The Empire Stone (17 page)

Peirol asked if the murderous bastard had a name, was told it, and held back a smile as the teamster raved on. “Yes, and may the demons hear me and seize him by his throat and balls and tear him apart! Stranger, don’t chance his hospitality, for he knows no kindness and will likely kill you just because he’s never murdered a dwarf, and will wonder if it’s the same as slaughtering a full man.”

“That sort,” Peirol said, “is the very sort of man I seek,” and he went up the road toward the castle while the carter gaped, then whipped his spavined horse away at full rattle.

The castle wasn’t that prepossessing. Its stone bulk sat atop a hill, surrounded by artfully tended grape vines. Instead of arrow slits, generous glassed windows studded the angular cone-topped turrets at each corner of the walls. The huge gates thudded open, and a dozen armored men galloped out, lances lowered. Peirol pulled up and waited.

The men smoothly surrounded him, and Peirol was at the center of a nest of lance points. Their evident leader, a bushy-bearded man with a scar down his face where his right eye and most of his nose should have been, bayed a laugh a wolf pack leader might have envied.

“It’s nice when the prey comes to you, even if it’s nothing but a bearded child.”

“‘E’s a dwarf, Honoro,” another man said.

“Dwarf, changeling, what matters it? What tribute do you have for us, little one?” Honoro bellowed.

“Not a copper,” Peirol said.

“Then your life is forfeit.”

“Perhaps you’ll let your lord, Aulard, the one I seek, decide that,” Peirol said.

Honoro jerked in surprise. Instantly all the lances were lifted. “You have business with him?”

“I don’t think it’s any concern of yours,” Peirol said haughtily. “Where I come from, lackeys listen and obey, no more.”

Two or three of the riders laughed. Evidently Honoro was no better liked than most bandit leaders. Honoro started to scowl, met Peirol’s steady gaze, dropped his head. “Sorry. Sir.”

“Now you may escort me to him,” Peirol said. “And I find you a good and proper guard.”

Honoro, insulted then praised, didn’t know what to do. Eventually he touched his free hand to his helmet in salute, and the dozen men, Peirol in their center, rode back up to the castle. Over the sallyport a motto was carved in the stone:
HELD NOT BY THE MIGHT OF MY STONES, BUT BY MY LORD’S STEEL.

Peirol glanced into the moat as his horse clopped over the stone bridge, then looked more closely. There was no water below, only green grass, but the moat was an even deadlier guardian than normal. There were at least half a dozen huge bears patrolling the strip of land. Two were worrying over bones, and there were other bones scattered around the sward.

“Lord Aulard, when it strikes his fancy, or when the beasts hunger, tosses one of his prisoners over.”

“Are there always prisoners?” Peirol asked. “Generally,” Honoro said. “But if there ain’t, we grab a peasant. They do fine. And if we get lucky, and it’s female, we get pleasure of our own before the bears.”

• • •

Lord Aulard was a perfect example of the sort Peirol had always feared and, secretly and ashamedly, envied a bit. He would have been a huge baby, always growing faster and larger than his fellows. Boys and men like him had always found Peirol their natural prey, and it wasn’t until the dwarf had learned the equalizing power of a stick, a rock, or later, a small knife, that he could come and go undisturbed. Now in his thirties, Aulard bulked over his retinue, and his long dark hair and beard made him even more menacing. He wore a dark red silk shirt, leather breeches, and an incongruously jesterlike baggy red cap. A sheathed sword stood beside his ornately carved chair.

His receiving room was hung with weaponry and trophies of the hunt, both four- and two-legged prey. Fires burned in great hearths on either side of the room.

A servant hurried up with a crystal decanter and four glasses, two filled with chilled water. Aulard poured brandy into the two empty glasses. He dipped a finger in each, flipped a drop over each shoulder. “Give a bit to the gods,” he explained, “and they’ll reward you tenfold.”

“Of course,” Peirol said. Good, he thought. A superstitious man. That moves my goal a bit closer.

Aulard pointedly sipped from each glass, proving neither was poisoned. “I honor you, Peirol of the Moorlands,” he said. His voice was gruff, boisterous, in keeping with his size. “Even though you’re not a minstrel, as I hoped when my men, er, escorted you here.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint, lord,” Peirol said.

“You do indeed,” Aulard said. “We have no troubadours, nor sorcerers or even a witch for entertainments. You have no idea how bored my women become, without gossip to twitter about in these hinterlands, nor anything but the passing seasons to look forward to, and how miserable their boredom can make my existence.”

Peirol didn’t voice what he was thinking — men who prized women as decoration seldom thought they had to provide anything to ward off boredom.

“It’s all this stupid war those damnable Beshkirians have mounted on Arzamas, which has unloosed every barbaric son of a bitch to loot and pillage to his heart’s content. Normally the winter would find all of us, save the garrison of course, spending time in the capital and regaining perspective on what it is to be a man instead of a bumpkin. But travel in this times is absurdly dangerous, and I chance it not.”

But you sit here like a hawk on its perch, swooping on every other poor fool that must go abroad, Peirol thought.

Aloud he said, “I understand the problem well, lord, and agree with you. For I myself was a slave of those Beshkirians until I was able to make my escape.”

Aulard grinned, drank brandy. “Which means you’re a free man. Any slave who can outrun his captors should automatically consider himself free, in my eyes. Of course,” and Aulard’s eyes glittered, “should he then be misfortunate enough to be captured by other slavers, he might revert to his old status, and curse whatever made him continue his flight beyond the bare necessary.”

Peirol stiffened at the implied threat, but his voice remained calm. “Even an escaped slave can have hidden fangs to make his new captor regret his actions.”

Aulard grinned, settled back in his chair. “So what, sir, made you seek
me
out?”

“I, sir, am a man who travels in gems,” Peirol said. “I first heard your name aboard ship, and was impressed by what I heard.”

“So my — I won’t be arrogant enough to say fame, but let us say reputation — has spread abroad?”

“In a sense,” Peirol said. “The teller of the tales was a beautiful virgin named Lady Zaimis Nagyagite.”

Aulard, surprised, sat up straight. “You were aboard the
Petrel
with her?”

“I was, sir, and both of us were captured by those Beshkirian pirates. I became a galley slave, and have no idea what happened to the noble lady, except I hope she survived her travails and is now safe in your household.”

“She is,” Aulard said. “I now recollect she said something about a dwarf jeweler of great charm and knowledge, but she was afraid he was killed. Obviously — ”

“Obviously,” Peirol agreed, drinking brandy.

“Let me ask you this, before we proceed to your business. What was your impression of milady? Speaking in utter confidence, man to man?”

Aulard was not a subtle person.

“I was quite impressed with your choice of brides,” Peirol said. “I found her modest, yet outgoing and quite witty. She kept mostly to herself, and the only man she spoke of was you, her intended.”

Aulard beamed.

“I’m glad the Lady Zaimis was ransomed,” Peirol said. “Before the pirates took us, she told me she’d drown herself before letting anyone chance her virtue.”

“I ransomed her,” Aulard said. “And it was a good lot of gold, too. And now she is indeed part of my household. A very spirited part, too. Sometimes …” Aulard didn’t finish his sentence, but drained his brandy. “I’ve thought again on what I said,” the big man said. “Perhaps your business might be entertaining to my ladies, since they are always fascinated with baubles. As I’m sure you know, I have quite a collection, which I assume is what brought you to me.”

“It is, my lord.”

“I’ll have a servant take you to your quarters. Dinner is a glass past sundown, and I’ll send someone for you.”

“An excellent idea, my lord,” Peirol said. “I don’t know if I can amuse your ladies, but certainly discussing diamonds and such, and their possible uses and gifts, generally interests anyone, especially if there’s a good profit for them in the offing.”

The trap was being laid.

• • •

Peirol went up steps, down corridors, following the servant with his saddlebags, who looked as much a bandit as valet. Suddenly a voice came from an alcove: “Peirol! It
is
you!”

Zaimis caught him around the shoulders, holding him close, saying his name over and over as if he were a lost lover instead of a momentary companion in misfortune. He’d just begun to consider how her breasts felt even better next to his cheek than he dreamed when she pulled away.

Zaimis was more beautiful than he remembered, her blond hair now cut short, her perfect face not needing makeup, but her lips lightly rouged. She wore a floor-length linen gown that buttoned chastely at her throat.

“You’re safe! You’re here! I thought you were dead.”

“I was,” Peirol said. “But the memory of your beauty brought me back to life.” She giggled, looked at the scowling servant. “You. I assume milord is putting him in the second tower?”

“Yes, milady.”

“Good. Go, await us there, for I’ve some memories to share with Peirol, and you would be bored.”

The man hesitated, then bowed and walked away.

“It would have been simpler to just dismiss him,” Zaimis said. “But not with a bedchamber in the offing. My Lord Aulard trusts me no more than the rest of his wives, which is to say not at all,” she said, a little bitterly.

Peirol remembered the dark mate Edirne, and a night full of moans. “That’s too bad,” he said piously. “For a man who doesn’t trust a woman as clearly honorable as you is to be pitied.”

Zaimis looked up and down the corridor, then tucked her hand under his arm. “I thought I saw you killed, after you gave that wretch Libat his due.”

Peirol told her what had happened from the bloody decks of the
Petrel
on, omitting details he thought might be embarrassing, such as Niazbeck’s wife and daughter.

“You have the luck of the gods.”

“So I would hope,” Peirol said truthfully. “But there were times I despaired of their existence.”

“Don’t ever do that! I myself have prayed and prayed, and now you’ve arrived and I know, somehow, you’ll help me.”

“I would be only too delighted,” Peirol said, “if I knew what troubled you.”

“It’s Lord Aulard,” she hissed, looking from side to side like a trapped wildcat. “He didn’t tell me, or rather my father, the truth when he wooed me.”

“How terrible,” Peirol said neutrally. “In what way?”

“He never said that he has eleven other wives, to begin with,” Zaimis said. “Nor did he say that he’s not much better than that pirate who ransomed me. Worse, for Lord Kanen was certainly fairer to the eye than Aulard, and his home wasn’t in the middle of a barren, like this horrible pile of stones. I should have … never mind.”

Peirol wondered what she should have, and said banally, “Yes, well, sometimes things aren’t quite the way we expect them. But at least Aulard gives you a safe home, which is a great deal these days.”

“Piffle,” Zaimis said. “I have enough faith in myself to know I could make my own way, if I had to. At least I’d have my freedom.

“If only — ”

Zaimis broke off and said, calmly, “Aulard is quite more than I’d expected, dear Peirol. Not just in” — and she simpered disgustingly — “in the ways you men talk about all the time, but as a companion and protector as well.”

Peirol, wondering if she was mad, felt pressure on his shoulder from her hand and saw her finger pointing to the side. He looked, saw nothing but a tapestry of a lion hunt. Then he noted the dead lion, and how the yellow thread appeared thinner than in other places. He saw movement behind the tapestry — an eye? part of a face? — then nothing. They moved on.

“You see?” Zaimis said fiercely. “The walls have ears and eyes, and anything that’s said in range of them is reported to my sneak of a lord, and he then applies ‘appropriate disciplines.’ Sometimes with his bare hand, sometimes with a whip. I … I confess at first I thought it exciting, a different kind of loveplay. But then … there were, until two Times ago, thirteen of us. That one — we’re forbidden to even think her name — was given to the bears.” Zaimis shivered. “I’m so afraid, Peirol.
So
afraid, and I don’t know what to do. But you’ll devise a plan, won’t you?”

“What sort of plan?” Peirol temporized.

“You’ll think of something. There’s your room, just ahead. I’ll see you at dinner, and hope you’ll be staying for a few days.” She started away, then turned back. “Do you remember, back on the ship, the night before those pirates came?”

Peirol still cursed his caution.

“I’ve sometimes wondered foolishly, thinking you were dead, but now the idea comes fresh, what could have happened if, well — I thought when Edirne knocked that it was you, and opened the door gladly. Perhaps things would have been better if they were different.” She smiled sultrily and was gone.

Peirol, appalled, stared after her. Better? Edirne had been game until the sun rose. What miracles did she think dwarves were capable of? Now he was wondering if he shouldn’t have taken that carter’s advice and kept on moving, instead of following his ever-so-crafty plan. Why couldn’t Zaimis have been fat, pregnant, and happy?

“Now this particular ruby,” Peirol told his rapt audience, “has a most evil tale behind it. Perhaps, Lord Aulard, I should not give details, for fear your wives will not sleep well this night.”

“Go ahead,” Aulard rumbled. “
I
determine how my wives sleep — if at all.” He guffawed in an unseemly manner, and his swordsmen, now waiters, echoed the mirth.

Peirol noted that only about half of the twelve women in the room seemed to find the remark funny. The dozen women ranged from Zaimis’s twenty years to thirty for the oldest. All, in various shades and colors, would be reckoned great beauties.

The meal was straightforward, a warrior’s feast of spiced beef, roasted fowl, and sweet potatoes. Aulard ate heartily, if somewhat mechanically, most of the women less so, as if the menu were the same night after night.