The Assassin's Edge (Einarinn 5) (13 page)

“Not given the choice.” The pirate rubbing his bruised face was looking up at her daughter’s legs hanging helpless above him. He grabbed her calf and the raiders above dropped the girl. The man slid his rough-skinned hand up her stockings and beneath her skirts as he caught her around the waist with his other arm.

The lass jerked rigid in his embrace and in panic, she spat full in the pirate’s face. “How dare you!”

“Beg pardon, my lady.” He removed his hands with elaborate care and a lascivious smile. “You come find me, if you change your mind.”

Parrail and Naldeth were pushed towards the rail. The scholar kicked the mage hard on the ankle and saw bemused realisation of pain burn through the shock fogging the wizard’s eyes. Parrail nodded at the rope ladders and to his relief, Naldeth managed to fumble his way down to the longboat. Parrail gripped the rungs with trembling hands, nails digging into the tarred rope, trying to go as fast as he could, fearful lest he fall but more scared of the consequences if he did.

“That’s your lot!” The pirate with spittle still glistening on his unshaven cheek waved to the ship and urged his rowers to their oars. “Get on!”

The passengers huddled on the central thwarts of the boat, the mother sobbing into her daughter’s breast. Naldeth was still staring ahead with unseeing eyes but Parrail twisted to try and gain some idea of where they were being taken.

He saw a crude stockade of green timber some little distance inshore, bark still on the trees, fresh axe marks still pale on the sharpened ends. A scatter of rough shelters, lean-tos and tents sprawled over the close-cropped turf between the stony beach and the thick underbrush that cloaked the rising land. Returning pirates were stirring fires to life, cauldrons and kettles swung over the flames. The few who’d stayed hidden ashore came out of the undergrowth and from the stockade, shouts of congratulation audible over the smooth waters of the anchorage. The sun was warm, the breeze gentle and the islands looked verdant and hospitable. Parrail felt utterly desolate.

The boat crunched to a halt on the shingle spit. “All out and sharp about it!”

As they scrambled over the side, stumbling in the knee-deep water, Parrail risked a quick look round for any hope of escape. He wasn’t the only one.

“Nowhere to run, sorry.” The scornful pirate wasn’t looking at him but Parrail still coloured, humiliated by the mocking laugh of several brutes waiting at the water’s edge.

“You’re in the stockade for tonight.” A thickset man with a shaven head in sharp contrast to his plaited brown beard stepped forward. He wasn’t dressed for raiding but wore buff breeches and jerkin of a cut and quality Parrail would have expected on any Vanam street. “Give us your oath that you’ll join us in the morning and you can set up your own patch.” He indicated the ramshackle camp with an expansive gesture.

Parrail shoved Naldeth into the centre of their group as they headed meekly for the stockade. The scholar hoped the grey despair on the wizard’s face would be taken for the defeat that hung heavy on the rest. Their captors seemed keen to dispel such gloom.

“Muredarch’s a great leader,” volunteered a muscular youth, tanned beneath a sleeveless shirt unlaced to the waist. “You should think about his offer. It’s the best chance for serious wealth for the likes of us this side of Saedrin’s door.”

“It’s good living,” his companion agreed, slapping at the gilt and enamel decorations on the expensive baldric that carried his sword. He swung a flagon of wine in the other hand, cheery in the bright sun that mocked the prisoners’ misery.

Parrail wondered where the wine had come from and who had died for it. They reached the stockade and were roughly shoved inside the crude gates. Parrail was hard put to stifle abject tears when he heard the rough-hewn bar outside secure it. He dashed them angrily from his eyes and grabbed Naldeth. The wizard looked at him numbly and Parrail shook him bodily before urging him into the narrow shadow cast by the crude walkway that offered their few token guards a vantage point.

“We have to send word.” He quailed lest anyone overhear his urgent whisper.

Uncomprehending, Naldeth struggled to find some response but none came.

Parrail found the first stirrings of anger fighting to rise above his fear and nausea. “We’re the only ones who can send for help.”

Naldeth shuddered and rubbed a shaking hand over his mouth. “Who?” he managed to croak.

Parrail licked dry lips. “Hadrumal?” The great mages had defended Mentor Tonin and his scholars before; Planir, Otrick and Kalion wielding mighty magic to send Kellarin’s foes screaming before them. That seemed so very far away and long ago compared to his present predicament.

Some animation was returning to Naldeth’s face. “I need to conjure a flame if I’m going to bespeak anyone.” He looked around. “And something shiny, something metal.”

Parrail looked around as well. “They haven’t left anyone so much as a hair pin.”

“Nor any fire.” Naldeth shivered. “It’s going to be a cold night.”

“Any flame will give you away as the mage.” Parrail wished he hadn’t spoken when he saw stifling dread threaten Naldeth’s fragile composure again. “Think, man! What are we going to do?”

The wizard drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Can’t you use Artifice?”

Parrail hugged his aching belly. “I can try but what if someone hears me?” He looked round at the other prisoners but all were sunk in their own misery, some clinging to each other, others lost and alone in their shock.

“Do you think they’ll give us up?” Naldeth asked in a hollow voice.

“Master Gede didn’t.” Parrail’s voice cracked.

“He’s not dead yet—and neither are we.” Naldeth grasped the scholar’s shoulder in a clumsy attempt at comfort. “I’ve just thought of something; I can weave air to cover your incantations, can’t I?”

Parrail managed a wan smile. “Let’s see who I can reach.”

He moved to the negligible protection of a rough-hewn upright supporting the walkway and sat facing the blank wall of the stockade. Naldeth dropped down beside him, sitting with bent knees and feet flat to the trampled grass, elbows resting on his knees, head and hands seemingly hanging limp. Only Parrail could see the utter concentration holding the mage rigid. This was no time to let any hint of magelight escape his working.

“When—” The silence that swallowed his tentative query told the scholar he could attempt his own enchantment. Parrail forced himself to breathe long and slow, concentrating on the memory of Vanam’s university quarter and banishing the reality of this nest of pirates. He pictured the scholarly halls where learned men shared their theories in lecture and demonstration, the dusty libraries where long-dead rivalries stood shoulder to shoulder in the chained ranks of books. With a longing that twisted his heart, he focused his thoughts on the cramped house where Mentor Tonin shared his enthusiasm for the lost lore of the ancients with his students, conscientious in tutoring even those he only took on for the sake of their fathers’ fat purses, their gold keeping the roof over the heads of those poorer but diligent like Parrail.

He mouthed the words of the enchantment that should carry his words to Tonin but felt nothing. The image in his mind’s eye was as stiff and unresponsive as a painted panel. He tried again but there was none of the thrill he recalled from his past use of Artifice. Where was the vivid connection, the wondrous sense of touching the aether that linked all living things, thought speaking to thought, free from the fetters of distance or difference? Vanam was as unreachable as the sun sailing high and untroubled above them.

Was he doing something wrong? Parrail wondered. But he’d worked this Artifice with Mentor Tonin even before he had helped the scholar rouse the sleepers of Kellarin. He had worked it so much more effectively after Demoiselle Guinalle had explained the apparent contradictions in their lore, untangling the contrary incantations that had been hampering their attempts at enchantments. Hopeless longing seized Parrail. He’d been so eager to share the winter’s discoveries with Guinalle, not least those woven into love songs that he’d be able to sing to her.

Perhaps he should try that older, simpler form of Artifice. Parrail closed his eyes, the better to hear the silent melody playing in his head. What was the song Trimon had used to call to Halcarion, lost as he wandered in the depths of the Forest, calling on the Moon Maiden to light the stars to guide him home? Would it work, sung unheard in the elemental silence all around him? Could he keep the pitch and beat? He’d never been a good singer. Determination gripped Parrail as he concentrated every fibre of his being on the mythic ballad.

The malice of elder dark move shadows to snare and

bind him.

Trimon took up his harp and sang that his love might

find him.

Driath al’ ar toral, fria men del ard endal

Cariol vas arjerd, ni mel as mistar fal

It was the jalquezan that held the enchantment, wasn’t it? The incomprehensible refrains of Forest Folk songs worked their long-forgotten Artifice. Parrail sang in mute resolve, weaving his cherished memories of Guinalle through every nuance of the travelling god’s desperation and desire for the remote goddess of maidenhood and mystery. The rhythm of the song pulsed in his blood, warming him from head to toes in an exultation that bordered on ecstasy. He gasped and the rapture was gone.

“Well?” Naldeth released his spell, looking at Parrail with the intensity of a desperate man.

A shiver seized Parrail and it was a moment before he could speak. “I don’t know,” he admitted lamely.

A shadow fell across the pair of them and they looked up guiltily. Relieved, they recognised the yeoman absently twisting his ringless fingers.

“So what are you two going to say when they come for us in the morning?”

Vithrancel, Kellarin,

18th of Aft-Spring

Messire D’Olbriot doesn’t favour these open meetings, does he?” I looked around the rapidly filling hall. The door barely got a chance to close before some curious face opened it again. I had to admit Temar’s new reception room looked impressive. Ryshad had spent the last few days cajoling people into lending a hand and they’d set to with a will. The wooden panelling I was leaning against still wanted paint or varnish but it was a considerable improvement on cramming everyone between the trestles and boards of the trading hall.

“No Sieur does these days.” Ryshad was counting heads. “This is the old style; the way Temar remembers his grand-sire doing things. It has its points; the Caladhrian Parliament’s open to all and half the Lescari dukes hold their assemblies in the open air.” Sworn to D’Olbriot, Ryshad had ridden the length and breadth of Tormalin and half the countries beyond. “Deals behind closed doors send rumours of bad faith hopping around like frogs in springtime.” He scratched a scar on his arm, token of such rumours that had nearly been the death of him and Temar the summer before in Toremal.

“Can he stop it turning into a shouting match? What if everyone tries to have his say at once?” I looked up to the dais where Temar sat on a high-backed chair; arms ornamented with saw-edged holm oak leaves. He was wearing a sleeved jerkin in the Kellarin style rather than the gaudy fashions of Toremal that I knew he had crushed in a trunk somewhere. It was still a superior garment; Bridele must have been squinting by a candle half the night to finish the green leaves embroidered on the grey silk.

Guinalle sat beside him on a plainer chair upholstered with rich russet leather. The colour complemented her smoky blue gown, cut neither ancient nor modern but calculated to flatter her figure at the same time as using the minimum of precious damask. A modest swathe of lace obscured the low sweep of the neckline and discreet diamonds glinted beneath the glossy fall of her unbound hair. The two were deep in the first conversation I could recall them sharing since Equinox. “What if Guinalle takes a contrary view to him?” I asked Ryshad.

“They’ll save any arguments for later. They both grew up in courtly Houses; they know the importance of appearances.” We claimed two of the stools arrayed around the edge of the room and Ryshad stretched long legs out in front of him. “They know Kellarin runs on goodwill. Neither will risk undermining that with a public squabble.”

I wondered if Temar appreciated how much that goodwill depended on Ryshad’s talents. As D’Olbriot’s man, he’d often had to unite some disparate band of men, getting a task done with a joke and a laugh, asserting his authority with steel in his voice and, if need be, in his hand. He’d been doing the same for D’Alsennin since we got here.

My beloved was watching Guinalle with a slight smile. “Did she tell you Artifice was used to curb anyone letting their mouth run away with them in the Old Empire courts?”

She had and I wasn’t entirely happy with the notion. I surveyed the crowd, some intent faces among the merely inquisitive. “Who steps up first?”

“For the moment, first come, first heard.” Ryshad looked at D’Alsennin with faint impatience. “I told Temar he’d do better to have people bring their business to his proxy before an assembly meets and to let them know he’ll hear them in order of importance.”

“You’re not taking that on?” I hoped it was plain I expected a denial.

“I’m no clerk.” Ryshad said emphatically. “It’s time young Albarn took on a few responsibilities of the rank he’s so eager to claim.”

As Ryshad spoke, Albarn Den Domesin appeared on the dais from a door in the back wall. This sprig of ancient Tormalin nobility had certainly welcomed the Emperor’s edict that the few remaining noble lineages of Kellarin should henceforth be considered cadet branches grafted on to the D’Alsennin tree. Perhaps someone should tell him that Tadriol had simply been circumventing the snarl of legalities threatening to entangle Temar as aggrieved and opportunistic Sieurs had laid ancient claims and spurious grievances before Toremal’s law courts.

Albarn settled himself at a table to one side of the dais where an unsullied ledger lay open beside an assortment of pens and ink. He didn’t look too enthusiastic for someone eager to be acknowledged as Temar’s designated successor.