Weight of Stone (19 page)

Jerzy did not understand their reaction. It was tradition, handed down for generations. If not for slaves, how would new Vinearts be found? The world wanted spellvines, and yet, as part of their Agreement, Mahault’s father had forbidden Vineart Giordan from having his own slaves—and therefore prevented him from finding students, as well.

Giordan had claimed not to care, and yet he had given Jerzy his master’s sketchbook, filled with detailed, beautiful drawings of vines and roots, birds and small animals who lived among the vines, not wanting it to fall into outside hands after his death….

The sketchbook was still back in Aleppan, in the rooms he had been given. Jerzy hoped that nobody had destroyed the book; that they took care of it, or even overlooked it, thinking it of no value. Maybe someday he would get it back.

He didn’t think so, though. The Washers had probably burned it when they killed Giordan. Sin Washer demanded that they destroy everything belonging to an apostate Vineart … even the vineyards. Maybe it had been best, after all, that Giordan had no slaves. Jerzy stared at the passing countryside, barely noticing as people working in the fields stopped and stared as they rode past. Strangers were not so rare on this road; why was the sight of their small wagon worth notice? They could hardly be thought a threat.

“And your Household?” Mahault asked, not knowing where his thoughts ranged. “What is it like?”

It struck Jerzy, suddenly, that she was nervous. He studied her carefully. Her hands were steady on the reins, and her face was as composed as the first day he had met her, when he mistook her for a junior Housekeeper, but he knew what else to look for, now. There was a fluttering
in her neck that said her heart was beating faster, and her gaze was too determined to stay on the wide-open road ahead of them, refusing to even glance his way. Fearless Mahl was not always fearless. It was an odd feeling, wanting—needing—to ease her concerns.

“Detta is our House-keeper,” he said. “You will like her.” Mahault reminded him of Detta, in fact, although the two looked nothing alike. “Nothing shakes her, nothing startles her. I believe Master Malech would be lost without her to run things. And then there’s Lil, who runs the kitchen, and Roan and maybe others by now, Detta is forever taking in new ones to train. And old Per—you won’t ever see him, though. He keeps the stable clean and the outsides neat, but Master Malech says he doesn’t much like people.”

Talking about home made it seem closer, somehow, and also more distant, as though he had dreamed all of these people, once.

“And … the slaves?”

There it was again. She hesitated over the word, as though it were impolite. Jerzy shrugged. He didn’t know what she feared and so did not know how to reassure her. “They keep to the sleep house and the yards, mostly. You’ll see them working, but I doubt you’ll run into any of them.”

“Don’t … don’t you see any of them? Or is that not allowed, once you became Master Malech’s student?”

“See them?”

“Yes. Stop by to speak to them, to … I guess not much changes in the life of a slave. But didn’t you have any friends there?”

“No.”

The lot of a slave was to be tested: grapes did not flourish in rich soil and easy conditions, and neither did the Sense. Stressed to greatness, Master Malech said. That was how it had been since the Breaking of the First Vine, when the prince-mages were undone, and Vinearts raised up. Once the fruit was ready, the empty skins were discarded.

“You don’t make friends in the sleep house,” he said, trying to explain. “And once you leave … you can’t really go back.”

Mahault thought about that as the wheels turned, the pony plodded, and the fields passed by on either side, and then finally she nodded. “I suppose I understand that.”

After that, they fell into silence again, until the sun sank into the fields behind them, and the moon rose, thick and bright, lighting the way. They did not stop, the pony contentedly walking on and on, until the fields became as familiar as Jerzy’s own limbs, the stone barns and quietly sleeping villages bringing him closer and closer to home.

“Turn there,” he said, and Mahl clucked the pony onto the left-hand fork, and then, suddenly, they were on the cobbled road that led to the vintnery, and then they were there.

Word must have gone ahead, or perhaps the Guardian sensed them, for they were greeted in front of the green archway fronting the House by Master Malech, a teary-eyed Detta, and a delegation of three Washers, somber-faced and disapproving. Jerzy almost bolted and ran, and only Mahl’s hand clenched in the back of his tunic kept him steady.

“Master Malech.” Jerzy slid from Mahault’s grasp and climbed out of the cart to stand before his master, suddenly aware that the ground was rocking oddly, as though he were still on the
Wave,
the sea moving under his feet. “It is good to be home.”

He thought it would be good to be home, anyway. The sight of the Washers, their faces grim, their robes fresh and clean, as though they had been waiting long enough to wash and prepare, did not fill him with confidence. Still, Master Malech would not have summoned him home if they were simply to drag him off again. Would he?

Giordan would have. Giordan
had.
Yet … His thoughts tumbled madly, and he tried to order them into the calm required of a Vineart. Malech was his master. Jerzy belonged to him. What happened to Jerzy happened to House Malech. His master would not betray him.

Malech did not say anything, but merely took Jerzy’s hand in his own, turning it so that the red mark of the mustus was visible.

“Welcome back, boy,” he said, and released his hand, nodding slightly toward the other men, who were waiting.

“Sar Washers,” Jerzy said, bowing slightly, slipping without noticing into the common trade tongue of Ettonian, rather than the Berengian he had used to greet his master. “Sin Washer’s solace upon you.”

“And upon you as well, young Jerzy,” the oldest of them said, and made the offering of the cup with his hands. At that, Jerzy breathed a little easier. They would not bless him if they thought him apostate, surely.

“And your companion?” Master Malech asked, one graying eyebrow twitching upward in a manner that was soothingly familiar even as it rebuked his failure.

“Oh. Master Malech, my apologies. Mahault …” He paused there. She had not given her
nomen familias,
her Household naming, to Kaïnam, so he was not sure if he had the right to share it. “Mahault of Aleppan, who has chosen to travel with me.”

“Indeed?” Malech looked surprised at that, but the Washers nodded.

“Former daughter of the maiar Niccolo,” the younger Washer said, and beside him, Mahl stumbled slightly as she stepped forward to greet Master Malech, and the Washers in turn.

Former … the maiar had disowned Mahl, then. No doubt under pressure from the aide who had poisoned him against so much, including his own city council. Jerzy still did not know that man’s master, but guessed the purpose of the tool’s being there; to undermine the maiar’s standing in his own court, and grow suspicion and distrust throughout the city. But to what ultimate purpose? And who was the master behind it all?

They, the four of them, had been given a chance to discover who incanted those spells, who directed those actions. Jerzy could have led them to the source; he was certain of it now. A sense of indignation at being summoned back, to be dragged before the Washers when he had done nothing wrong, rose in him, making his stomach churn the same way it had when he was seasick.

But Master Malech had his reasons, and it was not for Jerzy to question, only to obey. That was what he had wished for … wasn’t it?

The Washers disregarded Mahault; her father had disowned her, and so she was unimportant. Instead, they focused on Jerzy, intently enough that he felt their gaze like flame on his skin.

“Where have you been, young Vineart?” the oldest one asked. His voice was not hard, but neither did it allow for lies or avoidance. He expected an answer, given easily and without delay.

Jerzy looked to his master.

Malech’s expression was as hard as the Guardian’s, his beaked face as though it was carved from stone as well, but he nodded.

“At sea, Sar Washers.” The Sar was an honorific used in Corguruth, given to a man of standing or honor, but not noble birth. There was no equivalent in The Berengia, that he knew.

“Indeed. And—”

“No.” A voice broke into whatever he meant to say, and Detta bustled forward then, pushing aside Master Malech with the casual arrogance of long familiarity. She placed her round form between the Washers and Jerzy, hands on her ample hips, graying curls tousled as though she had been roused from sleep, daring them to challenge her. “Enough of this. Both of these children look near to falling over, and no wonder, considering the hour. They will be here in the morning, and whatever questions you mean to ask can and will wait until then. Now, off with you, all of you, and let me settle them down right and proper.”

Jerzy had forgotten, somehow, what a power Detta was, like a storm or spell. The Washers backed up, reluctant but obedient, and the two travelers were whisked under the arbor arch and into the House proper.

Hello,
the House seemed to whisper, the gathered voices of the grapes growing on the vines, the roots deep in the soil, the spellwine waiting in the storerooms …
welcome home.

Pure exhausted fancy, of course. But the thought still made Jerzy smile.

T
HE MOMENT THEY
entered the building, there was a flurry of activity, with a sleepy-eyed Roan preparing a cold meal for them in the kitchen
while a cot in Detta’s room was readied for Mahault. They ate without ceremony, cramming the bread and meats into their jaws, washing it down with goblets of
vin ordinaire
warmed to ease both digestion and sleep. No one asked them further questions, for which they were grateful.

Jerzy’s own room waited for him, looking exactly the same as it had been when he left. He shed his clothing onto the floor and slid under the blanket, luxuriating in the way the thin mattress seemed to match his spine perfectly, the hard pillow holding his head just right. The blanket had been aired recently, and everything felt right. Proper.

Home.

The last thing before sleep claimed him was a gentle nudge in his mind, and the sense of something heavy and cool sliding in, reclaiming a space he had not even realized was empty until then.

“’lo, Guardian,” he mumbled.

There was no response, but the weight of stone remained.

M
ORNING CAME BEFORE
Jerzy realized he had fallen asleep, the sun streaming in through the window. His feet were flat on the braided rug and he was reaching for his clothing before he remembered that this was not a normal day, and he was not late for anything.

Or, if he was, no one had told him he needed to be there.

Then he remembered the Washers, and everything that waited, and his stomach tightened with nerves again.

He dressed quickly but carefully, wrapping his belt around his hips once and finding a new buckle waiting for him—a dragon, styled after the Guardian, the sigil of the House of Malech. He had lost his original dragon buckle, along with the rest of his belt back in Aleppan. The dark red metal was a satisfying press against his hip bone when he slipped it onto the leather, reminding him of the press of the Guardian’s thoughts against his own the night before.

He stopped, and
felt
for that presence. The merest touch, and the weight returned, forming a question.

“Glad to be home,” he told it, and it disappeared—but was not gone. The weight remained: a steady comfort against his uncertainty.

Master Malech was undoubtedly waiting for him. Jerzy hesitated at the knife, then decided against hooking it onto his belt, adding only the normal student’s waterskin. The loss of his master’s gift still stung, and he did not want to use the lesser replacement a moment longer than needful.

Satisfied with his appearance, he went down the narrow wooden stairs to the kitchen, where he was set upon by Lil, who hugged him as though he had been gone a year.

“Look at you! You’ve grown again! Not tall, you’ll never be tall, but such muscles! And you’ve gone darker, just as Detta predicted!” Lil’s familiarity, which had once annoyed him, was like warm water on a cold morning. She lifted a lock of his hair, admiring the dark auburn sheen to it. “And we’ll need to have you trimmed … still not growing a beard, I see. All to the well, you’d only forget to trim it, not being such a peacock as the master. Come, your companion’s already to table; we saved you some tai, special like.”

He disliked tai, which Lil knew full well, but he took it anyway. The thick, noxious brew would help him think faster, and he feared he might need all the help he could find, today. And, now that he knew sweetener helped the taste, he could add honey when Lil wasn’t looking.

Mahault was already sitting at the table, dressed in a dark blue gown similar to the ones she had worn back in Aleppan, probably Lil’s best dress, from the way it almost but didn’t quite fit her taller form. Her blond hair was once again coiled back sleekly, and she was quietly eating everything that Roan served her, smiling polite thanks every time another item was offered. Roan hovered as though the Aleppanese woman was one of the silent gods come to visit, her eyes wide with awe and fascination.

“I think she likes you,” he said to Mahl quietly.

“She’s young. She hasn’t ever seen anyone from more than two days’ journey from here, at least not a woman.” Mahault was matter-of-fact
about it, biting into the crisp slice of pork with obvious relish. “I was like that the first time I saw a solitaire.”

Before Jerzy could respond, a deep raspy voice interrupted.

“Ah, you’re both awake. Good.”

Master Malech joined them, taking a mug from Lil with a nod of thanks, then pulling a chair up to the table and leaning intently in to talk to both of them. “I have no idea how much time we will have, so I will make this quick. Lady Mahault, you have already learned that your father has disowned you. I am sorry.”