by Greg Keyes
He pretended, as Vaseto suggested, to examine the wares of merchants and the cargo being unloaded from ships, but his attention drifted always to the ships themselves, and his desire to have one beneath his feet again. He hadn’t felt the sea road under him since arriving at Eslen with Sir Fail. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.
Far down on his right, he saw the sky-spearing masts of a Saltmark brimwulf, and decided to walk the other way—the brimwolves were the favorite man-o’-war of the Hansan navy.
Walking left, his eyes traced a three-masted galley from Ter-na-Fath, from whose bow stared the carved wooden face of Saint Fronvin, the sea-queen, her hair carved to resemble churning waves. Moored just beyond was a langzkef of Herilanz, so like the galleys of the weihand raiders Neil had grown up fighting, with single sail, fifty oars, and an iron head for ramming. A battered, gallean shrimper was just putting in, its crew casting lines onto the dock.
Past the shrimper was a neat little boat, sleek of line as a porpoise, not too big, but with five masts in all. She would be quick in the turn, a wave-dancer. The cut of her looked northern, but nothing identified her origin immediately to his eye. She flew no standard, and she had no name painted on her. He stopped, scrutinizing the craft, challenged by its anonymity. A few men were working on board, light of skin and hair, which said northern, also. He couldn’t hear if they were saying anything.
A little shock ran through him, as he realized someone was watching him from the porthole in the fo’c’sle. Someone with intense blue eyes, and a face so young, beautiful, and sad it made his heart tremor. For a long moment, their gazes were locked. Then she turned away, retreated into the darkness of the ship.
Embarrassed, he looked away. He’d done just the thing Vaseto told him to avoid—he’d been noticed.
He moved away from the dock, and his heart lifted a bit when he saw an achingly familiar sight—the mast-shaped spire of a chapel of Saint Lier. Without hesitation, he entered.
It had been too long since he had prayed. When he emerged a short time later, his step felt lighter. As he walked back to where he had left Vaseto, he studiously avoided looking at the strange ship.
“There you are,” Vaseto said when he arrived. “I knew it would be good luck to send you away.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cazio. He just boarded that ship.” She waved at a four-masted merchantman.
“That’s a Vitellian ship,” he said.
“Yes. Bound for Paldh. Don’t watch too closely.”
“Were Anne and Austra with him?”
“No. Look at me.”
With some difficulty, he tore his gaze from the ship and looked into Vaseto’s brown eyes.
“There,” she said. “Pretend you’re interested in me, not the ship.”
“I—” the image of another pair of eyes flickered through his memory—those of the woman he’d seen on the ship. And then, with a guilty start, Fastia’s.
Vaseto must have seen something in his face, for the taut lines of her own softened, and she reached a gentle hand to stroke his cheek. “You call out a name in your sleep sometimes. Did you know that?”
“No,” he said.
“Is she dead?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You saw her die.”
This time he only nodded.
“The pain will pass,” she said. “Like any hangover.”
He managed a humorless chuckle. “That’s a strange comparison,” he said.
She quirked her shoulders. “Perhaps an unfair one. I have only observation to go by, not experience.”
“You’ve never lost anyone you loved?”
She cocked her head, and a strange look came into her eyes. “I have never loved,” she said. “I never will.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“It’s part of who I am. I will never know the touch of a man.”
“That’s not the same thing as love,” he pointed out.
“No, I suppose not. Yet I feel certain that I will never love.”
“I hope that is not true.”
“You can say that, when it has brought you such pain?”
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“When she died—could you have said it then?”
“No,” he replied. “I wanted to die myself.”
She smiled and tousled his hair. “And that is why I shall never love. Now, don’t look, but our friend has left the boat.”
He started to rise, but she grabbed his hand. “Be still,” she said.
“But we must speak to him.”
“If we do, any others who are watching will see.”
“Let’s follow him, then.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, either.”
“But what if he did not take passage on that ship? What if we don’t see him again? No. Right now he is my only link to Anne, and I cannot let him leave my sight.”
She considered that, and then sighed. “You may be right,” she said. “I may be too careful in this matter. But Anne—” She stopped abruptly, and for the first time Neil realized that Vaseto was somehow uncertain. And that she had said something she shouldn’t.
“What about Anne?” he said.
“I cannot tell you. But she is important for more reasons than you know.” She rose. “Come. Put your arm around me. Walk with me as you might a lover, and we’ll follow Cazio.”
He did as she said, slipping his arm around her waist. She was very slight, and it felt very awkward.
“That’s him, there,” she said. “In the plumed hat.”
“I see him,” Neil said.
They followed him through winding streets to a dim and dilapidated part of town, where rough-seeming men watched them pass with blandly hostile faces. At last Cazio went up the steps to a building and entered it.
Neil quickened his pace, but Vaseto dragged at him.
“Wait,” she said, then gave a cluck. “No, never mind. It’s too late.”
Neil saw what she meant. Men seemed to have appeared in the street, all around them, armed with knives and clubs. Neil reached beneath his cloak and felt for the pommel of Crow, but it wasn’t there. Like his armor, it was back in their lodgings.
Vaseto began speaking sharply in Vitellian, but the men continued to close in.
“Stay back,” Ospero advised.
Ignoring him, Anne pushed past, trying to see. Ospero’s men had surrounded a man and a boy. The man drew a knife, turning slowly. The boy was shouting something about how they were friends of Cazio’s.
She looked at Cazio, who had a look of concentration on his face.
“You know him?” she asked.
“I think so,” he replied. “I think he was a guest of Orchaevia’s, from time to time. I don’t know the other fellow.”
“Wait,” Anne shouted. “See what they want.”
At the sound of her voice, the stranger’s head snapped toward her. “Anne!” he shouted. “I’m sent by your mother!”
He was speaking the king’s tongue, with an island accent. Anne’s heart spun like a top.
“Ospero, tell your men to leave him alone, please,” she said. “I think I know him.”
“Let him come closer,” Ospero said.
The boy said something low to the man, whose gaze had not left Anne. He nodded and walked to the door. As he did, he removed a wig, revealing the blond hair beneath.
“Sir Neil?” She gasped.
“Yes,” he said, going down on one knee.
“No, no, get up,” she said quickly.
He quickly obeyed.
“Mother sent you?” she asked. “How did you find me?”
“That’s a long tale,” the knight answered. “I went to the coven, and found it destroyed. The countess Orchaevia directed me here.”
“I—” something seemed to explode in Anne then, like a glass bottle in a fire. Tears burst from her eyes, and though she barely knew him, she threw her arms around Sir Neil and wept.
Neil held Anne awkwardly in his arms, not knowing exactly what to do. He felt her tremble, and closed his eyes. And the sounds of the world dimmed.
Though sisters, Anne and Fastia did not look much alike. But Anne felt like Fastia. The scent of her neck was the same. Anne trembled, and Neil felt Fastia’s dying shudder. His own tears suddenly threatened.
“Sir Neil?” Anne said, her voice muffled in his shoulder. “Sir Neil, that’s—that’s quite tight enough.”
He released her and stepped quickly back. “I’m sorry, Pr— I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve just been searching for so long, and your mother—”
He felt a joy at saying that that nearly eased the swell of grief. He hadn’t failed this time. He’d found Anne. Now he had only to get her home, and he could return to the queen’s side, where he belonged.
“My mother? Is she still well?”
“Your mother is well,” he affirmed. “She grieves, but she is well.”
She lifted her chin. She didn’t wipe at her tears, though, but left them to crawl down her face. “You were there, Sir Neil?”
He nodded, feeling his throat clutch. “I was there,” he said. “I was there with your sisters. Your father was in another place.”
Cazio coughed quietly and said something in Vitellian. One of the words sounded like Roderick. Anne rolled her eyes briefly and shook her head. Neil stood impatiently while the two conferred, with Vaseto putting in something now and then.
When they were done, Anne nodded at Cazio. “Sir Neil, this is Cazio da Pachiomadio da Chiovattio. He has proved himself a friend to me. Without his aid, Austra and I would never have escaped the coven.”
Neil bowed. “I am honored to meet you,” he said.
Cazio bowed, as well, and then Anne introduced Neil to the Vitellian. Neil presented Vaseto to both of them. When that was all done, Anne turned back to Neil.
“Cazio knows that I am a noble of Crotheny,” she said. “He does not know my family name.”
“You do not trust him?”
“I trust him. But I am cautious.”
Neil nodded, trying to get Anne’s measure. He hadn’t known her long or well in Eslen, but she seemed very different from the willful brat he had heard described. She had certainly learned Vitellian quickly enough, and the roughness of her hands was proof that she had indeed been engaged in labor that few of royal birth could begin to imagine. That did not suggest a spoiled brat, but rather a woman who was learning to do things for herself. Learning to do the things that had to be done.
“I’m going to get your gear,” Vaseto told him. “The ship Cazio has found passage on leaves in a few hours. You will be on it with them—the countess sent funds for your passage, and Cazio believes the captain will take on another passenger.”
“You aren’t going?”
Vaseto’s face scrunched almost comically. “Go on the water? No, I don’t think so. My task was to bring you this far. No more.”
Neil bowed. “I am forever grateful, lady. I hope it was not too onerous a task.”
“Not too. But remember your gratitude when we meet again.”
“I hope we shall.”
Vaseto smiled slyly. “No, there is no doubt. It has already been seen. Now, stay here, and I’ll return with your things.”
“I can come.”
Vaseto shook her head. “You may be needed here, especially if others have followed.”
Neil nodded at the sense of that. “Very well,” he said.
Cazio plucked at Anne’s sleeve. “A word with you alone, please, casnara?” he said.
Anne started to wave him off impatiently. She needed to talk to Sir Neil. She had so many questions—but then she saw the genuine concern reflected in Cazio’s eyes, and stepped aside with him into the courtyard. Besides, Neil was talking to the strange little woman.
“Quickly,” she said.
Cazio folded his arms. “Who is this man?” he asked.
“I’ve already told you, it’s not Roderick. He is a servant of my mother’s.”
“And you trust him completely? He has something of the look of those knights who attacked you at the coven.”
“He was my mother’s most trusted servant,” Anne assured him.
“And is he still?”
Anne paused at that. Sir Neil said that he had come from her mother. But she had no proof of it. From what she remembered he had come to court only a short time before she’d been sent away. True, he had saved her mother’s life at Elseny’s party, but what if that had been a ruse? The murderers of her father and sisters had not been named in the cuveitur dispatches. What if Sir Neil had been one of them?
With a cold shock, she suddenly understood how well it all fit. Only her mother and Erren had known that she had been sent to the coven Saint Cer. And perhaps, as her mother’s bodyguard, Sir Neil. That would mean Roderick wasn’t her betrayer. Not that she had ever really believed that, but . . .
Cazio observed the change in her eyes and nodded soberly. “Yes, you see? It is all too suspicious. Just as I finally find us passage on a ship, along he comes.”
“It— Mother trusted him.”
“But you don’t,” he said. “Not now that you’ve thought about it.”
“Not now that you’ve put the idea in my head,” she said miserably.
She noticed that the little woman was gone. Neil now stood by himself, trying to appear uninterested in their conversation.
For all she knew, he was fluent in Vitellian.
“Go find Austra,” she whispered. “And z’Acatto. All of you go to the ship. I will follow in a short while.”
“Why not go with me?”
“Because he’ll insist on going. Even if he is who he says he is, and he is true to my mother’s service, he won’t let me that far from his sight now that he’s found me.”
“But he may murder you the moment I am gone.”
That was true.
“Ospero,” she said. “Do you think he will help?”
Cazio nodded. “He’s still just outside. I’ll tell him to watch you,” he said.
She nodded. Then they returned to the street.
“Cazio’s going to get the others,” Anne told Neil. “I’m going upstairs to pack my things. Would you keep watch here?”
“I will,” Neil said. He looked wary. “Is there something I should know?”
“Not at the moment.”
He nodded. When she went up the stairs, she was relieved that he did not follow.
She did feel a pang of guilt. If he was telling the truth, Sir Neil had come a long, hard way to find her, and she was betraying him.
But she could not take the risk, not when she knew him so little. If she was wrong, he could return home the way he had come, and she would apologize.
She would apologize a great deal.
CHAPTER NINE
LIFE OR DEATH
ASPAR REGARDED STEPHEN’S STILL face in the fireglow.
“How did you meet him?” Ehawk asked, reaching to turn a spit, which speared the sizzling body of a sizable hedgehog.
Aspar grinned wryly and stared at a twig he’d been worrying with his fingers. He tossed it into the fire. “Up on the King’s Road,” he said, “about two days west of the Owl Tomb Bridge. He’d set out for Virgenya to study at the monastery d’Ef. Alone, because he thought it would be the sort of adventure he’d read about in books. When I ran across him, he’d been kidnapped by bandits.” Aspar shook his head. “Didn’t think much of him, then. He was always saying stupid things, carrying thousand-year-old maps as if they might do him some good.”
“But he was your friend.”
“Yah. Saved my life more than once, if you can believe it.” He poked at the fire with a stick, and sparks gyred up toward the sky.
“He’s not dead,” Winna said anxiously. “Will you two stop talking about him as if he were dead?”
“Winna,” Aspar said softly, “he has no pulse that I can find. There’s no breath.�
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“He’s not dead,” Winna insisted stubbornly. “He’s never gone stiff, has he? It’s been four days, and he still hasn’t started to stink.”
“Those the greffyn killed didn’t rot, either,” Aspar pointed out.
“Aspar White—” Winna broke off, turning to hide the tears in her eyes. Aspar stood and turned away, too, for he felt dangerously near tears himself.
He remembered Stephen’s last, terrible scream. Then the boy had dropped as if all his tendons had been cut. He hadn’t drawn breath since.
“Why haven’t you buried him, then?” Winna exploded behind him. “Answer me that? If you’re so sure he’s dead, why haven’t you given him one of your holter’s burials?”
Aspar turned slowly to face her across the fire. “Because I want him there when we find the Briar King,” he said softly. “I want him there when I kill the bastard.” He reached down to touch the arrow case he’d thrust through his belt.
Winna quieted at that, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She just shook her head and closed her eyes.
“How will you find him?” Ehawk asked.
“The trail of thorns will lead us to him.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I feel it,” Aspar said, realizing how ridiculous it sounded, how he would scoff at anyone else who said such a thing.
“What about the Sefry’s trail?”
“What about it?” Aspar asked. “We haven’t come to find the Sefry.”
“Asp,” Winna said, “you said the Sefry was letting us follow him. Why would he do that?”
Aspar nodded at Stephen’s body. “You have to ask that question?”
“Yes, I do. What if the Sefry just wanted us to see the fane? What if he wanted us to know that someone is building an evil faneway?”
“We don’t know what kind of faneway they’re building,” Aspar said. “We don’t even know if that’s what they’re doing.”
“But Stephen said—”
“Yah. Do you think Stephen would have walked into the fane if he reckoned this was going to happen to him? He was wrong about something, for once, yah?”