Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 (46 page)

'—And that is all the news I have,' Jemel finished, having said too much already but nowhere near enough.

'Then we must find more. Is Hasan here still?'

The softest, briefest of chuckles, and, 'Marron, he is asleep on the pallet next to yours. Fling an arm out too far, and you would hit him on the nose.'

'Oh.' He didn't turn, didn't look, didn't move except to say, 'How long has he been sleeping, can we wake him yet?'

'We could, perhaps,' Jemel said doubtfully, 'but for what? He knows less than you. The women did not talk with him long, and told him nothing that mattered.'

'Women? What women?'

'His wives. Sherett and Julianne. Lisan sent the djinni for Sherett - I said that already, weren't you listening? But then they both left him, and he fell asleep. You should sleep too.'

No doubt he should, but it wasn't going to happen. He said, 'Well, if Hasan cannot give us the news we need, let's go and find someone who can. Julianne is with Sherett; very well. Where are Elisande and the Princip?'

'I don't know. I said—'

'—And you don't think I was listening. I remember, Jemel. They took my Daughter - no, the King's Daughter -away from me, and you don't know where they went. So we'll have to hunt them out. It shouldn't be too hard. I don't know the Princip, but his granddaughter makes enough noise for two. We'll just ask anyone we meet,
wh
ere's the little loud one?They’ll
know.'

'Marron, you must not move. They said it of Hasan, he was not even to turn his head . . .'

'Well, I've done that and more, I sat up straight, remember?'

'And fainted, when you did.'

'Nearly fainted. You held me up. We can do the same again. Slowly, this time. I promise, Jemel, if I feel giddy, I will say. If not, we can go exploring. You won't go alone, I know that.'

'No.'

'So we have to go together. Unless you're prepared to sit here quiedy and watch me sleep while the world burns all around us? Even the women are off doing something, Jemel. Do you want to be left behind?'

'No,' again, a fierce whisper.

'So help me up, and we'll see who we can find, and what we can learn.'

Standing took time and care, so much of each that he ached for the Daughter's fire in his thin blood and its strength in his weary bones. He felt as though something of himself, all his value had been stolen from him while he slept. He ought to be glad to have it gone, but without it, what was he? Just a boy, an insignificant blade unsure who to fight for and unwilling to kill, sworn to both sides and trusting neither.

Standing now, leaning heavily on Jemel, he looked down on the sleeping Hasan and then out, over the parapet for his first sight of Surayon.

He saw a valley like a garden on a grand scale, green and growing - or rather it had been, and should have been yet. Whichever way he turned, though, west and north and east the air was smudged with smoke. He forgot almost that he had lost the Daughter's eyes; he seemed to see sharply at great distances despite that all-encompassing haze, and what he saw was death and fury.

This was what Hasan had yearned for, he thought bleakly, and Sieur Anton too - a bolt shot at the heart of the Kingdom, a purifying fire, a holy war for each of them although they followed different gods. Try as he might, stare though he did, he could see nothing holy: only men in armour, men in black, men in midnight blue, all blood-swathed and screaming. Three armies, he thought: one was Ransomer-led, one was Sharai and not led by anyone, its only hope for a leader here at his feet. The other must be from Ascariel.

Between them all the Surayonnaise, fighting like farmers for their lands and lives. Better if the armies fought each other; that must come, surely, as soon as Sharai tribes met knights of Outremer. However soon, though, it would be too late for Surayon. The land had been blighted already, in a morning's work; another day or two, and it would be destroyed.

Jemel was gazing at Hasan. 'I cannot believe that he sleeps in Outremer, while the tribes are fighting.'

'You haven't been where he was, Jemel. I can believe that he would sleep and sleep; I wish I could. Besides, better that for Hasan than to rise up and make a killing choice. This is Outremer, yes - but it is also Surayon. The Sharai have had an understanding with these people for many years. Elisande lived a year in Rhabat, do you remember? And was not the first to do so. The Princip saved Hasan's life this morning; should Hasan demand a mount and a weapon, to fight him this afternoon? Or should he betray the tribes who trust him, who followed him this far?'

'Hasan should do what he believes is right, what he has always taught and argued for.' Jemel's voice was as tight and unforgiving as his face. 'It is a cowards way, to escape into dreams when the road is hard. He knew that Surayon was part of Outremer, he has always known that. It was Catari land before, and holy to us.'

'And what would you do, if he made that choice and went to lead the tribes? Would you join their slaughter, as you wanted to before? It is a slaughter, Jemel, just lift your eyes and look. Or listen, can't you hear the screaming? There are children's voices in the screaming.'

'There always are. Children, women, the old and the sick - they die, whosever hand directs the blade. That is war, Marron. You know this, you have done this too. You say you will not kill again; I say wait, the time will come. Hasan might control the tribes a little; the slaughter will be worse without him. But no, I would not follow if he left. I followed him once, and Jazra died. I swore then that I would never follow him again, but kill him rather. I was hot then, blaming him for saving me; that oath was foolish, and I broke it. But now he is sleeping in the sun while men die - yes, and children too - and I will not follow him again. A man should not be weak when he is needed. Besides, I am sworn to stay with you, and that oath I will keep, foolish or not.'

Marron might have wished the last answer to have come first, but he was glad enough to hear it at all. He nodded his acceptance, although privately he wondered if his changeable friend might not turn once more, when Hasan was awake and in his strength again. That man had a drawing power in his voice and manner, that Jemel had been helpless to resist before.

For now, he just nodded his head towards the open doorway that led off the terrace and into the palace beyond.

*

Standing had been hard enough; walking was worse, even with Jemel's shoulder as a crutch beneath his arm. He felt absurdly weak, utterly drained and more. He shuffled along like a man old and spent, as though all his youth and vitality had been ripped from him. His body had not forgotten the steely inexhaustibility it had borrowed from the Daughter. With every step he expected to recover it, and with every step he was betrayed into a trembling helplessness.

Probably any man so cruelly reduced would hunger for what he had lost. He couldn't blame himself for yearning to have the Daughter back in his blood again; his soul's freedom didn't seem worth the price today.

They passed through a wide and empty room, and came to a corridor that led straight and far, too far, seemingly into the hillside the house was built against. There was still no one in sight, no sound of movement from any of the many doors that opened to left and right. Marron wondered foolishly if the entire household had abandoned them and ridden off to the war. More seriously, he wondered if he could possibly walk as far as the corridor's end, even with Jemel's support. If he did, and if they found nothing but empty rooms all the way, he was utterly certain that he would not be able to walk back.

Jemel knew; he said, 'This was stupid from the start. We should sit on the terrace and wait. The Princip will come soon, Sherett said so.'

Perhaps Hasan is not so cowardly and weak, then, eh?The
words hovered treacherously on Marron's tongue, and were not - quite - said; instead he only sighed, close to yielding already, only wanting not to make waste so quickly of the great effort that had brought him this far.

He hadn't felt like this those times when Elisande had healed him, neither her father Rudel. Perhaps the legendary Princip was cruder in his work, coming to it late as he had, lacking the subtlety of the native-born miracle worker . . .

Even as the thought occurred, he heard voices, down at the further end of the corridor. He waited a beat, to know who they were and what they were saying; then remembered that it was the Daughter's trick and not his, to hear such details across such a distance.

So he waited in an ordinary way, as Jemel waited beside him, two young men adrift in a strange house, not at all where they were thought or meant to be. He could have been nervous, he thought, at being found — or caught, he might have said - like this. The boy he'd been, Sieur Anton's squire would likely have ducked through any convenient doorway to avoid it. Now he didn't care, except that he hoped not to startle whoever was coming.

Two of them, figures coming up through an archway, arm in arm and arguing hody. Marron didn't need the Daughters eyes, nor its ears to identify them now. The one he'd lived and travelled with for many weeks, while the other was actually easier for him to name from some little way off. The squat figure, the barrel chest, the beard - he might almost have thought that Jemel had lied to him, if the beard hadn't been white and Elisande hadn't been so closely in the stranger's company.

'Grandfer!' Her voice rose, easy
to hear every word suddenly. ‘I
thought you'd healed him?'

'So did I.' It was a fit voice to come from such a chest, from such a man, deep and carrying. 'And so I did. He's not bleeding, not possessed, not grey and fading into death -what more do you want?' 'You know what more!'

'And you know what little I had left me, or could afford to give

But he was talking to empty air; Elisande had disengaged her arm from his and was running the length of the corridor, skirts flapping awkwardly about her legs as she came.

She hurtl
ed into Marron, clutching at him, all but knocking him over with the force of her arrival. It was Jemel's wiry strength that held them all upright; that earned no thanks, though, only a glare and, 'What were you thinking of, to let him leave his bed?'

'Have you ever tried to keep him there?'

Elisande blushed furiously; Marron felt a little tremor in his friend's arm and thought the Sharai was laughing, deep inside.

Then the girl took his hands in a tight grip, muttering, 'Just hold him for a minute, let me work.'

She closed her eyes, perhaps to see the better. Marron felt warmth flood into his fingers, into his wrists, wherever her skin touched his. It chased through him, blood and bone, the course the Daughter always used to take; he felt a pang of near-recognition. But this was something far less harsh, sunlight and not fire; what it le
ft in its wake was not the limitl
ess energy nor the seeming immunity that he could have borrowed from the Daughter. Rather it was an awakening, his own strength stirring as his muscles fed, as they drew from Elisande something of what they had lost in his draining.

Not all: she couldn't give him what had not been his.

Nor could she restore to him the full power even of the boy he'd been before, the brother Ransomer who would sweat and endure and achieve through sheer stubbornness. What he had now, though, what she gifted to him felt like another miracle, a pulsing wonder in the deep hollows of his body, a secret flame whose light could not be hidden, whose source would never show.

'Enough.' That was the Princip, who knew that source too well. Elisande nodded and released his hands, looking pale and
shivering herself now, apparentl
y glad to step back into the shield of her grandfather's arm.

Jemel frowned as Marron did the opposite, straightening and stretching and peeling away from the Sharai s supporting hold.

'It's all right, Jemel. Look, I can do this now,' standing by himself and smiling at his friend, secure on his own feet. He could do a lot more; he felt as though he could run the length of Outremer, race Jemel on a camel, on a horse, whatever. It wasn't true, of course, he'd fail sooner than he ought to; it was only with the Daughter's strength that he could run all day, the granddaughter's wouldn't sustain him long at all if he were wasteful of it.

'You can, yes,' the Princip said, with an edge to his voice that was patendy saying,
and see now, she cannot.
'Forgive my sounding churlish, Marron, you are very welcome to Surayon, and to my house; but she should not have spent so much of her energy where it was not needed.'

'Oh, what, not needed?' Elisande roused herself into instant outrage, squirming against the arm that held her pinned to his side. 'He was falling down, you saw him—'

'—And could have been picked up by Jemel there and carried back to his bed and kept in it, tied down if necessary, until he had eaten and drunk and slept his way to health again. It would have come, in time.'

'He might not have had time,' she argued, with that sullen look that said she knew she had lost the point already.

'No, that is true - but if Marron lacked the time to recover naturally, then so will everyone else who comes here in search of healing. And they will come, Elisande, they are coming now. And what will you say to them, to the men with their wounds and the women with their burns and the children with their terrors and their broken bones, when they turn to you and you are too spent to help them?'