Secrets of the Sands

by Leona Wisoker

  His voice flowed over her, smooth and warm and undeniably appealing. She wondered if Chac could simply be jealous of a younger, more attractive man. Perhaps she could travel with Deiq and meet Chac at Scratha Fortress . . . it might be a good idea to make the trip shorter . . . she shook her head sharply.

  “No, thank you,” she said, more harshly than she'd intended.

  He didn't seem offended.

  “Consider it overnight, Lady Alyea,” he said, and Alyea shut her eyes again. His voice dragged at her, insidiously compelling. She had a disturbing feeling that if he pressed her right now, she'd agree.

  “I don't need to,” she snapped, taking refuge in anger. “I'm staying with the advisors the king's given me.”

  “Rather than a man you've only just met,” he said with a faint sigh. “I understand. But most of your fear comes from Chacerly.” He looked at her, his gaze shadowed. “He gives me far worse of a name than I deserve, I'm afraid. And isn't giving you a good enough one.”

  She avoided his stare and watched the moonlight reflecting in slow, dancing patterns from the waves far below.

  “The men you ride with,” he said, dropping his voice to a near-whisper, “aren't the ones to trust. They serve you in name, but they watch you with the care of men with two masters. I'll help you, if you ask.”

  “At what price?” Alyea said, forcing herself to sound cold.

  Deiq smiled. “I don't play the games s'e Chacerly does,” he said. “I'll help you because I want to. Because you're far too good to waste yourself on the games of a man who needed help to take the throne from a mad, weak ruler in an unstable kingdom.”

  “I doubt you do anything for free, or without advantage to yourself,” Alyea said sharply.

  His voice swayed in a soothing cadence that raised her heartbeat and scrambled her thoughts. “The advantage I seek is your respect. Nothing more complicated than that.”

  She stared at him, unsure how to answer that.

  He straightened, his voice becoming more distant and formal, but a faint smile slanted the corners of his mouth into a sardonic expression. “Are you ready to be escorted back to the way-stop?”

  “Yes,” she said, forcing speech through a suddenly dry throat.

  Halla's face, as they turned to leave, almost matched the white of the moon.

  Chac's good humor returned after Deiq left their party, and he rode beside her, pointing out native plants and animals and relating endless stories about them. The legends and folklore should have been fascinating, but Alyea couldn't keep her attention on the old man's words.

  Halla rode as far back as she could, away from Alyea, and her expression had been troubled and distant all morning. With a faint gesture of apology to Chac, Alyea took the opportunity of a narrow spot in the trail to drop back in line, fetching up beside her maidservant.

  Halla shot her a frightened, almost resentful glance.

  “My lady,” she said, and put her gaze firmly forward.

  “Halla,” Alyea said, “what's the matter?”

  The northern woman's shoulders shifted in a faint shrug. “I didn't know what I was getting into, hiring on with you. I don't like being threatened. I confess myself glad to be nearing Water's End and the finish of my hire.”

  “Threatened?”

  “Chacerly made it clear that Deiq wasn't to touch you. He said he was holding me personally responsible, and the way he said it I've heard before. It was a threat, nothing less. And you can't tell me that Deiq's muscling into my face wasn't intimidation. I don't like it. I may not have as much status as you, but I've my own dignity to think of.”

  Alyea rode for a bit in silence, thinking over what the woman had said, before responding.

  “What do you think of Deiq now?” she asked finally.

  “I don't like him, and it's clear your advisor doesn't like him,” Halla said, “but he's a powerful man in his own right, and that voice! He could melt butter with it. Left my knees weak. I don't know how you stood against it.”

  Alyea snorted. “Not easily.”

  “Unmarried women are nothing but trouble and strife around single men,” Halla said unexpectedly. “You ought to have a husband or guardian on this journey with you, to keep the unwed men at a proper distance.”

  The irony failed to amuse Alyea: Chac had demanded she have lady servants, while Halla wanted a man for protection.

  “Halla,” she said patiently, “no man is going to take me without my consent.” She left out the word again. “I've trained with fist and knife for that very reason.”

  “You'd strike a man?” Halla's eyes went round and shocked.

  “If he tried to rape me, I'd kill him,” Alyea said. “Halla, I grew up in Bright Bay under Ninnic. I learned to protect myself.”

  The words sounded like posturing to her ears, and she wished she hadn't spoken so confidently. But Halla didn't know about Pieas, or about Ethu. Gods, don't think about that right now! A familiar tight prickling filled her throat.

  “King Ninnic was a godly man,” Halla said stiffly.

  Alyea's temper flared sharply. “Ninnic was a raving lunatic with a taste for torturing anything he could get his hands on,” she snapped. “Your home isn't that far from the main route; you must have heard about it.”

  “Those stories are lies,” Halla said with the arrogance of misplaced certainty. “Deceit spread by the southerners to destroy our faith.”

  Alyea made an impatient gesture. “I lived through it. Halla, I've seen men gutted and left to die in pools of their own blood because your godly Ninnic wanted to see how long a man could last with his intestines all over the floor. I've seen men and women who did nothing worse than protest such treatment of their families skinned alive on the same principle.”

  Halla's face scrunched. She made a vague fluttering motion with one hand, as if wanting Alyea to be quiet. The other hand clutched the reins tightly, knuckles white.

  Alyea didn't stop. “Three of my maidservants were seized for Ninnic's amusement. He would choose and discard women like toys, throwing them to his guards after he tired of them. Most of the time they didn't survive past the guards' handling, but if they did they were kept as court prostitutes for the lower nobles. I've seen your precious s'iopes flay men to death for trying to protect their women from that. These women were taken regardless of whether they were married or widowed or even past puberty. One of my maids was twelve.”

  “That's enough!”

  “It's not nearly enough,” Alyea snapped. “That's barely the beginning of what I've seen. Don't you ever lecture me or anyone who lived through that on Church morality!”

  She fell silent, breathing hard. She'd done her best to forget the past; the rant had been a mistake. She'd have screaming nightmares tonight.

  Halla said nothing. She had a hand over her heart and a glazed look on her pale face.

  “One of the first things King Oruen did when he took the throne,” Alyea said more quietly, “was to order that entire hall razed to the ground and rebuilt on the other side of the palace. He said too much evil had gone into that hall for him to ever sit in it again. The ground was salted, burned, and surrounded by a fence that's always locked. It's going to stay that way forever. He doesn't want anyone to forget.”

  Halla's eyes glittered with held tears, and her gaze stayed determinedly ahead of them.

  “The priests wouldn't do that,” she said, in an attempt at her former stiffness; then, unwillingly: “Did you really see that?”

  “I really did,” Alyea said, and tried to gentle her tone. “I don't know what the priests north of the Great Forest have been doing, Halla, but down here the Church isn't a good name to carry on your banner. You walk around with a fistful of northern prejudices showing and you're likely, at best, to get killed.”

  “At best?” Halla said, her face and shoulders stiffening again.

  Alyea felt a surge of pity for her; but reality was what reality was. It would do the woman no favors to let her go with h
er illusions intact.

  “There are worse things,” Alyea said, “than a quick death.”

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  Mindful of Idisio's still-healing feet but wanting to spare their remaining horse as much strain as possible, Scratha insisted on their periodically switching off between walking and riding. Idisio made no complaint, although after a while the effort of heaving his tired body back up into the saddle almost seemed not worth the trouble. When the horse began to visibly droop and plod, Idisio and Scratha both started walking—and Idisio realized he’d been wrong. It had definitely been worth the trouble.

  Fortunately, they reached the next village less than two miles later, although the sun hung low behind them and their shadows stretched long in front by the time they arrived.

  Obein obviously had more pride than the marsh town of Kybeach displayed; the rough stones of the village streets were free of drifting sand, and the entry road had been recently swept with a rake-like brush. They'd seen two more News-Riders headed east and three more carts taking northern goods west, the last less than an hour ago, but the only tracks visible were their own.

  “There's such a thing as too clean,” Scratha said sourly. His temper had been markedly poor since the snake bite.

  Idisio grinned. “I'll bet the stables are better here.”

  Scratha glowered at him.

  “And if the stables are clean,” Idisio went on, “the boy in charge will have more wit than Baylor seemed to. And that'll mean he has an eye for details, won't it? So he'd have noticed something odd, like a boy from a poor village riding by on a rich man's horse.”

  “You don't need wit to spot that,” Scratha said.

  “But you do need quick wits to do something about it,” Idisio said, and watched his master's face lighten in comprehension.

  “You may be—”

  “Useful. Yes, I know,” Idisio sighed.

  Scratha checked, turning a startled stare on him. “Have I said that so often?”

  Idisio glanced at Scratha's narrow face, assessing, and risked an honest answer. “Yes. You have.”

  Scratha grunted, pursing his lips thoughtfully, and said nothing as they entered the stable yard. A girl, muddy, disheveled, and sweaty, emerged in response to their repeated calls, curry brush held in one hand and a fierce frown on her face. She glared around as if looking for someone, muttered a curse under her breath, and finally turned a less unpleasant expression towards them.

  “Good evening, s'es,” she said. She considered Scratha's horse for a moment, her expression thoughtful; for some reason, Idisio didn't think she was judging quality.

  Idisio glanced down the long row of stalls. The purple of a NewsRider horse tabard had been draped over the door to one stall; the red and yellow flag of a high-ranking bard hung at the edge of another. Most of the stalls had a flag of some sort by the door, marking them as occupied, but two were still empty, by the look of it.

  The girl followed Idisio's gaze and wiped sweat-darkened hair from her forehead. “There's a lad should be around here to help you, but I don't see him. If you could wait a moment? I'll just finish up with this mare and be right out to settle your horse.”

  She glanced around again, as if thinking about shouting for the absent stable hand, then shook her head and returned her attention to the two travelers before her.

  “I can take care of my horse,” Scratha said, offering her a charming smile, “if you'll point me to a stall. No need to worry after your lad.”

  She nodded, appearing relieved. “Silver half-round for the night, s'e,” she said. “Either of those open stalls at the end will do.”

  Scratha's eyebrows rose, and Idisio sputtered indignation.

  “The other stalls are less,” the girl said with a shrug. “Box stalls are more expensive, and all we have left. You get a bag of good Arason horsefeed for the price, so it's not all that bad a deal, s'es. Take it or tie your horse to the hitch by the tavern.” She went back into the stall from which she'd emerged without a backward look.

  Scratha smiled. “We'll pay it,” he said quietly as Idisio opened his mouth to protest. “Let be. Why don't you spend some time talking to her while I get this beast settled in?” He patted the horse's neck fondly. “Find out what she saw yesterday.”

  Idisio blew out a resigned breath as his master led the horse away.

  The girl had left the top half of the stall door open. He moved over to it and looked inside. She was brushing down a trim, red-brown mare, singing softly. The mare's long, dark-rimmed ears flickered this way and that, and she snorted and jerked when Idisio appeared.

  “Easy,” the girl said, and glanced over her shoulder. “She's skittish. Stand still and don't speak loud. What do you want?” Her voice remained pleasantly soothing, as if talking to the horse.

  Idisio tried to keep his voice quiet, which was the best way to convey a lie anyway. “My master thinks I've a ham hand with a horse. He told me to stay out of his way. I figured, watching you I could pick something up, maybe.”

  Her gaze turned considering and sharp. He had a feeling she didn't believe him, but she said only, “Huh,” and went back to brushing.

  Idisio watched her in silence for a while. Even muddy and with straggles of hair sticking to her face, she still had a fine, narrow face and curves in places that he tried not to stare at. He aimed his gaze at her hands, focusing on her movements; but as the girl leaned and stretched, other parts of her kept intruding into his peripheral vision and distracting his best intentions. He was glad of the waist-height stall door between them.

  When she straightened to cast an assessing glance over her work, he cleared his throat and said, “You do this all day?”

  “I'm the best at it,” she said. She patted the mare's neck and turned to ease out of the stall.

  Idisio stepped aside hastily and glanced down the row again. Looking at her, close up, was even worse than staring from several feet away.

  “You know,” she said, staring at him, “there's a great bruise to the side of your face. Run into a door?”

  Idisio's grin faded.

  “Something like that,” he muttered.

  “Huh,” she said after another hard stare at him, and turned away. After securely bolting the bottom half of the stall door, she moved to the next stall, which had a small black flag beside it. Both halves of this door were closed. “You'd probably like to see this fellow.” She unbolted the top half of the door and swung it open.

  A familiar, fine-boned nose poked out inquiringly.

  The girl watched him narrowly. “This one yours, too?”

  “Yes,” Idisio said, rubbing the silky nose. “How did . . .?”

  “Well, if you want him back, you owe me for two horses,” she said.

  Idisio stared at her. “Two?”

  “I gave Baylor and Karic each a horse in return for this one,” she said. “They were lucky to get that much; I won both those horses two days ago from some stupid northern who thought he could beat me at five-card.”

  Idisio's jaw sagged. “Both of them? When did they leave?”

  “Early this morning,” she said. “And yes, both of them. Baylor came riding into town yesterday, face white as Horn salt, and went to find Karic. The two of them came to find me a while after that, asking for horses; the only thing they had to trade was this one. I thought it a fair deal.”

  “Baylor stole this horse from us,” Idisio said. Something bothered him about the girl's story, but flustered as he was by her nearness, he couldn't focus enough to tell what was wrong. She smelled of sweat and horse and an odd, subtle spice. He wished the stall door still stood between them. He prayed she didn't look down.

  The girl shrugged. “That's not my problem. You want him back, you pay me his worth.”

  Idisio looked down the row and saw Scratha stepping out of the box stall. “How much do you want?”

  “Five gold rounds,” the girl said. “Less than this one's worth, I'd say, but that's
what the northern valued his two horses at, so I'll settle for that.”

  Idisio began to protest; Scratha's hand on his shoulder stopped him. His master considered girl and horse.

  “Five?” he said at last.

  “You have good hearing, s'e,” the girl said.

  Scratha nodded. “Desert blood,” he said absently, and held out half a silver coin. “Here's for the other. I'll think on it and let you know. Come, Idisio, let's get some rooms and dinner.”

  Ignoring the surprise and displeasure on the girl's face, Idisio hurried after his master.

  “They both ran,” he said. “Why both?”