The Shattered Vine (6 page)

“This road was safe enough for a child to walk it,” he said. Not quite true—there had always been wolves on both two legs and four, and dangers besides, but once . . .

“Was,” Ao replied. “Many things were, and aren’t anymore.”

The words stung, although they were not meant to. This was The Berengia. Even with the blight evident, Jerzy could feel the pull of the soil under them, smell the familiar notes in the air around them, hear the subtle sounds that told him he was home. Nothing should have changed . . . and Ao was right. Everything had.

The wagon and riders drew closer and the man’s shoulders, tightened in expectation, slumped, as though he had suddenly realized they were not whom he was waiting for. He took a step back, ducking his head and lifting his arms to show that he carried no weapons. Out of the corner of his eye, Jerzy saw the small group with him likewise move, their disappointment as clear to him as though they had shouted it in his ear.

“Halt,” Jerzy said to the horse, his voice carrying enough for Kaïnam to hear as well. Kaï lifted his reins, and the horse paused, obediently, just before the waiting stranger.

“You look for someone?” Jerzy asked the man in Berengian.

“The healer, m’lord.” The man’s gaze flicked over them, then his head lowered again, as though worried about being caught looking. Something in his pose shifted when he heard Jerzy’s voice; he was no longer quite so ready to run.

“Someone’s ill?” The only chirurgien in the area would not come to a
small village, but there were a number of lesser trained herbalists who wandered from village to village, treating all but the most desperate or severe cases.

“You are a healer, m’lord?” The man looked up at that, and his gaze went first to Jerzy’s face and then, with a widening of his eyes at Jerzy’s red hair, dropped down again to his waist. Seated, it was impossible to see the flask and tasting spoon hanging there, but the man made the assumption nonetheless.

“Vineart Jerzy? ’Tis you, come home?” The man’s voice was . . . Jerzy could not place the tone, and from the way Kaïnam cocked his head, neither could he. A hint of fear, tinged with . . . hope? Jerzy dared not look behind him to catch Ao’s reaction, but he heard the sound of the wooden bow being lowered to the floor of the wagon and took his cue from that. Ao knew people, better even than Kaï.

“How did he know . . .” Kaïnam asked, bemusement overcoming his caution.

“The hair,” Jerzy said. Among the slaves gathered from all corners of the Lands Vin, his dark red hair and high cheekbones had been odd but not terribly unusual. It did mark him, however. Especially on this road.

“I am Vineart Jerzy,” he told the farrier, laying the reins down in his lap and resting his left hand on his belt, just above the wine sack and spoon, drawing attention to them rather than Kaï’s sword or the implied threat of Mahault, coming up alongside the wagon.

These were no brigands. Someone was ill, or injured. Badly enough to warrant a healer, and a welcoming party to ensure the healer made it there safely.

A flutter of panic hit him, like one of Mahault’s practice blows. Master Malech had been the true healer; it had been he who kept the plague from overrunning this area years before Jerzy was born, he who could coax every drop of magic from healwines to save those otherwise at death’s door. Jerzy did not have that same skill . . . but they would expect him to be, to do what his master had done.

Jerzy had killed more than he had saved. The memory of the plague
ship still festered in his memory, never mind that they had been dead men before he ever saw it, that he had halted their suffering. He had taken their last hope away. He had snuffed the life of a slave injured in a wagon accident, had set fires to burn, risking the lives of innocent sailors, and . . .

The face of a villager child in Irfan returned to him, the crusted edge of an eye clearing under his fingertips, others crowding around him, curious and trusting. He had made a difference there, in a foreign land, outside the Lands Vin.

This man, with his diffident posture and cautious voice, was Berengian. His responsibility. His legacy.

Master Vineart Malech was dead. He was Vineart of House Malech now.

He was no more free than he had been as a slave. “If I may be of aid?”

J
ERZY’S OFFER
of help quickly ran into one difficulty. To reach the village, they would need to cross fields where the cart could not go.

“We should not split up,” Mahault said, the four gathered off to the side of the cart while the villagers waited, impatiently, for them to come to a decision.

“I’m the only one who needs to go—”

“No.” Kaïnam and Mahault both overrode Jerzy’s offer, in unison.

“I don’t need guards—”

“Yes, you do.” Kaï’s voice was flat, hard, and refused argument. “You think this is not a trap, but we can’t be sure. You go nowhere unguarded until we have you back in your yard.”

“I’ll stay,” Ao said. “Not as though I could travel with you, anyway.”

“You can’t . . .” Kaïnam hesitated, unsure how to state his objection without giving insult or sharing information these strangers should not know.

“Can’t what? Can’t defend the supplies? Can’t keep someone from driving off with our cart?” Ao lifted his eyes to the skies, as though
asking for patience. “Fine. Leave one of these stalwart folk with me, to be the legs if anything should happen.”

“I will stay.” A square-shouldered farmer, with a patient expression and a steady way of standing, volunteered. “Between the two of us, we’ll have brawn and wit.”

“Half a wit, perhaps,” one of his companions said, and the tension broke slightly.

“Will that satisfy, O warrior?” Ao asked, and Kaïnam, with a sideways look at Jerzy, lifted his hands in surrender.

Without further delay, the others took up their packs and set out across the field, the child running ahead to alert them someone was coming, while Jerzy questioned their leader on the nature of the illness.

There was not one person in the village who was ill, but a dozen or so, in varying stages of misery. The farrier, Justus, also doubled as their healer, having learned how to set bones in his younger years, but he knew when he was helpless. When the illness appeared, he had sent a message to the herbalist who covered this area, asking him to come with haste.

“That was four days back,” Justus said as they moved diagonally away from the road, following a narrow trail through the crops.

The remainder of the party—three men carrying glaives that had clearly and clumsily been made from plow blades—followed before and behind, their attention not only on the field around and underneath them, but the skies overhead. Kaïnam and Mahault took note and followed suit, forming an oddly shaped, moving guard around Jerzy. He felt like reminding them that he was perfectly capable of defending himself, but the look in the farrier’s eye stopped him.

Hope, yes, but also a despairing sort of helplessness. If protecting the Vineart from some unknown threat gave him reason to feel useful, Jerzy would not take that away from him. No more than he would have pointed out how little defense Ao could give, if someone were to attempt to steal the wagon.

His earlier observation was not true for these men. They were not acting like slaves, accepting whatever was meted out to them. They needed to take action—to stand against what threatened them, however they could. He would not wrest that opportunity from them.

That thought, gruffly practical, sounded so much like Malech that Jerzy felt a sudden pang of loss, all over again. He had so focused on coming home, on healing Ao, and being somewhere he could finally, somehow, turn and fight, that he had almost managed to forget that he would be returning to an empty House.

Not empty
.

No. Not empty. The Guardian was there. Detta and Lil, and Per and Roan were there. And he was not coming home alone. That thought did not ease the pain, but made it bearable.

Trying to escape further doubt, Jerzy focused his attention on their destination, quickly coming into view. The village was small, a series of two-story, red-roofed cottages between two roads, surrounded on three sides by fields and on the other by a longer, one-story building. In the distance beyond, a small herd of red-coated cows grazed on the sloping hill. The group entered the town proper without notice, other than a few sheep that gazed at them and then went back to pulling at the browning grass of the green.

The ill had been gathered in the main hall, kept away from the others and tended by volunteers, who also made their beds there. Jerzy nodded approvingly. Master Malech had taught the local folk that, back during the plague, and they had remembered, years later.

The farrier went into the main hall with them while the others stayed behind, unwilling to risk contact with the ill.

“This is your healer?” A woman rose from where she had been crouched at the side of one of the beds, her voice cutting through the faint gloom even as she moved toward them. A shadowed figure moved beside her, knee-high and muscled. Even before they could see the sigil on her leathers, that hound had identified her as a solitaire.

The dog stopped, and bared its teeth, shockingly white and sharp
against black gums. The newcomers stopped as well, taken aback.

“Stand and let him approach you.” The woman’s voice was firm, not allowing any room for dissent.

The farrier passed by them, intent on checking the ill or spreading word of Jerzy’s arrival, as the hound padded forward, deep-chested, the body covered with a rough, golden-brown coat that curled slightly, its tail a straight upward plume that did not wag but held itself still, a flag in windless air. Jerzy had heard of these dogs but never seen one up close. The hound, suspicious, extended its great, broad-skulled head to sniff at Jerzy’s hand.

He held his breath, not sure what to think or expect. The hound’s nose was wet but its tongue was almost dry as it swiped at his skin and then moved on to Kaïnam.

“What is it—”

“Shh,” Mahault said, and Kaï subsided, letting the animal circle around him. The mouth closed around the princeling’s fingers, but although it tugged slightly, did not break the skin. Kaï did not flinch, and the hound let go, releasing him and turning to Mahault.

Her face, tanned by so many months under the open skies, had gone pale, and her eyes were wide, as though she was frightened by this the way she had not been when facing men with raised blades, but Mahault did not falter. She went to one knee, almost as though she were making a deep bow, and raised both of her hands, palm up and layered left on right at even height with the hound’s black nose, staying in clear sight. The hound looked her directly in the eye and took both hands in its mouth, the same as it had Kaïnam, but this time it did not let go but rather bore down, enough that Jerzy saw Mahault flinch slightly.

“Mahl . . .” A world of question in that one breath of air; Mahl managed to shake her head just enough to warn Kaïnam from doing anything and not yet dislodge the hound or lose eye contact with it. The stranger solitaire merely stood back and watched, so Jerzy took his own cue from that.

It happened so fast, nobody, not even the solitaire, could react in time.
From a nearly frozen tableau, the hound released Mahault’s hands and lurched forward, knocking her backward onto the flagstone floor, her head making a hard thunk as it hit. Her hands, released, came up, but even as Kaïnam was reaching for his blade to kill the beast, Jerzy had his hand on the hilt, stopping him. The Vineart didn’t remember moving, had not taken his eyes off Mahault long enough to see the princeling move, and yet his gesture had been unerring.

Mahault was laughing. The hound, rather than tearing her throat out, was laving her face with a great pink tongue.

“Codi, leave the sister alone,” the solitaire said. Her posture was still alert, loose-limbed and ready to take action, but her voice was softer, less a command than a request.

The hound gave her face one last washing and backed off, taking a seated position just behind the solitaire’s left knee. Mahault got to her feet in a graceful scramble and stood facing the other woman.

“I am not a solitaire,” she said.

The fighter cocked her head, simply looking at Mahl. “Codi is rarely wrong,” she said, and then seemed to dismiss the matter from her thoughts, turning to Justus. “Two more have fallen ill. I can do no more for them than make them comfortable.”

Jerzy jumped in before their escort could respond. “What is the nature of the illness? Fever? Rash? Justus said that there was no warning, that people simply fell over, and had no strength?”

“In truth, yes. I would accuse them of malingering, save I have come to know these people, and they are not that sort. Such extreme exhaustion afflicts them that the act of merely moving their limbs brings agony.” The solitaire seemed both worried and exasperated. “Other than bathing and feeding them, we have been able to bring no relief. That was when Justus sent for the healer.”

“A spell, Jer?” Kaï asked quietly.

Jerzy didn’t bother to respond, moving forward to where the cots had been gathered. The solitaire and her hound moved aside for him, her gaze flickering down to his waist, where the silver tasting spoon
gleamed faintly in the spell-lights set in the walls. The lights had been set to half-burn, likely to spare the eyes of the ill, but Jerzy needed to see what he was looking at. As he passed, he raised one hand, the way he would going down the stairs to his master’s study, and the illumination increased to near-normal levels.

A muted gasp from someone was overridden by Justus’s quiet rumble as he explained who the newcomer was. He should not have used quiet-magic so casually, so openly; he was careless. The thought came and went, everything else fading from Jerzy’s awareness, even as he sensed Kaï at his left shoulder, Mahault at his right, two paces back and waiting for any orders he might give them.

The cot nearest him held a man who should have been working out in the fields: ruddy faced, with close-cropped hair that was starting to thin; he had broad shoulders and thick muscles that, even now, looked as though he had only to sit up to do a full day’s work. But the lines deeply indented in his face told a different story, one of exhaustion and pain.