Path of Honor (7 page)

“Where’s Reisiltark? And Sodur?” he asked when the din around him lulled. His question was met with a peculiar silence.

“Sodur spends a lot of time in the palace these days. Trying to keep a cork on the court, specially the young Verit Aare. The Verit and the Lord Marshal are snapping at each other like dogs over a bone. Won’t be long before they dig in for a real fight. Sodur’ll want to know you’re back, though. We’ll send someone.” This was from a short, thin man—Vesil was his name. His
ahalad-kaaslane
was a red squirrel.

The conversation soon picked up again, this time centered on the Iisand and his strange withdrawal from the court after his wife’s death.

“Man of feeling. He’ll be back. Wait and see. He still sees Sodur, and that’s something. He’s still loyal to the
ahalad-kaaslane
.”

“Not like that whelp of his. Had his way we’d all be thrown to the sharks. Iisand better come to his senses soon or the young Verit will have his throne.”

“Lord Marshal isn’t much better. Have you seen the way he looks at us? Like ants in his sugar. The eyebrow, the sneer. You know what I’m saying. He’s more cautious about showing it is all. The court takes its cue from them. If it weren’t for that
ganyik
Upsakes. . . .”

“If the Mesilasema could have been saved, you mean. The Iisand wouldn’t have buried himself alive and left his nobles to run amok.”

Juhrnus frowned, rubbing a hand over his bulging belly. “What happened to the Mesilasema?”

“You don’t know?” It was Vesil again. “When did you go on circuit?”

“Over a year ago. At the harvest.”

Vesil’s expression had turned dark, and a shiver ran down Juhrnus’s spine. “Happened less than a month after that. The Mesilasema died in childbirth. No one could save her.”

But there was a peculiar twist to Vesil’s voice, a twitch in his jaw, a flick of eyes. Something he wasn’t saying. Fear clutched Juhrnus’s throat, and Esper lifted his head, gouging his heavy talons into the tabletop.

“Didn’t Reisiltark try to help?”

Vesil’s shrug said nothing.

“Where is she?”

The other man stroked his squirrel and then pushed away from the table. “Couldn’t say. I’d best be going.”

Juhrnus glanced at the others gathered at the table, but they too had begun to mutter about work and business and rose from the table with sudden alacrity. He watched them go and scowled.

It was late when he returned, empty-handed and more than a little disturbed. He knew the meaning of the green stitching on the vendor’s cloak now. And the lack of interest among his fellow
ahalad-kaaslane
for Reisil. Only it wasn’t lack of interest. It was suspicion.

He built a fire in his room and stripped, stretching out on the bed, his jaw knotting. No one knew where to find her. She certainly wasn’t staying in the Temple, and the
ahalad-kaaslane
he asked answered with only shrugs and blank stares. Reisil’s green-wearing supporters were of no help either. Many had seen her recently, but none could—or would—say where to find her. Clearly they wanted to protect her. Juhrnus didn’t much care for the way they looked at him—wary and hard, as if he wanted to hurt her. He’d had about as much luck finding Sodur.

He yawned. Tomorrow. A bath in the morning, and then he’d find them.

~Warm enough?
he asked Esper, who was curled against his side.

His question was met with drowsy contentment, and Juhrnus pulled the bedclothes over himself and fell into a heavy sleep.

 

Juhrnus found Reisil just before noon the next day. He ambled into the stableyard of a cloth merchant. Tirpalema was cousin to Veritsema, mayor of Kallas where both Reisil and Juhrnus had grown up. After searching unsuccessfully, he’d finally remembered when she’d first come to Koduteel, Tirpalema had agreed to stable Indigo. In return, she’d made a point of checking the health of his animals regularly, a fact that brought Juhrnus down to the pink district against the chance she’d be there. He’d been gone so long, he didn’t know her usual haunts—not that she’d had much time to develop any before he left. He’d asked again in the Temple, but the blank stares and shrugs were only repeated.

The stableyard gate was pulled invitingly wide. A sign showing bolts of colorful cloth and a spool of thread and needle swung from the crossbar. He saw Reisil within fastening bulging saddlebags onto Indigo’s saddle, her green cloak vibrant against the snow.

“Leaving town just when I get here? Could make a man worry about his welcome,” he said, sauntering close. She started and spun around. A smile bloomed on her lips, and she ran across the yard, throwing her arms around him.

“Juhrnus! When did you get back?”

He returned the embrace. “Yesterday evening. Thought I’d see you at the Temple.”

She stiffened and pulled away, her hood falling back. She continued to smile, but lines of strain bracketed her lips as if the expression was difficult to maintain. Her pale skin wrapped her skull tautly. Feathers of silky black hair escaped her braid, doing little to soften the angles of her face. They lent her face a severe quality emphasized by the dark circles around her eyes. The golden ivy that was a blessing from the Lady ran over her left cheek and down into her collar and glittered stark and garish against her pallid skin. Beneath his hands her body felt gaunt—bones and wire.

“You look like
skraa,
” he said. “Don’t you eat, little sister?” The diminutive had made her cringe growing up, a way to pretend kindness while insulting her. Now her grin grew more natural.

“Not as much as you do, little brother.” She poked his stomach. “You look fat enough, though someone might mistake you for a bear wandering into Koduteel.”

Juhrnus rubbed his beard. “Good for the trail. Keeps the wind and snow from peeling away my face. Besides, Esper likes it.”

“Where is he?”

“Curled up by a roaring fire. Where I should be. But you’re going somewhere,” he said, gesturing at her loaded gelding.

“Not far.”

“Oh?” He lifted his brows and she flushed.

“I’m tired of sleeping in a stall. The straw is itchy. And Tirpalema is too kind to tell me he’s tired of feeding me. So I’ve found a new place to stay.”

“What about the Temple?”

Her look was sharp and hard as a jade knife. “No.”

“What’s going on?” Juhrnus demanded. “Tell me. I’ve had enough evasions from everyone else.”

Reisil looked away, chewing her upper lip. Then she gave a little shake of her head and looked back at him. “The nobles and the
ahalad-kaaslane
have come to believe that I’m a threat—like Upsakes. I’ve been able to use my power only sporadically and have had no luck curing the plague. They think I’m doing it on purpose. That I’m just letting people die for some plan of my own.”

“That’s . . .” He searched for adequate words. “That’s stupid! How did they get such a
skraa
-for-brains idea? How could they believe it?”

Reisil grinned, bitterness coiling through her voice. “I wish I could tell you.” Juhrnus hooked his thumbs on his belt. She obviously wasn’t telling him all of it. But she wasn’t ready to talk, and he knew better than to try to force her.

“Where’s Saljane?” he asked, following after her as she returned to Indigo and tightened his cinch.

“Hunting. She doesn’t much care for the city.” Again there was a sense of something she wasn’t saying, and Juhrnus clenched his jaw. Reisil had never been one to talk about herself or depend on anyone else. Abandoned by her parents at birth and raised on the charity of Kallas, she’d always been too aware of being a nuisance, an added expense. She was always afraid of making herself more of a burden. As a boy, he’d hated her obsequiousness, her selfeffacement. For a long time he thought it was sucking up. Then he figured out it was stiff-necked pride and shame. Nothing he did made her stop—though in the way of boys, he’d not been kind. He winced. That didn’t begin to cover what a
ganyik
he’d been. He couldn’t seem to stop attacking her, as if sooner or later she’d have to defend herself and quit sulking around. Not then, and not later, not until he’d almost lost Esper.

He shied away from the memory. He’d never forget Esper’s limp, broken body; he’d never forget the way Reisil had nearly sacrificed herself and Saljane to save Esper. Unthinkingly he reached out and touched his bond with Esper. The sleeping sisalik radiated contentment. Juhrnus smiled. He owed Reisil everything.

The last straw for Reisil was discovering that Kaval was a traitor—finding him in that room, Ceriba battered and raped. Juhrnus didn’t know if Reisil would ever trust anyone with her feelings again. He rubbed the back of his neck. Maybe Sodur knew something.

“I thought I’d go looking for Sodur later. We could all have dinner and I could tell you about my circuit.”

For a bare moment Reisil’s hands froze in the middle of untying Indigo. Then she tugged the reins free and guided the horse out the gate. “Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

She strode quickly down the street in the direction of the Sea Gate, Indigo clopping behind. Juhrnus swung along beside her. “I don’t think so.”

“Don’t tell me he agrees with those
skraa
-headed imbeciles.”

“No. He definitely doesn’t agree with them.” Her voice was grim.

Juhrnus scowled, tired of the puzzle. “Then what?”

“Ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

She shook her head, her face white as alabaster, her jaw jutting. “Let’s just say I was a fool. Again.”

Jurhnus ground his teeth. “Could you be more specific?”

She pulled up short. “I could. But there are some things that I’d just as soon stay buried in the dark where no one can find them. You want to know any more, you ask Sodur.”

She glared at him until he nodded and they set off again.

They passed out of the pink district with its fancy shops into the green trader district and then out the walls through the Sea Gate. The pink district had made a great many repairs since the Patversemese siege years before, but the walls and streets of the green district still showed the damage caused by trebuchet and ballista fire, as well the scorch marks from barrages of burning oil. There were great fissures in the cobbles of the streets and cracks in many of the buildings yet standing. Even the snow could not mask the decay and ruin. It grew worse the farther east they went. In the poorer quarters beyond the Sea Gate, whole blocks were decimated. The palace had funded many rebuilding projects, but the gray, white and red districts composing the southeastern quadrant of the city had not yet seen much help. Juhrnus eyed the passing destruction, hoping that Reisil’s destination was among these ruins.

“So where are we going?” Juhrnus asked, relieved when they at last passed out of the gate and out onto the bluffs. The wind off the ocean buffetted them, picking up the snow and swirling it in the air. The clouds hung heavy and leaden, signaling another storm to come. The cliff boomed as whitecaps rolled across the bay and crashed into the harbor cavern below. Deep and high enough for even the tall ships, the harbor cavern resonated like an inverted drum with the thrust of the waves and the rush of the wind. The sound vibrated along the cliff wall, making the ground feel like a living thing.

Reisil said nothing, but pointed ahead to the abandoned lighthouse perched out along the edge of the cliff.

“There? You’re going to live there?” He’d have preferred the ruins inside the city. The lighthouse was far more unstable and dangerous. “Have you a death wish? That place will tumble down around your head in the middle of the night. Probably tonight.”

“Don’t worry about me. It’s perfect.”

There was something hard edged and bitter in her voice, and again Juhrnus wondered what she wasn’t telling him.

He gazed up at the scarred tower as Reisil unloaded Indigo. During the Patverseme siege, the tower and its outbuildings had taken substantial damage to the keepers quarters, storage sheds, and the stairway twisting up its exterior. After the siege, a new lighthouse had been built out along the headland, one that boasted a taller tower with an interior stairway and a greater beacon range.

“You’re going to get snowed on this winter,” he observed, looking at the gaping holes in the slate roofs of the outbuildings and the white-crusted droppings of the sea-birds that nested inside. “Or you’ll have to share with the birds.”

“It’s not that bad. Besides, I’m not going to live down here. I’m going to live up in the tower. There’s a perfectly good watch room just below the lantern deck. No damage to it at all. Even the windows are in good shape. If any birds want to bother me, they can talk to Saljane.”

With that she proceeded up the winding stairs, ignoring his scornful exclamations at the missing railing and decaying steps. Rubble from chipped walls and broken stairs crunched and rolled beneath his feet, tiny drifts of snow along the risers making the footing more treacherous. He eased each foot down carefully, pressing against the lighthouse wall to avoid looking down at the frothing harbor below. Reisil had no such anxieties and climbed the steps easily, nimbly skipping over the gaps in the stairway.

They stopped at the gallery deck, where a scarred wooden door led into the watchroom. Juhrnus grudgingly had to admit that Reisil was right. The room was sound. Though the wind moaned and gusted, the mullioned windows remained impervious, despite the many cracks in the panes. Reisil had already cleaned the room and piled wood next to the hearth, but the rest of the round space was bare.

“You need some furniture. A bed, a table and chair at least. I don’t want to sit on the floor when I’m here.”

“Who says you’re invited?”

“I’m
ahalad-kaaslane
. I don’t have to be invited,” he said loftily.

He watched as Reisil unpacked her few possessions, folding her clothes and situating them on a shelf, setting out a plate, a spoon and a fork and a cup on the mantel as well as two candles. Her few toiletries she put next to her clothing and then spread her bedroll on the floor, bits of straw from Tirpalema’s stable still clinging to it.