Echoes of Betrayal (15 page)

“It’s—it’s healed!” Marshal Berris said. “Will it—is it strong enough for him to walk on?”

“Yes. But there are three more wounds, and I may not have strength for all of them in the time remaining. I am thinking, a lad with one lame leg and one thumbless hand is better off than a lad with two sound legs and no thumbs. I must try for a thumb next, but it is a longer and harder healing, though I need no assistance but the Tree’s for that. I must go outside now and draw strength from the taig.”

Dorrin looked at the Marshal and the Captain, and they stared back. “Well. That was … I don’t know what.”

“Was your magery involved, Duke Verrakai?” Marshal Berris asked.

“I’m not sure. I willed it so, but whether it actually took part in the healing, I don’t know.”

“One of us, at least, needs to be at the meet-house and ensuring that the militia understand their role,” Captain Selyan said.

“I must go,” Dorrin said. “Marshal Berris, will you stay in case Daryan wakes?”

“Certainly.”

“And if Master Ashwind thinks my magery of assistance for the other heel-string, if he can manage that, I will return at once. Captain Selyan, if you’ll accompany me, I can explain what should be done if I must return to the grange.”

D
orrin returned to the meet-house after her last visit to the grange that night in a state of confusion, exhaustion, and amazement. She offered prayers of thanks for the kindness of the gods, that Daryan had now two whole heel-strings and one thumb.

“It will not be strong yet, nor the size of what it was,” Master Ashwind had said. “I could not expend the power to grow it out to full size and still mend his other leg. And the other thumb … it is too late for the graft.”

“I thank you, Master Ashwind,” she said.

“Will you now come with me to judge the Verrakaien I have the trees holding?”

“I cannot,” Dorrin said. “I told you: I must stay here.”

“The boy will do well,” Master Ashwind said.

“It is not that,” Dorrin said. She thought he had understood. “I am here at the king’s command, because of the Pargunese. I cannot leave.”

“Then I must go,” Master Ashwind said. “I must return to the trees … and you should know that I cannot herd the men closer to a town.”

“Does that mean they will go free?”

“I am not sure I can overpower them, and I would have no way to move them,” Master Ashwind said. “So they will go free if they have survived so far.” He paused. “You could send some of your soldiers with me to take charge of them.”

Dorrin shook her head. “I cannot. None of them could withstand the magery. I’m the only one, and I cannot go.” As he stood looking at her, she tried to think what argument would convince him to do something different, but she was so tired … “Will you return here after you’ve eased the trees? Since you have no settled Grove?”

“I could, if you wish, but I would rather go where the trees need me.” He bowed to her, and then he was out the door and gone, into the darkness.

Gwenno was already asleep on a pallet when Dorrin came into the small room set aside for sleep; she did not wake as Dorrin took off her sword and boots and lay down, still dressed, on the simple bed the mayor had provided.

W
hen she woke, it was to find the mayor and his Council stirring about the meet-house, waiting for her with fires lit and food ready. Gwenno, already awake and dressed, was halfway through a bowl of porridge, but jumped up when she saw Dorrin and went to fetch another from the hearth.

“The news is good, my lord,” the mayor said. “No troops have attacked our borders, and no more of that strange fire has been seen. The Captain asks that you meet him at the border post when you can.”

“I will do so as soon as I’ve cleaned up and eaten,” Dorrin said. “I was up late last night.”

“Yes, my lord. And the Marshal sent word the lad’s doing better and he himself has gone out to make sure the yeomen are in their assigned places; a yeoman-marshal is with the lad.”

“That’s a relief.” Dorrin sat down; Gwenno set a bowl of porridge and a mug of sib in front of her.

“Would you like me to warm water for a bath?” she asked.

“If you’d just bring a can of hot water upstairs, Gwenno, I’ll take a bucket bath—it’s all I have time for. I thank you, Mayor, for your hospitality. Please, while I’m eating, tell me what else you know.”

“No word yet from Sir Flanits and those Royal Guards you sent off to find Beclan, my lord. But I suppose there wouldn’t be.”

“No—I pray Sir Flanits finds Beclan unharmed and does not stumble
unawares on the renegades.” She was not at all certain that the Kuakgan’s power with the taig could overcome magery.

And when would reinforcements come? Mahieran troops should be starting now, if the Duke had mustered them at the first alarm. She’d sent word to the domains just across the river to move their troops east in case the Pargunese attacked there. So far, two boatloads of ten, a mere twenty, had shown up.

B
eclan Mahieran pushed ahead through the blowing snow. Behind him, his little band of Duke’s Company and Verrakai militia continued to crunch along, making no complaint. He was their commander, and the Phelani soldiers had enforced appropriate discipline on the Verrakai. Two tensquads instead of the three hands the other squires were allowed to command. Despite Duke Verrakai’s occasional scoldings, Beclan was sure his extra troops showed she knew he was the most senior, the most qualified. This was his third patrol with them and the farthest west; he felt that he now had their full respect as both Duke Verrakai’s squire and Duke Mahieran’s son.

True, this morning his sergeant had suggested they might wait a day, that the Duke would not mind if they were back a day late because of weather that she would have experienced herself, but he had nodded respectfully when Beclan insisted. Vossik always showed proper courtesy, and Beclan was glad Duke Verrakai had assigned the man to his group, another clear sign that she considered Beclan first among the squires.

Now, however, Beclan was less sure of his decision. The snow had thickened; the trail so easy to follow from Deerhollow to Woody Ford was now deep in snow. There was—there should be—a way shelter coming up in the form of a sheep pen, but he could not see it. He wasn’t lost—he was sure he wasn’t lost—but in the storm it was
impossible to judge time or precise direction; the sky was impenetrable cloud.

His father’s last letter, in answer to his enthusiastic report about being given more men to command than the other squires, had been more warning than congratulatory. “I think it’s the best thing she could do for you, but don’t be cocky, boy. Not with winter coming. You’ve got some experienced troops, you say, and they’ll have campaigned in winter. You’ve never done more than ride in to Vérella from home, and even then not in a bad snowstorm. Listen to them. This is not like being squire to Marrakai or Serrostin; Verrakai can teach you things about the military none of the rest of us know.”

He couldn’t argue with his father, not through letters. But Duke Verrakai had said the squires must make decisions, learn to command, not just lean on the experienced veterans. She’d also said not to ignore their advice. When Gwenno Marrakai had asked if they always had to take that advice, Duke Verrakai had said yes if danger was imminent but otherwise no. But, she had also said a squire who refused advice would be responsible for the outcome.

Beclan scowled at the memory. When he’d left home the first time, his father and his cousin Mikeli had both given him a special mission: to watch that new Verrakai Duke and report anything indicative of treason or abuse of magery. He’d been excited about that, alert and ready to find out her secrets … and, over time, disappointed to find that she had none. Or she was cleverer than he’d thought. When she had first assigned the squires to take patrols out, he had tried to enlist the other two to keep watch in his absence—usually at least one would be at the house—but Gwenno and Daryan both had refused.

And his father had forbidden him to use the king’s name to persuade the others.

He didn’t dislike Dorrin Verrakai. If not for her, he’d have been squire to Marrakai or Serrostin—the one entirely too enthusiastic and the other too plodding for his taste. He’d enjoyed being the tallest and by a quarter-year the oldest of the three. He’d enjoyed meeting Paksenarrion, though something in her clear gray eyes made him uncomfortable.

But he wasn’t making a name for himself, stuck over here in a domain mishandled for generations by its former lords. None of the
little steadings and vills were as prosperous as his father’s; the people were poor and dirty and ignorant. They hadn’t even recognized the colors of his family knots, and he wasn’t sure they even knew a Mahieran sat on the throne of Tsaia.

He sank ever deeper into his thoughts, trying to ignore the way his face felt, the snow building up on his left side.

“Sir!
Sir!
”

The shout from behind roused him. He turned to look. His sergeant was just behind, pointing. “What is it?” he asked.

“The shelter, sir. Just there. We might stop, give the horses a break.”

Shame flooded him. He hadn’t seen it. He, the leader, hadn’t seen it. “Yes, of course,” he said. He turned his horse’s tail to the wind and followed the sergeant. The others were already in the enclosure, which he could see now had dry-laid stone walls and a low building that looked hardly big enough for them all. His horse stopped, head down, inside the gate. One of the others came up to hold his horse while he dismounted. The sergeant met him.

“You go on in, sir; we’ll take care of your horse. You been breaking trail. We’ll have something hot in no time.”

Beclan brushed off as much snow as he could before stooping through the doorway into darkness. Out here in the southwest of Verrakai domain, none of the improvements Dorrin had planned and begun nearer the house had taken place, so the hut was not only dark and cramped, but flakes of snow had sifted through the roof and the packed dirt floor stank of sheep droppings. No one had thought to store dry wood for the next arrivals; only a couple of very dirty rough-tanned fleeces lay in one corner, visible when one of the troops finally got a torch from their baggage mule alight. For a wonder, there was a crude fireplace in one corner. Beclan leaned on the wall as the Phelani soldiers badgered the others into finding wood and starting a fire.

When the sergeant came in again, Beclan said, “I think we’d better stay here the night.”

“Very good, sir,” the sergeant said. Beclan was sure he wanted to add, “We’d have been better off to stay in the vill,” but he didn’t. Instead he organized the work parties and set one team to cut branches from the pines and spruces to make a rough shelter for their horses.

Nonetheless, it was a miserable afternoon and night: what fuel they found was wet, and in the end only the dried lumps of cow and sheep dung would burn. The little fireplace smoked, and melting snow on the thatch dripped cold here and there. The shelter became crowded, smelly, and smoky though never comfortably warm.