Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (33 page)

As the second and third women did the same, Zurenne stifled an urge to beg them to stop. She couldn’t bear to see the gorgeous silks of their flowing garments trailing in the courtyard’s dust. They wore what at first seemed to be high-necked gowns with long sleeves and close-fitted bodices. As they sank into low curtseys, their skirts spread unfettered by seams at side, back or front, to reveal that they wore plain silk trews beneath and jewel studded sandals of fine gilded leather on their slender feet.

Zurenne guessed that the eldest woman was much the same age as her sister Beresa. Though she could never imagine Lady Licanin wearing lustrous garnet silk embroidered with sprigs of some unknown flower in shining silver thread. She couldn’t picture any Caladhrian noblewoman’s face painted with the vivid scarlet cosmetics colouring the woman’s eyes and lips and the silver dusting her brow and cheekbones.

The Licanin and Halferan baronies together surely couldn’t boast jewels to equal half the ornaments which these Aldabreshin women wore. Clearly, the strictures taught to Caladhria’s ladies, frowning on wearing gold and silver together or combinations of different gems, were unknown in the Archipelago.

Debis Khusro’s long black hair, threaded with copious grey, was piled high on her head and secured with silver combs studded with pearls. Three iridescent strands hung in a long twisted rope around her neck. She also wore a necklace of broad gold links, each lattice of metal studded with square cut diamonds. Diamonds for a ruler and pearls to ward against magic. Zurenne recalled Kheda’s words.

But none of these women were the exotic beauties she had expected from the tales of barbarian warlords plucking the finest flowers of womanhood to be helpless slaves. None was ugly by any measure but they were unremarkable except for the colour of their skin among the winter-pale Caladhrians.

Then she realised that the Khusro ladies and everyone else in the manor’s courtyard was looking expectantly at her.

‘You are most welcome, truly.’ Finding herself lost for further words, she resorted to the courtesies she would exchange with any other Caladhrian noblewoman. ‘How was your journey?’

The second woman, Patri, said something rueful in her own tongue. She wore blue silk embroidered with tiny green feathers and a skein of silver necklaces in different styles, ornamented with finely carved turquoise. A single plain gold chain bore an ornate pendant jewel; a flower with carved emeralds for petals framed by white enamelled leaves. More such white enamelled flowers dotted her intricately interlaced black plaits.

The swordsman who had rushed to her aid looked up, his expression clearing.

Before Zurenne could ask Kheda what the Aldabreshi woman had said, Patri raised a chagrined hand to her mouth. Each of her fingers bore an ornately engraved silver ring linked by fine strands of pearls to a thick silver bracelet around her wrist. A gold-set ruby clasped the pearls together on the back of her hand.

‘Forgive me,’ Patri said carefully, looking from Zurenne to Ilysh.

She was clearly less fluent in the mainland language. How old was she? Zurenne guessed that Patri might be within a handful of years of her own age, perhaps a little younger, perhaps a little older though it was difficult to tell with the silver and blue cosmetics making a mask of her face.

‘I have never travelled in such a fashion before. I found it most—’ She looked at Debis Khusro for help.

The older woman smiled ruefully at Zurenne and Ilysh. ‘We can spend days on end aboard ship in the roughest seas without feeling unwell. We had no idea that this new motion would prove so unsettling.’

‘You’ve never ridden in a coach before?’ Ilysh was surprised into speech.

‘Have you ever sailed in a trireme?’ the third woman, Quilar, countered with a smile.

Her garments were adorned with tiny golden glass beads sewn in leafy vines across pale grey silk. She wore heavy gold bracelets and thick gold rings on both hands, set with shimmering opals, and a collar of silver latticework enclosing plain-cut lumps of rock crystal. Her hair was a mass of tight midnight curls barely tamed with golden combs set with green agates. Zurenne guessed that she was somewhere in age between the other women.

Ilysh could only stare mutely at her. Zurenne quickly intervened, hoping that Lysha’s silence would be taken for shyness, not wonder at the woman’s complexion, as dark as polished ebony beneath her gold and silver paint.

‘A great many people get coach sick,’ she said firmly, ‘even those who’ve spent half their lives travelling our roads. Now, my ladies, you are very welcome. Please join us for refreshments while your servants and ours see to your accommodations. The gatehouse apartments will be at your disposal.’

Master Rauffe and his lackeys promptly stepped forward to take charge of unloading the carriages. Horse Master Thuse and his stable lads went to help the Attar coachmen unharness their beasts while Doratine disappeared into the kitchen, ready to send trays of tisanes and dishes of sweetmeats to the private family sitting room up in the baronial tower.

Ilysh had pointed out how awkward it would be to sit in the audience chamber while the Aldabreshin swordsmen carried coffers of Khusro treasures through to be stowed in the iron-gated cellar beneath the muniment room.

‘Our thanks,’ Debis inclined her head gracefully, ‘but first we have a gift for you and your people.’

‘There is no need—’ Zurenne protested.

Debis Khusro turned away, calling out sharply in the Aldabreshin tongue. Zurenne shot a searing look at the Archipelagan. Why had Kheda not warned her? Did the women expect some gift of equal worth in return?

The second carriage’s door opened. A tall, raw-boned man, his head and jaw alike clean shaven, stepped down. He wore white cotton trews and tunic beneath an unmistakably Caladhrian sheepskin jerkin. He spoke in low, urgent tones to whoever was still inside the carriage. It belatedly occurred to Zurenne that Aldabreshi maidservants might be as apprehensive about this visit as their Caladhrian counterparts.

The man in white cotton retreated, the first of the passengers stepped down from the carriage.

‘Saedrin save us!’

Zurenne didn’t know who exclaimed first among Halferan’s household. Like everyone else, she stared open mouthed.

The man looked around as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. Tears streamed down his gaunt face to be lost in his ragged beard. As he raised one bony hand to brush away the uncut hair blown across his face, his unbleached cotton cuff slipped down to reveal manacle scars on his wrist. Zurenne would recognise such marks anywhere after seeing Corrain’s galls.

‘My ladies of Halferan.’ Debis Khusro curtseyed low to Zurenne and Ilysh. ‘We return your own to you, as proof of our good faith.’

Two more men were hesitantly negotiating the carriage’s step, both as roughly bearded and ragged-haired as Corrain, Kusint and Hosh had been on their return.

‘Three of them? Is that all?’ Zurenne didn’t intend to sound churlish. She couldn’t help speaking her first thoughts aloud.

‘We sincerely hope not.’ Debis earnestly addressed the entire household. ‘There are merely the first of your people whom we could secure.’

‘Oh, my boy! Oh, my boy!’

Ankelli, one of the laundry’s older women, came rushing across the cobbles, her arms outstretched. The second man stared at her.

Two men from the guard troop broke ranks. Kusint took half a pace forward. Zurenne caught his eye and shook her head as discreetly as she could. Retreating, Kusint stood motionless as the two guards walked towards the carriage; one of the younger boys and one of the few remaining who was surely long overdue for release to go fishing alongside old Fitrel.

The lad broke into a run, not looking to embrace either of the former captives. He ran straight through the gatehouse, his steps echoing beneath the archway. Zurenne hoped he wouldn’t fall into the brook in his haste. She wondered how many of the villagers would follow him back, avid to see for themselves who had returned from the dead.

The older man silently approached the last of the three. Wordlessly he grasped the lost man’s bony shoulders. The rescued slave hid his face in the old man’s chest, silently shaking.

Ankelli sobbed incoherently as she wrapped her arms around her son so forcefully that he staggered backwards. Fortunately Mistress Rauffe and two other women had followed close behind. With inexorable kindness, they escorted the two of them away towards the sanctuary of the steward’s house.

Quilar said something quietly in her own tongue. Zurenne saw Debis’s painted face tighten, though she couldn’t read either woman’s thoughts through their cosmetics. That was doubtless the purpose of such paint, she concluded.

‘We know we will never be able to return all your people to you,’ the Aldabreshin noblewoman said sombrely. ‘We know that your rites for the dead differ from our own but I believe that your custom is to cherish their burned remains in the place of their birth?’

For the first time, Debis’s face betrayed uncertainty, glancing from Zurenne to Kheda. His unspoken answer must have reassured her. Debis gestured a second time to the tall clean-shaven man in white who was still standing with the first rescued Halferan, one reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Between them, they lifted a long plain box out of the carriage. The dull red wood gleamed with an oily sheen in the flickering torchlight from the gatehouse.

‘We have brought you the bones of two of your dead.’ As Quilar stepped forward, no amount of face paint could hide her anxiety. ‘Together with written testimony from those who knew their names. If we cannot restore them to their kinsfolk, we can at least put their fate beyond doubt.’

‘Thank you.’ Zurenne bit her lip to compose herself. ‘Kusint, if you please, take that box to the shrine. Now, ladies, please join me in my sitting room while your household and mine see to your luggage and your rooms.’

More than anything else, Zurenne wanted to get the Aldabreshin women into seclusion behind the baronial tower’s doors before the manor was besieged by demesne folk desperate for answers. She managed a welcoming smile before indicating the great hall’s steps.

Debis, Patri and Quilar exchanged a few words with their thus-far silent attendants. The two younger wives’ bodyguards went to confer with the clean-shaven man in white while Debis’s keen-eyed swordsman fell into step with Kheda, a few paces behind the women as they headed across the cobbles.

Zurenne offered Debis another meaninglessly amiable smile. She didn’t start any conversation though. She desperately wanted a few moments of silence to think how she would explain all of this to Corrain. Though if he wanted to speak to her this evening, he would just have to wait.

She could only hope that this unknown wizard in Col would have the sense to scry first and see that she was occupied with the Aldabreshi women, and not mortally offend the Archipelagans by sending some magic into their midst.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

The Goose Hounds Tavern, Col

31st of Aft-Winter

C
ORRAIN SHIFTED AGAINST
the end of the taproom’s counter, as though to ease a cramp, in reality to be certain that no one was close enough to overhear them.

‘All these mentors have shown an interest in Artifice? Most have been known to work some lesser aetheric enchantments?’

After another long morning following the Soluran, he had spent the afternoon retracing his steps and falling into conversation to learn the names of the scholars whom the adept had been courting with meat and drink, all the while slipping his poisonous doubts about wizardry into their ears.