Oath of Fealty (33 page)

“Ward of Falk!” Dorrin said. The mist hung there, not quite touching her. “Begone,” she said. It writhed like a swarm of insects but did not dissipate at once. She drew her sword; it flared blue, as always in the presence of evil, and she pointed it at the thickest area of mist. “Go and never return. Go to the High Lord for judgment, and harm nothing on your way.” The words she had learned so many years before, training to be a Knight of Falk, came to her in the old language from no one knew where. “Adakvarteh preklurtz, preklurtz tavin vantish …”

By the end of the adjuration, the mist had gone, vanished. Dorrin looked at the child’s body, sprawled in its chair, blood still wet on the table, the chair, the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Ward of Falk for the soul you were born with, and the child who died, and may Falk and the High Lord forgive me this killing, that was not my desire.”

Nausea twisted her, two days’ worth of disgust and horror and shame; she made it out the front door and spewed on the steps, retching until she had nothing more to lose.

Fine figure of a Duke she made … and yet, what could be more appropriate to Verrakai House and its history than vomit on the entrance steps? She stood up, shaky but cleansed, fetched a lamp from the reception hall, and lit the torch that stood ready for her to signal Selfer and the others that she had prevailed.

T
hey had not gone as far as she advised; they were with her sooner than she hoped. “Ware the steps,” she said as Selfer neared them. “I … don’t like killing children.”

“He wasn’t a child, if he was what you said,” Selfer said. “But I’m not surprised. You do not take delight in suffering or death.”

“Flattery?” Dorrin said, smiling.

“No, my lord. Observation.”

From someone who had seen her in battle, not only recently but in Aarenis, it was strange testimony but comforting.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Are there more such spies here?” Selfer asked.

“Among the children? I’m not sure. I must question the maids more closely. Once I suspected this boy, I didn’t test the others with my magery lest he attack one of them then and there.” She sighed. “I don’t want to panic the children who aren’t possessed, or the maids. We’ll need to conceal Restin’s death, and consider how to handle the body.”

“We can’t just bury it?”

“There’s blood magery here, Selfer. We will need to be sure that every drop of blood is cleaned up, for instance—and burn the rags we clean with.”

“I’ll have someone—”

“I need to be there.” At his look, she shook her head. “No, not
from guilt—to ensure that the evil in this house doesn’t harm those who come in contact with it.” She scowled, looking past him into darkness. “I don’t know enough, that’s the truth. I never thought I’d be coming back here; I never wanted to know about it, how it works, what the warding spells are. And now that’s put you and the entire realm in danger. It’s not enough to be disgusted by it—it feeds on disgust and revulsion.”

“So … what will work against it?”

“Falk and Gird and the High Lord have power against it, but I sense they expect me to do the actual work.” Suddenly, for no reason, Dorrin felt lighter of heart. “I suppose that’s proper. I swore to be Falk’s servant, when I took the ruby. To the gods belong power, and to us the work of our hands.”

“Then the first step is cleaning up a mess in the dining room?” Selfer said. “That sounds within human strength.”

Dorrin straightened. “Indeed. Set your guards for the night, Captain, and then send me a couple of strong-stomached soldiers.”

The blood smell in the dining room was strong but not more than Dorrin had endured many times before in a life of soldiering. The body seemed to have shrunk, as bodies did when not animated. All the adult cunning and malice had gone from the face; Dorrin lifted the body, cradling the head, and laying it upon the table.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she murmured to the corpse. “They used you, as they used me. You will rest easy in your grave; your soul has long returned to the light, and the Lady will cradle your bones.”

She searched along the paneled walls, and found the door that led to a linen pantry. By the time the men came with water and rags, Dorrin had wrapped the body in a linen tablecloth and bound it with brocade curtain ties. “I believe it is safe for burial,” she said. “But in the morning, and far from this house. The child who was suffered long before his body was taken; the body should be far from that suffering.”

“Yes, my lord,” Selfer said.

“I will go up and speak to the nursemaids; they’ll be wondering why I haven’t sent Restin up to bed.”

“You aren’t going to tell them?”

“That I killed a nine-winters child? No. Tomorrow I must try to get them to understand what he was, what the death-sickness was, but
not tonight. The children who aren’t involved need sleep.” She yawned. “So do I. I will tell them he’ll sleep somewhere else.”

“They’ll worry—”

“I can’t help that,” Dorrin said. “It’s the business of nurserymaids to worry.”

Upstairs, she found, as she expected, the senior maid at the door of the nursery, looking worried.

“My lord, Restin should be in bed—it’s past time—”

“I know,” Dorrin said. “He is in bed, but not here. He is old enough to have a room of his own, you know.”

“Yes, but—”

“He is sleeping,” Dorrin said, putting just a touch of power into it.

The maid’s worried face smoothed. “Yes, my lord.”

“Just take care of the others,” Dorrin said. “And get some sleep. If the weather’s fair tomorrow, you can take them out in small groups to exercise in the garden.”

“Yes, my lord.” The maid curtsied and went into the nursery, dimly lit by a lamp at either end. Dorrin caught a glimpse of the rows of beds, the little lumps of sleeping children, before the door closed.

She went back downstairs. She didn’t want to sleep in the dining room, but she was desperate for sleep. In the end, she slept in the main reception room, in bedding taken from the rooms upstairs, with her own Phelani soldiers on guard.

She woke at dawn, to the low-voiced mutters of two guards wagering on when she’d wake, before or after they’d been relieved for breakfast.

“Before,” Dorrin said from her nest of blankets.

“You could’ve slept another glass or two, Captain,” one said.

“
My lord
, Sef; say
my lord
. She’s a duke now, not a captain.”

The two most inveterate gamblers in the cohort. “I might have known,” Dorrin said. “Black Sef and Merik. You two would wake a corpse, arguing odds.”

“We was really quiet,” Sef said. “Just barely said a thing—”

“I wasn’t awake,” Dorrin said. “And now I am. That’s how loud you didn’t talk.”

“Sorry, Cap—my lord,” Merik said.

“I needed to get up anyway.” She felt rested, but dirty, itching with the need to bathe. Today, surely, she could find time to get clean
all over. And make real plans for the next days, not just reacting to one thing after another. Somewhere out there still more Verrakai plotted the realm’s destruction. “Light more lamps. I’m going to see if the kitchen’s stirring.”

“It is,” Sef said. “I smell sib.”

Dorrin could too, now that she paid attention. “Good,” she said. “I want hot water.” She picked up her pack with its change of clothes, and headed for the kitchen.

There, warmth came from both the hearth and the ovens. Two young cooks thumped at lumps of dough, a row of lumps under a cloth would be ready when the oven heated, a can of sib simmered at the edge of the hearth, and a pot of porridge hung from a hook bubbled even as a red-faced maid stirred it.

“My lord Duke!” Farin bobbed a curtsy. “What do you need?”

“A can of warm water,” Dorrin said. “And a place to wash up.”

“There’s the bathing rooms upstairs,” Farin said. Dorrin shook her head. “Well, then … the servants’ bath, just out there. It’s not … not fancy …”

“I don’t need fancy,” Dorrin said. “I do need to be clean.” She grinned at the cook. “I was a soldier, you know. I can bathe in a cold river, at need. But warm water is better.”

“Jaim—bring water cans!” Farin turned back to Dorrin. “A mug of sib, while the water heats?”

“That would be lovely,” Dorrin said. She looked around the busy kitchen. Where could she be out of the way while water heated?

“Just there,” Farin said, nodding to a corner with a low stool. Dorrin took the mug of sib and sat on the stool, watching. Two more lumps of dough, shaped into rounds, were set next to the others. Farin opened one oven, thrust in an arm, shook her head, and shut it again. The other, she deemed ready. She took down a long-handled wooden paddle from its hook on the wall, and slid it under half the loaves, then swung it around and into the oven with one movement. Dorrin noticed that the others all stepped neatly out of the way without a command, even the youngest.

Work resumed instantly. The young bakers, now they had shaped the last of the dough, cleaned their workspace, took mortars and pestles from a shelf, and began grinding seeds—spices, Dorrin realized, as her nose recognized figan among others.

“Water’s hot,” Farin said. “Jaim, Efla—carry these out to the bathhouse.”

The servants’ bathhouse had a half-barrel tub hung on the wall, a stone floor with a channel for washing feet, and a stone trough with a plug at one end for washing hands. A leather water sack hung from the plugged pipe that supplied water. Dorrin put her pack down on the ledge above the trough, took down the water sack, and pulled the plug. Icy water poured into the sack; she plugged the pipe again when the sack was full. By then the kitchen servants had the barrel tub down and a stack of towels beside the steaming cans of hot water.

“You may go,” Dorrin said; they nodded and withdrew.

She mixed one can of hot water with cold in the barrel tub for a bath, and used the other for washing her hair. Clean and dry at last, and in clean clothes, she felt fully awake, alert.

When Dorrin came back into the kitchen, her dirty clothes stuffed in her pack and water cans atop it, she found Selfer talking to the cook. Servants rushed to take the cans from her.

Farin turned to her. “My lord—your captain suggested meat for breakfast in addition to porridge and bread. We do have smoked ham, of course, and sausages.”

Dorrin’s mouth watered. “Fried ham. Do you have any eggs?”

“The hens have only just started laying, my lord, and we used yesterday’s eggs in the bread.”

“That’s all right,” Dorrin said. “Ham will be enough, with the porridge. And if there’s someone who can wash my shirt—”

“The laundry maids heat their water
after
breakfast,” Farin said firmly. “If you’ll just leave your things in the passage—” Not in her clean and busy kitchen. “Now, my lord, meals for today?”

Dorrin let Farin guide her to the selections the cook really wanted—yes, that haunch of venison for dinner, with baked red-roots, stewed fruit in spices, a steamed pudding, and for midday, a pastry pie of minced meat and vegetables. She touched Farin lightly with her magery—but that commanding presence wasn’t a transferred Verrakai, just the cook’s own ability.

Breakfast that morning was the first meal Dorrin enjoyed since arriving. Porridge with honey dripped in it, fried ham, hot bread swiping up the fat from the fried ham. The sun rose into a clear sky, with
ground mist along the stream; in the distance, the subtle colors of early spring created a picture of peace and beauty.

She made lists while eating, and after breakfast set about them. With a squad of Phelani, she went back into the old keep, searching from top to bottom with great care. It had been used for storage as well as holding prisoners: the family treasury, the armory, rolls of woolen cloth dyed Verrakai blue, jugs of blue dye, stacks of records. Dorrin had all this carried outside. Some levels were empty; they had once been occupied, some even recently—some beds with feather ticks and blankets still on the frames, chests and wardrobes still holding clothes, a leather purse with three copper coins.

“It’s like plundering,” Mekli said, staggering past her with a load of old books.

“And just as dangerous,” Dorrin reminded him. “I’ll be back later. When you get to the lower levels, call me first.”

The nursemaids had their charges up and dressed, ready for the outing Dorrin had promised if the day was fair. Dorrin looked them over, this time touching each with a flicker of magery. Her heart sank. There, and there, and there … three more children who were not children. Two boys and a girl, seven winters, six, and five.

She should have done it last night, while they were sleeping, but that would have been terrifying for the other children, and the nursemaids … now, in daylight, with all of them awake and alert, Dorrin realized it would be hardly less frightening. They would ask her about Restin; the ones who were not truly children, with adult cunning, would soon know he must have been discovered. She tried to think how best to proceed.

Suddenly one of the children—Mikeli, the sickly one—collapsed, falling to the floor with a strange mewing cry, his body jerking, foam at his mouth.