The Dark Ferryman (28 page)

“You can’t defend what you haven’t got. You lost your virtue long ago.” Sevryn put his hand on Rivergrace’s shoulder even as he answered lightly, “I won’t be held accountable for your actions from beyond my birthing.”

“I am wounded!” Bistane placed his hand upon his chest. “Fair lady, you must witness for me. I should demand a duel. Although . . .” and his tone trailed off. “I will be defending myself enough, shortly. I should not alienate the very man who is likely to stand at my back protecting me from the Demon who crosses the borders of Larandaril even as we speak.”

“Demon?” If a Demon had pierced the borders of Larandaril, her disturbing dreams perhaps had reason beyond her own fears. It could not be Cerat. She knew his touch almost as well as she knew that of the River Goddess, yet if there existed one such a thing, there would be more. Like raiders, like Ravers.

Bistane tossed his toweling aside onto the shower racks and dried his hands on the thighs of his pants as he answered her. “A She-Demon, Mistress Farbranch, one of biting meanness.”

“Surely Lariel or Osten is putting together a detail to go deal with it? And how can such a thing get past the borders?”

“Just such answers as I’ll be sent to get. I had hoped Sevryn might join me.”

“I wouldn’t count on any alliance with me, Bistane. You’re on your own against that she-force and the grievances she brings with her.

“Wounded again! Perhaps mortally now. Is there no honor among soldiers?”

“Not this time.”

Grace made a perturbed noise, and Sevryn’s hand rubbed her shoulder gently. “How can you joke about such a thing?”

“Is not laughter a weapon? One I think such Demons would flee all the quicker. They have no sense of humor, for that would imply the warmth of life, and that they are bereft of as well.”

“How can you stand to sense them?”

“That’s not all there is to the world.” The levity left his face for a moment as he looked keenly at her. “Can you not see it? Feel Kerith? Is it true, then, that you freed the sacred Andredia River with little sense or knowledge of your skills? You were raised as a slave?”

Sevryn’s fingers tightened on Rivergrace’s shoulder, so firm that she nearly cried out both from the surprise and pain of the grip, but instead she inhaled deeply, reminding herself that although she was in Larandaril and this was a gathering for war; not all who came here were true allies or friends. “I was enslaved, yes, and as for my skills, I’m learning to look upon the land as you do.”

He gestured. “Lara’s kingdom is fair. What do you see, even on this gray day as the sky teases us with a hope of rain?”

She knew from the days Lariel and Jeredon had spent with her what she should see, the elements that ran like fine threads throughout all the firmaments that existed, that her Vaelinar eyes were remarkable orbs that could recognize the very
being
of what they looked upon, and there were days when she did see just that . . . for a fleeting moment or two. It was not something the Vaelinars saw constantly, but they did recognize it when they focused upon it, and depending upon the talents and skills of their bloodline, they could manipulate the threads of those elements. Sevryn was the only one of Vaelinar blood who did not have the multihued eyes and yet held the magic within him. For that reason, he was invaluable to Lariel who was one of a handful or less who knew he had skills. Others, such as Bistane, dismissed the possibility of certain potentials within him, and in his position, it helped to be overlooked and underestimated. Yet, after the night, she feared to touch those threads of the elements.

“I don’t see as you do, Lord Bistane,” she admitted reluctantly.

“But you can?”

“Upon occasion.”

A fleeting expression passed through the deeps of his brilliant blue eyes. He made an almost imperceptible move toward her saying, “It would be a pity to have inherited our eyes and not our powers, although there’s that in you, as many have said, which is not altogether Vaelinar. . . .”

Sevryn turned slightly, blocking Bistane’s path, saying, “Have a care, lord.”

He drew himself up. “No offense meant, milady Rivergrace.” He turned away from both of them, hiding his face as he repeated his question mildly, “Then what might you see on a day like today?”

She looked beyond the yards, beyond the paths and graveled roads fencing off the manor from the lands, and across the fields and groves as far as she could see, cloud-laden mountains on the far horizon. What she observed cut her to the bone, and she would not have spoken it aloud, but something compelled her. “I see,” she said slowly, “a dark and tangled net lowering over us.”

A stunned silence followed her words and then Bistane forced a laugh. “That will remind me not to seek answers which I should not have!” He turned back, with an easy grin on his keen features. “You have your jest, milady, and well done. Someone has already told you that it is Tressandre ild Fallyn who rides in, no doubt. I’ll leave you two to chuckle at me while I go see if there’s anything left in the kitchens for a second breakfasting.” Smiling yet, he moved past them and away.

Sevryn’s hand unclenched from her shoulder and slid down her back where he rested it. “He is a Vantane for a reason,” he remarked quietly.

“I wasn’t making fun of him.”

He turned her about so he could look down into her face. “It lightens my heart to see you. Forgive me for not being with you these past few days.”

“And I should not be here now.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It’s not often that I see fear in your face.” She put her hand up and cupped the side of his bruised jaw.

“Perhaps it is reflected from yours.” He covered her hand with his, cold from the shower water and rough from his training.

“We’re both bothered. You begged me to come to you, and now you’re staying away. Were there consequences? Did Lara find out? Does she send you out every day to get beaten like this?”

“If she has, and I imagine she did, this is her house, after all, she’s said nothing. It’s not her will that keeps me in the arena.” His jaw tightened under her touch. “This is something I must do.”

“I’ll admit I know little of training for war. It’s not the apple picking I was raised to do . . . but I do know that, if you’re picking apples, you don’t do it by climbing the ladder and throwing yourself to the ground as hard as you can, over and over.”

Sevryn chuckled in spite of himself. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.” He released her hand.

“Keep this in mind as well. I have three brothers. I remember well that when one was bothered, he’d nudge the others until a brawl erupted. Hosmer always says there’s nothing like a fight in the dirt to clear the mind.”

“I should remember that you are a font of Farbranch wisdom. I’ll ask you to remember that there are things I must deal with, in my own way.”

His solemn gray eyes watched her face closely. “We’re together then, and yet alone.” She withdrew her hand from his face slowly.

“It’s best that way.” He took a step back from her, and she thought she could not bear that, the distance he wanted to put between them. They had come from places so far apart to find one another, and now he seemed to hesitate. “Can I give you a warning without hitting your Dweller stubborn streak?”

“It’s a streak that’s served me well, but Tolby raised no fools.”

He nodded. “Stay clear of Tressandre. She’s not coming here on Lara’s bidding, and that alone will have the two of them at odds. I can’t say why she is here, only that it is likely not to serve anyone’s interests but her own.”

“Why open the border to her, then?”

“Lariel can’t afford to shut out an ally, even one as unpredictable as the Stronghold ild Fallyn. You were fortunate that she didn’t notice you at the Concords last summer, but now she knows of you and little good can come of that. You are a puzzle to the Vaelinars, and they have little patience with enigmas. You don’t want to be caught in a power struggle between the two of them.”

“Surely she isn’t coming for me.”

“I doubt it’s for that reason alone, but . . .” he paused and shifted his weight.

Rivergrace caught a hint of intuition. “She knows you.”

He did not answer for a very long moment, and then said quietly, “Yes.”

It struck her. She didn’t mean it to, but it did, and she caught her breath for a moment after finding it rough in her throat. She could not be like a child in this; she had known Sevryn had a life far beyond hers, and some of it had been very rough indeed. He would not speak of those years locked away in his memories when he had been imprisoned by Quendius, but she knew those years would haunt him forever. He did not stand now with Tressandre, but with her, and that should be enough. She made a slight gesture as if wiping away a sign written in the air between them. “That is past. I understand that.”

“She may not.”

“I trust you.”

His gaze slid away from her briefly. She found that more chilling, more deadly, than the embrace of the River Goddess. She touched his face. Bruises lined his eyes, physical proof of the burdens he already carried. She didn’t want to tell him, but she had to. “I have to tell you this, then,” she said, unsure if he would heed her. “A warning, if you will take it, because I don’t know what else to call it. The River Goddess haunts me, from the rivers I once found safe to my very dreams. She implores me to return something I’ve stolen from her. I have nothing, nothing, I swear to you, but she threatens you and all the others I hold dear. Believe me, if you can, and stay clear of fresh water. Stay out of her reach. She touches me when nothing else can, and I don’t know what I can do yet. Please believe me and keep yourself safe.” She tucked one arm about herself, like a shield, preparing for his rebuttal.

“Is this a threat from her . . . or from you?”

“Sevryn, how can you say that to me? Why would I threaten you?”

“Because I haven’t pressed Lara to do what’s right.”

“Wasn’t it you who told me we have what we have with or without her?”

His gray eyes looked hard as granite and as unmovable. “I might have said something to that effect.”

“And you meant it.”

“As much as you mean it when you say you love me.”

She pulled her other arm over her first, doubling her shield. “You sound as if love is a weapon.”

“It can be.” He touched the back of her wrist. “Or it can be a better shield than flesh and bone, steel and stone.”

“Against what? Disbelief? It seems not.”

He took a short breath. “Forgive me, aderro. I am not . . . myself.”

“Listen to me, then. A Goddess hunts us both. I can’t do what she asks of me because I don’t know how.”

He looked her in the eyes again and gave a bitter laugh. “Then you know why I can’t be around you. The Gods conspire, it seems. Cerat whispers in my soul, and he wants blood, a lot of blood, and most of all he wants yours.” Sevryn turned half away. “I hoped it was only a nightmare. It seems we are God-and-Demon-touched, Grace, our souls pitted against their power, and I can’t tell you if we have a hope of standing against them.”

“Not alone,” she whispered.

“No. Not alone, we don’t.” He reached out again to grasp her hand tightly for a moment before letting go harshly. “I’ll send word to you later.” He broke away from her, shoulders bent, moving away briskly, and he did not look back.

THE WIND BROUGHT in the late morning storm, along with a thunder of hoofbeats and shrill whistles punctuated by sharp cracks of a whip. Riderless horses ran with the grace of those who know they are fleet of foot and admirable of beauty, their ears pricked high and their nostrils flared to drink deeply of the wind. They galloped down the lane, scattering waterfowl and farmer boys ahead of them who had come to gawk or been caught asleep at the edge of the pastures, and they snorted with amusement, their forelocks, manes, and tails flying as they ran. Behind them, standing in her stirrups, long hair bannered behind her as wild as any mane, rode Tressandre ild Fallyn, her arm brandishing the whip which she cracked now and then to keep the herd on the main lane, her colors of black and silver flowing about her as she drove the band ahead of her. Behind her cantered lancers and cavalry and bowmen, all in the colors of Stronghold ild Fallyn, all of them looking as if they drew the storm with them like a cloak swirling down upon the estate.

Jeredon rocked back a little in his cart with a muttered word that neither Rivergrace nor Nutmeg caught. Nutmeg stared as though entranced, and Grace thought of their Dweller brothers and how they had fallen under Tressandre’s spell on one Spring fair day. That was the day raiders hit the small village of Stonesend and Nutmeg nearly died.

“Does she know how beautiful she is?” Nutmeg murmured.

“Oh, she knows. She’s had her hooks in all of us at one time or another, I’ll wager.” Jeredon watched the ensemble clatter into the yard, the free horses pounding and stamping to a halt, milling about with their heads thrown up and the whites of their eyes showing a touch, their hooves gleaming, as if they, and not the front, were the storm before the rain.

Rivergrace glanced to him. “Sevryn . . .”

Jeredon’s attention came about. He frowned at her a moment before leaning out of his cart and sweeping a rock off the garden wall at his elbow. He tossed it to her. “That is a rock,” he said. “Hundreds of years older than you . . . perhaps thousands, if rocks are what we think they are. Yours is not the first hand to hold it. Can you blame it for the hands of others who might first have picked it up, shaped it, built with it, or cast it aside when it had no way of knowing about you or that your hand might cup it more fairly, more lovingly, than any other?”

“Are you saying a man is as blameless as a rock?”

“Somewhat. And most of us are as clueless.” His gaze swept over Nutmeg casually before Jeredon swiveled his cart about to face Tressandre as she curbed her horse to a prancing walk, the mount blowing a little with exertion as it sidestepped toward them, one wary eye on the man in his contraption. Nutmeg’s hand dropped to the back of the cart behind Jeredon where she gripped it, knuckles whitening.