The Swordsman's Oath (Einarinn 2) (8 page)

“The Duke of Parnilesse is dead in very murky circumstances, and his three sons all dispute the succession.” Livak managed a thoughtful tone but I could see the wariness behind her eyes. “Their territory will be ripe for the taking if they can’t raise the coin for one of the better corps-masters.”

That was interesting information; surely the eldest son should have inherited without argument? After all, it’s the obstinate Lescari insistence on line-of-blood succession that started their pointless wars in the first place.

“From what I’ve been hearing, the old Duke was almost certainly poisoned.” Halice observed as she briskly tended the chicken now split and skewered above the fire. She reached into the salt box hanging on the chimney breast and seasoned a pot seething in a trivet in the embers. “Sorgrad reckons his sons’ll start their own little war before Solstice.”

I wondered how best to get a letter to Messire from hereabouts, and if I could warn Aiten’s family.

“Shivvalan!” snapped Viltred. “Planir’s business is far more important than Lescar’s trivial quarrels.”

There was an awkward silence until Livak spoke up, sarcasm coloring her tone.

“Yes, go on, Shiv,” she invited. “But let me give you one rune for free—there’s no power this side of the Otherworld will get me mixed up with the Archmage again.”

There was no hint of compromise in her voice. I wondered just what throw of the bones Shiv thought would get her working for wizards again.

“Viltred here has had some valuables stolen and we were wondering if you would help us retrieve the goods.”

Unable to conceal her start of recognition at the old man’s name, Livak characteristically went on attack. “Would you be the Viltred who used to work with that madman Azazir?”

The old man scowled at her. “Azazir was one of the greatest minds magic has seen in ten generations, young lady—”

“Azazir was so far beyond reason he couldn’t find it with a spy-glass and let me tell you—”

Shiv cut in hurriedly. “Please, Livak, we really do need your help. The raiders were Ice Islanders.”

Livak paled. “Have you got your hat over your ears? No!”

“We’ll make it worth your while,” Shiv persisted.

“I don’t need your coin, Shiv, or the Archmage’s,” spat Livak.

“Think it through, Livak.” Shiv gestured with an eloquent hand. “These people can’t have been here long, not with the spring storms on the ocean only just over. We have an early scent of them—we can dig a bloody great pit for the bastards to fall into! We’ll have them by the stones, ready to squeeze!” Shiv’s face was as intense as I had ever seen it.

“And if Planir the Black decides this bear-pit needs live bait in the bottom of it, he’ll just grab the nearest warm body and I, for one, have no intention of being around to play the goat.” Livak crossed to the hearth, defiance in every line of her stance. She drew herself up next to Halice but I saw the other woman was staring at Shiv with a concentration that startled me.

The mage tried again. “There are things you just can’t ignore, auguries—”

“Festival fakery, Shiv,” Livak went on, eyes hard. “I don’t want to know. And you’ve got nothing on me this time to make me. I’d sooner take my chances walking naked through a wild wood.”

Shiv pursed his lips. “You don’t fancy the chance of getting a little revenge for Geris?”

“I shared his bed, Shiv. That lays no obligation on me to share his fate.” Her tone was scornful. “Forget it, you can eat with us and then you get on your way.”

With that declaration ringing in the air, she went out, slamming the door. Halice threw off a sudden abstraction and busied herself at the hearth. Raising a hand to still Shiv when he made to rise from his seat, I was glad to see he was looking faintly ashamed of himself. Trying to use Livak’s guilt over Geris’ death was a real horse-coper’s trick. I frowned at the memory of Geris’ lonely, agonized murder at Elietimm hands. I couldn’t blame Livak for her refusal, but I reminded myself sternly that the auguries suggested we needed Livak to somehow help avert disaster for the Empire, so I had to do everything in my power to convince her to join us, didn’t I? I only hoped I wasn’t borrowing against an empty purse as I followed her.

The sound of a hayfork drew me into the byre. “I wondered if you needed any help?”

Livak’s face showed she thought that excuse was thinner than a beggar’s blanket. “Buckets,” she said crisply, pointing to a stack in the corner.

I followed her out to the well. “It’s good to see you,” I commented as I wound up the pail.

Livak gave a smile to lift my heart but I reminded myself that persuading this woman to share her life with me would probably be harder than convincing her to come and work for Shiv again.

“I did wonder if your duties might bring you this way some time,” she said lightly, but with an unmistakable edge to her tone.

“You should hear Shiv out. These auguries of his bear consideration.” I poured clear, cold water into the waiting buckets. “Planir is warning that the Empire is in grave danger from the Elietimm.”

Livak’s snort told me her opinion of that. “All those gleaming cohorts and the Empire won’t be able to fight off a few boatloads trying to steal sheep from Dalasor?”

“Gleaming cohorts won’t be much use against those cursed enchantments of theirs, will they?” I replied honestly. “And the Elietimm are hardly going to hack a settlement out of the wilds of Gidesta or take over a couple of Dalasorian fishing villages when they can find rich towns, decent anchorage and better weather merely by sailing south for a few weeks. Come on, Livak, you saw the place they live in, bare rock and barren grassland; they’re not going to stay there, not now they have a way to reach the mainland.”

Livak grabbed a bucket, slopping water over the hard-packed earth of the yard. “Well, it’s not my problem,” she stated firmly over her shoulder.

“It’s certainly mine.” I picked up the second bucket and followed. “A lot of the older Princes don’t want to admit it, but the days when Formalin cohorts kept six provinces under their heel are long gone. When you add in the threat of this peculiar Elietimm magic, we’d be stupid not to look for help if the Archmage is offering it.”

“And your Emperor has the stones to admit that?” challenged Livak.

“Tadriol may be young but he knows when to take advice, Dastennin’s blessings on him.” I moved closer to whisper dramatically into Livak’s ear, savoring the lavender scent of her linen as I did so. “The word is he’ll get his acclamation at Summer Solstice. Messire favors ‘Tadriol the Provident’ but he’s keeping it to himself.”

Livak’s eyes glinted. “Place the right wagers on that title before the Convocation makes it official and Shiv’ll be able to buy that Viltred all the trinkets he wants, forget recovering the ones he’s had stolen.”

“Well, he has no chance of getting anything back if you won’t help him.” I thought about putting an arm around her shoulders but Livak moved away, muttering something in an Ensaimin dialect that I don’t know.

“The Archmage pays sound coin and in good measure,” I pointed out, trying a different weight to tilt the scales.

“Why does everyone think they can buy me?” scowled Livak. “Anyway, Planir only offers the rates he does because he only has to pay out one time in ten. Everyone else ends up seeing the inside glaze on a funeral urn.”

“Have you got some of last year’s coin put by?” I busied myself spreading straw.

“What, like the good little field mouse who hid every other grain for the winter? Your mother told you that tale as well did she?” The mockery in Livak’s tone stung me. “No, we used it to buy a Winter Solstice to remember, all four of us, new clothes all round, wine and good dining, ten days of the best that the Cavalcade at Col can offer.” Livak’s expression challenged me. “The Archmage’s coin may be sound metal but it comes with too much blood on it to keep it in my purse. Still, you’re right, I should have found a better use for it; I should have spent it all on incense to burn to Trimon, to get Shiv dropped head first into a river gully if he ever tried to find me again!”

Making an offering to the god of travelers myself was starting to look like my best hope for getting this ill-matched handful on the road.

“The mercenary camps will soon break up,” I reminded her. “What will you do for coin then? Halice won’t be able to enlist with any decent corps with that leg of hers.”

“We’ll manage and I’m certainly not about to go chasing crickets with a hayfork for Shiv when Halice needs me with her.” Stabbing the hayfork into a bale, Livak went out into the yard, where she started slinging scraps of wood into a kindling basket with unnecessary force. I swallowed my irritation and began to help.

“I don’t know how you can do it,” she burst out after a few moments. “How can you get yourself mixed up with wizards again?”

“I’m doing my patron’s bidding,” I replied in as neutral a tone as I could.

“He sends you off like a fowling hound, does he?” Livak shook her head, her tone perilously close to a sneer. “Coming and going at his whistle or risking the whip? Tell me, has he got some other poor bastard leashed in to replace Aiten yet? Doing his master’s bidding didn’t do him much good, did it?”

I closed my eyes on sudden flash of memory: Aiten’s body in my arms in the midst of the pitiless chill of the ocean, his life blood warm on my skin where Livak had sliced open the great vessel in his leg and killed my friend to save the rest of us when Elietimm enchantments had stolen away his mind and turned him to attack us.

“I had to do it, you do know that, don’t you?” she demanded abruptly, her face white. “He’d have killed us all if I hadn’t.”

“I know.” My eyes met hers as I fought to keep my voice level. “I know and I don’t blame you. Neither would he. The only shame to bear is my own, for leaving you to do what I couldn’t.”

“I’ll be answering to Saedrin for it, that much I know.” Livak’s emerald eyes suddenly brimmed with tears that she dashed away with an angry hand. “It’s been that one killing the old mercenaries warn you about, the one that stays in your dreams, where you wake with the smell of blood in your nostrils.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. I’m doing this for Aiten’s sake as much as for anything,” I told her with a venom that startled even me. “We swore the same oaths and we lived by them. I’m loyal to that trust.”

“I’m loyal to my friends, not some canting words and a tarnished kennel-tag,” snapped Livak, stabbing a finger at my medallion. “I value my freedom too highly.”

Smarting, I clenched my fist on a handful of kindling and felt a splinter pierce my palm. “Freedom to die penniless in a ditch? No sworn man with an injury like Halice’s would be left hanging on the charity of their friends! The Sieur takes his responsibilities seriously.”

“He doesn’t take any of the risks though, does he?” retorted Livak, turning her back to cross the yard again. “That’s not what I call responsibility.”

“And you’d know all about that, never staying more than half a season in any one place!” I set my jaw against my anger. I could only suppose it was the lack of sleep that I never seemed to quite make up on that was making me so uncharacteristically quick to anger. Pulling the sliver of wood from my hand, I sucked at the scratch for a moment. When I had myself in hand I found Livak collecting eggs from the long grass beneath a knot of fruit bushes. The pig trotted into his run, breath fetid as he snuffled up over the wall, ears flopping with palpable disappointment when he realized we were not bringing food.

“I should never have let Shiv talk me into going with him last year, Drianon rot his eyes,” Livak muttered to herself. “I knew Halice was hurt; he said he had a friend who’d take care of her. I’d like to cut his stones for slingshot!”

“The Emperor’s apothecary in Toremal couldn’t have done much with a break like that,” I objected. “You can’t blame Shiv, or yourself, come to that.”

Livak looked up at me. “I remember telling you the same about Aiten.”

“That’s different!” I snapped before I could help myself.

“Is it?” Livak started pulling the first shoots of spring from a neat vegetable batch, an appetizing prospect. The new growing season at home had given me a taste for early greens before Messire’s commands had sent me north again, where the cold earth still waited for Larasion’s smile.

“Can you just stand still for a moment?” My words came out as a furious demand rather than a request and Livak looked at me, eyes stormy as a winter sea. I got myself in hand with no little effort. “We need you, Livak—”

“We need you?” she mimicked, mocking, “I need you? You sound like a bad Soluran ballad, Ryshad, noble knight wooing lady fair!”

This unexpected shift wrongfooted me utterly.

“I had been hoping you might have come to find me on your own account,” snapped Livak, “not just because Planir whistled you up. What’s your next move? Try and coddle me into coming with you, like some trooper showing a housemaid a few tricks with his polearm? Forget it, that’s how my mother got caught!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought you valued me on my own terms. Come and meet your family, that’s what you were saying last year.”

“You’re the one who said goodbye!” I objected. “I asked you to come to Zyoutessela with me for the Solstice, you’re the one who refused!”

Livak shook her head. “How long would it have been before your mother started embroidering hair ribbons, asking me to help darn the linens? If I wanted to be someone’s maidservant, I’d have stayed at home!”

“Well, make up your mind!” I had had enough of this and it must have shown in my face.

“Never mind, forget it.” Livak blushed scarlet and pushed her way past me to go back to the house. Biting down on a few choice retorts, I followed, breathing heavily.

We entered to find Halice deep in conversation with the two wizards.

“There are a few things we’ll need to sort out before we leave tomorrow.” Halice limped to the dresser to fetch a slate. “We should be able to sell the pig easily enough but it might be better to kill the chickens and cook the meat.”

“What are you talking about?” Livak glared at Halice.