Then Sorne went to see the harbour-master to complain about the attack on Captain Ardonyx’s ships. The man had an excuse for everything. The ships should have been sent to the Wyrd wharf. He blamed a clerk for the misunderstanding. As for the brigands, there were always men who would seize an opportunity; he would make enquires. It was clear to Sorne there was no hope of recovering the cargo. He left the harbour-master with the impression the king would not tolerate another such incident.
Next, Sorne called in on the Father’s church. High Priest Faryx was waiting for him in the greeting chamber. An assistant delivered a tray of wine and sweet pastries. It had become a ritual now, and Sorne was coming to understand why the high priest was so plump.
‘I asked about this Baron Eskarnor,’ Faryx revealed. ‘In Navarone, after the surrender, an abbey was attacked. The priests were massacred and their abbey stripped of all valuables.’
‘Nothing could be proven,’ Sorne said. ‘There were no survivors.’
‘The gold and sacred religious relics?’
‘Gold melts down. Religious relics can be sold to the pious.’ Sorne shrugged. ‘Have your priests heard of any trouble out on the estates?’
‘Nothing.’ Faryx nibbled on a sweet pastry, then licked his fingers like a satisfied cat. ‘So far there’s been no news of the missing she-Wyrd.’
‘You wrote to Restoration Retreat?’
‘That’s right. I meant to tell you. There is no Restoration Retreat. It’s been empty since Oskane returned to port.’
Sorne was beginning to think his sister had died the night of the riots. His heart felt heavy. He’d failed her. He’d gone to warn the city, then diverted to save Graelen. Only Grae had died, and he hadn’t been in time to warn the city. He’d succeeded in turning a massacre into exile, but that was small compensation for what he’d lost.
Later, as he was leaving, he stopped a penitent and showed him two of the reports on Wyrds. ‘I came across these. I think they belong to someone called Scholar Igotzon. Where can I find him?’
‘Follow me.’
The Father’s church was huge, covering several blocks. It wasa maze of wings and courtyards set behind high walls. Sorne realised he was being taken into one of the old wooden sections. The windows were smaller, the ceiling lower, and the stone floor had been worn down by hundreds of years of pious footsteps. The penitent opened a door to a long room that was almost a passageway. There was a desk up this end, a chest to one side of the fireplace and a wall of deep niches, housing scrolls.
No one was about.
‘That’s all right,’ Sorne said. ‘I’ll wait.’
The penitent hesitated, then shrugged and headed off.
After closing the door, Sorne checked the desk’s neat stacks of paper. Igotzon was very organised. Good.
He wanted to find Scholar Oskane’s journals. They contained Oskane’s observations of his childhood. If Valendia was dead, as he feared, they were all he had in the world.
The T’Enatuath had accepted exile, but he suspected King Charald’s plans to prevent more Wyrds being born were unworkable. The church officials, very wisely, had decided costly sacrifices were wasteful and dangerous. So the Wyrd population would gradually build up, and one day the True-men could turn on them again. Which reminded him, he should really remove the reports Igotzon had written. They were the most dangerous, distilling the information from both the Wyrd scrolls and Oskane’s journals.
But the length of the chamber and the number of scrolls was daunting. There had to be a system. He began taking scrolls out at random to see if he could detect a pattern to their storage.
He’d only reached the third column of niches, when an alarmed voice asked, ‘What are you doing? Some of those are hundreds of years old.’
Sorne returned the scroll and turned around slowly. ‘You have an amazing collection here.’
The man stiffened. He was not much shorter than Sorne, and thin to the point of being emaciated. ‘I know who you are.’
‘And you are Scholar Igotzon.’ Sorne strode back and offered the reports. ‘These are yours, I believe.’
Igotzon took them from him, looked at them, then up at him thoughtfully. This close, Sorne realised he was younger than he appeared.
‘Were these all you found?’ Igotzon asked.
‘There were some more, but the tent collapsed and everything on the high priest’s desk was water-damaged. I had to throw them out.’
‘That’s all right, I have the originals. And I remember everything I’ve ever written.’ He spoke as if this wasn’t a boast, but a simple fact.
Then he peered at Sorne curiously. ‘You’re the one Scholar Oskane studied, aren’t you? I’ve read your life story. It’s a pity I have to report to the head historian right now, but you must come back. I have so many questions. Walk with me so we can talk.’
As Sorne answered Igotzon’s questions, he wondered if the scholar cared that the reports he’d so meticulously written had been used to hound the Wyrds into exile. Sorne suspected Igotzon had not made the connection. There was something almost childlike about him.
In his travels, Sorne had met many True-men. Most hated him because he was a half-blood, while a few could see past his tainted blood to who he was. Igotzon did not see his tainted blood or who he was; he saw only that Sorne knew things he did not, and was hungry for that knowledge.
When Sorne returned to the palace, he found King Charald in his chamber of state working with the law scholars. Based on the king’s rough ideas, the scholars had drafted laws to prevent half-blood births. Now they were polishing the wording. Rain drummed against the windows, making it hard to hear their conversation.
Sorne did not disturb them. Instead, he went looking for Nitzane and Jaraile. He found Eskarnor and his men taking a late lunch, but there was no sign of the queen or Nitzane.
The southern baron looked up from his plate and saw Sorne in the doorway. Ever since he’d convinced Charald to send Sorne into exile with the Wyrds, he’d taken delight in baiting him. Eskarnor gestured impatiently, as if to say, what?
‘I’m looking for the queen.’
‘She’s playing childish card games with Nitzane in the solarium.’
Sorne went to leave.
‘Have you noticed how as soon as the Wyrds accepted exile, the drought broke?’ Eskarnor’s eyes gleamed with contempt. ‘It’s as if the gods are rewarding us for ridding the country of Wyrds.’
His men responded with similar observations, but Sorne didn’t bother to stay and listen. The drought had broken. It had to break some time. Trust Eskarnor to make something of it. Doubtless he’d made this observation to the king, who would see it as a sign from the gods.
Sorne found Nitzane and Jaraile in the solarium, just as Eskarnor had said. The rain had ceased and sunlight filtered through the many windows, making the water droplets glisten.
As Sorne entered, the baron laughed and laid down his cards. ‘There, you beat me. I only had a pair. I told you you’d be good at this.’ Nitzane noticed Sorne in the doorway and he gestured to the queen. ‘She’s a quick learner.’
‘Where’s Captain Ballendin?’
‘I sent him to my principal estate. One of my neighbours tried to lay claim to the Wyrd vineyards. Remember, I told you they’ve been burnt out? Since the lands were originally part of my family’s estate, I sent Ballendin to make sure they were returned to me.’
‘He’s coming back?’
‘When it’s all sorted.’
Sorne had to be satisfied with that.
Jaraile sat with her wrist turned up to reveal her cards, also revealing the bruises on her pale skin. Someone with large, strong hands had gripped her wrist until they left marks.
Nitzane’s gaze dipped to her wrist, then up to Sorne again with significance, but all he said was, ‘Give me your cards, my queen. I have another game I can teach you.’
It struck Sorne that Jaraile was luckier than his mother had been. Poor Queen Sorna had bee
n fifteen when she’d married, given birth and been murdered. Not her father or her kinsman, High Priest Oskane, had stood up for her, when King Charald ordered her killed to make way for another wife.
Jaraile’s father had shielded her until he died, and now Nitzane had taken her under his wing. Even Sorne felt duty-bound to protect her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
FOR RONNYN, LIFE had never been the same since Sea-boar Isle. To begin with, it had looked like their father would die. Delirious with fever, Asher had raved on and off for days. He believed the brotherhood warriors were coming for them. They’d steal his family, and strip him of his mind and memories as punishment.
As spring unfolded into summer, Asher had slowly improved, but his leg would never be the same. He had to walk with the aid of a cane. Some days he only made it from the bed to the kitchen table. All the heavy work had fallen on Ronnyn and Aravelle.
Every few days, the fever came back. Last night Asher had hardly slept. He was in bed now, too weak to move.
Ronnyn had been replaying the sea-boar attack in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him the sand had swirled up into the sea-boar’s eyes at just the right time to save his sister. He suspected... hoped it had been caused by his gift. He’d tried to move things since, but nothing worked. Perhaps it had been luck that had saved his sister, after all?
He needed to know what to look for when his gift manifested. But he didn’t want to ask his mother about it in front of Aravelle. It seemed bad manners, when his sister would never have a gift of her own.
As soon as Aravelle took the washing basket across to the line, he finished chopping wood and headed over to the cottage to join his mother at the back door, where she watched the little ones. Standing beside her made him realise the top of her head only came up to his nose. When had she become so small?
‘What?’ she asked with a fond smile.
‘You’re getting smaller.’
She laughed. ‘You’re getting bigger.’
It was the perfect moment to ask about the gifts.
And he clammed up. He didn’t know where to start. In fact, he discovered he didn’t want to, almost as if talking would make them real and the reality might be that he was imagining things.
What if she laughed at him?
She’d mean it kindly, but he couldn’t bear the thought. This was all too new and private.
So he folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb.
On their left, the lagoon sparkled in the sun. The tide was out right now, revealing wet sand. Itania trotted after Tamaron as he headed down the path, intent on some big adventure.
When Ronnyn was small, this had been his whole world – the vegetable patch, the smokehouse, the chicken coop and the pen where they kept the goats at night. Which reminded him, he’d spotted a big stink-badger’s tracks earlier. They often hunted in packs and loved chickens, so he needed to check the coop was secure.
On the far right, the clothesline stretched between two pines. He could see Aravelle’s bare feet as the washing flapped around her.
He glanced to his mother. Since spring, a little pucker of concern had taken up residence between her eyebrows. The frown remained even when she smiled, and he could not blame her. Here she was, pregnant, with a parcel of children and, some days, their father couldn’t even walk to the outhouse.
His mother pressed the pads of her fingers into her eyes. She’d been up all night nursing Asher.
‘You should go lie down. Vella and I can watch the little ones.’
‘You’re a good boy. I don’t know what I’d do without you two.’
Vittor’s sing-song voice carried to them. Ronnyn had let the goats out and now Vittor began to drive them up the slope on the far side of their little valley. Since the drought had broken, the grass had grown deep and green. Vittor saw them watching and waved.
Ronnyn glanced back to his mother. She smiled, but the frown still pulled her brows together. If he admitted he thought his gift was manifesting, he would add to her worries. He decided to ask only general questions about gift-working.
Aravelle came out from between the lines of washing and began to fill the last line. Time was running out.
‘How does it feel when the gifts come on?’
His mother laughed. ‘I’m Malaunje. How would I know?’
‘You served the T’En scholar, Hueryx.’
‘As his scribe.’ Sasoria glanced to him. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be thirteen until next spring cusp and they don’t empower T’En children until after that, and then only when their gifts are beginning to manifest. You have a while yet.’
She sounded so certain. Had the sand flicked up into the sea-boar’s eyes by pure chance?
His mother lifted her hand. ‘Over further, Vittor.’
He moved the goats on.
Ronnyn tried again. ‘What kind of gifts are there?’
‘That’s T’En lore, not for Malaunje to know,’ she said, but her eyes, so like Aravelle’s, crinkled at the corners as she gave him a mischievous look. ‘But we know things. There are some rare gifts that only surface once in a generation or even less–’
‘Like seers?’
She nodded. ‘Men are seers. The female equivalent is a scryer.’
‘What’s the difference?’ he asked, leading up to his real question. ‘Other than the name?’
‘There is...’ She broke off as she shaded her eyes, watching the goats, then waved to signal Vittor that was far enough. ‘The gifts manifest differently for males and females. I’m not sure how exactly. The T’En do love their secrets.’
‘So the men–’
‘Are nearly always noets of some kind, able to manipulate the mind and create illusions. This is not always much use with Mieren, some of whom have natural defences. The women are generally more powerful than the men, particularly if they have birthed a sacrare child.’
‘Sacrare?’
‘Born of two T’En parents. They have great gifts, and somehow this enhances the mother’s gift as well.’
Aravelle had almost finished. No time for subtlety. ‘What about a gift that moves things?’
‘Real things?’ She laughed and shrugged. ‘Most gift-working is done on the higher plane. It exists alongside this plane and it’s dangerous. When your gift comes, you must promise not to go to the higher plane.’
‘Of course. But I meant moving things here, in the real world.’
‘Not possible, except maybe for a sacrare.’ She was looking distracted again, her gaze on Itania and Tamaron, who had almost reached the lagoon. If they got into the damp sand it would mean more washing. Sasoria raised her voice, beckoning. ‘Tam, Tani, come back now.’ She did not relax until they began to make their way up the path that curved around the vegetable patch.
She returned to his question. ‘A noet could make you think he’d moved something, but it would still be there. Illusion, Ronnyn, that’s what mind-manipulators are good at.’
So it had been pure good luck that drove the sand into the sea-boar’s eyes. He should be grateful, but he was disappointed. Ronnyn didn’t expect to be the first seer in two hundred years. From what his mother said, he would be a mind-manipulator.
So be it. He would focus on harnessing his gift and try to create illusions. And he’d train himself, since there was no one to train him. But who should he practise on?
Not his parents. That left Aravelle.
Which made him wonder. ‘Do Malaunje have defences from gift power?’
‘Of course, otherwise we’d be slaves to the T’En. That’s another thing, sometimes...’ Sasoria broke off. She frowned. ‘What are they up to now?’
The two little ones had come halfway back to the cottage and opened the gate to the vegetable patch.
‘Probably looking for sweet young carrots,’ Ronnyn said. ‘You know how Tam likes to...’
He broke off as Tamaron used a stick to prod something that lay hidden under the broad leaves of
the butternut pumpkin vine.
‘Probably found a frog,’ Ronnyn decided, more interested in their discussion. He glanced over to the clothesline. Aravelle was headed back and so was Vittor, although he had further to come. Better get his questions in quickly. ‘What were you going to say? Father was saying not to touch–’
‘Most gifts require touch, but...’ His mother broke off, all her attention on Tamaron and Itania. They’d both crouched down to get a better look at whatever was hiding under the pumpkin leaves. His little brother poked it again.
‘Could be a snake,’ Sasoria said. ‘Quickly, Ronnyn, go see what they’re up to.’
Worried now, he headed towards them. But before he got far, something darted out from under the leaves, going for Tamaron. Itania squealed. He caught the flash of a long body, short muscular legs, powerful shoulders, and dark fur, with white markings behind the neck.
A stink-badger!
Ronnyn ran. Grabbing the axe as he passed the chopping block, he vaulted over the vegetable patch fence and ran through the bean trellises.
Luckily for Tamaron, the stink-badger’s attack was only a warning. It let him go and the three-year-old stumbled back. Too shocked to react, he just stood there, blood pouring from his face.
Itania stared at him, equally shocked. Just as Ronnyn came up behind them, she let out a shrill scream. She didn’t run. Neither did Tamaron. The three-year-old didn’t even try to stop the bleeding, just stood there and wailed.
They were both so terribly vulnerable.
Where was the stink-badger?
As soon as Ronnyn reached them, he shoved both the little ones behind him. ‘Go back to Ma.’
He scanned the pumpkin patch. The stink-badger had retreated. If it was the one that made the tracks, it was a big male. They were lucky it hadn’t gone for Tamaron’s throat.
He’d have to kill it.
His mother darted through the gate, calling Tamaron and Itania, who ran down the path and into her arms.
Ronnyn caught movement in the corner of his eye. He spun around. It was Aravelle. She didn’t bother to go to the gate, just put her foot on the bottom rung of the fence and swung her weight over, jumping to the ground.
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