Casket of Souls (11 page)

“Can’t say about Anri, but from what I’ve heard that redheaded one is Klia’s friend,” another man replied. “I expect she’d take her side of things.”

Beka paused, frowning. Take Klia’s side in what?

“It’d be different if Commander Klia was general, wouldn’t it?” a young-sounding rider asked. “Then maybe she could talk sense to the queen.”

“Mind your tongue, Callin, and keep your damn voice down!”

“And about time, though,” one of the others muttered.

“To better days,” one of the others said, and she heard a murmur of agreement.

This was not the first time Beka had heard the sentiment. There’d been growing discontent since Phoria had refused the Overlord’s offer of a truce. Most of the officers, Klia included, shared Phoria’s belief that they would finally see victory before the summer was over; the state of the enemy’s captured provisions was a good sign. But it was hard to convince the ranks of that, even after a day like this.

Cursing the darkness, she listened for more, but the talk turned to the day’s fighting and no more was said of Klia or herself. After a few minutes they set off in her direction. Beka moved away, then trailed them to see who they were.

There were five of them, and as they stepped into the glow of a nearby watch fire, she recognized Sergeant Werneus of Captain Anri’s Fourth Troop; he’d saved her life that morning. She owed him something.

“Sergeant,” she called out.

Startled, the man turned and squinted through the darkness, then saluted. “Evenin’, Captain. Good to see you’re still in one piece and breathing.”

“And I have you to thank for it,” she replied, coming closer and lowering her voice. “Listen, I overheard you just now and I should report you to your captain.”

Werneus’s men exchanged nervous glances, but the sergeant saluted and went down on one knee. “We meant no harm.”

Beka held up her hand. “Given the good turn you did me, I’m not going to—this time. But don’t ever forget, we’re the
Queen’s
Horse Guard, the best and bravest regiment in the army. Leave the running of the war to the generals and the queen and keep your mouths shut. Is that clear?”

“As springwater, Captain.”

“Good. Blood and Steel, men.”

“Blood and Steel, Captain!” the others replied, fists to hearts.

U
LIA
squatted in the weeds above the breakwater, poking at the dead gull’s shiny gold eye with a twig. It was pretty, and she wished it were a bead she could wear on a string around her neck. But it also meant that the bird was freshly dead.

The child’s bare arms and legs were like knobby twigs themselves, sticking out of the shapeless grey folds of her sister’s cast-off dress. She picked the bird up by one still-supple orange foot and carefully held it at arm’s length so the blood dripping from its gaping bone-colored beak wouldn’t get on her clothing or bare feet. The bird was nearly as big as she was. Even when she held her hand up high, the head dragged on the ground and the broad grey-backed wings flapped clumsily, as if it didn’t want to go in her mama’s stewpot. Ulia looked around quickly, judging the distance across the barren shorefront to the row of sagging tenements where she and her large family lived, and measuring who else was around to see. An older child, or even a grown-up, would take it from her for sure, and then her family would go hungry another night. But there was no one at the moment, except for the bent old woman sitting on one of the granite anchor stones nearby, leaning on a gnarled stick.

Ulia would have avoided her, too, except that the woman was holding something up between her gloved fingers that caught the light and sparkled like sunlight on ice. Curious, Ulia sidled over toward her, arm already aching from the weight of the bird. Keeping out of reach, she craned her neck, trying to see what it was that was sparkling so.

The old woman wore a dress as crude and tattered as her own, and the scarf wound around her head under the brown shawl might have been red once. But Ulia was a child starved for color. Even the gull’s blood was pretty to her. What she could see of the old woman’s face under the kerchief was sun-browned and lined, and she had white whiskers on her chin. As Ulia came closer, she saw that the old grandmother had on the strangest belt; it was made of rope, and had things hanging from it on bits of string: bent spoons, broken hair combs, bones, a bracelet made of dried rosebuds, stones and shells with holes through them. But Ulia’s gaze lingered longest on what the woman still held between her fingers. It was a bit of yellow rock crystal, clear as rainwater, bright as a star in the daytime, prettier than the gull’s golden eye.

“Hello, little one,” the old woman said, giving her a broken-toothed smile.

Ulia warily kept her distance. “Hello, old mother.”

“I see you’ve found your dinner.”

Ulia instinctively tried to hold the gull behind her.

The old woman laughed. “I’ve got my own supper waiting, love. I’m not going to take yours.” She thumped her twisted stick on the ground. “My chasing days are over, anyway, don’t you see?”

Ulia stood on one leg and scratched the back of her calf with the other foot where the seagull’s wing feathers made it itch. “That’s a pretty rock.”

The old woman cocked her head and regarded the crystal. “It is, indeed, but I have so many!” She leaned her stick against the stone and rummaged in the folds of her skirts. At last she found a pouch on a length of fisherman’s twine and dumped the contents into the palm of her glove. White and yellow stones caught the light like sharp crystal teeth. “Would you like to have one?”

Ulia’s eyes widened at that and she let the gull fall and took a step closer, eyes fixed on the sparkling stones. “I can have one?”

As she raised her hand to reach for one, however, the old woman drew her own hand back and closed her fingers around them. “A trade, to keep the bad luck off.”

Ulia glanced back at the gull.

“No, love. I told you, I don’t need your dinner,” the old woman said with a warm chuckle.

What else did she have? The child raised her hand to the little bit of faded blue silk ribbon knotted into a hank of her lank brown hair. It was only a few inches long; her mother had found a long piece trodden into the dirty snow in the marketplace last winter, lost by some wealthy girl. She’d washed it and cut it into five little pieces, one for each daughter, and tied it into their hair in bows that looked like tiny butterflies. Ulia pulled the bedraggled bit of cloth loose, wincing as several strands of hair came with it, and held it out.

The old woman smiled down at her, holding Ulia’s gaze as she took it. Her fingers brushed the girl’s and for an instant Ulia felt the slightest hint of a tingle in her chest, as though she had to cough.

The old woman tucked the ribbon away inside her tattered glove and let the child choose the stone she wanted. The one the grandmother had been holding when Ulia had first seen her was the largest. Ulia’s fingers hovered over that one and the old woman smiled. “Whatever one you like, love.”

Ulia hesitated, then chose a smaller one that was yellow as a daisy’s eye. “It’s so clear! Is it magic?”

“No, sweetness, it’s just a pretty stone I found. Not worth a broken penny but to you and me. Now you better run along and get that fine bird to your mama.”

Unused to such kindness, Ulia impulsively kissed the old woman, then grabbed up the gull and ran home, laughing.

O
VER
the next week Alec and Seregil kept an eye on the duke and Kyrin from a safe distance, but the men did nothing particularly suspicious, other than frequent visits to each other’s houses. Thero was getting impatient, and so were they, especially at not being able to burgle Reltheus.

It was something of a relief to move back to Wheel Street on the third day of Shemin, despite the usual fuss of having to make a show of returning to the city as if they’d actually been gone. Riding through the afternoon crowds, Alec and Seregil made a point of waving to friends and acquaintances they met along the way.

Wheel Street was a quiet boulevard on the edge of the Noble Quarter, and fashionable without being grand. The narrow houses with their fancy Skalan façades fronted onto the street, saving their walls for the back gardens. Here and there a shop took up the street-level floor: a tailor, a milliner, a gem dealer, a dealer in fine cards and gaming pieces.

The street ended in a circle, and there was a public stable there to serve the minor nobles like Seregil who didn’t have room for their own. Leaving Windrunner and Cynril with Master Rorik, they walked across the street to their house, the one with the carving of grapevines above the polished oak door. The rich, toothsome, and very unexpected aroma of roast duck greeted them as they walked through the small antechamber and into the painted salon beyond. Poultry was another scarcity.

This room was already decked out for the party. The murals of forest scenes were festooned with ropes of bright dried flowers and greenery, and the carpets had been taken away, leaving the colorful mosaic floor ready for dancing. Trestles were set around the room, already laden with Seregil’s best freshly polished silver chargers and cups. The musicians’ gallery overhead was freshly dusted and free of cobwebs. Runcer the Younger, who ran the household, appeared from behind the curtains of the service corridor with Seregil’s two huge white Zengati hounds, Zir and Mârag, at his heels. As soon as the dogs caught sight of their masters, they ambled over to greet them. Alec went down on one knee to hug them and give their heads a good scratching.

Seregil looked around. “Where are our houseguests? I expected to be swarmed by Illia and the boys.”

“Not knowing when you’d arrive, the Cavishes have gone to dine with their daughter Elsbet at the temple. Will you be wanting dinner now, my lords?”

“Yes. Is that a brace of duck in pastry I smell?” asked Alec.

“It is, my lord,” Runcer replied with the hint of a smile. He prided himself on anticipating his masters’ wishes.

“Where in the world did you find ducks this summer?” asked Alec. “Or pastry flour, for that matter?”

“I can’t say, my lord. Perhaps Cook knows.”

“And she’ll tell us to ask you, I bet,” Seregil chuckled. “Whatever the case, well done.”

“Will you eat now, my lords?”

“As soon as we wash up.”

“Very good, my lord. Oh, and the package you’ve been expecting arrived in your absence, Lord Seregil.”

Seregil grinned at Alec. “Come upstairs, talí.”

Alec returned the grin, murmuring “I always like hearing that.”

But Seregil led him into the library rather than the bedroom. A long, thin bundle several feet long lay across the desk at the far side of the room, wrapped in oilcloth and string and wax seals.

“What’s this?” Alec asked as Seregil placed it in his hands.

“Your birthday gift, of course.” He looked remarkably pleased with himself.

“The party isn’t until tomorrow.”

“I wanted to be the first. Go on. Open it!”

Intrigued, Alec sat down in an armchair, pulled the strings loose, and unrolled the bundle, feeling something curved and familiar underneath. When the last of the wrapping fell away, he let out a gasp. “A Black Radly! But—how?”

Seregil was positively beaming now. “I sent for one as soon as we got back this spring. I had no idea if it would make it all the way from Wolde, but as you see, it did.”

The wayfarer bow, made in two halves, lay in the wrappings in pieces, a braided linen bow string curled around them. Alec fitted the steel-clad post of one limb into the ferrule hidden in the grip in the other and twisted it to lock the two together. In one piece, it was only a few hand spans shorter than a long bow. Made of black yew, which grew only around Blackwater Lake in the north, the oil-rubbed limbs shone like dark horn. Master Radly was the finest bowyer Alec had ever found, and he’d mourned the loss of the first Radly that Seregil had given him, which was probably in the hands of a slave ship captain now.

Alec inspected the maker’s mark engraved on the ivory disk set into the back of the handgrip. Radly’s yew-tree mark stood out, and there was a tiny R in the crown of branches, proof that this was the product of the master’s own hands, rather than one of his workmen. Such bows were costly, but more than worth the price: strong, sturdy, and true.