Mystic and Rider (Twelve Houses) (32 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: Mystic and Rider (Twelve Houses)
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Tayse came up behind her. “He secure?”
She nodded. “Let’s go eat.”
The tavern was dark and smelled of onions. Maybe a dozen men were seated inside, hunched over their meals and arguing over local politics or the best way to break a horse. The newcomers received a fairly thorough inspection as they entered, though their arrival could hardly have been a surprise; the tavern keeper had no doubt repeated to his clientele every word Tayse had said when he walked in asking for accommodations. Still, they were strangers, and they deserved a looking over. Not even Justin and Tayse seemed to be offended.
They found an open table at the back, and all six sat around it, choosing seats as they so often did: Senneth between Kirra and Cammon, Donnal beside Kirra, Tayse across from Senneth, and Justin between Cammon and Tayse. Everyone choosing to sit beside the ones they liked and to watch the ones they distrusted.
They were approached by a yellow-haired tavern girl wearing a low-cut dress that showed off her considerable charms. Even had they been likely to miss the full swell of her breasts, the necklace she wore pointed attention to those features. It was a silver chain hung with an obelisk of a moonstone that nestled just inside her cleavage. Senneth glanced at Kirra, to see her grinning, and at Justin, to see his eyes focused directly on the glower of the sulky gem. Tayse did not appear to have registered either the girl’s jewelry or her attractions, but Senneth was sure he had noticed both. Tayse noticed everything.
“We’ve got beef pie and venison pie,” the girl said in a bored voice, though she managed to smile at Cammon and Justin. Both were smiling at her. “Oh, and some potatoes. The greens are all gone, though. And there’s beer. Also, some leftover chicken from yesterday if you want that.”
“Beef pie, potatoes, and beer,” Tayse said without seeming to consider at all. Justin echoed him. Cammon and Donnal opted for venison, and the women chose chicken.
The server was barely out of earshot before Cammon exclaimed, “Did you see it? Her moonstone? I wonder if the whole town’s gone over to the Pale Lady.”
Kirra turned marveling eyes toward Senneth. “She was wearing a moonstone necklace? I didn’t notice such a thing, did you?”
“Tavern keeper had on a moonstone bracelet,” Tayse said, ignoring her. “Two of the men up at the bar were wearing pendants. I’d say it’s not the place to be practicing magic.”
“And I was going to jump on the table, turn myself into a wolf, and go baying to the moon,” Donnal said.
“Don’t bother trying to impress
us,
” Justin said. “We’re impressed enough already.”
“We’re just here overnight,” Senneth said peaceably. “No need to draw attention.”
Tayse gave her a rather darkling look. “A good plan. We don’t seem to live up to it all that often.”
The food, when it arrived, was fair. The beer was excellent. Senneth imagined there wasn’t much to do in this part of the country except drink, which meant the locals probably spent a lot of time perfecting their brews.
They had just finished their meals and were considering ordering a second round of drinks when the tavern door blew open, and a young girl burst in. Even Cammon seemed caught off guard by her sudden eruption into the room, and Tayse and Justin whirled around so quickly that they were almost on their feet before they realized there was probably no danger.
To them, anyway. The girl seemed hysterical. “Please, Markle, can you send your wife? My sister’s having the baby, but it won’t come, and she keeps screaming. I don’t know what to do—and my brothers won’t help—and old Hadda, who said she’d come, doesn’t answer her door.”
The tavern keeper shook his head regretfully. “Sorry, Sosie, but my wife’s over to her sister’s. Left this morning. You can take Liza, if you think she’ll do you any good, but she’s afraid of blood and never helped at any birthing that I know of.”
Sosie released a groaning sob. “But she’ll—Markle, I think the baby’s breech or something. He won’t come out, and I think he’s ripping up her insides. She’s going to die—they’re both going to die—and I don’t know what to do.”
“Might be better that way,” Markle said, polishing a glass and setting it on the wood of the bar. “You know—with your sister’s troubles.”
Senneth had been watching attentively anyway, but at that, she raised her eyebrows and gave Kirra one quick look. Kirra’s expression matched the one she could feel on her own face.
Sosie choked with fury and then started crying. “It will not be better if she dies! You—did my father tell you to send your wife away? Did he tell you not to help me if I came to you? She’s
dying,
Markle. After the baby’s born, she’ll leave—we’ll both leave. But she’s
dying
! How can a good man let such a terrible thing happen?”
Senneth was on her feet before the last sentence was even spoken. Tayse said, “We weren’t going to draw attention to ourselves,” but she brushed by him, Kirra at her heels. She was beside Sosie before the weeping girl even knew there was a stranger in the room. She put her hand cautiously on the girl’s arm.
“We’ll help you,” she said softly, and Sosie whipped around to stare at her through red-rimmed eyes. “My friend is a healer, and I have a little skill in that area myself. Your sister won’t die.”
For a moment, an array of conflicting emotions crossed the girl’s face: hope, fear, distrust, and a basic desire for honesty that almost led her to speak the secret Senneth had already guessed. Fear for her sister won out. “Can you come right now?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Senneth said.
A small parade followed Sosie as she hurried out into the night, for Tayse and Justin were not about to let the women go anywhere unescorted, and the other two saw no reason to be left behind. Though Senneth fancied she saw a little relief on Donnal’s face when she asked him to go back and stay with the raelynx.
“We won’t need you at this task,” she told him as she jogged along behind Kirra and Sosie. “And I think he’ll be calmer if one of us is near.”
He nodded and dropped back. Cammon hurried up to take his place beside Senneth. “What do you think it is?” he puffed. “The woman in labor is a mystic?”
Senneth nodded. “Or the baby is. Or the baby’s father was, and they fear that the child will be as well. Some kind of magic is afoot, no doubt.”
He grinned. “Tayse isn’t going to be happy about this.”
“When is Tayse ever happy?”
The way to Sosie’s house was some distance off the main road through a rutted track and a tangle of scrubby trees. The house itself was unprepossessing, small and ill-built, with a few sheds and lean-tos on the back. Clearly the family members weren’t farmers, so Senneth guessed they hunted or hired out for seasonal labor. Or lived off poaching and thievery; who knew? She fell in step beside Kirra and entered the dimly lit house two paces behind Sosie. The men crowded in behind them.
A quick look gave her all the particulars. They stood in a low-beamed room crammed with threadbare furniture and four people arguing. Wretched moans were issuing through a door to the left—the bedroom where the pregnant woman lay, apparently. Sosie and Kirra headed straight there without pausing, slipping inside the room before anyone else in the house had even acknowledged their presence.
Senneth waited for the inevitable explosion.
“Hey!” That came from the small, wiry, furious man whom Senneth took to be the patriarch of the family. He looked as if he wanted to run after his daughter and the unknown woman but felt compelled to confront the mass of strangers at his door. “Who are—what do you—get out of my house, whoever you are!”
Behind him, his two sons deployed; a weeping woman collapsed on a battered sofa, apparently too spent to care who entered her house or why. Senneth faced the men, speaking in her calmest and most persuasive voice.
“My name is Senneth. My friend Kirra and I have been traveling to Nocklyn on personal business. This is our escort. We were at the tavern when your daughter rushed in, asking for help. Kirra is a healer of quite remarkable skill. It seemed only humane to come as quickly as we could and offer our services to save a woman’s life.”
The man spat directly on the floor mere inches from Senneth’s foot. She did not even flinch. It had not escaped her notice that his ragged pants were belted in place with a buckle studded with moonstones. “Better for this baby not to be born,” he said.
“Surely the Pale Lady welcomes all new life to the world,” she said softly.
“Not tainted life. Not evil life,” he retorted.
A shriek came from the other room, followed swiftly by the sound of Sosie’s frantic weeping and Kirra’s soothing voice. The woman on the sofa sobbed and buried her face in her hands.
“Don’t need to worry about it, Da,” one of the young men said. “She’s not gonna pull through this.”
“Baby’ll kill her coming out,” said the other. “Kill hisself, too, most like.”
“Not my Annie, not my Annie,” the woman on the couch moaned.
“She might die,” Senneth nodded. “But between us, I believe Kirra and I can probably save them both.”
“Don’t want them saved!” the father said savagely. “Don’t you understand plain speaking? The child’s wicked! The Pale Mother is striking him down now before he can do any harm!”
She held on to her calm, but it was a struggle; fury piled like dry kindling in every vein, waiting to be ignited. “What is it you accuse him of ?” she asked. “Why does such a helpless thing deserve your hatred?”
He came a step closer and practically sprayed her face with saliva. “He’s a mystic’s bastard, and he bears mystic powers,” he said venomously. “Since he’s lain in my daughter’s belly, he’s corrupted her with his spiteful magic—she’s done things and seen things that I—” He shook his head, unable to put his disgust into words. “Maybe once he’s out of her, he and his poison blood, she’ll be my good Annie again, but I’m afraid he’s turned her. I’m afraid she’s lost to us now. The Pale Mother knows what to do with people who have been given over to magic.”
“I’m sure Annie will be happy enough to leave your house once she and the child are well enough to travel,” Senneth said, still speaking quietly, still behaving reasonably. Not for long, though; oh, not for long. She could feel her shoulders aching with her desire to set this man on fire. She could feel a headache lurking on the highest knob of her spine.
“They will not leave here alive!”
the father roared, and lunged for the open doorway of the bedroom. His wife screamed. His sons shouted.
Senneth knocked him backward with a swipe of her fist. He cried out and put his hand to his burning shoulder. “You will not disturb the birthing bed,” she said, her voice low and menacing. “You will not harm your daughter, or her child, or you yourself will not live through this night.”
He came at her again, and she flung her hands before her, radiating such heat from her fingertips that he retreated, coughing and cursing and brushing at his face. Behind her, she heard the smooth metallic glide of swords being pulled from scabbards, but she did not turn to see what sort of threat Tayse and Justin were offering to the household. She was dangerous enough on her own.
“What right do you have to come into my home and give me orders?” the man panted. His sons massed uncertainly behind him, but came no closer to Senneth. His wife had stopped sobbing and now stared at the whole tableau, her mouth open in astonishment. “Who are you? What are you? Damned mystic like my daughter’s son?”
She couldn’t stop herself; she placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him, hard. He screamed, and scorch marks appeared on his shirt as he tumbled backward.
“If you try to harm that baby,” she said in hard, precise words, “I will burn your house down around your head. I will set your flesh on fire. No prayer to the Pale Lady, no moonstone around your waist, will save you from my magic. She is safe, do you hear me? You cannot kill her.”
He was a man not used to being thwarted or threatened, and even his fear could not dampen his sudden burst of rage. He uttered a wordless yell and launched himself at her across the floor.
And then Senneth went a little mad.
She threw a fireball at him, rolling up his stomach, over his head, and down his back. She tossed sprays of red heat at his sons, who started her way and then stumbled back, batting at the air and covering their heads with their arms. She gestured at the curtains, and they burst into flames—at the scarred wooden rocker, and it burst into flames—at the central pole of the house connecting floor and ceiling, and it burst into flames. The room grew so hot it seemed as if the air itself might kindle at any moment.
“Stay where you are,” she warned, as the three men stood rooted to the spot, looking about them in horror. “Nothing will be harmed if you do not approach me or your daughter’s room. If you make a move in her direction, the whole house will burn. Except the room where your daughter lies laboring.”
“You’re a sorceress,” the man whispered, half afraid and half furious. “The Pale Mother curses you.”
“I’m not afraid of your paltry little goddess,” Senneth said in contempt. “Or you fools who worship her. Now stay back from me.”

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