Winter Be My Shield (7 page)

Inside the tent Lakua was snuffling as she rolled up her furs. She glanced up as he came in, her lip trembling.

‘Oh here, my love, don't cry …' He dropped to his knees beside her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. ‘Please don't cry. Here, Laki, let me tell you a secret. You don't have to sell Markhan's brooch. I've got a little something I've been hiding away, something left over from when we were with the Raiders.'

Lakua sniffed and straightened. The hope in her face made his heart swell. ‘Really?'

He held a finger to his lips. ‘Just don't tell anyone, alright? I've been saving it for an emergency, but I can't stand to let you lose your bride-gift.' As Brekan held her close, he felt the hot, hard lump of the bracelet between them and for a moment he was able to convince himself that he really had kept something aside — just once, he could be the one to save her.

The heavy book lay open at Rhia's side, the musty pages stained with mould. Isidro reached for one corner and tried to pull it around so he could see the text more clearly. Rhia swatted at his hand. ‘Sit still, Isidro.'

‘That's the Akharian text, isn't it? I'd forgotten you had that —'

‘Be quiet, Isidro! I need to listen to your breath and I cannot hear if you talk!'

With a sigh, Isidro obeyed. It was too cold to sit around shirtless for long, anyway.

He and Cam first met Rhia among the outlaw bands. Unlike her other masters, the physician who trained her had been a kindly man. She'd set out to impress him and instead of selling her on for a profit the doctor kept her, first as an assistant and later as an apprentice. On his deathbed, the physician freed Rhia and bequeathed her his shop and his trade, to the fury of his nephew, who had expected to inherit. The old man's will had been clear but that was no protection for Rhia, who knew any magistrate would overturn it for a suitable bribe. She sold the shop, packed up all the books and medicines she could carry, and bought a place on a ship heading north to the new world, with no real plan in mind other than making a life for herself far away from the nation of her captivity.

The settlements on the southern coast of Ricalan were little different from the towns she had left behind. A woman travelling alone was an object of contempt, doubly so when people realised she was a foreigner and a freed slave. She had wandered north, vaguely aiming for the tribal lands, when she had been snatched by the Raiders.

There her knowledge and skill made her valuable, but in those lawless bands she was a resource to be owned and controlled. When Cam and Isidro met her she had been on the verge of sharing one man's furs just so that she would have someone to protect her from the rest of them — a
nightmare for her, given the abuse she had already suffered as a slave. It had taken Cam and Isidro some time to convince her that their offer of protection came with no such expectations.

During the years he had known Rhia, Isidro had badgered her into teaching him the language of her birth. He had already known a little Akharian — before the alliance with Mesentreia that had brought Cam's mother to Ricalan, there had been some small trade with the Akharian Empire and Isidro's paternal grandmother had learned a smattering of the language, as well as picking up several books. She passed them on to her son, who passed them on to his, although until he met Rhia Isidro had no way of knowing if what he had learned was even remotely accurate.

Rhia pressed her ear to his bare chest, listening for the rattle in his lungs. He could feel it himself whenever he drew breath too deeply. Once Rhia straightened Isidro reached for the book again.

Rhia sat back on her heels with a sigh. ‘You should try to sleep, Isidro. You need to rest.'

‘I've been asleep for weeks. You want me to stay in the tent? Fine, but if you don't give me
some
way to pass the time I'm going to go out of my mind with boredom.'

He cast around the tent and narrowed his eyes. Something was out of place. The baskets stacked at the back of the tent were undisturbed, as was the low table behind the stove where bowls and jars were set out and food prepared. His and Rhia's furs were still laid out, but the rest had been rolled up and set along the tent wall where they served as bolsters folk could lean against while they ate or worked inside. He, Rhia and Kasimi were the only ones here, but that was usual during daylight hours. It was the stack of horse gear just inside the entrance that had changed since yesterday. Cam's saddle and harness were gone.

His hand still on the book, Isidro turned to Rhia. ‘Where is everyone?'

Rhia glanced away from him. ‘Cam and the others went out for a while. They'll be back soon.'

‘Cam's saddle is gone.' Isidro craned his head to look past the stove to the gear along the far wall of the tent. ‘So is his kitbag. You're a rotten liar, Rhia. He wouldn't take a horse if he was just gone for the day.'

‘He went to get supplies,' Rhia said. ‘Issey, your fever is down from last night and your breathing sounds clearer, too.'

‘Supplies?' Isidro eased the sleeve of his shirt over his splinted arm and then groped behind him for the other. ‘Where? Who went with him?'

‘Brekan and Lakua. They will be back tomorrow.'

Isidro gave up for a moment on the second tie and held Rhia's gaze. ‘Where did they go?'

‘Northwest,' Rhia said with a shrug. ‘Not far.'

‘Rhia …' he began.

Kasimi, who had been lying in Rhia's furs as though asleep, propped herself up on one elbow and turned her blindfolded face towards them. ‘They went to a village about a day's ride to the northwest. They'll camp near it tonight and do their trading in the morning. They should be back tomorrow evening.'

‘Thank you,' Isidro said with a wince. He'd forgotten she was there and had neglected to keep his voice down. ‘I'm sorry if we woke you —'

Kasimi was shaking her head before he finished. ‘You didn't. Like you, I think I've slept enough.'

Isidro turned back to Rhia with a scowl. She at least had the grace to look ashamed. ‘I did not want you to worry.'

‘Really?' he said. ‘That might work better if you don't make it quite so obvious that you're keeping something from me.' He looked down, fumbling with the ties of his shirt, and wrenched the cords into some sort of knot. ‘I know you mean well, but keeping me in the dark is not the way to get what you want.'

She nodded, but he thought he recognised the expression on her face. He was a patient in need of care and for Rhia that took precedence over everything else. She would say whatever he wanted to hear so long as it kept him calm.

Isidro reached over to haul the book onto his lap, but as he leaned over, something hard and knobbly pressed against his thigh. He straightened with a wince and pulled it from the rumpled furs — three large and lumpy beads, knotted together on a leather thong. They tingled with power against his skin. ‘What on earth is that?' he said, holding it up to the light.

Rhia made a small sound of disgust. ‘What is that doing there? I told Cam to throw those things away!'

As he shifted, Isidro felt a similar lump against his other leg. He pulled it out as well and laid the pair of them across his knee. ‘Where did they come from? I've never seen them before.'

‘You were wearing them when Cam pulled you out of the water,' Rhia said. ‘Filthy sorcerous things.'

Isidro rolled the lumpy beads between his fingers. The stones hummed with energy, but unlike the stinging, numbing hum of the witch-stones this was a pleasant, soothing buzz — like the comforting hiss of a kettle simmering on the stove.

‘They came from Kell, so they must be tainted. Give them to me. I will throw them in the lake, as Cam should have done.'

Isidro thought of the witch-stones, with their awful leaden weight, and the rubies they had cut from Kasimi's wrists, each one bearing a touch of fire within its heart. Had they been his to dispose of he would have handed them over without a second thought. Most enchantments made his skin crawl, but these felt different. ‘No,' Isidro said, closing his hand around them. ‘I'll keep them for now. They're ugly things, but they might be worth something to sell.'

Rhia's face darkened. ‘You should be rid of them. They will do you no good and the demons that they draw will make you ill.'

‘Superstition, Rhia.' Behind her, Isidro saw Kasimi tilt her head as though listening, although her face was turned away. It was impolite to listen to a private conversation between others, even if they were sharing a tent, but she was alone and helpless among strangers — in her place he'd do the same thing. He tucked the bracelets into the pocket created by the wrap of his tunic and felt a suffusing warmth seep through the fabric and into his skin.

Rhia sniffed and turned away, more than a little put out that he wouldn't heed her advice.

‘Rhia,' Isidro said. ‘You've been cooped up in here for days, looking after me and Kasimi. Where are Garzen and Eloba? Fishing through the ice again?'

‘They are down at river, yes.'

‘Well, why don't you go and join them? It's not good for a body to spend all its time under a roof. Just because the two of us need to stay inside doesn't mean you do, too. Go and get Garzen to bait you a hook.'

‘But you might need me …'

‘If we do we can shout from the door. The river's not far. You'll hear us well enough.'

Rhia's temper was as frayed as his after spending days and weeks trapped inside. It didn't take much persuading to convince her to pull on her wind-proof buckskin trousers, her boots and her heavy fur; and with snowgoggles to protect her eyes from the glare, she trudged down the slope to where the others were sitting around a hole chipped through the ice.

Once she was gone Isidro set Rhia's book aside. It would keep and there was another distraction drawing his attention now. ‘I think I'll have a bowl of tea. Do you want one?'

Kasimi raised a hand as though to tug down her blindfold, checked herself and nodded. ‘Please.'

It was a relief, he thought as he shook a pinch of herbs into two bowls, to be able to do something for himself for a change, without having someone jump up to do it for him. He was too weak and too clumsy with his left hand to trust himself to lift the full kettle or pour it without spilling, so he used the ladle to dip out the simmering water and carried the bowls one at a time to their portion of the tent.

Kasimi was sitting very still, but she'd plucked a spruce twig from the floor and twirled and twisted it between her fingers with nervous energy. When he brought her bowl, she dropped the twig and clasped her hands around the chipped pottery for warmth.

‘Did we speak last night?' he said to her as he fetched his own bowl and sat opposite her. ‘I seem to remember … something.' Waiting out in the cold for Cam to return had roused his fever again — if his memory of speaking to her was this faint, he wondered whether what he'd said to her made any sense at all.

‘Yes,' Kasimi said. ‘We spoke a little before you fell asleep. And I spoke to Cam this morning before he left.' She shivered and took a sip from her cooling bowl. ‘I only hope he takes care when they reach the village.'

‘You know who we are, then?' Isidro said. Perhaps they should have taken more care in speaking around her, but it was unlikely she'd try to sell their whereabouts to the Mesentreians, not after she'd taken such risks to escape. ‘Well, if nothing else, that should reassure you we won't go trying to sell you back to the men you escaped from.'

She gave a tight little half-smile at that, but with her eyes covered he couldn't tell if it was real or false.

‘To tell the truth,' she said, ‘I was surprised to see you alive. Rumour around the camp had it that the king's advisors were certain you were dead.'

‘Good,' Isidro said. ‘Then they won't come hunting for us.' A wisp of smoke from the stove caught in his throat and sparked a cough. Though he tried to suppress it, the spasm shook him to the bone and stirred the fire in his arm.

Thankfully, the bout of coughing was short-lived. The stones in the front of his tunic seemed to be leeching warmth into his body, curling in soothing tendrils through his aching chest.

Suddenly alarmed, Isidro pulled them out. Rhia was right. Kell had made these with his foul and cursed magic — surely he was mad to put any trust in them. The Black Sun only knew what they might do. They could have been intended to keep him weak and docile, to sap his will to resist. Perhaps that was why they felt so good to hold and keep near his skin, and why he was so reluctant to hand them over when Rhia spoke of dropping them under the river ice.

The moment he pulled them out of his shirt, Kasimi lifted her head. ‘Don't throw them away.'

Isidro stiffened. ‘Why not?'

‘I've seen them used before,' she said. ‘Last summer, Duke Osebian was wounded — it was a hunting accident, or so they said … Anyway, the king had Lord Kell make a charm of healing for him. It keeps wounds from turning foul, it strengthens the heart and the blood. You were a valuable prisoner; they would have wanted you strong and well to make a good show at the execution. It stands to reason they'd give you a charm as well.'

Isidro stared at her, wishing he could see her face under that blindfold and pick up some hint as to whether she was telling the truth. ‘You put these in my bed.'

She nodded. ‘And today your fever is down. But don't let them out of sight — your healer will throw them away if she gets the chance.'

Isidro weighed the charms in his hand and then slowly tucked them away again. ‘She means well,' he said. ‘She spent half her life in Mesentreia — she couldn't help but pick up some of their ways.'
Mesentreians hated mages and their craft even more than the Ricalani priests did. Even as he said it, Isidro found himself thinking of the witch-stones Kasimi had been carrying. She must have found the charms herself — no one could have told her they were hidden in his packs. Perhaps she was like him, sensitive to the energies trapped in the stones. He thought of the red stones and the matching burns encircling her wrists. Clearly, she was no stranger to mage-craft and yet she didn't have the usual abhorrence for it, despite the way it had been used against her.

‘You took a great risk, running like you did,' Isidro said. ‘You could have died in the storm. You
would
have died if Cam hadn't found you. What was so bad that you risked death to flee it?'

She turned his way, her chin set in a firm and stubborn line. ‘I thought you people already decided I was the concubine of some Mesentreian lord, making a desperate bid for freedom — at least, that's what Eloba told me.'