Rani could not gainsay him; she knew that the others were accustomed to his strange comings and goings. Far more accustomed than she had ever become, in any case. She looked away, suddenly fascinated by the hem of her sleeve.
She should not have let Tovin speak for the Morenians back in King Hamid’s reception hall. She should have figured out some other way to escape. She should have worked out some other solution, found some path that did not include debt to Tovin.
For this way was simply too hard. She longed to tell him all that he had done wrong, all the ways that he had hurt her, and yet she feared to hear his bill of woes filed against her. She knew that he could manipulate her; she had given him license to do so many times in the past. She knew that he could make her feel guilt, and pity, and responsibility.…
As Rani took a steadying breath, Tovin accepted two tankards of ale from a serving girl, and he ordered a plate of roasted capon. Rani drank deeply as soon as he placed her cup on the table. She had not realized the thirst she’d built as she was hauled before the king. Tovin waited until she had finished, and then he passed her his own cup, offering it with a crooked smile. She dispensed with politeness and swallowed half of it as well.
“Tovin,” she said, fortified enough that she could meet his eyes. “I’ve missed you.”
“You say that now. I doubt that you took the time to notice your feelings while you were still in the north.”
“How can you say that? You know that I did not want you to leave.”
“I know that you wanted me to stay. And you wanted to be alone. You wanted to pursue your guildwork and your courtly life. You wanted to keep me as some sort of hound, a devoted beast who would stay beside you until you sent him to the kennels.”
“Or the mews,” she said, without thinking first. Tovin was no dog, no devoted, slavish follower. Rather, he was a falcon, a scarce-tamed raptor who would flee from her if she gave him half a chance. Who had fled from her.…
She caught her breath, aware that her words might be construed as an insult, knowing that she now owed him, no matter what she might otherwise have wished.
“Or the mews,” he repeated, and he grinned. Her body responded to that open smile. She relaxed and leaned toward him, as if she would harvest more of his good nature. He sighed and said, “Shall we dispense with tales, my merchant girl? You say that you miss me, and yet you never sought me out. I say that no one in Morenia mourns my absence, and yet I’ve avoided sending messages to my mother, to my troop, to my sponsor. Peace?”
She wanted to argue. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that he was selfish, that he was stubborn and foolish and vain. Instead, she nodded. “Peace,” she said, but she had to lick her lips and repeat the word so that he could hear her.
“So,” he said, his voice full of brio. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing in Sarmonia?”
“Not here. Not now.”
“But the stories are true? Halaravilli is a hunted man?”
He phrased the question in the abstract, as if the subject of the question was not sitting a dozen paces away. Her face flushed, and she could not say if it was from the lie they presented to the tavern patrons, or the fire beside her, or the rush of ale to her head. “Aye. He’s hunted. Rumor says that he’s fled Moren. That he’s hoping to regroup where it’s safe. Once he’s had a chance to plot a course, he hopes to find allies.”
Tovin nodded, as if she were discussing the unseasonably warm weather. “He’ll do well to avoid Sarmonia, then. No allies to be had here. King Hamid has loyalties no Morenian will ever understand, between the electorate and the landed men.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Rani asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. “The landed men?”
Tovin shrugged. “Here in Sarmonia, each man who owns ten hectares is allowed to cast a vote. He names an elector, a sort of regional liege lord. The elector takes his region’s concerns to the king. When an old king dies, the electors gather together and choose the successor.”
“How secure is the king, then, if he has to answer to all these men?”
“An elector can call for a vote at any time. But if he calls too often, or if the challenge goes against him, then he’s not likely to stay elector for long.”
Rani nodded, trying to make sense of the strange pattern. Electors to keep fulfilled. Landed men to satisfy. A king who ruled at their pleasure, with the goal of keeping them happy, but advancing himself as well. A king who already traded with Liantine, who already embraced a player’s troop from that distant land.
And, spinning out from the tangled web were strands that Rani could not even see. “The Fellowship?” She risked the open question, more desperate for information than for perfect safety. “Have you made contact with them here?”
“They haven’t sought me out, and I haven’t identified any members. I’m almost certain that Hamid is not one. They’ll be in among the electors, though, and the landed men. The servants too, in the palace, and merchants.”
Rani did not want to ask her next question; she was afraid of the response. Nevertheless, she had to know what she was up against; she had to know just what she was fighting in Sarmonia. “And Crestman? Is he here?” Tovin eyed her steadily, and she knew that he was countering her question with one of his own. She had told Tovin too much over the years, shared with him as her lover, shared with him in the Speaking. She forced her voice to level before she added, “I ask for my liege lord, Tovin. Not for myself. Crestman has tracked us down before, and he’s the greatest danger we are like to find.”
Crestman had been responsible for the kidnaping of Mair’s son. He had ordered Rani to kill Queen Mareka or risk her own life in exchange. He hated Rani with a passion as great as he had once loved her, and he used the Fellowship to further his own bitter goal of revenge.
Tovin paused before saying, “I have not seen him or heard tale of him. He’ll likely be keeping quiet, though. He’s too easy to spot, too easy to describe. If he even still lives. From all you’ve said, his injuries were great enough that he might have died since Brianta.”
“Oh, no,” Rani said. “He still lives. He’s too bitter to die.”
Tovin might have replied to that, but the serving girl arrived with their food, setting a trencher on the table between them. Rani had not realized how hungry she was until she felt the bones beneath her fingers; the first bite of well-cooked meat made her head swim. Tovin grinned and pushed the bird closer to her. “Eat,” he said as she started to protest, started to offer up some semblance of polite hesitation. “After all, it’s your coin that’s paying for my meal. You’re my sponsor, Varna Tinker, and I expect to get my due from you.”
Rani looked across the room at Hal, saw him watching her from amid his covert guard. She wondered who expected what from whom, who owed precisely what to whom. She wondered what aid Sarmonia could possibly bring to them, and if she had the strength to assist her king. She wondered if she could make full peace with the player across from her, and if she could bring the pattern of their lives back into balance. She wondered what the future held.
Nevertheless, she set aside her questions. She set aside her questions and her fears and her worries. And she ate.
Chapter 5
Kella watched Tovin Player stride into the woods, carrying himself with complete confidence. She expected nothing less of him; in the months since he had first come to her cottage, he had never admitted being wrong about anything.
Kella smiled. Well, in reality he wasn’t wrong about much. She was willing to grant him that. How much of his success was due to his easy smile, and how much was due to his striving to be at the correct place at the correct time, well, she wasn’t going to speculate on that. Not now. Not when she had her own business to tend to.
Glancing at the edge of the clearing, she saw that the day was getting on. She stepped back into the hut, expecting handsels to arrive shortly. No reason not to get some of her own work done before they came, though. No rea
son to let these travelers criss-crossing her forest leave her behind in her herb work.
Kella lifted down her medium-sized cauldron and began to count out the herbs that she needed to boil for her strongest liniment. She measured out handfuls of mint–the cooling scent would bring relief to anyone who paid. Then, she added a healthy dose of fireleaf; its peppery heat would draw out a variety of injuries. She included a thimble’s worth of ground nettle, because the irritant would work wonders on sore muscles. Grumbling to herself, she realized that the last herbs she needed, the very binding elements to the working, sat in the back corner of her loft.
She grunted as she pulled herself to her feet. She might benefit from the concoction herself once she had finished boiling it down. She grimaced at the slow ache in her thighs. Those muscles might have gone untested for years, but Tovin Player’s games forced her to push her body. She smiled and shook her head, closing her eyes as she remembered the words that he had whispered during the night. A young man’s words.… A foolish boy’s words.…
She heard the blow an instant before she felt it. An arm moved through the air, creating its own wind. If she had still been a young woman, she could have pivoted on her knee, could have ducked away from her assailant. Now, she had only an instant to brace herself against the certain pain.
And there was pain. The blow came from a cupped hand, slammed hard against the side of her head. For an instant, she could only blink her eyes, stunned, and then she heard the echoes in her ear, the muffled rumble of thunder made distant by the blow. Tears sparked down her cheeks without waiting for her permission, and she bellowed a curse that would have made her mother blush.
She turned to confront her assailant, stretching sideways so that she could grasp the poker that nestled on the edge of her fire. He–it must be a man, given the force of that blow–he predicted her movement and cut her off, knocked her to the ground and placed one booted foot on top of her wrist.
She did not doubt that he could follow through on his threat, lowering his weight and grinding all her small bones to dust. Her imagination flashed on the pain, on the stunning agony. More than the pain, though, would be the loss of her hand. How could she brew her potions? How could she harvest her herbs? She might know more herb lore than any of her Sisters, but even she did not know enough to regenerate a ruined hand.
She splayed her fingers on the hearth, pressing her palm against the stone. I’m no threat, she thought. I’ll not hurt you. Leave me be. I’m no threat.
The invader’s breath was harsh in the small cabin. It caught in his throat, as if he were arguing with himself. She suspected that he had not exerted himself over much; she sensed the strength that trembled in the foot poised above her wrist. Rather, his breath caught on the excitement of the chase.
How long had he watched her? How long had he waited for Tovin Player to leave? Had he heard them chatting by the fire when the sun rose? Had he heard the player’s gentle words as he lured her back to the pallet for one more toss before the day began? Had he heard the player’s attempts to charm her into Speaking, heard her remonstrations, her throaty laugh as she distracted the traveling man?
“What?” she grunted. “What do you want?”
He lowered his boot, putting weight onto his foot. The nerves in her hand protested, squeaking against the pressure, and she longed to buck up, to throw off this domineering ox. She had done that once before–fought off a man who was determined to harm her, to mock her and ridicule her after she had foolishly agreed to let him stay for the winter.
Kella had had her revenge against that one. She had mixed ladyleaf in his stew, in his bread, over the grilled meats that she had prepared through the long winter’s quiet. He had been suspicious, of course; he had made her eat before he would taste anything that she prepared. The herb had done nothing for her, nothing but make her hair shine a bit brighter in the daylight.
Ladyleaf was less kind to men, though. The last time that she had seen him, he had worn a loose jerkin, trying to hide the soft breasts that he had grown. All his clothes were loose, in fact; his breeches hung empty at his crotch, for his stones had shriveled with every bite he swallowed.
Revenge. Kella might have it, if she lived long enough. If she found what her intruder wanted. She tried again. “I’ll give you what you need. Take it, it’s yours. My summer harvest is nearly done.”
“I don’t need your weeds, old woman.”
She knew the voice. The horseman who had come to her before, the soldier who had offered money to learn Jalina’s whereabouts. She contemplated pretending not to know him, but she decided she’d gain more by admitting the truth. “You know that I barter more than weeds, soldier. I trade information as well.”
For the first time, he eased the pressure on her hand. The release let blood surge into her fingertips, and she gritted her teeth to keep from crying out as pain flowed too. How long would her fingers ache? How many potions would this cursed man keep her from brewing? She began to grow angry.
His gruff voice cut across her emotion. “Information? Who says that’s what I need?”
“Why else would you come back here?”
He grunted, as if accepting the fact that she had placed him, that she knew his identity. “Well enough. Are you ready to tell me what you know? Are you ready to answer the questions you couldn’t bother with before?”
“Get off my hand.” She placed all of her authority into the command, summoning up all the strength of her mother, and all the mothers who had lived before her. They had faced challenges, all of them. They had confronted deranged men in the woods. They had stood fast against invaders who had threatened their lives, their chastity, the safety of their herbs. “Get off, or I’ll tell you nothing.”
Apparently angered by her stubbornness, the soldier grabbed her hair. He pulled her head back against his chest, using the motion to raise his other hand. The knife that he held against her throat was very sharp, and she forced herself to breathe shallowly.
She was not a fool. She knew that one word from her, any word, would shatter his balance. Anything she said would push him over the crumbling edge of his rage. She wondered if tears would appease him, if he would be softened by a sobbing old woman. Something about him warned that tears were not the right approach, though. He had surely bullied other old women. He had confronted them somewhere far in his past, somewhere in the darkness that had shaped his twisted soul.
His twisted soul, and his twisted body. She remembered the tortured way that he had pulled himself onto his saddle after his first visit. His right leg was withered. His right leg, and his right forearm, the hand that held the knife.
Kella could hear her mother’s cool tones, calm and quiet, speaking years ago in their peaceful cottage. “Some day a man might come here. A man who is bigger than you, stronger than you. A man who wants nothing of your herbs. There are ways to defend yourself, though. There are ways to keep yourself safe.”
And Kella remembered how her mother had taught her to turn her head into the angle of a captor’s arm, to duck her chin toward his elbow. Her mother had said to stomp on the inside of his foot, on the stretched flesh of the arch. Her mother had said to put all her energy into one attempt, one exploding effort to be free.
Breathing a grateful prayer to the memory of her mother, Kella twisted her head and ducked her chin, lifting her right foot to pound her captor’s arch. She ignored the rip of her hair, ignored the pounding of her heart, ignored the fear that suddenly threatened to fill her throat, her lungs, her soul.
The soldier swore and let her go, stumbling as his weak leg crumpled under her onslaught. Kella leaped for the door, slamming her hand against the iron latch. She tore the door open, gasping to fill her lungs with clean, cool air. She managed one step, then another, and she hitched up her skirts to run down the path toward the Great Clearing.
And then he fell upon her. His full weight slammed against her back, toppled her forward. His good forearm pressed against the nape of her
neck, forcing her chin into the ground. His knee planted in her kidney, sending explosions of white light behind her closed eyes. “Tell me, witch! Tell me where she is! Tell me where Mareka hides!”
Mareka. That must be the true name of the handsel he had already asked her about, Jalina’s true name. Kella had paused too long to translate, though. The soldier’s knife pricked at her neck, and she knew that his blade was poised to plunge into her skull. “I do not know!” she gasped. “I would tell you if I could, but I do not know! I swear on my mother’s books of herb-lore, I do not know where she hides!” His muscles tensed, and she knew that he was ready to move the dagger, to force it past her flesh, through her bones, into the meat of her brain. “I will help you, though!”
He paused. She continued in a quieter voice. “I will help you. She trusts me. She comes to me often. I’ll find out where she lives. I’ll find out for you. I’ll tell you, and you can find her.” With each phrase, Kella felt the soldier relax a little more. She babbled words, spilling out reassurances as if she spoke to a fussy infant. “Her babe is young. He came early. He’s weak. He needs herbs early, often. She’ll come for them. I’ve helped her. She’ll come to me.” The knife whispered back; only the point nudged her neck. “I’ll help you. You’ll get her. You needn’t worry any more.”
He removed the knife, but he fumbled at his waist, and it took her a moment to realize that he was collecting a length of rough rope. He pulled her arms behind her, lashing her wrists so tightly that she bit her tongue to keep from crying out. When he was through, he climbed to his feet, standing over her and panting like a well-run dog.
“You’ll help me,” he said.
“Aye.” She swallowed hard, trying to slow her racing heart. “As soon as she comes back to me.”
“You’ll find out where she hides, and you’ll tell me.”
“Aye.”
“And you’ll tell no one else.”
“No one.” She was promising to break the handsel, to break the sacred contract that bound her to one who had sought her for herb lore. The Sisters brooked no dissent on that–she must protect those who came to her for cures. That was the way that witches secured their future, guaranteed their value to new generations of seekers.
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