Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (37 page)

Third and perhaps worst, the visions which her spells revealed to those brave enough to stand witness might prove that these remains were indeed some stranger’s bones. Giving the lie so publicly to the Archipelagans’ promises of good faith might tip the villagers’ anxiety over the barbarians’ presence into open hostility.

Fourth, the Aldabreshi might hear some rumour of what she had done. Given their hatred of wizardry, that could provoke them into leaving Halferan immediately, ruining any hope of reconciliation between mainland and Archipelago.

The Archmage would hardly thank her for that, after Velindre’s endeavours to make contact with Kheda and to help the Archipelagan devise the arguments which had persuaded the Khusro wives to make this unprecedented voyage.

Jilseth had far better leave those bones to burn on the pyre being prepared on the funerary ground beyond the brook, and no one would ever know the truth of those dead men’s fates.

She looked around the tavern. She saw the covert glances of awe and admiration she had become used to in Halferan. These people couldn’t imagine the power she had at her fingertips.

Did they ever imagine how often she was finding her magic of little use of late? Jilseth had never imagined that she would have such an opportunity to use her necromancy only to find so many compelling arguments against it.

She left the remains of her ale and went upstairs to write a comprehensive letter to Lady Zurenne giving every detail of Corrain’s news from Col. She didn’t hold back from mentioning the Jagai ships or the strange and suspicious behaviour of the unknown Soluran. She balanced that with Hosh’s encouraging report of his dealing with the scholarly healers.

If Jilseth’s own friends and allies were leaving her overlooked and half-informed amid so many uncertainties, she could at least ensure that she didn’t do the same to Lady Zurenne.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

Halferan Village, Caladhria

32nd of Aft-Winter

Z
URENNE WONDERED WHO
felt more ill at ease; herself or Mistress Rotharle. She smiled graciously, nodding with approval at the taproom. ‘My thanks for making us so welcome.’

The tables were draped with white linen and every chair and bench gleamed with diligent polishing. There wasn’t a speck of dust on the floor or a wisp of cobweb amid the rafters. The fire crackling in the hearth had been lit long enough before their arrival to fill the room with welcoming warmth. If time had allowed Zurenne imagined that the walls would have been freshly lime washed, even though the inn wasn’t half a year rebuilt.

‘You honour me, my lady.’ Mistress Rotharle’s eyes still kept darting to the doorway where Kusint and Reven stood.

‘Shall we sit?’ Zurenne tugged at Ilysh’s elbow.

The girl was looking around, making no pretence of hiding her curiosity. In more normal times she would never have set foot inside a common tavern. More than that, as Halferan’s heiress she would have not needed to go in search of a husband. Her visits to the luxurious inns accommodating the nobility on their travels would have been few and far between.

‘Is this just as it was before?’

Zurenne couldn’t tell her. In all her years living in the manor she had never stepped across the tavern’s threshold. ‘Lady Ilysh,’ she said pointedly, ‘we must sit to receive our guests.’

Kheda had been very clear about such etiquette, just as he had insisted that the Khusro wives could not possibly remain within the manor’s encircling wall while Jilseth was examining the Archipelagans’ treasures chests.

Zurenne had been thrown into utter confusion until Kusint had suggested that they commandeer the village tavern for the day. Even then she had been aghast at the notion, until Kheda had approved it, explaining that the brook’s flowing water would be considered a safeguard against magic’s inexplicable contamination.

‘Here, my lady, my lady.’ Mistress Rotharle pulled two chairs out from a table and dusted them with her apron though there was no possible need.

‘Did Doratine did send word from the manor?’ Zurenne was seized with sudden apprehension. ‘You have the almond cup made ready?’

She didn’t want a repeat of yesterday evening’s embarrassment, when she had learned too late that the Aldabreshi shunned ale, wine and every other liquor. Zurenne had only been able to offer the Khusro wives well-boiled well water.

Thankfully Mistress Rauffe had recalled Lady Licanin’s taste for the orgeat that was so commonly drunk in Relshaz and Doratine had remembered a recipe, hurrying to ransack her store rooms for ingredients. Though making the almond syrup was a lengthy process. Had there been sufficient time?

‘Everything is prepared, my lady,’ Mistress Rotharle assured her.

A shadow darkened the doorway and the alewife hurried away to her kitchen.

‘My ladies of Halferan.’ The tall Aldabreshin Kheda entered the tavern with the clean-shaven Archipelagan who was as ever, dressed in a plain, bleached cotton tunic and trews.

Though now he had swapped his sheepskin jerkin for a shapeless, knitted over-tunic such as the village craftsmen wore on cold days in their workshops. Zurenne wondered who he had got that from and for what price.

Master Rauffe had drily informed Zurenne that half the Halferan guard had found some reason to visit family and friends across the brook this morning. She would have to ask what he heard of the villagers’ reactions, seeing the Khusro women and their bodyguards walk the length of their street.

At least Raselle had told her that most of the manor’s household were reserving judgement, given the show of good faith by the Archipelagans in returning Ankelli’s son, Reeve Gartin’s nephew and Mundin’s grandson. Opinion was more divided over the bones, supposedly those of Bann and Damer, cousins from the village. Though their families had declared themselves content to light a funeral pyre this very evening.

Kusint and Reven retreated from the doorway, as the first two Khusro wives’ bodyguards followed Kheda into the taproom.

‘My ladies of Halferan,’ the first bodyguard said, his Tormalin speech heavily accented as he glanced between Zurenne and Ilysh. ‘Debis Khusro, Patri Khusro and Quilar Khusro humbly request the honour of admittance to your presence.’

‘We are most honoured to welcome Khusro Rina’s noble wives,’ Zurenne nudged Lysha’s ankle with her toe under the table.

‘We are—most honoured.’ Ilysh hastily remembered Kheda’s instructions.

As the armoured Aldabreshi turned back towards the door, Zurenne smiled encouragement at her daughter. Drianon bless them both, she knew how her daughter felt.

Zurenne still found the Archipelagan warriors fearsomely intimidating, even after Mistress Rauffe had told her, torn between astonishment and embarrassment, that the Khusro wives had brought no maidservants.

These warlike men were expected to wait on their mistresses hand and foot, doing every menial service from washing their most intimate garments to emptying their chamber pots. They even asked for blankets to sleep on the floors of their mistresses’ bedchambers like faithful hounds. When Kheda had confirmed this was entirely as he expected, Zurenne could only insist that Mistress Rauffe respect the Archipelagans’ mystifying customs, however disappointed Halferan’s bravest maids might be. To her astonishment, a handful of the most insatiably curious had volunteered to serve the barbarian women.

The Khusro wives entered, wearing short tunics and loose silken trews beneath padded satin jerkins sumptuously embroidered with gold and silver flowers. As well as ropes of pearls, they wore bracelets and necklaces of twisted gold and rings of intricately braided silver framing gemstones to match their silks; opals for Debis, sapphires for Quilar and emeralds for Patri.

Debis’s hair was woven into a towering coil of plaits secured with pearl-headed pins. Patri’s gleaming midnight locks hung loose around her shoulders, held off her face by finely carved coral combs. Quilar’s mass of tight black curls was threaded through with strips of gold, criss-crossing in a gleaming lattice. Each one was tipped with a trembling silver flower and twin leaves of gold, framing her strong features with musical whispers.

As before, exotic cosmetics made a mask of each woman’s face. Nevertheless Zurenne believed that she was learning to read their expressions. Not Quilar’s; the darkest-skinned woman remained as inscrutable as ever. Patri was looking around the tavern with as much frank curiosity as Lysha though, while Debis looked longingly at the fire. She had the fine Dalasorian shawl which Zurenne had given her at breakfast wrapped tight around her shoulders. Zurenne hadn’t thought twice about doing so, seeing Debis shivering in the great hall’s chill.

Now she looked down to see that the women were still wearing their sandals. Zurenne’s own feet would have been blue with cold after walking from the manor to the tavern and she couldn’t believe that Archipelagan women were so different, whatever the colour of their skin or the bright lacquer on their toe nails.

‘Do warm yourself.’ She rose, ready to fetch a chair for Debis, but the silent bodyguard was there before her.

‘Thank you, Lafis.’ Debis stretched her feet gratefully towards the hearth. ‘And thank you, my lady, for this gift. It is so warm and yet the weave is so fine. May I ask where you find such cloth?’

Quilar gestured towards their clean-shaven attendant in his humble homespun. ‘It is not from the same beast as that?’

‘No, that is wool, from a sheep. The yarn which wove the shawl is spun from a goat’s hair, from a land far to the north.’ Zurenne saw the women looking at Kheda for explanation.

The tall Archipelagan sat at the next table with the three Archipelagan bodyguards while the white-clad servant perched on a stool beyond. Reven and Kusint remained standing either side of the doorway

‘
Imkar.’
Kheda smiled at Zurenne. ‘That is the word in our tongue for goat.’

Quilar was frowning. ‘No goat—’ she pronounced the new word with care ‘—in our islands has a pelt to make such yarn. They make indifferent leather though their meat is tasty.’

‘Dalasorian goats live in the hills beyond the Dalas river. They grow thick fleecy coats against the winter cold. They’re shorn, like sheep, at the turn of Aft-Spring and For-Autumn.’ Ilysh coloured slightly as everyone looked at her. ‘It says so in my father’s book about the grassland nomads.’

‘How far distant are these lands?’ Patri leaned forward, her eyes keen.

Zurenne’s interest in maps extended only as far as the routes from Halferan to Attar or Claithe and Pinerin where she visited favoured merchants. She was grateful to see Ilysh tallying on her fingers, concentration wrinkling the girl’s forehead.

‘Five hundred leagues as a courier dove might fly but it would be a journey of six to seven hundred leagues from here, depending on the route you took.’

‘All on unbroken land?’ Patri marvelled at the prospect.

‘How far is it from the north of the Archipelago to the furthest south?’ Ilysh asked shyly.

‘Forgive me, I do not know how you count such things.’ Patri said something to Kheda in her own tongue.

‘Twelve hundred leagues, near enough,’ he explained to Ilysh.

‘And all islands?’ She smiled at Patri as she echoed the young Khusro woman’s fascination.

Debis turned to Zurenne as the conversation threatened to falter. ‘Neeny is well, I hope?’