Scourge of the Betrayer (9 page)

Braylar remained silent as the countryside rolled past, and he was motionless for the most part, only occasionally flexing his right hand or twitching a bit. Farms began to spread out in all directions, and the road became rougher.

We sat in silence for a time when Lloi fell back alongside us. She kept pace next to the wagon bench and Braylar looked down at her, finally asking, “I assume if you spotted any following us, you wouldn’t be waiting for me to ask, no?”

Lloi arched her back and replied, “Go back far enough, plenty of folks following. Don’t call them roads for nothing. Can’t vouch for intent, but if any had harm in them, didn’t seem to be aimed your way none.”

Braylar stopped the wagon and Lloi halted her horse, neither looking at the other. Finally, Braylar said, “You could tether up and ride awhile, if it suits you. Or not. They don’t call it a wagon for nothing.”

Lloi shrugged her shoulders and then did as he suggested; after securing her shaggy horse to the side of the wagon, she climbed in the rear and settled inside.

Braylar flicked the reins and we started forward again. He took a swig of what must have been very warm wine. We had the road largely to ourselves, and so he untied the scarf and used the end to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“There’s no reason for us both to bake. Take a respite beneath the canvas, if you wish, as Lloi has done already. You’ll lose the breeze, but at least you’ll be out of the sun.”

As the sun was high and scouring, I decided to follow his advice and move inside the wagon. Lloi was sitting cross-legged near the back, leaning back against a box, lazily swatting at flies.

The indecision must have been inscribed on my face, but she waved me in with her half-hand, which was surely the most disconcerting invitation I’d ever received.

I found a space against a barrel and, after folding my blanket over and placing it behind me as a cushion, sat down as well, though I shifted and tried again, as nothing I did seemed to make any position remotely comfortable.

Lloi smiled, but had the good grace not to laugh outright. After letting me settle in, she held out a pouch balanced in her palm filled with some sort of seeds.

I’d never eaten seeds before, and assuredly not when offered in a fingerless hand, but uncertain how she’d take a refusal, I reached into the pouch and grabbed a few. She pulled out some with her other hand, popped them in her mouth, and began working them around. A few seconds later, she spit some shells out the back of the wagon.

I did my best to mimic her, but breaking the seeds open in my mouth without swallowing the shells proved more difficult than I imagined. I managed to work a few open with my teeth and then promptly swallowed the shells, choking and sputtering as I did, and this time Lloi did laugh. However, hers seemed less prone to mockery than Braylar’s, and it wasn’t harsh on the ear, so I smiled in return.

I broke a few more open and managed to dislodge the contents without swallowing the shells this time. The meat of the seeds, tiny though they might be, was surprisingly tart, but not unpleasant. Still, not being near the rear of the wagon and not wanting to spit them onto Braylar’s back on the front, I had no idea what to do with the shells. Having no alternative but trying to swallow the tiny husks again, I spit them into my hand and dropped them on my lap.

Lloi spit a few more shells out the back, still smiling. “Bought them in the city. Good?”

I nodded, but when she offered me the pouch again, I said, “Many thanks, but I’m fine.”

Lloi withdrew the pouch, pulled a few more out. “As you like.” She popped them in her mouth and turned to look out the back of the wagon.

Worrying that this would be the full extent of our conversation, and reluctant to return to Braylar’s side until requested, I said, “Forgive me if this is too brusque, but it strikes me as, well, a little odd that you’re with a Syldoon commander. What exactly do you do for him?”

She turned back to me. “I do what needs doing. That’s what I do. Got nothing to do with the Syldoon, except by incident. Captain the only one that got my loyalty, and him only just barely.” She smiled broadly, discovered a shell in her teeth, worked the tip of her tongue around to dislodge it, then spit it out. “Syldoon the same as all men—greedy, crafty devils that use you when they got appetite, spit your husk out when they’re done. A lot like these.” Out came another shell. “No, I’m not tethered to them nor theirs. Just Captain Noose. Him and me, we got some sort of…” she searched for the word and stumbled across the wrong one, “affiliatory thing betwixt us.” The words “Captain Noose” conflated, with the rugged “t” dropping out entirely.

I said, “So, you have some kind of history or bond, is that it?”

“You asking if he mounts me?” She cackled, spitting out shells. “No, none of that. No mounting going on.”

That wasn’t quite where I was going with that. “How is it you came to share each other’s company?”

“Same as any two people, I guess. One day, we were strangers. The next, we weren’t.”

I could see I’d need to be exceptionally specific. “Where did you meet?”

“Captain Noose was right—you got more questions than a leper got sores. Met in a whorehouse.”

I coughed and tried to hide my shock.

She laughed again. “You got a lot of red in the face for not being the one there. Wasn’t you whoring or being whored, was it? Or maybe that’s it, maybe you was wondering which it was I was doing there? Maybe that’s what coloring you up like an apple, eh? Well, I’ll tell you straight, I wasn’t fucking of my own volition, and that’s as factful a thing as ever’s been said. Clear it up some?” Seeing my hot cheeks, she added, “All bookmasters as delicate as you, or you that glass-fragile all on your lonesome? Or maybe you’re just struck dumb because you’re wondering how a beauty like me came to be a whore, that it?” She cawed a rough laugh and continued, “Like I said, wasn’t no choice of mine. Didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘Lloi, I think today’s the day you go whore.’” Another few seeds in, another few shells out. “Sold off before my thirteenth summer.” She said all of this with the complete nonchalance of someone talking about porridge. “That’s right. My tribe gave me a trim first,” she wiggled her nubs, “something nice to remember them by, then they sold me to the first slave company that come by. Turns out, these slavers were on the coin for a silk station, edge of the Green Sea. So that was that. Until it wasn’t.”

“Why… why would they do such a thing?”

“Expect they didn’t want nobody thinking it was on accident. A missing hand, well, that could be just about anything, couldn’t it? Crushed under a wagon wheel, eaten by a ripper, a souvenir of battle. Lots of ways to go getting a hand lopped off. But the fingers, all of them but the little bit by the meaty part of the hand proper? Well, hard to mistake that for much else but a real deliberate chopping, one by one. Not many accidents happen that particular.”

I’m sure I blanched before clarifying, “Why did they mutilate you at all, I mean?”

“On account of what I was, of course. No mistaking that for much else, neither. Some tribes, they send my kind through the Godveil.” Lloi shivered a bit, though I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or done for my benefit. “Ought to count myself lucky they just cut me up some and turned me whore. Silk house would’ve done me in, time enough, weren’t for the captain coming along, but the Veil… well, that would’ve done it straight away, sure as wind is windy. Seen it happen. No kind of way to go at all.”

She looked at me blankly, gauging my reaction, then continued, “Guessing they do something different to my kind where you from, eh? Can’t guess it’s six shades of nicer, though. Might even be worse, though can’t imagine how. Still, people got a whole lot of creativity when it comes to maiming and killing.”

She pulled the drawstring on the pouch shut, tucked it into a sturdier leather pouch hanging from her belt and looked ready to close the conversation off. But she was right about one thing—I did have questions, and I wanted to hear more, so I tried a different tack. “I’m sorry to hear that happened to you. I certainly have nothing in my experience that compares. But we’re not all that different, for that.”

Her hands fell into her lap and she leaned against a barrel, looking me up and down in that quiet, disconcerting way she had. “Do tell.”

“Well,” I tried to frame the words carefully to avoid being disingenuous, “I might not have been a nomad, or a girl, or mutilated and sold off exactly, but I do know what it’s like to have no family to speak of.”

She nodded slowly, still seeming less than convinced. “You do, do you?”

I debated backing away from the statement all together, leaving the conversation where it was. I wasn’t sure how revealing I really wanted to be—but if that’s what it took to keep her talking, I supposed it was worth it. “My mother worked at an inn, a lot like the Three Casks, but it was on a road. I was born there, grew up there. I never knew who my father was, and my mother refused to discuss him at all. Even bringing up his name earned me a wooden spoon across the backside, so I learned to avoid the topic.

“When I was young, not eight nor nine, a man showed up at The Noisy Jackal—that was the name of the inn, and he—”

“Good name.”

I stopped and looked at her.

“For a tavern. Good name. Better than the Three Casks. No kind of character at all in a name like that. Might as well call it The Three Boards, or The Three Drunks, be done with it. Come to think of it, though, that wouldn’t be half bad. The Three Drunks, I was meaning. Says there’s some kind of story behind the name, which there ought to be. Otherwise no sense naming a thing at all.”

I waited until I was sure she was done and tried again. “Yes. Well. This man appeared, and—”

“Was it your da?”

“Oddly enough, I was just about to tell you who it was.”

She smiled. “Course you were. Go on.”

“No, he wasn’t my father. But he was his retainer.”

“What’s that, then?”

I felt we were nearing an impasse. “What’s what?”

“Retainer, you said, was it? What’s that?”

I nearly rolled my eyes before remembering that Anjurian wasn’t her first language and she’d had no formal schooling besides. “His man. My father’s man. Like Vendurro and Glesswik are the captain’s men. His retainers.”

She started to nod, accepting that, and then stopped, eyes widening. “Your da was a Syldoon?”

“No. I was giving an example. Explaining the term. Retainer.”

Lloi looked puzzled. “So, not a Syldoon, but a soldier then. Your da was a soldier.”

I tried hard to keep the frustration off my face. “No. Likely a merchant or a noble. Any man with some wealth or power can have a retainer. A retainer is like a servant, or someone in a man’s service anyway.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say as much, then? Got to go confusing things with terms that don’t mean nothing in particular.”

I opted not to debate the point, and was nearly going to drop the topic altogether, when she rolled her hand in a circle. “Go on then. Tell me about your da’s man who come calling. Only do it without confusing things no more.”

I smiled despite myself. “Fair enough. I’m not sure how he found me. Maybe my father had known of me for some time, though if he had, I’m not sure why he waited so long to send a ret—… his man. Either way, the man was there at my father’s behest to—”

Lloi’s eyes started to narrow but I rode past any objections or queries. “My father sent him to offer my mother a bargain. For some coin, the man was going to take me away and set me up in a university. I didn’t really understand what was happening at all. But my mother didn’t exactly agonize over the decision, so it all moved very quickly. She accepted the terms and money, however much it was, made me gather my things, gave me one stiff hug, and sent me off with the man.

“I was confused. I thought maybe he was my father, but he explained in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t. He loaded me and my meager belongings onto a cart and led me away from the Jackal.”

“Your ma?”

I was about to clarify when I saw her gap-toothed grin. “You are forgiven for thinking so. Yes, he led me off, telling me I was heading to a school. I didn’t really know what that entailed, never having seen one, but hoped my father would be there, as that was the only thing that kept me from bawling the entire time. The thought that at least I would finally know who my father was.”

She scrutinized my expression. “Guessing you didn’t though, did you?”

“No. No, I didn’t. Altunis—my father’s servant, as I discovered, though that was about all I’d learn about the man. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming. Altunis transported me to a university several days ride away. And after paying my tuition, deposited me there among strangers. My father paid for my schooling for the duration of my stay, but never visited me or the school that I knew of. I never met him. I don’t know if he had other bastards, or put them up somewhere if he did. I might even have had brothers and sisters at the university and never known it. And I never saw Altunis again to ask.

“While my mother could be cold at times, cruel even, it was crueler still to allow me to be wrenched out of that life so abruptly, and to have any illusions about ever meeting my father completely shredded. I never forgave her for that.”

I hadn’t expected to provide that many details, but they seemed to be coming out of their own accord, and even over a tenyear later, the memories they evoked were still a little jagged. “So, while I might not have suffered as you did, Lloi, I do know something about losing a family, real and imagined. And I know something about bitterness, too.”

“Expecting you do. Only that’s where the comparison ends real sudden like. I got no bitter to speak of.”

I stared at her, incredulous. “How could you not? What happened to you was far worse than my fate.” The words were out before I could stop them. But if she was stung at all, she didn’t show it, and I tried to move past it quickly. “Why did your people do that, Lloi? That’s what I don’t really understand. You said ‘on account of what you were.’ What was that? Why would they treat you like that?”