Sorcery Rising (18 page)

He watched as the killer strolled through the parted crowd to stand beside a noble dressed in plain, dark silks. With a start, Virelai realised he recognised the man as the one who had that very afternoon come to his stand offering money, marriage – almost his soul – for the woman (if such she could be termed) who even now lay quietly on the bunk behind him. A man who had gone away empty-handed, with murder in his eyes. What peculiar extremities of emotion these men possessed, he thought: and each reaction so inappropriate to the circumstances that had provoked them. They seemed an entirely different genus of humanity to the nomads – diverse though they were – with whom he had travelled these past months. The Footloose – as the foreigners called them – were placid people, gentle with one another: gentle even with the lowest of their animals. In all these months he had seen no nomad raise either voice or hand to another. These others seemed in contrast turbulent: unstable, as vicious as the wild dogs which had set upon the yeka calf they had lost in the Plains, tearing it limb from limb as if to do the greatest violence to the poor beast’s flesh was a kind of reward in itself.

And where the nomads lived cheerfully moment to moment and hand to mouth, these others schemed and planned and dreamed of the wealth and the power they could amass, the way they could control others, manipulate and exploit them and the world they shared. Virelai had watched and learned. Their greed and their gullibility had taken him by surprise, as had his own ingenuity. If the Master had taught him anything, it was how to use his mind; and he had been putting that ability to ferocious use. Using a parody of Rahe’s tone of cryptic authority in combination with the glittering lumps of ore he had – on a whim? By premonition? – taken from Sanctuary and the maps he had so painstakingly copied from the collection he had brought from the library, he had already gulled half a dozen treasure-hunters and glory-seekers to undertake the hazardous voyage north. Surely one of them might make it safely through the floes and storms to the fastness and there strike down the old man forever? The terms of the geas Rahe had laid on his head and repeated each year on what he referred to, with a mocking smile, as Virelai’s ‘life-day’, prevented him from killing the Master himself, augmented as it was by the vile images the mage sent into his mind of tortures by faceless demons, howling wastes, endless agonies . . . Sending the old man into a long, long sleep, however, until someone else could complete the task seemed to circumnavigate the prohibitions of the curse nicely.

But what to do with the Rosa Eldi? There was profit to be had there; profit and power, if he could only think clearly . . .

As if his thoughts had brushed her mind, the figure behind him began to stir.

‘What is it, Lai?’ The woman rose up in a single supple motion, to peer over his shoulder out of the door. The cat, unseen somewhere in the darkness of the wagon, began to purr. ‘What have you seen?’

Fronds of her white-blonde hair brushed his cheek, causing him to shiver. He could not help himself. The shiver went through skin and muscle, fibre and bone and proceeded to root itself firmly in his groin.

Time for another draught of the brome
, he thought grimly,
to keep her diabolical attraction at bay
. He had found the oat-grass extract was the only remedy for the appalling burning he otherwise had to endure in her presence. It was lucky that the further he had gone from Sanctuary, the better his potions worked, as if the Master’s grip upon him waned with every mile travelled. A pity that the Rosa Eldi’s power had not followed the same pattern. The boat-trip had been the worst, for then he had no brome with which to dose himself. It was his own fault, he rebuked himself, for taking her away in the first place, and then for opening the damned box, rather than simply dropping it over the side, or trading it to the first merchant he happened upon when he came into port. In the end, he’d lifted the lid during a particularly bored period at sea: with magic fanning the sails and the yowling of the cat finally quietened by a twist of cloth about its muzzle, he had had nothing else to occupy him than to fantasise about the creature he had stolen.

One sight of those extraordinary eyes as they fixed themselves upon him, and he had been lost to her, overcome by unstoppable lust. The problem was, even if she had been willing – and oddly enough she had shown him no antipathy – his own body did not seem to be equipped to carry out the act he craved. This had been a strange discovery for him after such a long, isolated and innocent existence. For while the sight and the presence of her made his entire body flame with need, a fire that focused itself most precisely in his groin, the flesh there refused in the Rosa Eldi’s presence to rise to his need, remaining pale and flaccid ever since he had first touched her in the Master’s chamber. It was, he thought, a mystery: damnably odd, and damnably unfair. Even more unfairly, the cat had proved to be in this particular instance quite useless. Extraordinary, really, considering the quantity of magic it contained. If it had not been for the oat-grass, and the nomad healer who had sympathetically suggested it, he would surely have gone out of his mind.

‘Nothing to see now,’ he said, extricating himself with care to avoid further dangerous contact. ‘There was a fight and someone was killed.’

The sea-green eyes went wide. Virelai looked quickly away.

‘Killed?’ She frowned. ‘Made dead?’

Her understanding of such concepts was still remarkably limited, despite all his efforts to educate her; and even her ability to speak and understand the Old Tongue had been patchy, as if the Master had decided it not to be a valuable trait in one whom he used as he did.

‘Yes, made dead,’ he returned flatly.

‘Who was it?’ She was avid now: he could tell from the tone of her voice. It was odd, he reflected, that she had somehow learned the ability to intonate, while her teacher’s utterances remained defiantly inflectionless, no matter how he tried to remedy the matter.

‘It was Hiron Sea-Haar, the moodstone-seller.’

‘How came he by his death?’

‘He was stabbed through the heart by a young Istrian; or rather, he ran onto the knife.’

She considered this for a moment.

‘Cannot you do something for him?’ she said at last.

Virelai turned and regarded her curiously, mentally prepared for the jolt such a glance would afford him. ‘I am not the Master,’ he said softly. ‘In case you had forgotten.’

She smiled then, and the upturned lips dimpled her cheeks sweetly. ‘I had not forgotten that,’ she said. ‘How should I?’ She picked up the cat and cradled it against her. Two pairs of lambent green eyes regarded him dispassionately.

‘Look at the pair of you! Blood and tatters and stinking to high haven of araque and piss. You’re a disgrace, to yourselves, and to the Rockfall clan.’

Aran Aranson strode up and down the booth, his face thunderous, his brows making a single black line across his forehead.

‘Tor: as the elder and as my fosterson I expect you to have learned better than to behave thus while under my care; and as for you, Fent, I am pained to find yet again that I cannot trust you further than I can see you. I had thought after last year’s Allfair you might have learned your lesson; but, no. Quite apart from your behaviour in the nomad quarter, you left your brother in charge of the sardonyx for the entire afternoon; and for that you shall forfeit your share in today’s takings, small as they are.’

Fent, chastened, hung his head, which just made it throb all the worse, for the drink, and for the blow he had taken in the midst of the brawl, which had left a swelling the size of a puffin’s egg on his temple. Tor, however, continued to stare at a point just over his fosterfather’s left shoulder. His eyes gleamed. Katla had the sense that he was relishing this scene as much as he had the drink and the fighting.

‘You do not seem to realise that conflict with the Istrians is the last thing Eyra can afford right now. Our resources are low: we are still recovering from our last bloody war, and our king is young and untried and surrounded by adventurers and politicians. And you charge in and start a fight with a group of wealthy Istrian youths. If we don’t have blood-price to pay, we’ll be lucky—’

‘We didn’t start the fight,’ Tor said flatly, moving his stony eyes from the back of the tent to his fosterfather’s furious face. ‘It was already in progress.’ He smiled, remembering with sudden pleasure the grunt of pain he had won from the Istrian boy in pink. ‘We just waded in to help our friends.’

Fent, knowing this to be a downright lie, stared harder at the ground between his feet.

Aran held Tor’s gaze for a few grim seconds. The air was full of menace. Katla found herself holding her breath: so when the voices came outside the tent, she was almost relieved.

Almost.

The doorflap opened to reveal a pair of Allfair guards, swords unsheathed. They wore the blue cloaks that marked them as law-keepers, but both were Istrian in appearance, with clean-shaven chins and dark eyes. All the guards at the Fair this year were Empire-born. In this, his first year at the Allfair as King, Ravn had failed to provide an Eyran contingent. There had been some muttering amongst the northern traders at such a lack, but to Katla’s mind officials were officials, whatever their provenance.

‘We are looking for three perpetrators,’ the first guard intoned in heavily-accented Old Tongue, stepping into the tent. ‘Two are believed to be Eyran. There was a fight in the nomad quarter and a young Istrian has been badly wounded. We are looking for the man who did it.’

‘He had red hair,’ the second added smoothly, staring over his colleague’s shoulder straight at Katla, who sat closest to the door.

Fent, in the shadows, made a move to step forward, but Tor held his arm.

Katla stood up. ‘Do I look as if I’ve been in a brawl?’ she asked sarcastically. Bundles of coloured ribbons and pretty beads showered down from her lap. ‘I’ve been buying trinkets for the Gathering.’

The second official coloured, but the first, unperturbed, declared with a thin smile: ‘The second perpetrator we seek is a young Eyran who committed a sacrilege upon Falla’s Rock.’

Katla felt her heart thump with sudden force. ‘A sacrilege?’ she repeated stupidly.

‘A crime punishable by burning.’

Tor strode out of the shadows. ‘Don’t intimidate this young woman any further,’ he said forcibly, stepping between the Istrians and Katla. ‘She is not the one you seek, I am.’

The second guard looked him up and down. ‘Your hair is yellow,’ he said sharply. ‘So you do not fit the description of he who wounded Diaz Sestran. And witnesses say the one who climbed the Rock was a woman.’

Tor made a gross curtsey. ‘At your service.’

The officials exchanged glances.

‘You waste our time with such mockery,’ the first one said angrily, staring past Tor into the booth. ‘It is not appreciated.’

Aran picked up a stoneware flask and came into the light. ‘I regret young Tor’s irreverence,’ he said solemnly, extending the flask. ‘As you can see, he fits neither description. Please take this flask of stallion’s blood in recognition of your wasted time and as a token of fellowship at this Fair.’

The first man took it and sniffed suspiciously, and his head recoiled. He passed the flask to his companion. ‘What is this?’ he demanded. ‘Horse piss?’

Tor guffawed.

‘It is the best wine in the northern isles,’ Aran said stiffly.

The second guard took a hefty swallow and choked. He wiped his mouth, shook his head, and laughed. ‘If this is the best liquor Eyra can produce, then you have my sympathy, friend. For that and for your idiot son.’ He turned on his heel and walked off. Light from the dipping sun shone suddenly, redly, into the tent and fell square upon Katla.

The first official regarded her curiously. ‘Your hair is cut in a most barbarous fashion,’ he observed rudely.

Katla swallowed. ‘Indeed. But it is the fashion in our islands, especially in the hot season.’

The man continued to look at her. His eyes were dark and unblinking. Katla, used to the clear, light eyes of the men of the northern isles, found his gaze unnerving, but she held it all the same. At last he shrugged, then smiled crookedly. ‘For all that, you have a pretty face. If there is to be dancing at the Gathering, perhaps you will share a reel with me.’ Then he was gone.

Katla stared after him, speechless.

‘Hot season!’ laughed Aran. ‘In Eyra? It’s a good job the man’s an idiot.’

‘Aye,’ said Tor. ‘Pretty face, indeed.’

By the time Tanto Vingo returned to the family pavilion, he was no longer wearing the cerise tunic which would have marked him out so unmistakably from the other Istrians, but a doublet of midnight blue donated to him by Lord Tycho Issian in a gesture, Tanto felt, of true familial solidarity. Well, they were very nearly related now, and would be as soon as the Allfair was over and the bride-price paid over. Two good tunics lost in one day. Still . . . He fingered the fine silk. It was a rather sober garment for his taste, but it was excellently tailored and exquisitely finished. He imagined it in a lighter shade of Jetra blue, could see – as clear as day – how he would stroll through the Council chambers while the other nobles bowed and whispered their admiration.
Lord Tanto Vingo, heir to the Cantara estates
. It had a certain pleasing sound to it. Almost took his mind off the dull ache in his groin where that damned Eyran had kneed him so hard.

‘Father, Uncle—’ he greeted them with a wide grin, and was surprised to see them turn to him with anxious, strained faces. Oh Falla, he thought, they’ve heard about the old man. ‘It wasn’t my fault—’ he started.

‘Heavens, no, son, we know that. Not your fault at all.’

‘Come and sit with us, lad,’ Fabel said gruffly, patting the tapestried settle beside him. ‘Best prepare yourself for a bit of a shock.’

Tanto frowned. Perhaps this wasn’t about the old nomad after all.

His father leaned forward solicitously and touched him on the knee. ‘I’m sorry, Tanto. There’s been a bit of a setback. On the money front, you see.’