The Lesser Kindred (ttolk-2) (28 page)

I crossed my arms and grinned. "Damn right it's good. You would not believe how the strands of fate are crossed and woven in favour of the lady out there. That girl is the one Berys is after. The daughter of Marik. The one in the demon caller's prophecy who's going to rule all of Kolmar."

"You've found her!" he cried, jubilant.

"Found her? I've been with her for months. And I'm not going to give her up now. Do you realise what she's worth? To her mother, to Marik, to Berys himself?''

"Then you intend to bargain with her?" he asked, sitting back, nearly closing his eyes.

I snorted. "Not likely. You know what Berys is after and so do I. I've no time for demons or the bastards who work with them. I'm on duty for her mother, Maran Vena."

"I've heard of her," said the Master, a tiny, greedy smile crossing his face. "I've heard she has something almost as valuable as her daughter."

"The Farseer is not the issue here."

"Why not?"

"Trust me, it's not for sale or stealing." I grimaced. "I tried once. Bad idea. Is the Healer here?"

"I'll send her out."

"And I'll need Post horses for four all the way to Verfaren, or at least to within a day's travel." I was proud of myself. My voice stayed calm and reasonable through that whole sentence.

He sprang to his feet then, spluttering and swearing. "Hells' teeth and bones, woman! Do you have any idea of the cost? Of the wear on the horses, of the loss of speed to our people for a week! Give me one good reason I should let you and three Bricks use the Post!"

I waited, smiling, for him to stop spluttering, then said calmly, "I need to get the new owner of Hadron's horses safely to the best Healers in the world. Then, when she owes us her life—well, we may never have to pay for one again."

Damn, he could move fast when he wanted to.

We had stopped for the night, a single day out from Kaibar.

We had left our own horses with the Silent Service in Kaibar the night before. In exchange, we might keep the Post horses we rode when our race was over. The Service did well out of the deal, for of course our mounts were of Hadron's stock. Still, it was worth it for the speed. Jamie wouldn't sell Blaze, so he arranged to collect him next time he passed.

The Healer of the Silent Service had been a very kind woman, who had said little but whose gentle touch made her work all the more effective. I felt a little better, but I was beginning to realise that each time someone worked on me the effect was less, as if my body were telling me that there was only so much to be done. I tried not to think about it, and even succeeded for much of that day.

Travelling by Post is astounding. It was hard at first: no one with sense would ever ride a horse that hard, but you never stay on one horse for long. Jamie and I laughed the first time we changed horses, because two of four new mounts were beasts we had sold only a few years ago. Seems Hadron's horses were highly valued by the Silent Service. Jamie muttered something about doubling the price and Rella laughed. "We must have a talk about that sometime in the next few days," she said, "but not right now. Mount up." At the next change we recognised a big gelding we'd sold at Mara just that autumn past. He remembered us, too, and nuzzled at Jamie. We all felt the better for that.

In any case, once we had crossed the Kai—on a dark vessel that made almost no sound—we began our ride on the Post horses and covered huge amounts of distance that night, stopping only to sleep for a few hours in some inn somewhere. I was all but asleep in the saddle and barely managed to stagger into the room we were sent to before I fell across the nearest bed and asleep. Varien must have had to shift me to get in. When we woke it was daylight, all four of us were in the one room, and Rella was up and dressed and in deep conversation with a man at the door. When she closed it she turned to face us gravely and said, "The word from Marik's Healers has come and gone this last hour. They know it was you needing help in the Three Kings, girl, but they don't know where you've gone. Last seen in Kaibar. The farther we get the better."

"Lady, will they not assume that we seek the more powerful healers in Verfaren?" asked Varien. He had hardly spoken all day. "It must be known that Lanen is unwell."

"I'm counting on the speed we left at to save us," Rella replied, throwing her few belongings back into her pack. "We recognised Marik's Healer, we knew he'd report, and we took off. The last place they are going to look for us is in the South Kingdom, where Marik is."

We stared at Rella, unconvinced. She looked up.

"That's the idea, at any rate. Any of you have a better one?"

"Not really," I said, wincing. The pain was coming back, and the voices were loud that morning, and my back was killing me. "If we're going to Verfaren, let's go. At least there I can get some decent healing before they kill me."

Rella seemed to find that funny.

I didn't. But she didn't know—I didn't tell her, or anyone else, but I had started bleeding again. My lower back never stopped aching now, and the riding was making it worse. I wasn't keeping much food down either. I felt miserable and I was deeply grateful that the furious riding left us very little opportunity to speak to oneanother.

The most peculiar part about that mad dash was how my mind kept returning to my mother, of all things. I found myself wanting desperately to speak with Jamie about Maran Vena, to hear anything he could tell me about her. In fact what I really wanted was to talk to her, face-to-face—though I would have preferred a good shouting match. I had been angry at her most of my childhood and I thought I had grown past that years ago, but here was that same anger back again, formless yet full-blown in its strength. I was even angry at Hadron for being so cold and heartless to me all those years. How stupid! Hadron was dead these six moons, and I had learned from Jamie in the autumn that he had known from my birth that he was not my father, that I was nothing to him, and that he had kept me at Hadronsstead only in memory of Maran—the only woman he had ever loved. Still, the heart does not always make allowances for others, especially in such circumstances.

The worst part of that time, however, arose from my own soul with no reference to any other. I am deeply ashamed to admit it, but in the secret depths of my heart I was furious with the child that grew within me. I know it sounds unnatural and I would deny it if I could, but it happened. The simple truth is that I had been told that it could not survive its own birth and I was angry at it for taking me with it. Despite that day in Kaibar when Varien and I had played at becoming parents, I knew that my life was more than likely to end suddenly and badly, when I had only just begun to live. I was very glad that our speed did not allow us to speak much to one another, and I closed my thoughts to Varien as best I could.

We rode through the day nearly without stopping, pushing the horses and ourselves, changing about every twenty or twenty-five miles. The poor beasts would be useless for several days after, but they were all young and fit and it wouldn't really hurt them. And we had travelled well over a hundred miles in a day, with six changes of mount. It was astounding.

At this rate we would be in Verfaren in another day.

I can hear what you are thinking, those of you who have borne children. How could you do that? Didn't it hurt like fury? Yes, it did. Didn't the riding make the pain worse? Yes, of course. But what would you? I was being forced to ride like the very wind towards the one place in all of Kolmar that I should have been avoiding, for the sake of saving my life. The demons were piping loud and clear and I was dancing like there was no tomorrow, for that was indeed like to be the case.

We stopped just to the north of Elimar, the capital of the South Kingdom. Rella again selected the inn. It was expensive, but it was clean and the food was good enough. She disappeared soon after we arrived, only to return in time for the evening meal. "I've arranged for a really fine Healer to come along to see you, my girl," she said, very pleased with herself. "But not until after we've eaten, so get down to it."

I was intensely relieved to hear that a Healer was coming, but I couldn't eat a thing. I had gone to change my cloth when we arrived and found that I had to change all my un-derthings. Even I knew that there was far too much blood. The possibility mat I might die from this was beginning to become very real. I had been trying to blank out the pain but it was now affecting my every movement, and I was starting to feel light-headed from the loss of blood. I started to thank Kella for her kindness when Jamie interrupted me. He had been brooding and growly ever since we'd left Kaibar and he wouldn't tell me what was bothering him. From the storm on his brow I suspected we were all about to find out.

"That's enough!" he said sharply, keeping his voice as quiet as he could with that much anger behind it. I knew it was coming but I still jumped. "Why, Mistress Rella?"

"Why what?" she asked, tearing a chunk off the loaf on the table. "Damn, I'm hungry. Pass the butter, will you, Lanen?"

"Why all of it?" said Jamie, staring at Rella. "Finding Healers, arranging Post horses—I can't believe it's all part of your work."

Rella looked at him, a bit confused. She wasn't the only one. "Why question a gift from the Lady?" she said calmly. "You know I'm on duty."

Jamie sliced the air with one hand. "Ridiculous!" he snarled. "No one could pay the Service enough to get us all on Post horses, not even Maran."

"What!"

The exclamation was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Too late now to call it back and just listen. Ah, well. I tried to ignore the heads that had turned in my direction—I suppose it was a loud shout, at that—and spoke more quietly. "What do you mean, not even Maran? What does my mother have to do with anything?" I asked. I was much taken aback for, as I have said, Maran had been on my mind all the day long.

Rella was frowning and shaking her head at Jamie, but he faced me and said harshly, "Rella's working for her. She's been in Maran's pay since she joined the Harvest ship with you in the autumn. Since you first met her. Didn't you know?"

"What? No! I thought—Rella, you said the Silent Service wanted Marik, you never—I mean, you said you knew Maran—oh hell," I snarled. "Hells' bells and bloody damnation, Jamie," I said, feeling stupid and angry and betrayed. "I've been an idiot again, haven't I?"

"I suspect we all have, my girl," said Jamie, "but I don't intend to continue in ignorance." He rounded on Rella. "Well?"

She had carried on eating, stopping only long enough to say in her normal tones, "I'm not going to say a word until I've eaten and Lanen has seen a Healer. Then you can ask me anything you want. Right now, leave me be. I'm hungry."

We had no choice. We were all subdued and ate quickly. I never tasted the little food I managed to eat, but I was feeling awful anyway and didn't eat much in case it came back up. Soon enough we all retired to an upstairs room, where we found the four small beds taking up nearly every bit of floor space. There was barely room to squeeze around them to get inside the door.

I crawled into the first bed I could reach. I was feeling worse by the moment, as the agitation of all that riding caught up with me. However, once we were in and the door closed Jamie turned to Rella with a grim frown and a nasty expression on his face, and I had something else to think about.

"Very well, Mistress Rella," he said. "Perhaps you will now deign to tell us what in all the Hells is going on?"

"You make everything such hard work, Jamie," she said, shaking her head. "But you're losing your touch. Talking about such things in a common room! Honestly. You only had to ask."

"Lady Rella," said Varien gently, cutting off whatever Jamie was about to say, "of thy courtesy, surely the time hath come for truth between us?"

She was taken off guard by him. She knew who and what he was, but I think she forgot from time to time just what it meant to have lived for so very long. Now, with those deep green eyes fixed on hers, and that lovely voice speaking so kindly to her—well, "the eyes of a dragon are perilous deep," they say.

"Yes, my Lord Dragon, I suppose it has," she said with a sigh. She turned to me and smiled. "You are so much like her, you know. I've known Maran ever since she came back to Beskin, about a year and a half after you were born. She has been a good friend to me in my comings and goings for all that time, even knowing who I am and what I do. She is the best friend I have in the world, Lanen. When word reached me that she wanted to hire me to watch over you I was already in Illara, but I signed on that damned ship and went to what I thought would be my death because I had said I would look after you for her. My dearest friend's daughter. Yes, Jamie, she has paid me. Is paying me. Is paying the Silent Service. And no, there is no money in the world that could have got me on to that ship or arranged these Post horses for us all."

She threaded her way across the crowded little room to stand foursquare in front of Jamie and slapped him hard across the face.

"You bastard," she said, quietly but with a startling intensity. "How can you have travelled with me for so long and know me so little? Yes, I am a minor Master in the Silent Service and I may choose my own assignments. Yes, I have more leeway in the arrangements than most, and yes, I was going to ask for consideration from you and Lanen the next time the Service needs good horses. That does not mean that I do everything for pay, or that I seek to use or betray you. Any of you. I've cared about Lanen since I met her, despite all the rules about these things, and I know how sick she is even if you don't care to. I have arranged this swift transport and a good Healer's visit for her because I give a damn what happens to her, as Maran's daughter and in her own right." You could cut the fury in her voice with a knife. "And fool that I am, I was starting to give a damn about you, Jameth of Arinoc. Get to the Hells and close the gates behind you."

She stumbled across to the door and turned to me. I knew that "I'd rather fry in the deepest hell than cry right now" look, so I didn't say anything. "I'll send the Healer up when he comes, girl. Don't expect me back here tonight." I nodded.

She slammed the door behind her.

Jamie had not said a single word. He stood openmouthed, his brown cheek showing a good strong pink stain where he'd been slapped. Quite right too, in my opinion.

"If you don't go after her, Jamie, I'm going to disown you," I said. He gaped at me. I glanced up to the ceiling and sent a swift prayer to the Lady for patience. "You idiot. She just said she loves you. Are you deaf?"

"What?" he said stupidly. "But she—she hit me, and, and she said—"

"Go. Now. Grovel, apologise, do what you have to, but go after her," I said. "For Shia's sake don't make me get out of this bed to push you, just go!" He left in a daze, drawing the door closed behind him.

I turned to Varien, who was standing there with his jaw dropping, much as Jamie had been. "Lanen? Whence came this—ah, I shall never understand!"

I grinned at him. "Gedri females?"

"Any females!" he replied smiling. "The females of the Kantri are every bit as confusing as you and Mistress Rella." He stroked my hair, growing more solemn. "However, my heart, what more deeply concerns me is why Jameth suddenly turned on a friend. I thought he admired the Lady Rella?"

"He does, my love. That's the problem. You don't know Jamie like I do," I said heavily, sitting back. All the excitement had brought back my headache, and everything below my waist hurt like every demon ever spawned had been punching me. "It was the Post horses—I asked Rella, and it really does cost a fortune to move this fast, and Jamie knows it better than I. I think he is starting to truly like her, but when it looked like she was being so kind he got suspicious. It's the way he thinks," I said apologetically. "Comes of not trusting people—no, it comes of not trusting women," I said. "He's never had much luck with women."