Impossible Things (10 page)

Kael pulled the last of the fishing boats above the waterline and stood back, surveying the harbour. The water was calm now, snowflakes dissolving gently in it, but when the big storms of winter hit they’d turn anything still floating into matchsticks.

‘Reckon you’ll get out again this side of the Dark?’ he asked Valter Fiskaren, who shrugged.

‘Hard to say. Short trips, yes, but what can you get so close to shore?’

It was the same conversation every winter. Out of respect for the older man, Kael never reminded him of this. By now he probably knew as much about fishing as Valter did.

‘Line fishing from the harbour wall?’ Kael said. The boats already had a thin dusting of snow on them.

Valter raised his palms. ‘Couldn’t feed my cat on what you catch there.’

‘Have we got enough preserved to see us through?’

‘Sure, but who can eat that much salted fish? After a few weeks of pickled herring, a day out on the boat in the middle of a squall starts to look really good.’

Kael clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Not good enough. I’ll go out hunting and get us some meat. And there’s always the carp pond for feast days.’

Valter grunted. He didn’t think much of freshwater fish.

‘Have I let you starve yet?’

‘No. You’re a good lad,’ said Valter, just as he had since Kael was eleven.

‘Right. Look, if it gets bad you move everyone up to the castle, all right?’

‘I’m not afraid of the Dark,’ Valter scoffed, but Kael saw the fear behind his eyes.

‘Aye, I know that, but I’m having no one trapped in collapsed buildings. Bring the animals too,’ he added, remembering the year half their pigs had been wiped out by a bad storm.

‘Aye, lad. I will,’ said Valter, and Kael moved off, following the donkey carts up the path to the castle.

‘Castle’ was a bit of an overstatement. Skjultfjell had been built in the lee of the headland and roofed with turf, a longhouse hidden from the eyes of invaders. Over the years his ancestors had built around it, creating a series of courtyards, linking one building to another and even hacking into the rock to create more hidden rooms. Even now, in safer days, there were few buildings visible from the sea. Skjultfjell looked like part of a fishing village.

He took the narrow Lower Gate and climbed the steep path to the first courtyard, passing the donkey stables and loping up the steps past the goods hoist. Stellan Timmerman was poking at the wood with a frown.

‘Problem?’ Kael asked, watching the baskets being hauled up.

‘No, not yet, but can you see here where it’s starting to rot? Needs fixing before the next storm or it won’t be able to hold a full load.’

‘Do we have the timber?’ Stellan nodded. Kael glanced at the sky, which was a dark yellowish shade and promised a lot more snow. ‘Then get it done. This’ll get worse before it gets better.’

Skjultfjell was composed mostly of steps and uneven ground. Ishtaer would have a nightmare here, Kael thought, taking the next flight two at a time and swerving to avoid two men carrying a pig carcass between them. Oh good, that meant bacon was on the menu.

When he entered the kitchen he found Mags scowling at her cloak, which was soaked with a big dirty patch at the back.

‘Dare I ask?’ Kael said, draping his cloak over the fireguard.

‘Flagstones are starting to get slippery out there. We’re going to need to salt them.’

Kael wondered if they had enough grids to put over the stones. He’d told old Smed the smith to make some last year, enough for pathways across the courtyard, but some had rusted before the end of the winter. ‘Do we have enough? I don’t want to waste it if we’ve meat to preserve.’

Mags batted at the stain, which didn’t do much to shift it. ‘We always have enough. You always buy too much. More came in today.’ She nodded at a basket on the table. ‘Some mail for you, too.’

He picked up the packet of letters. Mail took forever to arrive at Skjultfjell, mostly because he had it routed through a complex system of agents and offices. Most of it was to do with property and employees, some was news, and one was a letter from Eirenn Fillian.

The letters came regularly, arriving most weeks on the sled from Utgangen with their supplies, and he read them out in the kitchen or the hall like the latest chapter of a story.

Chapter One: In which Ishtaer gets three ribs broken by Marcus Glorius during a session of quarterstaff training but never complains and heals them herself.

Chapter Two: In which the other students badger Ishtaer for information about ‘Skullfell’ and Eirenn makes up a load of rubbish about it, for which he hopes his lordship will forgive him, but it all makes him out to be extra fearsome, ruling with an iron fist, and incidentally mentions his fantastic prowess as a lover.

For his own sanity, Kael chose not to share that last part with Mags and the kids.

Chapter Three: In which Ishtaer heals a young woman who’s been hit by a cart, and not only mends her life-threatening wounds but, on discovering the woman is a seamstress, spends her whole night healing every injury to her hands, which earns her the quiet admiration of Madam Julia.

Chapter Four: In which Ishtaer attempts to ride a horse without help, and ends up breaking her ribs again …

Mags recognised the handwriting and asked, ‘What’s your little project getting up to now?’

‘Who knows? She may even have found the courage to speak to strangers.’

Mags tutted, giving up on her muddy cloak and washing her hands with lavender soap. ‘Be nice. From what you say she’s spent years being kicked around by this Samara woman. You probably wouldn’t have any courage left after that.’

Kael shot her an incredulous look as he pulled the letter open. ‘I’d have shot Samara in the head years ago.’

‘Why didn’t you? I mean, when you were there? If she treats people so badly—’

‘Look, it’s not my problem, okay? I’m not going to war with one of the richest and most important oil producers the Empire has over a few slaves.’

‘No heart, you.’

‘Shut up or I’ll lock you in the donkey shed.’

Mags snorted. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

He grinned at her and started reading.

‘Out loud?’ Mags said pointedly.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Some technical stuff about training – she still can’t fire a bow, or at least she can but the only reasonably safe place to stand when she does it is directly behind her.’

‘Not surprised if she can’t see.’

‘No. Not great with horses either. He says he leads her around on one like a little girl.’

‘I think this Eirenn has a little crush on your blind girl,’ Mags said as her sons bounded into the room.

‘Then this Eirenn must be blind too. You should see her, Mags. Like a scarecrow. A skeleton scarecrow.’

‘I want a skelton scarecrow!’ Durran said, taking off his parka and throwing it on the floor.

‘Pick that up,’ said Mags.

‘No,
I
want a skelton scarecrow!’ Garik yelled.

‘Pick it up,’ Kael said as the younger boy copied his brother and flung his coat on the floor. ‘Or I’ll lock you in the donkey shed.’

‘And it’s skeleton,’ Mags said. ‘Three syllables.’

‘What’s a syllable?’ asked Durran, dropping his scarf on top of his coat. ‘Is it like arms? Do skeltons have three arms?’

Mags rolled her eyes at Kael. She picked up her cloak and filled a tub with water and washing soap.

‘Pick up your stuff,’ Kael said. ‘And stop interrupting.’

‘But—’

‘Donkey shed,’ he said severely, and Garik looked nervous.

‘I like donkeys,’ Durran informed Kael.

‘Good, then you can spend the afternoon mucking them out. Now quiet, I’m reading.’

The two boys stood silently next to the heaps of their outdoor clothing. Garik fidgeted. ‘But the Huntsmen will get us!’ he blurted.

‘Huntsmen?’

‘From the Wild Hunt! We heard the dogs! It’s the Dark!’

Kael exchanged a look with Mags. The Wild Hunt was a myth told to children, but he knew a lot of adults believed it too. During the darkest week of the year, grown men he knew to be quite sensible would swear they heard the hounds of hell barking in the sky, the thunder of hooves, the horns of the spectral huntsmen. Kael was never quite sure how they differentiated these sounds from the perfectly normal dogs and horses he kept around the place. As for the horn, it sounded exactly like the wind howling, just like it did all year.

‘It’s a little early for the Dark,’ he said.

‘No, it’s coming early! That’s what Agda Bondesdottir said!’

‘Agda Bondesdottir is a halfwit,’ Mags said. ‘The Dark comes the same time every year.’ Durran looked sceptical, but Garik’s eyes were still huge.

Kael said gently, ‘When the Dark comes we’ll light the candles and sing the songs—’

‘And can we have pepparkakor?’ Durran said, all fear forgotten at the idea of gingerbread.

‘Yes, but only if you help to make it.’

The boys nodded eagerly, and Kael shook out Eirenn’s letter theatrically. ‘Now. Evil huntsmen banished, can I continue reading, please?’

Garik nodded solemnly.

Kael turned back to the letter. ‘Right. She can’t fire a bow or ride a horse, but she’s coming along well with sword and staff.
To begin with Sir Scipius had her sparring against me since I’m the worst in the class, but this week he’s had her fighting some of the other boys. Mostly the younger ones, but it’s a step up. He’s also trying to get her to do unarmed combat, but she’s much more hesitant with that. She’ll beat the sh—
’ Kael glanced at the two boys, who were listening with interest, ‘
the life out of a punchbag, but when it comes to people she doesn’t seem to know how to fight back.
’

He read the next part, and frowned.

‘What?’ Mags said, pausing in her washing.

‘He says,
I know she used to be a slave, my lord, but I thought it was the way we had slaves here. Valuable property to be protected. But I wonder if it’s not like that in the New Lands. I wonder if she was beaten there, and told not to fight back. When she forgets herself, she’s as brave as anything, but if someone shouts at her she cowers. I don’t think she even realises she’s doing it. She still walks with her head down, and I don’t think it’s to hide her eyes from anybody. She’s got the body language of a person who’s been made to feel like they’re nothing. I know, because that’s what I was like before I pulled myself together and started fighting back.

‘
And it doesn’t help that Marcus Gloria has taken a personal dislike to her. He seems to be offended by the very idea of her. Shoves into her all the time when she walks by, and then laughs at her as if it’s her fault. Always hits her a little bit too hard in the training ring. The other week we had a melee and he just went for her. I think he broke something again, but she wouldn’t tell me and whatever it was she healed it herself. Again. I mean, I know he’s a bully, and a loser, and that he trades on his father’s name, I know it as well as you do, but Ishtaer doesn’t, and she won’t be told. She seems to think he’s in the right
.’

‘Ooh, what I’d do to that Gloria boy if I was in Ilanium!’ Mags said, thumping her wet cloak harder than was strictly necessary.

‘It’s not him you need to do it to,’ Verak said. Kael hadn’t even heard him come in. He caught Kael’s eye and said, ‘It’s her. No amount of words or even beatings will make him stop picking on her until she learns to fight back.’

‘Isn’t that what she’s supposed to be doing?’ Mags said. ‘Honestly, Kael, you could train her better.’

‘No,’ he said distantly, still looking at the letter. ‘I mean, I could, but Verak’s right. She has to want to fight back. She has to believe she’s worth it.’

There was a pause. ‘So,’ said Mags, who had never in her life doubted her own self-worth for so much as a minute, ‘how do you make her believe that?’

Kael glanced at Verak, who shrugged.

‘I honestly have no idea.’

Out from the darkness of sleep a huge red cat loomed.

Fangs and claws and beaks and crowns, and yet she was unafraid. Burning bright, the gleam of fire upon metal. A bed of clouds and heat, and a man sleeping beside her. A handsome man, a strong man. A man who opened his eyes and smiled at her.

She smiled back, and then he reached for his sword and plunged it into her belly.

Ishtaer woke up screaming.

Darkness stared back at her, the same darkness she’d seen every morning and night for five years. Beneath her was hard stone; by her feet, the dying warmth of a fire.

Someone pounded on wood. ‘Oi! Keep it down!’

She sat up, shivering despite the warmth of the room. Her own room at the Academy. Ishtaer forced her tight muscles to relax. ‘S-sorry.’

‘You got someone in there?’

A second voice said spitefully, ‘You know we’re not allowed men in here.’ That was Hortensia.

‘There’s no one here.’ But even so, she felt for her sword, just in case that handsome man lay in hiding. ‘I had a bad dream.’

The same bad dream she’d had the night her Seer’s mark appeared.

A shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature shocked through her.

The road to Utgangen was as icy as every other one in Krulland, but Kael’s ponies had been bred in the harshest of conditions and didn’t even seem to notice. Wrapped in heavy furs, face covered everywhere but his eyes, he steered the troika on through the blizzard. Once a week someone had to go into town, to collect whatever Skjultfjell couldn’t supply itself with and to check for news.

In the middle of the Dark, few people were willing to make the journey. Kael figured if he was going to force anyone to do it, it ought to be himself. Besides which, the number of men he knew who could drive a troika wasn’t high. Controlling three horses who ran abreast at two different paces using four reins had taken Kael years to learn, and he’d got the Chosen advantage to help him.

The lights of the small trading town finally shone through the gloom, and even the hardy ponies seemed to pick up their pace.

‘Nice warm stable for you tonight, my friends,’ Kael told them, ‘and the biggest bucket of mash you ever saw.’

Nice warm bed for me too, he thought, and the biggest bucket of beer you ever saw. And should there be some amenable female company, I wouldn’t exactly say no
.

He steered the sleigh to the posting inn and handed it over to the cargomen. Inside the inn, the heat and noise hit him like a wall. The warm, bitter scent of hops brewing flowed across the low-ceilinged room, which was always a good sign that there’d be fresh beer available.

‘Aye aye, you’re a brave man to be out in the Dark!’ called the landlord.

‘I don’t fear the Wild Hunt,’ Kael said, smiling, and moved forward.

‘Then you’re either brave, or stupid,’ said the man, and poured him a beer without being asked.

Kael took the beer, a packet of letters and a room key, and handed over Mags’s list of supplies.

‘Running low on sugar,’ the man said, scanning the list, ‘but we should be able to do the rest.’

Kael said he’d pick it up in the morning and retired to a table by the fire to read his mail. It wasn’t hard to get a good table, even when people didn’t know who he was: a man who’d braved the Dark, alone, was a man lesser men feared.

There was a letter from Eirenn, dated only three days before. Kael frowned and glanced around, eyes scanning the clientele. Most of them had the look of locals who’d scurried in for a quick pint before the darkest part of night, but there were two or three people he guessed had come in during the few hours of daylight and were staying the night. A man with the look of a fur trader. A nervous-looking lad clutching a kitbag. And a woman, drinking alone by the bar.

He smiled to himself and read the next chapter in the life of Ishtaer ex Saraneus: In which she’d attended the Midwinter Festival with Eirenn and all the city’s Chosen, at the Templum Ilanium in the Emperor’s Tower. Afterwards, the Emperor had sent for Ishtaer, who had stammered and choked her way through an excruciating conversation, and then gone on to drink a heroic amount of grappa in a local taverna, the bill for which would be added to Kael’s account. When Marcus Glorius had stumbled into the taverna, drunk and surrounded by over-privileged posh boys, he’d tried to grope Ishtaer, and received a knee to the groin for his troubles. Ishtaer was now dreading the retribution of Lord Glorius, which Eirenn doubted would be coming since he didn’t expect Marcus had the stones to admit to his father he’d been brought down by a girl, and a low-born slave at that.

Kael sat back, thinking. A low-born girl. Clearly, Eirenn was projecting his own issues onto Ishtaer, who he obviously saw as an ally, but Kael just couldn’t equate a Thrice-Marked Chosen with someone who’d been born to nothing. There had to be something more to her story.

He finished his drink and sauntered over to the woman drinking alone. She wore a cloak with the hood pulled up despite the warmth of the room. Pale blonde hair was just visible in wisps. She was nursing a small, gently steaming cup of fragrantly spiced wine.

‘How’s the glugg?’ he asked, and she looked up at him from the depths of her hood.

‘It’s good.’

‘A better drink than you’ll get in Ilanium.’

She leaned back as he took the spare seat at her table. ‘You’ve visited the Empire?’

‘On occasion. Not the season for it now, though. Any man sailing a ship up the coast in this weather is a lunatic.’

‘They think the same of you for braving the Dark,’ she pointed out.

‘Men fear the Dark,’ Kael said, signalling the landlord and pointing to the empty wine jug, ‘because of mythical huntsmen. I fear the seas because I’ve seen winter storms smash ships into splinters.’

‘A sensible man.’

‘I’ve been called many things, but sensible isn’t one of them.’ The glugg arrived and he poured himself some. She was right, it was good. ‘I’ll hold my hand up to being reckless, violent, bloody-minded and rude, but please don’t call me sensible. You’ll ruin my reputation.’

She smiled around her wine cup.

‘I’ll also admit to a certain level of perception. Lady Aspicio.’

She paused for the tiniest fraction of a second. ‘You must have me confused with someone else.’

‘Maybe. It could be a birthmark you’re hiding, or a bruise, or maybe you’re just ugly. But I seem to recall a young man with hair like yours by the name of Celsus. Your brother?’

She put down her cup. Then she pushed back her hood. Her hair was indeed silvery blonde, and her face bore the delicate tracery of a Seer. It was, he decided, not quite as pretty as the mark Ishtaer had.

Kael pulled up his sleeve to show her the mark on his arm. ‘Kaelnar Vapensigsson Militis … all the rest of it.’

Her expression was pretty knowing. ‘Lord Krull, in the Empire.’

‘But we’re not in the Empire, are we?’

‘In that case, I’m Celsa Luccia Aquilinia Aspicio.’

‘Aspicio
Viator
,’ Kael corrected. No one else could have covered the distance she had in such a time. The Viatori were a shady lot; half messenger, half spy, and probably a whole lot else too.

She shrugged. As far as he knew, a Viator mark was on the foot, and he wasn’t expecting her to pull up her skirts and take off her boots.

Well, not yet, anyway.

Kael smiled. ‘In that case, Aquilinia, let me pour you another drink while you tell me all about your next commission.’

‘I don’t have another commission,’ she said, her eyes deep and steady on his.

‘Even better.’

‘And you’ve never had any Seer training? Child, that is shocking. In my day there was always a representative of each of the Gifts here to train new Tyros. For many years, I was that representative.’

‘But now you’ve retired?’

‘Something like that.’

The elderly gentleman had been sitting in the courtyard outside the atrium when Ishtaer came down to wait for Eirenn before they went to a training session together. She remembered Master Killen from her first day at the Academy, and when he’d hailed her across the courtyard and told her she was the first Seer he’d seen at the Academy for years, she’d found herself chatting to him about the only vision she’d ever had.

‘What I find interesting,’ he said now, ‘is that you saw it at all. I have heard it said that the blind are blind even in their sleep, and that even those with perfect vision rarely see colour in their dreams. But you saw everything in vivid shades.’

Ishtaer nodded. ‘The cat was definitely red. But it wasn’t a real cat, it was … I don’t know, a picture of one. And there was another creature, with a beak and wings. But it wasn’t a bird.’

‘Many mythical creatures have wings,’ Killen suggested. ‘It could have any one of several meanings. The cat itself symbolises mystery, but can also be an omen of treachery and deceit. The colour red, in a dream, generally augers good news.’

‘But you said it may not have been a dream,’ Ishtaer said uncertainly. ‘More of a vision.’

‘Indeed, I believe it to be so. Of course red is also the colour of the Warrior,’ Killen added. ‘You are a mystery, child.’

‘So I’ve been told,’ she said with feeling.

‘Been told what?’ Eirenn sounded out of breath as he loped into the courtyard.

‘That I’m a mystery. Barely a day goes by that someone doesn’t tell me how impossible I am.’

‘Sir Flavius just called me impossible too,’ Eirenn said, flopping down on the bench beside her. ‘Just because I forgot to deliver a message that came in for him last night. That’s why I’m late, sorry.’

‘It’s all right, I’ve been talking with Master Killen here. I’m so sorry, sir, this is my friend Eirenn Fillian.’

Eirenn coughed gently. ‘Er, Ish? Who’re you talking to?’

‘Master Killen. The gentleman here,’ she gestured with her arm, but found only empty space. ‘Oh, where did he go?’ She listened for footsteps, but heard only the wind in the trees and far-off conversations.

Eirenn was silent a disconcertingly long while. Then he said, ‘Elderly gentleman, grey hair and a long beard, walked with a cane?’

‘He had a cane, yes. Do you know him?’

‘Lord Killen Derrus Aspicio Veradis,’ Eirenn said slowly.

‘Oh! I didn’t know he was a lord. I was calling him sir,’ Ishtaer said, her cheeks heating.

‘A more accurate thing to be calling him would be “late”,’ Eirenn said. ‘Lord Killen died four, five years ago. We haven’t had a Seer here since.’

Ishtaer laughed at his joke, but when he didn’t join in, the laughter faded.

‘He was also a Truthteller. He used to verify the Marks of every new Tyro,’ Eirenn said. ‘We all met him. We all went to his funeral. I can show you his memorial if you like.’

‘But that’s impossible,’ Ishtaer said.

‘Not if you’re a Seer it’s not,’ Eirenn said, and touched her arm. ‘Congratulations, Tyro Aspicio, you just met your first ghost.’

The messages came on the sled from Utgangen.

Kael shut the door to his office and sat down, feet on the desk, to read. Eirenn’s letter had arrived, containing, as he’d asked, the names of every Chosen of Draxan and Saranean origin who had been alive around twenty years ago. And the name of every Chosen who had disappeared, ever.

But it was Aquilinia’s news he wanted to read first, fresh from her visit to the Saranos Islands. He didn’t know how she’d got there in the winter seas, or what methods she’d used to get her information, but what she told him made for interesting reading.

People remember the girl with the tattoos who worked at the Manor House on Gurundi. The cook there remembers her as called Agnes, but concedes this probably wasn’t her real name as lower servants tend to get given the same names over and over. She was thrown out five years ago for getting herself tattooed again. There’s a price on her head since a man was found bleeding to death in the street, saying he’d been attacked by a woman with a tattoo on her arm, who was freakishly strong and possibly a witch.

Kael smiled at that. Looked like Ishtaer had form.

Agnes came from the Gurundi Workhouse, as did most of the cheap labour in the Saranos at the time. The former matron there was persuaded to remember the birth of a child called Ishtaer, which she considered a filthy foreign name. The mother came in out of a terrible storm, never gave her name, and died shortly after Ishtaer was born, living long enough only to name the child and give her a crystal necklace. The matron remembers because the woman had a heathen witch mark on her foot. Also, I suspect, because she tried to steal the necklace and found that she couldn’t. She remembers Ishtaer wearing it every day of her life, which is unusual in a place where most people don’t even have shoes. I enclose the record of the child’s birth.

The record had a rusty looking stain on it. Kael suspected it was blood.

Ishtaer reckoned she was around twenty, which fit the date Aquilinia had uncovered. The woman with the witch mark on her foot was almost certainly a Viator, which narrowed his search in some ways and made it impossible in others. While her name would have been recorded in the Book of the Chosen, if she was a Viator on a mission the details of it may never have been written down. Shady lot, the Viatori.

He pulled Eirenn’s list of Draxan Chosen towards him, looking for Viator women of the appropriate age. What he found first was a man whose name called out to him from over a decade. Sir Rellan Mallus ex Draxus Medicus. Kael’s hand went to his knee and he rubbed it without even thinking.

Rellan, who’d had the pale eyes and dark skin peculiar to some Draxans, a quiet manner and a way of healing axe wounds that was nothing short of miraculous.

Rellan, who’d lost his wife and child all those years ago and never stopped searching for them.

Rellan, whose wife was a Viator.

His hands nearly tore Eirenn’s letter in his haste to check the names of the missing Chosen. There she was, twenty years ago, Madam Saria Secunda Viator. Mission unknown. Never returned. No body found.

He sat back in his chair, remembering it. How Rellan didn’t know where his wife was going, or even that she was pregnant until a hastily written note had arrived, and he’d pleaded with her to return before the winter seas got too rough. And she never had returned. And Rellan had spent the rest of his life searching for his wife and a child he’d never seen born.

The coincidences were too much. It couldn’t be anyone else.

Kael picked up his pen and wrote down the names, crossed them out and reordered them in the Ilani fashion for addressing a woman of the Citizenry. Then he stared at it, for a long time.

Mallia Saria Ishtaer ex Saraneus Medicus Militis Aspicio.

‘That’s one hell of a big name to live up to,’ he said.

Winter became spring, and with only a week to go, Eirenn asked Ishtaer if she’d got her dress for the Imperial Ball.

‘The what?’

‘The Ball. Capital B. Sir Flavius should have …’ he trailed off. ‘No, you don’t go to his classes, do you?’

‘I haven’t time.’ She turned to the basin beside her and washed her hands. Her patient was a young man who said he’d tripped and hit his head, but the gash on his cheek felt to her like it had been caused by something sharp propelled at force. A ring, for instance, on a hand balled into a fist. ‘Mornings with Sir Scipius—’