by Sharon Lee
"You have no high opinion of Fey," he commented, his light voice expressionless.
"I am certain that it must reflect poorly on me, to have formed a low opinion of persons who enslave others, and hunt those they deem to be their inferiors." Becca heard her voice shake, as if she were ill, and indeed, she did feel ill, weak and uncertain of her balance. She walked forward, though it brought her closer to him, and put her hand on Rosamunde's flank, hoping to draw courage from contact with that high-hearted lady.
"Unbind me," she said to Meripen Vanglelauf. "I refuse you."
He sighed, and tipped his head, perhaps so he could see her better from his single eye. "Yes, so you had said. Believe me, please, when I say that the last thing I would wish to do is bind a Newman."
"Then why have you done so?" she snapped.
"I have not done so," he snapped back, rapier quick.
"Oh? And I suppose you didn't throw that bit of bone at me last night when Sian was trying to murder Nancy—"
"When you had angered Sian to the point of nearly binding you herself?" he interrupted. "Which she would have instantly regretted—not to mention that it would have been no good thing to have done before her oath-sworn?" He straightened from his lean on the gate, his right hand dropping to the hilt of his knife. "You were provoking a disaster, which I attempted to disarm."
"By binding me." Becca was shaking, her nerves clamoring with fear, anger, and disgust.
"I have not bound you! Do you wish a demonstration?" He straightened, and flung his left hand out, as imperious as Altimere himself. "Rebecca Beauvelley, come here."
Becca fell back a step, tasting peppered wine along the edge of her tongue.
Meripen Vanglelauf smiled, grimly, and swept her a sarcastic bow.
"Thank you."
Becca shook her head. "Am I," she said slowly, "a free woman, utterly in control of my own will and destiny?"
Astonishingly, he laughed. "Oh, certainly! As much as I am!" His hand moved more swiftly than her eye could properly follow it, seeming only to touch his pouch and there—as last night!—the white bone was tumbling through the air at her.
Becca stepped aside, right hand fisted at her side. She would not be tricked twice! she thought as the object tumbled closer. Of itself, her crippled left hand rose slightly, palm up, fingers cupped.
The bone dropped gently onto her palm.
Becca moaned, and stood staring at it: a perfectly white, circular bone, with . . . petals, perhaps, embossed in a circle 'round its center. Snagged at the center were two lines of spiderweb, twining lazily together—one green-and-blue, very like the ragged aura that blew about Meripen Vanglelauf; and the other bright gold, just like the light that sometimes dripped from her own fingers.
Shivering, nauseous, she forced herself to look back to him.
"The last time I was bound to a Fey," she said, her voice high and unsteady, "it was through the means of a necklace. Now I am bound by a bone. The difference is, if you will pardon my saying so, immaterial. Release me."
"You are not bound," Meripen Vanglelauf told her, and it seemed to Becca that his voice was more panicked than haughty. "We are bound! Can you not see it?"
She stared at him, then down at the object in her hand, with its meager adornment of silken light. Aura-stuff, she thought. Very well.
"We are bound," she said, keeping her attention on the thing she held, "by this object?"
"The sunshield. Yes."
Becca weighed it, feeling the prick of tiny dry spines against her palm. It was, to all of her senses, dead; whatever intelligence that had once informed it had long fled. How it could bind anything was beyond her ability to know. However, a healer did not need to know precisely how easewerth worked upon the nerves to know that it dulled pain.
She closed her fingers around the . . . sunshield, feeling sharp edges cut into her skin. There was a roaring in her ears, and she felt as if she were about to swoon, but surely, surely, there was only one thing to do?
The roaring grew louder as she turned her hand over and opened her fingers.
There was a flash of green and gold as the sunshield tumbled to the ground. She marked its landing place well, raised her foot, encased in its sturdy shoe . . .
"No!" Meripen Vanglelauf's shout reached her even over the thunder in her ears; a tree's Gardener, do not! rattled the inside of her head.
There was a flare, a cold snap—and her back was on the ground, her vision a spangle of silver and turquoise, and Rosamunde was lipping her skirt. The air moved, and she turned her head to the right in time to see Meripen Vanglelauf snatch the dead whiteness of the sunshield from the grass at her side, and scuttle away, as if she were some fearsome beast that he had approached too nearly.
"Are you mad?" He was on one knee, back against the gatepost, fist pressed over his heart. His voice was shaking—he was shaking, Becca saw, and his brown face looked muddy.
"If I am, it's no small wonder," she returned. "Help me to stand."
"No," he answered starkly, pressing even tighter against the post. He held his fist out to her, as if she could see through his fingers to what he protected. "This is a sunshield! You cannot destroy it."
Becca twisted, and fell, panting, her limbs too weak to support her. "You say that it's bound us—this sunshield. The only rational thing to do is destroy it." She tried to sit up again, braced against her crippled arm, and again fell back.
"This is absurd. Help me up."
"No," he repeated, looking faintly ill. "You do not snare me that easily."
He came to his feet, fluid as a cat, his fist down at his side. With his other hand, he touched the elitch branch thrust through his belt, and visibly took a breath.
"You are a danger to this village and to yourself," he said, clearly and quite calmly. Then, he turned and was gone, as if he had walked from the sunlight into shadow.
Becca closed her eyes, feeling tears gather. Rosamunde blew against her hair.
"Yes, no doubt I do look ridiculous," she said. "Oh . . ." She took a hard breath.
"Nancy," she whispered. "Help me up, please."
First, she baited Sian, then she tried to destroy the sunshield. Meri reached the central elitch and all but collapsed against it.
"Rebecca Beauvelley has a will to die," he said, staring up into the dense branches.
Ranger, that was so, but she has learned better. The thought of the trees is that she requires training, and the opportunity to grow with her own kind.
"There is no one here to train her," Meri said, closing his eye, and leaning his head back against the wide trunk. The sunshield . . . He shuddered, seeing her raise her boot, hearing again the crash of the invisible wave that knocked her off her feet, to lie helpless, the sunshield less than a handspan from her side.
It had taken every bit of his courage to dart over and snatch it up to safety, skittish as a tree-mouse and just as sensible. Her aura had drawn him, brilliant and horrifying, and there had been a moment—scarcely a moment—when he had thought himself caught by her influence, as unfettered golden strands wafted toward his poor protection.
"Hero, indeed," he muttered, and laughed, weak and wobbly.
There is yourself, the elitch said, interrupting these shameful memories.
Meri blinked. "Eh?"
To train her, the elitch said. Someone must, for you spoke sooth when you said that she is a danger to herself and to those who shelter beneath my branches.
"I cannot train her!" That dazzling aura, so warm and compelling . . . "She would drink me dry and not even celebrate the vintage."
Not so. You can teach her better, Ranger.
Oh, yes, he could teach her better, Meri thought bitterly. But to do so would require a closeness—not quite a melding, but a willful sharing of kest, the thought of which simultaneously excited and disgusted him.
"No," he said, and pushed away from the support of the tree. The sunshield, he replaced in his pouch, after another long glare at the threads
of kest captured at its heart. To his left, he heard Newman voices, and also to his right. His stomach cramped, and he shook his head, angry with his weakness.
He needed to go out, he thought, among the trees, where there were no Newmen with their brilliant, seductive auras. He needed, in fact—
"Wards," he said, recalling the pledge he had so recently made. "I must set wards."
If the tree—any tree—heard him, they vouchsafed no answer.
Despite his best efforts, the bell jar remained empty. There had been not even the faintest flicker of kest to indicate that his command—tied to the artifact with the strength of a geas, for of all the things he would willingly lose, this was very nearly the least—there had been indication that his command had been heard.
Altimere closed his eyes and waved a hand, vanquishing table and jar. With his other hand, he fingered a handkerchief out of the warm mists and blotted the moisture from his face.
He had, he thought, allowed Rebecca too much freedom, amused as he had been by her foolish antics. Who better than he knew the power of a name?
It would perhaps be worth wondering, once he was free of this place, just who was the bigger fool.
Chapter Fifteen
Becca paused on the threshold of the workroom, taking time, as she hadn't done, last night or this morning, to look about her. It was an ordered and orderly place, with cords of drying leaves, braids of wild onion, and clusters of lavender hanging from the rafters. Other ingredients were sorted meticulously into drawers and baskets on the shelves over one worktable, while more shelves held pots of salve, tonics, tinctures, and twists of herbs.
It was all so familiar and comfortable that she felt her eyes prick again. Really, Becca, she scolded herself, blinking the tears away, when did you become a watering-pot?
A small sniff came from inside the room, followed by another. It would seem, then, that she was not the only watering-pot at hand.
Violet Moore stood at the worktable against the far wall, her back to the door. She was pulling down baskets and peering into drawers, touching twists of this and branches of that—doing inventory, Becca thought, stepping carefully into the room—or mourning.
"Gran always kept ahead," Violet said, though she did not turn her head. Perhaps she was speaking to herself. "I'll need to go out tomorrow for more cadmyon and marisk."
Becca came 'round to the girl's right, watching as she stretched to take down a basket. "Cadmyon or marisk, I would think," she said. "One blooms in spring, the other in fall." No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she wished them back. How foolish—
Violet turned her head with a smile.
"You must know seasons!"
"Indeed, I have been long enough in the Vaitura to recall that here there are no seasons," Becca said, irritation sharpening her voice. She smiled, to show that her anger was for herself, and not for Violet. "I had been trying to teach the garden at Xandurana to heed a proper cycle, but I fear it was an uphill road."
"It seems to me that seasons only make some things rare when they are most wanted! Surely it is better to have everything available at all times, so that supplies may be replenished as they are needed, rather than hoarded and told over."
"Perhaps it is," Becca said slowly. "In Xandurana, it had seemed to me that the plants constantly risked themselves in the crush of everything growing at once, but it may be that I am wrong—or that the benefits reaped outweigh the risk. Certainly, I have never seen such results as you achieved here." She raised her unmarked right hand.
"The land is rich with virtue on this side of the hellroad," Violet Moore said, shyly. "Gran said that. Even seeds that were sung into the land, and so grew more potent plants—over there—she said, didn't have half the virtue as wild gathers do on Lady Sian's land."
"Certainly, there is no overnight healing on the other side of the keleigh," Becca said, "no matter if the seeds were sung over!"
"Well," Violet said, pulling down a basket and frowning into its depths. "Much depends on the injury. Your hands were cut, but the bones were whole. If I'd had to splint your fingers or your arm, you would not have seen so swift a healing." Stretching high on her toes, she put the basket back. "We need corish root, too. Well." She gave Becca a sidelong glance. "Let me show you the rest of the house, then we can do a survey of the garden."
"There's no need for me to see the rest of the house, surely?" Becca protested, though she followed Violet through an interior door and into a wide room.
"Indeed there is!" the girl said, briskly. "If you are to be our healer, then this will be your house."
"Stay! Sian did not bring me to be your healer!" Becca cried, stopping in midstep.
Violet turned to look at her.
"You were at the Speaking," Becca told her, sharply. "I am here only until the Queen sends for me." Seeing the girl's eyes widen, she softened her voice. "And, besides, I would not wish to usurp your place, Miss Moore. You are the healer here."
"I don't know enough!" Violet wailed. "Gran had not released me; I was still her 'prentice when she—she—"
"No one ever knows enough," Becca said, as Sonet had once said to her. "We do as much as we can, as well as we can do it. And we learn, from our mistakes even more than our successes." She sighed at the girl's stricken face. "I will teach you as much as I can while I am here. But I cannot think that I will be here for very many days." And who knew, she thought bitterly, what Meripen Vanglelauf's sunshield might require, other than the right to knock her to the ground and hold her helpless at whim.
She sighed. Nancy had helped her up, straightened her clothing, and made her presentable again. There were only the bruises on her rump and her pride to testify to her misadventure.
Becca shook herself, and looked about for a happier topic of consideration.
"This is a very pleasant room!" she said to Violet Moore's anxious eyes. "I would be very happy to guest here, but—"
"You must stay somewhere," Violet interrupted, "until the Queen wants you. It might as well be here. I live here, after all, and it will be—be convenient for you."
Ah, Becca thought, and smiled to herself. "That sounds a reasonable plan," she said to Violet. "I will be pleased to stay as your guest, though you will have to bear Nancy, who I own is odd."
Violet nodded seriously. "I'll be glad to have you and your servant," she said, and this time Becca did not smile. For here was a way to fill the house with voices and motion, and to keep at bay the malicious whispering shadows of guilt.
Violet moved her hand, showing Becca the door opposite them.
"The kitchen is through here," she said, beckoning Becca to follow her. "And the garden just behind."
"You know," she said, after Becca had duly admired the pots hung on their hooks and the neat cooking hearth. "There's a saying we have here—'I'll do it in a Fey's hurry.' "
Becca tipped her head. "And that means?"
"In the sweet by-and-by," Violet said, pushing open the door and stepping out into the garden. "The Queen may not call you as soon as that."
Setting wards is a tricky business at best. Factor in monsters from beyond the ken of trees, and it approached impossible.
Meri took his time walking back along the track. He noted the near-invisible traces of Brume's passage, but saw no signs of another horse until he had passed beyond a wide curve that put New Hope Village out of sight.
There, he found signs a-plenty. He followed what must be Rosamunde's hoofprints off the path and into the brush, frowning when he found wisp of fur and a misplaced clod. Rebecca Beauvelley had let them understand that she had designed and executed her own escape, and yet here it would appear that she had enlisted aid.
Or had she?
Meri crouched down, the better to study the signs. Brethren were as curious as cats. It could have been that one had dawdled nearby, enchanted by the Newoman's aura, or the novelty of someone riding blindly into the wood after dark.
So. The Brethren had waited, here, and
then had followed—?
Meri raised his head, seeking, found the sign again, farther on, and rose, finding the place where its path intersected the horse's route—and where the Brethren took the lead.
"Well," he murmured, "it would appear that Rebecca Beauvelley has allies."
The Gardener dressed his wounds, a ralif offered. He was obligated to come, when she sent for him.
"Obligated," Meri muttered. The Brethren were usually more canny than to allow themselves to become obligated. Still, it could have happened—and especially if there was blood in it.