The Shattered Vine (4 page)

Changed in ways that Washer Neth clearly had not been aware of when he’d chased them to the shores of Irfan. Jerzy wondered, if they’d waited for Neth’s messenger-birds to return, if this would have been
the message carried back. Or was this even more recent? Jerzy was not the observer trader-bred Ao was, or like Kaïnam, trained in the ways of court politics, but he felt something was wrong.

“You wish me to join with you.” And that, to start, was terribly wrong. Just as Vinearts were protected by their isolation, kept from power by their obligations to the vines, Washers wielded power to ensure that isolation, maintain it, as the very basis of their existence. Joining the two was anathema to Sin Washer’s Command.

“The Collegium wishes you to stand with us,” Oren corrected. “So that we may give a clear message to the rest of the Lands Vin, and prevent any further . . . unpleasantness.”

Unpleasantness. Jerzy almost laughed, bitterly. Seven Vinearts, their names listed in a neat hand on the paper Oren had showed him, sealed with the mark of the Collegium, had joined with landlords of their regions, placing their yards, their magic, at those lord’s disposal. Seven that had come forward and publicly announced their decision—how many more acting quietly in tandem, as Kaï’s father and their local Vineart had been? And how many had been forced, as the local lord would have forced poor Esoba, against his will?

And the Collegium called that “unpleasantness”?

Jerzy leaned back, resting the fingers of one hand against his lips as though to keep himself from saying anything before he had thought it through. Things had changed, indeed, in the time they had been at sea, and far worse than Oren was admitting, if seven—seven!—Vinearts had come forward publicly.

How many more were silent? How many, caught between frost and rot, were too afraid to move?

Remembering the muttered gossip he had overheard in the streets of Aleppan, of distrust, confusion, and fear among the merchants and workers, Jerzy leaned forward again and stared directly into Oren’s face across the polished map table. “Let us be perfectly clear: in these days, when Vinearts are under attack from an unknown enemy, you wish me to reject any offers I might or might not receive from a land-lord, and
cast my lot instead with the Washers. Yes?” He drew in a soft breath and asked, “To what purpose?”

The Washer didn’t blink, his dark gaze steady on Jerzy’s face. “We are asking you to remember your training, and the Commands, and do what is right, for the well-being of all the Lands Vin, to show the rest of your kind that there is still solace and order to be found in tradition.” Oren’s words, despite his obvious unhappiness, were well-rehearsed, with the weight of belief behind them.

Jerzy distrusted that weight, on instinct. He had seen too much, come too far from the ignorant slave in the fields. Tradition benefited the Washers more than it ever had Vinearts. More, Ao had taught him to beware any offer that spoke of what one side might gain, and not the other. What would he, or indeed any Vineart, gain by standing with the Brotherhood? While his master had been gathering evidence of things going wrong throughout the lands, the Washers had done nothing. When Jerzy had uncovered potential evidence of someone working against the Lands Vin, they had attempted to destroy it, and him. The Washers had accused him of apostasy in an attempt to draw out and destroy Vineart Giordan for petty politics, destroying a vineyard of such potential it made Jerzy weep to think of the loss.

And now they asked him to think of the Commands? To come to heel like a puppy, and settle for what scraps of protection they might decide to offer?

Now, when Giordan and Malech were both dead?

The taste of bile filled his throat.

What would Master Malech say? No, what would Ao say?
Think like a trader,
he could hear Ao telling him.
Let the other person spill their guts before you commit to a single agreement.

“I will consider your words,” Jerzy said, standing up without moving his chair to give the impression of a seamless flow, the way he remembered Master Malech doing. He was shorter than his master, and far less impressive, but Oren was no Washer Neth, either.

“But . . .”

“I will consider your words,” Jerzy repeated, and with that the Washer had to abide.

“T
HEY WANT WHAT?
”

Mahault’s reaction mirrored his own, a gape-jawed incredulity that, unlike Jerzy, she made no effort to hide. The moment the Washer had left the
Heart,
the other three had crowded into the cabin, out of sight of anyone watching from the dock, waiting to hear what had transpired.

“They want Jerzy. That is interesting.” Kaïnam had a faraway expression on his face, looking out and turned inward at the same time. The others left him to it, while Jerzy told them the rest.

“Seven Vinearts? Out of how many?” Ao frowned, his quick-ranging mind already worrying at the numbers.

Jerzy recalled the tapestry-map in his master’s study and the paper one unrolled on the desk, with markers and colored stones placed across the Vin Lands, marking Vinearts whom might be counted on . . .

“There were eleven Master Vinearts a year ago,” he said. “Including Master Malech. Now . . .” He did not know how many of those who had died or disappeared had been Masters, or if any new ones had come into their title since then. Mastery was not given, but earned; a Vineart grew into it, and none had ever claimed such before their time. Tradition, again.

His master had said that Giordan would have become a Master, given time. The Washers had taken that time away.

“And Vinearts who are not Masters?” Ao was still worrying at the numbers, trying to make something out of them.

Jerzy shook his head, frustrated at not having the information immediately in hand. He’d not had enough time to learn, before. “Thirty, mayhap, that I knew of. That Master Malech had noted. Far fewer now.” Esoba, whom they had not known of until too late. Giordan, killed by
Washer decree. Poul in the desert lands, struck down by their enemy, and his slaves stolen. Sionio, the first known to disappear . . . how many others, gone?

It hurt, like a hot blow inside his chest, to think of the knowledge lost, the vineyards abandoned. If the Washers had listened, had done something, could that have been stopped? Jerzy did not think so, but he would never know, and that not-knowing was a continuing pain under his ribs.

“And now they want you to . . . argh!” Mahault threw her hands up in the air, her entire body seething disgust. Ao, on the other hand, started to laugh.

“It isn’t funny,” Jerzy said, annoyed.

“No . . . but it is. Suddenly, you’re holding all the power, in their eyes, they need you to play along . . . and we haven’t an idea what to ask for, in return. To a trader? That’s terribly funny. Or just terrible. I’m not sure which.”

Put that way, Jerzy could see Ao’s point, and, reluctantly, the edge of his lips turned up and he shook his head. Even in the worst, most frustrating moments, when Ao should have had every reason to give up . . . he didn’t.

“How do you do it?” he asked. The question lacked specifics, but Ao didn’t pretend to misunderstand.

“What other choice do I have? What other choice do any of us have? You either laugh at something, or you let it laugh at you.”

“I don’t like it,” Mahault said. “This change in their thinking. I can’t tell you why, but I don’t like it. Something makes my skin prickle.”

“I don’t like it, either,” Jerzy said. “I have no love for the Collegium, any more than they feel love toward me.” He tapped the table in front of him, frustrated that there was no room in the cabin to pace without bumping into someone else. “Rot and blast, I don’t
like any
of what we’re hearing. Vinearts are Commanded to stand apart for a reason. A good reason.” Power and magic should not stand together; even with the best of reasons, it seemed all too often to go wrong. With bad intentions . . .
“Master Malech poked his nose beyond our walls because there was no other choice. Not because he believed the old ways were wrong.”

“Standing with the Collegium would force them to support you in turn, yes?” Mahault was weighing the options, her face tight with concentration. “No more risk of apostasy . . . and maybe they could help us?”

“If they chose to. But if I agreed . . .” Jerzy tried to imagine it, and failed. “It would not soothe fears, as they wish. Not now. It would merely inflame them, each group seeing only the other gaining advantage, building fear out of suspicion. That is what our enemy wants, what he has been doing all along. To undercut traditions, to set us against each other. If I take this offer, I do his work for him. A Vineart cannot be part of the greater world, may not form alliances. Sin Washer commanded it.”

Jerzy’s words sounded hollow even as he spoke them; had he not already broken that Command, over and again? What had he done, here, if not forming an alliance, however informal?

“Aren’t we already?” Kaïnam asked, returning to the conversation, picking up on what Jerzy had been thinking. “Look at us. Lord and Vineart. Trader and . . . solitaire, by heart if not training. If you added in a Washer and a farmer, we’d be every-folk represented at this table.”

Exaggeration—a trader was not a guildsman, and a farmer could not represent the fisherfolk, but that did not make it false. Jerzy had formed alliances, had added his abilities to those of others, had used magic in ways forbidden. The fact that if he hadn’t, he would be dead now, and no one would know that there was danger until it was too late, did not mitigate those facts.

The responsibility pressed against him, and Jerzy found himself instinctively reaching for the distant touch of the Guardian, the stone dragon who protected House Malech.

He had told himself to stop reaching, to not depend on that support: on the seas, in distant lands, the connection had been so faint as to be useless. But now that they were here, docked on the shores of The Berengia . . .

You are Vineart.

The reassurance came through, clear and steady, tasting of dry stone and fresh rain. It was raining, back home.

For the first time, the knowledge that the Guardian—as well as the Washers—considered him full Vineart was neither soothing nor disturbing, but merely another weight on his shoulders.

“I’m not supposed to be making these decisions,” he said, hating himself for the too-familiar sound of uncertainty and fear in his voice. “I don’t know enough . . . I don’t know anything.”

There was silence in the cabin, and then Ao, unexpectedly, slammed his hand down flat on the table, making it rock back and forth under the blow.

“Rot,” he announced. “Twice-rotted. You think any of us know? You think Malech knew? I listen for my livelihood, Jer. I listen for survival. You know what I am hearing? I’m hearing that all the rules we ever knew have gone into the midden; everything’s not changing, it’s already
changed
. And us? Us four? We probably know more than anyone else what’s really going on.”

Everyone except the enemy who drove all this.

Jerzy felt the weight of the Guardian’s confirmation push at his spine, and the pressure literally shoved him out of his chair. Once up, there still wasn’t enough room to pace, the way he had back in his master’s study, so he strode to the far wall and stared at it, not seeing the maps and instruments stored there, but his own convoluted thoughts.

The unknown Vineart, Ximen, had set all this in motion, attacking vineyards, using pawns to influence men of power, setting magic-born beasts to terrorize the common folk, undermine the ground the Lands Vin were built on.

How was Jerzy to know what the proper counter to all that might be? If he agreed to the Washers’ terms, he would be safe . . . but at what cost, and for how long? He did not trust the Collegium, he would not
take orders from a man of power. But was he strong enough to stand on his own?

So many others, more experienced, more powerful, had failed and died. What arrogance—what foolishness—to think that he could make a difference.

And yet, they had. The four of them had stopped Ximen’s attack in Irfan, denied him access to the unblooded grapes he so clearly desired. They had kept one pace ahead of the Washers, had stayed alive despite sea-serpent attacks, and had made it back here . . . to do what?

“I could have stayed in my father’s house,” Mahl said, and her tone was quiet, as if she were speaking to herself, and the others overhearing by chance. “I could have stayed, and told myself I had no choice. But each thing we do is a choice.”

Something in Jerzy rebelled at that. He had been a slave, taken as a child for the flicker of magic within him, sold to Malech for that flicker. He had no choice, had never had a choice in his entire life . . . and yet, Mahault was right. Everything had always been a choice.

He chose to live rather than die. He chose to learn rather than fail. He chose to run rather than be punished unfairly by the Washers. He chose to kill, that others might live. He chose to travel with these companions, rather than standing alone. And, now, he had to choose again.

A Vineart had no control over when the fruit was ripe. But his choice of when to harvest made all the difference.

Jerzy lifted his head, and his voice, when he spoke, was firm. “The first thing we need to do is get home.”

A
WARE THAT THE
Washer’s party was waiting for Jerzy’s answer, the four did not hesitate once a decision was made. Most of their belongings had already been offloaded before that interruption, waiting only for the cart and hire-horses to be delivered. The
Heart
had been prepared for an
indefinite stay at dock, and Kaïnam had paid her fees for the winter out of the last of his coins. If—when—they needed her again, she would be ready. All that remained was for them to leave the ship itself.

To do that, now, they needed magic.

“I wish there was some other way,” Jerzy said, as they were preparing to disembark. “It’s too . . .”

“Obvious? Noticeable?” Ao asked. “As opposed to the masthead you can’t help but see and yet nobody notices?”