Weight of Stone (29 page)

Master Malech was wiser than he, though. The feel of the soil under his fingers, the touch of the leaves against his skin and hair as he moved among the vines, calmed him even more than the Guardian’s cool presence in his mind. The rote activities, the silent synchronized movements of the slaves, even the occasional roughhousing of the younger ones and the irritated shouts of the overseer as he cracked his whip to bring them back to order, all these were better than a healspell to his exhaustion and worries.

He was a Vineart. Whatever tension, whatever restlessness he felt now, it was only due to the uncertainty … this was where he belonged. He wanted nothing else.

He believed that, until he heard Ao’s voice drifting through the vines.

“Ho the House!”

Help will come.
The echo of the Guardian’s promise, days before. Jerzy had thought the dragon meant …

Jerzy didn’t care what he had thought. The surge of pleasure at
hearing Ao’s voice caught him by surprise, as did the urge to abandon the weeding and run to greet the trader.

You never abandoned the job before it was finished, not unless the overseer told you to do so. Jerzy was not a slave any longer; as Vineart he had the right to tell the overseer what to do, and only Malech could reprimand him. And yet his training had fallen over him like a comfortable blanket, and it was only with difficulty that he walked away, handing his wooden hoe to a slave and brushing the dirt off his hands, painfully aware that his shirt was soaked in sweat and his feet were bare and dirty. Hardly the way he should appear, to welcome guests to the House of Malech, but the thought of avoiding Ao long enough to make himself presentable was not one he wanted to consider, either.

All this went through his mind as he walked up to the cobble-paved road, where two horses were being led off by a slave barely tall enough to reach their reins. Ao and Kaïnam were standing by the side of the road, two horses waiting beside them, heads low and sides dark with sweat. They had come in a hurry, then. But how? And why?

Master Malech had already responded to their hail, dressed casually, with the laces of his shirt untied, his hair tangled as though he had been pulling at the brown-gray strands again while he worked. Seeing that, Jerzy felt a little better about the state of his own clothing, and the dirt ground under his nails.

“Ah, Jerzy. We have guests.”

Master Malech did not look annoyed at the interruption. Jerzy wasn’t certain—his master was difficult to read, even now—but he thought the Vineart looked satisfied, in fact.

“Ho, Jerzy!” Ao looked much the same as he had when they last parted, although his clothing was of a flashier sort: a pale blue smock over green pantaloons that reminded Jerzy of Mil’ar Cai and his oddly flamboyant attire. Kaïnam was dressed more soberly, but the cut of his jacket, and the blue and green beading on it, indicated a similar source. Clearly, they had been to Caul. And now were here?

“Thank you for responding to a stranger’s summons,” Malech was saying as Jerzy joined them.

“Jerzy’s master could not be a stranger,” Kaï said.

“We were already on our way back,” Ao added. “The messenger caught us just before we set sail, so we”—and here Ao paused, grinning a little in memory—“we put on a little extra speed.”

Messenger? Master Malech had summoned them? Jerzy was puzzled, and then hurt that his master had not said anything to him. Clearly, the Guardian had known …

Jerzy cut that thought off before it could grow into self-pity. The Guardian knew everything; that was why it was the Guardian. And Malech was still Master Vineart Malech,
his
master, and Jerzy had best never forget that.

Instead, he turned to Ao, masking his hurt with a welcoming smile, and grasping his friend’s arm in greeting. “Extra speed?” That could mean only one thing, when sailing. “If your people hear how much magic you have been using,” he scolded, “they’ll never take you back.”

“So we won’t tell them.” But Ao looked briefly uncomfortable at the reminder of yet another barrier between himself and his clan. The Eastern Wind trading clan was perfectly willing to carry and sell spellwines, but they scorned the use of any magic for themselves, claiming it might injure their reputation for honest, unbiased negotiation.

“I shall take full responsibility, Trader Ao,” Kaïnam said, oddly formal. “As your patron, you could do nothing but heed my desires.”

Patron? Jerzy couldn’t wait to hear the story behind that, as the last he knew, Kaïnam had cast himself off from his family and title, choosing to go against his father the prince’s orders. Had Kaï suddenly come into some new wealth since they parted? Jerzy supposed it was possible….

“Hah,” Ao said. “The
Vine’s Heart
is as much mine as yours, lordling!”

“The … what?”

Even Malech looked taken aback.

“Our ship,” Kaïnam explained, his normally solemn expression
breaking enough to show a hint of humor, although Jerzy thought you needed to know the man to see it through his normal solemn mien. “After discovering what we discovered—more of which, later—Trader Ao and I were able to … combine our skills and use our various connections to acquire a Caulish ship for our travels. The name seemed appropriate, all things considered”

“She’s a sweet thing, Jer,” Ao said enthusiastically. “You’ll love her.”

Jerzy’s head hurt. He didn’t love any ship. Why was the name appropriate? Why were they here?

“All of you, come,” Master Malech said. His stern face looked out over the vineyard, toward the south and then back up the slope to the east, as though expecting something to sweep down from the skies, or crash down from the forested fringe of the low hills bordering his lands. “Come inside, where we may speak freely.”

The four of them walked up the path, under the leafed archway. As usual, Jerzy felt the cool touch that he could now identify as the Guardian as he walked back onto the House grounds proper, but neither Ao nor Kaï seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.

The great doors stood open, as they had when Jerzy first saw them, and he was pleased to note that Ao, at least, was as impressed by the House itself as he had been. Not to the standards of Aleppan, perhaps, or Kaï’s home, but the golden stone façade, and the narrow, colored-glass windows at either side of the door, had a beauty of their own, and Jerzy felt a twitch of pride.

Inside the hallway, Detta waited for them. “Master Malech. Two more joining us for the eve meal?”

“In my study, I believe,” Master Malech said, and the House-keeper nodded, as though this were the normal turn of events.

Jerzy was still trying to comprehend what had obviously happened. Master Malech had sent a message. To Kaï and Ao. Who had come, who had already been on their way, with a ship named the
Vine’s Heart.

The confusion and worry chewed at him, even more than curiosity, but years of obedience kept any of it from showing on his face as
he made a gesture with his right hand to indicate that the newcomers should follow Master Malech to his study.

“Young Jerzy.” Detta held up a hand to stop him, when he would have followed them into the Master’s wing of the House. “I presume the gentles will be staying, at least the one night. Shall I place them in your chamber?”

The House was not set up for overnight guests; the few who had been there before had been Master Malech’s guests, and were settled in the Master’s rooms, and Mahault, who had slept in Detta’s chamber. The Washers had set up camp outside, the battle lines drawn even then. These visitors … no matter that Malech had summoned them, Detta was saying that he, Jerzy, was their host.

His room was large enough to add two mattresses without trouble, although Jerzy suspected he would end up giving his bed to Kaï. “That would be best,” he agreed. The only other option would be to move them into one of the kitchen children’s rooms on the other side of the House, or set them to sleeping out of doors. The Washers had come with their own encampment; he had seen no such equipment on the horses that had been led away earlier.

“And Ao does not drink
vin ordinaire,
” he added. “If we have a cask of ale, somewhere?” He remembered seeing Roan drinking a tankard of it not too long before, but had never thought to inquire. His one encounter with the brown, surprisingly filling liquid had not ended well.

“As you say,” Detta agreed, and she left him, heading under the main staircase to the hallway that led to the kitchen, no doubt to issue Lil her changed orders for dinner.

Jerzy stared after her, his thoughts still in an uproar, then headed in the other direction, toward Master Malech’s study.

“T
HE
C
AULIC NATION
is in uproar. Their king is demanding more and more ships be built, taxing the abilities of their shipwrights and depleting their forests at a terrible rate.”

Kaïnam was standing before Malech’s desk, tall and elegant even in
his gaudy Caulic attire, his hands behind his back, his voice clear as a soldier giving his report. Three glasses of a fine
vin ordinaire
and a polished wooden mug of something that met with Ao’s satisfied approval were half consumed, the others listening intently to the princeling’s report. Even Ao, who had been there while they gathered the intelligence, seemed fascinated.

“He seems convinced that there is a plot in the wind, steered by Vinearts, to invade Caul, depose him, and take his daughter as the prize for whoever would hold the throne next.”

Malech’s eyes narrowed at the suggestion that Vinearts might do such a thing, but merely asked, “How old is the girl?”

“Twelve. Young still, but fair game if such a plot were in truth in play.”

“You were not able to have an audience with this king?”

Ao shook his head. “I have not the standing, Trade-wise, and Kaïnam … we thought it best not to identify him, at that point. Not with so much suspicion running wild.”

Jerzy frowned, remembering the look in the maiar of Aleppan’s eyes, the feel of the tainted aide who had whispered poisoned thoughts into his ears. If they had been able to see the man, would they have been able to tell if he was so influenced? Would anyone in the court be able to recognize a spell, if it had been cast?

One of Master Malech’s lessons: there were no vineyards at all in Caul; although the First Growth had thrived there once, none of its broken variants had survived, and no Vineart had ever succeeded in replanting—none tried, now. Caul now took pride in allowing no vine-magic on their lands, relying only on their mighty navy to keep the island safe. They claimed that no spells were allowed within those protected walls, and had executed those who thought to break the ban without compunction.

If there was no magic being used … “Could the Caulic king be faking his madness, using it as some sort of plot of his own?”

Malech raised an eyebrow at the suggestion, while Kaïnam looked at Ao, who shook his head.

“Interesting—you’re getting sneaky, Jer—but I think not,” Ao said. “Our informant believes that his king is truly frightened—or mad, and not the madness of a fox. The fear seeps through all levels, until trade is affected. The gossip in the taverns and port offices is that people are hoarding, not buying or selling, and the only guilds doing well are shipwrights and fight masters.”

“That was my conclusion as well,” Kaï said, turning back to Malech. “Merely mentioning the fleet that came to Atakus made the people I approached—men with knowledge of the sea, and ships—pull into their shells and refuse to speak further. They are afraid—and hiding something.”

Jerzy picked up a goblet and ran his finger along its lip, still frowning. What they were describing was similar to what he had overhead beginning in the streets of Aleppan as well. Fear: beginning at the head of state and slithering its way down through the trader clans and local merchants. Jerzy might not know battles or politics, but he knew rot when he saw it.

Kaï moved his jaw as though he were chewing on something. “It was odd, actually. The man we spoke with is accustomed to being privy to his king’s mind … he would not have spoken to us at all if he were not deeply concerned at being shut out. The king’s military advisors have all but pushed him away, and made decisions he cannot fathom. I could find no one who would speak of why the ships had been out there, save that the king had sent them, prepared to do battle with whatever they found.”

“It would make sense for them to wish to discover what had become of Atakus—but not to approach us the way they did, under the cover of a storm, and warships with them. That has the feel of a long prod from another hand, and it may be that something—or someone—has indeed driven the king mad.”

“Like Aleppan,” Jerzy said, and Ao, the only other who had been there, nodded, his round face as somber as Jerzy had ever seen it.

“You think he, too, has a whisperer in his ear? But why?” Malech
seemed perplexed. “I could see them as the aggressor, for it has always been their wish to find some way to rise in power over the Vin Lands, but what use would there be to destabilizing Caul? How would that serve someone who sought to cause us harm?”

“To gain control of their navy,” Ao suggested. “That is all I can think of—that is their sole source of wealth: their sailors and captains, and the groves of hardwood trees they use to make their ships.”

“Sailors, and fighters,” Kaï said. “Their navy could be a valiant addition to another force, if someone were to bring them to heel.”

“Unlikely,” Ao said, shaking his head. “As much as the factions brangle over internal matters, they would have no reason to follow an outsider, and it is a matter of pride to them that they cannot be bought.”

“Not all purchases are paid for in coin,” Malech said quietly. “But every man has a price.”

“Someone set them against my country,” Kaïnam insisted, his voice tight. “Someone warned them, even as my father was goaded into his ill-fated decision. That sort of manipulation does not occur quickly, or without long-term planning—and a goal in mind. Caul is involved, somehow.”

Jerzy listened to the discussion going back and forth, and frowned. Ao was well traveled, Master Malech wise, and Kaï knew the ways of politics. Anything he might see or say would surely be without use. And yet …