PARNO WATCHED AS DHULYN carried two cups of steaming ganje back to their table close to the fire at the Hoofbeat Inn. No one could tell by looking at her face, or watching the smooth way she moved, that they’d been up most of the night, sneaking the Finders out of Navra by an old way Parno remembered. The Hoofbeat hadn’t changed much since he’d seen it last. There were a few more cracks in the dark ceramic tiles of the floor, and the small bricks making up the ceilings that arched between stubby pillars were more worn and crumbling than he recalled, but the pillars themselves, and the walls for that matter, were solid and had been recently whitewashed.
“Your friend the innkeeper has heard tell of something like it,” Dhulyn said, putting down the cups and sliding in next to him. “He says it’s happened a few times at Jaldean shrines, during meditations.” Dhulyn shrugged, and lifted her cup. Parno knew perfectly well what she thought of townsmen’s religious practices.
“Anyway, Linkon Grey tells me that this falling into a fit, this…” Dhulyn shivered, “whatever we want to call it, that’s where it’s happened before. Sometimes there are miracles, Healings and the like, and when that happens, the Jaldeans tell people they’ve touched the dreams of the Sleeping God.” She took a swallow of her ganje. “Most come out of the fits all right. Not all.”
“All that time in the Great King’s court I was wishing we were here, and now that we are, I’d give my best sword to be back with the Western Horde,” Parno said.
“Always supposing we’d be welcomed back.” The smile in Dhulyn’s voice matched the one on her lips as she threw him a sparkling glance. Parno grinned back at her.
“What was it you so carefully didn’t say, back there at the Finders?” she said, watching him over the rim of her cup. “When the wife asked was there a Jaldean in the crowd, you froze like a man caught in his neighbor’s bed.”
Parno’s throat closed like a fist, his smile melting away. He couldn’t tell her. She’d laugh at him. But she was his Partner. Who else could he tell? It would sit like a lump of poison in his gut if he didn’t tell someone.
“Spit it out, you blooded effete,” she advised him, her grin softening her words. “Stop trying to spare your dainty feelings.”
“While I was standing in the window with the second boy,” he began, his voice sharp as he pushed it past the tightness in his throat, “I had the oddest feeling of being watched.”
“Of course you were being watched.” Dhulyn’s blood-red brows made a small vee above her eyes.
He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Not like that, it was like… when you’re all alone in the woods, but you feel you’re not alone, and you look around and see nothing, but later you find a print and you know some beast’s been watching you.”
Dhulyn’s nod was slow. “There was no animal in with the mob-not that kind anyway.”
Parno shook his head. “I think it was that Jaldean New Believer. Or maybe, maybe something that was with him. I felt… there was something I couldn’t see. Something that seemed to comb through my mind and thoughts and I couldn’t stop it.” Parno took a sip of his ganje to cover the trembling of his lips. “It made me feel… unmanned.” He couldn’t look up.
“Well, that’s saying quite a lot.” Dhulyn looked at him with eyes widened in pretended innocence.
“Demons and perverts! I should have known I’d get no sympathy from you.”
“It isn’t sympathy you want, you blooded fool, and you know it.”
The tightness in his chest began to dissolve. “But you believe me?”
“It made you sweat to tell me,” she said, reaching behind her to rub the small of her back with her fist. “I don’t need any other proof. Of course I believe you.”
Parno nodded, taking a swallow of ganje to hide his relief. He’d expected her to laugh, really laugh that is, not just tease him. Showed you that you never knew what an Outlander would do or say. And that seven years of Partnership doesn’t always tell you everything about your Partner.
There was something else, something he’d better mention now, while he still could. “Did you see what color his eyes were?”
Dhulyn closed her own eyes a moment as she searched through the images of memory until she could light upon the one detail-
“Brown,” she said.
That matched what he thought himself. “They were green when he looked at me,” he told her. “Glowing green like slices of jade stone with the sun behind them.”
Dhulyn raised her cup to her lips, made a face when she found it empty. Parno signaled the waiter, waited quietly while their cups were refilled. Dhulyn suddenly sat up straight, her eyes narrowing.
“Did you feel like crying?” she said. “Or striking yourself?”
“Ah.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “You’re saying it was the Jaldean, all of it.” He picked up his fresh ganje and set it back down again without tasting it.
“Or whatever it was made his eyes glow green.” Dhulyn frowned, the fingers of her right hand braiding to form the sign against ill luck. “Some drug perhaps?”
“When did you See the fire?” he asked, using his nightwatch voice, soundless and almost breathless. When she raised her eyebrows at him without answering, he added, “You knew which alley to go down.”
She looked away and shifted in her seat. “This business with the Marked,” she began. “It makes no sense.”
Parno took a swallow from his cup. “You read too much poetry. This is all about power. The Jaldeans assert themselves at the expense of the Marked. When the Marked are gone, the Jaldeans fill the void.”
“Fill it with what? Promises and platitudes?”
“Fear and righteousness.”
“And meanwhile people die for want of Healers, starve for want of Finders, and go mad for want of Menders.”
“Not everyone, there’s few enough Marked that many don’t depend on them.”
“Not so many.” Dhulyn chewed on her upper lip. “Parno, my heart, remember that time you told the tavern dancer that I could See his future for him?”
“I remember what you called me,” Parno said, trying for a smile, “and what you told him about me. And I remember how sore I was in practice for the next few days.”
“I don’t think you’d better make that offer to anyone else.”
“I’d already thought of that.” Parno waited a minute before asking. “Did you See anything else?”
“Gotterang.” Her lips twisted as they named the capital of Imrion.
“No.”
Heads turned and a waiter hesitated on his way across the room. Parno lowered his voice again, shaking his head. “It’s back to the Catseye for us. Imrion is no longer the land of my childhood, nor even the land we left after Arcosa. Caids know, it’s not safe for you there.”
Dhulyn nodded, but so slowly Parno knew she was really saying no. “Ship’s gone,” she said. “Tide turned while we were with the Finders.” She looked up and gave him her wolf’s smile. “If any of the Marked are safe, it would be me. No one thinks to meet a genuine Seer, most people don’t even believe in them anymore. Besides, since when do we look for safety, my heart? We’re Mercenary Brothers.”
“I won’t lose you to the Jaldeans.” That was as plain as he could say it.
“And if I lose you?” Dhulyn set her cup down with a thump and looked her Partner in the eye, holding his gaze when he would have looked away. This was neither the time nor the place she would have chosen to speak on this subject, but surely she’d been silent long enough. Partnership was a life bond in the Mercenary Brotherhood. Or was meant to be.
“What do you mean?”
“A demon haunts you,” she said. “A demon from your childhood.” She waited two heartbeats, three, but Parno made no move to deny her words. “Shall I tell you how many times in the last year I’ve turned to you on the trail-or worse, on watch-and found you, wits abstracted, staring into the middle distance? Or how many times woken up in the middle of the night and found you awake, staring at the stars?”
“You never said anything.” Parno’s eyes held hers for a moment longer before falling to where his fingers were clamped around his own steaming cup.
“I waited for you to speak, and the word spoken was Imrion.”
“I never meant…” Parno heaved a deep breath. “It’s only that I began to wonder what became of my Household and I…”
“Spoke to me of Imrion.” Dhulyn leaned back in her chair, nodding. Of course, she thought. Time had softened whatever had made him leave his House and become a Mercenary Brother. But to tell her so, to ask her openly to return with him to learn what had become of his past-she smiled, a twisting of her lips. How could he ask this of her, who had no past to return to?
“This business of the Marked changes all of that.” Parno took a deep breath and released it slowly, pushing his cup to one side. “Very well, I admit that I’ve wondered about my House, my father… but going there endangers you. If the Catseye is gone, then we’ll take another ship.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Dhulyn leaned forward, though her voice was already too low to be heard beyond their table. “You actually counsel the safe and the secure to a Mercenary Brother-to me? What next? I should open a book shop and die in my bed? We’re Mercenary Brothers. One day we’ll make a mistake, and someone or something will kill us. This is our truth.”
“It’s everyone’s truth,” Parno began.
“But we know it, and we don’t run away.” Dhulyn licked her lips. “We don’t run away.”
“In Battle,” Parno said.
“Or in Death,” she answered.
Parno leaned against the serving bar, the common room of the inn slowly filling with customers as the afternoon lengthened and laborers came in for a midday meal or a quick mug of ale on their way home. Those who were already drinking something stronger had neither homes nor meals to go to. The serving girl had just swept up the last of the broken crockery from around the table where he and Dhulyn had been sitting when Linkon Grey the innkeeper, a little stouter and a little grayer than when Parno had last seen him, came out of the serving door behind the bar.
“Hot stones will be ready in a minute,” Linkon said.
Parno turned. “Sorry about the mess,” he said, jerking his head at the girl moving toward them with her broom and dustpan full of what had been two plates and a pottery mug.
“Not your fault, Lionsmane,” Linkon said. “Though I’ll have to replace them, and with no Menders the blasted potters are charging an arm and a leg. But not to worry, I took the price out of the man your Partner threw out the door. He should have taken no for an answer. If you didn’t want to work for him, you didn’t want to work for him. And I don’t blame you, if he was lying about the job.”
“Wolfshead’s good at spotting liars,” Parno said, “though your house cat would have known the fool was lying, come to that. Normally she’s more forgiving. His bad luck he pushed it a little too far at the wrong time, if you catch my meaning.”
“Oh, I catch it all right. My wife’s the same, though not much capable of throwing me out the door, for which I thank the Caids.” The man grinned.
Parno grinned back and didn’t bother to correct the man. Dhulyn wasn’t his wife, but there were few people outside of the Brotherhood-and even some within-who understood what it meant to be Partnered.
“Though I can’t say I’m surprised the man persisted,” Linkon continued, as he laid out mugs on the bar ready for spiced cider when it came hot from the kitchen. “There’s not so many Mercenaries in Navra at the moment, and for that reason, a word in your ear.”
Parno obliged the man by leaning both elbows on the bar, bringing his face within inches of the landlord’s. He’d once spent almost a whole winter at the inn, and had developed a friendship with Linkon Grey that even the passage of years did not change.
“Two of the Watch were in here last night, looking for a couple of Mercenary Brothers who’d helped some Finders yesterday.”
A chill traveled up Parno’s spine. Not Linkon, too. “People had set fire to a house with children inside it.”
Two red spots appeared on Linkon’s pale cheeks. “Don’t misunderstand me, Lionsmane, you did the right thing, though I wouldn’t say that to any and everyone.”
“Will this bring you trouble?”
“I was able to tell them, truthfully, that I’d not seen you-it was only your baggage was here all night. But they’ll be back. It may take a few days, most of the Watch is none too eager to jump to the Jaldeans’ orders, but like it or not, they’ll have to come around again, sooner rather than later. And then…” Linkon Grey pursed his lips and raised his brows.
“Oh, come, Link! We’re Mercenary Brothers, what can they do to us?”
Linkon shrugged, turned away to accept a cider jug from the kitchen boy, and turned back to pour out mugs for himself and Parno. He waited until the boy used a second jug to fill a tray of mugs and carry them off to distribute among the tables before leaning forward again.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. It wasn’t so long ago the Marked were saying the same thing.” He frowned, brows pulled down, before meeting Parno’s eyes once more. “I like the Brotherhood. It’s always good to have some of you in the place. It brings custom and it keeps order, all at the same time. But it’s my family as well as my business I’ve got to consider.”
“I’ll get Dhulyn-”
“Nah, man, you’ve a day at least-more like two. As I said, the Watch will be in no hurry, so long as you draw no more attention to yourselves. But you’d be doing me a favor if you accept the next offer that’ll take you out of the city.”
Parno looked around, saw that there was no one close to them. “When did this business with the Marked start? The Wolfshead and I came almost without stopping from Destila,” he added, naming the city at the far end of the Midland Sea. “Only changing ships at the Isle of Cabrea. The last time we were on the Peninsula, the Jaldeans were no more than harmless old priests.”
Linkon looked into the depths of his cup. “You’ve been away to the west, you say, Lionsmane, but you’re from Imrion yourself, eh?”
“You know better than that, Linkon. We’re Mercenary Brothers, the Wolfshead and I, and that’s where we’re from.”
The innkeeper nodded, tongue flicking out to the corners of his mouth. “Still. If it were anyone else…” He shrugged.
“The trouble wasn’t started by the old priests you remember, asking for alms at the shrines of the Sleeping God. It’s the New Believers who are preaching against the Marked.”
“Any oppose them?”
“They say the Tarkin himself,” Linkon answered, “but there’s a limit to what he can do.”
“What’s he like, this new Tarkin? When Wolfshead and I fought with Imrion when they took the field against the Dureans at Arcosa, the old man was still alive.”
“They say the son’s not the warrior his father was, but he’s no fool either. The High Noble Houses acclaimed him when old Nyl-aLyn died, and that says something.” Linkon gave a sharp nod. “Still, in this new matter only a few of the Noble Houses have declared themselves one way or the other. It’s all the Tarkin can do to prevent an open breach between those as support the New Believers and those who would just as soon let be. The New Believers’re saying the Tarkin doesn’t see the danger-”
Linkon broke off as his younger daughter came out of the kitchen doorway with a tray of pies.
“Danger? From the Marked?” Parno cut in as soon as the girl was out of earshot. “How dangerous can they be? There’s not three in two hundred who are Marked.”
“How many does there need to be to awaken the Sleeping God?” Linkon had lowered his voice still further. “I’ll tell you straight, since it’s you I speak to, Lionsmane, no good can come of any persecution of the Marked. It’s madness, pure and simple. But the whole of the West country was flooded last spring, an earthquake leveled Petchera in the summer-and there’s rumors the Cloud People are looking to break their treaty. Imrion’s luck has turned bad, you mark my words.”
Parno laughed to cover the chill that had come over him, raising the hairs on his arms. “Why, Linkon, we’re Mercenary Brothers looking for work. Imrion sounds like just the place for us.”
“Well, you know your own business best, but mark my words-”
A noise from the kitchen doorway made him turn again. “Ah, here’s the warmed stones for your Partner now.”
Parno accepted the stones, heat palpable through their heavy coverings, smiling his thanks to the kitchen boy. He gave Linkon a we’ll-talk-later nod and made his way between the tables to the staircase.
Dhulyn Wolfshead suddenly gasped, curling around her belly, her eyes squeezed shut. Parno froze, one hand holding up the thin woolen blanket, the other stopped in the act of pushing one of the heated stones closer to the small of her back. Which would be safest, hold still until she quieted or finish what he was doing?
“Gotterang,” Dhulyn said, spitting out the word between gasps. “Gotterang.” Her left hand lashed out, and closed on the air where Parno’s wrist had just been.
“I know, Dhulyn, I know,” he said, using his voice to soothe where his hands could not. He shoved in the warm stone, lowered the blanket, tucked the edges under the pallet and sat back on his heels. He covered his Partner with the other blankets and both their heavy winter cloaks before raising himself to his feet, movements cautious and slow, and stepping back from the edge of the bed. He went only as far as the doorframe, where he leaned, listening. Eventually Dhulyn’s breaths came slower, took longer, as the valerian mixture he’d put into her cider took effect.
This would make twice she’d Seen Imrion’s capital. While that didn’t necessarily make her Vision more likely to come about-still it made him think.
“We go to Imrion,” he said to her, voice still pitched to quiet and soothe. “And Gotterang the capital, no less. You are Senior, and you have spoken.” It relieved him of the responsibility, he thought, but not of the knowledge that his had been the hand that placed out the tiles in this particular game. A demon, she’d said. And she was right. The demon of his life before the Brotherhood. Was his father still alive? His sisters?
When he’d found the shadow of his past would not let him rest, he’d persuaded Dhulyn, without telling her why, to come back with him to Imrion. More than ten years had passed, adding some height, and more than a little muscle to the boy he had been. Time enough, and change enough, he was sure, to make him unrecognizable to any who might remember him.
Dhulyn pushed an arm out from under the blankets and began to hum. Parno cocked his head to listen more carefully. It was the tune the children had been singing on the pier. He found himself smiling. When his eye fell on the small arsenal of weapons he’d managed to take off her before she’d tumbled into the bed, his smile broadened.
“You’ll be safe enough, my wolf,” he said. Isn’t that what she’d said? Wasn’t that all any of them could say? They were Mercenaries, for Caids’ sake, not dancing masters. “The path of the Mercenary is the sword.” So went the Common Rule, and it was all any of them hoped or expected. There was a Mercenary House in Gotterang, he could find out what he wanted to know about his family there. And then they could be off, to where Dhulyn’s Mark would make no difference, no matter who knew of it. What’s the worst that could happen? They could die. Well, that was part of the Common Rule as well.
“I swear to you. Jaldeans or no, New Believers or Old. I swear by the Caids, if they still watch over us. You are my Partner and my life. Together. ‘In Battle or in Death.’ ”
The Brotherhood’s oath on his lips, he touched his fingertips to his forehead in salute, and turned to go back downstairs. He must see if Linkon had anything else to tell him.
A CIRCLE OF RED-HAIRED CHILDREN DANCE, HAND IN HAND, REVOLVING AROUND A BLINDFOLDED GIRL. SHE FEELS THE HANDS OF THE CHILDREN NEXT TO HER IN HER OWN. BUT SHE IS ALSO THE BLINDFOLDED CHILD. THIS MUST BE JUST A DREAM, SHE THINKS, AS SHE HUMS THE TUNE. BUT THEN…
A TALL, THIN MAN WITH CLOSE-CROPPED HAIR THE COLOR OF WHEAT STRAW, EYES THE BLUE OF OLD ICE, DEEP ICE, SITS READING A BOUND BOOK LARGER THAN ANY SHE HAS EVER SEEN. HIS CHEEKBONES SEEM CHISELED FROM GRANITE, YET THERE IS HUMOR IN THE SET OF HIS LIPS, AND LAUGHTER IN THE FAINT LINES AROUND HIS EYES. DHULYN FEELS SHE WOULD LIKE THE MAN IF SHE MET HIM, AND THAT SHE HAS SEEN HIM BEFORE, THOUGH THERE IS NO BEFORE, NO AFTER, IN THE PLACE SHE IS NOW.
THE MAN TRACES A LINE ON THE PAGE WITH HIS FINGER, HIS LIPS MOVING AS HE CONFIRMS THE WORDS. HE NODS, AND, STANDING, TAKES UP A HIGHLY POLISHED TWO-HANDED SWORD. DHULYN OWNS ONE LIKE IT, THOUGH SHE DOES NOT USE IT OFTEN. IT IS NOT THE SWORD OF A HORSEMAN. SHE CAN SEE NOW THAT HIS CLOTHES ARE BRIGHTLY COLORED, AND FIT HIM CLOSELY EXCEPT FOR THE SLEEVES WHICH FALL FROM HIS SHOULDERS LIKE INVERTED
LILIES.
HE TURNS AWAY FROM THE STRANGELY TIDY WORKTABLE AND TOWARD A CIRCULAR MIRROR, AS TALL AS HE IS HIMSELF. THE MIRROR DOES NOT REFLECT THE ROOM, HOWEVER, BUT SHOWS A NIGHT SKY FULL OF STARS. HIS LIPS MOVE, AND DHULYN KNOWS HE IS SAYING THE WORDS FROM THE BOOK. HE MAKES A MOVE LIKE ONE OF THE CRANE SHORA, AND SLASHES DOWNWARD THROUGH THE MIRROR, AS IF SPLITTING IT IN HALF. BUT NOW SHE SEES IT IS NOT A MIRROR, BUT A WINDOW, AND IT IS THE SKY ITSELF AND NOT A REFLECTION THAT THE MAN SPLITS WITH HIS CHARMED SWORD AND THROUGH THE OPENING COMES
SPILLING LIKE FOG A GREEN-TINTED SHADOW, SHIVERING AND JERKY, AS THOUGH IT IS AFRAID. THE MAN STEPS BACK, HOLDING THE SWORD UP BEFORE HIM BUT IT IS NO DEFENSE, AND THE FOG SUCKS INTO HIS EYES, HIS NOSTRILS, HIS MOUTH, HIS EARS…
A YOUNG MAN WITH DARK BLOND HAIR AND A SCAR ON HIS LEFT CHEEK SITS AT A SCARRED TABLETOP AND WRITES ON LOOSE SHEETS OF PARCHMENT BY THE
LIGHT OF A CANDLE. HIS EYES ARE GRAY, AND HE IS SMILING…
Dhulyn woke to the sound of steel on stone and forced her eyes open. A cot had been brought up and squeezed into the only empty corner of their small whitewashed room. A shaft of late afternoon sunlight slanted across it, and in that spear of light Parno sat cross-legged, the sun picking up the golden hair on his forearms and the backs of his hands. He held his sword in his right hand, his left rhythmically stroking the blade with a honing stone. Her honing stone. Dhulyn grimaced. Only the certainty that Parno would have sharpened her sword first prevented her from objecting to his taking things from her pack. He would never learn. To a person who had owned nothing-not even her own person-even the smallest possessions had value.
She cleared her throat. “How long have I slept?”
“You missed the midday meal,” he said, without pausing or looking up. “Though they’ve kept a plate for you by the kitchen fire. Are the stones still warm?”
She wiggled her hand down until she could touch the padded stone against her belly, and the one at the small of her back. The weight of her coverings-both their winter cloaks if she was any judge-made her nest warm enough that she had to rest her hand directly on the cloth-wrapped stones for a moment before she could detect a faint warmth. “Well, they’re not cold.”
“Not so bad then. You talked a bit at first, but you dropped off as soon as the stones began to warm you.” He stopped honing, but still avoided her eyes, testing the edge of the blade against the back of his thumbnail. “What do you remember of this morning?”
She shrugged. A most unsatisfactory movement when lying down. She shut her eyes again.
“Do you recall the man who said he was from the House of Sogenso?” Parno prompted. “The man you threw out the door?”
Dhulyn shut her eyes, wrinkling her nose. “Was it open?”
“As luck would have it.” The rhythmic sound stopped. “He said he was setting up a pilgrimage to the Mesticha Stone.”
“To steal it,” she murmured.
“So you told him.”
Dhulyn could hear his smile. “What else did I tell him?”
“You told him we were Mercenaries, not thieves.” Parno paused. Dhulyn waited. “He thought you were trying to raise the price, so he went on talking. You broke his wine cup. Over his head.”
She winced again, squeezing open one eye. “One of the clay cups?” She seemed to remember a glass goblet on the table, and almost made the luck sign with the fingers of her left hand.
Parno shook his head, grinning. “Don’t worry, Linkon took the damages from the Sogenso boy.”
She opened her eyes. Parno sat relaxed, ankle over one knee, sword across his lap, his face in shadow. He had put the honing stone down on the floor next to his feet. She would have to make sure he did not leave it there.
“Did I… tell him anything else?”
“I was afraid you might, seeing how it was with you. There’s something to tell, then.”
“He shouldn’t have touched me,” she said, halfway to an apology. “He’ll go to the Stone anyway, and he’ll die there. It will be quick,” she added. “And relatively painless.”
Parno swung his head slowly from side to side, lips pressed to a thin line. “Even if you’d said so, people would have taken it for a threat, not a Vision. As I might have done, once.” He released a deep breath and slid his blade into its sheath. “I got you upstairs, and Linkon had the kitchen heat stones for your pains, when they came.”
“And gave me valerian-don’t deny it, I can taste it in the back of my throat. You know it always makes me sick to my stomach.” Dhulyn rolled over on her back, pulled her knees up tight against her chest then released them, resting her feet flat against the mattress. “When did all this happen?”
“An hour or so after breakfast.” He rose and stretched, coming full into the shaft of sunlight. A golden man, tall, with warm eyes the color of amber. He had let his beard grow the last few weeks, and it had come in a shade darker than his sunbleached hair. His summer tan had faded over the long moons it had taken them to come from the Great King’s court, but he was still much browner than she would ever be.
Dhulyn rubbed at her temples and her eyes with the heels of her hands. Parno had taken off her shoes, her sword belts and sashes, but left her otherwise clothed. Long familiarity-they Partnered shortly after meeting on the battlefield of Arcosa-had taught him to touch her as little as possible during her time. In the beginning, coming as he did from the decadent north, he had seen nothing wrong with love-making during her woman’s time. A single experience had taught him that her people did not refrain merely from Outlander fastidiousness. It was then she had Seen the manner of his dying.
“Who else knows?” Parno said, tapping the side of his face next to his eyes when she looked at him with raised brows.
“You’re the only one I’ve told.” Dhulyn answered the question he’d really asked. She’d only told Parno himself when they talked of Partnering-not fair to him otherwise. And she’d only been able to tell him because she had Seen the manner of his death. Knowing the one thing that she must never tell him had left her free to tell him everything else.
At first he’d been delighted, thinking they’d soon be the richest Mercenaries in the Brotherhood. They’d know which jobs would be successful, and which would end in disaster, who would pay up promptly and honestly, and who try to cheat. He’d soon learned that she couldn’t use her Mark to answer specific questions, and when it did work, it wasn’t reliable and steady like the Finders or Menders he’d known, but so chancy and sporadic as to be more liability than asset.
“ ’Course it wasn’t dangerous then, for others to know.”
“No,” she said. “Just no one’s business. I tell you I’m safe enough.” She thought for a moment. “Dorian knows, I believe. Though he’s said nothing.”
“You’ll be safe with any of the Brotherhood, I should think, let alone the man who Schooled you.”
Dhulyn nodded. For Mercenaries, the Brotherhood was their religion.
Parno leaned back on his cot and stretched out his legs in front of him, as far as the limited floor space would allow. “Linkon says the last rumors out of Gotterang before the Snow Moon closed the passes fit what the Finders told us. The New Believers are pressing the Tarkin for measures against the Marked, and he’ll either have to give in, or refuse outright and take the consequences.” Parno looked up from beneath his golden brows. “And, apparently, there will be consequences.”
Dhulyn turned over on her side again, this time propping herself on one elbow. The slanted ceiling-their room was under the eaves of the inn-prevented her from sitting up. “I’ve read of such things in the past, but if I hadn’t seen and heard it for myself, I’d find it hard to believe that people could be turned against the Marked.”
Parno nodded. “People can be persuaded to hate and fear what they don’t understand-even something useful and homey like a Mender or a Finder.” He shrugged. “Healers, though, that would take some persuasion.”
“There’s not so many Healers, however, even the books mention that. Though more than Seers, that’s certain.”
“I can remember talk of such things when I was a child,” Parno said. “The Market Dance at the Harvest Fair, they’d get someone to stand in the center to be the Seer, usually whichever young maid had been chosen Lady Harvest.”
“One of your sisters?” Dhulyn asked with a smile.
“When they could bully enough people into it,” Parno admitted, laughing. “Certainly no one ever expected a real Seer to show up.”
Dhulyn rolled over onto her back again. There had been a fair amount written over the years about the Marked, but what she had never yet found in any book or scroll was mention of her tribe. Her height and coloring marked her for an Outlander, but she’d met only one man who had seen her and instantly known which Outlander tribe she came from. How Dorian the Black Traveler knew of the Espadryn, Dhulyn never learned. All she knew was that he had taken her from the hold of the slave ship, put salve on her cut face, spoken to her in her own tongue, saying “come with me, and learn to kill whoever hurts you.” And she had gone with him, and learned. And somehow she had never asked whether Dorian also knew about the women of her people.
“If you’ll be all right,” Parno said, getting to his feet. “I have an… appointment.” Dhulyn saw for the first time that he was wearing his finest clothes, which at this moment meant his cleanest.
“And what are you using for money?” She looked up, and their eyes met.
“I need none,” he said. Now she could see his smile as well as hear it in his voice. “This one loves me.” He gave her a courtly bow.
“Your wenching will kill you one day,” she muttered.
Parno’s face drained of color and he clamped his jaw tight.
“Just an expression,” she said quickly, hauling herself up on her elbow again. Still pale, he continued to look at her, eyes narrowed, likely calculating whether she might be annoyed enough about the valerian to tell him the one thing she had promised never to tell. She held out her hand to him.
“Never, my soul,” she said.
He touched the tips of her fingers with his own, brushed the back of her scarred knuckles lightly with his lips. “In Battle,” he said. He gave her a more pronounced bow, and was gone before she could answer.
“Or in Death,” she said to the empty room.
Ah well, she thought, settling back into the warmth of the bed. He’d believed her; all to the good since she’d told him the truth. If only she could keep her temper. Her thoughts began to float with her return to sleep.
Never wanted to have the blooded Visions, she thought sleepily, and less so now. Unless perhaps something was going to show her why Parno so badly wanted to return to the land of his birth.
“Are you the one they call Dhulyn the Scholar?” A plump, compact, no-nonsense woman of middle years stood at their table, prosperously but not fashionably dressed in a good wool overtunic with expensively dyed yellow trim. This matron was accompanied by a young girl, dressed not quite so well. Even this early in the evening both women managed to look out of place in the public taproom of an inn. Though it was likely the men of their household would not.
“I am.” Dhulyn looked up from the loose pages in her hands and smiled her wolf’s smile, the scar, normally too small to be seen in itself, pulling her lip up into a snarl. Parno did not trouble to hide his own grin as he watched the woman, already starting to seat herself on the stool across the table, unconsciously check her movement for a long minute before slowly setting herself down. She then looked Dhulyn Wolfshead sharply up and down, to show she had not been frightened.
Parno knew what the townswoman saw-knew what he had seen when he first noticed Dhulyn across a field of armored forms fighting and limp bodies fallen. A woman much taller than the average, hawk-faced, pale skin lightly damaged by the northern sun, beaded thongs tying back long hair the dark color of old blood. The hair had been permanently removed over each ear and the skin tattooed blue and green in her Mercenary badge. Tonight she was not in battle leathers, but dressed in loose wool trousers dyed a dark blue and gathered at the ankle above leather slippers. A tight vest made from scraps of silks and wool, and bits of leather, quilted together with ribbon and laces, left her arms bare as if she did not feel the cold. Armed, but not obviously, and not for war.
The woman would see an Outlander Mercenary. Nothing more.
“Hmph,” the townswoman nodded. “The landlord here has put out that you’re looking for work.” She looked pointedly around the tavern room. The place was almost empty. Linkon Grey was preparing for his late night by taking a nap, leaving his daughter Nikola in charge. It was early yet for drinking, though the supper hour was not so far off. The place smelled faintly of spilled ale, and not so faintly of the fish oil they used in the lamps. The townswoman’s eye rested longest on a table of young persons near the staircase, too friendly to be anything but professionals waiting for trade.
“Strange place to find a scholar,” she finally said.
“I’m a Mercenary, townswoman. Not a shopgirl.”
“And that’s well.” The woman placed her hands flat on the scarred tabletop. “For it’s a Brother I need. My name is Guillor Weaver.” That explained the quality of her clothes, thought Parno. “This is my fosterling Mar.” A gesture took in the girl who stood close at her elbow. “I need a bodyguard and guide to take Mar north, to Gotterang.”
“Gotterang?” Dhulyn drew down her brows and shook her head minutely from side to side. “It would mean crossing through the country of the Cloud People, and according to the treaty, caravan season doesn’t begin for almost another moon. Why not wait and send her then?”
Weaver shook her head. “We cannot wait, and we haven’t the coin ourselves, so early in the season, to send her round by boat. We’d take her overland ourselves, but we’ve no one to spare.”
“We’re not a caravan, the Clouds would likely let us pass unhindered. Still,” Dhulyn lifted her shoulders ever so slightly and wrinkled her nose. “Gotterang?”
Parno leaned back on his stool, pressing his shoulders against the wall behind him. He kept his face impassive, content to watch as his Partner did the haggling. Most people found debate with the Wolfshead’s cold southern eyes disconcerting enough that they were anxious to come to terms. That he and Dhulyn were looking for an opportunity that would take them southeast to the capital would, of course, go unsaid. Parno rubbed the left side of his nose with his right thumb, and Dhulyn blinked twice.
“What will you pay?” she was saying in a disinterested tone, fingers toying with the edges of her papers.
“I have enough for the expenses of the journey, but not enough to pay you, if you see what I mean. The people you take her to will give you your fee.”
Dhulyn lifted her brows and bared her teeth again.
“Slavers?” she said.
Without being aware that she was doing so, Weaver leaned away from the table. Parno touched Dhulyn lightly on the wrist with a finger. He knew that she had been a slave herself, though she rarely spoke of it. Knew, too, what kind of people buy children and youngsters, and to what use they put them.
Knowing nothing of this, the townswoman puffed indignantly, like all those who’ve had no personal contact with the trade.
“She’s no slave! Mar’s of our own fostering, orphaned of a House. We send her to her blood kin. It’s they who want her, having just learned of her, though don’t ask me how. And it’s they who’ll pay you for her delivery, safe and sound.”
Dhulyn looked at Parno, blood-red brows arched. Parno nodded. Very possible for a House of Imrion to have a minor Holding or even a Household in Navra. Distant kin, but kin nonetheless.
“And the girl wishes to go?”
Weaver glanced at the girl standing so sedately at her side. The young girl met her foster mother’s eyes steadily until the woman lowered hers and looked back across the table. “We would have kept her and happily, for she’s a fine worker-reads, writes, and is learning to clerk. But she has little of her own, and we have no wedding gift for her, not with three of our own to pay for. This is her own kin.” The Weaver seemed to be repeating a well-rehearsed speech. Perhaps there was someone at home-a son, maybe-who had needed to be convinced. House or no, the woman was content that the girl was going. “There may be property, there may be money for her. Caids know there should be,” the woman muttered, looking sideways at the girl.
Not by smile or change of expression did Dhulyn acknowledge how much the Weaver had unintentionally revealed. “I only wished to know if we must take her bound.” She tossed off the mug in front of her-hot sweet cider, no alcohol after the valerian-and handed it to Parno. He sighed and got to his feet, signaling to Nikola where she stood behind the bar.
“Thirty weights,” Dhulyn said. “In gold.” The Weaver gasped in outrage, and Parno stopped paying attention. He threaded his way between the empty tables, to where the girl was pouring out for him. Two men had come in while the Weaver had been talking and were leaning against the bar.
“I don’t care how well the Sleeping God sleeps,” the shorter man said in the careful diction of one who’s been drinking all afternoon. Nikola exchanged a look with Parno. “Turchara’s a good enough god for any sailing man. What I want to know is, why should they set their own prices? These are essential,” the man had some trouble with the word and had to repeat it, “essential services. We shouldn’t have to pay for them, and they shouldn’t be allowed to withhold them.” The man looked over and saw Parno for the first time-sure sign, were any needed, of just how drunk he was. “Not like they had to be Schooled, eh, Mercenary? No years hard training for them. They’re born with the Mark. It’s cost them nothing to get it, and look what they charge!”
“I’d lower my voice if I were you,” Nikola said, taking the cups from in front of the two men. “There’s a Jaldean at the door.”
The drunk who’d been speaking turned slowly in a great show of control, but Parno had to put out a hand to stop the man’s elbow from slipping off the bar. The doorway, as he’d known all along, was empty.
“Might have gone to report you,” Nikola said as she wiped off the bar. “Best be off home before he gets back with a Watchman.”
Parno watched as the man’s friend helped him out the door, before giving Nikola a wink and carrying the cider back to where Dhulyn sat with the Weaver woman. He put the Wolfshead’s cup down in front of her and turned his attention to the girl he had no doubt would be their fare to Gotterang.
Even had he not been told, her heart-shaped face made it obvious Mar was no blood of the Weaver’s, and it was likely enough that she was indeed orphan of a House. She was already taller than the admittedly short towns woman, though manifestly young; she looked a marriageable age for a town girl if he was any judge-and he was. Unlikely that she would grow any taller, but she had inherited a good length of bone, regular features, good teeth, and abundant hair, though it did not shine much in the taproom’s lamplight. All testimony to good blood and good health. And what was more, sufficient luck to be fostered in a family which fed her well enough to let her keep these advantages.
“So we’re agreed?” Weaver was saying as she pulled a pouch from the wallet at her belt.
Dhulyn was still considering. Finally, she lifted her chin from her fist and held out her hand, palm up. “Give me your hand, girl,” she said. Parno tensed. What could Dhulyn be thinking? Better she didn’t touch anyone than to actually invite a Vision. Weaver looked at the young woman and nodded, but Mar was already holding out her square, ink-stained hand, palm down, for Dhulyn to take in her long scarred fingers.
“Are you afraid?”
“I am,” the girl said in a voice little more than a whisper. “But I will go.”
Dhulyn nodded, retaining her grip on the girl’s hand. Her pale gray eyes became fixed so markedly upon something over the girl’s shoulder that Mar turned around to see what it was. Dhulyn stared at nothing. Mar tried to pull her hand away. Dhulyn did not even seem to notice. Parno touched her foot with his under the table.
“She will need a pony,” Dhulyn said, finally releasing the girl’s hand without comment. “Forty silver weights and we are agreed.”
Weaver opened the small pouch, shook its contents into her hand and, coin by coin, counted out the forty weights. Most of the coins were the old minting, ship on one side, the old Tarkin’s head on the other, and dull with tarnish, but there were six gold pieces. Parno lifted his right eyebrow.
“It is enough,” Dhulyn said. Weaver drew shut the strings of the pouch and slipped it back into her wallet.
“When will you leave?”
Dhulyn looked at Parno. He knew that her bargaining had taken into account several things besides the price of a pony, the purchase of heavy clothing, and provisions for traveling. There was the lodging they already owed Linkon Grey-besides the packhorse they’d bought from him and the extra cot for their room. Linkon might be an old acquaintance, but Nikola had four brothers and sisters who had to be provided for. Parno lifted his left eyebrow.
Dhulyn turned back to Weaver. “Tomorrow.”
“I’ll leave her now, then,” Weaver stood up. “The letter from her kin tells where to go. You can read it yourself better than I,” the woman added with a nod to the pages neatly piled on the table. Dhulyn looked up quickly, astonishment replacing the amusement on her face. The expression on the girl’s face hadn’t changed.
“Stay, stay my good woman. If we’re to have charge of her now, then it’s not enough.” Dhulyn tapped the coins on the table with a long index finger. “You’ll have to pay for her lodging tonight, if you expect us to keep her here.”
Weaver chewed on her bottom lip. Mar looked away indifferently. A great sigh, and Weaver took another two copper coins out of the wallet at her waist and placed them with the rest on the table. Parno swept them all into his own pouch.
“Behave yourself, child,” the Weaver’s voice was gruff as she rose to her feet. “Let your House know how much we’ve done for you.” She did not offer to embrace the girl; her arms hung awkwardly at her sides. Parno caught Dhulyn’s eye and widened his own.
“I will, Guillor. I will.” The girl was soft-voiced, her tone neutral, or was there a hint of steel? Weaver nodded, but Parno suspected the older woman did not leave entirely content.
The young one sat down on the stool as soon as Weaver was gone, eyeing her present guardians like a new puppy caught between two veterans of the dog pack. Catching sight of Linkon behind the bar with his daughter, Parno roused himself with a sigh and went to explain matters.
Dhulyn’s gaze drifted idly sideways, until it was caught and held by a line on the pages before her.
“Why Dhulyn the Scholar?” the girl ventured finally in her soft voice.
Dhulyn glanced up. The girl was relaxed enough, seeming to have put the parting from her family behind her. Of course, they were not her own family. Sun and Moon knew that could make a difference.
“Few soldiers can read.” Dhulyn smiled gently enough that the small scar did not pull back her lip. “And it’s pronounced ‘Dillin.’ I am called other things as well.”
“Dhulyn-” the girl broke off as the Mercenary held up her hand.
“You must not call me that,” she said gently. “Only my Brothers may use my name, and I theirs. You may call me Wolfshead, or Scholar, if you prefer. And Parno you must call Lionsmane, or Chanter. It is our way.”
The girl nodded slowly. “My family-my House, will pay well for my safe delivery,” she said. “That, at least, is the truth.”
“I believe it,” Dhulyn said, taking mental note of the qualification. So something else wasn’t the truth. Time enough to find out what, she supposed, when they were on the road. Her eyes strayed back to the tabletop. If they were leaving tomorrow, she must finish this book.
Parno dropped into his seat. Dhulyn blew out another sigh and looked up again. “Linkon says he has nothing else free,” he said. “And he’s already given us an extra cot for the room.”
Dhulyn shrugged. “I’ll take the cot, then.” The girl across the table started and then was still. Her tongue darted out to wet dry lips. Dhulyn stifled her laugh. “No need to look like that, girl. There’s no help for it, I cannot share a bed for two days at least. It’s a vow,” she added in answer to the girl’s unspoken question. “You’ll be as safe in Parno’s bed as you would be in your own. Safer. He won’t touch you himself, and he’ll kill anyone else who tries.” Out of habit her eyes strayed back to her page, but she knew it for a lost cause.
“You’re too young for my tastes, child,” Parno agreed soberly. “I’ll put a sword between us if you doubt me.”
“What’s to do?” Dhulyn asked, surprised when the girl’s anxious expression did not change. “Are you virgin? And mean to stay that way? Has it importance, other than to you I mean?”
“It might. There’s… there’s to be a marriage,” Mar said, lowering her eyes.
“Oh, come now,” said Parno. “It’s only the High Noble Houses worry over such things, and, even so, it’s just until the birth of the heirs.”
Dhulyn drew in her brows and shushed him. “A marriage? Your foster mother didn’t mention that.” She was annoyed with herself for not getting all the information. Well, she knew now, and this could up the fee at the other end.
“She didn’t know.” Mar’s voice hardened, and she sat up straighter. She drew forth a letter from the bosom of her tunic and displayed the seal in the folds of parchment, lifted but not broken. “She can’t read, and she didn’t tell you everything, even of the things she does know. My name is Mar-eMar,” she said, putting the accent properly on the second syllable. “And my House is Tenebro.”
Dhulyn looked at Parno. His lips were pursed in a soundless whistle that changed into a toothy grin. Someone who didn’t know him well would think he was delighted.
Dhulyn sat folded into the window seat, reading Mar’s letter by the light of the room’s single oil lamp. She had made them wait and be quiet while she finished her book in the taproom. By that time it was getting crowded, and Parno had suggested they make an early night of it. Now Mar helped Parno shift their gear while Dhulyn examined the letter from Tenebro House. With three people, the whitewashed room under the eaves of the inn’s west wing was sadly crowded. Stowing the packs carefully left the beds free, but there was little floor space.
Dhulyn was familiar with this kind of letter: a great deal of style and very little substance. Almost one third of the page was taken up by the titles and lineage of the woman who wrote (or who had it written for her, more likely) and of Mar-eMar herself, as the person addressed. The letter itself was quite short, stating that the family had just learned of Mar’s whereabouts and wished her to come urgently to the capital to occupy her place in the House. That was probably the marriage the girl had mentioned. Almost apologetically, a tone no doubt inserted by the clerk, mused Dhulyn, Mar was asked to bring with her any family possessions that might serve as proofs of her identity. What might such things be, Dhulyn wondered? She looked up to see Mar eyeing the bed dubiously.
“I saw a play once about a man and a woman who lay together with a sword placed between them,” the girl was saying. “And it was taken as proof that they were chaste.” She looked up at the Lionsmane, towering over her. “But I do not understand how it… how it prevents…”
“Lying between them? Well, no, perhaps that wouldn’t be proof of much,” said Parno, almost clucking in his imitation of an elderly uncle. Dhulyn smiled, her lip curling back over her teeth. “But then playwrights are not so very accurate. What do you think, Dhulyn? Shall you lay your sword between us?”
For answer Dhulyn unfolded herself from the window seat, reaching out for her sword where it lay still sheathed on the cot. She straightened, drawing the patterned blade out smoothly and in one motion thrust it, point down, into the straw and ticking of the mattress. Two feet of newly sharpened blade stuck out, quivering slightly, a fence post in the center of the bed.
“Do not brush up against it in the dark, my souls,” she said, laughing at the shock on the little Dove’s face. “It will cut you.”