Irons in the Fire (38 page)

"Making it all the easier for us to convince Duke Garnot that Duke Ferdain of Marlier is stirring up these fears besetting the merchantry to improve his own revenues at Carluse's expense." Charoleia searched inside her ribbon-tied reticule until she found a small silver square. It looked like a cased mirror to Aremil. "That should stop him looking northwards to the hills beyond Sharlac." The little silver case opened up like a book.

"A memorandum?" Branca leaned over to see Charoleia writing with a fine metal rod. "Without paper?"

"I've always favoured wax for note-making." She made a show of throwing it into the hearth where a vase of scarlet flowers blazed. "As soon as it's melted, whatever I've written is gone for good. You'd be surprised how long paper or parchment can take to catch properly alight."

Gruit munched another cake, brow furrowed. "I can talk up the hazards along the Great West Road, but plenty of merchants still prefer to keep their goods on dry ground. It's not as if there is any actual fighting at the moment."

"We will start some fighting to persuade them," Charoleia said serenely, "and to keep Master Hamare of Triolle looking in quite the wrong direction as well." She gestured towards Aremil's white raven board. "If Hamare gets wind of this enterprise of ours, we may as well forfeit the game."

"Where will this fighting start?" Aremil asked with misgiving.

"Between Draximal and Parnilesse." Charoleia's face was implacable. "As soon as may be arranged."

Gruit narrowed his eyes. "You said neither duke was prepared to attack the other for fear of the Tormalin Emperor's displeasure."

"We can leave the details to Sorgrad and Gren. They'll have Draximal and Parnilesse at each other's throats before the end of Aft-Summer." Charoleia turned to Branca. "We need to speak to Tathrin as soon as possible."

"We need to be able to contact everyone with Artifice," Gruit growled, frustrated. "If there's going to be war in the eastern provinces, we need to warn Failla and Lady Derenna, Reniack most of all. We need them to be able to contact us without having to find a wagoner heading west who's willing to carry a letter!"

"We have two adepts willing to help us," Aremil assured him. "We only need find one more."

Though that was easier said than done. They'd had no luck on their quest that morning. He had only needed to exchange a look with Branca to see she agreed that particular scholar was better left safely studying ancient histories and newly recovered lore, for all her Lescari blood. Not for the first time, they hadn't even broached the subject of Lescar's ills, merely buying some books as their excuse for the visit and coming away again.

Aremil was glad he and Branca were being so wary. He shuddered to think what scathing rebuke Charoleia might have had for them if she'd heard whispers of something they had incautiously let slip. Such whispers could have betrayed them all to this man Karn. A shiver ran down his spine.

"I can get a warning to Reniack." Charoleia made another note on her wax memorandum tablet. "That woman of his who picks rags for the papermakers keeps courier pigeons, though I don't know where they fly to."

Aremil assumed she was trying to find out.

"What about the others?" Gruit was still dissatisfied. "Aremil, you promised we would have these enchantments to help us. Aft-Summer's already half over."

"You do need to find this third adept as soon as possible." Charoleia looked at Branca. "Time is going to become increasingly pressing, especially once fighting breaks out between Draximal and Parnilesse."

Branca looked at her, eyes bright. "If we cannot find a third adept in the next five days, I will go to Lescar myself."

"How does that help us?" Gruit protested. "Aetheric magic or elemental, it takes two to speak over any distance. We still need an aetheric adept here in Vanam."

"I don't know that any mentor would call him an adept, but Aremil's learning." Branca's confident smile challenged him.

"I have a great deal still to learn," Aremil said hastily.

If both halves of summer had dragged for Master Gruit, even these longest days of the year were too short for Aremil. He seemed to spend every waking moment when he wasn't looking for Lescari exiles studying and attempting enchantments and discussing the possible reasons for his modest successes and all too frequent failures with Branca.

"Can you use whatever you've learned thus far to reach Tathrin?" Charoleia asked. "So he can tell Sorgrad to set about causing trouble between Draximal and Parnilesse?"

"He can," Branca said confidently.

"Then please do so, Master Aremil, as soon as possible." Charoleia stood up. "I'll have a warning sent to Reniack before nightfall. He should get it inside six or seven days. In the meantime, Master Gruit, kindly set about making those arrangements for supplying our troops as soon as they reach the lowlands."

"Don't you want to hear what young Tathrin has to say?" Gruit looked uncertainly at Aremil.

"Not particularly. I don't need to know what Sorgrad has in mind either." Charoleia smiled. "Shall we go, Master Gruit? There's nothing to see when Artifice is worked. It has none of wizardry's thrills and magelight."

She had seen it in his face, Aremil realised: his horror of trying to work Artifice with an audience.

"Very well, then." Gruit looked disappointed all the same. "I'll bid you good day and be on my way." He favoured Charoleia and Branca with a half-bow and, nodding to Aremil, he left the sitting room.

"I should have remembered how readily Poldrion's demons fill idle hands with mischief. Still, seeing to Evord's supplies will keep him busy enough for the moment." Charoleia looped the ribbon of her reticule around her wrist. "Let me know how you get on contacting Tathrin." Her glance went from Aremil to Branca.

"We will." Branca escorted her to the door.

"Goodbye." Aremil drew a deep breath.

Branca closed the door and leaned against it. "Do you want some time to prepare yourself?"

He was tempted to say yes, to ask for all the books he had been reading, for the erratic notes he had so painstakingly scrawled. Branca hadn't cared about his penmanship, merely insisting that the best way of committing such things to memory was writing them down.

"No." He shifted in his chair as cramp threatened his weary limbs. "If this is to work, I need to be able to summon up the concentration at a moment's notice, don't I?" He folded his limp hands in his lap and closed his eyes.

"That's true enough." The rustle of linen told him Branca was sitting down.

If he failed, she could always reach out to Tathrin. Sorgrad would still get his orders from Charoleia.

If he failed, Branca would have to stay here in Vanam. Safe. He'd be sacrificing his own pride, of course. As far as everyone else was concerned, he'd remain the cripple confined to his sitting room. They'd still admire his intellect and accept that his connections were of some use, but they'd be free to despise him for never taking the risks they chose to face. Was that so great a loss? No one had ever thought him anything more than a cripple.

"You can do it, you know," Branca said conversationally. "You've reached through the aether to me a handful of times now."

"The mountains east of Wrede are rather further away than the lower town's back streets."

She would know if he was deliberately failing. Whether through Artifice, or just some unlooked-for felicity, she seemed to know him as well after half a season as Lyrlen did, who'd looked after him his whole life. Aremil smiled. He couldn't help it.

Drawing a steadying breath, he saw Tathrin in his mind's eye. Tall, straight-limbed, dark-haired, strong-featured. He could feel the chair beneath him, hear the soft clink of glass as Branca poured herself some cordial. Years of separating his mind from the pains of his twisted body helped him focus his attention on Tathrin.

Al daera sa Tathrin ne fol. Sast elarmin ash feorin el sur.

This was the hardest part. This was where he had initially despaired. Where his strenuous efforts had come to nothing for so many infuriating days, the words hopelessly mangled by his awkward jaw, his recalcitrant throat.

He might just as well try picking up a lyre, he had spat at Branca when she'd dragged him out to dine in the lower town after a fruitless afternoon's struggles. How could he ever hope his weak and clumsy hands might play something like the lilting ballad that a Forest minstrel had been favouring them with?

Tathrin. Tall, straight-limbed, strong-minded despite his diffident manner. Capable of surprising boldness and generosity. It wasn't enough merely to picture him. He had to summon up all that Tathrin was, his character and his spirit. If you think of the person you wish to reach as an instrument, Branca had said, you have to hear the music inside your head as well.

Al daera sa Tathrin ne fol. Sast elarmin ash feorin el sur.

Now the words flowed smoothly. He shaped them slowly, far more slowly than Branca did. The rhythm and the flow, both were crucial. Straining to control his breathing, he could do it. It hurt. His ribs ached, his throat, even, bizarrely, his stomach. That didn't matter; pain was something he had always lived with.

Al daera sa Tathrin ne fol. Sast elarmin ash feorin el sur.

Now he could feel the sensation of speed, even though he knew perfectly well that he was still sitting motionless in his chair. He and Branca had been speculating about that, about how an ability to divide one's mind, to separate one's perceptions, might determine who could work Artifice and who couldn't.

Was this why scholars of history fared so well, so used to seeing a question from as many points of view as possible, while wizards and alchemists and mathematicians dealt with absolute success or failure, whether of their spells, their compounds or calculations?

He had to keep the rhythm. He had to keep his mind's eye focused on Tathrin.

Al daera sa Tathrin ne fol. Sast elarmin ash feorin el sur.

His eyes were still closed but now he could see. Whatever part of his mind was doing this soared above a parched grassy hillside. In a sparsely wooded gully, he saw shelters woven from hacked branches. Armoured men moved between stone-ringed hearths dug into the dusty ground. More sought shade beneath the withering leaves.

Two tents stood beside a stream tumbling down a rocky scar. Tathrin was standing in front of one, his hands eloquent as he argued with Sorgrad.

"Tathrin." Aremil's aetheric perceptions told him he was standing in front of his friend. At the same time, he knew full well he was doing no such thing. He just had to believe both things were true.

"Yes?" Tathrin looked around, startled.

"Good," said Sorgrad, satisfied.

"I wasn't talking to you," Tathrin snapped. "Aremil?"

"I'm here." With a thrill of disbelief, he felt the heat of the upland sun and smelled the sun-scorched turf. With a shock, he saw how Tathrin's journeying had changed his friend. His hair was cropped as short as any felon's, while his face and forearms had been deeply tanned by this outdoor life. Grazes criss-crossed his knuckles.

Aremil struggled to reconcile the outdated image of Tathrin he carried in his mind with the new reality that Artifice was showing him. He felt the enchantment begin to weaken, fragile as a fading song as some minstrel wandered away.

"I have a message for Sorgrad from Charoleia," he said quickly. "Listen, and concentrate."

Chapter Twenty-Four

Karn

Sanlief Manor Demesne, in the Lescari Dukedom of Marlier,

36
^th
of Aft-Summer

He timed his arrival carefully. Late in the day meant men and women were relaxing, anticipating their evening meal. Plenty would already be drinking, restraints loosening. Walking the last few leagues gave his horse some chance to recover. Few things prompted more curiosity in a mercenary camp than someone arriving on a mount ridden half into the ground.

Ahead, the woods were parched and dispirited despite the morning's perfunctory rain. As the trees drew closer to the track, Karn saw movement in the undergrowth. Stealthy, but not men moving with the effortless ease of practiced mercenaries sliding through woodland.

A tentful, he judged, four or six. Out to rob him? Or believing those ballads where an untried youth bests a true mercenary, who's so impressed that he recommends his captain let the lad sign his name on the muster roll?

Karn rode onwards. The most such hopefuls could expect was being rounded up and driven like cattle ahead of experienced men, to blunt an enemy's swords or to flush out lurking foes by stumbling upon them.

He might just as well be done with them. Pulling up his horse with an oath, Karn dismounted and lifted up one fore hoof, as if he'd felt the beast pick up a stone.

"Stand and declare yourself!"

Karn straightened up to see he'd drawn four youths out of cover. Wet, dirty and, judging by their gaunt faces, hungry. He didn't recognise any of them. Too stupid to be a threat. There was no more movement in the undergrowth to show they'd left any of their number in reserve.