The Dowry Blade (11 page)

‘I’d make sure Killan goes with Chad,’ she admitted softly, not entirely sure whether it was kindness or malice that prompted her words.

Tegan nodded.

‘I need to go and get clean, I think. Tell Maeve where to find me when she surfaces.’

Tegan drained her mug, hugged Ula again, and for good measure hugged Murdo, grinning at his surprise; and forced her way to the entrance. She stopped then and turned to survey the crowd, not looking for Maeve, but watching her back. She shook her head at her own uneasiness; this inn was the closest thing she had to a home, these people were her chosen family. Her eyes drifted to Killan; one did not always love one’s family.

Inir dispatched his duty regarding sleeping quarters swiftly. The mercenaries dropped their packs onto their allotted beds and began searching for clean clothing and money belts, disappearing in ones and twos to the bath house. Inir turned uncertainly to Brede.

‘You need new clothes. You’d better have mail, whatever Maeve thinks.’

Brede tilted her head in enquiry. Inir smiled, or it could have been a sneer. He eyed her, measuring. Brede stood taller under his regard, uneasy with it. Abruptly he turned and tore into a pack on his bed, not his pack – Brede winced: Balin’s pack. Inir held up a sleeveless jerkin.

‘With a belt?’ he asked. Brede reached out a reluctant hand. The wool was good quality, but the jerkin, meant to reach to mid-thigh, came to her knees. Brede caught Inir’s glance, an awkward moment between pain and laughter. Laughter won. Inir rubbed tears out of his eyes and took the jerkin back.

‘We’ll barter these for something that will fit better.’

‘I don’t want you to part with anything that matters to you on my account.’ Brede said nervously.

Inir shrugged.

‘They are just clothes. Borrow something of mine for now; you can’t even look after horses in those rags.’

Inir flicked breeches and tunic at her, and wandered away, giving her a semblance of privacy while she whipped one set of clothing off and a fresh set on. Inir returned from his slow circuit of their quarters and eyed the transformation. He returned to his pack, and came back with a sleeve band of green cloth. He held it out silently; unable to voice just how foreign Brede now looked, dressed in his own clothes. Brede took the band and worked it up her arm to where it wouldn’t slip.

‘Don’t take that off,’ Inir said, his voice suddenly husky with doubt. ‘It wouldn’t be safe.’

He shook himself. ‘So now we do the grand tour. Pay attention, you need to know where things are and who is who; it’s dangerous else.’

Brede clenched her hand into her belt,
not safe
and
dangerous
swimming about her mind and her pulse beginning to skip and dive in anxiety.

Inir was an excellent guide, keeping his explanations and cautions to a low murmur, his introductions clear and brief. To everyone they met he said the same.

‘This is Brede; she kept Tegan alive this winter. She’s good with horses, when I find Eachan, we’ll see if she’s good enough.’

About everyone they met he told Brede, name, associations, how long she could expect them to be about.

Brede watched. She observed and wondered and doubted. Of each person she met she asked herself:
Is this one, at least, too young to have been at the last gather?
She couldn’t ask. She was reasonably certain of Maeve, Corla and Riordan; unless they were let loose in battle as children, none of them could possibly have been there. But Cei and Inir were certainly of an age to have been there with Tegan. And she couldn’t ask Inir about himself, so couldn’t ask about anyone else. Who to trust?

She walked restlessly around the yards, pretending an interest in the architecture, allowing Inir to think her some easily impressed simpleton gawping in wonder. She developed a swift dislike for the arrogant stone towers about her. They stopped at a gate. Beyond it stretched manicured gardens and smaller, lower, but equally brutal stone buildings.

‘What’s that?’ Brede asked.

‘We don’t go there, unless the Queen does,’ Inir said, turning his back on the ornate ironwork that bound the heavy boards of the gates together. He caught Brede’s expression. ‘We make them uneasy.’

‘But who would live there if –?’

‘Well, they don’t exactly live there, that’s the guest hall, it’s where the people come who want to influence the Queen – the ones who aren’t army.’

‘Are there any?’

‘You’d be surprised. Landowners too old to fight, merchants with more money than sense, the occasional foreign envoy –’ Inir moved away from the gate quickly, as though afraid of being overheard; ‘They think that by coming here they can sway the Queen’s decisions, and I suppose they do when she gives them a chance. It’s my belief she hides from them as much as she can.’

Brede laughed, amused by the idea of the Queen hiding from anyone.

Finally, the tour of the barracks brought them to the stables and to Eachan.

Inir’s introduction changed subtly.

‘This is Brede. She’s a friend of Tegan’s. Maeve thinks you can make use of her.’

Brede considered the man before her. He was much older than anyone else she had yet met, his hair grey and thinning. He had a scar across one side of his face, the eyelid puckered out of shape, the eye beneath it clouded and blind. He looked her up and down, and his eyebrows drew together. He nodded at Inir.

‘I’ll let you know.’ Inir grinned and turned to go. Brede gazed after him, uneasy at being left alone with this stranger.

Eachan flexed his fingers thoughtfully, and turned his sideways gaze to inspect the woman before him.

‘There are no new horses in Maeve’s string.’

‘Tegan’s given me Guida.’

‘Given?’

‘Given.’ Brede did not think Eachan would be patient with long explanations.

Eachan nodded slowly. Guida was not a horse he would have parted from.

‘What’s Tegan doing about another?’

‘I’m to help choose.’

Eachan laughed at that.

‘I wish you joy. Show me what you can do. There’s a stable full of horses out there. Take a look, and bring me out the three best, and the worst. Only the one worst, mind. You can take your time. I’ll go fetch us some food.’

Brede started towards the stable. She was going to like Eachan, she could tell; but he might have been at the gather, and the first thing she did once he was out of sight was to check the tattoos on every horse in the stables. She found only one more stolen beast, and few Plains bred animals at all.

Eachan returned with two deep bowls of mutton stew. He held one out to Brede, and let his gaze drift across the line of horses she had tethered outside the stable. One of them was Guida.

Brede took the stew and shovelled up a hot spoonful. Eachan leant on the corral fence and chewed thoughtfully.

‘You’re quick to judgement.’

‘I know horses.’

‘Why these?’

Brede chewed her way through a tough bit of mutton.

‘Breeding. The piebald is in lousy condition, and has a cranky temperament, but he can be brought back, because he’s well-built and strong in the heart. Guida’s one of the best horses I’ve seen. The grey colt has potential to be stunning.’

‘And your reject?’

‘Should have been put out of her misery years ago. It’s cruel to ride a horse with a back like that. And her lungs are shot.’

Eachan nodded, wiped out his bowl and held out his hand for Brede’s.

‘Then you know enough to pick Tegan’s new horse. Show me how well you ride. Bareback.’

Brede grinned and walked towards Guida.

‘Not her,’ Eachan said fiercely, ‘You’re used to her. The colt.’

‘He’s too young to be ridden yet.’

‘So you’ll argue with an order?’

‘If it’ll hurt the horse.’

‘Good. The other then.’

Brede approached the piebald stallion. He rolled an eye at her. Brede glanced back at Eachan, and she worked the bridle buckles loose and pulled it over the horse’s head so that he was loose and untrammelled by bit or rein. He stepped away from her, shaking his head so that his mane lashed about. Brede took a firm step forward, one hand to his neck, a steady sweep of palm against the arch of muscles, making sure he knew where she was, then hand into the mane, a twisting kick away from the ground and she was on his back. Brede settled herself, thinking her muscles into concert with the creature beneath her.

Eachan watched as the stranger brought his most tiresome horse under swift control and took him through his paces, reminding him of battle training he’d long forgotten, jumping him across the corral fence almost at Eachan’s shoulder. When she slid from the horse and persuaded him back into his halter, Eachan came to stand by the horse, his blind eye to Brede. The horse was blowing hard, but its ears were at a more cheerful angle than they had been for a while. Eachan listened to the huff of the horse’s breathing, and tuned his ear to Brede’s breathing – fast, but soft, regular and deep. He smiled to himself. If Brede had ears like a horse, they too would now be at a better angle than they were when she walked into the stable yard.

‘Go and find Tegan. If I approve what she brings back, you have a job.’

Brede coincided with Tegan as she returned from a long soak in the bathhouse.

‘Come on, we’re due at the horse market.’

Tegan tried to dampen Brede’s urgency.

‘Have you been introduced to the master of the Queen’s horses yet?’

‘Eachan? I have: He’ll take me on as a stable-hand if I pick a good enough horse for you. I think he wanted to come too, so he could disapprove my choice.’

‘You’ve made a friend then.’

Brede grinned, not believing that Eachan could be so easily won, uneasy with the thought of another uncertain friendship.

‘Very well,’ Tegan continued, ‘but we don’t step outside the gate unarmed.’

‘I’m the probationary stable-hand.’

‘You are at risk.’

Brede looked doubtfully at Tegan, then nodded and loped back to the barracks. She was back almost at once, strapping her double knives about her.

Out in the street her stride lengthened and Tegan had to make an effort to keep up.

‘Slow up, girl.’

‘Sorry – glad to be out of the tower.’

‘Why?’

‘All that stone – towers make me uneasy.’

Tegan eyed Brede doubtfully; there was a tone to her voice that was at odds with her words, a haste that Tegan did not trust.

‘Are you lying to me?’ she asked.

Brede halted abruptly.

‘There is nothing here I recognise, nothing I can trust.’

Tegan nodded slowly, and gathered Brede by the arm. She pushed gently until Brede was walking once more, but at a more leisurely pace.

‘Tell me.’

‘You tell me,’ Brede said softly. ‘I need to know who was there.’ There was no need to be more precise. Tegan sighed.

‘Chad. Inir – and Balin. Killan. Ula, Murdo. Eachan. Cei. A group of Maeve’s friends you’ve not met yet, Oran’s their leader; all of them were there. Maeve of course.’

‘Maeve?’

‘She started young, I told you all this. I suppose you weren’t listening?’ Brede shook her head. ‘Maeve turned up here when she was barely sixteen, with her father’s sword and her baby brother in tow. Riordan was nine, and she was all there was between him and death. And all she had to earn a living with was the sword. Maeve’s a fast learner. That was her first real battle, although it wasn’t meant to be, I wouldn’t have taken her if I’d known how it would turn out.’

Brede glanced at Tegan, her face marred by a half frown.

‘Did you really tell me that already?’

‘Yes. More than once I shouldn’t wonder.’ Tegan focussed beyond Brede, her eye caught by something, and then refocused her gaze on Brede. ‘Turn slowly and look at the man in the doorway to the left, keep turning so you don’t obviously look at him.’

Brede did as she was told, noting a tall bony man in dark green, with a staff.

‘Yes?’ she asked quietly.

‘Town guard,’ Tegan said softly, ‘most likely to question a Plains woman without a collar, most likely to see no problem with locking her up and finding someone to claim she had a collar once.’

‘This is the sort of place Grainne creates, is it Tegan? Are you sure you want this contract?’

‘Won’t be out in the town much. At least – you won’t.’

‘I will, Tegan, I’ll be out looking for Plains women, with collars or without.’

‘Better get you a good green cloak then.’

Brede shook her head at Tegan, bemused and starting to be angry. She started downhill and steered towards the horse market, heading for the far end of the merchant quarter, near the river. Her confidence had Tegan wondering.

‘Have you been here before?’

‘No. I’ve only ever been to one city horse market, and it wasn’t this one. We always preferred to let the city merchants come to us, but it’s obvious where it would be. Besides, there’s the smell.’

Tegan looked at her blankly. She couldn’t smell anything.

Chapter Twelve

Brede led the way to the rings, grateful for something in which she was the expert and revelling in the warm, welcome smell of massed horses that spoke of childhood, and raised her spirits.

She watched the horse rings for some time, conscious that she was not only looking for a horse for Tegan, but also for horses she recognised – horses she herself had bred – amongst the animals being led around the rings. She didn’t see any; but this wasn’t the horse market Brede had been expecting: there were no freshly trained horses here to be snapped up by eager merchants, or people like herself and Tegan, looking for something a little special, not trusting a merchant to find it for them.

‘This is a depressing spot,’ Tegan observed.

Brede rubbed her face, trying to erase the gloom that sat across her brow, heavy with disappointment. She glanced at Tegan.

‘This won’t be easy. Not now that the Horse Clans refuse to trade with the cities, I should have known.’

Tegan glanced about anxiously, and caught a dark-haired woman watching them with thinly disguised interest. She tugged Brede’s elbow, pulling her away from the ring, leading her towards the strings, where the brood mares were tethered.

Sorcha, her attention caught, followed after; although she couldn’t fathom what it was about this pair that had caught her interest. Was it only that she recognised Tegan, or had the soft lilt of Brede’s accent trapped her ready ear? It was an accent she recognised, and she was curious.

‘I don’t approve of taking brood mares into battle,’ Brede protested.

‘What do you think I’ve been doing with Guida all this time?’ Tegan asked irritably. ‘She’s not been with foal the whole time I’ve had her. If it’s the only way to get a good horse, I’ll give it serious thought. And keep your voice lower, girl; Plains folk in this place usually wear a bond collar. If we attract any attention,
that
’ she flicked a finger against the green band on Brede’s sleeve, ‘may not be enough to protect you.’

Brede pulled her arm out of Tegan’s grasp.

‘Don’t remind me,’ she warned.

Sorcha slowed her walk, dropping back to give herself space to think what it was that drew her after the fierce looking woman with the mellow voice.

The brood strings weren’t quite so depressing, but many of the mares were past their prime for breeding, and therefore cheap. Too cheap.

Brede turned away again, leaving Tegan absently scratching between the ears of the only mare with much potential.

‘There must be something wrong with that beast,’ she cautioned. ‘She probably bites.’

Tegan moved slightly away from the horse, eyeing her thoughtfully.

‘I shouldn’t think so, she looks mild enough to me.’

Tegan glanced at Brede, who was shifting restlessly from foot to foot.

‘You didn’t come here just to look for horses.’

Brede shook her head, and glanced along the line.

‘Merchants, perhaps even a breeder I know.’

‘Hoping for word of your sister?’

Brede nodded.

‘I can look at horses on my own. I’ll find you if I want your opinion.’

Brede nodded again, failing to put into words how she felt about Tegan’s understanding.

Brede walked around the ring, keeping a watchful eye on the traders, but still seeing no one she knew. Her thoughts strayed back to the horses. The stallions were a more promising proposition. The prices seemed high, but she reminded herself she hadn’t been into a market for so many years that this might be the norm now. Mostly they were showy beasts, and of uncertain temperament. At least there was some hope of a beast not past its prime, one that could still be worked on.

Brede was aware of someone at her shoulder, looking with feigned interest at the bay, which was probably the only decent beast amongst them. She glanced around. The woman smiled politely and returned to looking at the horse. Now that she had taken a good look, Brede was fairly sure the woman had been following her around the market. She continued to stare, until the woman met her gaze.

‘What do you think?’ The woman asked.

‘I think you – you’re following me.’

Sorcha didn’t answer immediately, still trying to understand what it was about Brede that had drawn her eye. She didn’t deny Brede’s accusation, saying only, ‘You seem to know something about horses. I need a good horse.’ Brede looked her up and down, irritated by her tone. She took in the rich dark blue of the woman’s gown: an expensive colour and the dress itself was not suitable for a day at the market, far too – designed to be looked at. Brede wrenched her eyes away from the dizzying pleats, forcing them back to the woman’s face.

‘My advice is generally paid for.’

‘Not just your advice?’ Sorcha asked, her eyes sliding across Brede’s knife belt, taking in the two long knives. There was something intrinsically wrong about those weapons, at odds with the sense she had of Brede.

‘Not for hire,’ Brede said firmly. She turned, but found that she did not actually want to walk away. Brede heard the woman behind her sigh, a strange almost musical tone.

‘And your advice?’

Brede looked once more at the ridiculous dress, at the heavy snakes of dark hair caught up at the nape of her neck with silver combs. Brede decided that she liked what she saw – somewhere behind the cosmetics, and the flat grey animal-blankness of her eyes there was a spark of humour that almost made up for the ostentation.

‘My advice is to ask someone else,’ she said, softening her refusal.

Sorcha masked her disappointment and irritation, thinking that she had been wrong; but still there was a feeling in the air between them to which she longed to give a name.

‘Very well,’ she said, and turned away.

Brede felt the abruptness of that turn shut her out from some potential pleasure. Caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the commotion further up the lines at first. When she emerged from her thoughts enough to hear, she ran.

Shouting, screaming, both horse and human – it was too reminiscent of that last Gather for comfort. Brede caught at the rail around the show ring to regain her balance, searching for the source of the screaming that rose above the exclamations of the anxious and excitable crowd.

Out in the ring, a horse reared, screaming in fury. One of the showy stallions loose – no,
not
loose – the child who was leading the enraged animal still clung, terrified, to the lead rein. All the shouting was making the animal more confused, more enraged; he struck out with those raised hooves, trying to free himself of the child. Brede pushed through the little knot of shouting people and ducked under the rail into the ring. As she did so, she felt someone brush against her, forcing a way through the crowd with as much purpose as Brede herself. The woman beside her continued towards the rearing horse, and Brede heard something she was not expecting: three sharp notes, followed by a falling trill, just as she herself had planned to use to calm the horse.

The stallion jerked his head suddenly, as though he had received a blow, then placed his front feet to the ground, delicately, carefully, well clear of the sobbing child. Brede made a grab for the reins, to pull the horse away, and saw why the child had not let go. The lead rein was caught about her wrist, the leather pulled tight by the horse’s rearing. The child’s hand was swollen and bloody. Brede cut the rein through. The child clasped her injured hand to her chest, the sobbing becoming a mere gulping of air; she was too shocked to cry any longer.

The horse stood stock still, sweat standing on his skin, muscles twitching as though he would be back in motion. He bared his teeth and rolled his eyes, but did not move. Brede rested her hand against his quivering neck and he flinched, but didn’t turn to bite nor move away. She pulled his ears gently, cursing him in the language of the Horse Clans. His ears flickered under her touch; the panicked breathing seemed to ease a fraction. Almost without thinking, Brede ran her fingers under his mane, and found a tattoo. She bit her lip. She parted the long hair and squinted at the raised lines. Cloud – uncancelled. Brede’s breath tightened and she did some quick calculations. The horse was probably too young to have been fully broken when he was stolen at the Gather. That explained some of the temper.

Brede spared a glance for the child, still huddled at her feet. The woman, the same woman, Brede now saw, who had asked her advice, held the child in her arms, crooning gently to her; but it was not the meaningless noise a mother might use to quieten a frightened child. In amongst that murmuring there were words of command. Brede heard them, but it was as though her hearing was at fault. She was not intended to hear. Those words were for the child alone; not even for the child perhaps, but for her body. Over and over, softly persuading the body that it was not, after all, as injured as it believed. The woman’s face was closed, her concentration solely for the child, her hair loose of its combs, falling in a cascade that completely hid the child’s face from Brede.

Brede let go of the horse, convinced he wouldn’t move. She picked up a fallen comb. The child was quiet now; her injured hand was no longer swollen.

‘You’re a witch,’ Brede said, surprised.

Without thinking, she still used the language of the Clans. Sorcha blinked, adjusting to the unfamiliar tones of the language.

‘And you are of the plains,’ she said calmly, her eyes flickered across Brede’s knife belt again, ‘or you were.’

Her words were half criticism, half question: she would like to know which Clan, but she could guess – that knife belt told her enough. Now the witch understood the contradictory message Brede sent out, but she still couldn’t place the reason for her fascination, strangely like greed.

It had been a long time since Brede had heard anyone speak in that language. It softened the criticism. She still thought of it as a language for love, spoken so rarely now, and when it had been spoken, most often to those she loved; to her father and sister, to her horses, to Devnet. And now she had spoken it to a stranger, and been answered.

‘Which Clan?’ Brede asked the woman. She was sure that this stranger must be a Clan member, despite being a witch. She had used Clan whistles to steady the horse.

‘No Clan,’ Sorcha said, barely a whisper, almost a warning.

The witch got to her feet, aware of the approach of others, now that they could see that the danger was over. It was not good for her skills to be discovered; it had been a stupid risk to aid the child. She had acted without thinking, still confused by Brede.

‘But the horse?’ Brede asked.

Sorcha whispered a soft lilting phrase. The horse backed away a few steps, released from her thrall. Brede grabbed the rein, and hissed at the beast to be still. He bowed his head slightly, crest-fallen. Brede held out the comb. Sorcha took it, her fingers grazing Brede’s in passing. The witch glanced down at her dress: there was a tear in the hem, and there was a large sodden stain across her knees, where she had knelt beside the child. She grimaced, and pulled her hair back into the control of her combs.

‘I think I’ll buy this horse,’ she said. ‘We have an understanding, he and I.’

Brede thought about warning her that the horse was stolen, but said nothing, distracted by the way the light fell across the woman’s face, and a fleeting scent of herbs. She recognised the smell, could feel the flavour on her tongue, but couldn’t name the plant, nor remember where she had smelt it before. She smiled and handed the reins to the witch, bowing slightly. Sorcha smiled, and Brede felt a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach, dizzying, wrenching; frighteningly powerful. She turned abruptly, and walked back to the fence around the ring, finding Tegan there. Seeing Tegan, she recognised that feeling, and measured the intensity against how she felt for Tegan. She smiled, nervous of the tangle she had herself in.

‘There’s a decent bay I want you to look at,’ she said, surprised at how calm her voice was. Tegan nodded, her glance sliding past Brede to Sorcha.

‘I’ve already seen her,’ she said, recognising the look on Brede’s face. Feeling cut out of Brede’s regard, she hid an unexpected loneliness behind teasing.

Brede shook her head.

‘A horse,’ she said, ‘I’m talking about your new horse.’

Brede looked back at Sorcha, who still stood in the ring, the stallion docile at her shoulder.

‘Where is this horse?’ Tegan asked, resigned to Brede’s lack of attention. Brede gave instructions without taking her gaze from the witch, who was negotiating the price of her steed with the trader. Tegan followed her gaze, and frowned. She slapped her gloves uneasily against Brede’s shoulder, and got no more than a flicker of response.

‘You’re bewitched, girl,’ she said, and turned away. Brede nodded, unaware that Tegan had gone.

‘Probably,’ she said.

Sorcha bought the difficult stallion for a greatly reduced price, partly because his show of temper made him difficult to sell, partly because the trader’s daughter, still nursing bruises, insisted she be given a good price. With the deal successfully negotiated, she led the horse out of the ring. A Horse Clan assassin waited for her. She bowed her head in acknowledgement of Brede’s silent greeting.

‘Will you walk back into the city with me?’ Sorcha asked.

Brede nodded, and fell in step.

‘I’ve never met a witch before,’ she said, and wished she hadn’t. It sounded so – naïve.

The witch laughed.

‘I am called Sorcha. And I have known very few Plains women – certainly not any who dressed as assassins. Can you use those knives?’

Brede shook her head.

‘After a fashion.’

‘Why the disguise then?’ Brede was silent, wondering if she had really hidden herself and if that was what she had intended.

‘Why your disguise?’ she returned, unwilling to broach the complications of an answer.

Sorcha was surprised.

‘My disguise?’

Brede nodded sharply.

‘You know better than to come here dressed like that.’

As she spoke, the witch’s face changed subtly: bare of cosmetics, sharper, clearer. Her eyes darkened and deepened and her mouth widened. Brede grinned.