Weight of Stone (15 page)

“Sire, my father sends me summon you. A horse has come in, lathered and sore rode. The ear-markings are those of the outlaying House-steads, but there is no rider, only a message tube strapped to its back.”

The messenger might have encountered mischance during the day’s
journey, or they might have had no one to spare. Either way, it boded ill, and he needed to know what the message said immediately, to prepare his response, be it with words, medical aid, or weaponry.

Thankfully his head was clear and his temper calm now, so he could hopefully deal with whatever crisis had occurred without misjudgment.

“Continue without me,” he told Bo. “You deserve a long walk, away from the clamor of children.”

She shook her head, amused, but started walking again, obedient to his order.

Bo taught the children how to be strong, how to be brave, readied them to be warriors, no matter what their final place in life, but they were a drain on her position within the House. He should stop bringing them to her, should keep his seed confined so that there were not so many children to bring. But he did love the sound of young laughter in the house, and so many of them still died so young; the thought of being left without suitable heirs sent a chill down his back. Even now that his eldest was of an age to sit with him while he heard petitions, he still feared the sudden chill of illness, or the scream of a keyrack come in from the wilds, looking for food.

This land was strong and fierce and beautiful, but it was deadly as well, and demanded too much in the way of sacrifice for the rewards it doled out. Bo was right. He would take his people—all those who would follow—and leave it behind without hesitation, when the time came.

Dawn shipboard was
one of Kaïnam’s favorite times, when there was nothing but his hand on the wheel, a breeze rising in the sails, and the clear light of the sun just hitting the waters.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It’s … yes, it is,” Kaïnam replied, resisting the urge to snarl at the interruption. He had not heard Mahault come up alongside him, rapt in his enjoyment of the moment. If she had been an enemy … but she was not. They were all allies on this ship, and he need not tense or guard his back around them.

She was looking not at the dawn but the coastline drawing into sight. Personally, he thought that the endless line of coast was incredibly boring—he preferred the open sea to this narrowing body of water—but when he looked again, pushed by Mahault’s enthusiasm, he could admit that the rocky, sloping hills on either side of the Strait were a pleasing, if somewhat stark, view—certainly more interesting than the magic-caused blur he had been surrounded by before taking on his three rescuees.

Two full days of sailing under fair winds had brought them here, just outside the Strait itself. At night, Kaïnam had insisted that Mahl take
the bunk in the cabin, while the other three slept their off shift in the practice area toward the bow. They had shared the cabin that first night because he had not the heart to move them in their exhaustion, but his sense of decency would have been offended had she slept among them after that. She seemed to realize that and acquiesced with grace.

Ao seemed able to sleep anywhere, merely wrapping himself up in a blanket and snoring the moment his eyes closed. The Vineart, however, slept but briefly, often sitting up through his off shift, staring at the sky. Kaïnam wondered what he was thinking, watching the constellations whirl through the early-morning hours, but did not ask. Despite the two Jerzy traveled with, Vinearts were solitary creatures. Of all on the
Wave,
in fact, only Ao seemed in need of conversation; the others were content—or not upset—to let the sands slip past with a minimum of discussion. They picked up on what the ship needed and performed their duties without fuss. Kaïnam found it oddly restful, having companions, and yet not needing to speak to them.

And so that second day rolled peacefully into the third, and on the fourth day after their rescue, with Ao at the wheel, Jerzy sleeping, and Mahault practicing fighting moves in the space he had originally cleared for his own sword practice, the
Green Wave
slid through the narrow pass, the great cliff rising up on one side and blocking the wind so that they slowed to a crawl. Then they were through, the wind catching up their sail again, and the port of Tétouan came into view.

Ao took it in stride, the pose of experienced voyager well ground into his trader bones, but Mahl and Jerzy crowded to the bow of the ship, jostling each other for a better look. There were a hundred or more small ships like theirs anchored in the blue waters outside the port itself, with tiny narrow boats darting between them, rowers ferrying passengers to and fro. The port itself was a sloping curve surrounded by an ever-rising crest of white buildings spilling over with a profusion of greens and reds visible even from that distance.

“Can we all go ashore?” Jerzy asked wistfully. It should be safe: the Washers would not think to look for him traveling with a princeling.

Kaïnam shot him a startled glance, then looked back out over the port, imagining how exotic it must seem to those two, bred in cooler, less colorful climates.

“You’ll need to clean up, if you’re to travel with me,” he said. “There are fresh clothes in the cabin that should fit you, Vineart. Ao …” The trader looked at him with an amused expression, well aware that he would not fit anything Kaïnam might have in his wardrobe. “We’ll make do.”

“And me?”

Kaïnam looked at Mahl carefully. She was wearing a pair of trousers under her plain, ankle-length skirt, and her arms were bare. The port was not known for modesty or a particular sense of fashion, but her exotic paleness might cause trouble among the more opportunistic sorts unless she indicated by her attire that she was above such rough handling. “There will be proper woman’s clothing in the far closet,” he said reluctantly. His sister had sailed with him a few times, when she was not otherwise called away by their father. None of her belongings had been touched since her murder.

He turned away then, not willing to speak to them any longer while his sister’s memory was fresh in his mind.

Her voice had directed him to these three; they were part of his plan. And yet, by agreeing to their direction, giving up his original goal, he felt as though he was abandoning his own quest for answers. Not for the first time he felt keenly his lack of years and experience.

“Thaïs, I miss you,” he said into the faint breeze, hoping that the words would be carried to her, wherever she waited. “Tell me what to do.”

He waited for a response, alone on the foredeck, but no whisper came out of the breeze.

Whatever advice she had to give, she had given. The Wise Lady was gone, and by the time the three travelers had reemerged, he had composed himself, able to face the result of their wardrobe raiding with a calm and serene manner.

As he had expected, the Vineart’s build and coloring were suited by his own clothing, a pair of loose white trousers and a dark blue linen
shirt with white embroidery picked out along the laces making him look older, more dignified. He had added a pair of low leather boots, and wrapped a narrow length of leather twice around his hips as a makeshift belt, a small unsheathed knife hanging from the side. The only thing lacking was the silver tasting spoon most Vinearts carried; Kaïnam suspected he had lost it when they went overboard. No matter—he led this expedition, not the Vineart. There was no need to advertise his presence, unless it was required.

The trader, Ao, had found a dark green sleeveless tunic that fit—barely—across his broader shoulders and fell to midleg. He wore his own trou underneath, and a pair of low boots that had seen better days. The trader clearly understood the nature of these sun-heavy lands, as he had taken a wrap of cloth and tied it around his neck, knotted in the front in the fashion of Kaïnam’s own people, to use as protection against the sun and to stop sweat from running down under his shirt.

Overall the look was rough but quality, as though he were a younger son gone adventuring. It would do.

Mahault was standing in the doorway of the cabin, not uncertain but waiting for a moment to announce her presence. Bracing himself, Kaïnam looked directly at her.

He needn’t have worried. Mahault’s stern good looks were different enough from Thaïs’s beauty that the softly draping blue robe did not look at all as he remembered it. Mahault stepped forward, her hands holding the sleeves properly, the golden belt at her hips making a delicate chiming noise, exactly as it was supposed to. Cloth sandals peeped out from under the hem as she walked, and the draped neckline showed off the proud carriage of her shoulders and chin.

“A goddess come back to human form,” Ao said in admiration, and the moment was broken when she tilted her head, a long curl of blond hair falling from her topknot and sliding over her shoulder, and she made a face at the trader, scrunching her eyes and wrinkling her straight, slender nose. The trader tilted his head right back and made an
even less attractive face back at her in response, and Jerzy clouted them both, gently, on the back of the head as he walked by.

The pain Kaïnam felt in his chest watching them startled him, and it took a second breath to understand the cause.

They were playing with each other, similar to the way he and Thaïs had once played. The way he would never again tease and be teased by his sister.

He turned away from the memory, and the stranger in his sister’s clothing, looking instead at the Vineart. Jerzy’s dark eyes were focused on the port—no, on the flit ship that was being rowed alongside the
Green Wave.
Excellent. Exactly who they needed.

“Travel to port side? Coin for all of you, one single kehma!” the rower called up, his Ettonian fluted with the native accent.

“Half a kehma,” Kaïnam responded before the trader could respond, and the rower screwed up his face and spat into the water in dismissal of the counteroffer.

“One kehma, and not a hem of the lady’s gown will be wetted.”

“If so much as a drop touches her, half a kehma.”

“Done!”

T
HE PORT’S WATERS
were as noisy and crowded as Jerzy had imagined. He sat, carefully, in the rowboat as their guide took them in through the dozens of other boats, avoiding the small naked children swimming and diving in the clear blue waters around them. It smelled strongly of fish and salt and flowers, and new wood and the pungent stink of something being charred off in the distance.

All of his conscious memories were of The Berengia: the mild winters and breeze-filled summers, the sky overhead a gentle canopy, not this hard, overbright glare. His birthright was the Seven Unions, according to Mil’ar Cai’s assessment of his looks and his faint memory of that language, but he had been a child when taken up by the slavers; he knew nothing save random memories of being carried on the back of a racing horse, the hard wind in his face and the smell of snow in his
nostrils. Even his trip to Corguruth had been within a familiar enough landscape, although the language and customs were different. This, the exotic smells and sounds, and the heat making his armpits sweat as though he had been working all morning rather than merely sitting in a boat while another man rowed? It was all new, and not a little overwhelming. He wanted both to soak it all in, the way he would a new spellwine, and to hide somewhere dark and cool until he could better understand it all.

But there was no respite; their little rowboat slipped into a spare slot among the boats heading for shore, and their guide leaped out with surprising agility, knee deep in the water, reaching back to tow them onto the creamy golden sands. Once the hull of the rowboat scraped dry ground, they scrambled out, Mahault lifting the hems of her skirt over the wooden edge. As the rower had promised, not a drop had fallen on her.

Kaïnam paid him his coin with good grace, and Jerzy saw him slip another, much smaller, duller coin into the man’s hand as well.

Jerzy had never seen such glittering golden soil—the shoreline of The Berengia was hard rock and scrub vegetation for the most part—and he bent down to touch it, wondering if it felt as soft as it looked. No sooner had his bare skin touched the tiny granules, though, than a sudden, tingling shock ran through him, making him forget everything else.

“Jer?”

Ao was there, immediately, helping him stand up when his body seemed to refuse orders. “Jer, are you all right? Are you seasick again? Is the sun too much for you? Here, Kaïnam, get him some water!”

Jerzy missed the princeling’s reaction to being ordered about like that, still caught up in the sensations coursing through his body. It was totally unfamiliar, the shivering sensation, and yet he knew, immediately, what it was.

Master?

No, not quite right.

Guardian?

His thoughts went from chaotic, disordered, to a sharp-edged clarity. No matter what he had told himself about the reach of magic, and the diluting effects of the expansive sea, Jerzy had never quite believed that there was anything Master Malech could not do. All the days at sea, the nights he had spent staring up at the stars, the fear had come that, perhaps, Master Malech and the Guardian were not searching for him, had—he could acknowledge the fear now—abandoned him for his failure. Not so. It had merely taken his touching land again—land where the roots of the vine still grew—for the connection to be regrown.

M
ALECH
.

It was rare the Guardian used his name, rare enough that Malech paused midpour and looked up at the stone dragon perched in its usual place over the doorway, its long gray tail curling just over the frame.

Jerzy would reach up and touch the pointed tip of its tail when he came in, like a good-luck charm. The Guardian allowed the liberty, which always amused Malech. He would never have thought to do that, never had the thought to treat the dragon as some sort of pet. Jerzy … the boy and the Guardian worked differently together, and Malech was not certain yet what, if anything, that might mean.