Deep Water (6 page)

So they told the herb woman Flax were their stableboy, and they made me promise not to come down the stairs when there was
visits going on; and I shrugged and said, “If you want,” for I didn’t see much harm in it, then.

Mam wanted us out, though, that were certain. She got this worried look back of her eyes every time the door banged, for fear
it were some neighbor dropping in. Da turned quiet, and went to the fancy-woman’s for his evening meal more often than not.
And that didn’t help Mam’s temper — not at all.

Now if Flax’d been hale, I woulda just packed us up and taken the Road again, winter or not, but the herb woman warned me,
quiet in the corner, that it were his life’s price to go on the road before spring, and I believed her, he were that quiet
and pale after the fever left him, and still coughing like an old man.

They knew I wouldn’t leave without him. They wouldn’t let me sing in the taverns, or juggle, in case anyone found out I were
their daughter, and though I put in what I could of our Traveling silver, I had to keep some back for spring, to set us on
the road again. I did what I could around the house but it weren’t much compared to what we was eating, especially Flax, now
the fever were over and his real growing time began.

Da got broody over his ale next to the fire, when he were home, though mostly he were out at the farm, working the horses.

Then Mam started muttering and counting her silver in the dark of night. Night after night I’d wake up and hear her, clinking
and counting, all alone in her bed in the clear frost silence, with Da off to the fancy-woman. Maybe it shouldna been so much
of a surprise when I came through to Flax’s room and found Mam with a pillow over his face.

I fought her off him and it shoulda been easy, an old rheumaticky woman and a young one like me, but it weren’t easy at all.
She fought like it were her life she were fighting for, and I had to fling her down on the floor before she give up. Flax
slept through it all, and I knew she’d given him a sleeping draught in his cha.

“Eating us out of house and home,” she said, staring up at me like a trapped rat. “You’re sucking us dry, sucking us dry . . .”

“Let me go out to juggle, then,” I said. “I’ll pay for Flax and me, both.”

“Nay, nay,” she said, shaking her head so hard her hair came out of its braid. “You’ll bring disgrace on us, and we’re so
close, so close.”

“Keep away from him, then. If you hurt him, I won’t sit quiet and say nothing. I’ll brand you up and down the town a killer,”
I said. “Here we stay till spring, Mam, and Flax can take the road again. Make your mind up to it, that’s the way it is. If
your council’s so important, then Flax’s keep and mine is the price you have to pay for it.”

She went away, but I knew that weren’t the end. I’d have to keep an eye on her all winter, and I couldn’t. I had to sleep
sometime. To eat what she cooked and to drink what she brewed, like the others. It were too easy for her to slip something
in.

I thought awhile on going to my father, but I knew him. He’d always gone along with her over everything except the fancy-woman,
and now I thought on it, she’d never faced him down about that. If she had, I reckon he’da caved in, like he always did. If
she’d managed to kill Flax, and me not knowing, he woulda asked no questions.

Now, I thought, she’d have to kill both of us.

That were when I went to the stonecaster, for, truth to tell, I couldn’t see my way out of it. The caster pulled Murder from
the bag, and Necessity. And I thought, her or me. Her or Flax.

Two lives for one, I thought. I did it that night, while Da were with the fancy-woman and Flax were sleeping deep, and Mam
too, for I’d used her own sleeping powder in both their chas.

I broke the latch on her window, like a too-strong gust of wind had blown it open, then I closed her door behind me and left
her to the killing frost.

It were a long winter, shut up in the house, me and Flax practicing the new act, him getting stronger every day. Da spent
more time with us, less with the fancy-woman, but he didn’t seem too upset, apart from that. Before we left he asked us how
we’d feel if he married the fancy-woman. Maude, he called her. We shrugged and gave our blessing. It were no skin off our
noses.

L
EOF WOKE WITH
his mother’s voice in his ears. “Go home, child,” it said. “Leave this place in peace and go back to one who will love you.”

He struggled up, murmuring, “Mam?,” half-expecting to find himself in his bedroom at home, half-expecting to hear his brother’s
snoring and the well pulley clanking in the yard outside as the stableboys filled the horses’ buckets.

He didn’t expect to find himself in the top branches of a pine tree, precariously wedged between a limb and the trunk, his
head aching so badly that it felt like it would blow apart. The dawn light was not golden, but gray, and it was a long, long
way to the ground.

Shivering with cold, he took stock. He was wet but not sopping, as though his clothes had been dripping for some time; they
were clammy against his skin. He smelt of lake weeds.

Struggling to a more comfortable position, he sat himself in the fork of the tree and looked out. The wave had carried him
a long way inland; he could only just glimpse the Lake through the trees, and then only because so many of them were broken
in half, or their branches had been ripped away. Below, the forest floor was a mess of broken limbs and fallen trees. And
bodies. Oh, gods of wind and storm, the bodies of his men. He could see three, four, at least five. They lay with the abandonment
of death, limbs crooked, some buried under trees, some splayed on top.

He had had six horses and fifteen archers under his command; perhaps the others had been lucky too. Leof paused at the thought,
remembering the voice which had spoken to him as he had woken. Perhaps luck had nothing to do with it. Perhaps the Lake had
preserved those she wished to preserve. In which case, why him? Why him and not, as he could see as he climbed down toward
the nearest body, why not Broc?

Broc lay on top of a smashed tree trunk, his back as broken as the tree. He looked older than he had the night before, as
though he had tasted pain and despair before he died. Leof remembered his father, taking him to see what the Ice King had
done to the villages he pillaged. Twenty-two years ago, when he was eight. The bodies had lain everywhere, cut down mercilessly,
and for what? A few trinkets and some goats. Barely anything had been stolen. His father made him look at each body — children,
women, men, granfers and grammers — all slaughtered and left in their blood. The flies had swarmed over the face of a little
girl about the same age as he was, and he had vomited. He had been ashamed, but his father had understood.

“You will lose men in battle,” his father had said. “It will be hard. But it is not so hard as seeing the bodies of the innocent
folk who you have failed to protect.”

That had been the moment when Leof had sworn himself to be a soldier, to protect the people of his land from the raiders who
had left not a single person alive in two whole villages. He had known then, and in the years since, when he had defended
the Domain against the Ice King’s raids, that he was doing the right work. No matter how hard killing was, it had to be done,
to protect the innocent.

Now, he stared down at Broc, who was both a man he had lost in battle
and
an innocent he had failed to protect. Tears scalded Leof’s eyes and he let them fall onto the boy’s body. It was the only
blessing he could give him, and a plea for forgiveness. He should have told Broc to run as soon as the ground began to shake.
He should have run himself, as Thistle and the other horses, wiser than men, had done. He should have known the horses would
not be affected by illusion. Lord Thegan had been wrong. This was his fault.

Leof banished the thought immediately. Commanders based their decisions on the information they had at the time. Thegan had
not had the right information. The Lake was much more powerful than they had known. They would have to regroup and make new
plans.

On that thought, his tears dried and he began to think again like an officer. He checked the other bodies, without trying
to disentangle them from the branches and debris which lay over and under them like macabre winding sheets. Two archers, two
horsemen. He would have to search further afield for the others. He sent out a halloo but heard no response, so he began the
gruesome task of searching for more bodies, in case there was anyone left alive.

He found three more men dead and a horse he didn’t recognize before the cold and dizziness made him stop. Although he didn’t
have any obvious injuries apart from bruising, his head was pounding and he was shivering in fits and starts. He needed to
find help before nightfall, or he would become another of the Lake’s victims.

Reluctantly, he turned toward the Lake shore. There would be searchers out, he was sure. Sooner or later, Lord Thegan would
organize the remnants of his army. He would expect a report from his officers. There had been twenty of them, each with a
troop stationed at intervals around the Lake, so they could attack it from all sides.

Leof approached the shoreline cautiously, wondering if he should call out to reassure the Lake that he meant no harm. Then
he remembered the voice he had heard. It had not seemed violent or maddened, just sad. Somewhat reassured, he threaded through
broken branches and climbed over fallen trees.

The Lake stretched before him, impossibly peaceful. The water was still and serene, reflecting a perfect blue sky — so still
that even the reed beds were silent, their eternal whispering paused. This was how the Lake should be, not riven by war and
death. Leof was overwhelmed by remorse. It came unexpectedly, so quickly that he was taken by surprise. We should not have
come here, he thought. We have no right to invade these people. Then he wondered whose thought it was, his or the Lake’s,
and was frightened, truly frightened, for the first time since he was a boy, at the idea that the Lake could put a thought
in his head.

To his relief, he heard a shout from his left and turned to find a search party of four men making their cautious way around
the shoreline. Hodge led them, his grim face lightening as he saw Leof.

“My Lord Leof!” he called, raising his hand in greeting. “Thank the gods!”

Leof went to meet them and clasped forearms with Hodge, although that was a gesture used between equals, not between officers
and sergeants.

“I’m glad to see you alive, sergeant,” Leof said. Hodge nodded.

“Same with us, sir. You’re the first we’ve found in this stretch.”

“How far did it go?”

Hodge stared at him, surprised. “All the way around, sir. Wherever we had men, wherever the arrows caught the reeds. We’ve
lost — I don’t know how many, maybe a quarter of the men, a third of the horses.”

“My Lord Thegan?”

“Thank the gods, he’s safe. He was ordering the attack from a lookout point and it was almost higher than the wave. He just
got a wetting.”

Leof exhaled in relief. “He’ll be angry.”

“Cold angry, sir, and dangerous with it.” Hodge cleared his throat, aware suddenly that sergeants don’t make comments like
that about their lords. At least, not to officers. “He wants all survivors to gather toward Baluchston.”

“Baluchston?”

“Aye.” Hodge spat to one side. “The wave didn’t touch the town. So my lord reckons they’ve turned coat there, gone native,
like. He’s going to raze the town, he says, to teach them a lesson.”

Leof went so still that he heard his heart thumping clearly, heard the blood thrum in his ears. He had to get to Thegan. Try
to turn his anger away from the town. It was the Lake who had sent the wave, not the people of Baluchston. He knew that in
his bones.

“Do you have horses, sergeant?”

“Aye,” Hodge nodded. “We’ve been gathering up the strays. Most of the horses made it out. About ten minute’s walk back that
way, sir. We found your Thistle.”

Thistle safe. Leof smiled and clapped Hodge on the back. “A silver piece to every man in your group, sergeant, when we get
back to Sendat. That’s the best news I could have had.”

He started off toward the horses with a light step, but turned back somberly as he remembered. “You’ll find eight men and
a horse that way,” he said, pointing back to the forest. “I couldn’t find anyone alive.”

“Aye, sir,” Hodge said, nodding to his men to continue their search. “I think this section had the worst of it, by the numbers
dead.”

“The wind was at our backs,” Leof said. “The Lake had only one chance to stop us.”

“She only needed one chance, sir,” Hodge said. Leof noticed that “she.” He wondered if Hodge, too, had heard his mother’s
voice telling him to go home. He wished, with all his heart, that he could follow that advice. Instead, he kept walking around
the shoreline, trying to think of arguments which would convince Thegan that no good would come of massacre.

S
AKER FLUSHED EVERY
time he remembered throwing up after the battle at Spritford. If he was to take back this land for its rightful inhabitants,
he had to get over his squeamishness. So he followed his ghosts, his little army, down into Carlion determined to be detached;
to be strong.

What he saw tried his resolution. The people of Carlion were mostly asleep, although a few late drinkers were on the streets,
making their way home. They died first, Owl and his followers smashing into them before they realized what was happening.
They didn’t even have time to raise the alarm.

Owl gave the first blow: a backhanded sweep with a sword which cut open a man’s neck to the bone. There was no scream, just
a gargling sound as the blood spurted on the street, covering Owl. He grinned and spun to strike at a woman. But he stopped
in mid-stroke and pushed her aside, moving on swiftly to another target.