Warrior of the Altaii Page 13

  He didn’t seem to hear me. “That made her madder than before. The guards asked if they should kill us, but she said let the torturers use us for practice. They took us one by one, to let the rest watch, but no one gave them satisfaction. With all their whips and racks and knouts and hot irons, all they got was curses, my lord, curses and taunts at their cowardice.”

  “I know, Hulugai. You gave them nothing.”

  Sayene. She’d done this, and done it for no reason, not even to further her schemes against my people. Because she couldn’t find the answers she wanted, she had my men tortured, and killed by as foul a means as existed. There was much to be answered for, and Sayene must do the answering.

  “My lord,” he whispered, “give me grace.”

  “Hulugai, I’ll avenge you, you and the others. I swear it by the ashes of my father, and my father’s father, and his father.”

  He smiled. “They don’t know what they’ve brought on themselves. Grace, my lord.”

  I took his head gently in my hands. “Until the grasses grow on the Plain again, until the dry rivers flow again, until the trees turned to stone bear fruit again”—my hands twisted, and he died silently—“I give you grace. Fare you well, warrior. We will drink together in the Land of the Dead. We will eat lamb in the Tents of Death.”

  It must be granted, a request for grace, when the wounds are too bad and death comes slowly. Some say it’s proof we’re barbarians, but those same people force their dying to cling to life, or scream their way to meet the dark ones. Who is the barbarian?

  I was halfway back to the door that led into the palace before I realized where I was going, and why. Sayene. I couldn’t reach that Sister of Wisdom. I didn’t even know where she was. But I knew where another was, another who gave commands, who plotted and schemed the death of my people. I knew where Elana was.

  XV

  THE FEATHER

  I retraced my steps back into the palace, back near where I’d started, then down and out into the courtyard, not much different from the garden where Elana had played her games. There were some differences. There were no low walls with guards, only towering, carved walls. There were no laughing women, but there was a woman four floors above, and all I had to do was climb those four floors up the wall in the dark to get to her. It could have been a set of stairs.

  I swarmed up the wall. The carvings made easier finger- and toeholds than the chinks between the stones in my cell had. I went over gods and goddesses, animals ordinary and fanciful, past huge flowers and strange designs. The wind tugged at me, and I smiled. The garden below was no pit. A fall into it held few fears.

  And then I stood on a balcony, and inside, through the curtains, I saw Elana. She lounged on a couch, in a filmy robe open down the front. She watched the door, and from time to time she’d throw a cushion at the big bed against the wall. She was impatient with the delay in my coming. I’d keep her no longer.

  She didn’t hear me enter, and my sandals made no sound on the thick carpets. Her first warning was when my hand at her throat snatched her off the couch.

  Her hands clawed for my face, but I caught them easily. A gamut of emotions ran across her face when she realized who I was. Surprise, indignation, consternation, and then amusement. When my hands began to tighten on her throat she knew her mistake. Her legs kicked wildly, beating at my sides. Her eyes began to bulge, and a rattling choked in her throat. And my hand loosened.

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill her. It wasn’t because she was a woman. She’d forfeited all the protection that gave. And I certainly wanted her death as a partial payment for Hulugai and the others. But I couldn’t. I’d felt it first in the great hall that first day in Lanta. My fate was bound in some fashion to these sisters. I did not dare kill one of them, not until I knew what that binding was.

  She was beginning to breathe again, her small tongue licking at her lips. She had her wits, though. But then, I had mine. When her throat expanded for the scream I tightened my grip again.

  Swiftly I carried her to the huge bed. A pile of scarves lay on a table beside it. A handful did to wad up and stuff in her mouth, with another to tie them there. She watched me furiously as I tied her arms and legs to the posts of the bed, tightly. She was stretched in a taut, living cross.

  Her expression had changed while I bound her. She thought desire for her had overcome the rage. I put my hands back at her throat, but her eyes were amused, contemptuous. She was sure I wouldn’t hurt her. She was sure the barbarian would let lust overcome his senses.

  I couldn’t leave her with that thought. I had to do something to wipe the amusement off of her face. But what? Something by the couch where she’d been waiting caught my eye, a jar with a thin paste inside and a feather. Where—? Then it came. The first night that I was in the palace. Leah, the young noblewoman.

  Elana watched me warily as I brought the jar and the feather to the bed. I stirred the thin paste and smiled at her.

  “This was for me, wasn’t it?” I said softly. “I suppose it works as well on a man as it did on Leah.”

  Her eyes showed I’d struck home, her eyes and the way she tugged at her bonds. The scarves didn’t move, though. Nothing could move except her head.

  “It’s fitting, isn’t it, Elana?”

  The feather held a goodly enough amount of the paste to cover one of her breasts. She watched wide-eyed until the rounded mound was covered. When the paste faded away, disappearing into the skin, she moaned deep in her throat.

  “You said that it fires the blood, didn’t you? That it makes the passions grow?”

  She watched the second breast receive its coating with the same intensity, but when I drew a streak down her belly, she closed her eyes.

  “How long before you’re discovered, Elana? How long will your passions grow? I can’t kill you, perhaps, but in this case I’ll stoop to torture. And I think this qualifies as torture.” She still glared at me, but some of the arrogance was gone. Her nostrils flared with every breath. “No one will dare disturb you tonight, and if a queen wishes to sleep late, who will dare to wake her? They won’t come until you call, will they? It’d be worth their lives to disturb you before time. How long then, before someone finally decides that it’s been too long, that maybe something’s wrong, that they have to take the chance? Tomorrow morning sometime? Tomorrow afternoon? Tomorrow night?”

  I don’t think she heard me. Already she was breathing in shuddering gulps, her head tossing wildly. Every muscle in her body was flexing and twisting. She was lost in another world. It wasn’t enough, I knew, but I was sure that Hulugai would’ve understood why I had to let her live. It wasn’t a part of the payment she was owed, but maybe it was a single coin in promise of future payment.

  I’d wasted all the time I could afford. Now I had to go, if I was going to leave at all.

  XVI

  KITCHEN SLOPS

  There was a slight lessening of darkness, but not yet a glimmer of light when I climbed over the balcony rail and began to work my way across the face of the wall. I had no time to make the slow downward climb in the dark and then try and find my way back to the wall from the courtyard. I had to start in the corridors I had some knowledge of.

  The moons gave light, more light than I wished at that particular time. Darkness would have done me more good if someone chanced to look out of a window and see me ghosting across the wall. When I crawled into a darkened room I was as relieved as if my escape was complete.

  Once in the halls, once past the point where the guards at Elana’s door might hear me, I ran. Servants who saw me stared slack-jawed before they dropped their gaze. They’d say nothing. Those in cities quickly learned that the fastest way to trouble is to become involved in anything that isn’t ordered or doesn’t concern them directly.

  I knew I risked much in my haste, but I had to be on the wall and gone before light came, before it could be seen that there was a guard on the walls who didn’t belong there. I wasn’t worried about th
e bodies in the alcove. Only Nilla ever went there, except for the guards sent by Elana, and if Nilla found them she was levelheaded enough to leave and say nothing.

  It was still dark on the walls, but barely. Loewin was gone, but a rim of light was showing at the horizon. I couldn’t afford to retrace ground I’d already covered, so I turned away from Hulugai and the stone cylinder. I walked more boldly now, although I still avoided guards. There was no time for creeping in shadows.

  And then I came on a small courtyard. Its gate was narrow, with only a single guard. Light spilling out of a door showed a large, two-wheeled cart with one horse. While I watched, a scrawny old man came out with a large tub and dumped its contents into the cart.

  The smell told me what it was, kitchen slops. Soon the high-wheeled cart would make its way outside the walls to the dumping ground, for Lanta had no sewers as Caselle does.

  When the old man went back into the kitchens, I climbed down into the courtyard, ran to the cart and clambered in. I burrowed down into scraps of spoiled meat, fruit peels, rinds and half-rotted vegetables. The stench was enough to choke a jackal, but I’d be invisible to anyone who wasn’t looking for me.

  Three more times waste tubs were emptied on top of me. Then, finally, the cart creaked forward, and someone woke the guard at the gate with curses.

  The guard muttered about having duty where there was no one to talk to, and where he had to help the slop man get in and out. The slop man said something about if he didn’t quit sleeping when he was supposed to be guarding, he’d end up being carried out with the slops himself. The guard answered with curses, but the slop man just climbed up on the seat at the front of the cart and flapped the reins. The horse moved forward, and, pursued by the guard’s curses, we left the Palace of the Twin Thrones.

  I shifted a melon rind from in front of my face and watched the rooflines go by in the lightening sky. Of the driver, the slop man, I could make out only a skinny back hunched in a tunic, colorless except for its stains, and a fringe of white hair. The horse moved at a trot through streets that were largely silent at that hour. Soon the Inner Wall passed, and the guards at the Outer Wall sent the cart on with only a word. Obviously, they knew it.

  On the road from the city it seemed that the driver knew every rut and bump and was determined to visit all of them. I was about to make a move when the cart stopped, and the driver hopped down. From the front of the cart came sounds of activity; then suddenly the shafts shot into the air, and the cart spilled backward, dumping the garbage, and me, onto the ground.

  The driver came around the cart, a shovel in his hand, and stopped in surprise. “What are you doing there? Get out of that!” A look of puzzlement came onto his face. “How did you get in there?”

  “Old man,” I said, “I’ve always wanted to ride in a slop cart, ever since I was a boy. Today I did it.”

  “Are you mad?” he quavered. “I didn’t stop, from the palace to here. Who are you?”

  He poked the shovel out like a spear. It wasn’t much, but from the rear it’d be a formidable weapon, so I took it and broke it over my knee.

  “I can’t stop to answer your questions, old man. You start walking back to Lanta, and I’ll take your horse and be on my way. I’d leave it to you, but I have a long way to go, and you’ll be home in under an hour.”

  “Take the horse? You’ve already broken my shovel. If you take the horse I’ll be beaten for sure.”

  “It’ll probably hurt the whip more than you, scrawny as you are. Look, you’re not that old. Don’t go back to the palace. Say you’re a free man and find work. You’ll not be beaten then.”

  “You mean run away?” He sounded shocked. “But what if I couldn’t find work? How would I eat? Where would I sleep?”

  I reached out and tapped the man on the eye. He staggered back two steps and sat down in the road. He looked surprised as he sat there with one hand over the eye.

  “That’ll swell, soon,” I said. “Tell them you were attacked. You fought, but they were too many for you. Show them your eye, and maybe they won’t beat you.”

  A grin blossomed on his face. “Thank you, master. Thank you.” He scrambled up and hurried down the road, looking over his shoulder at every other step, no doubt to see if I’d changed my mind.

  Once I got a better look at his beast, I was tempted to call him back and make him take it. How he thought anyone would punish him for losing such a spavined creature was beyond my comprehension. I thought they might reward him for getting rid of it.

  All the same, I scrambled up on it, and kicked it into motion. It had no gait at all, I found. It merely ambled along. But it seemed sound enough, for all its looks.

  I’d head for the place where the tents had been, I decided, to pick up the trail of the lances and follow. There’d likely be a celebration when they found me returned from the Land of the Dead. I was nearing the place where we’d camped when a horseman burst from a ravine and put a lance to my chest.

  “Ho, townsman,” he said, “what are you doing here, riding on a goat and smelling like one, too?”

  “Bartu,” I said, “if you don’t remove that lance from my face, I’ll take it and pry out all of your teeth.”

  “M-my lord?” The lance point dropped, and he came closer, still not believing. “Lord Wulfgar?”

  “It’s me, Bartu, alive, if somewhat the worse for wear and in need of a bath.”

  There was moisture in his eyes, and in mine also, but then there was a lot of dust in the air.

  “Mayra said you lived, my lord, but after Lord Harald disappeared also—”

  “Harald gone?” I kicked the nag into a trot, or as close to one as it could manage. “We ride to the tents at once. You tell me everything that’s happened, from the beginning.”

  “I’ll try, Lord Wulfgar,” he said. “When you’d been gone three days, we became worried. Orne and I went to Mayra. She chased us away. Said we were fools. Said your life was hanging by a thread and we were getting in her way while she tried to keep the thread from breaking. Said all men were fools and worse, and women were idiots for putting up with them. My lord, she ought to ride with the lances, Sister of Wisdom or no. She wouldn’t need a lance, just her tongue.”

  “Get on with it.”

  “Yes, my lord. With Mayra keeping to her tent we did what we could ourselves. We sent a messenger to Lord Harald. Before he could have gotten there, a messenger from Lord Harald’s tents arrived, wanting to know if we had word of him. He went to Lanta, to meet Daiman, on the same day you went to meet Ivo.”

  “Then he’s either a captive, or, more likely, he’s dead.” I said it as flatly as I could. I’d mourn later, if mourning there must be.

  “Dvere says she thinks he’s still alive, but she can’t be sure. She didn’t have the warning that Mayra had.”

  “If he’s alive, then we can free him. If not, we’ll avenge him. What else happened, Bartu?”

  “Tension, my lord, tension and strife. The lances wanted to fight, to a man, but no one knew who to fight, the Morassa or the Lantans. Orne insisted you were in the Palace of the Twin Thrones, though he couldn’t say why, and he wanted to raid in force, to cut our way through to the palace, free you and Lord Harald, then cut our way out again. It was only because we didn’t know if you were really there that I wouldn’t agree to it.”

  “You and Orne are good men,” I said, “and fine warriors, but you’ll neither of you command a thousand if you have ideas like that. You’d all have died, and for no purpose, as the men who went with me to Lanta did.”

  “Any man born of the Plain knows death waits with the next hour.”

  We rode in silence for a time, with only the wind and the creak of saddle leather to break it. Death might wait with the next hour, but there had been too much of it lately, and all of it of the dark and furtive sort.

  “The merchants,” Bartu went on finally, “have stopped coming to the tents. For a time some came, slinking as if they were sneaking into some
slimy dive in Low Town, but now no one comes. The Council of Nobles sent a message to us, sent it by slave because they were afraid we’d kill the messenger. They said the gates of the city were closed to us, that the guards would fire if we came too close. We dressed the slave like a High Toman, gave him a string of horses, and paraded him outside the gates. You should’ve heard the guards howl when he went riding off toward Manhaut.”

  “And matters rest there?”

  “Not at all. We sent a rider to Bohemund, to tell him what had happened. He sent a delegation to the Lantans, with Lord Dunstan and Lord Otogai to lead it. They weren’t allowed inside the gates either. Some of the Council of Nobles came out with the commander of the City Guard. They swore oaths on the bones of their fathers, and on the doornails of their temples, that neither you nor Lord Harald was in the city. They swore they knew nothing of your whereabouts, and pledged their daughters to their word.” He grimaced as if he’d bitten a rotten cos-fruit. “They have no honor at all.”

  “They’re city men, Bartu.”

  He grunted as if that was explanation enough. “With oaths like those, the delegation had to accept their words, but I thought Lord Dunstan and Lord Otogai both were surprised they’d offer them before they were asked.”

  “The Lantans offered the oaths? Perhaps one of the Sisters of Wisdom did something to absolve them. It doesn’t matter. I don’t absolve them.”

  “No, my lord. They had an iron sky-stone, those nobles did, with the Terg carved in it by a Sister of Wisdom. Blessed by three times three Sisters of Wisdom, they said it was, and they demanded we say our words with a sword hand on it. Of course, no man would lie under those circumstances. We had to admit that a Morassa had brought the message to you, and another to Lord Harald, that he’d gone to meet Daiman and you to meet Ivo. They said that made it plain we had no call to claim they had any part in it. Whatever was done, was done by the Morassa.”