Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (63 page)

He knows
, thought Erik.

Both Magnus’s smile and the wind grew colder. “I know, Erithitek.”

Yes, but how much?
worried Erik.

“You stood outside my chambers,” continued Magnus. “You would have heard Lila’s anguish. A weaker man would have run. A stronger man would have run. A man of duty, who defended the king’s virtues even as the master himself forgot them—
that
is the sort of man who serves me. I saw the shine of your steel in my doorway, and in that moment, I might have accepted your justice. For your impudence, I could just as well have blasted you into a thousand splinters of ice.”

The emerald stare flickered, and a ripple of lightning ran overhead. Against his thighs, Erik’s mare strained like a penned colt in a flaming barn. Erik was no more immune from the weight of this moment, from the
crushing perceptions that the king had laid upon him. The king resumed talking with a sinister softness.

“Still, as time fades the scar, and I think of how I am to protect my legacy and of who would care for the queen without me…I see one man. I see you. The only mortal in my lifetime to have come at me with true grit and steel: an ally, a son, and a friend. Only the ones that we love can hurt us so deeply. The paradox is as bitter as it is beautiful. For a father is to be outdone by his child—it is nature, even if I am not a part of that cycle. Thus, when I ask you to do what I know is in your heart to do, and you do not leap at the prospect, I begin to dwell upon your hesitation. The hourglass is dark, and my mind weaves constant conspiracy. Do not give me a reason to doubt your faith in me, or in yourself. Here and now, there can be only one answer to the question that I shall ask you.” Magnus paused, then said, “If I am to fall, and if Eod thereafter is to suffer the same fate, will you protect Lila? Will you see her safely to Carthac?”

Despite the lightning and thunder, the sky had yet to crack and weep. For the elements were bound by the king’s feelings, and the storm would come when he had his answer. Perhaps a bolt of fury would fly to smite the man who had nearly treasoned against him.

“I shall,” vowed Erik.

The rain began.

Without a second glance, the king urged his beast and rode off through a torrential curtain to join the wavering line of white riders. Erik allowed himself to lose track of his king, which was easy in the downpour. In wet solitude, he examined himself so somberly that he could have been another gray stone in the valley. He thought of honor and mercy, and whenever flashes of the pale golden queen rose, he took those monumental virtues and smashed them upon the images. He buried his shameful lust. Magnus had offered him redemption, and he would earn it with his duty. His king had shut out love and made himself into a weapon, and so too would he. When Erik was empty and ready to serve, he nudged his steed forward. He found the king’s shadow through the rainy veil and fell in beside him, looking south with the same ruthlessness as his master did.

II

She’s a flower in the sunshine
,

A wonder to behold!

And if I drink ‘nuff courage

Den I may be so bold!

To take ‘er hand
,

Would be so grand!

No more chores!

Though I’ll keep my whores

And remind the Miss
,

That dem potatoes do need peeling!

These ‘ands do need some ‘ealing!

It’s tough to till!

And tougher still
,

To get off my behind

Bless my life!

I ‘ave a wife!

Oh Gods, she ‘as a knife!

As annoying as Rowena found him, Galivad had a smashing voice: strong, medium-timbered, and capable of sustaining long notes. In another time and place, he could have been one of Eod’s finest performers, and he certainly had the grimy bearded miners that rode in the rattling wagon with them cheering as if he were a master bard. Hourglasses ago, before he started, one of the workmen had handed him a weary lute—all busted strings and sour notes—which he tuned to perfection in sands. There was skill in him, and it behooved Rowena to know from where.

The occasion to ask him did not come till far later in the day, after the cart had bounced its way far down the Iron Road and stopped for the night. They made camp on gravel beside the road and fetched kindling from the nearby copses of ash that cast their swaying shadows over a witch’s moon. Fires were built and roaring, small game hunted and roasted—
nothing quite like skewered badger
, thought Rowena—and kegs were cracked open. Those who labored hard relaxed with equal vigor, and soon bard Galivad’s songs
were no longer needed, for the night was roaring with a drunken chorus. Eventually Galivad, his feet heavy from drink, stumbled over to Rowena. She was sitting with a few other folk upon the blankets that would be their bed for the evening. Galivad gave Rowena a rosy-cheeked smile that failed to charm her and dropped himself like a sack of potatoes to the ground.

“Fine singing, fair sir!” applauded a merry plump chap who was beside Rowena. “What is your name, sir? For you are surely famous.”

“Corybantes Thorpe. Though you may call me Cory, good sir,” beamed Galivad, and he slapped Rowena on the back. “This is my sister, Merriweather Thorpe. Merri, she prefers. A bit darker than my fair self, but Mother did fancy men of different port and call, so this is what she got. We are not artists, but procurers for wealthy masters and their queer tastes in the Southlands. Merri, well, she performs quite the dance with that sword of hers. My instruments are those of more subtle charismata: the gifts of gaff, haggling, and song.”

The story continued, growing more embellished and fanciful. It was a miracle to Rowena that anyone believed Galivad’s rhetoric, though his golden looks and rakish smile seemed to win any skeptic over. Again and again, Rowena shrugged off Galivad’s broad hand, which had a tendency to linger on her when given the chance. While Galivad was enjoying himself and the ruse, at least he appeared to have remembered the identities Maggie had given them, which was one less bother for her to worry about. Already the ferry had taken a detour from landing at Blackforge, as the lookouts claimed to have spotted smoke in their telescopes. That inconvenience had cost them a day’s pursuit, then more time still as the ferry was forced to dock south at Riverton. One of the strangest places Rowena had seen, Riverton was a mash of bilge parts and ship hulls that people somehow lived in, poking out like little moles from naval compartments or hosting their shops and taverns on sloshing, slanted decks in a topsy-turvy parody of what was normal. Still, it was in Riverton that luck finally graced them, and they learned of a convoy of feliron miners headed to Menos. Not long after that, they had paid their way onto the wagons, using Queen Lila’s generous fates.
We all have armor that hides who we are and different masks for different occasions
, thought Rowena many a time, as she looked at these free men who were to toil alongside whipped slaves. Out here, they were gay, while in the dark hollows of the earth, where
their skilled fingers could do what a slave’s could not, they were surely as grim as the masters of the mine were. She knew that sense of duality well, and even as she smiled and idly chatted with those who would bend her ear, the soldier in her was ever focused on the mission. Regarding that, Queen Lila had yet to be notified of either the smith or the living sage, and that weighed on her mind. Still, she had but one farspeaking stone to use, and she would not waste it until she had spoken with the men she and Galivad pursued.

“What are you thinking about, my dear Merriweather?” asked Galivad.

He must have finished speaking a while ago, for the portly fellow had rolled over and gone to sleep. Others around them were curled up in blankets as well, and the revelry was fizzling out to sloppy laughter and snoring.

“All that frowning and you will wrinkle such a beautiful face,” said Galivad.

She could not tell if he was serious. “The hourglass is late. We should sleep,” she replied.

Rowena lay down and wrapped herself in her cloak. With a sigh, Galivad placed himself beside her. As Rowena’s eyelids were growing heavy, Galivad began to hum a soothing tune: something about a girl chasing a falling star. He sang it often, and it had become the final sounds that would sweep her off to dreams. Tonight she resisted the pull of sleep and forced herself to ask the question that she had been nursing for days. Rowena shifted so that they were facing each other; Galivad stopped his music from the surprise.

“Where did you learn to sing?” she whispered.

Galivad’s brow smoothed, and a gentle sincerity effaced his bravado. He said, “From my mother.”

They were quiet a speck.

“Where did you learn how to use a blade?” he asked.

“From Queen Lila.”

Rowena left the matter to die, though their twisting faces told that there were layers unrevealed to their stories. When it seemed that no one was ready to part with truths, Rowena went to turn her shoulder.

“My mother was a minstrel,” hissed Galivad. “From the hearth fires of Heathsholme.”

The name of the village was familiar to Rowena, though placing it eluded her. She returned to their huddle.

“I wasn’t entirely fabricating in the little history I’ve been weaving for us,” continued Galivad. “Not about my mother, at least. She made her way to many towns, and many beds, and one day came home with me in her belly. Her songs…I still remember them, every one. And if you fancy my voice, hers was a true delicacy for the ear. You might think me a liar, but I tell you that in my childhood memories, I recall birds roosting on our windowsill with their tiny heads cocked to hear her melodies. A song maiden. She could have been one of those legendary enchantresses of music from the East. At least, that is how I remember her.”

Down the memory path he wandered and encountered something dark that twisted his comeliness. Rowena did not ask what it was, though the allusion to his mother in the past tense was telling enough, and Galivad was speaking ere she could have asked him.

“The sword. You say the queen taught you? Why did your father or brother not teach you the blade?”

“Those are not only a man’s pursuits,” snorted Rowena. “A woman is just as capable with a blade and with twice the sense on how to use it.”

Eod had many a female conscript to its army, and Sword Rowena was twice the thickness and muscle of Galivad—a lean brown virago. Galivad realized how foolish he had sounded and apologized.

“You are right, of course.”

“I had no brother or father to teach me,” confessed Rowena. Her eyes were hard with anger and pride as she went on. “Do you know how the Arhad treat their women? It is despicable. The milk-lizards are given better considerations. How they treat their children is worse. You can imagine, then, what standing is given to young girls. They are excess.
Khek
, they are called. The liquid splatter that spinrex dribble from their arses. Shite, as I learned when I came to Eod.” Rowena took a breath, which worked to soften her voice to a growl but did nothing to calm her nerves. “If there is a poor season and not enough meat or milk to go around, the weak are trimmed from the flock. The khek are left in the desert with the rest of the shite. The chieftains claim that this is a mercy, for if the child is strong, she will survive in a wasteland—by herself, without tools or skills—and she will return to the tribe with the strength of the desert itself. From khek to blessed wife, as if the reward is better than the punishment.”

“
You
were one of those children.” Galivad was aghast.

Out of compassion, Galivad’s wandering hand had crept its way onto her forearm. He had very large hands for such a slight man, and Rowena wasn’t sure why she noticed that or why it made her so uncomfortable. She pulled her arm away.

“I was.”

“Yet you survived.”

“I did,” she nodded. “Destiny, some might say, though that is what the star-watching elders of my people would call it, and I spit on all that they believe. I walked and walked and I would not die. I pushed myself raw and somehow I was found before the breath of life fled from me. By the queen’s escort, en route from diplomacy in the West. I remember her.”

Are these spirits? she wonders. Have I died? What else could these silver-shelled men on their scaleless ivory lizards be? And yet there is a golden spirit among them who disturbs what is understood of the afterlife. Women are not among those who ride the deserts of eternity. Yet here she is, this breasted rider, brighter than the wavering sun and free of her trappings, rudely but exquisitely exposed with her curves, sinfully thin dress, and flowing hair
.

The spirit woman is the first to reach her, floating from her mount like ribbons of light, or perhaps it is only the girl’s distorted, delirious perception that makes the shapes so stretched and dazzling. As she falls, the spirit woman has her, cocoons her in light, and murmurs in the tongue of her people
.