Shadowdance (47 page)

He bit his lip and made an ironic smirk. Drushen would be dead of snakebite, he reminded himself, and he would probably have starved to death. That would have been his simple life.

Watchfires burned all along the top of Whisperstone's walls, and pacing sentries moving back and forth before the flames cast giant, distorted shadows on the ground below. Innowen stopped to watch those huge, strange shapes and the tiny little men above, of which they were part. He looked over his shoulder. The moon was not yet up. The moonlight would fight the fire. Which way would the shadows go then?

He rode up to the gate.

"Who's there?" a voice called down from atop the wall.

"You know me," he answered. "I am Minarik's son."

There was a scramble on the wall and some muffled shouting. A moment later, there came a scraping of wood as a great bar was drawn back and one gate opened inward wide enough to admit him. A soldier greeted him and held out a hand to grasp the horse's bridle while four other guards closed the gate again and returned to their posts.

"Welcome home, Innocent."

Innowen blinked, at first not recognizing the soldier who addressed him. Suddenly, he smiled. "Veydon!" he said. "I didn't recognize you under that helm." He threw a leg over the horse's head, slid to the ground, and embraced his friend. "You look well. Your wound...?"

Veydon grinned and rolled his shoulder. "Healed enough to let me take a turn at watch," he said.

"But the night watch?" Innowen raised an eyebrow. "You could have pulled better duty."

Veydon clasped Innowen's arm warmly. "I knew it would be moonlight or the stars that lit your way home, Innowen. Not the sun. Rascal knew it, too. He saw you from the wall before I did. I think he sensed your coming."

Innowen glanced around the grounds. Everywhere there were tents and camps, soldiers huddled around fires, stacks of lances and weapons, barrels and carts of supplies. And shadows. Shadows everywhere.

"He's waiting for you," Veydon said.

Innowen nodded, pushing aside the awful foreboding he felt. He kissed Veydon's cheek, then took his bundles from his horse and surrendered the reins. "Don't tell anyone I'm back until morning," he said. He slipped across the crowded grounds, up the marble steps, and entered the main hall.

There was no one to take note of him as he made his way up to his rooms. He pushed the door inward quietly, closed it, and set his bundles down.

Razkili stood naked before the window, framed in the glow of the watchfires, his back to Innowen, his arms and shoulders gleaming as he anointed himself with sweet-smelling persimmon oil from a tiny jug. His right hand, dripping the rare and precious substance, rubbed languorously from his left ear, along his neck and down his chest as he turned slowly to face Innowen.

"Are you angry?" Innowen asked uncertainly.

Razkili shook his head. "You've ridden a long way," he said quietly. "You must be tired. Let me rub you."

Innowen took off his garments and his sandals and stretched out face down upon the bed. Freshly crushed mint leaves had been pressed between the sheets, and the scent rose through the thin fabric. He folded his arms and put his head down upon them to inhale the fragrance.

Razkili brought over a small table upon which sat a pitcher of wine and a single kylix for drinking. He put there also the pot of persimmon oil when he had poured a measure of it into his palm.

Neither of them spoke while Rascal worked the knots out of Innowen's neck and shoulders. Innowen closed his eyes and let the tension seep out of him, trying to keep at bay the images and memories of his journey and certain suspicions that lingered relentlessly at the edge of his consciousness. But the massage only seemed to bring them into sharper focus. When Razkili went to work on his lower back, a few tears leaked from the corners of Innowen's eyes, and when he moved down to his buttocks and thighs, Innowen began to tell everything that had happened.

"There's one more thing you should know," Rascal said when Innowen reached the end of his story. "Kyrin wants your head."

"Because of Riloosa," Innowen mumbled into the sheets. He raised up on his elbows suddenly and took a drink from the kylix. Then he held it up to Rascal's lips for him to drink, too. When Rascal took the vessel, Innowen swung his feet off the bed, rose, and went to stand by the window.

The fires on the wall had a mesmerizing quality. He folded his arms across his bare chest, leaned against the sill, and stared. "Sometimes, I feel like a ghost," he said at last when Razkili came and stood close behind him and looked out into the night with him. "Insubstantial. I see things. I know things. But I'm part of nothing. I belong to nothing."

Rascal wrapped his arms about Innowen and pressed their bodies together. "You're part of me," he said.

Innowen swallowed and leaned his head back on Rascal's shoulder. "Your eyes are right beside mine," he whispered. "We look out the same window." He swallowed again. "But what do you see when you look on the face of night?"

"You," he answered without pause. "I see you, whole and beautiful. I see all the places we've been together, and I remember the things we've done."

Innowen gave a low chuckle. "My Rascal with the golden tongue," he said. "It was a mistake to leave you behind."

Razkili squeezed him, lifted him from the floor and shook him. "There are no mistakes in life," he answered. "Just lessons. Make sure you learn from this one."

"Ugh!" Innowen cried, struggling playfully. "Osiri philosophy at this hour!"

"Still feel insubstantial?" Rascal said in his ear as he set him down again.

Innowen grew quiet once more as he looked beyond the window at the watchfires, the tiny soldiers upon the wall, and the shadows they made. Whisperstone was full of shadows.

"Sometimes," he repeated honestly, turning serious again. "As if I can't really touch anyone or anything."

Rascal turned him around and kissed him. "I'll show you how to touch," he promised. "I will."

* * *

Veydon woke Innowen by gently shaking his shoulder. He'd brought a tray, with a platter of cold roast pork and bread and a mug of steaming barley broth. The sky beyond the window was bright blue, and Innowen guessed it was near noon. There was no sign of Rascal.

Veydon helped Innowen sit up., propped a cushion between his back and the headboard, and balanced the platter on his lap. Innowen looked at the food, and his mouth watered. He was famished. It surprised him, though, when Veydon lifted a warm, wet cloth from the tray and began to wash Innowen's hands.

"Are you my host, now?" Innowen teased.

Veydon nodded. "My way of saying, 'welcome home.'"

Innowen smiled and accepted Veydon's ministrations. "Have you seen Rascal?" he asked.

Veydon pushed the mug of broth into Innowen's hands. "He got up early this morning," Veydon said, sitting down on the side of the bed. "There was something he had to do, but he'll be back before evening."

"Be back?" Innowen said. "He's left Whisperstone?"

"Eat!" Veydon ordered sternly. "Don't worry about Razkili. He's all right. On the other hand, Minarik knows you've returned, and he wants to see you." He gestured at the platter. "When you're finished with that, I'll help you dress and carry you down to the Great Hall."

Innowen lifted a slice of pork to his lips, but his eyes took on a hard look. "No," he said abruptly. "Tell Minarik I'll receive him in the courtyard in the gazebo."

Veydon frowned. "You'll receive him?"

Innowen nodded and began to eat, ignoring the uneasy expression on Veydon's face. In no time at all, he finished the last scrap of meat and the last crust of bread. He drained the barley broth from the mug and wiped his lips.

"Now," he said, handing the platter to Veydon, who set it on the table. "I want the finest cloth you can find for my kilt wrap. If my father wants to see his son, then I'll come in a manner that befits my status." He leaned forward and grasped Veydon's arm intently, pulling him closer. "Find something for me, Veydon."

Veydon's brows narrowed as he met Innowen's gaze.

Then he pulled back a bit. "This isn't vanity, is it? I see a scheme in those eyes." He stared a moment more, then let go a sigh. "Well, let's do it properly, then." He stripped the covering sheet from Innowen and draped it over one arm while he moved the platter from the table. He spread the sheet over the table and turned back to Innowen. "First, I'll oil and scrape your skin. Then fresh oil for your hair. I don't know what's spinning around behind those eyes of yours, Innocent, but if you want to look like a prince, leave it to me." He rubbed his hands together and grinned mischievously. "Prince, hell. You'll look like the finest whore in Jeriko."

Innowen folded his arms across his chest as Veydon lifted him from the bed and set him on the table. "When did you ever see a Jeriko whore?" he said in a teasing scoff. Innowen gripped the edges of the table to keep his balance.

"Shut up," Veydon ordered, "and don't go away. I'll be right back."

Before Innowen could point out how unlikely it was that he would go anywhere, Veydon was out the door. Innowen gripped the table tighter, leaned slowly forward and looked at his legs dangling in the air over the table's edge. There was nothing to do but wait for Veydon's return. Interestingly, though, that old feeling of helplessness, which he had known so often in this very room, no longer seemed to be with him, and that made him smile.

As he sat there, he began to wonder what could have taken Rascal away from Whisperstone, but before he could give it much thought, Veydon came back with a pair of male attendants dressed in white kilts. They bore scrapers and oil pots and mirrors and perfumes and stacks of soft towels. "All right, let's get to work," Veydon said, pushing Innowen onto his back on the table. He was clearly enjoying himself. He clapped his hands, and the attendants moved to either side of Innowen, spreading their grooming utensils near Innowen's head. "I give you a crow," Veydon said to the pair. "Give me back a peacock."

The attendants bowed their heads reverently toward Veydon, then looked at each other across Innowen, who was stretched between them like a banquet feast. One of them lifted a razor and ran a thumb along its edge. "Shave him," he said, passing the razor to the other attendant without so much as a glance at Innowen. "Shave everything."

Innowen's eyes widened, and he heard Veydon's short laugh as the door closed suddenly.

Alone with Innowen, the attendants chuckled lowly. Then they were on him. They shaved away his thick, stubbly beard, clucking to themselves as they took turns dragging the razor over his face and throat. Innowen breathed a sigh of relief when they stopped there and set the tool aside to take up the oil pots. Four hands massaged olive oil into his skin. It felt wonderful, and he slowly relaxed into a languid state as they worked on him. After a time, each attendant picked up a stone scraper and scraped the oil away with short, rapid strokes, shaking the excess from the blades and rinsing them in basins of water.

When his front side was done, they flipped him over and repeated their cleansings on his other side. Not even the spaces between his toes were sacred to these two. Though they began every new movement or phase of their ministrations with an almost menacing roughness, the attendants were surprisingly gentle and thorough. When the oil was scraped away, they rubbed his flesh briskly with the towels until he tingled all over.

One of them found the remains of Razkili's persimmon oil, and they used that to make his hair shine. Next, they bound his curly locks behind his neck with a thin gold cord.

Innowen was sitting up on the table again while the two applied perfume when Veydon returned. "Look at this," he said with pride. He held up a bolt of the most beautiful blue cloth Innowen had ever seen.

"Where did you get it?" he asked with awe as he ran his fingers over the soft material, noting with admiration the subtle interweaving of silver thread among the blue, which created a startling play of light on the fabric.

"Kyrin's daughter overheard me questioning the slave who cares for Minarik's wardrobe," Veydon explained, "and she offered this." Veydon gave a little cough, and added in a lower voice, "She also sends her greeting and requests to see you at your convenience."

Innowen bit his lip thoughtfully. He had brought back a gift for Dyan, one of the four dolls, which still lay in the bundles by the door. But first, he had business with Minarik.

He wrapped his loins with a fresh loin cloth. Then, while the two attendants held him up, Veydon set about winding and draping the blue fabric over his body. Around Innowen's waist, he fastened a belt of large, linked gold circles so long that, once tight about him, a length of it still hung down across his lap to his knees. It jingled lightly every time it moved, and shimmered in the sunlight that came through the window.

"I think you're ready now," Veydon said approvingly. He turned to the attendants. "Thank you, friends. I'll see you on the wall tonight."

"Soldiers?" Innowen muttered as the two headed for the door. The two stopped, turned back toward him, looked at each other, and laughed again. Chuckling, they left without another word.

"That shaving bit was pretty good, wasn't it?" Veydon said with a smirk. "I'll carry you down to the courtyard now." He picked Innowen up with little effort. "Then I'll go find Minarik."