Urtho had tried to stay out of the conflict, with the result that the conflict had come to him. Amberdrake wondered if he sometimes berated himself for waiting. There had probably been a point early in Ma'ar's career when Urtho could have defeated him easily, had he not stayed his hand. But who could have known that war would have come to roost in Ma'ar's willful head? Urtho couldn't be blamed for not bottling up the Kiyamvir long ago.
There were little joys amid all the pain, and some of those joys could come from the bindings of affection that just sprang up, like wildflowers in a battlefield.
Amberdrake sighed a little. He loved Skan as much as if he and the gryphon had been raised in the same nest, in the same home, but he wondered now if Skan felt anything more than simple friendship. It was hard to read the gryphon; the raptorial features reflected emotion in far more subtle ways than, say, a kyree's mobile face. And Skan was—well, Skan. He often kept his deepest feelings to himself, covering them with jokes and pranks—or complaints and feigned irritation. If he felt affection for someone, he was just as likely to mock him as praise him.
Caring for the gryphon certainly had its drawbacks.
Amberdrake made his way quietly and unobtrusively through the rows of smaller tents housing the recovering wounded. There was a special section for gryphons; an array of tents with reinforced frames, built to be used for traction, to keep any of the gryphons' four limbs or two wings immobile.
He spotted Gesten leaving one of the tents just as the hertasi saw him. Gesten looked uncommonly cheerful, all things considered; his eyes twinkled with good humor and he carried his tail high.
"His Royal Highness has one demon of a headache, and he says he's too nauseous to eat," Gesten reported. "Cinnabar says that's because he's got a concussion, and His Highness irritated his throat with the thingummy he stuffed into his crop, and since I couldn't get him to eat anything, she wants you to try."
Amberdrake nodded. "What was that thing he tried to swallow?" he asked. "It kept intruding on my dreams last night."
Gesten ducked his head in a shrug. "Some magical weapon Urtho sent him after," the hertasi said indifferently. "There was a big fuss over it after I got you to bed—half the mages in the Tower came looking for it when Himself found out Skan had been carried in. One of 'em woke Tamsin and tried to dress him down for not reporting it right away."
Amberdrake noticed the careful use of the word "tried." "I take it that Tamsin gave him an earful?"
Gesten chuckled happily and bobbed his head. "It was a pleasure and a privilege to hear," he said with satisfaction. "It was almost as good as you do when someone gets to you."
"Hmm." Amberdrake shook his head. "So, it was some kind of mage-weapon. Well, I suppose we'll never know the whole truth of the matter." It occurred to him that this "weapon," whatever it was, may have been the reason that Laisfaar had been taken. Or it might have been the single factor that made its loss possible, which made it imperative for Skan to have found one and gotten it back so that Urtho's mages could create a counteragent.
If Skan knew that, he wouldn't reveal it. The less anyone knew, the better, really. It was terribly easy for a spy to move through Urtho's camp—precisely because Urtho's people as a whole were far less ruthless than their counterparts on Ma'ar's side of the conflict. And camp gossip, as he had seen last night, spread as quickly as flame in oil-soaked tinder.
Amberdrake had long since resigned himself to the fact that he was going to overhear and accidentally see a million tantalizing details that would never make sense. That, too, was in the nature of his profession.
"Anyway, if you can get His Grumpiness—"
"I heard that," came a low growl from the patient behind the tent flap.
"—His Contrariness to eat something, I can get the place ready for your next client," Gesten concluded smoothly.
Amberdrake chuckled. "I think I can manage. For one thing, now that I know his throat is irritated, I can do something about that."
"Don't strain yourself," Gesten warned, as he pulled back the tent flap to go inside. "He isn't your only charge. And he isn't even paying.'"
That last had to have been added for Skandranon's benefit. The gryphon only raised his chin off his bandaged forearms a moment, and said with immense dignity and a touch of ill temper, "I ssshould think thisss sssort of thing came underrr the heading of 'jussst rewarrrd for a missssion sssatisssfactorilly completed.'"
"I would agree with you," Amberdrake said absently, noting that Skandranon was pointedly rolling his sibilants for "emphasssisss." Skandranon's diction was as crisp as any human's, when he wanted it to be. Amberdrake extended his finely-honed senses and found nothing more amiss than healing bones, healing wounds, and—yes, a healing concussion.
"How's the head?" he asked conversationally, letting his awareness sink into the area of Skan's throat and crop, soothing the irritation caused by the foreign object Skan had (inadvertently?) swallowed. It was something of a truism that a gryphon could not store anything in the crop that was bigger than he could successfully swallow, but that did not mean that the object in question would be a comfortable thing to store. Particularly if it was angular and unyielding as Amberdrake thought he remembered.
"The head isss missserable, thank you," the gryphon replied with irritation. "I ssshould think you could do ssssomething about it."
"Sorry, Skan," Amberdrake replied apologetically. "I wish I could—but I'm not a specialist in that kind of injury. I could do more harm than good by messing about with your head."
He exerted a touch of Healing energy—being careful not to overextend himself; he hadn't needed Gesten's warning on that score. He'd run himself into the ground once already; if he did it again, he was asking for trouble, and it generally took two or more Healers to fix what a stupid Healer did to himself. In a moment, the heat that meant "soreness and irritation" to Amberdrake faded and died from Skan's throat, and the gryphon swallowed experimentally.
"Well, I suppose you aren't going to go away unless I eat something," Skan said, without a sign of any kind of gratitude. "So I'd better do it and get you out of here so I can sleep."
Amberdrake didn't make any comments; he simply held out hand-sized pieces of fresh, red meat for Skan to swallow whole. Like all gryphons, Skan preferred his food to be fresh killed, as fresh as possible, although he could and would eat dried or prepared food, and actually enjoyed breads and pastries. Gesten had left a large bowl of the meat chunks; Amberdrake didn't stop handing them to the gryphon until the bowl was empty, even though Skan looked as if he would have liked to take a piece of Amberdrake's hand with his meal.
Amberdrake tried not to let his feelings get hurt. He'd seen this kind of thing often enough in other cases of those who had been extremely active and had been forced by injuries to depend even a little on others. Skan had been completely immobilized by his injuries, and couldn't even use his forelegs.
Add to that the pounding of his concussion-headache, and he really wasn't behaving too badly, all things considered.
But on the other hand, Amberdrake was a friend, and Skan was treating him in ways that he wouldn't have inflicted on an indentured servant.
Some of this must have shown in Amberdrake's expression, for just as the last strip of raw meat went down Skan's throat, Gesten returned, took one look at the two of them, and proceeded to give Skan a lecture on gratitude.
"You'd think that the smartest gryphon in Urtho's army would have a mudcake's sense, wouldn't you?" he railed. "You'd think that same gryphon might recall Amberdrake putting his wings together for him until Drake fell over with exhaustion! You'd think that same gryphon might possibly remember that Drake would be feeling phantom pain this afternoon from all that Healing. But no—" Gesten snorted. "That takes common sense, and common courtesy. So when Drake isn't sitting here right by the tent, waiting for a certain gryphon to wake up, that gryphon pouts and thinks nobody loves him and then acts like a spoiled brat when Drake does show up even before he's had
a shave."
Skan couldn't possibly have looked worse, but his ear-tufts, which had been lying fairly close to his head, now flattened against his skull. And the gryphon looked distinctly chagrined.
And penitent.
Silence followed Gesten's lecture, as the hertasi gave Skan his "you messed up" glare, and Skan sighed.
"Drake," the gryphon said softly. "I am sssorry. I have been verrry rrrude. I—"
Amberdrake knew this mood. Skan was likely to keep apologizing for the next candlemark—and perversely, getting more irritating and irritable with every word of apology.
"Skan, it's all right," Amberdrake said hastily. "You haven't been any ruder than some of my clients, after all. I'm used to it." He managed a weak chuckle. "I'm a pretty rotten patient myself when I'm sick. Just ask Gesten."
The hertasi rolled his eyes, but said nothing.
"So don't worry. We're just glad you're back, however many pieces you came back in." Amberdrake slid his hand in among the neck-feathers and scratched places where he knew Skan had not been able to reach—and would not for some time.
The gryphon sighed, and put his head back down on his bandaged and splinted forelegs. "You arrre too patient, Drrrake."
"Actually, if I don't get him moving, he's going to be too late," Gesten interjected, apparently mollified by the apology. "You've got a client, Kestra'chern. And you're going to have to make up for the fact that you had to cancel out all your morning appointments."
"Right." Amberdrake gave Skan's neck a final scratch, and stood up, brushing out the folds of his robe. "And I'd better shave and clean up first. How much time have I got?"
"Not much, for the grooming you need," Gesten replied. "You'd better put some speed on it."
A little later, Amberdrake wondered why he'd bothered. This was not one of his usual clients, and he had not known what to expect, but he could have been a wooden simulacrum for all the man looked at him.
He was a mercenary mage, one of the hire-ons that Urtho had taken as his own allies and apprentices proved inadequate to take on all the mages that Ma'ar controlled. While he was probably a handsome man, it was difficult to tell that at the moment. His expression was as rigid and unreadable as a mask, and his needs were, to be blunt, basic.
In fact, if he wanted what he said he wanted, he need not have come to Amberdrake for it. He could have gone to any of the first- or second-rank kestra'chern in the cadre and spent a great deal less money. The illusion of grace and luxury, relaxation, pampering—and the inevitable: a kestra'chern was not a bedmate-for-hire, although plenty of people had that impression, this mage included. If that was all he wanted, there were plenty of sources for that, including, if the man were up to it, actually winning the respect of someone.
Amberdrake was tempted to send him away for just that reason; this was, in its way, as insulting as ordering a master cook to make oatmeal.
But as he had told the General, as every kestra'chern must, he had learned over the years that what a client asked for might not be what he wanted—and what he wanted might not even be something he understood. That was what made him the expert he was.
When a few quiet questions elicited nothing more than a growled order to "just do your job," Amberdrake stood up and surveyed the man from a position of superior height.
"I can't do my job to your satisfaction if you're a mass of tension," he countered sternly. "And what's more, I can't do it to my satisfaction. Now, why don't we just start with a simple massage?"
He nodded at the padded table on the brighter side of the chamber, and the mage reluctantly rose, and even more reluctantly took his place on it.
Gesten appeared as if Amberdrake had called him, and deftly stripped the man down and put out the oils. Amberdrake chose one scented with chamomile and infused with herbs that induced relaxation, then began with the mage's shoulders. With a Healer's hands, he sought out and released knots of tension—and, as always, the release of tension released information about the source of the tension.
"It's Winterhart," the man said with irritation. "She's started pulling away from me, and damned if I know why! I just don't understand her anymore, but I told her that if she wasn't willing to give me satisfaction, I could and damned well would go elsewhere for it."
Amberdrake surmised from the feelings associated with the woman's name that "Winterhart" was this fellow's lover—or at least, he thought she was. Odd, for that kind of name was usually worn by one of the Kaled'a'in, and yet he seldom saw Kaled'a'in associating intimately with those of other races.
"So why did you come here?" Amberdrake asked, prodding a little at the knot of tangled emotions as he prodded at the knotted muscles. "Why not someone—less expensive?"
The man grunted. "Because the whole army knows your name," he replied. "Everyone in our section will know I came here this afternoon and there won't be any question why."
Very tangled emotions, he mused. Because although the top layer was a desire to hurt by going publicly to a notorious—or famed, depending on your views—kestra'chern, underneath was a peculiar and twisted desire to flatter. As if by going only to the best and most expensive, he was trying to say to Winterhart that nothing but the best would remotely be a substitute for her.
And another layer—in doing so he equated her to a paid companion, thereby once again insulting her by counting her outside his personal, deeper emotional life. Still, there was that backhanded flattery. Amberdrake was not a bedmate for hire, he was a kestra'chern, a profession which was held in high regard by Urtho and most of the command-circle. Among the Kaled'a'in, he was the next thing to a Goddess-touched priest. The word itself had connotations of divine insight and soul healing, and of friendship. So, then, there was wishful thinking—or again, the desire to impress this "Winterhart," whoever she was.
There were more mysteries than answers no matter where he turned these days.
"You do know that what happens in this tent depends upon what I decide is best for you, don't you?" he asked, just to set the record straight. If all the man wanted was exhausting exercise, let him go elsewhere for it.
Amberdrake was massaging the man's feet, using pressure and heat to ease twinges all through the body, without resorting to any actual Healing powers. Amberdrake had detractors who thought he worked less because of his power to Heal flesh and soothe nerves. His predecessors had used purely physical, learned skills—like this massage—for generations, driven by sharp senses and a clear mind. In his role as kestra'chern, he used his Healing gifts only when more "conventional" skills were ineffective. Still, one did complement the other, and he would use the whole of his abilities if a client warranted it. So far, though, this merc hadn't warranted it; he hadn't even warranted the kind of services he would get from a perchi. This was still at the level of banter-and-pose.
"Well... urrgh... I'd heard that—" He said it as if he hadn't quite believed it.
"If you aren't satisfied with that, I can suggest the name of a perchi or two, accustomed to those of rank," Amberdrake ventured. There was no point in having the man angry; he was paying for expensive treatment, and if he felt he hadn't gotten his money's worth, he might attempt to make trouble.
"What you do... ah... isn't important now, is it?" the mage replied shrewdly. "It's what Winterhart thought you did. You are required to keep this confidential, that much I know, so I'll let her use her imagination. It'll probably be more colorful anyway."
Amberdrake was tempted at that point to send the man away. He was right; what he was planning was also very cruel to his lover.
Assuming she didn't deserve it; she might. He could have no way of knowing.
Amberdrake sighed. There was still his professional pride. He decided to give the man his money's worth—and to make certain that, as it progressed, as little of it as possible was what the client had anticipated.
Three
"I hope that's all for tonight, Gesten," Amberdrake said, as the curtain dropped behind him. He rubbed the side
of his nose with his knuckle and sighed. "I'm exhausted. That last client wanted a soft-hammer-massage and an argument. Roster indicated a gentle counseling session."
"That's all you've got for the night," Gesten replied, a bit smugly. "The last two made up for all the clients you canceled this morning, since they were straight-pay and not reward-chits. I'd have warned you if I'd known about the last. He didn't say anything about the hammers; I'd have had them warmed and ready for you if I'd known. He was pretty closemouthed."
"I'm not complaining. You'd probably have sent him elsewhere if he had said anything; I'm certain he would have made it into an insult somehow." Amberdrake didn't elaborate. The last two clients had been, to be charitable, annoying. And since Gesten always discreetly monitored the workroom, he was probably well aware of that. The hertasi simply laid out a clean sleeping robe, simple and unadorned (unlike the robes Amberdrake wore for his clients), and uncovered a plate of army-bread and cheese. Few delicacies appeared in the hands of Urtho's folk these days, even for those who could afford them; the ones Amberdrake got his hands on he reserved for his clients who often responded well to gustatory pampering. Rumor had it that Urtho himself had given up his favorite treats. One thing there was no shortage of, at least, was water. There was a hot bath waiting in the corner, steam rising invitingly from the frame-and-skin tub.
"Thank you, Gesten," he said with genuine appreciation.
Amberdrake stripped off his sweat-dampened silks and slipped into the bath, wincing a little at the heat. He was going to look as if he'd been boiled in a few minutes, but it would be worth it to relax his muscles. He recalled, as from a distant past, that before they had packed up their families and herds and moved here, the Kaled'a'in had created hot springs where they settled, if there were none there already. But much had changed; mage-created hot springs required an enormous expenditure of magical energy, and that was now a luxury no one could afford.
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