“If you’ve no further need of the ship, the men are anxious to put out again,” said Rhal, coming over to take his leave of them. “We’ve made two crossings with an empty hold and there are enemy ships to be plucked.”
“The ship is yours to command, Captain,” Seregil told him. “And the luck of Astellus go with you. I expect the Green Lady will be the scourge of both seas.”
Moving Micum into a hired cart, Alec and Seregil set off for Wheel Street. The house was just as they’d left it. Evidently Mardus had been well apprised enough of their movements not to waste time on unnecessary destruction.
Old Runcer greeted them with his usual lack of surprise, as if they’d been gone for a day or two instead of months. Seregil’s white hounds, Zir and Mârag, showed equal equanimity toward their master, padding softly on ahead as Seregil and Alec helped Micum up the stairs to Seregil’s chamber.
Valerius arrived soon after, dour as ever, but subdued. His scowl deepened as he inspected Micum’s wound.
“You’re lucky to be here,” he exclaimed, wrinkling his nose. “Who’s been looking after you?”
“Thero, mostly,” Alec told him. “He was there when the dyrmagnos attacked him, and he tended him all the way home.”
“He may have saved your leg, Micum. He certainly saved your life. There’s still a great deal of healing to be done, though.” He turned to Seregil and Alec. “Runcer can help me. I suggest you both go out for a while.”
“I’m not leaving,” Seregil protested with a flash of his old fire.
“You heard him, Seregil. You’d just be in the way. Get out,” Micum said from the bed, making a passable job of sounding cheerful. “Come see me in the morning.”
“Come on,” said Alec, taking him by the arm. “I could do with a walk after all that time at sea.”
Valerius closed the door firmly behind them. Seregil glared at it for a moment, tight-lipped and grim, then followed Alec downstairs without another word.
Seregil hadn’t worn a sword since the day of Nysander’s death, but Alec hastily buckled on his own as they headed out into the cool spring evening. Lithion had passed into Nythin since he’d been gone and flowering trees scented the air.
They both still wore their rough traveling clothes and, with his sword swinging against his leg with no cloak to cover it, Alec worried fleetingly that the Watch might stop them to ask why two such ill-dressed strangers were hurrying through the streets of the Noble Quarter.
But Seregil soon took the lead, heading into poorer courtyards and alleyways. He was still limping slightly, but seemed not to feel it as he strode silently along. Along the way they passed Lazarda’s Black Feather brothel. The door stood open and, glancing in, Alec saw that the carved ship on the mantelpiece was facing west, signaling that a message had been left there for the Rhíminee Cat. If Seregil saw this, he ignored it and they wandered on like ghosts through the familiar shadows of their city.
A slender moon stood high over the rooftops before Seregil finally broke his silence. Stopping suddenly in a weed-choked courtyard, he turned to Alec as if they were in mid conversation.
“He thinks he might die, you know?” he said, his face half-lost in shadow. The part Alec could see was a mask of misery.
“Micum? I don’t think he will,” Alec replied, adding without much conviction, “Valerius wouldn’t have made us leave if he thought he would.”
“I don’t think I could stand to lose him, too,” Seregil said, betraying more emotion than he’d shown in days. But before Alec could respond he was off again, heading west.
They’d gone several blocks in silence before Alec realized where it was that they’d been headed all along.
One scorched brass cockerel remained to guard the courtyard gate, its upraised claw empty. Beyond the low wall lay nothing but a gaping foundation hole choked with charred timbers. Everything had burned—the inn, the stables, the wooden gate of the back court. The stink of rain-soaked ashes hung rank on the air.
“O Illior!” Alec whispered in stunned dismay. “I knew it was gone, but still—”
Seregil looked equally bereft. “It was just starting to burn when I left. Cilla was only two years old when I bought it.”
Alec shuddered, hating Vargûl Ashnazai all the more for giving him such memories of her and the others. “Do you think their ghosts are here?”
Seregil kicked at a bit of cracked stone. “If they did linger, you gave them peace the moment you strangled that bastard.”
“What about Luthas?”
“I suppose the drysians at the temple will foster him out or make a priest of him—”
Seregil broke off as a small form bounded up out of the cellar hole with a loud, familiar trill. Purring frantically, Ruetha went back and forth between them, twining herself around their ankles and arching to have her ears scratched.
They stared down at the cat for a moment in mutual amazement, then Seregil scooped her up with shaking hands. She butted him under the chin with her head.
“By all the gods! Thryis used to complain about the way she’d disappear until I came back.” Burying his fingers in the sooty fur of her ruff, he muttered huskily, “Well, old girl, you’d better come with us this time. We’re not coming back.”
“Not ever.” Alec rested a hand on Seregil’s shoulder as he reached to stroke Ruetha. “Not ever.”
When they returned to Wheel Street a few hours later, Seregil and Alec found Valerius just finishing a hearty late supper in the dining room.
“Cheer up, you two. Micum will be fine,” the drysian told them, brushing crumbs from his beard.
“What about his leg?” asked Seregil.
“Go see for yourself:”
Elsbet was at her father’s side, holding his hand as he slept. Weariness made her look older than her fifteen years; with her smooth dark hair bound back in a thick braid over the shoulder of her simple blue gown, she was the image of Kari as Seregil had first known her.
“He’s going to be all right,” she whispered.
The room smelled of healing herbs and fresh air. Bending over Micum, Seregil saw with relief the faint flush of healthy color that tinged the sleeping man’s cheeks. Fresh blood had soaked through the lines wrapped around his thigh, but the leg was still intact.
“Valerius says he’ll be able to ride again in time,” she told them. “I’ve already arranged for a carriage to take him home tomorrow. Mother’s been so worried!”
“We’ll come out with you,” Seregil replied, wondering what sort of reception he’d have from her mother.
52
LAST WORDS
“Mother, Mother! A carriage is coming, and riders,” cried Illia from the front gate. “It must be Father coming home!”
Shading her eyes against the slanting afternoon sun, Kari joined her at the gate and watched the covered carriage make its way slowly up the hill toward them. She recognized the riders as Seregil and Alec. Micum wasn’t with them.
She unconsciously pressed a hand across her belly as she set off down the road to meet them. Catching her mother’s mood, Illia hurried solemnly along behind her.
Seregil cantered on ahead to meet her and Kari’s sense of dread deepened as he came near. She had never seen him so pale and worn. There was something in his face, a shadow.
“Where’s Father, Uncle Seregil?” demanded Illia.
“In the carriage,” he told her, reining in beside them and dismounting. “He’s wounded but he’ll be fine. Elsbet’s with him, too, and Alec.”
“Thank the Maker!” Kari exclaimed, embracing him. “Oh, Seregil, I know about the Cockerel. I’m so sorry. Those poor good people.”
He returned the embrace stiffly and she stepped back to look into his face again. “What is it? There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“You’ve had no news, then?”
“Magyana sent word at dawn that you’d returned, that’s all.”
Seregil turned away, his face disturbingly expressionless a
s he looked out over the new green of the meadow. “Nysander’s dead.”
Kari raised a hand to her mouth, too stunned to speak.
“That nice old man who did magic tricks for me on Sakor’s Day?” asked Illia. She danced around them impatiently, her face puckering to cry. “Why is he dead? Did a bad man kill him?”
Seregil swallowed hard, his face still grim. “He did something very brave. Very difficult and very brave. And he died.”
The others drew up and Seregil straightened, his face betraying nothing but a strained composure.
Too composed, it seemed to Kari as she hurried to the carriage door. But then all her thoughts turned to Micum.
Haggard as he was, he greeted her with a rakish grin as she flew into his outstretched arms.
“I may be home for good this time, love,” he said ruefully, patting his bandaged leg propped before him on the carriage seat.
“Make me no idle promises, you wandering scoundrel!” Kari gasped, wiping away tears of relief. “Where’s Alec?”
She leaned out the window and took his hand as he sat his horse. “Are you well, love?”
“Me? Hardly a scratch,” Alec assured her, though he looked as drawn and careworn as the others. Kari held his hand a moment longer, seeing what Beka had seen; he was no longer the boy he’d been when he first came to Watermead. Whatever had happened to him through these past weeks, it had stripped the innocence from him, and who knew what else besides?
The household hounds leapt around the carriage and horses as they entered the courtyard. A loud answering hiss issued from somewhere near Kari’s feet. She looked down to find a pair of green eyes shining out at her from a crack in a wicker hamper.
“What in the world—?”
“Seregil’s cat,” Micum told her. “I bet there’ll be some slashed snouts among the dogs before she’s through. Poor creature, she’s the last survivor of the inn.”
Kari smiled to herself, but held her peace until Alec and Seregil had helped Micum into the main hall. When he was settled comfortably in front of the fire, she drew Elsbet aside, then whispered to Illia. The little girl disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a plump, curly-headed baby in her arms.
“Father, look what Valerius brought us. Isn’t he pretty?”
Alec was the first to react. Jumping to his feet again, he lifted the child from Illia’s uncertain grip and held him up, looking him over with a mix of wonder and joy.
“Cilla’s baby?” Micum asked.
Kari took his hand. “Valerius brought him to me a few days after you left and asked if I’d foster the child. I knew Cilla would want him here, rather than raised by strangers who knew nothing of his people. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Of course not,” replied Micum, watching in bemusement as Luthas tugged at Alec’s hair, crowing with delighted recognition. “But with the new one coming, do you think you’re up to it?”
“Up to raising the orphaned child of a friend? I should think so!” Kari scoffed. “With the older girls gone, I’ve got far too much time on my hands. And Illia adores him.”
She looked up at Seregil, standing alone by the hearth. “When he’s old enough, I’ll tell him how you saved his life,” she added.
“It might be better if he didn’t know,” Seregil replied, watching Alec and Illia fussing over the child.
“I’ll leave it to you, then,” Kari said, catching another glimpse of the desperate unhappiness she’d sensed in him on the road.
Lying close to Micum that night, she listened in silence as he slowly explained the manner of Nysander’s sacrifice and death.
“No wonder Seregil’s so lost,” she whispered, stroking her husband’s strong, freckled arm. “How could Nysander have demanded such a thing of him?”
“I don’t completely understand it all myself,” Micum admitted sadly. “But I do believe Nysander was right in thinking that no one but Seregil would have the heart to strike him down when the time came. I couldn’t have done it, and I don’t think Alec could have, either.”
“We forget sometimes how cruel the gods can be!” Kari said bitterly. “To turn love to murder like that.”
“You’d have to have been there,” Micum said, staring up into the shadows cast by the fire on the hearth. “If you could have seen Nysander’s face—It wasn’t murder. It was an act of mercy, and love.”
• • •
During the weeks that followed mixed reports came of the war; for the time being the Plenimaran army was held back in eastern Mycena, but their black ships ruled the seas, raiding the eastern coast of Skala as far north as Cirna, though they hadn’t yet won control of the Canal.
Except for the absence of the young men who’d gone off to war, life at Watermead continued on largely unchanged. Gorathin followed Nythin, and then Shemin, bringing with it the lushness of high summer. Gentle morning rains nourished the fields and strong spring lambs and colts bounded after their dams in the meadows.
Kari flourished with the land and her great belly swayed proudly before her as she went briskly about her daily work and the welcome tasks of summer. But she continued to worry about Seregil, though the only outward sign of trouble was his unusual quietness. She knew Micum and Alec felt the same concern, yet none of them could see a way to help him.
He sought no solace from any of them, to be sure, but kept himself busy around the estate. Micum had made it clear that he and Alec were welcome to live at Watermead for as long as they wished, and Seregil seemed content to do so. From Alec, Kari learned that he’d sworn never to set foot in Rhíminee again.
If he’d been morose or self-pitying, she might have tried to cajole him out of it, but he wasn’t. When asked, he would tell tales and play the harp. He worked with the horses, helped build a new stable, and spent his evenings devising clever devices to help Micum cope with his crippled leg, including a specially designed stirrup that let him ride again. Of late he’d even been able to bring himself to hold Luthas again, but left to himself he sank again into that inner stillness.
Alec, who’d endured the most abuse of any of them, was the quickest to recover. Farm labor agreed with him and he quickly grew brown and cheerful again. Kari saw him watching Seregil, however, trying to gauge the inner turmoil that underlay his friend’s long silences and distant eyes.
At night they shared the bed in the guest chamber, but Kari could tell that no comfort was being found there either.
• • •
One morning in mid-Shemin Kari awoke just before dawn, too uncomfortable to sleep. No matter how she turned, her back ached. Not wanting to wake Micum, she threw a shawl on over her shift, checked Luthas, who lay asleep in the cradle by their bed, then went off to the kitchen to make tea. To her surprise, the kettle was on the hook over the fire already. A moment later Alec came in carrying a basket of pears from the tree in the backyard.
“You’re up early,” he said, offering her the fruit.
“It’s this wretched child.” She frowned comically, kneading her lower back. “He kicks his mother and puts his knees and elbows in all the wrong places. What woke you so early?”
“Seregil was tossing around in his sleep again. I thought maybe I’d go hunting.”
“Sit with me a moment, won’t you? It’s so peaceful this time of the day.” Kari sat on the hearth bench to warm her back while Alec made the tea. “Seregil isn’t getting any better, is he?”
“You and Micum both see it, too, don’t you?” he said wearily, pulling up a stool beside her. He held out one tanned, callused hand. “He hasn’t once told me to wear gloves. He was always after me about it. Before.”
He looked up at her and Kari saw the depth of unhappiness in his young face. “Now he goes out at night or sits up writing. He hardly sleeps at all.”
“Writing what?”
Alec shrugged. “He won’t talk about it. I even thought of stealing a look at his papers, but he’s got them hidden somewhere. It’s like he’s fading insi
de, Kari, leaving us behind without going away. And I keep thinking about something he told me once, about when he was exiled from Aurënen.”
He spoke of that to you? thought Kari. Even Micum knew almost nothing of that part of Seregil’s life.
“Another boy was sent away with him then, but he threw himself off the ship and drowned,” Alec went on. “Seregil says most Aurënfaie exiles end up suicides because sooner or later they fall into despair living among the Tírfaie. He said it hadn’t happened to him. But the way things are now, I think maybe it has.”
Kari watched his hands tighten around the mug he was holding. There was something else going on behind those blue eyes, something too painful to share. She reached to stroke his cheek.
“Then keep good watch over him, Alec. You two share the same blood. Perhaps in his sadness he’s forgotten that.”
Alec sighed heavily. “He’s forgotten more than that. The day he found me again in Plenimar, something happened, but now he won’t—”
Kari flinched suddenly as a sharp stab of pain lanced down one leg.
“What it is?” he asked, concerned.
Kari gasped through her teeth again, then grasped his arm to raise herself. “It’s only the eight-month pains. A walk in the meadow will ease them and we can keep talking.” The pain passed and she gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t look so worried. It’s just the Maker’s way of preparing me for the birth. You know, I’ve got a craving for some of that new cheese. Run and fetch us a bit from the dairy, would you?”
“Are you sure? I don’t like to leave you.”
“Maker’s Mercy, Alec, I was bearing children before you were even thought of. Go on, now.” Pressing her fists into the small of her back, she went outside by the kitchen door so as not to waken the servants still sleeping in the hall.
• • •
Alec was halfway to the dairy before he realized he’d forgotten to bring a dish for the fresh curds. By the time he found one, Kari was already out of sight around the corner of the house. Going around to the courtyard, however, he saw that the postern was still barred.