Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands (12 page)

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Authors: David B. Coe

BOOK: Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands
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Fotir stood and walked to where Tavis was sitting. “Perhaps we should be going, my lord,” he said, laying a hand lightly on the boy’s shoulder.
Tavis twisted away from him. “Don’t touch me, you Qirsi bastard! I’ve had enough of your kind today!”
He eyed the rest of them. “You want to know about my Fating?”
No one answered.
“Do you?
”
“Only if you want to tell us, Tavis,” Xaver said, his voice as gentle as a morning mist.
Tavis stared at him for what seemed to Shonah an eternity. Finally, he looked down at his plate and shook his head. “I don’t,” he whispered.
He stood abruptly and, glaring at Fotir, balled his hands into fists. The first minister took a step back, holding up his hands. Still watching the Qirsi, Tavis picked up his wine. But instead of taking another drink, he merely tossed the flask away so that it shattered on the floor, leaving a dark red stain. And without another word, he left the hall.
Servants scrambled to clean up the wine and sharp pieces of clay, and for some time the sound of their movements was the only noise in the grand chamber.
“My apologies, friends,” Javan said at last, his voice utterly flat. “My son … is not himself today.”
The guests murmured their understanding, and slowly, as the servants brought more platters of food, conversations resumed. People began to eat again.
Except Shonah, who just stared at her hands, struggling to keep from crying. After a while, she felt someone’s eyes upon her, and looking up, she saw that the MarCullet boy was watching her, an expectant look on his youthful face.
If anyone could reach him it was Xaver. She took a breath, then nodded once.
An instant later, the boy was out of his chair, striding toward the same door Tavis had used.
Xaver knew just where to look for him. There were certain places Tavis went to escape the castle and his parents when he fell into his dark moods. One was the crowded city marketplace, where the singers, dancers, tumblers, and conjurers of the Revel were entertaining the people of Curgh. But the gleaning tent was there, and on this night, Xaver guessed that the duke’s son would stay as far from it as possible. The second was the section of the moat where the two of them had gone after running the towers that morning. Xaver didn’t expect that his friend would return there so soon.
Which left the third place: the high wall at the northern end of the castle, between the cloister tower and ocean tower. The wall overlooked the cliffs and the rocky shore of the Strait of Wantrae. There were guards in both towers—usually a pair walked the wall day and night—but whenever Xaver and Tavis went up there, the guards left them alone. No one had ever attacked Curgh Castle by climbing the cliffs from the strait. As high as they were, and as sheer, no one ever would.
Reaching the wall level of the ocean tower, Xaver was confronted by two guards, both of them looking tall and burly in the torchlight. He knew their faces, though not their names, but they, of course, knew him.
“You looking for the duke’s boy, young master?” one of them asked.
“Yes. Is he here?”
“On the wall, as usual.”
“He’s in a foul mood, young master,” the second one added. “Worst I’ve seen. He pulled his dagger on us both, when all we’d done was offer a ‘good evening.’”
Xaver took a long breath.
What had Tavis seen in the Qiran?
“Thanks for the warning,” he said.
He stepped onto the wall and scanned the ramparts for his friend. At first he saw nothing, save the brown-and-gold banners of Curgh flying atop the cloister tower, illuminated by the rose light of the moons and snapping in the briny wind. He briefly wondered if Tavis had crossed the wall and descended the steps of the next
tower without the guards seeing. Then, his mind turning in a darker direction for just an instant, he feared that the young lord might have jumped to the rocks below. But as his eyes adjusted, he finally spotted Tavis sitting on the stone walkway, his back pressed against the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest.
“Tavis?”
The lord turned his head to look at him before facing forward again. “Leave me. I don’t feel like talking.”
Xaver walked forward slowly. “We don’t have to talk. I’ll just sit with you for a while.”
“I told you to leave me, Xaver. I just want to be alone.”
“You always say that,” Xaver said, still closing the distance between them. “I stopped believing you a long time ago.”
“Stop!” Tavis said, scrambling to his feet. Moonlight glinted off the blade of his dagger, which he held out before him with a trembling hand.
Xaver nodded, stopping just a few strides from where the young lord stood. “All right,” he said, leaning against the wall and looking out toward the water.
“You should go.”
“I will, soon.” He pointed at a dim yellow light bobbing up and down in the distance, just in front of the dark mass of Wantrae Island. “There’s a ship out there. Remember when we used to sit up on the wall and count how many we could see in a single night?”
Tavis didn’t answer. He just stood there, utterly still in the soft light of the lovers.
“What happened, Tavis? What did you see in the stone?”
His friend turned and slumped against the wall. “It’s not important.”
Xaver nearly laughed aloud. “Not important? You’re drunk, you’ve humiliated your mother and father, you just pulled a dagger on two of the castle guards, and you want me to believe that it’s not important”
“I don’t care what you believe,” the lord said, bitterness creeping into his voice. “I’ve told you I want to be alone. Don’t make me say it again.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“No.”
“Is something going to happen to your father, or to you? Is that what it is? Did you see your own death?”
Tavis laughed, a lonely, chilling sound. “Death would be a blessing compared to this.”
“Is that why you came up here? To die?”
Tavis looked at him, his eyes glimmering with moonglow and the light of the far-off torches. “I thought of it,” he admitted. “I had hoped that with enough wine in me I’d have nerve enough to throw myself into the strait.” He gave a harsh smile. “But even drunk, I’m too much of a coward.”
“You’re no coward, Tavis.”
“Aren’t I?” He shook his head. “I fear death, even more than I fear shame, even more than I fear my family’s downfall.”
Xaver shrugged. “Who among us doesn’t. We’re young still, Tavis. Too young to die. So you’re afraid of the Underrealm. Where’s the crime in that?”
“Where indeed?” Tavis said, looking down at his dagger.
“Come down with me to your chambers,” Xaver coaxed, starting toward him slowly. “We’ll get you to sleep.”
Tavis backed away. “Stay away from me, Xaver. I’m not going to my chambers. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’ll feel better in the morning.” He reached for him. “Just take my hand and—”
It happened so quickly that, at first, Xaver felt nothing. He saw the young lord’s blade as a dim blur arcing through the darkness, saw a dark spot appear on the stone walkway, and then another. A moment later he realized that it was blood, his blood. Pulling his hand back, not quite believing it all, he saw that his sleeve was cut and that there was a long gash on his forearm.
“You cut me,” he said, staring at the wound.
Tavis dropped the blade. “Demons and fire!” he breathed.
Xaver looked up at him.
“I’m sorry, Xaver. Truly I am.”
Xaver didn’t say anything. Instead he turned and walked back toward the ocean tower and the guards. He sensed Tavis watching him, but the young lord didn’t call for him to stop, nor did he follow.
One of the guards saw him returning and held up a hand in greeting.
“I guess there’s no reasoning with him when—” He stopped, his eyes widening. “Gods! Did he do that?”
“It’s nothing,” Xaver said, though the cut had begun to throb painfully. “But I should probably find the surgeon just the same.”
“What about Lord Tavis?” the guard asked.
Xaver glanced back over his shoulder. He could barely make out Tavis’s form, standing just as Xaver had left him.
“Leave him out there,” he said, unable to keep the hurt from his voice. “That’s what I should have done.”
T
hey didn’t finish the day’s gleanings until well after the ringing of the bells signaling the locking of the city gates. It was this way on the first night everywhere they went. Often the children were exhausted, not only from their lengthy wait, but also because they were hours past their normal bedtime. But having stood outside the tent for so long, they were reluctant to abandon their place in line and start over again the next day. And more often than not, those who might have been willing to do so were accompanied by parents who were not.
After the gleanings of Tavis and Xaver, Grinsa rested, allowing Cresenne and then Trin, the eldest of the gleaners and the man in charge of the gleaning tent, to do their share, before he finished the final few. By the end of the evening, the three Qirsi gleaners were almost as tired as the last of the children filing through the tent for their Determinings.
Even at this late hour, the city was still alive with music and laughter when they left the tent. Dancers spun in the streets to the beating of tuned drums, and, in the distance, Grinsa could hear singers performing bawdy verses for an appreciative audience.
“I’d like a meal and some ale before I sleep,” Trin said, glancing up at the Qirsi moon. “Either of you care to join me?”
Normally Grinsa would have declined. He longed for a comfortable bed. But he had taken a liking to Cresenne, and he glanced at her, gauging her response.
She was already looking his way, an inviting smile on her lips. “I’d like that,” she said.
Trin nodded. “Good. I know of a place near here. The Silver Gull, I believe it’s called. A Qirsi establishment that happens to serve the finest spiced stew in Curgh.”
Grinsa had to laugh. Trin knew more about the inns of every city in Eibithar than anyone in the Revel. Not that Grinsa was surprised. In addition to being a discerning judge of fine food, Altrin jal Casson was also the only fat Qirsi he had ever met. His people tended to be quite thin, sometimes to the point of frailty. But Trin was as round as a suckling pig, with a fleshy chin and full cheeks. In other ways, however, he was as weak as any Qirsi, perhaps more so. The least bit of physical activity left him flushed, sweaty, and breathless. Grinsa often wondered how he managed to survive the rigors of life in the Revel, not to mention the heat of the gleaning tent.
They walked through the city, leaving the marketplace and taking a wide street west toward the Sanctuary of Elined. Just before the sanctuary gate, they came to the inn Trin had described. With its worn oaken door, its grey stone façade, and the dirty windows that shone faintly with candlelight, it looked like any of the other establishments found closer to the castle and center of the city. Only the sign hanging above the doorway set it apart. It showed a pale, almost wraithlike gull with golden eyes and outstretched wings. Every city in Eibithar, indeed, almost every city in all the Forelands, had at least one inn like this. The White Owl in Tremain, the Silver Nag in Thorald, the White Dragon in Jistingham on the Wethy coast, the Grey Falcon in Trescarri in southern Sanbira. Eandi patrons were welcome in all of them. Gold was gold, no matter the pocket from which it came. But these inns were run by Qirsi men and women, and most of their customers were Qirsi as well.
Inside, the inn once again resembled most of the other inns in Eibithar, with a single exception: nearly every person Grinsa saw had white hair and yellow eyes. The air was quite warm and smelled of sweet ale and a pungent spice that made Grinsa’s mouth water.
“Trin, you fat drel!” a tall man called, stepping around from behind the bar, his arms open.
“Hello, cousin,” Trin said, accepting the man’s embrace. “You’re looking well.”
The man stepped back. “I wish I could say the same for you.”
Trin raised an eyebrow. “How kind of you, cousin.”
They weren’t cousins, of course, at least not as far as Grinsa knew. Qirsi often addressed each other this way. It was an old, dark joke, dating from the years following the end of the Qirsi Wars, that had managed to survive the intervening centuries. There had been so few Qirsi warriors left after their failed invasion of the Forelands that it was assumed all the Qirsi born in the ensuing years had to be related. Some said only two thousand men and women of the Southlands made it through the war; others swore that it could have been no more than fifteen hundred. The Qirsi population had grown slowly in the nearly nine hundred years since—Qirsi women did not bear many children. Even now, after all that time, and with a steady stream of Qirsi wanderers coming to the Forelands over the Border Range, for every Qirsi man, woman, and child in the Forelands there were at least fifteen or twenty Eandi.
“Who are your friends?” the man asked, eyeing Grinsa briefly before smiling broadly at Cresenne.
“The poor child you’re leering at like a drel in heat is Cresenne ja Terba. She’s new to the Revel this year.” Trin indicated Grinsa with a thick hand. “And this is Grinsa jal Arriet, another of our gleaners.” Trin looked at Grinsa and then Cresenne. “May I present Ziven jal Agasha. The Silver Gull is his.”
“Jal Agasha?” Grinsa repeated. “Your mother was Agasha ja Perton, of Riverway in Wethyrn?”
Ziven’s eyes widened. “Yes. You knew her?”
“My own mother met her once, many years ago. She was said to be the finest cook north of the steppe.”
“So she was,” he said, grinning.
“I was sorry to hear of her passing. I hope Bian has been kind to her.”
“My thanks.” Ziven turned to Trin. “I was going to make you wait, Trin. See if I couldn’t make you sweat away some of that fat. But since your friend here knows something of decent food, I’ll give you a table now.”
“Splendid, cousin. Something near the back, if you don’t mind. I don’t want any outraged parents interrupting our meal. You know the saying. ‘The Qiran brings the vision, but the Qirsi bears the blame.’”
“Of course,” Ziven said, smiling. He beckoned for one of the serving girls. “Ysanne will show you the way.”
The girl who hurried to stand before him was slender and small,
with pale eyes and white skin. But unlike the other Qirsi, her hair was raven black. She couldn’t have been more than a year or two past her Determining.
“You’re hiring mongrels now, Ziven? I never thought I’d see the day.”
Grinsa winced inwardly. Such prejudice was common among his people, and he had heard similar comments from Trin before, but they still rankled. Though his blood was all Qirsi, he had once been married to an Eandi woman. Had she not died of the pestilence so soon after their joining, they surely would have had children, and all of them would have been half-bloods.
“Careful, Trin,” Ziven said, a steel edge to his voice. “This is my brother’s girl, come to work for me from Wethyrn.”
Trin’s face reddened. “My apologies.” He glanced at the girl. “To you both.”
“Take them to the back room, Ysanne,” Ziven said. “And pay no attention to anything the fat one says.”
The girl looked down, suppressing a smile. “Yes, Uncle.”
She led them on a winding course through the crowded inn, her head bobbing almost constantly in response to the stream of requests for more food and drink that followed her. The room in which she seated them was empty save for three unoccupied tables and several chairs. Candles burned on each table and several sconces were mounted on the walls. Moonlight filtered through the solitary window across from the door.
“This will do nicely,” Trin said, smiling at the girl. “Thank you.”
She nodded, but refused to meet his gaze. “I’ll be back with your food shortly.”
Trin stared after her as she returned to the bar. “I am a fool and a lout,” he said. “I should never have said what I did in front of the girl.”
“She’s a half-blood,” Cresenne said, before Grinsa could respond. “I’m sure she’s heard worse.”
The heavy man tipped his head, as if conceding the point. “Still, it’s one thing to insult the innkeeper. It’s quite another to insult the server.” He smiled. “We’ll be lucky to survive the meal.”
Cresenne laughed, and after a moment Grinsa did as well, although he had to force himself. They claimed one of the tables, sitting just as Ysanne returned with three tankards of sweet ale.
“To a long day,” Trin said after she was gone, raising his stoup
and nodding first to Cresenne and then to Grinsa. “The first of many here in Curgh.”
They drank the toast. It was fine ale, though Grinsa preferred the bitter, lighter brews of Wethyrn and eastern Eibithar.
“Will every day be like this one?” Cresenne asked. “Are the lines always that long?”
“Not always, no,” Trin said. “The first day or two are the worst. That’s when all the young ones come for their Determinings. There’ll be a lull in the middle, and then a rush of Fatings at the end, as the older ones are forced by our impending departure to master their fears.” He took another pull of ale. “Wouldn’t you agree, Grinsa?”
“That sounds about right. Though even during the lulls, we’ll each do ten or more every day. That’s when most of the children come from the outlying baronies, earldoms, and thaneships.”
“And we do this in every city?”
Grinsa smiled at her. “The major houses are the worst. And this stretch is particularly difficult. You missed most of our stay in Kentigern, but from here we go to Galdasten and then to Thorald. Once we’re done with Thorald, though, we’ll be in smaller cities for three turns before Glyndwr, which is the easiest of the major ones. This is really the worst of it right now.”
“Well that’s some consolation,” she said, reaching for her ale.
“I actually prefer the majors,” Trin said. “Grinsa tends to do most of the work, and I find that the food and the soldiers are much more to my liking.”
Cresenne looked at him for a moment, a puzzled expression on her face. Then she seemed to understand, her cheeks coloring as she lowered her gaze.
“Ah, you didn’t know that my tastes ran in that direction. My apologies, my dear. I thought it was common knowledge.”
Grinsa sipped his ale, unwilling to look at either one of them just then. Cresenne’s discomfort was palpable, and Trin’s apology smacked of insincerity. He enjoyed setting people on edge. That was common knowledge as well.
“It’s all right,” she said, an awkward smiling flitting across her features. “It’s none of my concern really.”
“Actually, it should come as a great relief to you. Imagine how much worse it would be to find that I was attracted to you just as my friend Grinsa is.” He glanced Grinsa’s way for just an instant, his
eyes dancing like candle flames. “Even I know that pretty young women don’t like to be pursued by fat old men.”
“That’s enough, Trin,” Grinsa said.
“I must apologize again, my dear. Apparently Grinsa wasn’t ready for you to know how he felt about you.” He turned in his seat to face Grinsa. “It is true though, isn’t it?”
Grinsa could not keep himself from smiling. Looking at Cresenne, he saw that she was grinning as well, though her color was still high. “Perhaps,” he said at last.
“Perhaps?” the man asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Fine, Trin,” Grinsa said, laughing now and shaking his head. “You win. Yes, I’ve enjoyed the time Cresenne and I have spent together.”
“Enjoyed the time,” Trin repeated. He looked at Cresenne and gave an exaggerated sigh. “He wouldn’t admit to being warm if his shirt was on fire.” He reached across the table and took the woman’s slender hand in his own. “And what about you, my dear? Are you similarly impressed with our companion?”
“Trin!”
“Quiet, Grinsa! You’ll thank me for this later. Both of you will.”
“I doubt that.”
“You’d rather dance around each other for another six turns wondering who’s going to be the first to say something? Don’t be an ass. We’re Qirsi. We don’t live long enough to put up with such foolishness. Just because I prefer men, that doesn’t mean that I know nothing of romance.” He returned his gaze to Cresenne and smiled. “Now, answer my question, cousin. Are you taken with Grinsa as he is with you?”
She opened her mouth to answer, then grinned, her eyes on the doorway. “Here’s our food,” she said lightly.
Trin closed his eyes briefly. “Very well.” He released her hand and sat back, allowing Ysanne to place three large bowls of stew on the table. “I’ll leave this to you, Grinsa, although I’ve little confidence in your ability to win her heart for yourself. You would have been much better off with me speaking on your behalf.”
Grinsa laughed, and he and Cresenne shared a look that left him wondering if Trin had already done enough.
“You were right, Trin,” Cresenne said after a brief silence. “This stew is excellent.”
“I’m glad you think so. Ziven’s prices are too high, but he does find the most wonderful cooks.” He paused to chew a mouthful of food. “So tell us about yourself, Cresenne. The Revel doesn’t bring us new gleaners very often.”
She shrugged, looking uncomfortable once more. “What do you want to know?”

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