02 - The Barbed Rose (46 page)

“What alarmed him?” Fox asked under cover of the babble that broke out the instant the throne room door closed.

“Don’t know.” Joh relayed Kallista’s orders. “She wants us back in quarters soonest, before anyone gives you or Gweric stranger looks than they already are.

“Or go beyond looking,” Fox agreed.

“What did you see?” Kallista asked before the door to their suite even closed. “Gweric?” Her hopes rode on him. She really hadn’t expected the other two to have seen anything, though they might have.

The boy frowned, like he had in the antechamber. “I didn’t see—or smell—anything. But…”

“What?” Kallista had to prompt him when it seemed he would take all day to decide how to finish.

“There’s something wrong with him. Or about him. Or—” Gweric shrugged. “He’s not right.”

“But is it demons?”

Gweric shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t—he’s just not
right
.”

Kallista huffed a breath. “That doesn’t help. I can’t take ‘just not right’ to the Reinine and expect her to act.”

“If he’s not demon-ridden now,” Fox said, “and I can’t tell whether he is or isn’t—but I know he has been at some time in the past.”

“How do you know?”

“How long in the past?” Torchay stepped into the conversation.

“I don’t know how long ago—more than a day or two. Those I saw in Turysh, the ones who weren’t regular mounts for the demons, looked…” Fox seemed haunted as he searched for words to describe what he’d sensed. “
Twisted
, I suppose. Deformed. They got better after a while. But the demon-ridden people, the regulars, looked only a little wrong. After the demons left them, they looked worst of all. He looks…wrong. Off.”

“Wonderful,” Torchay rasped. “So either he’s demon-possessed
now
and the demon is hiding, or he’s been possessed within the last few months or weeks, and we’re just now learning about it. And if he’s been possessed once, who’s to say it can’t happen again, any time?”

“How are we going to explain this to the Reinine?” Kallista set her hands on her hips, scowling at the floor as she tried out various beginnings. “How do we explain it so she
does
something about it?”

“What’s this
we?
” Torchay’s face held no emotion. “You’re the major, Major.”

He ducked away laughing, but she still caught him with a faint spark on his backside, which made him and everyone else laugh harder.

Except Joh. “What bothers me,” he said, “is that Huryl fled after he saw
me
. Not Gweric, or Fox, but
me
. Why?”

“He doesn’t know me,” Fox said.

“True. But why would he know me?”

“You were rather notorious last summer.” Torchay rubbed his hip where she’d stung him. “And this spring, when you joined us.”

“The High Steward didn’t come to the trial. He only ever saw me when I was on guard duty, when Stone was my prisoner, and High Steward Huryl is not one to notice any soldier with less rank than a red-fringe general. Why would he remember me?”

“That’s true,” Viyelle said. “When I was in my courier’s grays, he never even looked at me. He had no idea I was the same Viyelle Prinsipella he drowned in flattery when I wore the Shaluine crest on my court clothes.”

“Exactly.” Joh appeared puzzled and grim. “It makes no sense. Things that make no sense need to be investigated until they are understood.”

Kallista sighed. “Agreed.” She looked from one to the other of her iliasti. “And, since I am the major, I suppose I had better go inform the Reinine of what we know and suspect.”

“Just what is it we suspect?” Stone asked.

Kallista paused in her hunting of boots to reply. “That at the very least, High Steward Huryl has been demon-ridden at some time in the recent past and may possibly be at present. And he needs to be questioned.”

“Will she believe you, or will she think you merely trying to repay Huryl for separating our ilian?” Obed said.

“I think she’ll believe me.” Kallista found her boots beneath a small nest of baby blankets and shoved her feet into them. “I hope she will. Fox, you come with me in case she wants to question you herself. And whoever else Torchay thinks needs to come.”

Their departure was interrupted by the arrival of a brace of nursery servants with a note from the Reinine.

“Accept the assistance,”
it said.
“You have said your entire ilian is required to deal with demons. This way, they can be. Sidris and Maritta come highly recommended and thoroughly vetted by my bodyguards.”

Grateful to the Reinine for tending to something Kallista hadn’t yet thought about, she still took a moment to spin a bit of magic out to sniff for demon taint. She found nothing, nor did Fox or Gweric. With a polite murmur, she left them in Aisse’s hands to get settled in. Or perhaps Aisse was left in their hands. The outcome was still to be determined.

The Reinine did question Fox closely as to what he’d seen, but in the end, with the encouragement of her bodyguard iliasti, she agreed to have Huryl brought in for questioning.

Late that night, she sent word with the extra guards for their door that Huryl could not be found. This despite the fact that the palace grounds had been closed to the city—no one in or out—since the order for his questioning had gone out. The order was now changed for his arrest.

“I don’t like this.” Kallista frowned at the closed door to their suite. “This entire mess gives me a bad feeling.”

“Major—” Joh walked beside her back to the seating area. “Kallista, I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh?” Torchay’s eyebrows flew up.

Kallista patted his arm. “Don’t worry. He’s actually good at it.”

“Thank you, ilias.” Joh bowed, eyes twinkling in his solemn face. “I have been thinking about Huryl’s reaction to me, and about why anyone in Arikon might have cause to be alarmed by my presence.”

“And have you reached any conclusions?” Torchay asked.

Kallista watched Joh’s eyes go hard, his face lose all semblance of ease, and she dreaded his answer.

“One,” he said. “There are many reasons for people here to hate me or to be suspicious of me. You most of all. But who would have cause to
fear
me—except for the one who gave me the gunpowder and lied about what it could do?”

“Huryl did that?” Kallista found it hard to believe.

“Why didn’t you tell us before this?” Torchay took a step toward him, but allowed Kallista’s hand on his arm to stop him.

“I didn’t know. I still don’t, not with any measure of certainty.” Joh shifted as if he wanted to pace but wouldn’t, and his hands closed into fists. “I never saw the Master Barb’s face when we met, and he disguised his voice. But the height and the build match. It could be. It could explain his reaction. So could half a dozen other things.”

Kallista sighed. “We have to send a message to the Reinine. She needs to know our suspicions.”

“They are
my
suspicions,” Joh said quietly.

“And now they are mine, too.” She summoned a smile for him, feeling the weariness brought on by this thousand-chime day. She took the quill and paper Viyelle handed her and bent over the nearest table to write her message.

“I have a thought,” Stone said as Obed returned from delivering the message to the guard at the door for conveying. “Let’s hurry and go to sleep before anything else can happen.”

“You think our sleeping will stop it happening?” Kallista let him push her in the direction of the double-sized bedroom.

“No, but if it’s anything less than the invasion of Arikon, if we’re asleep, maybe they won’t wake us up.” Stone herded more of their number toward the door, unlacing his tunic as he went.

“Excellent thought.” Obed swept up the stragglers and snuffed the lamps and candles in the parlor before closing all nine of them in the bedroom.

This time, Merinda consented to join them in the enormous bed, on the outside edge, almost falling off it, but she did join them. It was a beginning, Kallista thought. She hoped they would have time to work their way through to the end.

The next day, after a breakfast that involved food throwing and fingers in eyes—without counting the babies’ meal—after they cleaned themselves up again, Kallista gathered up her godmarked iliasti and Gweric, and trooped out to the city walls. They left Merinda behind to recover from the unexpected excitement. The guards at the door would keep them all safe, and Sidris, the male nursery servant, had bodyguard training.

Kallista’s guarded optimism about Merinda was a bit more optimistic and less guarded after the way she’d finally let herself go and smeared honey in Stone’s face in retaliation for the sausage in her hair. Kallista set her hopes aside as they climbed the rickety stairway to the walk atop the walls.

“What are we doing here?” Aisse pulled her sword from its scabbard for a few practice swings.

“Looking to see what we can see.” Kallista thought for a moment before pulling magic. She reveled in the ease with which it came, its willingness to do whatever she asked of it. This time, she needed to see, not simply through Joh’s eyes or Fox’s
knowing
, but as if she were on her own flying boat. Only more. She needed to see what was hidden as well as that in the open.

“Watch,” she said. “All of you, especially you Fox. And Joh and Obed. You see differently or more clearly than the rest of us. We need your watching. If you see rebels, do your best to count them. Gweric, look for any magic patterns or demons.”

She released the magic, watched it rise and spread out until it seemed she saw everything beyond the city’s eastern wall at once. After a moment, the vision ceased to overwhelm her and she realized it worked like ordinary sight. She could focus her attention on a particular spot and the rest would fade to her peripheral vision.

Slowly, methodically, she scanned the ridges, cliffs and gorges to the east of Arikon. Rebels gathered in the deep places, but no more than were already known. Still Kallista counted. She heard her iliasti counting, too. When they had finished looking, they moved to the south-facing wall, and on, until they had circled the city and searched out the forces arrayed against them.

The majority of the rebels were massed in the broad valley to Arikon’s south. It would be difficult to fight their way to the south-facing gate and batter their way through the defenses, but the other gates were even more difficult to reach, given the terrain. The presence of demons among them was shockingly comforting.

She
knew
where they were. Ashbel to the south, Ataroth on the west, and a third demon on the east whose name Kallista had not yet been given. She had destroyed two, and one of these demons had eaten a third. But Joh had seen seven demons in his dream-vision. Where was the seventh?

Still riding Huryl? If so, why hadn’t Gweric seen it?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

K
allista gathered more magic, weaving it this time into demon-hunting. Barring it from the three she’d already found, she turned it loose. With the sun lowering in the western sky, they trudged back to the palace while the magic quartered the city, seeming to find and lose a demon’s trail a score of times. It circled and hovered as if confused, almost vibrating with indecision, until finally Kallista released it to go hunting beyond Arikon’s walls. She didn’t anticipate it finding anything new.

They found extra guards outside their suite beyond those Serysta Reinine had sent last evening. Inside Merinda was happily entertaining a quarto of young prinsipelli. Viyelle’s younger sedili had come to visit with their own guards, apparently not for the first time, for Gweric greeted the eldest—a boy not far from leaving for his military service—with a nod and a flick of his fingers.

The two girls each held a twin on her hip and judging by the youngest boy’s expression, had been cooing at them for some time. Viyelle introduced them, Mowbray and Tiray the boys, Dessa and Bella the girls. After some polite conversation, during which thirteen-year-old Tiray finished off the last of the pastries Merinda had served, Dessa asked about their trip.

Despite Kallista’s attempts to emphasize the monotony of travel and the sheer awfulness of the demons, the youngsters hung on every word. Viyelle’s embellishments didn’t help. Now the gossip would spread like grassfire.

Three days later, on Peaceday afternoon, the prinsipelli were visiting again—roughhousing with Gweric while pretending to practice their hand-to-hand or playing with the babies—when Kallista and her iliasti returned to the room from their spying.

“I knew it.” Viyelle hugged her youngest sedil despite Tiray’s squirming attempts to escape. “You love me so much, you just couldn’t stay away.” She planted a smacking kiss on the boy’s cheek, laughing as he wiped it off.

“More like we couldn’t stand any more of Kendra,” Dessa said. “And we knew you wouldn’t be here. Not right away, any road.”

Kallista burst out laughing and ruffled up Viyelle’s hair as she passed her. “Truth hurts, eh, ilias?”

Dessa shrieked as Viyelle captured her in a gentle headlock and kissed her soundly on the ear, making the girl yell again.

“She hates that,” Viyelle confided with a grin as she released her sedil. “Says it’s too loud.”

“And disgusting.” Dessa swiped at her ear with a shoulder.

“Who ate all the spice buns?” Stone complained as he studied the picked-over remains of a generous pastry tray.

“Tiray,” Bella said. “He eats everything, including the bones. Mother Saminda says he’s growing. I’ve only seen him grow
out
.” She spread her arms, as if holding up a vast belly.

Tiray protested, but refrained from retaliatory violence at a look and a raised finger from Viyelle.

Kallista took Lorynda from Mowbray and a plate from Torchay, holding it at arms length to keep little fingers out of it. As she settled on the sofa and let Lorynda crawl out of her lap and pull up to stand, the rebellion seemed very far away. Here, in this moment, surrounded by family and friends, she could almost pretend that this was all there was. That the world outside didn’t exist. That this was the center of the universe. It was the center of
her
universe.