As Wil watched a young man drag the two apart, speaking harshly and shaking them each by the shoulder until they dipped their heads on something approximating apology, he wondered if Dallin had ever camped here with his mother, playing with mates and waiting for his father to come off patrol. He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to have to see Dallin’s pain as another memory was resurrected and reburied. And then Wil wouldn’t be able to help himself asking, pushing, and prodding, and he didn’t think he could bear it if Dallin lied to him again, even if Dallin didn’t realize he was doing it—it didn’t suit him, and he was quite bad at it.
Wil thought of Hunter, the light of righteous violence shining in his eager eyes, and couldn’t help seeing its reflection in the features he could make out from this distance.
“I imagine Linders make good soldiers.”
“When they’re allowed.” Dallin caught Wil’s curious look, and grimaced. “It’s against Lind’s laws for its people to leave the Bounds unless so ordered by the Old Ones. And even then, sometimes they won’t be allowed back in. Depends on whether or not the Old Ones judge them—” He paused, searching for the right word, his mouth pinching slightly as he found it. “—contaminated.” He rolled his eyes. “If they’re conscripted, they have to go. Lind is a part of Cynewísan, and they abide by the Commonwealth’s laws as much as they have to. So those called up are given provisional dispensation. But there hasn’t been a draft since before I retired, so….” He waved a hand over the camp.
All these frustrated warriors with no one against whom to exorcise their pent-up aggressions. Wil almost snorted—the Brethren couldn’t possibly know what they were getting into, skulking into a place like this.
“Does all meet your satisfaction?” It was a loose, craggy voice attached to a man just as craggy, though he seemed nearly as fit as Dallin, considering his apparent age. The Old Ones had caught up. Walde, Wil thought this one’s name was, but he couldn’t be sure—he really had lost track after the first few.
Wil turned, and looked them all over more carefully than he’d done before. Gracious and open to the casual glance, all of them, but… now Wil wasn’t so sure. Nothing but kind to him, every single one of them, but now he couldn’t help wondering what those soft gazes concealed. He caught Calder’s eye and remembered Dallin’s wariness of him from the very beginning, speculating that Calder’s opinions were likely slightly more vigorous than the Old Ones to whom he’d once belonged but perhaps not too far astray. Wil hadn’t really had cause to think about it before, but now, seeing how easily Calder fit in with the others, how anyone might have guessed Calder just another of them, were it not for the scars where his Marks used to be and the fact that Wil knew better….
If it hadn’t been for Shaw, Wil thought he likely would have allowed Dallin to chase Calder off—that was, assuming Calder would have gone. But Wil liked Shaw, trusted him for the most part, and Shaw seemed to think Calder worthy of an apparently long friendship. Something didn’t fit, and Wil couldn’t help looking at the group of elders with new caution.
Dallin was right to be suspicious of them. If asked, Wil wouldn’t have been able to prove it, but he knew it anyway. The Old Ones were lying to Dallin, every one of them, and if not lying outright, then at least not saying everything.
Dallin said he’d heard the land protest when the Brethren stepped onto it. Was it so unreasonable to assume the Old Ones possessed at least a faint echo of that same connection?
They’d known all those years ago. Wil knew they had; they had to have.
“Everything appears adequate from up here,” Dallin was saying. “Healdes tells me all of the patrols have been alerted, and we can’t do much more until they start finding and turning over whatever dens they’ve managed to hole up in. I’d like to ride out in the morning and—”
“Brayden!”
Wil didn’t know why he jumped as he did. Perhaps because he’d heard the voice before, and the circumstances under which he’d heard it had been rather unpleasant. The last time he’d heard it, after all, the barrel of a gun had been resting against the nape of Dallin’s neck.
He turned to watch Corliss quickstep up the slope, footholds established carefully but confidently as she rushed at them, relief and reprimand both in the wide smile on her flushed face. Cleaner than Wil had seen her last, her blue and brown free of stains and road dust, and her bright hair twisted neatly into a knot at the back of her head.
It was stupid, childish, but Wil couldn’t help it—he angled himself slightly behind Dallin and peered at Corliss warily from around Dallin’s shoulder.
Dallin seemed to have no such reservations. His face lit up, and he started to move forward. Stupid and childish again, but again, Wil couldn’t help it—he snatched at Dallin’s sleeve and tugged him back. Dallin peered down at him with a bit of a frown, questioning, but Corliss was upon them before Wil could even try to form an excuse.
“Thank the Mother!” Corliss took hold of Dallin’s arms, and shook him. “I’ve been talking myself blue in the face for bloody days. One more and my throat will start to bleed.”
Dallin snorted good-naturedly. “And we all know how you hate to talk.”
“And we all know how you love to dump your work on your peons.”
It was like nothing had ever happened, Wil thought uncomfortably. Had he missed the forgive-and-forget part?
Corliss’s pale blue eyes shifted, locking on to Wil and narrowing slightly, but unaccountably her smile modulated into something softer. She pushed Dallin aside—no easy thing—taking away Wil’s barrier of wide shoulders. There was nothing Wil could do but either move with Dallin and make it obvious that he’d been hiding, or stand and meet Corliss’s stare. He chose the latter and lifted his chin—which, again unaccountably, only made Corliss’s smile widen into a grin.
She let go of Dallin, and extended her hand toward Wil. “We’ve not exactly met.” There was perhaps a touch of apology in her tone, but Wil couldn’t be certain. “Corliss Stierne, constable of Putnam and sometime-aide to your, um.” She shot a smirky, knowing glance up at Dallin.
“Guardian.” Dallin’s tone was a stern warning inside a bit of affection.
Corliss arched an auburn eyebrow. “Is that what they call it here?”
“Corliss—”
“Yes, yes, I expect that’s the new title you were talking about, and I must say it suits you.” Corliss turned back to Wil, hand still extended. “A pleasure.”
She wasn’t going to drop her hand. Wil could keep ignoring it until the discomfort was apparent to all, or….
He grimaced, then reached out and took her hand. “Wil.”
“Wil. It’s a pleasure and an honor to meet you.”
Corliss’s grip was strong and sure as she pumped Wil’s arm—only once, but firmly—then let him withdraw his hand. Oddly, she seemed sincere, and even more oddly, Wil believed her. Corliss tilted her head, eyeing Wil with a gaze that reminded him this woman was a constable, and it had been mere chance that Wil had ended up across a table from Dallin all those weeks ago. It could just as easily have been her. Wil couldn’t help wondering how different things might have gone in the basement of the Putnam constabulary if he’d been sitting across from Corliss, and if her questions would have been easier to answer. Or even harder.
“You look hungry,” Corliss informed him.
Wil blinked and shot a small frown up at Dallin.
Dallin puffed out a weary snort. “Don’t look at me. You always look hungry.” He nodded at Corliss. “Small word of advice—always follow a mum at suppertime. They know where to find all the best stuff, and no one complains when they cut the queue.” He turned to the Old Ones and their squires. “Are we ready, then?”
It didn’t sound like much of a question, but nonetheless, several answered with a negating shake of the head. “We must sound the horn,” one of them said—this time Wil didn’t even try to remember or guess his name—and prodded the young man next to him down the slope w
ith a stern nod.
Dallin watched the boy go with a grimace.
Corliss’s mouth tightened and she took a step closer to Wil, then flipped a dour look on the Old Ones. “Is this really necessary?”
The one who’d given Wil the bowl—Singréne—bristled somewhat. “We must welcome the Shaman back home. It is tradition.”
“So is fucking in the fields on Planting Day, but we don’t blow horns while we’re doing it, do we?”
Wil couldn’t help the surprised bit of a cackle—both at the question and the way every mouth but Shaw’s pinched in tight upon its utterance. Shaw merely covered his mouth with his hand, laughter twinkling bright in his eyes. It only made Wil’s own laughter burble more insistently, and he had to duck his head and hold his breath to stop it when all eyes turned on him.
“Corliss, it’s fine.” It didn’t look like Dallin quite meant it, because he hardened his gaze and directed his next statement more to the Old Ones than to Corliss. “He’s stronger than he looks.”
Wil frowned, more surprise, and this one not terribly laughable. Defense again, and he hadn’t even known he’d needed it. But now that he looked, he could see the worry on each wrinkled face, the vague suspicion that Wil might spasm any second and start shooting lightning bolts from his fingertips.
They had to have heard about Chester. Why hadn’t he thought of that before?
“Of course he is,” Corliss agreed, stout and serious. “Anyone can tell by looking, I should think—anyone with half a brain.” She deliberately looked only at Dallin, but it was clear her words were meant for the Old Ones. The past few days at the Bounds must have been very interesting ones indeed, if Wil was interpreting the tension correctly. “I only meant that you’ve been riding all day, and Wil looks like he’d eat a side of beef if someone would only hand one over. So it seems to me—”
“Wait.” Dallin’s voice was shot through with realization and new urgency. He grabbed one of the boys by the elbow. “Go after him and stop him. No horns.” When the boy looked wide-eyed to the Old Ones, Dallin’s teeth clenched, and he shoved the boy toward the slope. “Now—hurry!”
The boy slid down the incline in his haste, then quickly caught his feet to sprint after the other boy, who was just now wading into the crowd.
Dallin turned back to the Old Ones. “You sound those horns and they’ll know exactly where Wil is. We can’t risk it.”
Enlightenment flashed over each face, then chagrin, except for Corliss.
“That’s why he’s First Constable,” she murmured aside to Wil. “You couldn’t do better for a Guardian.”
Wil couldn’t help the small smile, the agreeable nod. “I know.”
“Sorry,” Dallin was saying to the others. “I don’t mean to spoil your party, but I won’t risk his safety.”
“He couldn’t be safer,” one of them argued. “Where is safer in all of Cynewísan but in Lind itself, surrounded by Weardas?”
“How about not in Lind, where hundreds of nutters are prowling about looking for him?”
Wil was surprised Dallin didn’t mention that the raid of his youth had been in Lind, and the Weardas, according to what he’d been able to glean from all of the Not Talking About It, had been thoroughly ineffective. It seemed increasingly apparent, however, that it was an event to which there was recurrent allusion but never actual vocalization—at least not by using actual descriptive words. Come to think of it, Wil had yet to hear anyone mention a single word about Dallin’s mother, or even the fact that he’d had one.
“It isn’t as though they don’t know already.” Corliss nodded down toward the camp. “Look at them. Word is already spreading.”
She was right. Perhaps it was the commotion with the boys, or maybe Hunter’s cautions under Dallin’s earlier directive, or perhaps they’d simply been lingering up here for too long and it had only been a matter of time. Whatever it was, faces were turning up toward them and a hushed expectancy was leaking across the camp in swift waves of silence.
“Where are Creighton and Woodrow?” Dallin asked, his voice low and slightly edgy as he leaned in toward Corliss. He shot a narrow look down over the quieting crowd, then over his shoulder to sweep the Old Ones with a bit of a glare, before turning his dark gaze back on Corliss.
The silent message was clear: I don’t trust these people. Where are mine?
Corliss patted Dallin’s arm. “Creighton went on patrol with a squad of the Linders. Woodrow is waiting down by the kegs.”
Wil and Dallin both followed the jerk of her chin. The surcoat was difficult to pick out in the falling dusk but still distinctive. Wil peered about, looking for Hunter, but there were too many blond heads and wide shoulders to pick out one set.
“Don’t start jumping at shadows.” Corliss slanted a smile at Dallin. “They love him already, and they bloody worship you. If there’s trouble, it won’t be from them.”
“I didn’t think it.” But Dallin’s discomfort was apparent, and he stepped closer to Wil. “Nevertheless.”
He nodded at Corliss and waited. She twigged right away, stepping to Wil’s other side and placing a hand at the small of Wil’s back. Wil scowled and only just kept himself from twitching away, but he couldn’t keep from being annoyed at the assumptions—from both of them. Regardless of the fact that the idea of walking down that slope and into that watching crowd was probably one of the most daunting things he’d ever contemplated.
“I doubt they’re going to eat me.” He shot Dallin an irritated glance but softened it when he marked the apparent unease. “There are nothing but good intentions down there. Can’t you feel it?”
Wil could. Or, at least, it was nothing like the oppressive weight of too many voicesmindseyes drilling into him as it had been this morning. Granted, Dallin had taken most of that away for him, but he couldn’t change what was in other people’s hearts, and right now Wil felt nothing that alarmed him. Except perhaps an overfaced inner writhing at being stared at by so many sets of eyes. Then again, they were likely staring more at their Lost Shaman than they were at Wil, so perhaps Wil was overreacting.
Anyway, he was hungry, now that Corliss had mentioned it, and whatever was roasting in those pits was making his mouth water.
“Good intentions are not always a promise of good behavior.” Dallin’s gaze continually swept the crowd, dark and watchful. He nodded. “Off with you, let’s go.”
Wil twitched his shoulders irritably as Corliss’s hand pressed into his back, but he allowed her to prod him into a slow walk down the incline. Dallin led the way, staring down anyone who might even fleetingly consider blocking their path.
The silence was not complete, soft murmurs continually swiffing through, but it was unnerving even so. Wil fancied he could hear the horses chewing, and he was sure he could hear the chickens muttering at each other. The people seemed sufficiently cowed by their Shaman’s stare, but there remained that light in their eyes that Wil had seen in all the other Linders when faced with Dallin—like he could tell them all to go drown themselves in the river and they’d bow deeply then leap in. No, they’d bow, then run, then leap. All of them dipped their heads as they passed, even the children. Some of the elders even wept, though quietly.
Wil could see the tension strung tight in the set of Dallin’s spine, the stiffness of his shoulders, but he peered steadily back at all who met his eyes, his jaw set. Wil, on the other hand, watched his boots plant themselves in the pale trampled grass, watched Corliss’s boots, watched Dallin’s back, until the first hand came into his peripheral vision, and reached.
Smallish, a girl of perhaps fifteen. A whisper of “Aisling” leaked from her gently upturned lips as she plucked at Wil’s sleeve, then snatched her hand back, curled it into a fist, and brought it up to cover her mouth. It seemed to open a floodgate. Two more, and another two, and then Wil was losing track, losing his calm, as one hand after another came at him. Never threatening, never grasping, merely touching once, quickly, then dropping away.
And all the while “Aisling” flittered about him, and “Bless,” and “Mother’s Gift,” and any number of unnerving descriptives that only served to drive Wil’s heart up into this throat and constrict his chest. The closeness was making it difficult to breathe, the mass of bodies heating the very air and making sweat slide down between Wil’s shoulder blades.
They weren’t touching Dallin—almost as though they wouldn’t dare—merely making a gap between them, then closing it loosely again behind him so that Wil had to actually push his way through. It took all his will not to snarl and snap at them as they smiled down at him, those fleeting tentative touches landing on arms and shoulders. Some even lightly brushed his hair, and Wil had to really try not to twitch and jolt.
“Dallin,” he said, except his throat was too tight, and it came out a whisper, drowned out by the low murmur of voices surrounding him. He reached out, meaning to take hold of Dallin’s sleeve, but bodies were coming between them, and hands came out, reaching for his own, so Wil snatched it back.
“Just breathe.” Corliss was calm and soothing, and annoying as hell. “They won’t hurt you. They only—”
“I know that.” Wil couldn’t help how it snapped out of him, peering up into blue eyes, then hazel, then blue again—all of them expressing some form of adoration and acceptance, and surely none of it for him, because they didn’t know, they couldn’t know—before he tore his gaze away and pointed it again to the ground. “I’m not a child.” He would’ve wrenched away from Corliss’s hand against his back, but he hardly had room to move. He was only just above eye level with broad chests and more bosoms than he’d ever seen in one place in his whole life, and they were cutting off his air, sucking it all up for themselves ’til he was nearly hyperventilating, and they wouldn’t stop touching him.
“I know you’re not a child.” The tone of Corliss’s voice, with its easy, soothing pitch, seemed to belie her words. “I’ve six of my own. Believe me, I can tell the difference.”
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