GUNDARON THE SCHOLAR chewed the side of his thumb, hovering just down from where his room’s corridor met the wider passage leading to the great hall. He checked for the third time that he’d wiped all the powdered sugar off the scroll of the first act of Bartyn’s Maid of the Forest. When he’d finally found it, it had been behind his copy of the eighteenth book of the Hahrgis, under a plate of jellied sweets. He cleared his throat, as a little finger of guilt scratched at the back of his mind. Good thing his old tutor hadn’t seen that. Gundaron had never been tidy by nature, and in the two years since he’d left Valdomar, some of the Library’s meticulous discipline had faded. He was still careful with his books-mostly, he thought as he brushed at the scroll again-kept his ink pots and pens clean, even if the cats did play with them. But a plate of jellied sweets on the worktable, that would never have been allowed in Valdomar.
Voices. Gundaron straightened his tunic with a tug, tucked the scroll under his left arm, and walked casually toward the main passage. Caids, he cursed under his breath. There were three women coming toward him, not one. The two in front, bodices laced fashionably tight, sleeves uselessly long, were the Tenebroso’s youngest great-nieces, Nor-eNor and her sister Kyn-oKyn. Even here in the House they followed the latest fashion of carrying dainty handkerchiefs in the Tenebro colors, rather than showing those colors in their clothing. He’d known someone would be coming with Lady Mar, but he’d assumed it would be one of the lady pages, not these two giggling fools.
He inclined his head, as courtesy required, his lips parted, ready to return their greeting-then felt his ears blaze hot as they passed him with identical curled lips and heads turned away. Until yesterday they had at least acknowledged him, so that snub was not so much for his benefit as it was for the newest member of the House walking slowly behind her distant cousins-but not so far behind that she’d missed the little scene, worst luck. Mar-eMar wore a good gown made of fine wool, but even Gundaron could see that the sleeves were last year’s length. Instead of a laced bodice, Mar-eMar wore a tunic like an elderly woman would. A teal-and-black tunic with a thin red stripe on its half-sleeves, no dainty handkerchief for her. He wondered if she realized the clothing the gigglers had picked out for her was hopelessly out of date.
From the whiteness of her face, and the sharpness of the two dots of color on her cheeks, Gundaron suspected that she knew. He swallowed, all doubts suddenly gone.
“Uh, hello, Lady Mar,” he said, stepping forward. As he’d hoped, she stopped, hesitant, her eyes flicking forward to the backs of the two sisters who were leaving her behind. When she turned to look at him, however, Mar-eMar’s gaze was steady. Her hair was the exact shade of the rich brown velvety moss that grew in the Tenebroso’s rock garden, and her eyes were so deep a blue as to be almost black.
“Yes?”
Gundaron blinked. He cleared his throat again. “I am, ah, I’m Gundaron the Scholar. Gundaron of Valdomar.”
“Mar-eMar Tenebro,” she said inclining her head in a short nod. Gundaron thought she might have relaxed just a little.
“I was wondering-I thought-that is, can you read?”
Instantly, the red spots on her cheeks stood out like paint, and a muscle jerked in the side of her jaw as she clenched her teeth.
“Yes,” she hissed, barely moving her lips.
“Oh,” he said, in sudden understanding. “No. That’s not what I meant at all. I only meant to ask if you’d like something to read.” He held out the scroll he’d had under his left arm. “It’s a play, Bartyn’s Maid of the Forest.” When she didn’t move he said. “I have others, if you don’t like Bartyn.”
“A play? To read?” Suddenly her eyes seemed even darker, and she lowered them, looking away from him.
Gundaron swallowed, his throat suddenly thick, and held out the scroll. She took it without looking up again. “Thank you.” If he hadn’t been watching her lips so closely, he would never have known she’d spoken.
“You’re welcome,” he said. He held out his hand, indicating the direction of the great hall. “Shall we…?”
He’d get up early tomorrow and clean up his room, he thought, as she fell into step next to him. He would. Or if not tomorrow, the next day, for certain.
Mar began to think that the meal was never going to end. She’d been seated between her two girl cousins, undoubtedly by someone who thought she’d welcome companions of her own age-and who didn’t know Nor and Kyn very well. They’d come to her room, speaking to her with every evidence of courtesy which, thanks to Parno Lionsmane’s tutoring, she was able to return in kind. As soon as they’d dismissed the lady page who’d been waiting when Mar arrived in her room, however, and seen how few and how poor Mar’s possessions were, their remarks had taken on a different, sharper tone, and Mar began to realize that they were laughing at her. Mar wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of either crying or losing her temper, however. She thought about how little Jarla, the youngest of the Weavers’ daughters in Navra, would have acted if she were in this room, and pasted a smile on her face, made her eyes as wide as possible and cooed over everything the sisters said.
Strangely, watching them snub the Scholar Gundaron had made them less intimidating, not more. There was obviously nothing personal in their attitude toward her; they were snobs pure and simple, and working in the household of the best Weaver in Navra had taught Mar how to deal with those.
Under the guise of moving her goblet of watered wine, Mar managed to look down the table to where the Scholar sat, holding his fork very gracefully in his strong fingers. He was very fair, even his eyebrows showing almost white on his square face, and his eyes were a warm light brown. And obviously he hadn’t let the sisters’ treatment turn him into a snob and bully in his turn. Mar touched the scroll in the wide pocket of her gown. Perhaps, once she had read it, the Scholar would like to hear about her experiences with Dhulyn Wolfshead, who was also a Scholar, in her way.
There were others in the House besides Gundaron of Valdomar who were not of the same mind as Nor and Kyn. When she’d first come into the hall, Mar had looked around the table and found other intelligent and friendly faces. A young man whose golden hair reminded her of Parno Lionsmane had come to her before he sat down and introduced himself as Dal-eDal. But both he and the lady seated next to him, an older woman named Lan-eLan, were too far away for conversation. Gundaron was seated closer, and seemed to be looking at her every time she glanced his way, but he only smiled, blushed, and lowered his eyes. Eventually, he was taken up with the Kir, Lok-iKol, and didn’t glance her way anymore.
Mar forced herself to eat, taking small bites as the Lionsmane had instructed her, not that she could actually taste anything. The last time she’d felt this out of place she’d been six years old, her first meal at the Weavers after her Holding had disintegrated following the fire and the sickness, after the three months she’d spent at the Jaldean Shrine while they found her a foster family.
Where were you people then? Mar thought with a shock that made her put down her fork. Surely the Jaldean priests would have sent word to her House? They’d known who she was; it was one of the reasons it had been easy to foster her. But why hadn’t her House sent for her then?
“Sweetest, you don’t use a fork for this dessert.” Kyn-oKyn’s tinkly voice broke into Mar’s thoughts. “You use this special spoon.”
“Pardon me?” Mar turned to her left, making sure the edge of her napkin caught the plate of custard and cream that had just been put down in front of her, and tipped it neatly into Kyn’s lap.
“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry,” Mar said, as Kyn squealed and pages ran up with cloths. “How clumsy of me.”
Gundaron looked up with dismay when the commotion at Mar-eMar’s end of the table drew the attention of everyone seated, even the Tenebroso herself. Worse, from Gun’s point of view, Lok-iKol was now looking at the Lady Mar as well. Gun had been hoping that the Kir had forgotten all about this little cousin, now that they had the far more important Mercenary woman in their hands.
“She has the bowl,” Lok-iKol said, when the servants had finished serving the dessert, his eye still fixed on Mar-eMar. “So the pages tell me.”
“Oh, the bowl in itself proves nothing,” Gun said as casually as he could. He and the Kir had had many conversations like this one-Caids, how many? he thought with a sudden and unexpected twist of nausea in his guts as he pushed the thought away-and he hoped he sounded just as objective and disinterested this time. Most of the Marked that he’d located for Lok-iKol over the past eighteen moons or so had been older, some much older than the Lady Mar. But they probably had families, too. Gundaron let his eyes fall again to his plate, pretending interest in the dessert as his stomach churned. That thought felt familiar, as if he’d had it often, but… he couldn’t remember thinking it before.
“There’s no doubt she’s the right girl,” Lok-iKol was saying, stroking his eye patch with his fingertips. Gundaron came to with a start, realizing with some shock that Lok-iKol was standing. He rose with as little fuss as he could manage. Fortunately, he was on the man’s blind side, and with any luck his lapse of attention would go unnoticed.
“She’s the very image of her grandmother,” Lok-iKol continued. “I remember the wedding very well. The Tenebroso had us all attend, even though she was only marrying…”
Gundaron waited a moment for the man to finish before he finally gathered his nerve and looked Lok-iKol in the face. What he saw almost made him look away again, but his scholarly habit of investigation was stronger than his fear. The Kir’s lower lip had fallen slack, and all the muscles of his face drooped. Only the scarred skin around his left eye was still stiff.
“Lord Kir?” Gundaron put up a hesitant hand; Lok-iKol much preferred not to be touched uninvited. Gun let his hand fall back to his side; he could see that, for all the slackness of the face and mouth, the Kir’s eye was sharp and clear.
And focused on Mar.
What does he see? Gundaron thought, that makes him look like this?
As if Lok-iKol could hear his thoughts, the man turned, oh so slowly, to focus his attention on Gundaron himself. In the slackness of his face Lok-iKol’s right eye was unnaturally bright, almost as though the man had a fever, and Gundaron could swear that instead of a clear blue, the eye glowed a brilliant jade green. Gundaron parted dry lips, about to call for a page, certain the Kir was having a brain storm. Then the green tint passed, the muscles in Lok-iKol’s face returned to normal, and his eye restored to its natural icy blue.
“You were saying?”
Gundaron cleared his throat, throwing a glance around the room. No one else seemed to have noticed anything; everyone’s attention was still at the other end of the table, where Nor-eNor had suddenly burst into tears. “I think it unlikely the Lady Mar will give us any interesting information,” he said, using the euphemism that allowed them to discuss their work in public. “Situated as she was, she would have had great difficulties in hiding it.”
“Nor, in Navra, would she have had reason to, I agree,” Lok-iKol said. “In any case, we need be in no hurry where Mar-eMar is concerned. We can examine her at our leisure.”
Gundaron nodded slowly, unable to explain, even to himself, his reluctance to let Mar-eMar be questioned by Lok-iKol and the Jaldean Beslyn-Tor the way other suspected Marked had been questioned. He looked down the table again and saw her bow to her cousins and walk up the other side of the long table to pay her respects to the Tenebroso before leaving the room. He’d have to think of something. Gun stepped back to allow the Lord Dal-eDal to pass between him and the table.
Of course the interrogation of the Mercenary woman would take some time, Gun considered, as he and Lok-iKol followed Lord Dal from the room. And the longer it took, the more time Gun would have to come up with a plan to help Mar-eMar.
When she awoke, Dhulyn Wolfshead found herself sitting in a heavy carved chair, its knobby, uneven surface tight against her spine. There was a strap around her forehead-though it didn’t seem attached to anything-and someone had tied her arms down at elbows and wrists, her legs at knees and ankles. Not entirely amateurs, then.
Ignoring the throbbing in the back of her head, she tensed first the muscles of her forearms and wrists, then her calves and ankles, without receiving any encouragement. Her bonds were loose enough to let her blood flow, but tight enough to restrict her movements. For certain, not amateurs.
She could tell from the sounds of breathing that there was only one person in the room with her, and that it was not Parno Lionsmane. She let her eyes open the merest fraction.
Standing with his hand on a table a span in front of her was a fair-haired young man in a mixture of Scholar’s and nobleman’s dress, a short dark blue tunic over black hose instead of brown leggings, heeled shoes instead of leather half boots, and a bright enameled brooch where his Library crest should be. Dhulyn let her eyes open another fraction. The hand she could see looked soft and dirty, his tunic was too tight over his middle, and there was an incipient puffiness to his face. There were Shora for Scholars, too, Dhulyn knew, slow motion versions of the Mercenary Shora, designed for use by Scholars as exercise. From the look of him, the young man in front of her hadn’t practiced any for some time.
The sound of the door latch was followed by booted footsteps moving from wood to carpet, but Dhulyn couldn’t see who had entered the room without turning her head.
“My lord Kir, I found her like this.”
“As well you did not release her, the order was mine.” It was indeed the silky voice she remembered from the Tenebroso’s room. She should have known; only the Kir of the House could order two Mercenaries detained.
“I don’t understand…”
“Did you think that a Mercenary Brother would simply answer our questions because we asked them? Ah, your face tells me that you did. Very well. If you find that, after all, this worries you too greatly, you may leave.” Even her limited view showed Dhulyn the boy’s negative response. “I thought not. Shall we begin?”
The Scholar moved directly in front of her, leaning forward and peering into her face. Dhulyn opened her eyes. Behind him, the Kir Lok-iKol was sitting with one hip braced on the wooden table; from the look of its heavily carved legs it must be the match of her own chair. She smiled her wolf’s smile and the boy edged away from her. He licked his lips and lowered his eyelids.
“The One-eye’s name I know,” she said to him, “but not yours.”
The young man’s mouth twisted. He shot a glance at the Kir, but the older man had picked up a goblet from the dark wooden table and was drinking from it. His single eye regarded them over the silver rim of the cup. The Scholar looked back at Dhulyn. His mouth opened and the tip of his tongue sneaked out to poke at his upper lip.
“I am Gundaron,” he almost whispered. “From the Scholars’ Library of Valdomar.”
“I greet you, Scholar Gundaron,” she whispered back. “You are very soft and very puffy and the whites of your eyes are dull,” Dhulyn said with the greatest innocence and truth. “Are you sure you are of the House of Scholars?”
She grinned when the boy straightened quickly to attention and tightened his lips. He opened his mouth and shut it again. His tongue licked again at his parted lips.
“Best you let me go,” she said in her steadiest voice. “Are you certain what you want from me is worth the risk you take?”
The young Scholar shot a quick glance at the Kir. “Are you one of the Espadryn?” he asked her. “Can you see the future?”
Dhulyn drew back her head and knitted her brows, giving him her best confused look to cover the cold sinking of her stomach. It wasn’t all that difficult.
“My name is Dhulyn Wolfshead,” she said. “I’m called the Scholar.
I was schooled by Dorian of the River, the Black Traveler. I have fought with my Brothers at the battles of Sadron, of Arcosa, and Bhexyllia. Parno Lionsmane is my Partner-and where is he by the way?”
Again, the boy glanced over his shoulder at the Kir.
“For the moment safe,” the One-eye said, “though if you do not answer our questions, I may be forced to injure him. Or worse.”
Dhulyn didn’t bother to stifle her snort of laughter.
“We’re Mercenaries, you blooded fool. We already know we’re going to die. Kill us, don’t kill us.” She shrugged as well as she could with her arms bound to the chair. “Save your threats for someone you can frighten. Here’s a threat for you.” She paused to give the word weight. “Pasillon.”
One-eye didn’t react, but the young Scholar paled even more, and his lips trembled. “Get book boy here to explain it to you.”
The Scholar turned to face the one-eyed man.
“My lord Kir,” he said. But One-eye didn’t even blink. In fact, Dhulyn thought he might have smiled, just for an instant.
“Pasillon is an empty threat, Scholar. The world has changed and no one will come for her, any more than they came for the others.”
Others? Dhulyn pressed her lips tight. He had done this to other Brothers? Or just other captives? One-eye directed his words to the young Scholar, but his gaze never left Dhulyn’s face. “This one and her companion were seen leaving Gotterang by the north gate. Their Brothers will think that, having been paid for the delivery of the Lady Mar-eMar, they have gone vagabonding.”
Dhulyn kept her face impassive. One man, at least, would know exactly where they were, would not be fooled by any stories of the North gate, no matter how well witnessed. But was Alkoryn Pantherclaw likely to knock at the House Door and ask the Steward of Walls for his missing Brothers in time to do them any good? And if they were asking about her Mark, it wasn’t just their lives at stake here, and these people might, in fact, be able to do much worse than merely kill her.
“If she will not answer the easy way, then we must try the hard.” Lok-iKol stood and revealed a tray of small bottles with waxed stoppers and an apparatus in the shape of a glass funnel with a long, curving spout.
The Scholar’s eyes widened. “My lord, you can’t-”
“I have said you may leave, Scholar. Though I understood that this time, at least, you had questions of your own.”
The boy licked his lips again, looked at the door, looked at Dhulyn’s face. There was an armless chair next to the table. As if against his will, he sat down.
The One-eye picked up the funnel and edged around her chair. Dhulyn heard a sharp metallic click, and felt a pressure on the strap around her forehead, increasing as her head was pulled back and down until her throat was exposed, her mouth sagging open, and she could see behind her to where he stood at the mechanism, part crank, part ratchet, to which the strap around her head was attached.
“I advise you to relax,” the silken voice said. “I am going to use this tube to deliver some liquid into your stomach. If you struggle, I may miss and get your lungs instead. I advise you to be still.”
Briefly, Dhulyn considered struggling anyway, but with her head in this position, she couldn’t even keep her teeth clenched tight. It wouldn’t be poison-there were faster and easier ways to kill her, if that’s all they wanted. While she still lived, she could get out of this- or Parno could get her out. She closed her eyes, made all her muscles relax, and tried to concentrate on what she’d told Mar about the sword swallower.
Parno always woke up instantly alert. Which was a very lucky thing for the hazel-eyed woman inspecting the binding on his right arm. The heel of Parno’s left hand stopped just inches away from the bridge of her nose. The hazel-eyed woman, her hands still on Parno’s arm, never moved.
“My Brother, I greet you,” she said formally. “I am Fanryn Bloodhand. Called the Knife. Schooled by Bettrian Skyborn, the Seeker. I have fought with my Brothers in the north, at Khudren and at Rendia. I fight with my Brother, Thionan Hawkmoon. The smaller arm bone is cracked, my Brother. Careful how you move it.”
“I am Parno Lionsmane,” Parno said. His voice came out in a stiff croak and he cleared his throat. “Called Chanter. Schooled by Nerysa of Tourin, the Warhammer. I have fought with my Brother Dhulyn Wolfshead at Arcosa and Bhexyllia. Is she with us?” He knew she couldn’t be. If she were in this cell, Dhulyn would be in his line of sight. But he had to ask.
“I’m afraid not, Brother,” Fanryn said. “With us is my Partner, Thionan Hawkmoon. Also Hernyn Greystone. But the one called Dhulyn the Scholar was not brought here.”
Parno nodded. “We’ll take it that she lives, then.” Mercenary lore always said one Partner would know if the other died, but Parno wasn’t sure he believed it. “How long?” he asked.
“A day and most of the second,” Fanryn said. “I thought you might wake up when I first bound your arm, but I had no such luck.”
Parno began the slow process of sitting up. Bruises and abused muscles had stiffened as he slept. When she saw that he was determined, Fanryn slipped an arm behind him and helped him settle his aching arm in a sling she had ready, evidently torn from her own tunic. He looked around him. Fanryn sat back on her heels, her Partner Thionan hovering over her shoulder. At a guess they were close to his own age. Both women were tall, though not so tall as Dhulyn, both with the catlike grace that comes of good training and better muscles. They might have been sisters, except for their coloring. Fanryn was as golden blond as Parno himself, while Thionan had green eyes and hair close to black. Even so, Parno had known of parents who had produced such disparate offspring.
The third Brother, Hernyn Greystone, was by far the youngest. A lanky boy with mousy brown hair, and a black eye that discolored most of the left side of his face. There was another pallet against the far wall of their prison, but the young Brother sat on the floor with his back to the wall, his arms wrapped around his knees.
The room itself was cool, the walls dry, made of large blocks of undressed stone. What debris there was was surprisingly clean, scraps of straw and chips of wood, as from packing cases roughly opened. Whatever this room had been originally-and the heavy door with the small barred opening suggested a cell-its most recent use appeared to have been as a storage room.
“Well, I’ve been in worse places,” Parno said, grateful for the steadying arm of Fanryn the Knife.
“All this is due to me.” Young Hernyn Greystone lifted his head off his knees.Thionan Hawkmoon shut her eyes and made an impatient sound with her tongue.
“You are here through my fault, my Brother,” the young man continued in the slightly righteous tone of someone determined to speak the truth, come what may. “You and the Wolfshead. They asked if I knew of a Brother, a tall woman with blood-colored hair. I knew of her, schooled by Dorian of the River as I was myself. So I gave them her name.”
Parno winced as he leaned forward. “Who are ‘they’? Who asked you these things?”
“Some of the guards here,” Hernyn said. “I thought them just curious. I meant no harm.”
Thionan made her impatient sound again. “There is always harm in flapping the tongue. I’m surprised you didn’t learn that with Dorian.” Her voice was unexpectedly deep and rough.
“Have done, Thio,” Fanryn said. Parno could tell they had tossed this bone back and forth many times already. “Anyone could go to our House and get the same answer. What harm could there be in repeating common knowledge?”
“I should have thought the answer self-evident.” Thionan spread her hands out to take in the walls around them. She shook her head and stalked all of three strides across their cell to seat herself on the other cot.
“Wait, wait,” Parno said. He tried to pat the air in front of him in a “calm down” motion, hissed in his breath, and bit down on a grunt. Hernyn buried his face again. Thionan stood up once more but was waved off by her Partner.
“Sit still, my Brother,” Fanryn said. “I’ll have to bind that more tightly. Ask all the questions you wish, but for the Caids’ sake, sit still.” Fanryn folded Parno’s arm delicately across his stomach and began to tie it in place with strips of the same heavy cloth she’d used as the sling. The immobility of his arm made him more uncomfortable than the pain, but he did not protest. Mercenaries made the best surgeons, for obvious reasons, and he was not fool enough to argue.
“Perhaps you might start at the beginning,” he said. “I know, more or less, how I got here, if not why. What are your stories?”
“Simple enough,” Thionan said. “Straightforward guard detail. The Tenebros lost a few guards on caravan last fall. I think the Cloud People, wasn’t it?” She waited for her Partner’s nod before continuing. “Anyway, it’s hard to get good men in the city. If you’re in the country now, that’s different. You just promote some of your yeoman’s children, your farm boys who don’t care too much for farming, and there’s your new recruit. But here in the city-well, there aren’t so many extra pairs of hands here. The children of House servants rarely make good guards, even if they’re willing, and as for hiring outsiders-the questions come up, don’t they? ‘Why did you leave your last place of employment?’ People looking for a change aren’t the kind you want guarding your walls. And it’s too blooded dangerous to take some one else’s castoffs.”
“So they hire Mercenaries,” Parno said. There was nothing new for him in what Thionan was saying. Let her talk, he told himself. Let’s get comfortable with one another. He knew from the battles they’d fought in that he was the Senior Brother present-though that would change when they found Dhulyn-let Thionan give him her report. They would all feel better for a little ordinary discipline.
“So they hire Mercenaries,” Thionan agreed. “Specifically myself, my Partner and, not many moons ago, our Brother Hernyn here.”
“When did they ask about Dhulyn Wolfshead?”
Fanryn tied off the last strip of cloth and eased Parno back against the cold stone wall.
“They never asked me,” Thionan said.
“Or me,” Fanryn echoed. “Though, I daresay, we might either of us have answered. In our Brotherhood, your names are well known.”
“Aye, you’re probably right,” Thionan conceded with a shrug. “After all,” she added with a neutral look at Hernyn, “what harm?”
Hernyn shrugged and bit his lip. Parno sighed. They didn’t have time for the boy’s self-pity.
“Come on, man,” Parno said. “We’re all of us alive and, if we keep our heads, alive’s how we’ll stay. So snap out it, you sniveling brat!” Parno’s sudden roar popped the boy’s head up so fast he cracked it against the wall behind him. “We’re a council of war here. Stop wringing your hands and come be of some use.”
The boy looked at the faces looking at him. Thionan patted the cot beside her. Slowly, with a shy bewilderment, Hernyn rose to his feet and sat down with his Brothers. He gave a sharp nod and squared his shoulders.
“We were on watch one night,” he began. “Myself and two others of the guard.”
“Which ones?” Fanryn asked.
“The tall dark one with the broken nose, Rofrin, and Neslyn the Fair. Anyway, they were asking about how we live, the Brotherhood. Whether we marry and have children. Neslyn had just spoken for the son of the Steward of Keys, so there was much talk of such things. Everyone thought it would make a fine match-”
“When was this?” Parno said. Best to keep the boy to the point.
“Just over a moon ago,” Fanryn said.
“So they were asking about Mercenary customs,” the boy continued. “And I tried to explain about Partners.” Here he looked at the two women. “How it really isn’t a marriage, the way outsiders think, but that it’s a kind of… of…”
“Never mind, Hernyn,” Fanryn said, smiling. “We all know what it is.” Small wonder outsiders had difficulty understanding Partnering, her glance at Parno and Thionan seemed to say, if even Brothers got tongue-tied and embarrassed trying to explain it.
“And so they asked about famous Brothers, and did I know any and I told them who I’d been Schooled by, Dorian of the River, the Black Traveler, because everyone’s heard of him. And I told them about some of the Brothers Dorian’s Schooled, Samlind the Nightbird and Pakina Swifthorse, that I thought they might’ve heard of. And they asked me if I knew a Mercenary they had heard about, and Rofrin described Dhulyn Wolfshead.”
“They didn’t know her name?”
“No, but they described her pretty well, even the scar on her lip. But it was the coloring and the build that they knew best. Tall as a man, they said, very lean, fair skin, gray eyes, blood-colored hair. Good with horses, used maybe a sword, maybe an ax. And I knew her, how could I not, with both of us Schooled in the same place, by the same hand? I told them her name.” Parno could hear in Hernyn’s voice how flattered the boy had been by their interest, how proud to know someone, even in so indirect a way, who was known to them. Borrowing a little glory from his better-known Brothers.
“So they were looking for her, for Dhulyn Wolfshead? Her, particularly?” Thionan asked, breaking the silence before it could grow awkward.
Parno shook his head slowly. “Barring the scar, they might have been looking for anyone like her, anyone of her Clan-though from what she tells me, the Espadryn are no more. Just our bad luck that she was the one they found.”
“But what is it they want her for?” Fanryn asked.
Parno looked his Brothers in the face. “I do not know,” he said, lying with the strictest truth.
Thionan slapped her knee and stood up. “I’ve gone and forgotten,” she said. “Here, we’ve saved some stew for you, against the time you woke up.” She reached under the cot and pulled out a flat clay bowl, with another bowl turned over on top of it. “Hernyn ate a portion first to be sure it wasn’t drugged.”
“Optimistic of you,” Parno said, his stomach rumbling.
Good stew it was, too. Plenty of meat, if rather over seasoned for his taste. He’d paid for and eaten much worse any number of times.
“If this is the kind of food they give prisoners,” he said aloud, “this must be a very prosperous House.”
“Long as we don’t take it as a sign they mean to let us live,” growled Thionan. Hernyn curled back into the corner of the cot.
“Relax,” Fanryn said when she noticed him. “It’s not what they’ve got planned will decide our fates, but what we let happen.” She turned back to Parno. “What will Dhulyn Wolfshead do, my Brother? It’s my guess they’ve kept her alone-otherwise why not keep us all together-and if I’m right, she’ll have no one to share the food.”
“She won’t eat,” he said.
“But she’ll have to drink,” Fanryn pointed out. “She can go a long time without food, most of us can. But she’ll die quickly without water.”
“So they’ll drug the water,” Parno said.
“And then?”
Parno shook his head slowly, mouth twisted to one side. “That depends.” He wished he felt more confident about what he was going to say. His Schooling had not included any drug Shora. “Dhulyn knows the Shora for the fressian drugs,” he said. Both the older Brothers looked up at this. Most Brothers chose not to learn those particular Shora. As well as being one more way to die in Schooling, it diminished any future enjoyment a person might obtain from drugs. “And the iocain, too; plus one other, I think,” Parno told them. “If they give her one of the drugs using those bases, Dhulyn will manage.”
“But how can they do this?” Hernyn burst out. “With Pasillon…” His voice trailed off under the steady looks of his Brothers.
“Pasillon was long ago,” Parno said. “There are no longer thousands of Brothers who would come to avenge us.”
“A better question is why do this,” Fanryn said.
Parno nodded, more in response to the tone than the words.
He’d have liked an answer to that same question, himself, if only to be sure that it wasn’t the thing he feared. But what else could it be? Since it wasn’t him isolated, it had to be Dhulyn they were after. He didn’t see how Lok-iKol could have found out, but he could easily see why such a man, a man with political ambition, would want a Seer, if he knew where to put his hands on one.
What else would be worth so much trouble and risk?
“Have you been out of the cell yet?” he asked, more in an attempt to change the path of his own thoughts than because it would be useful to know. When his companions did not answer right away, but exchanged looks out of the corners of their eyes, he feared he did not have to look far for more to worry him.
“Well…” Fanryn scratched her elbow. “We were taken unprepared.”
“Unprepared? How did that happen?” Parno kept his voice carefully neutral, though from the silence of the other three, he hadn’t quite managed to keep the censure from his tone.
Fanryn shrugged. “Have you never taken service in a House, Parno? Things can look a bit different, you know.”
“Different, indeed,” Parno agreed, “if it means you can end up in a cell without the means of freeing yourselves.” He shook his head. No point in being delicate about their feelings. If it came to that, he’d been caught himself. For years, he’d chafed under what he’d always thought to be Dhulyn’s unnecessarily strict discipline. After all, he’d been Schooled the same way she had; all Mercenaries were. The three Schools might have different philosophies, as befitted their Schoolers-the nomadic Dorian the Black, the mountain-bred Nerysa Warhammer, Bettrian Skyborn of the western plains-but the Shora were the same, as was the Common Rule. If this kind of slackness actually did exist-and three Brothers in a cell without lockpicks seemed to say it did-maybe Dhulyn Wolfshead was less fanatical than he’d thought.
“Hold, Brother,” Thionan said, her hands raised, palms out. “We know. ‘A lazy Mercenary is a dead Mercenary.’ Believe me, we know. That’s not a lesson any of us will have to learn again. But telling us what we should have done doesn’t get us out of this cell right now.”
Parno nodded. The woman was quite right. Recriminations didn’t solve problems. “How did you get taken, if you don’t mind the question?” They all three exchanged another look. “It might be useful for me to know,” he added.
“They put something in our food,” Hernyn said, glancing at the stew bowl Parno had scraped clean. “It was just after you and Dhulyn Wolfshead came in with the young woman, that same day. Wasn’t it?” He turned to the two women.
“It was,” Thionan said. “A day, no, two days ago now. It was at the midday meal. They managed it the only way they could have, they put the stuff in the common dish. For the Caids’ sake, Parno.” Something of what he felt must have appeared on his face. “We’ve been here fourteen moons. We work for these people. We thought we’d be safe enough if we ate from the same dish as all the rest.”
“They must have knocked out seven other people just to get us,” Fanryn pointed out.
“And to confuse things,” Parno spoke his thought aloud. “No one could tell where you had gone or why.”
“True,” said Thionan. “But according to the keeper who was talking to us before he was told to hold his tongue, one of the people at table with us didn’t get up. I don’t know what they used on us-Fan says something called cyantrine-but apparently they risked poisoning their own people, just to make sure they had us.”
“What else could they do?” Parno said. “You would have known we never came out.” All four Brothers looked at each other. The word Pasillon went unspoken, unneeded.
“You’ll get us out, though. Right, Parno?” Hernyn asked. Parno saw the boy had color in his face and had lost his hangdog expression. Though there was still something doglike and devoted in his eyes. At least he seemed to have taken Parno’s advice to heart, and was putting his indiscretions behind him.
“Don’t see why not,” Parno said. “But let’s not rush ourselves. Getting out of the cell is one thing-out of the House another. I can’t leave without my Partner, so my first concern is to find her. Are we agreed?”
Fanryn nodded. “You’re Senior, Parno, so even if we didn’t agree-”
“Which we do-” Thionan cut in.
“Wonderful,” Parno smiled back. “Help me get my boots off.”