Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles (10 page)

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Authors: Katya Reimann

BOOK: Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles
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Gaultry and the Sharif were brought next door, to a room that boasted a massive bed with elaborate hangings and a dusty cover. The tamarin, chittering, jumped down from Gaultry’s arms and darted across to a comfortable spot on one of the pillows. A sweet rush was set to burn in a jar by the window, clearing the chamber’s air.
“We haven’t had guests since autumn last.” Hesbain, the healer-woman, sat the Sharif on the edge of the bed. “Sieur Jumery’s sons had good hunting here then.
“And now,” she said. “This patient. That tunic must come off. And the shirt under it.” She took a fold of the Sharif’s sleeve in her fingers and began to feel for the seam.
“I have a knife.” Gaultry unsheathed it.
The woman shook her head. “We’ll slit the threads.” She sent the
other woman, Gisella, downstairs for a sewing hook. Gaultry, noting the faded bed linens and the women’s modest dress, did not argue the delay. If the tunic could not be replaced here, it would have to be retained in a fixable condition.
We’re going to strip you
, Gaultry told the Sharif.
Get ready
.
The Sharif gave a scarcely perceptible nod and pressed her eyes shut.
Gisella returned with the sewing hook, a little breathless for having hurried. With elaborate gentleness, Hesbain peeled away the layers of the Sharif’s clothing: tunic, shirt, and last the thin cotton undergarment beneath. The old woman’s eyebrows raised as the Sharif’s lean body was revealed. Her skin was dark all over, not just on her hands and face; more notable, the war-leader’s back was a tortured expanse of overlapping, poorly healed whipping scars and branding burns. Even Gaultry, who knew what to expect, felt the gall rise in her throat. The Sharif, who had been wounded in battle before being taken prisoner and sold to the Bissanties, had endured flogging and branding and hardships that had never given her the time to recoup. Now, the knob of her left arm pushed grotesquely at the skin next to her shoulder blade. “Call Didion,” old Hesbain said hoarsely. “We won’t fix this without another pair of hands.”
“Can’t we do it ourselves?” Gaultry asked.
“Not now that it’s swollen up. Fixing it will hurt. If she hasn’t fainted already, we’ll need Didion to help keep her still.”
Hesbain was right. It took four of them to twist and coax the arm’s knob back into its socket. Gaultry, feeling light-headed, was not sure in the end how it was managed, but it evidently took as much guesswork as skill. The Sharif came close to blacking out as they worked on her, her body chilling and her skin becoming worrisomely clammy as she withdrew dangerously deep into herself.
“Can’t you give her something for the pain?” Gaultry asked, concerned.
“Best to finish first,” Hesbain panted, focusing on the task at hand. “I’ll give her something then.”
Afterward, Gaultry could not have said which was the greater relief: the moment when the Sharif’s arm went back into its socket or after, when the Sharif took a mouthful of Hesbain’s draught and lapsed into deep, heavy-breathing slumber.
“She looks better already,” Gaultry said gratefully, soothing the sleeping woman’s brow. “Now for the boy.”
Hesbain shook her head. “I saw him in the cart. There’s naught I can
do. With a deep wound like that, all we can do is pray to Allegrios Rex that the river won’t poison his system.”
“Nothing can poison that boy,” Gaultry said fiercely. “The Water-god wouldn’t dare harm him. But his wound needs to be stitched up and he must get some rest. Both of which you can help him with.”
The healer raised her brows at her vehemence, but acquiesced without further argument.
Under Gaultry’s watchful eye, the healer sewed up Tullier’s wound, an unpleasant business that involved putting sinew-stitches into several different layers of the boy’s flesh. The sword had slipped past two ribs before cutting downward into his abdomen. Hesbain glanced doubtfully at the swollen blueness that distended the boy’s belly along its right side. Gaultry, doing her best to ignore the woman’s incredulity that her attentions were helping anything, held Tullier’s head in her lap while the old woman worked. At long last, when the healer had done all she could with his wound, she gave the boy a few gulps of her sleeping draught, stroking his throat to force him to swallow. “I can’t do anything more for him,” Hesbain said, shaking her head as the boy began to cough and spit. She wiped his mouth with a rag and stood away from the bed. “The rest is prayer.”
Gaultry leaned over and listened to Tullier’s breath. Though his face seemed no less pale, the color of his lips no longer looked so unnatural against his skin. “You’ve helped tremendously,” she said. “The gods watch him. He will be fine.”
“The river’s poisons—” Hesbain began.
“Pray for him,” Gaultry interrupted. “That should be all he will need.” If the first shock to the boy’s body had not killed him, his Blood-Imperial would certainly keep him alive. Or so she hoped. She bent to tuck the bedclothes around the chilled body, doubt stabbing her anew now that there was nothing left to do.
“Put his dog with him,” Hesbain suggested. “That should warm him.”
The puppy cowered near the door, afraid of everything. Gaultry caught it by the scruff of its neck and hoisted it onto the bed. “Lie still,” she told it, patting its head to encourage it to settle. “Bark if anyone disturbs him,” she added hopefully. The puppy, happier by Tullier than it had been by the door, pressed its back to Tullier’s side, folded its gangly legs, and closed its eyes, shutting the world out.
Hesbain led Gaultry back to the other room and made her sit on the bed, on the far side from the Sharif. She knelt to pull off the young
woman’s boots. “The blow broke two of his ribs,” she said, massaging Gaultry’s feet. “The swordstroke cut the vessels that feed the stomach wall. He bled into his gut. He should be dead.”
“The gods be thanked, it will take more to kill Tullier than that.” Gaultry felt tremendously tired, along with a returning sense of worry. She hoped Martin was having an interesting time with Sieur Jumery. It seemed like the old man had some understanding of their situation. She herself was still too rattled to puzzle through the implications of the attack that had taken place at the bridge. Their assailants had been Bissanty men, but the black-green magic that had attacked them … that had been Tielmaran. Of that she was certain.
But who in Tielmark would serve them such a turn, and who had been the target? Herself? Tullier? Martin? All of them together?
“A spell saved him,” Hesbain hazarded, bringing her back from her thoughts.
Gaultry shook her feet gently free of the woman’s hands. “Glamour magic saved him.” It was not for her to share Tullier’s secrets, and the fact of Gaultry’s power—Sieur Jumery already knew of that. “From what your master said, I’m guessing you know what I did for Tielmark on Prince’s night.” She had not touched a mouthful of the woman’s draught, but she felt suddenly as though she had swallowed an entire sackful. “Me and my sister both.” She lay back on the bed and curled up her legs. It was too warm for covers.
Hesbain stood, a hesitant expression on her homely old face. “We celebrated here when we learned of the Prince’s renewed God-pledge. Was it true that you saw the Goddess-Twins?” The old woman looked down, too humble suddenly to meet Gaultry’s eye. “There’s some who claim that part never happened.”
“We saw them,” Gaultry said seriously, wishing that she were less tired, more able to think. “ELiante-Huntress and Lady Emiera together. It seems almost beyond belief as I lie here now, but I saw it with my own eyes. The Great Twins make themselves incarnate for us at the end of every cycle, whatever the naysayers may tell you. What a gift to Tielmark.” She snuggled sleepily down, even as memory of facing her gods swept her, terrifying and reassuring both. “It was more than awesome,” she murmured. “They were so beautiful.” A sleepy thought came to her. “But what am I saying? You must have heard what it was like—last time, your master was there to see.”
“The Twins are Great,” Hesbain answered, reverent.
Gaultry, sighing, closed her eyes. “The Twins are Great.”
The touch of Hesbain’s hand on her own faded. Gaultry pulled up the faded bedclothes and slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When she awoke, she lay stretched at the Sharif’s side with her
covers kicked down to her ankles. The room, lit only by the thin stripes of moonlight that had found their way through the shutters, seemed stuffy and overly hot.
At her side the Sharif was breathing heavily, the tamarin curled against the woman’s cheek like a fur-covered pillow. But it was not the Sharif’s noise that had woken her. Gaultry swung her feet over the edge of the bed and lurched upright, stumbling as she groped for her boots. “Hesbain,” she mumbled, toeing at the floor with her naked feet. “Where did you put them?”
Disturbed by her movements, the tamarin opened its luminous eyes and raised its head.
“I wish I had your eyes,” she told it. The creature had excellent night vision, and she was tempted to spirit-take from it to heighten her own sense of sight, but now was not the time for such a spell, however falsely comforting it might have felt, invoking that familiar part of her magic, after such a long day of enigmatic puzzles.
She stood quietly for a moment, listening. Identifying no immediate threat that could have caused a noise to wake her, she decided to explore. “Where have my boots gone?” she asked the tamarin. The little creature sat up, indifferent to her plight, and began to groom itself. Gaultry leaned over and touched its brightly striped fur. It was such an odd animal. When she had first seen it, clinging to the bars of the cage in which Lukas Soul-breaker had imprisoned it, those curiously expressive eyes had been filled
with pain and rage that had been almost humanly intelligent.
Like Gaultry, the tamarin too had been a pawn in a political game. The Soul-breaker had used the little creature in his magical experiments as he sought the secrets of power.
The Soul-breaker. In a quiet moment like this, it was difficult not to shiver at his memory. She had fought him to a standstill of a sort, but without Tullier, she would never have had the power to defeat him. The cruel master-mage had torn animal spirits and human souls alike, binding them together like exchangeable puzzle pieces. Each new success had further augmented his power, and Gaultry had engaged with him at a moment when it had almost been too late to counter his force.
Gaultry picked up the tamarin and held its warmth close to her, remembering the incandescent light that had shone in the Soul-breaker’s face as he had declared himself the reincarnation of Tarrin, White Soldier-god. What drove such a man even to conceive that he might achieve such power? In the rush to free Martin, and then to escape themselves, there had not been time to learn much about the forces that had compelled Lukas Caviedo to strive for such power, and once the Soul-breaker was dead, there had seemed to be little value in pursuing the question. From Lukas’s twin sister Columba, Gaultry had learned that a wandering fortune-teller had unleashed Lukas’s fledgling ambitions, and even aided him in taking his first step toward power: the seizure of Columba’s Blood-Imperial. But his own mad force of character seemed to have been all he’d needed to propel himself forward to imagined apotheosis from there.
She could only wonder what the fortune-teller might have received in return for creating such a monster, a man who could only be killed within a roiling inferno of literal and magical flame. It seemed such a misuse of power—
She cuddled the tamarin once more, and set it on the bed. The tamarin and the little grey monkey had been among the few creatures who had followed their rescuers out of that inferno. Now, after all they’d been through to reach Tielmark, the monkey was dead. She wondered if the tamarin missed its companionship.
“Go back to sleep,” she told the little creature. “You’re safe here tonight, and I’ll make do without my boots.”
Next door, Tullier was asleep, lying on his good side, with the puppy—also sound asleep and doing poor duty as a guardian—clutched
in his arms. Gaultry, gladdened to see both of them resting peacefully, eased the door shut.
She padded, barefoot, along the darkened hallway, wondering whether Martin was asleep, or still awake and conversing with old Sieur Jumery. Awake, she guessed, sharing stories of battle and glory on the western border. For all his doddering, the old man had seemed keen to press him for information about the land where his grandson was performing service.
At the top of the stairs, she looked down the dark well of the steps and paused to listen to the house. She was grateful for the old man’s hospitality, even if he made her feel uneasy. She did not like to think how Tullier and the Sharif would have fared in rough beds culled from some hayrack in Soiscroix—or, worse, inside a cold lock-house, if the justice seekers from the bridge had had their way.
Tomorrow they might reach Soiscroix. And maybe Princeport the day after. Then she would be back in the Prince’s court, where she did not understand the private battles and alliances among those in power, and where she must, somehow, learn to serve her Prince, lest she see him struck from power.
Outside a night bird called. She padded down a few steps to the landing. The hall beneath her, the house around her, were comfortably quiet. After the day’s turmoil, the quietness of the ancient house was refreshing. She took a deep breath, taking in the odors of the sweet rushes strewn on the floor below, the waxy smell of the well-rubbed paneling, the hint of used leather and dog and sweat that lay beneath the more pleasant scents. Moonlight streamed down through a single glassed-in window over the landing. She stood in an island of milky light, dappled with blue and red diamonds from the colored patterns in the mullions.
Outside the moon was heavy, full with the ending of the month, the promise of the moon days ahead and then the new month. The moon of Rios Sword-god, in his aspect as Early Harvester.
It pleasures me
, the old man had said,
in Rios’s name, to offer you my hospitality.
What did he mean by that? Rios was a god more commonly invoked by those with a grievance than by those offering hospitality. Staring at the glowing whiteness of the moon, Gaultry reviewed all that had passed since she’d entered Sieur Jumery’s domains. If the Ingoleurs had fallen from influence after old Princess Corinne’s wedding, it was likely that
they, or the lord they were sworn to, had made some dealings with the Bissanties—though the fact that they had not been stripped of their estate argued that these dealings had not risen to the level of treason.
Further, Sir Jumery had offered this welcome to her alone, and not to their party generally. What did that mean? He had spoken of knowing Tamsanne, but what grievance could he have there? Tamsanne had returned to Arleon Forest immediately after Princess Corinne’s wedding—that much, at least, Gaultry knew of her grandmother’s history. What grievance could the man nurse against Tamsanne so strong that in his dotage he would invoke the Sword-god on her granddaughter?
Unable to answer her own question, Gaultry descended the last of the stairs, anxious to find Martin and learn of all that had gone forward as she slept.
The passage beneath the stairs led deep into the house. The rushes strewn on the floor crushed softly underfoot. Gaultry passed two doors, and then a third, with the weak light of a single candle shining from behind it. A woman’s voice reached her, then a child’s. Ahead, impressively carved double doors barred her way. A bright crack of light shone between them, feebly lighting the passage. As she raised her hand to the knob, a loud laugh broke out from its other side, startling her, followed by a voice she seemed to recognize.
“You’ve got the Great Twelve’s luck, Stalkerman. The mob will lynch you one day, I’m sure. I could hardly credit the wild stories I heard, riding into Soiscroix—I had to come and see for myself. What possessed you? They’ve no love of wolves like yourself in this neck of the country, man.”
“If it please you,” their host’s voice interrupted, sounding firmer than Gaultry would have expected in the shadow of that booming, confident laugh. “Your Grace will address my guest with respect. He has had a very long day.”
“A long day?” The other laughed. “Mine has been a long day. Him—he’s had a long month, more like, and then some. Where did the Sha Muira men take you, Martin? What did you have to pledge them to break free? Imagine—all those quarreling toads, falling over themselves in Princeport for recent news, and here I am, the first to find you.”
“You’re looking well, Haute-Tielmark,” Martin’s voice broke in. “Not that I like your news. And what you’re doing here instead of marshaling men on your own border, you’ve yet to tell me.”
Gaultry sank against the wooden panel, completely astonished. Of
all the people she would have expected or desired to meet on the road between here and Princeport, Victor Clement, Duke of Haute-Tielmark, was far down the list. A gigantic, gold-bearded bear of a man, he controlled the western province of Tielmark with firm, capable hands. Too firm, some whispered. If it were not for the fact that the duke’s lands lay on Tielmark’s most vulnerable border, that he needed constant support from the rest of Tielmark to hold the Lanai at bay, many questioned whether he would continue to pay Benet the tithes he owed him. Many more still wondered about his constant conferences and meetings with Bissanty bordermen. Haute-Tielmark claimed to be Benet’s man, but he had worked closely with Lord Edan Heiratikus, the Prince’s late and unlamented Chancellor, and his actions, whether inadvertently or not, could have prevented the renewal of Benet’s God-pledge.
She did not know what could have brought the Duke here—unless he had been the force behind the attack at the bridge, a disturbing thought indeed. In the dark of the hallway, staring at the door, Gaultry considered that bleak possibility. The attack had combined Bissanty and Tielmaran elements, and Haute-Tielmark was a man who stood, in a very real way, poised between those powers. She did not like their prospects for reaching Princeport if these suspicions had foundation in truth. Haute-Tielmark was a seasoned campaigner. If he intended to prevent them from reaching Princeport, he would have arrived at Sieur Ingoleur’s with a force sufficient to successfully execute his plan.
“You’ll not believe what the border is like this year,” the Duke said. A creaking noise suggested some poor stick of furniture had been subjected to his massive bulk. “It’s not just a few wild boys come tearing down from the mountains on donkeys, looking to steal a few cattle because they’re piss poor and young and hot to meet a bride price. It’s whole tribes, led by seasoned war-leaders. After the defeat the Bissanties wreaked on them in their summer pastures, they’re desperate to rebuild their herds. The right word is that the King of Far Mountain crossed the four massifs to direct the campaign, eager to redress the family dishonor his son-in-law brought, in the Bissanty defeat in the High Pastures. This isn’t like last summer, when Tielmark’s finest could while away half their summer in wine-houses, traveling west, and it made no difference to those at the front whether they arrived or not.
“And speaking on that, Stalkingman, after all I’ve told you tonight, I’m expecting you to clear business in Princeport and haul your tail out
west as soon as Benet will release you. There’s nothing for you in Princeport—just a passel of fools who’ve played games with words for so long they’ve forgotten they have the power to act.”
“What do you mean?”
The Duke’s chair squeaked under another abrupt movement. “The Prince’s court is too busy fighting itself to bother themselves with the war, and this is not the summer to play that game. One half accuses the other of conspiring with the Bissanties—the other makes the same accusations back. Both sides whisper that there’s a new plan alive to drive the Prince from his throne.
“All they care about is raising their own stature with Benet. What does it matter to them if the western woods are being overrun, if my people are being savaged? There’s so much strife in Princeport that Benet’s even delayed sending his knights west.” The Duke snorted. “He needs to whip his peers in line. Not half the dukes and counts have provided their full levy of men. Great Twins! We need Benet in the west himself, and not just his men. It’s his border, as much as mine. I came east to tell him so, for all the good it did me. Can’t hold it by myself, and I’ve lost patience with risking my sons’ blood—and my own—trying. More fool I. That bitch Dervla tried to get me served a writ as traitor for petitioning the Prince to lead the army himself. As if his father and every Prince before him hasn’t done just that!”
Gaultry pricked up her ears. In her own experience, Dervla of Princeport had never seemed satisfied with her position as High Priestess. Gaultry and her sister both, south-border girls without court connections, had often felt the edge of her resentment. But the High Priestess had always shown respect to the most powerful among the court’s inner circle. Something must have changed for her to dare to go after such a powerful man so openly.
“Dervla has convinced Benet that the Bissanties are fixed on breaking his rule by corrupting the Common Brood prophecy,” the Duke went on. “As evidenced by their abduction of you, Martin Stalker, and by what they sent their Sha Muira men to do to that other Brood-woman and her children. For all I know, it’s true—they certainly went to enough trouble to grab you. But even if she’s right, that doesn’t mean that the fighting in the west is of no significance! ‘Briern-bold settled the matter of holding our borders by force of arms two hundred years past,’ Dervla-bitch told me. ‘The Bissanties won’t get at us that way again.’ How that helps us
when we have Lanai tribesmen raiding as far east as Arciers she wouldn’t tell me!

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