The Prince of Shadow (45 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

IF someone had asked which of his companions Llesho expected to unsettle his thinking the least, he would have answered, “Bixei,” without a moment's hesitation. Which just proved once again that he'd taken on this quest thing with his eyes half shut, and hadn't opened them yet. Half the company he traveled with apparently considered him a magical talisman of some sort, while the other half—probably thought the same thing by now, except that they hadn't yet told him so. It made him wonder if they weren't right, and he was just too stupid to realize it. He was smart enough to know that he didn't want Master Markko to be the one to unlock his mysteries, though.

The magician was following them, he was sure of it. Habiba had to know it, but he held their pace to a slow and steady advance, as if no danger followed them nor anything of importance awaited them ahead. Habiba wasn't riding beside him, but Kaydu made a handy substitute, so he complained to her.

“Can't we move any faster?” Llesho pressed when Kaydu dropped back to ride beside him.

“Not if we want the wagons to keep up,” she answered. “Father will not risk the wagon teams to an attack on an undefended rear. He doesn't want you to greet the emperor's ministers with anything less than the full honors of your position, and the tents and supplies are carried in the wagons.”

“I'd rather arrive without the tents, but within this lifetime,” Llesho grumped. An image flashed in his mind, of himself, in a cage lashed to the back of a wagon, with Master Markko riding beside him, gloating. He didn't think it was his own imagination, but how had Markko got into his head?

Without thinking about it, he'd been urging his sturdy mount forward with insistent pressure from his knees. When the horse obediently picked up the pace, he tugged impatiently on the reins, holding their place in the line. The horse, which had coped patiently with Llesho's nervous energy to this point, gave a frustrated snort and a little sidestep, bucking as if he'd been bitten by a fat green fly. Llesho sailed into the air and crashed down hard on his tailbone.

“Ouch!” he shouted, and grunted a humiliated complaint, “I can't feel my butt!” The images of himself in chains were gone, though, pushed out by the sudden awareness of the pain in his backside, for which he was grateful at least. Now all he had to do was figure out how to manage it without falling off his horse.

Hmishi snorted, but he slid off his horse and offered a hand. “Your butt's still there,” he assured Llesho, “though you may regret it by the time we stop for the night!”

Llesho glared at him and remounted, gritting his teeth as his nether regions renewed their acquaintance with his horse.

“More stubborn than a packhorse,” the voice of a soldier snickered behind them. His wounded expression earned Llesho no support from his companions, however. Lling sniffed scornfully instead, and muttered, “It's only the truth.”

Embarrassment reddened his dusky skin to the color of an aged wine. “I have to find Master Jaks,” he said, and urged his horse out of the line.

His companions surely knew he had no more business with the officers at the front now than he'd had just minutes ago, when he'd argued the pace with Kaydu. But it gave him an excuse to escape their knowing glances, and his horse needed to work off some of the nerves it shared with its rider.

Master Jaks was not to be found, and Habiba, riding at the head of the line of soldiers with Stipes at his flank, greeted him with a polite nod, and a sympathetic smile that for some reason made Llesho even angrier than he was already. Muttering some courtesy he did not mean and forgot as soon as he'd finished saying it, Llesho turned his horse and headed back down the line. Without quite realizing it, he found himself moving toward the rear where Master Den followed with the wagons, willing to trade the watchful attention of his guard for the curious glances of the men of the line. He had not gone far, however, when Stipes caught up with him, a wrathful glare on his face, and a sharp word on his tongue.

“Your guard is responsible for your safety,” he began. “They can't protect you if you insist on running off like an irresponsible child.”

“There are a thousand troopers on this march, Stipes. If the whole of Habiba's forces cannot keep one man from snatching me away, I don't think the five of you will make much difference.”

“And you don't want to see us dead like your bodyguard in Kungol Palace,” Stipes snapped back at him. “But Lling and Hmishi would die to save you from nicking your finger on your dinner knife, and Kaydu and Bixei aren't far behind, for their honor if not for love of you.”

It hurt to hear the words said aloud. He hadn't understood it as a child—his people falling dead by the wayside so that he would live. Now he carried the guilt as a warning as well as a memory.

I don't want anyone dead for me.
No point in saying it, since Stipes already had, so he glared back at the man. “And you? What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?” Stipes shrugged. “Habiba and that girl, Kaydu, have fixed it so that the only way I can keep Bixei safe is to keep you alive. So I'm doing it, even if I have to drag you over my horse's rump like a saddle pack and haul your ass back to your place in the line.”

Think cold thoughts,
Llesho told himself. But the hurt still sneaked onto his downcast face. He didn't want that responsibility. He heard a sigh from above him—Stipes, taller to begin with and riding a bigger horse.

“You've got friends, Llesho, whether you want them or not. Give them a break.”

That was the problem. Llesho grabbed the reins of Stipes' horse close by the bit. When the two horses settled, closer than either of the animals would have liked, Llesho met Stipes' gaze and held it. “Friends die,” he said.

“Remember that the next time you decide to do something reckless.” Nodding an end to the conversation, Stipes tugged his reins out of Llesho's hand and turned his horse.

Neither said anything when they slipped back into place with their companions, although Llesho, even deep in his own thoughts, could not ignore the silent communication going on around him. “I won't go off on my own again,” he growled when it had gone on long enough. “Far be it from me to permit my death to get in the way of true love.”

He'd used as much sarcasm as he could summon, and Bixei responded with his usual sneer. Llesho hadn't expected the furious blushes that heated the faces of his two Thebin companions. He remembered them lying close together in the healer's cottage, and it made him unaccountably angry, in an unfocused way—left out more than wanting Lling for himself. He'd kept himself as a gift to the goddess, who didn't want him, and now he found himself on the outside in his own company. He wondered if he was supposed to start plying Kaydu with poetry and sighs now.

She answered his curious look with a disdainful tilt of her head. “Don't even think it.”

She seemed to have read his mind. Since the others were snickering, however, he figured his speculation must have been pretty obvious. He hoped his relief wasn't as easy for everyone to read, but Kaydu's indignation, and the renewed laughter around him told him it probably was. Tucking his head into his collar like a defensive turtle, Llesho turned his attention forward, wishing he hadn't just promised not to run off on his own. Stipes gave him an encouraging slap on the shoulder before cutting out of the line to return to Habiba's side. Llesho'd done something right, apparently. He didn't know what it was, but he was glad to know the humiliation wasn't for nothing. Even embarrassment passed the time, however, and soon the troops ahead were breaking formation, spreading across a field of beaten grass to make camp. That night his companions held Llesho close to their own campfire.

 

 

They could not stop him when he rose at dawn to take his place at prayer forms before breakfast, however. Master Den led the exercises as he had in the training compound on Pearl Island, and each day that passed found more of Habiba's army joining them. Most were strangers, but Bixei and Stipes were there, standing next to each other as they had in the practice yard of old, and Master Jaks took his place in the line close to Hmishi and Lling. Gradually, Llesho's newly healed body relearned how to sketch the forms on the wind, muscles acting in harmony with each other and the earth, wind, fire, and water.

He should, perhaps, have helped with the eager recruits from among the Farshore troops, but he felt a selfish need to experience the separation from thought the exercises could bring. The forms flowed through him, shaped him as they had not done since Markko had made a prisoner of him.

Master Den called out the forms: “Red sun.”

Llesho closed his eyes and lifted his face to greet the newborn day. Muscle moved against muscle, action against action; his arms stretched to meet the first light bathing the meadow, filling his mind with physical sensations.

“Wind through Millet.” Master Den moved with the words, and Llesho followed. Feet touched grass, became grass, the sharp scent of green life rising in the wind that touched him, parted for the blade of his arm.

“Flowing River.” Llesho's body moved with the breeze that flowed around him, with him, like a river. In the Way of the Goddess, all life flowed the great river, Llesho, and the earth he stood upon, and the gods he worshiped, were all a part of each other. Markko's chains, her ladyship's plots, could not break him if he flowed with the river of all life. “Butterfly,” and Llesho moved free of the flight in darkness and the arrow searing his flesh and all the other horrors he relived in his dreams at night and in his waking reveries.

His escape from his own dark thoughts ended when Master Den completed the last of the forms and performed his bow of respect to the assembled company. Instead of leaving, as he usually did, before Llesho could free himself of his comrades and ask for a private word, Master Den remained behind as the company broke up. Master Jaks stood by him, and Llesho waited impatiently for the two teachers to finish their low conversation. Neither of his masters looked at him, but—sensitized by the prayer forms—Llesho felt the hairs on his neck prickling the way they did when others made him the focus of their secret attention. The conversation ended, but before Llesho could speak up, both men had departed, leaving him feeling foolish. Bixei and Stipes said nothing, but followed him to breakfast with their own silent conversation of eyebrows and frowns.

When he returned with his companions to their tent, Llesho found that Kaydu had already started to break camp. Together they made quick work of it and distributed their light gear among the five horses. Kaydu held his bridle as Llesho mounted up. “Stay close today,” she warned him. “There are rumors in the camp that make me nervous.”

“What does your father want you to tell me?” Llesho's temper was already short and he didn't like being kept in the dark, or fed information in tidbits, like a child. Kaydu's father was leading this march, after all. Her intelligence could hardly be called rumor.

“My father has told me to keep you alive,” Kaydu snapped back at him. “It would help if you didn't make it so hard to follow orders!”

Before Llesho could decide how to answer, he was distracted by the forceful “Uhum!” of a throat being cleared behind him.

“Do you mind if I join you?” Master Den asked with a bland smile. He wore a travel robe and carried a light pack on his back and an ironshod stave in his hand.

“Yes,” Llesho could have bitten his tongue when he heard his ill-considered answer. He'd been wanting to talk to Master Den for days, and now that the opportunity presented itself, he was rejecting it out of temper.

However, Den didn't go away. He ignored the hasty answer with a wink, though his smile remained as meaninglessly polite as ever. “I felt the need of a bit of exercise; thought I'd walk a bit today.”

Llesho glared at him. “It will be a dusty walk so far back among the troops,” he pointed out. “You might want to travel with Master Jaks at the head of the line.”

The soldiers ahead of them began to move, and Llesho nudged his horse into motion. “I think I'll be comfortable here.” Master Den clasped the bridle and walked beside him.

“Your sudden desire for exercise has nothing to do with the mysterious rumors Kaydu was about to explain, I suppose?”

“Rumors? Must a man find nothing but questions and suspicion just because he takes a walk with old friends of a morning?” Master Den grinned at him as if he hadn't expected Llesho to believe him, but wished to invite his pupil into the conspiracy.

Llesho declined the invitation. He figured at the rate he was going, he'd be lucky if his companions didn't tie him up and toss him to the wolves before the day was out. But he wasn't seven years old anymore; if Master Den was going to be there, Llesho had a whole list of questions, and he wasn't waiting any longer for answers. “I assume you will have no trouble talking as you walk?”

“What do you want to know?” Master Den spoke as if he had not been avoiding Llesho for days, as if the answers were always his for the asking. Llesho shook his head, but determined not to waste this opportunity on pointless arguing, especially now that Kaydu had posed him a new question.

“What is the truth behind the rumors Kaydu talks of?” Llesho shook his head when Master Den took a deep breath, a sign that Den was going to tell one of his long tales in which his answer might or might not appear in some form Llesho would spend the whole day trying to untangle. “You are here, beside me today, when I haven't been able to get a word with you since we left the Golden Dragon River. Why now?”