“A shirt for my cousin,” she said drily. “The old one is worn through.”
DINA
A Better Deal
“Are you Gelt?” I asked Carmian outside in the square.
“No,” she said. “But I knew someone who was.”
It came to me like a whiplash, unexpected and painful. A voice I had to hear whether I wanted to or not.
I told you to be careful. I told you and told you. But oh no, you could easily do it alone. Until they caught you. Until they—
“The one they hanged?” I said without thinking, or at least without thinking any thoughts other than hers.
“It wasn’t my fault!” she burst out. “I told him not to try it alone, but he—” and then she broke off. “How did you know?”
I couldn’t tell her. Some of it I had seen in her thoughts because the Shamer’s gift had suddenly come upon me. The rest I knew because I had eavesdropped on her conversation with Nico, that night on the deck. I didn’t think either explanation would please her.
She shoved me so hard I tumbled backward.
“Get off me!” she shouted. “Don’t you pry and poke and… and sniff around my life. What is in here”—she pointed at herself—“is mine. Do you understand? No one has the right to see that.”
She was right.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I said tiredly. “Sometimes it just—”
“I don’t care if it was on purpose or not. Just stay away from me!”
“If I can,” I said. “I can’t always control it.”
“Then learn, damn it! The Spinner doesn’t go around attacking people with what she knows. If you enter her house, yes, then she will tell you what she sees. You know that. And if you don’t want to listen, you can just stay away. But you, what does a person have to do to get rid of you?”
I got up slowly. A suspicion had entered my head.
“Did you get the Crow to sell me to Azuan? To get rid of me?”
“No,” she said. “Not you. Just the flute. I thought we could make a bit of money off it. And when the man from Colmonte saw it, he became very keen to know where we got it.”
I wasn’t sure I believed her. Nico had said she had her own sense of honor, but all I had seen so far was her sense of a good deal. I didn’t think she had very many human feelings at all. Except… there was that glimpse of her I had just had. She had had feelings for him, the Gelt they had hanged.
“Who was he?” I asked. “Your friend the Gelt?”
I hadn’t truly expected her to answer. But she did.
“His name was Jaerin. He was the Spinner’s brother.”
The Spinner’s brother? From what I had heard on the Sea Wolf—what had Nico called him, Tip-Toe?—it sounded as if Carmian’s friend had been a confidence man or a clever burglar or something like that. Hard to imagine that about a brother to the wise Spinner. And hard to imagine that the Spinner and her people would take so kindly to Carmian, who must have been his partner in crime. But apparently they did. There had to be something there I didn’t understand, but I didn’t think she would tell me.
“Where is Nico?” I asked instead.
“In the guesthouse,” said Carmian. “Over there.”
I looked where she pointed. It was not the meanest of the cottages, far from it. The gables had been carved to resemble herons, and the whole door, too, had been carved into a picture: ducks on the water, geese in the sky, yet another pair of herons stalking fish among reeds and rushes. If this was the guesthouse, hospitality was clearly a virtue here. Why, then, was there a man posted on either side of the pretty door, each with a long and dangerous-looking spear?
“Guesthouse?” I said. “Why the guards?”
“It’s not every day of the week that a prince of the House of Ravens sleeps in that house,” said Carmian in a dry tone, and I couldn’t tell whether she considered the men to be jailers or guards of honor. Perhaps even the Gelts themselves weren’t quite sure? In any event, the guards let us pass without any trouble. One of them even gave Carmian a friendly nod.
There was a fireplace at one end, and on either side stood a chair made from skins on a frame of… bones? Whalebone, even? In one chair sat a gray-haired, gray-bearded Gelt. In the other sat Nico.
He certainly didn’t look like a prisoner. He had bathed—his dark hair was still damp—and the Gelts had given him a long woolen robe embroidered with herons. And he had shaved off his beard. I didn’t like to see that. The beard had not suited him, but it had been his way of hiding. Without it, he looked more handsome, it was true, but also more like the son of a prince. Did this mean he thought he was done with hiding?
He rose when he saw me.
“Dina. Is… everything well with you?”
Actually I would have liked a hug. I needed one, and badly. But at least he didn’t seem to be furious with me anymore, and the worry in his dark blue eyes was unmistakable.
“Well enough,” I said. Which was almost true. I certainly felt better now than I had a couple of hours ago, and being frightened and worried had become almost a habit.
“Welcome,” said the Gelt, who had also risen. “The Spinner says you have more than one gift. And that you have come like the geese in spring to tell us that change is upon us. A harbinger of storms, perhaps?”
He may have meant well, but the fancy imagery made me ill at ease. I was no harbinger. I was a girl, a human girl. And I didn’t know what to answer. Had the Spinner known all this about me before she had even met me? She was either a very gifted seer or else Nico had told tales.
Perhaps the Gelt felt my discomfort, or maybe he merely got tired of waiting for an answer.
“My name is Ethlas,” he said. “I am the chieftain this year.”
“And last year, and the year before that, and the year before that,” murmured Carmian. “They never elect anyone else.”
He looked at her sharply, but chose to smile.
“True. I have been this town’s chieftain for seventeen years now. But one must never take one’s rank for granted, Carmian.”
“The Gelts elect their chieftains,” said Nico, as if this was very interesting and very important. “It’s not a position you are born to.”
I just thought it sounded weird.
“I’m Dina,” I said, making a sort of small bow.
“Yes. Welcome, Dina. Are you hungry?”
I was about to say no, because my stomach felt like one big, cold, heavy knot. But then my nostrils caught the scent of frying fish, and I changed my mind.
“Yes,” I said. “I think I am.”
“Carmian, will you ask Imma to prepare a little breakfast for our guest?”
I glanced at Carmian. She might not be too thrilled at being asked to wait on me like that. But for some reason she merely nodded and did as he asked.
She was different here, I realized. To the Spinner and to Ethlas. Not so belligerent. Not so sharp.
She returned within moments with a clay platter that held some baked roots and two small fried fish. There was neither bread nor porridge, the way there would have been at home, but a mug of warm goat’s milk. Carmian put it all on the long table in the middle of the room.
“Breakfast is served, Your Ladyship.”
I wish she wouldn’t call me that. But I didn’t say anything. I just sat down and began to eat. And finished everything, except for the bones.
I was so busy eating that I paid little attention to what Nico and Ethlas were talking about. Nico seemed to be asking a lot of questions about how they elected their chieftains. It sounded very boring. But then, in the middle of the second fish, I realized why Nico was so concerned. He had never asked to be the son of the castellan. And if someone suddenly had the idea that people should elect who should be castellan, rather than just having to live with whoever was next in line to the throne, well, one thing was certain—Nico would never run of his own free will for such an election.
Ethlas answered willingly enough, but it seemed
to me there were other things he would rather discuss. Something about taxes and land rights and fishing rights. I didn’t quite understand it, but it seemed the Magdans had once taken something away from the Gelts.
“But the worst thing is the children,” said Ethlas, and there was now a sharp emotion in his voice that made me put down my knife and listen. In its own way, that voice could be as commanding as a Shamer’s. “We cannot live with that fear. How can our children grow up to be free and strong when we must keep hiding them from Drakan’s men? Six of them. Six we have already lost to his so-called Dragon schools.” Ethlas practically spat the word into the fire. “And now we no longer dare to have our young ones with us here, where they belong.”
“Where are they, then?” asked Nico, and I saw how he straightened and tensed like a coiled spring. He was thinking of the Educators; one didn’t have to be the Spinner to guess that much. Was Drakan doing the same thing his grandfather Prince Arthos had done? The thought made my skin crawl.
“I will not tell you,” said Ethlas firmly. “No Gelt would. If they find the children’s village and take the ones that remain to us, what future will we have? How, then, shall we live?”
“But they are safe?”
“What is safety? Drakan has not found them yet. That is as much as I can say.”
Nico rose.
“Land rights and fishing rights,” he said. “On those issues you may have my word on parchment, but I cannot guarantee that I will ever be able to back it up with real power. But the children, that must stop. That I swear, even if it costs me my life: He shall not take your children. Or any children at all, ever again.”
There was a sudden silence in the guesthouse. Carmian, who had been drumming her fingers absently against one thigh, stopped abruptly. And I slowly put down my mug of goat’s milk.
Even if it costs me my life.
I had no doubt he meant it. Lately, Nico set a lower price on his life than I thought he should. But when you knew what the Educators could do to children, well, perhaps I understood him.
“Then we understand each other,” said Ethlas. “We will aid your cause to the best of our ability. And I speak for all Gelts in this.” He poured a golden liquid into two silver cups. “Here.”
“What is it?”
“Geltermead. Brewed from honey and fermented goat’s milk. This is how we seal an agreement. We have no need of parchment.”
“Thank you,” said Nico. “But to seal it with the rest of the world, we had better have parchment as well.”
“What about me?” Carmian had risen too.
“You?” said Nico. “I thought you were the one who wanted this.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Nico. “Possibly because you had me drugged, rolled up in a blanket, and carried here before I woke up.”
I straightened. Oh, so that was how it had happened… Carmian’s poppy juice. Some of the chill in my stomach eased a little. Nico had not willingly abandoned me.
“I’m risking my life for you,” said Carmian. “What do you think the Crow will do if he ever sees me again? How many Dragon soldiers do you think are hunting for me now? I am as dead as Jaerin if they catch me.”
She can wave her fine good looks good-bye, the Crow had promised. And she was probably right about the Dragon soldiers too.
“I’m not denying it,” said Nico. “But you did rather force my hand, didn’t you? I would have chosen to protect you better.”
“I don’t want you to protect me. I want you to pay me.”
“Pay you?”
“Yes. Seeing that you are so busy settling rights and putting things on parchment, I want something too.”
“What, then?”
“A marriage contract.”
I think we all gasped. I know I did. Marriage? To Nico? But he was…
“Such matters are not dealt with like this,” said Ethlas quietly. “Surely you know that.”
“Princes don’t marry for love,” said Carmian in a voice as cold as steel. “He doesn’t have to love me. I just want to be somebody. I want to get up so high no one can ever step on me again.”
For once, Nico looked completely out of his depth. “You mean you… you want… you want to be the castellaine?”
“Yes.”
“And that is your price?”
“Yes. Is it so very different from settling the fishing rights or the land rights? If your father had been alive, he would have negotiated a marriage for you sooner or later.”
“Don’t bring my father into this,” said Nico somewhat tensely.
“Why not? I know he would never have agreed to let you marry someone like me. He would have chosen some noble family he wanted something from. There would have been councils and negotiations and documents on dowry and inheritance and titles and the like, but in the end he would have decided who to sell you to—oh, sorry—who to marry you to. Isn’t that how it’s done in your family?”
Nico could not deny it. It was part of being a prince.
“Very well, then,” said Carmian. “Matters have changed slightly. Your father is dead, the House of Ravens is somewhat down on its luck, and the noble families aren’t lining up their marriage candidates on your doorstep. But I have something you want. My help, and that of the Gelts. You don’t even have to pay up here and now. Only if we succeed. We can write that it only comes into effect upon Drakan’s death.”
“Carmian, is this really what you want?”
“Yes.”
“And feelings just don’t matter?”
“Love is for wide-eyed schoolgirls. A bit of mutual respect, Nico. That should be enough. With some noble heiress you wouldn’t even be sure of that much. And I am not stupid, Nico. I may not have been born to wear silks, but I learn quickly.”
I could see that Nico was actually giving this some consideration. Serious consideration. I felt like shouting and yelling at both of them. At Carmian for being so mercenary—castellaine? Someone like her who had certainly not been born to silks. Born to dirt and squalor, more like, if my guess was correct. And at Nico, who… who surely couldn’t be that stupid. Could he?
“Ethlas?” He looked at the chieftain questioningly. “What is your word in this matter?”
Ethlas looked less than pleased at the way things were turning.
“We owe Carmian a great deal. For this and past favors. But, Carmian, did you talk to the Spinner about any of this?”
“Yes. She… she wouldn’t forbid it.”
“Carmian, the Spinner never forbids us anything. She thinks we have a sacred right to cast ourselves into whatever morass of folly we choose. You know this. What else did she say?”
“Only that I knew my own heart badly.” Carmian looked as if it cost her blood to say it. But she spoke the truth, and that in itself was surprising enough. I had heard the Spinner say those very words.
“But you know your will? You know that this is what you want?”
“Yes!” She looked at him almost angrily, as if questioning her judgment was a crime. “I know my own mind!”
Ethlas shook his head gently, but he asked her no more questions.
“If she is determined, we must support her in this,” he said. “We owe her that.”
Nico bent his head for a moment, as if to hide his expression. Then he straightened, and if there had been emotion on his face, now it was well hidden.
“Let us finish this business, then,” he said in a peculiarly harsh voice. “Fishing rights, land rights, and marriage rights. Ethlas, I think you are getting a better deal than she is.”
Carmian merely stared at him in silent defiance.
I got up.
“Dina?” said Nico. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” I said. “Just out.”
The mist was letting go at last. The sky was clear and blue for the first time in days, an ill match for my mood, which was pitch-black. Carmian. I wish I had never met her. I wished even m
ore that Nico had never met her. Damn her and her mermaid hair and the calculating brain underneath all that hair. Castellaine. As if someone like her could… as if they would ever allow…
Hot tears were creeping down my cheeks. Angrily, I wiped them away. I didn’t want to cry now. And if I absolutely had to cry, couldn’t it be over something else? Something more important than Carmian. Like Drakan. Like the children of the Gelts, the ones he had taken and the ones who had to hide in the marsh and couldn’t live free and ordinary lives with their families. But no. It was Carmian who made the tears come, Carmian and her hateful calculations and contracts and… and…
“Dina?”
It was Nico, of course. I didn’t dare turn around, didn’t want him to see the stupid tears.
“Dina, what is it?”
He had noticed anyway. He was good at things like that.
I couldn’t talk. My throat was one big lump, and even if I had been able to talk, I wouldn’t have known what to say.
Cautiously, he touched my shoulder. And suddenly I could hold nothing back, and it was no longer just Carmian I cried over, it was everything. That everything had to be so hard. That Drakan existed. That my father was dead and my mother didn’t like what he had given me. That we had to be scared all the time, that Callan was wounded and might die, that we all might die. And that Carmian had long, golden mermaid curls, while I was small and square and had hair like a horse. Everything at once.
He put his arms around me, and I hid my face against the heron gown and sobbed. And for once he kept his mouth shut and asked no more questions. He didn’t tell me to stop crying. He didn’t say that everything would be all right and that it would all look much better in the morning. He just held me.
After a while, the tears stopped. I was exhausted, and my head hurt from crying so hard. Yet somehow, I felt a little better.
“That sweater smells awfully fishy,” said Nico, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about my soaking his borrowed robes in tears. “Don’t you think the Gelts can lend you something slightly more fitting, and slightly less smelly? A bath might help too.”
The Shamer's War Page 13