New Blood (5 page)

He smiled. It held a tinge of sadness but it was more purely a smile than any he'd shown her. “I was bound willingly enough at the beginning. If I had not been willing, I could not have been bound.”

“And now?”

“Now?” Jax shrugged. “It is what I am. Blood servant to the sorceress. I cannot remember any other life.” He paused to meet her gaze. “You are not Yvaine. Already I know the difference. Yes, I serve you willingly.”

“Until I can learn how to release you.”

He set his mug on the cupboard and bowed. “If that is your wish, sorceress.”

Amanusa scowled at him. Was he as agreeable as he seemed? Or would he turn on her the minute she
relaxed her guard?
He'd seen her in her nightgown.
“You'll sleep outside.”

“Of course, my—Miss Whitcomb.” He bowed a little deeper.

“And you'll keep your hands and the rest of yourself to yourself.” She was never doing
that
again. Ever.

Darkness overtook her suddenly, and pain. Her neck strained, twisting to turn her face away from the wet mouth, the teeth, the stinking, heaving male body crushing her. As quickly as the sensations swept over her, they departed again, leaving her shaken, shivering with sudden icy sweat sliding down her spine. She took a slow breath, hiding her shattered state. The memories would never be totally gone, but it had been a long time since one had possessed her like this.

“No, Miss.” Jax tilted his head to look at her from his bow. He seemed to have noticed nothing. “Were you worried about that? About me . . . taking liberties?”

She couldn't deny it, despite her little, not-so-nonchalant shrug.

“You needn't.” He straightened, blushing a little as he picked at the battered edges of her cupboard, keeping his eyes down. “That's part of the binding. I can't—” He coughed. “Have intercourse without permission of the sorceress. It's the magic. The . . . Well . . .” He trailed off.

“I . . . See.” Amanusa's own blush burned. She ought to be more comfortable talking about this, given her past, but she wasn't. “Truly?”

“Truly. I am a—a eunuch, until permission is given.”

Pity mixed with the relief rolling through Amanusa, knowing what she did about men and their affection for their private parts. Had the old sorceress suffered like she had? Amanusa didn't know, didn't want to ask. But the information reassured her. The man wouldn't have confessed such a thing if it weren't true.

She heaved a sigh and drank down the last of her tea. She needed to come up with a plan, but a plan for what? Did she want to learn this blood magic?

The promise of true justice, even the mere possibility of achieving it, pulled at Amanusa. And the hunger for knowledge, to
know
new things, burned deep inside her. She'd eagerly gobbled up everything old Ilinca had to teach her and begged for more, but Ilinca had none. She'd warned Amanusa against learning more, saying the Inquisition would notice a woman working any magic greater than these small spells and tiny charms, and they would pounce.

“What about the Magician's Council?” Amanusa asked. “Hasn't blood magic been banned? Will they even let a woman learn magic?”

“Blood magic isn't banned. Not officially.” Jax shook his head slowly. “I think I would have heard and remembered if it were. It has merely been shunned. Avoided. Because it is women's magic. And because only the sorceresses know the truth of it.”

“And women are banned from learning magic.”

“They are?” Jax sounded surprised.

“Here, they are.”

“Then we will go somewhere else. To Scotland. To Yvaine's tower. The English council doesn't bar women from magic.” He frowned, as if trying to recall something difficult. “At any rate, there's nothing
in the charter to prevent women from becoming members of the Magician's Council of England.”

“The Hungarian council bans them, and I can't leave.” Not until she obtained the justice she needed. The crushing grief and horrible anger that had gripped her when she swore that oath had eased. What held her now was as much stubbornness as anything. She
would
someday, somehow get justice for her murdered family, just as she'd promised.

Jax shrugged. He didn't seem at all interested in her reasons for refusing to leave. “Learn the magic. There's not many who'll dare cross a blood sorceress in her power. If they raise a fuss, we'll deal with it then.”

Oh, she wanted to. Wanted it desperately.
It wasn't evil
. Who would have thought? It was just knowledge. Knowledge about magic she already practiced in small ways. And it was the
more
she'd craved for so long. Magic that held justice in its bleeding heart. She wanted it. But did she dare?

Jax offered her more tea, and when she turned him down, took her mug to the dishpan. He poured more tea for himself. “So,” he said. “I thought I might begin with your roof. I noticed the thatching was a bit thin in a few—”

He broke off at a racket of caws from outside, Crow crying alarm. “Someone's coming. Not from the village. They're armed.”

How did he know that from a crow's call?
Amanusa's gut churned, though she was grateful for the warning. This time, they wouldn't take her by surprise.

Jax was patting around his waist as if looking for
weapons. He would get himself killed if he tried to fight—at least six of them always came together.
Dear God, how she hated them.

Amanusa caught his arm. “They won't hurt me. Nor you, if I tell them not to. I think.” She hoped.

“Who are they?”

“Outlaws. Anarchists. Revolutionaries. They hide in the mountains and plot freedom for Transylvania from the wicked Hapsburgs.” Amanusa began gathering her tins of dried herbs and jars of salve, crushing the surge of fear and hate that made her hands tremble.
Don't let them see.

“What do they want with you?”

“Healing. Doubtless they've got themselves into another fight trying to rob an imperial shipment of something or other and need patching up again. We have a bargain, the anarchists and I. I heal them when they need it, and they leave me alone the rest of the time.”

“Will they be staying long?” Jax stood to the side of the open door, peeking out at intervals.

Amanusa paused, realizing she hadn't explained, then went back to her gathering. “They won't be staying at all. They don't come to me for healing. I go to them.”

The realization struck her a fraction after it did Jax, for he already stared at her, horrified. “I cannot stay behind.”

“How can—? They'll kill you.” Amanusa tried to think.

Jax threw his greatcoat and jacket under Amanusa's bed and yanked the blanket off it. With a kitchen knife, he sawed a hole in the center and popped his head
through it. “I'm your servant,” he said. “I'm simpleminded. Treat me like I haven't the sense of a child and maybe they won't mind me coming along.”

He scraped his expensive boots against the floor to scuff them up a bit more and scrubbed his hands through his hair to make it stand up as he let his face go slack. Dear Lord, the man suddenly
looked
like an idiot.

She stared at him in shock until the chink of metal outside reminded her of the situation. She plunged into her role. “I'll need a bag for myself, Jax. It's in the drawer under the wardrobe.”

He bobbed his head and walked awkwardly to it. “Here?”

“Yes. Do hurry.” Amanusa turned back to her medicines, carefully wrapping the heavy jars in rags so they wouldn't clink in their wooden case and perhaps break.
Do nothing to anger them.

“I see you were expecting us.” The outlaws' second-in-command ducked through her door and turned his deadly gaze on Jax. “Who's this?”

H
EARING ROMANIAN AGAIN
after two days of nothing but English was almost a shock. Amanusa slid her eyes toward Jax. She didn't want the outlaws to know she spoke English, but did Jax understand Romanian? Had the outlaws heard her give that order in English?

“He is my servant.” She kept packing her box.
Would they accept this change? “His body is strong even if his mind is not.”

“Where did you get him?” Teo walked to Jax, who cowered and drooled a bit as the second-in-command circled him. The other five stood at the door, blocking the light, but they stayed outside the cottage, thank God.

“I found him in the forest. Filthy, bleeding, and hungry. He's like a stray dog. I fed him, and now he won't go away.” She set the last jar in her box, packing it tighter and heavier than usual because this time she wouldn't have to carry it herself. She braced her hands against the table a moment to steady her nerves.

When she looked up, Jax was pulling double handfuls of her undergarments from the wardrobe drawer and stuffing them into the carpetbag.

“Jax, no!” Amanusa leaped across the room, shoving Teo out of the way to grab her petticoats from her servant's hands. “
No.
I won't be needing these.”

“No?” Teo's voice was dark, filled with heavy sensuality as he lifted her washed-thin nightgown from the bag with one finger. He laughed when Amanusa snatched it from him and shoved it back into the bag.

Teo caught Amanusa's elbow and spun her into his arms, crushing her tight as he ground his hips against her. Amanusa swallowed down her revulsion along with another surge of hate. Teo liked that she hated him, the pig.

She turned her face away as he licked a long, wet swath across her cheek, hanging onto her composure with her short-bitten nails. Dark things swirled in her mind, making her heart race. She thrust them
ruthlessly away. She did not dare lose herself in memory now.

“You sure I can't tempt you to revisit old times?” he crooned.

Amanusa spoke in her sweetest voice. “Only if you want to wake with your balls shriveled to the size of peas and your bowels so loose they'll never close again.”

Teo laughed as he let her quickly go, then laughed again, true laughter. “Look at your idiot. He wants to kill me.”

The murderous hate in Jax's eyes sent alarm knifing through Amanusa. She wanted to learn magic from him, not bury him. “
Jax.
I need two dresses. The brown ones. And stockings. Get them
now.
”

Jax glared another moment at the outlaw, until Teo lifted his hand as if he meant to strike. Amanusa winced, but Teo only pretended to hit Jax and laughed when her servant pretended to cower in fear. Too much pretending. But it meant survival.

“He is loyal to me,” Amanusa said. “Like a dog who has been kicked too many times and finally finds someone who does not.”

“We have enough dogs at our camp.” Teo glowered at Jax. “He stays behind.”

Amanusa shrugged. “He will only follow. You may as well let him come. He can carry the medicines.”

Teo scowled. “You always carry them.”

“And I often run out because I cannot carry much weight. He is simple. He is obedient. What harm can he do?” Amanusa didn't truly want the responsibility of keeping Jax
and
herself alive and unharmed in the outlaw camp, but he could not stay behind.

She glanced up and saw Jax unbuttoning his trousers as if he meant to relieve himself in the corner of the room. One way to convince the outlaws of his missing good sense. Would it work?

“No!” she cried. “Jax,
no.
”

He turned, holding his trousers together, his expression vacantly wondering.

“Outside.” Amanusa pointed at the door. “You know where you're supposed to do that. Go on.”

The men backed from the door, laughing, as Jax hurried out, clutching at his trousers to keep them from falling.

Amanusa turned back to Teo. “You still think he will be a danger to you big brave outlaws?”

Chuckling, Teo waved his hands. “All right, all right. He can come. But you're in charge of him. Keep him out of trouble, or our bargain ends.”

Amanusa turned away to hide her terror. Teo liked her fear too. Indifference would keep him away from her, and courage. “Only Dragos Szabo has the right to change our bargain.”

“Maybe so. But I know Szabo and I know what he will say.”

Hating that the man could see her hands shaking, Amanusa folded the dresses Jax had pulled from the wardrobe and laid them over her stockings in their careful rolls. Amanusa also knew the outlaw leader, far better than she liked, and she knew Teo was right. Neither she nor Jax could set a foot wrong in the camp if they wanted to stay alive.

“
Jax.
Come here.” She went to the door and called. “Get the case.” She gestured at the heavy wooden box on the table.

Jax picked it up and came back to take the carpetbag from her. There was a little tug-of-war until she saw Teo's smirk and let go. Let the big strong silly man carry everything.

 

T
HE WALK TO
the outlaws' camp took longer than she expected. Szabo had moved them deeper into the mountains since the last time they needed her. Jax stayed close, pretending to cower under Amanusa's protection, but she could sense him bristling every time one of the outlaws—especially Teo—came too near. It comforted her, and she didn't like that it did.

They stopped beside a stream near noon. Amanusa shared the food she'd packed with Jax. The outlaws wouldn't share theirs. She'd learned through uncomfortable experience. Their women, those at the camp, would feed her, but the men didn't care.

Sometime in midafternoon, they topped a ridge and descended into a tiny hidden valley filled with the rough-built shelters and ragged tents of the camp. Szabo came limping out to greet her, his black hair streaked with more gray than it had been two months ago. His shirt strained over a thick bandage around one shoulder and upper arm that showed through a bloody rip in his shirt. Szabo's scowl made her heart pound with fear, but Amanusa didn't dare let it show. Szabo respected courage, if little else.