Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (38 page)

"Adam?"

She laughed. "Leave him behind if he'll stay." And then, on a fierce whim, because she wanted family with her, she added, "No, bring Adam."

"And the others?"

It occurred to her then, as he shuffled slightly from foot to foot before remembering just who he was supposed to be, that he had never made this trek. She herself had only made it once, at her mother's behest. And she had nearly died there, although no one but her dead mother knew it.

"Nicu?"

He shook his head. "Will we take the strangers?"

"The strangers?"

"The pale-haired Northerner; the woman who came from the heartfire; the man who is and is not her seraf; the… pale-haired…" he swallowed.

"Leave the question of the others to me."

"Matriarch," he said, bowing. He turned, and then turned again. "'Gret?"

She relented because she had always relented. "What?"

"Is it true that at least one man always dies on the trek?"

"Or a woman. Sometimes as many as ten. Our great great great grandmother came back from the desert path with only her sister; her daughter perished." He bowed.

The strangers sat in their own circle outside of the caravan, and it was just as well. Although Jewel ATerafin—as she styled herself—had some Voyani blood, it was clear that she was the descendant of traitors who had been too weak to fulfill their promise and follow the
Voyanne
to its rightful end.

And yet she was here. She had been delivered to Arkosa in the hour of their need, coming from the heart of the Lady's fire into the heart of the Arkosan camp. It was, as entrances went, spectacular, and it lingered in Margret's memory the way a violent act will linger across flesh: like a scar.

"ATerafin?" she said, as she approached.

The most beautiful man she had ever seen—and was certain she
would
ever see—placed one slender, perfect hand on the hilt of a sword; he glanced at Jewel ATerafin, and the profuse shake of unruly curls—hair not so very unlike Margret's—caused him to withdraw. There was nothing in him that was friendly. There was nothing in him at all that responded to her.

Even clansmen offered disdain and contempt, mixed with a healthy dose of caution.

She found that she wanted response. And was embarrassed by the desire. Especially when he looked up at exactly the moment desire and guilt met, his eyes cutting in their silence and their perception.

He stepped aside without a word. And she, awkward and ungainly, trudged past him. She stopped at the edge of the clearing that had been made; the night was already chilly.

"My apologies," she said, striving for formality.

"None necessary," Jewel replied. Her smile was open, friendly; she had none of the caution that the clansmen had, and none of the distrust of strangers that the Voyani did. Or rather, if she felt them at all, she hid them. She offered a hand, and after a moment, Margret took it.

"I know that you'll be leaving soon."

"We will."

"If you want us, we'd be happy to accompany you."

Margret hesitated. She did not want to offend this stranger, and she chose her next words with uncharacteristic care. "The trek into the desert is not a trek that is usually undertaken by any but Arkosans."

Jewel nodded, as if she had expected no less. Her smile faded, although her expression was still open, still friendly. "I think… that if there is any way for you to stretch that rule, you might want to."

"You've seen something?" Margret struggled to hide the envy in her words. She wasn't sure if she failed or not.

"Not anything specific. But—"

"But?"

This time, the stranger did hesitate. She took a deep breath, and then said, "I left my Northern home because of a vision. I came to the South, seeking two things. The Winter Queen, and a young woman."

Margret knew, then, and she felt a moment of fury, and a moment of bitterness, that were too strong for words.

Jewel ATerafin could not mistake her silence for anything other than what it was, but she continued to speak. "The Serra Diora is that woman, and I fear that my companions and I will be of as much aid in the desert as we were in the Tor Leonne, if you will accept us."

Only years of her mother's harshest lessons prevented Margret from refusing the offer and stalking off.

But it was a near thing.

Everyone
was interested in that Courtesan. Everyone.

The Serra Diora di'Marano was silent. In all things, silent. In movement, silent. In sleep, silent. While eating, silent.

Margret wanted to slap her until she said something, even if it was a curse. Especially if that. "Why do they stare at her like that?" she snapped.

She had steadfastly failed to notice that the men in the caravan seemed to either fall silent when Diora passed them, or fall all over themselves to get out of her way, or to offer her shadow or shade when it existed. But it was getting hot, Margret was tired, and the euphoria of the escape from the capital had fallen off sharply. That and it took effort to fail to notice the completely obvious.

Elena laughed, but the laugh had a very, very sharp edge.

"Because she's beautiful, 'Gret. Don't you know what the clansmen call her?"

"No."

"Liar."

"I don't pay attention to clansmen's gossip. No one does."

Elena laughed again. "Adam!" she shouted, wildly waving a hand so that anyone standing across the divide of the fire's circles might see her.

Margret's slender brother, dark hair bobbing as he came charging across the clearing, obeyed the unspoken command of the Matriarch's heir. Pretty much everyone did; Margret was Matriarch and technically the leader—but Elena had the freer temper, and certainly the freer hand. Her hair was now that bright, burnished copper that the sun made of auburn, and it was long and as uncontrolled as Adam's gait.

He stopped about three feet away from her, panting. "Yes?"

She laughed. "What do the clansmen call our guest?"

"Which guest?"

"The Serra."

He beamed—he had a grin that denned the word infectious—because he
knew
this one. "The Flower of the Dominion."

The grin faded into something distinctly more sickly when he saw his sister's expression cloud and sour at the same time. "Where did you hear that?"

"Well, everyone knows it."

"Who is
everyone
?"

He cringed. The shadow of her hand crossed his face and stopped there. "Is everyone talking about her?"

"Well,
you
and 'Lena are," he said defensively.

She spit. "Don't you have something to do?"

He wasn't stupid. He took the hint. Margret wanted to snarl; her lips thinned instead. "She better not think she's a treasured guest," she snapped. "No one else travels the
Voyanne
without doing their share of the work."

Elena shrugged; Margret cast a glance in her direction. Her cousin had always been the untamed beauty of their immediate family; she still was. But she—like any of them— didn't take well to a rival in their own wagon. "With hands like that," 'Lena said, "she can't have done much work in her life."

"And you're the judge of another life now?" A sharp voice said. "You barely live yours in a way that suits a Matriarch's daughter."

Both young women started slightly; only one of them had the grace to flush. "Matriarch," Elena of the Arkosa Voyani said, inclining her head with a respect that she seldom showed.

Yollana of the Havalla Voyani frowned. Her legs were still not fully healed from her ordeal at the hands of the Sword's Edge, and it was privately thought that they would never be healed without the intervention of one born with the Lady's gift.

They were very few, far between, and no Matriarch would trust a healer born outside of her clan under any circumstance; Yollana therefore hobbled on canes, often at the side of an attentive Serra Teresa di'Marano, the Northern bard, or both, although she sometimes allowed the Arkosans to carry her in a makeshift palanquin from one end of the encampment to the other.

At the moment, she had chosen the canes. She had an intense dislike for dependence of any type, and it galled Margret to think that the help of a stranger—the striking but ice-cold bard of the North—was preferable to the help of her own. "Yollana," she said, inclining her chin very slightly. "This
is
the Arkosan van."

"So?"

"Margret—" Elena began, but her cousin lifted a hand so sharply a slap wouldn't have been a surprise. There wasn't one. But there was a bit of night in the dawn.

"The laws of the
Voyanne
have nothing to do with petty jealousy and hampered vision," the older woman continued. "Carry a grudge if you feel you must, but understand it for the ugly thing it is."

"You think I'm jealous of that?"

Yollana frowned. "Don't insult my intelligence, Matriarch. It does us no good. Remember who our enemies are. We can bicker among ourselves later."

As whole Voyani wars were the result of bickering, and the dead that occurred between both sides of particularly vicious disputes were probably too great in number to count—although each family spent time counting anyway, and storing all sense of grievance against that day when reckoning was due—Margret simply shrugged. "Even you," she said after the silence had grown irritating.

"Yes?"

"Even you fall under her spell."

Yollana's bark was almost a cough, although Margret was pretty sure it had been intended as laughter.

Margret felt instantly ashamed of the anger she could not control. "Matriarch," Yollana said, without preamble, "have the preparations been made?"

Margret nodded bitterly.

"Then the Matriarchs will take their leave; they have much to do now that the Tyr has unwisely chosen to give the Sword of Knowledge free reign. Elsarre is called upon by her own; Maria is seeking word on the fate of her husband and sons; they were apparently foolish enough not to trust our ability to defend the city against whatever doom we felt was upon it, and they remained within its walls."

"And you go back to Havalla?"

"It would be the wise choice, although I confess I have little in the way of escort."

"Take the bard and the Northerner with you." Margret frowned. "There is something about her seraf that I
do not
trust."

Yollana was silent. "You have your mother's instinct, if not her talent," she said at last. It was not a compliment, but there was praise in it, if one knew how to look. The Havallan Matriarch paused for a long, long time, and then said, "if you would grant it, Matriarch of Arkosa, if our old alliance still has value, I would ask that you allow me to accompany you."

"Accompany us where?"

Elena nudged her with a toe; it was hard enough that it missed being a kick by a sand grain. She looked at her cousin; her cousin lifted a hand and curled it a moment in a fist over her heart.

Margret—almost never at a loss for words—was nonetheless silent for a full minute as she absorbed what Yollana had just said. She started and stopped twice, remembering that no heartfire burned to protect her words—or the Havallan Matriarch's—from outsiders.

"Had I asked the same… favor of the Havallan Matriarch, what would her response have been?"

The old woman said, without preamble, and with no apparent difficulty, "I would have refused, of course."

"And you expect
me
to say yes?"

The old woman's laugh was dry and harsh, the rattle of wind. Margret felt the chill of desert night travel the length of her spine.

"I expect you to do what is in the best interests of Arkosa, Matriarch. Only that." She started to turn, placing the cane against the sand.

She was not particularly surprised when the old woman turned back. "But never less."

Margret went to her wagon.

Elena, hearing the command that was unspoken, followed, and watched for a handful of time as Margret slammed tin and silver around in the small, cramped quarters, venting a fury that she managed—barely—not to put into words.

And after she had finished, Elena calmly offered her sweet wine; a single glass.

Margret stared at it. The glass was the oldest thing her mother had owned; one of the items that had been passed from Matriarch to Matriarch. It had no partner; no companion piece. Light nestled in the crescents made in its clear, hard surface, and light blended with the contents of the glass until the liquid, in the poor light of the wagon, looked a little like blood.

"So that's it?" Margret said, her throat suddenly swollen, the words thick. She stared at the glass. Stared at the liquid. And then looked up from her place at the flap of a table, and stared at her cousin.

Her cousin's red highlights were lost to the shadows, and the sparkle of her defiance had been guttered—although it wouldn't stay that way—as she stared back.

"I never—I never understood—that glass," 'Lena said, each word distinct.

Margret picked it up. There was nothing delicate about it, although she had no doubt it could be broken with ease. "What didn't you understand?"

'Lena shook her head; her hair came out from beneath her band in little sprays. She answered, but she didn't answer the question. "I envied you.

"When we were younger, I hated the fact that you would get everything, and I would be—if I were lucky—your trusted adviser. I thought—" she laughed, and it was a shaky, weak sound that was completely unfamiliar,"—that you were too timid, too temperamental—"

"Me?"

She laughed again, "and too damn sensitive. I really thought—when I was younger—that
I
would be the better Matriarch."

Margret said bitterly, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Your head is full of sand," Elena snapped back. "I'm
telling
you this because it's my way of apologizing, so don't interrupt me!"

Margret laughed. "I don't need your apology."

"Maybe I need to say it."

"That's not my problem."

They bristled a moment, and then Margret looked down at the glass; at the wine poured for her by her cousin.