The Warded Man (32 page)

Leesha hung her head. She had been counting on seeing her father one last time. She thought of all the villagers she saw every day, and how she hadn’t had time to part with them all properly. The letters she had left with Bruna seemed woefully inadequate.

As they reached the center of town, though, Leesha gasped. Her father was waiting there, and behind him, lining the road, was the entire town. They went to her one by one as she passed, some kissing her and others pressing gifts into her hands. “Remember us well and return,” Erny said, and Leesha hugged him tightly, squeezing her eyes shut to ward off tears.

“The Hollowers love you,” Marick remarked as they rode through the woods. Cutter’s Hollow was hours behind them, and the day’s shadows were growing long. Leesha sat before him on his courser’s wide saddle, and the beast seemed to bear it and their baggage well.

“There are times,” Leesha said, “when I even believe it myself.”

“Why shouldn’t you believe it?” Marick asked. “A beauty like the dawn who can cure all ills? I doubt any could help but love you.”

Leesha laughed. “A beauty like the dawn?” she asked. “Find the poor Jongleur you stole that line from and tell him never to use it again.”

Marick laughed, his arms tightening around her. “You know,” he said in her ear, “we never discussed my fee for escorting you.”

“I have money,” Leesha said, wondering how far her coin would go in Angiers.

“So do I,” Marick laughed. “I’m not interested in money.”

“Then what kind of price did you have in mind, Master Marick?” Leesha asked. “Is this another play for a kiss?”

Marick chuckled, his wolf eyes glinting. “A kiss was the price to bring you a letter. Bringing you safely to Angiers will be much more … expensive.” He shifted his hips behind her, and his meaning was clear.

“Always ahead of yourself,” Leesha said. “You’ll be lucky to get the kiss at this rate.”

“We’ll see,” Marick said.

They made camp soon after. Leesha prepared supper while Marick set the wards. When the stew was ready, she crumbled a few extra herbs into Marick’s bowl before handing it to him.

“Eat quick,” Marick said, taking the bowl and shoveling a large spoonful into his mouth. “You’ll want to get in the tent before the corelings rise. Seeing them up close can be scary.”

Leesha looked over at the tent Marick had pitched, barely big enough for one.

“It’s small,” he winked, “but we’ll be able to warm each other in the chill of night.”

“It’s summer,” she reminded him.

“Yet I still feel a cold breeze whenever you speak,” Marick chuckled. “Perhaps we can find a way to melt that. Besides”—he gestured past the circle, where misty forms of corelings had already begun to rise—“it’s not as if you can go far.”

He was stronger than her, and her struggles against him did as little good as her refusals. With the cries of corelings as their backdrop, she suffered his kisses and pawing at her, hands fumbling and rough. And when his manhood failed him, she comforted him with soothing words, offering remedies of herb and root that only worsened his condition.

Sometimes he grew angry, and she was afraid he might strike her. Other times he wept, for what kind of man could not spread his seed? Leesha weathered it all, for the trial was not too high a price for passage to Angiers.

I am saving him from himself
, she thought each time she dosed his food, for what man wished to be a rapist? But the truth was, she felt little remorse. She took no pleasure in using her skills to break his weapon, but deep down, there
was
a cold satisfaction, as if all her female ancestors throughout the untold ages since the first man who forced a woman to the ground were nodding in grim approval that she had unmanned him before he could unmaiden her.

The days passed slowly, with Marick’s mood shifting from sour to spoiled as each night’s failure mounted upon him. The last night, he drank deep from his wineskin, and seemed ready to leap from the circle and let the demons have him. Leesha’s relief was palpable when she saw the forest fortress spread out before them in the wood. She gasped at the sight of the high walls, their lacquered wards hard and strong, large enough to encompass Cutter’s Hollow many times over.

The streets of Angiers were covered with wood to prevent demons from rising inside; the entire city was a boardwalk. Marick took her deep into the city, and set her down outside Jizell’s hospit. He gripped her arm as she turned to go, squeezing hard, hurting her.

“What happened out beyond the walls,” he said, “stays out there.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Leesha said.

“See that you don’t,” Marick said. “Because if you do, I’ll kill you.”

“I swear,” Leesha said. “Gatherer’s word.”

Marick grunted and released her, pulling hard on his courser’s bridle and cantering off.

A smile touched the corners of Leesha’s mouth as she gathered her things and headed toward the hospit.

THERE WAS SMOKE, and fire, and a woman screamed above the corelings’ shrieks.

I love you!

Rojer started awake, his heart racing. Dawn had broken over the high walls of Fort Angiers, soft light filtering in through the cracks in the shutters. He held his talisman tightly in his good hand as the light grew, waiting for his heart to still. The tiny doll, a child’s creation of wood and string topped with her lock of red hair, was all he had left of his mother.

He didn’t remember her face, lost in the smoke, or much else about that night, but he remembered her last words to him. He heard them over and over in his dreams.

I love you!

He rubbed the hair between the thumb and ring finger of his crippled hand. Only a jagged scar remained where his first two fingers had been, but because of her, he had lost nothing else.

I love you!

The talisman was Rojer’s secret ward, something he didn’t even share with Arrick, who had been like a father to him. It helped him through the long nights when darkness closed heavily around him and the coreling screams made him shake with fear.

But day had come, and the light made him feel safe again. He kissed the tiny doll and returned it to the secret pocket he had sewn into the waistband of his motley pants. Just knowing it was there made him feel brave. He was ten years old.

Rising from his straw mattress, Rojer stretched and stumbled out of the tiny room, yawning. His heart fell as he saw Arrick passed out at the table. His master was slumped over an empty bottle, his hand wrapped tightly around its neck as if to choke a few last drops from it.

They both had their talismans.

Rojer went over and pried the bottle from his master’s fingers.

“Who? Wazzat?” Arrick demanded, half lifting his head.

“You fell asleep at the table again,” Rojer said.

“Oh, ’s you, boy,” Arrick grunted. “Thought it ’uz tha’ ripping landlord again.”

“The rent’s past due,” Rojer said. “We’re set to play Small Square this morning.”

“The rent,” Arrick grumbled. “Always the rent.”

“If we don’t pay today,” Rojer reminded, “Master Keven promised he’d throw us out.”

“So we’ll perform,” Arrick said, rising. He lost his balance and attempted to catch himself on the chair, but he only served to bring it down on top of him as he hit the floor.

Rojer went to help him up, but Arrick pushed him away. “I’m fine!” he shouted, as if daring Rojer to differ as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “I could do a backflip!” he said, looking behind him to see if there was room. His eyes made it clear he was regretting the boast.

“We should save that for the performance,” Rojer said quickly.

Arrick looked back at him. “You’re probably right,” he agreed, both of them relieved.

“My throat’s dry,” Arrick said. “I’ll need a drink before I sing.”

Rojer nodded, running to fill a wooden cup from the pitcher of water.

“Not water,” Arrick said. “Bring me wine. I need a claw from the demon that cored me.” “We’re out of wine,” Rojer said.

“Then run and get me some,” Arrick ordered. He stumbled to his purse, tripping as he did and just barely catching himself. Rojer ran over to support him.

Arrick fumbled with the strings a moment, then lifted the whole purse and slammed it back down on the wood. There was no retort as the cloth struck, and Arrick growled.

“Not a klat!” he shouted in frustration, throwing the purse. The act took his balance, and he turned a full circle trying to right himself before dropping to the floor with a thud.

He gained his hands and knees by the time Rojer got to him, but he retched, spilling wine and bile all over the floor. He made fists and convulsed, and Rojer thought he would retch again, but after a moment he realized his master was sobbing.

“It was never like this when I worked for the duke,” Arrick moaned. “Money was spilling from my pockets, then.”

Only because the duke paid for your wine
, Rojer thought, but he was wise enough to keep it to himself. Telling Arrick he drank too much was the surest way to provoke him into a rage.

He cleaned his master up and supported the heavy man to his mattress. Once he was passed out on the straw, Rojer got a rag to clean the floor. There would be no performance today.

He wondered if Master Keven would really put them out, and where they would go if he did. The Angierian wardwall was strong, but there were holes in the net above, and wind demons were not unheard of. The thought of a night on the street terrified him.

He looked at their meager possessions, wondering if there was something he could sell. Arrick had sold Geral’s destrier and warded shield when times had turned sour, but the Messenger’s portable circle remained. It would fetch a fair price, but Rojer would not dare sell it. Arrick would drink and gamble with the money, and there would be nothing left to protect them when they were finally put out in the night for real.

Rojer, too, missed the days when Arrick worked for the duke. Arrick was loved by Rhinebeck’s whores, and they had treated Rojer like he was their own. Hugged against a dozen perfumed bosoms a day, he had been given sweets and taught to help them paint and preen. He hadn’t seen his master as much then; Arrick had often left him in the brothel when he journeyed to the hamlets, his sweet voice delivering ducal edicts far and wide.

But the duke hadn’t cared for finding a young boy curled in the bed when he stumbled into his favorite whore’s chambers one night, drunk and aroused. He wanted Rojer gone, and Arrick with him. Rojer knew it was his fault that they lived so poorly now. Arrick, like his parents, had sacrificed everything to care for him.

But unlike with his parents, Rojer could give something back to Arrick.

Rojer ran for all he was worth, hoping the crowd was still there. Even now, many would come to an advertised engagement of the Sweetsong, but they wouldn’t wait forever.

Over his shoulder he carried Arrick’s “bag of marvels.” Like their clothes, the bag was made from a Jongleur’s motley of colored patches, faded and threadbare. The bag was filled with the instruments of a Jongleur’s art. Rojer had mastered them all, save the colored juggling balls.

His bare, callused feet slapped the boardwalk. Rojer had boots and gloves to match his motley, but he left them behind. He preferred the firm grip of his toes to the worn soles of his bell-tipped, motley boots, and he hated the gloves.

Arrick had stuffed the fingers of the right glove with cotton to hide the ones Rojer was missing. Slender thread connected the false digits to the remaining ones, making them bend as one. It was a clever bit of trickery, but Rojer was ashamed each time he pulled the constrictive thing onto his crippled hand. Arrick insisted he wear them, but his master couldn’t hit him for something he didn’t know about.

A grumbling crowd milled about Small Square as Rojer arrived; perhaps a score of people, some of those children. Rojer could remember a time when word that Arrick Sweetsong might appear drew hundreds from all ends of the city and even the hamlets nearby. He would have been singing in the temple to the Creator then, or the duke’s amphitheater. Now Small Square was the best the guild would give him, and he couldn’t even fill that.

But any money was better than none. If even a dozen left Rojer a klat apiece, it might buy another night from Master Keven, so long as the Jongleurs’ Guild did not catch him performing without his master. If they did, overdue rent would be the least of their troubles.

With a “Whoot!” he danced through the crowd, throwing handfuls of dyed wingseeds from the bag. The seedpods spun and fluttered in his wake, leaving a trail of bright color.

“Arrick’s apprentice!” one crowd member called. “The Sweetsong will be here after all!”

There was applause, and Rojer felt his stomach lurch. He wanted to tell the truth, but Arrick’s first rule of jongling was never to say or do anything to break a crowd’s good mood.

The stage at Small Square had three tiers. The back was a wooden shell designed to amplify sound and keep inclement weather off the performers. There were wards inscribed into the wood, but they were faded and old. Rojer wondered if they would grant succor to him and his master, should they be put out tonight.

He raced up the steps, handspringing across the stage and throwing the collection hat just in front of the crowd with a precise snap of his wrist.

Rojer warmed every crowd for his master, and for a few minutes, he fell into that routine, cartwheeling about and telling jokes, performing magic tricks, and mumming the foibles of well-known authority figures. Laughter. Applause. Slowly, the crowd began to swell. Thirty. Fifty. But more and more began to murmur, impatient for the appearance of Arrick Sweetsong. Rojer’s stomach tightened, and he touched the talisman in its secret pocket for strength.

Staving off the inevitable as long as he could, he called the children forward to tell them the story of the Return. He mummed the parts well, and some nodded in approval, but there was disappointment on many faces. Didn’t Arrick usually sing the tale? Wasn’t that why they came?

“Where is the Sweetsong?” someone called from the back. He was shushed by his neighbors, but his words hung in the air. By the time Rojer had finished with the children, there were general grumbles of discontent.

“I came to hear a song!” the same man called, and this time others nodded in agreement.

Rojer knew better than to oblige. His voice had never been strong, and it cracked whenever he held a note for more than a few breaths. The crowd would turn ugly if he sang.

He turned to the bag of marvels for another option, passing over the juggling balls in shame. He could catch and throw well enough with his crippled right hand, but with no index finger to put the correct spin on the ball and only half a hand to catch with, the complex interplay between both hands when juggling was beyond him.

“What kind of Jongleur can’t sing and can’t juggle?” Arrick would shout sometimes. Not much of one, Rojer knew.

He was better with the knives in the bag, but calling audience members up to stand by the wall while he threw required a special license from the guild. Arrick always chose a buxom girl to assist, who more often than not ended up in his bed after the performance.

“I don’t think he’s coming,” he heard that same man say. Rojer cursed him silently.

Many of the other crowd members were slipping away, as well. A few tossed klats in the hat out of pity, but if Rojer didn’t do something soon, they would never have enough to satisfy Master Keven. His eyes settled on the fiddle case, and he snatched it quickly, seeing that only a few onlookers remained. He pulled out the bow, and as always, there was a rightness in the way it fit his crippled hand. His missing fingers weren’t needed here.

No sooner than he put bow to string, music filled the square. Some of those who were turning away stopped to listen, but Rojer paid them no mind.

Rojer didn’t remember much about his father, but he had a clear memory of Jessum clapping and laughing as Arrick fiddled. When he played, Rojer felt his father’s love, as he did his mother’s when he held his talisman. Safe in that love, he let fear fall away and he lost himself in the vibrating caress of the strings.

Usually he played only an accompaniment to Arrick’s singing, but this time Rojer reached beyond that, letting his music fill the space Sweetsong would have occupied. The fingers of his good left hand were a blur on the frets, and soon the crowd began clapping a tempo for him to weave the music around. He played faster and faster as the tempo grew louder, dancing around the stage in time to the music. When he put his foot on one of the steps on the stage and pushed off into a backflip without missing a note, the crowd roared.

The sound broke his trance, and he saw that the square was filled, with people even crowded outside to hear. It had been some time since even Arrick drew such a crowd! Rojer almost missed a stroke in his shock, and gritted his teeth to hold on to the music until it became his world again.

“That was a good performance,” a voice congratulated as Rojer counted the lacquered wooden coins in the hat. Nearly three hundred klats! Keven would not pester them for a month.

“Thank you …” Rojer began, but his voice caught in his throat as he looked up. Masters Jasin and Edum stood before him. Guildsmen.

“Where’s your master, Rojer?” Edum asked sternly. He was a master actor and mummer whose plays were said to draw audience members from as far as Fort Rizon.

Rojer swallowed hard, his face flushing hot. He looked down, hoping they would take his fear and guilt as shame. “I … I don’t know,” he said. “He was supposed to be here.”

“Drunk again, I’ll wager,” Jasin snorted. Also known as Goldentone, a name he was said to have given himself, he was a singer of some note, but more importantly, he was the nephew of Janson, Duke Rhinebeck’s first minister, and made sure the entire world knew it. “Old Sweetsong is pickled sour these days.”

“It’s a wonder he’s kept his license this long,” Edum said. “I heard he soiled himself in the middle of his act last month.”

“That’s not true!” Rojer said.

“I’d be more worried about myself, if I were you, boy,” Jasin said, pointing a long finger in Rojer’s face. “Do you know the penalty for collecting money for an unlicensed performance?”

Rojer paled. Arrick could lose his license over this. If the guild brought the matter to the magistrate as well, they could both find themselves chopping wood with chained ankles.

Edum laughed. “Don’t worry, boy,” he said. “So long as the guild has its cut”—he helped himself to a large portion of the wooden coins Rojer had collected—“I don’t think we need to make further note of this incident.”