The Tally Master

by J. M. Ney-Grimm

  He hated himself. And he still wanted to hit someone, to batter some outer enemy to a pulp.

  The stink of the latrines halted him three steps above the clogged hole in the wall where he’d found two of his missing bronze ingots last night. The impetus to keep going throbbed like his pulse, but he forced himself to be rational. He needed to know if his trap had been sprung . . . or not.

  The stench rolled out as he opened the latched door. He swung it closed behind him reluctantly, shutting himself in with the smell. He couldn’t afford to let someone see him lingering in the stairwell while manipulating energea.

  Opening his inner sight took almost no concentration. Was the practice yesterday and today making him faster? There was an unwelcome thought, amongst all the other unwelcome thoughts. But it was obvious that his trap remained undisturbed. He would check it again later.

  Back out on the Cliff Stair, all his former fury descended afresh. He’d expected the hiatus brought by the discipline of observing energea might have yielded a lasting calm, but it did not. He’d set a trap for the troll who’d stolen his bronze, but Gael was the one who felt trapped. And enraged to be so. How dared life serve him up such wretched choices. To be a troll. To do evil to live. To be here. Gah!

  He gnashed his teeth, just as the brigenen of the First Cohort – the one who rumor said had started a gladiatorial ring, Dreben – hurtled down around the newel post.

  Dreben looked even more infuriated than Gael felt, his fists clenched and his jaw bunching. The brigenen was a little troll, shorter than Gael, but wiry and bandy-legged. His nose hooked down, like Gael’s, but more so. Lines bracketed his bright eyes. A brown leather cap secured by a chin strap framed his angry face. Matching leggings were tucked into his boots. His suede tunic was short and of a very dark red.

  The instant he perceived Gael, Dreben screeched, “You foul skunk! Hiding in the regenen’s skirts to keep chambers that should go to the magus!” and aimed a punch.

  Gael was ready for it. More than ready, he welcomed it, using the momentum of Dreben’s strike to drive his own fist home, once, twice, thrice. The ribs, the side, quick duck, the chin. He’d wanted to hit someone, and the meaty thunk of his blows connecting felt more than satisfying. Again! Again! And again!

  Dreben must have mistaken his opponent for the restrained and mannered troll that Gael ordinarily presented himself as, one who sat at a desk far more than anything else, because the first few moments went entirely Gael’s way.

  Once again! Twice. Thrice. Three more solid blows drove Dreben up a few steps and off balance.

  As Gael leaped to seize his momentary advantage, one of Carbraes’ messenger boys came rattling down from above, legs pumping as he descended, but face turned over his shoulder, calling an answer to someone out of sight and on high.

  Dreben’s foot went back and to the side as he struggled not to fall.

  The messenger’s leading shin caught abruptly on Dreben’s calf, and the boy plunged head first.

  Gael envisioned the sickening possibility of a fractured skull, a blood-spattered step, the blank, empty face of a dead boy, and his next act took no thought at all. He lunged for the boy, hands frantically grasping for something – anything – that would give him purchase and break the lad’s fall.

  His fingers tangled in the folds of the messenger’s caputum – loose across his chest like Keir’s – and Gael gripped. Hard.

  His momentum carried the boy up against the newel post, battering the messenger’s thin shoulders against the stone, but arresting his plummet downward.

  Dreben hesitated no more than Gael had hesitated to save the boy. The brigenen’s blows smote Gael from behind, punishing in their precision: left kidney, right kidney, tailbone.

  Gasping, Gael thrust the still teetering messenger upward and at an angle, allowing the boy to encircle the newel post with his arms, so that he would not topple when Gael let go. And then Gael pivoted, just in time to take Dreben’s next strikes on his ribs.

  The impact of the brigenen’s fists packed more power than his spare size should have permitted. Gael felt bruises blooming in his flesh, a sharp jabbing in his guts, and a choking blow to his throat. He stumbled, then fell, rolling down uncounted steps to a landing, where his hip thudded against the wall painfully.

  Before he could scramble to his feet, Dreben was on him again, seizing the neck of Gael’s tunic and hauling him up, then punching his gut brutally.

  Gael started to reach for his energea, and then stopped himself. Just as a secretarius was no match for a warrior, so a warrior would be no match for a magus. And Gael had foresworn those skills. The regenen might prevail upon him to revive them. But for himself, when solely his own fate hung in the balance? No. Never!

  A thunderous blow to his solar plexus deprived him of breath, and blackness crashed over him.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  The blackness roared in Gael’s ears like a blizzard’s winds or a storm at sea or a cataract plunging over the brink. He felt dizzy and disoriented. Everything hurt: his ribs, his chest, his neck, and most of all his gut. He couldn’t remember what had happened. Had he tumbled down a flight of steps? Been kicked by a cavalcade of mules? Been rolled over the rubble of boulders after falling in a river?

  Slowly, an unfamiliar troll’s face came into focus out of the darkness along with an anxious voice.

  “My lord? My lord Secretarius? How badly are you hurt?”

  “Get Keir,” Gael mumbled. “Keir.”

  And then he was descending into the roaring dark again, spiraling like a stairway in a tower or a vulture soaring down to a carcass. Or was he once again a small child – unafflicted – spinning on shorn grasses? As Gael sank, bewildered and aching, he wondered why he’d asked for Keir. Why not one of his older friends? Why not Barris? Or, even better, Arnoll? Arnoll, who had saved him. Arnoll, who had guided his early days in Belzetarn. Arnoll, who would never betray him.

  “Gael?” That was Keir’s voice, cool and assured. “Can you hear me, Gael?”

  He tried to nod, but wasn’t convinced that he managed it. But Keir was with him. That was good. He felt glad. Now that Keir was present, everything would be all right. Gael would be all right. Keir would do everything and anything that needed doing. Keir would do it well.

  Other voices – not Keir’s – muttered. Something about straightening the poles and smoothing the wrinkles out of the leather. They must have a litter nearby.

  “Medicus Piar said to move him carefully” someone said.

  Gael tried to speak, but no sound issued from his mouth. He tried again. “Not,” he managed.

  Someone’s hand touched Gael’s cheek, cool and soothing. Keir’s hand.

  “You need healing, Gael,” said Keir quietly.

  “Not,” croaked Gael, “th’ hospital.”

  Keir’s breath sighed softly. “Very well.”

  A moment later Gael heard his assistant at a distance. “Send to Medicus Piar to meet us in the Secretarius’ chambers over the tally room. Tell him to bring compresses, salves, and herbal infusions for congestion of the blood and thready pulse.”

  Then Keir was beside him again. “We must lift you, Gael. It will likely hurt.”

  Gael couldn’t imagine how his pains could worsen until they gripped his shoulders, legs, and feet, and hoisted. He thought he screamed, but the turbulent darkness swallowed him so quickly he couldn’t be sure. He seemed to hear a great, sonorous bell clanging, vibrating his bones with each stroke of its clapper. Were there hoarse yells between each resounding stroke? Or the deep, coughing snarls of ice tigers?

  A swirl of snowflakes spiraled out of the darkness, gleaming silver and flowing along a shallow arc. The ache in Gael’s gut subsided as another stream of glinting sparks joined the first, soothing his pains and silencing the clamorous chaos of the strange space that had devoured him.

  He became aware that he lay on his own sleeping couch, sheep skins cushioning his tired limbs, an her
bal scent rising around him, and warm, damp cloths sponging the tenderness away from his bruised flesh.

  Keir’s face swam into focus above him. The boy had tied a band around his head to keep his chin-length hair out of his face, emphasizing his graceful jawline and elegantly molded cheekbones. His gray eyes held a grave expression in their depths, but his lips turned up faintly.

  “Your bones are all whole and unbroken,” said Keir, “and the infusion of aliseta will help the surface bruising to heal.”

  That must be the source of that herbal smell, thought Gael.

  “Now I want you to swallow this tincture of Istrian pennywort,” said Keir.

  A shallow bowl with a narrow spout appeared within Gael’s limited field of vision. It tipped, and a thin stream of dark liquid pored onto Gael’s tongue, bitter, but laced with mint. As he swallowed, a comforting warmth spread through his belly.

  He’d been right. With Keir at his side, all would be well, Gael himself would be well, and everything that needed doing would be done.

  * * *

  Keir dipped the cloth in the pale green liquid, let a few drops fall back into the basin, and then gently stroked the infusion across the purpling flesh of Gael’s ribs. The bruises were mere surface hurts, but without attention they might fester. And she would spare Gael the long recovery time, in any case.

  She’d already tended his inner hurts, dangerous contusions to the liver and the spleen, relieving their congestion with a flow of energea and repairing their broken boundaries. Medicus Piar had arrived in the midst of her energetic curative. Assessing that she had it well in hand, he’d simply closed the inner casement shutters to dim the brightness of the noontide daylight, set out the tinctures and infusions she’d need after the energetic treatment, and observed her technique.

  “I could use you in my hospital,” he’d murmured before he left. Gael’s condition was stable by then, and Keir’s heart had quieted from its earlier panicked knocking.

  She’d never forget the horrible moment when she first saw Gael on that stairwell landing, a bloody huddle of garments, like a gull smashed against the rocks, a welter of bedraggled feathers amidst the scent of death.

  She’d leaped the last few steps in one bound and fallen on her knees beside him. Her relief, when she saw he still breathed, made her feel faint. But she initiated the rescue sequence of energea almost without thinking, exactly as she’d been trained by her pater, ignoring the burst of shocked chatter from the messenger boys who had fetched her.

  She’d nearly wept when Gael roused enough to speak. Why did she care so much? He was a troll. She hated trolls. Surely no troll deserved such loyalty. And yet she did care. She’d been relieved again when he repudiated the hospital. The physicians there were good, she knew. But the regenen discouraged them from using energea in their healing rites as frequently as she believed they should. She’d wanted to tend Gael herself. Which she had done.

  As she dipped her cloth again and moved on to the bruises on his throat, she realized his eyes were open and he was looking at her. His face held sense, in place of that dreadful bewilderment that had marked his first moments of returning consciousness. She blinked to prevent tears from escaping her own eyes. He was all right. He was himself. She needn’t fear for him any longer, thank Ionan!

  Was this how Pater had felt when he’d returned to her on that awful day? When she’d hooked the orca with her energea and been hooked by it in turn. Pater had been so long about his errand, whatever it was, that she’d wondered if he would return.

  She’d felt sick and dizzy, not herself, lying on the silky cold sand above the waterline of the cove, with the gray clouds hurrying overhead and the salt breeze blowing across her. She’d not been able to think clearly, had not understood what had happened. She only knew that something was grievously wrong. Had that been repudiation – repugnance – she’d seen in his face? Why had Pater left so abruptly? Where had he gone and why? When would he be back? Would he be back?

  And then he was back, seated beside her, scooping her into his lap and wrapping her in a blanket. Holding her close and weeping.

  “Pater,” she’d said. “Pater! What is it?”

  “Do you not know?” he asked.

  She shook her head. She hadn’t known, hadn’t understood, even then.

  “Your nodes are unanchored,” he’d told her. “You are afflicted.”

  Still she’d missed his meaning.

  He couldn’t bring himself to say it straight out. “You bear the mark of Gaelan,” he evaded.

  Then she understood, with a shock like the first breath after the wind had been knocked out of one. “I’m a troll,” she’d said, burying her face in Pater’s shoulder. She felt him sob.

  “What will I do?” she’d asked.

  “You must leave, make for the Hamish lands of old, to the west,” he’d answered.

  “But how?” She could not swim so far. No one could, save the fishes.

  “I’ve made provision,” he said. “Come.”

  But once they were standing – difficult for him with his peg leg, difficult for her in the aftermath of the truldemagar – he’d delayed.

  “I love you,” he said. “I’ll always love you. I’ll always remember you. I’ll always miss you. Never doubt me, in all the years to come.”

  Then he’d led her over the western headland to the broad beach of the harbor where the village lay at a distance along the sweeping curve of the shore. A small sailing boat awaited them, drawn up on the sands, its sails fully reefed. Several wicker hampers sat in the cockpit against the gunnels.

  “But this is Coinac’s Merrily Run,” she exclaimed.

  “Not anymore,” said Pater.

  “What can you mean?” she asked.

  “He’s made her over to me in exchange for certain concessions,” Pater answered.

  At last she comprehended that this was farewell, farewell to her pater, farewell to her home, farewell to everything she knew.

  “You know how to sail a boat,” Pater reminded her.

  Yes, she did, but she did not want to sail away from him.

  “Here, eat something first. That will help.” He rummaged in one of the hampers, bringing out a packet of smoked eel and feeding it to her, bite by bite. The rich taste of it on her tongue revived her. She’d been allowing Pater to direct her, to guide her. Only now did she recognize that he was right. She could not stay on Fiors, to be hounded into exile or killed when she refused to go.

  She hugged Pater one last time before checking the lines and rigging of the Merrily Run. Then she shoved the bow into the water, calm in the lea of the headland. Pater bade her climb aboard as he pushed the boat into deeper water. She obeyed, putting the rudder down and tightening the sheets.

  And then she was underway, sailing toward the harbor mouth and glancing over her shoulder to where Pater stood waist deep in the salt sea, tears on his face as he waved to her.

  * * *

  Gael lay comfortably in the aftermath of Keir’s healing treatments, a light thistlesilk blanket pulled to his chin, watching as the boy tidied various used cloths into a sack, the bottles of several tinctures onto a tray, and the remaining pale green fluid in the basin into a leather bottle.

  Someone had closed the inner shutters on the casements of his room, and the light was dim and soothing. Keir moved surely, but without hurry, between the tripod tables that he’d pressed into service. Gael felt relaxed, glad to be tended in his own chambers, not those of the hospital. Especially because the physicians there would likely have kept him overnight in their zeal. An unnecessary caution; he felt . . . not fine, but merely very stiff and very sore and very tired. There was no need for him to forego his interview with the magus, although he’d have to push himself to get it done. So be it: he’d push.

  Gael frowned.

  That had been his intent, had it not? When he’d been so furiously climbing the Cliff Stair?

  His frown deepened as he recalled the reason for his fury: t
he death of the Ghriana boy and his own part in it. It all seemed a little unreal now, but it wasn’t. He’d declared the boy unafflicted, Carbraes had pronounced his sentence, and the warriors had executed him. It had all been very ugly indeed.

  “Gael?” Keir had drawn near, no doubt misliking the disturbance he saw on his patient’s face. “Are you in pain again?”

  “No.” Gael had no intention of sharing the cause of his frown. He’d protected the boy from the worst of Belzetarn for two years, and he wasn’t about to falter now. He’d shove the memory under, just as he’d shoved other repulsive truths under, and go on. It was the only way to manage, living among trolls and contributing to the community as necessary.

  He might take that thought out and re-examine it . . . later. But not now. Not when he had stolen tin and forbidden enchantments to track down. When he had a cursed gong to subdue.

  “Do you remember why Dreben attacked you?” asked Keir.

  Gael started to shake his head, but stopped after the slightest twitch of his muscles escalated the ache in the flesh to throbbing agony. Evidently he felt merely sore and stiff and tired only so long as he lay perfectly still.

  But what had Keir said?

  “Dreben attacked me?” he asked.

  “You do not remember the fight?” said Keir.

  Gael probed his memory. He’d punched someone, he could remember that. It had felt . . . satisfying. Was it Dreben he’d hit? Yes, he rather thought so. Nasty, verminous thing that the brigenen was. And the brigenen had punched back. Much more effectively than had Gael. But it had still been worth it. Gael shifted on his sheepskin, provoking another blaze of agony. Maybe it hadn’t been worth it. He’d always avoided Dreben in the past. Why had he confronted him now? And how had he drummed up an excuse to hit him?

  Maybe the boot was on the other foot, and Dreben had manufactured an excuse to hit Gael. But he’d better answer Keir’s question.