Restoration (35 page)

I was astounded at the number of people abroad in the damp morning. Men and women hurried here and there, hauling wood and water, and carrying baskets of bread from a squat brick building. From the tantalizing smells wafting overhead, I guessed the building housed common ovens. Children chased goats and chickens, carried pails of milk, and led horses to a wooden shed that rang with a blacksmith's hammer. Men were smoothing logs and hammering together a small house to join the scattered mix of old and new dwellings of stone and wood. A number of canvas tents were set up in the lee of a rocky prominence, one of them the headquarters we had just left.

“Sorry I can offer no better accommodation. We're a bit short on roofs at the moment,” Blaise said to Aleksander as he led us down a path through an ancient olive grove to a small stone hut. The place was no more than a single windowless room with a dirt floor and a wooden roof—built for storing olives, I guessed. “But this ... I thought you might be willing to put up with the cramped space in trade for privacy. Seyonne can stay with Farrol and me, or sleep in the barracks, whatever the two of you decide. And we can give you clothes. You both look like you need a change. They won't be fine—”

“No need to keep apologizing.” Aleksander leaned on the door frame and surveyed the dismal little shelter. “I'm fully aware of my position and have no expectations. Though I would appreciate boots if they're to be had. I'm unsteady enough without rough ground tripping me up.”

Blaise nodded. “Seyonne, you remember Cafazz. He can help with boots. And Sufrah rules the food supplies as before. But this evening . . . and every evening ... I'd like you to eat with me.”

I protested, sure that Blaise was forgetting the awkwardness of forcing our company upon Elinor. “We can do for ourselves,” I said. “We've been accustomed to it for a while now.”

But he wouldn't hear my excuses. “I think it would be wise,” he said, “for many reasons that you can likely come up with for yourselves. Everyone in the valley knows of the Derzhi and the Ezzarian shapeshifter by now. Many know Seyonne and trust him. But I've no doubt that half my people have guessed your identity already, Lord Aleksander, and none have any reason to love you. If you are to be accepted here, then they must see that I consider you no threat.” He smiled ruefully. “My companions are quite protective of me. A few of them tend to be a bit overzealous.” He entirely understated the matter.

 

In the hour after Blaise left us, Aleksander took charge of our accommodations, mumbling that he might as well learn to be useful. He found a stick of olive wood to hold himself up, a leafy branch for sweeping out the stone house, and a stand of dried grass to gather for pallets. While he took care of these tasks, I went off in search of water and whatever might be available in the way of clothes. I met several acquaintances from my sojourn with Blaise in Karesh, and though they had surely heard of my mad rage on the night of Gordain's death, none seemed particularly afraid of me. Wary, certainly, especially of my companion. They didn't ask about him directly, but danced about the subject.
You've brought a friend back with you, eh? A Basran someone said... Heard it was quite a fight at Andassar. Your friend seemed to know his way around a sword... We've missed your sword training, Seyonne. Will you be staying long enough to start it up again? Or perhaps this companion of yours has other ideas ... ?

I thanked them for their help; I took back an armload of breeches, shirts, leggings, towels, cups, cloaks, two blankets, a water jar, a sharpening stone, and a pair of boots I thought might fit Aleksander. But in answer to their probing, I said only that I had known my friend a long time, that he was recovering from a severe injury, and that we would stay at least a few days until he was more mobile. All other questions I deferred to Blaise.

As I started back to the olive grove with my load, light footsteps raced down the path behind me. “Master Seyonne! Is it really you?”

I peered around the stack of clothing, precariously perched on top of a water jar, and saw a pair of bright blue eyes shining beneath an unruly shock of blond hair. No wariness here. No fear or holding back. “Mattei! Holy stars, lad, you're as tall as me.”

“Cafazz told me you were here.” The boy grabbed the water jar from under my stack and hoisted it on his shoulder. “I'm learning to sword fight now. I've ridden on three raids already—more sneaking than fighting, but it's coming. Now you can teach me proper.”

The Kuvai youth's greeting was as fine a welcome as I'd had anywhere. Outside of Blaise and Farrol, Mattei was the only person in the outlaw band whom I could truly call a friend.

Five years previous, a Derzhi baron had decided to divert the water from Mattei's village well to make a pond at his Kuvai estate. For daring to question the order which would leave the villagers' crops and animals parched, Mattei's parents had been tied together and burned alive in their own house. Blaise brought a raiding party to stop the execution, but arrived too late. But he found the ten-year-old boy huddled in the root cellar, where he'd hidden, forced to listen to his parents screaming as they died. For the next four years, the boy had not spoken a word.

When I'd come to live with him in Karesh, Blaise asked me to teach Mattei some fighting skills. Blaise believed that if the boy could learn to defend himself and others, it might help heal the terrible wounding that kept him silent. Beset with grief and guilt and soul-sickness after my journey of revelation, I could scarcely bring my own self to speak, but I agreed and began teaching Mattei the rudiments of hand combat. The boy was quick, strong, and ferocious, though his eyes were an abyss of pain as he fought.

One evening after several weeks of practice, I told Mattei of Kyor, the boy of his own age who had died following my command to bring Blaise to the gateway of Dasiet Homol. I told him how I blamed myself for Kyor's death, though my hand had not held the knife that killed him. But I said that, although it was very hard, I was coming to see that I had given Kyor a duty and a purpose, and that I should not regret his ending. Kyor had saved Blaise's reason, and all the good that Blaise had done and would do was a gift Kyor had given to the world. Perhaps, I said, Mattei's parents had died, not blaming their son for hiding in that root cellar, but rejoicing in his safety and the thought of all the good he could do in the world.

Together Mattei and I walked into the wilderness that night, and I showed him how Ezzarians built a ring of holy fire. I explained how we felt close to the gods when we knelt within it, as Verdonne had done in her long siege trapped between heaven and earth. When our fire blazed high, I prayed aloud for wisdom and strength, and asked the gods to comfort Kyor and tell him of the good that had come from his sacrifice. And Mattei, breaking his long silence, whispered his own prayer for the gods to tell Nasia and Rudolf that he missed them terribly, and that he would strive to be their worthy son. We had both begun a healing in that ring of fire. Mattei's excitement at my arrival, and the smiles and bantering that followed him as we walked through the camp, told me he had come farther than I.

On our way across the trampled grass of the open valley with my supplies, I saw Blaise and Elinor galloping off together toward the south end of the valley. “They seem in a hurry,” I said.

“Just off to see the old ones, I'd guess,” said the boy.

“Old ones?”

“Oh!” Mattei flushed as scarlet as the ajilea flowering in the grass. “I thought Blaise would have—We're not supposed to talk about them, even among ourselves. I'm sorry. But I'm sure it would be all right if I told you. Blaise honors you so—”

“No, no. I don't want you to speak of things you've been told not. Don't worry about it. Blaise will tell me everything he wishes me to know.”

I had Mattei leave the water jar at the edge of the clearing by the stone hut, saying I'd come back for it. “I'll introduce you to my companion another day,” I said. “He could use a good friend. He's lost his home, seen his father and friends murdered, and heard people crying out and been unable to help them. It's going to take awhile for him to learn to live with it. Right now he really doesn't want to talk to anyone.”

“He's in his quiet time,” said the boy.

“Aye,” I said. “That's exactly it.”

All of Taíne Keddar was subdued on that first afternoon, not just Aleksander. The six deaths in the raiding party had cast a shadow over the outlaw settlement, and most of the afternoon had been devoted to the burials. The Prince and I spent several jars of water, two towels, and a goodly while cleaning ourselves, then took a few minutes to visit the burial site of each of the fallen. Derzhi tradition bade a warrior honor those who had died fighting at his side, even if he didn't know their names. Understanding how little Aleksander would be welcome, we did not intrude upon the funeral rites, but arrived just after and stayed just long enough to toss a handful of dirt on the grave and salute the fallen rider with our swords. This duty done under a barrage of silent stares, we retreated to our stone hut and slept.

Just after sunset, I walked up the path toward Blaise and four other men who stood beside a healthy blaze outside one of the larger tents at the valley's edge. The evening breeze was damp after a brief shower, and I welcomed the prospect of a good fire and a hot meal, if not the uncomfortable society that was sure to accompany them. Aleksander was slow in getting his new boots back on, so he'd sent me on ahead, saying he would catch up.

A short, solidly round man was stirring a pot hung over the fire, but when he caught sight of me, he thrust the spoon into someone else's hand and raised his arms in greeting. “Seyonne! Spirit's flesh, it's fine to see you.” Before I could get out a word, he was across the wide expanse of trampled, muddy grass, thumping me on the back, almost toppling me to the dirt in his enthusiasm. “The instant I heard the tale of the winged Ezzarian, I knew it was you come back.”

“I'd wondered if you were hiding from me,” I said, unable to restrain a grin at Farrol's clumsy welcome. Ever since I had helped save Blaise's reason and salvage his own grim future, I had suffered no more enthusiastic devotion than Farrol's.

“Nah. Just running Blaise's everlasting errands. With the size of our company, there's no end to it. And more folk come to us every day.”

He put his arm around my shoulders and was practically dragging me toward the group by the fire, but before we got so far, I pulled him to a stop, took his hands, and examined them. They were wickedly scarred, and two fingers on his left hand were curled stiffly. He wiggled them, as if to demonstrate that he had some use of them. “I never had a chance to thank you, or to find out about your injury,” I said. “You saved—”

“I'm a bumbling oaf,” he said, pained sobriety dousing his exuberance. “Got a fine man killed and came near leaving myself a cinder because I didn't know what I was about—first sending assassins after Blaise and then not knowing how to control the fire. But we did what we could, eh? It's all a man can do.”

“You had no way to know, no reason to expect what happened. But I'll never forget what you did. Never.”

“Have you seen him?” Farrol lowered his voice, as if the ones by the fire might be listening.

I shook my head. “Elinor's not too happy about my being here.”

“She's got a number of—”

“I don't blame her,” I said, rushing ahead, not wanting him to feel he had to defend her. “I just can't bring myself to ask it yet. Don't even know if I should. But just to hear a word of him . . .”

Farrol's broad face was filled with sympathy. “He's well. A fine lad. Talks your ears numb when he gets after it. Runs and climbs and keeps healthy. Bright as sunlight on snow.”

I could not speak my relief and gratitude.

Aleksander limped out of the grove just then, and I waited for him to reach us. “My lord, this is Blaise's foster brother Farrol. Farrol, this is—”

“I know who he is.” The round man's jaw thrust itself out like the rocks that edged the valley. “If you weren't with Seyonne, I'd introduce myself with a sword in your gut. Prayed for the opportunity to do that since I was a boy.”

With a stare that could have frozen a volcano, the Prince spread his empty hands wide as if inviting the man to do exactly as he said.

“The Prince is here under Blaise's protection as well as mine,” I said hurriedly. “We've a great deal to learn from each other. Perhaps we'd best get to it.”

Farrol turned his back and walked away.

I glanced at the Prince as we followed Farrol across the meadow. His face was stone. Indeed his expression did not change during that whole evening, and he said nothing beyond the most necessary politeness as we ate and listened to Blaise and his friends talk about the raid on the slave caravan and those who had died.

In addition to Blaise and Farrol, Roche, the commander of the caravan raid, shared the supper pot. Out of his paint, he was a stringy, pockmarked Ezzarian of twenty-five or so, born demon-joined like Blaise and Farrol. As Blaise questioned the young commander about the problems with the raid, Roche cast sidelong glances at Aleksander and me, as if we might contradict him or laugh. He told how the Veshtar had fought more fiercely than he expected and how the Nyabozzi had been able to react to the surprise without a pause. Indeed, anyone setting out to fight the Derzhi and their allies should have known better what to expect, but neither Aleksander nor I offered any comment.

Gorrid, a squat, muscular Ezzarian in his mid-thirties, whom I had met briefly in Karesh, returned my greeting with a hostile glare and spat on Aleksander's boots. His position made clear, he proceeded to ignore us both, neither addressing us nor acknowledging my abortive attempts at conversation.