The Wounded Shadow

by Patrick W. Carr

  Elieve shook her head. “Red.”

  “No.” Mark shook his head and pointed to his tongue. “Red.” Then he pointed to the sea and sky again. “What color are they, Elieve?”

  She nodded confidently, her light-brown-eyed gaze dancing. “Red.”

  “No,” Mark huffed in exasperation. “They’re blue.” He pointed again. “Tell me the color.”

  “Red,” Elieve said, smiling.

  “No, no, no,” Mark said and pointed to his tongue again. “Red. See my tongue. It’s red. Now look at the sea and sky and tell me the color.”

  Laughing, Elieve put her hand to Mark’s face. “Red.”

  Mark slumped in defeat before turning to Pellin. “If you laugh with her, Eldest, you’ll just encourage her to do it again.”

  Pellin nodded. “Good. There’s little enough joy in the world, Mark. Allow her to experience as much of it as she can.”

  After nightfall and supper that evening, Mark took Elieve to their cabin and under Pellin’s discreetly watchful eye, he continued teaching Elieve how to bathe and dress herself, a situation made more difficult by the fact that Elieve’s rediscovered sense of humor had yet to be tempered by a sense of propriety.

  Making Mark blush seemed to be her favorite pastime, and the instruction on bathing and dressing offered innumerable opportunities. After another series of lessons in which Elieve managed to set Mark’s face aflame with her unselfconsciousness and playful attempts to undress him, Pellin intervened.

  “I think you should leave off teaching her how to bathe herself, lad.”

  “Eldest?”

  “Elieve is more than in love with you, Mark. The lessons on dressing and bathing are an opportunity for her to approach you in an intimate way.”

  “How can that be, Eldest? She still has the mind of a child.”

  “True,” Pellin nodded, “but her body and spirit are that of a young woman. Before Cesla took her and transformed her into an assassin, Elieve might have been anything, lad. She might have been a maid or a servant with a husband, or even a courtesan or night woman.”

  “You don’t trust me with her, Eldest?”

  Pellin laughed and shook his head. “Far from it, Mark. Given her playful advances, I’ve been meaning to ask you how you’ve managed to resist returning her affection.”

  Mark didn’t mirror his smile. In fact, he grew more somber. “Do you know about justice in the urchins, Eldest?”

  When Pellin shook his head, Mark turned, pacing the cabin. Elieve, dressed now after her bath watched him as she always did, her fingers combing through her wet hair. “Rory inherited the urchins after Ilroy died. Usually, when someone new takes over the urchins, they make changes to the rules, about how much we’re allowed to steal and who from.”

  “But one of the permanent codes we follow in the urchins is we never, ever, take advantage of another urchin.” He turned to face Pellin. “In any way. Would it surprise you to know that urchins will often marry each other as soon as they’ve gone through the change?”

  He shook his head. “So soon?”

  “Life on the streets is short, Eldest. Within the urchins, at fourteen or fifteen—I don’t really know which—I’m of marriageable age.” He looked at Elieve. “It seems Elieve is a year or two older than I am.”

  Pellin believed he already knew the answer to his next question, and he had no intention to tempt his apprentice, but certain facets of Mark’s character would have to be stronger than steel to survive being in the Vigil. “Why haven’t you returned her affection, lad? I’m old, but even at seven hundred years I can appreciate beauty, and Elieve has more than her fair share of it.”

  Mark shook his head, and something of anger showed in his eyes. “Right now she’s still a child, Eldest. Justice in the urchins is very swift. Any boy or girl caught taking advantage of an urchin whose mind is less than whole is killed. We usually throw them from a rooftop or push them under a passing carriage. The city watch doesn’t interfere. They’re not interested in investigating the death of a throwaway.”

  A weight settled in Pellin’s stomach at the thought of children meting out such punishment. “Harsh.”

  Mark shook his head. “Necessary. Most of the children in the urchins come to us as castoffs without the power to defend themselves or resist those who prey on them. Central to our code, Eldest, is that we will not do that to each other. However short life in the urchins may be, it is to be safe.” He shrugged. “Or as safe as we can make it.”

  Mark’s answer amazed him, and again he marveled at how such harsh conditions could create such a tempered character as Mark possessed. “She’s not an urchin,” Pellin pressed. “Her mind is that of a child, but her body and spirit obviously regard you as more than her teacher. Do you love her?”

  Mark laughed. “How can I not? I’ve spent every moment since I captured her taking care of her every need, but it’s more the love a parent has for their child.”

  “Do you think you might want her as your wife someday?” Pellin asked. “Marriage in the Vigil is exceedingly rare. We live too long.”

  Mark shrugged, the gravity of his expression belonging to an older man. “She may not want me as her husband. There are a lot of men in the world, and I am just a thief, after all.”

  “Hardly that, my boy,” Pellin said. “Hardly that.”

  Chapter 17

  Toria reined in her horse outside of Hylowold, a city half the size of Bunard that sat on the bend of the Sorrow River, where it looped to the east halfway between Cynestol and the Darkwater Forest. She dismounted and put her hands into the thick ruff of fur surrounding Wag’s neck.

  Mistress! Do we hunt?

  In a way. Keep close while in the city. We don’t wish to alert our prey.

  His tongue flopped out of the side of his mouth. I will keep close. He turned to push his muzzle against Toria’s neck, and she pushed back.

  When it became obvious that she meant to enter Hylowold with the sentinel in tow, Fess raised the expected objection. “Should we not skirt the city, Lady Deel?”

  “Perhaps,” she conceded, “but it is well after noon, and Hylowold offers the most immediate access to the west side of the Sorrow River.” Memories of her capture at Treflow driving her, she clenched her hands inside her gloves until she heard her knuckles pop.

  “Surely there are ferries that can be hired upstream,” Fess said.

  She pulled a pair of deep breaths and let them out in a protracted exhale until her heart calmed. “It is customary to scout the enemy before a battle, Fess.”

  “And you believe that our enemy is within the walls of Hylowold?”

  “Yes,” she said, “and in every other village and town within earshot of rumors about the forest.”

  “By that you mean everywhere.”

  “Yes. To fight, Cesla needs men. He has no forces of his own to draw upon, so he lures the unsuspecting to the forest.”

  He sighed, but she didn’t know whether it was in surrender or agreement.

  They crossed the main bridge west into the city proper and settled on an inn in the northwest quarter, where the majority of craftsmen and merchants kept their shops. The cost of the stablehand’s silence in allowing Wag to stay with their horses lightened her purse of a fair amount of silver. She would have to exchange the gold in it once they gained Treflow.

  Together, she and Fess stepped off the broad porch of the inn and into the bustle of the streets. “We have two hours until dark,” Fess observed. “Too little to search out the entire city.”

  “But more than enough to accomplish the pair of tasks I have in mind,” she said. “We need to make our way to Criers’ Square.”

  His brows rose. “They have one of those here in Aille?”

  She smiled around a soft laugh. “You’ve adapted so quickly to being a member of the Vigil and a guard,” she said with a small catch of grief in her voice, “that I often forget you haven’t traveled the continent. There is no Criers’ square in Cynestol
, or Vadras, for that matter. The Merum still hold nearly absolute sway in the southern part of the continent, but as we move north you will find all four orders represented—nominally, at any rate.” She rolled her shoulders. “I wish to see if the Clast still operates after Jorgen’s death. If we make haste, we will still make the afternoon reading of the office.”

  “You will leave any delving of them to me, Toria Deel,” Fess said.

  A flash of indignation, a spark of displeasure, flared and heated her face, but when she turned to correct his presumption, the planes of his face matched the steel in his voice, and she nodded stiffly. “Agreed.”

  “And what is our second task?” he asked.

  “A trip to the ironmongers,” she said. “Those who wish to mine the forest for gold will need tools.”

  They turned east to catch the main road through the city—a winding affair that paralleled the river—until they came to a juncture of the north-south road and the east-west road leading to the main bridge. A prominent cathedral boasting six sides filled the southwest corner, dwarfing the buildings of the Servants, Absold, and Vanguard that occupied the compass points opposite.

  “Modest,” Fess observed.

  Toria shrugged, and a fresh bead of sweat trickled down her back. “This is Aille. The Merum have been the dominant order in this country since the split with the One Church on the southern continent. Many in the order still see the Merum’s split into four parts as a temporary inconvenience.”

  They threaded their way through the crowd to the sound of bells coming from a tower attached to one of the Merum cathedral’s six walls. On cue, four robed clerics ascended their stands, prepared to offer their admonition or interpretation of the liturgy. Toria tapped Fess’s shoulder and pointed to a man dressed in the nondescript clothing of a lower craftsman, wearing an apron in which she spied awls and a light hammer, the tools of a cobbler. He stood near a none-too-steady pile of crates and pallets, eyeing the clerics beneath brows heavy with disdain.

  “There,” she said.

  Fess nodded. “I see him. What sort of cobbler wears his apron and tools into the street? I could lift everything except the hammer off of him in one pass.”

  He melted from her side before she could protest, threading his way through the crowd as the Merum priest mounted the steps to take his place behind his rostrum. “The first commandment is this,” he intoned in a clear tenor. “You shall not delve the deep places of the earth, for in the day you do, you shall surely die.”

  “The fool,” Toria whispered. “He couldn’t have devised a greater temptation to lure men to the forest if he had tried.”

  The crowd milled, clearly uncomfortable, many choosing that moment to look anywhere but at the speaker. Undeterred, he raised his voice. “And what does this mean to ‘delve the deep places of the earth’? What snare is Aer warning of?”

  Across the street, Fess approached the cobbler, pulling the boot from his left foot as he neared. Two men on either side of the cobbler, pretending to be disinterested onlookers moved toward Fess to intercept him, but he stumbled, twisting as he fell, and slipped through their grasp. She moved closer to hear, but she needn’t have bothered. Fess pitched his voice to carry.

  “Just the man I’m looking for,” Fess said as he tottered on one foot. “See this?” He waved the boot under the cobbler’s nose, as if the man might somehow fail to notice. Fess’s other hand gripped the top of the cobbler’s shoulder for balance. “Cursed thing is going to pinch my toes to porridge if I don’t get the leather stretched.”

  “Get off me, you stupid drunk,” the cobbler snarled. He moved to push Fess away but failed to get a firm hold on him.

  “Nonsense,” Fess said. He pivoted as one of the cobbler’s men attempted to grab him by the arm, “inadvertently” hitting the man in the chin with his elbow.

  “Sorry, my mistake.” Fess blinked at the man, then returned his attention to his original target. “Look at your tools, man. You’re a cobbler. Surely you can fix my boot.”

  “Get this fool off me,” the cobbler said with a furtive glance toward the Merum cleric. The crowd nearest him had ceased to listen to the office, choosing instead to observe the spectacle of an obviously drunken Fess trying to cajole the cobbler into fixing his boot.

  “How can we honor Aer if we do not keep the first commandment?” The priest’s voice rose to a shriek in a vain attempt to compete with the crowd’s laughter.

  The cobbler’s other guard came charging in, opting to tackle Fess.

  “Heavens!” Fess roared at the man. “I just want my boot fixed!”

  He shifted toward the cobbler, and the guard changed direction to follow. Too late, he realized his error. His momentum, too great to be checked, took him crashing into Fess and the cobbler. All three men went down in a pile of flailing limbs, shouted curses, and Fess’s cries.

  “Where’s my boot? My boot!” Fess thrust his left hand toward the heavens in appeal.

  The cleric, unable to compete with the spectacle being played out on the street and gutter before him, ceased his imprecations.

  The guards began to rain blows on Fess, who curled into a protective ball, his arms covering his face. Twice he managed to catch the guards with an elbow to the chin as he spun away from their fists. The sound of breaking teeth carried to Toria. Fess reached from his protective posture to retrieve his discarded boot and began to rain blows on the guards with the substantial heel.

  The guards, wobbly from their exertions and unexpected blows, chose to withdraw, dragging the cobbler with them. Fess waved his boot at their backs. “You lousy excuse for a cobbler! You still haven’t fixed my boot!”

  He turned away and with studied indifference, pulled his boot back on. He straightened in surprise, wiggling his foot. “Well, there’s a surprise, right enough.” Turning, he cupped his hands to his mouth. “My thanks, cobbler. Well done.”

  The crier for the Absold mounted her podium for the afternoon exhortation, but most of the crowd dispersed. Fess made a show of straightening his clothes and then sketched an unsteady path to return to Toria’s side. The smell of spirits arrived a moment before he did.

  “You smell like a distillery,” Toria said when they were out of earshot of others once more. “How did you manage it?”

  For an instant, genuine mirth might have danced behind his eyes before his grief quenched it. “It’s an idea the Mark and I picked up from the healers in Bunard. You wouldn’t see any of them on the streets without a bag of essential medicines and implements. In the same way we carry oddments we can use at need for a bluff.” He appeared to consider for a moment before continuing. “Though Mark seldom used his. A con should be planned well enough not to require gimmickry.”

  She put her gloved hand on his arm. “Regardless of the inspiration, that was masterfully done, Fess.”

  He continued to scan the street but reached up to grasp her hand in his. Something passed between them, and she took a moment to check the street before ducking into an alley. There in her hand lay a lump of blue-tinged gold.

  Toria shook her head. “How? I watched you the whole time.”

  By way of answer, he jerked and pointed at the entrance to the alley, but when Toria checked, only an empty expanse of street greeted her. “Ah, when you fell and put your other hand in the air.”

  His voice dropped. “We learned long ago in the urchins that men and women, no matter their station or breeding, are attuned to threats above all else. Everyone in the crowd followed the motion of my free hand, looking for danger. That’s all any man is, Lady Deel, a collection of fears and hatreds. Nothing more.” He turned to lead her back out onto the main thoroughfare.

  She walked beside him in silence. Whatever crisis of faith or belief he suffered, his reticence precluded her response. He turned right at the next intersection. In the distance, she heard the sounds of smithies, the dull impact of the hammer followed by the ping of ringing iron.

  The smell of spirits clung to him,
but his steps were deliberate. “There’s a smith in particular we wish to find, a man named Isenbend,” he said leaning close. “The cobbler held a memory of him close to the surface.”

  She put aside the deeper question of why he had delved the cobbler. “Did you see why?” she asked.

  “I touched him by accident,” he said, “and relieving him of his gold seemed the greater priority.” He stopped in front of a shed open on two sides, where a squad of shirtless young men worked the bellows while an older man, wearing a heavy leather apron spotted with soot and scars in equal measure called for more fire.

  “Here,” Fess said.

  They watched the smith as he peered into an egg-shaped vessel on his hearth, adding alloys with the care and precision of an alchemist. Satisfied, he tipped the vessel on its hinges until molten metal poured out, filling channels of dense green casting sand before filling the smith’s mold.

  Toria watched, working to exercise patience as the process continued. The ironmonger’s art had never interested her, but she knew better than to interrupt the smith at his work. Fess stood rapt at her side, almost entranced.

  “What do you see?” she murmured.

  “Something new.” Both the laughing youth and the stoic guard in his demeanor were absent now, stripped away as Fess watched the smith with singular intensity. “Look there.”

  Minutes passed and the glow of molten metal died, fading so that Toria could see the shape of the smith’s cast. Pickaxes. The smith waited until the red glow of the castings had faded, though shimmers of heat still rose from the sand. With a long-handled pair of tongs he pulled each of the tools free and set them on a heavy table covered with brick.

  When the smith showed no signs of doing anything further with the castings, Fess led her to a cooper’s stall across the street. The smell of oak filled the air, and barrels in various stages of production filled the aisles. “Isenbend and his work were uppermost in the cobbler’s mind. Have you ever seen a smith work that way before?”