by Carol Berg
“I told you, it’s all right. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”
We didn’t return to the main road, but continued on a longer, less traveled route back to Montevial. As we rode, I told him Tanager’s story, and then he told me his own.
“I’d gone into Xerema to hire guards to protect the site. It was a fabulous find—at least seven hundred years old, built deep and hidden to protect it from graverobbers—but, of course, it’s all gone again now. I was on my way back to the site when the earthquake struck, out in the open. Though I used everything I knew to find Rinaldo and Damon, I had to give it up early on; I sensed no hint of life and had no hope of digging through that mess.
“But I couldn’t leave the area without trying to help. Unlike at the mountain, there were pockets in the city ruins where people could survive for a little while. Whatever I did, it wasn’t enough. Every few hours I’d have to forgo use of anything but my hands, and I could still hear people screaming and crying. But somehow I managed to do more than I could in ordinary times. As did everyone.”
The beautiful morning seemed at odds with his dreadful tale. Hawks soared through the haze of dayfires, hanging over the patchwork grain fields. Karon stared at the weedy path ahead of us, lost in the telling. “After a week or so, there was no one left living under the stones, and no one who hadn’t crossed the Verges, and I thought I’d come home. But I met up with a surgeon named Connor. We’d worked together at several sites, and he had guessed there was something out of the ordinary. He asked if I had medical training, and I told him I did, though perhaps different from his own. He said that if I’d continue working with him, he’d ask no questions.”
Karon looked up at me with a sadness that tore my heart. “He was extraordinary, Seri. Never have I met anyone who gave so much of himself. For days he would go without sleep, treating all who came to him: nobles, beggars, peasants, soldiers. Never did he lose patience or fail to treat even the least of them with kindness and respect, as if each were the most important person in the world. And he was skilled beyond any physician or surgeon I’ve known. I would assist him as best I could, and when he found something he couldn’t handle, he’d ask if I might have some insight into the case beyond his own. If I thought I could do it, he would find a private place and see that I was not disturbed. . . .”
“You speak of him in the past.”
He nodded. “There was a little girl. Only five years old or so. A beautiful child. We got to her too late. With all of Connor’s skill and all of mine, we could not undo what had been done.” He spoke as if the terrible scene still lay before him. “The child’s father went mad. His wife and five other children had died in the earthquake, and the little girl was all he had left. When Connor told him she was dead, the man pulled a knife and stabbed him to the heart. It happened so quickly”—Karon’s face was a portrait of grief—“and just as with the Writer and his daughter, it came at a time when I had nothing left to give him. Before he died, he whispered that he had hoped he could at last witness what it was I did. Oh, Seri, would that I could have saved him. It was very hard to keep my own teaching in my mind.”
“Because he was an uncommon man and a friend in terrible times.”
“More than that. The murderer was a man I’d brought back from the dead.”
We rode in silence for a long while. What ordinary words of comfort could ease such extraordinary sorrow? But eventually Karon took up the tale once more, shaking his head as if to rid himself of his own thoughts. “That was about twelve days ago, I think. I knew I couldn’t keep up the work indefinitely. Someone would see or guess, and I was very tired, sick enough that I was endangering people I wanted to help, seeing two of everything or things that weren’t there. And without Connor my work was far more difficult. A day or two after I buried him, I began to suspect I was being followed. I’ve been running ever since. Every time I thought I was clear, that sheriff would turn up again. Finally I heard about this carter that plied the Leiran road, so I believed I could get to Threadinghall. I’d be safe there. But I knew I could go no farther without help—”
“—and you called me.”
“Inexcusable. I should have known they’d find me again. But I was at the end of my resources, and you were so much in my thoughts. I don’t think I could have spoken to anyone else at such a distance. I couldn’t conjure a broomstraw after it. Still can’t. The certainty that you would be waiting was the only thing that kept me moving yesterday. But invading your mind, stealing your thoughts—it violates everything I profess . . .”
“Would it make a difference to you if I said it was all right? If I gave you my consent to speak to me in that way any time?” The idea had been with me since I had first heard him in our library. “Last night, I needed to warn you. I wanted you to hear. I trust you, you know, and I welcome you into every part of my life. It doesn’t frighten me.”
“Gods, Seri . . .”
We reached home without incident and with no evidence that Karon’s pursuers had any clue as to his identity. He believed they had never seen his face. He worried that I’d be recognized, but I assured him the light had been poor and my face shaded by my hat. For good measure I burned the clothes we had worn.
I didn’t tell Karon that I had killed to protect him. Keeping the secret caused me far more guilt than the killing, but I told myself that I would reveal it as soon as time had blurred the event. Perhaps by then Karon, too, would realize that the Way of the J’Ettanne was not the way of the world.
Karon’s illness passed quickly with rest and decent food, but I had never seen him in such a desert of the spirit. In the weeks after his return, he ventured out of the house only once—to visit the families of his two assistants, offering them his sympathy and what help he could in dealing with their loss. Though he hadn’t asked me to do so, he seemed relieved that I discouraged visitors. The effort of communicating with anyone was so monumental that even a quarter of an hour’s company left him pale and sick. He had spent everything he had five hundred times over. Now smiles and laughter and even words came hard.
But on one morning in early autumn I awoke to find him gazing down at me, head propped on one elbow, a sober demeanor belied by a sparkle in his blue eyes. “There’s something you’re not telling me, my lady.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are there more secrets than this one?”
“Who ever said you were to know everything that goes on?”
“But I believe I have an interest in this matter.”
“Have you been prying with this fiendish talent you have, sir?”
“I confess to it. You’ve seemed unwell these few weeks, and I was worried.”
“And so you’ve deprived me of my surprise?”
His face lost its shine for a moment. “Does it really bother you? I thought—”
I rolled over into his arms. “Not a whit! I was just waiting to be sure.” An astonishing thought came to mind. “What else can you tell about it?”
His laughter was bursting with joy and life. “Do you really want to know?”
“Everything you know. If I have no secrets, neither can you.”
“It is a son.”
The months that followed were the sweetest that life can provide. Whether caused by delight in our child’s new life, or the newfound intimacy of our mind-speaking, or the summer’s brush with mortality and dread, that golden autumn was wrapped in aching beauty. It was as if nature itself had decided to grant us a season of perfection long after a normal year would have lost itself in snow and ice. We walked and rode in the intoxicating air of the countryside. We read and we laughed. Karon delved into his work, and I with him, and we marveled at each new treasure we dragged out of the bottomless vaults of Leire.
Our son would be named Connor Martin Gervaise. So many names for a being so tiny, said Karon. Every night he would close his eyes and lay his hands on my belly, whispering the proper words, and, after a moment, he would smile and tell me al
l was well. Sometimes he would say it with words, and sometimes he would look into my eyes and speak with his other voice. Words were only a pale shadow of that other voice, no more representing the wholeness of speech than notes of one octave can represent the wholeness of music.
The J’Ettanne of Avonar had only rarely used their talent for mind-speaking. The gift carried an immense emotional burden, for it had been their downfall. Its use was rigidly constrained by the Two Tenets of the J’Ettanne. Thus it was only with the freedom granted by my offer that Karon was able to explore his strange talent for the first time. Eagerly he experimented with all its various aspects, working at openings and barriers, contacts and distractions, until I thought that he must turn his head inside out—or mine.
We practiced enough that it became easy, Karon speaking to me and then listening to my thoughts in reply. But once we mastered the skill, we used it only rarely. Karon said it would be too easy to misstep, demonstrating knowledge of something one had no business knowing while in the company of others. It was the same reason he used his other magical abilities so sparingly. Habits. Though I believed no one would ever learn of what we did, I did not complain as I might have a few months earlier. Karon’s safety was the one subject on which I no longer offered any dispute.
Karon made no healing journeys that fall. At my urging he would take Karylis out to run in the countryside long after I felt too uncomfortable to ride, but he would always be back before nightfall. Each time he would say that perhaps the groom should take the horse out for exercise from then on, so he would not be away too long. But I told him, laughing, that he should not deprive himself of his delight in riding, for I had bribed Karylis to make sure he always came home.
CHAPTER 15
As Baglos recited the tale of his mysterious land and people, the afternoon waned gracefully. The meadow came alive with birdsong and a soft breeze. While I sat picking at the dry, weedy grass, giving thought to our next move, D’Natheil used my ax to split the thick chunk of birchwood and shorten it. Baglos stood nearby, chewing his lip and watching D’Natheil uncertainly, as if he weren’t quite sure what to do next either.
Jacopo stood up, rubbed his backside, stretched his shoulders, and then promptly squatted down again beside me, rapping his thick knuckles on his boots. “I should go home,” he said, eyeing my two visitors uncomfortably. “I’m feeling down in the leg after all this hill climbing, and I left Lucy Mercer with the shop. The old biddy’s overgenerous with my money. Got no eye for a bargain.”
“You should go,” I said. “Paulo, too. Better if you’re both out of this.”
At some time during Baglos’s astonishing story, Paulo had finished with the horses and fallen asleep in the shade of my woodpile. He could not have heard much and was surely not in the habit of volunteering information to anyone. But Rowan seemed to have an eye on Paulo, and the prospects for a lame, illiterate boy from Dunfarrie were bleak enough without tainting him with talk of sorcery.
“I don’t feel right to leave you. Fearful business—all this talk of madness and murder and men with no souls. And I can’t say as I trust these two as you do. Come along home with me, Seri.”
“They’ll not be here for long. Wherever their mysterious duty takes them, it’s not likely to be Dunfarrie.” And I couldn’t run away. My search for reason and order in the universe had long succumbed to defeat, but I was coming to the conclusion that I had to do something about D’Natheil. When fate opens a chasm underneath your feet or shoves a lava-spewing mountain into your path, you cannot ignore it.
Jacopo laid his thick fingers on my knee. “I know better than to try to keep you out of their business if your mind is made up. And I’ll do your bidding in whatever way a disbelieving old man can do. But I’ll ask you one thing, Seri girl. You must tell Graeme about all this. He’s his own man first, not the king’s nor Lord Marchant’s. If those villains are as wicked as this Baglos says, then Graeme’s going to get himself killed or worse. You know he’ll not leave off.”
Rowan was definitely a puzzle. Did the sheriff even know that the priests were sorcerers, too? Was he corrupt, or merely stupid, or was he a wily villain, planning to lure the priests into the fire once they had led him to other sorcerers? Whichever one, we could afford no dealings with him.
“I can’t tell him anything, Jaco. His duty is to exterminate sorcerers. He lives by the law, no matter the consequence, and by the law, he must turn all of us over to the king. I won’t let him do that. Assuming Paulo wakes up by tomorrow, he’ll take Rowan’s horse back to Grenatte. By the time Rowan returns to Dunfarrie, D’Natheil and Baglos will be gone. Even if the sheriff is determined to be pigheaded, it’ll do him no good.”
“Ask for his help. He’ll listen to you.” Jacopo scratched his grizzled chin and grinned, “I love you dearly, little girl, but if there’s one of you that’s been pigheaded, it’s not Graeme.”
Jacopo’s grin raised my hackles, and I answered more sharply than I should have. “I don’t trust any sheriff. You shouldn’t either. Don’t you dare let him drag you and Paulo into this.”
Before we could argue any further, a bone-cracking slap and a sharp cry sounded from the direction of the cottage. I turned to see Baglos staggering backwards, his hands shielding his face. D’Natheil’s hand was raised for another strike.
“Bence, mie giro!” cried Baglos. “Ne stes damet—”
D’Natheil’s second blow knocked Baglos to the dirt. Blood dribbling from his brow, the Dulcé vainly tried to scramble out of harm’s way, but his master’s foot caught him in the backside and sent him sprawling.
“Stop it!” I cried, jumping to my feet and running toward the men. “What are you doing?”
Another kick caught the fallen Dulcé in the side. “Mie giro, stes vyn—” Another, and Baglos could only grunt instead of finishing his plea.
I stepped between them, trying not to flinch as the back of D’Natheil’s hand flew toward my face. His fair complexion darkened to yet a deeper shade of purple. But the blow did not fall. Rather, he snarled, shoved me aside, and went after Baglos again. He did not continue the beating, but rolled Baglos to his back and yanked something from the Dulcé’s belt—his own silver knife. Glaring darkly at his cowering servant, D’Natheil sheathed the weapon. His blood-streaked fingers twisted the Dulcé’s purple vest and pulled Baglos’s upper body from the ground until the small man’s face was only a handspan from his own.
“Don’t you dare hurt him again,” I yelled. “That’s enough!”
D’Natheil shifted his cold blue stare to me. Lip curling, nostrils flared, the young man gathered the wad of satin tighter. He needed no power of speech to tell me that he could break the Dulcé’s neck without reservation, without remorse, almost without effort.
“You. Will. Not,” I said, biting each word and spitting it at him. It seemed to be the only language he truly understood. “You are his prince. You are responsible for him. Tell him, Baglos. Exactly as I said it.”
From his precarious position, the Dulcé closed his eyes and murmured hoarsely.
The moment expanded to fill the space between us. Then, with a hiss of disgust, the Prince slammed Baglos to the turf and walked over to the wide stump where lay the ax and his birch limb. I watched to make sure he planned to use the ax on the wood and not our heads. But he was soon lost in his work again, using the blade to hack long slivers from the chunk of birch. After each cut, he would explore the wood’s thinning shape with his fingers, examine each piece for who knew what, and then raise the ax again.
Baglos had rolled to his side and curled into a ball. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he mumbled. “Did I think he wouldn’t notice?”
“Are you all right?” I knelt beside him and laid a hand on his dark hair. He jerked at my touch and tried to sit up. “No, stay down for a moment, until we see how he’s hurt you,” I said. “Jaco, bring some water.” My friend was already on his way to the stream with a pail and a rag, and soon I was blotting the Dulcé�
�s bruised and bloody cheek.
“What Dulcé was ever so stupid?” He waved off my hand, struggled to sitting, and took the rag, pressing it under his nose, which was bleeding profusely. But even the blood paled beside his skin color. Stars of night, he was embarrassed!
“You picked up his knife. He has no call to beat you for it.”
“He thought—” Baglos changed whatever he was going to say. “It is D’Arnath’s blade. I could not see it left in the grass. Dropped. It should not even be here . . . but in Avonar. D’Arnath’s weapons are—they bear immense—” He took a breath as if to quiet his stumbling. “It was a misunderstanding. He is young.”
“You’re more forgiving than he deserves. To serve a master so unworthy of his position, no matter how important his duties, requires a more generous spirit than mine. When your friend was wounded, you should have let someone else have the ‘honor’ of being D’Natheil’s Guide.” I regretted that D’Natheil could not understand me. I would have told him what I thought of people who beat their servants. “You needn’t make excuses. I’ve known him for a brute since I first encountered him.”
Baglos shook his head. “It is not his fault he is this way. His life—” He glanced at the oblivious D’Natheil and quickly dropped his eyes to the ground. “My lord’s mother died when he was but a babe. Avonar was at war, and no one had time to see to a boy who was wild from his earliest days. No one worried about his poor training, because it was his oldest brother D’Joran that would be the Heir after his father, and then D’Seto next. Never had a third son been named Heir. But the war worsened and one after the other his father and brothers fell. Then all attention turned to D’Natheil, who had been left to play in the alleys, sleep with the dogs, and eat with the warriors on the walls.”
The Dulcé sighed and blotted his nose again. “He was only nine years old when he became the Heir, a full three years before coming of age. The Preceptor Exeget was named his mentor and guardian. D’Natheil was insolent and prideful and would forever run away. He had no desire to learn of his gifts, or the art of ruling, or the history of his people and their past glory. Master Exeget disciplined him harshly, until the other Preceptors begged him to go easier on the boy, but the master said only that the Zhid would not go easy on the Heir, and one could not disagree with that. And so, my lord progressed . . . only slowly . . . in anything but his fighting skills.”