Flesh and Fire (25 page)

Chapter 15

The weeks before
Jerzy’s departure passed in a rush of activity, allowing him little time to worry. Even as the leaves grew larger and darker, and flowers bloomed on the vines, more correspondence flew back and forth between Malech and Giordan, until the bird boy almost seemed to anticipate Jerzy’s requests with a ready and rested pigeon the moment he appeared. Detta, seemingly resigned to the turn of events, fussed over his clothing, so he would, in her words, “look a proper scion of the House of Malech, not some gangling road-wanderer.” Meanwhile, Cai was assigned to cram a few words of Corguruth into his skull, although Malech assured Jerzy that Giordan spoke fluent Ettonian and decent enough Berengian for them to understand each other.

By the end of the second week Jerzy felt as though he were one of the spent firestones they used to keep frost away on cool spring nights, flickering wanly, with no fuel left to burn. “Stress makes the Vineart,” Malech would say when Jerzy flagged, and sigh; and the sound of that sigh made Jerzy get up and do one task more. It was no longer fear that drove him, but the desire—the need—to be perfect. He would not, could not, disappoint his master.

Curiously, as the language lessons progressed, Jerzy found other words coming back to him as well. They were harsher sounding than Berengian or Corguruth, as though he were speaking with a rock in his throat, but it felt perfectly natural at the same time.

“Ah,” Cai said, the third or fourth time it happened. “So that’s where you got that natural horseman’s build, and the slant to your eyes. You were born in the Seven Unions.” Cai shivered dramatically. “Cold nasty place, that. How in Sin Washer’s name did a Vineart come out of Seven Unions?”

Jerzy could only shrug. The map showed little about the lands behind the Pariip mountain range save that it was, as Cai said, a place of cold, windy plains and snow-capped mountains, and his only memories were of faces and voices, and therefore of little use here and now.

It all seemed unreal to him; he had barely learned the patterns and expectations of the House, after the harsh security of the sleep house, and now he was being sent off to a strange place where he would know no one, with orders he didn’t fully understand. Even with the serpent’s stench still in his nostrils, the threat Master Malech spoke of seemed unreal, the thought that something could threaten his master enough to make him look so worried, impossible.

It was beyond him, and so he let events move him, learning what he was taught and doing as he was told, and letting others decide what was to be done.

Despite the additional work, Jerzy’s other studies were not abandoned. In fact, it seemed to Jerzy that Malech now dragged him along on every small chore, and talked faster than he thought the older man could, trying to cram everything into the space in Jerzy’s head that wasn’t taken up with languages. The vines were well in hand and growing well, with nothing to do but watch and wait and hope for continued good rains and sunshine, but there seemed to be an endless number of things Malech needed him to learn that very instant, from ordering the right sort of barrels from the Cooper’s Guild to arranging the acquisition and release of bud-bugs at just the right time to eat any grape-borers. Finally Jerzy just folded his legs underneath him and sat down on the vintnery shed floor, crossing his arms and staring at the wooden beams in the ceiling until Malech relented. The Vineart sat down next to him, his legs creaking awkwardly as he did so, and stared up at the beams as well.

“They need to be whitewashed,” he said finally, and that was the end of that. The final few days, while still filled with the endless things that needed to be done, were almost relaxed, as though Malech no longer feared that Jerzy would not impress this Giordan. Jerzy, however, started to have nightmares where he was standing naked in the middle of a great hall, being asked endless questions about grapes he knew nothing about, and every time he answered wrong, a giant hand came out of the curtains and cuffed him on the side of the head, knocking him over. By the time everything was settled and a departure date was decided on, he was almost afraid to go to sleep.

THE MORNING OF his departure was a perfect dawn: pale blue skies and a freshening breeze carrying the smell of damp earth and ripe hillberries. In the vineyard, the flowers had faded and tiny green grapes were forming in their place, barely recognizable as the fruit they would become. There was a pain inside his chest at the thought of leaving, even as he tossed his packs into the waiting wagon, and tightened the girth on the mare he would ride down to the seaport, where he would catch a ship on to Corguruth, and the city seat of Aleppan. He liked riding no more now than he had a year before, but he preferred the mare’s smooth pace far more than walking, or the jouncing of a wagon, the memory of the slaves pinned under the broken wagon still with him.

Cai had been waiting for him, sitting back on his heels, a small cudgel made of hardwood in his hand. When Jerzy had everything settled to his satisfaction, the weapons master approached. “Here. Gods willing, you will never need it. But. . .”

Jerzy accepted the weapon with a formal bow, student to teacher, and the Caulian returned it. “I will miss our lessons, Mil’ar Cai.”

Cai shrugged, the beads on his mustache jangling. “You are a Vineart-to-be, with Vineart’s responsibilities. Soon, there will be no more lessons with Cai at all. So I will go take my meal from Lil and flirt with the pretty girls before they throw me out for being a nuisance.” He looked at Jerzy a moment longer, then nodded once, and went on into the House without a further word.

Jerzy felt the ache inside him ease a little as he held the cudgel, then turned to tie it to the saddle, making sure the leather ties were secure. He heard someone walking behind him and recognized his master’s steps.

“You’re all set, then?” Jerzy turned again, nodding. His master’s narrow face was drawn and shadowed, and Jerzy felt a stronger pang at leaving now—even if for only a month. Now, when there was so much work to be done, work he should be helping with. . .

“Here. Take this with you.”

Jerzy took the disk from his master’s hand. It was small, perhaps twice the size of his thumbnail, with a hole cut in the middle. Letters were etched around the edge on one side, while the other was blank.

“Keep it with you at all times when you are away from here. It identifies you as a member of the House of Malech. Show it at any roadhouse or ale station in The Berengia, and you will be fed and housed without hesitation.”

Jerzy closed his fist around the token, feeling the cool weight against his palm, and nodded, a lump settling in his stomach that was all too familiar. Suddenly he remembered Cai’s words from months ago:
Think you will always be within the safety of your Master’s House?

“You’ll be back in plenty of time for selection, much less Harvest,” Malech said, as though hearing his thoughts. “Learn what you can, both of Giordan’s skills, and what goes on in the city, and in the mouths of her citizens. Do not fail me, boy.”

“I won’t, Master,” Jerzy promised.

Malech stared at him, then looked out across the road and into the vineyard, and held up a cloth-wrapped package. “Normally, a Vineart would receive these when he set off to establish his first field. But. . .it seemed the right time, so long as we are already deviating from precedent.”

Jerzy took the package. The rough unbleached cloth unrolled easily to reveal a small bone-handled knife, sheathed in a waxed leather case with a loop on it, to slide onto his belt when he was working. The ivory-white hilt fit easily in Jerzy’s hand, and the narrow blade extended a finger’s length beyond, glinting in the sunlight.

“You should never have to borrow another man’s knife to cut the seal off one of your own bottles,” Malech said matter-of-factly.

“Master, I. . .” His palm closed around the handle so tightly his skin whitened. Master Malech had a similar case hooked to his own double-wrapped belt, hanging next to the silver tasting spoon. Jerzy had never owned anything of his own before, had never been given a true gift. He looked away, then wrapped the knife up again and slid it into the pack on the mare’s saddle next to the cudgel.

The wagon driver, a dark-skinned man who wore a white cloth wrapped around his head rather than the usual green straw hat most carters wore, came out from the vintnery, making sure that the slaves carrying three half casks of spellwine loaded them into the wagon to his satisfaction. The city lord, like all lords, had no authority to say nay to the exchange, but he could make things difficult while Jerzy was there, or cause trouble after, if not appeased. None of the casks were particularly strong vintages, but they would heal minor household ailments and the occasional sword cut, if handled properly. Fair enough exchange for compliance, Malech hoped.

Wagon loaded, the driver climbed up onto the bench and picked up the reins.

Malech nodded once. Nothing left to say, Jerzy mounted, and reached forward to pet the side of the mare’s neck to cover his own uncertainty. The mare snorted and shifted, clearly impatient to be moving.

“Dar-up!” the driver of the cart cried, and flicked his whip at the horse between its braces. The horse started, wheels creaked and turned, and Jerzy rode away from the only home he could remember.

THE FIRST PART of the journey was a blur of trees and roads and fields just starting to turn green with crops, where workers would stop to watch them pass. They did not pass by any vineyards, although Jerzy could see, once or twice as the road rose on a hill, distant slopes marked with the familiar pattern of brown-and-green stems. Once they saw a Washer, his staff and dark red robes marking him clearly, who looked up from his roadside lunch and raised his hands in the cup-of-mercy blessing. Jerzy saluted him back, but they did not speak, and then he was gone, left behind in the road.

He saw a contingent of guardsmen marching ahead in a double row, their colors marking them as belonging to Prince Ranulf. Their captain gave a respectful salute as Jerzy rode by, the proper regard of a foot soldier for any man mounted. The lump in his stomach tightened even as he acknowledged the salute and rode on. He didn’t understand why he felt so uneasy—he had been on the road before, when he was visiting other enclosures. The destination was different, but the travel itself was nothing new.

Except before, he had not been aware of any greater danger than failing a test, or disappointing Malech. Before, he had not known that there were forces and magics that could make even a Master Vineart worry.

Now the ditch alongside the road could hold dangers greater than muddy water or the random winter-hungry wolf, and Jerzy was suddenly aware that other than his cudgel he was unarmed, and the driver, while sturdy, carried no weapons at all. Cai had often lectured him that the first rule to staying out of trouble was not looking like you were looking for trouble, but Jerzy wasn’t sure how that worked when trouble was already looking for you.

He lifted his face to the sunlight and tried to let those worries go. Cai had taught him how to defend himself, and he had a strong horse, and a sturdy companion. Nothing would go wrong.

The cart’s driver was not much for speaking, and so the day passed in silence, broken by the two horses’ hooves, the wagon’s creaking, and birdsong winging overhead in the trees. Three times they passed through villages, mismatched assortments of rough stone buildings set at odd angles to one another, ringed by low-walled enclosures where small black goats and milky-white cattle grazed, but they did not stop until the sun was making a rapid descent in the west. Jerzy thought that his legs were going to wear through at the hip and his upper body would fall off, leaving only a pair of legs still clamped in the stirrups, pressed against the mare’s side even in death.

Their destination was a squat, square building just off the side of the road. A roadhouse, Jerzy realized, and not a particularly nice one either, from the looks of it. Jerzy was too tired to care, so long as there was a place to sit that wasn’t on horseback. He only dimly realized that they had left The Berengia at the last road marker, and were now passing through Leiur—it all looked much the same to him, no matter who ruled or how they pronounced words. He was not, overall, impressed with traveling.

He followed the driver, at the man’s arm wave, around behind the building and into a small cobbled courtyard. The sound of hooves and wooden wheels rang out against the stones, and the mare came to a halt when Jerzy let the reins fall, dropping her head to her chest with an exhausted sigh, clearly understanding that they were done for the night.

The driver swung down from his seat, grimacing and rubbing his backside. “Boy, you have the Master’s token?”

Jerzy touched his belt pouch and felt the reassuring weight of the lead token against his fingers. “I do.”

The driver grunted. “Well, give it to the keeper, so we can get these beasts stabled and some food in our stomachs!”

A man emerged from the back door of the roadhouse. He was older even than Malech, his hair yellow-white and sparse over sun-leathered skin, and bent in the shoulders and hips, but his voice was steady and his hand quick as he asked for their payment.

“Here, Innkeep,” the carter said, and nodded to Jerzy, who showed the token, holding the dark metal coin in his palm.

“Vineart, hey?” the innkeep didn’t sound impressed. “Someone take these horses,” he yelled, a surprising bellow from such a wizened chest, and a short, slender figure darted out from the shadows, slipping the reins of the mare out from Jerzy’s hand without him feeling it.

“I’ll care good for her, Master,” the boy chirped, and the mare leaned forward to chew at his hair.

“And the cursed cart horse, too, fool,” the keep ordered, plucking the token out of Jerzy’s palm. “Come, travelers, come inside. There’s dinner left, if you’re hungry, and we’ll find you a place to sleep for the night.”

Jerzy took his bag and the cudgel off the saddle, noting the driver doing the same with his own belongings, and followed the keeper inside.