It hurt to say it, knowing it for the truth. He wanted to stay, but he could not. More, he should not.
Kaïnam heard only the spoken words. “And then you’ll come back?”
“I don’t know.” He could still feel the roots and leaves whisper, but he knew now that they were not whispering to him. They had not saved Vineart Esoba, because they did not care. They did not recognize a Vineart’s hand. Feral vines. Unblooded, untouched by Sin Washer’s gift, left- or right-handed.
They were powerful … but they were not his. They were not anyone’s.
And the body now buried under their roots, its neck wrapped thrice with vines, its face blue from strangulation, made Jerzy wonder if, in truth, he wanted them at all.
The vines had sensed his fear, his anger, and acted. Unlike the plague ship, he could not claim that act had been anything other than murder.
And yet, he could not bring himself to destroy them.
“There’s still a long way to go, yet,” he said out loud. “This Praepositus Ximen took the merchant back; if the man survived it, then he knows who we are, must assume that we know who he is, now. He will not hesitate to attack—directly, this time. I can’t let him find me. Not until we have a way to strike back—and win.”
Chapter 17
Off the coastline of the land the maps called Greater Irfan, just beyond the confines of the too-shallow bay, the Brotherhood’s ship waited. They had been at harbor for nearly a quarter-turn of the month, waiting for any sign of their quarry returning, taunted by the empty shore and the quietly resting ship. A score of times, Neth had thought to set fire to the cursed Vineart’s boat and leave, stranding the boy in this benighted land. A score and one, he had come to his senses before giving the order.
And now he had been rewarded.
“Shall we go after ’em?”
“No. Wait, and watch.”
“Aye.” The captain shifted the pipe in his mouth and nodded at the Washer, stalking away. That left Neth, but not alone, for the ship swarmed with sailors above and below, working silently, for the most part. The men had spent the past weeks glancing sideways at the ship still moored across the bay, spitting and making protective gestures whenever the unnerving masthead swung around to follow them.
Ship-rats were superstitious, unlettered creatures, but he could not blame them for their unease. The way those pale, carved hands moved, constantly stroking the leaves of its wreath, was disturbing, no matter what magics had caused them to move.
Neth was not watching the figurehead now, however, but the figures on the distant shore as they pulled a small craft from the brush and piled their belongings into it, unhitching the cart they had been using and handing over the beasts to another figure, who led them away, back up the cliff.
Patience. A Washer learned it, just as a Vineart did. He waited, his hands opening and closing on the rail, as they set onto the water, the craft pitching on the waves as it made for their ship.
“Alyn.”
The Washer, a young boy no older than the Vineart they chased, stepped forward, making an almost involuntary bow. He was too young to be on such a mission, should still be in the Collegium at his studies, but every man they had was on the road, to quell the rising unrest, and that meant putting children into men’s jobs.
The Vineart-student was no older, in truth, nor his companions. Neth felt every one of his forty years like armor across his back, weighing him down. Children, all of them.
“Alyn,” he said again, because he must. “Fetch the men. Tell them to bring their arbalests.” Traditionally, the Brotherhood was not supposed to go armed with more than a bludgeon or cudgel, any more than Vinearts, but that did not mean they did not know how to use them. And Brion had made sure they knew how to use them well.
The sailors would not aid them; frightened of the Heart as they were, it had been all the captain could do to keep them from mutinying. Asking them to go against the masters of that ship? No. They would have to do this on their own, seven armed Washers against …
Children? He looked at the figurehead again and shook his head. He did not know what they went against, and that was what worried him.
* * *
“JERZY!”
The sound of his name being called out across the water didn’t surprise Jerzy; Ao had spotted the longboat coming toward them a breath before, and it seemed unlikely that anyone would be so purposefully cutting them off from the Heart without being either pirates or Washers.
The dark red flag hoisted on the mainsail of the ship they rowed from put lie to the first possibility, leaving only the second.
The Brotherhood had found them.
“Jerzy, stow your oars and let us come aside.”
“Rot if we will,” Ao muttered, barely within hearing. Mahault, who had been sitting on one of the casks of spellwine, reached down to where her own blade rested, sheathed and wrapped against the risk of water.
Jerzy knew the voice; patient and calm and fully expecting obedience. Washer Neth.
“They have arbalests,” Kaïnam said from his position at the bow. “They could take us from there, if they’ve any skill at all. Closer, and we’re done for.”
“Swords?” Jerzy didn’t expect much, but he had to ask.
Kaïnam shook his head. “Swords are useless here, and I’d have to get in close to use a knife. By then …”
“Magic?” Ao asked.
“They’d be expecting that,” Mahault said, her hand still touching the blade as though disbelieving Kaïnam’s evaluation of its usefulness.
“So, what? We just give over?” Ao sounded more annoyed than worried.
The longboat was moving closer as they argued. The Washers were not trained sailors, but perfectly capable of rowing in unison, with purpose.
“I have no waterspells,” Jerzy said. “Healvines and firevines … useless here unless I want to set their boat afire, and Washer Neth is too canny for that, assuming any captain would allow his boats to touch water without protection.”
Firespells could burn, or light without burning, but they could turn fire aside, as well. It all depended on how the Vineart incanted the firevine mustus.
But Jerzy had more than Master Malech’s vines to draw on. His gut turned at the thought of using more of the unblooded wines; it was too much, too dangerous, and he was not sure he could continue to control it. Still, he had the flask of Vineart Giordan’s weatherwine. Barely half left, now, but enough, if he could use it properly …
“Neth will be expecting anything I do,” he said to his companions. “So we will only have one chance. Be ready, and take the chance when it comes.”
“What are you going to do?”
Jerzy stood cautiously, keeping the flask below the lip of the tiny boat, out of sight. “I haven’t any idea,” he said, and turned to face Washer Neth.
“Vineart-student Jerzy.” Neth’s voice was perfectly modulated, carrying over the water as though he were preaching the comfort in a village square.
Jerzy waited.
“I sorrowed to hear of Master Vineart Malech’s death,” the Washer said. “He was a strong and talented Vineart. We are diminished by his loss.”
“Do you know who killed him?”
“I know that you didn’t.”
Jerzy waited again, the two boats rising and falling in the gentle rock of the waves, held steady by their oarsmen.
“Jerzy, if you decant a spell against me, my men will take you down before you can swallow. You know that, don’t you?”
“I can capsize you before they loose a single bolt,” Jerzy said in return, his voice as even and calm and confident as Neth’s. He could … he was mostly sure that he could. Neth would be waiting for him to lift the flask, to go through the steps, but if Jerzy needed, he had enough quiet-magic in him now to touch the windspell, stir the waters, and set them on fire.
Create a firespout.
“I could kill you without flinching,” Jerzy said.
“No.
You couldn’t. I know you, Jerzy. I know Vinearts. Whatever you have sunk yourself in, whatever is driving you … you are perhaps a fool, but not a killer.”
The waves were slowly bringing the boats closer and closer together, until neither of them needed to shout in order to be heard. Kaïnam tensed; the weapons were within range.
“I would do it, if I had to,” Jerzy said. His hands were not clean.
“And so would I,” Neth said softly. “And all would likely die, in what followed. Is that what you desire, Vineart? Because it is not my wish. Not here, not today. Not if we can be civilized, and avoid it.”
Neth did not know what Jerzy had discovered. Did not know the powerful, unmastered vines hidden in the hills behind them. If he did find out …
No. That vineyard was Jerzy’s to protect, if not to use.
But he could use it, if he was careful.
“There is a vineyard three days’ travel to the north,” he said. They had traveled south. “A strong, well-planted vineyard. The Vineart there was murdered, the very day we arrived. Murdered, and his grounds claimed by the land-lord of this place. The land-lord claims they are beyond Sin Washer’s Commands, as they are no part of the Lands Vin.”
Neth was too smart, too experienced to splutter, the way another Washer might. But his eyes narrowed. And in that moment, the way Jerzy knew when a Harvest was good, he knew the Washer’s secret.
The anger he had felt before rekindled, like sour wine heated in his stomach, making him feel ill.
“You knew,” Jerzy said, “All along, you knew that land-lords were being tampered with. You knew about the maiar of Aleppan. You meant to use Sar Anton to test the maiar, him and Vineart Giordan, to see what they would do. You knew—”
“We knew very little.” The waves shifted, and Neth almost lost his footing in the longboat, one of his men reaching up to steady him. “But we knew some, yes.”
Jerzy thought of Giordan and his open-handed generosity; of foolish Esoba; of the unknown villagers killed by serpents, the slaves vanished when their master died…. Master Malech, his stern face no softer in death than in life. “And what did you do about it? This … and what Master Malech told you, the information we gathered. The Lands are under attack—and what have you done, Legacy of Zatim Sin Washer?”
It was too far to tell, the afternoon light too uncertain, but Jerzy thought that Neth’s expression changed, looking pained.
“Go back,” Neth said. “Make camp on the shore. I will send a bird to the chapterhouse, to ask for instructions from the Collegium, with this new information. My orders were merely to take you into custody, not deal with renegade lords. I do not feel qualified to deviate further, without their consent.
“Go back, and we will discuss this more on the morning.”
“Jer …” Ao didn’t quite whine, but it was close. The tension was a physical thing, a fifth body in their little boat.
“We have no choice,” Jerzy said heavily. “No choice at all.”
He sat down and picked up his oar, nodding at Ao to do the same, and they turned their craft around and rode the waves back in to shore.
THEY LEFT THE boat intact, taking out only what they needed to set up camp for that night, and Kai tethered the craft in the shallows, a branch and a rope anchoring it on the sand. Ao and Mahault built a fire against the night’s chill, and they tried to settle down to a subdued meal. The smell of roasted vegetables and fresh meat taken from Esoba’s kitchen made Jerzy feel queasy again, but they all ate their fill, facing ship rations and fish again on the morning.
After cleanup, Jerzy left the fire and, barefoot, wandered down to the waterline. The sand was cool under his feet, and for a moment Jerzy could almost pretend that it was the fine-grained soil of the northern vineyard. Malech had said that the ground deep beneath them was the same rock of the hills to the west, a pale brown rock riddled with caves. Firevines liked that type of soil, and a good Vineart learned to recognize it.
Useful information … not useful here. But the sense that the sand under his toes was somehow related to the soil back home let Jerzy’s thoughts settle, and his breathing even out, until he was utterly calm, staring at the rush and ebb of the water.
“What are we going to do?”
He had heard the others come up behind him, but hadn’t wanted to acknowledge them. They were expecting him to come up with a plan, some way to evade the Washers, to reclaim the Heart and figure out their next step.
Part of Jerzy wanted to give in; Neth had authority, Neth would have orders from the Brotherhood. Who was he to challenge them, again and again? Master Malech had … he was not Master Vineart Malech. He was not even a Vineart, in truth.
You are Vineart.
It was not the Guardian’s voice; Jerzy knew now that while vines might grow here, it was not part of the Vin Lands, did not share the common bond in the soil, and the dragon could not reach him. But the memory was sharp as the dragon’s voice, and goaded him into speaking.
“Opinions?” he asked them, not turning around as they settled themselves on the sand around him.
There was silence, only the quiet rumble of the ocean, cut by an occasional night bird calling from up on the cliff, where the village was dark and still.
“This Washer Neth may be an honest man, but I do not trust the Brotherhood.” Kaïnam, his voice as dry as the sand, but far more solid. “They are political, and will do as they see fit, and once we give them control, we will never get it back.”
It was an opinion, no more and no less than what had been asked.
“Mahault?” Jerzy felt like there was grit in his throat, blocking speech.
“You are Vineart,” she said. “I will follow where you lead.”
Solitaires were known for two things: a fierce independence, and an even fiercer loyalty to their employer. Mahault might, temporarily, have abandoned that path, but she had taken both those things to heart, it appeared.
Jerzy waited, then, when there was no third voice, turned his upper body to look at Ao.
The trader was sitting cross-legged on the sand to Jerzy’s left, all traces of the carefree boy Jerzy had met in Aleppan finally gone from his face, even in the moonlight. He gave a subtle shrug. “I’d rather risk myself than let someone make the decision. That way, I know the cargo’s of my own choosing. But I’ve no skill with this sort of route.”
None of them would tell him what to do. Neth would. But Neth was wrong.
The Guardian was silent. Master Malech was gone.
“Ao. You have a map?”
“I have many maps,” he said, a little stung.
“With you?”
“I go nowhere without maps.” He said it as though Jerzy should have known that, should not have doubted him, and despite himself, Jerzy smiled. “Get me one. As wide a range as you have.”
While Ao went back to their campsite and rummaged through his pack, Mahault smoothed a portion of the dry sand in order to create a makeshift map table, and Kaïnam moved closer to Jerzy.
“You have a plan?”
“I have an idea,” Jerzy said, unwilling to say more. Kaï nodded as though that was all he needed to hear.
Ao came back, unrolling the map and placing small, rounded lead weights at each corner to keep the edges from rolling up.
“Light,” Jerzy said, and three small flames appeared over his open palm. He placed them in the air over the map, chasing away the dusk’s shadows and making the legends written on the map legible.
“Where would the name Ximen and the title Praepositus be used,” he asked Ao.
The trader knelt down and considered the markings. “Ximen’s a popular name here, and here. Southern Iaja, and Riopa. I don’t know about the title.”
“It sounds Ettonian,” Mahl said. “But I don’t know what it means.”
“Nor do I,” Kaïnam said. “But if it’s Ettonian, odds are good it’s a military title.”
“Iaja.” A Vin Land. So was Riopa, island-nation, home o
f strong earthvines. Etton, home of …
Home of the ancient Emperor. Home of Sin Washer, who would have destroyed mankind, had his heart not been touched by the kindness of the common folk, the ones who became the first Washers, the heirs to his Legacy.
Jerzy’s mouth was dry with worry and exhaustion, and he searched in vain for the slightest hint of moisture to draw the quiet-magic forward. The lights had come, but he had used too much, was too dry. There was too much grit in his throat, clogging him.
“Mahl, fetch me a wineskin.”
She stood to obey, then paused midaction. “Which one?”
“It doesn’t matter. The first you find.”
Jerzy wanted to tell her to take one from Esoba’s cellar, but he held back. That was desire, not need, speaking. He would not need that power, not for this. He hoped.
She returned, and he took a scant sip, feeling the leathery smoothness touch his mouth, making the flesh pucker. Whether by chance or fate, she had chosen a Riopan earthwine. Perfect.
Holding that puddle of magic on his tongue, letting it seep into flesh, calling the residual magic living within him, Jerzy reached down for a handful of sand. The thought came that this was perhaps how prince-mages had worked, not so much decanting as evoking, allowing the power to rise and express itself to fit the need.
The thought, at another time, would worry him. Not now.
His need touched the magic, flowing without conscious direction. Like unto the soil that nourished roots. Soil and root, vine and fruit. He knew the taint well enough now, winding his awareness of that into his Sense, letting them mingle the way the wave mingled with the shore, the wind wove through trees, touching but separate, one staying still, the other leading … where?
The hand holding the sand opened, slowly turning and tipping the sand onto the map.
“What—” Kaïnam started to ask, then stopped himself even before Ao and Mahl both held up hands to hush him.
“Shhh,” Ao said. “Watch it.”
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