Firethorn (32 page)

It was beyond my ken how if a man looked at Galan sideways he'd have his hand on his hilt, ready to draw for honor's sake, and yet he had come from the privy tent with his honor intact while Maid Vulpeja's was as broken as her hymen. The Blood claim mudfolk have no honor worth the name, and it's true we prize fertility over virginity and lay no blame on bastards for being fatherless. And we steal from our masters and cheat our masters and shirk our duties, so the Blood say, and it's not all a lie. Why shouldn't we, for the Blood tax the bread right out of our mouths? But we shun a man who steals his neighbor's sheep or his neighbor's wife. And when one man promises to pay another a weight of grain when his crop comes in and they spit in the dust to seal it, sure enough the one will pay the other. If there are a few stones mixed into the wheat, why, the second man should have sifted.

I knew something of honor, though I had none to call my own. In the Dame's household, honor had to do with a certain fastidious honesty and touchy pride. No man could ever find fault with her good name or good husbandry, despite that she lacked a husband.

I'd thought
that
was a woman's honor until I'd come to the Marchfield and met Mai. She had many patrons among the dames of the Blood who wore their good repute like gilding; a scratch would uncover any manner of wantonness. Maid Vulpeja would be untarnished still if only she'd kept her secret from the wrong ears.

Men also had honor of various qualities. Galan was not one to value his lightly. It came to me too late how I'd insulted him when I accused him of making false promises to part the maid from her maidenhead. It cut him deep that I rated his word so shallow. He might have forgiven the rest. I thought bitterly that he was more scrupulous of the wager than the woman.

I wiped my eyes and nose on the blanket. Galan lay awake; I knew it from his breathing. Sire Rodela's stuttering laugh came from Sire Alcoba's tent, and Spiller joined in at a higher pitch. Sire Rodela laughing meant trouble for somebody. He'd left his mail shirt in our tent, but I took no comfort in that, for I'd seen him earlier and he was wearing a borrowed jack with metal rings laced to leather, so he could move quietly. They'd go hunting tonight, for they'd set a price on Sire Buey's life and wouldn't be satisfied until one of Ardor's Blood had paid it.

I kept thinking about what I could say now that I'd said too much. I tried one phrase and another and found them all wanting. All wanting. My thoughts scurried and made reckonings and bred doubts and meanwhile my body suffered. The cage of my ribs closed tight and I could hardly breathe. My throat was scraped raw.

The gods had meddled, that was the difficulty. Otherwise I'd not be carrying the burden of Maid Vulpeja's life. But soon I began to wonder if I had read the gods' signs right, and before long I was in doubt that Ardor and Hazard had shown me any signs at all. Perhaps I'd made much of a few scraps: firethorn berries and two finger bones, a daydream that came untimely in the night—and my pride, my temper, my unruly tongue.

I doubted Galan most of all. He'd told me plainly what would happen if I tried to talk to him. If Galan and I came to blows in hot anger, it would not matter so much, but a cold beating—a methodical beating—and after it, more of this cold silence—that would be hard to endure. The silence hardest of all. It gave me a chill to think how I'd bound us together. Suppose the binding held, though he despised me now and never troubled to speak to me again?

I shouldn't have risked so much as one of his frowns for the maiden, for she'd done me nothing but harm. As for the harm she suffered, she'd chosen it. Let her die quick and trouble me no more.

Still sitting on the floor, I turned toward Galan and watched his back. His curls were dark against the nape of his neck. The neat bandage that wrapped him from ribs to hips was disarranged and twisted. We'd done that in our recklessness. Last night, tonight even, I had been inside his keep; now I was outside. His back was obdurate, a wall of flesh and bone. I would make myself small enough to crawl through any chink in the mortar—if I could find one—and chance a beating if need be, for I would not be walled out.

“Sire, give me leave to speak,” I said.

He didn't stir, though his breathing changed pace. He didn't forbid me. I took my leave from that. I spoke low and asked his forgiveness. I hadn't meant to say he was dishonored or forsworn, never that; my ignorance was to blame for choosing my words so poorly. He was right, I knew nothing of honor and should have held my peace. It was just my unbridled tongue—a fault of mine—I often had cause to regret it, but never more than now.

All this I said to his back, and meant it too, much of it, but even to my own ear, my voice sounded false, no matter how earnestly I spoke. False and craven. The voice of a drudge to a master, for so he'd named me and so I was. Last night he'd sung a different tune. But wasn't it the same song with which he had tickled Vulpeja's ears?
You are fair and I want you.
I'd heard more because I wished to. I clenched my fists on my knees and rested my forehead on them and fell quiet. He'd let me talk without raising a hand to stop me, but I took no comfort in it; I had buzzed in his ear like some fly he couldn't be bothered to swat. He didn't even look at me. Speech was fruitless. I would wait him out.

In the end, though I waited half the night, sitting by the cot and lying by it and sitting again, I couldn't outwait him. His stubbornness outweighed mine. I had tried placating him and failed. He wouldn't let me back out of this quarrel; there was no way through but forward. I couldn't rid myself of Maid Vulpeja after all, because whether the gods toyed with us or not, as long as there was a feud every man and jack of Ardor would seek Galan as a trophy. It was fear that drove me, not courage, when I lit the wick of the oil lamp and brought it around the cot and knelt where I could see him face-to-face, within his reach. He glared and I faltered.

I set the lamp carefully on the ground before looking at him straight. “Galan, do you think I want that whore in your tent? Do you think I'd risk a beating for her? It is for
your
sake I spoke.”

He raised himself on one elbow abruptly and I held out one hand, palm toward him, to fend off the threat in his eyes.

“Why should I help her, if not for you?” I asked. “Do you think she'll be grateful to me if I cure her? She'll likely spit in my eye—and if she dies I'll get the blame. But I' ve
seen
this. Hazard Fate showed this to me the night you were wounded.”

He was still as a cat daring a mouse to cross its path.

I went on in haste. “Everything has gone amiss since your wager. This is not Chance, just as it wasn't Chance alone that you were spared. You' re in Fate's domain now. As I kept watch by the tent, I saw the paths as clear as I see your face before me now, as clear as the lines on the palm of my hand, and there is but one way out and it's a narrow road indeed. You must save her life to end the feud.

At that he cursed and lay back on the cot, staring upward. His face had paled. Then I knew why he listened, why he held his hand. He was frightened.

I pressed on. “If you wait—even another day—it may be too late. The paths in Fate's kingdom do not stay in one place.”

He said, “Hazard sent
you
a vision. The gods don't soil themselves with mud.” Despite the scorn in his voice, I counted it a victory that I'd made him speak.

“The gods made us first and found us fair, or you'd have no ancestors.”

“Oh, you're fair enough. But mud is mud.

Mud is mud.
I rose up from my knees and walked away from the cot, out of his reach.

I said, “Once you called me Hazard's breed. Have you forgotten?” No matter that I didn't believe it, if he did. “Perhaps, if Hazard sent me to you, it was to tell you this. But now I know my words are wasted. You'll never take her as a concubine, for what would the hotspurs say? You'd rather affront the gods than have it said you lost your wager and paid for her after all. Why the gods took offense, I don't know, for there's nothing remarkable in a plucked maidenhead. You made amends—sacrificed unsparingly to Rift and Crux and Hazard, to every god but the one you most offended. You begrudged Ardor, and Ardor will hound you.

Galan sat up abruptly and put his feet on the ground as if he meant to stand, but pain waylaid him and he went no farther. He gripped the edge of the cot, hard. The look he turned on me was still full of rage, but it was shadowed with fear and hurt and something more—disgust. “I'm weary. I'll take no more taunts from you,” he said, and paused to catch his breath. “It's your spite I can't stand. One minute you seem fond and the next …” He shook his head and looked away. I could see the weariness in his face, in the ashy skin and the bruised flesh under his eyes and the gaunt cheeks.

He went on. “I don't care where you sleep tonight, but you'll not lie beside me. If you still want a thrashing in the morning, ask me then.” And he bent down and snuffed the lamp's wick, and settled on his side with his back to me again and the blanket over him.

The night was at its lowest ebb when I went outside and sat by the deserted hearth and stirred up the coals. The fog was thinning, dark patches streaking the white, but it was still hard to see from one side of the common yard to the other, much less anything beyond our tents. I'd learned to rely on shadows to see in the dark; in the fog I was as blind as everyone else. The fog blanched the night and smothered the eye. It begot wraiths that moved among the tents, and I was afraid if I looked too long I might recognize them.

I shivered under my cloak and put a handful of salt hay on the fire to make it flare up. I would begin the night over, and when he asked if I was content, I would say yes and yes again, and a curse on Maid Vulpeja and all her kin for coming between us.

I heard a rumbling growl and looked up and forgot to breathe. A great manhound bared his teeth no more than ten paces from me. A man behind the dog said, “Who is it?” and I breathed again, seeing it was Dogmaster and the beast was chained.

I said, “It's me,” and a moment later thought to add, “Firethorn.”

He came closer and the manhound loomed over me, his hackles up, still growling. Dogmaster put a hand on his ruff and said to the dog, “Be still! No danger.” To me he said, “What are you doing out in the middle of the night?”

I shrugged. I couldn't recall he'd ever spoken to me before.

“Best go in,” he said, and turned and walked past the tents and into the fog. He was patrolling and I was a lackwit, for I'd never stopped to think that if Sire Alcoba and Sire Rodela could go in search of trouble, Ardor could also bring trouble to us. The weather favored raids.

They'd know Galan's tent by his banners. They'd know he was in there wounded. Thank the gods they didn't know he was alone save for Noggin, who was worse than useless.

I went to Sire Alcoba's tent and peered inside. The tent was empty, as I feared. I stood, and when I turned around, there was Sire Alcoba with his sword point at my breastbone. He raised one black eyebrow and said, “Looking for someone?”

“Sire Galan's men, Sire,” I said, my eyes on the ground. “He lies unguarded.”

Sire Alcoba motioned and Rowney came out from between his tent and Galan's. From the corner of my eye, I saw another shape move, and that was Spiller on the path that edged our camp. Sire Alcoba with Galan's men: well, that was fair, as he'd lost his jack and his armiger too through Galan's wager. Fetcher was Sire Alcoba's jack now, raised from his bagboy to replace Rowney, but he'd found no armiger to take the place of Sire Buey. Perhaps he must avenge him first.

“I thought you'd gone hunting, Sire,” I said.

He pointed to Galan's tent. Rowney took me by the elbow and pushed me inside. When I turned to protest, Rowney put his finger over his lips and squatted down outside the door flap with his bare sword before him. I scrabbled under Galan's cot for my belt with its little knife. Not for the first time, I wished for a longer blade and the knack of using it.

I sat inside the door, facing into the tent. I knew how easy it was to cut another doorway in a canvas wall; Ardor's men could come from any direction. A plague on Galan, sleeping soundly after our quarrel. He'd sleep through his death if he wasn't careful.

So I waited through the night, cold and shivering, until I heard a noise—and there was little to hear but the manhound sniffi ng around the tent, the clink of his leash, the scuffle of Dogmaster's footsteps—and then heat would flood me and sweat would seep from my skin. Stomach queasy, mouth dry, heart thumping. My thoughts skittered away from the danger, and once I drowsed, only to start awake more afraid than before. After a while I thought to draw Galan's sword. It was folly. What harm could I do with a blade against a trained man, unless he chose to fall on it? The sword was heavier than I expected. But my hand was soothed by the feel of the hilt.

A dog barked. The other war dogs sent up a clamor, and I jumped to my feet and hissed to Rowney, “Are they here?” and discovered he was no longer on the other side of the tent door. The fog was more like gauze now than uncarded wool. Rowney stood near the tent with his head tilted. He saw me and shrugged. The dogs quieted, but not before they were answered by others around the Marchfield, and those by others.