Haven: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Four (31 page)

A small stream trickled nearby through the undergrowth as Jaryd limped up the stairs. Suddenly someone arrived at his side, placing his arm about their shoulders to help with the steps. To Jaryd's astonishment, it was a serrin woman, a total stranger, who smiled at him, and took some weight off his bad leg.

“Thank you,” he told her. “What is your name?”

The serrin said something in Saalsi, uncomprehending. These were not
talmaad
, and the woman was unarmed that he could see. If she did not speak Torovan, certainly she would not speak Lenay. For all their linguistic talent, most serrin did not speak human tongues, and devoted their language skills to their own multiple dialects.

The serrin woman arrived at her path to a cabin, and said what was obviously an apology for leaving him. She walked to a cabin half-hidden amongst trees. She was wearing pants and a shirt, not so unlike what the men wore. Somehow Jaryd found that most astonishing of anything he'd seen in Saalshen so far. He'd assumed that
talmaad
women were merely abandoning their traditional, feminine garb for something more practical. Now he was finding that serrin women wore pants in Saalshen too.

At the top of the path he found the trail he had been directed to, and followed it through the trees. Suddenly it opened onto a small lake on the hillside. On either side of the lake were grand wooden buildings with pointed roofs. They reminded Jaryd of some Lenayin training halls, where men would practise swordwork. These looked more peaceful, and those serrin he could see wore robes. Priests? he wondered, as he limped on around the lake. Within the templelike buildings, the walls were lined with carved symbols he had never seen before, and decorations like wind chimes dangled and swung about the doorways.

Jaryd followed a path between wooden temples and thought that he had never seen a place quite so lovely. He had never been one to be interested in spiritual contemplation, but here he could feel the calm, could almost breathe it, like a scent on the air.

In a small pool before a smaller building, he came upon two women. They sat on a shallow step in the water and talked, their light robes wet, their hair tousled. Jaryd fought back a smile—if Saalshen had one thing to recommend it, it was this. Serrin women were not shy.

One woman looked up at his approach, and nudged her companion. That woman looked, and…Jaryd nearly stopped in astonishment. It was Sofy. Her hair was much shorter, still long, but now barely past her shoulders. The Idys Mark on her forehead was gone. There was no jewellery on her neck or fingers. One hand bore a bandage, cut with the knife she'd wielded to save his life, back at the Ipshaal crossing. She looked…new.

“Hello,” she said simply, and the serrin woman climbed from the water with a knowing smile. “Sit,” she invited him.

Jaryd wore only light clothes himself, good for both the warmth and his various recovering injuries. He removed his sword belt, placed it and the sword beside the pool, kicked off his sandals, and climbed in beside her. The water chilled pleasantly, and he leaned back against the poolside.

“What is this place?” Jaryd asked.

“You know, I'm not entirely sure. Kels is
talmaad
, she speaks Lenay well, yet somehow with serrin it's never entirely clear.”

“It looks like some kind of temple complex.”

Sofy nodded. “Oh, it is, for certain. But these people here, they're not priests or monks. Kels said they are all normal serrin, come from all over Saalshen. I think perhaps some of them have had tragedy in their lives, and they come here for solace.”

“I didn't think serrin had religion,” said Jaryd, gazing up at the forest canopy high above.

“Sasha once told me that serrin do not separate things into the spiritual and the nonspiritual. She said it made more sense to say that because the serrin do not organise religion, they find the spiritual in everything, not merely in temples. I think I understand now what she meant.”

Jaryd nodded. “Everything is a small ritual to them.”

They sat in silence, with only the sound of birds, wind in the branches, and the nearby tinkling of water into the pool.

“I never thanked you for saving my life,” said Jaryd after a moment.

Sofy smiled. “After you'd just saved mine five times over.”

Jaryd shrugged. “I'm a warrior, it's my duty. You're no warrior, yet you've saved mine twice now.” The first time was in Algery, when Sofy had ridden in to save him from the cavalry that had surrounded him. “Even if you did forget to leave me a stirrup.”

Sofy splashed at him lightly. “I was still learning to ride then. Though I did fall again just now.”

“That was brave, taking that child. Stupidly brave. The kind of bravery that Sasha has. That I have.”

“You have the ‘stupid’ right. It nearly killed me and the child both. If his mother had hidden, he may have been safer left behind.”

Jaryd shook his head. “Never doubt courage. I was wrong to criticise it in you before. Courageous leaders make mistakes. Cowardly leaders make worse ones.”

“You were correct to criticise me. Good leaders must listen to those who know better than they. You know fighting far better than I do. Far better than most men. I cannot make good decisions entirely on my own. I do not think that any leader can. Nor any person, in any part of life.”

She seemed almost serene. Jaryd had not expected that.

“Why the hair?” he asked her.

“Do you like it?” she asked with girlish pleasure.

“I do.”

“Kels cut it for me—she said that women in the
talmaad
have evolved many styles for shorter hair, since long hair is so inconvenient for them.”

“Sister Mardola would not like that,” he ventured.

Sofy laughed, very loudly. It was a lovely sound. “No,” she admitted, with dancing eyes. “I daresay she would not.”

“And the Mark of Idys? The Royal Ring?”

Sofy sighed, and swished her feet in the water. “Oh dear. It's so silly. All of it's so silly, isn't it? It's like you told me, I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. And now I arrive here, in this place, and suddenly everything makes sense.”

“Explain it to me, because I could use a little more sense in my life.”

“Some things are good,” Sofy said simply. “Other things are bad.”

Jaryd blinked at her. “That's it?”

“Well, no. But what the Elissians did to us, what they did to all of those people, was bad. Evil.”

“No argument here.”

“And what we were trying to do for them, in helping them to safety in Saalshen, was good. I risked my life to save that child, and to help the rest of them. That was good. What Asym did to allow us to escape, that was even better.”

“Eslen,” Jaryd gave the formal agreement, and made the spirit sign at his forehead. To his surprise, Sofy did the same.

“He killed a lot of Elissians, yet I cannot deny the goodness of his actions,” Sofy continued. She paused a moment. Then added, “I killed one Elissian, and I did not feel sad for it. That stunned me more than the killing itself. I mean, this is
me
, Jaryd.” She laughed again. “The girl who used to scold the palace cat for killing a mouse. And so when I was dumped on the far Ipshaal bank I set about searching through my own soul for the horror that I expected to find at this awful thing that I had done with my own hands.” She looked at her bandaged hand, floating in the cool water. “But I found nothing.” She gazed at him with large dark eyes. “I was not sorry, Jaryd. I think I was even glad.”

“Perhaps you are a warrior like Sasha after all,” Jaryd said with amusement.

Sofy shook her head, adamantly. “No. I'll never be a warrior, I have not the discipline to learn skills that disinterest and frighten me. Nor the aptitude, no doubt. But I have realised for the first time what is wrong, and what is right. My old values mean nothing now. This new understanding has swept them away.”

“There's nothing like seeing a slaughter first hand to rearrange your priorities,” Jaryd said sombrely.

Sofy nodded. “I've seen killing before. I was with you and Sasha on the ride north…”

“I remember well.”

“But here…” She gazed up at the trees, and at the surrounding temples. “It's so beautiful. My husband seeks to destroy all this. I had thought to excuse him, thinking that he has the right to an opinion, being the representative of so many. But I come here, and I remember the killing in Tracato and now upon the Ipshaal, and I realise that he and all his opinions and his priests and his lords can jump in the sea for all I care. No one is entitled to that opinion. Let alone to act upon it with an army of a hundred thousand.”

“One fifty,” Jaryd said quietly. “At least, if the Meraini come, and now the Elissians.”

Sofy glanced down, with sudden fear. “And to think that I might have helped to make such a thing possible…”

Jaryd caught her hand. “You have the kindest heart of any person I have known. You always think of others first. It is not in your nature to condemn and wish death upon people. But you walk the path, and you learn.”

“I still don't wish death upon them,” Sofy murmured. “But I do want them stopped.”

“And there is no other way but war,” Jaryd completed.

Sofy looked back to him, and her eyes were clear. “I know,” she said simply. And she smiled, and looked around in exasperation. “It's foolish. I am committing to a fight we probably can't win. Most likely we'll all die a horrible death, me especially for betraying my lawful husband. But I don't care anymore.” She beamed at him. “I feel free.”

Unadorned and water-wet in her robe, she looked free. Jaryd had never seen a woman more beautiful.

“And what
of
your marriage?” he asked her.

Sofy made a face. “The serrin say that life is a road strewn with obstacles. This obstacle I shall manoeuvre around somehow. Perhaps talk to the priests, consider the possibilities.”

“Whoever wins the war,” Jaryd added, “the other is unlikely to survive.” His heart was thumping, with the dull excitement of possibility.

“That is certainly true,” Sofy said.

“In which case,” he obliged, “it makes little sense to be religiously observing marriage vows now.”

Sofy made a conceding dip of her head. “We are in Saalshen after all,” she agreed.

“Where marriage itself is a rare and foreign concept,” Jaryd added. He glanced about. “And would you look, I cannot see a priest anywhere.”

Sofy threw her head back and laughed. Then gave him a look that was pure devilry, and went straight to his groin. “I don't want to talk of husbands anymore,” she said, and climbed onto Jaryd's lap in the water. She brushed wet hair from her face, lips nearly touching his. “Such a pointless distraction, when there are better things to think about.”

Their lips touched. Her body enfolded to his, cool and firm, her lips and breath and eyes so familiar, as though they had never been apart. As though things had always been this way. She smiled at him, and kissed him again, and again. Some serrin may have walked past. Neither they, not their human guests, thought to mind.

It was late evening upon leaving the Shuen Vaal, the shadows of the surrounding mountains darkening the streets even as the sky above remained blue. Sasha heard it first, the sound of shouting, and then of glass breaking.

“Trouble,” she murmured to Bergen. They rounded a corner and found several people standing before a house whose windows had been broken. Beyond, people were running, and shouts came louder. The house bore a red star on the front door—a serrin house.

“Let's just get back to the temple without any trouble,” said Bergen. Sasha felt into the pocket of her dress as she walked, for the incision that made the knife strapped to her thigh accessible. Nearby, she could smell something burning. Bells clanged alarm, and city folk opened high windows to peer out and stare across the rooftops.

Stamentaast came running, green-vested men wielding torches and swords. People on the streets stood aside for them, and Stamentaast paused before another star-marked house to throw stones at the windows. Two men broke down the door and rushed inside. Bergen grasped Sasha's arm and dragged her on. He sensed that her hand was itching toward her knife; surely his own did the same.

Further along, the scene became worse. A house was fully ablaze, threatening to take its neighbours with it. City folk were crowding a wagon arrived from the lake with basins of water, throwing bucketfuls onto the flames. Sasha thought that if half the city burned, it would serve them right. A half-serrin family huddled by a street side with two children, defended by several city folk, as locals spat and threw kicks and stones at them. The children were terrified and crying, the parents desperate.

“We have more important things to do than die needlessly here!” Bergen snarled at Sasha, tightening his grip. Sasha fumed as Bergen dragged her past. Further on, Stamentaast had gathered more serrin and part-serrin, rounding them up with kicks and threatened swords. There was some argument over what to do with them. A young man, with bright blue eyes like Aisha's, shoved at a Stamentaast who kicked his mother. The Stamentaast ran him through with a sword. The mother wailed and screamed as he collapsed.