–Tomes of the Touched
Solineus could well be on a ship in frozen waters, or traipsing across a tundra by now. Meliu imagined that Ilpen and his family brushed donkeys daily, a ship having carried them to New Fost a week ago; they lived well enough. Kinesee and Alu were sure to be comfortable as any, raised by the Ravinrin and the wealth and connections this guaranteed. Sedut and other priests lived every day in worry for their lives at the hands of their own people… well, maybe not so much Sedut. Meliu wasn’t sure who the hells could touch that woman, outside of Ulrikt himself. Maybe. But they bedded in tents or shacks, she wagered.
Nope, laying on one half of a bed big enough for one of Lord Priest Dunkol’s infamous orgies, Meliu admitted to herself that if there was a Silone more comfortable right that flicker, they’d have to be in one of the Seven Heavens. And even then the food might not be so good. She flopped a lazy hand to a platter standing beside the bed and snagged several plump grapes. She popped them, and a couple pieces of soft cheese, into her mouth. She moaned.
“Gods, I love this place.”
Of course, comfort and security didn’t travel hand in hand. No matter how cozy, she and Ivin were one slip from dead. Or worse. She glanced to the Choerkin, his head resting on a pillow, dozing. The rest would do the man good; his body was closer to healed every day.
She rolled from the sheets wrapped in white silk robes stitched in silver, but still glanced back to see if he woke to sneak a peek. The bastard slept like a boulder, and she couldn’t decide whether it pleased her or put her off. Every feeling she had for the Choerkin confused her. She swore she’d scream if he touched her, but in her dreams the scream was pleasure. She shook the night images from her mind and slipped into a dress more appropriate for the outer world. She smoothed the pale yellow fabric and grinned when she slipped into rabbit-skin boots, the exterior hide tooled and dyed in pastel flowers, and the luxurious fur caressing her feet. Comfortable wasn’t adequate to describe the sensation as she curled her toes. Shulaan deserved an extra thank you for bringing her these miracles.
The weather outside had turned chill the past couple days, and the woman had worried for her health, showing her these boots and a matching cloak which Meliu slung over her shoulders. Meliu grinned, more like the woman worried I might depart with too many coins still in my pocket.
When she cracked the door, she heard Ivin’s voice. “Where’re you headed?”
Now you awake. She turned, smiling. “I’m going to figure a way out of this city, it’s time we get moving.”
“Anything I should do?”
“Be ready to leave, if I find what we need.” Curt and to the point always kept a man on his toes. She closed the door and stepped into a polished marble corridor lit by an open ceiling. The hall was wide, but split down the middle by a pool of water to catch the rain; flowers and plants grew in open bottomed pots, and white fish the length of her hand schooled in shaded places. The architecture fascinated Meliu, as it gave her the sensation of being inside and out at the same time. So distant from the stone halls of Istinjoln and the Chanting Caverns, but far more natural than the mystical reality of Skywatch.
She turned left, nodding to a servant girl who stepped from her path with a bow. The wealthy in Bdein lacked nothing, living better than the lords of the Silone Clans, but from what she gathered Bdein wasn’t the norm. The sewers, aqueducts, and wells, even many of the buildings dated to the Age of Warlords, or even to the God Wars. This attracted the wealthiest of the rich to trade and live, while the powerful visited for stints to escape whatever woes they might have at home… to escape one’s husband or wife.
Meliu trotted past a circular stair which led to rooms she daren’t spend the extra coin for and blew Shulaan a kiss as she passed the baths. The woman and several younger girls who tended the baths all waved.
Oh, how quick could I disappear in this life? Guilt struck and her abdomen clenched. The Hidreng threatened to annihilate her people, and half of them would sell her to any passing Thonian if they realized who and what she was: a foreign virgin. She’d die on an altar while lining their pockets with gold. She needed to remember she wasn’t one of them, she was a foreigner, a barbarian, and a valuable one. An enemy and a commodity.
All these things were easy to forget whilst nestled amid creature comforts, lazing while chewing candied fruits.
The street was a reminder; bustling and chaotic, and so easy to get lost in even if the people were closer to her height, that a sense of claustrophobia settled around her, a nervous hug that the tight walls of a cave had never given her. These people hated her, they just didn’t realize it.
Bdein stood where the Mulgart River flowed into the Fulgar at an awkward “Y”. Here the Fulgar became the Sesuun River, known as the Mighty Fulgar on some maps, and it stretched over a half horizon wide just north of the city’s walls. Rivers flowing north felt alien to her mind, unnatural as the Tek religion, full of human sacrifice and slaves. But in this instance, north was the direction she needed to go: To the Parapet Straits and the city of Gomjon. Best case they’d find a Silone trader, but a Hidreng ship headed northeast would suffice. Worst case, they could make their way by foot.
She’d need different boots for that walk, she’d hate to destroy these beauties hugging her feet now.
The River District smelled of fish, and she noticed women in finer silks raising their wrists to their noses, she presumed to catch a whiff of perfume, and followed suit. Smiled as her nose filled with lavender and lilac. The men on finer streets, closer to the Raspberry, wore filigreed and engraved weapons of the elite, light rapiers or smallswords, but here by the docks men were more apt to bear hatchets or crude, heavy bladed falchions.
A man stumbled from what she presumed was a tavern or inn and collapsed to his knees not ten paces from the hem of her beautiful dress; silly to be drunk so early in the day. But the way he reached for her, the way his mouth lolled, and how his tongue looked too large to fit between his teeth, a long night at the tavern didn’t do this to a man. Poison.
Meliu shuffled from the man’s outreached hand, a fellow murdered, and by the hells, he might well deserve this end. She wasn’t a healer, she could do nothing anyhow, even if she were.
The poor bastard fell face first into dirty cobbles, arms shaking, and his breaths ragged.
Meliu glanced around the street. Not a soul hurried to the man’s side, and a pity welling deep within her begged for her to go to this stranger.
She spun and strode toward the river, doing her damnedest to purge the memory of this dying man from her head. Deep breaths and fast strides. Whatever happened, it was none of her business. She stopped as she reached the riverside, replacing the mirage of death in her mind’s eye with dirty boats. My last trip on a boat didn’t end so good. But there was no way faster to travel, so she chose one at random.
She made her way to a broad, shallow bottomed boat stacked with crates and hailed the captain. She took a proper whiff of her wrist when he noticed her. “Sir, I ask, do you know of anyone with passage for two to Gomjon?”
The grizzled man bore a waxed mustache that curled over his ears, and he wore loose fitting wools dyed green and black. She wasn’t sure if he’d been the proper man to ask, for the wealthy girl she portrayed. “How soon?”
“Today, two days on the outside?”
“We’re headed upriver to Fike, but’ll be back in three days. But I’m certain another will float that way sooner.” A loop of mustache slunk from his ear toward his chest, stiff with wax, and he gave it a twist before stashing it back over his ear. “The White Pigeon is moored five or six boats south, she might be headed your way.”
Meliu flashed a toothy smile and curtsied, as she’d learned was proper of girls with full pouches. “Thank you, sir.”
She turned and strode past several fisherfolk, and their smaller vessels, eyes trained on the next boat rigged with a single mast.
“Inis, of the Librec River?”
The
sound of her Hidreng name startled her, and she turned with her heart in her throat to a man clad head to toe in black, but for the silk scarves of red and blue draped over his shoulders. A silver-hilted smallsword hung from a belt with a plain silver buckle. It took a flicker to recognize him from the Temple of the Virgin Moon. “Loduma?” She never bothered to learn what the name Er-Bdein meant, figuring to never see the man again. Regret over her sloth was immediate.
“You’ve a fine memory.”
“As do you, sir.”
He stepped within a few paces, hands twined behind his back. “A man should always recall the name of a pretty lass. The reverse, it seems, is seldom true.” His smile was as sincere and sad as that day at the temple. “What brings you to the river?”
“Passage to Gomjon for myself and my manservant.”
“Manservant or lover?” She blushed, and he held up his hands to stop her stumbling reply. “If you’ve no need for a private cabin, my boat will leave for Gomjon tomorrow, come soon after dawn.”
Meliu swallowed hard, gauging the man’s tone, the tilt of his eye, the lift of the corner of his mouth. Too godsdamned convenient, but she didn’t get a clear sense of the man’s intentions other than a hint of flirt within his brooding. “I’d be loath to impose.”
“Nary an imposition, I assure you. Of course, there would be a perfunctory fee, but nothing a girl such as you wouldn’t pay for a basket of plums.”
“I prefer grapes.”
His brows arched. “A girl with expensive tastes, indeed. Grapes, no doubt, will cost you a few extra crowns.”
She curtsied, it’d be unseemly for an unmarried girl to shake an older man’s hand. “I accept.” It was at once too easy to feel right, but too easy to pass up, and not accepting would raise questions. She could always not arrive come morning. Er-Bdein, she needed to know that name.
“I shouldn’t speak the words… There is an ill wind blowing across Bdein, I suggest you not miss the launch.”
Meliu blanched, caught off guard. Even in the Raspberry rumors of murder outside the tower came to her. Her nerves tingled. “I know nothing of what you speak. I’ve lived in the Raspberry the past several days.”
“Winds such as these begin in places with far fouler smells. People are dying; diseases have a way of finding their way from the dirty to the bathed.”
She relaxed for a flicker, but cities were notorious for spreading disease. This could be worse than any rumor. “Illness?”
“Indeed, I’ll be traveling far from here. You will find my boat, the Archer’s Eye, north of here, across from an eatery called the Frosted Salmon. Drink their beer and wine, but avoid the food.” He bowed. “I will see you on the morrow.”
The man walked past her with a solemn gait, his eyes not once wandering back to her once they left her face. While her feelings for the Choerkin confused her, this man unnerved her. But, it made sense he was leaving if a pestilence had befallen Bdein. Pestilence was difficult for the prayer of the finest healers to control, and she possessed no urge to challenge her own skills.
She sniffed her wrist, the lavender not so strong nor relaxing this time, and sauntered from the docks with her head full of questions. Shulaan was the only person she knew to raise the Er-Bdein question, but even then it might raise suspicions with the woman if the man were nefarious in some way.
She strolled the crowded streets until she came upon the shop where the little girl and her father… where she had tested poison on a man. A lifetime ago. In her heart, she felt it had been a different person who had done such a thing, and maybe it was. In that moment she’d been the scorned child of a violent whoreson, not a wealthy merchant’s prideful daughter. The past was the truth, and it was dark as a storm. The lie she’d lived in with such comfort the past several days felt upon a cloud, but it too bore thunder. Still, she sat atop that darkness, basking in the sun.
She glanced to the shop’s entry where boards crisscrossed the door.
Nailed.
Her heart clutched, and she wormed her way through pedestrians to a neighboring shop. A bell rang as she entered and a woman tiny enough to look up at Meliu strolled from a backroom with a smile. Within moments she stepped atop a podium so she looked down at her. “How might I assist you, lass?”
Meliu smiled, glanced about the shop. Dried flowers and roots, jars of powders; she had no idea what kind of store she’d walked into. An herbalist perhaps. “With nothing, maybe… My Paps bought some iron nails and sconces from the shop next door a week or so back, and he sent me for more. They appear closed?”
The woman slapped her cheeks with both hands, then brushed her fingers together, a gesture Meliu didn’t recognize, but she knew the woman’s tone when she spoke: Sorrow. “Yes, girl. The owner took ill. He and his daughter ride the winds upon Mugote’s wings.”
Meliu’s breath left her as if punched in the chest. It took flickers to raise the air for hushed words. “And the girl you say?” Mugote was Pulvuer’s hawk, who carried the souls of the dead into the afterlife.
“Came on sudden and ugly. One day he complained of sores, the next he was dying in the street, bleeding from his eyes and nose. The girl followed soon after.”
I’ve never heard of a poison which could do such a thing. Could she be innocent in these deaths? For a moment she breathed a little easier. “Such a tragedy.”
“I’ve heard tell of other folks coming down with boils, so far every one of ‘em is dead. A day, maybe two later.”
“You don’t say?”
“What I hear! But what you hear isn’t always so.”
Meliu stood silent, gazing too long at the woman. “Well, I thank you, even if the news is bad.”
“Any time, dear.”
She turned and opened the door to a jingle. Poison didn’t spread. There was no guilt to bear, but she turned and asked, “Were they the first to die from these boils?”
The old woman gave a shrug-nod. “Far as any word I know, but street paupers die without a care for their soul nor the cause.”
Meliu’s heart chugged in her chest. “I saw a man die in the street today—”
The woman stumbled from her podium, eyes wide. “You didn’t touch him?”
“No! No, no. I was strides away. A swollen tongue stuck from his mouth, was it the same with the girl and her father?”
“Yes, child. So they did. Couldn’t speak by the end, almost like they choked on their own tongues.”
No, no, no. But she turned without a word, her mind numb, heading for the door.
“You keep your wits and stay away from anyone who coughs, or is pale.”
The bell rang, then the door slapped closed behind her. Her pace was brisk, carrying her up the familiar streets to the Raspberry. A man coughed to her left, then a woman to her right. The once innocuous sounds jerked her shoulders, and she fought the urge to jog to the inn.
On arriving the doorman swung the door open, but Meliu didn’t so much as nod for his courtesy. Straight past the baths. Straight past the stairs. Straight to her room, and she locked the door behind her.
Ivin sat at a desk, dressed and ready to depart as she’d asked. ”Did you find a boat?”
Meliu glanced, but didn’t say a word. She kicked her beautiful boots from her feet and pulled the dress over her head, uncaring for how naked she was, and slipped between silk sheets, hiding her face. Fighting to breathe.
The cushion of the bed sank as Ivin sat beside her. “What the hells happened?”
She exhaled and tried to speak, but words didn’t come. She pressed a hand to her lips, shuddered, and found her voice. “We leave on the Archer’s Eye come morning.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
A hand rubbed her bare shoulder through the silk, and she didn’t scream. But she trembled. “I think I did something terrible.”
“What’re you talking about, Meliu? Tell me. Please.”
Her mind raced through a dozen lies, but they failed. Nothing withou
t a slice of truth would suffice. “I may have… killed a man and his daughter. An accident. Maybe. A mistake, not an accident.”
“May have?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. We don’t leave this room until we leave this city.”
The silent pause held an uncomfortable weight, and the sound of Ivin’s voice, so soft and forgiving, eased her trembling. “I’m sure we’ve plenty of food, I’m also sure you know best.”
“Lay beside me?” The weighty silence returned, and she blushed for no one to see, hidden by silk. And the humor of the moment further eased her pain. “Not under them, you mooncalf. Just beside me.”
Boots thudded to the floor, and he curled atop the blankets, an arm draped over her shoulders. She pressed into him, as close to a man as she’d ever been without a stitch of clothes on. For a flicker, an admission of guilt rested on her tongue, but her truth once started (of a vial) would lead to a darker truth (its connection to Lord Priest Ulrikt). These were truths she might never be able to confess to another soul. Impossible to utter to a Choerkin. A Choerkin she cared for.
Ivin stared at Meliu’s bulge beneath silk sheets, a shadow in lantern’s light; she’d eaten a dozen bites since last night, spoken fewer words, and with the morning still dark he’d slipped from her side to worry on her.
She’d done something terrible.
After what he’d witnessed at the tower, or more frightening still, what he imagined became of those Tek left screaming in their cells, worse brought a knot to his throat.
The rare words she’d spoken in the middle of the night forbade him to mention the girl and her father. She whispered that a disease killed folks in the city, and that a man named Loduma Ar-Bdein would take them down river to flee its spread. She mentioned she needed to learn what Ar-Bdein meant.
Ivin let her fall back to sleep, but the name kept him awake. He dismissed its familiarity at first, what the hells would he know? It’d clicked in the middle of a dozing dream as Kotin greeted a Hidreng ship when Ivin was a boy.
His father stood at the gates to the docks, all three sons by his side. Ivin was maybe thirteen that day and dressed as if Peneluple picked out his wardrobe, despite her being dead for years. It wasn’t often Kotin made him bathe and comb his hair and sporting a silk-lined cloak was something he hadn’t done since attending the New Year’s Mass the year before his little sister ended his mother’s life. But now, in this dream, a part of him remembered that his mother’s death might not have been his sibling’s fault at all, but instead Meris, the woman invited to oversee the occasion.
Trail of Pyres Page 32