Firethorn (36 page)

I'd put my trust in what she'd told me and in a song and two finger bones, and I'd searched both high and low, and my steps had led me straight across the Hardscrabble to this quarry and this plant.

A gift from the Queen of the Dead, for a dead woman had led me to it. But I didn't feel the Dame with me. I must do this alone.

One plant would be enough—more than enough. I wrapped my gather sack around my hands to protect me from the poison and pulled up the smaller plant, and gave thanks to Rift as I pulled. The dwale came from the soil reluctantly at first, and then quickly, as if a hand had let it go. I took one of the berries and dropped it in the hole left by the roots, and watered it generously with blood from a vein in the crook of my elbow, and pushed the muddy dirt over it so that it might be reborn next year, tall and deadly. All the gods welcome blood as a sacrifice, but Rift requires it.

I cut the plant into lengths with my knife and bundled everything into the sack: root, stalk, leaves, and berries. Then I washed my hands and arms in the cold, cold water of the quarry pool.

Halfway up the ramp I stopped to rest. I wondered what buildings this white stone had gone to make and whether those buildings lay in ruins or still stood somewhere. I took a deep breath and smelled damp, fallen leaves: the scent of late fall. As we'd lingered in the Marchfi eld, autumn had passed me by—for what was autumn without trees to mark its passage?

And then I heard the fluttering of many wings. The bats came out. They came from the caves in the quarry wall like a black wind gusting through the air above and below me.

Rift Dread came. If it was in answer to my prayers, it was a gift I never sought. The swarm is Dread's manifestation, swarms of insects or birds or bats; sometimes too the avatar shows itself in clouds of dust or ash, in waterspouts and whirlwinds. Otherwise it is bodiless, unless we give ourselves up to it. Dread is Rift's most intimate aspect, for it inhabits us.

I knew full well that bats were harmless; the manor had a bat tower for keeping down the insects, next to the dovecote-and yet I cowered on the road with my arms covering my head, in a blinding, mindless panic. Possessed by Dread. An endless time before the terror passed and I found myself queasy and faint and soaked in cold sweat.

The god had left behind a little seed of fear. I should have been afraid all along to go down into the quarry in the dark. Anyone would be. Instead I ' d gone fearless and even glad, to be among trees again, to be among the shadows.

I'd left the Kingswood long ago. What had it made of me?

When I came back from the quarry, I found Rowney had built a fire and busied himself making torches better than the ones I'd made. He was uneasy with me when I returned. His glance was shyer and his silence warier. He rode a little behind me and not by my side. The road was wide enough that we risked cantering, and the torch smoked and cast a poor, jerking light before the horses' hooves. At that pace the escarpment's edge proved to be not so far, after all.

We returned in the dark to find the cataphracts had guests from another clan, someone's sister's husband and assorted cousins, no doubt. They'd finished dining and had progressed to the sweetmeats and nuts and drinking songs around the hearth. Armigers stood behind them, supping on the tougher cuts of mutton when they were not attending to their masters' wants.

Galan was not among the cataphracts. He was in the tent, stretched out on a pallet with his hands behind his head. His supper-the bland boiled greens and barley porridge allowed him by Divine Xyster-was untouched.

When I came in alone, having left Spiller and Rowney to see to the horses, Galan sat up. He moved gingerly. Sire Rodela lay face to the wall, and judging by his grating snore, he was asleep.

“You're late,” Galan said, looking at his food as if he'd just noticed it. He picked up the plate and put it down again with disgust. “Faugh, it's cold.”

I crouched in front of him and still he looked away.

“I expected you sooner,” he said.

“We had a long ride.

“I hope it was to the purpose.” His voice was hard, but his gaze, when it finally crossed mine, was not.

I nodded. The silence between us tugged, a strand so delicate a breath could part it, and I feared even to smile, and it was my turn to look down.

But when I looked up, his face was grim again and I sighed and stood, saying I must see to Consort Vulpeja, and I took the bundle of dwale with me to her curtained room. Yet I felt the silence stretch between us, strong as a rope.

Consort Vulpeja seemed to sleep with her eyes half open. Her breathing alarmed me. It hurt to listen to the sound; there was something trapped and desperate in it, though it issued from a listless body.

I tried to rouse her. I pinched her wrists and cheeks and called loudly in her ear, and though I woke Sunup from a doze, Consort Vulpeja didn't stir. I shook her; I tried to pry open her mouth. I sent Sunup for hot wake-me-up and waved the steaming cup under the sick woman's nose, and I thought I saw the first hint of an expression cross her face'revulsion. After I had so exerted myself in tormenting her, I felt for the pulse at her neck and it still beat slow slow slow, her heart a funeral drum.

Sunup watched as I did all this, her mouth somewhat ajar. When I turned to her, she cringed, as if she thought I was about to shake her too. I sent her from the room, telling her to find something to eat and to sleep as much as she could, for I'd need to wake her later in the night to take my own rest. She settled herself just beyond the curtain on a nest of old sacks and dirty linen.

I sat back and stared at Consort Vulpeja. I was tired and hungry and most of all uncertain. I'd planned to make a weak tisane of the dwale berries, and give it to her sip by sip-but how to make her swallow it?

The bones hadn't pointed to Ardor. If only I knew for sure that I did Ardor's bidding, that I had the god's help to do what needed to be done. But one god had aided me already that day, and instead of gratitude, I felt dread. To be obliged to Rift was a terrible debt.

My gaze turned to the brazier. I thought of how Ardor's priests are said to read the future in fire; I saw nothing but a single flame scampering along a charred branch. Even so, I took my small knife and reopened the cut in my arm, and I sprinkled a libation of blood on the brazier for Ardor, for Consort Vulpeja's sake. The flame dodged and spat at me. I added another branch and shreds of candlebark to sweeten the smoke.

I wrapped my hands in old rags and emptied my gather sack onto a cloth spread on the ground. I set aside the berries first. There were only eight, fewer than I'd hoped for: somewhat shriveled, but still with a gloss on their black skins. I pulled the brittle leaves from the stalk and a whitish milk that smelled as sour as whey seeped from the stems. I left the root alone. It was thick as two fingers, branching, with a grayish bark. After dividing the plant I put the berries in a stoppered gourd and wrapped each kind of part in separate bundles, for each had its own strength. I made sure that not one berry or leaf or stem was left on the ground.

It was the candlebark that gave me the idea. She wouldn't take food or drink, but she could not forgo breathing. No obstinacy was strong enough for that.

I crumbled three leaves of the dwale into a shallow clay bowl. I took a coal from the brazier and dropped it into the bowl and the leaves began to give off an acrid smoke. I leaned over Consort Vulpeja and gently blew the smoke into her nostrils. Each time I took a breath, I turned my head away. When the leaves had burned, I paused to listen to her chest. Her breathing was somewhat eased; it didn't make such a clamor going in and out of her chest. Her heart still lagged.

My eyes watered and I rubbed them. Smoke hazed my vision, smearing everything with gray, more smoke than I'd have expected from those few leaves. I took off my headcloth and fanned it to clear the air, and looked out from behind the curtain to ask Rowney to open the door flap. Galan eyed me strangely but did not forbid it. On their side it smelled more of onions and coleworts and wood smoke than of dwale and candlebark.

Then I waited. I didn't know whether she'd breathed too little, too much, or enough of the smoke. The dwale might need time to do its work; or just as likely its power had already been exhausted. I could do nothing but wait awhile. For yet a while. But patience came hard. Tired as I was, my limbs itched as if I would be moving.

They had lit many lamps in the tent. I could see the shadows of Spiller and Rowney moving on the white curtain, and hear Spiller cracking bones and scraping them for marrow soup, and saying he could eat his horse tonight, he had such an appetite. Sire Galan spoke up and asked how far we'd ridden. There was a silence before Rowney answered, saying we'd gone into the Hardscrabble as far as the quarry. So they all knew that ground; I should not have been surprised. The Crux had ridden his men hard to make them hard.

She
was
breathing easier, I was sure of it. Yet now her breath slipped in and out so quietly, I could hardly tell she was alive. I put the fingers of my left hand against the great vein by her throat and at the same time I felt my own vein, and was not reassured. The river of her blood flowed sluggishly, while mine coursed swift and strong, the vein leaping under my hand.

I looked at her closely. The tattoo of Ardor's godsign was dark blue against the pallor of her cheek; it had the stroke above it that marked the aspect of the Smith. She would never, as a concubine, wear the sign of Crux. Her eyes gleamed under the lids, a fixed stare. Where was she? Where had she gone, if she was not here?

The smoke hadn't roused her. She needed more. I crumbled three more leaves and this time I draped a blanket over us both so the smoke couldn't escape, lifting a corner every time I drew breath.

I knew it was dangerous; I couldn't avoid the smoke entirely, it stung my nose and gathered in my hair. When the leaves were ash, I ducked out from under the blanket and held it over her like a tent. My arms shook. I was panting and my mouth was dry as lint. My tongue felt strange and thick, it no longer belonged in my mouth, and my face too did not feel like it belonged to me. It was numb, a mask of flesh.

I dropped the blanket on the floor and staggered to the tent wall and leaned upon it. The canvas stretched around me, pulling against the ropes and stakes, and I sagged against the wall and slid until I was sitting down. I leaned over, or fell over, and my face was near the wall, and a little cold air threaded its way between the canvas and the ground. I gulped it in, along with the smell of seawater and mud and cesspits too, but it was not enough to banish the smoke, which hung in the air like chaff above a threshing fl oor or flour in a mill, but did not dance like chaff or flour. This smoke lay over and around everything, thick enough to rub between the fingers, quiescent as long-settled dust.

I crawled back to Consort Vulpeja. Her heart was beating stronger, harder, faster than before. I leaned against the cot, on my knees. There was elation somewhere, and if it wasn't mine, nevertheless I felt it lap through me like a warm tide. There were shadows in the smoke, in the corners of my eyes. I wasn't afraid of shadows, I greeted them as old friends and felt myself slipping out of my skin and I began to laugh at being free of it again, but no sound came out and I was bending forward at the waist, rocking and laughing soundlessly, giddy with it, slipping sideways. Instead of becoming light enough to fly, I was heavy and lying on the ground, my eyes open and full of shades, and I could see Na and see right through her to the curtain hanging from the ceiling of the tent. Na was laughing too and rocking back and forth, her mouth cracked wide, her teeth worn and yellow. I wanted to ask what amused her but couldn't utter a word, and it didn't matter because the laughter was catching, like a yawn I gave to her and she gave back to me. My ribs ached from this gaiety, I wheezed and gasped. After a while Na stopped laughing and came closer and stooped over me as I had stooped over Consort Vulpeja, peering at me, and she told me to hold fast and then she was gone.

I wished to see the Dame. I thought if Na was here she must be nearby too. I saw a figure in the distance carrying a candle and I was gladdened, thinking she came to me; then I found it was I who carried the candle. I wore Consort Vulpeja's dirty muslin shift and my feet were bare and the ground was freezing. I was unsteady, stumbling. The candlelight was too bright; it hurt my eyes. I snuffed it out and then I could see better, shades all around me, multitudes of shades, yet each was solitary. I searched for the Dame a long time before I realized it was Consort Vulpeja I sought and I began to call her name. My voice was the only sound in a muffling silence, and when I found her she was sitting upright upon a stool in a gown of rose and blue silk, as haughty as she'd been at the tourney field—so long ago, when she was still a maid—and she wasn't glad to see me, not at all. She rebuked me for disturbing her peace.

I shouted at her with no regard that she was of the Blood and I was not. I called her a whore and a fool and a weakling and a coward and when my insults failed to rouse her, I began to plead. She turned to walk away. I struck her with my fists then, and grabbed her by the hair and dragged her behind me though she wailed at me to leave off.

But I didn't know where to go. All directions were the same in this dark and barren place that never saw the Sun rise or set. I stopped, and the concubine twisted in my hands and tried to get away, and I did hold fast, as Na had told me to. And I prayed, though I didn't know where I was or whether any god could hear me.