The Warrior's Bond (Einarinn 4) (18 page)

“By the looks of that bruise, someone was out to break his head on the pillar.” The sergeant knelt to study Temar, whose repetitive mumbles had faded to faint whispers, eyes vacant.

“Don’t touch the dagger!” yelped Casuel when the chosen man drew a knife and carefully slit the back of Temar’s coat. He shut his mouth, horrified to hear shock forcing his words into a girlish squeal.

“Who’s this?” The sergeant glanced at the doorkeeper.

“Says he’s a wizard.” The doorkeeper gave Casuel a shake of unconscious emphasis. “Seems to know the lad.”

“Who’s he to you?” The sergeant carefully cut Temar’s shirt to reveal skin white beneath scarlet smears, blood pooled in the hollow of his spine.

Casuel swallowed hard on his nausea. “He’s my—my pupil. I am Casuel Devoir, mage of Hadrumal.” He wondered why that sounded so inadequate.

The sergeant peered beneath the fold of linen and wool held fast by the blade. “So this lad’s a wizard?”

Casuel tried to shake off the doorkeeper’s hand to no avail. “His name is Temar D’Alsennin, a guest of Messire D’Olbriot, recently arrived from Kellarin.” His indignant words carried through the rapt silence to the onlookers and a buzz of speculation took flight.

The sergeant gave Casuel a sharp look before getting to his feet. “Anyone with something useful to say, make yourselves known,” he shouted at the crowd. “Otherwise, be on your way before I call you to answer for blocking Tor Kanselin’s highway!”

This uncompromising declaration had people hurrying away immediately, scattering as a second detachment of armoured men arrived with a curtained litter carried shoulder high. A slightly built man with a shock of hair like grizzled sheep’s wool followed. His deeply lined face was jowled with age but his brown spotted hands were deft as he knelt to peel back the bloody cloth on Temar’s back.

“You have to staunch the blood!” insisted Casuel.

The surgeon ignored him. “Are you still with us, lad?” After a cursory examination of the wound he seemed far more concerned with the bruise still swelling at Temar’s temple.

“I hurt myself. How did I hurt myself?”

“Get him back to the barracks, quick as you like,” the surgeon said briskly. Casuel protested weakly as four well-muscled men lifted Temar to lay him gently in the padded litter. For all their care, Temar let out an agonised cry that broke into racking sobs. The surgeon tightened a strap to hold him secure before drawing the curtains close and nodding to the men to pick up the poles.

Hot distress blurred Casuel’s own vision. “Where are you taking him? I want him taken to the D’Olbriot residence, at once, do you hear? He’s a guest of Messire D’Olbriot, the Sieur himself! I want him informed, at once, and I want your names. Your Sieur will hear about this, I assure you.”

The wizard hurried after the litter, repeating himself in futile fury.

D’Olbriot Font Lane,

Summer Solstice Festival, First Day,

Evening

I hold a good collection of markers of one kind or another after twelve or more years spent in Messire’s service. Most of my duties in recent years have taken me away from Toremal but I’ve still got favours owed and small debts never repaid clear across the city. Spending this credit against redeeming Temar’s people seemed the best use I’d ever find for it, and as I walked up past the conduit house satisfaction with my afternoon’s work warmed me like the sinking sun at my back. There was a chosen man of Den Cotise I’d sparred with over the years; we’d shared a superior flagon of wine at the Popinjay inn down on the Graceway. Intrigued by the puzzle, he’d introduced me to a giddy under-dresser to the Demoiselles Tor Sylarre. Once we’d worked out which women of Den Rannion and Den Domesin had married into Tor Sylarre over the generations, we reckoned upwards of twenty artefacts could well be safe within that family’s jewel coffers.

I’d left word in a myriad other places that might bring back useful answers and had a double handful of chance remarks to follow up besides, so I was wondering whether to go out again that evening or to wait until morning as I began the long haul up the hill towards the residence. A tailor who’d been grateful to D’Olbriot since a troop of us sworn had stopped some chancers robbing his sewing room had introduced me to an elderly valet raised in Den Muret’s service. That Name had long faded into obscurity but the daughters of the House had married widely and well and with the help of the tailor’s ledgers, and the valet’s memory, we’d identified where. Better yet, the valet was now serving the newly nominated Sieur Den Turquand and pointed out several judicious marriages that had bolstered that Name’s rise. He reckoned the young Sieur would be delighted to ingratiate himself with D’Olbriot and Kellarin for the price of a few discarded antiquities.

Shadows beneath the fringed trees cloaked the road, oppressive rather than cooling, and a heaviness seemed to hang in the air. I looked up but saw no sign of the thunder in the deepening blue of the sky. Walking faster, I still found myself unable to shake a sense of foreboding.

It’s all very well Livak teasing me about feeling responsible for everything and anything, I thought, but Dast’s teeth, I’m the closest thing Temar has to family on this side of the ocean. Perhaps I should have stayed close at hand; something might have upset or confused him. After all, he was new to the city, and there are always a few young nobles we men-at-arms privately agree would improve after a thorough kicking round the back of some stable block some dark night.

Outright dismay hit me like a slap in the face when I saw the commotion outside the D’Olbriot gatehouse. Sentries who’d been idly displaying their crossbows to impress passing maidservants now stood stern-faced and vigilant. The vast travelling coach the elder ladies of the House used was being wheeled round from the stables, a full contingent of sworn men ringing it, swords drawn. As I ran towards them I drew my own blade, elbowing through the confusion as I saw a familiar face. “Stoll! What’s going on?”

Stolley was sworn long before me and chosen a few years since. One of Messire’s most effective sergeants-at-arms, he’s a well-muscled brawler whose ears still stick out like mill sails, even after the punishment they’ve taken over the years.

“Rysh, get over here!” He shoved a gawping vagabond aside, and raised swords admitted me within the ring of steel. I swung myself on to the running board of the carriage as the horses were whistled into a trot.

“Your boy’s been stabbed,” said Stolley shortly, jogging beside the carriage with the rest of the troop.

“D’Alsennin?” I looked down on him in disbelief. “At Tor Kanselin’s reception?”

“Dunno.” Stolley shrugged massive shoulders beneath a coat of plates. “Stabbed and needing the gentlest ride home, that’s all we’re told.”

“How bad?” I demanded, feeling a catch of apprehension in my throat.

“Rumour’s got him on the threshold to the Otherworld,” growled Stolley. “But then they’d be saying that if he’d grazed his knees.”

As soon as the coach reached the sweep of gravel inside Tor Kanselin’s gates, I jumped down. It was quieter inside the walls but the air still crackled with suppressed curiosity, little knots of wide-eyed servants speculating behind raised hands.

I sheathed my sword and kept walking, not about to add grist to the rumour mill before I had a few solid facts to chew on myself. A sentry nodded the D’Olbriot badge on my armring into the residence and I looked around the lofty hallway for someone who could tell me what had happened. The best I could come up with was Casuel, forlorn on a side chair, velvet coat and shirt ruffle in disarray, his wiry brown hair hanging lank at his temples.

He jumped up as soon as he saw me, eyes hollow with fear. “What’s happened to the boy?” Miserable uncertainty lengthened his face in place of the self-importance that habitually tightened his weak chin.

“That’s what I’m asking you.” I tried to restrain my anger.

“It wasn’t my fault,” stammered Casuel. “The fool insisted on walking back. He wouldn’t wait for a carriage. He wouldn’t stay close to me—”

The sharp click of a lady’s shoes turned my head to the marble stairs. Abandoning Casuel to his ineffectual self-justification, I hurried to meet the Demoiselle Tor Arrial with a perfunctory bow. “How is he?”

“Temar?” Avila tried for her usual terse manner but her heart wasn’t in it. “The morning will most assuredly bring him an aching head and a sore shoulder but a day or so in bed should see him well enough.” I gave her my arm and she leaned heavily on me.

“I thought he was dead.” Casuel struggled for a further response; the relief in his face would have been comical if the whole matter weren’t so serious. Then the mage’s knees gave way and he landed gracelessly on his chair.

“They said he was stabbed?” I enquired as gently as I could.

Avila rubbed her face with a hand that trembled in spite of herself. “Talagrin be praised, the blade went awry. It hit the shoulder blade.”

“I’ve been waiting for the courtesy of some word.” Casuel managed to look both woebegone and petulant.

I wasn’t about to waste time consoling Casuel’s imagined grievance. Anyone with a pennyweight of common sense would have gone looking for news.

“The head wound had me most concerned,” Avila continued, ‘but the House surgeon deems it none too serious.”

A sober-faced man coming down the stairs in his shirt sleeves, fastening cuffs that had rusty smears.

“Chosen Man Ryshad Tathel,” I introduced myself politely. “How’s Esquire D’Alsennin?”

“You’ll have seen worse on the training ground,” the surgeon sniffed. “He’d his wits knocked clean out of him, but that’ll pass, and the knife wound looked worse than it was.”

I nodded my understanding, relief closing my throat too tight for words.

Avila nodded. “A little blood goes a long way.”

“The Demoiselle here says there’s no crack in the skull, according to her arts,” continued the surgeon with a slightly wary look at Avila. I remembered with relief how healing was a major part of her Artifice.

“If he’d waited for a carriage, we’d have got home without mishap,” protested Casuel with a mildewed expression.

“You were with him?” The surgeon fixed the wizard with a look as sharp as his scalpels. “Proven Man Triss will need to speak to you.”

“This wasn’t my fault,” said Casuel hastily. “Why does he need to see me?”

The surgeon ignored him, turning to me. “Take him along to the barracks, will you? Esquire Camarl left word you were to talk to the Cohort Captain.”

Finding I could speak again, I looked at Avila. “I’ll be at your disposal when you wish to return to D’Olbriot’s residence, Demoiselle.”

“Go on,” she said a little wearily. “I will be with the Maitresse and Lady Channis.”

“Come on, Casuel.” I caught the visibly reluctant wizard by the elbow to urge him along.

“I wish people would stop doing that,” he exploded, shaking off my hand in sudden rage.

I grabbed him again and had him out of the residence with his feet barely touching the steps. “Stop behaving as if you’ve no interest in what’s going on!” I rounded on him. “You tell the guards whatever you saw and we might get some idea who did this. I want to know, even if you don’t!”

Casuel’s objections withered under my scorching glare but his back stayed rigid with protest as I escorted him to the barracks on the far side of the enclosure.

“Take a seat in the bower,” the sentry replied to my explanation of our arrival. “I’ll send word to Proven Triss.”

I nodded and turned on my heel, Casuel hurrying after, muttering crossly. Luckily for him he’d run out of indignation when we reached a vine-covered bower shading a ring of low benches. At least that meant my continued good reputation was safe because I couldn’t have stood much more of his nonsense without shutting his mouth with a fist.

With evening drawing on, cool, dark leaves swathed the little yard with moist, green fragrance. I sat and closed my eyes and forced myself to take slow, even breaths as the blood pulsed in my head. Noises from the stable yard over in the distance and from the crowd in the road just beyond the wall contrasted with the stillness within the empty bower.

It didn’t last. Casuel started talking again. “I want a runner sent to D’Olbriot, to the Sieur himself. Ryshad, I want paper and ink, do you hear? And sealing wax, at once. No, wait, Esquire Camarl must still be here? Yes, that’s it. I need to see him. No, you need to ask if he’ll see me. Ryshad? Are you listening? Esquire Camarl will vouch for me, won’t he? But what will the Sieur think? Why did that foolish boy go dragging the D’Olbriot Name into some needless turmoil?”

Just as I was thinking I’d better sit on my hands I heard boots falling in measured tread on the gravel.

“Good evening to you.” A scar-faced man with sharply receding hair stepped into the bower, face impassive as he bowed to the wizard and gave me a brief nod of acknowledgement. “I’m Oram Triss, proven man to Tor Kanselin and by the Emperor’s grace Captain of the House Cohort.”

I hoped Casuel knew enough to realise this was Tor Kanselin’s most senior soldier, the man who would answer to the Emperor if the Cohorts were ever summoned to fight a war for Tormalin. Judging by his strangled murmur, the wizard did.

“Raman Zelet, chosen man,” continued Triss, indicating his companion. The tall man had skin tanned a deep copper brown and I noted leather oil deeply ingrained around his fingernails as he set a lacquered tray on a broad stone trough planted with bright summer flowers. He poured wordlessly from a jug of water beaded with condensation and Triss handed Casuel a greenish glass. The wizard drank in hasty gulps, hand shaking to spill cold drops that spotted his shirt.

The proven man smiled reassurance at Casuel. “May I know your name?”

“Fair Festival to you.” Casuel cleared his throat with a creditable assumption of ease. “I am Casuel Devoir, mage of Hadrumal, at present envoy from Archmage Planir the Black to Messire Guliel D’Olbriot, Sieur of that House.” He brushed at the droplets bright on his shirt front but still spilled more water as he put his glass back on the tray.