Firethorn (29 page)

He railed so loudly that the priests hurried in to see what troubled him. They must have feared his wits were wandering, to be disputing with the air itself.

He shouted again, “Go fetch me Sire Rodela. I'll have no more of your lullabies today!”

I stumbled away from my hiding place, around the upturned cart and behind the tents. All that had seemed so clear last night was muddied now. Had I wronged him? It was true: I had been a coward not to tell him. He'd not had time to don armor against the Crux's blows, and all because I would not be the one to hurt him. All the same, he'd earned every blow.

Spiller met me outside Sire Galan's tent with raised eyebrows and a thumb drawn across his throat. Inside, Sire Rodela stood while Rowney knelt to fasten his greaves about his calves.

“Look who comes, tail between her legs. I thought you'd wandered off for good,” said Sire Rodela, smiling. As he spoke he turned a ring on the finger of his right hand, and before I guessed what he meant to do, he stepped forward and slapped me so hard across the cheek my ears rang. “Where did you lie last night, while your master lay wounded? This is how you repay his favors: you stray like a bitch in heat. Can't you go one night without a pricking?” he said, and he made to come after me.

I dodged away, my hand pressed to my cheek, while Rowney—bless him—clasped Sire Rodela's leg and said, “Please hold still, Sire. I'm not done with these buckles.”

I spoke up for myself in a shaking voice, “Sire Rodela, your master summons you. Best go quick. And if you want to know where I was last night, ask him and trouble me no more.” My hand came away from my cheek smeared with blood. “Look what you've done. You suppose wrong if you think I'm so out of favor you can mar me and Sire Galan won't fault you for it.”

“I've marked you,” he said, holding up his hand to show the family crest on the ring he'd used to cut me. “It's a mere scratch—a little remembrance from me not to stray again. And here's your leash and collar.” He hauled Rowney upright by grasping his ear and said to him, “I know you've finished with my greaves. You took long enough. Now bring my helmet, and see she stays here until I say otherwise.”

“But I have errands in the market, Sire,” Rowney said.

“Errands must wait. Have you forgot whose armiger was killed last night? No man leaves the tents without four or five others and his arms and his wits about him. We have Sire Galan to thank for this.” He turned to me again. “I'll go pay a visit to my cousin. And if he doesn't know where you were last night, I'll cross your face with stripes and I daresay he'll praise me for it.”

When he was safely gone, I lay facedown on the cot with my head on my arms and thought how swiftly events unraveled, more swiftly than amends could be made. Now Sire Alcoba's armiger was dead, and no one owning up to his killing. Sire Buey had probably been set upon by a mob. He'd been a good fighter too. Durable, more ox than bull. His wits plodded but got where they were going. He had steadied Sire Alcoba, and the Crux was right: it was hard to see an end to this feud now that it was openly begun.

In the light of day, I still didn't know how I could convince Galan to purchase what he had already enjoyed for free, especially since he was angry with me and likely wouldn't welcome me near him. There was much I should be doing and nothing I could do, so I lay there disconsolate, my forces spent.

Spiller and Rowney chattered and clattered about the tent. They put on their heavy leather jacks and armed as if they were readying for battle. For Spiller, I think, the feud was a fine way to pass the time until the war began. Rowney took it more to heart. Before Sire Galan won him in the wager from Sire Alcoba, he'd served with Sire Buey and liked him well. He was eager to go trawling for vengeance with his former master—whatever he was told about keeping to the tent.

Sire Rodela came back sooner than I expected. I stood as far from him as I could, wary of him, but he didn't concern himself with me. He sent for Flykiller and told him to curry Sire Galan's warhorses, braid their manes and tails with green ribbons, and gild their hooves. Sire Galan had said that if he couldn't ride them, the gods should have them. Rift had already taken his best horse; let Crux have Melena, the bay, and Hazard the gray he'd won from Sire Alcoba, and maybe then the gods would be content.

“Yes, Sire,” said Flykiller. He was a silent man, and now his face spoke for him, how grievous it was to see his charges and all his care of them day and night, his pride and delight, wrested away in a moment.

Oh, this was a fine gesture for Sire Galan to make, perhaps a wanton one. A passingly good warhorse is worth more than a crofter's household can scratch out in a year or two; fine horses like these were worth half a village. Semental had been priceless. I wondered if the gods would be appeased with a gift offered from spite instead of reverence. Nothing given to the gods is wasted, but an ox or two would have done as well, would have been generous. Two warhorses came perilously close to squandering.

Sire Rodela called Spiller and Rowney and Noggin to him and said, “Your master comes home on the morrow. Make everything ready for him; turn the tent upside down if you must.” He took the key to Sire Galan's strongbox from the purse at his belt and gave Spiller some silverheads (and it cost me a pang to see him so free with Galan's key and Galan's silver). “Get enough stores at the market to last a week. Sire Alcoba and Sire Lebrel are sending their men this afternoon. Go with them and be wary, do you hear?”

I spoke up. “I should go too. Sire Galan will need soothe-me for his pain, and I have none left.”

“The priests will see to that,” Sire Rodela said. “You're not to leave the camp.” He came closer with his crooked smile. “The scratch is not so bad, is it?”

As soon as the men had left the tent, I went back to my hiding place. I peeked and saw Sire Galan asleep at last. I would not wake him. I wrapped myself in my cloak and lay on the narrow ground between the tents and watched the clouds roil by in the patch of sky over my head. Thoughts drifted into dreams. I tried to dream that all would be well, as if that would make it so, but the dreams changed shape as readily as the clouds and as little obedient to my command.

The priests woke Sire Galan at nightfall, when it was time for the sacrifices. They put him on a litter and carried him the short distance to the altars around the king's hall. When we had arrived at the Marchfield, the king had honored the clan by placing our camp near him. I wondered if he regretted that now. How far had the clan of Crux fallen in his estimation? There were always rivalries among the clans, and feuds that came and went; this feud promised to linger.

The Crux himself led Melena, and Sire Alcoba the gray. Flykiller had prepared the horses well. They wore only bits and bridles and they'd been brushed until their coats shone, and without their heavy caparisons anyone could see how well they were shaped from forelock to fetlock and what fine horseflesh would soon be carcasses. Behind them came the Auspices and Sire Galan on his litter, followed by the cataphracts, armigers, and jacks, all bearing torches. Men and women from other clans joined us as word spread, and their foot soldiers and drudges too, until a multitude had gathered at the king's hall. The clan of Ardor stayed away.

One man whispered to his neighbor, pointing out Sire Galan. The next must perforce speak a little louder to be heard over the first, and so on, until solemn voices became a clamor. They hushed again when we stopped at Hazard's shrine. Three priests waited there, droning a chord of ill-fitting notes. One of them—Fate's Auspex—played an instrument with one string that made a low, throbbing sound under his thumb that set my teeth on edge. On the stone altar stood statues of two of Hazard's aspects: a blind-folded wooden Chance, wearing a gown of red paint, and Peril, cast in bronze, with armor of silver. Fate was not represented. A bundle of dried sess, smoldering on the three-legged brazier, gave off a drugged smoke to lull the sacrifice.

The gray went to his death unknowing. Not docile, because a warhorse isn't bred for docility, but unafraid and willing to be led, which was counted a good omen. The priestess of Hazard Chance held the knife. She had no need to wear a blindfold like her mistress, for she had long ago sacrificed her eyes. Fate's priest had to guide her hand to the gray's throat. Still, the cut was swift and clean. The Crux kept Melena turned away from the altar so he wouldn't see the other horse die. The bay's nostrils widened when he smelled blood and he snorted. But he was not much disturbed. Warhorses are inured to that smell when they are colts, made to stand by while a butcher does his work.

Galan stood up for this, although he couldn't stand straight or alone. He leaned on Divine Xyster's arm, his face even paler than it was before. His stare was fixed and glazed, as if he couldn't see what was before him. He never blinked or wept. He'd shed his tears for Semental and had none to spare. It made him seem coldhearted, but I could see what it cost him to stand and watch; he spent his strength, his stubbornness, his will. After the horse that had been Sire Alcoba's foundered and thrashed and lay still, Sire Alcoba turned and gave Galan a bitter look.

Galan looked down. His knees gave way and Divine Xyster caught him under the arms and lowered him to the litter so he could be carried to the altar of Crux, on the other side of the king's hall. The crowd came too, some ahead, some behind, all around us. It was no longer a procession but an eddying current that bore me along, a mote among other motes who jostled and pushed and dinned gossip and nonsense in my ears.

Melena was restive now; he pranced and sidled and jerked his head. The blood smell, the crowd, the noise meant a tourney to him and he was ready for it. He wouldn't stand still at the altar. Two men had elbowed their way in front of me, but over their shoulders I could see Melena's round eye, his ears pricked forward, his tail whisking, the muscles bunching in his hindquarters as he backed away, pulling against the reins the Crux held. I saw his bewilderment when the Crux jerked hard on the curb bit and Flykiller came up on the bay's right side and took hold of his mane and threw his weight over his withers to keep him steady for the knife.

Galan stood again. Divine Hamus, the Auspex of the Sun, made the cut, but it wasn't clean because Melena was tossing his head and had to be cut twice. Blood spattered over the gold statue of the Sun and the silver statue of the Moon, over the Auspices and the Crux and the spectators and on Galan too. But enough was caught, in the blue glass basin that represented the Heavens, for the priests to use in divination. Melena staggered. A shudder ran over his skin. His left hind leg gave way and he fell sideways, toward the Crux, and in a little while the kicking stopped and he was dead.

The crowd made a loud murmurous sound around me, like the sea, but I moved in silence, as if the noise had deafened me. I listened for another sound, for the low thrum of Fate. I knew it was there, beyond my hearing. I could feel it under my ribs, in the pit of my belly, in my womb. Torchlight chased shadows over the glossy hide of the fallen horse and the gray standing stones of the altars. Galan wavered in this light, half a shade himself. The hair rose on my nape and I felt, for better or worse, that the eyes of the gods were truly upon us.

Many stayed for the butchery, the search for portents in the entrails, and the other blood rites of the Auspices. And they stayed for the feasting after. The mudfolk would dine well on the sacrifices that night—all the better because the Blood are forbidden to eat horseflesh. I followed Galan's litter back to the tent. He had slumped and lost consciousness, his wound bleeding freely again. He'd already lost so much blood. How much more could there be?

This time I watched through my peephole as Divine Xyster tended Galan, and if that was sacrilege, I didn't care. I saw everything the priest did. He bade his servant to come quick and spread his hands over the wound and press down. The blood welled up between his fingers, but in time it stopped flowing. Mercifully, Galan was still in a dead faint. Then the cobwebs and salve, a clean bandage and more smoke. Divine Xyster had a short temper. He cursed Spiller and Rowney for standing about in the way, struck his varlet for bringing the wrong salve, and muttered about Sire Galan's idiocy. But his hands were precise and sure and kind.

Galan groaned and opened his eyes and Divine Xyster said to him, “Did you mean to offer up your own blood too? I shall have to keep you here until I'm sure you won't do yourself further harm.”

Galan made no answer except to close his eyes and turn his head away. The priest sat back on his heels and eyed him for a moment. Then he got to his feet and rinsed his hands in a basin of water. He told Spiller and Rowney to stay with Sire Galan and come running for him if he took a turn for the worse or began to bleed again; he'd be with the other priests at the altar.

When Divine Xyster was gone, Spiller and Rowney exchanged a look. Rowney checked the tightness of his belt and the looseness of his sword in its sheath and said, “You watch. I'll be off.” Spiller grinned and wished him good hunting, and I knew that it wouldn't go well with any man of Ardor, from bagboy to cataphract, found roaming alone tonight. I hoped none would be that foolish.

Spiller settled himself on the ground with his back against a wooden chest and his legs stretched out before him, and before long his head nodded and jerked as he wrestled with sleep and lost.