Winter of Ice and Iron

by Rachel Neumeier

  “Did you not believe me when I told you that I was not skilled? It is generally assumed, of course, that a duke should be skilled. It is, however, a rare soldier of mine who could not defeat me in an even contest.”

  Deconniy stood still, bemused.

  “I’m better with knives,” Innisth added, and advanced.

  Deconniy jerked up his sword. The second exchange was much more careful, as the captain delicately probed his duke’s skill. Several minutes into it, Innisth found himself suddenly advancing, pushing back the younger man, who retreated, and retreated again, circling the room, face taut with concentration. The thud and clatter of the swords, the harsh breathing of exertion, the muffled thud of footsteps on the floor filled the room. The exertion was not unpleasant. Desire rose, fierce and aggressive, and Innisth drove his young captain back in truth.

  Until, with a sudden step and twist, Deconniy evaded a slashing blow and caught Innisth’s sword hand in a tight hold. Simultaneously he brought his own blade across and down in a sharp arc that ended, lightly, against the duke’s thigh. For a moment both men stood motionless, body to body, as close as lovers.

  Deconniy broke the hold and stepped back.

  “Very good,” Innisth commended him, catching his breath. He put his sword down and opened and closed his sword hand carefully, investigating the bruises where his fingers had been crushed against the wire-bound hilt of his sword. His whole arm and shoulder ached from the unaccustomed weight, in fact, and he thought he could feel every bruise.

  “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” said Deconniy, watching. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

  Innisth glanced at him sharply. “You will be as careful as is consonant with the exigency of the moment. I am hardly likely to fret over a bruise or two, my captain.”

  Deconniy bowed his head in acknowledgment.

  “I gather you will indeed be able to perform as will be required.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” The captain nodded with conviction. “It needs practice, to make it look real, but it can be done. The most difficult part will be judging the strength of the blow.” He hesitated. “You understand, Your Grace, I am quite serious when I tell you this is dangerous. There is a chance of crippling—a cut to the muscles of the leg can be very serious—”

  “I shall, of course, have my physicker standing ready,” Innisth told him shortly. “And Eänetaìsarè should assist me in that regard. Still, I understand that practice will be important. It will probably be some days before Laören returns. We shall practice every night. You may sleep here. On the couch, of course.”

  Deconniy hesitated, began to speak, then changed his mind and nodded.

  Innisth set his teeth against a sudden, powerful urge to order him to strip. Why not the reality, if there must be the appearance? It would not take from the young captain anything Laören had not already taken. Deconniy would still cooperate in this little play—he could not possibly risk doing anything else—

  Except, of course, it would be an unconscionable abuse of whatever trust Deconniy might have given his duke.

  Innisth said, his tone remote, “Go to bed. Reiöft will be in quite early to wake me, and you may then depart about your other duties.” He walked away, into the inner bedchamber, and shut the connecting door. It closed with a quiet click, leaving him alone. Dimly from the other room came the sounds of his officer making ready to retire. Innisth set his teeth. However hard the Eänetén Power pressed him, he could not send for Caèr if he was supposed to be lying with Deconniy. It was going, he feared, to be a long night.

  Over the next days, practice shifted from wooden swords to edged steel. Innisth learned to keep an even tempo of steps and blows, to take the opportunities Deconniy let him have, to block the blows he knew were coming. The young captain was a good teacher, far better than the armsmaster Innisth’s father had once set to the task of instructing his son. . . . Innisth turned his mind deliberately from those memories.

  With Verè Deconniy, it was like a pattern dance. One learned the steps more easily with a partner whose lead could be trusted. Deconniy would not let him learn the exact time the true blow would come, however. That, he varied, lest the duke learn to flinch and so give the whole gambit away.

  With the duke’s leave, Deconniy also spent one whole afternoon at the slaughterhouse outside of the town, and came back quiet and pale. “It’s harder than I thought, to make the blow only so hard and no harder, to deliver a cut only so deep and no deeper,” he told Innisth. “And I spoke to your physicker—only in general terms, of course, Your Grace. This is more dangerous than I thought. And I already thought it was dangerous.”

  “Your alternate plan?” Innisth asked him, impatient with this timidity.

  Deconniy shook his head. “I will go back to the slaughterhouse tomorrow, Your Grace. I’ve told them it’s a study of mine, which method of putting an edge on a sword is better.”

  “There’s more than one method?”

  Deconniy, easier with the duke now, laughed. Innisth almost smiled.

  But it was a difficult week. He had to keep Verè Deconniy close; nor could he send Eöté away, lest she be endangered when Laören returned. The Eänetén Power pressed him, wanting them both.

  At least Eöté did not seem so very frightened of Deconniy. They were both originally of Tisain, had both fled to Eäneté; they had that in common. Both had been abused by Laören; perhaps that produced a kind of bond. Or perhaps the girl reminded Deconniy of his sister. Or perhaps he favored her on her own account. Innisth could hardly deny the appeal of extreme vulnerability.

  However, it seemed to him that with every day that passed, the girl became even more subdued. Innisth had no patience to spare to reassure her, though this mattered little, as he was aware she would not find any word or gesture from him reassuring. He made sure she was provided with small tasks: the embroidery she liked and intricate lacework she clearly enjoyed. But he also made sure she kept out of his way. The restraint wore at him.

  “You might spare yourself a little of the generosity you offer your servants,” Gereth told him, the third time he brought the duke a supper tray and found it untouched on his return. He cut a sliver of ham, folded it into a bit of bread and held it out.

  Innisth gave him an austere look.

  “Eat it,” Gereth said sharply. “You worry us all. You will need your strength when Laören returns. Do you want to bleed to death because you’ve weakened yourself through all this unnecessary abstemiousness?”

  “Gereth,” the duke said, his tone warning.

  “You are frightening Reiöft. You are frightening Deconniy. You are frightening Etar. And you are frankly terrifying me. Is that what you want?”

  Innisth sighed, and took the food.

  “Good. Thank you. I hope you will do us all the favor of finishing this entire tray. Now, I’ve worked out one or two things we might do if you are incapacitated and Laören becomes difficult. I have discussed these plans with Etar, who requests the opportunity to put them to you, Your Grace. I am going to be otherwise occupied for this next little while, because I am going to go into town and find someone suitable for your . . . other needs.” He held up a hand as Innisth started to speak. “Lord Laören will return very soon. The word from Tisain is that he had been much involved there. But we know he left the lord’s hall early yesterday, Geif in tow—”

  “I am aware of this,” snapped the duke.

  “Of course, Your Grace. And so naturally we are all on edge. How not? But better for us all if you are . . . not so much on edge as the rest of us. I will find someone suitable. And when you meet Laören, he will recognize at last that he should be afraid of you.”

  “Will he?”

  “You do have that effect on people, Your Grace. Particularly at moments when you have allowed your Power to sate its . . . other desires. That will be half the contest right there.”

  “Gereth, I will go myself. You do not gladly take on the role of procurer.”

 
“You don’t have time. You must work with our earnest Captain Deconniy. Which will further strain your hold on your Power. I know,” the seneschal added in a gentler voice, “that this is not something you like to hear spoken aloud. But I know you, and I know how the Eänetén Power presses you. This is something I can do. I will do it.”

  Innisth was not often compelled to yield an argument. Not even to Gereth. But he could not argue any point his seneschal had raised. He said after a moment, “Someone who will not be missed. Someone whose death will benefit Eäneté.”

  Gereth lifted his eyebrows. “Yes,” he said. “Of course. I will find precisely the right sort, Innisth. I am hardly likely to make a mistake in this.”

  “True,” Innisth conceded. “You, least of all. Very well.” His stomach clinched hard with anticipation. He smiled, knowing his face now was the face of the Wolf Duke. He said, “Yes. Go, then. Tonight—no, I know, very well. Tomorrow, then.”

  “Assuredly,” Gereth murmured. And withdrew, leaving Innisth still edgy, but with a different and more welcome kind of tension.

  9

  Kehera hated Teier’s suggestion. But it seemed the only way.

  Slavery was illegal in every country but Pohorir. Kehera had never even met a slave, much less considered what it would be like to pretend to be one. To travel as a slave in a slave trader’s wagon train, at the mercy of the slave trader. It seemed a dreadful idea.

  But Teier said this man regularly smuggled people from one town to another. Mostly from other parts of Pohorir to Enchar, mostly in the summer when the folk he smuggled might make it through Anha Pass and then go anywhere they liked. They paid, of course. But Kehera thought a couple of her pearls would probably meet the slaver’s price, and who would look among a slaver’s merchandise for a free girl?

  “It’s the only way I know,” Teier told her, and in the end Kehera agreed to at least meet the slave trader.

  His name was Parren. Once she met him, she had to admit that he seemed surprisingly normal. Even . . . nice.

  He was a big man with a deep, rumbly voice, tall enough that the top of Kehera’s head would not quite reach his collarbone, wide enough that he probably outweighed her three times over. He had long red hair pulled back and bound at his neck in the mountain style, and a thick curly beard of the same color framing his broad mouth. His arms, and the vee of his chest visible through the open throat of his shirt, had the same curly red hair. Combined with his direct look and warm smile, it made him look like a particularly friendly bear. Kehera returned his smile involuntarily.

  “Oh, aye, I can do it right enough,” he promised her. “No doubt about it, and the redcloaks none the wiser for it.” He looked Kehera up and down, smiling, his blue eyes shrewd and kind. “It’s the Eänetén pass you’re heading for? Then it’s not the redcloaks will be your problem. It’s the Wolf Duke.”

  “You know how to stay out of his way,” Teier observed. “Or so you’ve told me any number of times, Parren.”

  A rumbling laugh. “Very true. Very true. You get good, plump girls in Eäneté, even in winter, fetch a top price in Irekay. Mind, you don’t want to catch the Wolf’s eye while you’re in his lands. But I’ll get you there, right enough, and what you do after that is no concern of mine.”

  “I will manage,” Kehera told him quietly. Just that quickly, she was committed. It was . . . terrifying. But she was intensely relieved, too, to have found a way out of Enchar, to be moving again, this time on her own terms and toward home. She turned to Teier. “I’ll remember all the help you gave me. I’m so grateful for your kindness.”

  The young man gave her a last shy smile, and that was the memory she knew she would carry away from Enchar: the young man from the sausage shop, with his shy manner and quick kindness, who in a moment of danger had bought her a piece of soap in the shape of a swan.

  Parren guided her across a wide, muddy yard bordered on every side by warehouses and cluttered at the moment with waiting wagons and a few men on horseback. More men stood in a loose cluster near a smaller group of girls. Kehera realized with a slight shock that these must be Parren’s slaves. She did not know exactly what she had expected, but not such quiet, normal-looking people. There was no evidence of chains and no guards with whips standing over them. A few even held bundles that she guessed must contain their own possessions. Yet they were slaves. She could see the brands when she looked more closely: a little hourglass shape on the right cheek of each man, the mark old and white on a couple, vividly fresh on others. The girls were branded on the shoulder where it wouldn’t show. Buyers preferred that. She’d heard so, at least, and thought it barbaric, as everything about Pohorin slavery was barbaric, but mostly she was just relieved that girls weren’t ordinarily branded where the mark would show.

  Brand or not, she would have to be a slave too, until they arrived in Eäneté. Then she would pay Parren and escape through Roh Pass and go home. And all these other people would be left behind. They would be taken away to be sold to anyone who wanted to buy them. It seemed impossibly awful. But none of these people looked especially frightened. They mostly looked cold and bored.

  “You’ll be traveling in the wagon with the other girls,” Parren told her. “Only a few others. They don’t often sell their girls here in Enchar. I mostly get men here and girls in Eäneté, but this trip I’ve got a few, including a real little one. Tell her you’re her new big sister, you hear? Little ones, they like to play that kind of pretend—anybody pokes his head in, get her babbling. She’ll do it perfectly. People believe babies’ chatter, see?”

  This was actually a very clever idea. Kehera’s estimation of the slave trader rose. She asked, “How long do you expect it will take us to get to Eäneté?”

  An expansive shrug. “Who can say? If the weather is good, not so long. Maybe eighteen, maybe twenty days, maybe a little more. Me, I plan for bad weather, but not too much bad weather! I hope not much more than twenty days. Once we’re past Kimsè and into Eäneté Province, the roads will be good. The Wolf Duke keeps his roads in good repair, whatever else you might say about him. Here, that’s the wagon, with the other girls. It’s lucky you caught me! We will finish loading very soon.”

  Two of the girls looked like they were probably about ten, possibly twins. Both were pretty, one actually lovely. Then there was the little girl, a child of perhaps five or six years. An older girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen, held her by the hand. Kehera thought at first that they must be sisters, but they did not look at all alike, so perhaps they weren’t.

  The men stood a little distance away from the girls. There were more of them than of the girls—nine, she counted. One, young and sullen, his brand new and painful, looked about her own age. He stood slouched, his hands tucked under his arms to keep them warm. Kehera found herself in sympathy with his sullen expression. Another man, bigger and older, with a plain face and a crooked nose, watched without expression as Parren’s employees loaded the wagons. His brand was new as well, she could see. He stood straight, like a soldier, his arms crossed over his chest, but after a moment Kehera saw that unlike the rest of the slaves, he was chained—an iron manacle around each wrist, the chain just long enough to let him cross his arms. Maybe he had been a thug, a brawler, a thief, something of the sort, and so arrested and condemned to slavery. She didn’t know how people became slaves here, but that made sense. But the oldest of the men was about fifty, with ink stains on his hands. She couldn’t believe he was a thief or a brawler. Kehera wondered how he had come to be standing in the muddy courtyard with the rest of them.

  The biggest difference between these slaves and ordinary people, Kehera decided, was that the slaves were quieter. They hardly spoke among themselves at all, and none of them spoke to her. Taking that cue, she said nothing herself. They watched the wagons being readied with no sign of either pleasure or displeasure, as if their imminent departure from Enchar was a matter of indifference to them. The exception was the little girl, who swung impatiently on the h
and of the girl minding her and asked questions.

  “Are we going in the wagons, Reilliy?”

  “Yes, of course we are. You know that,” said the girl impatiently. “Please don’t fidget so, Geris. Aren’t you a big enough girl to stand still?”

  “Yes!” the child asserted. She stood still for a minute and then tugged on Reilliy’s hand again. “When are we going in the wagons, Reilliy?”

  “Soon. Hush!” Reilliy answered.

  “Let me take her for a minute,” said the man with ink stains, stepping over. He swung the little girl up into his arms. He murmured to her in a low voice, and she giggled and whispered back. Reilliy looked relieved.

  “Load!” Parren bellowed from the side. He pointed to one of the wagons. “Girls there! Men and boys in that one over there.” He scowled suddenly at the man holding Geris. “What are you doing there?”

  The man lowered his eyes. “Nothing, sir.” He put the child down and gave her a little push toward Reilliy. “Go to Reilliy now. Go let Reilliy hold your hand now, Geris.”

  The little girl stuck her lower lip out rebelliously, but she let Reilliy take her hand again.

  “Load up,” Parren commanded them all indiscriminately. He swung away on his horse.

  Kehera followed Reilliy and Geris and the other girls toward the girls’ wagon. It was a much bigger wagon than was necessary to accommodate the five of them. Presumably it would become more crowded when Parren picked up more slaves in Eäneté. Kehera took a deep breath and climbed in.

  The wagon was dark after the daylight, close and warm even with the flaps tied open. Sacks and bales and crates took up the rearmost part of the wagon, but there were blankets in the front part for the girls to sit on. And at least it was out of the wind. After riding through Anha Pass, it didn’t seem so bad to sit in a wagon for a while, and Kehera couldn’t deny that she felt safer out of sight. She found a place near the front opening and sat down, cross-legged, back braced against the wood of the side. Reilliy sat across from her, wordlessly, and Geris knelt where she could see out and peered out excitedly. The other two girls curled up together at the back and were quiet; they seemed completely uninterested in anything that was happening.