Flesh and Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “They’re both going to be slapped down,” Ao said quietly, listening intently. “They’re both laying claim to the well, but neither of them actually built it. All the wells in Corguruth are from the days of the Empire. They’ve just been using them so long, they forget that.”

  “There hasn’t been an empire in a thousand years,” Jerzy objected. “So who does control the wells?”

  “Whoever can back up their claim the best, usually. Since they had to come before the maiar to settle their claim, I’m guessing it’s him. Aleppan’s the bull in this field, like I said. Shhh. . .”

  “Enough, both of you!” The maiar’s roar cut across the other speakers’ protests, and silenced them both, and the two hidden observers as well. His voice was raw and angry, but still controlled. “Enough with your useless pratter. Endless, endless nattering. You waste my time, while there are more important issues to be dealt with. Must I mount a guard to ensure that all have access to water? If I do, it will come out of your hides, and not anyone else’s!”

  The shouting below covered all other noises, so the heavy hand that clamped down on Jerzy’s collar took him completely by surprise.

  “Two snoops, have we?” The guard lifted them away from the screen, one collar in each hand, and dropped them both onto the bench with a hard thump. Jerzy thought that he recognized the man as one of those who had resteered him toward the cellar, but did not think that now was the moment to try to remind the guard of that.

  Ao, on the other hand, seemed to feel no such hesitation.

  “Ah, guardsman Theoduros, such a pleasure. I was only just saying to my companion that I was sure one of your cohorts would be able to tell us—”

  “Shut it, trader,” Theoduros said curtly. “Your clan will not be pleased to hear that you’ve overstepped your boundaries. . .again.”

  “I can’t help it,” Ao said. “Born curious, I am. Never a hallway I met I didn’t find fascinating—”

  “Trader—”

  Jerzy flinched instinctively, anticipating the blow that was doubtless about to fall on his companion’s head.

  “Guardsman. . .” Ao said back in the same tone, totally unafraid.

  “Someday you’re going to run into someone who won’t take your sass, boy, and then where will you be?”

  “A good trader can always talk his way out of anything,” Ao said. “And if he can’t, he needs to be prepared to buy his way out. Fortunately for me, a guardsman of Aleppan would never accept a bribe, and is fair and courteous to guests within his master’s house—”

  Ao grabbed Jerzy’s sleeve even as he was talking, and started moving toward the door. The guardsman let them go, but a sudden yelp and jump from Ao told Jerzy that the trader hadn’t escaped without a well-placed boot to his backside.

  They made it back down into the main hallway, where a passing courtier gave them an odd look but did not stop to question where they had been, or why. Hearing the guardsman’s steps on the stairs behind them, the two dusted themselves off and sauntered, as quickly as possible, off and away from the scene of their crime.

  “That is what you call not getting caught?” Jerzy could feel his heart pounding, and his knees felt weak, but Ao looked as cool and composed as. . .as Malech himself.

  “I never said I didn’t get caught,” Ao said, as though they’d been in no trouble at all. “Did I ever say I never got caught? You need to listen when a trader talks, Jerzy, or you’ll never go far in this world at all! Now come on, I don’t have all day, and I can tell already you’re a slow learner.”

  Jerzy meekly allowed Ao to lead him, the older boy talking all the while.

  “Come on, the main garden courtyard is a perfect place to browse. Found it my first day—first hour, in fact. Nooks and seats everywhere, and you can hear a whisper clear across the way. Bad security if you’re planning something, but smart if you’re being plotted against. I bet the first maiar who built this place was a suspicious goat. Everyone thinks courtyards are the perfect place to have a private conversation. They’re wrong.”

  Jerzy felt awkward hearing such things, as though forced into a skin not his own, but made himself listen closely. This, not wine-making, was why he was here.

  Chapter 19

  CRIEAN SEA, DAYBREAK

  Captain. Still no sign.”

  The captain placed one hand down flat on the map table, and stared at the sailor as though his gaze alone could change the answer.

  “It’s there, damn it.”

  “Yes, sir. The maps agree, the stars agree. . .it is there. Except it’s not. Sir.”

  The Risen Moon was a Caulic ship, a trim voyager built for fast travel and limited cargo. On this trip she was carrying a double-fist of crew and three scryers, bound for the island of Atakus. Or, more accurately: where the island of Atakus should be.

  Should be, and was not.

  The ship moved gently under his feet, surging forward with the wind in a rhythm as natural to his body as his own breath. Every creak of wood and sail, every shout, every slap of waves was as it should be, ordered and orderly. The sun shone overhead, the stars glittered at night, and entire islands did not simply disappear overnight.

  Officially, he had been sent to offer aid, should something have gone wrong, if Atakus were under siege or laid low with a plague, but that was merely a cover. An island did not disappear without magic. It might be that the Principality had bought such a spell. If so, it was a game of some sort that did not bode well for seafaring, magic-disdaining lands such as Caul. If Atakus had not bought that spell, or had it forced upon it somehow, no matter who cast the spell it was an act of aggression by a Vineart in direct violation of the Command.

  “The fact that we cannot see it does not mean it is not there. According to the maps, we should be nearing the harbor now. Slow to half speed and proceed cautiously. Even if they’ve masked themselves with magic, the scryers should be able to determine where they are.”

  That was what scryers did; they Saw. It was no magic; spellwines would not grow in Caul and so Caul would not use spellwines. The blood-robed Brotherhood bleated some story of a Caulic king turning from their Sin Washer and refusing solace, but he did not believe it. Sheer bad luck, that was all, to have soil that did not favor the vines.

  But they had two things the so-called Lands Vin did not: scryers, and the heartwood trees, massive beasts whose trunks grew straight and strong, the exact wood needed to build ships like the Risen Moon. Caul boasted a navy that was second to none, ships, sailors, and navigators who knew the seas better than any other men alive. And he, captain of the Risen Moon, was best of them all.

  And he had not one but three scryers at his command.

  “Aye, sir,” the sailor said in response to his orders, and turned to face the foredeck, shouting out demands and sending the rest of the crew scurrying. A scryer, her wizened body hidden from view by a heavy woolen cloak, stood in the bow with her arms held out in front of her, the other two huddled nearby. A trio of black corbies, they were, but their masters swore they could rip asunder the veil of magic, could See the length and limits of spells, and determine where and how they would end, and for that he could abide them.

  It was not magic: scryers came by their skills honestly, a long-ago gift from when the gods still spoke to mankind. The secret of their training was kept by the Caulic navy, and only a dozen were in service at any given time. To have three on his ship was a signal honor—and a huge responsibility.

  Islands did not disappear, even when they could not be seen. Atakus was there, dead in front of them. The Atakusians had gone too far with this latest magic of theirs, hiding their port and refusing access. What were they hiding? What mischief did they conduct, out of human view?

  “We are the masters of the seas, not you,” he told the unseen inhabitants. “We rule the waters, and we will not be denied!”

  The scryers would break the spell, aye. The use of magic to interfere with matters secular had given Caul the right to do so. And
then, by command of his king, he would lead the way for the warships sailing behind him, and they would break arrogant, magical Atakus, once and for all. The valuable port would be theirs.

  And after Atakus. . .He smiled grimly. After Atakus, indeed.

  JERZY OPENED HIS eyes, and was relieved to see sunlight streaming in through his window. After two days the massive, wind-whipped storm had finally passed. He lay in his bed with the coverlet pulled up to his chin, and debated getting up to look outside.

  Not that the view into the garden would tell him anything. He wasn’t going to know until he actually saw the vineyard for himself.

  And if there was damage? If the hail that had slapped against the roof last night had destroyed the crop? Giordan wasn’t Malech; he didn’t have secondary fields tucked across the countryside. The fields surrounding Aleppan were his sole yields. If he, Jerzy, had damaged them through a miscast spell. . .

  A faint whisper of denial crept through his brain. But Giordan told him to do it! It wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t been ready!

  Jerzy wanted, very much, to listen to that voice. He was just a slave; what did he know? He hadn’t even learned all of his master’s vinespells, what right did he have trying another Vineart’s work?

  Was his being here breaking Sin Washer’s Command to stay clear of entanglements, to tend to the Second Growth and not lust after more than was given? Was the storm his punishment for working a spellvine not his own, for experimenting with a spellwine not his master’s crafting?

  No. He had to trust Master Malech. The gods did not stir the affairs of mortals, not in a thousand and more years.

  Jerzy rubbed his chin, surprised to find stubble there. He would have to ask Giordan if there was a barber he trusted near the palazzo, to take care of that. He had no desire to try to grow a beard just yet.

  No, the idea that the storm came as some sort of reaction to his using Giordan’s spellwine made no sense. Nothing forbade it. Vinearts did not restrict themselves to their own vintages. He had been with Malech when he used the spellwines of other Vinearts, and they worked exactly as they should. And yet, there had to be a cause, something he had done wrong, to create such a violent storm.

  Might it be the simple act of his being here, learning from a different Vineart? Could Sin Washer have sent that storm to stop—

  No. Guardian was too far away to reach him, but Jerzy could practically feel the cool, smooth words in his mind. Sin Washer broke the vines, but he did not break us. That was not his Way.

  The only possible answer, then, was that he, himself, had caused it. That he was responsible. Jerzy’s head ached and his limbs felt restless, the confusion taking physical form in his body. Unable to lie still any longer, he flung the bedcover off and padded across the room, pulling trou and a shirt from the wooden dresser. He might look like a yokel in the more fashion-conscious court, but today he took comfort from the familiar clothing.

  Reaching for his belt, his hand brushed the hard form of the mirror, still wrapped in its protective cloth, and the guilt intensified. What had he accomplished in the time he’d been here? Nothing, really. Nothing at all, even with Ao’s advice. He had to work harder, be more alert, take every advantage, no matter how uncomfortable it made him feel. Master Malech was counting on him. First, he needed to get out into the city. The palazzo was not offering enough opportunity. But how to do that?

  Planning could wait. He needed to be student now, not spy.

  Giordan was already outside in the courtyard, raising his arms overhead toward the sky the way he did every morning. Watching the slightly rounded figure go through the stretching motions: arms up, then out, then down again, in a flowing motion, Jerzy thought that it should have been comical, but the grace with which they were performed instead made it a silent dance. Not something Jerzy would have expected, on first meeting Giordan, but now was simply another aspect of his teacher. The open laugh was matched by a deep mind and a solid dedication to his vines.

  “Ah. Awake and ready to go. Excellent, excellent.” Giordan’s tone was light, but the expression on his face, as he draped a towel across his neck and walked toward Jerzy, was of more serious mien. “You will walk with me to check on the storm’s results?”

  “Of course.” Even with all his other worries, Jerzy was just thankful that Giordan would let him anywhere near the vineyard again, and hoped that the trust was not misplanted.

  The road was muddy, but the sky was blue and the air fresh and clear, and Jerzy felt his spirits lifting as they walked, silently, out the side gate and down the road, retracing their steps of the ill-fated day. A bird flew overhead, circling gracefully in a decreasing spiral before it swooped to strike at its prey, then rose again. Jerzy could not see, at that distance, if it had been successful or not.

  It seemed to take less time to arrive at their destination, and as they came to the edge of the enclosure, Jerzy felt his good mood plummet right back into his gut.

  “I can’t look,” he said, almost to himself.

  Giordan snorted. “Not looking is not a choice,” he said. He placed one hand on the low stone wall and flipped his body over to the other side in a nimble movement that Jerzy, half his age, could not duplicate.

  The first thing Jerzy saw when he clambered over the wall were the bunches of unripened grapes smashed into the dirt, vines torn from their supports, and the tightness in his gut became more pronounced. His head dropped, and he waited for Giordan’s cries of dismay.

  “Ah. Yes.” Rather than dismayed, Giordan sounded. . .relieved?

  Jerzy looked up, barely daring to breathe, and saw the Vineart crouched down in the dirt, looking down the rows of vines. “Yes. All right. You can stop your cringing, young Jerzy. The damage was no worse than expected, and far less than might have been. I’ve no need to beat you, none at all.”

  Shaken by the force of relief, Jerzy’s knees gave way underneath him, and he sat down, hard, in the wet dirt, to Giordan’s ringing laughter.

  When Jerzy recovered, Giordan took two cloth sacks from his belt, and directed Jerzy to gather as many of the bunches as he could from the soil, using the knife on his belt for the very first time, to cut away damaged bits and pieces of twine.

  “The cook uses unripe grapes to cook with,” Giordan told him. “He crushes them himself, with his paddle-feet, and adds the juice to roasted fowl. Excellent, most excellent results. Normally he takes from the culling, but now he will have them earlier, no? There is very little bad from which good cannot be pressed.”

  Jerzy wasn’t quite so certain, but, his arms filled with the harvest of his storm, he was not about to argue with the Vineart. After the grapes were gathered and sorted into the sacks, the two retied the vines that could be repaired, and cut the others away.

  The walk back was more enjoyable, even burdened with the now-full sacks. They deposited their bounty in the kitchen, a massive, high-beamed room with five times the people and ten times the chaos of the kitchen back home, and escaped with a fresh cloth of cheese, a chunk of cured meat, and a loaf of newly cooked bread as their reward. Jerzy lingered a bit to thank the cook’s assistant, remembering Ao’s advice about being invisible to important people but liked by the servants.

  “It is hard to believe you have been here a tenday already,” Giordan said, tearing a bite out of the loaf as they walked back to the work-rooms. “And a busy time it has been. Perhaps too busy? I think that we will keep you from active decanting for a bit yet, yes?” He shook his head, and for once his smile was not in evidence. “I was overeager to share my skills, and did not think through the possibilities of error and. . .overenthusiasm, rather than control. You learn quickly; we forget you are still very young.”

  Jerzy felt the urge to protest, and then thought better of it. His body might be filling out, his voice deeper, and his muscles harder, but Giordan was right. A Vineart’s studies lasted years, not months, and control was essential to casting as well as crafting. Still, he felt as though he’d once again be
en found lacking, unable to be the prize student Giordan had hoped for.

  Still, perhaps this might give him the chance to finally explore the city? His sense of failure struggled against the surge of desire to finally take action and prove himself worthy of Malech’s trust.

  “And so,” Giordan continued, not noticing his companion’s reaction, “we shall take a step back. No, not so far back, but only a step. Perhaps—”

  “Ah. Vineart Giordan. And your young visitor. I regretted not being able to continue our too-brief acquaintance the other day.”

  “Brother Darian.” Giordan did not sound thrilled to encounter the Washer. Jerzy felt the urge to move behind his companion, as though that would hide him from view, but his feet stayed planted firmly against the stone.

  The Washer, now dressed in his customary dark red robe, the belt wound twice around his waist similar to a Vineart’s save that he carried a small wooden cup where a Vineart hung a silver tasting spoon, fell into easy step with them. “It is rare in my journeys that I am given the opportunity to speak in the company of similar minds—companions in the blood, if you will. May I walk with you, this fine morning?”

  Asked in such a fashion, with The Washer already matching their direction, there was nothing to do but give assent.

  “You will be relieved to know that, with the passing of the storm, the talk of your involvement in it passed as well,” Darian said to Jerzy. “I of course assured those who came to me that such a storm was nothing out of the ordinary—as it indeed was not.”

  “Indeed,” Giordan said. “Spring storms often come up quickly, and the risk of hail is a normal one in these hills. Rare, but normal.”

  “I am originally from Etton,” Darian said, “so our weather patterns are different, and we do not make use of weatherwine often enough to note their peculiarities.”