Cordimancy

by Hardman, Daniel

  Toril gave a terse summary of what they knew of the kidnapped children, Gorumim and his soldiers, and the priest who’d gone to Sotalio to shame Rovin into providing backup. "The priest must have failed, though," he concluded, "if you haven't heard of men riding this way."

  Malena took another sip. She still felt oddly weak, but the nausea seemed less sharp now.

  Corim sighed and scratched his paunch thoughtfully. "The Guard's levying six hundred men from Two Forks alone. It's put the whole town into chaos. Troops are expecting to be gone till spring. The women have to figure out how they'll defend themselves in the meantime. Both blacksmiths in town are busy shoeing horses and sharpening swords; the apothecary's already sold most of his healing herbs. Everybody's running around like ants from a kicked-over hill. Sotalio's worse, no doubt—they're closer to the border, and they have fields to finish harvesting. I'll bet it's hard to get anyone's attention."

  "Maybe."

  Malena could hear the resignation in her husband's voice. After a moment he cleared his throat and spoke again. "I need money."

  Corim nodded. "Of course.” He stood and walked toward the curtain where the dog had emerged.

  “More than a small purse. Break out the strongbox, too.”

  Corim turned back toward them, his forehead wrinkled.

  “I can’t cart a raja’s ransom around with me, of course. But I want you to try to hire a posse.”

  Corim narrowed his eyes, then shrugged. He detoured to the front door, dropped a bar across it, then walked to the curtain and ducked out of sight. Malena heard clanking chain, the protest of a seldom-used lock, and the dragging of some furniture. In a few moments he returned, veins popping from his forehead, wheezing at the weight of the bronze-reinforced box he carried. He set it down with a thud and a muted tinkle.

  "You’re serious about this posse idea?” Corim asked. He fumbled with a ring at his belt, found the key he wanted, and popped it into the lock on the chest as he continued talking. “I suppose it's conceivable, if we don't advertise who they'll be attacking. But the best fighters are all conscripted already. I'm old and fat, and I'm probably the pick of what's left. Anyway, I'm not sure a posse would do you much good. You don't take on the Royal Guard with a rag-tag band of amateurs."

  The lock clicked; Corim lifted the lid.

  Malena blinked.

  She’d expected a modest mound of silver, maybe with a sprinkling of copper here and there, and a handful of gold crowns and half crowns. That was what her father’s treasure box had held, on the few occasions when he’d hauled it out of the vault and she’d caught a glimpse. Her father was the wealthiest man in Abizaro.

  This box was full to the brim, and it appeared to contain mostly gold. And Corim called it a “bit of coin”? He kept the bulk of the money somewhere else?

  No wonder he’d been straining as he carried it. The box probably weighed more than she did.

  “Put us down for fifty crowns,” Toril said. He pushed aside a leather satchel that he’d been carrying on his hip, and instead unfastened the belt strapped around his waist. It was twice as wide as a man’s wrist, and thick besides; now he began working smaller half-crown coins into slits in the back. As his fingers moved, he counted under his breath.

  Fifty crowns? A day’s wages for a professional soldier was one silver kina; eight kinas made a half crown. Toril was withdrawing a small fortune, not just fees for the shimsal. Wasn’t Corim the one who’d be hiring the posse, while she and Toril went to find out about parents and sister and whatever had happened to the priest in Sotalio?

  “On second thought, better make it a hundred,” Toril said, pursing his lips. “But that’s too much for me to carry by myself, especially if I break some into silvers. Besides, we don’t want to put all our money in one place. Do you have something Malena could carry as well?”

  She cleared her throat. “Couldn’t we just take enough for the shimsal, and come back for the rest later?”

  Toril shook his head. “Corim’s headed out to hire a posse as soon as we leave, and then we need to ride out to meet Gorumim. This might be our last chance to bank for a while.”

  “You’re worried about banking?” Malena sputtered, a note of hysteria coloring the disbelief in her voice. “What kind of a person thinks like that? Children are dying. My parents and sister are missing. The Royal Guard wants to kill us!”

  “We have no money for food,” Toril said, his voice barely audible but trembling with emotion. “No home. Little gear. No place to go. No clothes except what’s on our backs. No transportation except our own feet. Perhaps you thought we’d piggy-back the orphans, camp under the stars, and feed them moonbeams once they’re rescued?”

  Malena glared at her husband. Truthfully, she hadn’t been thinking about those problems—but why couldn’t he understand that they could be dealt with later, after they’d visited the Voice?

  As Toril counted, Corim had retrieved a ledger from his counter, flipped it open to a bookmarked page, dipped a quill in ink, and bent to jot a note. Now Malena saw him glance back and forth between her own tense features and those of her husband. He’d made no move to fetch a money belt or purse for Malena.

  “When this crisis is past,” Toril continued, his face flushed and his voice growing even softer, “did you think we’d trek to some snug, well provisioned retreat that I’m hiding in another corner of the mountains? Maybe winter there, then start rebuilding a proper home for a lady in the spring? I’m afraid there’s no such place, and no such plan. I have money in other places, but I may not be able to get to it if Rovin gets his way. These coins might be all we have to live from for months. Maybe longer. Are you so eager to be a pauper?”

  A dozen retorts leapt into Malena’s mind, but she bit them back with a toss of her head.

  “Fine!” she snapped. “But please, please, let’s hurry.”

  Corim sighed in relief. “Let me see what I can find for you,” he said, snapping the ledger shut and laying his apron aside. He scratched his chin. “A cloak, maybe?”

  “I don’t have time to sew coins into a hem.”

  “Course not,” Corim said. “But it’s one of the few pieces of women’s clothing I have. I think it already has a hem; a quick slit with a knife and you’re in business.” He opened a cupboard, pulled out a tidy square of folded wool, and pushed it across the table to her. “My sister left it here last time she came to visit. I’ll get her a replacement.”

  “Thank you,” Malena said. “Should we pay you for it?”

  Corim waved a refusal. “Save your money to spend on troops. Getting any men at all to ride out to confront Gorumim is going to be expensive, even if I promise they’ll be back before conscripts march tomorrow.”

  “You might not need men for a pitched battle,” Malena said. “And you might not need to pay anything.”

  Toril swiveled on the bench and raised his eyebrows.

  “This whole town is getting ready for an osipi attack,” Malena explained. “If you can convince a few men to go watch Gorumim’s party as it approaches, they’ll see that he’s traveling with the golden. That’ll raise their hackles.”

  “He’ll just repeat the same fiction as before,” Toril said. “He’ll claim he’s captured prisoners and is marching them to be debriefed and punished by the raja.”

  “Gorumim’s been stirring up hysteria; now I bet he finds that it’s harder to manage than he thinks. Besides, he won’t be able to explain the children,” Malena said.

  “The golden will see anybody we send, long before witnesses get close enough to be useful,” Toril said. “They’ll hide the children. And Gorumim’s riding straight here. He must have a plan of some sort.”

  “I don’t see how a big public panic will do anything but frustrate him,” Malena insisted.

  “Let’s try an ‘all of the above’ strategy,” Corim said. “I’ll see if I can convince a few men to ride out and see who’s coming down the road. And I’ll try to hire a posse, too.”
<
br />   “Fine. Meanwhile, we need to go talk to the Voice. Can we meet you back here in an hour?” asked Toril.

  “Half an hour?” interrupted Malena. “Gorumim’s not that far behind...”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Corim said. “But not that fast.”

  Malena scanned the man’s face for any sign that he’d misunderstood her urgency. When she saw none, she sighed. “Let’s go see the shimsal,” she said, tugging on Toril’s sleeve as she stood.

  The home of the Sisterhood in Two Forks was tree-high granite surrounded by a tall wall and a cobblestone courtyard. The guard at the gate passed them through with a dubious glance at their travel-worn appearance.

  “We have business with the shimsal,” Toril announced, when a woman in the rust-colored robes of an initiate opened the door at their knock.

  “Or any other Voice who’s available,” Malena added. “As long as she can communicate with Sotalio.”

  “You have means to pay?” the woman asked. “We speak for alms only in the first hour of the morning, and today is not a day for Sotalio anyway.”

  “We can pay,” Malena said firmly. “But we can’t wait. Is someone available?”

  The initiate waved them through the door and ushered them into a public foyer of sorts while she went to fetch someone more senior.

  “I need to send a message to my older sister,” Malena began, as soon as they were alone. “If there’s been any news about Tupa or my parents, she will know.”

  Toril nodded. “I agree. I need to speak with Rovin, and with the priest; maybe we can ask your sister to corroborate what we learn from the others, to be sure we get an accurate picture.”

  Malena motioned to a stack of vellum on a desk in the corner. “Do you suppose we should write out our messages now, while we wait?”

  Toril pursed his lips. “Not sure they’d appreciate that. What if the Voice needs to do the writing herself, because she’s a hand?”

  There didn’t seem to be much to say to that, so Malena paced back and forth, composing a message in her head. She was just preparing to break the silence again, after her second mental draft, when the door was flung open.

  A smooth-scalped shimsal stood in the doorway, flanked by four guards with swords. Her eyes swept the room, lingered briefly on Toril’s staff, and came to rest on Malena.

  “You!” exclaimed Toril.

  The shimsal smiled with sinister slowness. “That was my twin in Bakar, not me,” she said. “Although I saw and heard it all.”

  Malena's heart began to pound. Her mind raced. If this shimsal knew of the war council, then Gorumim had likely been here when it took place, proxied through this very Voice. They’d hoped to surprise the general by reaching Two Forks first—but he’d been here days ago. What plans had he laid? What friends had he gathered?

  Toril stepped in front of her and brought his staff to the ready. "Explain yourselves," he said.

  The shimsal snorted. "An explanation is not what you'll be getting from us. Or from General Gorumim, when he arrives." She gestured for the guards to enter the room. They fanned out inside the door and began edging forward.

  Malena responded to Toril's hand signal by backing into a corner. He followed, but stopped a pace farther forward, where he could swing the staff freely but the walls had converged enough to limit flanking by attackers.

  "I am Kelun's Clan Chief," Toril growled. "Arresting me without charges, without due process, is an insult and a provocation that you'd do well to avoid."

  "Is that so? Gorumim put you in a cell once before; who protested? And who would be upset this time—the same army who's ridden at your side through the wilderness? Or the priest that you imagined would be lighting a fire under Rovin?"

  Malena watched a small tic ripple along her husband’s jaw.

  The shimsal snickered. “I’m afraid he didn’t help your cause much. He called a meeting of the town elders, said you were the only leader of the clan with any integrity. He proposed that the sturdiest men in Sotalio ride out right away to your aid.”

  “And?”

  “And then three of Rovin’s lieutenants stepped forward, saying they’d seen him whispering with a handful of the yolk suckers at the edge of town at dawn. You can imagine the chaos that caused. I hear they almost lynched him.”

  Malena noticed that her hand now held a dagger. She didn’t remember drawing it. It was shaking, but she swallowed and tried to keep her voice steady. "We're just trying to rescue some children. Why should that make us enemies?"

  One of the approaching men lunged. Toril's staff swept around his sword tip in a blur and caught him in the shoulder, spinning him and dropping him to his knees. He grunted in pain.

  "So. You actually know how to use that thing," the shimsal said.

  "Try me.”

  “Why not just surrender? You’ll be treated well while we await Gorumim’s arrival.”

  Malena heard Toril puff out an indignant breath.

  “Don’t imagine you can accomplish anything by fighting,” the shimsal said. She raised a hand and beckoned around the door frame.

  A man with a crossbow stepped into view and saluted. His weapon was cocked. At a gesture, he knelt and drew a bead on Toril.

  “My instructions are to deliver you both, but in a pinch it doesn’t have to be alive. I assume that means he intends to execute you sooner or later, but on the off chance that he might let you live, I’m giving you the opportunity to surrender, just because I’ll sleep better tonight if I have. Don’t try my patience or my mercy further.”

  For a dozen heartbeats, the room was silent. The tension in Toril’s posture did not ease.

  Malena looked back and forth between the bowman’s face and the shimsal’s. When she saw a tightening of the woman’s eyes, she stepped forward and touched her husband on the shoulder.

  37

  a visitor in the dungeon ~ Malena

  Malena huddled on her heels, head down. Toril’s feet continued their steady scuffing. He’d crisscrossed the cell hundreds of times in the past hour, but he hadn’t spoken. The look on his face was equal parts despair and fury. Was he angry with her for caving to the shimsal? Surely they’d had no choice. It had kept them alive a little longer...

  Her stomach twisted. The nausea that she’d felt earlier was back in full force.

  She wondered what would happen when Gorumim arrived. Would he kill her with magic, as he’d tried to do when she lay on a deathbed in the ruins of Noemi? Maybe she would feel a vile external presence crowding into her body, as she’d sensed during the battle with the wolves. Maybe he would slit her throat and drink the lifeblood. Or maybe he would just kill her as fast as possible, and put her out of her misery.

  She wrapped trembling hands around her ankles and rocked.

  She had wanted to be dead, not many days ago…

  Would he kill Toril as well? Gorumim had tangled with him once before, and chosen to lock him up rather than have him executed—and the general had said it was to give him a chance to cooperate.

  She tried to imagine her husband, after she was gone, making peace with Gorumim, retreating with wounded pride and a vow to cooperate. Perhaps he’d find some other young bride who wasn’t damaged beyond all repair, who still had some part of herself to give... He could write off this whole sorry episode as a nightmare best forgotten.

  But she knew such thinking was madness. Even if he could swallow the death of the strange woman who’d been his wife in name only, these past few days, Toril would never back down about the children. She remembered the look on his face as he’d buried the little girl on the hillside above Noemi, and again when they’d found the quattroglyph...

  No.

  She was breathing now because he’d sacrificed his magic to save her life. It made no sense to her, and a part of her still resented it. She’d asked to be left alone. She’d died to him on the floor of the stable, and he’d thought he could bring her back. He still thought he could bring her back!

/>   He was wrong, but he was not about to change his mind now.

  No.

  He would not make any accommodation with the general.

  And the general would not offer, anyway.

  Had Shivi and Paka and Oji arrived in town, yet? And if so, had they walked into a trap like the one that captured her?

  She wondered what news might she have had of her parents, or of Tupa, if things had turned out differently with the Voice.

  Was Tupa among the children that even now approached this town? Did Tupa know that her captors intended her death, as surely as they planned that of her older sister?

  Toril stopped.

  Malena looked up, using both palms to rub the moisture out of her eyes.

  He was standing at the door to their cell, hands against the grate at eye level, staring.

  “What is it?” she asked. Her voice sounded hoarse.

  “Someone’s coming to see us, I think.”

  Malena’s pulse lurched.

  She unbent stiff legs and stood. She could hear keys jangling. Toril was stepping back. She raised eyebrows at him; he wrinkled his forehead.

  For the second time in as many hours, a door swung in from the outside, revealing the shimsal and some guards. The expression on the bald woman’s face was inscrutable. She did not lock eyes with either of her prisoners, but stepped into the cell with an air of confidence.

  “I need a private conference,” she said to the guards. She coughed as she spoke, and her voice sounded raspy. “Wait for us at the end of the hall.”

  The guards nodded, withdrew, and closed and locked the door.

  As soon as they were out of earshot, the shimsal turned to Malena.

  Except it was not the shimsal.

  The woman’s features seemed to melt and flicker. One moment she had the beginning of wrinkles above her cheekbones; the next, deep creases and age spots covered her jaw and forehead, and her eyebrows were peppered with gray. Her eyes shifted between a light hazel and deep umber. Iron hair seemed to sprout from her bald pate, then fade, then reassert itself.

  At first she appeared almost as tall as Malena, but within a few moments, she stood quite a bit shorter, with rounded, worn shoulders.