A Journey of the Heart (34 page)

There was a noise, a light. I opened my eyes and saw Sparrow's face. "Are you all right?" She knelt beside me. "What's going on?"

"Sparrow?"

"Yes," she said. "Are you all right?"

"I'm hungry."

"Wait here." She started to get up. I caught hold of her shirtsleeve, to keep her from leaving me. "I'll be right back," she said.

Gently she freed herself from my grasp and slipped out the door, leaving it ajar. The hallway outside the armory was lit only by the lamplight that spilled through the kitchen doorway. It must be nighttime.

Sparrow returned, bringing a small oil lamp, a bowl of soup, and a piece of bread. She set everything down. Then she shut the door and sat down beside me on the floor. She waited until I had taken the first edge off my hunger. Then she said, "Will you please tell me what's going on? Why are you hiding?"

"How did you know I was here?" I thought Vintel might have sent her.

"I didn't," she said. "I've been looking for you all evening. No one had seen you. I was in bed and almost asleep when I remembered this place. I thought you might have come here to get away from everybody."

"Why were you looking for me?"

"To comfort you, of course. I didn't hear about your mother until this afternoon. Vintel sent me out this morning with Tamar on some stupid errand, but Tamar must have had an inkling. She said she felt uneasy and insisted on coming home. When we arrived, we heard the news. Tamar is inconsolable." She put her hand awkwardly on my shoulder. "Tamras, I'm so sorry."

"My mother isn't dead," I told her.

"What?"

"It was an excuse."

"An excuse?"

"It was the excuse Vintel gave Merin, to explain why I'm going home."

Sparrow looked confused.

"Vintel has Maara," I said. "She says she won't harm her as long as I do what she wants. She wants me to go home."

"Vintel has Maara?"

I nodded.

"What do you mean she has Maara? I don't understand."

Then I told her how Vintel had used my sister to lure Maara out of the house, out into the night, where she would be at Vintel's mercy.

Sparrow stared at me as if I'd lost my reason.

"You don't believe me," I said.

"I don't know what to believe."

"Why do you think I've been shut in here?"

She shook her head in puzzlement. "I can't imagine."

There was nothing more I could say that would convince her. I could only let Sparrow think things over for herself. I watched her face as her mind struggled to reconcile what I had told her with her vision of Vintel. She couldn't do it. I sensed her reluctance to believe the worst about her warrior.

"Vintel wants you to go home?" she said at last.

I nodded.

"Forever?"

"Yes."

"Because of me?"

I didn't answer.

"This is my fault," she whispered.

"No, it isn't. This is Vintel's fault."

Sparrow's face grew thoughtful. "Vintel said the strangest thing to me tonight. She asked me if I would miss you, and I told her, yes, I would. She said I might think differently if I knew about you and Merin."

"Me and Merin?" My heart grew cold. "What did Vintel say?"

"She says you're Merin's lover."

"It isn't true."

"I know that." Sparrow met my eyes. "I couldn't imagine why Vintel would say such a thing. Now I understand."

"You do?"

"She wants me not to care what happens to you."

My parting words to Vintel may have done me some good after all.

"Is Maara going with you?" she asked.

"No," I said. "If Vintel keeps her word, she'll be sent to Laris."

If Vintel keeps her word.

I saw in my mind's eye a dead man's body lying in a snowbank.

"I don't believe she will," I said. "I think Vintel intends to kill her."

I half expected Sparrow to protest, but this time she didn't argue with me. She got to her feet, then held her hand out to help me up. She had a determined look in her eye.

"I'll come back as soon as I can," she said.

"Where are you going?"

"To get the things you'll need." She opened the door of the armory a crack and peered out of it. "I don't want to leave you in here, in case someone prevents me from coming back. Go out the kitchen door and wait for me. But don't wait too long."

She gestured to me to follow her. We slipped out of the armory, and I closed and barred the door behind me. Sparrow tiptoed down the hallway and started up the stairs. I went into the kitchen and paused to listen. I wasn't sure what time of night it was. Some of the servants might still be up.

I heard my name, as if Gnith's voice had whispered it inside my head. I couldn't refuse to answer her.

"I must hurry, Mother," I said, as I knelt down beside her. "I am in danger here."

"Yes," she whispered. "Life is very dangerous."

She beckoned to me with one finger, and I leaned closer. When my face was inches from her own, she touched my brow with her fingertips.

"No time to ask a blessing now," she said, "but you need no more gifts from me. It's time to try your wings, little bird."

By the time Sparrow returned, I had been standing in the shadows outside the back door for what felt like ages, although it couldn't have been much above half an hour.

"I kept running into people," Sparrow told me. "I had to bring everything downstairs bit by bit."

She had two bundles, one wrapped in my cloak and one wrapped in Maara's. She laid the two side by side and bound them together, so that I could carry them both over my shoulder. Then she went back inside and returned a minute later with my bow in its case and my quiver of arrows. When I reached out to take them from her, she refused to let go of them until I met her eyes. "You be careful with these," she said.

"I will."

I knew what she meant -- that there's a difference between war and murder.

"I'll tell your sister she has no cause to grieve," said Sparrow.

"You must speak with the Lady too," I said. "You must convince her that my mother is alive."

"I'll try."

"You must do more than try. If Merin believes my mother has left this world, she'll let go of the thread of life to follow her."

"Why would she do that?"

"My mother is to Merin what Eramet was to you."

Then Sparrow understood. "I remember," she said. "If you hadn't held on to me, I might have followed Eramet."

I smiled at her. "It was you who held on to me," I reminded her.

Even in the moonlight, I saw her blush.

"Once I find Maara," I said, "I'll go home and bring my mother here. Nothing but the sight of her will convince Merin that she's alive. Tell Merin anything you like. Just don't let her give up hope."

"Wait," said Sparrow. "I have a better idea. Let Tamar go to fetch your mother. If I send her off tonight, she can be back again within the week."

"But she'd have to go alone."

"Of course."

"She's too young."

"She's young," said Sparrow, "but she has her sister's courage. She approached Vintel at dinnertime and demanded that Vintel allow her to go home with you. Vintel refused, and Tamar stamped her foot and let loose a stream of language that turned even Vintel's ears red."

If she had been there, I would have scolded my little sister for doing something so foolhardy, but I couldn't help chuckling a little at the picture of Tamar berating someone as powerful as Vintel.

"After she put on a show like that," Sparrow said, "no one will question her disappearance. They'll think she ran off home anyway, with or without Vintel's permission."

I didn't like the idea of risking my sister's life until I wondered how safe she would be in Merin's house.

"All right," I said. "Tell her I'm confident that she'll do well."

"I will."

"When my mother arrives, you'll have to find a way to take her to Merin without Vintel seeing her."

"Let me worry about that," said Sparrow. "I'll speak with Namet. She'll know what to do."

Of course Namet would know, I thought. Namet might cast her cloak of invisibility over my mother and bring her unseen into Merin's chamber, even under the noses of Vintel and all her warriors.

"Give Namet my solemn promise," I said. "Tell her I'll bring her daughter home to her."

I bent to pick up my pack. Sparrow helped me lift it to my shoulders. It was bulky, but not too heavy for me. Then I slipped my bow out of its case and strung it.

It was near midnight. The moon, waxing almost full, shone brightly overhead. Sparrow took hold of my bow and turned it to the light.

"So beautiful," she said. "And so deadly."

The last secret I had kept from her lay upon my tongue. I would have loved to spit it out.

"I knew Vintel killed him," Sparrow whispered, "but I didn't know this was his until a few weeks ago."

When I opened my mouth to tell her I had withheld the truth from her only to spare her pain, she put her fingertips against my lips.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "Vintel thought it would, but it doesn't. If I were to break this bow into a thousand pieces and throw them in the river, Eramet would still be dead." She put her arms around me. "May it serve you well, Tamras of the Bow. There's no one in the world I love more than you."

I feared the moonlight would reveal me to someone in the household, so I left Merin's house by an unused way that wound through a thicket to the east, away from the river. I took cover in a grove of alders that grew along the banks of a stream. There I sat down, to consider what to do next.

My words to Sparrow had been echoing in my head ever since I spoke them.
I think Vintel intends to kill her.
I had no reason to believe that Vintel would keep her word to me. Why would she send Maara to Laris, someone who had opposed her in the past? Maara's death was what Vintel wanted. She had wanted it for a long time. She would never have a better opportunity.

I had thought and thought about where Vintel's warriors might be holding Maara. There was no place within Merin's house to hide her. She must be out in the countryside. I doubted that Vintel would keep her at one of the farms. What Vintel was doing was best done in secret, with as few witnesses as possible.

My first idea was to travel south, toward Laris's house, but if Vintel's warriors were taking her to Laris, they didn't mean to kill her. If they did mean to kill her, where would they go? They wouldn't travel south, where someone might see them commit their treachery, where someone might find her body. They would go the other way. They would go north and kill her close to our northern border, and if someone chanced to find her, her death could be blamed on our enemies.

And Vintel would claim that Maara had been returning to her own people, as Vintel always suspected she would.

Two roads went north, the one that followed the river and the one that wound through the hills to the northeast, the road we took with Laris to Greth's Tor. The river road was the easier one. A day's travel would take them beyond our borders, and then they could do anything they wanted.

Keeping out of sight of Merin's house, I made my way north and west until I reached the river road. Soon I discovered that my choice had been the right one. A band of warriors had passed along that road not long before. I found a place just out of sight of the household where they had camped. The ashes of the fire were cold. Farther on I saw places where they had rested or where someone had left the trail to relieve herself. They were traveling at an easy pace. I pushed myself, to close the distance.

By the time the sky began to lighten in the east, I was far from Merin's house. Although I hadn't slept more than a few hours in the last two days, I dared not stop to rest. As the light grew, I saw signs all around me of their passage. The grass, wet with dew, showed me every footprint, the trodden blades still bent.

The winding trail followed the river. Tall rushes grew on either side of it, making it impossible to see very far ahead. I tried to listen, but there was a roaring in my ears. The gentle ground offered itself as a soft bed. I stumbled. Had my eyes closed? I had seen tired warriors walk along beside their comrades fast asleep. Had I slept?

They were resting, sitting by the side of the road. I never heard them, although I heard them fall silent when they saw me. I came around a bend and blundered into them. Were there only half a dozen? There seemed so many.

I stopped. For a long time no one moved. Then we all moved.

The closest was several yards away. Before she reached me, I buried an arrow to the feathers in her chest. The others stopped.

I nocked another arrow in the bow but didn't draw it. I waited. The woman who lay dead at my feet must have been their captain. The rest were uncertain what to do.

"Disarm yourselves," someone said. It was Maara's voice.

One of them started to lay down her sword. Another said, "She can't stop all of us."

I drew the bow and sighted the tip of my arrow on the woman who had spoken. She dropped her sword. The rest let their swords fall. I lowered the bow, keeping the arrow nocked.

"Step back," said Maara. "Stay close together. Tamras, kill anyone standing alone."

The warriors quickly bunched together. When they stepped away from their weapons, Maara collected them. All but one she hurled into the river where it ran swiftest through tumbled rocks. The last she kept. Then she came to stand beside me.

"Go home," she told them.

"We need to make a litter," said one, "to take our friend home."

"Come back for her," said Maara, "or carry her as best you can."

Two of them picked up their fallen comrade and followed the others back the way they had just come. As soon as they were out of sight, Maara drew me off the trail into a stand of trees that gave us a little cover.

"How far behind is the pursuit?" she asked me.

"The pursuit?" I hadn't thought about that.

Maara could see that I wasn't thinking clearly. She took the pack from my shoulders, to carry it herself.