Restoration (34 page)

“I've no desire to impose upon your hospitality,” said Aleksander stiffly. “There are many other places I need to be.”

“Indeed . . . if you are who I think you are, anywhere you go will see you dead. Jinu said you demanded to come to us.”

The Prince could have made a glacier shiver. “This Ezzarian wished to come here. It wasn't my idea.”

I needed to introduce them properly.
My lord, this is the foster mother of my child, who is doing her best to undermine what remains of your empire. Mistress Elinor, this is the man who once vowed to slaughter you and all your fellows, but who will, if I can keep him alive against his stubborn efforts, change the world in some way absolutely beyond my understanding. And, by the way, I am still quite mad and getting no better, but I'm somewhat less likely to hack you to bits than the last time you saw me. The thought had
never
occurred to
me
that Elinor would be here.

“Do you have any idea the danger you've brought us?” Elinor whirled on me. “If the Emperor gets wind that this man is anywhere near the Yvor Lukash ... The only thing that's kept us safe these past months is that the Derzhi are so obsessed with finding him, they've not pressed us too hard. And to bring a Derzhi here into our very heart, one who has ordered our deaths . . .”

“Mistress Elinor—”

“Send me away, then,” said Aleksander, cutting me off before I could even decide what I was going to say. He folded his arms

across his chest. “Or even better, sell me to my father's cousin. Then you can pay for better warriors, so perhaps you won't set out on these absurd ventures that get people slaughtered—the very people you're trying to help.”

The woman leaned forward, her hands pressing on the table, her eyes aflame. “As if
you
are concerned about the people, those you and your Derzhi assassins have enslaved and murdered and driven to desperation for five hundred years. How dare you, of all men, speak of the—?”

“Wait!” I said, wanting to shake them. “Please, my lord, if you would allow me. If we could just begin again ... I'm truly sorry to come like this with no warning, mistress. I understand the danger, and I'd never put any of you at risk lightly. But time and circumstance have put us in your hands when we've run out of alternatives.” Aleksander was ready to burst when I turned to him again. “My lord, Mistress Elinor is Blaise's sister, whose good husband fell at the hands of the Hamraschi as did your father. She has lost parents and friends to the Twenty, just as you have lost so many dear to you. Her brother and her child are in danger every day, just as your wife and Lord Kiril are. Our enemies are the same.”

“His sister ... the one who ... ?” Aleksander seemed to forget his anger for a moment.

I nodded, my eyes shifting from Elinor's boots to the table to the hanging lantern—anywhere but her face. “Mistress Elinor, you've guessed correctly. I would like to present His Highness, Aleksander zha Denischkar, late of Zhagad and more recently of everywhere his enemies haven't thought to look, including a slaver's harness. By coming here we've placed our lives in your hands, and I ask your patience as well as your protection. We've had a difficult journey and no sleep for more than a day. We need to speak with Blaise, and then we'll leave, if you or he or Prince Aleksander still wish it.” Now I had to look her in the eye, else she would have every right to ignore my words. “I swear on the life most precious to us both that my lord Aleksander himself is no threat to your followers. As to other concerns ... if it will improve your own sleep, you may confine me as you think best.” Her dark eyes were not filled with horror, only anger. Good enough. I could live with anger.

Elinor sat on the stool beside her table and propped her chin on her folded hands, the one finger tapping rapidly on the others, the only sign of her agitation. “Blaise should be here soon,” she said. “I'll advise him to take the two of you deep into the desert and leave you there.” She glared at me, as if I had brought plague to her household, though she no longer wore a matron's apron. Around the waist of her dark blue tunic and skirt, she wore a woven leather girdle with a knife sheath hanging from it, boldly displayed. Her thick, dark braid was bound tightly around her head, save for a few wisps that had escaped and were stuck to her high forehead by the damp.

So many emotions spilled out and gathered in again. Fortunately a soft “pardon, Mistress Elinor” from outside the tent prevented the need for further conversation. Elinor bade the newcomer enter, and a young girl brought in a wooden tray and set it on the table. On the tray were dates, a loaf of bread, a small mound of goat cheese, a clay pitcher, and three cups.

“Thank you, Melia,” said Elinor. The girl glanced curiously at the three of us, then left the tent.

Aleksander stood motionless beside me. With no crutch or stick, and his stubborn refusal to use my shoulder, he was probably about to topple over. “May we sit down?” I said. “Until Blaise comes at least?”

“Of course. Eat and drink as you will.” Elinor motioned us to the wooden stools where her companions had been seated, but instead we chose the woven mat that lay over the dirt floor.

We were both filthy. Roche had given Aleksander a ragged haffai as we rode through the desert, but the garment hung open to reveal his bloodstained breeches and lack of shirt, stockings, or boots. He had tied his hair in a knot at the back of his head while we stayed in Andassar, and so it remained, now matted with blood from the battle. I was slightly better dressed, but my clothes were stiff with gore.

The food was good. Neither Aleksander's pique nor my tongue-tied embarrassment in front of Elinor could forestall the demands of hunger, and before two minutes had passed we were eyeing each other over the last date. My belly growled in half-sated pleasure. I could have eaten ten times the amount.

“I can get more,” said Elinor, jumping up from her stool as if she had read my mind.

“Only what you can spare,” I said. “But we'd be most grateful.”

She nodded and ducked hurriedly through the doorway of the tent. She didn't seem to find it necessary to leave a guard with us. I supposed that, for the moment at least, our obvious vulnerability on the most human point of hunger soothed her concerns as to our intentions.

Once she was gone, Aleksander's glance fell on me like a smith's hammer, and not because of an orphaned date.

“I'm sorry,” I said quietly when I accepted that he wasn't going to let matters rest until I said something. “This seemed the only reasonable course.”

“Was I to have nothing to say about it?”

“You need time and safety to get your leg strong again. You need to stop running for a while, so you can think clearly about what to do next. I can't stay with you much longer. I believe you will find your way, and I want to help you, but I—” Despite my reluctance, the time had come to speak of the siffaru. I ran my fingers through my filthy hair and tried to formulate the telling. “—I have to decide what to do about Kir‘Navarrin. I know who's waiting now. The siffaru took me to Tyrrad Nor, and I talked with him.”

“You've lost your mind.”

“Very possibly.” I attempted a smile, though it likely came out weak. “But I believe not. Not yet, at least. I was right about one bit: the prisoner in the fortress is only a man, a powerful sorcerer who can touch my dreams. But everything else—My lord, he is a soul of such complexity, such depth of feeling, such magnificence of power and spirit, altogether different than I imagined.” Despite all my misgivings, the feelings poured out of me as strong as ever. “He's dangerous, yes. But I'm half mad to go there and learn more of him.”

“Dangerous and magnificent? After a few days of a desert boy's vision—some mind-tangling weed he fed you, no doubt—my ever-cautious friend is ‘half mad' to stick his head in a noose? No wonder you wouldn't tell me.”

Something struck the outside of the tent softly, and a group of laughing children came to retrieve whatever it was. Only when their bubbling merriment had receded into the workaday noises of a busy camp did I go on. “What I experienced was not just a vision. Whatever Qeb's gift or his herbs, my own power worked with it to take me to Kir‘Navarrin. I spoke with the prisoner, walked with him, heard his story. I touched the wall that holds him. And I believe that perhaps I can—” Impossible to speak of it. “I told him I'd come back. He's muddling my head, so I don't know if I dare confront him. But if I decide that's where this path leads, then I need to get on with it while I can, while I have some hope of success.”

“I told you to go if you needed.” Behind the echoes of anger and bitterness and humiliation was true concern. “But I think you're risking your soul to do it.”

“Well, if so, you'll take care of it, right? Back in Drafa you promised me that you'd not let me live a monster, and I have infinite faith in you.”

“Even for you, that's a bad joke. So when will you go?”

“I won't leave you alone.”

“And so you think to abandon me with people who despise me?”

I grinned. “When has that ever bothered you?”

He snorted and snatched the last date, just as Blaise hurried into the tent. “Seyonne! Stars of heaven, I've been worried about you.” I jumped to my feet, and he clasped my hands, probing my depths with a gaze so intense I could not meet it. Between his scrutiny and Aleksander‘s, my skin felt raw. “When I heard what happened in Zhagad ... and after ... Are you all right?”

“Surviving. In control.” I smiled and moved out from between him and the Prince. “You remember Prince Aleksander.”

Blaise's lean face grew wary, but he displayed no evidence of Elinor's hostility. He bowed slightly. “Of course.”

Last time these two had met, Blaise had pledged fealty to the Empire and agreed to halt his raiding, thus allowing Aleksander to avert civil war. In return, Aleksander had revoked his orders condemning the riders of the Yvor Lukash to death and had taken the first steps to change the prerogatives of slave owners. They had made these concessions, not in deference to each other, but because I had asked them to. Now I needed them to build that same trust with each other.

A noise from the rear of the tent interrupted the delicate confrontation. “Linnie?” said Blaise, peering into the stacked clutter of baskets and bags.

Elinor emerged from the shadows unabashed, carrying a basket of bread and cheese. Clearly she had been eavesdropping. Though I was uncomfortable at the thought of her hearing my confession to Aleksander, I couldn't blame her. “Blaise, we can't have him here,” she said, jerking her head toward Aleksander. “We've no right. We've sworn to the others—”

Blaise laid a hand on her shoulder. “Let's hear him first.” He fixed his attention on the Prince. “What is it you wish from us, Lord Aleksander?” he said. “I hope you've not come to enforce the oath I gave you. Circumstances have changed, and my purposes can no longer lie fallow.” Blaise's tone was not hostile. Only clear.

I stilled my tongue. Aleksander's charge had been valid. He needed to speak for his own life.

The Prince shifted awkwardly to get up from the matting, refusing my offered hand. “Circumstances have indeed changed,” he said once he'd gotten to his feet and returned Blaise's stiff bow. Even leaning on the table, he was half a head taller than Blaise. “Many things have changed. This damned Ezzarian keeps insisting that I think about what I'm doing, but, unlikely as it seems for anyone who knows me, I've done a great deal of thinking these past months. You are an outlaw who has made secret war upon this Empire, who has disrupted its stability and helped bring it to the brink of ruin. I will not argue justice or right, for men may agree upon a cause while disagreeing about its cure. Indeed, I want nothing from you”—the Prince paused and took a deep breath—“but it appears I must ask anyway. I seem to have misplaced my empire, and so I'm in need of sanctuary. My own people will not have me. So what of you? Will you take me in?”

Blaise's disposition was sublimely serene. I had always envied him that. Passion and reason had found a healthy balance in him, shepherded by an inner confidence that inspired faith and a generous heart that inspired love. But as Aleksander spoke, the hand Blaise had laid so soothingly on his sister's shoulder tightened. Anger, indignation, and disdain played across the outlaw's hollow cheeks and angled eyes in those few moments. But in the end, he nodded and said, “You may stay and share our provisions for as long as you have need. I look forward to further discussions of these matters.”

Elinor shook off her brother's hand, dropped her basket of food on the brass tray, and left.

Blaise moved to follow her, but checked himself abruptly. “Rarely do I dispute my sister's judgment,” he said. “She's far better than I at weighing consequences. I hope I don't regret this.”

 

 

Blaise himself walked us across the vale of Taíne Keddar, a blue-green gem in the midst of desolation. Besides feeding off of the deep clear well for which it was named, the high, grassy basin caught whatever moisture was baked out of the surrounding leagues of desert and returned to earth in the form of daily afternoon showers. Groves of fragrant cedars and gray-green olive trees graced a rocky garden of grass and flowers, locked that morning in a watery haze.

Blaise told us that the valley was one of two, nestled high in the rocky spine of the Azhaki wasteland. The legend of two lush, hidden valleys had flourished among the desert peoples for hundreds of years, he said. But the location was so remote, and access so difficult, that no one had been able to say for certain where they lay or even that they existed at all. With his ability to change into a hunting bird and travel where he would, and needing exactly such a place to hide his followers, Blaise had found it.