Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01] - D'Shai Read online

  “Why?”

  “Nobody knows why.” I toyed with the drawstrings of her robe, gently tugging at the knot. “It’s said that those on the road are under the protection of the Scion himself, but about that I don’t pretend to know either much or little.”

  “Were you very scared?” She toyed with my fingers for a moment, then tugged the knot open herself.

  “Never,” I said, pressing her back to the grass. “I knew I would come back to you.”

  “Kami Khuzud, do you always know just what to say?” Her arms slid around my neck.

  “Always.” I pulled her robe open. Beneath, her belly was smooth and white. I drew my finger across her skin upwards. Each small breast fit neatly in the palm of my hand, as always. “Always.”

  “Well,” I asked, perhaps a bit more exasperated than I should have been, “how did you sneak out?” I regretted the sound of that instantly, and shook my head in apology, sealing it with a quick kiss on her forehead.

  I pulled at the gate. It rattled, but it was still very definitely locked.

  “I just walked through the gate,” she said. “Truly, Kami Khuzud, I was careful to leave the bar latched up. Somebody must have dropped it.”

  That didn’t look good. I had hoped that NaRee’s parents would continue to turn their faces away from us. That was the best I could hope for. I would need their approval to court her openly, approval that would not be given to a peasant boy—but when you’re a peasant, even if only in theory, you learn that what matters is what happens, not whether or not others accept that it happens.

  But I gave NaRee an encouraging smile. “Walls wouldn’t keep me from you; they won’t keep me from walking you all the way home.”

  You don’t always need to see what you’re doing; I fixed the location of the bramblebush in my mind as I backed off, then ran at the wall.

  In midstep, I decided to show off; instead of just vaulting to the top, I’d do a handspring from the edge of the wall, and spring over. Besides, it would give me more room away from the bramblebush, and I didn’t fancy another close fall to it.

  I ran, and I leaped and sprang, catching the edge of the fence with my fingertips, but pulling my knees in toward my chest in a tuck as I straight-ened my arms, and sprang off the top of the fence, pulling myself over in a pike position as I looked for the landing spot I’d used before.

  I landed with a clatter and fell over, hard.

  Two rakes lay on the ground, each with a dozen finger-length iron tines pointing up, toward the sky.

  A chill washed up my back, and then back down. If I’d just vaulted over as I’d done that afternoon, I could easily have landed on the tines, crippling myself quite handily, instead of just tripping over the handles.

  Not everything that happens is a lesson of which Gray Khuzud would approve. Sometimes it pays to be a show-off, I guess.

  “That’s a silly way to leave tools,” I said, mainly to myself. “Somebody might get hurt.”

  Or perhaps that was the idea. No, that didn’t make any sense. I was reading too much into Rene’s look of naked hatred, that was all.

  Even assuming it was him, how would he know where to leave the rakes? That was easy: I had marked the spot with my earlier landing, and that was just where the rakes were.

  I would have to be more careful. I would have to be very careful.

  “Kami Khuzud? Are you hurt?” NaRee’s whisper was far too loud. My darling wasn’t all that good at sneaking around. Not enough practice, I supposed, at first irritated, then thankful. I didn’t want her getting a lot of practice sneaking around.

  I unhooked the gate, and let her in.

  “Your gardener is clumsy,” I said, collecting a quick kiss. “Good night, NaRee. Tomorrow evening?”

  “As long as we have, Kami Khuzud.”

  * * *

  5

  Sore Points

  HE JUMPED ME two blocks short of the Widow Rupon’s house.

  I hadn’t been paying attention—or rather, I had been paying attention, but not to the right things.

  What I had been doing was walking home alone, after. Something I was not unfamiliar with; it comes with the lack of territory, so to speak. I’ve walked home alone, after, many times.

  Above me, the night was full of winking stars, a silver crescent of moon high in the sky,- below, the street seemed a bit softer, easier beneath my feet than it had been before.

  It was late, well past the hour of the bear and into the hour of the lion, and the streets were quiet and empty, save for the whistling of the wind through the jimsum trees, the clicking of fidgetbugs in the eaves and gutters, and the far-off taroo of a hairy owl. I had passed a cloaked nightwatcher in Ironway, and had returned his. raised hand of greeting, but I hadn’t seen any of the other watchers, which wasn’t surprising. I doubt that there were more than a dozen in the whole town, and they would tend to patrol on the eastern side of the town, downwind, where smells of smoke would be blown toward their nostrils, rather than away.

  It was time for all D’Shai, good and bad, to be tucked safely in their beds asleep, and while troupers sleep late—very late, by peasant standards; peasants are up before the hour of the cock—I’d long ago learned that the hour of the hare does not wait for Kami Khuzud to finish with his dreams.

  Something whistled through the air behind me.

  I turned just in time to catch a glimpse of a stick or maybe a truncheon moving toward me, and ducked aside. He missed with the stick, but the back of his fist caught me high on the cheekbone, shattering the night into light and pain, and then the ground came up and slammed me in the back. The streets in Den Oroshtai are of cobbled stones—one of the larger ones caught me just over the kidney.

  He kicked me hard in the ribs a few times, and then in the pit of the stomach. My hands flailing uselessly, vainly, I folded over like a damp towel, so much in pain that I couldn’t even try to move out of the way of the foot that snapped my head back, exposing my neck for a final, fatal blow.

  It didn’t fall. I guess he couldn’t just do it; he had to work himself up to it.

  I knew that it was Refle who stood over me in the dark, a bulk I could more sense than see. It was him, I knew it was him, but he was dressed in the black hood and cape of an assassin; I couldn’t have even sworn that it was a man, much less Refle.

  I tried to gasp out something, but it was all I could do to groan.

  He kicked me here and there—I don’t remember the exact order; I was too busy to take extended notes.

  I do remember his finale, though: his eyes hidden in the folds of his hood and cape, he didn’t say anything; cleanly, neatly, balanced on one foot with an equilibrium I would have admired in other circumstances, he toed me in the testicles.

  I gagged, hunched over on my side, my stomach purging itself, although of what only the Powers knew.

  He lifted his foot again, then stopped, his head cocked to one side. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my own quiet groans and the red rush of pain in my head and ears, but I guess he heard something, because he raised a long gloved finger, as though in warning; then, balanced like an acrobat, he neatly spun and stalked off into the night, turning a corner and disappearing.

  Footsteps pounded on the stones behind me as I lay there, the taste of sour vomit filling my mouth, cupping myself, trying not to inhale as I retched again.

  “Who are you?”

  I groaned out an answer, but I guess I wasn’t quite coherent.

  “The acrobat boy, no?” he asked. Surprisingly gentle fingers pried at my shoulder, and at my side. “Kami Khuzud, is it not? I am Helden, the watcher. Lie still, Kami Khuzud—you likely have broken bones.”

  The watcher had a keen eye for the obvious.

  He cleared his throat as he knelt beside me, and raised his voice, a firm tenor piercing through the night, singing,

  “Chief of Nightwatch, you are now called,

  “A boy lies broken on Bankstreet,

  “Watcher H
elden bids you come now,

  “Let your steps be sure and fleet.”

  He cocked his head, listening, then nodding as the song was picked up far away, then was echoed, then quickly answered in a gritty baritone. “Good. He comes.” He shrugged out of his cloak, then slipped it under my head.

  “Rest a moment, Kami Khuzud, and prepare yourself. When you are ready to rise, I will help you.”

  There wasn’t much I could tell them.

  I knew who it was, of course, but I was hardly in a position to swear to anything except what I had seen, and what I had seen was enough to persuade me that I had been attacked by Refle. Still, making accusations against a noble isn’t a way for a peasant—even only a theoretical peasant—to guarantee himself a long life.

  So I was as circumspect as possible. Which wasn’t much; circumspection is one of the many things I’ve not picked up from my father.

  “—I know it was Lord Refle, you know it was Lord Refle, let us not turn our faces away from it.”

  “I look away from little, Eldest Son Acrobat,” the chief watcher said. “I do not waive warrants, as you will see if you swear one: if you produce it, I will present it.”

  A spasm of pain washed over me in a red wave. Enki Duzun, kneeling beside me, gripped me hard around the wrist until it passed.

  When I could speak again, my voice was ragged, frayed at the edges. “But I can not do that, Amused By Perching Redbird. I am sure of it, but I can not swear to it; the ordeal would probably kill me.”

  Chief Watcher Verniem Dar Hartren didn’t look like somebody who had been ever amused by anything, much less a redbird; I assumed it was his baby name, and not a changed one.

  He was a big man, almost as large and heavily muscled as Large Egda, but was both flabbier and somehow seemed tougher, meaner, which is not unusual for a firewatcher. I wouldn’t know for sure, but some say that more towns have been lost to accidental fires than wars have put to the torch. While the notion of armed peasants scandalizes lords of other domains, in Den Oroshtai the firewatch is both armed and allowed to do almost anything to almost anybody—bourgeois, middle class, (of course) peasant, and even a member of our beloved ruling class—to keep that from happening.

  Still, firewatchers are kept in their place. A watcher going for the challenge sword was always met by a true kazuh warrior, his kazuh fully upon him.

  “It might, at that.” He considered the matter for a moment, blunt fingers drumming against thick thigh. “Still, I’ve sent for the sorcerer; we shall see what he says.”

  The rest of the troupe gathered in the parlor, hair and clothing disarranged, eyes puffy from sleep.

  Sala, kneeling on a cushion near me, a flask of Scarlet Teardrops in her hands, had thrown her robe on too quickly: she had neglected a strategic tie, and the part of me that wasn’t preoccupied with aching and hurting and suffering was vaguely amused at the way both watchers tried to keep their gaze and minds on me and my injuries and off her and the way her right nipple tended to peek out when she sipped.

  Fhilt fluffed a pillow and adjusted it behind my head. “Such a careless idiot,” he said. “Wake us all up in the middle of the night.”

  I would have liked to hit him with a juggling stick. That was so typical of Fhilt, more irritated at being woken up than upset that a member of the troupe had been beaten.

  Sala sipped at her flask, then tucked it away in her robes. “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do about a fall,” she said. A typical Sala comment: true, but not at all relevant to what was going on.

  “He didn’t fall,” Fhilt said, not playing along. “I know you can’t pay attention to what’s happening in front of you, but he didn’t fall. Some misbegotten son of a pig mauled him.” His knuckles were white.

  Enki Duzun laid her hand on his arm. “Be still, Fhilt; don’t snap at Sala. Kami Khuzud will be well.”

  Large Egda sat apart from the rest, perched gingerly on the edge of a settee. He shook his head, his steak-sized hands gesturing aimlessly as though he wanted to reach out and help, but couldn’t. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking from the dull expression on his doughy face. Poor Egda; he didn’t know what to do.

  I forced a smile. “I’ll be fine, Egda,” I said.

  He just didn’t understand any of it. When you’re that large, you have to be either gentle or a warrior, and while Large Egda sometimes forgot his own strength, he was a mild man who didn’t understand violence.

  My father brought me another mug of hot urmon tea, the rough stone mug cradled in his thick hands. He brought it to my lips, accidentally splashing some of the hot tea on my chest. That surprised me, in two ways: first, because I’d never seen Gray Khuzud clumsy; second, because it hurt. I didn’t think I could hurt any more.

  I drank. It tasted like fur.

  “Have some more,” he said.

  “I’d rather have something stronger.”

  Sala, her every move as always a step in a dance, rose; she then knelt gently beside me, tucking the hem of her shiny silk robes around her knees and clucking sympathetically. She reached into the front of her robes and produced her slim, filigreed flask, which she put into my hand.

  “Easy it is, easy it is.” She gently bent my fingers around the flask. “It’s not a good idea, Kami Khuzud—so take only a small sip.”

  I thumbed back the silver crown and tilted the flask back. It was hot, and from more than her body. The heat washed the taste of blood and vomit from my throat, and set up a pleasant warm feeling in my middle.

  I could get accustomed to drinking a lot of Scarlet Teardrops. Quickly.

  There was a firm, peremptory rap on the front door. Fat Madame Rupon, still in her bulky nightdress, scurried away to open it. She returned, momentarily, with Lord Arefai—Lord Toshtai’s seventh son, a young scowler too far down in the line of succession ever to be the heir apparent—and Narantir, followed by two servitors, each gently carrying a man-sized burlap bag.

  Being woken in the middle of the night hadn’t had any visible effect on Lord Arefai, except perhaps to annoy him. His boots and tunic were of the same dark brown leather which contrasted properly with his blousy canvas pantaloons of just the correct creamy tan; his sword belt was pulled fashionably tight about his waist. His hair, black as his father’s, was pulled back in a finger-set queue, freshly oiled and tied; beneath his short-trimmed beard, his jaw clenched in irritation.

  “Well,” Arefai said, “what is all this?” His hand flicked the air, as though to brush it all away.

  “Lord,” Verniem Dar Hartren said, “it appears that young Kami Khuzud had been beaten by a brigand, mauled by a masked man.”

  “But that is forbidden!”

  “That doesn’t undo it, Lord Arefai.”

  Arefai could have taken that as insolence, but he was used to the chief watcher dealing in sober realism, I guess. He didn’t rear back and chop off the chief’s head, which is always a good sign.

  “I’m not used to Lord Toshtai’s laws being broken,” Arefai said.

  They chewed on that for a while, while Narantir stuck the end of his beard in his mouth and chewed on that—wizards have few social graces. I kept as patient as I could, waiting for them all to spit it out. It’s amazing how patient I can be when I’ve got a vial of Scarlet Teardrops pushing the pain away.

  I sipped at it again, and again, the warmth penetrating not only my middle, but my tired bones and mind.

  Narantir gave up first. “Interesting as this all is, would it offend Your Lordship to take this discussion to the other room while I examine the patient and mend his broken bones?”

  Arefai raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you simply move the peasant?”

  “Because, Lord,” Verniem Dar Hartren said, “the boy has broken bones.”

  The wizard looked at me as though he was unhappy that he hadn’t thought of moving me. I really didn’t like that much. Then again, I really didn’t like him much.

  “Of course, of course. We shall wait in the ki
tchen,” Arefai said, dismissing my fractures with exceptionally good grace. “All of you, out of the room. Let the wizard work,” he said, gesturing abstractly at the rest of the troupe. Everybody left except for Narantir, his two silent servitors, and Enki Duzun. I guess the young lord didn’t notice, or hadn’t meant her.

  Still in conversation with Verniem Dar Hartren, Arefai followed the rest out of the room.

  The wizard shook his head from side to side as, with grunts, groans and creaking of limbs, he knelt down next to me, taking my right wrist in his surprisingly gentle hands.

  He noted how I relaxed at his touch, then looked me in the eye.

  “We may not like each other, Eldest—Kami Khuzud, that is, but this is a matter of mahrir. True magic, not this zuhrir of yours. I know mahrir, if I may flatter myself.”

  Flatter yourself all you want, fat one. Just heal me. I didn’t say it; I’m not that stupid.

  “The Ten Pulses first.” He felt at both wrists, at three spots on my neck, both elbows and armpits, and finally—with a clinical detachment that prevented any embarrassment—at my groin.

  “Your pulses are adequate, although you really should see to your balance of forces, when you are up and about. Too much beef and butter in your diet, I suppose; I recommend carrots and whey. Clearly you have some broken bones. Let us see which ones.”

  I had the impression that he was becoming so involved in showing off that he was forgetting that he didn’t like me.

  That’s generally true about wizards, by the way: once you let them get going, it’s hard to turn them off.

  He gestured at the two servitors. The first opened his bag to reveal what appeared to be a complete skeleton, wired together like a graveyard marker. The second pulled out a similar skeleton, except that—

  “He’s in worse shape than I am.” It was a weak joke, but the best I could do at the moment.

  “That can be changed,” the wizard said. “For one thing, he’s dead. For another, each and every one of his two hundred and six bones is broken, each once; for yet another, I did the breaking—this won’t work for somebody else.”