Path of Fate (36 page)

The inn lay at the center of the town at the crossroads of the two main streets. It was a ramshackle place, with gray, weather-beaten boards and a squeaking sign sporting a picture of a black sheep’s head. Its yard was dusty, though flowers bloomed in pots along the porch skirting around the front. The windows held no glass, and limp muslin curtains stirred in the afternoon breeze. A fountain fed by springwater tumbled from a divided stone pipe, one side running inside to provide water to the kitchen and bath, the other filling a trough.

Without a word, Edelsat led Juhrnus and four of his men around the back, avoiding windows. Kebonsat waited for them to get in place, then led his team through the front, pointing a finger at the pocket doors between the porch and the common room. Sodur nodded and hooked a finger at two soldiers.

Reisil had described each man in careful detail. Three of them were dining in the common room. They were swarmed and knocked unconscious into their trenchers, never having the opportunity to raise an alert. The rest of the patrons eyed the invaders with frightened eyes, pulling belt knives.

“In the name of my father, the Dure Vadonis, and Kaj Mekelsek of House Exmoor, I name these men traitors to Patverseme,” Kebonsat declared in a low voice. “There are three more. Where are they? Innkeeper, answer me now, if you value your life.”

Reisil stood just inside the door, pressed against the jamb as she watched the proceedings with a trembling stomach. None of the three men was Kaval. One was the man with the thick paunch and steel-gray hair; next to him was the smooth-shaven round-faced man with yellow hair. Across from him was the wheelwright from Kallas. Where were the others? Reisil glanced up at the rough wooden ceiling.

“R-r-room at the t-t-top of the stairs, ’nuther at the end of the hall. Paid good money, they did. I didn’t know!” The wizened innkeeper wailed the last, stumbling away from Kebonsat, who had caught his shirt in a hard grip and now thrust him away.

But now came shouts and the sound of running feet. Kebonsat lunged up the stairs with Edelsat and Sodur fast on his heels. On the landing, the green-cloaked man leaped into his way and slashed out with his sword. The air whistled and Kebonsat ducked, falling to his stomach. Edelsat leaped past before the green-cloaked man could recover, smashing him across the back with the flat of his blade. The green-cloaked man grunted and stumbled, completing his turn and coming around to do battle.

Finally Kebonsat dove beneath his opponent’s guard and sliced him across the chest. The man made a high-pitched noise, glancing down at the blood welling through the slit in his jerkin. Edelsat took advantage of his distraction to club him on the temple with the hilt of his sword. The man’s sword clattered to the landing as he twisted and fell onto the stairs, sliding halfway down.

Reisil ran forward up the stairs and stepped over the unconscious man, the healer in her undisturbed by the blood.

Kebonsat put a shoulder to the first of the two rooms the innkeeper had indicated. It was empty but for the furniture, several packs, and a dozen bottles and tankards buzzing with a swarm of black bloat-flies.

Kebonsat took the scene in with a sharp glance, then moved down the hall on cat feet, followed closely by Sodur and Edelsat, and trailed by Reisil.

Juhrnus put a hand on her arm to restrain her when she would have pressed closer. She gave him a sharp look as she wrenched her arm free, recalling his attempt at watchdogging her in the forest outside of Priede. But he fixed her in place with an unexpectedly stern look.

“You’ll only get in the way,” he whispered, and she nodded reluctantly. He was right, but the fact that it came from him grated.

Kebonsat arrived at the last door and pressed his ear to the wood. Suddenly there was a scream—unmistakably feminine—and a crash of pottery. He smashed the door off its hinges and charged inside. Only to stop dead. Edelsat knocked into him and the two men stumbled farther into the room. Sodur slid in behind. A musky animal smell drifted out—smoke, food, sweat and sex. Reisil felt herself snarling.

Though her vision was largely blocked, Reisil could see the scar-faced man standing in the middle of the room holding something in his hand at eye level. He was chanting. Behind him a naked, bloody and badly bruised Ceriba struggled with Kaval. Blood ran from a jagged cut in his forehead, dripping over his eyes and down his chin. He cast a wild-eyed look over his shoulder, then went back to subduing Ceriba. He looked like a minion of the Demonlord, straight from the old tales.

The sound of the scar-faced man’s voice was mesmerizing, like honey and song on a moonlit night, and Reisil found herself smiling, wanting to sleep. She yawned and her knees began to buckle. Something inside resisted, trying to keep her upright. Fear scuttled over her flesh as that isolated part of her brain realized she could not stop. Edelsat and Kebonsat both lowered their swords, bodies sagging toward the floor.

~
Do not listen,
ahalad-kaaslane!
He is a wizard. Hear me! Close your ears to his voice.

Reisil stiffened, shaking her head.

~Ahalad-kaaslane!
He uses magic. Do not listen!

The steel in Saljane’s mindvoice cut through the hypnotizing quality of the man’s chanting and now Reisil felt his magic roping over her skin with avid tentacles, spreading up her nose and in her ears, gnawing at her senses. She shuddered and looked desperately at Juhrnus. Esper had broken the spell for him as well. He motioned her back and inched forward, his sword ready. But suddenly Sodur stepped sideways from behind Kebonsat and Edelsat and launched his knife at the wizard. The knife sang past the wizard’s hand and through his left eye.

He crumpled to the floor with an expression of shock, mouth still open.

Edelsat and Kebonsat shook themselves. For a second all was still. Then they flung themselves at Kaval, tearing him off Ceriba. She screamed again, kicking and biting.

Reisil moved forward, ignoring the body on the floor and Kaval’s whimpering cries as Edelsat pinned him by the throat high against the wall. She reached gentle hands out to Ceriba and put her arms around her, holding her tight despite the other woman’s wild paroxysm of animal rage.

“Juhrnus, find me sheets and blankets. Clean ones. Sodur—I want another room, with a bath if possible. And clear out the rest of the inn. No one stays here tonight but us.”

Reisil gave the orders like a military commander, her voice ringing. The others moved quickly to obey. Kebonsat clubbed Kaval over the head with a snarl of satisfaction and Edelsat dragged him out to the landing, tossing him down the stairs to join his companions.

Reisil crooned to the still thrashing Ceriba, enduring the blows the other woman cast at her. Saljane had leaped away as Reisil had taken charge, and now perched on the windowsill. Kebonsat sheathed his sword. His arms dangled at his sides, hands twitching as if to reach out to his sister, but afraid to frighten her.

“There’s a room downstairs by the kitchen. It has a bath. Everyone is outside, including the innkeeper and his family. Here’s a sheet. Juhrnus is getting the room ready.” Sodur stood well back so as not to frighten Ceriba, and in the hallway Edelsat turned away, eyes hot with emotion.

“Easy, Ceriba. You’re safe now. No one else can hurt you. We’re going to take care of you. Remember me? I’m Reisil. We met in Kallas. You’re safe now.” Reisil repeated the litany in a soothing tone, hugging Ceriba to herself. She’d never had to deal with this kind of trauma. Once, a wife raped by her husband—and that had been difficult. But nothing this horrifying, this despicable. But she had to be strong. Ceriba needed her strength.

The fight drained out of the other woman like water out of a sieve. She went suddenly limp, clinging to Reisil’s neck, crying in great, rasping sobs. Reisil reached for the sheet and Kebonsat helped her drape it around his sister’s bruised shoulders.

“Let’s go downstairs now. Out of this room,” Reisil’s voice roughened with disgust on the last word. “You can have a bath.”

Reisil drew Ceriba into the hallway, talking soothingly all the while.

 

The room Juhrnus had found was unexpectedly elegant and clearly the inn’s best. It contained a broad riverstone fireplace along the northern wall. Facing it was an ornate four-poster bed carved from pale ash and hung with heavy cream brocade. A bearskin rug lay between the bed and the fire, the thick fur shielding bare feet from the cold slate tiles. The window looked onto a kitchen garden, peach and pear trees shading the room from the worst rays of the sun. Beneath it stood a desk of the same ash as the bed. Near the door, a pedestal table draped in linen and topped with two silver candle-sticks completed the room’s furnishings.

A copper bathtub had been placed before the fire and a heavy kettle hung heating on a tripod in the gaping mouth of the fireplace. An ewer stood beneath a sink beside a spigot at the right of the fireplace, and Reisil remembered the piped springwater running into the inn from the fountain outside.

She eased Ceriba over to the bed. Kebonsat stood against the closed door, staring at his sister’s battered form. Reisil tested the water in the kettle—nearly hot enough. She dumped several ewers of cold water into the tub; then, with Kebonsat’s help, she emptied the steaming kettle into it as well. They refilled the kettle and rehung it in the fire; then Kebonsat retreated back to the door.

Reisil sat beside Ceriba. The girl stiffened and held herself away, turning her shoulder to hide her face. Reisil stroked her shoulders and hair, feeling Ceriba tremble.

“Would you like a bath?”

Ceriba didn’t answer.

“It will make you feel better. To be clean.”

After several moments, Ceriba nodded her head, then glanced over her shoulder at Kebonsat. She looked quickly away.

“I want him to go away. I don’t want to see him!” Her voice took on a hysterical edge and Kebonsat paled and made a sound of pain.

“He is your brother. Why don’t you want to see him?” Reisil queried gently, feeling her way, not knowing if pressing would do more harm than good. “I thought you loved him.”

Ceriba sobbed and bent forward so that her head touched her knees. She rocked back and forth, her cries raw and wrenching. Kebonsat fell to his knees before her, reaching out a shaking hand to grasp Ceriba’s clenched fist.

“Don’t, oh, please don’t! I will leave. Anything you wish I will do!” He waited a moment and began to stand, but Reisil stayed him with a hand on his shoulder. Something told her that if she didn’t help Ceriba breach her pain now, the other woman might never be able.

As if the shame were hers and not that of those men who’d used her so cruelly.

Kaval.

His name was wormwood in her mind.

“Ceriba, why don’t you want to see your brother?” Reisil asked again, her tone gentle but insistent.

“I am not—It would be—” Ceriba broke off.

Finally she drew a harsh breath and sat up, pulling her hand free from Kebonsat’s grip, clenching her arms around her stomach. She stared at the fireplace, her bloodshot eyes remote.

“I am no longer intact as a woman. I would not have my brother see me this way. I am worthless, a disgrace to my family, a stain on their honor.” She spoke each word in a toneless voice, biting them off with cold precision, so opposite from her agonized crying of a few moments before.

“No!” She and Reisil both started when Kebonsat lunged to his feet.

He pointed at Ceriba, his finger trembling, now with rage. “How dare you think I would judge you ill because of what those bastards did? Do I blame men in battle because they have been stuck through by a sword or pike? Because they were inflicted with grievous wounds and their bodies gave way?

“You have survived a battle like I will never know and torture of the worst kind. You have demonstrated amazing courage. I thank the gods that you live and have all your capacities intact. I feared—” His voice broke and he swallowed, fury burning like cleansing fire in every line of his face. “I feared that my sister would be lost to me forever. So do not,
do not ever,
say again in my presence that you are worthless, or a disgrace, or a stain on our family honor.”

His hand fell on his sword hilt and his nostrils flared as he breathed short, heavy breaths. The air rang with his words and it seemed as if all other sound dimmed. Ceriba stared at him in openmouthed shock, stunned by his vehemence.

“You . . . Can you really mean that?” she asked, the desperation and disbelief mixing with hope and tearing at Reisil’s heart.

Kebonsat squatted so that he could look his sister, not batting an eye at her swollen, misshapen nose, her puffy black eyes, her torn lips.

“How could I not? You did nothing wrong. You survived. I prayed for that. How could I be anything but proud of you? You didn’t give up and you fought hard. You are, and have always been, one of the most wonderful, amazing women I have ever been privileged to know.” Kebonsat wiped tears from his cheeks. “If any of our family must bear shame, it is we who failed you, who did not guard you well enough.”

Ceriba stared at her brother. She started to shake her head, to deny him, Reisil thought: him and the naked love he offered to her.

Then her face crumpled and she clutched at him. He caught her and held her tight against his chest, rocking her back and forth. “I promise that Mother and Father feel the same. They wish only for your return. Mother told me so herself.”

At that, Ceriba broke into fresh sobs. She clung to Kebonsat like a lifeline and Reisil felt anger flare hotly inside her. Somehow that anger felt right, though the healer part of her was appalled that she could contemplate doing anyone harm. But she remembered what she had told the Lady when she argued for Esper’s life. Sometimes you have to cut away the disease to make the body whole.