Stormwarden (11 page)

VI
Gaire's Main

The gale set loose by Anskiere's stormfalcon raged across the southwest latitudes and finally spent itself, leaving skies whipped with cirrus and air scoured clean by rain. Emien woke in the pinnace to a cold fair morning. Bruised after days of battling maddened elements, he raised himself from the floorboards. Bilgewater dripped from his sleeves as he stretched and rubbed salt-crusted eyes. The pinnace wallowed through the troughs, her helm lashed and her oarsmen sprawled in exhausted slumber across their benches; but the craft's other two occupants seemed strangely unaffected by fatigue. Hearvin and Tathagres sat near the stern, involved in conversation.

Emien gripped the gunwale. Seasoned fisherman though he was, his palms had blistered at the oar; waterlogged skin had since split into sores. Yet the boy noticed no sting, obsessed as he was with his desire for vengeance. Of those on board only Tathagres hated Anskiere as he did. She had promised the Stormwarden's demise, and for that the boy had sworn an oath no fisherman's son would betray. Though weary and starved, his first thought was for his mistress.

Emien stood cautiously. Dehydration had left him lightheaded, and the roll of the pinnace made movement without a handhold impossible. Unsatisfied with the boat's performance, he ran a critical eye over the canvas set since the storm relented. The mainsheet needed easing, and the headsail drove the bow down because the halyard was too slack. Instinctively, Emien started to adjust lines.

The sound of raised voices carried clearly from the stern as he worked. Hearvin and Tathagres openly argued, and Emien paused to listen.

"... Failed to accomplish your purpose," Hearvin said bluntly. He sat as he always did, straight as chiseled wood against the curve of the swells.

Tathagres responded inaudibly but her gesture bespoke annoyance.

"What else have you achieved?" Hearvin jabbed a hand into the wet folds of his cloak. "Your liege expected the release of the frostwargs and a Stormwarden on Cliffhaven who would subvert the Kielmark's sovereignty. Thus far you have delivered two dead sorcerers, a smashed war fleet, and a boy you would have lost had I not intervened."

Absently Emien reached for the mainsheet. Although a gust masked Tathagres' reply, her expression became haughtily angry.

Hearvin stiffened, no longer impassive. "And I say you've meddled enough!"

This time Tathagres' voice cut cleanly across the white hiss of spray. "Do you challenge me? How dare you! You fear the Stormwarden, that much is evident. And you speak of the Kielmark as more than a mortal man, which proves your judgment is dim as an itinerant conjurer's. I'm disappointed. Kisburn promised me better."

Hearvin jerked a fist from his robe and made a pass in the air, as if he thought to retaliate with sorcery. Concerned for his mistress, Emien cleated the line in his hand and hastened aft. But Tathagres met the sorcerer's threat with a scornful laugh.

Hearvin abruptly recovered control. "I warn you, Lady. Don't underestimate me as you did Anskiere." The sorcerer stopped, forced to brace himself as a wave lifted the stern.

The pinnace lurched. Emien stumbled noisily against a thwart. Hearvin started around. The wind snatched his hood, unveiling pinched cheeks and an expression of annoyance. Tathagres seemed to welcome the interruption. She tilted her head and smiled sweetly at the fisherman's son from Imrill Kand.

"Boy, were you taught navigation?" She raked tangled hair from her brow and smiled with girlish appeal. "Do you know enough to sail this boat to land?"

Close up, Emien saw the marks Anskiere's storm had inflicted on the mistress he had chosen. Her fair complexion was chapped from salt water and sun, and weariness had printed circles dark as bruises beneath her eyes. Emien swallowed, momentarily overcome by the urge to protect her beauty from further ruin. Embarrassed by his flushed skin and knotted muscles, the boy answered self-consciously.

"My Lady need not have worried. I took sights last night while the polestar was visible. The isles of Innishari could be reached in a fortnight with good wind. If Kor grants us rainfall for water, I could get you there safely."

Tathagres tumbled the bracelets on her wrists with elegant fingers and bestowed a vindictive glance upon Hearvin. "Then let us sail directly. At Innishari we can engage a trader bound for Cliffhaven. Have you any more objections? Do tell me. I'm certain Emien would welcome the entertainment."

She waited, poised like a cat toying with helpless prey. But the sorcerer refused to be baited.

He raised his hood over his head, apparently content to let the quarrel lapse. Only Emien glimpsed wary anger in the sorcerer's eyes before shadow obscured it. The boy distrusted Hearvin's intentions, but he was canny enough to keep silent. He could serve Tathagres best if the sorcerer remained unsuspecting; and dedicated less to intrigue than to practicality, he applied himself to the task of sailing the pinnace to Innishari.

His responsibility was not slight. The following days would bring hardship enough to tax the endurance of the toughest man on board. Tathagres' slim build left her perishable as a woodland flower. Without nourishment she would be first to weaken.

Brooding, Emien considered his priorities. The pinnace held course decently enough with the tiller lashed, but her heading would be more accurate if the helm were manned. With the self-reliance gained while fishing aboard
Dacsen,
the boy began to strip the rope from the whipstaff. The knots were barely loosened when he noticed Tathagres watching him, her lips curved with disdain.

Emien frowned, "Does my Lady disapprove?"

Tathagres braced herself against the gunwale, aware the backdrop of empty sky accentuated her femininity. "I gave you charge of the pinnace. Does a captain stand watch like a common seaman?" Carefully judging her interval, she raised violet eyes and regarded the boy from Imrill Kand.

Caught staring, Emien reddened. Shamed by an adolescent rush of desire and stung by scorn from the woman who inspired it, he responded awkwardly. "Is that what you wish?" He abandoned the lashing, charged with frustration he dared not express. "If I establish watches among the seamen, I'll require a log to maintain dead reckoning." He did not belabor the fact he could not write.

Tathagres neatly eliminated the need. "Then Hearvin will act as your secretary."

Nervously Emien glanced at the sorcerer. But Hearvin made no protest; left no course but one which did not defeat his pride, the boy licked dry lips and faced his mistress.

"Well?" prompted Tathagres.

Balked by conflicting emotions, Emien could not answer. He turned on his heel and made his way forward. He did not see Tathagres' smile of approval when his reluctance transformed into rage. He jabbed the nearest seaman awake with his toe, and anger lent him authority beyond his years.

"You! Take the helm, and steer southwest."

The sailhand stumbled to his feet, too startled to protest. Emien felt the power of command surge through him, sweeter than fine wine and far more intoxicating. Never again would he grovel as an ignorant fisherman before his betters. In time, he too would be master. Tathagres would see she had chosen well by asking him into her service.

Emien braced his legs against the roll of the pinnace, brow drawn into a scowl. "You will stand watch until noon. I will send a man to relieve you."

Accustomed to discipline, the seaman obeyed. And on a reckless wave of daring, the boy decided to explore the limits of his discovery. He turned aft and bowed respectfully to Tathagres.

"My Lady, for the good of the vessel, I require the jewelry you use to fasten your cloak."

Tathagres stared at him with a calculating expression. Sweat sprang along Emien's temples. Yet he did not tremble or back down, and at length, Tathagres unpinned the two gold brooches. She handed them over to Emien and asked no explanation.

The exchange was not lost upon the seaman at the helm. As the boy made his final bow and moved forward, he viewed Emien with fresh respect. The boy's confidence swelled. He felt himself a man for the first time since the accident with the net which had caused his father's death. On Imrill Kand, he had been called bungler, a child bereft of common sense and shamefully slow to learn. Now he knew otherwise. With his chin lifted haughtily, Emien cupped the brooches in his torn palms, and chose a place where he could work and still keep an eye on the helmsman.

Hearvin watched as, skillfully, the boy began to twist the jewelry into lures and hooks to catch fish. "Well, at least there's a chance we won't starve, even if our meals are dearly bought," the sorcerer commented. He leaned back against the gunwale and blandly faced Tathagres. "That boy learns remarkably fast. Perhaps too fast."

Tathagres said nothing. Her attention seemed absorbed by the flash of the gold between Emien's fingers. But the thoughts reflected in her amethyst eyes had a hungry quality which left the sorcerer uneasy.

* * *

Just past noon on the day following his flight from the sanctuary tower, Jaric rode into the village of Gaire's Main. Both nose and throat were gritty with dust. The insides of his knees were raw from the saddle, and his ankles bruised repeatedly against the stirrups, which dangled too long from his feet. Jaric had not paused to shorten the leathers. Though his flight had taken him through several settlements, he dared not stop, even to water his horse, in any town subject to the Earl's authority.

But Gaire's Main lay outside the borders of Morbrith. The site had once been sacred to the tribes who gathered for the summerfair, but now only the name remained as a reminder of less civilized times. Jaric reined his mount down a lane lined by sleepy cottages, whitewashed and neatly roofed with thatch. The horse stumbled with exhaustion. Lather dripped from the rags used to muffle the bit. The animal's sides heaved, each breath labored, and the low-pitched clink at each stride made Jaric suspect a loose shoe. If he did not find a smith, he risked laming the horse. Travel afoot frightened him more than Morbrith's retribution; with no mount, he would be helpless.

Jaric rounded a crook in the lane. Ahead, a wide crossroad sliced Gaire's Main into quarters; there also lay the spring where the tribes had once held rites. But the traditional ringstones of slate had been pulled down for shingles. A brick trough replaced them, and the run-off trickled into a chain of muddy puddles presently foraged by tame ducks, and a sow tended by a boy with a stick. They too stared at the strange rider who entered the square.

The horse sensed water and raised its head. Jaric gave it rein. Children rushed out to run beside his stirrup and their excited chatter made his head ring. A woman with a bucket paused in a doorway to point. As the horse plodded tiredly across the square, Jaric felt as though all the folk of Gaire's Main had stopped their work to watch him.

He was too weary to care. The horse splashed through a puddle, scattering fowl. The sow raised herself from her wallow with a grunt, as Jaric dropped the reins and permitted his mount to thrust its muzzle into the trough.

"Why, the rider is barefoot!" exclaimed the pig-boy, and the other children giggled.

Jaric sighed. They seemed enviably carefree. Any other time, he would have been cheered by the laughter of children; but now Anskiere's geas throbbed like a wound in his chest, and he had no inclination to smile. Beyond the spring lay a tall, sprawling structure with a shingled roof. A board hung on chains from the gables. Faded letters identified the building as a tavern, but the sign was unnecessary; Gaire's Main offered little else but peasant cottages. Jaric knew from keeping accounts that the folk traveled to Morbrith for goods. He could not recall whether the village boasted a smith. He would have to inquire.

The horse snorted loudly, and resumed drinking. Summoned by the noise, a weathered man in dusty coveralls emerged from the wing which held the stables. His hair was white and his cheeks sunburned. He braced sinewy arms on the lip of the trough, and regarded Jaric suspiciously.

"Ridden all night, have you?" His voice was rusty, with an inflection as quaint as the town. "What brings you to Gaire's Main?"

Jaric reddened. A ragged woman shambled out of the stables and joined the old man. Ancient and gnarled as treebark, she peered at Jaric with eyes turned pearly white by cataracts. Assuredly she was blind; yet she stared as though she were sighted. Jaric shivered with apprehension. Resigned to the fact the entire village was listening, he answered in the cultured accents learned at court.

His voice came out hoarse, as though he had forgotten the use of it. "No doubt you think me childish. I wagered my cousin that I could ride fifty leagues in my nightshirt and still defend my honor without weapons. The contest was made in drunken folly. Do you wonder, now I'm sober, that I chose to ride at night?"

Intrigued, the children clustered closer. The ragged woman pinned him with eyes like fish roe, and the man stared pointedly at Jaric's soft hands and blistered knees. He grimaced in contempt.

"Your horse needs a shoe," he said carefully. "Shall I see to it?"

Jaric nodded, his throat too tight for speech. The folk had not believed his lie, but apparently no one present chose to question it. Relieved, he slid from the saddle, but to his dismay, his knees buckled the instant his feet struck ground. The pain of tortured muscles made him gasp.

The beggar woman caught his shoulder with gnarled hands and steadied him. Her grip felt like ice. Jaric flinched, startled by the chill. Through a wave of dizziness, he saw she was wizened and small, and clothed not in rags but in knotted leather skins like the hill tribe's dress. Not every inhabitant of Gaire's Main was civilized; with a jolt, Jaric recognized what he had been too tired to notice earlier; the woman could only be the Lady of the Well. Blinded by ritual as a maiden and dedicated to oracular vision, she would tend the shrine until death, though the place had probably changed much since she was a girl. She smelled of the byre. Never the less, she deserved respect. The boy drew breath to offer thanks.

But his words were blurred by a cry as eldritch as the mystery which surrounded the spring. Jaric's spine prickled horribly. Darkness arose in him, and his senses reeled.

"Fire!" said the woman clearly. "I see thee a man, ringed with the living fire. The ravens of discord fly at thy heels."

She added more in the tongue of the clans. But Jaric heard none of her warning. Lost in a rushing tide of faintness, he collapsed, and even his slight weight was too great for the Lady. She staggered against the stable master, who caught the boy in his arms.

Shaken by the upsurge of the old powers, the stablemaster lifted a pale, uncertain face to the blind priestess. For years she had been senile and helpless, little more than a beggar-woman who slept in his hayloft. "What shall I do with this boy?"

The woman blinked, relapsed into the blankness of advanced age. But her reply was lucid. "Do all that is needful for him, as well as his mount. You'll find silver in his saddlebag. Take what fee you earn, and set him on his way. He must not be delayed." She subsided into muttering. The children who had lingered to observe scattered suddenly and ran.

Alone by the spring, the stablemaster left the gelding with its reins trailing. The animal had been ridden to exhaustion; it would not stray while he carried the young master inside to the innkeeper's wife.