Master of the Cauldron (33 page)

The landowner had regained his composure after the pattern was folded away. “Yes,” he muttered hoarsely. He cleared his throat, and said in a firmer tone, “Yes, all right, put it there. Put it up behind me.”

There was a whisper of sound throughout the crowd, wonder and a delight that verged in some cases on awe. Ilna smiled bitterly. Her skill was a wonderful thing, no doubt about that; but she wondered how these peasants would react if they learned that the skill had been purchased at the cost of the weaver's soul?

Well, she had her soul back now. Worse for wear, of course, but the lesson that she must
never
lose control was worth the damage. Ilna wasn't enough of an optimist to imagine that there was no worse error she could've fallen into had she not learned from that one.

The chair's gilded finials were an eagle on one side, a lion's head on the other. Chalcus hopped onto the chair seat, but even so he had to stretch to reach them. When he did, he tied the panel in place with quick knots.

“And now, Master Ramelus,” Ilna said. “The agreement was for our meals while I worked on the panel, and food for our journey when I completed it satisfactorily.”

“Yes,” said the landowner, clearing his throat again. He looked at his guards, and said in a harsh voice, “Three of you watch the one behind us!”

“There's no need for that,” Ilna said steadily. “Chalcus, come stand by me. Ramelus is nervous with you behind him.”

“Tsk,” said Chalcus, dropping to the ground so smoothly that his feet didn't kick up dust. He smiled with engaging innocence as he walked through the locals to Ilna's side. “Does he imagine I'd besmirch my honor by stabbing a man in the back? Dearie dearie me.”

Ramelus looked half-puzzled, half-incensed. He apparently wasn't sure whether Chalcus was mocking him, which meant he had even less intelligence than Ilna's previous low opinion had assigned him. She had no doubt that in his day Chalcus had killed people from behind, people who were sleeping, people who were praying on their knees…

Nor did she doubt that Chalcus could sweep away Ramelus and his guards, face on and smiling. But it wouldn't come to that, not this time.

So thinking, Ilna smiled also. The expression made Ramelus blink, which suggested he might not be entirely a fool after all.

“The rest of the bargain if you please, Master Ramelus,” Ilna said calmly. The peasants had mostly turned to stare at the hanging. At noon the roof would shade it, but now the afternoon sun made the pink blaze.

The landowner's face settled into a scowl. “Food, yes,” he said. “Food for your further journey.”

He took from his belt a purse of embroidered silk, obviously prepared for this moment, and shook its contents into his palm. “A barley corn, a lentil, and a chickpea,” he said loudly. “We didn't discuss quantity, you'll recall!”

“I recall,” Ilna said, smiling a little broader. “This is your choice, Master Ramelus?”

“It's the bargain we made!” Ramelus said. He tossed the three seeds on the table beside the empty loom. “If you didn't think about what you were saying, that's no business of mine.”

Ilna raised the chickpea between her thumb and forefinger, looked at it, and set it back on the tabletop. “Then we've each kept our bargain according to our codes,” she said. She nodded toward the throne, flashing the smile again. “I expect my pattern will bring a good deal of pleasure for as long as it remains here.”

She glanced at her companions. “Let us leave this place,” she said. She walked forward; Chalcus fell into step, keeping between Ilna and the guards surrounding the landowner.

Instead of joining them, Davus stood arms akimbo. In a clear, challenging voice, he said, “This is injustice, Lord Ramelus.”

“I kept my bargain!” Ramelus said. “If I'm too smart for you, that's too bad for you!”

“This is injustice,” Davus repeated. The peasants, all but an old woman who still stared at the fabric, watched the interchange in a mixture of fear and anticipation. “In the days of the Old King, you would be a block of basalt and a warning to others.”

“He's threatening me!” Ramelus said, his voice rising. “Gallen, he threatened me! Deal with him!”

“I don't threaten you,” Davus said, upright as a stone pillar. “We'll all leave this place, because that's the desire of Mistress Ilna, whom you cheated by your injustice. That is so, mistress?”

“Yes,” said Ilna. “And I would prefer to be leaving now, Master Davus.”

“Leave him be, friend Davus,” Chalcus said in a tone of quiet urgency. “It's the lady's choice. And Davus? I won't have you put
her
life at risk for anything so empty as justice.”

Davus laughed suddenly. “Indeed, friend,” he said, sauntering out from behind the table and touching Chalcus by the shoulder. “Though I'm less ready than you to call justice empty.”

“As am I,” said Ilna tartly, “but we've done all we need to preserve it here.”

She looked at Ramelus. He responded by stepping behind Seifert and tugging another guard over into an actual human barrier. The utter
fool.

“Master Ramelus,” Ilna said. This wasn't a man whom she would address as “Lord,” not though the choice was impalement. “I wish you all deserved pleasure from the panel I've woven for your community.”

Then to her companions, “Come.” She strode off along the path curving around the house and continuing north through the barley and wheat. The men fell in step—but behind her, not at her side.

“I didn't see any bows, did you, Davus?” Chalcus said in a cheery voice. “Though I didn't see any sign of them having the balls to try us, either.”

“With this sash I can outrange a bow,” Davus replied in similar apparent unconcern. “But I too doubt we need worry.”

But they were walking behind her. Just in case. Ilna's mind wavered toward anger at being coddled, then decided to see the humor of it and chuckled instead.

They were past the house; none of the peasants or servants were close enough to overhear. Without turning her head but loudly enough for her
companions to catch the words, Ilna said, “I suppose you're wondering why I walked away from that?”

“Yes, dear one,” said Chalcus. “But I knew you had your reasons.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “If Ramelus had kept the spirit of the agreement instead of the word alone, I'd have told you to turn the fabric over so that the other side was toward those looking at it.”

“But mistress,” Davus said with quiet puzzlement in his voice, “the pattern's everything you said it was. To me, at least. I don't know that it'd please others as it did me, but I could
feel
a grotto in the side of a mountain with a waterfall rushing past the opening.”

“That was what you saw?” Chalcus said in surprise. “I was on a ship. We'd come through a storm, and a rainbow filled the horizon ahead.”

“Yes, you're both correct,” Ilna said. She took the hank of yarn from her sleeve and began knotting a pattern that would show them what she meant. “For now. But the design on the back of the cloth is in permanent dyes. The pink on the front will fade into the natural gray of the yarn in a few weeks, there in the sun as it is.”

“Ah, you lovely darling!” Chalcus said. “So for his cleverness, Lord Ramelus will be left with no pattern in a short time, is that it?”

Ilna snorted. “Oh, no,” she said. “There'll still be a pattern, and it'll still give pleasure, I'm sure, to most of those who see it. But what that pattern is—”

She straightened her hands out, stretching taut her knotted design. Swinging it left, then right, she showed both men what she'd done.

Chalcus caroled in delight; a moment later, Davus burst out with a guffaw of laughter so loud that it startled into flight a covey of quail that'd been hiding unseen among the dark green barley till that moment. Still laughing, Davus bent to pick up a pebble.

“Lord Ramelus himself!” Chalcus said. “And naked as the day he was born!”

“Yes,” said Ilna, picking her design back to bare yarn with quick, fastidious movements. “The woven pattern takes effect more slowly, and I don't think Ramelus himself will ever see it. But everyone else will, and once they've seen that image they'll never be able to look at Ramelus without seeing it again.”

In a cool tone Ilna added, “I thought he might change his mind there at the very end. After all his own people were angry, and what did a few firkins of pulse and grain matter to him? But in truth, and though I'm sure
I should wish I was a better person—
I
don't mind missing a meal or two for the sake of serving out that self-important toad.”

The men laughed again. They continued laughing in bursts until the manor's pompous façade had dipped beneath a rolling hill of barley behind them. After a time Chalcus began to sing,
“From this valley they say you are going….”

“We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile…,”
Davus chimed in, to Ilna's great surprise. His baritone made a pleasant undertone to the sailor's light tenor.

Though her mounted escort was quite willing to clear a path, Sharina was content that the carriage proceed back to the palace at the speed of ordinary traffic. They were returning by the next radial street to the east of the river. That was partly to spread Princess Sharina's public presence more widely through the city—but also partly, Sharina suspected, because Undercaptain Ascor hadn't wanted to risk an enemy preparing an ambush along the route they'd taken before.

Tenoctris sat on the opposite bench of the compartment with a lap desk across her knees. She'd checked several documents from her satchel as they rode along. Sharina had her finger in a scroll even then to mark a place, though she was pretty sure the old wizard didn't need it anymore.

At present Tenoctris was murmuring an incantation above a seven-pointed figure she'd sketched on her desk. It must take enormous concentration to manage that in a rocking vehicle, but Sharina had already learned that doing
anything
well took concentration. A fuzz of scarlet wizardlight pulsed above the heptagram, barely visible even in the shade of the compartment.

Sharina smiled and drew a bamboo sliver from the wizard's satchel. She marked the place in the scroll with it, then leaned out the window. By supporting herself with an arm, she kept from being bounced hard into the
frame. Even at a walking pace, the iron-shod carriage wheels banged sparks from the cobblestones. She'd as soon have been on foot, though that wasn't comfortable on stone either.

The Blood Eagle riding on the carriage step glanced at her, then returned to checking his side of the road for threats. Sharina didn't recall the soldier's name. She frowned: she should learn who all her guards were. It was the least she could do for men ready to throw themselves between her and danger at the first opportunity.

This route passed through an affluent suburb instead of the concentration of commercial buildings across the river. The residences were single-family dwellings rather than apartment blocks, though the fronts at street level were rented to shops, taverns, and restaurants. By then Sharina had been inside enough expensive city homes to know that the family rooms would face the courtyard and gardens inside.

Among the residences stood a small temple. It must be very old, because the sides were of stuccoed brick—only the façade had a marble veneer. It was well kept, which was unusual for a neighborhood temple. The stone was white instead of gray from ages of city grime, and two workmen on a scaffold were touching up the pediment reliefs with red and blue paint.

“Stop!” said Tenoctris suddenly. “Where are we? Stop, please, there's something wrong!”

Sharina glanced over her shoulder. Tenoctris still held the sliver she'd been using as a wand, but the desk had slipped off her lap. Her face had the wide-eyed look of someone awakened from a nightmare.

Sharina stuck her head out. “Stop the coach!” she shouted. She didn't know if the driver could hear her over the rumble of the tires.

She'd have opened the door, but the guard was in the way. Instead, she wormed her whole torso through the window, and said, “Stop now!”

“Whoa!” bellowed Undercaptain Ascor, riding on the driver's bench. He grabbed the reins and heaved back hard. Unlike the driver, he didn't have gauntlets. Nobles generally had experience with horses, driving them as well as riding, while in Barca's Hamlet nobody did; even the plowing was done by oxen.

The two horses rose onto their haunches, protesting with shrill whickers. The carriage bumped them from behind, slamming them forward in the traces. The off mare skidded and almost lost her footing. Behind the vehicle, the cavalry escort milled and shouted curses.

The guard jumped to the pavement. One of his fellows on the roof handed down the shield and javelin he hadn't been able to hold while he rode on the step. Sharina flung open the carriage door.

“What's happening, your highness?” Ascor demanded. He looked back toward the commander of the escort, who was shouting questions. In a wholly different voice, he snarled, “Shut your bloody mouth, you baboon! I'm talking to the princess!”

“Tenoctris?” Sharina said. The wizard had edged to the door to get out, so Sharina hopped down to give her room.

“Is there a temple?” Tenoctris said. “Yes, there it is! Please, I want to go into it. I think there's something very wrong. There's forces here that aren't natural. And I think it's a recent thing as well.”

“Second platoon, dismount!” the escort commander said, as Sharina helped Tenoctris out of the carriage. The Blood Eagles who'd been on the roof of the vehicle were forcing back the servants. Both groups were trying to do their jobs, but because the thing happening—whatever it was—was unexpected, the soldiers had decided that civilians no longer had any business with the two women.

Ascor raised an eyebrow toward Sharina; she nodded. “Right, let's take a look,” Ascor said. “Straight up the steps, your highness?”

“Yes, if you please,” said Tenoctris, replying to Sharina's glance. The entourage started forward like a wave curling shoreward. The escort led and swept to either side, while the black-armored bodyguards formed an inner casing around the nugget of the two women in the center.

The temple was less than forty feet across. An altar stood in front of a simple three-step base up to a porch supported by six unfluted pillars. Instead of a slotted screen in front of the sanctum, allowing those outside to see the God's statue, there was a two-valve wooden door.

The painters turned to look at the commotion in the street. Together they dropped down the ropes to the temple porch instead of lowering the scaffold in normal fashion. One called a warning in a language Sharina didn't recognize.

“Hold where you are!” Ascor said. He and his men held close to the women—meaning they were moving no faster than Tenoctris could shuffle—but the troopers of the escort broke into a run.

The temple door opened, allowing the workmen to dart inside. Another man looked out through the crack in the door. He had regular features, but his skin was white. His hair was an almost invisible blond, and
the irises of his eyes were so pale they almost merged with his corneas.

The temple door slammed.

“By the Lady!” shouted the commander of the escort. “I've seen those devils before! That was one of the People, boys!”

 

“Master Cashel,” Enfero whispered. He didn't point, but his eyes were on Mab as she and Herron discussed the food they'd carry. “She is the same one, isn't she? Mab, I mean?”

Cashel followed the boy's line of sight. He frowned, because there didn't seem to be any doubt.

“Sure,” he said. “I mean, she doesn't ever look the same twice running, but the way she moves is always the same. And besides, there's her fingernails.”

They'd gathered on Ronn's highest terrace, going over their baggage. To the north were the hills, black even with the sun on them. There were citizens all around, more people maybe than had been in the Assembly Hall the night before. This whole crowd had come to see the Sons leaving, if you could really call it leaving when they were just going down to the cellars of the building they lived in.

Granted it was a really big building.

“Lots of women in Ronn paint their nails that way,” Orly protested. The Sons carried real swords, but they weren't wearing armor. Mab had said it'd just be in the way on this trip. “Most of them do, in fact.”

Orly and Stasslin had been standing close enough to overhear. From the way they'd glanced at each other before Enfero spoke, the three of them had talked the question over between themselves.

“Not like hers,” Cashel said. Sometimes people played games with words, thinking they were making fun of him. Maybe that was happening here, because surely even city folk could see the difference between the enamel other women used and Mab's fingers shining like light itself.

Right then Mab had gray hair and a slim, straight build—something like what Ilna might look like in thirty or forty years, Cashel guessed. When she pointed, her nails seemed to trail a path even through the bright sunlight.

“Master Cashel?” Enfero said again. “We thought that maybe there were different women using the same name instead of one person with different looks. But you don't think that's what it is?”

“No,” Cashel said. “I don't.”

He cleared his throat, and went on, “But if it was that way, I guess it'd be even better having that many more people on our side. Wizards, that is. We might want them.”

Orly burst into laughter. “You're a wonderful philosopher, Master Cashel,” he said. “Always driving straight to the heart of the problem.”

Cashel wasn't sure whether Orly was mocking him, so he got out his pad of wool and began polishing his quarterstaff. It really didn't seem like mocking, but Cashel couldn't see what else it could be. He wasn't a scholar, that was sure; and he was pretty sure a philosopher was a scholar.

Mab and Herron walked over. Athan and Manza, who'd been listening to their argument, followed in their wake. “I've convinced Master Herron that though he feels strong enough to carry a whole mountain of equipment now,” Mab said, “this will very quickly change. You're better off with a knapsack of food and your swords. Even those will be heavy enough by the second day.”

“But how do we sleep, then?” Stasslin said in frowning surprise. “We're not going to find bedding on the way, are we?”

“No, you're not,” Mab said, with a smile that reminded Cashel of his sister's expression when she was talking to a fool. “But it never gets very cold in the lower levels, quite the contrary in fact. I believe you'll find you can make do when you're tired enough. Which you will be.”

Cashel put the wool away. “How much food do you figure, ma'am?” he asked, paying attention for the first time to the pile of things Herron had been planning to take.

He grinned too. There were cots in that pile, and more cookware than Ilna had in her whole kitchen in Barca's Hamlet. And there was heaven knows what all else.

“Three days' supply,” Mab said. “That should get us there and partway back if things go as I expect. I've prepared packs for all of you.”

She nodded toward another, smaller collection. The lined-up knapsacks were of some slick black fabric that Ilna'd like to see. Maybe he'd be able to take some back for her when all this was over. “Including you, Cashel,” Mab said.

Cashel patted the big leather wallet on his belt with a broad grin. He'd filled it with bread and cheese after the meal they'd just eaten.

“Ma'am,” he said, “I'm used to carrying my meals like this. Straps on
my back might get in the way if, you know, I had to do something.”

He didn't much like the local cheese, even though he'd found it filling. It didn't have much spirit to it. Cashel had grown up on whey cheese because it was cheap. The cakes were flat and so hard that you had to moisten them to bite off a chunk. Most folks wouldn't have liked whey cheese, he supposed, but a mouthful then would've taken Cashel back to where life was simpler.

His face'd sobered, but now he grinned again. The quarterstaff in his hand was a better memory for the purpose, he guessed. Life was always simple enough when he had a chance to use his quarterstaff.

“Take your packs then, Sons of the Heroes,” Mab said to the youths. She was smiling, but the expression was as sad as anything he'd seen on her face during their short acquaintance. “Take your packs, and may whatever Gods there are help you and help Ronn.”

Mab started toward the shaft that would take them to bedrock, as far as she'd said it was safe to descend that way. To get lower, they'd walk.

The Sons shuffled to the knapsacks, hesitating to choose among things that Cashel was pretty sure were all the same. When they saw Mab well ahead of them, walking through the crowd that'd opened for her, each snatched up a pack and carried it by the straps without waiting to put it on properly. Cashel followed behind. He glanced repeatedly over his shoulder though he didn't figure there was going to be any problem, at least until they'd gotten out of the shaft.

The people of Ronn started to cheer: a few voices at first, and then the whole huge crowd. They shrieked all sorts of things from, “Hurrah!” to “May the Gods bless and keep you!” It was easy to shout, of course, and it really didn't mean much; but the Sons' shoulders straightened, and their strides grew quicker as they stepped onto the platform waiting to take them down.

Cheering didn't mean much; but maybe it was the one thing the citizens of Ronn could do that would save these poor hopeful boys; and through them, the city. Cashel beamed like the sun overhead as he followed his companions on the first stage of their journey away from that sun—and perhaps back.

 

The wind was fitfully from the north. Ilna and her companions had smelled woodsmoke for most of the morning as they tramped across the
rolling plain, but they were nearly on the little community before Ilna realized that the smoke rose not from cookfires but from the crushed remains of the houses.

Then she smelled death: recent, but it'd been a hot day, and the slaughter was very considerable. The chest-high drystone wall around the whole community was slammed inward at the south end, overthrown with a violence that'd flung stones the size of a man's chest a double pace from where they'd lain in the wall.

There'd been four stone houses with thatched roofs, round-ended and longer than they were broad. The track of destruction, which began at the outer wall, continued through the houses, smashing them into total ruin. At the north end of the community the wall was opened again, this time outward. The creature had departed, leaving only death and wreckage behind.

“I pray that the Gods are real,” said Davus harshly. “So that they can build a Hell to hold the thing that now reigns as king but does not do a king's duty to the land!”