Master of Crows (34 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“I’ve sold you.”

The words seemed to thunder in Martise’s ears.  She gaped at Cumbria sitting across from her, enthroned behind his desk.  The short two months following Corruption’s defeat had not been kind.  The tall, haughty bishop she’d served nearly all her life was stooped these days, weaker in both body and spirit.  But his eyes were as glass-hard and emotionless as ever.

Martise’s heart thudded against her ribs.  She’d been summoned here by a bored servant and thought nothing of it.  Cumbria often summoned her when assigning tasks of transcription or minor spying on the priests who came to visit him.  He’d poleaxed her with his declaration.

She clasped her hands behind her to hide their trembling.  “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” she said softly.  “I don’t understand.”

The scratching of a busy quill sharpened the silence as Cumbria went back to scribbling at a stack of documents before him.  He didn’t look up when he answered.  “What is there not to understand?  I’ve been offered a good price for you.  One I can’t refuse.”  He said the last in acid tones.  “You’ll pack your things and leave today.  One of my retainers will escort you to Ivenyi.  A caravan will take you the rest of the way.  Your spirit stone is already with your new master.”

Martise fell to her knees.  Somewhere out there, her spirit stone rested in the hands of an unknown master.  She’d wished to be free of bondage to Cumbria, but not like this.

Her voice quavered.  “Please, Master.  I beg you, let me stay.  Asher is my home.  Surely, I am still of use to you.”

Cumbria dipped his quill in a small inkpot, unmoved by her entreaty.  “You have another home now, and I can always find someone with skills similar to yours.  Maybe not as good, but adequate enough to serve my purposes.”  He finally glanced at her, annoyance stamped on his craggy face.  “I’m busy, Martise.  Gather your possessions and leave.”

Stumbling to her feet, Martise gave a clumsy bow and backed out of the room.  Swamped with fear of an uncertain future, she made her way to the small chamber she shared with one of Dela-fé’s handmaidens.  The room was stifling.  Even the breeze blowing in from the open window didn’t lessen the heat pouring in from the noon sun.  The gods granted her one small mercy this day.  No one witnessed her silent weeping.

She sat on the edge of her narrow cot and stared unseeing at the patch of blue sky filling the window.  Except for the futile years at Conclave Redoubt, Martise had lived most of her life at Asher.  She knew the rhythms of the lives here, even the grand house itself; how the old rooster crowed before the sun rose and avoided Bendewin’s hatchet year after year, the way the roof beams creaked and snapped in the summer afternoon as the sun went down and the air cooled, how the women chorused a sing-song chant, accompanied by the wet slap of fiber as they walked wool in the bailey.

Many of the servants knew her from childhood, and while some deigned not to befriend her because of her status, they were still familiar, still understood.  She’d miss them as much as those to whom she’d grown close.  Even had she won her freedom, she would have asked to stay.  She loved Asher; she just wanted the right to leave if she chose.  Still a slave and she didn’t even have the right to stay.  She rose and began emptying the small chest by her bed of its contents.

The door to her room flew open and Bendewin strode in, sharp face pinched and dusted with flour.  Martise gave her a quick glance and a sniffle and continued shoving her meager possessions into a worn sack.

“I just heard.  Why didn’t you tell me, girl?”

Martise shrugged.  “I just found out myself.  Who told you?”

Bendewin glared at her, arms akimbo, but a suspicious shine glazed her dark eyes.  “Jarad.  He’s the one who’ll take you to Ivenyi to meet the caravans.”

Trying not to burst into tears, Martise cleared her throat and folded a leine into her pack.  “Does he know where they’ll take me?”

“No.  They usually take the north roads this time of year, but that’s all I know.”  The cook’s face hardened.  “You can run.  I can help you.  I still have Kurman kinsmen who owe me favors after all these years.  They can offer you safe haven.”

“What good would that do me, Bendewin?  The bishop has already transferred my spirit stone to my new master.  I am bound, soul and flesh to another owner.”  She paused at Bendewin’s crestfallen expression and patted her arm.  “Thank you, though.”  The ache in her chest grew.  “You’ve been my closest friend, even a mother when I needed one.  I’ll miss you most when I leave.”

Bendewin patted her hand awkwardly.  “Finish here and come to the kitchens.  I’ll have food packed for you.  I don’t like those caravan rests.  They serve maggoty bread and rancid meat to travelers.  At least you know you’ll get a decent meal if I make it.”

When Martise stepped into the kitchens, she found a small crowd of well-wishers waiting for her.  She was hugged and cried over, blessed with protective wards and one small, foul-smelling charm.  Bendewin handed her a heavy towel tied into a bag that bulged on all sides.

“There’s enjita in there, along with a bit of chicken, some cheese and a few eggs.  Also plums and a flask of apricot wine.”  Martise’s eyebrows rose at the last.  Bendewin sniffed.  “The bishop has three casks of the stuff.  He won’t miss a glass or two.  The old skinflint owes you that much.”

Martise embraced Bendewin a final time.  The woman had taken her, bloodied and half-conscious, to her room, tended her and kept the secret of her journey.  She even managed to bribe the stable master not to speak of the incident in the barn, despite the hen’s egg he sported on the side of his head from Gurn’s blow.

Bendewin harrumphed and pushed her gently out the kitchen door.  Jarad waited in the bailey with two horses, one the piebald mare.  Martise smiled faintly and patted the mare on the neck.  “Good to see you again, lass.”

The ride to Ivenyi was short and quiet.  Jarad stayed silent except to ask once if she needed water or a rest.  When they reached the village, he helped her off the mare, unloaded her packs from the saddle and bid her goodbye.

Nothing more than a dusty rest stop for trade caravans, Ivenyi simmered in the afternoon heat.  Martise stood outside a ramshackle rest house amidst a circle of brightly painted wagons and carts loaded with all manner of goods.  The traders, a nomadic group made up of people from every clan, tribe and city mingled together, some huddled in groups to barter, others to dice while they waited for their compatriots to finish meals in the house or visit friends.

Three distinct caravans crowded the rest stop.  Martise had no idea which would take her to her new home.  She was set to hunt down the wagon masters and ask when the most amazing looking man approached her.  Dressed in a clashing rainbow of colors, he glittered when he walked from the sunlight bouncing off the many strands of gimcrack beads he wore.  Lined by time and sun, he caught Martise’s wide-eyed gaze and held it with a hard, shrewd one of his own.

“Are you Martise of Asher?”  She nodded.  “Then you ride with my band.  I’ll take you to your wagon.”

He didn’t wait to see if she followed.  Martise shouldered her pack, grabbed her lunch and hurried to catch up. 

“Where will you take me?”

The faint shadow of pity in those otherwise hard eyes made her gut twist in knots.  “A place few visit and none are welcome.”

They wove a path through parked wagons and carts, passing knots of women crowded around campfires who paused in their conversations to watch them go by.  Children raced around them, shouting and laughing in play.  Martise dodged a surly dog that snapped at her heels when she walked too close.

The wagon master halted before a passenger wagon with a dapple-gray horse hitched to the front.  Painted in faded colors of indigo and burgundy, the wagon was lavishly appointed by caravan standards.  Wide windows allowed a cooling breeze to pass through the interior.  Brocade drapes were drawn back, giving a view of thick rugs and pillows strewn about for the passenger’s comfort.  This was a rich person’s transport.

Martise admired the wagon and glanced at the wagon master.  “Why are we stopping?”

He eyed her as if she were daft.  “This is your wagon.”

She gaped at him and looked back at the wagon.  Slaves didn’t ride in such lavish accommodations.  Most often they didn’t ride at all.  Her trip to and from Neith on horseback had been a matter of speed and convenience for Cumbria, not kindness.  What manner of master spent good coin on mere property?

Martise backed away.  “There must be a mistake.”

Beads jangled together as the caravan’s leader shrugged.  “Ride in it or walk beside it.  Means little to me.  I’ve already been paid.”  He left her with another shrug.

Not wanting to look as foolish as he assumed, Martise opened the door and climbed the two steps gingerly.  Once inside the dim interior, she was surrounded by faded opulence.  The scent of some exotic perfume lingered in the air. She dropped her pack and lunch in a corner and made herself comfortable on the cushions while the caravan’s traders gathered together and prepared to leave.

A rolling breeze carried the last hint of windflower and a touch of fall as it swept through the wagon’s wide windows.  The grasses grew taller and thicker as they traveled farther from the coast and into the interior of the far lands.  In the distance, the Dramorins shadowed the horizon in a jagged silhouette.  Silhara’s kinsmen would have begun their descent to the plains for wintering.

These days everything reminded her of her lover.  Martise missed him.  Yearned for him until that yearning burned a hot fire in her heart.  She’d heard nothing from him or Gurn since leaving Ferrin’s Tor, nor did she expect to.  Silhara was cautious, and if Cumbria ever suspected his adversary felt something for his lowly slave, the bishop would kill her.  Anything to make the Master of Crows bleed.

Still, the silence from Neith weighed heavily on her mind.  The weeks had dragged on slow feet.  Martise wondered if Silhara thought of her as much as she thought of him.  She didn’t doubt he loved her.  He’d been willing to sacrifice himself to protect her.  Such devotion wasn’t given to sudden fits and starts, and she’d learned Silhara was as constant in his loyalty and affection as he was in his hatred.

A sudden realization lightened her melancholy.  She no longer belonged to Cumbria of Asher.  Unless Silhara somehow managed to insult and make an enemy of her new master—and knowing Silhara, such wasn’t outside the realm of possibility—she could send him a message.  Something short, impartial.  Something to tell him where she was if he wished to know.

Cheered by her future plan, she dug into the food Bendewin packed for her.  She ate the eggs and bread and drank a little of the wine.  The unchanging scenery, the rhythmic creak of wagon wheels and the potency of the wine made her lethargic.  Yawning, she loosened the curtains at the window, plunging the wagon’s interior into semi-darkness.  The cushions were soft against her body as she curled into them and fell asleep to the memory of Silhara harvesting in his grove, the bright sun shining on his long hair, dark as a crow’s wing.

Dreams plagued her.  Images of dead priests sprawled across the tor’s frosty ground played in her mind.  Silhara on a black shore, convulsed and bowed before the priests’ spells and the god’s rage.  Her Gift, bleeding out of her in a stream of amber blood, leaving an emptiness that went soul-deep.

The sharp rap of knuckles on her wagon door followed by an equally sharp “Woman of Asher,” snapped her awake.  Bewildered by the sudden wrench into wakefulness, Martise peered into the wagon’s darkness.  Night had descended while she slept.

“Yes?” She answered in a hoarse voice.

“Your journey’s at an end.  Mind your possessions and be quick about it.”

Martise straightened her cyrtel, smoothed her braid as best she could and gathered her belongings.  The wagon master was waiting for her when she opened her door.  His dour features took on a ghastly aspect in the light of the torch he held.  Behind him, the line of wagons waited.  Drivers watched her from their high seats while women and children peered from behind the shelter of drapes and wagon doors.

"You'll have to walk the rest of the way.  None here will travel that road.  Not even the horses."

That last statement made her heartbeat speed up until it thundered in her ears.  Martise stepped away from the shelter of the wagon’s door.  To her right, the sea of tall grass swayed in a whispering dance beneath the silver moon’s light.  To her left, a black forest of crippled trees squatted on the plain and sucked the moonlight into its shadows.  A long, murky path shrouded in a deeper darkness cut a line through the trees.

Martise squeezed her satchel to her chest and tried not to shout her joy.  She grinned at the caravan’s leader instead, laughing when his eyebrows arched.  He took a wary step back and thrust the torch at her.

“Here.  You’ll want this.”  He peered at the grand avenue’s writhing shadows and signed a protective ward with his fingers.  “May the gods favor you.  You’ll need them in this cursed place.”