Across the Long Sea (6 page)

Mayhap when daylight came again and the tide receded he'd walk the length and breadth of the beach with a shovel, dig up the sand crabs Cook preferred for her stews, teach Liam how to stalk the denizens of the shallows. There was a certain blue-­veined snail, the size of a man's fist, used by coastal denizens in glazes and dyes. The snail was difficult to coax from the mud, but worth a silver coin apiece. Liam could likely make a healthy purseful before it was time to return to the city.

Barefoot, he crossed sand, wading through an inch of icy water before he made the pier. The tide was indeed rising, pulled back and forth by the power of a moon hidden behind angry clouds. As he walked the boards toward deeper water, more fingerling waves sloshed over the edge of the pier, causing Mal's flesh to prick and itch in protest. The mage-­light floating over his shoulder spat green sparks, adding to the weight of ozone in the night air.

A guardsman stood on duty just near a pile of crates, the Rose badge on his breast, a pike in hand. A young seaman with a silver twist of wire in his ear and patches of velvet quilting his trousers slept curled on the planks not far on. The guard nodded a silent greeting. The seaman didn't so much as stir when Mal stepped past.

But for his two silent companions, the pier was empty, crewmen asleep in the bellies of their ships, merchants returned behind Selkirk's walls. Piles of netting and stacks of empty barrels awaited the morning. The only sails in evidence were black, snapping fretfully in the wind.

Mal stopped alongside the black barge, sent his light higher into the sky, and studied the rigging and upper decks. The part of him that was still a resentful lad expected his father's ghost to berate him from the forecastle. Instead the decks were deserted, long-­dead pirates blown back below by the wind.

He might have missed the splash if not for a lifetime of learned caution. It wasn't a large splash, or loud, but it was out of place in the rhythm of wind and wave, and the near inaudible gasp preceding it had sounded pained and human.

“Who goes there?” Mal reached for his sword even as he ordered his mage-­light wide and bright.

The light threw pier and water into stark relief. Whitecaps surged around great wooden pylons, tossing spray against the underside of the pier. The tall ships creaked and groaned, lanterns snuffed in traditional respect for their lost lord's rest.

The guardsman was gone. His pike lay abandoned across the planks. The seaman slept on, chest rising and falling, apparently oblivious to wind and noise. The nape of Mal's neck prickled.

“Siobahn,” he began, and then stopped, jaw flexing. So long since he'd banished her, and still Mal automatically reached for his wife.

He chewed a quiet curse, muttered a warding cant, gathering night and shadow about his shoulders, and eased back along the pier, wary. The black sails overhead snapped and rolled. The scent of fresh ozone and newly shed blood caught in the back of his nose. Mal was suddenly glad he'd left Liam behind in the keep.

“
Hssst.
” He nudged the sleeping seaman with a bare toe, hard. “
Hsst
, man, wake up.”

The fellow, no more than a boy, really, jolted to his knees. He gaped at Mal, biting back a screech.

“Gods save me!” His accent was Black Coast, and with the accent came that realm's deep superstition. “Demon, get back!” He reached for his belt knife.

“Stop.” Mal grabbed his wrist, squeezed delicate bone until the lad squeaked and dropped his sticker. “It's me, lad. The Selkirk's youngest. Where's the guard?”

The seaman looked at the ring on the hand gripping his wrist, and began to shudder. Mal sighed. His rotten luck to encounter the one man on the coast impressed by the yellow stone and what it meant.

“Focus,” he whispered. “The guard? What happened?”

“Aran?” The lad glanced around, stared at the abandoned pike. “Why, my lord, he was here but a moment ago. He promised he'd wake me when my watch was up.” Realizing his mistake, the boy swallowed hard. “I mean, my lord, it's not—­we take turns, sometimes, share out the shift—­”

“Hush.” Mal ordered. He let the fellow go, took up the pike, examined it in the stark white light.

Nothing.

The wooden shaft was cold, smooth, the sharp blade shone clean.

“Aran wouldn't leave his post, my lord. Not without waking me first. I'd be whipped if I were caught sleeping on shift, my lord. Aran, he wouldn't let that happen.”

Mal set the pike aside, crouched. Sniffed. And, yes, there it was. A smudge of black on the planks, black that would be red in more natural light. Mal stuck a finger in the glisten, tasted: blood.

“Aran's your friend, is he?” Mal asked. He crept along plank, crouched, followed the drip as it grew into a pool to the very edge of the pier.

“Yes, my lord.” The sailor inched after. “We came across the sea together, we did. Aran decided he wanted to stay on dry land. Took a place with Selkirk. I'm for the water. Is that—­”

Squatting on the boards, Mal sent his light over the waves. “Blood.” And there he was, surfaced already in the way of corpses, Aran of Rose Guard floating facedown, knocked repeatedly against the pylons by the angry sea.

The seaman groaned and made as if to dive from the pier, but Mal stopped him.

“He's gone,” Mal said, straightening, grabbing the butt of the pike as he did so. He tossed it to the sailor. “Best look after yourself, lad.”

“What?” The boy clutched the shaft in two fists. “You don't mean—­are they still here?”

“They?” Mal paused in scanning the pier. He wheeled back, hands lifted, drawing at the restless power kept caged in his center. “What do you mean,
they
?”

Too late. The boy, no longer quite so wide-­eyed and astonished, somehow larger and, mayhap not a boy after all—­the seaman snarled and lunged, not with the pike and its far more practical reach, but with the knife Mal had pressed into his hand earlier.

Mal drew himself up, more amused than frightened.

“You've a place on the stage,” he said, and the tips of his fingers sparked green as he fed his wards. “Not quite the baffled Black Coast innocent after all.”

The sailor all but swaggered as he took one step forward, and then another, nudging up against Mal's magics. Wards hummed, and the man flinched, but his smile grew only more fierce.

“You've never been to the Black Coast, have you, magus?” The man—­was he even a sailor in truth?—­turned his knife back and forth between finger and thumb. Mal's light caught the edges, and he frowned. Not metal. The color of bone, and tooth-­edged, more tool than weapon. “We none of us innocent who walk the ebony sand.”

“Lovely,” said Mal, and showed his teeth in return. “Obviously you know who I am. Don't be a fool. Drop your weapon.”

“It's you who'll be wearing the motley, Magus,” the man said. “If you survive the deep seas, and your mother's paid me good coin to see you shipward.”

He laughed as he sprang, knife raised.

 

Chapter Five

T
HE
EWE
LAY
on her side in the spring grass, silent. Her rough coat was dark with sweat, her breathing deep, but not yet labored. Her soft brown eyes were glazed, lids half-­mast, lashes long and feminine.

“Good girl.” Avani knew better than to touch a ewe in labor, but she couldn't help but hum and cluck in reassurance. “Almost there, lovely. Push now. You're so close.”

The ewe blinked long lashes, and sighed. Avani, crouched on her heels on the skin of the Downs, exhaled with her. A quick check under the sheep's tail, and she clucked again.

“The feet are there, little mother. Once more and you'll have a pretty babe to call your very own.”

The ewe grunted as though in disbelief. She flicked her tail, groaning, as her sides contracted, lean muscle rippling beneath the surface. Avani caught a glimpse of tiny white hooves. She bent quickly forward, looped one hand beneath those small feet, and tugged.

The lamb slid out in a gush of birthing fluid. Avani caught it in her lap, whooping. The lamb lifted her head and looked around, chuffing softly.

“Well done!” Avani praised. The lamb in her lap wriggled. Avani cleared the plug from its mouth and nose, then set it on the grass next to its mother. The ewe muttered softly, and quickly went to work with her tongue, snuffling as she nuzzled her child's fuzzy coat.

“A little boy, I think.” Avani pressed the palms of her hands on the ewe's side, palpating the afterbirth. “He'll make a fine stud one day. Push again, now, lovely.”

The ewe finished her job, expelling the afterbirth without trouble or much notice, and Avani smiled in relief. She'd been worried about this last lambing; the undersized ewe had gone several days past her date, while her bigger sisters had delivered on time. She'd keep a weather eye on the new pair, but for the moment all appeared well.

Avani stood and stretched, hands on her hips. The birthing apron she'd tied over her tunic and trousers was soaked. It stank of the ewe's labor, and her hands were chapped from the recent flurry of new spring lambs, but she wouldn't complain. Her small flock was increasing. She'd paid dearly for this new clutch of mountain sheep, but already they were happily replacing the flock she'd lost to the
sidhe
barrowmen more than a year earlier.

She murmured a last word of encouragement to the new mother, then took herself down the grassy slope, toward her house and a much needed wash. The rest of her small herd watched her with mild interest, idly mouthing grass and prickly weed. Several of the lambs spooked when she hopped over the fence and out of the pen; she turned to watch them gallop and play, deeply content with her lot in life.

Her little house gleamed in the midday sunshine, roof steaming away the morning damp. Four small rugs hung placid on the new drying rail Everin had built her the very same day her loom had arrived from Wilhaiim. Once the rugs were ready for market, she'd roll them up and carry them on her shoulders to Mors Keep, where the new lord would see them sent on to Wilhaiim for market.

She'd made a name for herself in the thriving city, and with Deval's generous help, her wares continued to sell steadily in the Fair. The island man was both a dear friend and a thriving merchant, and an enthusiastic intermediary. More often than not a list of commissions came folded in a pouch with her chits; the old man, well-­versed in mercantile, kept her busy. It was Deval who had suggested she invest in the mountain sheep: their thick, soft difficult-­to-­weave wool was a coveted luxury at wintertime in court. She already had patrons lining up for scarves and hoods and cold-­weather tunics and trousers.

Avani ducked around the drying rugs and through her clapboard door, first kicking off muddy boots. She yanked the fetid birthing apron over her head and tossed it outside onto the grass. Her tunic was in little better shape, but she'd yet to do wash for the day, and was forced to make do with a wipe-­down and face wash in the brass basin now dominating her kitchen.

The basin, and the matching hand pump, was another of Everin's remarkable creations; the man had managed to plumb her a cistern.

Avani neatened her braid with practiced fingers, then set tea to boiling on her small hob. She expected company before the afternoon was gone, and was near to bursting with curiosity. The Downs were a lonely place, Stonehill emptied and burnt. If she sometimes missed the bustle and energy of the city, she'd found peace in isolation, and the truth of it was, Everin often was as noisy as an entire civilization.

The kettle sang. Avani poured water over her own closely guarded blend of dried herbs, added a sprinkle of cardamom for luck. She rummaged in a painted tin for the last of the chocolate biscuits Mal had sent up her last name day, and arranged them on a chipped plate, one of the few in her home to have survived the barrowman invasion. Then she sat down to wait.

It wasn't long before a polite rap on the lintel had her springing up again.

“Come,” she called, smoothing her braid again, setting errant strands right.

The young man who slipped past her tapestries was burnt red as a shellfish from the tip of his ears to the ends of his long toes. Only his hairless crown had escaped the sun's wrath, and that because he'd had the sense to wear a hat during midday. His snub nose was blistered, and new lines fanned in a delicate web from the corners of his cheeks, etched into virgin skin by sun or wind.

“Tch,” Avani tutted. “And didn't I warn you?”

The
aes si
had the grace to look sheepish, although Avani thought the flush around his torque was more sun than embarrassment.

“I didn't realize,” Faolan admitted. “The sun has never burnt me so before.”

“
Ai
, have you spent many days working beneath its shine, then? I was under the impression a barrowman prefers damp tunnels and gray skies.” She closed one eye to show the man she was teasing.

He rewarded her with a half smile. “And I was under the impression island witches preferred sea level to mountaintop.”

“You'd be wrong, then. The islands have peaks and valleys like the rest of this world. Wait, now, and I'll find you that salve.”

Faolan took her literally, standing still amongst bright pillows and jewel-­tone tapestries while Avani dug through the small cupboard she used to order her apothecaries. She found the jar she was looking for under a pile of rag bandages, sniffed to make sure it was the correct ointment, and returned to the front room, triumphant.

“Here.” She handed him the jar. “Calendula and rose. The last I have from my travels.”

“Ah.” Faolan blinked. “I shouldn't take your last.”

“I don't burn,” Avani said. “Never have. Comes of island living, I suppose. The sun and my ­people are friends rather than enemies. Take it, and use it. It rubs in smooth. Three times a day, until the jar is emptied. Now, sit.” She smiled. “I've tea and biscuits.”

“A healing tea?” he asked. He sat gingerly, careful of blistered skin.

“A healthful tea,” Avani corrected. She passed him a cup, still steaming, and set the plate of biscuits on the rug by his knee. “The chocolates are from Wilhaiim; they're His Majesty's favorite. Mal sent them.”

Faolan swallowed a mouthful of tea, throat working beneath his torque. The yellow gem in the bronze flashed. Avani eyed it warily.

“And how is Malachi?” Faolan asked. He took a biscuit between long fingers, nibbling.

Avani twitched her wary gaze upward to his smile. She'd long thought perhaps the
aes si
didn't much like Wilhaiim's vocent, but she'd never seen any solid indication to match her intuition. The nagging suspicion made her miss Jacob. If any creature easily sussed out deception beneath layers of polite formality, it was the raven.

“He's stopped demanding I return to the city,” she replied. “His last letter was nothing but court gossip and imprecations on the weather.”

“Like as not he's very busy.” Faolan finished the biscuit in two quick bites, sharp teeth flashing. “I understand the plague season is especially difficult this year. I can assume they're taking precautions with the boy?”

“Mal loves Liam like his own,” Avani said. “Drink your tea. It'll help with the headache.”

The
sidhe
narrowed his eyes. “Are you reading minds, now, witch?” He didn't sound pleased.

“
Ai
, no. With too much sun comes a throbbing skull, every nurse wife knows that.”

His burnt face sagged, suddenly weary. He looked young, young as Liam, even though Avani suspected he was old as the hills.

“Once we ran beneath the sun and moon,” he said, “and did not get scalded red for the pleasure. Now we're grubs beneath the roots, forgotten and forgetting.”

Avani bit her lip. She'd come to appreciate the
sidhe
acolyte for his courage, and his enthusiasm for lost lore. After watching him labor alongside Everin in Stonehill's much-­neglected vegetable gardens, she'd thought she might even learn to like him. Trust was a different matter altogether. She thought if he ever believed it to be in his ­people's best interests, he'd easily slit her throat to groin in her sleep.

“You're right,” he said, setting his mug next to the now empty biscuit plate. “The tea is helping. Thank you. For that, and for the salve.”

“You're welcome,” Avani said, and meant it. “Next time cover yourself,
ai
? No matter how sweet the warmth feels against your skin.”

He dipped his pointed chin, and made to stand, but then paused.

“Ah!” he said. “I'd nearly forgot. I brought you something, Avani. Something for your collection of scrollwork.”

“Oh,
ai?
” Avani leaned forward, eager, as the acolyte fished something from a pouch on his belt. “What have you?”

“Look, here,” he replied, and Avani thought he sounded unreasonably pleased. “I found it, in the tunnels, in a turning I rarely walk, beneath the river. It's not very large, only a fragment? But, look,” he repeated, turning his hand palm-­upward, balancing the treasure between his fingers and thumb. “The work is very old, and very fine.”

It was larger than a fragment, but not by much. A broken corner of smooth stone, the same white rock that made the pillars in the great cavern; Everin called it limestone, which baffled Avani, because the island ­people knew a small green fruit by a similar name.

“It's a shard of pillar,” Avani hazarded. When Faolan didn't protest, she took it from his hand. “No, impossible. It's flat, smooth, not round. Part of a plaque? Or . . . a tablet. Oh, and see. I recognize that glyph, and that one. ‘Light' and ‘water,'
ai?
” There were two clearly visible sigils etched in the stone, and part of a third. “The bit of the last is new, though. I've never seen a spiral quite like that.”

“But you have.” Faolan reached again beneath his tunic, drawing forth a small bronze key attached to his belt by a leather cord. A barrow key, small, sharp, and filigreed. He held the key on the flat of his hand, tracing a single bronze filigree with his thumb. “Here, see?”

Avani stroked her own finger after his, feeling the ridge in the metal. She had an eye for pattern. She'd admired the scrolling on the barrow keys before, but now, as Faolan pointed out the obvious, she realized she'd been a fool.

“It's not decoration, the metalwork. Those are glyphs, intertwined and embellished.”

“Yes.” The
aes si
's smile wasn't quite sincere. “I assumed you'd guessed.”

“And how would I?” Avani snorted. “Mal has one key, you carry the other. I hadn't a key at hand for reference, had I? What are they?” She studied the swirls and curls, wondering if she could commit them to memory, sketch them later.

“Powerful,” Faolan said. “That one, though.” He held the key next to Avani's fragment of stone. “That one is ‘belief.' ”

“Belief,” Avani echoed, enthralled. “Tell me the others.”

It was Faolan's turn to snort, and he did it with lips pulled back, inhuman teeth bared. “I think not. Not yet. Ask me again when you've managed to set one alight.”

Avani jumped to her feet, paced three steps to the side, and then back. “I've tried. You know I've tried. The magic doesn't catch.” She spread her hands. “It's there . . . and then gone. Slippery, like a fish in the sea. Just when I think I've grasped it . . .” she curled her fingers into fists “. . . it wiggles away.”

Faolan rose gingerly from his pillow. “You're not trying hard enough.” He nodded at the vocent's ring on its true-­gold chain around her neck. “You've the tools, and the natural ability, but you're stubborn, or afraid.”

“Take care,
sidhe
, or you'll talk yourself into a fist in the jaw.”

He only smiled, and bowed from the waist, graceful as a mountain cat.

“Thank you for the salve,” he said once more. “And the tea.”

“Goddess bless,” Avani said grudgingly. “Tell Everin I've ordered you out of the sun until you're healed. Tend the vegetables after dark, if needs must.”

The
sidhe
's full mouth twisted in sour amusement. He bowed again, then stepped past her tapestries and out into the afternoon, leaving Avani alone with her temper, and an enticing limestone fragment.

A
VANI
WAITED
UNTIL
after supper, then walked along the Downs and into Stonehill. She thought she'd never grow used to the blackened shell that had once been her home, buildings burnt to the ground, stone melted by the unnatural heat of an unnatural fire. A few charred outbuildings lived to tell the tale, peeked roofs caved in to what was left of interior walls.