Son of Avonar

by Carol Berg

  “Who comes?” The voice from the direction of the dark mound quavered a bit.

  “Friends,” I said.

  “I have no friends here. Who are you? What do you want with me?”

  “You ran away before we could be properly introduced.”

  “I know nothing of mundane women.”

  “Come, sir, let us speak in a civil manner.” Mundane was as good a description of me as I had heard in a while, but how would he know? “You’re searching for a missing horse, and I may know something of it.”

  I pulled one of the fallen crates into the path of moonlight from the door and sat on it. After a moment the slight figure emerged from the shadows to stand in the moonlit rectangle a few paces from me. Straw clung to his flowing trousers and Kerotean vest, and his high-necked tunic was twisted awkwardly about his neck. He stood up very straight, narrowed his almond-shaped eyes, and stepped toward me.

  “Not too close!” The man and I both nearly shed our skin when Paulo yelled and popped out from behind me with a good-sized stick of wood on his shoulder.

  “The messenger boy!” cried the stranger, his eyes darting from Paulo back to me. “You are the one who summoned me . . . a woman, not a man. Why have you lied? The Count de Mangerit I am, and no one must lie to me.”

  I had to smile at his posturing. “As I said, I have news of your horse.”

  “Grasping mundane. Think you to extract some reward?”

  “Not a reward, but information. If I learn what I want, I may be able to tell you what you want to know.”

  “I don’t believe a mundane—a woman mundane—could know anything I want to hear.” Clearly mundane meant something particular to this man.

  I had hoped to save my trump card for later. I sighed, pulled a twist of paper from my pocket, and showed the man its contents. While Aeren lay ill, I had trimmed the brambles from his matted blond hair. “Is this lock perhaps from your horse’s mane, ‘Count’?”

  The stranger sagged to his knees and covered his face with his fists, pretense shed like unwanted clothing. “All honor to you, Vasrin Shaper, Vasrin Creator,” he whispered, “he has been found.” After a moment he lowered his folded hands to his breast. “Please, woman, tell me that he lives.” He did not yet look up.

  “He lives. And my name is Seri.”

  I thought he was going to cry. Whether it was because Aeren was alive or because he’d had the audacity to do it with a “mundane” woman’s help—I wasn’t sure.

  “I want to know who he is and who you are,” I said.

  He straightened his head proudly. “I am not permitted to tell you those things. You must take me to him.”

  “You’re quite mistaken. I’ll take you nowhere near him until you persuade me that you’re his friend. And if you are not his friend, you’ll not live to harm him.” Paulo blanched a little, but to the boy’s credit, his stick did not falter.

  “You cannot understand, woman,” said the man. “You are a mundane. He is—This is impossible!” He was entirely flustered. “He is my servant, my groom. He has taken my prize stallion. White. You are required to give him to me, as he has stolen my possession.”

  “You may leave off your playacting, sir. If you think to impersonate nobility, then you must learn more of their customs. Uncountable clues tell me you have never been to Kerotea, never laid eyes on a Kerotean, and most likely never had a groom. Now, answer my questions or I take my leave.”

  “No, no. You must not go without telling me where he is. Let me think. I must think. Good Vasrin shape thoughts of sense in my head.” The man began pacing, fingering a tassel dangling from his belt as he mumbled to himself. “I will not say. I cannot say. I am sworn. But I must get to him. Why me? Yes, it happened fast, but Bendal was designated. So what he was wounded? Bendal wounded is worth ten of me. A mundane woman. I am cursed. But he lives, and the Zhid are close. The timing is all. . . .” He stopped his pacing and sat himself cross-legged on the dirt in front of me. “You’ll not take me to him if I do not speak?”

  “Correct.”

  “And you will have this ferocious boy bash me senseless if I try to extract answers from you?”

  “Absolutely correct.” I worked to keep my face sober.

  “So you force me to tell you.”

  “Prove to me that you are his friend.”

  The small man cocked his head. “Why do you care for him? I can give you a reward, a substantial reward, if you take me to him and ask no questions.”

  “It’s a long story. I care nothing for either of you, and even less for your reward.”

  “He is well?” He hugged his knees and looked at the ground.

  “He had a wicked knife-wound in one shoulder, but it’s healing well.”

  “But he’s told you nothing? Perhaps you have harmed him.” He glanced up and, for just a moment, his dark eyes were daggers. “Perhaps you lie.” The moment’s ferocity vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “He would not trust you. He too has little experience of women or mundanes. Of anyone, if truth be told.” He shook his head in resignation. “He’s never been easy. . . .”

  “It’s not just that. For one thing, he is incapable of speech.”

  “Incapable . . . ?

  “And for another, I don’t believe he can remember anything to tell me. He doesn’t know who he is. He can’t remember his people, or where his home is, or why the king’s men were pursuing him through my valley. He needs a friend who knows him.”

  “Ah, my sorrowing land . . .” Tears filled the almond eyes and rolled down his cheeks. He dashed them aside unashamedly. “The foul Zhid have done this!”

  “Tell me who you are,” I said, more gently this time, hoping not to fluster him into complete incoherence. “And who is your friend? Truly, I wish him no harm.”

  “My name is Baglos. And you are correct. I was never meant to wear the dress of nobles.” He wrestled off his brocade vest and threw it into the dirt. “And I was never meant to be the Guide. I was meant to cook: to braise succulent fish, to baste roasting quail, to mix and blend and season. But the one who was designated as his madrissé was wounded. When it was decided that D’Natheil must make the crossing immediately, the Zhid attacked, and all was chaos. It’s why we became separated, not just that I am inept, though that is true. I thought my duties were ended before they had begun, and that our last hope was dead because only Baglos was available to guide.” He sank into a melancholy silence, leaving me at a loss.

  “Please. You must explain a little more. I’ve understood none of this except that your name is Baglos and that you’re a cook. Is that right?”

  “Unfortunately true.”

  “And you have been made Aeren’s ‘guide’ . . . because someone else was wounded?”

  “Aeren?” His head popped up from where it rested heavily on his fist. “Who is Aeren?”

  “Your friend. He heard the cry of the gray falcon that we call an aeren, and he indicated to me that such was his name. Is that not true?”

  For the first time, Baglos smiled. “D’Natheil means falcon . D’Natheil is his name. The Zhid have not taken his name. That is good, very good. Thank you for telling me.”

  I was glad to hear there was something good about the confusing mess. But the fellow’s enemies had me worried; I’d never heard of “Zhid.” And there was the matter of his talent. . . .

  “There was an afternoon when Aeren—D’Natheil—became quite afraid, but he couldn’t tell me why.” I hesitated, then forged ahead. “The light was . . . very odd . . . that day. It smelled wrong. Felt wrong.”

  I expected ridicule at this or at least puzzled curiosity. But Baglos jumped to his feet as if stung by a scorpion. “We must go to him. Please. The Seeking of the cursed Zhid is already touching him. And they are here, so close.”

  “The three priests—the men you ran away from—are they these Zhid? Your enemies?”

  “Zhid are the warriors of Zhev’Na, the enemies of all who breathe, of all who live unfet
tered. They’ll find him if we don’t hurry. Such danger stalking him, more than you know if they find him too soon. Please, woman. He is our last hope.”

  Though I was no closer to understanding his words, I believed Baglos. There was no pretense in his quivering anxiety, no deception in his concern for the young man. And he didn’t seem very threatening, though the memory of the silver dagger embedded in solid rock could not but leave me wary of both Aeren and his friends.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Baglos was not happy at the idea of my returning to the inn before leaving Grenatte, and I myself had more than a few sharp words ready for Graeme Rowan and his self-righteous snooping. But if I failed to meet the sheriff, I had no doubt the man would be sitting on my doorstep with Aeren under arrest by the time I could walk back to Dunfarrie.

  The fading moon was setting and the sky was gray with approaching dawn when I left Baglos and Paulo at the edge of town. The streets near the marketplace were already busy, and the smells of hot bread and sizzling bacon from Bartolome’s kitchen reminded me that I was ravenous. I was crossing the innyard, ready to wheedle an early breakfast from the good innkeeper, when I spied two men shaking hands close by the entrance to the stable—two men who should be in no wise so friendly. Dismayed, I slipped around the outside of the innyard into an alleyway separated from the stable only by a wooden wall. Though I could no longer see the two, I could hear very well.

  “You’ll not forget our agreement,” said one. “We’re relying on your utmost discretion. It has come highly recommended.”

  “I am a servant of the law and take my duties seriously. I was surprised to see you here. You told me yesterday that you knew where to find him.”

  My eyes had not lied to me. One voice was Rowan’s, and the other belonged to Giano, the pale-eyed priest of Annadis.

  Giano laughed. “We expect to have the business done within the day. You’ll be rewarded handsomely.”

  “My reward will be in seeing a scoundrel brought to justice.”

  “One item of information we yet require . . .” The voices faded away. The two men must have stepped inside the stables.

  I was furious, more at myself than Rowan. Trusting one who wore Evard’s badge, giving credence, even for a moment, to his words of higher motives, justice, unclean murder—I should have known better. He’d been working with the priests all the time. Were these Zhid naught but sheriffs, wearing a holy disguise as they went about their despicable work? They must have had a good laugh at my performance, thought themselves quite clever. Well, I would provide no more entertainments.

  My appetite soured, I sat in the common room brooding until a grim Rowan burst through the door. “There you are!”

  Tempting to spit at the devil’s lackey. “Did you think I’d left Grenatte without you, Cousin?” I said.

  “The thought occurred to me. I think we should take some air this morning. A walk would be ideal.” He took me firmly by the elbow and escorted me into the lane without so much as asking me if I was willing. He propelled me between a wagon load of squawking chickens and a knot of people gawking at a merchant beating his bonds-man, and into a narrow alley well away from the door of the Green Lion. “And so, my lady, do you know where they are?”

  I wrenched my arm away. “Do sheriffs not breakfast before interrogations? Bartolome can take rightful pride in his fare, and it is always such a pleasure to spend time with you.”

  Though he didn’t touch me, the sheriff backed me into the soot-stained wall, propping one hand against the wall on either side of my head. “I ask you again. Do you know where they are?”

  “They?”>

  “Either of them. The one you came here to find or the one that seems to have the whole countryside in pursuit of him—the weak-minded servant.”

  “A servant? How could I know anything of servants? And why would I care? I despise weak-minded people . . . and devious ones.” I ducked under Rowan’s arm and proceeded down the alley at a brisk pace until I emerged in another busy street.

  The sheriff was close at my shoulder. “What of the other one, the small, dark, odd-looking man? You remember, the one who’s looking for his prized horse, but can tell me nothing but that the horse is white; he’s also disappeared. But then you know that already. Bartolome says he was in his common room last night and rushed out shortly before I arrived, only moments before I met you hurrying out the same door. You told me it was the priests that frightened you. Did they frighten him also?”

  “This has nothing to do with me.”

  Rowan was forced to let a well-guarded flock of geese pass by and then shove his way through its trailing mob of anxious buyers to catch up with me again. “This has everything to do with you,” he said, anger snapping like sparks on a frosty night. I had never seen him display such intensity of feeling. “I learned also of the messenger that came here yesterday, asking after the man who sought his stolen horse. The messenger was a freckled boy who limped. I’m no idiot, madam, despite what you think, and I don’t forget that Jacopo would be the only person in Dunfarrie I told of the strange little man who didn’t fit his impersonation.”

  I threaded my way through the crowd that was rapidly filling the streets, and stepped around a shapeless beggar who had crawled into the muck-filled ruts and had the lack of consideration to die there. “Coincidence,” I said. “If you must know, I’m here to see if the local dyeshops will buy some of my plants. Several of them grow only on Poacher’s Ridge.” A glimpse over my shoulder twisted a knot in my stomach; the dead beggar was a woman, her thin face an artwork of bruises and sores, sculpted by starvation and the brutal world. She might have been twenty or seventy. Wasted life. Useless death. I wrenched my attention back to my companion. “As you’ve so often noted, I’m accustomed to living better than I do at the moment.”

  Rowan did not yield. He stepped in front of me and halted, forcing me to look him in the face. “In no measure would this be coincidence, and in no way do I believe a word of your story. I’ve learned enough in these ten years gone to know when you tell the truth. You’ve said yourself these priests are not what they claim. That I do believe. Who is this man they seek? It’s someone you know, isn’t it?”

  He knew . . . curse the man forever, he knew that Aeren was a sorcerer. A fiery heat that had nothing to do with the growing sunlight coursed through my veins. “Why ever would I tell you? And how dare you judge my truth? I think you know very little of truth.”

  “I will find out, you know—or someone will who’s even less to your liking. There have been other inquiries about this ‘groom.’ ”

  “I’ve no need of your concern.”

  Our voices had risen through the conversation, but Rowan’s next words were spoken quietly. Only their edges were hard. “Ah, but others might. Jacopo and Paulo have no noble relations to protect them from the consequences of their actions. If you have any feeling for them—if you are capable of feeling—you should consider your course carefully.”

  As the threat hung in the air like smoke from summer grassfires, the sheriff took my arm again, and steered me down the road to a stable where his horse stood saddled and waiting. “Time to go home, ‘Cousin,’ ” he said, gesturing me toward his horse. “No more foolish playacting and no more sneaking about Grenatte. You will take yourself and your young accomplice back to Dunfarrie, and you will remain there until I return.”

  “You’re not planning to drag me back yourself? What if I, in my fiendish perversity, dare to disobey?”

  “No, you go alone. I’ve business in Grenatte today. You’ll swear to me that you’ll do as I say, and I’ll believe you. But of course if I should find out you’ve disobeyed me, you’ll spend the rest of the week in the gaol.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “You’ve told me many times that your rank has made no difference in your punishment. I live by your words.” Rowan unslipped the reins from the tether rail and stuffed them
in my hand. “Take Thunder. He’ll carry both you and Paulo. I’d rather not have to dig any more graves in During Forest tomorrow, and mounted travelers are at less risk. Tell Paulo to bring Thunder back to me first thing tomorrow morning and I might not whack him for tormenting his gram.”

  I wanted to refuse any gift tainted by Rowan’s hand, but simple reason curbed my tongue. Amid all the confusion of the sheriff’s motives, one thing was certain. Aeren and his friend must be long gone before Rowan’s return. If riding the cursed sheriff’s horse helped that happen, then, by holy Annadis’s sword, I would ride.

  We made good time on our return journey. Baglos had his own mount and rode skillfully. I was unable to question him along the route as I had planned, for he raced north along the dusty road as if the doom of the world were indeed riding with him.

  When we turned onto the narrow track that led up to the meadow, we had to slow, for the track was all dry gouges and ruts, left from some long-ago year of harsh rains. “Is it much farther, woman?” asked Baglos, his voice reflecting my own anxiety.

  “No. Just over that rise.”

  “Is it a safe place? A large city, a village? This village I have visited before?”

  “It’s only a cottage. Dunfarrie is an hour’s walk.”

  “Are there trees, then?”

  I thought the question curious. “A whole forest of them. Aeren—D’Natheil—sleeps under the trees. And when the light was so strange, he took us into the wood, but we never saw anyone.”

  Baglos brightened considerably. “So he knows to go to the trees. Perhaps he’s not forgotten as much as you think.”