Weight of Stone

by Laura Anne Gilman

Ahead, she told him again. Your answers wait directly ahead.

  Not Caul, then. He checked the compass rose, then looked at the sea. Iaja? The wind shifted slightly, sending the Wave off to the starboard as though in answer. No, not the Vin Land of Iaja. Sardegna.

  Chapter 2

  HOUSE OF MALECH, THE BERENGIA

  Spring

  The great wooden doors shuddered as someone thumped on them with a heavy fist, demanding entrance, even though the doors themselves stood open, as always.

  “Master Malech! Master Vineart Malech!”

  Malech had known they were coming the moment their horses’ hooves had crossed the border into The Berengia. There was no magic to it, merely the common means of tongue and ear, and the willingness of the villagers around him to bring such news to his attention. In other lands, they might fear their Vineart, or ignore him unless they had a specific need, but Malech would forever be the healer who had kept the rose plague from devastating the villages and farms, and the folk here did not forget, not even a generation after. When Washers came riding, asking after him, word spread.

  The timing could have been worse—they might have appeared during the Harvest—but Malech was annoyed nonetheless. It was spring, the second busiest time at the vintnery. There were things that needed doing, without delay, and without Jerzy’s assistance it all fell upon his shoulders.

  He had managed to take care of the most pressing work, mainly by driving his slaves and Household staff into exhaustion, and their unwanted visitors were now quite literally at his front door. And rather irritated, from the sound of it.

  In his study on the first floor of his House, the Vineart turned in his chair and looked up at the stone dragon the size of a large dog, perched atop the doorframe.

  “And so it begins.” Malech’s lips pressed together in a grim smile, and he touched his fingertips together. “But no”—he shook his head, the smile fading—“no, it began long before, long before I sent the boy out, long before I woke to the dangers in our land. This is but the next cycle, old friend. The next cycle, inevitable as flowering and Harvest, and we must be ready to reap what has been sown—and make of it a vintage of our own.”

  The dragon looked at him, its blind, unblinking eyes nonetheless finding exactly where the Vineart sat. Its exquisitely carved face showed no change in expression at its master’s speech, no blink or frown, but a sense of heavy disapproval radiated from it.

  You are too confident.

  “You worried that the boy was lacking in confidence, and now warn that I am too confident? Would you blend us together, Guardian?”

  Yes.

  When his House-keeper, Detta, escorted the Washers in, Malech was still chuckling.

  There were three of them in the impatient delegation, wearing the dark red robes of the Washers, the heirs of Sin Washer’s Legacy. Two of them had the double belt around their waists, similar to his own, only where he carried the tools of his trade—the tasting spoon, the wax knife, and the waterskin, they carried only a shallow wooden cup. The third had only a single belt and a smaller cup, indicating that he was yet a novice. Behind them, at a respectful distance, there were two others, dressed in leather trou and sleeveless tunics bearing the cup-and-root emblem of the Brotherhood. Not Washers, but hired men. The sort who protected valuable cargo—or high-ranking members of the Brotherhood. They carried no weapons—Detta would not allow that, inside her House—but their arms were corded with enough muscle to break an old man’s back without trouble.

  Malech did not believe it would come to that.

  “Come in, please,” he said, standing and gesturing to the chairs placed in front of his desk. He had forgone the usual dressings that might impress visitors—no grand display of his bottled wealth, no ornate tapestries on the walls, no embroidered robes adorning his person. Instead, they saw him as he was: an old man in brown trou and white collared shirt, the lacings worn and his left sleeve stained from an incident with a wine cask months before. The study was likewise plain, if comfortable, the only impressive thing within the great wooden table he worked at, glossy brown and sturdy enough to support a horse. The sole tapestry on the wall, a map of the Lands Vin, was so worn with age that only a master weaver might discern that it was in fact priceless.

  The Washer who came in first, tall and balding, with a curly brown beard, scowled at Malech. “Something amuses you?” Malech recognized the voice: he had been the man calling out, at the front door.

  “Brion.” The second Washer, an older, shorter man, laid a hand on his companion’s arm the way one might calm a skittish horse. “We are uninvited visitors. Our mission does not negate the requirement of manners in another man’s House.”

  He stepped forward and made Washer’s blessing, his palms cupped in front of his chest in the shape of a bowl, then pouring it outward toward Malech. “Solace to you, Master Vineart Malech of the House of Malech.”

  Malech nodded, standing to accept the gesture. There was, indeed, no need to be impolite. This would end badly enough without starting in ill will.

  “You have the advantage of me, gentle Washers.”

  “Our apologies.” The clean-shaven man smiled, but the expression was nothing more than a polite mask. “I am Neth, and these are my brothers Brion and Oren.” The guards remained nameless.

  Washers gave up their nomen familia, their birthlines, when they joined the Collegium, and by the time they were sent back into the land, it was doubtful they identified themselves as anything other than Washers. In that, they were much akin to the Vinearts, who came from the ranks of slaves in the field, taking on the name of their Master’s House. Only the brothers’ intentions—and their training—were rarely as single-minded. Malech did not trust them: unlike Vinearts they were not enjoined from political power, and unlike land-lords fell under no restrictions on how they might use magic to further their goals. The populace trusted Washers to be the benign inheritors of Sin Washer’s Legacy. Malech had been taught how easily Sin Washer broke the First Vine, of the demigod’s anger at the mage-princes’ perceived insolence, and made no such assumptions as to his human interpreters’ beneficence.

  The Vineart showed none of his distrust in voice or manner, however, merely a blandly curious façade. “And you have come to my lands … why?”

  He knew why, of course. Just as word of their coming had outpaced them, he had already learned of the disaster in Aleppan, of the mockery of a trial that had resulted in the death of a promising Vineart, and his own student, equally promising, accused of apostasy, of rejecting Sin Washer’s Commands and taking power he was not entitled to, and of meddling with the rights given to secular lords. Malech believed none of it. But he was curious how these men might phrase it, how they saw the situation, and what they expected to achieve here.

  He believed in being prepared, before he took his own direction.

  “You are the master of the young man known as Jerzy.” It was not a question, but rather a statement, so Malech merely reseated himself and steeped his hands under his chin, feeling the hairs of his neatly trimmed beard against his fingers. The Washers remained standing despite the chairs waiting for them, while the two bullyboys waited in the hallway. Detta, as per his earlier instructions, had already returned to the main part of the House, taking with her all the kitchen-children.

  “Is he here?” Neth asked.

  “He is not.” In point of fact, Malech had no idea where the boy was, and that worried him. The mirror he had sent with Jerzy, enspelled so that they could communicate if there was need, had been broken, the spell rebounding back to his primary mirror and making it shiver hard enough that he worried for its safety as well. Violence. Violence, and then silence.

  “You expect him back.” Another nonquestion.

  “Gentle Washers, please, sit. You make me tired, craning my neck to look at you. Please.”

  They had a choice: be seated, and lose some of their physical authority, or remain standing, and risk antagonizing their host
.

  They sat.

  “I do indeed expect the boy back. Word has come to me of the tragedy in Aleppan, of Vineart Giordan’s sad end. The boy is doubtless confused and frightened, and in need of guidance. He will return.”

  Eventually. But if he had not returned already, then he was staying away intentionally. That was Malech’s hope, anyway; that he was hiding, and not harmed, or, the silent gods forefend, dead.

  No. If the boy were dead, he would know. Certainly, the Guardian, linked to all members of the Household, would know, no matter where the boy was hidden.

  Malech risked glancing up at the Guardian, still as the stone it was carved from. No, there was only a calm waiting in the dragon. Jerzy was alive.

  “When he returns, Master Vineart, we will be taking him back with us, to the Collegium.” Neth was polite but firm, as though expecting Malech to give way before his authority.

  Malech had no intention of giving so much as a slave to these men. But he was wise enough to keep that fact to himself. For now.

  “Indeed, Washer Neth. I understand your concerns that the boy might have taken some injury by his association with Giordan, and for that I assume responsibility; I sent the boy to him in ignorance of any taint about the other man.”

  True, and true, mainly because there had been no taint to be found. Giordan had been flawed, yes; arrogant and too willing to break tradition, but not apostate. The charges were false, or trumped in such a fashion to make harmless actions reviled. He had sent Jerzy to Aleppan to discover if that city-state was infected with the rot that was spreading across the Vin Lands, the danger that had caused Vinearts to disappear, crops to fail, innocent villages to be attacked….

  Apparently, it was indeed infected, if he read these events correctly. But how, and by whom … and to what purpose? Those questions were yet unanswered.

  Jerzy might have the answers. But were he to arrive with them now he would be taken by the Washers and, in their vital ignorance, silenced forever. Malech could not allow that. These men must be gone by the time Jerzy returned.

  “You would take my student into your hold … for the mere association with Giordan, a few weeks’ time?”

  “The boy was accused first of apostasy,” the second man, Brion, said. Anger simmered under his words, most un-Washer-like. They were trained to take pain and sorrow from people, not to inflict it. Neth must have seen Malech’s surprised reaction to Brion’s tone, because he sighed and leaned back in the chair, giving the impression of one old friend about to confide in another.

  “Master Malech. The boy was charged and the charges supported by a man of good standing, who had no cause to wish the boy harm. In fact, Sar Anton protected the boy when another servant would have attacked and killed him.”

  That was new information to Malech. The violence he had sensed through the mirror, when the smaller spell-cast mirror broke? Perhaps.

  “Then Sar Anton has my deepest thanks,” Malech said, not letting his concern show: a Vineart did not form attachments, and the Washers would note if he seemed unduly worried. “But I do not believe his claims about Jerzy. The boy is talented—very talented—but young and easily influenced. I am sure that it is all a terrible misunderstanding.”

  The impression of old friends disappeared as though it had never been. “He has been accused and tried, Master Malech. Your thoughts in this matter are no longer relevant. Be thankful that the Collegium has not turned its attention to you, as his master.”

  The threat was clear, even though it was issued in mild tones. Interfere, and he, too, would be named apostate, his lands seized, his spellwines destroyed, and his name blackened to history. It had not been done since the memories of the prince-mages finally faded and Vinearts accepted their role more than a thousand years before, but the Washers, by Sin Washer’s grace, still had the power to do so.

  Malech was a man of patience. You could not become a Master Vineart without patience in your very bones: years as a slave, to teach the importance of waiting and listening; years working the vineyards, to teach calm readiness; years tasting and crafting, to teach the art of sensing the proper moment—and how to resist moving too soon.

  “You should not threaten me,” he said now, his tone as cool as the earth in morning, his face still and composed. His dark blue eyes, usually heavy-lidded, were open and staring directly at Neth the way a cat would watch another predator; cautious, but unafraid. “Not here, and not now.”

  The novice stirred, picking up on the undercurrents rising fast to the surface, and Neth straightened in his chair. “Indeed? We are—”

  “You are Washers,” Malech said. “You are the caretakers of the people, the watchdogs of the Vin Lands, the inheritors of Sin Washer’s Legacy, sworn to comfort and protect us, as Sin Washer did.” His voice grew harder, all pretense of agreeableness shedding from him now. “And yet you have allowed evil to grow in the land, at your very doorstep. You have allowed a wicked magic to rise, to threaten what Sin Washer created. Or have you not heard of the attacks along the coastlines, the missing souls torn from their homes, their ships? The whispers of illness out of season, and infestations that should not have happened … have you heard none of this, O gentle Heirs of Sin Washer?”

  He heard his voice grow too harsh and modulated it, but did not allow the anger to fade, waiting for their response.

  “We have heard of these things,” Neth said, refusing to be cowed. “And we have investigated. It was thus that we heard of your actions in sending the boy, and were there to investigate when—”

  “When what? What happened, exactly? This you have not told me, this none of my sources can tell me. The boy was seen … working in a vineyard? Working some magic the observer knew not of? And your response is to accuse an innocent boy—a boy!—of a terrible crime, on the basis of … What? One man’s word? Is he himself free of taint? Has he no cause, no agenda, no priority he would forward at the expense of another?”

  Malech shook his head, his anger controlled but visible, the strands of hair normally tied back at the base of his neck falling free, loosened by the vigor of his movement. “No, gentle Washers, no. There is more here that you are not telling me. If you come into my home, my study, and raise threats, then you must support them, as a vine must be supported to reach the sun.”

  Neth stared at Malech, dark brown eyes meeting darker blue ones, and neither of the men blinked, or looked away.

  “Oren.” The novice looked up, startled and expectant and, if Malech read the boy aright, torn between wanting to stay hidden in the storm and feeling proud of being called on. “Take the guards and, with your permission, Master Malech, settle the horses and set up our encampment for the evening.”

  He addressed the next directly to Malech. “I presume the yard behind your House will be acceptable for our use?”

  The Vineart accepted the fact that he would not be rid of them just yet with scant grace. “Indeed. The patch just beyond the icehouse is level ground suitable for your tents, and there is a stream that flows beyond the far side of the building where you may draw fresh water for your needs.” Fortunately, the early spring weather was mild enough for comfort, and the ground was not unduly muddy. He would not have them within his House, not even for a night.

  The boy—older than Jerzy, but barely—stood and bowed to the three men, then escaped the study with almost unseemly haste.

  “And so,” Malech said, once the door closed behind the novice, “what is it you wish to tell me, that your student should not hear?”

  “You have heard of the disappearance of the island-nation of Atakus?”

  Malech kept himself still, not giving any sign of surprise—or knowledge. “Rumors, yes.”

  “More than rumors,” Brion said, leaning forward, pulling at his robe with the displeasure of a man still more used to the trousers and surcoat of a fighting man. Not all Washers came to the cup as children, and suddenly the bullyboys accompanying the Washers made more sense. The Collegium had expect
ed Malech—or Jerzy—to give them trouble. Giordan must have … resisted.

  “Recently,” Brion continued, “ships sailing in that area tried to make port, to exchange news and take on new stores, as usual. The island could not be found. Attempting to reach the island blind resulted in ships being pushed off course, finding themselves leagues from where they should be.”

  “You think it caused by magic,” Malech said, but his tone made it a question.

  “Nothing else could accomplish such an event,” Neth said. “Not unless you would believe that the silent gods have once again taken an interest in the doings of men.”

  The gods had not intervened since Baphos and Charif sent their son, Zatim who became Sin Washer, to remonstrate with the prince-mages, and in his anger the First Vine had been broken. Almost two thousand years of silence … no, Malech did not think that would suddenly change, now. The gods had washed their hands of mortals when Zatim died.

  “I know of no spellwine that could hide an entire island so,” he said. “That does not mean it cannot be done, merely that it is beyond my ken.”

  “Or you could be lying to us,” Brion said.

  “I could. But I am not. I have no need to lie.” He simply would avoid telling them the truth, if it did not suit his purposes. But in this, he could be honest. “On my vines, I did not work that magic, nor could I. Master Edon”—the Vineart of Atakus, a Master Vineart already when he, Malech, was still a slave—“he might, perhaps. It would be a thing of weather and wind, not fire and healing, as are my vines.” Vineart Giordan, who had worked those vines, might have known—he did not think he would point that out to these men.

  Neth nodded, and even Brion seemed satisfied by Malech’s denial.

  “It is not the fact of the magic which disturbs us,” Neth said, “so much as it is the way it was used. Atakus was a major port and kept itself neutral to maintain its status, making no alliances save those of trade and parley. Now it has not only drawn a cloak over itself, but attacked those who venture too near where it once was.”