by Kirby Crow
He whistled for Peysho as he continued to watch Scarlet stride down the mountain path, and the big man came jogging up and winked at him with his crimson eye. Liall did not give him a chance to speak. Peysho could be an unmerciful tease.
“What was the last news we had of Cadan?”
Peysho blinked. “Cadan? I heard that rotted bastard got himself killed down in the Bled. Why?”
“Just a hunch,” Liall said absently, watching the slender line of Scarlet’s body.
Peysho’s sudden grin was wide and eager. “Fucker used to jibe me for my bloody eye. Bet he’s jibing at himself, now, eh?”
Liall frowned. He did not like to be reminded of how he had scarred Cadan’s face, or of how he disposed of the bodies of the three women Cadan had murdered. That is in the past, he told himself uneasily, and the past cannot be changed. “It was not a thing I enjoyed,” he said. “The man had to be punished, so I punished him. Nothing more.”
Peysho shrugged. “No argument from me on that account. Never did see a bastard who liked to hurt folk as much as him. I was glad to see the back of him. Ye did right, Wolf.”
Liall nodded slowly as the bright smudge of Scarlet’s red hood disappeared below the ridge. “I know, but I should have settled it better.”
“What, ye mean go easy on him?”
“No.” Liall sighed. “I should have finished him.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe you should send Kio down to Lysia tomorrow, have him sniff around for news of a scarred officer in the Byzan army.”
“Officer? Couldn’t be him,” Peysho scoffed. “He ent that smart.”
“You don’t have to be smart to get a commission in any army, just brutal and clever at hiding it. He was both.”
“Well, I have my doubts, but I’ll do as y’say. And if it’s him?”
“If it is him, I won’t make the same mistake twice. But forget him for now. I need to speak with you about a matter.” Liall regarded Peysho with a calculating eye. “Not here. I’ll meet you in my yurt at dusk.”
“Why not mine?”
“Kio is there.”
Peysho was shrewd enough to take his meaning. Liall knew the man would make his appearance early and alone. Peysho left uneasily.
TRUE TO LIALL’S EXPECTATIONS, just as the rim of the sun dipped under the peak of the Nerit, Peysho’s boots were on the mat outside his yurt. Liall offered him wine and Peysho sat gingerly on a pile of pillows. Liall wondered if Peysho was trying not to look as uncomfortable as he clearly felt.
Peysho took the silver cup from his host—treasure from some passing merchant—and glanced around him in an effort at courtesy. “Nice rug,” he said, deadpan.
“A fine weave,” Liall agreed. “Try the wine.”
Peysho set the cup aside. “The wine is fuckin’ lovely, I’m sure. Now, what in all Deva’s bleeding hells is this about?”
Liall smiled. “You took the long way around the river to say that, I see.” Peysho glowered at him and Liall chuckled. “Forgive me for having fun with you, old friend. It’s not easy, what I have to say, and so I thought...” he shrugged. “I’ve been told I have no tact.”
Unexpectedly, Peysho’s gaze went long and he stared resolutely at the wall of the tent. “Ye will be askin’ me and Kio to move on, then?”
Liall was genuinely shocked. “What makes you say that?”
“I thought,” Peysho began. “Well, and not every man in the krait is happy that ye’ve put Kio in charge of the fighters. Ye remember when ye put me in charge of runnin’ the line, and the men had to answer to me fer any tolls or treasure? I had to fight five men that week.”
So that was it. According to krait law, any man could be deposed from his position if he was not strong enough to hold it. Promoting Peysho to enforcer had been a risky move, but the man had acquitted himself well and earned great respect among the Kasiri. Putting Kio in as captain over the fighters had not yet caused any great amount of trouble, but Liall suspected this was because most of the men were afraid of Peysho and knew of the bond the two men shared.
Liall took a sip of wine to stall. This would want a delicate hand. “And you’re aware that it’s not so much you they object to as Kio?” He had heard the pointed grumblings about Kio and ignored them, for his word was law in the krait, but only so far. The Kasiri could like his choice or not, but if any man decided to challenge Kio, that would be Kio’s business alone.
So that is why he looked so alarmed when I ordered him to come alone, Liall thought. He assumed I wanted to spare him the shame of being banished from the krait in front of Kio.
“Forgive me,” Liall said slowly. “Even after all these years, I sometimes forget that I am not in my own country.” He set his wine cup down and chose his words carefully. “A man’s bed is his concern and no one else’s. Where you love is your own business. In my land, no one would give your choice a second thought.”
The enforcer brightened a little. “Fer true?”
“Truly.”
Peysho looked deep into his cup for a long moment and then drank thoughtfully. The fire popped lazily and the smell of wood smoke grew stronger before the vent carried it away. Liall knew that Peysho must have been rethinking the future plans he had been making all afternoon. He was saddened that he had put his friend through misery without need. At last, Peysho sighed and set his drink aside.
“We ent got it so easy in Morturii. Things are different there. I could almost envy yer land, cold an’ all.”
“Is this,” Liall made a vague gesture, “why you had to leave Morturii?”
“Not me, but Kio. He was a soldier once, same as me. I was his commandin’ officer. Fool lad got caught on his knees in the barracks one night. Civilians are one thing, and what’s done in town ent spoken of in the field, but soldiers are forbidden to know each other like that. Morale and all that, they say. The generals believe it weakens the ranks.” Peysho snorted to show his disdain of that notion and went on: “Well, they sent the other lad to a floggin’, but Kio’s from a good family, poor but thought well of, so they sent word up t’the headquarters, askin’ what should be done about him. We waited two days to hear back, and in that time the other lad took fever in his wounds and died of it. Kio was scared to death, thinkin’ he was bound for the same fate, and me... I was too close to the matter to see clear.”
Peysho shrugged his broad shoulders uncomfortably, and Liall recalled he had scars there; old ones faded almost silver with long age.
“We got the word back, and it was bad. Not only floggin’, but a brand as well. Right ‘ere.” Peysho touched the center of his forehead. “Turned out Kio’s family has an enemy in the army, and they saw their opportunity and took it. I went straight to his cell and knocked his guards out with a stone. Broke one o’ their pates, I found out later, and he died from it. I was a marked man, too, after that. No matter, we were both done for. The Morturii army takes a dim view of sekeche.”
It was a crude insult, taken from the lowest of brothels; a word for a man who puts his mouth on another man.
“Do not say such things.”
“Oh, I claim the title,” Peysho said, showing Liall his rough grin, “if not the shame. Kio’s a good man. He’s a devil with a knife, he is, but when we’re alone he’s so... he’s gentle and true and... and t’think someone would punish him for...” He broke off in disgust and reached for his cup again. His other big hand rested on his knee, clenched into a tight fist. Liall was quiet in respect, filling Peysho’s cup as he calmed himself. He refilled his own cup and took a long drink before he spoke again.
“Listen to me, Peysho. I have had news from the north.”
That perked him up. “Yer own people? Deva’s hells!”
Liall reminded him of the Minh messenger and the box he had carried over so many leagues. “There was a swan feather inside. Among my people, this is a message to return at once.”
“But ye ent heard from yer family for years,” Peysho scoffed. “Ye don’t mean to desert the krai
t?”
There was fear there, the wolf cub’s dread that the pack was not strong enough to meet its enemies on even ground, or the soldier’s worry for a missing general.
“I do not mean to abandon them right away,” Liall assured. “Yet, I must go eventually. I have no choice. And so, I plan to leave the krait in your care, Peysho. You will be atya in my place.”
Peysho set his wine down quickly before he spilled it. “Me?”
“It is my right under krait law, is it not? The men will not be shocked, even if you are. As for Kio, well, we all have our hurdles. There will be words, I’m sure, and some of the men may challenge you or him or both, so think carefully before you agree.”
Peysho was a seasoned soldier and accustomed to abrupt shifts in fortune. Liall saw him absorb the facts and weigh them soundlessly in his head.
“When will ye come back?”
Liall shrugged and wondered at the feel of his own body, the weight of it, like one millstone had been shifted off him and another put on.
“It is doubtful I will even reach Norl Udur alive, much less be able to return,” he said, switching the true name of his land for the more common one his country was known by in Morturii. “A single journey there and straight back would take almost a year, and I have many old and powerful enemies who will try very hard to make sure that I never set foot on my own soil. Also, if I am fortunate enough to survive, I do not know how long I will be required to stay. It could be years before I return to Byzantur. Most likely, it will be never.”
Peysho nodded slowly, accepting that truth as well. His rugged face was pinched with sadness. “Ye have my blessing, and the blessin’ of any gods I’ve ever prayed to. Ye’re the best man I’ve ever known, Wolf. The fairest and the most noble.”
Liall pushed his arm. “Stop that. You’ll have me wailing like an old grandfather in his cups.”
Peysho grinned. “Want some salt t’go with those tears?”
Crying in the beer, he meant. They laughed together and then wandered out onto the platform outside, both to escape the smoky interior of the yurt and to watch the jeweled stars emerge from the red curtain of dusk.
There was much to do, many plans to be made. Liall rested his palm on the ball of Peysho’s shoulder as they silently watched the changeable sky shift hues into night.
Grandma Goes Up the Mountain
SCAJA OPTED TO SPARE his feelings and said nothing when Scarlet showed up on the doorstep, slapping snow from his boots. Linhona quietly set another plate at the table and went to hang out laundry. Scarlet was too unsettled to dwell on what anyone else thought, being consumed with thoughts of his own.
Liall might be a wolf, but he was not the common bandit Scarlet had taken him for. There was something strange about him and his Kasiri, something strange in all of them, even in Peysho, who looked as fearsome as a Bled warrior but carried crockery without complaint. Or perhaps, he thought sullenly, you just never knew a Kasiri before.
Scarlet could not help remembering how Liall had looked when he was hauled out of the wagon to face the atya: tall and imposing and clearly expecting even the trees to bow down to him, and the sun and moon to rise and set at his orders. Despite Liall’s accent, his speech was cultured and clear. Even when he was behaving like a villain, he draped that veil of manners over the whole lot, just like the court dandies at Rusa were trained to do. Not for the first time, Scarlet wondered where Liall was from. Nemerl was a large world, he knew, and Byzantur only a small part of it, but what people had such dark coloring of skin and such dead-white hair? None he had ever heard of. He marveled that such a strange man had decided to dwell in Byzantur.
He put his questions to Scaja that night as they brought in the wood before supper. “You’ve seen him. What did you think?”
Scaja gave his son a sharp look, then shook his head and stacked another split onto the armload Scarlet held. “Think? You mean with my head, or with my Gift?”
Scarlet looked at his boots. “Your Gift, if you please.” Scaja could see much about men that was hidden.
“I’m not sure you want to go down this path, son.”
“I’m just—”
“Wondering. So you’ve said. Well, you’re old enough to pay the price for your curiosity. This Wolf is not a simple man; I’ll say that for him. There’s a shadow and a secret on his heart, and he guards it well. Even my grandmother couldn’t have seen into it; it’s that closed and locked. Like an iron gate hung with chains.” Scaja paused in his work and squeezed his eyes shut. When he spoke next, it was in the formal, stilted words of prophecy. “An old pain, but still red and raw as the day it was made. He would savage the one who breached his fortress to approach that wound, or kill him dead.”
Scaja opened his eyes and sighed, dropping the High Speech for common Bizye. “I’m sorry, lad, but your Wolf is a killer. Whatever he’s told you, whatever he’s filled your head with, he’s got blood on his hands. Keep away from him. Go back to Ankar or Patra even to Volstland, if you’re so sweet on danger, but stay clear of the Nerit until he’s long gone.”
“Do you think he’s proud?” Scarlet asked. It occurred to him that perhaps he had wounded Liall’s pride when he refused him so bluntly, and maybe he could apologize and so settle matters that way. He was still thinking of ways to get around Liall, unwilling to see what his father was plainly telling him.
“Is snow cold?” Scaja countered gruffly. He obviously considered the matter closed. “Why ask what you already know?”
Scarlet pondered that as he carried his burden in and knelt before the firebox to arrange the wood splits in a pattern, a deep frown digging a furrow between his brows.
“Scarlet,” Scaja snapped. “Stop mooning and get the wood stacked.”
Mooning! He ducked his head and obeyed. Linhona said something to Scaja, too softly for him to hear.
“What?” Scarlet demanded.
Scaja shook his head, gently pushing Linhona into the kitchen. “Naught, boy. Go. Get your work done.”
Scarlet sighed and went back for another armful of wood, trying to dismiss all the wondering from his brain.
It did not stay gone for long, and when it came back, it irritated him greatly. After brooding around the house for a full day, he spent the next afternoon working with Scaja to repair a wagon wheel at Tradepoint. He wore his fine new Morturii long-knives at his waist, and that put Scaja in a bad temper.
“What Hilurin goes armed to a friend’s house?” he demanded.
“A pedlar,” Scarlet answered back smartly.
Scaja continued to mumble darkly under his breath as they worked in the cold air with Deni and Zsu looking on, casting pointed looks between his son and Zsu before shaking his head and muttering about cats and curiosity and the world-wild. Scarlet shook hands with Deni and promised Zsu a set of ribbons from Khurelen, whenever he managed to get there, which prompted another round of black looks. When night fell, Scarlet wandered over to the taberna rather than stay home and confront Scaja about what was bothering him.
He sipped bitterbeer in the comfy noise of Rufa’s place and thought dark things into his cup. There had to be a way to win this Kasiri chieftain over without losing more pride than he had left. However, even the idea of paying Liall’s price made him angry. And besides, he found himself thinking, he’d know I was not granting him his demand out of desire. I’d be giving him what he wanted to get what I wanted in return, like a whore.
That thought made him livid and embarrassed all over again, so he paid for another beer to wash it out of his head and was drinking it too quickly when the soldier of the vine appeared beside him. The soldier helped himself to a chair at Scarlet’s table and flicked him a mocking smile.
“I hear they caught you again!” he crowed. His scars wrinkled.
Scarlet silently wished him away. “My own doing,” he retorted, wiping foam from his lip. “At least they didn’t punish Jerivet.”
“That must have been a pretty moment,” the soldier la
ughed. “I’m surprised you still have your head on your shoulders. The Wolf isn’t known to be forgiving.”
Scarlet shrugged irritably, conveniently forgetting that this echoed, more or less, what Scaja had told him about Liall. “What do you know of him? You’ve been in the army for some time, by the look of your uniform. When have you faced him?”
The soldier eased back and studied his face. “Oh, I haven’t,” he said casually. “But I’ve heard tales. Women raped and strangled, men branded or beheaded.”
Despite the soldier’s words and even Scaja’s warning, Scarlet found that difficult to believe. The first day he had seen Liall, he had witnessed him ordering his tribesman to unhand a woman. It had been easier ordered than done, for the woman was beating the Kasiri boy about his skull.
He had me in his camp, he thought, alone, at night, with armed men all around, and he let me go. Would a murderer spare a woman who defied him? Would he dicker over crockery and the price of tolls, or would he just take what he wanted, no excuses?
He eyed the soldier. What was his aim? Was he here to assess the threat of the krait before reporting back to the Flower Prince, or was he just an idle soldier on his rounds of the villages, looking for a bit of company on the road? The kind of company that one pays for, he thought sourly, and was glad there were no bhoros houses in Lysia. He decided the soldier was a liar and a gossip, and that the Gift had whispered false to Scaja. Liall could not be a killer.
“Well, he’s left my head alone.”
“You must have a charming tongue in that head, despite your lack of cunning. Or perhaps he’s heard of your pretty sister and hopes to curry favor with you and your father.”
The soldier leaned forward and Scarlet’s nose wrinkled at the smell of his humid breath, musty with stale bitterbeer.
“Perhaps that’s what you should do, boy. Dress in your sister’s clothes and let him steal a kiss or two and he’ll let you cross over.”
“Keep your own tongue in your head before I cut it out,” Scarlet warned as calmly as he could, resisting the urge to throw his mug at the soldier’s face. He was unsettled by how wide the soldier’s shot had gone and yet how close it had come. “And don’t speak of my sister.”