacked. Cazio avoided the deadly thrust only by hurling himself backwards, tripping as he did so, but not quite falling. Z'Acatto followed, a look in his eyes Cazio had never seen before, one that sent a sudden chill of panic down his spine.
No. I will not fear, Cazio thought, setting himself.
For a moment the two men circled each other warily, weaving into and out of striking distance. Cazio struck first, this time, a feint that turned into a draw cut aimed at his master's arm. Z'Acatto dropped his hand away from danger, then stabbed toward Cazio's throat. With sudden understanding Cazio realized that during his feint the older swordsman had drawn his back foot up and was lunging in much deeper than Cazio ever imagined he could.
He turned, so the point took him in his left shoulder. It sank in and hit bone, and with a cry he extended his sword arm. Z'Acatto yanked his weapon out with a twist, and in an instant the two men were touching each other on the chest with the tips of their blades.
“Shall we perform the parry of two widows?” z'Acatto growled.
“Neither of us is married,” Cazio gasped, feeling blood soak his shirt. They continued to stand that way, and for a long terrible moment, Cazio thought he would have to thrust. He could almost feel the older man's steel in his own heart.
But z'Accato finally dropped his blade.
“Bah,” he snarled, as it rang on the stone floor. In relief, Cazio sank into a chair, clutching his shoulder.
“I thought you were going to kill me,” he said, as soon as he had caught his breath.
“I thought so, too,” z'Acatto said, his eyes still flashing with anger. Then, softer, he murmured, “Boy, you're a fine swordsman. You're just not a dessrator. You don't have what it takes, in here.” He tapped his chest over the hear
t.
“Then teach me.”
“I've tried. I can't.” He lowered his head. “Let's bind up that wound. I need a drink. So do you.”
A short time later, they sat beneath the verandah in the courtyard, one bottle of wine already gone and another half-empty. It was almost enough for Cazio to ignore the pain in his shoulder. Around them, Orchaevia's servants were stringing up lanterns, banners, and chains of dried flowers.
Orchaevia herself bustled up, wearing a lime-green gown embroidered with golden roses.
“Well, you two are a sight,” the countess remarked. “How do you like that year? I never considered it one of the best from the region.”
“No,” z'Acatto grumbled. “That would be the vintage from the year the baron Irpinichio became meddisso of the Seven Cities.”
“Quite right,” the countess said. “And perhaps one day your tour of my various cellars obvious and obscure will lead you to it. Though I don't think that likely.” She turned to Cazio. “You, on the other hand, I might be able to help.”
“Countess?”
“The young ladies from the coven will be here tomorrow night.”
“What's this?” z'Acatto said. “The last thing the boy needs is to go solid over a band of nuns. He's already distracted enough.”
“Yes, and what do you think has him so distracted?” Orchaevia asked.
“Ridiculous,” Cazio said, waving her words away as he might a fly.
“That's it!” z'Acatto exploded. “I remember now. It's just like when you were chasing after that little da Brettii girl. The same stupid expression. No wonder you can't even hold your sword.”
“There is no girl,” Cazio insisted. This was too much. He was really starting to feel put upon.
“Of course not,” Orchaevia said. “And if there were, you wouldn't see her at my party, for the mestra of the coven forbids her charges to see men. I've had to hire serving girls from Trevina and send my regular servants on holiday. But … it is possible that one of the young darlings might find herself alone, in the lavender garden, if I knew what she looked like.”
Cazio nodded and drank more wine. His head was starting to swim, and he relented. “There is no girl,” he said, “but as long as you're going to throw one my way, make her one with pale skin and red hair. A northern girl. I've always fancied one of those.”