Master of Crows (15 page)

“That won’t be necessary,” she said.  “I’d feel guilty knowing I slept in my comfortable bed while you were stretched out on the floor outside my door.”  She watched as Cael sniffed the floor and corners.  She didn’t want to be alone.  For a few minutes, in Silhara’s embrace, she forgot the flesh-crawling experience of meeting Corruption face to face.  Now, the memory brought back a surge of fear.  “I’d like Cael to stay with me if you don’t mind.”

Silhara’s eyebrows rose, and his nose wrinkled in disgust.  “Can you withstand the stench?”

Martise smiled, despite her mortification over his rejection of her.  “Far more than being alone with Corruption lurking outside.”

He returned to the center of the room.  She and Gurn watched as he created a green sphere of witchlight and sent it rolling to a corner of the room where it illuminated the interior in an eerie emerald glow.  He then closed the window’s shutters and warded them.

“Should Corruption pay another visit, I’ll know it.  These wards should protect you until morning.”

She bowed.  “Thank you, Master.”

He snorted.  “Go back to bed.  Dawn will be here soon enough.”  His gaze was enigmatic before he left the room.

Gurn smiled and patted her on the shoulder then followed Silhara, shutting the door behind him.

Martise placed her shawl on the chest and sat on the edge of the bed with a dejected sigh.  Cael, eyes still glowing red, padded over to her and plopped down on the floor.  She leaned down to scratch behind his ears.

“Bursin’s wings, you smell foul, but I’m glad you’re here.”

She lay down and counted the cracks in the ceiling.  Her eyes stung with unshed tears.  Idiot.  None to blame for her foolishness save her.  Swayed by her treacherous Gift, she’d believed Silhara desired her as she did him.  At least he was honest in his rejection, unlike her last lover.  That thought didn’t lessen the pain or the humiliation.

She touched her face, running her fingers over her nose, her mouth, the curve of her chin.  She thought of Cumbria.  “You chose well.  He’d never suspect seduction from a woman like me.”  She laughed, the sound bitter in the green half-dark.

She woke again at dawn, bleary-eyed and sluggish, and rolled out of bed.  Cael left her to complete her morning ablutions.  When Gurn met her in the kitchen and signed they’d breakfast on the way to Eastern Prime, she barely managed a muttered “Good morning.”

They found Silhara in the grove hooking Gnat to his traces.  The back of the wagon was stacked with crates of oranges, leaving only a small space for a person to sit behind the seat.

He caught her gaze.  The hot blush rising up her neck and face made her cringe.  One eyebrow rose, but he didn’t mock her.  “When we arrive, you’ll stay with Gurn while I bargain with the merchants.”  He patted Gnat and walked around the side of the cart to where she stood.  “Don’t wander off alone.  We’ll be away from the docks, but whoremasters don’t confine their hunting to the wharves.  Don’t assume you’ll be overlooked.  I’d notice you, Martise.  Others will too.”

A small flame of hope flickered to life then died as his gaze raked her.  “Those clothes are nothing more than rags now.  When we’re there, I’ll give you a few coins.  You can buy cloth to make yourself something that doesn’t look like the crows have been at it.”

She curled her hands into fists at his scathing tone.  The snide bastard who’d greeted her and Cumbria when they first arrived at Neith had returned in all his full, arrogant glory.  Even Gurn paused in loading their meal onto the wagon seat to frown at Silhara.

She clenched her teeth and forgot all caution.  “Is it not better to blend into your surroundings?” She swept a hand toward the manor house.

Gurn snorted, and Silhara’s eyes narrowed.  For one moment a gleam of admiration shown in his gaze.  It vanished just as quickly as it appeared, replaced by the familiar mocking smile.

“I will enjoy returning you to Cumbria.  I think the High Bishop will be…surprised by his beloved ward.”

He said nothing more to her, only ordered Cael back to the house.  Gurn helped her onto the wagon seat then took his place beside her as driver.  The wagon rocked when Silhara leapt into the back and found a seat in the clear space surrounded by orange crates.

He draped his arms over his bent knees and leaned his head back against the side boards.  A ripple of air surrounded him before disappearing.  He closed his eyes, cushioned by a spell that protected him from the wagon’s rough ride.  Martise watched him from the corner of her eye.  She turned away when he opened one eye and cast a baleful glare on Gurn.  “Don’t think I don’t know you’re planning to hit every rut and hole in the road just to vex me.”

Gurn looked skyward, whistling.  Martise, despite her melancholy, hid a chuckle behind her hand.

They kept to well-traveled paths, following the roads leading to the coast and the sprawling city of Eastern Prime.  Gurn pointed out markers of interest.  An outcropping of black rock that erupted from the plain in jagged tips, a circle of standing stones with the remnants of a fresh fire pit in its center, the steep, grass-covered slope of Ferrin’s Tor—holy ground where an ancient Conclave gathered and defeated Corruption more than a thousand years earlier.  The hill, now peaceful grazing land for sheep, slumbered in the rising heat.  Martise suspected no one outside the priesthood remembered the great event that once took place there.

Gurn pointed north and tapped himself on the chest.  A faint homesickness darkened his blue eyes.

“You grew up in the north?”

He nodded.

Interesting.  Gurn had been friendly with her from the moment she’d passed through the courtyard gates, but she knew nothing of his past; if he had a family somewhere, how he’d ended up at Neith, even his age.

“You’re far from home, Gurn.  How long have you served at Neith?”

He wrapped the reins in one hand and held up the other, showing five fingers first and then three.  Eight years.  In terms of servitude, eight years wasn’t a long span.  How two such different individuals met and managed to live together in relative harmony baffled her.  Silhara, often taciturn and unfriendly, wasn’t the type to seek company.  Gurn, while helpful and solicitous of Silhara, never exhibited subservient behavior.  The two men acted as friends and equals more than master and servant.  Were Silhara not snoring lightly behind them, she might be tempted to ask how Gurn came to serve at Neith.

Gurn glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping mage.  Martise did the same.  Silhara’s snoring halted, and this time he opened both eyes.

“Gurn and I shared a prison cell once.”  His lips twitched.  “For crimes best left undisclosed.  I went free with the help of a few threats and well-placed bribes to the local magistrate.  Gurn awaited execution.  I needed a servant. He needed to live.  I bought him from his slaver and set him free.  He’s been with me ever since.”

Stunned by his revelation, Martise stared at him and then at Gurn.  The giant winked and flicked the reins to coax Gnat into a faster clip.

Silhara had saved Gurn, freed him for no other reason than he could.  Her thoughts reeled.  Every sense of morality, of redemption and fairness, railed within her.  How could she sacrifice this man to gain her own freedom?  How could she not?

She sat quietly, lost in thought until Gurn handed her one of the honey cakes he prepared for their breakfast.  Though he no longer had a tongue, he could still hum.  She recognized the tune from her childhood, a tribal chant Asher’s Kurman cook sang when she kneaded dough.  The memory made her smile.

Bendewin’s sunlit kitchen was much like Gurn’s but swarming with undercooks.  Scents of baking bread and bubbling stews, servants arguing or laughing, and above the din, Bendewin’s singsong chanting as she worked.

Her lids grew heavy.  Lulled by the repetitive tune and Gnat’s steady gait, she leaned against Gurn’s arm and dozed.

A hard lurch woke her, and she straightened.  Gurn smiled and patted her on the shoulder before leaping down from the seat. 

“What’s wrong?  Why are we stopping?”

“Because Gurn has had his bollocks knocked around for hours now and needs to piss.”  Silhara vaulted onto the vacated seat.

Less startled by his blunt remark than by his sudden appearance next to her, she flushed.  “Oh.”

“You might want to do the same.  We’ll wait for you.”

She took his advice and clambered down from the wagon seat.  When she returned, Silhara still sat in Gurn’s spot.  The servant smiled and passed her to crawl into the back of the wagon.

“Are you intending to grow roots standing there, or are you climbing up?”  Silhara gestured impatiently, and she clambered onto the seat.  He snapped the reins and clucked at Gnat.

The silence between them grew awkward, unlike the silence between her and Gurn.  Martise perched at the far edge of the seat, keeping a death grip on the hand-hold so she didn’t fall off.  Silhara’s gaze mocked her.

“Is it much farther?”  She wanted to ask Gurn if she might join him in the back of the wagon.

“Another hour or so.”  He was far calmer around her than she was around him, especially after last night’s disastrous escapade.  “Any more visits from our celestial friend last night?”

This was something she could discuss without overheating from another blush.  “Thank Bursin, no.  And I hope to never have such a visit in my lifetime again.  The lich was more than enough.”

“Corruption is, in some ways, like the lich.

A lock of hair tore free of her braid and blew across her face.  She tucked it behind her ear.  “We studied Corruption during my second year at Conclave.  The Great Deceiver.  A lesser god yoked to the world by its dependence on mankind for ultimate power.  It’s written it awaited the rebirth of the avatar, even during its imprisonment.”

He didn’t show it, but she sensed the sudden tension in his posture.  “The avatar has been born numerous times.  And died never knowing his or her role in Corruption’s plan.”

Conclave had always hunted the avatar.  Of the many generations that passed since Corruption’s banishment, the priests had located the avatar four times, and dispatched each with merciless efficiency.  Any others born as a vessel to the god had escaped the priesthood’s death sentence.  None had risen to a fabled seat of power with the god’s help.

Circumstances had changed.  Corruption, free of the sorcerous bonds place on it so long ago, sought the avatar with the same zeal as Conclave.  The High Bishop suspected Silhara fit the role.  Martise had her own suspicions and understood why Cumbria felt as he did.  Powerful, outcast and intractable, Silhara bore a deep-seated personal hatred for Cumbria and a more general one for Conclave.  He’d made no secret of it.  If he was the avatar, then Corruption didn’t have far to search and Conclave had a disaster on its hands.

“Do you think the avatar is reborn?”  She regretted the question when he turned a malevolent stare on her.

His rough voice softened, quiet menace in each word.  “No.  Did you find anything in those papers we took to indicate otherwise?”

She thanked the gods she didn’t have to lie, especially when the mage bore holes into her head with that black gaze.  “Nothing beyond more description of the ritual.”  Her voice remained even.  “The southern king, Birdixan, sacrificed himself to destroy Amunsa.  He was the strongest of the mage-kings gathered there.  He had a pivotal role.”

“I’ll look at your notes when we return to Neith.”  He frowned and turned his attention back to the road.  She swallowed, relieved.  “If you translated correctly, those writings are troubling.  The southern provinces were barely civilized during that age, and none were ruled by kings.  Unless you were taught from books I never saw, Conclave has no record of a Birdixan ruling any of the far lands.  Even if they knew nothing of ancient Amunsa and his destruction, there would have been a record of a southern king who met his death in the north”

They reached Eastern Prime, still trying to decipher the meaning behind the translation of the early Helenese writings.  Martise stretched, rubbing at the nagging pain in her lower back.  The air smelled of the sea, and she heard the beat of the surf against the shore in the distance.

Sprawled over the tops of windswept cliffs and scattered down to the harbor, Eastern Prime bustled and stank in the morning sun.  Ships of every size and make festooned the water, some moored at the quays, others riding the waves with their sails partially unfurled as they sailed sedately into the bay.  Ramshackle huts clung to the cliff face and lined the serpentine alleyways that snaked away from the docks.  Temples and mansions of rose marble shone like polished jewels from their perches atop the highest cliffs, surrounded by sculpted gardens and pristine lawns.

Silhara guided Gnat through the narrow streets with expert ease.  People leapt out of their way, intimidated by his grim expression and Gurn’s imposing height as he stood in the back of the wagon.  The main road descended gradually toward the shore and dead-ended at an open field covered from boundary to boundary by tents, stalls, and milling crowds.

Silhara had to shout so Gurn could hear them over the din in the marketplace.  “Get down.  Take Martise and secure a room at an inn where I won’t have to battle rats to get some sleep.  I’ll drive the wagon to Fors’ stall.  He’ll be waiting to skive me for this harvest.  I’ll meet you in the common area.”

He dug in the pouch at his waist and passed Gurn a handful of coins.  Martise climbed down from the wagon and waited next to Gurn.  She hoped the inn he chose had a stable.  She could sleep in a protected corner where no one noticed or accosted her.

As if he read her thoughts, Silhara leaned across the seat.  “You’ll share the room with me and Gurn, Martise.”

Any lingering embarrassment was forgotten, born away by gratitude.  Martise grinned at him, uncaring that he drew back from her as if her happiness might be contagious.  “Thank you, Master.”

He frowned.  “Don’t leave Gurn’s side.  I won’t fight a pack of whoremongers to save one careless woman if you go off on your own.”  He slapped the reins against Gnat’s haunches.  “And buy some decent cloth.”  The wagon rolled past them, wheels creaking as they rolled on the rutted paths toward the market.