The Margrave (13 page)

“A long time.”

He licked his lips. “A long stinking time and I’ve never tasted this cask in all of it. Where did you get it?”

“Officers’ cellar.” She sipped from her glass, watching him. He was suspicious. And it was important not to get him so drunk that he wouldn’t talk. Just enough that he wouldn’t remember what he’d said.

The room was crowded and smoky. Behind her a raucous dice game was going on, with a lot of argument and complicated calculation. The Sekoi would have loved it.

“I hear you’ve seen a bit of action.” She tried to sound admiring.

He wagged his head. “Some.”

“At Tasceron?”

“Oh, aye. There.” He drank again.

She sipped the foul ale. He wasn’t the boasting kind. Just her luck. She decided to be direct. “And Mathravale?”

He looked at her over the leather tankard. When he put it down he seemed slightly less drunk. “I was there.”

His voice had hardened. It didn’t encourage questions, but she had to hurry, because at eight bells she had to report to Scala.

“You saw it?” she ventured. “All of it?”

“All.” He tapped the tankard; she refilled it, wishing she knew anything about what had happened, so that she could lead him on. At random she tried the obvious. “Did you lose any of your patrol?”

“Us!” He laughed, mirthless. “None of us died. They died, though. Thousands.”

“They?”

“You know. The Order. Villagers. We cut them down. Women, children.” His voice was slurred, reluctant. “Bloody mess,” he whispered.

Carys was icy cold. She ran her finger around the lip of her cup, unable to drink. Behind her, the dice players roared. “It was a massacre?” she said quietly.

“Of course it was a stinking massacre.” He glared at her angrily. “Didn’t you read about it at school?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Cut to pieces.” He slumped, morose now. “Blood to the elbow. I remember a girl . . . young girl she was, holding my arm. Screaming. Couldn’t stop, though. Orders.” He shook his head, his voice fading. “Hanging; we hanged all of them . . .”

“Not the children.” She wanted to shake him, but it would have been too dangerous. As it was she kept her voice low and a sickly smile on her face, because there were at least two men in the room watching them both.

“Sure. Most. Some they took . . .”

“Carys!” Quist was standing behind her, a dark shadow. “What’s this?” he snapped.

“Drinking.” She sipped the ale grimly.

“This place is off limits to Watch personnel and you know it.” He looked the sergeant over in disgust. “What’s your number?”

“Seven . . . six . . .” The man stammered.

“Get yourself out of here!”

They watched him stagger out, falling against the tables, shoved aside by workers. Carys stood up. “Not really afraid I’ll run off, Captain?”

He took her arm and pushed her toward the door. “I’m not sure of anything you might do. Scala’s got the permits. We’re leaving right away.”

“Thank God,” Carys muttered. They had been two days at Flor’s Tower, but to move along the Wall they needed permits, a new set for each section, which would mean at least five until they finally came to Maar, where the only gate went through into the Unfinished Lands. Security was tight. Scala, she knew, would have had to use all her charm on the local commander.

“She had supper with him last night,” Quist said abruptly.

For a moment she almost felt he had heard her thoughts; amazed, she waited till they’d gotten outside and were crossing the muddy street before she said, “Why should it worry you?”

He didn’t look at her, ducking under scaffolding. “You know why.”

She did, but to her astonishment he said, “Because I love her.”

Carys didn’t know what to say. Luckily, a convoy of wagons was rattling past, the heavy martlets with their heads down, the clatter of their hooves drowning everything. Yes, she’d known; she’d guessed a while ago. But the way he had come straight out with it astounded her. It was so unlike the Watch. And the whole thing was against the Rule. When it was quieter she said, “Does Scala feel the same?”

His voice was sour. “Scala’s a mystery. Even to me.”

Ahead of them, the castellan was waiting by the horses impatiently. Her hair was pinned neatly and she held a packet of papers up at Carys with a quiet smile. “We can go. Get your things.”

“It didn’t take you long,” Carys muttered, with grudging respect.

Scala looked coy. “It never does.” She flicked Quist’s shoulder with the papers. “Cheer up, lover. Soon, very soon, we’ll be rich.”

 

 

THE ROAD BEHIND THE WALL led out of Flor’s Tower eastward; at first it was an easy ride, flat and wellpaved, the immense black masonry slabs rising high on their right. Apart from the wagons of quarried stone there was little traffic, and beyond the first league-stone they could even gallop for a while.

But Carys was worried. How could Galen and Raffi follow her through this? It would take an army to get them through. And she had to leave a longer message behind; the spotty boy might well have been too stupid to give them the letter, and as for the owl . . . She frowned. Maybe, maybe not. The Sekoi’s relationship with the owls puzzled her. Were they servants, or allies, or what? She had learned nothing about it in the Cage of Stories. If she asked the Sekoi, it would just shrug gracefully. As her horse ran, blowing through its nostrils, she wondered for a sudden, lonely moment where the creature was, where Raffi was. How close behind her were they?

By late afternoon the road was a track, blocked by landslides. It trailed through wooded country, split and mined for its dark stone. The horses stumbled in deep ruts, and when the clouds closed in, they brought an early darkness and then rain, a steady, relentless downpour. Scala looked snug in her long traveling cloak; Carys had to make do with the borrowed Watch-coat, and it was too small for her. Water trickled in through a tear at the back, soaking her neck and, slowly, her clothes. She was stiff now, and tired, and lost; the high, tangled thickets of the forest surrounded them with darkness. They had detoured far to the south and the Wall was out of sight.

Abruptly, rounding a high rock, Quist stopped.

“What?” Scala pulled up beside him. The red paint dripped from her horse’s neck into lurid puddles. “What is it?”

“Someone’s there.” He was sitting still, head slightly to one side. “Ahead. Down the track.”

“How many?” Scala’s crossbow was out; she loaded it expertly, her small fingers winding back the bolt.

“I’m not sure. The plants are confusing me.”

Carys listened. She could only hear the rain, its torrents hissing on leaves, dripping and splashing; the branches roaring in the gusty wind. “Plants? Those monsters?” There had been a few along the track; great fleshy-leaved things, house high. Now in the darkness all around she saw thickets of them, sprouting out of the ruins of fallen leaves and matting the forest floor; immense growths of tough, barb-edged green spears, suppurating with a yellow glistening oil that gathered in a noisome pool at the heart of each. Rain plopped in all around.

“Deathwort. Man-eaters, every one.” Quist slid down and took one step. The nearest plant stirred; Carys felt her skin crawl as she saw how the long fronds rippled and creaked along the ground toward him.

“Keep well away from them,” he said.

Carys stared. “How can they eat you?”

He glanced up at her. “Easily.” Picking up a stone, he threw it at the nearest; it landed in the central pool. Instantly the plant threshed and flailed; the liquid bubbled, a foul acid stink rising from it. The fleshy leaves slithered greedily up tight, folding over and over each other with amazing speed as if it huddled over its meal.

“The oil breaks up the prey and the plant sucks the life out of it.” Quist remounted. “Kest’s work, all of it. Whoever’s picked this place for an ambush knows what they’re doing.”

Scala balanced the bow. “So do we. I’ll go first.” She smiled at him sweetly through the rain. “You last. Weapons ready. Are you sure you don’t know numbers?”

“Not until we’re closer.”

For a moment Carys thought he sounded just like a keeper. “How could you know?” she asked.

He ignored her. Scala’s horse moved off, into the squall.

It would be a vicious place to be trapped. The track led into a dark, overgrown plantation, clusters of ivied trunks rising on each side and the deathwort sprouting in vast thickets, their leathery, barbed spears groping into the path. The horses were uneasy, whickering and sidestepping. Far off, thunder rolled, an ominous threat.

Scala rode ahead, hood back, alert.

Carys’s fingers gripped the wet bow. As her horse paced on, all her senses tingled; every part of her was tensed and ready. This was where she missed Galen. If only she had sense-lines, what a gift that would be. Sense-lines. For half a second her concentration flickered. She turned to Quist.

In that instant a tree crashed behind them. Quist shouted, and out of the ground under Scala’s horse a figure jumped up, scuttling, yelling. The horse reared; Scala fought for control and out of the trees a hail of missiles slashed down around them; stones, arrows, thudding wildly.

Carys slid off her horse. As she dived for cover every deathwort swiveled toward her; a fleshy leaf groped at her and she jerked away, cursing, rolling into shadow. It was a confusion of darkness. Quist was yelling something ; a horse screamed in pain.

Scala was down, her bow lost; as Carys scrambled over she saw a figure jerk from the dark, the brief cold glint of a knife. She struck sideways with the bow. He crashed down, struggled up, the knife still in his hand; ignoring her, he scuttled oddly toward the castellan. Scala froze. Between the knife and the slithering plants she yelled at Carys. “Kill him! Kill him!”

It was a small man, fair-haired. He was filthy, bloody.

“Do it!” Scala was furious. “NOW!”

Carys raised the bow. Her finger touched the trigger. The man whirled, soaked, screaming out at her. “Watch scum!” he yelled. “Filthy Watch murderers!” She aimed instantly.

“No!” Quist’s hand grabbed the bow and yanked it down; out of the dark he walked up to the man, ignoring his hysteria, the wicked waving gleam of the knife. He said nothing, did nothing. But the man was silenced between one sobbed curse and the next. Chest heaving, he crumpled.

Quist kicked the knife aside carelessly and turned to Carys. “There’s just him, and he’s blind. Leave him.”

As he crossed to Scala, Carys stared at him in amazement. “There were shots.”

“Rigged up before. He’s alone.”

The castellan was furious, blood smudged down her cheek. “I want him dead!” she snarled.

Quist rubbed the blood off gently, with his gloved hand. “No you don’t,” he muttered.

T
HE SEKOI TOOK A LONG DRINK of the wine and sighed. “That, my friend, was most welcome.”

“Help yourself, Graycat.” Godric nudged the flagon with his foot. “There’s plenty. What’s the news on the laddie?”

“Not good.” The creature was dusty from its long ride; its yellow eyes narrowed. “But the first to hear it should be the keeper. Where is he?”

“Under that calarna. Never speaks. Never eats. Even the chief’s getting worried.”

The Sekoi hesitated, then emptied the cup and put it down. It turned and walked through the hectic camp, around Alberic’s lavish tent, past the hastily built ovens steaming with the war band’s evening meal. In the faint twilight above the trees, Pyra burned red.

Galen was sitting in shadow, knees drawn up. His hair was a long tangle; his face edged with that brooding darkness that the creature had come to recognize as the Crow, a darkness that seldom left him now.

The Sekoi bit a nail absently, and crouched.

“Galen.”

The keeper stirred. He looked up, eyes black. Then he said, “You don’t need to tell me. You haven’t found him.”

There was no way of softening it. “No.” The creature sat by the dying fire and piled dry sticks on it, glad of having something to do.

“I knew you wouldn’t.”

“Did you?” The Sekoi sounded sour. “Well, you were right. I have ridden for two days through every village and settlement for miles. Sikka’s group went as far as Elerna. Nothing. As if he had disappeared from the world.”

“He has.” Galen lifted his palm up; the purple and blue crystals swung from his fingers. “Do you think I haven’t been looking too? There’s no trace of him, not in the soil, not among the trees.”

“Then we must search harder.” The creature stood, began pacing. Its whole body was agitated. “I will ask Alberic to send more men out. Raffi is ill, you know that. This Journey he made—he is not whole after it, and we have to find him before the Watch do! Galen, I say again, you must give up this oath and forget the Margrave. Raffi is more important!”

The keeper was silent, the flame light making sharp angles of his face. Even before he answered, the Sekoi crouched slowly in despair.

“I know you blame me.” Galen’s voice was raw with pain. “I blame myself. I pushed him too hard. It was too soon, and I should have seen that. I’ve always pushed him hard, because I’ve never known from day to day whether I would still be alive at nightfall, and someone has to carry on, to keep the secrets of the Order. He was afraid, and I ignored it. When he failed I said things I will never forgive myself for.” He turned the beads, running them gently through his fingers. “I must pay for that. And if I could, God knows I’d look for him over the whole planet if I had to. But I made the oath by everything I hold most sacred, and it binds me.” He looked up. “My friend, I know you find our ways strange . . .”