Witch Of Rhostshyl s-3

by J F Rivkin

  Jenisorn was leafing through one of Nyctasia’s books without reading a word. He put it down, took up another, and set it down by the first, unopened. His usually merry, winsome face was grave and troubled, his eyes shadowed. “Perhaps you’re not bound by Midland law, as you’re a Maritimer,” he said to Nyctasia,

  “I’m not sure. But it would be simplest if you and ’Deisha told the same tale, if you don’t mind lying. I’m sorry to ask it of you.”

  “I’m quite an accomplished liar,” Nyctasia assured them. “But I don’t understand

  … surely even in the Midlands it’s not lawful for someone so young to be branded! Children can’t be enslaved for life, can they?”

  “No, a child born to a slave is bound in service only till its twentieth year.

  The owner must feed and shelter bondschildren during their infancy-ten years, according to law-and they in turn must work for the owner for ten years as recompense for that upbringing. They can’t be sold, except for the rest of their term of service, and of course they can’t be branded. Once their debt to the owner is paid, they’re supposed to be freed.”

  “But a good many disappear before that happens,” Jenisorn said darkly.

  “Disappear…?” echoed Nyctasia.

  “Sent on journeys from which they don’t return, or sold for their remaining time of bondage, to someone who pays rather more than you’d expect for a few years’ service.”

  “Someone who takes them far away,” ’Deisha added, “usually over the Spine Mountains, where no one can question their history.”

  “And so into Liruvath,” Nyctasia guessed, “where the laws governing slavery are even more barbarous.”

  “Yes. Anyone who’s marked as a slave can be sold there, with few questions asked. You see, bondschildren can’t be branded unless they try to run away before they’ve fulfilled their term of labor. It’s an old game-their owners ill-use them till they’re forced to flee, to save themselves. Then they’re caught and branded as runaways, which makes it much easier to sell them to foreign slavers…”

  “And that’s what happened to this one?” Nyctasia asked.

  ’Deisha shrugged. “Jheine?”

  Jenisorn nodded. He sat staring at his own clenched fists for a time and finally said, “His name’s Lorr. Lorr Saetarrinid.”

  ’Deisha groaned. “I was afraid of that. Small wonder the poor lad was terror-stricken when he realized where he was.”

  The Saetarrin lands bordered on Edonaris property, but there were few dealings between the two houses. Wealthy, landed nobles who lived on the proceeds of their estates, the Saetarrin disdained the Edonaris as mere upstart merchants, despite their aristocratic ancestry. The Edonaris, for their part, knew much of Saetarrin history that was less than honorable, though they kept their suspicions to themselves. They were in no position to risk the enmity of their powerful neighbors.

  A marriage-alliance of the two families had once been spoken of, but nothing had come of it. Only an Edonaris in direct line to the Jhaicery, and bringing a sizable dowry, would be considered worthy to marry into the House of Saetarrin, and thus far no heir to the title had been tempted by the prospect. Mesthelde, Lady Nocharis’s eldest daughter, had never married, and had no intention of marrying. And her niece and heir, ’Deisha, had made it clear to her kin that she would rather marry a swineherd than a Saetarrin lord.

  Now she cursed the Saetarrin and everything they touched. “We’ll have their people here searching for him tomorrow, now that the storm’s cleared,” she worried.

  “They’ll not find him,” Jenisorn said confidently. “But we’ll have to get him away from here, as soon as may be, and it won’t be an easy matter with the Saetarrin hunting him.”

  “Would they sell him to us?” Nyctasia suggested. “If it’s merely a question of avarice, I can satisfy them.”

  ’Deisha shook her head. “Not likely, Nyc. They wouldn’t want him in Vale, free to bear witness to what he knows of them. And if they refused, we’d have to surrender him. There’s only so much we can do for him, he’ll understand that. He knew he’d be taking his chances.”

  “No,” Jenisorn said abruptly. “He fled for his life, not for his freedom. He says he’s killed Marrekind ar’n Saetarrin.”

  “Well,” said ’Deisha, alter a silence, “in that case, he does indeed deserve our help. I’ve often wanted to do the same. He’ll have to stay in hiding a good while, then, till they’ve given up the search in these parts.” She stood frowning at the fire, lost in thought, weighing plans and possibilities. One of the dogs nosed her hand, and she stroked his head absently. “In the spring, some of you must go with him to Amron Therein. He won’t be as noticeable as one of a group of young folk. There’ll be so many people flocking in and out of the city, once the Trade Road is clear, that you may avoid suspicion then.”

  Nyctasia was pacing about the small tower-room, “That seems so chancy. How would it be if his pursuers believed him dead? I can prepare a potion that counterfeits death for a time. If they saw his lifeless body, at least they’d call off the search, and it would be safer for him to come out of hiding.”

  “It’s plain to see that you come from the coast, cousin,” Jenisorn said. “Don’t you know that they’d take him back, living or dead?”

  “But why-?”

  “To discourage their other slaves from trying to escape, of course. If there were no proof of his death, they might believe that he’d really gotten away, and be tempted to try it themselves.” Jenisorn’s voice rose. “Oh, they might just cut off his branded hand and bring that back-”

  “That will do, Jheine,” said ’Deisha.

  “I see,” Nyctasia said faintly. “Yes, we are a long way from Rhostshyl, And if he reaches Amron Therain, what then?”

  ’Deisha answered. “There are those in Amron who’ll help him make his way to the coast, for a price. We know how to find them.”

  The coast was the goal of all fugitive slaves, as Nyctasia well knew, for slavery was forbidden by law in the Maritime cities. A condemned criminal might be sentenced to a term as slave-laborer in the service of the municipality, but a person could not become the property of a private citizen. An escaped slave who could reach the coast was safe from the laws of the east.

  “It seems this isn’t the first time you’ve been concerned in such an undertaking,” Nyctasia observed. “Does it happen often?”

  “No, not often. But Raphe and I had a hand in it, before we came of age. Most of us do, once or twice, when we’re young enough.”

  Nyctasia understood their actions perfectly. They were Edonaris, after all. Her own ancestors had been instrumental in abolishing slavery from the cities of the Maritime Alliance, and she had been raised in a land free of its evils. She was proud of that family heritage, and it had seemed only natural to her that the Edonaris of Vale were not slave-holders.

  But now she realized that their ways were not at all natural here in the Midlands. She had thought of the Valley as a haven of peace and harmony, far removed from the treachery and bloodthirsty ambition that threatened to destroy her homeland. But now it seemed to her that she was lost in a primitive, lawless land, unfit for civilized folk. Never in her exile had she longed so painfully for Rhostshyl.

  “I’ve seen little of the valley beyond this estate,” she sighed. “I knew there were slave-markets in Osela and Amron Therain, but until this hapless creature came among us, I’d forgotten that the lands between…”

  “Hush,” Jenisorn warned her, and they all fell silent as they heard someone climbing the stairs to Nyctasia’s tower.

  The rest of the family knew, without being told, what had happened on the first night of the storm. Deisha’s careful words to Diastor, “Nothing to concern you.

  Father. ’Cacia and the boys will find him,” had told everyone that she was speaking of a runaway slave, and there they had let the matter lie. Now, the sudden silence at his approach, and the air of secrecy that met him, only confirmed Raphe�
��s suspicions that the affair was far from finished.

  Closing the door behind him, he asked, “Well, Jheine, how fares our guest?”

  “I feel a fool denying what you already know, brother, but you ought not to ask, nor I to answer.”

  “Jheine’s right, you know. Nyc and I are already compromised, but you’ve had no part in this,” ’Deisha said, though without much conviction. She felt, as Raphe did, that anything that touched her touched her twin as well.

  He did not argue the point. “Never mind. I only asked how he was, not where, or who. Or whose.”

  Jenisorn shrugged. If Raphe was willing to be told, it was his own choice to bear the responsibility for what he learned. “The frostbite’s better, but he’s still in a fever. It’s his back that worries me most. He’s been beaten savagely-flogged-and those weals don’t look to be healing. I don’t know if he’ll be able to travel by spring thaw. It’s only a few weeks away at the most. I don’t know if he’ll live until spring.”

  “In the vahn’s name!” cried Nyctasia. “What sort of mad fools abuse their own property? It’s beyond reason and nature!”

  “It’s hard to understand,” ’Deisha agreed. “People who take great care of their goods and livestock will nevertheless mistreat and neglect the people they own.

  Mother ’Charis says that’s because it deforms the spirit, even of decent folk, to keep others in bondage. It’s been family tradition with us, not to own slaves, ever since our ancestors learned that the Edonaris of Rhostshyl had banned slavery from the city. It was more a matter of pride than principle at first, I fear-aping the ways of our noble kinsfolk. In those days, they still hoped for a reconciliation, but your ancestors would have none of it,” she teased Nyctasia.

  “And slave-labor wouldn’t really serve our purposes,” said the ever-practical Raphe. “We need to employ a great many people at harvest time, but we couldn’t afford to maintain them all the year long. We haven’t the farmland for it. For most of the year we need too few laborers to make it worth our while to keep guards over them, or pursue them. It’s foolishness. Much of what needs to be done, we do ourselves. We’re a large family, and we’re not ashamed to work.”

  “The Edonaris have always worked hard, wherever their duty lay,” Nyctasia said, a touch of reproach in her voice. “You may believe that governing a city such as Rhostshyl is no heavy burden, but I assure you that there’s little rest for those who undertake it.”

  “We know you’re not too proud to work, Nyc,” Raphe said hastily. “You proved as much at the harvest. You labored far beyond your strength.”

  “So I did, and all I accomplished by my efforts was a fit of sunstroke. I was worse than useless. Still, though I wasn’t raised to bodily labor, neither was I raised to idleness.”

  “I only meant…” Raphe began, but stopped, realizing that he had meant very much what Nyctasia thought he meant. He spread his hands helplessly. “I meant no offense to you, cousin.”

  “Only to my rank and station, perhaps?” Nyctasia said, without rancor. “It’s true that we’re proud of our position, yet you wrong us if you think our pride has not been earned-as yours has. In all of you I see the pride of the Edonaris.

  Indeed, I believe that you are prouder of your way of life than we of ours. The better I know you, the more certain I am that we are in truth one family, though now it is you who choose not to acknowledge us as kin.”

  “If the rest were like you, we’d gladly welcome them,” ’Deisha said diplomatically. She lifted up one of the massive tomes that Nyctasia had been studying, and remarked, “I think you work harder than all of us together. I’d rather toil out of doors all day than try to read these thick, difficult books of yours. To each her own task, say I, and I’m off to mine now. Come along, Raphe, we’re keeping Jheine from his lessons.”

  “We’ll have one gentleman in the family, eh?” Raphe grinned. “Nyc, I came to tell you that we’ve cleared a way up Honeycomb Hill to the Esthairon vines and the temple cellars. Most of the debris was removed before the storm, and a good bit of the crypts and caves have been uncovered. They’ll make perfect wine-cellars. You said you wanted to see them again before they were filled with barrels.”

  “Is it safe to go under there now?” Nyctasia asked doubtfully. She had not been near the hill since the collapse of the temple had crushed the last members of the Cymvelan Circle in the caverns beneath. She felt keenly that they should have been left in peace, that it was unseemly to disturb the ruins to accommodate the vintnery’s merchandise, but she kept such scruples to herself.

  She understood that more room was needed to house and age the new vintages. Now that the hollow hill had been cleansed of the Cymvelans’ curse, the Edonaris could not afford to let such valuable storage space go to waste. It was not for her, an outsider, to interfere in such a matter.

  “It was the supports beneath the temple and the bell-tower that were unsound,”

  Raphe assured her. “Now that those structures have fallen, there’s no danger.

  What’s left underneath is carved from solid rock. You can visit there whenever you like, now, but take care not to lose your way in the tunnels. All right,

  ’Deisha, I’m coming-”

  “Nyc, take Grey with you, if you must go ferreting about down there,” ’Deisha called from the stairway. “He could find his way out by smell.”

  When the twins had gone, Nyctasia turned to Jenisorn. “I don’t imagine you’ve made much progress with the text of Raine of Tierelon’s Travels!”

  “I’ve had no time for it,” he admitted, “and I still haven’t, I’m afraid.”

  “I can well believe that. We’ll leave it for now. I’ll give you passages from Book One of The Manifold Ills of The Flesh to study, dealing with the treatment of open wounds and febrile maladies. After I’ve seen the boy myself, of course.”

  “But Nyc, I-”

  “Don’t try to tell me that you can’t take me to him, Jheine. You must. I don’t doubt that you’ve done all you can for him, but that may not be enough. Fever may be brought on by a poison in the blood, from a morbid wound. Salves and tea of fever’s-ease bark won’t drive it out. If you don’t want to see him die a lingering, painful death, you’ll let me tend to him.”

  Though she was hardly the powerful sorceress her accusers claimed, Nyctasia was magician enough to call upon the healing power of the Indwelling Spirit, and Jenisorn knew it.

  He sighed. “Would you, Nyc? I didn’t like to ask it of you, but we’d all be grateful for your help. ’Cacia thinks that the weals should be cauterized, and none of us knows how to do it. I don’t think you need fear the law-it’s not only that you’re a foreigner, but that you’re a noblewoman. The law bows before a title, they say, and it probably grovels before the rank of Rhaicime.”

  “Rhaicime or no, I’m a healer-and an Edonaris. I’ve a duty to the afflicted, not to the law which allows such an outrage.”

  She did not claim that it was also her duty as a Vahnite to aid the helpless.

  She knew she was guilty of pride, but that would be pride of another sort, and less forgivable.

  From the top of the house they descended to the very bottom, stopping to gather a few supplies and-at Jenisorn’s suggestion-warm cloaks. The wine-cellars were as cold as the out of doors.

  The dark, dank corridors were lined with immense barrels lying on their sides, and stacked jars of glazed clay sealed with wax. “Some of this wine’s centuries old,” Jenisorn told her proudly, “and very little of it spoiled. Someday I’ll show you through the cellars properly. The whole history of the family is down here, if one knows how to read it.”

  Nyctasia followed in silence. She felt that she had already seen more than enough of the damp, chill cellars with their webbed walls, thick dust and foul air. The prospect of a more extensive tour held little appeal for her. She could see the shine of the snail-tracks in the lamplight, and she was certain that rats lurked in every shadow. Family history, she thought, w
as often best left buried. Pulling her cloak tighter about her, she said, “I’m sure that would be most interesting.”

  “That lot was laid down in the year of the drought, you see,” Jenisorn explained, as they passed a row of casks smaller than the rest. But even these, Nyctasia saw, would be nearly as tall as she, if stood on end. “Nearly empty now, most of them.” He tapped the fronts of a few barrels with a small wooden mallet, as they walked, to show Nyctasia how the different sounds told the quantity of wine within-which she found quite interesting, despite herself. “And these are from the year Kestrel Hill was first harvested,” he continued, brushing away a layer of dust to uncover the falcon-brand.

  Nyctasia sneezed. “Jheine, where are we going! If you’ve hidden our friend down here, he’ll never heal, not in this damp and filth.”

  “I know. We hope to move him soon. But the room he’s in isn’t as bad as this.

  There’s a fireplace, with a flue that opens into the back of the kitchen hearth above, so it’s warmer there, and the air’s fresher. You’ll see-it’s at the end of this corridor.”

  Nyctasia followed, but when they reached the far wall of the passage they came up against a blind end with a pyramid of barrels stacked against the stone, and no opening to either side. Nyctasia searched the floor, and soon found the outline of a round trapdoor, but there seemed to be no way of raising it.

  Jenisorn tapped on one of the barrels.

  “Empty,” said Nyctasia promptly, recognizing the hollow sound. “Jheine, how are we to lift this?”

  The empty barrel tapped back.

  “That’s just an old cistern, Nyc. The room is through here,” Jenisorn replied, as the lid of the cask was pushed out from the inside. A wan, flickering light spilled out, and ’Cacia crawled from the barrel’s mouth.

  “Time enough you got back,” she said, then seeing Nyctasia she remarked, “So you’ve come. I thought you would.” She lowered her voice. “He’s no better. He’s shaking so hard his teeth rattle, and he’s mad with fear and fever. He keeps asking me to kill him. I’m going to get some sleep. Good luck, Nyc.”