Scar Felice (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 3) (18 page)

She looked at the streets; saw the bulk of rock looming over the town. This was White Rock indeed. She turned to speak to him again, but he was already fading, a figure in shadow untouched by the evening sun. As she watched he twisted into nothingness and she was alone in the street. For the first time in her life she felt uncomfortable being on her own. She was unprotected, naked, exposed; she felt like prey.

The walk back around the great rock and up the road to the gates seemed longer than she remembered. She hurried, wanting to see other faces again, other people, simple people who inhabited just one world. She dreaded that there would be no guards on the gate, that all the world had been stripped of what was important while she was away, and she was delighted to see the usual couple of relaxed guardsmen bracketing the gate. They straightened as she approached, became more alert.

“Is everything well, Ima?” one of them asked.

“It is well,” she replied.

“Only you came up that hill like something was chasing you.”

“Just hurrying,” she said. “Glad to be back.”

The guardsman nodded, but there was still a touch of disbelief in his expression. She passed them by and went through the gate, heading directly for the stair that led up to her chamber.

“Felice.”

She turned with a start at the sound of her name, but even as she turned her brain made sense of the voice. It was Sabra, the colonel’s lieutenant. A friend.

“Lieutenant.” She said.

“I was worried,” the woman said. “I have been waiting for you.”

“I am back, as you see.”

“Yes, I see, but when Alder returned without you…”

“He is back?”

“Yes. You did not know? He came back almost two hours ago. Had you not returned by dark I would have questioned him. Where have you been?”

“In the town,” she answered a little too quickly, and knew at once that she had. “It is something that I cannot discuss. Please do not ask.”

“As you wish, but I must be certain that you have not been harmed.”

“I am quite well,” Felice reassured her.

“And yet your dress is torn at the hem, stained with dirt at the knees, and there is an impressive bruise on you upper arm…”

Felice said nothing. She could not deny what Sabra saw, and she could not explain it without some elaborate lie. She would not lie.

“I am sorry to detain you, Ima,” Sabra said and stepped out of her way.

At once she felt that she had slighted the lieutenant, and wanted very much to confide in her, to tell everything, but she knew that it would be a mistake. Nothing would be gained, and both of them would be at risk.

“Sabra,” she said. “Thank you for waiting for me.”

“My duty, Ima,” the lieutenant said.

She went on her way, climbed the stairs to her room. What did it mean that Alder had returned? He should have been back on that alien world, waiting for the assessment to begin. She did not know how much faster time passed there, but they could already have discovered that she was gone.

She listened at her own door, but could hear nothing. Even if somebody was in there she would expect to hear nothing, she realised, and opened the door. The room was empty. It seemed cold and unlived it. Her clothes and other belongings clustered at the foot of the neatly made bed as though huddling together for company. She joined them, sitting on the bed, and then jumped up again, having sat on something hard beneath the blankets.

She reached under the bedding, and found a bundle of cloth tucked well down, flattened, invisible. She pulled it out and carefully unwrapped it, laying each fold open with great care. She knew what it was, what it had to be, almost at once, but she did not really dare to believe until the last fold was opened out and it lay in her hand. Pathfinder. It was the knife, Pathfinder.

It was not just the blade, not only being reunited with Jem’s gift which had served her so well, but what it said to her. Alder had brought this back. He had carried it to her room and hidden it in her bed in a place where only she would find it. He had known that she would be returning. He had known that she would come back. He had been part of it.

Now she could sleep.

The steward Alder, Sinalder the Ekloi, whatever he might be, did not show his face the following morning. By the time Felice had risen and eaten her fill of breakfast in the archers’ mess hall a number of wagons were assembled in the great courtyard and the place clanked, shouted, snorted, stamped, banged and jangled with purpose. It smelt of horses, it smelt of journeys. Someone offered her a cup of jaro, and she took it, sipped it, felt the warmth and sweetness in her mouth, just as on that other day, a century ago it seemed, when she had stood with Cedric in her father’s yard in East Scar, and again, the same again, in a strange warehouse yard in Samara, talking with Ella Saine, the king’s advisor.

It was mostly people who travelled on this route, but not a great number, for there seemed plenty of room. The wagons must bring back a great deal more from Woodside than they took there, she supposed. She looked again for Alder in the courtyard, but he did not appear and she did not think it her place to seek him out. If he chose to keep to himself that was probably his business. She would have liked to have seen him, though, just to nod, to smile, to let him know that the knife was back with her.

One of the drovers told her where to stow her baggage, and she climbed in alongside it, using her roll of clothing as a cushion for her back. She wedged herself sideways on the wagon so that she could look forwards and backwards with ease. She sat and waited for the preparations to be complete and for the journey to begin.

The trip would take three days. She could have done it in two on horseback, but she did not know how to ride. It had never seemed important. Three days was all right. She would be in time. Karnack would still be there.

She tried to think about Karnack, but had difficulty summoning up his face or the sound of his voice. She closed her eyes and cast her mind back to the tavern by the strand in Yasu. The Red Sail. She had no trouble seeing the row of ships, the busy sailors, even the little eating house at the end of the docks where she’d enjoyed a sweet cake and a cup of hot jaro. She could even recall the face of the shop’s proprietor, a man of middle age, polite, kind eyes, a little excess on his belly. These images were sharp, but when she tried to think of Karnack her mind slipped away from the memory. It was like trying to stand round stones on top of one another, they always tumbled away no matter how hard she tried. Todric eluded her, too. But that was not true. She could remember him perfectly from East Scar, arguing over the dinner table, his eyes bright, his voice assured, and she trying to make him see that he was gambling with their profits when there was no need. He was always too fond of the grand coup, the success that reached beyond modesty. She never thought him arrogant, though. Todric was simply attracted to excitement. He had seen life as a game, and had not doubted that he could win.

Beyond East Scar his memory became shadowy. It was as though he had begun to fade as soon as the wagons had crested the steep walls of the valley, as though he only really existed in those happy times.

“Ima.”

She looked up to see that a horse had stopped in front of the wagon. It was Sabra. She sat comfortably astride the horse, a short sword at her hip and a bow slung over her shoulder. Two quivers of arrows hung from the pommel, and she was dressed in a thoroughly warlike manner.

“Lieutenant Sabra. You are going somewhere?” It seemed a stupid question when she had spoken it, but Sabra did not take it so.

“We are coming with you,” she replied.

Felice looked around and saw that a small troop of guards were formed up to the rear of the wagons. She counted ten of them.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“The colonel feels that you’ve had enough excitement for the time being. We are to ensure that your trip to Woodside is uneventful.”

“You suspect we may be attacked?”

“I suspect nothing, Ima. I follow orders. Like the colonel I am a guardsman. It is what we do.” She turned her horse and trotted back to the end of the wagons. A moment later there was a shouting from the front and the whole train began to move, each cart taking its turn to jolt into life and roll carefully beneath the great arch, out beneath the unfettered sky.

So that was White Rock. She gazed up at the walls as they passed down the spiral road. She was hungry for the sight of them now, as though realising for the first time that it was a remarkable thing to be here, to see them, to have had the chance to do so. This was the centre of the world. In one way it was, but in another it was a place of simple certainties, all of which were illusions. Beneath their certain foundations the Ekloi and the Faer Karan carried on their secret struggle, their dance of hunter and prey, and even now, somewhere in the world, they sought Kalnistine, and perhaps others. It was a shadow play hidden from all the world. From many worlds.

She watched the fortress diminish behind them as they rolled southwards through the trees, the long straight road giving her a wonderful view of the rock and the walls that crowned it until they turned at a bridge, angling south-east, and the panorama was lost in the tall trees.

She looked back at the guardsmen trailing in the wake of the wagons. They rode as far to the side of the trail as they could, keeping away from the white dust that the wheels kicked up. There was something that Sabra had said that picked at her. She followed orders. Like the colonel. Had she meant it in that sense? That the orders came from somewhere higher? But that would mean Serhan, and she was sure that the mage lord was barely aware of her existence. Again, hadn’t Borbonil said something about Serhan? She struggled to remember, but could not recall the words.

Hours later they broke for lunch – a hasty meal of cold meats and bread served with nothing more than water. A man brought it to her in the wagon almost as soon as the wheels of the cart stopped turning. He did not speak more than was necessary, and then was gone, moved down the line of wagons. It began to trouble her that she was on her own. In other wagons people talked. She could hear their voices, but not their words. The wagon behind her carried a family; a man and a woman, three children, bags, boxes. She heard tones of command, disagreement, affection, conciliation. The wagons moved again and she still had food in her hand. Time was important. They were in a hurry.

She closed her eyes and let her mind wander. It was something she had begun to do on the long trip to Yasu, practiced on the voyage to Samara and perfected before the ambush on the road to Woodside. It was a warm day and she dozed in the sunshine, rocking with the motion of the wagon. The road was good, and she slept for the greater part of the afternoon so that she awoke after the sun had dropped below the line of the trees and the air had begun to cool. She rubbed her face to clear the muzziness from her head and looked around them. The wagons were pulling off the road onto a grassy area beside a stream, and as soon as they stopped she jumped down to stretch her legs. She felt stiff and full of aches after a whole day wedged into the same position. She stretched as best she could.

It would not do. Three days of such boredom would kill her. She look around at her fellow passengers, all now engaged in the same stretching and loosening of limbs. Some had walked down to the stream, which was almost large enough to be called a river. It chuckled along over shallow stones, catching fragments of the fading sunlight and throwing them out to the world in general. The banks on both sides were thick with reeds, but in two places on this side the reeds were cut away, allowing direct access to the clear water. At these spots people stooped to drink, to splash their faces, and to fill an assortment of containers. It was something that she could do later.

She walked towards the north end of the camp area, towards the guardsmen. She could see that they had already dismounted, tethered their horses, started a fire. They were certainly better organised than the rest of the camp.

Several of them were close to the fire, talking. She saw that one of them was Sabra, and paused, still part of the general mass around the wagons, and watched for a while. They were together, the guardsmen, in a way that only familiar people can be. They were easy in their talk, fluent in gesture, relaxed, but it was very different from a family. Sabra was apart from them, even as she sat in their midst. She was more deliberate in everything that she did. Even when she looked relaxed everything was just as she intended it. Mostly she seemed to watch the others. It was like the dinner in the colonel’s rooms.

One of the men saw her, and caught Sabra’s eye, gesturing slightly with his head. She turned, and saw Felice watching them. She stood and walked over.

“Can I help?”

“I want you to teach me,” Felice said. “To ride a horse, to use a sword.”

Sabra looked sceptical, cast half a glance back over her shoulder at the guardsmen around the fire. They were close enough to hear.

“Walk with me,” she said, and the moved away, down towards the stream. When the distance to the others was greater she spoke again. “Three evenings? That is all we have. I cannot teach you anything worth knowing in so short a time, even if I were a teacher, which I am not.”

“I learn quickly.”

“I am ordered to protect you, not to entertain you.”

Felice ignored the implication, though it was accurate. “How better to protect me than to teach me to protect myself?”

“We do not have the time.”

“I can at least begin to learn.”

“Neither skill is easy. You will be bruised and cut in the learning.”

“I have been both,” Felice said. “I am not afraid.”

Sabra looked away, and Felice was reminded again of the scar that disfigured her face. She touched it with a finger, felt its hardness crossing her cheek. Sabra had spoken thoughtless words.

“I am sorry, Ima,” she said. “I did not mean to offend.”

“Teach me.” She pressed home her slight advantage.

Sabra sighed. “Very well,” she said. “I will show you… some things. We will see what you learn.”

The lieutenant led the way over to where the guard had tethered their horses. They were fine animals, and looked back at Felice, mirroring her curiosity; their ears were forward, eyes bright. She touched the nearest animal on its soft, velvet nose and it bowed its head, calm and accepting. She walked along the line looking at each animal. She stopped by one of them.

“They are all fine,” she said, “But this one is better. I don’t know why.” It truth she thought it looked wiser, but thought that saying such a thing would make her seem foolish, make Sabra think again about teaching her. It was a magnificent animal with a shining bay coat and a white star upon its forehead and a dark brown mane of hair.

“She is mine,” Sabra said. Her tone said more. It said that she and the horse belonged to each other, and there was pride in that. “I bought her. Paid good silver.”

She stepped past the animals to where the saddles had been laid out, putting first a blanket and then a saddle on the horse’s back. She tightened the strap beneath its belly, pulling hard, and then stood back.

“Climb up,” she said.

Felice had seen people mount horses, and she had a fair idea of how it was done. She put her left foot into the stirrup and seized the saddle with both hands, swinging herself up and over, finding the other stirrup. The horse swung its head and looked back at her for a moment.

“The reins?”

They hung forwards over the neck, out of reach. “I forgot.”

“It was a good effort,” Sabra handed her the leather straps. “If you mount from the left hold them in your left hand as you mount, and test your weight on the stirrup before mounting. If the belly strap is loose you might just find yourself sitting on the ground under the saddle. Some horses play tricks, puff themselves up when you tighten the strap, then let the air out. It loosens the strap.”

“I see. I’ll remember that.”

“It’s good, though,” the lieutenant said. “She likes you. She’s not often so comfortable with a new rider.”

The lesson progressed. Sabra untied the horse and led it around the camp, telling Felice how to hold her feet, how to touch her heels to the horse’s flanks to make it move forwards, how to steer with just the pressure of her knees. She was soon walking the horse around the clearing with Sabra watching from a distance. It was the horse, though. The horse did everything, and she felt that she sat atop her by her permission alone. Eventually they stopped. Felice swung down from the saddle, and was surprised at how reduced she felt. Sitting on a horse was a strange thing, like being better than others, a feeling of power.

“Tomorrow night?” she asked.

“As you wish,” Sabra replied. “But understand that the mechanics of riding, the actions, are only the smallest part of the skill. You must understand the horse. It must know that you are its lord, and for that to be true you must believe it yourself. You can ride a doubting horse down a country lane, but when it becomes alarmed it must trust you, or it will look to its own safety as best it can.”

Felice went back to her wagon and a man brought her food, for which she thanked him. She ate, thinking of horses. How could such a great beast know that a small creature such as a man was its master? Not through a stick, that was certain. She had seen beaten horses. There were some in East Scar itself who treated their mounts badly, but not the guardsmen. They seemed to know the secret, and their horses were proud, bold, brave enough to go into war and not betray their riders.