Full Circle (39 page)

Ranny nodded. “Will you command the city forces?”

“Not if you want to keep Thegan as a friend,” he said. “In fact, I would count it as a favour if you did not mention me to
him.”

Ranny assessed that information. She nodded. “Agreed, for now, if you keep me informed of your whereabouts.”

“As to that, can you recommend an inn? Something modest, I’m afraid.” He smiled at her, the smile that so often helped him
make a friend.

It worked on her, too. Her lips twitched, even if she didn’t smile back. “The Red Dawn is not a bad place,” she said. “And
I think Lord Thegan is unlikely to go there.”

The Red Dawn was stripped of staff. The innkeeper had to come out and take the horses himself, apologising and promising that
he’d be with his lord as soon as he’d put them in the stables and found the stable boy to groom them. He suggested that Leof
wait in the inn chamber, he was sorry, but there would be no one there to serve his lord. Everyone was out working on the
city defences; he hoped his lord understood. Of course he understood.

The first person he saw when he walked into the inn chamber was Sorn.

She was sitting alone in a window seat, gazing up at the sky. He had never seen her in repose before, and for a moment he
simply didn’t believe it
was
her. Why would she be here, instead of at the Moot Hall, or a more expensive inn? Then he saw the curve of her cheek, the
light coming through the window onto the warm glow of her hair, the long hands clasped around her knees, and knew without
doubt that it was her. It was as though someone had punched the breath out of him; the moment of shock was followed by a surge
of feeling so great he couldn’t identify it. It brought tears to his eyes, set his hands shaking.

She was alive. She was here. He didn’t care whether Thegan punished him — he had to speak to her.

She hadn’t noticed him. He set his bags on the floor and walked slowly between the inn tables towards her.

He stumbled a little, pushing a chair across the floor with a sharp noise, and she looked over at him. He stood still, thinking
of nothing. Just looking at her.

Sorn looked back for a moment, eyes wide, and he had just enough time to wonder what to say before she sprang from the seat
and flung herself across the room to him. “You’re alive, you’re safe! You’re alive!” she babbled — quiet, controlled Sorn!
He caught her, held her close. Her hands were at his face then, cradling it, then at his chest, grasping his tunic, shaking
him a little. “You’re
here
!” she said breathlessly.

He was already a traitor. What did one more betrayal matter? But he couldn’t do it — couldn’t hold her and kiss her the way
he ached to. It was the only shard of honour he had left.

She saw it in his face. “I’ve renounced him,” she said, and pulled Leof down so she could kiss him. “I’m free.”

He didn’t understand how she could do that, but he had no resistance left. They kissed as though parched for each other, kissed
and held — the urge to pull her tight to him, to make sure she was really there, was as strong as the urge to make love to
her. He twined his hands in her long hair and held her head firmly as he kissed her. Desire overwhelmed his relief at seeing
her alive, and she felt it.

“Come,” she said, pulling him by the hand upstairs.

They didn’t make it to the bed, falling to the floor instead. He had never felt this need before, not even with Bramble. It
wasn’t a need for pleasure, or release, but to be with, to be
one
. Joined together, joined forever… He fought against climax because it would be the beginning of separation; he slowed
but she wouldn’t let him, moaning his name. Her voice, his name; it started an avalanche in him, of pleasure and tears and
joy and sharp, sharp pain at the centre. He clutched at her and said her name in return, and felt her tears start, her body
clutch his.

They lay in a welter of clothes, still half-dressed, feeling cold air and warm skin and sweat cooling. Shaking, both of them,
still, and not from pleasure.

He’d always thought that shagging was shagging, no matter who the partner: always good, always fine. He tightened his arms
around Sorn and she made a curious little snort of satisfaction, and he laughed.

She looked up at him, laughing too, and then fell silent. “Too much need for too long,” she said.

He stroked hair back from her eyes. “I love you,” he said.

She closed her eyes as if in pain, and he winced, wondering if he’d completely misunderstood. Then she turned her brow into
the curve of his shoulder, and he realised she was weeping. He wiped the tears away for some time before she raised her head.

“No one, in all my life, has ever said those words to me,” she said.

“Your parents, surely!”

“My mother died in childbirth. My father… was not a loving man.”

“Your wetnurse?” he ventured. “Your maid?”

“They changed, depending on who owed tax bondage.”

He was appalled at the vision of the lonely little girl, growing up without comfort or affection in all the isolation of the
fort.

“Then how did you become so wonderful?” he exclaimed.

She laughed with more freedom than he had ever seen in her. Then she sobered. “Thank the gods,” she said. “They were my refuge.”

The words brought them back to the present, and to the dangers of the present.

“There’s a good deal you don’t know,” she said.

As they dressed she shared all the information she had, including the plan to raise Acton’s ghost.

“The Well of Secrets says that Bramble has gone after his bones.” Sorn was pretending to fold a scarf, but looking sideways
at him.

He caught her at it. “Wondering about her and me?” he asked. “One night, a long time ago, and never again.”

She relaxed and continued her story, finishing with Thegan’s intention to have Gabra sire a child on her. He stood rigid at
that point, every instinct telling him to find Thegan and kill him.

She came and clasped her hands over his. “I have renounced him,” she said. “Before witnesses, including the Well of Secrets.
After — after this is over — I will choose me a new husband.” She smiled coquettishly at him, a look he had never seen from
her before. “I wonder who I might choose?”

He laughed, but sobered quickly. “We must not be seen together, or Thegan will claim you are only renouncing him to have me,
and I am a traitor, condemned to death. I’ll find another inn.”

“No,” she said, blinking slowly. “You will take a separate room, but you will stay here.”

It was the warlord’s daughter speaking, and his impulse was to obey, but he had to make her see that it was dangerous for
her. “Sorn —”

“I am willing to take your oath of allegiance, Lord Leof.”

Even with her hair tumbled around her shoulders and her lips red from his mouth, she looked older suddenly, and far stronger.

“You need to put your case to the other warlords before Thegan gets to them,” he warned, then he picked up his sword from
where his belt had fallen, and drew it, presenting it hilt first to her in the ancient ceremony, but she shook her head.

“I am not a commander,” she said. “I value the oath more than the sword.”

“Thou art my lady,” he said, “and I shall be loyal unto thee until death.” They were not the same words he had used to Thegan.
To Thegan he had pledged his sword and his honour. Thegan had used his sword and trampled on his honour. So for Sorn, whose
honour was brighter by far than his own, he could offer only loyalty. But it seemed to be what she wanted.

Formally, she placed her hands over his. “I am thy lady,” she said. “In return for thy loyalty, I shall care for thee until
death.”

It was the promise warlords made to officers who did not serve directly in their command — the officers who husbanded their
lands and paid tribute. They were both aware of the double meaning of the words; it sounded like a wedding pledge. He smiled
at her and she turned her head away slightly, trying not to smile back, then punched him lightly in the arm as if to rebuke
him for levity.

She plaited her hair swiftly and pinned it up until she was once again the poised warlord’s daughter.

“So, now you’re mine and I can do what I like with you,” she teased him as they walked out of the room.

His breath caught in his throat at that thought, but he brought his attention back to the needs of the moment. “We need to
find Bramble. Where’s the stonecaster?”

The sun had lowered while they had been in the chamber, and the innkeeper had lit the lanterns below.

“I have reported to my lady,” Leof said. “What room have you put me in?”

The innkeeper looked slyly at him. “I wasn’t sure you’d be needing a separate room.”

Leof crossed the room in two paces and pushed the man back against the counter. “You cannot possibly have meant to insult
my lady.”

The innkeeper didn’t cower, but he lost the knowing expression. “Nay,” he said. “No insult. I’ll put you in the room at the
end of the corridor.”

Leof nodded and let him go. Another woman was coming down the stairs: stocky, sandy-haired, around forty.

“Safred!” Sorn said thankfully, going to meet her. “Leof, this is the Well of Secrets.”

It was strange to meet a legend in the flesh. Leof bowed very low and straightened feeling curiously exposed. It was said
that the Well of Secrets knew the past and the future and everything in between. The way she flicked a glance between him
and Sorn, and then lifted her eyebrows just a fraction made him believe it.

She walked over to him, closer than was polite. He didn’t know whether to move back. Then she put out her hand and touched
the circle of woven reeds that hung around his neck. “Are you a man of power, Lord Leof?” she asked.

He shook his head. “It was given to me. As a great boon. It saved my life.”

“You are blessed,” Safred said. “Keep it close. If we survive this, you will have a son. Give it to him, when he is born.”

A shiver went through him. Prophecy. True prophecy. It felt different from stonecasting, where the stones somehow seemed to
have the power. The Well of Secrets was linked tight to the gods… A son.
If we survive this
, she had said.

“Will we win against this enchanter?” he asked.

She sighed. “You want a prophecy? Fine, here it is.” Her eyes looked into space, and she spoke as if from a long way away.
“The dead will be reborn, the quick and the quickened will both taste blood, the killers will be brought together to confront
the killed. The voices of the dead will echo through the world, and the evil dead shall triumph over the evil living. If we’re
lucky.”

Her gaze sharpened on him again and he was sure she could see the trembling in his body.

“Happy?” she asked.

“Don’t take it out on him, Safred,” Sorn said sharply.

Safred turned to look at her closely. “So, you’ve found your strength, have you? Don’t let Thegan intimidate you again.”

“I won’t.”

The three of them stood there as if waiting for something. Outside, the sun set.

A shiver went through Safred and she clutched at a chair back to steady herself. “They have set the spell,” she said. “The
city is protected from ghosts.”

“As long as the barricades are intact,” Leof said. “It will be a fight to remember, keeping them so.”

T
ELL ME
everything you know,” Doronit said. It was the part of her that he’d never fully understood, the merchant in information.
But more than that, there was a need to know what was happening, as though knowing could protect her. He thought for a moment
of Safred, to whom secrets were meat and drink, but this was different: more rational, more ruthless.

“And then you kill me?” he asked.

“That depends on what you tell me,” she said, sitting down behind her desk. She didn’t offer one of the chairs she kept for
clients, but he took one anyway, staring at her, not sure how he felt.

Thanks to the River, his desire for Doronit had been washed clean away. But the other emotions — especially gratitude for
her taking him in when no one else wanted him, not even his parents — stayed with him and made his mind whirl. He knew she’d
had her own reasons for taking him, but she’d given him the first home he’d ever known and she had truly valued him, the first
person to ever do so. The skills she had taught him had saved his life, and Bramble’s.

So he told her the truth. Exactly, leaving nothing out but the River.

At the end, she looked at him closely. “What are you not telling?”

He brushed the question away. “Nothing important to you.”

She assessed that, a look on her face he could not read, and for the first time he could take breath and simply look at her.
Just a Traveller woman. Richer, cleverer, but important only because of the secrets she held. He would never share her desire
for power, but having walked through the streets of this city and seen the contempt and hatred for Travellers that lay just
under the surface, he understood what had driven her to compel the ghosts of Turvite to give up their secrets. Compassion
for her twisted in his gut.

“This enchanter wants to take back the Domains for our people?” she asked, looking away at last, twisting the fringe of her
shawl between her fingers, something he’d never seen her do before.

“Yes. By killing everyone.”

She nodded slowly and raised her head to gaze at him. Her eyes were alight. “That would work,” she said.

He pushed out of the chair, sending it spinning to the floor behind him. “Thousands of people!”

“
Their
people,” she breathed.

He should have seen this coming — he’d known how much she hated Acton’s people. He had to appeal to the merchant in her. “There’d
be no trade,” he said. “Life would just collapse! No customers, no merchants, no
farmers
. You’d starve in a month.”

“You think our people couldn’t learn to be farmers, if they had the best land available to them, tools, animals, barns and
all just handed to them? Some of them already know how! I grew up on a farm, Ash. I could run one. With a little help.”