“Bretnor! Aeliah!”
The young woman and the dark-haired man beside her both looked up to the cab of the lead wagon. Bretnor’s sword began to fall.
“Hildy? Hildy, is that you?”
“Unless there are other old, fat, female merchants on the road to your tiny little village.” The words themselves sounded wry, but that didn’t fool Bretnor—or Aeliah, for that matter, who all but dropped her weapon in her rush to point it elsewhere.
“Put them away!” she hissed to the other two guards. “Now!”
“Hildy?” Bretnor said again, but this time with a good deal of evident embarrassment.
“Yes, dear.” She smiled; if she had had feathers, they would have been unruffling.
Metal scraped metal again, and Erin turned in time to see the last of Corfaire’s sword being swallowed by his scabbard. His smile was gone for the moment, and Erin was almost sure that a vague air of disappointment skittered across his fine features.
“Does your father know what the two of you are up to?” Hildy asked as she picked up the reins. “And dears, you haven’t introduced your friends.”
Those friends numbered eight; four had taken to the trees with crossbows.
They came out wearing the shaky stride of relief, and Erin realized that they were all younger than she—perhaps five years Darin’s senior, if that
“Hi Hildy,” one said quietly. He started to wave, realized that he held the crossbow in both hands, and lowered it slowly.
“Take the bolt out,” Hamin said. “Or you’ll forget it’s readied and shoot off your foot.”
“Don’t mind him, Randy,” Hildy said, glaring at the captain of her guards. As a leader he was good. As a judge of, or handler of, those in transition between youth and adulthood, he was decidedly lacking. “I think it’s very brave of you to be out here. That is, if you’re out here for a good reason.”
Randy smiled, but Hildy noticed that he did take Hamin’s rather blunt advice. What had been a rather dangerous weapon became just another piece of well-crafted, molded wood. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re out here for the right reason. But aren’t you early?”
“I hadn’t realized,” Hildy said wryly, “that being early had become a capital crime.”
Bretnor blushed. He did a lot of that—maybe it was why Erin found herself liking him. But there was a shadow in the affection, and she wondered if everyone who even remotely reminded her of Belfas would cause this quiet pain.
“Hey,” someone said, and Erin turned, nearly bumping into Aeliah. “Do you know how to use that thing?”
Erin didn’t even bother to follow the direction of Aeliah’s fingers. “Yes.”
“Where’d you learn it?”
“Home.”
If Aeliah noticed the tremor in the word, she gave no sign of it. But she didn’t ask where “home” was. Instead, she sighed. “Did it take as long as they say it will?”
“Probably longer.” Erin smiled, shaking off the shiver so simple a word as home could bring. “I think, let’s see ... eight solid years to start, and a few after I’d seen my first battle.”
Aeliah pursed her lips and brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “That’s longer.”
Erin had thought that Aeliah was close to her age, but she revised her estimate down by a few years. She knew what Telvar would have said, but Telvar was a very different man from the woman that she had become.
Woman. How odd. She had spent so long telling everyone who would listen that she was adult, yet this was perhaps the first time that she had really felt it, not as a passionate struggle or statement, but as a simple, unchangeable fact.
“Are you learning?”
“Sword? Yeah. Yes,” Aeliah corrected herself. “Can’t you see the bruises?”
Erin did laugh then. So did Aeliah, sure evidence of the fact that she’d been at it for a little while.
“It could be worse. Dervallen had eighteen different arguments with my father about it, and I think he still goes easy on me. I’m sure he does. Bretnor always looks worse than I do after a lesson, and it isn’t that I’m any better than he is.”
“Why was Dervallen—oh. Yes. Why are you training?”
Aeliah’s face lost its bright wreath of friendly laughter. “We’ve been having trouble lately.”
“And we’ll leave it for Father to tell,” Bretnor added curtly.
Aeliah nodded, but felt compelled to add, “There aren’t enough of us—everyone’s got to be allowed to do what he or she can.” She glared pointedly at her brother, who glared, if possible, more pointedly back. “I’m not rited yet, I’ve got no children, and Dad’s too young to need care. So why shouldn’t I fight?”
Bretnor didn’t answer her. It was obvious that this argument had been had many times before.
Erin heard echoes of her own words in Aeliah’s. “She’s right.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s asking for.” Bretnor’s cheeks were flushed.
“Yes I do,” Aeliah said firmly. “The right to defend the people I love. And I can’t do it by sewing or cooking the enemy to death!”
Little lines jumped in Bretnor’s jaw as he met his sister’s eyes. “Well you got it past Father, and you’re here. Be happy.” With that he stomped away, to stand closer to the wagons.
“Sometimes,” Aeliah said, glaring at his retreating back, “I hate my brother.”
“Don’t,” Erin said. To her own surprise, she found herself sliding an arm around Aeliah’s slender shoulders. “He doesn’t hate you:”
Aeliah’s face lost the stiffness of anger. “No, he doesn’t.” She frowned bitterly across at Erin. “But if he had his way, I’m sure he’d just love me to a helpless death.”
The village of Coranth was named, not after its founder, but after a lord who had been sent this far west in disgrace. Exactly what the disgrace was, Erin didn’t know, but she knew that none of the eight here felt anything but pride in it.
This Lord Coranth had governed his house and the village around it for just shy of twenty years now; the land was fertile and green enough to grow food for all of the villagers and leave some for export and trade besides, and the distance was not so great that cattle and the like could not be led to the city.
There was, Aeliah said with affectionate pride, the best blacksmith in the province of Landsfall, and two good carpenters besides—and the wool got hereabouts was well worth any merchant’s journey. And Lord Coranth was a wise and gentle ruler, judge, and counselor.
Of course, her accolades weren’t all that surprising—she was his daughter.
From Aeliah’s fond description, Erin expected Lord Coranth to be rather portly—fond of food, as Aeliah had taken pains to point out—rather peculiarly, if practically, dressed, rather elderly although not indisposed, and rather bald.
He was bald.
As to the rest, the fondness for food didn’t show, and the clothing bore the faintest hints of the city style that he had left years before. Erin learned, with mild chagrin, that Aeliah’s sight was the forgiving one of youth, with all of the affectionate exaggeration and blindness that that entailed.
Lord Coranth was tall, at least a head taller than Erin, and what there was of his hair was peppered and short. His eyes were those of his daughter’s, a cool blue that spoke more of refuge from summer swelter than of winter, but the rest of his face was his son’s—long and angular, with broad cheekbones that softened it somewhat. As for age—Erin just shook her head. He was twice hers at most, and that certainly didn’t qualify him as “elderly”—at least not in the lines.
“Hello, ’Narion,” Hildy called, waving one large arm with a happy smile.
“Hildy!” Lord Coranth placed a book down on what was presumably an end table; it was so covered by curling papers it was hard to tell. He crossed the room in two long strides, already holding out both arms instead of the usual proffered hand.
Those arms were long enough easily to encompass all of Hildy’s considerable g
irth. “You’re early.”
She returned his hug and then pulled back, nodding. “I’ve brought a few friends with the caravan. I’d like you to meet them.”
“Friends of yours? With pleasure.”
“This is Tiras—he’s from Marantine. You did hear about that, didn’t you?”
Lord Coranth smiled. “Not enough, though.” He held out a hand, and Tiras shook it firmly.
“Bennarion of Coranth.” The lord’s smile was an odd twist of lips. “The village, not the house.”
Tiras raised an eyebrow, but it was obvious that he felt no threat here, for he demurred from formal speech—indeed, any speech.
“This is Darin, also from Marantine.”
“Not one of your guards?”
Darin shook his head. “No—I’m just a traveling companion:”
“Do you need that cane?”
“Cane?” Darin looked around in some confusion, and then his jaw dropped slightly. “The staff? Uh—”
“Yes,” Hildy answered, putting a considerable amount of gentle order in the single word.
Lord Coranth looked mildly confused, but nodded and moved on to stand in front of Erin.
“This young woman is one of my guards for the moment.”
“I see.” The lord held out his hand for a third time, and Erin took it, not surprised to find his grip firm.
“I’m Erin,” she said, before Hildy could speak. “I’m also from Marantine—although I lived in the southeast for a long time before that.” She didn’t know why she said it, and regretted it almost before the sentence was finished.
“Malakar?” Lord Coranth asked, his brow folding into many neat lines.
“No.”
He was silent a moment as a map of the Empire unfolded in memory’s eye. “Southeast?”
“I believe it was Mordantari.” It was Tiras who answered, and his voice, though soft, had an edge of warning in it.
The word should have been enough.
“Mordantari?” This time, when he looked at Erin, there was nothing social or welcoming about his eyes. They were clear and piercing, and the coolness had hardened. He caught her by the shoulders, and Tiras stepped forward quietly: another warning.
“Those lands were claimed by the Lord of the Empire. No house has any hold on them. Were you a slave there?”
“Not—not in the... no.” She did not know, could not know, the way her eyes flashed and her lips suddenly trembled over the answer; she could not know how that look transformed her face in the eyes of the man who watched so intently. But she had never been good at hiding, and if she had not always spoken her thoughts, they were in her face to read for those who had learned the skill.
“Father—” Aeliah began, but Bretnor stepped quite neatly, and quite forcefully, on her foot.
Her father was a better judge of character than she was of him. He let his arms fall to the side and stepped back, the intensity already dying out of his eyes. “Lady, maybe you could tell me something about the rumors that have passed this way from Malakar.”
“Rumors?”
“They say that the Dark Lord of the Empire has returned to rule.”
Erin was very, very still.
“What else do ‘they’ say?” Tiras asked casually. He had crossed his arms, and his hands rested beneath the draping black sheen of his sleeves.
“That he walks. That he is the foremost of the demons of the Dark Heart. That he has taken sustenance from both the free and the housed.”
It was impossible for Erin to grow more still, and yet she seemed to, each word forming the links of a chain that held her tightly in place.
“Hold.”
Lord Coranth swiveled his head to the side and froze as much as Erin had.
Tiras stood, two inches from the far wall, the glint of daggers adorning either of his slim, sure hands.
“Tiras!” Hildy shrieked.
Bretnor’s hand flew to his sword, and Tiras’ left arm rose with blinding speed. The lord’s son froze, and the dagger remained in Tiras’ hand, but barely. No one who watched doubted the skill with which it would be thrown.
“If you would be so kind as to step back from the Lady?”
Lord Coranth did as bid.
“Hildy!” Bretnor shouted.
“Tiras!” Hildy shouted in response. Yet even she did not move toward the black-garbed man.
How much, Erin thought in bitterness, fear, and wonder, how much do you know, Tiras? But she said nothing; even her breath seemed to have deserted her.
“Lady of Mercy,” Aeliah whispered.
Erin wheeled to face the young woman in surprise, feeling a sudden threat, as if her armor had suddenly dissolved into shadow around her.
But Aeliah wasn’t looking at her; indeed the words were a mixture of curse and invocation to some unknowable being, uttered in a voice that only the lowest, the slaves of the Empire, might have used in a time of stress or panic.
Yet she was Lord Coranth’s daughter, no slave. There was more here than Erin had thought. The village, as Hildy promised, was “unusual.”
“Tiras,” she heard herself saying. “It’s all right.”
He hesitated for a moment, then the daggers disappeared.
Bretnor’s sword left its scabbard in that second.
“Bretnor!”
“He was going to kill you!”
“Bretnor.”
“Hildy—who are these people? How could you bring them here? Do you know who they’re working for?” The young man’s voice was a mix of anger, fear, and a deep sense of shocked betrayal.
Hildy threw Tiras a look. It said much, and Tiras was only barely able to ignore it. But it was Bretnor she spoke to when she answered.
“Yes, dear.” Her voice was resigned, almost gentle. “I do know who they work for.”
“Bretnor, Aeliah.” Erin spoke now, turning to face them, her hands spread and empty. “I’m sorry. Tiras means no harm to you or your father—he was, he was afraid your father meant to kill me.”
Bretnor snorted, and Aeliah looked shocked.
“There are many houses in the Empire that would.”
“My father’s no Empire house!” Aeliah said indignantly.
“I think—I think we know that. I’m sorry.” She turned then to face Lord Coranth, and her voice grew softer, but no less sure. “Lord Coranth?”
He nodded carefully, still keeping one eye on Tiras.
“I cannot answer your question about the first rumor. But if it is true—the others almost certainly are.” And then she bent her head.
The plush crimson of carpet caught her tears. As they fell, they seemed transformed; the blood of a wound that no eyes could see.
Darin walked over to her and put an arm around her waist; the staff he held out, although whether it was to warn the others off, or to give her some privacy, no one was certain. Yet it worked on neither level for Lord Coranth, who now approached Erin both cautiously and openly.
“I offer my apologies as well,” he said gently, touching her with words, as Darin would not let him closer. “It has been a habit of my life to ask inappropriate questions. And Mordantari is not a known, not even in the capital. Those lands no one has dared to claim in our history.” He held out a hand. “I will not ask again.”
Erin shook her head and looked up, adding a smile to her pale face and finding, oddly, that it fit. “I—I do it all the time. Ask stupid questions, I mean. It’s—never mind it.”
“Well then, if that’s decided, maybe Bretnor could tell us who he thought we were working for.” Hildy said, trying in her inimitable fashion to smooth over—indeed brick over—a “rough” patch in the conversation.
“Hildy, maybe we can discuss this over dinner. Let me send for Sorrel; she’ll have rooms made for you and your guests. You’ve no doubt been traveling the day, and perhaps you could use some rest.”
Erin nodded gratefully.
But in the silence of her modest room, which she shared with no one,
she saw the dead, their slack faces lining the folds of pulled, blue curtains, their frozen fingers locked stiffly against the worn and faded carpet. She dropped her pack on the floor and closed the door firmly behind her back. She rested for a while, her eyes unseeing as they stared through the leaded glass of the room’s twin windows.
“Stefanos,” she whispered, “why?” Must it happen, if she were not there? Did no change take place in him that did not pierce the surface? Her hands formed fists, but they were useless, they shook so. He was in Malakar. He ruled the Empire.
And to him she must go, as always.
But this time, it would be different—had to be different. There would be freedom, and for a moment, the price of that freedom was not and could not be too high.
“I am not your Lady of Mercy,” she whispered again. “I never was.” She saw the dead and imagined vividly those who would yet feed a nightwalker’s deathless hunger. “I never was.”
No one in Malakar heard her words. And oddly, if they had been heard, those they had been meant for would not have believed them.
The blood ceremonies that had begun continued, and many were the nobles of Veriloth’s houses who had begun to lead a more nocturnal existence, in accordance with the Lord of the Empire’s wishes. Gone were the quarters, at which the Church had performed the most glittering and cruel of its duties—but the house stones still had to be bloodied.
And the numbers of the dead had risen. The whisper on the streets was one of open fear—for any who walked, whether free or slave, could now be taken by the shadows the night cast. There was no recourse, no protection. The Lord of the Empire walked where he would.
Yes, much had changed in the Empire’s capital, much that would be felt as its effects rippled outward to touch all of Veriloth. All of it was black, evil news.
And yet...
The slaves still slaved, bending back and arm to tasks appointed; they still died when their errors were too large or glaring, still bloodied the stones, still lived in the hidden depths of the houses whose mark they bore.
But their songs were louder.