Waterborne Exile (25 page)

“Who’s there? Is that you, Bleaky?” A young woman’s voice, sharp with mistrust and weighted with loss. The sound of a mattress shifting and settling as she sat up in bed. A soft knock at the door.

“My lady, did you call me? Are you unwell?”

A silence followed the question before the mattress crunched and settled once more as the unseen woman lay down again.

“No. I thought I heard someone, that’s all.”

“Can I–?”

“No.” The syllable was final. Dismissive. There was no more to learn here, in this darkness.

But there was another darkness, more absolute. Another young woman’s voice. “They’ll just use you. Like they used me. You can’t trust them.” The skin on the back of Alwenna’s neck prickled with revulsion. She knew that voice. Within the darkness beyond the priestess something stirred, something tentative.

“My lady? Is it you?” A voice so familiar it spoke direct to her soul. A voice she’d not heard since they left Weaver in a burning room at the summer palace. She wanted to stay there, to answer, to listen a while to whatever he might have to say, but she found herself spinning away.

This time the darkness was pinpricked with pain. She heard the sound of leather striking flesh, heard the gasp as pain bit, felt it sear across her own back even as he raised the whip again and flourished it, just so. Nine times nine. He would break this obsession of the flesh, he would. The Goddess would see there were none so worthy, none so honourable. The lash bit again and Alwenna pulled away in revulsion.

The darkness was not so deep here. “How many days must I wait for the king’s attention? I bring him news of the most particular kind.” Marten, cast out by the freemerchants but determined to trade every last secret in his possession, however much his conscience protested. He still carried that bag slung over his shoulder. It drew her attention, this time, for it hung there so very rigid and straight. He kept one hand over it at all times. That bag didn’t just contain spare clothing… A gift for Vasic, no doubt. A most generous gift, unless she missed her guess. But the king would not be so pleased when he arrived at Scarrow’s Deep to find her already gone. She whispered as much in Marten’s ear and he spun about, startled, as if he expected to find her standing there, but she had already moved on.

It was almost dawn now. Drew lay awake, Jervin breathing softly next to him. He didn’t know how to leave him, didn’t want to leave him. He didn’t have to. He could stay, and close his eyes to all that was going on around him. He twisted round and set his arm over the sleeping man. Each day might be their last together. But not this day.

Pre-dawn light filtered through threadbare fabric. “Well, Jenna said she was powerful. Surely it’s worth trying?” The woman’s voice bore a heavy accent Alwenna could not place. There were hints of freemerchant and Brigholm, but something else, something more.

“We’ll get no thanks if we do.” A man’s voice, surly, dismissive.

“It’s not about getting thanks, it’s about doing what’s right – about helping one of our own. Jenna said she–”

“You know Jenna. She only sees what she wants to see.”

Alwenna had nothing to learn here. She moved on.

The first rays of daylight had found the cliff face. Malcolm stepped in through the door, grinning.

Brett hastily closed the chest against the back wall of the cave.

“You up to no good again, young ’un?”

“I’m not so young.”

“Maybe not. But if Rina catches you in there she’ll still tan your hide.”

“She won’t. Not unless you tell.” Brett locked the chest, then returned the key to its hiding place beneath Rina’s pillow. “You been with her again?”

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. “She has a name. I’ve told you before you should use it.”

Brett shrugged. “I’ll go help Rina fetch the water.”

It was full daylight now. Alwenna sat at the table, staring blankly at the broken wine glass. Blood had spilled over the table and was sinking into the grain of the wood as it congealed. Her thumb stung where she had cut it, the eating knife still held in her right hand.

The blanket over the door flapped open as Erin returned with a bucket of water.

“Goddess! My lady, what’s happened now?”

Where to start? At the end. “Marten is trying to sell me, one last time – old habits die hard, it seems. It is time for me to leave Scarrow’s Deep. Erin, if you please, tell Brett I need to speak to him.”

Stepping out into darkness. Alwenna had told Marten how it would be. And she’d wished him well, the duplicitous bastard. A pebble twisted beneath her foot, tugging on her ankle. It was still weak after being crushed in the rockfall at Highkell. How long ago had that been? She couldn’t measure the time in days or weeks, only by the weight of the child distending her belly. Even had it not been dark she’d not be able to see where she was setting her feet now.

“Be careful, my lady, or you’ll not be travelling far at all.” Erin supported her by the elbow as she slithered down the loose path.

Brett was waiting by the entrance to the valley, with a horse already saddled and bridled. “It’s the same one you rode when you came here, my lady.”

The horse was leaner than when they’d arrived – unlike Alwenna – a testimony to the poor grazing enjoyed by the livestock at Scarrow’s Deep. But that was not the foremost thing on her mind right now. “Did you find my dagger?”

“No, my lady.”

“Then it has indeed been taken by one who left Scarrow’s Deep before me. I should believe myself well rid of it, yet somehow I cannot. I brought it among your people and I should have been the one to remove it.” Alwenna withdrew a sheet of paper from the bag she carried. “I owe you my thanks, Brett, you have done well. As we agreed, the other horse is yours. And here is my letter to prove it.”

Brett took the paper with a shy nod. “Thank you, my lady. I would still accompany you – it is not right that you should leave without a single outrider.”

“Your offer is appreciated, but I cannot accept. Your mother will have need of you, Brett. I will not have her claim I took you from her.”

“I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”

“Then make them wisely. You have my thanks for your help, but I must ask nothing more of you.”

Erin legged Alwenna up into the saddle, then vaulted up behind. Alwenna nudged the horse forward and they rode away towards the mountains. Alwenna twisted round to look back. Marten’s son stood where they had left him, a lone figure outlined against the pre-dawn sky.

“Yes, I have heard of you.” Vasic studied the priest. He was a scrawny, wrinkled individual who looked faintly ridiculous in the fine robes he affected to wear. But Marwick had insisted the man was worth hearing.

Durstan bowed so low his nose almost scraped the floor. “Sire, what I offer you is the ultimate in loyal soldiers. They feel neither fatigue nor remorse, and they will obey you without question. They do not fear, and they do not doubt. Once engaged with the enemy they will not stop until the last one has fallen.”

“Indeed?” Vasic had never seen a less likely military commander.

Durstan straightened up, slowly. “As we all know, sire, appearances can be deceptive. Let me show you a sample of my work. Let the quality of that speak for me.”

Had the fellow read Vasic’s mind? Marwick had insisted it would be worth his while speaking to this… Well, until now he’d been convinced he was nothing more than a charlatan. And doubtless he was. He was letting Yurgen’s maunderings get to him, that was the truth of it. It was as well he’d sent the old fool and his prophecies back to Lynesreach. He was tempted to abolish the position of high seer altogether. And yet… some of Yurgen’s pronouncements had proved uncannily accurate.

“The morning advances. If you have a sample of your work, show it without further delay.”

The prelate bowed again, a slighter affair this time, and turned to one of his underlings. The man in turn gestured to the guards waiting at the door, who opened the door with all due ceremony.

Vasic drummed his fingertips on the arm of his throne. “You have been less than precise as to the nature of your work, prelate.”

“It is better, highness, for you to see the end result. It has taken us many years of study to perfect our method.” Behind the prelate two priests appeared at the doorway, flanking a taller man who walked between them. “I think, sire, you will agree the results are remarkable.”

The trio who approached the throne looked very unremarkable indeed. Two more scrawny priests wearing the robes of the order – did they never feed their adherents? – and a man clad in a simple commoner’s smock and joined hose. The man was clean-shaven, his hair cropped close in a manner that stopped short of monastic. But his bearing was not that of a commoner. He carried himself erect, with a measure of deportment that suggested military training, looking neither to right nor to left. His eyes were fixed straight ahead and he seemed not to register his surroundings at all. When the three of them halted in front of Vasic, the man looked straight at Vasic, yet his eyes moved through him as if he wasn’t there at all. It was the vacant stare of a halfwit. Did the accursed priest think this was some kind of joke?

“What is this, Durstan? I see nothing remarkable here.”

“Highness, I offer you your future champion.” Durstan gestured to the two priests and they stepped back, leaving the halfwit standing alone before Vasic, with Durstan at his side. “Behold; is he not a fine specimen? Truly a man fit to serve a king.”

Durstan was too pleased with himself: he was enjoying some joke at Vasic’s expense, Vasic was sure of it. Yet there was no guile in the man’s face, more expectation.

Vasic looked again at the commoner standing before him. He was not bound or shackled in any way, and showed no signs of rough handling… And why would he, brought here as the prize specimen of Durstan’s outlandish order? And yet…

Vasic studied the man’s face. There was something familiar about this man. He’d seen that face before, with a swollen lip and blackened eye… To be fair that did not narrow things down a great deal: he’d dealt with many men in that condition. It was part of the king’s lot to encounter those who were less fortunate, or were simply outright wrongdoers. But the last time he’d seen those eyes they had been full of defiance and resentment. Now they were utterly devoid of expression; they seemed not to recognise the king who stood before him at all.

“I know this man.”

“Indeed, your highness.” Durstan’s voice was unctuous. Then he turned and barked at the man in a very different tone. “Brother Pius, remove your smock.”

The man blinked. It may have been in recognition of the command, or it may have been nothing more than a coincidence. But he complied, tugging the hem of his shirt out from his joined hose and peeling it up over his ribs before pulling it off over his head. He lowered his arms to his sides once more, the garment trailing from one hand and onto the floor as the man stood there as vacant and passive as he had before.

He was in good shape: muscled as one would expect of a soldier, with no spare flesh hanging about his belly. But on his side a tight, white scar stood out across his ribs: a scar in the shape of a “V”. Of course Vasic knew this man. He’d set his mark upon him… when? How many months was it since he’d applied that branding iron in the vaulted dungeons beneath Highkell? The dungeons that lay buried now under tons of rubble from the collapse of the tower. As if it mattered how long it had been: such trivia were beneath a king’s notice. The man’s name was one such trivial detail, but he knew him nonetheless: the commoner who’d dared besmirch Alwenna’s good name, who’d signed a confession to the same. The commoner who’d once served his half-cousin Tresilian as king’s man.

Durstan watched Vasic, an acquisitive expression on his face.

“Prelate, you have brought me a common criminal. He was, as I recall, remarkable for nothing but his stubbornness. There is a bounty on his head, and you will be rewarded accordingly.” Vasic was prepared to dismiss the man. He wanted no reminders of the Lady Alwenna in this place. Not even the vacant stare of this upstart whom he’d bested months ago.

“Sire, I beg the indulgence of a few more moments of your time.” Durstan spoke hastily. “Pray, examine the man’s side more closely.” He barked again at the soldier. “Raise your left arm. And turn to face the far wall.”

Without hesitation the former king’s man complied. There beneath his arm, some inches above Vasic’s brand, was a livid, angry scar, surrounded by a criss-crossing of dark veins, as if poison had entered his blood. The centre of the scar bore the unmistakable imprint of a three-sided blade, which must have entered the flesh there at a precise right angle. Such a blow must surely have penetrated to the man’s heart, yet he stood before him, plain as day. Unless the scar was something the charlatan had done for show. The man stood there, inert, his underarm exposed. This could all be some trick to make Vasic look foolish.

“His looks haven’t improved any since I saw him last. What of it, prelate? He was ever a churlish fellow. What need would I have of men like him?”

“Sire. This man is no longer the man he once was. He has been reborn, in the favour of the Goddess. He will obey your every order, without question. Where once he was stubborn, he will be unquestioning. Where once he was strong, he will be stronger. This soldier was found grievously injured after a fire. He was dying. We took him in and secured his rebirth in the favour of the Goddess. He knows nothing of his former life. He will be yours to command. He will be untiring in battle: unbeatable. And he will be obedient.”

“And what generous impulse makes you bring such a rare find to me?” Vasic suspected his sarcasm was wasted on the prelate.

“Sire, this is only one man. Imagine what you could achieve with a whole detachment of such warriors. They would be invincible.”

“I see one man who’s acquired several holes in his hide over the years. He appears far from invincible.” There were one or two knowing sniggers amongst the courtiers at his witticism. “Your claims are outrageous, prelate.” Vasic snapped his fingers and two guards strode forward. “See this braggart off the premises, and his halfwit soldier along with him.”