A Cast of Stones (17 page)

“The watch?” Anomar's eyes widened, then narrowed. “Boy, I haven't asked for explanations. I usually don't when I tend someone who's closer to dying than living, but if you're bringing danger on my house, I better know about it.”

She gave him a look made of sparks and tinder, ready to blaze into anger in an instant. He took a step back, stumbled from
sudden weakness, and lurched. Anomar grabbed him, threw his arm around her shoulders, and hauled him inside, where she deposited him in a chair.

“I think you need some real food.” Her gaze bored into him. “I'm going to get Rale.” She paused. “And Myrrha as well. After you eat, I think we need to hear how you came to be drifting down to us on the river.”

Minutes later, Errol got his first good look at the man who'd saved his life. Rale topped him by several inches. Gray eyes glinted over a broad nose that had been broken at least once. He moved with a step light enough to belong to a man twenty years younger, despite brown hair shot with gray.

Errol related his story, starting with the message from the nuntius. Anomar, but more often, Rale, stopped him and bade him go back and explain some part. At the mention of Merodach's name, Rale's eyebrows moved up his forehead.

Errol stopped. “You've heard of him?”

Rale nodded, laughed without humor. “We're closer to the island city here. News comes to us that probably never makes it to your village. Merodach is one of the captains of the watch. It's the highest rank they have and there are only ten. Men who talk of such things say he is the best of them.” His lean body edged forward in the chair, his eyes intense under his dark brows. “You say he missed you not once but four times?”

Errol nodded.

“What does it mean?” Anomar asked.

Rale shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe the reputation of the watch is overstated.” His eyes narrowed. “Boy, you're caught up in something bigger than you can understand. Rodran is the last of his line. One of the thirty-three benefices may come out of the Grand Judica as not only the next king, but the founder of the next dynasty.”

“Won't they decide the next king by lot?” Errol asked.

Rale shrugged. “If they were all immune to the temptation power offers they would. The rumors coming out of Erinon tell
me someone is trying very hard to prevent the conclave from choosing the next king.”

He looked at Errol and took a deep breath, as if hesitant to give voice to his thoughts. “Any of them might want you dead.”

Errol started. Him? They didn't want him; they wanted Liam. “Me?”

Rale thumped him on the head with one blunt finger. “Think, boy. Three times now you've escaped people who wanted you dead. Three.”

Errol shook his head in denial. “But those were just coincidence. Merodach was just trying to keep me from delivering a message to Pater Martin.”

“Then why did he shoot at you after you'd come out of the water?” Anomar asked. “He had to have known the message was ruined by then.”

Errol ignored the question. “Dirk was following our whole group. I just happened to be trailing the others.”

Rale gave a grudging nod. “It could be coincidence, but that word always sends a chill down my back, boy. The church has power and resources you can't imagine. Why did the Merakhi chase you?”

“I . . . I don't know.” Why had she been there? It was Liam the abbot had wanted.

Rale snorted. “That's the problem, boy. There's too much you don't know, but you need to find out. Someone is hunting you.” He paused. “Humph. And maybe more than just one someone. If you don't find out why, you're going to wind up dead.”

“And just how is he supposed to do that, Da?” Myrrha asked, her voice tight and angry. “All he's known is his village.”

Errol looked over to see Anomar's daughter gazing at him with liquid brown eyes—eyes like a fawn. He broke the gaze and raised another spoonful of soup to his lips. Myrrha made him nervous. He wasn't stupid. Hanging around the inns of Callowford and Berea had afforded him a certain education when it came to men and women, and he recognized the look Myrrha bestowed
on him. He'd seen it hundreds of times whenever a woman set her eyes on a man.

He'd just never seen the look directed at him.

Rale's gaze ran over him, his mouth pursed in a way that reminded Errol of a farmer looking at a scrawny calf. “So your friend Cruk has been teaching you the sword?”

Errol nodded.

That brought a snort. “Fool thing to do, trying to teach someone as small as you how to use a sword.” The man shook his head in disgust. “That's the thing about most men of the watch—they can't seem to understand that not everyone's built like a legend. The sword's no good for you, boy. You haven't got the reach for it. What you really need is a good bow.” He gave a wolfish grin. “Actually, what you need is a less troubled destiny, but don't we all.

“I don't have a spare bow to give you, but I can teach you the staff if you're willing to learn. It's not as pretty as a sword, but for you it's probably better.” He nodded. “Yes. And it attracts less attention.”

Errol nodded his assent. “I'd like to learn. I don't really like swords.”

Rale stood. “Good. We've got another two hours of daylight. Let's go.”

Anomar put a hand on Errol's shoulder before he'd half risen out of his seat. “Are you crazy, Rale? The boy's barely out of the grave.”

Her husband smiled, the expression lightening the countenance of his heavy features. “Is he in any danger?”

“Well, no.”

“Fine,” Rale said. “I'll try not to hurt him too much. He doesn't have time to be coddled, Anomar. If what the boy says is true about the compulsion, he may leave us at any time.”

Rale's wife gave a thin-lipped nod at this.

“Have some bandages and some of that soothe-hurt tea ready.” He turned to Errol. “Let's go, boy.”

Errol swallowed.
Bandages?

He followed Rale across the yard to a low-ceilinged barn. Rale bade him wait while he went inside. When he returned he carried two staffs, each somewhat longer than Errol was tall. Rale tossed one of the staffs to him. The wood slapped into his palm, the grain smooth against his skin.

“Your staff is made of ash,” Rale said. “It's light and springy. Until you put some muscle on that frame of yours, you'll want to stay away from the weight of oak.” He brandished his own staff, and Errol noted the honey-colored striations in the wood.

Rale moved into a stance similar to a swordsman. “Now, the first thing you need to know is what most swordsmen won't expect.” Without warning his staff moved, and before Errol could step back out of the way, the wood cracked across his leg midway between his ankle and his knee. The blow wasn't hard enough to break his leg, but even so it dropped him to his knees.

“Even with your limited training in the sword, you didn't expect me to strike at your legs,” Rale said. His voice cadenced as though he'd said these words many times before. “Swordsmen are taught, and rightly so, not to strike for the lower legs. For them it means death, but for a man with the longer reach of a staff, the legs are just another target. And one of the better ones, since a swordsman won't expect a blow to be aimed there.”

The pain ebbed enough to allow him to stand.

Rale nodded his approval. “Now, hold your staff like this. . . .”

An hour later, Errol sat at the table shoveling chunks of mutton and potatoes into his mouth. Rale reminded him of Cruk. Both men seemed to think the quickest way to teach someone to fight was to beat them until they couldn't defend themselves. Maybe they were right. After one session with this strange farmer, Errol knew one thing for sure—he preferred the staff to the sword. The length of wood fit him in a way that a sword never
would. Perhaps the sword's lethality repelled him, or maybe the span of the ash in his hand felt more comfortable because of his less-than-average height. But speculations aside, he enjoyed the staff more.

“You've got a knack for it, boy,” Rale said around a mouthful of stew. “Some people are born swordsmen; some are made for the staff. There are a lucky few who can master both.” He pointed his spoon at Errol. “You have balance. I don't know where you got it, but it's the best I've ever seen, and I've seen more than a few. You're a staff man.”

Errol felt a stare upon him and glanced over to see Myrrha looking at him, eyes bright and shining. He ducked his head, his face red, and tried to concentrate on his food.

Anomar must have seen the look as well. “Myrrha, run to the spring and fetch us some water for the dishes.” The look Anomar gave Errol after Myrrha left the cottage bore no resemblance to her daughter's. Anomar rose and disappeared from Errol's vision for a moment before returning with a pitcher of dark, foamy liquid.

Ale.

As his mouth watered, Errol counted back. How long had he gone without a drink? Three weeks? Four? He stared at the pitcher, his hand moving toward it of its own volition. When his fingers were close enough to feel the cooled air surrounding the thick stoneware, he stopped.

Anomar's laugh drifted across his hearing, sounded at once friendly and far away. “Go ahead, lad. Our ale is a little darker than most, but I've never had a complaint.”

He pulled his hand back, aware now that sweat beaded on his forehead and that Rale watched him, his eyes dark, intense. Errol licked his lips. Did he want a drink? He hadn't gone more than two days in a row without a drink since he was . . . since Warrel . . . the quarry . . . stone.

Memory crushed him, blinding him to the cottage, to Rale, to Anomar. His arms covered his chest. He rocked back and forth, heard whimpering noises in a voice he recognized as his
own.
Stone.
He reached out a hand without seeing, groping for the pitcher of ale.

He couldn't find it. Images assaulted him. He couldn't see past them.

“Boy!” Anomar's voice sounded in his ear, close enough for him to feel the breath of her words. A hand came to rest against his cheek.

“Leave us, Anomar,” Rale's voice ordered. “This is beyond your healing.”

Footsteps.

Motion.

His chair scraped the floor. A pop of sound and his head whipped to one side, and an instant later his cheek stung. His eyes snapped open to see Rale in front of him, arm raised for another blow.

“Can you see me, boy?”

Errol managed a nod.

“Good.”

He felt himself lifted from the chair. Rale threw him over one shoulder like a sack of grain and carried him out to the yard, where the farmer dumped him on the ground.

Pictures of his past drifted across his vision. He couldn't seem to stop them. Blood everywhere. And silence. Not even a breath of sound. Errol opened his eyes, but the memories followed him.

An ash staff rested on his ribs.

“Come, boy,” Rale said, soft but commanding. “Fight it.”

As though Rale's voice had the power to command him, he groped for the staff like a drowning man grasping for a rope. His fingers closed on the wood, gripping it tighter and tighter until his knuckles cracked and ached with the effort.

That was as far as he could go.

Tears wet his cheeks. Warrel . . . blood . . . so much blood.

Hands gripped him, strong, implacable. “Fight, boy!”

Errol stood, stared as Rale's staff whistled through the air, coming for his legs.

He ground his staff, felt the impact of wood against wood. His palms stung with the vibration.

“No!” The word's echo still hung in the air as he lifted the butt end of his staff and struck, trying with all his might to smash through Rale's defense. Wood struck wood. Errol twirled, reversed his grip and struck again.

And again Rale parried.

He thrust now, hands at the lower end, trying to put the end of the staff into the farmer's midsection, face, throat, anything.