The Traitor's Daughter (18 page)

She studied the huge boarhound. Usually she was fond of dogs, and this one was quite regal, even beautiful, with his proud carriage and his deep, intelligent eyes. Under other circumstances she would have hoped to befriend him. Well, perhaps he was more susceptible than he appeared. It was worth a try.

“Grumper. Grumper, boy,” she coaxed melodiously. “Here, Grumper.”

His ears twitched.

“I’m Jianna. I’m not a bad person, I mean no harm, you can trust me.”

He cocked his head.

“Come on, come over here, it’s all right.”

He stared at her. She extended a cautious hand, which he ignored. His mournful eyes never strayed from her face. At least he wasn’t trying to rip her throat out.

“I’m going to step into the woods for a moment.” She let her hand descend slowly. “Won’t be gone a moment. Nothing for you to worry about. There’s a good dog.” She dared a gliding step toward the trees.

Grumper lowered his head and growled. Jianna hesitated.

“Good dog,” she repeated without conviction. “GooddogGooddogGooddog.” She took another step.

He made a snapping lunge, and his teeth clicked within a breath of her wrist. She gasped and shrank back. Grumper sank to his haunches, eyeing her alertly. Beyond doubt he could have bitten her had he wished.

“All right,” she said. Her heart was pounding, and she wondered if the dog could hear it. “All right. For now. Next time I’ll try offering you some food. We’ll see if you’re really as incorruptible as all that.” Turning her back on him, she contemplated the shrubbery. Purple leaves with yellow stripes, Yvenza had told her. Resentfully she began to pick, dropping the small harvest into the wicker basket furnished by her captor. The leaves, she soon discovered, were guarded by needle thorns easy to overlook by reason of their extreme fineness. She could avoid them if she placed her hands with care and for a time she did so, pinching individual leaves between thumb and forefinger, plucking with great delicacy. The purgatorial minutes passed. At the conclusion of a minor eternity she looked down to find the bottom of the basket barely covered with a thin purple layer. At this rate she would hardly finish before nightfall.

Her stomach rumbled. The hour was early but she was already hungry. There would be no food until Yvenza’s demands had been met, and Yvenza wanted a full basket. Jianna willed her hands to greater speed. The basket began to fill, but soon she felt the jab of thorns and presently her fingers were dotted with red.

An angry exclamation escaped her. Grumper stirred at the sound.

“This is your mistress’ doing,” she told him. “I’m surprised she hasn’t stayed to enjoy the spectacle.” But Yvenza had not troubled to watch, had not even posted a human guard, evidently deeming a single boarhound quite equal to the task of controlling the prisoner. It was downright offensive.

“She’s underestimated me,” Jianna assured the dog. “She’ll find that out soon enough. So will you, fleabag.”

Grumper yawned.

“I loathe you,” she announced, and resumed her labors.

A chill autumn breeze punched through her garments, and she shivered. Her stomach rumbled. She was hungry, and the basket was nowhere near full. Her hands flew, the thorns stabbed, and her blood welled from fresh punctures. Her anger deepened. Absurd and outrageous that she should endure this, when the only thing standing between herself and freedom was one ordinary dog. She was scarcely worthy to call herself Aureste Belandor’s daughter if she couldn’t manage to outwit Grumper.

Breaking a twig from the nearest bush, she threw it toward the house.

“Go. Fetch,” she commanded. “Fetch!”

Grumper lay down, tongue lolling. If she had not known better, she might almost have imagined that he was laughing at her. If only she could lay hands on a good-sized stick or rock, she would knock the smirk right off his canine face. Her eyes ranged the ground and found nothing. Brute force probably wouldn’t serve, anyway—not against fangs of such length and whiteness. Force of will, then. The power of the superior human intellect.

“Grumper,” she commanded with an affectation of calm authority. “Stay. You understand me? Stay.” She edged toward the woods.

Instantly he was on his feet. A warning growl rumbled.

She did not let herself hear it. “Stay,” she repeated firmly. Her air of confidence remained intact as she moved away.

Too swiftly for her to attempt evasion, he sprang forward, seized a mouthful of her skirt in his jaws, and tugged powerfully, throwing her to her knees. Before she could rise he was on her, his weight bearing her to the ground.

Jianna lay flat on her back, the boarhound looming over her. For an endless dog-scented moment, he stood staring down as if considering her dismemberment, then withdrew a few paces and seated himself nonchalantly.

Jianna sprawled paralyzed until the cold from the ground began to seep through her clothing, and then she sat up. Grumper watched steadily, but left her alone. She had not been hurt, but she was covered with dirt and her skirt was ripped. She was conscious less of alarm than acute embarrassment, coupled with the hope that human eyes had not witnessed her defeat. The wicker basket lay on its side a few feet from her, its contents scattered. Even as she watched, the wind sent the kalkrios traveling. On hands and knees she scrambled in pursuit. Only a few escaped. Barring dirt and discomfiture, she was not much worse off than she had been some twenty minutes earlier. Twenty extra minutes without food.

She stood up. Her supply of initiative was depleted, but only temporarily. Turning her back on Grumper, she went back to work. Fresh blood beaded on her fingers, and the basket filled. When the contents approached the rim, she fluffed the leaves artistically and the job was done.

“Finished,” she informed her guard. “I’m going back now. If you don’t mind.” And it seemed that he understood her well enough, for he made no threatening move, but paced gravely at her side as she made her way from the garden to the nearest gate in the solid stone wall girdling Ironheart.

A sentry stood at the opening, a sentry of sorts, but certainly not a person that her father would have allowed to hang about so much as a back entrance to Belandor property. Here was no smartly liveried retainer agleam with polished steel. She beheld a slack-jawed, round-shouldered
—menial
was the kindest term to apply to the lout—bundled in drab homespun.

He might be sharper than he looked, though. She would soon find out. Marching straight up to the sentry, she halted and offered her most winning smile, the one her father could never resist.

“A word with you,” she suggested sweetly. “Your name?”

He stared at her. Perhaps he was deaf. She repeated the question.

“What for?” he demanded, narrow-eyed but not deaf.

“Well, it’s easier for me to speak to you if I know your name,” she returned, sweetness carefully maintained.

“No need for talk.”

Surly oaf. At home, her father would have ordered him beaten for such impertinence. Here she could not afford to take offense. “Only listen for a moment, then,” she urged softly. “I’ll be brief. Do you know who I am?”

“You’re the Great Kneeser’s daughter,” he returned without hesitation.

“The Magnifico Aureste Belandor is my father,” she told him, containing the impulse to slap his face. “By this time, he has probably learned of my abduction. He’ll begin searching, and he’ll never rest until he finds me. When that day comes, those who have wronged us will be punished. They will pay dearly for this outrage.”

“That so?” inquired the sentry.

“Yes, that is so. My father will tear this place apart stone by stone. The guilty will perish by fire and sword. Those wretches who survive will be dragged in chains back to Vitrisi for execution. Painful, public,
prolonged
execution.”

“Big talk for a little girl. You get that out of some book?”

“It’s more than talk, you may be certain. My father is a man of rank and influence, trusted adviser of the Governor Uffrigo—”

The sentry spat eloquently.

“Possessing power to punish his enemies, and wealth to reward his friends,” Jianna instructed. “Be his friend now, and you’ll never regret it. Help me get away from this place, take me back to Belandor House, and my father will give you money—position—anything that you want. Take this opportunity, and be a prosperous man.”

Accustomed to having her own way, she did not anticipate refusal, and was taken by surprise when he vented an explosive exhalation, something between a grunt and a snort of derision.

“Good one,” he said.

“Do you not believe me?” she asked, frowning. “Truly, I am in earnest. Conduct me back to Vitrisi, and the Magnifico Aureste Belandor will pay you whatever you ask.”

“Then he won’t pay nothing. And the only place you’re going is back inside. Move it.”

“I don’t think you understand. I tell you, my father the Magnifico Aureste will set you up in comfort for the rest of your natural life.”

“Which won’t be good beyond sundown if I cross the Lady Yvenza.”

“You needn’t fear that woman. My father will protect you. My father—”

“Wouldn’t be no use to me. You don’t know our Lady Yvenza, that’s plain. I’d pit her against your kneeser any day.”

“She has no power in Vitrisi. My father—”

“The thing about our Lady Yvenza is, she’s not like other women,” the sentry continued appreciatively. “No softness, no nonsense about her. You bump that one, she’ll crack your nuts. She’s good as a man, that way. You know what she did once to some fool servant caught pilfering salt pork from the stores?”

“It doesn’t matter. My father—”

“Had the thief’s hand cut off, for starters. Then what do you suppose she does?”

“I don’t want to know. Listen, you can be a rich man, or else a dead one when my father—”

“She has that cut-off hand salted down and stowed away in the larder. Says that she’s just replacing the pig meat that was stole. Now, there’s real wit for you.”

“That’s disgusting. You’re making it up.”

“That’s what you think. So I ask you, what kind of fool would I be to go thumbing my nose at our Lady Yvenza?”

“Bah, you’d be perfectly safe, my father would see to it. I give you my word.”

“
Your
word?” He blasted another snort. “You’re funny as a dancing dwarf. Who are you to be throwing your
word
around so large when you can’t even best a dog, much less the dog’s mistress? Yes, I saw it all, and a rare sight it was. Thought I’d die laughing when Grumper took you down. He’s a right lad, Grumper is. Aren’t you, boy?” He clicked his tongue approvingly. “Good lad!”

Grumper wagged his tail.

Jianna’s cheeks warmed, and she knew she must be blushing like an idiot. This insolent, unspeakable oaf was actually laughing at her. Insulting her. Drawing herself up, she assumed the expression of cold displeasure that she had so often seen her father use to such potent effect on others—never on her.

“You have made a poor decision,” she informed the sentry ominously. “You will discover your error when you come face-to-face with the Magnifico Aureste Belandor.”

“Face-to-face, eh? Heh. Will he get up off his knees for that, or will I have to get down on mine?”

Jianna’s jaw clamped on a furious reply. She would not lose her temper or her dignity; she would not. Head up and spine straight, she turned and swept away in regal silence, closely trailed by Grumper. Behind her swelled the sentry’s unrestrained guffaws.

He’d be sorry,
so
sorry one day. Soon. They all would.

Nothing for it but to go back inside. At the moment there was nowhere else to go, and surely they would feed her now.

The surrounding atmosphere dimmed but did not warm as she reentered Ironheart. She made her grim way along the ground-floor rear hallway. She was not alone, there were servants here and there, but they scarcely heeded her. All of them human, she noted. Not a Sishmindri in sight, which was regrettable, for at least the amphibians demonstrated proper respect. They never laughed. Come to think of it, she did not know if they could laugh.

Nor did she know where to find Yvenza Belandor. She paused to inquire and was directed to a closet adjoining the kitchen. Jianna rarely if ever set foot in the kitchen at home, but she was ready to change her habits now. There was, after all, food to be found in a kitchen.

She went in, and the perfume of baking bread drew growls from her stomach. Beside her, Grumper shifted weight. She glanced down and followed his devoted gaze to an arched doorway. She went to it, knocked, heard a woman’s voice answer, and entered a humid old stillroom furnished with floor-to-ceiling wooden shelving. The shelves were crammed with urns, vials, flasks, bottles, boxes, sacks, and casks. A fire burned on a small hearth. An iron pot hung above the blaze, and Yvenza Belandor stood stirring the contents with a withered stick. The ruddy light from below threw every facial crag and furrow into cruel relief.

Witch
, thought Jianna. Wordlessly she extended the basket.

“You took your time.” Yvenza made no move to accept the offering.

“Well? Is it all right?” Jianna felt like a fool standing there with the little basket dangling from the end of her stiffly outstretched arm.

“It will do. Dump those kalkrios into the pot.”

Jianna obeyed. The warm aromatic vapor rising from the cauldron bathed her face, not unpleasantly. For a moment, her eyes misted and her head swam.

“Take care,” Yvenza advised with amusement. “Else those fumes will lay you out senseless on the floor for the rest of the afternoon.”

“I may be a trifle weak with hunger,” Jianna suggested. “I’ve not eaten today.”

“Nor will you, before your work is complete.”

My hands look as if I’d stuck them into a beehive, thanks to those miserable thornbushes of yours. What more do you want?
Jianna stifled her indignation.

“Simmer the kalkriole broth until it’s reduced by half. Strain it three times through gauze, funnel what’s left into a dark jug, stopper it tightly, wrap it in a towel, then report to me for orders.”