Assassin's Edge Read online

  As always Halice’s thoughts were more immediately practical. “Why’s Ryshad so set on making bricks? Isn’t there enough stone here to keep him happy?” She nodded at bright scars marking the age-stained grey masonry. Beyond using the place as a quarry, most colonists had no use for these uncomfortable reminders of years lost while they lay insensible under enchantment.

  “Not with him and Temar insisting that everyone’s cesspit is stone lined,” I told her. “Have you seen all the warehouses, market halls and workshops they’re planning?” I’d been shown the drawings, in exhaustive detail; every footing to be set firm with stone and topped with all the bricks Werdel could turn out. Vithrancel’s past would underpin its future as D’Alsennin took the lead in turning his face to the here and now rather than the long lost past.

  I got carefully out of Larn’s boat on the far side. Breeched and booted, we easily gained on Catrice’s mother, her strides hampered by the petticoats rustling beneath her hurrying skirts.

  A lofty hall appeared round a turn in the gravel path, surrounding wall newly repaired in sharp contrast to the tumbledown ruins on either hand. This time-worn dwelling had been built by the long-dead Messire Den Rannion who’d invited the colonists on their ill-fated venture. It had been their first sanctuary in that confused season when Planir had reawakened them. We had all fought with our backs against these walls, mercenaries, mages and ancient Tormalin alike when the Elietimm had attacked, determined to kill any rival claimants to this land. Guinalle, more formally Demoiselle For Priminale, had tended the wounded in the ancient steading using her life-giving Artifice in despite of Elietimm enchantments. By the time the sufferers had either died or recovered, Guinalle had quietly had the place re-roofed and the perimeter wall made secure. No one had had any luck since suggesting the highest-born surviving noblewoman of the original colony move herself across the river, which at least kept the stink of boiling medicaments away from the rest of us. As an apothecary’s customer whenever I had the chance rather than a devotee of the still room, I’d never realised quite how much pungent preparation woad needed.

  “You can do the talking,” I said to Halice.

  Halice shook her head. “You can’t blame her on Ryshad’s account for ever.”

  “I don’t,” I said indignantly.

  Halice shot me a sceptical look. “A blind man in a fog can see how he mistrusts Artifice.”

  “I’ve done more than half the scholars in Vanam to unearth lost aetheric magic,” I protested. “I brought back no end of lore from the Forest and the Mountains last year.”

  “You still walk stiff-legged around Guinalle because of what happened to Ryshad,” said Halice mildly.

  My dismissive noise came out rather more non-committal than I intended. Drianon be my witness, I occasionally caught myself watching Ryshad as he slept, wondering if any trace of the enchantment that had enthralled him remained. The bodies of the colonists had been sealed away in the Edisgesset cavern when Guinalle worked the enchantment that locked their true selves, the very essence of their lives, into rings, jewellery and, in Temar D’Alsennin’s case, into his sword. Those vital tokens had been sent back to Toremal to summon aid but the few who escaped the destruction of Kel Ar’Ayen found their Empire in the toils of anarchy. No rescue had ever come.

  I didn’t know how body and consciousness had been separated. The thought of what Guinalle called Higher Artifice gave me gooseflesh. Eventually—and the scholars of Vanam continued to argue with Hadrumal’s wizards as to why—these sleeping minds had stirred the dreams of whosoever chance or some god’s fancy had left holding the artefact. The first hints of the lost colony’s true fate had emerged from the contradiction and exaggeration of legend.

  But Planir the Black, fabled Archmage of Hadrumal wasn’t ever one to leave things to chance or even to Saedrin himself. He’d made sure Ryshad was given Temar D’Alsennin’s sword, hoping similarities between the two men would form a bond to reach across the shades and bring back the answers Planir wanted. It had worked, after a fashion, but I still considered the way Ryshad’s body had been possessed by Temar’s questing mind too high a price.

  But only fools argue over a hand that’s been played out. All those runes had been gathered for drawing anew and I planned to make the best of my luck and Ryshad’s.

  We followed Catrice’s mother through the darkly stained gate now reinforced with pale new timber. The courtyard of the ancient steading was busy; Guinalle wasn’t alone on this side of the river. Masons cleaned stone reclaimed from the ruins and men studied a plan, pegs and cord for marking something in their hands. I recalled Ryshad mentioning a kiln wanted hereabouts to burn rubble into lime for his precious mortar.

  The outraged matron ignored everyone as she hurried into the wide hall. “Demoiselle, Demoiselle, a moment of your time, if you please.”

  We followed and I wrinkled my nose at a faint smell of paint. Looking up I saw the roof had been repanelled since my last visit, its decoration begun. The first pious scene completed showed Saedrin sorting his keys by the door to the Otherworld while Poldrion poled his ferry of newly dead across the river that flows through the shades.

  I looked for Guinalle and found her by a long table covered with a pungent array of greenery dotted with early flowers in blue and yellow. A woman a touch below my own height, she was neatly made with a trim waist to balance rounded hips and a bosom to catch a man’s eye. Dressed in the same work-stained broadcloth as the other women, the golden chain that girdled her nevertheless marked her rank, carrying a chatelaine’s keys, knife and small mesh purse. The women sorting herbs for immediate decoction or bundling sprigs for drying looked up with ready curiosity at Catrice’s mother. The busy hum of conversation took on a speculative note.

  “Mistress Cheven.” Guinalle ushered the red-faced matron into a side aisle where withy screens separated bays into an illusion of privacy. I favoured the inquisitive women with a sunny smile while Halice leaned on the doorpost, dour faced, prompting most to tend their steeping jars and tincture bottles.

  “One of those filth—” Catrice’s mother struggled for words to express her contempt, accents of Toremal strengthened by emotion and echoing round the stone walls. “He calls my girl a slut, says she lays with any who asks, claiming her babe as his.” Fury choked her to silence before abruptly deserting her, leaving her plump face slack with the threat of tears.

  “Calm yourself.” Guinalle looked past Mistress Cheven as she pressed the woman to take a stool. “Corps Commander Halice is here and I imagine about the same business.” She beckoned to us with unconscious authority.

  Halice walked over unhurried, me a pace behind. “Mistress Cheven, Demoiselle Tor Priminale.” She bowed and Guinalle sketched a perfunctory curtsey out of archaic habit. “I came to warn you about Peyt right enough. He’s out to make trouble for Deglain and slandering Catrice was the best thing he could think of. There was a fight—” Halice raised a hand to soothe Mistress Cheven’s inarticulate distress. “Peyt came off second best and he’ll feel the sharp edge of my tongue as well as due punishment. It was Deg I wanted to talk to you about, Demoiselle.” She looked at Guinalle. “Back in Lescar, hired as a corps, I’d have him flogged for messing with a girl, if she was unwilling. If she was willing but found with child, I’d pay him off and promise him all the torments of Poldrion’s demons if I ever found he’d abandoned them. But I’d still be calling him to account for throwing the first punch in a brawl.”

  “But this is not Lescar,” Guinalle concluded Halice’s unspoken thought.

  “Deglain’s a good man, not one to fight unless sore provoked.” Mistress Cheven looked concerned. “Me and her father, we’re glad to see Catrice keep company with him. They’ve been talking about wedding this Solstice coming. Back when, that is, if we still held to old customs, they’d be handfasted long since.”

  “Deglain’s been working as a tinsmith since before the turn of the year,” Halice pointed out. “Does he come under my juris
diction these days? I wouldn’t argue for it.”

  Guinalle sat on a stool herself. “No, I don’t suppose he does.”

  “I don’t want Peyt to sniff an excuse to go stirring up any bad feeling between mercenaries and colonists. This seems as good a time as any to agree a few rules about exactly where D’Alsennin’s writ runs and where my authority holds.” Halice studied Guinalle’s heart-shaped face before turning to Mistress Cheven with firm assertion. “But Peyt definitely comes under my lash and I’ll see it bites him. He won’t sully Catrice’s name again.”

  “That answers your complaint, doesn’t it?” Guinalle brushed absently at the chestnut braids coiled high on her head and I noticed green stains on the ladylike softness of her small hands, grime beneath her precisely pared nails.

  The habit of obedience to anyone noble born prompted the older woman to stand. “I suppose so.”

  “Send Catrice to see me,” Guinalle smiled reassurance. “I can see how far along the babe is.”

  “That would be a kindness, Demoiselle.” Mistress Cheven looked relieved. “It being her first—well, there are things a girl won’t ask her mother.” She glanced at Halice and me, colouring as she curtseyed a farewell to Guinalle.

  “Didn’t women ever wear breeches in the Old Empire?” I watched her go with amusement.

  “Not that I’m aware,” replied Guinalle with a smile too brief to reach her hazel eyes.

  “Can Artifice tell you if Deg truly is the father?” Halice asked bluntly.

  “I might get some sense of it.” Guinalle hesitated. “Does it matter, if he loves Catrice and acknowledges the child?”

  “I’d like to be forewarned, if it’ll come out wearing Peyt’s nose.” Halice looked stern. “I’ll ship him back across the ocean before Catrice’s due season for a start.”

  “Which will almost certainly be For-Autumn.” Guinalle’s unguarded face showed an instant of weariness. “Another one. Drianon only knows where we’re going to find enough Bluemantle.” She looked at the long table where her women were still diligently sorting herbs between whispered comments and snatched glances in our direction. “I wonder how anything got done over the winter, there are so many babes expected between hay and harvest.”

  I couldn’t decide if Guinalle sounded disapproving or envious. No matter, midwifery was none of my business and I’d make doubly sure of that with a little herb gathering of my own, as soon as Halcarion’s Vine came into bloom on this side of the ocean.

  Halice had other concerns as well. “We need D’Alsennin—” She broke off as two men with belligerent expressions hurried into the hall and hailed Guinalle.

  “Demoiselle—”

  “My lady—”

  One was a colonist I vaguely recognised; the other a craftsman come over the previous year after D’Alsennin had taken ship to Toremal to settle a few matters with Emperor Tadriol and start recruiting new blood and necessary skills.

  “It’s the piglets,” one began.

  “I’ll pay with a share when it’s killed,” protested the other.

  His Tormalin lilt was already coloured with the ancient intonations and mongrel mercenary accents that were blending into Kellarin’s speech.

  “There’s ten in the litter,” the first man appealed to Guinalle. “Me and the wife can’t eat that much sausage! We need firewood. He’s got it stacked up to the eaves—”

  “And I sweated for every axe stroke,” protested the craftsman. “And Estle’s boar did the work on your sow, not you!”

  “I was talking with the demoiselle.” There was an ominous edge to Halice’s voice and both men took a pace back.

  The colonist twisted his cap awkwardly in square hands. “Beg pardon, Mis—” He swallowed the word ’Mistress’ as Halice glared at him.

  “If you want D’Alsennin to extend his authority over Deglain, Corps Commander, take it up with him.” Guinalle stood, smoothing the front of her plain gown. “I have more than enough to do here.”

  “So I see.” Halice frowned and the men with the squabble took another step back but I didn’t think her anger was directed at them. “Have you any adepts trained to share your duties yet?”

  Guinalle stiffened. “We’ve managed some study over the winter but time is limited with so much to do.”

  “And it’s always quicker and easier to do things yourself rather than show someone else. Why risk them fouling it up?” Halice’s voice was firm but not unsympathetic. She looked down at Guinalle with a rare smile. “Which is all well and good but you need to let folk learn by their own mistakes.”

  “It’s for me to judge how best to train practitioners of Artifice.” Guinalle’s chin came up, her expression one of frosty hauteur. “Haste is often at odds with wisdom, especially when we can ill afford even the most trivial errors. Good day to you.” Guinalle nodded a brusque farewell and swept back to her waiting women, leaving the men with the squabble looking blank.

  Halice strode out of the hall and I followed, noting she was rubbing absently at the thigh she’d broken a couple of years back. Guinalle’s skills with the healing power of Artifice had saved Halice from life as a cripple and Halice was ever one to honour her debts, whether the noblewoman wanted her help or not.

  “That girl needs to take a bit more time for herself and ask a lot more of other people. I can’t recall when we last talked without someone interrupting to ask her to judge a barter, solve a quarrel, or advise on some triviality.” Halice shot me a glare. “There wasn’t one of the adepts she’s supposedly training around that table.”

  “Don’t look at me,” I warned her. “My tricks with the Forest charms are only Low Artifice and that’s as much as I’m interested in.” That Guinalle barely concealed her disdain for such minor magic didn’t exactly endear her to me.

  “You could learn the Higher Artifice,” Halice challenged. “You’ve shown an aptitude for enchantment.”

  “I don’t want to,” I told her bluntly.

  “You mean Ryshad doesn’t want you to,” countered Halice.

  “When did I last hide behind a man’s say-so?” I scoffed. Ryshad hadn’t told me he didn’t want me studying Artifice with Guinalle. He probably wouldn’t, even if I did. But he wouldn’t like it all the same and that was enough to tip the balance in favour of my own reservations, even if I was curious to learn how Guinalle worked her enchantments without the songs that were the only way I knew of using aetheric power. I wasn’t that curious. Tricks to light fires or smooth over footsteps are all very well but I knew better than most how Artifice could get inside people’s heads, even leave them dead without a mark on them. I could count the people I’d trust with that kind of power, even with the best of intentions, on the fingers of one hand.

  Halice was scowling. “D’Alsennin’s some skill with aetheric magic, hasn’t he? He should lean a bit more weight on the traces.”

  It was a safe bet who’d be telling him that. Which would certainly be more interesting than going home to do the laundry. A new thought occurred to me. “Sutal will probably come back if Lessay does. She’d take some of the load off Guinalle.”

  Halice nodded grudgingly. “We could do with a proper surgeon, regardless.”

  We got a ride back across the river on a flat-bottomed boat laden with salvaged masonry and I scrambled gratefully ashore at the jetty that marked Vithrancel’s first proper landing. I spotted Werdel among the men piling stone up beyond any risk of flooding.

  I waved to him. “Where’s Rysh?”

  He rested dusty hands on his thighs. “Taken D’Alsennin up to the drying sheds.”

  I looked at Halice. “Do you want to go after them?”

  Halice looked around the buildings that were finally giving Vithrancel some appearance of a real town. Colonists and mercenaries alike had tacked haphazard shelters on to ancient remnants of walls and roofs, scant defence against that first uncertain winter. A full eight seasons later, the last of these makeshifts were being cleared as new buildings staked firm
claim to the land and we even had an irregular space people were calling the market square. A brewer had claimed the first plot to universal approval and his solid establishment now offered Kellarin’s only taproom where I occasionally found a friendly game among those keen to quench their thirsts. The long low building beside it sheltered looms shared informally by men and women with the skills to use them and I saw the usual throng of people with wool to swap for yarn or finished cloth around the door. The loft above served as a store for the dyers and fullers who’d set up pungent work further downstream.

  Halice was glaring at an impressive building at the head of the market square. It had a definite air of authority, roofs neatly slated with stone rather than wooden shingles and walls scoured clean of the mottled stains of age. A splash of bright green on a ground of azure blue hung bashful from a lanyard, waiting for Temar’s return to hoist it to the foremost gable. Held out by a helpful wind, it would show a device of three overlapping holm oak leaves.

  “It’s all very well Temar hanging out his flag but as soon as anyone fussing sees he’s never there, they head straight for Guinalle. What we want is some magic to stick the lad’s arse to a chair every morning,” said Halice with a glint in her eye. “Artifice or wizardry, I don’t care which.”

  I chuckled. “Shiv might oblige. Let’s see what’s trading while we’re waiting.” I gestured towards the large hall to the offhand of Temar’s residence. That had rapidly become the centre for barter and bargaining among colonists and mercenaries alike. I might find something worth the promise of a few of Ryshad’s bricks.

  The Island City of Hadrumal,

  15th of Aft-Spring

  Hearth Master, Flood Mistress.” A startled maidservant bobbed a curtsey to the stout man sweeping into the quadrangle. He spared her a lordly wave of the full-cut sleeve of his velvet robe. The woman with him ignored the girl, cutting directly across the flagstones towards Planir’s door, unyielding determination on her weathered face. She held the door for her companion with visible impatience but remained silent, setting a punishing pace up the stairs. The man rapped a fat hand on Planir’s door, ruby rings dark on three fingers.