Impossible Things (19 page)

Ishtaer’s hand clutched at the pouch, her knuckles white.

‘But only every now and then,’ he added gently.

Ishtaer passed Brutus into the custody of Durran and Garik, who loved to watch the men practising, and told the dog, ‘Sit. I’m safe. Safe, Brutus.’

Clearly this was something she’d trained him to understand, because he lay down with his nose on his paws and didn’t attack anyone who waved a sword at her.

Kael gave Ishtaer and Eirenn both wooden swords and watched them spar for a while. Eirenn wasn’t bad, except that his footwork let him down, and Kael could tell he’d never been up against a serious Chosen opponent. He might do okay against the regular lads, but if he tried to fight Kael or Verak or even the boys back at the Academy, he’d be mincemeat.

Ishtaer had a few good moves and her instincts were impeccable, but what Eirenn had said all those months ago still held true. She was a defensive fighter, always keeping herself from harm and never attacking. Yes, she had the major handicap of not being able to see what was coming, but Kael figured her timidity was her biggest problem.

‘All right,’ he said after a while. ‘Eirenn, I want to see you against Rammlig. Go easy on him, Ramm.’

Rammlig, who looked like an ox but was as gentle as a lamb, grinned. Eirenn looked terrified but covered it well.

‘Ish,’ Kael said, ‘fight me.’

She nodded and took up a fighting stance, but Kael knocked her feet out from under her, and she sprawled on the ground before his sword got anywhere near her.

‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t expect me to fight politely.’

She got up, tensed for another attack. Too tense. Her grip on the practice sword was white-knuckled. Kael rapped her hand with his weapon, and she stifled a cry as she dropped it.

‘Pick it up. Try again.’

This time he let her cross swords with him, just the once, before he sent her sprawling.

‘Again.’

Another clash of swords. Another fall.

‘Again. Again. We do this until I’m the one on the ground.’

Again and again she fell, and again and again she picked herself up and prepared to be knocked down. Kael’s frustration grew.

‘Stop letting me attack you. Fight back, girl.’

‘I’m trying—’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘You won’t let me!’

‘Let you?’ He watched her hit the ground again. She’d be black and blue under her padded training gear. ‘Enemies don’t “let” you do anything, Ishtaer. Except die. Now get up, and forget about fighting fair.’

She got up, her chin jutting. He couldn’t tell if it was with tears or determination.

Suddenly it hit him that he’d never seen her cry. He’d seen her angry, he’d seen her frightened, he’d seen her so tired she could barely speak, but he’d never seen her cry.

Before he worked out if he could use that to his advantage, Ishtaer’s wooden sword hit him between the legs and he went down with a howl.

‘How’s that for not fighting fair?’ she asked, and Kael nodded, his eyes watering, while all around them his men guffawed with laughter.

That afternoon, rather later than she’d planned due to Kael’s relentless training, Ishtaer opened her little treatment room to the castle residents who’d been patiently waiting for the return of their Healer since Kael took him to Palavio. She dealt with a variety of everyday ailments, similar to the ones she’d treated at the Academy sickbay, the worst of which was a broken wrist which had been strapped up as ‘a bit sore’ two weeks ago.

‘There really should be someone else here to treat these things,’ she said after the patient had left, to what she thought was an empty room.

‘Couldn’t agree more,’ Mags said, startling her. ‘I often said the same to Karnos, but he was very, er, set in his ways.’

Ishtaer turned away to hide the flush in her cheeks and started tidying her implements. ‘At the Academy we had non-Chosen learning herbology and surgery. It’s considered quite a good career. Maybe … if you know someone here who might be interested in learning, I could certainly use a hand. And it would be really helpful while I’m training.’

‘Or when Kael carts you off to war.’

‘Does he do that often?’

‘If someone threatens Krulland he’s there like a shot. But that doesn’t happen often. People are scared of Krull the Warlord. If they saw him reading bedtime stories to his kids it’d be a different story, but I suppose that’s why he doesn’t take them with him.’

His child will die to save him
.

‘That’s one reason,’ Ishtaer said evenly.

‘He buggers off to the Empire every now and then, just to remind people who he is and what he does. Goes off privateering sometimes, or gets hired to sort out a mess like in Palavio, but sometimes I think he just goes if he’s bored, or thinks the men are getting lazy, or if he’s got some loyalties there. But mostly it’s because he gets paid.’

‘He said he has a lot of gold.’

‘Aye. Well, running a small country with a fearsome defensive force isn’t cheap.’ There was a creak as Mags took a seat. ‘He’s a generous man, but there isn’t a lot of spare gold. Most of it’s spoken for.’

‘Winter food and things like that,’ Ishtaer agreed.

‘There’s little call for fancy jewellery and rich clothing around here,’ Mags went on, a strange note in her voice, ‘and no call for socialising.’

Ishtaer frowned, and turned to face the other woman, wishing like hell she could read her expression.

‘I wouldn’t expect there is. Kael said the nearest town is a day’s journey, and mostly he goes there for supplies or to hold a feudal court.’

‘Utgangen, yes. Not a glamorous place.’

‘I didn’t come here looking for glamour,’ Ishtaer said cautiously, and then realisation hit her. ‘And I didn’t come here looking for— for—I’m not interested in Kael. Not like that. Did you think that?’ she babbled, words running into each other.

‘He’s a rich, powerful, handsome man,’ Mags said.

‘He spends most of his money on winter food, he does what the Emperor tells him, and I’ve no idea how handsome he is or isn’t,’ Ishtaer said. ‘I’m really not interested in him. Trust me. I’m the last woman who would be.’

Mags was silent a moment, probably waiting for Ishtaer to burst out with something else. She turned away instead, her cheeks flaming once more.

‘All right. He does get a lot of women sniffing around, that’s all. I mean, what he does in the privacy of his bedchamber is his own concern, but if he were to marry it would affect us all.’

Especially you
, Ishtaer thought, and wondered whether she should say anything.

‘I don’t want to marry him,’ she said instead.

‘Is there something between you and Eirenn?’

‘No. He’s a friend. A good friend, but just a friend.’

‘He wants more than that, you know.’

Ishtaer closed her eyes, mostly to keep from rolling them. ‘Less than a day and you can see that?’

‘Anyone with eyes can see it.’ Mags made an embarrassed noise. ‘I didn’t mean—’

‘I’m used to it,’ Ishtaer said, waving her hand dismissively.

‘He’s a handsome lad. Clever, funny, devoted to you.’

‘Still not interested.’

Mags paused for a long time. Ishtaer ran out of things to tidy.

‘Is it women you’re interested in?’

She nearly choked. ‘No. Really not. I’m not interested in anyone, Mags. I’m quite fine as I am.’

She listened to the tap of Brutus’s claws on the stone floor as he wandered over to Mags, and the thump of his tail against the table legs as she said hello. Then Mags said, ‘Are you running from someone?’

Constantly
.

‘I haven’t left a husband behind, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘Neither had Ilse, but she was still running. I think from her father. You remind me of her. That is, she was very slight, and fair – Garik takes after her that way. But he doesn’t have the same eyes. You do.’

Ishtaer finally turned around. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She always looked like she was poised to bolt. Or to crumble. You’re not fragile like she was, but you still look as if you’re only a few harsh words from falling apart.’

Ishtaer didn’t know what to say to that.

‘Kael didn’t know the worst of it, I think,’ Mags went on. ‘He seemed to think that once he’d brought her here and given her safety, that she’d be all right. Then he buggered off to another war, and Ilse fell apart.’

‘Did she love him?’

‘I think she might have done. I think she idolised him. He rescued her. He was a knight in shining armour to her. And he didn’t give her much more thought than … well, than a horse he once rescued from a beating.’

Ishtaer said nothing, her fingertips gripping the countertop behind her.
Like a horse he’d rescued from a beating
. Yes, that was it, that was how he’d treated her. As not quite human. At least, until she’d shown him …

‘I do wonder, if he’d stayed, if he hadn’t seemed to give up on her, if she’d still be alive. I think she thought Kael might marry her, and she might be mistress of Skjultfjell.’

‘Like you?’

‘Oh, I run the place, that’s entirely different.’

Ishtaer straightened up and crossed to the small stove where she could boil water for sterilising instruments, mix potions or just make tea. She put the kettle on it.

‘Tea?’

‘Please.’

She busied herself making it, aware Mags was watching her, expecting the sort of comment she’d had all day, that she wasn’t half as clumsy as people expected a blind girl to be. Instead, Mags said, ‘Will you tell me what you’re running from?’

I’m not running
, Ishtaer wanted to say, but all she could do was shake her head.

‘I can’t. I’m sorry, I …’ She put down the teapot before she dropped it. ‘I’m running from who I used to be. I’m not her any more. I’m trying really hard not to be her. And I don’t want to think about who she was.’

Mags said, ‘Was she dangerous? Was she a criminal?’

‘No.’ Although it could be considered a crime what happened to her.

‘Does Kael know about this?’

Ishtaer nodded. ‘But not Eirenn, and he’s too good a friend to ask. Take it from me, he wouldn’t like me half so well if he knew.’

‘Maybe you should tell him, then.’

‘No. Then I’d have no friends.’

‘You know, that’s rather up to you,’ said Mags, and Ishtaer had the feeling she was failing some kind of test.

Mags continued to be polite to Ishtaer, but never quite as friendly as she was to everyone else. Eirenn charmed her, just as he charmed everyone, and whenever Kael released him from training duties he was usually found in the kitchen making the girls giggle helplessly with some outlandishly embellished tale. He also became a favourite with the children of the castle, and after dinner he often sat down in a corner of the longhouse by the fire and made up stories for them.

‘Some people have the habit of making friends ever so easily, don’t they?’ Kael said to Ishtaer one evening after his sons had dragged Eirenn over to the fireplace.

‘I don’t think it’s a habit so much as something he does out of … I don’t know. Self-preservation, maybe.’

‘Very perspicacious of you,’ Kael said, laughing. He poured more wine into her cup. ‘Of course, for a Warrior the better self-preservation would be to learn how to use a sword.’

‘He’s getting better!’

‘Sure. But I was talking about you too.’

She sighed. ‘I thought I was getting better.’

‘You are. But not good enough. Look. I know you graduated as a Healer ridiculously early, but in truth you’d been healing for years, just without crystals. I reckon you already had a pretty good handle on how to treat people, right?’

‘Apart from myself,’ Ishtaer said, thinking of her leg.

‘And I know for years you never had the chance to defend yourself.’ His voice was soft. They were alone at the table, and no one else in the longhouse was paying much attention. ‘Listen. Ishtaer. I promised you when I met you that I would never … force you, and neither would any of my men. They have been treating you with respect, haven’t they?’

‘Yes, of course, everyone has.’ She’d even endured some mild flirting from one or two of the men, but that had stopped so abruptly she suspected Kael had said something to them.

‘But if they didn’t? What if some man cornered you? What if no one was around to help?’

Ishtaer felt her fists form claws, her body tighten in on itself.

‘I’d kill any man who hurt you,’ Kael said softly, ‘but I can’t always be there. You have to fight for yourself.’

Her chair scraped loudly on the dais as she shoved it back.

‘I’ve been fighting for myself every day of my life,’ she said, and ran before he could say anything else. Brutus ran after her, apparently thinking this was a game, and it was only when she was safely back in her own room with the door locked that she slid down to the floor and he realised she was upset.

He wriggled close to her, licking her face anxiously, and when someone knocked on the door he growled at it.

‘Ishtaer, let me talk to you,’ Kael said, and she ignored him.

‘I’ll show you how I fight,’ she muttered, and in the morning went out to the yard with battle in her eyes.

She was going to beat seven hells out of Kaelnar Vapensigsson, by fair means or foul.

Arriving in the yard, she called to Garik and Durran and told them to take Brutus for a walk. She wasn’t worried the dog would intervene, but she didn’t want the boys to see her humiliate their father. Because humiliate him she damn well would.

‘Papa, can we go and play on the ice? Ingmar Bondeson said he was skating on it yesterday!’

‘If you’re very careful. Test it first. You know the drill.’

‘Yes, Papa, thank you, Papa!’

She’d been at Skjultfjell for a couple of months, and every day the daylight got a little shorter and the weather got a little colder. Today the breeze was icy, and she hadn’t been surprised to hear that several of the freshwater ponds had frozen over and the yards needed to be cleared of snow. It hadn’t even got light until midmorning, which meant their training sessions started later and later.

‘You okay?’ Eirenn asked as she pulled on her gloves.

‘I’m fine. Who am I fighting today?’

‘Me,’ said Kael, right behind her, and she made herself turn calmly.

‘What a surprise.’

‘And you won’t need that,’ he added, taking the sword from her.

‘Unarmed it is then,’ Ishtaer said, actually quite looking forward to punching him.

‘No. Real steel today. Get your mail on.’

She realised that the sounds around her were subtly different. Yes, the movement of heavy mail shirts, the clash of metal on metal, the occasional indrawn breath as someone scored a hit.

‘I’ll be busy this afternoon,’ she murmured, and took the mail shirt Eirenn was offering.

For once, Kael didn’t try to ambush her before she was ready, but let her settle the long shirt in place, secure the cuffs at her wrists and don her gauntlets. She belted the shirt, which came to her knees and was split at the front and back to allow movement.

‘Coif,’ Kael said, handing her the mail hood and standing behind her to lace it so that it fit tightly around her neck. Ishtaer hated wearing a coif, which made hearing with precision pretty impossible, but the idea of a sword to the neck was less palatable.

‘Shield,’ he said, and fitted it to her left arm before handing her a sword.

Ishtaer had borrowed swords from the Academy when she rescued Kael, and once she’d handed them back he’d lent her one from his own stores to wear at her hip. It was more for the look of the thing than for any real defence, although it had given her some comfort to carry it on board the
Grey Ghost
.

‘Anything else?’ she enquired, testing the weight and feel of the sword.

‘Yes. This,’ Kael said, and swung his sword at her.

She’d got better since she arrived. Her reactions had improved, she was faster and more nimble – but even so, she only just stepped out of the way of a blow that would have turned her shoulder black and blue. She raised her own sword and thrust up, trying to catch him under the arm, but he slipped away and her sword just glanced off his mail.

She checked the movement and sliced back the other way, jabbing his ribs.

‘Ow,’ he said, and sounded pleased.

Just you wait
, Ishtaer thought, and began to fight in earnest.

The mail was heavy, and despite the cold day sweat began to seep through her shirt as she drove Kael back, fury pushing her on. His sword clashed with hers again and again, sliding her blows away, but she was gaining on him, sending him backwards as she attacked relentlessly.

That
blow was for every time he patronised her, and
that
was for telling her to fight harder when she’d been fighting all her life, and
that
was for every time he wandered around half naked in front of her and expected she didn’t know, and
that
—

‘All right, all right, yield!’

Like I’m falling for that,
thought Ishtaer, who usually ended up sprawled on the floor when Kael appeared to give in.

‘Ishtaer, stop,’ he gasped, and when she didn’t he kicked her foot out from under her and she ended up on her back anyway.

Seething with anger, she hooked her foot around his ankle and brought him crashing down too. Unfortunately, where he crashed was right on top of her, his sword slamming down onto her right arm.

For a long moment she was too winded to think, and then pain began to radiate out from her arm.

‘You’re a lunatic today,’ he said, and she shoved at him. Or at least she tried to. Her right arm didn’t seem to be cooperating, and her left one was stuck behind its shield.

‘You wanted me to fight,’ she said, ‘so here I am, fighting. Now will you get off me, please?’

‘All right, so you’re attacking, but you need a bit more common sense—’

He was chatting with her as if they were sharing a tankard of ale, not lying on top of her in a freezing training yard. ‘Would you please get off me before I attack you again?’

‘Oh.’ Kael got to his knees, and as he did a jerking, tugging pain shot through Ishtaer’s arm. ‘Oh,
hells
.’

‘Well, at least I’m wearing mail,’ Ishtaer began, attempting to sit up and falling back with a gasp, her arm buckling the second she tried to put weight on it.

‘Oh gods, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise – here,’ Kael abandoned his sword and grabbed for Ishtaer’s injured arm. She cried out sharply.

‘Look, just get this damn shield off me, would you?’

He quickly did, and she sat up cautiously, aware that the activity in the yard had quietened considerably. With her freed left hand she felt at her right arm. Kael’s sword had slammed into it, and if she hadn’t been wearing the mail shirt he’d probably have sliced it right off. As it was, the force of the blow had broken at least one of the bones in her forearm, and pounded several metal rings into her flesh. Already her arm was swelling up and her hand was utterly numb.

‘I’m sorry, Ishtaer, that looks … Let me help you—’

Irritated beyond belief, she snapped, ‘You’ve done enough. For once in your life could you just leave me alone?’

Kael went silent. His hands fell away from her.

Ishtaer scrambled inelegantly to her feet. ‘I’m going to sort this out and prepare my sickbay for a few more like it. Try not to kill anyone,’ she snarled, and stalked off.

Anger propelled her back through the warren of corridors and rooms and she didn’t even notice how well she knew her way around. Her rooms were at the far end of the complex from the training yard, next to a small herb garden that gave onto the kitchen gardens and fishponds. She was told the view was enchanting.

Her arm throbbed, but she was in no mood to be stopped by anyone with a concern or query, and marched right on without cradling the injury as instinct demanded. Adrenaline surged through her, keeping her upright as she rounded the corner into her little workroom and slammed the door shut.

Then she sagged against the wood, pain washing through her in waves.

The metal rings of the mail shirt had been mashed into the wound, although they at least hadn’t been pushed as far as the bone. Ishtaer tugged off her gloves with her teeth and felt gingerly at her arm. A break to the radius … and also to the ulna. Well, that was marvellous. Both would need to be reset, and she wasn’t sure if she could do it by herself. Maybe Mags would help, because she certainly wasn’t asking Kael. Or Eirenn might—

She broke off her train of thought as Brutus barked close by. A deep, angry, warning bark. Where had the boys taken him? Were they tormenting him? Anger surged through her, but she dismissed it. Durran and Garik weren’t the sort of boys to torment a dog. They adored Brutus, and lately Garik had been pleading with his father for one of the stable kittens to come and sleep in his room.

She crossed to the door leading to the herb garden, wishing like anything that she could see out. The garden seemed empty, but there was Brutus’s bark again, and the sound of a child crying.

Ishtaer set off at a run.

The boys had said something about playing on the ice. Chances were they were at the frozen fishponds, which several of the castle’s children had been playing on yesterday. Ishtaer had listened to Mags discussing with the gamekeeper how best to break the ice so the fish could get some oxygen, and the children had begged them not to so they could continue skating.

The gamekeeper had said he was just going to make a few small holes. He assured everyone it would still be safe to play on. But as Ishtaer heard the crying get louder, she had a terrible feeling he’d been wrong.

She blundered into a bramble, getting snagged and yelping in frustration. ‘Durran! Garik! Is that you? Can you hear me?’

Freeing herself from the bush, she ran on, hearing footsteps crunching through the snow towards her.

‘Miss Ishtaer! You have to help!’

Durran ran into her, and Ishtaer hugged him tight with her good arm. ‘What is it?’

‘Garik! The ice cracked! I said he shouldn’t let the dog on ’cos he was too heavy and the ice cracked, and I can’t see him—’

‘He fell in?’ Ishtaer asked, horrified, pushing the boy ahead of her. ‘Show me!’

Durran tugged her through the gate and up the slope to the ponds. Ishtaer hadn’t been here before and had no idea at all how big or deep the ponds were.

‘Can he swim?’

‘Yes, he’s Krullish,’ Durran said, scorn overriding his fear. ‘We can all swim!’

‘Good, that’s something. I need you to show me where he went in, and then run and fetch your papa, or Verak, or anyone. Can you do that?’

Brutus rushed up, whining anxiously. Ishtaer attempted to pet him with her injured arm, and failed. Durran didn’t seem to notice.

‘Will you be able to find him? You can’t see!’

With a confidence she didn’t feel, Ishtaer tapped the Seer’s mark around her eye. ‘I’ll find him,’ she promised. ‘Where did he fall in?’

Durran led her to the edge of the pond and she stepped gingerly on the ice. It wobbled and creaked ominously.

‘Now go and get help, and tell them to bring blankets,’ she added as he ran away.

‘Brutus, stay,’ she said firmly. Then she stepped off the edge of the ice, and the shock of the water overwhelmed her.

Ishtaer had never had the luxury of swimming lessons with a doting father, as Durran and Garik no doubt had, but she’d grown up in a coastal town and occasionally been sent cockle-picking as a child. You learned to swim then, or the incoming tide could be a death sentence.

The waters of the Great Ocean surrounding the Saranos were cold. But not this cold. Nothing was this cold. For a few seconds she floated, numb with shock, as the cold drilled into her bones and bit at her skin. Then something brushed her arm, and she reached for it, only to find a fish slipping through her fingers.

If only I could see!
she lamented fiercely, then told herself it was probably so dark under here it wouldn’t make any difference.

He’d float, she reasoned, and couldn’t have gone far, so she swam as far as she could under the ice until she hit the bank, and turned back. She’d had to learn to orientate herself with precision, and it wasn’t hard to find the hole in the ice where she could come up for air.

She ducked back under, and turned to her right to try again. Nothing. Back to the air. Again.

He can’t hold his breath this long. He’ll be drowning. And when he drowns he’ll sink.