“You’re looking sad again, my lord,” Wian said in a low voice. She released his shoulders and came around to settle on his knee.
“I have a lot to be sad about,” Eredion said, then snorted. “And now I’m sounding juvenile.” He sighed, twining his fingers through hers, and forced a smile.
“True,” she said, “on both points.” She grinned.
Her mischievous cheer lifted his own mood, and his smile turned more genuine. “You’ve changed quite a bit in the last few days, Wian.”
Her smile flickered and dimmed. “Yes, I suppose I have,” she said, and turned her head to stare out the window. “He’s still out there, isn’t he?”
“Kippin? Yes. We haven’t found him yet. Or Kam.” There hadn’t even been any clue as to which way they’d gone, which worried Eredion more than a little; but surely they wouldn’t have been so stupid as to stay in Bright Bay?
Studying Wian’s still profile, he decided she reminded him of a wild bird perched on his knee and ready to burst into flight at any moment. Her dark hair, now neatly trimmed and pulled back into more than a dozen thin braids with silver threads woven into each, still hung well past her shoulders. The bruises had faded from her face and body, leaving only the occasional patch of yellow or tracery of blue.
There was no removing the network of scars Rosin—and later, Kippin—had left over years of abuse. Wian’s whippings had been far worse than Alyea’s single episode; her back was a mass of scars layered over scars layered over scars.
The marks Kippin had left on Lord Alyea, in stark contrast, would already have healed to near-invisibility: one of the benefits of being a desert lord. The only scars Alyea would ever have were the ones placed on her body prior to her blood trials.
Eredion rested a gentle hand on Wian’s back, thinking about the tangle of old scars there; wishing he could erase them, along with the deeper, less visible hurts inside her soul. It was easier to think about Wian than about...all the others, today.
The grave-keeper was dead, and while replacing her would be Oruen’s job, the meetings they had held to help some of the survivors of the Purge had to go on. Had to. And that was Eredion’s business, as soon as he could think of a place half so secure to resume the meetings.
Not even a thief with nerves of steel would eavesdrop in a graveyard.
“He’ll come after me,” Wian said, the words barely audible. “I can feel it.”
Eredion didn’t say anything. Wian didn’t need false reassurances.
She turned into him, curling up in his lap like a child. He wrapped his arms around her, and they sat in silence for some time. At last she gave a great sigh and uncoiled to stand up, her hand pressing on his shoulder lightly for a moment.
“There’s another of those letters,” she said unemotionally. “I left it on the entry table.”
“Thank you.”
She padded away. He sighed, got up to retrieve the letter, then settled back down in the chair, his mood even darker than it had been.
“Bloody Scratha,” he muttered as he flicked the packet open and unfolded the pages. He read them over, shaking his head in disbelief. “Bloody lunatic. If they ever get wind of this, the loremasters are going to have him castrated—if he’s lucky.”
He refolded the letter and went to put it with all the others.
Under Ninnic’s rule, being Sessin’s ambassador to the northern court had involved a number of hideous tasks, but at least Eredion had been able to stay in the background, mostly invisible to the common eye. Rosin Weatherweaver had liked keeping him isolated. Everything Eredion wrote, every letter he received, had been screened by fanatically loyal Northern Church priests.
Oruen made no such restrictions; and although Eredion still preferred to stay out of the public eye, the public, apparently, was looking for him. Staring at the enormous stack of letters and reports on his desk, Eredion decided that some things had been better under Ninnic, after all.
The reports mostly involved people throughout the kingdom and southlands on whom Eredion had set watchers. The letters, for the most part, were more business-oriented. Some of the writers wanted Sessin sponsorship for their ventures; some wanted to become suppliers for Sessin interests. A handful wanted to learn the art of glass-craft at Sessin Fortress; Eredion snorted and threw those away unanswered. A few offered marriage, or less formal arrangements.
The most painful read was a woman offering him her eight-year-old daughter:
“I am sur, You will bee abel to giv my childe a Better Lyfe, than I could possibely Afford. My childe is Smart, Strong! and will add Great Glorie, to Your Family. And when she growes to bee a Woman, she will make, a Perfect Wyfe for You. Healthee children run inn my family and so I know she will bare many fyne children to Your Glorie.”
Eredion shuddered and shredded that letter before dropping it into the trash.
“Bloody ignorant, illiterate northerns,” he muttered, sitting back in his chair. The stack of letters over which he’d been laboring all morning seemed to be even taller than when he’d started. As though summoned by the thought, Wian appeared in the doorway and held up another thick sheaf of folded papers. Eredion covered his eyes and groaned.
She laughed and dropped the letters on top of the stack. “You shouldn’t have left these so long,” she said lightly. “You only get a few a day, you know.”
“I’ve been a little too busy to sort through mail,” he retorted. “Put those on the bottom of the stack. They’ll have to wait their turn.”
“These are more important,” she said, flattening her hand on top of the letters as though to stop him from rearranging the stack himself. “They’re from the guards you attacked and the owners of the businesses you broke into when you were looking for Lord Alyea.”
“I seem to recall you were involved in that incident as well,” he said a little sourly as he reached for the newest letters.
“Not to the extent of breaking a guard captain’s arms and battering in the doors of several shops,” she returned with an arch look.
“Tell them to take it up with Deiq,” he muttered, slitting open the seal on the first letter.
She snorted to show her opinion of that and turned to leave. Before she made two steps, an insistent knock hammered at the outer suite door. Wian made an impatient gesture and muttered something under her breath as she hurried to answer the summons.
Eredion set the letter aside unread. He knew what it would say without looking. Damage to royal officers and city property, fines, reproaches, compensation demands. No doubt he’d be summoned in front of Oruen for a public reprimand and apology session at some point.
Under desert law, Alyea would hold part of the responsibility. It had been during her rescue that the damages had been incurred, after all. Kippin, Kam, Tevin, and anyone involved in her kidnapping would also be charged, as they’d provoked the need for a rescue in the first place. Even Wian might well be charged, although minimally, for her small part in the incident.
But under northern law, everyone answered only for the crimes they had committed, not the ones they had caused others to commit. Eredion still hadn’t decided which was the better way. Certainly this was the less complicated system, but that had drawbacks; one of which, at the moment, was that Eredion stood firmly on the hot spot with no way out.
It would help if Deiq stepped up to his rather significant part in causing the damage; but Eredion knew he wouldn’t volunteer. And Oruen wouldn’t charge him with so much as a broken window. The new king at least knew enough not to drag a First Born ha’ra’ha into legal wrangles: so it all, tacitly, settled at Eredion’s feet.
Oruen would understand even more if the bulk of Cafad Scratha’s letters had reached him. That stack, well hidden and secured, was growing almost as fast as the one on Eredion’s desk.
“Bloody lunatic,” Eredion muttered again. He looked up as Wian came back into the room, followed by Alyea, whose face held a distinctly displeased tightness.
“Lor
d Alyea, my lord Eredion,” Wian said evenly, then retreated, ostentatiously pulling the doors to Eredion’s study shut as she left.
“What the hells is she—” Alyea began as soon as the doors closed.
“Lord Alyea,” Eredion cut her off, rising to his feet. “Good afternoon.”
“She’s dangerous—” A vague image of whips descending came with those words.
“Not your concern, Lord Alyea,” he said sharply, as much to cut off her unintentional display as to stop her talking.
“But she—” Betrayal, deceit, Pieas on his knees, Oruen glaring—Alyea clearly had a number of grudges piled up against Wian that she hadn’t managed to let go of just yet.
Eredion put sledgehammer force in his voice this time: “Lord Alyea.”
She stopped at last, the flushed color in her face fading.
“Sorry,” she said after a moment, and looked away, visibly struggling to compose herself. “I need your help.”
Her hands clenched in the folds of her shirt. Memory told him she’d been wearing the same clothes when he last saw her. Days ago, that had been; apparently Deiq had been keeping her too busy to consider fetching a change of clothes. Not surprising, considering how long the elder ha’ra’ha had been keeping multiple needs bottled up; but Eredion didn’t find any particular humor in the observation, either. It was merely confirmation that the final changes had kicked in for Alyea.
So what is it? he asked. A thick grey silence met him; he frowned, surprised and displeased. After days isolated with Deiq, and with as much involuntary sending as she was doing of late, mind-speech should have been instinctive for her. Apparently she was going to need estiqi after all. He had some tucked away, somewhere or other. He’d have to go dig it out. If she hadn’t opened on her own by now, she wouldn’t.
Damn Deiq for leaving the matter to drag out, but that wasn’t surprising, either.
Eredion pursed his lips, studying the fresh, raw rash of scratches and cuts across Alyea’s face and hands.
“You need to pick out titles,” he said abruptly, in part to give her more time to calm down and also to give himself time to think. “For yourself, as Head of Family, and for your mother, as your head of household. Every desert family has their own distinct titles. You can’t use northern terms; it won’t do.”
She drew in a breath, her forehead relaxing as though she understood what he was angling for.
“I have several questions along those lines,” she admitted. Her shoulders lowered to a proper line and her breathing deepened.
“That can wait,” he said. “What happened?”
She nodded slightly, took another calming breath, then said, “I went to talk some sense into my mother. It didn’t go well.” She told the rest of the story with brief, unemotional conciseness.
As he listened, he found himself noticing that calm, approving of it, and comparing it to the nervous wreck she would have been a matter of a few tendays ago.
“That was early this morning,” she finished. “It’s past noon now, and Deiq hasn’t returned. I went by the Mansion on the way here—Nobody saw me,” she added, seeing his expression. “I do know how to peer around corners, you know. The guards are still there, and nothing seems to have changed.”
Eredion sat down, motioning her to do likewise. She shook her head, then reconsidered and sank into a chair, lacing her hands tightly together in the first sign of nervousness she’d displayed.
He took a moment to think about what she’d said. From the sound of it, Deiq had gone into a blood rage much like the one that had taken him through Lady Arnil’s mansion during Alyea’s rescue. No doubt at least some of the letters in this latest stack involved the damage done there; he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Without anyone to restrain him into sanity or anchor him in the human world...and at full strength...Deiq could be—and probably was—taking his victims apart as thoroughly as Idisio’s insane mother, Ellemoa, had done to hers. If Deiq had gone over that grey line into complete madness, stopping him wasn’t within Eredion’s capabilities, not even with a team of full desert lords backing him up.
Returning Alyea to the tower before letting loose told Eredion that Deiq didn’t want her to see that he was capable of such destruction. Still protecting her, he thought with distaste; which left him in the reluctant position of not explaining it himself.
But he’d had to deal with two insane ha’ra’hain in Bright Bay in recent years, and he wasn’t about to put up with a third one. Enough sand had gone into that glass, as the saying went.
He reached for the stack of reports he’d already sorted through and flipped through them until he came to the page he wanted. Two days old, but hopefully still valid. Perhaps he didn’t need more desert lords backing him up after all.
Dropping the reports into a desk drawer—and flipping the ingenious Aerthraim lock securely shut—he stood. “I’ll go see what I can find out. Stay here.”
She jumped to her feet, already opening her mouth to argue.
He cut her off. “Alyea. If someone’s out to kill you, you’re safest here. It was idiotic of you to even walk from the tower to the palace unguarded; too many places for an ambush, and Kippin’s still on the loose. He knows how to shield against a desert lord’s perceptions, and you’d never feel the blow coming. Stay here.”
“Godsdamnit, I’m a desert lord!” she snapped. “I’m not going to sit safe in hiding while you handle my problems!”
He came around the desk as she spoke, stopped arm’s-length away and met her eyes squarely.
“Being a desert lord,” he said, “doesn’t make you invulnerable. Or have you forgotten the lessons of your blood trials? And how dangerous Kippin can be? Sometimes you need help, Alyea, and there’s no shame in asking.”
“But there’s always a price,” she said bitterly.
“Not in this case,” he said, and gripped her shoulder hard. “Just stay here. And—try not to get into a fight with Wian, please.”
He released his hold, passed her and strode out the doors before she could come up with an answer. Wian was nowhere in sight, so the girl had either left on an errand or was sulking in another room. He felt no need to find Wian and tell her where he was going. She was here voluntarily and could stay or go as she pleased, and neither of them accounted to the other for their whereabouts.
“What makes you think you can handle this yourself?” Alyea hollered as he was reaching for the handle of the door to the outer suite.
“Because I’m not going alone,” he said under his breath, then, as he drew the door softly shut behind him, added even more quietly, “I hope.”
Chapter Seven
Dark-haired and tan from the sun, Raffin had unmistakable northern lines to his face and an accent from above the line of the Hackerwood. He regarded Tank with open amusement as Dasin stumbled through the introductions.
So he’s already buckled Dasin’s nerve, just in the hiring, Tank thought, holding back a rueful sigh. Aloud he said, “Worked for Yuer long, have you?”
The corners of Raffin’s blue eyes crinkled with a near-smile. “Long enough to know where to aim,” he said. “And not at my shoes, either.”
Tank held his expression neutral and waited to see which way Raffin would go from there: push it into a confrontation to prove he was a better fighter than Tank, or turn it into a shared joke against Breek.
Raffin scanned the taproom of the Copper Kettle thoughtfully, then broke into a slow grin.
“Nicer than most starting spots,” the mercenary said. “I stayed at the Grey Wind for years, working pissass contracts for damn near wooden bits. You could do a lot worse.”
Dasin flickered a fast glance at Tank, then said, a remarkably steady chill in his voice, “I’ve earned this start, Raffin.”
Raffin’s blue eyes came back to rest on Dasin’s face. “Did I say you haven’t?”
Dasin’s thin face tightened and paled a shade, his confidence visibly evaporating.
/> Tank resisted the impulse to roll his eyes.
“S’e Dasin,” he said, deliberately formal. “Do we have a load and a cart yet?”
Dasin jerked his gaze to Tank with poorly concealed relief. “Ah—the cart, yes. It’s in the stables here, waiting on us. It was already arranged, before we even....” His gaze flicked to Raffin, and his voice promptly dried up.
Raffin said nothing, his stare steady on Dasin. A small smile tilted one corner of his mouth.
“So, Yuer’s efficient,” Tank said, a little more loudly than he needed to. Dasin broke free of Raffin’s gaze and focused on Tank again. “The load?”
“I have a list of...suggestions, and prices to look for.” Dasin swallowed hard, blinking. “I’ll be going to the Open Market tomorrow. It opened yesterday, runs through Nuday—”
Raffin’s face creased into a dark smirk. “Granday,” he said. “Unless you’re looking to get hung as a heathen along the north roads, in which case it’s entirely your business. But tell me if that’s your plan, so I can find another contract.”
“Uh....” Dasin stared at Raffin like a rabbit unable to avoid the glare of a snake.
“I’ll go along with you,” Tank said, forcing himself not to kick Dasin under the table. “Raffin. A word?” He stood and headed for the door without waiting to see if the older mercenary followed.
Outside, the air was crisp and chill; the full moon hung low and bright in the sky. Tank moved to stand near a wide bench by a planter filled with spiky-looking clusters of some ornamental plant before turning around to face Raffin.
“If you’re looking for a scrap, I’m not playing tonight,” Raffin said before Tank could speak. He stood well out of arm’s reach, his thumbs hooked in his belt and an amused smile on his broad face. “And you ain’t my type.” His eyes traveled, insolently slow, from Tank’s face to his feet and back up.
“Not looking for a scrap,” Tank said, deciding to ignore the latter comment and following survey. “You’d win. No argument there. Breek was stupid.”
“Smarter than Breek ain’t hard to do,” Raffin said.
Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) Page 5