Flesh and Fire (27 page)

The servant, his duties discharged, bowed himself out, closing the door behind him. For the first time in too many days, Jerzy was alone.

The silence disturbed his ears at first; after the constant sounds of the sea and sailors, and then the bustle of the palazzo, it was strange to be able to hear his own breathing. Soon enough, that silence became soothing, and he could relax. No fear of making a fool of himself here, alone.

The Vineart’s wing might be less grand than the main palazzo, but the room was twice as large as his chamber at home. The floor was tiled in an irregular pattern of cream squares, while the walls were cool and rough to the touch, washed a pale green color that reminded Jerzy of bonegrapes ripening on the vine. There was a bed, draped in a darker green coverlet, and the clothing cabinet, and a heavy, raised table of the same dark wood that Jerzy surmised could also be used as a desk. The rest of the room was empty space, and it made him feel dizzy all over again.

He sat on the bed, noting as he did so that despite the height of the bed, his feet still touched the floor, and that the floor itself, rather than a rug, had colored stones set into the middle of the room to create a design of a sort. He squinted but could not determine what the design was meant to be.

It had been morning when the ship docked, and the journey from the docks had not taken long, but somehow Jerzy felt as though he had been awake an entire day, and the thought of resting was an appealing one, especially since he did not know if he was supposed to stay here and wait or go in search of Giordan.

As tired as he was, there was something yet he needed to do, and now was the time to do it. Going to his trunk, he spat into his hand the way Malech taught him, to waken the quiet magic, the mage-blood, and held his palm over the iron lock.

“Unlock,” he told it quietly, and heard a small metallic click in response as the hasp swung open.

Inside, neatly folded, were his trou and shirts and jerkins, plus a few pieces that Jerzy did not recognize and, on closer inspection, turned out to be close-fitting pants similar in style, if not richness, to what Sar Anton had been wearing. Someone—Detta, Jerzy would guess—had been aware that styles were different. He held up the garment against his body and frowned. Maybe he would keep to what he was comfortable with, even if it did make him look like a hopeless foreigner.

Underneath the clothing, and placed above the boots and tools, was what he had been seeking. Lifting the cloth-wrapped bundle carefully out of the trunk, he laid it on the bed and unwrapped the fabric, revealing a precious mirror barely the size of his palm.

Malech had given it to him, with strict instructions on its use. If he were to discover anything, anything at all about a threat being directed against Vinearts, or heard of anything similar to what they had experienced—sightings of strange beasts or sudden unexplainable infestations of vineyards—he was to use that mirror to contact Malech rather than trusting to pigeons or human messengers.

Until then, Malech had told him, he was to keep the mirror hidden, safely away from prying eyes and possible breakage. “It cost me more than you did,” the Vineart told him seriously. “Although at this point you would be more difficult to replace.”

Jerzy was no longer certain in his ability to fulfill Master Malech’s directions. This place was so much larger and more confusing than he had expected, so much grander—it was not as though he could wander the halls of this palazzo, asking strangers if anything unusual had happened recently, anything they thought might be suspicious, or dangerous. . ..

Giordan might know something. But Malech had warned Jerzy not to share his concerns even with the other Vineart. How could he ask, without betraying what he sought?

Jerzy’s head hurt even more, thinking about it. For now, he would play the role he knew: student. He rewrapped the mirror and placed it back into the chest. He would have to find a proper place to hide it, soon, but it should be safest there for now.

He looked at the bed, but decided that if he slept now he would doubtless be up half the night. Instead, he took the opportunity to explore a little while he waited for someone to come fetch him. He went over to the single window in the room, a tall fixture that ran from floor to ceiling, and pushed aside the drape, only to discover that it swung open onto a small courtyard filled with more of the colorful flowers he had seen on the way in.

“Aha, there you are!” Giordan called happily from a chair and table set in the center of the courtyard, waving his arm in greeting. “They place you in very nice room, yes?”

“Yes,” Jerzy answered, stepping through the window-door. “A very nice room.”

“Good, good. It is a good thing.”

Jerzy sat down at the table with him, awkward in the presence of this man who was a Vineart, and yet seemed to be given so little respect. Had any man acted so toward Malech as Sar Anton had. . .Jerzy could not imagine what Malech might do, because it was not possible such a thing might happen.

“Not all welcome you here, you know.”

“No?” Sar Anton for one, Jerzy would guess.

“No. Others of our kind, they are, how do we say, vine bound. They do not want to ripen; they do not want to change. It would be better for you to fail than for them to see it can be different.”

“Oh.” Giordan meant other Vinearts, not people here. Malech had said the same thing, only it had been a distant worry then, overridden by other concerns. Giordan made those people seem more. . .unwelcoming, a threat rather than a worry.

“My maiar, he agrees to host you because I tell him it is good thing, will increase his status, not diminish it. He is much of status, he must stand to the council and be stronger than they, to control them. So we will do so, yes? We will make Giordan not a liar?”

Jerzy felt his throat tighten, and he suddenly wished that he was back on the boat, sickness and all. Why was Giordan looking at him like that? What did Giordan know? What did he want of Jerzy, in return? He was here to learn what he could, and to report back to Malech if he saw anything suspicious, and now this Vineart wanted him to be some kind of. . .commodity?

“Yes, of course,” he said to Giordan. What else could he do?

WHEN JERZY RETURNED to his room a few hours later, after being shown the workrooms within their wing where Giordan did his blending and incantations, something looked different. A moment of puzzlement, and his heart leaped into his mouth when he realized that someone had been in his room and moved the contents of his trunk into the wardrobe. He shoved his hands into the fabrics, panicked, only reassured when his fingers encountered the mirror, still carefully wrapped, on an upper shelf. If anyone had looked at it, they would have seen only an expensive item, too expensive for a servant even in this place to risk damaging. No one could know what its actual use was. He forced himself to breathe normally. Master Malech said that quiet-magic was a secret. No one save another Vineart could possibly even guess, and Giordan had been with him the entire time.

Reassured, he pushed the package back under the pile of clothing and crawled into the oversized bed. He was exhausted, every handspan of his body aching and stressed, but Jerzy was certain he would not be able to sleep at all, in this new place, with so much newness around him, so much uncertainty. He believed that even as his eyes closed and his body gave in to the day, and he slept.

Chapter 17

Jerzy woke well
before dawn, his dreams filled with the sensation of tossing waves and a donkey that spoke with Giordan’s voice but stared at him with Sar Anton’s eyes and wore a golden ring round its neck.

He lay under the smooth-woven blanket, looking at the painted ceiling, and listened to the sounds of birdsong in the garden outside his window on his first morning in Aleppan. There was a pain in his breast, like something sharp was caught there, and he wondered what the Guardian was doing at that moment, if Malech was in his workroom, if Detta was working the shuttle of her loom, making new clothing for them in preparation of next winter, or if she was busy in her office, going over accounts and shipments—

There was a knock at the door, then it was pushed open and a tousled dark-haired head peered around. “Awake, yes?”

“Yes,” Jerzy agreed, blinking at Giordan’s cheerful face.

“Good, good. Dress and meet me in the cellar. No more will I wake you; you must be there yourself.” With that, Giordan disappeared back into the hallway. Jerzy, oddly comforted by the brusque instructions, slipped out of the bed and rushed through his morning routine. The Vineart had not given him a time, so he had to assume that he was supposed to be in the cellar immediately.

It was only as he was tying up the laces of his shoes that he realized that, despite their tour of the workrooms yesterday, he had no idea how to find the cellar.

The cellars turned out to be badly named—they were actually aboveground, built into the back wall of the wing, with a sliding door similar to the one back home, where workers would bring the casks in, after crushing. Giordan had no slaves, something Jerzy found difficult to comprehend but didn’t feel was his place to question. Like Giordan’s relationship with the maiar, it was strange, almost outrageous, and yet everyone here seemed to take it as perfectly natural.

The confusion and uncertainty that had attached themselves to Jerzy seemed to only grow, day by day. Giordan was an enthusiastic teacher, more than willing to share what he knew, but the way the Vineart shared his knowledge was not Malech’s slow, show-then-try method, but rather an explosive dump of information that left Jerzy feeling staggered. Giordan would place a clay flask in front of Jerzy and rattle off the specifics of that vintage, then pluck another down and compare the two before Jerzy had the chance to consider the first. Worse, Giordan would ask Jerzy for a detail of how Malech did something, unleashing a stream of description of how Giordan might do something similar. Fascinating, yes, but there were terms and processes Giordan mentioned that Jerzy did not know, and the Vineart did not explain, leaving Jerzy near tears of frustration and feeling every speck the idiot Master Malech once called him.

Despite his frustration, Jerzy kept in mind both Master Malech’s regard for Giordan’s ability and the fact that he needed the Vineart’s sponsorship to remain within Aleppan.

The first few days, however, every time he left their wing, be it to pick up their meals from the kitchen or to deliver something for Giordan, he found himself lost in the much grander, more confusing halls of the palazzo proper, often being escorted to his destination by an amused guard. After the second time, Jerzy realized that his reputation as a possible simpleton, while embarrassing, could be useful. The most obvious place to begin listening for gossip would be within the city’s governance, the sars and citizens who came to see the city council, or the maiar himself. If the guards were used to him wandering, they would not think twice about him lingering to overhear conversations.

Unfortunately, while the servants quickly ignored him, they also had very little of interest to overhear, and the richly dressed courtiers stopped talking when a stranger lingered too long.

“You need to look less innocent.”

“Beg pardon?” Jerzy had been trying to follow the conversation of three older men who were complaining about the recent storms off the coast, when they noticed him and moved away, down the hallways toward the maiar’s private meeting hall. Unable to follow, Jerzy had slumped into a nearby bench and contemplated his shoes glumly, only to be interrupted by the unwelcome advice.

The speaker stood in front of him, bouncing slightly on his heels as though too full of energy to be still. He looked to be about Jerzy’s age, maybe a bit older, with dark, almond-shaped eyes similar to Jerzy’s own but a round face and straight, dark hair slicked away from his forehead, dressed in a dark gray shirt with a fine leather vest over it, and below that, boots that rose over his knees. “You look like a total innocent, a babe in the waters. Those sweet eyes and open expression. . .you could make a small fortune in the marketplace, no matter what you were selling. But here? Here, my friend, innocence is suspicious, not to be trusted. There is no true innocence here, so it must be feigned. And if it is feigned, they think, what is this handsome young man truly hiding?”

Jerzy started to reply, but the stranger continued after a quick breath of air. “Ah. And here you are, thinking; why should I take advice from this person, who may or may not have my best interest at heart?” He bowed, a florid gesture that cried out to be mocked. “I am Ao, of the Eastern Wind trading clan, here as part of a hopeful but so far luckless delegation to convince the lord-maiar to allow us to carry the work of his wool merchants. And you can only be the Vineart Jerzy, of whom everyone is whispering and none know the particulars of. So now we know each other and you may take my advice for exactly what it is worth.”

“And what is that?” Jerzy asked.

“Whatever the market will trade me for it,” Ao said, and then he laughed. Unlike Giordan’s exuberant shouts of laughter, Ao’s was quieter, more as though he were amused and despairing at the same time, at the world and himself as well. It reminded Jerzy of Malech somehow, and he felt a wash of loneliness. “For now, though, shall we call it a friendship gift? For you are an interesting fellow, Jerzy of the unknown, Jerzy of the innocent face and listening ears. And I? I am always interested in the interesting.”

Malech had warned him to be careful, to confide in no one. And yet. . .

“I am Jerzy of House Malech,” he said, formally accepting the offer and making room on the bench. Ao was more strongly built than Jerzy, more like a laborer than a trader, and had almost impossibly straight white teeth in a wide mouth, and a flat nose that looked like it had been cracked in two sometime before.

“I’ve never met a Vineart before,” he said. “Which is strange, when you think about it. We travel everywhere, have contacts everywhere— and yet, no Vinearts. I suppose it’s because we don’t drink.”

“You. . .what?”

“Don’t drink.” Ao shrugged. “Oh, we’re not fanatics, don’t worry. There are places, farther east and north, where they think vinespells are a sin, that magic is an abomination, and so on and frothing at the mouth like mad dogs. Me, I like magic just fine. It’s a wondrous thing; the world would be a far harder place without it. But we never saw the need to partake; we get to where we’re going on our own and don’t rely on others to tame the winds or soothe the seas. And out of that I suppose we never developed the taste for your
ordinaire,
either.”

Jerzy was confused, but fascinated. “So what do you trade?”

“A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Mainly cloth goods, now, and occasionally gems or fine metals. We don’t handle livestock, thank the gods. Have you ever spent any length of time with sheep?”

“No,” Jerzy admitted, feeling very sheltered and unworldly.

“Don’t.” Ao’s eyes were bright with humor. “There, you have learned something already. This first, I give to you as a present. But now you need to learn how to be inconspicuous. Ah, where shall we begin?”

Jerzy started to protest, but Ao waved him down. “No, no, it’s no bother, I’d been at loose ends a bit myself, not authorized to bargain on my own yet, and we’re here for another three weeks, until we’re due to meet with the others in Vlaandern.” Ao shuddered slightly at the name. “Horrible place. Terrible food, worse bargaining. But we’re not there yet, and anything can happen. And for fair trade, well, teaching reinforces the lesson for the teacher as well, so we’re getting equal value.”

He studied his new student with an expression that Jerzy recognized all too well, having seen it countless times before on Malech’s face: an evaluating sort of assessment. “All right. To begin with, you need to learn how to ask a question so that it sounds like you already know the answer. . ..”

JERZY MEANT TO try his new skill out on Giordan, to test Ao’s instructions, but when he arrived in the workroom the next morning, the Vineart had just taken possession of a new batch of shipping jugs, and the rest of the day was spent filling them with the previous Harvest’s spellwines, sealing them with specially treated wax, and inscribing Giordan’s name and the type of wine on the side, so that there could be no confusion at the other end of their journey. By the time Jerzy had a moment to rest, Giordan disappeared on another errand, leaving Jerzy on his own for the evening. Rather than remain in the suddenly-too-quiet wing, Jerzy ate a quick dinner in the kitchen, surrounded by familiar bustle, if not familiar faces, and then went wandering through the hallway, hoping to encounter Ao again. But the trader was nowhere to be seen, and when Jerzy dredged up the courage to ask a passing servant, the man could tell him only that the Eastern Wind delegation had been summoned to the maiar’s appointment hall.

Jerzy had yet to meet the maiar or even see him except in passing at a distance. In fact, he had met very few people, as Giordan claimed most of his time during the day. The days went by with him learning a great deal about how to cultivate the delicate weathervines, but not of anything odd or unusual occuring—and not even a hint of a rumor of strange beasts or mysterious illnesses.

As that first week ended and Ao did not contact him, or appear anywhere Jerzy looked, he assumed that the trader had been pulled back into his clan’s negotiations and forgotten all about his promise to teach Jerzy more on how to go unnoticed. Thankfully, Giordan seemed to settle down once the excitement of Jerzy’s arrival wore off, and the lessons began to grip more of Jerzy’s attention.

Giordan was quizzing him on the elements of location and its effect on mustus on an otherwise quiet afternoon, when a slender young woman appeared in the door of the cellar and waited, clearly there for a reason. A second sideways glance confirmed the fact that she was the House-keeper Jerzy had been handed over to on the first day.

“And in the mountains?” Giordan hadn’t noticed the woman, intent on the lecture.

Even distracted by the new arrival, Jerzy didn’t have to think about that, the response coming directly to his lips. “Brownstone and gravel. The grapes there are grown on the upper slopes, to catch the most of the sunlight, and allow the river to flow down past the roots rather than pool around them. The conditions create a ripe fruit that can be harvested early, before frost settles in, but because of that, the magic does not have time to come to ripeness, and only a strong Vineart can craft a spellwine from the grapes. The
vin ordinaires
of that region are in high demand, however, because of their sweetness.”

“You sound disapproving,” the woman said, breaking into the lesson without shame. She was still dressed in a simple gown, but today the color was brighter, the fabric more fine, and there were jewels on her fingers and in her coiled-back hair, making her skin seem even paler.

Jerzy blinked in surprise at the interruption, and glanced at Giordan for direction. The Vineart, however, merely made a subdued greeting and then seemed to be particularly fascinated with a nonexistent smudge on the wall, offering no help at all.

“There is nothing wrong with
vin ordinaire,
Mistress Mahault. My master himself serves it at his table.” Occasionally, and only the finest quality. No need to say that. “And yet, a Vineart crafts spellwine. The magic is why we exist, our purpose in this world.
Vin ordinaire
is. . .”

“Common?”

Jerzy felt the walls close in around him like a trap. “My lady, I would not say so.”

“But you would think so?” She stared at him, her eyes cooler than Malech’s even when he was angry, and he shivered. “I am not a fan of the sweet wines, but do not ever presume that one without magic is without power, Vineart. Common, or no.”

Jerzy realized, suddenly, that he had been wrong in his first assumption. This was no House-keeper, not dressed as she was, and speaking with such assurance and menace.

“Vineart Giordan. My mother would speak with you at your convenience. She expects a new shipment of spices today, and would welcome your assessment of their quality.”

“Of course,” Giordan said. “It would be my honor to lend my nose to such an event.”

She nodded once to Giordan, who sketched a shallow bow in return, and exited the room with a sweep of fabric and the faint scent of autumn flowers. Jerzy shivered although the workroom was comfortably cool.

“Spices. Bah. I won’t be able to work for an hour, after. But we do what we must. And you, you are a fool and a menace,” Giordan said, shaking his head. “Malech is strong enough to spit in the face of the power, but do not think you are, no matter how talented you may indeed be. That was the lord-maiar’s daughter herself you just crossed words with. She may not be a favored child right now, but her word could toss us both to the street, if she so chose.”

The chill returned, this time bringing sweat. “But the lord-maiar—”

“Bah,” Giordan said again. “The maiar is only the ruler outside his home, in the city, and over the people. Here, the lady-wife rules. Save my vines, all here is hers, and her daughter’s after her.”

Jerzy gaped at him.

“Close your mouth, you look the idiot you are.” Giordan had the tone of someone about to explain that water was wet and the sun warm. “Ah, Jerzy you are talented, yes, but foolish, and your master’s isolation makes him forget things. We Vinearts, we are exempt from the rest of society, but you must know how to live in it nonetheless, so learn this and learn it well. By law, a home, no matter the grandeur, is the woman’s to hold and to manage. So it is in the prince’s own castle and the meanest farmer’s hut. Here, and in your own land as well. Only a Vineart, by Sin Washer’s grace without a wife, might call his land his own. Thus has it ever been, in custom and in law.”