Weight of Stone (46 page)

For a moment, for the first time in his life, he hated his master. Hated him for what he had done, and hated him for dying.

“These vines.”

Jerzy didn’t say anything, listening to the rage inside him.

“These vines,” Kaïnam said again. “People were killed for them. You said they were powerful.”

Jerzy waited. He knew what would come. Kaïnam had his own reasons for being with them, reasons more urgent than Ao’s or Mahault’s personal desires, and it would not serve to forget that.

“How powerful? Jerzy, if the magic they hold is so strong, if whoever started all this, who could do all this already, wanted them so badly, shouldn’t we—”

The unease and sickness in his gut rose into Jerzy’s throat, the rotting
smell almost enough to make his eyes water. “Do what? Destroy them? Burn vines and salt the land, destroy knowledge, things of beauty and wonder, for fear?” He had thought it, had lifted a hand to the flask of firewine in his pack, not moments earlier, and considered it. “Or would you have me stay here and work the yard myself, steal another’s vineyard? Would you have me become what they claim—would you have me become what
he
is? Would that bring your sister back, Kaï?”

Thaïs, the Wise Lady: murdered, Kaï believed, to drive his lord-father into acts that would set their island Principality against the other Vin Lands, turning them into scapegoats for whatever actions their unknown enemy made.

Kaïnam, unlike Ao, did not rise to the bait. “You want to. Stay here, I mean. Learn these vines. Ao and Mahault, they don’t see it, but I do. Ao sees people to be manipulated to his best advantage or possible profit, and Mahl …” His expression turned rueful. “Mahl sees people as either obstacles or allies. She’s single-minded that way. But I was trained to observe the currents of power, to learn what people want, what they won’t speak of—what secrets they hold. You’re holding a secret from us.”

Jerzy didn’t look at him, didn’t move, but answered in a steady voice. “It’s all right. These vines survived before anyone came to tend them. They’ll be all right here for a while longer.”

It hurt to say it, knowing it for the truth. He wanted to stay, but he could not. More, he should not.

Kaïnam heard only the spoken words. “And then you’ll come back?”

“I don’t know.” He could still feel the roots and leaves whisper, but he knew now that they were not whispering to him. They had not saved Vineart Esoba, because they did not care. They did not recognize a Vineart’s hand. Feral vines. Unblooded, untouched by Sin Washer’s gift, left- or right-handed.

They were powerful … but they were not his. They were not anyone’s.

And the body now buried under their roots, its neck wrapped thrice
with vines, its face blue from strangulation, made Jerzy wonder if, in truth, he wanted them at all.

The vines had sensed his fear, his anger, and acted. Unlike the plague ship, he could not claim that act had been anything other than murder.

And yet, he could not bring himself to destroy them.

“There’s still a long way to go, yet,” he said out loud. “This Praepositus Ximen took the merchant back; if the man survived it, then he knows who we are, must assume that we know who he is, now. He will not hesitate to attack—directly, this time. I can’t let him find me. Not until we have a way to strike back—and win.”

Off the coastline
of the land the maps called Greater Irfan, just beyond the confines of the too-shallow bay, the Brotherhood’s ship waited. They had been at harbor for nearly a quarter-turn of the month, waiting for any sign of their quarry returning, taunted by the empty shore and the quietly resting ship. A score of times, Neth had thought to set fire to the cursed Vineart’s boat and leave, stranding the boy in this benighted land. A score and one, he had come to his senses before giving the order.

And now he had been rewarded.

“Shall we go after ’em?”

“No. Wait, and watch.”

“Aye.” The captain shifted the pipe in his mouth and nodded at the Washer, stalking away. That left Neth, but not alone, for the ship swarmed with sailors above and below, working silently, for the most part. The men had spent the past weeks glancing sideways at the ship still moored across the bay, spitting and making protective gestures whenever the unnerving masthead swung around to follow them.

Ship-rats were superstitious, unlettered creatures, but he could not
blame them for their unease. The way those pale, carved hands moved, constantly stroking the leaves of its wreath, was disturbing, no matter what magics had caused them to move.

Neth was not watching the figurehead now, however, but the figures on the distant shore as they pulled a small craft from the brush and piled their belongings into it, unhitching the cart they had been using and handing over the beasts to another figure, who led them away, back up the cliff.

Patience. A Washer learned it, just as a Vineart did. He waited, his hands opening and closing on the rail, as they set onto the water, the craft pitching on the waves as it made for their ship.

“Alyn.”

The Washer, a young boy no older than the Vineart they chased, stepped forward, making an almost involuntary bow. He was too young to be on such a mission, should still be in the Collegium at his studies, but every man they had was on the road, to quell the rising unrest, and that meant putting children into men’s jobs.

The Vineart-student was no older, in truth, nor his companions. Neth felt every one of his forty years like armor across his back, weighing him down. Children, all of them.

“Alyn,” he said again, because he must. “Fetch the men. Tell them to bring their arbalests.” Traditionally, the Brotherhood was not supposed to go armed with more than a bludgeon or cudgel, any more than Vinearts, but that did not mean they did not know how to use them. And Brion had made sure they knew how to use them well.

The sailors would not aid them; frightened of the
Heart
as they were, it had been all the captain could do to keep them from mutinying. Asking them to go against the masters of that ship? No. They would have to do this on their own, seven armed Washers against …

Children? He looked at the figurehead again and shook his head. He did not know what they went against, and that was what worried him.

*   *   *

“J
ERZY
!”

The sound of his name being called out across the water didn’t surprise Jerzy; Ao had spotted the longboat coming toward them a breath before, and it seemed unlikely that anyone would be so purposefully cutting them off from the
Heart
without being either pirates or Washers.

The dark red flag hoisted on the mainsail of the ship they rowed from put lie to the first possibility, leaving only the second.

The Brotherhood had found them.

“Jerzy, stow your oars and let us come aside.”

“Rot if we will,” Ao muttered, barely within hearing. Mahault, who had been sitting on one of the casks of spellwine, reached down to where her own blade rested, sheathed and wrapped against the risk of water.

Jerzy knew the voice; patient and calm and fully expecting obedience. Washer Neth.

“They have arbalests,” Kaïnam said from his position at the bow. “They could take us from there, if they’ve any skill at all. Closer, and we’re done for.”

“Swords?” Jerzy didn’t expect much, but he had to ask.

Kaïnam shook his head. “Swords are useless here, and I’d have to get in close to use a knife. By then …”

“Magic?” Ao asked.

“They’d be expecting that,” Mahault said, her hand still touching the blade as though disbelieving Kaïnam’s evaluation of its usefulness.

“So, what? We just give over?” Ao sounded more annoyed than worried.

The longboat was moving closer as they argued. The Washers were not trained sailors, but perfectly capable of rowing in unison, with purpose.

“I have no waterspells,” Jerzy said. “Healvines and firevines … useless here unless I want to set their boat afire, and Washer Neth is too canny for that, assuming any captain would allow his boats to touch water without protection.”

Firespells could burn, or light without burning, but they could turn fire aside, as well. It all depended on how the Vineart incanted the firevine mustus.

But Jerzy had more than Master Malech’s vines to draw on. His gut turned at the thought of using more of the unblooded wines; it was too much, too dangerous, and he was not sure he could continue to control it. Still, he had the flask of Vineart Giordan’s weatherwine. Barely half left, now, but enough, if he could use it properly …

“Neth will be expecting anything I do,” he said to his companions. “So we will only have one chance. Be ready, and take the chance when it comes.”

“What are you going to do?”

Jerzy stood cautiously, keeping the flask below the lip of the tiny boat, out of sight. “I haven’t any idea,” he said, and turned to face Washer Neth.

“Vineart-student Jerzy.” Neth’s voice was perfectly modulated, carrying over the water as though he were preaching the comfort in a village square.

Jerzy waited.

“I sorrowed to hear of Master Vineart Malech’s death,” the Washer said. “He was a strong and talented Vineart. We are diminished by his loss.”

“Do you know who killed him?”

“I know that you didn’t.”

Jerzy waited again, the two boats rising and falling in the gentle rock of the waves, held steady by their oarsmen.

“Jerzy, if you decant a spell against me, my men will take you down before you can swallow. You know that, don’t you?”

“I can capsize you before they loose a single bolt,” Jerzy said in return, his voice as even and calm and confident as Neth’s. He could … he was mostly sure that he could. Neth would be waiting for him to lift the flask, to go through the steps, but if Jerzy needed, he had enough quiet-magic
in him now to touch the windspell, stir the waters, and set them on fire.

Create a firespout.

“I could kill you without flinching,” Jerzy said.

“No. You couldn’t. I know you, Jerzy. I know Vinearts. Whatever you have sunk yourself in, whatever is driving you … you are perhaps a fool, but not a killer.”

The waves were slowly bringing the boats closer and closer together, until neither of them needed to shout in order to be heard. Kaïnam tensed; the weapons were within range.

“I would do it, if I had to,” Jerzy said. His hands were not clean.

“And so would I,” Neth said softly. “And all would likely die, in what followed. Is that what you desire, Vineart? Because it is not my wish. Not here, not today. Not if we can be civilized, and avoid it.”

Neth did not know what Jerzy had discovered. Did not know the powerful, unmastered vines hidden in the hills behind them. If he did find out …

No. That vineyard was Jerzy’s to protect, if not to use.

But he
could
use it, if he was careful.

“There is a vineyard three days’ travel to the north,” he said. They had traveled south. “A strong, well-planted vineyard. The Vineart there was murdered, the very day we arrived. Murdered, and his grounds claimed by the land-lord of this place. The land-lord claims they are beyond Sin Washer’s Commands, as they are no part of the Lands Vin.”

Neth was too smart, too experienced to splutter, the way another Washer might. But his eyes narrowed. And in that moment, the way Jerzy knew when a Harvest was good, he knew the Washer’s secret.

The anger he had felt before rekindled, like sour wine heated in his stomach, making him feel ill.

“You knew,” Jerzy said, “All along, you knew that land-lords were being tampered with. You knew about the maiar of Aleppan. You meant to use Sar Anton to test the maiar, him and Vineart Giordan, to see what they would do. You knew—”

“We knew very little.” The waves shifted, and Neth almost lost his footing in the longboat, one of his men reaching up to steady him. “But we knew some, yes.”

Jerzy thought of Giordan and his open-handed generosity; of foolish Esoba; of the unknown villagers killed by serpents, the slaves vanished when their master died…. Master Malech, his stern face no softer in death than in life. “And what did you do about it? This … and what Master Malech told you, the information we gathered. The Lands are under attack—and what have you done, Legacy of Zatim Sin Washer?”

It was too far to tell, the afternoon light too uncertain, but Jerzy thought that Neth’s expression changed, looking pained.

“Go back,” Neth said. “Make camp on the shore. I will send a bird to the chapterhouse, to ask for instructions from the Collegium, with this new information. My orders were merely to take you into custody, not deal with renegade lords. I do not feel qualified to deviate further, without their consent.

“Go back, and we will discuss this more on the morning.”

“Jer …” Ao didn’t quite whine, but it was close. The tension was a physical thing, a fifth body in their little boat.

“We have no choice,” Jerzy said heavily. “No choice at all.”

He sat down and picked up his oar, nodding at Ao to do the same, and they turned their craft around and rode the waves back in to shore.

T
HEY LEFT THE
boat intact, taking out only what they needed to set up camp for that night, and Kai tethered the craft in the shallows, a branch and a rope anchoring it on the sand. Ao and Mahault built a fire against the night’s chill, and they tried to settle down to a subdued meal. The smell of roasted vegetables and fresh meat taken from Esoba’s kitchen made Jerzy feel queasy again, but they all ate their fill, facing ship rations and fish again on the morning.

After cleanup, Jerzy left the fire and, barefoot, wandered down to the waterline. The sand was cool under his feet, and for a moment Jerzy could almost pretend that it was the fine-grained soil of the northern vineyard.
Malech had said that the ground deep beneath them was the same rock of the hills to the west, a pale brown rock riddled with caves. Firevines liked that type of soil, and a good Vineart learned to recognize it.

Useful information … not useful here. But the sense that the sand under his toes was somehow related to the soil back home let Jerzy’s thoughts settle, and his breathing even out, until he was utterly calm, staring at the rush and ebb of the water.