Sorcery Rising (35 page)

‘Sire,’ Finn swept as low a bow as his great belly would allow, ‘I give you my only daughter, Jenna, whose attributes are all you could ask for.’ And the burly little man had the temerity to wink at his king.

Ravn, caught somewhere between irritation and amusement, cast his eyes over this last wench. He knew the advantages the match brought: the priceless new fleet to take the Ravenway by storm, the convenient political neutrality – but the girl was more of a surprise: big but as well-structured as one of her father’s ships; her face shining with heat and wine (so at least she took a drink).

Jenna stepped forward. She had rehearsed this moment for months – how she would curtsey low to afford the King the best possible view of her bosom, then look up at him through her lashes while she seductively undid the headcloth and let down her sheet of golden hair – her best feature, she knew, and sure to win his heart.

His dark eyes upon her now, with their heavy, sensual lids, made her so weak and foolish that untying the infinity knot she had made for luck became problematic; but at last she fumbled it free and the fabric slipped at last from her head.

The crowd gasped.

Wave upon wave of shining hair tumbled from the confines of the silk, transformed by the nomad charm even as it escaped its bindings. ‘If you really want him to notice you,’ Fezack Starsinger had said, ‘you must wait till his eyes are upon you and you have his sole attention.’

‘I want it to look like a sea of corn,’ Jenna had said, imagining a cascade of gold, a gleaming, textured sea.

Now that phrase came back to plague her.

Had she stipulated ripe corn, it might at least have ameliorated the colour; but she had not paid sufficient thought to the wording of her wish: green it was, her hair; as green as any new crop. And the magic had not stopped there. Out of the sheeny green tumbled fieldmice and bees; earthworms and loam. People close to her swatted at their faces, picked up their feet. A lark burst from her mane and soared up among the mast-pillars, where it trilled in panic.

The King began to laugh, until he realised this was no mere prank designed for his amusement, for the girl was shrieking hysterically and beating her head with her fists.

And then a tall woman stepped out of the throng. She wore a long pale robe and a dark-green shawl covered her head. Her skin, when she stretched out her hands towards the girl, was as white as milk, the fingers long and fine; the nails as pink as nacre. She touched the shipmaker’s daughter’s head and as she did so the illusion – if illusion it was – ceased abruptly. Jenna sank into her father’s arms, her long hair – blonde, inanimate once more – covering her shame. Of the creatures that had fallen from her, there was no sign.

A trick, after all. The King sat back on his bench, irritated at the deception, the stagy histrionics of it all. A man as practical as Finn Larson should know better than this. He waved the tall woman away, but she did not go. Instead, she took a pace towards him. Her hand came up to touch his damaged face.

‘You’ve taken a wound,’ he heard her say, as if from a great distance.

The dark shawl she had worn over her head had fallen back. Ravn’s gaze was drawn to her face. A perfect pale oval awaited him there, and a pair of sea-green eyes.

Her cool fingers brushed his skin.

He felt his heart stop.

Somewhere, in the rafters of the tent, a lark sang.

Fourteen

Madness

T
anto helped himself to another goblet of wine from a passing server’s tray. The good stuff had run out now, he noted, his thoughts as sour as the wine. Even so, he threw it down his throat and reached for another. His head had begun to take on the familiar dull ache that presaged an almighty hangover for the next morning, but right now he did not care.

Damn his self-righteous little brother. Damn his stupid father and Uncle Fabel, too. And as for Lord Tycho Issian: he hoped the Goddess’s hottest flames would devour the man. But not until he’d accepted Tanto as his wed-son, whatever that might take. He drained the goblet in a single gulp, barely even aware of the tart, spicy liquid burning its way down his gullet.

He was just about to find the serving-boy for another refill when he saw the Lord of Cantara making his way through the entrance to the pavilion. Beside him was a tall, thin man with almost no colour to him at all. Despite himself, Tanto stared. The man’s hair was so pale as to be white, and against the pallor of his face, his features were indistinct. He looked like a lamprey, Tanto thought, a sickly, slippery eel of a man. The two of them walked quickly into the midst of the throng, heads inclined towards one another as if they were deep in conversation.

I will sell her to the first man who bids me well for her
. Lord Tycho Issian had been true to his vile word: he had found his bidder. Tanto felt a fury rise in him. So he’d strike a deal for his daughter with this . . . this . . . slug, would he? He hurled down his empty goblet, and began to push his way through the crowd towards them, then changed his mind. What would he do: confront the Lord of Cantara; knock down the slug-man; have everyone here know his family didn’t have the money for the bride-price? No. He thought for a moment, his befuddled mind spinning. No, indeed. He smiled. He had a much better idea.

Outside, the stars were burning brightly and the moon was mantled by drifting cloud. The cold air soon sobered him, but rather than deter him from his plan, it stiffened his resolve. He stared out at the canvas city that had spread itself across the barren black plain, and struck out for the Istrian quarter. He passed the great tents of Lord Prionan’s retinue, deliberately pitched close to the grand pavilion as if to gain authority from their very proximity. The coloured family pennants hung lax in the windless air.

He walked past the pavilions belonging to the Qarans of Talsea, and the Duke of Cera’s huge complex of tents. As he went quickly by, a deep, rumbling growl rolled out through the darkness towards him. It was a sound like none he’d ever heard. For a moment, it stopped him in his tracks, thinking that the Goddess had seen his thoughts and had sent her great cats to rend him; but then he remembered the two mountain leopards the duke had presented to the northern King. Clearly the Duke of Cera’s bid had failed, and the big cats been sent away in disgrace. What cared the Goddess for his plan? He laughed and hurried on.

Soon he found himself walking in the moonshadow cast by the great Rock, towering into the night like the Castle the northerners called it; and there, on the slopes below it, was his family’s own pavilion. No sconces were lit: the slaves must be abed, he thought, or enjoying themselves elsewhere in their masters’ absence. This was not his destination. He passed silently onward.

Beyond Falla’s Rock, the land rose more steeply. Tanto quickened his pace to compensate for the incline, his feet sinking into the dry volcanic ash. Up the hill he went, past the Sestrans’ tents and those belonging to Leonid Bakran and his family. A great cluster of pavilions came up before him now. Heedless of his trespass, Tanto pushed through the circle of tents and found himself in a quiet enclosure. It had been laid out in the form of a Jetran contemplation garden: all ornamental stones and terra cotta; alternating pots of water and scented powders; garlands of safflower around a little shrine – a brazier piled with still-glowing embers. Someone had sacrificed to the Goddess not many hours past: the rancid, sweet smell of burnt meat and hair invaded his nose as he went past. So much effort, and all for the stupid Allfair. Fancy carting all those pots and stones all the way from the Jetran Plain. They’d have done it for the Swan, he thought. To give her a last taste of her beloved south before she got carted off to the Eyran isles with the bastard northern king. This thought enraged him further. A noblewoman sold into barbarism by her greedy, scheming family, rather than saved for the deserving men of Istria. Men like himself. It was an insult to him and to every able-bodied southern male. He kicked out viciously at one of the terracotta pots and watched it smash with a satisfying clatter. Shards of fired clay skittered out across the garden. Then he kicked over the altar, too. The garlands of safflower broke apart, showering him with their fragrant petals, and the ochre pollen from their loaded stamens.
Alesto
, he thought.
Alesto: the Goddess Falla’s lover, brought to her in just such a cloud: the fragrance of heaven, to bless the union between mortal and deity
.

It was all he needed to spur him on. With renewed determination, he took the last few hundred yards at a run, and the smell of safflower followed him all the way.

The Lord of Cantara’s pavilion was in darkness, as he had expected. But the smaller tent annexed to it glowed from within with a faint rosy pink. From where he stood, Tanto could make out the silhouette of two forms inside the tent: a seated figure, and another, much smaller. One of these must surely be Selen. The other, probably a slavegirl. Tanto’s heart raced with anticipation.

At the entrance to the pavilion, he stopped. There was a low murmur of voices – no, one voice – coming from within. Tanto took two big calming breaths. He ran his hands over his disordered hair, smoothed his fabulously-embroidered tunic, tugged up his wrinkled hose and adjusted his undergarments. What he would say to her, he did not know; but what he was about to do was so natural, so right, that he knew he could trust the words to come to him when he needed them. He hovered outside the doorflap and peered in.

Selen Issian was seated on a low couch. A robed slavegirl sat at her feet. Selen’s head was bowed over a sheaf of parchment pages bound together with ribbon, and from this she read aloud to the girl. From the tilt of her head, the child was clearly enthralled by whatever it was Selen was reading – by the sound of it some ancient tale of gods and monsters, fair ladies and brave princes ready to battle through and carry them to safety. Tanto found himself smiling. It was such an idyllic scene. Tanto could imagine Selen sitting thus in a few years’ time, with their own child at her feet and himself with his feet up on a stool by the brazier, a flask of araque by his side. He could see all this so clearly that when he stepped through the doorflap and into the pavilion, he did so as if he were indeed walking into his own house.

The sound of his entry was masked by the turning of a parchment page, but even so the slave’s head turned sharply. These hill girls, Tanto thought, amused: as jumpy as cats they are. The child said something he could not catch and Selen’s head shot up from her reading. She was not wearing the traditional sabatka, Tanto realised with a sudden thrill; just a flimsy silk shift and a shawl about her head and shoulders. His eyes devoured her face. His wife: this was his wife. And how blessed he was, for she was lovely, as he had known she would be, with her pale olive skin and those startled black eyes – as wide and dark as those of the doe he had brought down with his best crossbow on the hillside above their villa last year. The mouth – oh, the mouth he remembered well from a dozen steamy dreams – though it was bare of paint now, and none the less appealing for it.

She rose awkwardly, hampered by the slavegirl clinging to her legs. ‘Get out,’ she managed, her voice low with rage; but Tanto had already closed the distance between them, eyes blazing.

And Alesto crossed the marble floors of the summer palace and called for his love to take her mortal shape that they might share their desire
.

‘Selen, my love. Let us share our desire—’

With a wordless cry of horror she thrust her arm out to keep him away; but all he could see was the pale flesh emerging from the golden shawl, the perfection of the limb foretelling the lovely sleekness of the rest of her smooth body.

From between the pillar of flames she came walking with her cat, Bast, by her side, but Bast she dismissed, saying that she needed no protection now her love was come. And then she took him by the hand
. . .

He took another step forward. ‘Send the girl away, Selen. Now I am here, you need no other.’

He reached out and pulled the shawl from her. It slithered down the silken shift, fell to a heap amongst the cushions on the floor. The slavegirl stared at it, then at the exposed shoulders of her mistress, her mouth open in shock. For a man to see a woman thus was sacrilege, a sin in the eyes of the Goddess; and she, Belina, would surely be punished for it. And not by the deity, either: no, she was far more worried about the lady’s father and his propensity for using the lash. She should call out, summon help from Sharo and Valer in the next chamber, or run for Tarn—

She began to form the word ‘help’, but nothing came out except a tiny gasp. The man looked away from her mistress’s naked arms and fixed his eyes on her. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her, even through her veil. He is so handsome, she thought, wildly, disconnectedly. He smiled at her, and she found herself smiling back. How could anyone so handsome bring harm—

Tanto stared at his dagger-hand in surprise. The beautiful northern blade glinted at him, its silver sheened with red. He hadn’t planned to stab the girl, but suddenly there she was crumpled among the bright cushions on the floor, her blood flowing out onto the golden shawl in a great, dark stream.

Selen Issian began to tremble. She stared at the corpse of her body-slave in utter disbelief. Then she turned her face to Tanto Vingo. ‘No,’ she said, almost inaudibly. And: ‘No!’

Committed now beyond retreat, Tanto kicked the body of the slavegirl out of his way. He dropped the dagger and pushed Selen roughly down onto the couch, his hands ripping at her shift. There was a shearing sound and the fabric parted at her neck, the tear following the line of the weft right down to the waist. Tanto stared at her breasts. The aureoles – dark and round – stared back at him accusingly. Suddenly, Tanto found he did not possess enough hands. His first thought was to cup both breasts in his palms; but he needed one to stop her mouth and another to free his cock. Brute instinct took over. He fell upon her, his mouth on hers, but his probing tongue met a bar of gritted teeth. With one hand he ripped the shift clean away from beneath them both, while with the other he eased himself from the constrictions of his hose and smallclothes. A couple of blind, desperate shoves and he was in and grunting like a hog.