The Windrose Chronicles 2 - The Silicon Mage (35 page)

Joanna and Antryg watched him as he ascended the long, steep ruin of the old stair to the weed-curtained pit rim above. After his black uniform had vanished against the mottled sky, Antryg stood for some time, head bowed, listening intently while the cold deepened and the wind moved his stained cloak and the gray tousle of his hair. Then he sighed and took Joanna's hand. Together they began again to search the blasted ruin of what had once been his home.

“He'll be here in a few hours,” Pella whispered.

“I know.” Caris started to rise. “His men were everywhere outside the house.”

Her hand on his bare shoulder drew him down again. The muted reflection of lantern light through the ladder hole in the floor snaked along the gilt braid of his coat sleeves, where the garment lay in a heap with Pella's plain brown riding dress. Here in the stable loft the warmth from the horses below collected, though the winds groaned outside; now and then they heard the muffled clunk of a hoof or the distant voices of the grooms cleaning tack at the far end of the stone-flagged passageway. But that was all. Kyssha dozed, Caris knew, like a dropped muff at the foot of the ladder. His arms locked more tightly around Pella's shoulders; for a time he said nothing, only breathed the thick smell of the hay and the cardamom scent of her hair.

He would have been able to keep his distance from her, he thought, as he had resolved to do, had he only met her in the house. Their situation was impossible, and he knew it. No matter how much he hated the thought—and the hatred of it filled his flesh like slow-burning gunpowder in a flash wound—she was and always would be Pharos' wife. He had no right to come between them, particularly when he himself was very likely to die in the fight against Suraklin. His frantic love did not want to let this girl go, but fairness and caring told him that it would be monstrous to complicate whatever she and her husband would have with the torment of might-have-beens.

But he had found her, wrapped in her many-caped tweed coachman's cloak, silently patrolling the perimeter of the house as they had done together, and all his resolutions had come apart like soaked tissue paper at the first hesitant joining of their hands.

At last he whispered, “We'd better go back to the house. If Pharos is coming this afternoon, Leynart has to be ahead of him. You know none of the Prince's men will keep him out.”

Pella nodded, but caught his hand as he moved to get up. She said softly, “I know. And I know we can't let Leynart succeed and unleash a plague, can't let Suraklin rule the country through Cerdic. It's all—the part of me that wants good rulership, the part of me that still wants to follow the Way of the Sasenna. But—there's a part of me that doesn't ever want anything but this.”

He brought her hand up to his lips. “Joanna's right,” he whispered. “These things have to be done one—one subroutine at a time.” As he had hoped, her friend's logic made Pella laugh. “Then we'll see.”

It was a lie, and he knew it. He knew now that there was no way he could go on living without her in his life.

But as they crossed the thin, hard snow toward the house, like a powdering of salt on the ground, he remembered the amber glint of Suraklin's eyes and knew also that there was very little likelihood that such a contingency would arise. And that, he thought, caught between his present bounding joy and the black emptiness of the future, was probably just as well.

The Regent's sasenna were in the house when Caris and Pella reached it, slipping quietly in through the kitchen quarters with Kyssha peering inquiringly from beneath the folds of Pella's capes. Caris said, “Is there a back stairs up to the state bedroom? Wearing this—” He touched his black-and-gold coat. “—was enough to get me close to the house, but if the captain gets a look at me, she'll know I'm not one of hers. It would only take one of the servants saying they saw me here with Antryg to destroy everything.”

Pella nodded and set Kyssha down, then led the way to one of the several narrow back stairs which allowed servants access to the principal apartments to unobtrusively remove the chamber pots of their betters. As they climbed the enclosed flight, Caris was aware of the subdued turmoil in the house all around them; servants scurried to prepare a meal up to the Regent's exacting standards, and sasenna prowled quietly through the halls. In the great state bedroom, the curtains had been drawn and a forest fire of candles lit. Against the old-fashioned, gilt-edged paneling of the walls, the bed hangings of bronze and pink looked like columns of flowers, the embroidered coverlet like an autumn meadow. Standing before that symbol of dynastic duties, Pella's cheeks reddened as if scalded. Shakily, she began, “Caris...”

He put his fingers to her lips. “Don't.” Then he took his hand away and put it behind his back, for the touch kindled in him an overwhelming desire to crush her in his arms, drag her to that imperial bed...

He looked away from her, confused and hating himself. Hesitantly, stammeringly, not sure that he should even be speaking the words aloud, lest he give them power, he went on, “It isn't that I don't want to help you, Pella. But I can't. I am—sasenna—or at least I was, before I went north. But my determination to follow the Way is leaving me—daily, hourly now, I can feel it going, dripping out of me like wine from a cracked cup. It used to be I could—could take a woman... And take her was all I'd do, and a woman was all she was. That's not the same with you. It shouldn't be this way—I shouldn't let it be this way—but it is. I should be out at the Citadel with Antryg and Joanna now, not here, trying to save you—trying to save Pharos...”

He was, he realized, asking for her help, as he had not asked help of anyone since he had taken his vows. It was not the Way to do so, not even in small things, physical things, let alone in things that truly mattered, things that were not supposed to matter...

Like an echo of his troubled thoughts, he saw Pella's training and her understanding in her eyes. “I know,” she said softly. “I'm sorry. If I'd been a true ruler or even a true sasennan, I'd have sent you away myself.” She smiled wryly across into his eyes, for they were nearly of a height; her black hair lay thick over the collar of her cloak, like coarse skeins of silk tangled with flecks of hay. Then abruptly she turned away, and preceded him out through the main door of the bedchamber, and into the darkness of the hall.

From the great stairwell, voices could be heard, muffled and distant from the front of the house, and the scurry of feet. A shadow was flung on the dark paneling of the walls—the hall lamps below had been kindled—and there was the quick creak of weight on the stairs. A servant's voice called, “My lady? His Grace's carriage is coming. Shall I send your maid up?”

In the reflected glow, Caris saw the girl's jaw tighten and put his hand on her shoulder. In a voice of forced calm she said, “I—I'd better get myself ready...” Her fingers strayed to her tousled hair, the rough tweed cloak still over her shoulders...

“We should get a guard in that room,” Caris said quietly, like her, hardening himself to speak of commonplaces. “Remember that it won't be enough to find the smallpox—rose. If Leynart touches it he'll be infected, and anyone he touches, according to Antryg. He has to be stopped the moment he enters the room, before he even opens the...”

At Pella's heels, Kyssha suddenly raised her pointed muzzle, her feathered ears snapping in the direction of the state bedchamber, and she let out a shrill bark. Pella's eyes and Caris' met for one instant. Then they were both striding back down the hall.

The first thing Caris saw when he flung open the chamber door was the great bed, its coverlet now turned welcomingly back, a red rose lying like a great gout of blood upon the pillows. The second was Leynart, standing beside the embroidered curtains, his speedwell-blue eyes enormous with startlement and alarm. Caris strode forward toward him, calling back to Pella, “Get the tongs and throw that thing on the fire!”

The boy gasped with horror. “No!” He snatched up the rose to his chest and dived across the bed a moment before Caris reached him, plunging into the dark rectangle of the back stairs door and slamming it shut behind him. Caris jerked on the hidden handle, but the door held fast.

At the same moment Pella said sharply, “Listen!” Caris heard the grinding crunch of carnage wheels on the drive outside. He swore, gave the handle one final yank, and nearly overset himself when the inner catch gave way; then he was racing down that dark inner stair, hearing the clatter of high, jeweled heels rattling around the narrow turns ahead of him.

He'd be making for the drive. Caris heard the slam of the door at the bottom of the stairs and swore again, called to mind in midrun that the door did in fact open out into the kitchen, tucked his head and his arm, and hurled himself straight off the steps at it with all the momentum he could summon.

The panels burst but the frame of the door held firm, entangling Caris in a splintery web of shards. Swearing, he managed to get his arm through and fumble free the latch that held it. Behind the heat of his anger at the fatuous Leynart, he felt cold dread, remembering the smallpox epidemic that had swept Innkitar during his first year of training there, the stench of smoke and corpses and the quicklime burial-pits at the streetcorners. Pella could be gotten out of here, but many others would die, either of the disease or of being forced to take to the roads in winter.

The clatter of Leynart's heels on the stone floors of the kitchen quarters led him on, and Caris ran lightly, dodging through the big house, knowing the boy was infected already and that he must touch him, must seize him...

He heard the boy cry out, “My lord!” like a sob, and burst through the green servants' door into the hall, where Pharos stood among his sasenna and his guards, tiny, glittering, an evil, jeweled doll. His head snapped around at the sound of Leynart's voice, and Caris saw Pellicida beside him, half a head taller, like a crumpled-looking hoyden in her tweed cloak and plain gown with her hair in black handfuls over her shoulders.

Leynart halted for an instant, the poisoned rose still in his hand, as sasenna closed in on Caris from both sides. As his arms were seized and his sword wrenched from his hand, Caris shouted, “My lord, don't let him near you!” and Pharos' pale eyes narrowed.

His mouth trembling, Leynart's eyes darted from Caris to Pella again. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?” He almost spat the words. “You'd like even to take my gifts away from him and most of all the gift of my heart, which he's always had...” High heels clicking on the polished floor, he walked forward, like a golden image in his buttercup coat, the rose in his hand. His childlike blue eyes were on Pharos. “Please, my lord, if you must send me away, at least take this, to remember me...”

“It's poisoned, Leynart,” said Pella quietly.

The boy stopped, his eyes slitting. “You're lying, you frumpy bitch.”

But she was sasennan now, not a girl uncertain of Court usages, and the insult slid off her without breaking her serene battle calm. “I wish it were a lie,” she said in her deep, husky voice, “because I don't want to see you hurt. But you were tricked. Cerdic was tricked. The rose is imbued with a spell to cause smallpox.”

There was a sharp stir, a murmur and a drawing back of Pharos' redclothed retainers. Pharos himself blanched and backed hastily toward the door.

“You believe her!” Leynart's eyes flooded with tears of rage. “You'd cast me off on her say so!” He whirled on Pella. “If it is you'll never live to have him!” he cried, and flung himself at the girl.

In the split second of confusion, Caris kicked the ankle of the man on his right, jabbing back with his elbow to break his balance, and whirled to snap kick his other captor in the gut. He shouted “NO!” and sprang at Leynart, hands reaching, knowing there was no way he could stop the boy.

In a single fluid movement, Pella had her heavy tweed cloak free of her shoulders and tossed it over Leynart's head. The boy let out a shriek of rage and clawed at the thick fabric as Pella stepped aside, holding a corner of the cloak to further entangle him; the next second Caris caught the muffled figure and foot-swept him to the floor. Leynart ceased struggling almost at once. Under the stifling layers of capes, Caris could feel the slim body shaken with sobs, through which the boy gasped, “Liars! Liars!”

From the safety of the door, the Regent said, “Take him away. Let him be confined in one of the best bedrooms...”

“I'd suggest the state bedroom, your Grace,” Pella said quietly. “It was where he put the rose originally for you to find.”

Other sasenna helped Leynart to his feet, taking care not to touch more than the entangling folds of Pella's cloak. The boy shook his head free, raven curls matted around his face, and tears of bitter frustration tracking the powder on his face with streaks of melting blue. As they led him to the door, he braced his feet and looked back at Pharos, who still hovered in the doorway behind his bodyguards. “My lord, if it's true, I knew nothing of it,” he choked. “I—I only wanted your love. You have to believe that.”

“If it is true,” Pharos said with unwonted gentleness, “I fear that the reason will not much matter, my Ley. If it was false...” His pale eyes slid sidelong to Pella close beside Caris. The calm of battle was wearing off her and embarrassment taking over; her brownish skin stained with a blotchy red blush. But she met the Regent's eyes squarely, a warrior, not a confused Princess trying to make herself something she was not.

After a long moment, Pharos asked, “Do you hate me, child?” He spoke as if there was no one else in the room.

“I don't know,” Pella said frankly. “You're the ruler and my husband... and generally, I don't hate people. Even if I did,” she added honestly, “I wouldn't say so in public.” Then she blushed even hotter, realizing the gaucherie of comparing her own manners with his.

But after a quick flicker of irritation, the Regent's sinful eyes smiled. “Then I shall take an opportunity to ask you the question in private, my little Princess.” And as he stepped forward to kiss her hand, Caris faded silently out of the room.