The Warrior's Bond toe-4

by Juliet E. McKenna

  People crowded close on the strip of flagway skirting the huddle of houses that served Tor Kanselin. Carts forced a determined path in the late sun, drivers shouting curses at a handful of tumblers spilling out of an alleyway between two tall storehouses, but the weary horses simply plodded on, blinkered to the clamour all around.

  “Are those masqueraders?” Temar turned to Casuel with delight. “The mercenaries speak highly of them.”

  “I’m not surprised; after all it’s Lescaris we’ve to thank for bringing them here.” Casuel scowled at the tatterdemalion figures with battered wooden masks covering the upper half of their faces. “The better troupes can be quite entertaining if you’re used to nothing better, but what you want to see are proper Tormalin marionettes worked with real skill.” He looked up from trying to identify the soft foulness he’d just stepped in. “Temar? Esquire D’Alsennin?”

  Stolid faces met Casuel’s searching gaze, some with faint question, more uninterested and turning back to the masqueraders’ impromptu display of dance and song.

  “D’Alsennin?” Casuel yelled, voice cracking on a sour taste of dust and just a little panic tugging at his coat tails.

  Commotion suddenly stirred beside a portico jutting out from one of the larger houses of the hamlet. A low-voiced murmur of shock and surprise ran beneath the high-pitched clamour of the throng.

  “Send to Tor Kanselin!” A shout went up close by the pillars topped with improbable stone leaves that held up a flat stone slab. The lone voice was soon joined by others and a confused surge of people nearly knocked Casuel clean off his feet. He struggled for balance; this was no time to get caught up in some disturbance, and where was Temar? Anger tightened Casuel’s lips. If the foolish boy had gone off after futile amusements offered by some inky-fingered pamphleteer, noble birth or not, he’d tell him—

  The mage’s indignation tailed off into incoherent horror as the crowd in front of the portico cleared. A prone figure lay beneath the protecting arm of a doorkeeper. The man wore a pewter coat dark with dust. As the prostrate figure lifted his head for a moment, he realised it was Temar! Hard on the heels of that horror-struck realisation, Casuel saw an ominous stain spreading across the lad’s back. “Here, let me through, let me pass!”

  Most of the bystanders were following the masqueraders who’d packed up their instruments and props as soon as they realised a bigger drama was overtaking their own. Those looking to watch it were only too happy to let someone else take charge of the calamity but the doorkeeper glared ferociously at Casuel. “Are you an apothecary? A surgeon?”

  “What?” Casuel stared at the man. “No, I’m a wizard and—”

  But the doorkeeper was leaning over Temar, who was deathly pale in the shadows. With a surge of relief, Casuel saw the lad’s eyes were open and he knelt hastily. “What’s this mishap? Did you trip?” He strained to understand Temar’s mumble, his archaic accent thick.

  “I hurt myself.” His eyes were disorientated and vague. Casuel was appalled to see a huge bruise on Temar’s temple, the swelling a finger thick and the colour of a ripe plum. He was shocked to realise the brutal lines mimicked the moulding at the base of the pillar.

  “Bide still, boy,” instructed the doorkeeper, blunt face concerned.

  “What happened?” demanded Casuel.

  “I hurt myself,” repeated Temar in puzzled tones. “How did I hurt myself?”

  “Temar, what happened?”

  “I hurt myself

  “Can you hear me?” Casuel reached for Temar’s shoulder, thinking to shake some sense into the boy, but snatched his hand back from blood soaking the outstretched sleeve. Where was that coming from?

  “Has someone gone for Tor Kanselin’s sergeant?” the doorkeeper bellowed, scowling bushy black brows at Casuel, stark contrast to his shaven, balding head.

  “We must get him to D’Olbriot’s surgeon.” Casuel snapped his fingers in front of Temar’s wandering eyes. “Temar, answer me, what happened?”

  “It hurts,” the boy mumbled again. “How did I hurt myself?”

  “No one’s moving him,” the doorkeeper growled at Casuel. “You lie steady, boy.”

  Casuel fumbled nerveless fingers beneath his shirt for the D’Olbriot amulet he wore as a courtesy to the Name. “I have the authority to insist.”

  “No one moves the lad till Tor Kanselin’s surgeon says.” The burly man looked hard at Casuel while one gentle hand stroked Temar’s head in mute reassurance, thick fingers light on the fine black hair. “I’ll not answer to my Sieur for letting you kill him with mishandling, whoever you are.”

  “Kill him?” Casuel sat back on his heels, aghast.

  “There’s a knife in his back, you fool!” The doorkeeper moved his protective arm slightly.

  Casuel saw the dagger, unadorned hilt shuddering and catching the light as Temar drew a shallow breath. “We should press something to the wound to stop the blood.” Cold sweat beaded Casuel’s brow and he felt sick to his stomach. Screwing his eyes shut he fought to quell the nausea and terror threatening to overwhelm him.

  The doorkeeper looked at the wizard, puzzled. “Are you all right?”

  Casuel was ashamed to find himself trembling like some mute animal. Who’d done this? Some low-born scum out to rob their betters, treacherous knives greedy for coin they couldn’t bother to earn like honest men. That would be it, surely? No need to fear anything more sinister.

  The rhythmic tramping of heavy boots distracted the grateful mage from the terrifying possibilities forcing themselves upon him. Casuel scrambled to his feet. “Stand aside! Clear the road!”

  “Let’s find out why you’re making this your business, shall we?” The doorkeeper’s grip on Casuel’s arm was like a watchdog’s bite and he barely needed to tighten the muscles in his broad shoulders to hold the helpless mage immobile.

  Casuel’s indignant protests went unheard as ten men in Tor Kanselin livery forced the crowd back with staffs held level to make a solid ring of iron-bound oak, swan medallions at their throats proclaiming their unquestioned right to do so. The sergeant strode towards the portico, uncompromising in metal-plated hide. “What’s happened here?” He looked down from well over Casuel’s height, black hair cropped above a mobile, pockmarked face, dark brown eyes intense.

  “I thought the lad had just stumbled,” explained the doorkeeper. “Then I saw he’d taken a blade in the back.”

  “By the looks of that bruise, someone was out to break his head on the pillar.” The sergeant knelt to study Temar, whose repetitive mumbles had faded to faint whispers, eyes vacant.

  “Don’t touch the dagger!” yelped Casuel when the chosen man drew a knife and carefully slit the back of Temar’s coat. He shut his mouth, horrified to hear shock forcing his words into a girlish squeal.

  “Who’s this?” The sergeant glanced at the doorkeeper.

  “Says he’s a wizard.” The doorkeeper gave Casuel a shake of unconscious emphasis. “Seems to know the lad.”

  “Who’s he to you?” The sergeant carefully cut Temar’s shirt to reveal skin white beneath scarlet smears, blood pooled in the hollow of his spine.

  Casuel swallowed hard on his nausea. “He’s my—my pupil. I am Casuel Devoir, mage of Hadrumal.” He wondered why that sounded so inadequate.

  The sergeant peered beneath the fold of linen and wool held fast by the blade. “So this lad’s a wizard?”

  Casuel tried to shake off the doorkeeper’s hand to no avail. “His name is Temar D’Alsennin, a guest of Messire D’Olbriot, recently arrived from Kellarin.” His indignant words carried through the rapt silence to the onlookers and a buzz of speculation took flight.

  The sergeant gave Casuel a sharp look before getting to his feet. “Anyone with something useful to say, make yourselves known,” he shouted at the crowd. “Otherwise, be on your way before I call you to answer for blocking Tor Kanselin’s highway!”

  This uncompromising declaration had people hurrying away immediately, sca
ttering as a second detachment of armoured men arrived with a curtained litter carried shoulder high. A slightly built man with a shock of hair like grizzled sheep’s wool followed. His deeply lined face was jowled with age but his brown spotted hands were deft as he knelt to peel back the bloody cloth on Temar’s back.

  “You have to staunch the blood!” insisted Casuel.

  The surgeon ignored him. “Are you still with us, lad?” After a cursory examination of the wound he seemed far more concerned with the bruise still swelling at Temar’s temple.

  “I hurt myself. How did I hurt myself?”

  “Get him back to the barracks, quick as you like,” the surgeon said briskly. Casuel protested weakly as four well-muscled men lifted Temar to lay him gently in the padded litter. For all their care, Temar let out an agonised cry that broke into racking sobs. The surgeon tightened a strap to hold him secure before drawing the curtains close and nodding to the men to pick up the poles.

  Hot distress blurred Casuel’s own vision. “Where are you taking him? I want him taken to the D’Olbriot residence, at once, do you hear? He’s a guest of Messire D’Olbriot, the Sieur himself! I want him informed, at once, and I want your names. Your Sieur will hear about this, I assure you.”

  The wizard hurried after the litter, repeating himself in futile fury.

  D’Olbriot Font Lane,

  Summer Solstice Festival, First Day,

  Evening

  I hold a good collection of markers of one kind or another after twelve or more years spent in Messire’s service. Most of my duties in recent years have taken me away from Toremal but I’ve still got favours owed and small debts never repaid clear across the city. Spending this credit against redeeming Temar’s people seemed the best use I’d ever find for it, and as I walked up past the conduit house satisfaction with my afternoon’s work warmed me like the sinking sun at my back. There was a chosen man of Den Cotise I’d sparred with over the years; we’d shared a superior flagon of wine at the Popinjay inn down on the Graceway. Intrigued by the puzzle, he’d introduced me to a giddy under-dresser to the Demoiselles Tor Sylarre. Once we’d worked out which women of Den Rannion and Den Domesin had married into Tor Sylarre over the generations, we reckoned upwards of twenty artefacts could well be safe within that family’s jewel coffers.

  I’d left word in a myriad other places that might bring back useful answers and had a double handful of chance remarks to follow up besides, so I was wondering whether to go out again that evening or to wait until morning as I began the long haul up the hill towards the residence. A tailor who’d been grateful to D’Olbriot since a troop of us sworn had stopped some chancers robbing his sewing room had introduced me to an elderly valet raised in Den Muret’s service. That Name had long faded into obscurity but the daughters of the House had married widely and well and with the help of the tailor’s ledgers, and the valet’s memory, we’d identified where. Better yet, the valet was now serving the newly nominated Sieur Den Turquand and pointed out several judicious marriages that had bolstered that Name’s rise. He reckoned the young Sieur would be delighted to ingratiate himself with D’Olbriot and Kellarin for the price of a few discarded antiquities.

  Shadows beneath the fringed trees cloaked the road, oppressive rather than cooling, and a heaviness seemed to hang in the air. I looked up but saw no sign of the thunder in the deepening blue of the sky. Walking faster, I still found myself unable to shake a sense of foreboding.

  It’s all very well Livak teasing me about feeling responsible for everything and anything, I thought, but Dast’s teeth, I’m the closest thing Temar has to family on this side of the ocean. Perhaps I should have stayed close at hand; something might have upset or confused him. After all, he was new to the city, and there are always a few young nobles we men-at-arms privately agree would improve after a thorough kicking round the back of some stable block some dark night.

  Outright dismay hit me like a slap in the face when I saw the commotion outside the D’Olbriot gatehouse. Sentries who’d been idly displaying their crossbows to impress passing maidservants now stood stern-faced and vigilant. The vast travelling coach the elder ladies of the House used was being wheeled round from the stables, a full contingent of sworn men ringing it, swords drawn. As I ran towards them I drew my own blade, elbowing through the confusion as I saw a familiar face. “Stoll! What’s going on?”

  Stolley was sworn long before me and chosen a few years since. One of Messire’s most effective sergeants-at-arms, he’s a well-muscled brawler whose ears still stick out like mill sails, even after the punishment they’ve taken over the years.

  “Rysh, get over here!” He shoved a gawping vagabond aside, and raised swords admitted me within the ring of steel. I swung myself on to the running board of the carriage as the horses were whistled into a trot.

  “Your boy’s been stabbed,” said Stolley shortly, jogging beside the carriage with the rest of the troop.

  “D’Alsennin?” I looked down on him in disbelief. “At Tor Kanselin’s reception?”

  “Dunno.” Stolley shrugged massive shoulders beneath a coat of plates. “Stabbed and needing the gentlest ride home, that’s all we’re told.”

  “How bad?” I demanded, feeling a catch of apprehension in my throat.

  “Rumour’s got him on the threshold to the Otherworld,” growled Stolley. “But then they’d be saying that if he’d grazed his knees.”

  As soon as the coach reached the sweep of gravel inside Tor Kanselin’s gates, I jumped down. It was quieter inside the walls but the air still crackled with suppressed curiosity, little knots of wide-eyed servants speculating behind raised hands.

  I sheathed my sword and kept walking, not about to add grist to the rumour mill before I had a few solid facts to chew on myself. A sentry nodded the D’Olbriot badge on my armring into the residence and I looked around the lofty hallway for someone who could tell me what had happened. The best I could come up with was Casuel, forlorn on a side chair, velvet coat and shirt ruffle in disarray, his wiry brown hair hanging lank at his temples.

  He jumped up as soon as he saw me, eyes hollow with fear. “What’s happened to the boy?” Miserable uncertainty lengthened his face in place of the self-importance that habitually tightened his weak chin.

  “That’s what I’m asking you.” I tried to restrain my anger.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” stammered Casuel. “The fool insisted on walking back. He wouldn’t wait for a carriage. He wouldn’t stay close to me—”

  The sharp click of a lady’s shoes turned my head to the marble stairs. Abandoning Casuel to his ineffectual self-justification, I hurried to meet the Demoiselle Tor Arrial with a perfunctory bow. “How is he?”

  “Temar?” Avila tried for her usual terse manner but her heart wasn’t in it. “The morning will most assuredly bring him an aching head and a sore shoulder but a day or so in bed should see him well enough.” I gave her my arm and she leaned heavily on me.

  “I thought he was dead.” Casuel struggled for a further response; the relief in his face would have been comical if the whole matter weren’t so serious. Then the mage’s knees gave way and he landed gracelessly on his chair.

  “They said he was stabbed?” I enquired as gently as I could.

  Avila rubbed her face with a hand that trembled in spite of herself. “Talagrin be praised, the blade went awry. It hit the shoulder blade.”

  “I’ve been waiting for the courtesy of some word.” Casuel managed to look both woebegone and petulant.

  I wasn’t about to waste time consoling Casuel’s imagined grievance. Anyone with a pennyweight of common sense would have gone looking for news.

  “The head wound had me most concerned,” Avila continued, ‘but the House surgeon deems it none too serious.”

  A sober-faced man coming down the stairs in his shirt sleeves, fastening cuffs that had rusty smears.

  “Chosen Man Ryshad Tathel,” I introduced myself politely. “How’s Esquire D’Alsennin?”r />
  “You’ll have seen worse on the training ground,” the surgeon sniffed. “He’d his wits knocked clean out of him, but that’ll pass, and the knife wound looked worse than it was.”

  I nodded my understanding, relief closing my throat too tight for words.

  Avila nodded. “A little blood goes a long way.”

  “The Demoiselle here says there’s no crack in the skull, according to her arts,” continued the surgeon with a slightly wary look at Avila. I remembered with relief how healing was a major part of her Artifice.

  “If he’d waited for a carriage, we’d have got home without mishap,” protested Casuel with a mildewed expression.

  “You were with him?” The surgeon fixed the wizard with a look as sharp as his scalpels. “Proven Man Triss will need to speak to you.”

  “This wasn’t my fault,” said Casuel hastily. “Why does he need to see me?”

  The surgeon ignored him, turning to me. “Take him along to the barracks, will you? Esquire Camarl left word you were to talk to the Cohort Captain.”

  Finding I could speak again, I looked at Avila. “I’ll be at your disposal when you wish to return to D’Olbriot’s residence, Demoiselle.”

  “Go on,” she said a little wearily. “I will be with the Maitresse and Lady Channis.”

  “Come on, Casuel.” I caught the visibly reluctant wizard by the elbow to urge him along.

  “I wish people would stop doing that,” he exploded, shaking off my hand in sudden rage.

  I grabbed him again and had him out of the residence with his feet barely touching the steps. “Stop behaving as if you’ve no interest in what’s going on!” I rounded on him. “You tell the guards whatever you saw and we might get some idea who did this. I want to know, even if you don’t!”

  Casuel’s objections withered under my scorching glare but his back stayed rigid with protest as I escorted him to the barracks on the far side of the enclosure.

  “Take a seat in the bower,” the sentry replied to my explanation of our arrival. “I’ll send word to Proven Triss.”