Fires of Aggar (7 page)

“I’d just hoped they’d be a little slower in interfering this time.” But Jes was smiling again.

“Well, they are interfering,” Sparrow piped up as she stole another bite of lexion. “Not very forcefully, though. As usual. All you have to say is ‘no thank you’ and Brit and I will leave you be. The Council knows that as well as either of you, so I shouldn’t think they’re very concerned about….” She broke off and grinned at the irony of the fact that she didn’t even know what the trouble was. “About whatever it is.”

“Ahh…,” Jes interjected quietly, “perhaps this should all wait until we’re somewhere a little more private?”

“It should wait until Brit arrives,” Sparrow declared matter-of-factly, inspecting the berries in the fruit bowl. Her sandy eyes suddenly jumped to Gwyn, and a mischievous glint sparkled as she recognized the younger woman’s obvious surprise. “I admit it. I have absolutely no curiosity whatsoever. Never have, probably never will. I leave that to Brit. As long as she lets me tag along for the exciting parts, I’m perfectly content to let her choose our battles. But that’s a prerequisite of my trade — patience.”

Gwyn was only more confused, and Jes scowled at the slight woman with, “Spare her the riddles, Sparrowhawk. You know no one’s told her.”

“I’m sorry.” Sparrow planted an elbow on the table, shaking down the long sleeve of her blouse to display the blond leather wristband she wore. Her voice dropped low as she explained, “I’m more to Brit than the love-of-her life, Gwyn. I’m her Shadow.”

“Bonded by lifestone?” Gwyn nearly gasped, still amazed that any of dey Sorormin ever submitted to such a merging.

The other nodded unconcerned, pulling her sleeve back over the band again. “I was only adopted into dey Sorormin after our march across the ice plains.”

“The Exile’s Trek?” Stunned again, Gwyn’s breath caught. “The Council sent you to help Brit with that desperate venture? After the Changlings had poisoned Maltar’s eastern water range, wasn’t it?”

“You’ve heard of it then.”

“Who hasn’t,” Jes muttered darkly.

Gwyn found herself staring at this small, wiry woman with an added measure of respect. “They say, there were a hundred lost to frostbite and exhaustion, while you saw nearly six times that many to safety.”

Pain shadowed those honey-brown eyes as Sparrow remembered not the numbers, but the faces of each one on that despairing trek. Jes placed a hand over Sparrow’s small one, gently pulling her back from those tragic memories. “What is done, is done. But the Council was right in sending you then, and to us now. With this arm I can’t make this southern journey, and Gwyn shouldn’t make it alone, packmates or no. If you and Brit could see your way to help her… well, there are answers needed or more lives may be lost.”

“Southern?” Dread echoed in that almost child-like voice of anxiety. “My Desert Folks?”

“No, none of them are concerned,” Gwyn reassured quickly, and she offered a warm smile of apology for the misunderstanding.

“But south?” The pieces leapt into place, and Sparrow felt that something even worse had come. “South where the Clan raids?”

Gwyn’s grimness answered her. Jes only stared at the remains left on the table. Sparrow forced a cheerless laugh. “First I exchange the Southern Deserts for the Northern Ice, now the Changlings’ Plateau for the Clan’s Plateau. My life is becoming terribly repetitious, isn’t it?”

Jes looked at her, puzzled.

“Leaving one wasteland for another, I mean — not a pretty challenge.”

“No,” Gwyn agreed, thinking now of the lives desolated by the Clan’s raiders and their fire weapons… with aid from some Court traitor. “No, it won’t be a pretty challenge at all.”

“I’m down here on the left,” Jes pointed as Gwyn and the sandwolves followed her into yet another hallway of the Guild’s endless maze. “I admit, I’ve indulged myself a bit this wintering. I’ve had someone in to start the fire early and to tidy-up regularly. But since I cracked my arm, it’s been a necessary help.”

The tell-tale clack of the sandwolves’ nails paused beside the closed door as they both warily sniffed about the threshold. The two women joined them, and Ty grinned up at her human, offering reassurance that no one seemed to be within. But as Jes undid the ashwood lock, they pushed through first.

Jes smiled a little dryly, slanting a glance at her daughter as she shut the door behind them all. “Gotten to be a cautious lot, have they?”

Somewhat surprised, Gwyn drew herself back from her musings and darted a quick look to her packmates. She smiled then with fondness, completely missing her mother’s intended irony. Ril was perched on her hind legs, a forepaw gingerly balancing her against the bedside table so that she could get the scents from the shuttered windows beyond. Ty had planted herself in a nervous crouch against the door, eyes flicking between Ril and the curtained-off closet. Ril finished her inspection of the window only to proceed to the closet to nose aside the curtain and satisfy herself that nothing lurked there either. At that point, Ty finally relaxed enough to lie down. But her massive bulk rested against the door and assured them of no unannounced entries.

“N’Sormee, you once told me never to trust any place as safe if I was beyond the Gate House of Valley Bay.” Gwyn nodded to her packmates. “They too were listening that night. And in some things their memories are much better than mine.”

“Yet they left you alone in the commons?” Jes quipped. She sprawled out on the chair and footstool that sat before the hearth and its blazing fire. “Or do they think there’s safety in sheer numbers?”

“Something like that. After all, with so many Marshals in one place, how could there help but be a few honest ones about?”

Jes laughed obligingly. Gwyn brought another chair near enough to share the footstool, while Ril curled up on the hearth.

“Are you sure you don’t need help getting set for bed?” Gwyn prodded with concern. She’d noticed the slight flush that browned her mother’s skin.

“I’m fine. Merely tired, Gwyn’l, and perhaps somewhat overexcited. It has been such a long time since I’ve seen any of you.”

“Which is all the more reason to rest.”

“Coramee, enough!”

Chagrined, Gwyn gave in with a gracious wave. “Do tell Bryana I tried.”

“I will,” Jes assured her. “But I’ve got a healer’s apprentice for all that. She stops by first thing in the morning and last thing at night. If you want to worry, worry about Sparrow and all that restless tossing and turning she’ll be doing tonight so far from her shadowmate. Or better yet, worry about Khirlan!”

The last comment sobered Gwyn all too quickly. Dejectedly her head went back against the embroidered cushion, and she turned a sightless stare towards the dim corners beyond the hearthside. After a moment she sighed. “Should I really wait for Brit, do you think?”

Startled, Jes glanced at her daughter. But Gwyn was still gazing at nothing. “Why do you ask?”

“She’s still working under the guise of the tinker-trades. The wagon and draft horses will slow us. The bartering at each village will detain us even more often. Instead of several ten-days, this will turn into more than a monarc of travel. It’s already late spring that far south. It’ll be summer there by the time we arrive in Khirla.”

“You’re concerned that the Clan will be controlling even more of the travel routes by then?”

“Closing them down — by the sound of it.”

“Still… you said you’re convinced there’s a traitor within the court itself.”

“You’re saying I’m wrong?” Gwyn snapped back in irritation.

“No,” Jes amended softly. “I think you’re right. That’s why I’m also thinking you need Brit and Sparrow to help you with this.”

“Aye — as a Royal Marshal I’m too public a figure. I won’t hear half of what Brit will.”

“And Sparrow is quite adept at stealth-and-theft, Gwyn. I’ve seen her sneak into a Changlings’ camp and come out again with enough flint to replenish a whole patrol with fire kits and arrowheads. And she claims she’s even better in an urban setting — more shadows to blend in with, I guess.” Gwyn ruefully acknowledged her mother’s attempt at humor, but Jes saw she was far from convinced. “Gwyn’l, could you find such a traitor alone?”

Ril’s head came up sharply, lips curling in a silent snarl. Ty’s objection was more audible; an angry growl rose from her place at the door.

“Hush! Both of you,” Gwyn ordered. Yet she was more annoyed at herself and her personal limitations, so her voice gentled as she explained to her friends, “I’ll be in the Dracoon’s Court alone. Neither of you are very patient with human intrigues, and you know it.” Then to Jes, “And no, alone I will not find this basker jackal. Which would mean any party the Dracoon and I left the City with would be in danger of discovery — and ambush! — long before we gained any chance to negotiate anything!”

“Aye, but if your presence as Marshal were prominent enough, you’d certainly draw the attention away from simple troubadours and healers. Brit would be able to move about more freely, especially with Sparrow beside her. Sparrow’s obviously Southern blood will only reassure everyone that they really are on their way to the Desert Folk. And certainly, traveling with a Royal Marshal through Clan-infested areas has visible merit. Few would even question your arrival with them.”

“It would be better for us not to arrive together at all.”

“Then separate before you reach Khirla City. But Gwyn, remember in Khirlan — even before we knew of the worsening times — travelers have always been endangered by the Clan raiders. And none of you will do the Dracoon any good, if you never reach her.”

Gwyn sighed again, conceding the point. Besides, no matter how clever a Marshal could be — one person could only do so much. In another situation, she might have been able to offer a new perspective to alter the strategy in some useful way… and indeed usually that was a Marshal’s most effective role, to advise and reorganize. But with a traitor hidden among the trusted people, there was no way to successfully deploy any new tactic because it would be shared and countered immediately.

It left her with little she could do alone… for now. Gwyn shook her head at herself, a cheerless smile twisting her lips. “I do so hate intrigue and deception. Give me a rabid buntsow or a contaminated water well any day. Those are tangible puzzles that I can work through. But liars — the ambitious ones, not the sort who do it from shame or embarrassment, but the clever, self-serving deceivers — they’re my undoing. I lose patience with them.”

“Take care in your wishing, Coramee.”

Puzzled at the warning, Gwyn glanced at Jes.

“Unveiling a Court traitor is often easily done when outsiders arrive and view the obvious with new eyes. Motivating an enemy to join you at the negotiating tables, however, won’t be nearly so simple.”

“Aye…,” Gwyn dropped her gaze back to the fire, and the leaping flames of orange and yellow stirred memories of another flame licking out in destruction. Only once had she ever seen a Clan’s fire weapon at work, and the white-hot flicker of its tongue had torched the warehouse with a single kiss. Aye — Jes was right — a Court Traitor could be the least of their worries.

Gronday’s Market Square was a boisterous mayhem of tented stalls and jostling shoulders. The clatter of wooden crates, the clink of glass coins, and the colorful banners of the sellers all blended well with the scolding and laughing tones of the busy folk. Children raced through the crowds, shrieking the mysterious battle cries of their play. Vendors shouted the bargains of their wares. It was all very lively and all perfectly matched to Sparrowhawk’s taste. She’d been brought up in such bedlam until she’d left the Desert Folk to seek out the Council, and if she’d not passed muster as a Shadow Trainee, she probably would have settled quite happily into the tinker-trade’s life on her own. As it was, she had no doubts that the Mother’s Hand had matched her to Brit and in so doing, returned her to the merchant’s life.

Today the mood about her was more festive than usual. Not only was it monarc’s end and so nearly every local trade had freshly stocked its booths, but the first flatboats from Rotava had finally arrived with their riches. It meant that the rivers had thawed from Gronday to the sea, and with the Plateau Treaty between Changling and Human holding, it was clear that the northern goods and ports were ready to service the inland cities again.

A great piping of steam blew the clock whistle and Sparrow, with a fair number of others, stopped to look up. The Great Clock housed in the Traders’ Guild Tower rose above the south side of the Square. The high-pitched whistle keened again, and Sparrow felt the excitement of the visitors around her; the Clock Keeper’s little sundial and sexton had declared mid-day was arriving, and the Keeper had launched the steam-powered show. Sparrow felt her breath catch as the third piercing call to attention sang out; the only other time she’d been in Gronday the clockworks had been shut down for repairs.

The carved, lattice hands for monarc, day and tenmoon swung in complete circles, while on the largest of the clock faces the ivory point moved from its quarter-day pose to the half, and the pipe organ began. Wooden dolls popped up with the music as the steepled little roofs of each pipe turned into a cone hat blown loose. Children, prippers and baby birds danced up at the high notes. Burros brayed lower while horses whinnied tenor. Grumpy drunks and sour soldiers rose with the bass. And the whole crowd of them fluttered merrily in concert.

It was over all too quickly for Sparrow, and she promised herself to be back tomorrow, if at all possible. She rued that she had missed it the past two days here, but then the fact that it was mid-day reminded her of her stomach’s emptiness. As usual, she was hungry; it was even worse given her separation from Brit. However, food was never scarce at Market. The only true difficulty here was deciding what one wanted to eat.

A pair of slender fellows wandered past her, bumping into her and apologizing politely before dreamily returning their attentions to each other. Sparrow grinned. They were certainly love-sick enough for one another, but it was the pastie they were sharing that caught her attention. A wonderful, flaky little pastry pouch — one tucked full of meat and gravy with spuds and vegetable bits — was just what she was looking for.