Heroes at Odds

by Moira J. Moore

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I hedged. I probably did, but not because I was a Shield.

  The old man smiled. “Even now, you keep them.”

  If he wanted to believe I was discreet, that was fine with me. Discretion had always been a characteristic I admired.

  “Shield Mallorough, please leave us.”

  “You mean, go home?” Then this had been kind of a waste of time, hadn’t it? I could have slept in.

  “No, just stand away so we may talk.”

  Oh. “All right.” So I stood and walked until I couldn’t hear them. They seemed to trust that I had gone far enough, for I could see them discussing something with great animation.

  I supposed they were discussing whether I should be asked to join their group. They hadn’t bothered to canvas my opinion on the matter. That was arrogant of them, and I thought I might refuse to join for that reason. I already belonged to a fairly exclusive group. I had no need to join another.

  I didn’t even know if I wanted to work with them. They hadn’t shown me what they could do. I didn’t know if I could learn anything from them. And I wasn’t comfortable showing strangers what I had already discovered on my own. They might talk to others about it.

  But I stood there and waited. I could be wrong. They might want something else entirely, and I might as well find out.

  It was taking them a long time to come to their decision. The sun rose higher. I was glad Browne had insisted we drink the tea before we left her cottage. I was getting hungry.

  In time, I was called back to the circle, and I sat down with the others. I looked about the circle and saw some expressions of disapproval. None of them knew me. Of what could they disapprove?

  Of course, the reverse was true as well. They didn’t know me, so of what could they approve?

  “We may invite you to join our circle,” Mitloehner announced.

  He paused, and I gathered that I was expected to say something. “I am honored.” I wasn’t, but that was a safe, polite response.

  “Would you, if you became part of this circle, hold your loyalty to this circle above all others?”

  “Of course not.” My first duty was to my Source, my second to the Triple S. They had to know that.

  Berlusconi said, “Then you can’t join our circle.”

  “I see.” That was annoying, but not unexpected. “I understand.”

  My mild reply seemed to irritate them. “Why did you bring her here?” Berlusconi demanded of Browne.

  “Trudeau told me to,” Browne retorted.

  “A Shield would be a positive addition to our group,” said Mitloehner.

  “And it’s our duty to teach her,” Browne added.

  “Not if she doesn’t want to be taught,” Berlusconi insisted.

  “I don’t object to being taught,” I protested. “But I’m not going to make any oath of loyalty to this group. I have obligations that can’t be superseded by anything else.” And nothing they said was going to make me feel badly about that. They didn’t understand what it was to be a member of the Triple S. They couldn’t. Having a Source was different from having family or a regular work partner. Those could be left. It would take a dishonorable dog to do it, but they could. I could never leave my Source, and I neither could nor would place anything above him.

  “She needs appropriate instruction,” said Browne. “It’s our duty to make sure she doesn’t cause damage in her ignorance.”

  “Either she joins our group and shows this circle the honor it’s due,” said Berlusconi, “or she swears not to cast.”

  “I’m not going to do either,” I said. “You don’t seem to understand. I’m a Shield. I can’t let anyone have control over me. You wouldn’t like it if I could, because you aren’t the first person to try, and the first person who did was not a nice man.” Before I could decide against elaborating on that last statement, I realized they weren’t listening to me. Heads turned and when I followed their line of sight I saw six riders approaching at a gallop.

  Something was wrong. Obviously. But something about their charge struck me as odd. They seemed to be racing right toward us. Surely, if there were some sort of emergency, they would be heading toward the village or the manor.

  Unless they needed medical aid, and knew Browne would be there. Perhaps this circle wasn’t as secret as I had been led to believe. Perhaps it wasn’t a secret at all, and residents in the area were snickering at the self-important casters sneaking about in the predawn with their yellow robes.

  Ah well. It wasn’t as though I’d ever had any dignity.

  I stood as everyone else did.

  The riders were getting close. They weren’t slowing down. No greetings were called out by anyone. I looked around at the members of the circle. There were no expressions of recognition.

  I felt a trickle of alarm.

  Were they going to run us down? Should we scatter? Would moving be more dangerous?

  I didn’t know what to do. Neither did anyone else, from the looks of it.

  At what felt like the last moment, the riders veered off just slightly. They didn’t leave us, though. They rode around us, again and again. They said nothing. It was eerie.

  “Who are you?” Mitloehner demanded, his voice loud and commanding. It was, unfortunately, completely without effect.

  I noticed the riders reaching into their purses. That couldn’t be good.

  Pulling their hands from their purses, they threw fistfuls of something at us. I couldn’t see it, but something landed against my cheek. It felt like coarse sand, except when I rubbed my cheek, the sand didn’t come off. Then the riders began to shout in unison. I couldn’t quite understand what they were saying, but I heard the word “slumber,” and a couple of other words that rhymed. I felt the strange buzzing sensation that meant a spell was being cast. At us. I had no idea what to do.

  They were casters, but no one those in the circle recognized. So who were these people? Where had they come from?

  I was suddenly dizzy, the ground spinning around me. It was hard to stay balanced, hard to stand. I had to take a step or two to stay upright. What the hell?

  I couldn’t see anything; my surroundings were moving too quickly.

  Damn it, I was getting nauseous. I closed my eyes, but that only made the ground spin faster and harder. I was forced to open them again.

  I watched the ground tilt and slide and wheel about. It hurt my eyes. A roaring filled my ears and I couldn’t smell anything. I collapsed without really feeling it, I was so involved in what was going on in my head.

  Then everything went black.

  When I could open my eyes again, the sun was considerably higher in the sky and I felt awful, the area behind my eyes tight with pain, nausea clenching in my throat and coiling in my stomach.

  Everyone else was stretched out on the ground, too, and all of them were just beginning to rouse.

  And then I saw the knives planted in the ground, blade down, in front of every member of the circle, including me. The knives were perfectly straight, leading me to believe that they hadn’t been thrown, but that the riders had gotten off their horses and walked around us, thrusting the knives into the ground.

  The riders had been walking around us while we were helpless. They could have done anything to us.

  Which was the message they were attempting to convey, I supposed.

  The riders were nowhere to be seen.

  “What was the point of all that?” one of the young men, introduced as Groom Jonat Miyoung, asked. “What were they trying to do?”

  “Scare us,” Mitloehner answered.

  “Scare us from what?”

  “That might be something we have to discover.”

  “None of you recognized any of them?” I asked.

  Everyone shook their head or muttered no.

  “So you’ve got strangers who know about your circle.”

  Some nodded grimly, some looked surprised.

  “Shield Mallorough,” Mitlo
ehner said stiffly. “Did you talk to anyone about our circle?”

  “You just said I exercised discretion,” I reminded him.

  “That’s not a no.”

  “No.”

  “Not even to your Source?”

  “Not even to my Source.” My own answer surprised me. I hadn’t even thought of telling Taro. And now he had no idea where I was. That was not only stupid, but thoughtless. I hadn’t expected to be gone so long. He might be worried.

  “Have any of you been speaking to people you shouldn’t?” Mitloehner asked in a manner guaranteed to put everyone on the defensive.

  And it did. “You have no need to be an insulting ass,” one woman snapped, while one man gasped, “How dare you accuse us of this? We know how important secrecy is. Just as much as you.”

  “Shut up, everyone!” Browne shouted. “It was obviously Olson Hopkins, Matt India and Cowell Woodcock. The Kent casters,” she informed me in an aside.

  “I can’t believe any of them would contribute to anything like this,” said a very young woman, barely past adolescence. “They’re good people. Olson was hilarious.”

  Not that I was qualified to judge any of the Kent casters—I hadn’t met any of them—but it was possible to be both funny and a bastard.

  “I’m not saying they knew about this,” said Browne. “But it’s possible, and likely, that they told Kent about us.”

  “So what if they did?” a woman asked. “Are you claiming Kent sent these people out to do this to us? Why would he?”

  No one answered. I had no doubt they all knew Kent wanted the Westsea estate, but couldn’t understand why he would choose to order a relatively harmless attack. What would that accomplish?

  A warning to Fiona that no one under her authority was safe, not even casters? A warning purely for the casters, that they shouldn’t—I didn’t know what—that they shouldn’t interfere in Kent’s plans?

  That would depend on what his plans were.

  I was tempted to stomp over to Kent to demand what he thought he was doing, which was a stupid idea. He wouldn’t tell me.

  My headache was preventing me from thinking clearly.

  “We need to tell Her Grace,” said Browne.

  “About the attack?”

  “About everything.”

  “About the circle?”

  “She doesn’t know?” I demanded incredulously.

  “We thought it best that she didn’t,” Browne told me. “We don’t want news of our work to become common knowledge. It might create unfortunate complications.”

  Like the fact that everyone would want to know what they were doing. The people of Westsea had already demonstrated their willingness to shield their spell casters from the persecution of outsiders, but maybe the idea of a group of casters working together would appear more sinister to them. If Fiona didn’t know about the casters, she couldn’t be accused of harboring dangerous people.

  On the other hand, if Fiona didn’t know something odd was happening on her land, right under her nose, it might be seen as further evidence that she was incompetent.

  “We have no proof that Kent had anything to do with this,” Mitloehner objected.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Browne responded. “Someone knows about us. Strangers. And they used a cast I’ve never seen or even read about before. They came on this land and attacked us. Her Grace has to be told.”

  I agreed. It was only sensible.

  “This is something we must decide as a group,” Mitloehner announced. “Shield Mallorough, will you be bound by the resolution of this group?”

  “I will.” I supposed. I thought they’d be idiotic if they didn’t tell Fiona, but maybe they really didn’t know just how accepting of spell casters she was.

  And if they did decide to reveal themselves to Fiona, Fiona might decide to tell them about the spell on the dead fish. The circle might be able to determine the exact nature of the spell, maybe even who cast it.

  Though I was becoming convinced that Kent was behind it all. If the riders were under his direction, he had people who knew spells Browne’s circle did not. These people might have been working on such spells for weeks or months or longer, which meant Browne’s casters were suffering from a severe disadvantage.

  “Then please leave us. Healer Browne will contact you with our decision.”

  I nodded and got to my feet. “It was a pleasure meeting you,” I lied, because, really, I felt awful. And I hated walking when I was nauseous. The constant threat of vomiting was just nasty.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was late afternoon. I couldn’t believe we’d all spent so much time sleeping. And that no one from Snow’s family had come looking for us. Or maybe he hadn’t any family. But how could a man run a farm without family and without workers?

  Maybe Taro hadn’t started worrying about me. It wasn’t as though I never went off on my own without telling him, or that he didn’t do the same. I was tempted to try hunting him down, but it would get ridiculous, both of us going from place to place looking for each other. So I told Bailey I was back and that I would be in my suite.

  I was desperate for a bath, and anxious to look through Fiona’s books for a spell resembling the one used on the casters’ circle. A spell that could put almost twenty people to sleep that quickly for that long scared the hell out of me.

  The walk to the manor had given me enough time to change my mind about complying with the circle’s decision about whether to tell Fiona about the attack. I was thinking that it was too stupid not to tell Fiona of that kind of weapon, and I’d have to go against the wishes of the circle if they chose to keep Fiona in the dark. To do otherwise would be irresponsible.

  My mother was in our suite, in the sitting room, sipping tea and reading a novel. She put it aside as I entered. “Where have you been?”

  I had been gone for hours without telling anyone where I was. It was expected that someone would want to know where I had been. Yet I was annoyed to be asked by my mother. How illogical was that? “I was visiting with a friend.”

  “Which friend?”

  “Healer Nab Browne.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “No, not at all.”

  Her gaze was noticeable as it dropped down to my stomach, and I resisted the urge to place my hand over it. I knew exactly what she suspected.

  And I did not want to discuss anything even approaching pregnancy with my mother. I wouldn’t even if I actually were pregnant. I would expect her to keep her mouth shut until I presented her with the infant. “I didn’t need her in a professional capacity. She’s a friend.”

  Mother sighed. “You went on a social call dressed like that?”

  Lords. “It’s a bit of a walk, Mother. Perhaps you need to recognize that I am a very practical person and leave it at that.”

  Not that I really expected her to do so. I just had to try.

  To my surprise, my mother didn’t chastise me. “Could you sit down? There are a few things I wish to discuss.”

  On the other hand, maybe I’d prefer that she continue to harangue me about my clothes. It was probably one of the least irksome subjects of the ones she might choose to inflict on me. I sat and waited for what I expected to be an uncomfortable conversation.

  “I’ve heard things,” she said. “Things about you and Shintaro.”

  I had no doubt she had, being the mother of Lord Shintaro Karish’s Shield. Possibly people were speaking of how well we performed our duties, but I was sure there were also less complimentary stories about us as well. “I see.”

  “I’d dismissed a lot of them, people can believe the most ridiculous things, but then I come here and see that you and Shintaro—that you—well—”

  Were sleeping together. I really didn’t need her to go any further. “I understand,” I said quickly.

  She nodded gratefully. “I had no idea until I was told by mere acquaintances, instead of you. That disturbs me.”

  It was true. I hadn’t
written to them about the change in the relationship between Taro and me. But how was I supposed to do that? Mother, Father, your little girl is sleeping with her Source. Isn’t that grand?

  “And there is that year you won’t tell us anything about.”

  I said nothing. I wasn’t going to get into that discussion.

  “It makes me wonder what else you’re not telling me.”

  What was I supposed to do, tell them every single thing that happened to me? They had no idea how long that would take. And it would make them worry, needlessly.

  While it would have been nice to get their advice regarding Fines and his crazy group, there hadn’t been time for a letter to reach them and for an answer to get back to me during the course of my association with them. That really was the issue. By the time any news reached them, the events would have been over. They would have been concerned for no reason.

  “It makes me feel that all of those rumors I’ve heard about you might possibly be true,” she continued.

  “Despite knowing me.”

  “But I don’t know you that well, do I?”

  That wasn’t entirely inaccurate. “So what are these rumors?” I could just imagine, and I didn’t want to hear, but I supposed I must. “Perhaps I can put your mind at ease.” Though a petty part of me didn’t want to bother, wanted to just let her believe whatever she believed, if she were that way inclined.

  “They really aren’t fit for polite company.”

  Oh, aye, this sounded wonderful. “We’re not company. We’re family.” Why was I pushing this so hard? It wasn’t as though I would enjoy hearing any of this.

  My mother took a deep breath. “There are stories about Shintaro leading you into drinking excessively and using medicines that create hallucinations.”

  All right. Not wonderful, not something I wanted my parents to hear, but not nearly as bad as I had thought. “I rarely drink to excess.” I couldn’t claim to have never gotten drunk. I hadn’t really put any limits on myself when I was off duty in High Scape. “And I have never used hallucinogenic medication.” That stuff could do permanent damage to a person’s mind. I’d be useless as a Shield, which would mean that Taro would be useless as a Source.