High Couch of Silistra (17 page)

When he disappeared around the corner to the kitchen proper, Sereth of Arlet put his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes.

“I have never seen such a time,” he said. “It whirls and blows around us, and that which rides it is strange indeed. It has been one irregularity after another. The death of the old Liaison, you, Dellin, Vedrev, so many new variables. Now, this. Those old women must be gnashing their teeth and pulling their hair out by handfuls over this one.” The thought seemed to cheer him, that the Day-Keepers would be adversely affected.

He pulled a knife from its sheath, a small dagger, and began cleaning his nails.

“There is no use discussing the undiscussable, speculating with no information,” he said to me when the food came, filling a bowl with rana and handing it to me. “Tell me what you read from Dellin, our new Second, with your Astrian skills.”

I had wondered when it would come up.

“He is a brilliant, devious man. I am not objective. I thought for a while that I cared for him, but I think now that I do not.” Sereth leaned back in his chair, his long legs crossed. He looked up at me intently from beneath his dark hair. “He is much taken with Silistra. He would make himself as Silistran as he can. That can serve you to your advantage if you play him right. He is, however,” I cautioned, “a M’ksakkan, and profit and quota are to them as chaldra is to us. He will have difficulty, living as he wishes, with a foot in both worlds. Eventually, there will come a situation in which the needs of Arlet and those of the M’sakkan Bipedal Federate are in conflict. I would not trust him until that time has come and gone. But he thinks himself sincere, and thusly may be used, perhaps, to advantage by one subtle enough in his approach. Remember, a Liaison with Slayer’s chaldra is a bridge between worlds, a bridge that has never been trod.”

“And a bridge provides access from both sides of the abyss it spans, eh?”

“Such is the nature of a bridge,” I affirmed.

“Could you read this Fressa for me, and tell me if she is innocent of whatever Celendra tried to cover?”

“I do not know. I will try.” I closed my eyes and got her easily.

“She did not service him. He acted very strangely with her, and spilled his seed on her breasts and spoke to her in an unknown tongue. She should have reported it right away. It bothers her, or I would not be getting such detail.”

“But she did nothing to him?”

“Her guilt is of not calling a physician as soon as he left her, for he seemed to her deranged. It is no greater than that.”

Sereth stabbed a parr strip, still bubbly with juice, with the dagger. Such niceties as cutlery were not favored by the Slayers. The apprentice had brought us no utensils with our meal. I picked up a strip in my fingers. Sereth, grinning, reached back, and, the chair tilted back on two legs, took a gold-hilted knife from its sheath on the wall and handed it to me.

“How will this affect our journey to the Falls of Santha?” I asked him, spearing a strip of parr.

“I have to see. Since the physicians have already given their opinion, then the papers are most likely done. Today is Detarsa second first, and the rest of the Seven will not be in Arlet until second seventh. If the arrangements for funeral and disposition can be made within that time, I will have to be here. If they take longer, then I may be able to leave by the fifth. I will have to check with the writer before I go to the Day-Keepers; then I will know better. I must see how many blanks are filled, and how many are still open. A man cannot go to rest in Arlet with unfilled blanks on his papers.” Sereth seemed unfond of this part of his job.

“I am ready to leave when you are,” I said, draining my rana bowl. It had gone from steaming to tepid while we talked. I stared into the dark, bitter sediment.

As he refilled my bowl from the metal pot, Vedrev and another Day-Keeper, whose head was shaved in lateral strips in the manner of the Darsti builders, swept toward us through the thinning crowd of Slayers. Vedrev made a striking figure in his Stothric priest’s robe and plumes, and he knew it.

With a dramatic flourish he slammed three sheets of parchment, and one of orange fax, down hard on the table.

Sereth of Arlet looked up at him with narrowed eyes. He did not rise.

“Sit down, Day-Keepers. I would have been with you presently, after I had finished here. Thank you for saving me the walk.”

“How are you, Estri?” said Vedrev to me, patting my hand, his brown even darker against my copper skin.

“Much rested, thank you. Tell us about the trader’s death. It is the subject of the moment.” I smiled at him.

“It is all here,” said Sereth, scanning the papers. With a marker the other Day-Keeper produced, Sereth signed the three white sheets, then pressed his index finger to the fax.

“What will you call cause of death?”

“Natural causes. It is no disease, and that anything living could have done that to another being is beyond my comprehension. How should I write it? Mind-burn? Should I give them my suppositions? If it happens again, however, we are in for trouble. I sent a messenger to Baniev to inform his family. There is little enough wealth to distribute. I think the Day-Keepers might gift the widow, since there is no one to take up her couch-mate’s chaldra.” If the man had been killed by another, the killer would have had either to take the man’s chaldra, his responsibilities, or gift his house so that it might survive. In a case like this, where there was no one responsible, the Day-Keepers did as they saw fit.

“Baniev,” I said softly. “Vedrev, I thought he was from Morrlta?”

“No, although that was the natural assumption, for he wore Morrltan clothes. So I, unwittingly, kept you from a man of Baniev. Another coincidence, Estri? And that that man died in such an unusual fashion? This, too, a coincidence?”

“What are you two talking about?” Sereth interrupted.

“I could not read him. I told Sereth at the time. Nothing. I would have told you, but I had no chance. Sereth, tell him I told you.”

“Someone tell me what is going on! Yes, you told me. But you were so tired, you could not keep your eyes open. What does it matter?”

“I could get nothing from him either, Estri,” said Vedrev to me, as if the Slayer were not present. “I thought it some trick of paranoia in my own mind. I had such a strong feeling of impending disaster, I was seeing potential culprits all around me. I am glad I picked the right one.” He looked meaningfully at Sereth.

The Slayer, however, did not realize that in his own way Vedrev was apologizing. He had his arms folded and was slid deep in the chair, his most hostile position.

“Day-Keeper, inform a poor ignorant Slayer. What should I do, high one? Shall I take this lady to Santha, or tend to the funerary rites? What does Baniev mean to both of you that it does not to me? I have need of enlightenment.”

The Day-Keeper, in a low, clipped voice, told Sereth of my great-grandmother’s letter.

“Is there anything else I must keep her away from? Harths, perhaps, or taslings?”

“This is a serious matter, Slayer. If you have not the wish to do it, I can surely find another to follow the directions you would give me. Pick the bearers and set the thing in motion, and leave, if you must, once that is done.”

“I will perform my duties. I do not ask you to excuse me,” said Sereth.

“Seven, I do not excuse you because you Wish it. I would have this woman home in Astria. It would bring much ill will between Ristran and myself if harm were to come to her while she was under my care.”

“So now you come to charge me to take her to Santha. I have an arrangement with the Liaison Second to do the same. His was a prior commitment.”

Vedrev stood abruptly. The bench upon which he sat tumbled to the floor, clattering. The other Day-Keeper gathered up the papers hastily and trotted after his master, who strode out the door, robes swirling.

“He was trying to be nice to you, Sereth. You took no notice. He would have relieved you from your burdens, but you made it impossible. Why did you bait him so? Now we will have to wait until the fifth, at least.”

“The rest will do you good. It is a long and difficult trail,” said the Slayer coldly, rising.

He led me through the winding dark halls of the hostel, to his chamber, small and severe, with that smell a place has when seldom used. I sat on the narrow, pelt-covered gol slab as he discarded his worn vest of circlets, tunic, and breech.

Before the crossed spear and shield, racked blades and the tas-wrapped, seven-lashed stones, naked, his chald glittering in the meager light from the wall slits, he seemed the Silistran archetype—formidable, stern, the killer by whose sword Silistra had been raised from ashes.

I had expected some grand keep, but now I realized that such would have been out of character for this man. Also, I reminded myself, he did not live here, but somewhere out of Arlet, with his prized threx herd.

He turned from me and stooped to open the single wisper chest, drawing out a tooled and armored vest, circlets overlaid with steel at breast and back, and took from the wall a silver-hilted sword in figured scabbard. I leaned over on impulse and took the worn common leathers into my lap.

“May I take this, Sereth?” I fingered a place under the armhole where the color was gone from the hide and the soldered links thinned to the breaking point. “It could do with some oil and polish, and the chalder should check these links.” It smelled strong, of sweat and trail use.

He looked up from buckling the black sword belt, with the Seven’s mark worked on it, around his waist. He looked regal and imposing, quite different from the dusty Slayer who had offered to try me the day I had fought Celendra.

“That is work for an apprentice, not a well woman.”

“I would enjoy it.”

“Then do as you will.” He was still angry with me for speaking my mind at table.

The plain wooden door swung slowly open, and the red-haired, rana-skinned youth who served us in the dining alcove peered around it.

“What is it, Tyith? Come in and close it.”

The youth did as he was bid, squatting in the corner. His eyes were yellow-brown, wide, and clear. He stared at me solemnly.

“Estri, this is my son, Tyith bast Sereth.”

The boy jumped to his feet, wiping his hand on his rump, that he might greet me. The son of Sereth of Arlet had his father’s lithe body, but otherwise little favored him.

“Out of Celendra?” I guessed. Sereth nodded. A man-child takes the mother’s hide-name and the father’s first, a girl-child, the mother’s first and hide, and the father’s first. It had been an easy guess, given the bast hide-name, Tyith’s dusk-dark skin and sensuous features. The flaming hair, however, fit neither parent’s stamp.

The boy’s hand was cold and moist, and hard with callus.

“I am done with my duties,” he said to his father. “I beat Uther soundly at stones, and got a nod from the master with short-sword.” His pride was ill-concealed. “I wondered if you had anything for me to do, for I have won the rest of the day free.”

“What of maintenance?” said Sereth sternly.

“That was the prize I won from Uther.”

“It is a fool who does not tend his own gear, when his life depends on it. Who knows how deeply your victory rankled your opponent? When you beat a man, even in fun, he is half an enemy. You may take this lady, since you have so much free time, back to the Well. Do not bother your mother, but come straight back, and I will take you with me to find bearers for the funeral.” Sereth rose and came to me and whispered in my ear. I nodded, realizing for the first time, with his request, how deeply the trader’s strange death had worried him.

“And bring Uther and another with you,” he told Tyith, “and your gear. I would see its condition, before I send the three of you to the farm. I would have Issa and Krist; and another mount of your choice, one you would like under you on the trail to Santha.”

The boy’s eyes fairly shone.

“Issa and Krist?” he asked wonderingly.

“What good is a first string, but to use when one needs a threx?” Sereth queried his son, smiling.

“Could I take Wirin?”

“You will need at least Wirin for such a long trek. Now, move. I want them here by sun’s rising tomorrow.”

The boy was half down the hall before I made it to the door.

“Wait,” I called, laughing, running to catch up. “You must be very proud of your father,” I said to him as we crossed the threshold into the blinding bright of the Inner Well.

“Pride is the cloak of fools. It has no place in a Slayers heart,” the boy quoted. “But I would live up to his expectations, which are often beyond me. My mother wanted me to go to the Day-Keepers’ school, but I have only sisters, and anyway, my call is as his.”

“In such matters,” I reminded him gently, “it is the individual’s chaldra to please his inner self, the mother’s, the father’s, or teacher’s wishes notwithstanding. Who brought you up?”

“I spent equal time at my father’s farm, where there are well women, and with Vistri bast Fevnell, who raised up Celendra.” The sun beat down hot on our heads.

I was about to comment when Dellin came tearing down the Well steps and stopped dead in his tracks, to watch us approach him. I still carried Sereth’s common leathers.

“What is it?” I said when he made no move to greet me or step from my path.

“I have been looking for you since mid-meal. Where were you? Who is that? Have you taken to couching children? What is that on your arm? Would you take the Slayer’s chain?”

Khaf-Re Dellin was more angry than I had ever seen him.

“Tyith, take this to the chalder, tell him to check it and do as he sees fit, and that I will come for it this evening. And do not forget your own gear, which you must take to your father.”

“I would not have forgotten,” Tyith called back over his shoulder, already running.

Dellin shook my arm urgently. “Where were you?” he demanded again.

“With Sereth, in the hostel.”

“Perhaps if I chain and whip you, you will follow me around, also?”

“You have no right to pass judgment on whom I see, or why. I did not initiate this relationship with the Slayer. And furthermore,” I said defensively, “unless I am mistaken, you and Sereth between you have apportioned a great deal of my time, both past and future, and without my consent. Now, what troubles you?”