Gift of the Goddess (31 page)

An hour after dawn, her elbow slipped off the mattress and hit the cold floor. Swearing, she levered her eyes open. Brin had rolled onto his side, with Trey plastered against his back. If they shifted another inch, she’d find herself lying on the floor. Sleep became an impossibility. Sighing, she got up and dressed.

A foolish smile on her lips, she leaned against the wall and watched her men sleep for the sheer pleasure of it. Gripping her hands together, she muttered a quick prayer of gratitude to the Mother. Then she said another for Lufra. If her soul wanted to sing a paean of thanks and joy, surely it couldn’t do any harm to include the Feolin goddess?

Slipping out the door, she went to find Braithie.

The girl was hauling water from a pump in the alley, bowed under the weight of the buckets, her long, bare feet pale with cold. Anje had to take the buckets out of her hands, and sit her on a rickety stool to get her attention. Then she talked and talked, while Braithie’s eyes grew rounder and rounder.

Returning, she met Trey at the top of the stairs. He wrapped her up in an exuberant hug, ignoring the large bowl she was holding. “Morning, sweetheart. I love you.” He peered at the sloshing contents. “What’s that?”

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“I think it’s porridge.” Anje peered at the glutinous mess. “The Mother only knows. But it’s hot and there’s enough for us all. Is he awake?”

Trey shook his head. “I let him sleep. He’s exhausted.”

“We have to plan, Trey.”

The door creaked open. “So we do. The Day of the Dark is only eight days away.” Brin leaned against the doorjamb, magnificently naked, scratching his bare chest and yawning. “I missed you, scout.” He favored Anje with a half-smile that reduced her brain to the same consistency as their breakfast and tugged her into the room.

“Here. Eat something.” Anje shoved the dish into his hands and brushed her lips across his uninjured arm.

Trey grinned and took advantage by swatting Brin across the backside. Then he gripped and squeezed. Spots of color burned on the shaman’s high cheekbones and his hands clenched around the bowl. He cleared his throat. “Do you actually have a plan?”

“Sort of,” said Trey. “We didn’t know if we’d come out of the rescue with whole hides.” Brin’s brow darkened and Trey hurried on. “So we thought we’d lie low for a few days. Only…” He ran a hand over his scalp and looked startled at its smoothness. “I don’t trust Nilda. If she decides there’s more money to be made by turning us in to the Hssrda…” He shrugged.

“And I promised Braithie I’d get her away from the woman, didn’t I?” Brin swallowed a spoonful of porridge and made a face. “That’ll teach me to be noble. How much money do we have?”

A search through garments and belt pouches produced thirty gold marks and a few coppers.

“What’s all this for?” asked Brin, staring at the haul.

“A pleasure slave, that’s what for,” said Trey. “And the blast powder and Anje’s clothes and—”

“I understand.” Brin held up a hand. “We have to get out of here and soon. Thank Lufra, you saved the saddle bags.” He upended one and shook it. “Where are my old boots?”

“If we had enough…” Anje’s voice trailed off.

“What?” asked Brin, eying a pair of worn trews with profound disfavor.

“We could send Braithie to Mother’s Hearth,” she said in a rush. “With my map.”

“So we could.” Brin paused, his hands on his laces. “But would she go?”

“She says she will.”

He raised a brow. “How did you manage that?”

“I told her about the Children of the Mother.” Anje smiled and patted the heavy band of muscle on his bare chest. “Do you know who the Children are? How they began?”

“No.”

162 Gift of the Goddess

“There’s a story.” Anje sank cross-legged to the mattress. She gazed up at the Feolin. “More than a thousand years ago, five women banded together. Their names are lost in time, so we call them the Sisters of Desperation. They’d all been beaten, raped, diminished by cruelty. The laws of the society they lived in tied them to brutal men.”

Brin frowned and Trey shifted his feet. Anje went on, her voice lifting, “But they were strong. They escaped. Took their children and fled across the Empty Lands. They were the founders of Mother’s Hearth, the first Matriarchs. Don’t you see?” She rose. “The Children are strong now, but Mother’s Hearth is still a refuge. If she wants to work in the Pleasure Quarter, fine.” She shrugged. “But no one can force Braithie to do anything against her will. Not where women rule.”

“And men?” asked Brin.

“Men are valued. They have an equal voice in all things, save the final decisions. The Matriarchs make those, but they welcome male counsel.”

“It’s not a bad idea, scout. Let me think.” Brin stamped into his boots, all grim purpose. The beard gave him a dark, piratical air. At last he said, “We could send her with a merchant’s caravan. They come through The Hollows all the time for the hides. There’ll be someone taking a route that crosses the Empty Lands for sure. I can only see a single problem, but it’s a big one.”

“Isn’t thirty gold marks enough?” asked Anje, her heart sinking.

“Not by half.” Brin quirked a brow. “Unless she earns the rest of the passage on her back.”

“No!”

“That’s what I thought you’d say. I’ll take care of it.” He glanced at Trey. “You say this Nilda knows her way ‘round the town?”

Trey nodded and Brin said decisively, “Right. I’m going out. You two stay here and pack. I want us ready to leave when I get back.”

“But—” Trey took a jerky step forward.

Brin overrode him. “That shiny head makes you a marked man.” Trey snorted, but he pressed his lips together. “And once they get a decent look at Anje, she’ll be hip-deep in potential slave-masters. Scout?”

“Yes?”

“Make a copy of your map.”

“I get to bandage your arm first.” She pushed up her chin.

He submitted with barely concealed impatience while she dabbed the wound with cleansing lotion and taped it up as best she could.

“How long before we come looking?” asked Trey.

Brin’s jaw set. “I’ll be back before dark. You wait. Whatever happens, whatever you think, you wait. Understand?” His tone was uncompromising, his expression implacable. He’d diminished the link to a mere spark, a tiny, warm presence in the back of her mind.

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Trey grunted, clearly unhappy.

“It’s all right, Trey. I’ll know if it’s bad or if…” Anje trailed off. She squared her shoulders. “What are you going to do?”

The shaman’s lips quirked. “Something only I can do. You’re better off not knowing.” At her curse, he cradled her chin in one big, warm palm and tilted it. “You’ll do what you’re told.” He fixed a midnight stare on Trey. “Both of you.”

“Who’s going to watch your back?” Trey’s brows pulled together with concern.

Anje sighed. Mother save her, but reasoning with him would be useless. She could feel the strength of his resolve hum across the link. She dragged his head down for a kiss. “Be careful.”

One dark brow arched. “Always.” Brin punched Trey lightly on the arm, pulled the younger man into a brief hug and set him aside just as quickly. Then he walked out the door without a backward glance.

The shabby room felt empty without his presence. Sighing, Anje patted Trey’s shoulder and opened her pack.

The hours dragged interminably. Occasionally, something would leak across the link, a flavor of controlled aggression, of exhaustion, of satisfaction. Occasionally, there’d be a flash of pain, almost instantly suppressed. Anje whimpered and got up to pace. She couldn’t sit still. The blood danced in her veins, though her stomach was knotted with tension. Trey came to drape his arm over her shoulders, the limp barely perceptible now, and they paced together, across the little room, out the door, down the passage. Back again.

It was late afternoon before they heard his step on the stair, not as quick or light as when he’d left. The shaman’s dark head was bowed, his hair swung in a black curtain across his face.

When he stopped halfway up and looked up at them, Anje couldn’t suppress a small shriek. “Holy Mother, Brin! What have you done?”

164 Gift of the Goddess

Chapter Twenty-Four

Guards wanted for caravan to Empty Lands. Ex-soldiers or good street brawlers preferred. Fair wages—quarter on leaving, rest on arrival. Ask for Captain Tenzal at the Miner’s Arms.

Poster on wall, The Hollows.

Brin grinned then winced, touching one finger to his puffy lip. “Went to a dive Nilda knew and picked a fight. I got her to hold the bets.”

“Mother of Mercy,
why
?” Anje wrapped her hand around the splintered balustrade so she couldn’t hit him. It wouldn’t have been fair. Blood dripped from a cut over his eyebrow and seeped from beneath the bandage on his arm. A dark bruise bloomed across one cheekbone and the knuckles of both big hands were scraped raw and bloody. His shirt was a ruin.

“For the money.” Trey ran down the stairs. “For us. Don’t tell me your knee got done again.” He inserted his shoulder under Brin’s arm.

The shaman grunted. “Bastard kicked it out from under me.” He began to climb, slowly, trying not to put his full weight on the other man.

Anje found her voice. “You’re mad,” she said with conviction. “Completely and utterly demented.”

“It was the quickest way.” Brin reached the top of the stairs and stood, towering over her. He grinned again, a purely masculine expression of satisfaction. “Anyway, I
needed
to hit someone.”

“Gods, I wish I’d been there!” Trey’s eyes shone. “How big was he?”

“There was more than one. The miner was about my size. The tanner was shorter, but he had his smell fighting for him, not to mention a knife.”

Anje growled and shoved Brin toward the mattress. “Sit,” she said through clenched teeth and he folded his long legs and sank down.

“What did you do to him, the tanner?” asked Trey and the shaman’s face shuttered.

“He won’t pull a knife in a bare-knuckle bout again,” he said flatly and Trey shut his mouth with a snap.

Anje said, “I’m going to heat some water,” but Brin wrapped long fingers around her calf and drew her back.

“Don’t you want to hear the rest?”

“There’s
more
?”

“Oh yes.” The onyx eyes glinted with satisfaction. “I paid off Nilda and found a merchant to take Braithie to the Children of the Mother. I’m not saying he’s completely

165 Denise Rossetti

honest, mind, but he has a regular run into Feolin. He’s well known there, so he has a reputation to lose.”

“Sweet Mother!” Anje’s throat closed and her heart began to knock against the cage of her ribs.

“Remember Raidle?”

“Who?”

Brin waved a hand. “Last night, at the Hssrda camp.”

The stocky man who’d lost an ear. She nodded. “What about him?”

“The Hssrda took him on the other side of the mountains and he wants to go home.” The shaman shifted, straightening his bad knee. “But for the price of a decent mount and a bit more, he’s prepared to detour to Mother’s Hearth. And he’ll move much faster than Braithie and the merchant’s caravan. He’ll double your chances, scout. Better make a second copy of the map.”

Anje stared, speechless. Slow tears welled up and spilled over to slide down her cheeks.

“What? What is it?” Brin patted her on the shoulder as she threw herself over his chest. “Anje?”

As the shaman of a goddess, he knew it shouldn’t bother him, but female tears had always filled him with unease. Gods, it was as well he had no daughters, they’d tie him in knots with the first sniffle. His guts clenched.

He rolled an eye at Trey who shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

No daughters, no children. Ever.

The Great Rite was the last hope. A wave of longing swept through him, painfully acute, followed a heartbeat later by a dark tide of self-contempt. He gritted his teeth. No choice, no damn choice at all.

Anje sat up. “You give me back my honor.” She sniffed and scrubbed at her wet cheeks. “I never cry. Sorry.”

Brin felt the color heat his cheeks. “Honor.” The stubborn way she clung to her duty filled him with scalding shame. He’d promised to treat her with honor, but it hadn’t been possible, not if he was to save the Feolin from a bitter, childless decline. Gods, it was hardly possible for a man to sink any lower! How could he say he’d hated what he’d done, when he knew he’d do exactly the same again if he had to?

But he
did
hate it, he loathed it with every particle of his being.

Lufra, but he loved her! There was a sort of fell, dark humor to it, a kind of awful symmetry. In his arrogance and stupidity, he’d promised himself he’d keep her heart-whole. Instead, he was going to get her killed. And his punishment would be his own destruction.

At least, he hoped it would be.