Weight of Stone

by Laura Anne Gilman

  He knew all this, and still it itched.

  Every day, he went about the routine, took care of the budding vines in the field, and the spellwines in the vintnery that were almost ready to be shipped to buyers throughout the Vin Lands, and beyond. To all intents and purposes, sunrise to sunset, it was life as ever in the House of Malech.

  Beyond those borders … the attacks went on. Not serpents, not so far as the guards along the coastline reported, but two more Vinearts dead in other lands—one possibly from old age, another thrown by a trusted horse—and there was no way of telling how many men of power were, like Mahault’s father, under an evil sway.

  No telling how deep and wide the roots of the taint had spread, or what it might mean.

  Master Malech was looking into it, but he was not bound to it. He did not understand, in his flesh, the fear that grew, the tension rising …

  Return, the cool voice said, and then disappeared from his mind.

  Jerzy smiled ruefully. The Guardian had taken to ordering him around the way Detta did the House-servants, as though he were merely an extension of its own stone-carved body. His first day within the House, the stone dragon had flown up to his window, Detta letting him in through the casements, and—silently, with a gentle tug of cold stone claws—taken control of the still-shocked slave boy. They had roamed the House together that day, Jerzy slowly losing his fear as they poked into corners and nobody hauled them out or lit into them with the lash. He slowly, with the Guardian’s silent encouragement, began to believe that his life had, truly, changed.

  How much, the slave-turned-student could never have understood, that day, or the days to follow.

  Even now, looking out at the main field, and the shadow of the sleep house, he felt an odd sense of unreality, as though the slave called Fox-fur had never existed, or was perhaps still down there, weeding and sorting, careful hands touching the vines only when needed, fearful every moment of doing something wrong, of being singled out by the overseer and killed for his carelessness.

  Fox-fur could never have imagined the things Jerzy had seen.

  Leaf to flower, flower to fruit, fruit to mustus, and mustus to wine. Jerzy reminded himself that the cycle continued, even now. The slaves knew what to do, and so did he.

  Returning to the House, he ducked into the bathing room, hoping to get the worst of the dirt off his skin and out from under his nails, but even the bar of harsh soap could only do so much. “Vineart’s blush,” Detta called it, the grime that worked its way into the whorls of his fingertips and the edges of his nails. Once presentable, he detoured again into the kitchen, where Lil was in heated discussion with the lad from the butcher in the nearby village. She saw him, but did not pause in her tirade to do more than nod in greeting.

  “Anything to eat quickly?”

  Roan waved a hand at the table behind her, as she stirred something in the great pot over the fire. Once, these females, brusque and caring, had awed him, with their sassy words and clean, neat manners. Now they were as familiar as the Guardian, if usually more outspoken.

  There were soft brown rolls piled on a wooden trencher. He took two, wrapping one in his kerchief and looping it over his belt and taking a careful bite out of the other. Lil was a good cook—better than Detta had been—but she liked to use spices that sometimes scalded the tongue, and he had learned to taste carefully, until he knew what she was serving. But the meat inside the roll was warm, not too hot, and only tingled his tongue pleasantly.

  Eating the rest of it, he crossed the courtyard and went in through the door at the other end, heading not to Master Malech’s formal study but down the stairs to the cool stone-lined workrooms. His master was there, but the Guardian was not.

  “Jerzy.” His master did not look up from the ledger open on his desk. “Report.”

  “The only thing wrong with the vines is that there is nothing wrong with them. I’ve ordered the slaves to put more stress on the roots, so that they will feel threatened and produce more fruit.”

  “Ah. Good, good.”

  Malech had heard his report, and acknowledged it, but Jerzy had the sense that his master wasn’t really listening.

  “You have received more messages?” Jerzy asked, seeing the small, rectangular scraps on top of the ledger’s pages, their edges curling in a way to indicate that they had been rolled into a pigeon’s leg case.

  “Yes. But not as many as I sent out. Seven, out of nearly thirty.”

  Jerzy frowned. “Might your messages not have reached them? Could they have been intercepted?” They had been waiting nearly a tenday for any response, which was unusual, and they had to consider the risks. Pigeons were the best way to send a message over distances—faster than a horse and rider, and less expensive than hiring a meme-courier, but there was no way to verify that it had reached its destination. Their birds were bred for speed and smarts, but a falcon could take one from the sky in the time it took to blink, and a storm could blow it off course, or unfriendly hands could divert it. Master Malech had wagered that small birds would attract less notice than any other method, but although they knew the direction of their enemy now, they did not know his name—or his reach.

  Jerzy sat down, and then stood up again. The old stool that he had used before leaving for Aleppan was gone, replaced by a taller stool that suited his now-longer legs, but the seat had not been worn down properly yet, and Jerzy found that he preferred to pace while he thought, rather than sitting. It made for an interesting dance, since his master often did the same, and the space in the workroom was limited.

  “Possible, but the sheer number of them, to have gone astray … unlikely.” Master Malech, indeed, stood up and paced to the left, so Jerzy changed his direction to pace to the right, noting as he did so that his strides were longer than his master’s. That seemed wrong, somehow, especially since the Master Vineart was still considerably taller. “No, I suspect the cause is less violent and more predictable: fear.”

  “Master?” That made Jerzy check his step, and turn to look at the Vineart. Malech’s long hair was as neatly queued as ever, his clothing clean and unwrinkled, his hands and voice steady, and yet Master Malech seemed … distressed.

  Jerzy felt an odd twist in his gut, similar to the sickness he had felt while at sea. He had seen his master angry, and worried, and even upset before. But this distress was new, and worrisome.

  “Master?” Jerzy had been willing until now to remain quiet, doing as he was told, but his earlier thoughts were crowding at him, not letting him stay still any longer.

  “Thirty messages I sent, asking not for money, or requiring them to divulge any secrets of their yard.”

  After what happened to Giordan, none would offer, anyway. Earlier correspondence brought via bird and villager proved that word had spread—courtesy of the Washers, no doubt, using the Vineart’s fate to rein in any others who might tread beyond the constraints of tradition and Command. No matter that Jerzy suspected the game in Aleppan had originally been Sar Anton’s, the Washers owned it now. None would step forward as Giordan had, and risk the same result.

  Malech stopped his own pacing, staring at the doorsill where the Guardian normally rested. There was a smoke-black smudge against the wall, as though its carved body had left a stain, somehow. “I asked no secrets,” the Vineart repeated, “merely requested that they tell me of any oddities, any strangeness, any thing off season or out of place. Of any strangers in their lands, wielding more influence than their status would indicate.”

  He sighed, turning to stand face-to-face with his student. “These are things that should not terrify a Vineart. And yet … they have. Terrified them into retreating behind walls. And not only Vinearts—the messages were sent to princelings and maiars, land-lords and reeves. It is perhaps ironic that of my seven responses, three were from reeves.”

  “Ironic?” Jerzy wasn’t sure what his master meant.

  Malech turned, returning to stand behind the desk. Jerzy relaxed: the lecture po
se. This was something he knew, and knew how to deal with.

  “Reeves are limited in scope—their sphere of influence is no greater than the village they live in. They have no power, no status beyond those boundaries. The games of land-lords and princelings rage over them, and all that may change is who they give tribute to, and under what name. A jaded view, perhaps, but no less valid. They are, I suspect, in our enemy’s mind too small to cause great trouble and too weak to be useful; if they stayed quiet, it is likely they would be left alone … and yet it appears that they are the ones who are most willing to speak out.” Malech stroked his beard with one hand, and sighed. “Perhaps ironic is not the correct word. Perhaps it is merely sad.

  “If this continues, more lands will follow Atakus’s lead, if perhaps with less drastic measures. Already dialogue ceases, Agreements either unsealed or abandoned as each man of power looks around and sees only suspicion and potential threat.”

  “The same as in Aleppan,” Jerzy said, remembering the fear and worry that filled the Aleppanese court, courtesy of the maiar’s aide, a man of no particular name or importance, according to Mahault: years loyal and yet filled with a tainted magic only Jerzy could connect to the magic that animated the serpents as well.

  The Washers had heard Jerzy’s report of the matter, but neither he nor Malech thought they would act on it. Even if the Collegium itself were blameless in Darian’s actions, they had no reason to trust the word of a student already brushed with suspicion on his own, and the thought of a nobody, a minor court functionary, having magic …

  Impossible.

  If Jerzy hadn’t seen it himself, hadn’t tasted the magic in the man’s soul, he would not have believed it, either. Only a Vineart could hold magic within himself, wield spells without spellwine. That man had been no Vineart. And yet …

  Only Jerzy had sensed it. Only Malech believed him.

  “It is the remaining four responses that concern me right now,” Malech said, sitting behind the desk and spreading his left hand over the papers, pressing them flat. “Only one from a Vineart—Rosario, from the coast of Iaja. I had not thought to hear from him, in truth. He is isolationist, even by our standards, and intentionally unpleasant to be around. Were his spellwines not so potent, he might be ignored completely, but they are strong—perhaps the best for preventing child loss ever incanted. We buy a cask every year, ourselves.”

  “What does he say?” Jerzy was curious about the spellwine, but more so about the message.

  “That he has been approached by not one but two maiars of cities within a day’s travel of his yards. Each requested dialogue with him, the implication being that they wished to form an alliance.”

  “But that is what caused Vineart Giordan trouble,” Jerzy said, startled.

  “Worse, boy,” Malech said. He had not called Jerzy “boy” since his return, and the old usage felt less like a rebuke and more like affection. “Giordan only bartered first pick of his spellwines in exchange for the use of the maiar’s lands. These requests—and from Rosario’s words, I think they were phrased more as demands—were for Rosario to turn his skills over to them, and their land, exclusively.”

  Jerzy felt his legs give under him, and he dropped onto the stool, not minding the uncomfortable seat so long as it supported him. Sin Washer give grace to them all. And the Washers had accused him of apostasy?

  “That is … The Washers will never stand for that.”

  “No,” Malech agreed, sitting in his own chair, lacing his fingers together and looking at Jerzy over their tips, his dark blue eyes cold and brooding. “No, they will not. They cannot. And the maiars must know this, as they know their own names … and yet still they proceed.

  “Two questions that leaves me with, boy. One: What will—what can—the Washers do, if Vineart and men of power combine their strengths, as was forbidden by Sin Washer? And two: What purpose does that serve our enemy? What benefit might he find, in driving us back to the dark times, when too much power was held by too few men?”

  Jerzy stared at this master, then realized the older man was expecting him to reply. He cudgeled his brain, trying to come up with something that might be, if not useful, at least not useless. “Sin Washer broke the First Growth because it was too powerful,” he said slowly, feeling his way along the thought. “He broke the prince-mages likewise—that power never be centered all in one place. He did it because the prince-mages abused their power, and mistreated their people … and the gods would not stand for it. But the gods have been silent ever since. Perhaps … someone wishes to make the gods speak again?”

  It seemed outrageous to him, but his master nodded his head thoughtfully. “A possible scenario. Unlikely, but possible, and in truth a crazed mind could believe such a thing, and take steps to cause it. It is also possible that this Vineart, whoever he is, wishes not to rouse the gods but destroy them. But what purpose that might serve, when they are already silent, and few believe, much less worship their altars any longer …”

  “Not the gods,” Jerzy said quietly, the realization unfolding in his head like new leaves uncurling. The bindings that tied it all together, the knots and snags, the memory of what he had seen and heard: the merchants in Aleppan, worrying about ships lost and taxes due; Kaï’s voice breaking as he spoke of his sister, his father’s madness; Mahl’s sadness looking at a rosebush and speaking of the ones her father had uprooted; the voice of the shopkeeper suggesting that he, Jerzy, take over another Vineart’s yards … it all unraveled in a sudden understanding that made no sense at all. “Us.”

  He lifted his gaze to his master’s, and saw no understanding in that granite-sharp face.

  “A chip here, a crack there, piece by piece, until it all comes apart and shatters in fear and distrust. He seeks to destroy the Vin Lands.”

  EVEN ONCE MALECH understood, and accepted it as the only explanation that fit, they still had no idea who might wish it, or how to prevent the suspicion from becoming truth.

  Master Malech had dismissed him after their discussion, the Vineart mumbling over the map on his desk and stroking the tip of his beard the way he did when he was hard-pressed on a thought. Much as Jerzy wanted to stay, he knew that he could offer no more assistance in the matter. And he was not entirely useless—while his master worried about the world around them, there was still work to be done here. The vines were healthy, and the weather was holding, but yards needed constant vigilance during the growing season, and there were yards beyond the House that needed to be checked.

  And yet, two days later, Jerzy found himself unable to settle back into that daily, necessary work. Without other, more specific orders, he decided to ride out to visit the southern yard’s overseer.

  It had been good to reacquaint himself with that yard, planted only ten years back with firevines, but the journey meant too many hours on the back of a horse, returning only that morning after a few hours of sleep in the overseer’s cottage.

  He still did not enjoy traveling on horseback, preferring to use his own feet when possible, but the old gelding and he had ridden this road often enough that he trusted the horse to find its way along the hard-packed dirt, and not shy when a villager drove his sheep across it, or a flock of birds erupted from a grove of trees, or a fox came out of the ditch in the early-morning light and watched as human and horse went by, its red plumed tail the same color Jerzy’s hair had been when he was young.

  The memory brought back others, and for once, soothed by his exhaustion and the slow steady rocking of the horse below him, both like and unlike the feel of the Green Lady, Jerzy let them come.

  The slaver’s caravan, packed leg to leg with other slaves as they were taken from market to market, offered not on a public stage with the livestock but set apart where others need not see them. The men who would come, one at a time, quietly, looking and never speaking, choosing one or two, sometimes three but never more. And those slaves would be gone, and the rest would be loaded back into the wagons, brought to another town
, another land. The languages changed, but all else remained the same. New slaves were added, some others were removed, either from death—tossed to the side of the road, left for the carrion eaters—or because they had grown too old to be purchased, and were unwanted and abandoned with a set of clothes and a coin, to do as they might in the whatever land they were in.

  For the first time, Jerzy remembered, and wondered what happened to those slaves. Were they taken in by the local villages or towns, seen as new blood, new backs for the working? Did they turn to theft, ending their days on the end of a rope, or the edge of a lordsman’s sword?

  Had Master Malech not chosen him in that market, years before, what might have become of him? What had become of the slaves of Vineart Poul, who would not have run and yet were gone? What happened to them when there was no need for them?

  Without planning to, Jerzy sucked at the inside of his mouth, drawing a flood of saliva onto his tongue. The tang of firevine grapes filled his senses, the mixture of fruit he had tasted the afternoon before blending with the finished wines, the smell and feel of the soil under his hand and the touch of the leaves against his skin … and the undercurrents of something else, more acidic, cooler, with a hint of stone and salt …

  Weathervines. The memory still within him, the pull of the sundrenched soil of the Aleppan hills, of cool sun and freshening winds like those that filled the sails of a ship when it turned and ran with the prevailing breeze. Things he should not know, would not know, save for his master breaking tradition and sending him away. And he did not have the strength, in the early-dawn hour, to push it away, but instead let the two blend in his mouth, not thinking, not directing the quiet-magic, but letting it rise within him almost curiously, to see what it might do.