Nor Iron Bars A Cage (7 page)

“Kirt is Lord of Goldwood now, since m’father passed.”

“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t surprised to hear his father had died— the old Lord would have been near sixty. But I’d liked that old man on the rare occasions he’d noticed me. His distracted good humor had been almost the same for me as for Tobin.

“It’s been years ago now. M’mother’s still hale, and giving Kirt’s wife fits about how to run the manorhouse.”

“He’s married then?”

“Oh yes, years ago, to the lovely Lady Ami. Seven children. Took the pressure right off me. Mother has even stopped asking if I’ve found a good woman and started asking about a good man.”

“Wow.” I couldn’t picture that. His mother had been very much the proper lady of the manor, although I’d only met her a few times.

“She’s happy as a pig in mud with the children.”

I snorted at the image. “Don’t say that about your mother.”

He grinned. “She’s a good soul, is my mum. And she’s eased off a lot since she let Ami take over her formal duties. Even if she does try to keep Ami up to snuff.”

He went on talking easily whenever we walked the horses, telling me of his campaigns and his family. And if sometimes his stories wandered into places and people that meant nothing to me, still it was good to hear his voice. All I had to do was nod, and murmur the occasional,
“He did?”
or
“Really?”
to keep him going.

He was no fool. He knew I was forcing him to do all the talking, but whenever a pause began to stretch without a comment from me, he would just move on with his tales. It was oddly restful.

Which the riding was not. When he finally called a halt for a bite and a rest, I fell off more than dismounted. The jolt of my heels hitting the grass traveled right up my spine and my thighs felt like rubber. “Just kill me now,” I muttered.

Tobin laughed at me. “Done in by half a day’s ride. You’re getting old, lion-boy.”

“That’s sophistication, you soldier.”

“And proud of it. Here, sit over here in the shade while I unsaddle the horses for an hour.”

“I prefer the sun,” I said, making my way stiffly to a large rock.

“And so you may, but you’re going to be burned by the day’s end. You should’ve worn a hat.”

“Curses.” I made myself get up and move under a tree. It was cool there, but he was right. I could already feel the tightness of the skin on my nose and forehead. I had to be glad my hair shielded my neck.

Tobin untacked the horses and haltered them to a downed tree, with grass and water at hand. They set to grazing happily. When his stallion lowered itself, grunting in anticipation of a good roll, I expected Tobin to stop it, but he watched indulgently.

“Won’t he get tangled in the rope?”

“He’s my old cavalry mount. If he couldn’t roll with a halter on him, he’d have broken a leg long ago.”

“What’s his name?”

From the look he gave me, I gathered that information had probably been somewhere in the morning’s chatter, but he just said, “Goldwood’s Darkwind. And yours is Cricket.”

“Not fair.”

He laughed. “I was younger when I named Dark. Much younger.”

We ate and then he repacked the gear, brushed and tacked the horses, while I sat idly, watching the clouds roll by overhead. “I wish this was all there was,” I said. “Daylight and traveling with you. I could do this forever.”

“I’ll remind you you said that when you wake up sore in the morning.”

“We have to get through the night first.”

He came back and crouched in front of me, sitting easily on his heels. “What will happen in the night?”

“Probably nothing.” I didn’t meet his eyes.

“Lyon, I saw the writing on your windows and doors. And I saw the… way you acted. Is there something out here, some threat? Because if so, I need to know about it.”

“Nothing. Only ghosts. Unsummoned, long-dead, impotent ghosts. Nothing to worry about.”

“No one’s that afraid of nothing.”

“I am.” I glared right at him. “I am, all right? I’m that afraid. There’s nothing left of him, and his ashes were no doubt sprouting weeds long ago. Nothing taps at my window or cozens me through the gap beneath my door. And I’m still that afraid.”

“Why?”

Good question. “Because I’m a coward, I guess. Because every time I wake I think, for just a moment, that he’s waiting…”

Tobin put his hand on my knee. “
What did he do?
”

I shook him off and stood. “Just don’t touch me. Don’t come near me if I wake up. Don’t listen to anything I say and don’t by all the gods ask me why I’m screaming.” I went to my horse. Cricket. Poor thing, what a name for so lovely a beast. “Oh, and there might be puking. But if you leave me be, I’ll clean it in the morning. Just ignore me and we can move on once it’s light.”

“There must be something I can do to help.”

“Will you give me back my knife?” It hadn’t escaped my notice that he’d removed it from my pen case where I’d stored it, and taken the longer one out of my pack as well.

“No.”

“Then no, there probably isn’t. Don’t let me spook the horses.” I swung into the saddle, trying to look dignified, which was marred by the pained grunt I couldn’t help uttering. I gathered my reins. “We should head on while it’s light.”

He let the subject drop, but the afternoon was much quieter than the morning had been. After an hour I was becoming sorry to have broken the mood. But maybe it was just as well. Riding with him had almost made me forget who and what I was now. That would be a mistake.

An hour or so from sunset he pulled up at a crossroads. “Lyon? I need your opinion on this.”

I stopped beside him and tried to pretend I still had attention for anything except my aching thighs. “Yes?”

He pointed. “A couple of miles down there is an inn, not large but comfortable. I stayed there on the way up. It’s off the direct route, but only half an hour or so, and we’d get hot food and real beds.”

“Or?”

“Or we could keep going. Find a place to camp. We have food and bedrolls.”

“But why?” I could barely keep my eyes open and a bed sounded heavenly.

“You said screaming. Could be a problem in an inn.”

“Oh. Damn. Yeah.”

He hesitated. “How likely is it? I mean, every night? Or just the off chance?”

It was many years since it had been a predictable part of each night, but this trip was likely to be a damned good trigger. “Bedrolls,” I said morosely.

“All right.”

We rode on for about fifteen minutes and then turned aside down a country track. It petered out into a meadow, which we crossed. The forest beyond was thin, and rising behind the trees was a small hill. Tobin set Darkwind at the rocky slope and the stallion scrambled up with barely a clatter. Cricket made heavier work of it, but soon enough we were on a grassy plateau just below the crown.

“This is good,” Tobin said. “A bit sheltered, and we’ll hear anyone else coming up. Grazing for the horses.”

“Lovely.” I barely managed to swing my right leg high enough to clear the saddle, before sliding down to the ground beside Cricket’s front feet. “I’ll sleep here.”

Tobin chuckled, damn him. “I’ll get things set up.”

Watching him make camp was almost enough to keep my eyelids open. He took on each task with a neat economy of motion that spoke of long practice, and an ease that spoke of muscles. Tobin bending, squatting, rising, his riding trews tight across his thighs, was a sight. I closed my eyes. Not for me.

I must have actually slept, because the next thing I knew was the smell of woodsmoke. I looked up. The sky was darkening, streaks of amber and crimson to the west, and the first faint stars in a deep blue-velvet firmament to the east. I rolled my head, with the grass tickling my cheek, and saw a fire, neat and contained, with sparks flickering heavensward. Tobin was silhouetted against it, cleaning a knife. Some instinct must have warned him, because he noticed my gaze right away.

“Hey, sleepyhead. Want some food?”

I licked my dry lips. “Water first?”

“Oh sure. I found a good stream and refilled the canteens.” He watched me struggle to sit up, the blanket he’d apparently draped over me sliding to my knees. “Do you need a hand?”

“I’m fine.” I staggered to my feet and walked in a small circle, trying to shake off the pins and prickles in my legs. The muscle aches that replaced them weren’t a lot better, but at least I could move. I went to the fire and sat carefully, as far from Tobin as I could without being downwind of the smoke. He handed me a canteen, and then a hunk of bread filled with cheese. I hadn’t realized I was hungry until I wolfed it down in three bites. He handed me another.

“Beautiful night.” His voice was soft. “I used to love that part of being on campaign, traveling across the land with my men, and my fellow officers. I thought having to retire from active service was the worst thing that could happen. And it has been lonely. But there’s a lot to be said for looking out across a quiet countryside and knowing you won’t have to kill anyone tomorrow.”

“I can probably drive you to contemplate murder.”

“No. Thank you.”

We ate in silence for a while. Eventually he said, “I’m not going to press you to talk to me. You’ve said enough for me to, well, guess at least, that something truly awful happened in Meldov’s house. But if it would help you to tell me, or if you think it would help me be what you need, I’d like to know.”

I sat and waited. Waited as the sky lost its blush and night crept in. I expected him, for all his fine words, to push me and nag me. He’d hated when I kept secrets as a boy. Somewhere he’d learned patience, though, because he sat quietly and kept the fire fed, as the sky turned to black and more stars came out.

“You know what sorcerers do.” I almost didn’t realize I was speaking until he turned to me, his eyes catching the flicker of the fire. Gold lights, not red.

He nodded, and then shrugged. “I guess so. I’ve met the King’s Mages a few times. King Faro consults them about strategy but… I guess I don’t know exactly how they help him. Scrying the future? I know they talk to the dead. As far as I can tell, whatever they do isn’t useful on the battlefield. At least, we’ve never had a sorcerer with us on a campaign.”

“No,” I said bitterly. “Not very useful, really.”

“Well, there aren’t a lot of them, you, of sorcerers around.”

“We’re a fading breed,” I said. “The King’s Mages are the most powerful in the land, and they still don’t
do
much.”

“But magic is real.”

“Oh, yes.”
Although not as real as it used to be.

“And working magic must give you some kind of powers.”

“Or maybe not,” I said. “Most people believe that, and most sorcerers let them go on thinking it. We’re all-powerful, searching out spells that might let us work the weather or turn charcoal to gold, or raise stone towers like the mages of old.”

“Now that would be useful on campaign.”

“Yes. You’d think the fact that sorcerers don’t seem to be useful anymore would be a clue that we’re overrated. We’re more like glorified librarians. But instead of reading books, we hunt for treasures of information in the ephemeral and the arcane.”

“Information can be very useful too.”

“Oh yes, no denying that. And some of those secrets are worth more than others. Meldov loved forgotten languages and old books. He would summon the shades of men from the distant past, or ghosts from other lands, and ask for translations to things he’d found in old scrolls and half-mouldering parchments.”

“How odd. And I guess, yeah, pretty useless. But relatively harmless.”

“You’d think. It was a bond between us, because I loved books too, and he found that in addition to a talent for summoning, I had a talent for languages.”

“How did he make a living though? That house was huge.”

“Partly family money. And sometimes there was a secret worth knowing in those old papers. He found an old forgotten property record, and located deeds there that settled a land dispute.” Sometimes there had been secrets more recent and less benign that he’d come across too. He didn’t count hush money the same as blackmail, but I’d been hard-pressed to see the difference.

“So he was just a… translator? Like you are now?”

“More often he’d be hired to summon a particular ghost or spirit to answer a question. He would, for a nice fee, interrogate someone’s deceased relatives about their secrets. Or perhaps to dispel a spirit that was supposedly haunting someone. That work paid well.” I’d enjoyed that part, tracking down the focus that was holding a ghost to the material world, summoning and dispelling it. It was like detection work. But Meldov had scorned commonplace spirits with no more to tell him than who murdered them, or why their heart had been broken. “He just wasn’t as interested in all that.”

“He was teaching you sorcery? Did you ever pass out of your apprenticeship?”

“Yes.”

When I’d been quiet for a while, Tobin said, “Did you like it?”

“Some of it, yes.” The long nights spent pouring over a book, as we applied some new scrap of knowledge gleaned from a summoning. Meldov’s dark head bent above the page, as his fingertip hovered over the fragile parchment. He would make this little grunt when I said something clever, and look at me in approval, which was almost better than the puzzle itself. Although now when I pictured it, I didn’t want to meet his eyes, just in case there was someone else there.

“I’d pictured sorcery as something more glamorous,” Tobin admitted.

“Back in the age of mages, there was the possibility of graduating from mere sorcery to real magecraft. They could work water, stone and fire with spells. Well, you’ve probably seen the mages’ tower at the palace.” I’d only seen it from outside the gates. It was a marvel by all accounts, smooth as glass on the outside, raised from the living bedrock. But that had happened more than a thousand years ago. The palace had been rebuilt around it more than once, in far more mundane ways. “Sorcerers like to pretend we still have those gifts, but if anyone still knows actual magecraft, they’re keeping it secret. Even the king’s three, well they’re called mages, but Meldov…” I cleared my throat. “Meldov said they’re just sorcerers now, like the rest of us. We deal with ghosts, spirits, with the dead,”
and the undead.
“But that’s all.”