Duainfey (15 page)

Soft-foot, she went down the back stairs. Once, she paused, thinking she had heard something—but the soft noise was not repeated and she put it down to nerves, or perhaps the stealthy incursions of a mouse.

She eased the door to the kitchen open and stepped inside. Shadows danced, misshapen under the influence of the banked fire, and it took her a moment to tease the familiar room—with its work tables, and stools, and the cook pots all hung away in their proper places—out of the—

Someone was sitting at the pastry table, leaning against the pillar. Becca gasped, and froze.

The man at the table did not move. Becca held her breath, trying to think. Surely he knew she was here? He would have seen her open the door. Why did he not speak? Why—

The sound of a gentle snore reached her.

The guard was asleep.

Relief made her giddy. She bit her lip so that she did not laugh, took a deep breath, and very slowly, very
quietly
eased past the table, crossed in front of the fireplace, to the door.

The latch worked silently. Becca let herself out into the night.

The moon was a great yellow cheese lumbering above the tree tops, the stars glittering like pins spilled across black velvet. Ahead of her were shadows, and within those a flicker, as if a horse had moved an impatient ear, followed by a soft ladylike snort.

Becca let herself smile as she walked carefully down the flagged path to where Rosamunde—and Altimere—awaited her.

"Miss Beauvelley." He was at her side before she saw him, pale hair covered with a dark hat.

"You placed your power into my keeping. Do you wish to withdraw your word?"

She blinked up at him. Did he not understand? Or did he think that she did not understand? Better him and what he offered—better anything she could imagine!—than that bitter, ill-used future she had seen.

"I stand by my word," she said to Altimere, and he bowed to her, as graceful as always, before stepping to Rosamunde's side and opening the saddlebag.

She handed him her bundle, and he paused, looking down at her, so she thought, quizzically.

"Pots?" he murmured. "Books?"

"I'm an herbalist," she said to the note of query in his voice. "The books are my references and the pots contain medicines we might have need of on the road, and . . ." She bit her lip, but continued strongly, ". . . and a salve, for when my arm pains me."

She felt the weight of his glance against the side of her face.

"I had not understood that the angry man had wounded you so grievously."

Becca opened her mouth—and closed it. This was not, she thought, the time for a protracted conversation regarding the realities of a withered arm.

"But!" Altimere continued, in a lighter tone. "I see that these things are, indeed, necessary to your power. It is well." There came subtle rustlings and the groan of leather being pulled, then Altimere spoke again.

"With your permission, I will lift you to your saddle."

"Thank you, I—"

"No!"

Becca spun, her feet tangling in the uneven ground; she fell heavily against Rosamunde's side as Caroline darted out of the shadow of the house, hair unbound and the moonlight poking bold yellow fingers through her muslin shift. She had not even bothered to snatch a shawl to cover her against the night chill and her feet were naked on the dirt path.

Altimere strode forward and Caroline ran into his arms—or, rather, he caught her above the elbows and held her at arm's length, as if she were an overexuberant puppy that he wished to prevent from leaving mud on his trousers.

"It is
I
who love you!" Caroline cried, her voice ringing with passion. Becca cringed, certain that the noise would rouse the sleeper in the kitchen, and all would be lost.

"Becca is a cripple," Caroline sobbed. "She's ugly and willful—you can't want her! She only uses you for her own gain. When she is done, you will be like poor Kelmit Tarrington. It is I who loves you! I loved you from the first moment I saw you! Have pity, my lord! Take me, take—"

"Silence."

He did not raise his voice, yet Becca felt it crackle over her skin like Sir Farraday's electric current. The effect on Caroline must have been the same, for the outpouring of words stopped at once, and she hung boneless between Altimere's hands, mute and adoring.

"Return to the house," Altimere said in that same even, oddly forceful voice. "Return to your bed. Return to sleep. Forget that you followed your sister to this place. Forget me." He leaned forward, and Becca thought that he was going to kiss—but, no. He merely blew across her eyes, then stepped back, loosing her.

"Go."

And before Becca's unbelieving eyes, Caroline turned, wordless, and passed silently down the path and through the door. She held her breath, waiting for a scream that would rouse the house, but all she heard was the snap of the latch, loud in the still air.

"So." Altimere was at her side once more. "If you will allow me to lift you to your saddle, Miss Beauvelley? The moon is our friend, and it would be ill done of us to shun her bounty."

"I—" She looked up at him. "Caroline will raise the house," she said, the words feeling tentative in her mouth.

He shook his head, clearly amused. "No," he said softly. "She will not."

And with no further ado he put his hands around her waist and threw her into the saddle. Rosamunde stood steady as a rock as she picked up the reins, then turned with no signal from Becca, following Altimere and his mount out of the shadows and into the moonlight night.

Meripen settled the pack on his back, touched the patch over his right eye, and the hilt of the knife at his belt. Despite the pack, he felt curiously unfettered—unfocused—
light,
as if he were one with the pearly dawn even now creeping along the treetops. It was a sensation that he had experienced before, when it had sat less oddly upon him. He paused with one hand on the gate, seeking warily after the memory—

"Are you able?" his companion murmured at his side. "There's no shame in waiting for another sunrise."

"No shame," Meripen murmured. "Yet you carry something for me in your pack, should I choose not to go on."

"I carry it, true enough," his companion, one Ganat Ubelauf, admitted cheerfully. "But we both know it's only because the chyarch will not have it here. Therefore,
someone
must return it to the lady—and I have a long-standing role as the chyarch's
someone
."

"No," Meri said slowly, and turned to face him. "You carry it because I am not strong enough. I feel—I feel as if I have no substance. As if I were nothing more than a doll cut from fog, and stitched with moonlight. As if—" He had it, the memory of his previous similar state—"As if I were a child again, without experience, purpose, or
kest
—"

"Aye, aye," Ganat said placatingly. "The long sleep'll do that. Your strength will rise quick enough, now you're awake. A few days on your own land and you'll be better than ever—see if not! Why—" He moved forward, pushing the gate open and stepping out onto the path. "You'll hardly credit it, but back when I was scarce more than a sprout myself, a patch of my wood took fire."

Without consciously willing it, Meri's hand flew up, fingers forming the sign for "avert."

Ganat nodded. "Well you might say, brother! Well you might say. Worse to tell, there was a bitter wind egging the flames on, and it was all that half-a-dozen of the Wood Wise and twice that again of the Brethren could do to smother it."

He shook his head, settled his pack and moved down the path. Scarcely attending what he did, Meri followed, the gate swinging shut behind him.

"But you did smother the flame," he said, coming even with Ganat.
Of course he had,
he told himself.
The man stands here, does he not?
Meri sighed quietly, wondering if the long sleep had leeched his wits as well as his power.

"Oh, we smothered it. But there was damage done, and it broke my heart to see it." He slanted a look to Meri. "I knew my lore, and I had the advice of my elders. But it was
my
place that had burnt, mark you, and it wasn't in me to leave it as it stood there, charred and black and not a leaf showing green."

"You never tried to heal it yourself," Meri murmured.

"Oh, you know that I did!" Ganat said cheerfully. "But I wasn't quite a complete young flitterwit, I'll have you know! Nay, I was prudent, and careful. I started with just one tree . . ."

"Oh," said Meri.

"You're a man with a rare way with words," Ganat said. "
Oh,
indeed. I poured everything I had and that which I hadn't known that I did into that tree, and it was my pride and wonder to see a single green leaf unfold from an ash-black branch right before I went to ash myself, or near enough."

Meri considered his companion as they followed the path to the top of the knoll.

"I've seen a Wood Wise sublimate," he said quietly and Ganat turned his head to gaze at him. Whatever he saw in Meri's face, some of the cheeriness left his own, and he bent his head soberly, in respect.

"A terrible thing, I'll own, and one that I'll be glad never to witness myself," he answered, and said nothing more.

They walked a dozen paces in silence before Meri sighed and asked, "But what happened to you? Did the tree return the gift?"

"Eh?" Ganat shot him a startled look. "Well. I daresay it might've tried, and I'm not the man to tell you that it didn't. Next
I
knew was waking up at the Hall there, so weak you could see sunlight through me, and not a flicker of
kest
to my name. My kith bore me back to my place—aye, that same charred and blackened spot that I'd all but killed myself trying to save."

They reached the top of the knoll, and paused by silent agreement, looking out over the dawning meadowlands.

"Turns out, I'd slept so long the land had healed itself, just as my elders had said it would," Ganat finished. "I sat down 'mong my growing things and by the time I'd got up again, I was solid and strong." He nodded, and sent Meri a sidewise look. "Same'll happen for you. All we have to do is get you to your home wood."

"It seems good advice," Meri said slowly, not wishing to startle his companion into silence again. "Unfortunately, Sea Hold is not my home, though Vanglewood lies not too far distant."

"Eh? Why're we taking you to Sea Hold, then?"

Meri shrugged. "Because the Engenium has commanded my presence."

"So she has. So she has. But—you'll forgive me—that begs the question. Which would be . . . 
why?
"

Meripen sighed and started slowly down the hill, the long grass rippling ahead of him like waves along the shore.

"I don't know," he said.

"Here?" Becca turned in her saddle to look at Altimere, much good it did her. All she could see was his strong profile, cast in shadow by the moon.

"It is a very comfortable inn," he said. "Does your power show you otherwise?"

"My common sense," Becca said, with an asperity born of panic, "tells me that we're scarcely off Beauvelley land, and on a main road! Searchers must ask here for news almost immediately I'm discovered gone—and so they will find us."

There was a small silence, man and horse almost preternaturally still. Then Altimere's mount shifted, blowing lightly against the breeze.

"It is possible—in fact, probable—that there will be no searchers," Altimere said, quietly. "But if in fact my small skill has proven inadequate and searchers come to this inn and ask—they will find that none of the patrons looks in the least like those they pursue." He moved his arm in a wide sweep, shadow slicing shadow. "They will then move on, and we will not be discommoded in the least."

Becca frowned. "How can you be certain of that?"

"In the same way I am certain that foolish and vain Miss Caroline did nothing more than return to her bed like a good child, forgetting that she had ever seen me," he answered, sounding amused. "Come. Let us bespeak a room."

He shifted and his horse moved, silent as the moonlight falling upon the land. Becca took a breath, leaned forward and laid her head against Rosamunde's neck.

Bespeak a room
.

She closed her eyes.
Rebecca Beauvelley, you are a fool.

And yet—who but a fool would choose death over life?

She straightened, and flicked the reins gently.

"Follow them, beautiful lady," she murmured. "We've made our choice, for good or ill."

"Evening, sir! Madam! What might we do for the pair of you this fine evening?"

If the innkeeper of the Dash and Tondle found anything amiss, with themselves or with the hour of their arrival, he kept it well away from his wide brown face. Indeed, thought Becca, the man looked uncommonly pleased to see them—or at least, to see Altimere. Upon her, he had bestowed a single benevolent glance so broadly incurious that she was quite sure he would be unable to provide a description even of her cloak, had Altimere asked.

"We require a large room with a private parlor," Altimere told the man, sweeping off his hat and tucking it under one arm. "Also, a cold collation, the house's best wine, and a bath."

A bath?
Becca thought.
At this hour of the night?
And a meal? She could scarcely think of food without an unsettling cramping of her stomach. Still, she thought, it was certainly possible that Altimere was hungry; in her experience, gentlemen were often hungry at peculiar times. And if Altimere were kept occupied by his meal, she thought, then perhaps she might slip away while he was at it, and pretend to sleep . . . 

"Will there be anything else, sir?" the innkeeper asked.

"I believe that will suffice."

"Very good. I'll just show you to your rooms, and—would you like the bath first, sir, or the meal?"

"The bath, and the meal laid in the parlor for us."

"Very good," the innkeeper said again, grinning. He looked to Becca, his glance sliding off her face as if it were a window he was determined not to look through. "This way, if you please," he said, catching the lamp up.