The Malmillard Codex (10 page)

Damn the woman
, he thought. When he
wasn't burning for her, he was freezing for her. With a sharp bark
of laughter at his thoughts, he followed Madryn into their room.
She slammed the door behind him with unnecessary force.

"
Valerik
," she said distinctly as she
watched him unbuckle his belt, "we are in this together. I need
you. I need your help. I had hoped, at the beginning, that I would
need no one's help, but I was wrong. Now I know I cannot…"

Val paused in the act of unbuttoning his
shirt. "Cannot do what?"

Madryn shook her head, wandered over to the
tiny grate that held dying embers. She gave a vicious kick to a
log, leaned against the mantel; her back was to Val. "I'm going
south to finish something I started long ago. I thought I could do
it alone, but it appears I cannot. I need your help," she repeated.
"I can't tell you any more just now, but I need your help."

Val sat down in the room's only chair. "Is
that why you helped me, back in the forest?"

"Why else?" Madryn shrugged.

Why else indeed, he thought. Why else would
she have helped a slave? She had no doubt been on watch even then
for someone whose aid she could enlist. Val was just the one who
came along first. For a moment he allowed himself to sink to
abysmal depths of despair, worse than he had felt when on the run
for his life. Gone were the rosy dreams of Madryn helping him
because she'd been drawn to him from the first. Foolish dreams, he
had known from their outset, but they had proved irresistible. Like
a drug, they had filled his mind with hope and comfort.

But now Val knew the truth. Madryn had used
him, would continue to use him for as long as she needed him. Them
she would cast him aside and go on with her life. What else could
he have expected, really? He was a slave, after all.

"Val," Madryn began.

He interrupted her, his voice harsh and
unyielding "It doesn't matter. I'll do all I can for you. If they
catch us, I'll say I forced you to take me. You can say the same.
They'll believe a noblewoman like you." He laughed. "The ones who
haven't seen you fight, at any rate."

Madryn turned to face him at last. There was
a look in her eyes that Val had never seen before, a look he had
never seen in anyone's eyes at all.

But Val's pain was too great at this moment
to examine that look further. If he had, he might not have felt the
way he was feeling now.

He might have shouted for joy.

The good ship
Atria
wallowed like a cow in the rolling waves. Val's
stomach surged in sympathy.

They had been at sea for six days and until
today, his stomach had been a gentleman…although his dreams had
not. Ever since his adventure in the alley, he had tossed and
turned each night, caught up in powerful dreams, only to awaken
each morning, tired and bleary-eyed. Strange images, confused and
frightening but somehow oddly…familiar…haunted his sleeping mind;
images he could not recall clearly when he awoke, save for flashes
and shreds.

Val debated about telling Madryn of his
dreams. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. He had told her
nothing about what had happened—what he thought had happened—to him
in the alleyway at the time, and since then she'd been distracted
and worried. Val had no desire to add to her anxiety. They had
passed their days on board the small craft apart, avoiding each
other as the gentle waves rolled the broad-beamed ship hypnotically
from side to side.

But today the waves were enormous. The storm
that had been brewing all morning was increasing in intensity, and
Val's insides were reacting to the shifting, rolling deck. He held
tight to the frayed rope that stretched down from the forestay sail
as the stubby craft pitched, laboring to stay afloat in the heavy
seas. The
Atria
was a two-masted galley, and Val tried to
shut out the terrified cries of the galley slaves as they stood to
their oars in the dank hold below.

Captain Zenobio shouted some unintelligible
nautical term from his precarious position on the afterdeck. A
brace of sailors sprang to the ropes, swarming up them like apes
from the southern jungles. High above, in a position so elevated
that Val's neck hurt every time he tried to look up at it, the
crow's nest harbored a restless sailor with a spyglass growing from
one eye.

They were in pirate waters. The captain had
told Madryn and Val about the area the previous morning, before the
seas had become so heavy. Pirates. Just what they needed. Val could
almost feel the weight of a slave collar around his neck again. For
if they were captured, they would either be held for ransom or
enslaved. And who'd pay a ransom for him?

Val looked up as Madryn slithered down the
afterdeck ladder and, seizing handholds where she could, made her
slow way through the salt spray towards him. Stopping a length or
two away, she shouted over the roaring winds, "Captain says go
below!"

Val reached out for a fresh handhold while
releasing the one he had—just at the worst possible time. A wave
struck the slab-sided craft and rolled her sideways, immersing the
larboard side almost to the gunwales in foaming salt water. Val,
caught between handholds, grabbed frantically at the multitudes of
hanging ropes that draped the ship. As if toying with him, they
stayed just out of his grasp; he stumbled sideways, towards the low
barrier that was his only protection from the raging seas. He
tripped; fell to his knees, his mouth full of salt and fear. The
sodden deck, awash knee-deep, offered no foothold and Val began an
inexorable slither towards the waist-high railing.

A strong hand caught hold of Val's shirt and
heaved him into a tangle of ropes that had come loose from the
mainmast. He thrust his hands into the mass of rough hemp and
wrapped lengths about both arms.

"Graceful as ever," shouted Madryn into his
ear. She held on with equal desperation beside him. A wave washed
over their heads and, as if in answer to it, a moaning roar rose
from below decks—where the galley slaves sat chained to their
posts.

A crack like a cannon ball sounded over
their heads. Val spat out a mouthful of seawater and looked up,
expecting to see the mainmast come tumbling down onto their heads.
It had indeed cracked in half, but it dangled, trapped and
entangled by the huge canvas sails.

Around them, sailors clung to the woven
ropes. One poor woman, her eyes starting from her head, was so
entangled that a loop had encircled her neck, choking the life from
her struggling body as others around her watched, helpless.

But surely the waves were dying down, their
intensity lessening? Val would have prayed so, if he had known the
names of any gods.

A slippery rope slid through Madryn's hand
and she snatched at another. Unattached, it gave way as well,
falling as limp as a lifeless snake. Val grabbed her by her silk
shirt—it split with a sound like a rotten stick breaking in his
hand. Her back was bare to the waist.

Val felt himself go cold, even though the
sultry, stormy seas were warm. Crisscrossing Madryn's back were
long scars, a sick pale white against her brown skin.

Val knew what made scars like those. He had
a quite impressive collection on his own back. A lash. A whip, long
leather strips interlaced with metal wires or bits of sharp bone,
that would cut through the skin and bring blood from a single
blow.

A shrill whistle sounded above them. From
the still intact foremast, a shout: "Land ho! Land, Cap'n!"

Val gave a mighty jerk and pulled Madryn to
him, her bare back hidden against his broad chest, one brawny arm
around her waist, while the other held them both safe in the tangle
of rope.

A wave rose up, up, higher than the broken
mainmast, higher than any other wave they'd seen. It broke over the
Atria
, pouring its huge weight of water onto the frail
craft.

But the
Atria
was made of far sterner
stuff than she looked. She shivered like a dog bitten by a snake as
the horrible weight cracked and split her aging timbers.

But she stayed afloat.

Val hugged Madryn tight, her hair plastered
across his face. Against his straining arm, he could feel the quick
but steady beat of her heart. She twisted in his grip and he was at
once filled with the fear of losing her. He pulled her closer
still, amazed that even now, even with their lives so close to what
might be the end, he could feel a wild sort of thrill from her
nearness. He threw a leg across her as well, just to increase that
blessed contact. For now, for all the time that they might have
left, he would have her for his own.

With a snap of cracking wood, the broken
mainmast tore free from its entangling mass of sail. Val watched in
hopeless fascination as it drifted down in a slow and stately fall
from grace. It tumbled end over end.

And landed full atop Val and Madryn. A
smothering mass of sodden and dripping canvas settled over them
like a shroud. One splintered piece of spar cracked Val sharply
over the head and he fell down, down into the waiting darkness.

Lord Valaren
Starseeker was the center of all eyes at Queen Ffania's levee. He
stood by her majesty's side, as befitted her chief counselor, his
tall and heavily muscled body draped in the finest and sheerest of
silks, in the burgundy that he fancied above all others and that
brightened his somewhat swarthy complexion. Lord Valaren's smooth,
perfect face held a perpetual smile. Glints of snowy teeth were a
reward for some lucky recipients, as his smile waxed and waned
according to who stood before him.

"Lord Valaren?" said Queen Ffania in an
undertone, leaning sideways in her cushioned throne and pulling on
her counselor's elegant sleeve.

"Majesty?" Valaren bowed, the better to hear
his queen's question.

"That woman there, the tall one with the
sword. That is Commander Madryn, is it not? The one who performed
so well at the Rift forts?"

Lord Valaren looked across the huge chamber,
pretending to seek out the one who had gained the queen's
attention—even though he had been eyeing her himself for some time.
"I believe that your majesty is, in this as in all things,
correct," he said smoothly. "She is a fine soldier, I have
heard."

"In need of a bit of appreciation from her
queen, no doubt?" asked Ffania as she looked down her long nose at
the remaining nobles waiting to present themselves to her. Queen
Ffania IX had begun holding these levees only recently, and a great
bore she found them, too. "Good soldiers are not always known for
their wealth, hey?" continued her majesty with a snort of laughter.
"And our throne is always in need of stalwart soldiers to protect
us from our enemies. Have her brought to my private chambers
tomorrow, just before the council meeting."

"She will doubtless be honored, majesty,"
murmured Valaren, his head cocked to one side as he eyed the
tawny-haired woman who stood across the huge room.

Commander Madryn was drinking a cup of wine,
a sardonic smile on her long mouth as she watched the colorful
masses swirl and sway before her.

I will have to get some of that arrogance
out of her.
Valaren gave a secret smile at the thought. He
watched her tall, lean figure. Dressed in the midnight and gold of
the queen's army, she looked like some somber stork caught amongst
a swirl of cackling parrots.

Or at least show her how to hide it
,
his thoughts continued.

"I've been thinking, you know," said Ffania,
"that I need a new captain for my personal guard. This woman might
perhaps be a good choice. What think you, my lord?"

"Her record is impressive," agreed Valaren,
his constant smile broadening. "And she plays a good game of
chess."

"Ho, my lord," said her majesty roguishly,
"another of your conquests, is she? By my sword, you work quickly,
sirrah. How long has she been at court, a sennight?"

Valaren looked down at his queen. The smirk
on her fleshy lips, the twinkle in her deep-set eyes, spoke volumes
to a man who could read them.

"You know, madam, that I cannot resist a
good player," Lord Valaren said, his voice a caress that surpassed
the one he stroked down his queen's plump arm. "I hope to improve
my own prowess, in hopes that one day I may offer you a worthy
challenge."

"Certainly you may try," yawned Ffania as
the line crept forward. Her own abilities in the game of chess were
legendary. One soft hand, stacked with glittering rings on each
finger, slapped gently on the arm of her throne in time to the
music that filled the vast room.

Lord Valaren sighed in satisfaction. His
plans were beginning to come together. He shifted his position and
gazed down the line of royal suppliants. His smile broadened. All
of them, he thought with a secret smile, were potential tools.

***

"Val?"

Someone was calling his name.

"Val?"

Wait. Was that his name? Yes, of course it
was. His name was Valaren. His closest acquaintances sometimes
called him Val. So it was his name.

Satisfied, he tried to go back to sleep.

"Val, can you hear me?"

Now someone was shaking him, sending
pulsating waves of agony through his head. Val opened his eyes,
only to slam them shut again as piercing rays of blazing light cut
into them like brittle knives. He heard a groan.

He realized it was his.

Val carefully cracked open an eye and peered
through a tiny slit at the face that bent over him.

Madryn, her tawny hair stiff with salt and
blood, her face scratched and bruised, looked down at him. A smile
of relief and—was it joy?—raced across her face, then was gone
before Val could fully decipher it.