Wheel of the Infinite (6 page)

Even though she had just told him to do it, the swiftness still surprised her. The snap of the boy’s neck was audible. The swordsman stood, stepping casually away from the now limp body. She recalled that this was the third time he had surprised her, and according to all reputable authorities three was a highly significant number.

She sat on her heels and pried the globe out of the boy’s hand, bending the dead fingers back to work it loose. She turned it over curiously. The glass was free of defect, the silver-grey pigment blended with it evenly. She knocked it against the wagon wheel.

The glass shattered and the contents spilled out on the grass. There was a general scramble among the Ariaden to move back. When nothing immediately disastrous happened, Rastim returned. “Dried snakes?” he asked, baffled. The globe had contained a bundle of what did appear to be small desiccated snakes, each no more than an inch or so long.

“Not snakes,” Maskelle said. “Tela worms.” The wisps that looked like dried skin were actually their wings. They swarmed like bees and their poison burned into the blood and made the body jerk and spasm. A few of them could kill a large man in minutes. It would have been an unlovely death for all of them. “If the globe had broken while he was still alive, his life would have fed theirs and they would have swarmed over everyone in the camp.”

“Gah,” Rastim said, or something like it.

Old Mali, ever practical, was approaching with a straw brush and a small shovel. Maskelle nodded for her to go ahead and the old woman swiftly scooped up all the dried worms. “The fire,” Maskelle said. Old Mali gave her a disgusted look, but took the shovel to the cooking fire anyway and tipped its contents in.

Maskelle got to her feet again, unconsciously brushing her hands off on her robes. She turned and found herself eye to eye with the swordsman; they were exactly the same height.

He was watching her with an air of irony. He said, “The priests sent him to kill you because you’re a wizard.”

“The priests didn’t send him,” she said, mock patiently. “And ‘wizard’ is a barbarian word.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her, then suddenly turned, drawing the siri, facing the open area beyond the wagon. Maskelle stepped back, but she heard the footsteps and shouts a moment later. “Damn it, that’s the post guard,” she said.

Rastim was at her elbow. “Hide the body?” he asked, worried.

Maskelle hesitated. The Ariaden didn’t look like much of a match for an armed troop, but their profession made them quick-witted and used to moving swiftly in concert. Having seen them in action when the upper-level scenery had started to come apart during the climax of the performance of
Otranto
in Hisak City, she had no doubt of their ability to hide a fresh corpse from even a determined troop of guards. “Yes, hide the body.”

Rastim whirled around and gestured quickly. Her swordsman hopped out of the way as Gardick, Vani, and Firac descended on the boy’s body. They swept it away and into Rastim’s wagon before the first of the guards came into view.

There were about ten of them, surrounding the wagons at a run. The Ariaden, who knew what part they had to play, milled around near the fire, looking as if nothing odd had happened.

One guard came forward and Maskelle went to meet him, leaning on her staff.

If he was the captain, he was surprisingly young. And he had intelligent eyes, not something she was glad to see. He said, “There was report of a disturbance here, Revered.”

“Oh, you mean, the screaming and thrashing around? They were rehearsing their next theatrical, that’s all,” Maskelle said, smiling, gesturing casually back at the Ariaden, who were doing a good imitation of a disturbed henroost. A rehearsal in the middle of the night, after a grueling day’s travel and a long play. At least it wasn’t pouring down rain.

Not surprisingly, this explanation failed to satisfy. He eyed her a moment, then said, “Who is that?”

“What?” Maskelle glanced behind her and almost dropped her staff. She had fully expected the swordsman to disappear; he had had more than enough time. But he was standing a few paces behind her. He had, at least, sheathed the siri. “Oh. him.” She looked back at the guard captain. “He’s—”

Rastim materialized beside her. “We hired him to protect us on the road.”

Maskelle bit her tongue and managed to retain her smile. She had been about to say that he was just another traveller in the compound, drawn by the commotion. She reminded herself to tell Rastim that she had been lying to authority before he was conceived.

The guard captain said, “Then you don’t mind if we look around?”

“Not at all.” Maskelle shrugged.

Rastim gestured expansively. “Go right ahead.”

He turned and called to his men. “Search the wagons.”

So that’s how it is
. Maskelle still kept her smile, despite the irrational urge to anger. She had planned for this, hadn’t she?

The other guards moved forward. Maskelle turned back to the wagons and found herself facing her swordsman again. He was looking at the guards with an intent expression that she had previously seen only on cats waiting for unwise lizards to venture out of woodwork, and he had his hand on the hilt of the siri. She waited until he met her eyes, and said, “Don’t draw that.”

His expression said plainly that she was mad, but he took his hand off the swordhilt. Maskelle walked back to the fire, aware he was following her.

He stood a pace behind her and to the side when she stopped by the fire, and she recognized it as the position someone who was acting as her bodyguard would rightfully adopt. Maskelle had only managed to keep soul and body together for the past few years by staying one step ahead of everyone else, or at least convincing them that she was. He had been helping her since she had found him with the raiders, and he seemed to think she should know the reason why. Pride and years of conscious and unconscious deception kept her from simply turning to him now and asking. Maybe pride, and maybe the fear that if she asked him, he would leave. It was almost funny.

The post guards weren’t all as diligent as their captain. Or as polite. Some of them were only desultorily poking around at the bundles and chests tied to the outside of the wagons, others were pushing their way inside. If that kept up, Maskelle was going to be very unamused.

One of the men was trying to enter Killia’s wagon and she was blocking him, trying to explain about the sick child inside. He refused to listen, grabbing her arm to shove her out of the way. Maskelle strode across the camp. “Leave her alone,” she said, giving him a prod with her staff.

The guard let go of Killia and stepped back, unhurt but startled.

“She’s afraid and I’ve just got her back to sleep,” Killia was explaining, exasperated. “They can look in if they just don’t wake—”

It happened so quickly Maskelle didn’t see it. She felt someone brush against her, and when she looked the guard was already on the ground, the bori club clattering off the wagon wheel. It was her swordsman who had pushed past her, who was standing with his back to her, between her and the guard who was now scrambling to his feet. The guard must have reached for her arm or, Ancestors help him, made to swing the club at her.

The other guards were drawing weapons. She thumped the swordsman in the back to warn him, and he ducked as she swung her staff up.

Unlike the river raiders, the post guards knew what that meant. They hesitated, and that gave the captain time to react. He ran between them, flinging up his arms and shouting, “Stop!”

She realized her arms were trembling, and not from the weight of the staff. Her heart was pounding and the anger a lump in her throat.
That was a little close
, she thought, sense returning. She lowered the staff. She said, “You’ve searched. Now go.”

The captain shook his head, breathing hard. He said, “What’s in that wagon?”

“A sick child,” Killia said, standing up and slapping the dirt off her pantaloons. She was too good an actress to sound angry, but the blood had drained from her face. “I told him he could look. I just didn’t want him to climb inside.”

The matter was settled an instant later when a round, wan face peered over the top of the tailgate at them and whimpered.

“See?” Killia said, dropping the tailgate and lifting the little girl into her arms.

The captain sighed and waved his men away. Some of them had the grace to look foolish, though the one who had started the trouble was belligerent and reluctant to withdraw. The captain waited until he had walked away before he said, “Sorry, Revered. It was a mistake.”

“It was almost a deadly mistake,” Maskelle told him, thinking,
I’m not doing well at this so far. Haven’t reached the city yet and I’ve almost broken my oath twice
.

He stared at her a moment, uncomprehending, then shook his head and followed his men. As the guards returned to the post, Rastim let out his breath. Maskelle asked softly, “Where is he?”

“Firac’s wagon, in the lower bed.”

“I thought they put him in yours.”

“We did, but they were going to search it and we had to shift him.”

She shook her head. She hadn’t seen them do it, though she supposed they had taken advantage of the distraction. “We’ll give him a farewell tomorrow, after we cross the dike.” A funeral on the eve of entering the Temple City was not auspicious. She went back to the fire.

There was a very worried group of Ariaden gathered there. All told, they were not a prepossessing lot, but then for the Ariaden theater that hardly mattered. Killia hovered near the tailgate of her wagon, a blanket wrapped around her, obviously not wanting to stray too far from her child.

From the expressions on their faces, the way they kept sneaking looks past her, the swordsman had followed her and was standing a few paces behind her again. She realized that was the third time he had moved to defend or protect her. And there was that number three again. The Infinite had been producing a large number of odd conjunctions lately. It could feel free to stop at any time, as far as she was concerned.

She said, “Well?”

Gardick, who always had something to say, said, “Can we expect more of that tonight?”

“No, not tonight.”

There was an uncomfortable stirring. Firac, Doria, Vani, the others, familiar faces after all these months. They were nine in all, not very many to perform some of the more elaborate productions, but the Imperial capital of Duvalpore would appreciate the intricacy of Ariaden theater where the provincial cities hadn’t. One or two wouldn’t meet her eyes, others looked worried, others merely tired.

Rastim cleared his throat. “I think we all know what sad condition we would be in but for the . .. but for Maskelle.”

She pushed her ragged hair back from her face, to cover her momentary smile. Her name still sounded odd, spoken in an Ariaden accent. More proof this land was in her blood; she had been foolish to ever leave.

Gardick said, “No one is saying different.” He looked around at the others, his expression combative. “But we don’t have to pretend to like it.”

Maskelle laughed. Sometimes she liked Gardick.

Then Gardick said, “And who’s that?”

He was pointing past her, at the swordsman. Maskelle pressed her lips together. And sometimes she didn’t like Gardick at all.

Rastim saved her from the embarrassing admission that she had no idea by stepping forward and saying, “Now, that’s Maskelle’s business, isn’t it? Why don’t we all get some rest? We have more travel tomorrow.”

That little speech should have occasioned a revolt, if not a small riot, but the troupe had become accustomed to accepting the impossible along with the unpleasant in the past few months, and all they did was stamp and grumble, or exchange tired looks and roll their eyes.

As the others drifted back to their wagons, Rastim leaned close and out of the side of his mouth whispered, “Who is he?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered back.

He grimaced at her and she grimaced back. She patted him on the back and made shooing motions. Rastim went reluctantly, casting doubtful glances over his shoulder.

She turned back to her swordsman. He was ignoring the curiosity of the Ariaden and matter-of-factly studying a long slice on his forearm. The bori club must have grazed him.
Well, you did tell him not to draw the sword
. “Come with me, I’ll clean that up for you,” Maskelle said. Old Mali had left a brazier near the fire and she used one of the wicker pads to pick it up.

He gave her an odd look, but followed her back to her wagon obediently enough. She climbed in and lit two of the hanging cage lamps with the coals from the brazier, then set it in the padded holder on the shelf. He was sitting on the tailgate, looking over the interior of the wagon. It was furnished with cast-offs and hand-me-downs and oddities collected in travel, frayed blankets and cushions of faded Tiengan weaving, a battered copper tea server, Nitaran puzzle boxes. He was looking up at the curved roof where about a dozen puppets hung, their painted faces pointing down like an audience of human-headed bats, their features lifelike in the dim light. They were being stored here because Maskelle had few possessions and the other wagons were overfull. There were also pieces of scenery folded up in the chests and under the bunk. Maskelle moved a stage tree aside to get to the clean rags and salve.

“You’re a healer too?” he said, somewhat warily.

“Not really.” Old Mali had made the salve. Maskelle wasn’t going to mention that in case he had seen the old woman outside. Old Mali’s appearance didn’t exactly engender confidence in her skills as a physician, and she knew the Sintane was fairly civilized for the outer reaches. She looked up and saw he was still sitting on the tailgate. She lifted a brow. “I could toss it to you.”

He came further into the wagon, taking a place on the bench almost within arm’s reach. But again she had no sense that he was afraid, just careful, like a strange cat that had chosen her for a companion.

She took his arm and wiped the blood away. She felt him react to the contact, just a slight start, perhaps because her hands were cold. His skin was very warm and she was more aware of the pulsebeat in his wrist than she should be. She noticed he was clean, or at least not more filthy than she was from long days of travel, then remembered the midnight swim in the baray. That didn’t help her concentration any.