The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (25 page)

“Stop!” he said. Sheyani stopped. The Inn was filled with stillness. The carpenters had stopped working and stood with hands clenched, staring at the musician. Bargil was stood by the door, his sword half drawn, his face grim. For a moment the tension held, and then it faded away. People looked at each other as though awaking from a dream of anger.

“Why did you play that?” Arbak asked. “What was it?”

“It has no name,” She replied. “I will name it for you: Foreigner, Slighted. It is how I feel.”

He could see Bargil nodding, his face still less than happy. The Guardsman had been poorly treated, too, he remembered, so this would pluck at his different experience.

“Are we really that bad?” Arbak asked.

“I am sorry, Sheshay,” she said. “I have offended you. You have been kind.”

“No, I am not offended, but I am sad, and I am impressed.” So this was Durander magic, or one aspect of it. “Play something that will lift us, Sheyani. Play something of the summer, and good times, and loyal friends.”

She nodded, closed her eyes for a moment, and then began to play again. This tune was quite different. It lilted along quite sweetly, almost dancing, and there was an endearing clumsiness to the meter. Arbak saw smiles on the faces of the carpenters, the barman, and even Bargil. He could not help it. He smiled himself. The mood was less insistent than the first piece, and he saw the carpenters go back to work, he saw Bargil sit and tilt his chair back again, tapping his thigh with a hand.

Perfect. Frightening.

What could he not do with such a musician in his service? He shook himself free of the spell for a moment. He could not be sure of his own mind, which was the problem. Yet it was so pleasant to let go and allow the music to carry him to a better place. The war was far away and unimportant, the problems of the inn were simple and would be overcome with all the fine men he had employed. It was glorious. It was magic. It was false.

Sheyani stopped, and the room let out a collective sigh. She stood looking at Arbak, waiting, it seemed for him to speak, but when he opened his mouth to do so she held up a hand to silence him.

“Not now, Sheshay” she said. “Wait for the music to fade. A minute, perhaps three, will be enough.”

He did as he was told, and felt the euphoria of the spell drain away. Sheyani pulled something out of her pocket and held it out for Arbak to inspect. He looked. She was holding two copper discs. They must have cost a third of what he had given her yesterday. Copper was expensive. On the disks he could see that symbols had been scratched inexpertly, perhaps with a nail. He looked at her questioningly.

“Shield,” she said. “It stops the music from going inside you.” She looked around at the people in the inn, the barmen, the carpenters and Bargil. “I can make more,” she said. “For those that work.”

He took the discs from her hand, and he was aware at once that this was the first time he had touched her skin. He looked up to see that she was looking into his face. She looked anxious.

“You answer my questions before I ask them, Sheyani,” he said. “I can give you a room to sleep in, as much food as you need, and four florins a week, though I think you will be worth more.”

“You give me a job?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “You must be here every night for four hours, starting an hour before the sun sets, and you will play music that makes people peaceful, that makes them enjoy the good things that I offer, that makes them happy to be here.”

Sheyani nodded. “It is lawful,” she said.

“Lawful?”

“I am bound by laws of Durandar, here, too. I cannot play some things, but what you ask is lawful, Sheshay.”

“I am happy that it is,” he smiled at her, and there was a moment when he thought that she might smile back, but it did not come. Her eyes were still full of pain. “Tell me one thing. Why do you call me Sheshay? What does it mean?”

She struggled with the language. “It is not lord,” she said. “But still,” she put her hands together and bowed slightly.

“Respect?”

“Respect,” she confirmed.

“You are young for such great skill,” Arbak said.

“Not so young. My father, he teach me many years,” she said. He could see sadness in her eyes again, but it was an old sadness. She wasn’t as young as he’d first thought. The lines around her eyes gave it away, but she was so small, her skin so smooth, she could have passed for seventeen, but now he guessed she was closer to thirty.

“Your father is gone?”

“Gone, yes,” and that was all she had to say about that, but there was a story there, and it made him curious. She was so obviously talented that there must be some powerful reason for her being here, struggling to live in Bas Erinor when she should have been entertaining the nobility of Durandar.

“Do you need anything to eat?” he asked.

She looked towards the bar. There was a smell coming from the kitchens beyond, a rich smell of bread and meat. She suddenly looked very thin to Arbak.

“We have a fine stew,” he said.

She shook her head. “I do not eat meat,” she said.

“Pumpkin soup?”

“Yes,” she nodded, and for the first time there was a touch of a smile on her lips.

“Bread?”

“Yes. Bread is good.”

Arbak leaned towards the bar and shouted. “Cookie, I want a really large bowl of that pumpkin soup out here, and a loaf with it!”

The food was brought quickly and he sat Sheyani at a table where she ate hungrily. Arbak watched her. She used the spoon carefully, as though she was not completely used to its function, and she tore the bread carefully, one modest chunk at a time, dipping it into the soup and eating it. She ate quickly, but she didn’t spill a drop.

He left her to finish and walked back to where Bargil was leaning on his chair by the door.

“She’s quite something,” he said to the big man. “Talented.”

Bargil shook his head. “Yes,” he said. “Talented, but be careful there Captain. They’re strange folk, the Duranders.”

“I know,” he said, keeping his voice expressionless. “You can’t trust these foreigners.”

Bargil laughed.

The Marquis of Bel Arac rode just within the line of trees, walking his horse carefully out of sight of any watchful eyes out on the plain. He felt wretched. All his life he had been accustomed to the best, the best food, the best clothes, the best conversation, the best of everything that money could buy. Now he had nothing but a tired horse, albeit a quality one, a suit of stained and stinking clothes, a sword, and the hope of a warm welcome. He felt degraded.

He had recovered quickly from the shock. Wolf Narak had been much more effective than he’d expected. He gave no credence to the old stories. They were still nonsense, he was sure of that, but the man was a superb swordsman. The twelve Seth Yarra cleansers he’d been given as a bodyguard were all very good men. They had been quick, subtle, skilled and experienced, and they’d been armed with blood silver blades. They should not have lost.

But they had.

By the end it had become a show, and he had found it difficult to tear himself away. Narak had been dismantling the cleansers one at a time in a display of martial exuberance the like of which he had never before witnessed, and in spite of himself he had been impressed.

It had come as even more of a shock when he discovered the Seth Yarra force along the border had been destroyed, all five hundred men killed, he had heard. He’d learned that just in time to avoid stumbling into some crude Berashi trap.
That
would have been humiliating. He had turned and headed for the Seth Yarra army, massing on the coast north of Afael.

Now that he was drawing close he had other problems. There were Afaeli scouts all over the place. Just the day before he had seen twenty men, Afaeli light cavalry, riding north through the woods. He’d been lucky to avoid them and been forced to hide in a thicket while they passed.

It meant that the Afaeli, and probably the Avilians had discovered their presence, and that war was drawing close. That, of course, was the problem. There would come a time when he would have to leave the cover of the forest and ride across the plain to join his new allies, and that plain was now full of Afaeli patrols.

He had made a plan, though. He had a good horse, and he was, perforce, travelling light. He would settle himself about fifty miles from the coast and wait for two or three days, and allow the horse to recover its strength. Then he would ride hard for the Seth Yarra lines, not stopping until he reached them. It might kill the horse, but as long as he got there in one piece the job would be done. He would be safe.

He stopped for lunch in a quiet glade close to a stream. He did not rest by the stream itself. There was a chance of a patrol coming through, and they would probably stick by water because the going was easier and there was little chance of getting lost, all the rivers in this part running north to south. He had very little food, and he wondered at the sensation of hunger he felt. It was extraordinary. It made him feel dangerous and adventurous: things he had never been. There was some dried bread, horrible stuff, but he made himself eat a small portion at every meal, and some hard cheese that he would never have touched at home. It was the sort of thing that peasants ate. At home he would have had a soft cheese, and he would have eaten it with fruit and a suitable wine.

He remembered just such a meal not more than a month ago. He had been dining alone, as was his custom. Since his wife had died in childbirth some twenty years ago he had not been able to eat with anyone else in the room. Even the Seth Yarra knights were not invited. They would not have accepted, at any rate, he thought. They had a strange, almost superstitious attachment to their own rations and would not eat the castle’s food or wine. He had told them that they might order what they wished from the kitchens, but they had declined. It had not been a particularly courtly refusal, he recalled. One might even call it rude.

Anyway, he remembered eating a particularly fine cheese. It had been soft and blue-veined with a rich flavour, well complemented by a rich, red, Telan wine, sweetened by grapes and thinly sliced apple. That was not the whole meal, of course. There was duck, roasted with a stuffing of nuts and apricots, a joint of beef, pink and tender beneath its flame seared exterior. And a confection of ice and fruit and sugar, with beaten egg whites, sliced strawberries, and yet another wine, this one a sweet Avilian white from the coast where such things were skilfully made.

He licked his lips and looked with distaste at the dry bread and hard cheese.

There would be a time when he could eat like a king again. Indeed, he expected to
be
a king. Who else would the Seth Yarra put to rule Avilian? They would need someone to keep things under control once their conquest was complete, and he had assured that conquest with blood silver. Now even the Benetheon could not stand against them.

He put the food away and drunk deeply from his water bottle. The water helped to stave off the hunger more than the food.

He climbed back on his horse and rode carefully out of his glade, crossed the stream, pausing to refill his water, and headed east. The plain was visible occasionally through gaps in the trees, a bright, exposed expanse, but he saw no sign of movement there. Beyond the stream he came across a path running east, beckoning him to follow, but it was too clear. A path like this must be used often, and he was not for the company of other men. He pulled the horse to the right, deeper into the woods, and after a short while headed east again.

The forest became thicker as he travelled, and he was forced to lean low over the horse’s neck, ducking under branches as the animal pushed too and fro, picking a path between the scrubby bushes that grew rank and thick about the base of the trees.

Suddenly he was in a clearing, broad and open, the trees towering above him and nothing but leaf litter beneath the horse’s hooves. He stretched his body, looked across the empty space, and stopped.

He almost stopped breathing, his hands limp on the reins. The horse stopped too. Idling to a standstill, and bending its head to see if there was anything edible to be found among the brown carpet of leaves.

Wolf Narak sat on the far side of the clearing, leaning his back against a tree, and he was looking directly at the Marquis.

This was a catastrophic surprise. Narak was not mounted, so for a moment it occurred to him that he might flee, but he quickly became aware that the woods around him were seething with wolves. He saw their slender grey bodies flickering between the trees, their hungry eyes looking at him, their pink tongues lolling. There was no running, then. He would be brought down and torn to pieces within five minutes. Inwardly he cursed. He had been so close. Just another few days and he would have been safe. Well, he would have to make the best of the situation.

He dismounted and drew his sword. He saw Narak stand and draw his own twin blades, but the Marquis had no intention of fighting the Wolf. That was certain death. He was no match for Narak.

They stood facing each other for a moment. Narak was quite still, his blades hovering at his sides, his face expressionless. The distance between them was too great for a blow, but a couple of steps would remedy that. The Marquis threw his sword to the ground.

“I surrender myself to you,” he said.

It was a gamble, but the Wolf was often described as sentimental, a man who took the Karimic virtues seriously, and a man who would not kill a prisoner. This way the Marquis might survive until the point of Seth Yarra victory.

“You surrender?”

“I place myself in your charge, and I am prepared to answer any allegation against me in any court.”

Narak shook his head. “You are guilty of so many crimes that I could not begin to guess which court should judge you,” he said. “You have conspired with the enemies of your king, which is high treason, and you have supplied weapons with the full knowledge that they will be used against the citizens of Berash, for which you should face the Dragon Court, and you have broken the blood silver pact, for which you should face the judgement of the Benetheon.”

“I will face them all,” the Marquis said.

“Will you? I think you may not, for there is a higher, more immediate court that calls you to judgement, and it is here, and it is now.”

“There is no higher court. You must obey the law.” The Marquis was insistent. He would bend the Wolf to his will. The so-called god had a weakness for doing the right thing, and it was the Marquis’ best weapon.

Narak stepped forwards and placed his left hand blade against the nobleman’s chest.

“You caused a friend of mine to die,” he said. “Her blood is on your hands. Of all your crimes this is the greatest, and I have judged you.”

The blade pressed home, and the Marquis was shocked to feel it cut through cloth and skin, plunging into his chest as easily as a sharp knife though soft cheese. He tried to speak, to tell Narak that he couldn’t kill him, that he needed time, but all he managed was a cough, and he tasted blood in his mouth.

This wasn’t right at all. He clawed at the blade, but only managed to cut his fingers, and the pain became worse, blossoming out from the wound, filling his body. His legs began to feel weak. He was standing on stilts that were impossibly high, and he wobbled, looked again at the shining face of Wolf Narak. The whole world was brighter, shining

He saw the other blade come up wide, and watched, everything slowing to his eyes, light struggling down the pathways to his mind, as the blade swept across. He felt it bite his neck. There was a tumbling of light and pain.

Then nothing.