Weight of Stone (30 page)

He heard them discussing the situation in Caul, but he wasn’t truly listening. Instead, he followed the niggling thought in his mind, like reaching for a root deep in the graveled soil.

What they were describing was familiar, if he stripped away the men and the ships, the causes or intents. Rot. Spreading from the leaf to root. The discoloration on a leaf was a warning signal: when the rot reached the root, it was too late. Caul and Atakus, the sea serpents’ attacks, the rumors and fear sown in Aleppan and elsewhere, they were all discolored leaves. But why would someone intentionally give a warning sign, before …

“The best way to fight an enemy is to never fight him.” It was something Cai used to say, usually after Jerzy had just landed facedown in the dirt, tripping over the weight of his own cudgel rather than any blow Cai had landed.

“What?”

Jerzy tried to recover, not having intended to speak his thoughts out loud. “It’s a Caulic saying. Or one that Cai—my weapons master,” he explained to the other two, “used to say.”

“A Vineart had a weapons master?” Kaï looked slightly scandalized.

“It seemed a good idea at the time,” the Master Vineart said without apology. Cai had told Jerzy it was to teach him to move like a Vineart, not a slave; to learn to defend himself when he left his master’s lands. In light of Malech’s revelations about the Guardian and the foreseer wine, Jerzy suddenly heard those words with a different, darker meaning.

“What are you thinking, Jerzy?” Ao asked.

“I don’t know.” He was no strategist, no man of power, to be thinking this way. He tended vines, not alliances. And yet … “Someone wishes to injure the Lands Vin. Only it seems to me that every strike we have seen is made not to be a killing blow, but …” His thoughts tangled together, and he couldn’t seem to reach what he wanted to say. “But to cause another strike to fall. As though our enemy is not attacking, but leading us somewhere …” His thoughts were fractured but coming together as he worried at the memories.

“Cai had me do an exercise, over and over again, where he would attack with the staff, and I had to duck.”

“Standard enough,” Kaïnam said, nodding his understanding. “I learned similar parrying moves myself.”

“But the purpose was not to evade the blows,” Jerzy explained, standing and pacing as he spoke. “I was to duck under the blows, under and in, so that when we finished the pattern I was inside Cai’s strike zone, and he was backed up against a wall or cliff. The goal was not to attack, but to create a situation where my opponent could not win.”

“You think that we are being pushed to a cliff. All of us.” Malech
didn’t sound disbelieving, but his voice did not sound convinced, either. His master thought like a Vineart, of root and stem, crush and magic, a direct line of cause and effect. This … this was not direct. “Again, boy: To what purpose? You can’t—”

“Yes. It makes sense,” Kaïnam said, nodding, overriding Malech’s question in a way only a princeling would dare. He picked up Jerzy’s vague thought and played it out, before Malech could respond to the insult. “To make us chase our tails, accusing each other, while the true enemy is … where?

“Where is a map?”

Malech pushed one of the scrolls forward, and Kaïnam unrolled it carefully, using the goblets and tankard to hold the edges down. “Here, my home. And there, Aleppan. And here, northwest of Tétouan, where the slaves went missing. Where else have attacks on Vinearts or vineyards been reported?”

“Vineart Sionio, in Iaja,” Malech said, placing a drop of
vin ordinaire
on the map so that it stained the spot. “Also, Armanica, along the Great River.” Another drop. “Perhaps others, we don’t know. Some, like the Vineart outside Tétouan, may have disappeared and no one thought to report it. Who would they report it to? We are not a guild, not a merchants’ consortium, to be counted off and remarked upon.”

“Ducking under blows,” Kaïnam said softly. “And then pushing … men of power misled and their power abused here, and here.” Kaï touched places on the map, and Malech placed drops there as well. “Push, and duck. Duck, and push.

“A giant net, Master Malech. Do you see?”

Malech stared at the map, Ao and Jerzy trying to see what it was that had captured Kaïnam’s fascination.

“Think of it. Vinearts—your fields attacked, your honor smeared. The lords—their people attacked, confidence in their advisors undermined. The common folk—unnerved by what they see as madness in their leaders, afraid that Vinearts might not be trustworthy … Push, and duck, and push. The net closes, and chaos falls.”

Chaos
echoed in Jerzy’s mind, the feel of the Guardian’s voice heavy in his memory. The Guardian had said that, too.

“And here,” Jerzy said, leaning over to mark a point, “where the serpents were sighted.”

Kaïnam jerked back, as though surprised. “Serpents?”

Jerzy had told Ao and Mahault of his earlier encounters, but the matter had never come up with Kaïnam.

“Sea beasts,” Malech said. “Two, perhaps three, no more that have been reported. Creatures born of magic, to strike fear … yes. Another push.”

“To what purpose?” Ao asked, looking at each of them in turn, his round face bewildered, trying to put together the pieces in an order that made sense. “What profit could come out of destroying the natural balance of things?”

Kaïnam rocked back on his heels, crossing his arms over his chest. “There are three sides to every balance,” he said with the air of a man about to finalize an Agreement. “Three points in Sin Washer’s Commands.” One finger. “Vinearts.” A second finger. “Men of power.”

“And Washers,” Malech finished, the words coming out on a quiet exhale, even as Kaïnam held up a third finger. “The one side that has not been attacked.”

“That’s not possible.” Ao’s objection was instinctive, the result of a lifetime of hearing Washer preachings, of being told that they were the balance-keepers, the easers of pain, the bringers of solace, in Sin Washer’s name. “They could not be doing this.”

Jerzy looked to his master, but said nothing.

“Everything is possible,” Kaï said, his mouth set in a grim line. “Especially if the lure of power becomes too much to resist. Who else moves so freely throughout every land, has access to every House and council, is trusted without question?”

“They accuse Vinearts, to deflect suspicion from themselves?” Malech was not asking a question, but testing the idea out loud, his head tilted
in a way that made Jerzy think he was listening to a response from the Guardian.

“But to what purpose?” Ao was still struggling to understand the logic. “They cannot rule, it is against … the people would …”

“The people would welcome them, if they were seen as taking down a corrupt lord,” Kaïnam said with assurance.

“And magic? Washers, to work the vineyards?” Malech had followed Kaïnam’s thought all the way to the end and was now shaking his head. “No. It takes more than knowledge of growing things to be a Vineart. It is impossible that they take over the vineyards for themselves.”

“What if they had an ally?” Ao asked, his voice tentative, as though expecting to be slapped down for the suggestion.

“That … that would explain much, yes. A Vineart, unsatisfied with the Commands, with the way things have been. Hungry for more …” Jerzy saw his master’s eyes close, his face creasing with age and sorrow. “It should be unthinkable, but the facts tell us otherwise. A Vineart, thus dissatisfied, could be bought with the promise of more land, more power …”

Master Malech stopped himself, slapping his hand down flat on the desk to make a sharp, hard noise. “All conjecture. It brings us back to where we were before: the need to find the source of the magic, to pull it by the roots, and stop its growth. Then and only then we can worry about the hands directing it.”

“That was where we were heading when we received your summons,” Kai said. “To continue my original plan.”

“Your plan?” Ao snorted, his shock seemingly broken, and a continuing argument revived. “You keep saying that like it’s truth. That was Jer’s plan. He was the one who could scent the magic. Without him we were just going to point our sails half-winded and hope for the best.” He grinned at Jerzy, for that moment all care and confusion gone. “We were coming back for you. With what we’d learned, we figured you’d want a share in the journey. Even if it was on water.”

“Yes, you must take Jerzy with you,” Malech said. “I had meant only to share with you our findings and set you to a goal, but this changes everything.”

Kaïnam seemed surprised but pleased, while Ao’s round face split with a relieved grin, his usual impassive trader’s expression abandoned for the moment.

“Master?” Jerzy felt a twist in his chest, both excited to be set on the trail again, and wounded that his master was, to all appearances, rejecting him. “I know I failed, but …”

“Jerzy. Listen to me.” Malech came around the desk and stood in front of Jerzy, closing them off to the others by dint of turning his back to the outsiders. They took the hint, and busied themselves over the map, discussing ports and the need for supplies. Malech’s hand closed on Jerzy’s shoulder, those long, strong fingers pressing into the skin, down to the bone, to make sure his student paid attention. “We can protect ourselves from this enemy—for now. But you have already been marked, and if what we suspect is true, if the Washers themselves are involved … you must disappear, boy. They must not find you. Do you understand me?”

Jerzy didn’t. All he could understand was that he was being sent away from the vineyards. Not only his own, but any others’, too. No hands in the soil; instead, sent away on a ship, to spend more time heaving his guts over the side into the deep briny waters, at risk for sea beasts and firespouts, Washers looking to burn him, and some unknown foe who might kill him out of hand … or worse.

So why did he feel this excitement growing in him, as though he had been granted a terrible, unexpected gift?

His earlier thoughts came back to him, not as restlessness but comprehension. He was the one who could recognize the taint. He would be Master Malech’s hoe, to clear the soil, untangle the roots, and find the rot. Then Master Malech would be able to destroy it.

The thought—that it was not all dependent upon him, that Master
Malech must have a plan—should have made it easier to breathe, but it didn’t.

“The three of us, alone?”

“Four of us, don’t you mean?” a voice asked, somewhere between amused and annoyed.

They all turned to see Mahault standing in the doorway of the study, her blond hair bound up in a coil behind her head, her dark brown riding dress splattered with mud and dust, and a grim look on her normally calm face. “Or did you think that you were going without me?”

“I
DID NOT
summon you,” Malech said, staring at the unexpected arrival. Off to the side, Ao made a face, preparing for the blast of annoyance Mahault could unleash when she felt slighted, but she merely stepped forward into the study, as gracious as her lady-mother back in Aleppan, even clearly road worn and tired. “No, you did not. And yet here I am.”

You need her.

From the annoyed glare Malech gave the dragon, resting in its usual spot over the mantel, Jerzy assumed that his master had heard the comment as well.

“You? You called her back? How?” Master Malech was not pleased.

The boy. The girl. The man. They are all part of this.

The Guardian raised its head then, making Kaï, who had turned to see who Malech was addressing, take a startled step backward and raise his hands for Sin Washer’s blessing in shock.

“Blood and vine,” Ao swore, his eyes going round and his jaw dropping open. “That’s not alive, is it? Jer, is that magic?”

Only Mahault seemed unconcerned by the stone carving that was leaning forward now, its gray stone neck dropping below the mantel so that it could keep its elongated snout even with Master Malech’s gaze. It made sense, if she had somehow heard the Guardian’s voice, to bring her back …

The Guardian was linked to every member of the House, but
none beyond its walls, and he spoke only to Malech and Jerzy. Master Malech’s question was a valid one. How had it reached Mahault, days’ travel away? And yet, clearly, the Guardian
had
done it, even as Malech was summoning the others.

From the look on Malech’s face, he was thinking the same thing: there were skills the Guardian had that they had not known about. Unlike Jerzy, he was not pleased by that.

I know only what I must do to protect the House.

Mahault was unaware of what was happening, silently, among the three members of the House of Malech. “Weren’t we all in this together?” she asked Jerzy and Ao. The trader dropped his gaze, shuffling his feet in discomfort. When her cool, assessing gaze met Jerzy’s, he could only shrug helplessly. “You were the one who said that you had to leave,” he said. “And it was only just decided that I should go. I didn’t know anything about it, either.” Ao and Kaï, and even Mahl, could choose where to go and what to do. He was bound to his master’s decisions.

The explanation seemed to sooth her temper somewhat, and she turned then to Master Malech. “You and House-keeper Detta gave me the chance to study, and for that I am grateful. And yet the past weeks have shown me that there is something else I must do, before I can think to claim a solitaire’s sigil, no matter who vouches for me. My father’s actions have darkened our family honor, and though he may have cast me out, I … I cannot simply walk away.”

Kaïnam nodded as though he approved of her words, striking so close to his own reasons, but Master Malech’s face was clouded, as though he would refuse her.

“Master.” Jerzy stepped forward, finding the courage in the Guardian’s cool voice to intervene. “Master, if the Guardian was created, as you say, for the reasons you say”—he carefully avoided specifics, where the others could hear—“then we must trust it. It works only to protect us. So it believes that Mahl is needed, to protect me.”

The Vineart looked away from the Guardian, down to Jerzy, and
seemed suddenly to realize that his student could now look him in the eye without stretching. His thin lips did not quite curve into a smile, but there was a softening to them that told Jerzy all was, if not well, then accepted.