“Don’t let them do this,” my father cried out suddenly in his strong rich voice. “There are more of you standing here than these foul priests and the few brutish soldierguards that serve them. Rise up and bind them and let us begin the rebellion here and now, which this Land needs to cleanse itself.”
I looked at the Herders and saw unease cross the face of the younger one, but the older priest only gave a prim, cruel smile and leaned forward to light the kindling with his torch. I saw no more, because Jes pulled me to face him and held me tightly so that I could not see the burning. But I heard it and smelled it.
I felt my brother’s trembling, suffocating embrace, and days later, my upper arms still bore the hand-shaped bruises of Jes’s grip. I heard my father groan and curse the Herders and the Faction, and I heard my mother plead over and over with her friends and neighbors to care for us before her voice rose to a scream. When the screams and groans stopped and a terrible smell filled the air, I looked up at Jes and saw tracks of fire running down his cheeks, where tears reflected flame.
I wept then, too—the desolate weeping of a child deprived forever of her life and family.
13
I WOKE BEFORE dawn, hollowed out by the vividly detailed memory dream.
I was too wide awake to go back to sleep, for it was near morning. Resisting the temptation to farseek Maruman, I decided to find out what sort of mood the old cat was in without actually beastspeaking him. I lit a lantern, washed my face, and dressed before pulling on my boots and brushing my hair. As I left the room, a few intrepid birds were already giving out notes, tuning themselves for the dawn chorus. Rather than going straight outside, I decided to go find some food. Aside from being hungry myself, food was always a good way to coax Maruman out of a temper. If I could find some fish, the battle would be half won.
It took me a little time to find the kitchen, but it was not deserted, as I had expected at such an early hour. A young boy was seated on a bench before the stove, poking at the fire. He leapt to his feet when he saw me and began to stammer an explanation. His father had sent him to rake up the embers and stoke a fire for firstmeal.
“Good,” I said. “I need someone to give me directions to the larder. Do you suppose your father would object if we had a bite to eat before he comes?”
The boy said, “There is some bread we could toast, Da told me not to touch any food…”
“I will make you a bargain,” I said, hiding a smile. “If you will toast some bread, I will spread jam upon it. And let us light a lamp.”
In just a few minutes, we were seated companionably before the fire, eating thick, half-burnt slices of bread smeared with a delicious tart blackberry jam. Gazing into the fire and listening to the boy tell me that his little sister had picked the berries for the jam, I thought of Jes and how tightly he had held me to stop my seeing our parents’ awful death. He had done his best for me. The strangeness that had come over him before I had been charged Misfit had been no more his choice than the repression of those memories had been mine. Our minds devised these responses to help us survive. And maybe Dameon was right about Rushton’s love being buried beneath what had been done to him by the Herders.
Hope stirred in me, small and frail, but hope nonetheless.
The sound of a door opening interrupted my thoughts, and I turned to see Linnet enter. She said in a grave, urgent voice, “You’d better come, Guildmistress.”
I handed my plate to the boy and followed the coercer, my heart beating fast with apprehension. “What is the matter?”
“I’m not sure. One of Malik’s armsman offered us information in return for his release. He said the only reason he had continued serving Malik, once he had made his pact with the Faction, was because he would have been killed if he had seemed to waver in his loyalty. He has a woman up in Sawlney who is carrying his child, and he wants to go to her. Naturally, I told him that we would get all the information we needed from his master, but he said that it would not come soon enough to save us from the invasion. I asked what he meant.”
“Why didn’t you tell him that the quickest way to prove he was telling the truth would be to let you probe him?”
“I did, and he agreed to it. But I made the mistake of putting him back in his cell while we cleared another to conduct the interrogation. Another armsman attacked him, and he is so near to dying now that anyone entering his mind would be at risk of being taken with him.”
We had reached the steps leading to the cells, and I ran down them, past the waiting coercers. A big armsman lay on the floor in a pool of blood. I recognized him from Malik’s camp. I knelt next to him, noticing that his breathing had an ominous whistling sound.
“Can you hear me?” I asked. His eyes found my face, and I saw that he was able to hear and understand me. I leaned close to his ear and said, “Tell us what you know, and we will find your woman and see that she and the child are cared for.”
The man’s eyes widened, and I saw the effort it cost him to move his lips. “Klah…los…,” he gasped. Rosy blood bubbled from his nostrils.
“It must be the name of his woman,” Linnet said.
But I was looking down into the armsman’s face and saw his eyes move rapidly left and then right. No.
“Try again,” I urged him.
“Clos…,” he spluttered.
“Close?” I guessed. Again his eyes flicked left and right. A cloudiness in them indicated that we had very little time.
“Please,” I said. “Let your child be told that his father fought to keep the Land free.”
This time the tendons in his neck stood out as he spoke. “Clois…Kloh…” He sank back, his lips sheened with blood.
“Dead,” I said softly, and reached forward to close his staring eyes.
“Could he have been trying to say cloister?” Linnet guessed.
“It may be. You had better coerce the man who attacked him. I think we can say this is serious enough to warrant it.”
“I doubt it will do any good. The dead man claimed to be the only one who knew what he was offering to tell us. Indeed, he said Malik would have killed him for what he knew. The other armsman attacked him purely because he meant to collaborate with us.”
I looked down at the dead man and remembered Malik’s triumphant look as he rode off. “He said that any information obtained from Malik would come too late to save us from the Herder invasion?” Linnet nodded. “That makes no sense, for Malik will have been coerced by tomorrow or the day after, and Dardelan will send a force here immediately to prepare for the invasion.”
“It was before wintertime that Noviny overheard Malik, and the timing of the invasion might well have been changed since then,” Linnet pointed out.
She was right. “Then if the armsman spoke truly, the invasion would have to take place tomorrow or even today!” I thought again of Malik’s look of triumph. “We must organize our own defense immediately.”
“But what are we to defend? There are three places where an invasion force could come ashore in Saithwold,” Linnet said.
“We must put watchers at each set of steps and instruct them to send word the moment they spot ships approaching,” I replied. “That will give us time to move a force to meet them. In the meantime, we need to gather a fighting force.”
“We must send word to Rushton and Dardelan,” Linnet said.
“So we will, but we need something more than a few choked words from a dying man. I will ride to the cloister and look around.”
Linnet nodded decisively. “I will send out some knights to watch for ships at each accesspoint.”
“You might also send someone to investigate those caves Noviny mentioned to Zarak as well,” I said. “See what sort of force we could conceal in them.”
Linnet gave me a searching look. “You still intend trying to take the ships?”
“I think we must try,” I said. “With luck, Dardelan and the others will arrive in time to help.”
Linnet strode out of
the cell, and I heard her instruct a coercer to summon Khuria and all the knights to the kitchen. I glanced down at the dead man one more time before going after her.
As we ascended the steps, Linnet said she would ask Khuria to gather the men and women nominated by Noviny to help guide Saithwold in his absence. “We will need their help to assemble a force big enough to deal with any warrior priests we take as prisoners,” she explained. “But we knights must be at the top of the steps to receive these warrior priests.”
“Given the sort of numbers we will have, it might be wiser to try trickery at the top of the steps, rather than force,” I said. “Why not coerce a group of Malik’s men to meet the invaders and lead them into a trap away from the cliffs?”
“The invaders are going to expect to see Malik,” Linnet pointed out.
“Then prepare for that. Have the coerced men claim to be taking the invaders to Malik. If we are right in guessing that the cloister is a secret armory, the Herders can be told Malik awaits them there.”
“Maybe one of Malik’s men will know,” Linnet suggested. “I will coerce the leaders among them as soon as I set the others to their tasks. It is a pity your friend Kevrik left.”
“Talk to those of Vos’s armsmen that Kevrik said were decent people. One of them is bound to know which men Malik might have confided in,” I said, but I had no great hope he would have confided in anyone.
By the time we reached the kitchen, some of the coercers were beginning to assemble, but I did not linger, for I was eager to find out if we had been right in our guesses about the cloister. Farseeking Gahltha to meet me in front of the house, I fetched my greatcoat and went outside to find he was already waiting. I grasped his mane, threw myself onto his back, and in minutes we were galloping hard along the road. It then occurred to me that the slaves Noviny had seen might have been held in the cloister to be handed over to the Herders. Remembering the pitiable state of the prisoners we had found locked in Sutrium’s cloister cells after the invasion, I farsent Linnet to ask her to send Wenda and the carriage after me, just in case there were any poor wretches in the cells.
The sun was near to rising behind the trees as we approached the rutted track to the cloister, and I could see the pale, stone wall that enclosed it quite clearly. It stood as high as the tallest trees in the mist-wreathed forest that hemmed it on three sides, and had a secretive air.
I slipped down from Gahltha’s back, hot from the exertion of the gallop, and approached the enormous metal gate sagging off its hinges. I could feel the numbing buzz of the tainted walls, and my heartbeat quickened. Why freshen the taint in the walls, if not to keep something concealed from Misfit Talents?
I was about to go through the gate when I noticed Gahltha hanging back. Guessing that the taint was troubling him, I stroked his soft nose and told him to wait outside since he could not come into the cloister buildings with me anyway. He agreed with relief, and I went through the gateway alone. But I stopped again inside, assailed by a premonition of danger. As usual, it was so vague as to be useless, save as a reminder that I would not be able to reach Gahltha’s mind until I came back through the gate. Then I chided myself for being a fool, for of course I could call out to him.
I took a deep breath and looked around. Cobbles ran from the gate to the front of the cloister, but on either side of the cloister building were green swathes of grass. On the south lawn apple trees grew in neat lines parallel to the side of the building. The sun had not yet risen high enough to cast any direct light on them, and it struck me that I had foolishly failed to bring a lantern or candles and a tinderbox. Since it was too dark to enter the building, I decided to look at the tools and piles of earth Zarak had mentioned until Wenda arrived, for there would be lanterns or candles in her wagon.
I walked through the trees toward the back of the cloister, passing under long glassless windows set into the cloister wall at intervals. These gave me the discomforting feeling of being watched, and my unease grew until suddenly I realized what was causing it. Despite the sun having risen, I could hear neither bird nor insect. The profound silence inside the cloister wall reminded me of the deadly Silent Vale.
Reaching the back of the cloister, I saw more fruit trees growing here, and behind them, against the wall, rose several high mounds of earth and the tools that Zarak had mentioned, resting against a small stone shed. Going closer, I saw that the mounds had a hard crust, which meant they had been exposed to the weather for some time. They were the same dark choca hue as the earth showing through the wet grass; but there was enough earth to fill a great pit and no sign of a digging site.
The most likely place to bury something dangerous would be in the cells, which traditionally had earthen floors. If I was right about farm holders being held here before they were given to the Herders, Malik could have used them to dig in secret, for once locked in, they would have required no guards. The armsman killed might have stumbled onto knowledge of what was happening by overhearing a prisoner, for armsmen would have been required to escort them to the coast. Perhaps under the floor of every cell I would find that a crate of weapons had been buried, or barrels of the explosive black powder that had so frightened Vos and his men. If so, the number of crates might indicate the size of the invading force.
The rear door of the cloister was a great oaken slab that was firmly closed and would not budge, so I returned to the front of the cloister, where the door, like the gate, had been wrenched off its hinges and lay splintered and graying on the cobbles. The sun was now high enough that it cast a dull brightness inside the stone-flagged entrance hall, which was covered in a dense litter of leaves and dust. Three doors led out of the hall, and a set of steps went up to the left. Two of the doors led to passages that ran toward the back of the building, and one led to a room on the right, partly visible through a half-opened door.
Half an hour later, I had walked through numerous chambers, around the kitchen, and along all the subterranean passages, but none of the rooms or cells was occupied. Nor had I found any evidence of digging in the cells, the passages, or their walls. As I stepped out into the sunlight, I thought of the tools left leaning against the stone shed.
In minutes, I was standing in front of the shed, holding the heavy metal lock that fastened the door. It was hard to form a probe dense and delicate enough to manipulate the lock workings this close to the tainted wall, but at last I heard the telltale click.
I opened the door and stared, even though I had been expecting something of the sort. There was no floor in the shed, save for a rim of earth around the walls. The rest was a great gaping hole and a ramp of earth descending into darkness. A tunnel!
There was a row of lanterns and a tinderbox on the earth ledge, and I selected one, checked the oil reservoir, and lit the wick, before venturing into darkness. I pictured a chamber at the end of it, full of crates of weapons and barrels of black powder, but ten minutes later, I was still walking, the sloping earth ramp and earthen walls having given way to a natural passage through the region’s soft rock that must have once been a subterranean watercourse. Aware that such a passage could go on for miles, I wondered if this was an escape tunnel of the sort the Faction had often built to allow secret movement in and out of cloisters. Judging from the packed-earth floor, much of what had been dug out of the tunnel had been used to fill the bottom of the rift and create a flat base.
Another fifteen minutes and I was regretting that I had not told Gahltha what I intended to do. But having come so far, I could not bring myself to turn back.
Another fifteen minutes passed, or so I judged it, and the tunnel still led downward. I could no longer believe this was merely an escape tunnel, for it would have surfaced long before now. I wondered if Wenda had arrived at the cloister yet. If so, she would come looking for me, but it would take time to find the tunnel entrance. When she did, I hoped that she would wait for me with Gahltha or even return to the homestead to tell Linnet and the others about the tunnel. Very soon I would h
ave to turn back, whether or not I wished it, for the lantern’s oil reservoir was nearly empty. If only I had thought to take two lanterns. But who could have guessed at the tunnel’s length?
Suddenly, the flame in the lantern was snuffed out, and I was plunged into darkness.
I knew I ought to turn back, but the draft of air that had blown out the flame suggested I might not be far from a shaft leading to the surface. If there were steps, I could get out that way and farseek both Linnet and Gahltha.
I set the lantern to the side and went on cautiously, hands outstretched to keep from running into anything. Then, in the stillness, I heard a voice. I held my breath and listened hard, but I had not been mistaken. Someone was talking, and if there was a speaker, there must be at least one person listening. Was it possible there were Herders here already?
I hesitated but could not resist going on, for I wanted to hear what was being said and get some idea of how many Herders there were. If I was truly fortunate, they would not be banded, and I could learn everything we needed to know from them. I walked very carefully now, anxious that I might alert the speakers to my approach. Even so, I stumbled several times, because the ramped earth that had leveled the tunnel higher up had given way to undulating stone.
Finally, I stopped to remove my boots and tuck them under my arm, knowing that I could move more stealthily without them. I was very aware, too, that the speakers might suddenly decide to come along the tunnel. In that case, I would have no choice but to fly back to the cloister like a fox with hounds on its tail.
The flow of air grew stronger, and there was a tantalizingly familiar scent in it. The air smelled of the sea!
My mind raced, for though by my reckoning I had been moving constantly in the direction of the coast, I did not think I could have reached the cliffs. Then a thought struck me. At several places along this part of the coast, narrow inlets opened up and the sea flowed in. What if this tunnel opened into one of them? It was an intriguing idea, but even if a shipmaster could maneuver his vessel along such a narrow channel at high tide and manage to disgorge Herder warriors in a tunnel opening, how would the ship turn to leave?