Three Coins for Confession (52 page)

He heard the order to saddle up, saw his horse being led toward
him. He tried to find Kathlan within the chaos of movement as the rangers
prepared to ride, but she was nowhere in sight. Madoc was there, though.
Chriani noted the ranger’s queasy expression, the dark lines beneath his eyes.
He couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He was on his horse, stepping into place between the four riders
assigned to flank him, when he saw movement in the distance.

To the far northwest, a ripple disturbed the shadow that clung to
gently rolling fields. Riders on horseback, moving quickly. They were faint
still even to his eyes, Chriani knowing that no one else in the troop would see
them.

They heard the horn, though. Two short blasts that sounded out
faint on a rising wind. Rangers returning.

The sound of hoofbeats quieted as Captain Shara held a hand up at
the front of the troop, all eyes turning. The horn sounded out again. Chriani
caught Shara’s glance back toward him as the captain circled his hand overhead
for a change of course. The sergeant at Shara’s left sounded a horn twice in
response as the troop turned as one to the northwest, cantering off as the sun
finally broke away from the ground below.

It was five riders, all in the livery of Brandishear. They were
tired, the well-run look of their horses suggesting that they must have set out
well before dawn. The Aerachi rangers slowed to a halt, spreading out as the
Brandishear squad came within their midst. Chriani didn’t know any of them,
though he recognized the livery of the Bastion guard.

“Iarva,” the sergeant called as she saluted. “Are you Captain
Shara out of Teillai?”

“Indeed,” Shara said. “What business is this?”

“A message from the Prince High Chanist, for your eyes.” From the
pouch at her belt, the sergeant retrieved a sealed envelope, passed it to the
captain. “We were told you’d be riding from the Ghostwood and were meant to be
waiting for you last night, but we were delayed. Ilvani are all across the
Clearwater Way. I’m glad we didn’t have to ride to Teillai to catch you.”

Shara broke the seal on the envelope and unfolded the message
within. He read it silently.

“Kathlan. Bragan. To me, please.”

A ripple of uncertainty spread through the Aerachi rangers,
Chriani feeling it.

He recognized the war-mage he’d seen in the Ghostwood as the
other sergeant Shara had called. He hadn’t bothered to learn his name before.
Kathlan slipped up from the back of the troop, riding wide around Chriani to
reach Shara’s side. He showed her the letter first, Chriani seeing her read it
quickly. She nodded, her face a mask.

To the war-mage, Shara nodded. The mage spoke unheard words, a
pulse of pale light surrounding the letter in Shara’s hand. Most of the Aerachi
rangers made the moonsign. The captain didn’t.

“Chriani, approach.”

The silence as he spurred forward past his guards hung like a
shroud. He stepped his horse up slowly, stopped two paces away. Shara nodded to
him before he read the message aloud.

“This letter confirms, by the words of the prince high of
Brandishear, that Chriani of the prince’s guard, regiment of Rheran and the
Bastion, is engaged on a mission to infiltrate the Ilvani war-clans.” He spoke
to let his voice carry, every eye in the troop on him. “For purposes of
diplomacy and the safety of the realm has this mission been undertaken, with
knowledge limited to Chriani, the prince high of Brandishear, the Captain
Ashlund of the Bastion in Rheran, and those three sworn to absolute secrecy in
this matter.”

As Shara shifted in the saddle, Chriani could see the message. He
recognized the writing as Chanist’s own hand. He had seen it enough times, on
documents and notes and commendations, all piling up on the rough shelves in
the quarters Barien and Chriani had shared for ten years.

“As a Half-Ilvani with ties to the Greatwood, but whose loyalty
to Brandishear and its crown is above reproach, Chriani has been ordered to
take the guise of an Ilvani agent of the Valnirata, and to seek access among
them. On orders of his prince high and for the manner in which the truth of
this mission might imperil diplomatic efforts between the Ilmar Principalities
and elements of the Valnirata, Chriani was not to speak the truth of his
mission under any circumstances, even to the point of saving his own life at
trial. So do I, the Prince High Chanist, speak it for him.”

Something twisted in Chriani’s gut. Kathlan still wasn’t looking at
him, but he saw the trembling in her hands, at her jaw. He understood the
weight of the burden suddenly leaving her. The weight she had carried as she
came after him, all of it slipping away now.

“Chriani is absolved of all guilt for actions committed in the
name of his duty to Brandishear, by request of the Prince High Chanist, and
with dispensation from the Prince High Vishod, who speaks for the Duke Andreg
under whose service Chriani’s duties in Aerach have been done. Chriani is to
return to Brandishear at once.”

Shara folded the letter thoughtfully. He looked to Chriani like
he wasn’t sure what to say. In the crowd of rangers around them, Madoc beat him
to it.

“This is lies and Brandishear bastardry!” the warrior snarled.
“What proof do we have of where these so-called orders come from?”

Shara turned to his ranger with a dark look, but it was the
war-mage Bragan who spoke. “I have the proof, master Madoc, and you’ll watch
your tongue. The message holds the arcane seal of Vishod’s court at Aleran,
magically marked alongside the arcane seal of Rheran.” The mage’s expression
suggested how rare such a thing must have been. He spoke an incantation again,
Shara holding the letter up this time so that all could see the two arcane
sigils that flared across its writing.

Chriani was watching. He thought he saw the quickest flash of a
third mark. A flower of five petals, etched in lines of white light. The same
sign of protection Irdaign had placed on him.

“Chriani.”

He looked over to where Shara had a knife out, nodded to his
bonds. He stepped his horse closer to let the captain cut the ropes, shaking
his hands out as they were freed.

“Pick your horses and arrange for a change of gear,” the captain
said as he appraised Chriani’s Ilvani leathers. “We’ve all got riding to do.”
He nodded then to him and Kathlan in turn, but his gaze lingered longer on her.
Chriani saw a sense of respect there that reminded him again of Barien. He
tried to think on what Kathlan had done, the lengths she’d gone to, to bring
the captain and his troop to Chriani’s rescue.

The rest of that troop shifted away now, the rangers waiting in
silence as Chriani and Kathlan prepared to take their leave, just like that.
She was at Shara’s side, talking quietly as Chriani changed into the Aerachi
uniform and leather provided for him. He felt eyes on him as he stripped off
the Ilvani armor, packed it carefully into the saddlebags he’d been given for
his horse. He didn’t care.

He pulled off the tunic that Farenna had cut away to reveal the
war-mark at his shoulder. He felt that war-mark catch the warmth of the sun for
a fleeting moment as he pulled a clean tunic over it. He found the cut ropes
that had bound him, carefully unfurled a single cord from one section. He used
it to tie his hair back and low, covering his ears. A sense of things going
back to the way they were, even as Chriani understood that everything had
changed. Futures seen and unseen, Veassen had said.

His secret was known now, and a strength and a sense of freedom
like he’d never felt before was surging in him as a result. But he didn’t know
how long any of it might last. Understanding that he was stepping back into a
life whose parameters would change because of what others knew about him.
Understanding that he owed a debt to the Prince High Chanist whose terms
remained to be resolved. Remembering Kathlan’s anger and the shadow drifting
deep inside him. All the things he’d been afraid to tell her.

For weapons, Chriani secured a dirk and smallsword donated by
Madoc on Shara’s orders, along with a spare shortbow from the captain’s own
saddle. Shara also returned Dargana’s bloodblade to him, wrapped tight in
oilcloth.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Chriani said to the captain
when he was ready to ride. He thought of asking to give his thanks as well to
the Duke Andreg, but the words stuck in his throat.

The captain simply nodded as he turned away and spurred off east
and north, the troop falling in behind him.

The Brandishear couriers had further business in Aleran, and so
rode with Chriani and Kathlan only a short distance before breaking off to the
north, leaving them to make their own way back home. The two of them continued
along a succession of farm tracks bearing steadily northwest, shadowing the
distant border with the exile lands.

Chriani remembered the courier’s words about Ilvani on the
Clearwater Way, wondering what it might mean. The remnants of the lóechari
dispersing, perhaps. Or the scattered Crithnala hearing of the cult’s fall and
slipping back to the south, pursuing the Calala as they fled. Ashlund would
need a full report, he thought, feeling himself falling back into a sense of
his own service and duty with a strange familiarity.

He remembered having been banned from the frontier by Captain
Rhuddry, wasn’t sure how best to deal with that. He started by telling Kathlan,
though, confessing the results of his hubris that day.

“It’ll work out,” was all she said.

They were going back to Brandishear. Chriani told himself he
wouldn’t think on any of the reasons he had to return to Aerach. Not a secret
anymore, or not from Kathlan at least. But just something for another day.

It was a two-day ride to Werrancross, and Chriani filled much of
it with talking. He told Kathlan what had happened to him and Dargana, sharing
every smallest detail of their flight through the forest with the Ilvani, and
of the hidden city and the councils that followed. He told her of Taelendar,
and was surprised at the emotion that twisted through him in response to his
own words of the warrior’s end. He told her of Farenna and of Dargana falling,
and of how the Ilvani captain had fought against the curse that consumed him.
How he’d saved Chriani’s life.

That first day turned to cloud threatening rain, so they sought
shelter at a farmhouse in a small steading just past a railed wooden bridge
that crossed the Hunthad. With them both in Aerachi uniforms, they were
welcomed with open arms by the matron whose farm it was. With her four grown
children, she treated them to a meal that might have been the best thing
Chriani had ever eaten, even if it hadn’t come at the end of a long road.

The farm had two guest rooms used for summer laborers, both of
them set up with fresh linen and basins of hot water by the time dinner was
done. Chriani would have preferred to share a room with Kathlan, just to hold
her after the ordeal that had separated them. But he felt the exhaustion in her
that matched his own, and an emotional distance between them that he knew would
do better with rest.

He also knew he had one more thing to say to her. Knew that it
would be better said by morning than by night.

On the next day’s ride, Chriani told Kathlan of the cult. He told
her of being captured, feeling himself drawn back to the well of shadow as he
spoke, the memory sharp and cold in his mind. He told her of how the cult’s
magic built on memory, repeating what he’d learned at the council, what Dargana
had told them in the Bastion throne room when it all began. He felt the fear in
her that was the only natural reaction to such things.

He talked of Dargana’s memories laid down alongside his, and the
strength in her that had saved him. Then he told Kathlan of what had come
before that, not spoken yet. Dargana’s last words to him, and how Chriani
thought now that she must have been already dead when he heard them. He told
her of not knowing what it meant that it had happened that way, and of being
afraid. Kathlan made the moonsign as he spoke.

Chriani told her finally of the assassin and how she had saved
him. How he was sure she had dragged him back from the black well’s edge. The
offer she’d made, and the choice he’d made in return.

“I know my path,” he said. “I came back for you. I did it for
you.” Echoing the words he’d whispered in the aftermath of the battle, while
Kathlan held him and he clawed his way back from dead.

She squeezed his hand hard as they rode on in silence. Said
nothing in return.

That night brought them to the outskirts of Werrancross, and to
the same inn the Brandishear squad had occupied on a night of rain nearly two
weeks before. To Chriani’s mind, it seemed so much longer. They shared a room
and a bed, and he felt a hunger in Kathlan throughout the darkness of the night
that set a brightness burning in his heart and mind. Watching her as she sat
astride him, as she cried out beneath him, her shadowed features shining in his
eyes.

They woke early and in silence, setting out as the grey dawn
rose. A haze of mist and low cloud hung to blanket the city where it spread to
north and east. Chriani and Kathlan made their way toward one of the patrol way
stations set up where the north–south trade road forked out to mark the
beginning of the Clearwater Way. These were riding posts where merchants and
other travelers could wait for the patrols of Aerach and Brandishear, traveling
alongside them for safety. Though both he and Kathlan had riding bows, even
with a packhorse carrying arrows by the barrel, Chriani wouldn’t have dreamed
of taking the Clearwater Way alone.

They didn’t know how long they’d have to wait, so they sat close
along a stretch of meadow grass while the horses cropped. Kathlan’s hand was in
Chriani’s still, the rawness at his wrists where the ropes had bound him
already responding to some Aerachi salve she’d given him from her saddlebags.
She was still silent, watching the grey sky.