Chapter 7

Saint Qadeem arrived in a most unusual way. On a horse.

I trotted to the command pavilion from the infirmary, my skirts in my hands. Mud got on my hems anyway; a light rain had begun before dawn and the morning was a dismal grey. When I arrived, Qadeem was just drawing up at the awning-covered entrance on a muddy brown palfrey. The King’s Guard dropped to one knee in obeisance as he swung down from the saddle; the royal courier alongside him went ahead into the pavilion. One Guard caught his arm, jerked him to a surprised stop, and checked his pattern before letting him pass.

Qadeem smiled at the sight of me and put up an arm. A brief hug made me smile too. He was so warm, as always, under that silly fur-lined cloak. It was never a nice enough day for him.

“How does it go?” he asked before he released me. “With Kiefan?”

That tempered my cheer. “Gingerly.”

Qadeem’s hand lingered on my shoulder. “Rafe is well. I checked on him before leaving.” He looked toward the pavilion as Kiefan appeared in the doorway and bowed. “A risky attack, sir,” Qadeem said. “Thank the Father it worked. Or perhaps the Shepherd.”

“The Shepherd kindly lent me his culling knife,” Kiefan answered. “There’s a kettle on the fire for tea, m’lord, and Gregor’s fetching something to go alongside it.”

Qadeem put that aside with one hand. “I’m well enough for now. Let young Bern have it — he’s ridden all night. Where’s this elect?”

“At the master forge. A horse for Kate!” At Kiefan’s order, one of the pages handed the courier’s reins off and ran for the stables.

I rode with my saint into Ansehen, telling him about the dysentery as we went. Physician Brauer had sent out Ters to see how many men truly had it; they were reluctant to come to the infirmary even when they were weak from the fever and thirst and saw blood in their leavings. It was coming on quickly and strong.

“It was waiting for us in Ansehen,” Qadeem said. He looked up at the grey blankets overhead. “This rain will make it worse.”

We rode past the creeping column of men on the Southbound Road. Wide as the switchback road and the Ramsbridge were, it was slow going to march an army along them. Captain-general Scyfe and his division of Suevi had slipped away in the cloudy dark when the night watch dozed off at their posts, and had stolen a few unattended wagons of their own supplies. He’d have two days’ lead on us by the time we were ready to follow.

Elect Renata seemed to pay no mind at all to the steady rivulet of water falling from a broken beam in the master forge’s roof. Other drips made puddles on the floor, but none were over the furnace. Her four guards clustered in a dry spot out of her way, playing cards. They sprang to attention when Qadeem stepped into the charred doorway and then they dipped in obeisance. He dismissed them.

She came up short and stared a moment. “For you must be Saint Qadeem, la.”

“And you are Elect Renata.” He answered her in that same Arceal cadence. I followed him through the doorway — the door was a heap of half-burned boards outside — and looked up.

She had braced the worst of the roof beams with a piece of another, creating a pillar in the middle of the shop. Qadeem asked and she gave us the complete list of what she’d done thus far to clean out the forge and organize. The shop’s table leaned but it bore the array of tools she’d dug out. A sack of charcoal and a pile of wood near to being charcoal itself waited for the furnace to be ready.

“Its mortar needs repair. For which I must have kir.”

“You would be bound?” He said the words slowly, giving them weight.

She put out her hand for Qadeem to cut Woden’s temporary bond. “I renounce Empress Seraphine, who tore me from my saint.” Elect Renata’s voice rose. “Who gave me to Gauvail for a toy. I would be bound to one who respects craft. Loves art.”

Qadeem and Saint Aleksandr had shared many of the Blessings that gave craft: the craft-hands, the heat-sighted, the strength-blessed. My saint’s particular love had been scribing and drawing but there was much overlap with carpentry, architecture, and stonework. With Aleks gone, he had become the saint of nearly all Wodenberg’s crafts.

“My elect must put truth and reason first in their minds,” he told Renata, as he’d told me at my binding. “They must seek knowledge and experience, answer me truly and fully when I question. They must aid me in battle if needed. You must aid Saint Woden as well, but your first loyalty is to me. Your second, to your sister and brother elect.” Qadeem indicated me.

Renata nodded. “My saint, my siblings in binding. And Saint Woden.”

“So long as your strength and loyalty are mine, I will see you blossom to your fullest. Though I suspect…”

He sounded her, and through my bond I faintly heard the strange, rich chord her kir sounded. It hung in the air, and then faded sooner than I had expected.

“Your saint did train you well.” Qadeem fell back into Arceal cadence.

Renata nodded, the lines on her soft face deepening. “Saint Chale gave much —”

“Saint Chale?”

She nodded again, paying his sharp tone no mind. Renata put out her right hand again. “I would be bound.”

Qadeem spun up a kir-blade in his hand. “I do not force the bond. Prepare yourself.”

He cut his meridian open — I felt my own ache in sympathy — and she cut her own. I noted that saint’s name, Chale, as the bond was made. He must be a crafter saint.

I felt kir move between my saint and my new sister elect. “Mend the forge,” Qadeem said.

Renata put her hands on the stone hearth and kir seeped into the mortar. I moved closer, curious to see how she did it. It mended as if it were flesh. I was the nearest to the sack of charcoal when she wanted it. I heaved the sooty thing up with kir-vines and she dumped it into the fire-pot. With a handful of kir-fire, she lit it to an instant blaze and stoked it into a neat pile with her bare hands, heedless of the growing heat. Renata lay a shaped bowl of kir over the fire and I felt its heat rise further. We called in her four guards and set them to working the bellows.

She’d found the pieces of a broken dagger in the wreckage. It had rusted as well, after a year’s weathering. Renata buried it in the coals and I caught a faint glimmer of the kir protecting her fingers.

“Crafters are wonders to watch,” Qadeem murmured, stepping beside me.

“Can you mend a blade, thus?” I had to ask; from what little I knew, a broken blade was only scrap metal.

He didn’t answer. Renata had selected a pair of tongs from the several on the table. She fished half the dagger out by its hilt and set the tongs into a pair of holes in the hearth. The broken blade stood upright, glowing dull red. She plucked the rest of the blade from the fire and set the broken edges together. Heedless of the heat or the blade’s edges, she leaned into pressing the pieces together. The blade slid through her fisted hand, from point to hilt, and I felt kir roiling. Golden embers sparked off and sank into the hearth.

The dagger stood in the tongs’ grip, bright, clean and whole.

“As smoothly done as any I’ve seen, la,” Qadeem said. Renata passed the mended blade to him. “But we shall need some time to fully supply you — though there may be materials here still. Can we rely on you to repair blades? Armor?”

Elect Renata’s smile turned proud. “Surely, my saint.”

“If you recall aught of the founts, tell me.”

I saw my chance to ask. “Did you hear anything of the Empress bringing a prisoner out of Wodenberg?”

Her dark eyes, sunk in her soft face, turned to me. “A prisoner? She flew over Temitte, for I felt her pass. The orders came later. Nothing of a prisoner in them, la.”

“When did the order come?” Qadeem asked.

“Before Solstice. And Gauvail did send me north then. Arkho was here, commanding. Liandro was sent after Equinox.” Renata spoke slowly, stoking the burning charcoal with one hand. “Might I fetch the iron bars in the shed? Could draw some wire, here.”

Little need to tell Saint Gauvail, or his elect, of the Empress’ prisoner. Perhaps that was true enough. But someone must know — or else I’d have to ask the Empress Seraphine herself.

It was not all so wondrous a day as Renata’s blade-mending. Elect Liandro would not even speak to Qadeem, once woken from unconsciousness. He snarled about my saint being a traitor and a fool, and tried to steal my kir twice. He tried to pull from the men outside the little tent; Qadeem struck him with a kir-vine that coiled around the prime meridian in his throat and set him thrashing in pain.

“I gave you chances,” he said, standing over Liandro as he screamed curses. “Kate, come and see this.”

I did not flinch, though I wanted to. I caught Liandro’s hand as the agonizing fit eased, to see the charm Qadeem spun. It was a thread of kir, which he sent wriggling through the patterns of Liandro’s mind.

His eyes flew wide. “No.” He breathed it at first. “Don’t — please! I’ll —”

The thread turned and wove like a slender worm, drawing its loops snug as it went. One little pinch cut his words off, mid-syllable. I glanced up at my saint, uneasy; his gaze was chill and intent, as unshakeable as Woden. Liandro twitched on the braided rag carpet each time another cluster of patterns was bound.

Qadeem looped the ends of the kir-thread together and melded them. He stepped back, so I did too. Liandro lay limp and staring. Breathing.

“Stand up.”

The elect obeyed, if slowly. His head gradually turned, surveying the tent with dim eyes. I thought of a very old man I’d met, once, simple as a child and barely aware of what went on.

“Sit.” Qadeem pointed at the bedroll. “Stay.” He took me by the arm as Liandro moved to sit down. “To undo it, only cut the thread,” he said as we left. “He can be watched, thus, by anyone and used to bargain with Arcea if they’ll have him back.”

The field below the switchback road flooded. The rain stopped, overnight, but the next day was still wet. Cold wind blew the clouds away and left us all raw and wishing for the heavy woolens that had been packed away. And feverish, cramping in the belly, and bleeding. Half the camp had dysentery now.

I felt a touch of it myself, but no more than a little pain and unpleasantness. My patterns fought the disruption of the infection and a pulse of kir cleansed the antagonizers away.

“No elect, no saint, dies of illness,” Saint Qadeem said. “Only violence.”

Miserable as dysentery was, most men were strong enough to endure it so long as they had river water to drink and something to eat. The worst off would stay in Ansehen with a physician and some Ters. They’d be part of the guards who’d keep watch over the five thousand disarmed centaurs and minotaurs — and Elect Liandro — who’d be bargaining chips should we ever face the Voice of the Empress across a negotiating table again.

There was talk of setting the prisoners to clearing the rubble and cinders in Ansehen to keep them busy in the meantime.

By the end of the second day, our army joined the Tadhlon Guard below the hills and was organized for the march to Temitte. The city was three days away.

Elect Teleri and Croícruach joined our dinner meeting, replacing Duke Stahlmann who was to stay in his ruined castle of Ansehen. By meal’s end, talk had turned to the mud.

“Did pitch camp on the rise, for that,” Croícruach told us. She’d also told us to call her Eith. “Your Rangers did know straight off ’tis often flooded. Surely they told you?” She stamped one boot on the carpets, which squelched.

“It’s unwise to set the command pavilion on the camp’s outskirts,” Kiefan answered. “It’s an invitation to ambush, if we did.”

“Wet feet, ’tis an invitation to ringworm. I’ll sleep better without itching — keeping one hand on a sword’s little new.” Eith slathered preserves on her bread and took a bite. For sweets after dinner, we had preserves of those fuzzy fruit Arcea traded in. Peaches.

I was glad for the spiced tea to warm my hands on. “I ordered the infirmary moved, for that,” I said. “The wet aids the dysentery as well.”

“’Tis only sensible to sleep dry,” Eith said. “Now, if only ‘twasn’t alone.”

“I’ve no complaints,” Duke Vysokov said, with such dryness that it took a moment to catch the jest. His duchess was quartermaster to his reserve force and had given her report with the others during dinner.

“Fortunate one,” Elect Teleri chuckled. She raised her mug of tea. “To hearth and home.”

That was easy to drink to. “Hearth and home.” I tapped my mug to Saint Qadeem’s, on one side, and Duke Seagrace on the other. Despite the wound of his lost wife, he took the joke and the toast well.

“Must make do, then.” Captain Eith looked down the table toward me. “Shall be aught to sample of Wodenberg’s camp dogs, Elect?”

I didn’t quite catch her meaning. “Pardon?”

“It’s warm enough to sleep alone.” Saint Qadeem spoke for me, and I sussed it out then.

“I haven’t sampled,” I said. “Though not for lack of offers.”

The number of heads that turned toward me brought a blush to my face. I’d worn my kir openly, my first few days in camp, after so many took me for a fresh face among the camp followers. Watching their cheerful flirting turn to shock and frightened obeisance, begging my pardon, had given me no pleasure. And when an Englic armsman caught my hand, kissed it, and declared that I must be the queen of Arbor Street — with such confidence and a handsome face that he stopped my breath a moment —

Better to wear my kir than to feel such hollow hunger again. I’d survived the cold winter alone. I was stronger than that.

/ trouble? /

I shook my head when Qadeem glanced at me, but I doubted I convinced him.

“Might find something, though.” By how Eith’s gaze roamed the table and the King’s Guards standing just by, she might do her shopping right here. “Did take some looking, but ’tisn’t so odd now. Your Blessings.”

“We seem odd to you?” Kiefan put a subtle emphasis on both ends of that.

Elect Teleri cut her captain off. “The work of saints, ’tis ever mysterious,” she said with a nod to Qadeem. “But on first sight, unsettling.”

“Which was little accident,” Qadeem said in reply.

“Not so unsettling as Arcea’s beasts,” Captain Eith said, shooing the thought away with one hand. “No longer men, those.”

“But they were, once,” Qadeem said.

That caught many ears, of those who understood Arceal around the table. But then, they’d never seen the kir-patterns of a centaur — or a minotaur, as I had that afternoon with my saint. We’d spoken to one of their officers. The men they’d been could still be seen in what they’d become.

My saint went on, scanning across those who’d looked toward him. “Yes, they were men. Each one taken as a tithe from his homeland, for he showed some talent with kir. Each one trained with the sword and further chosen by the Empress. Given to Saint Chale to be forged into something new.”

I perked at that part: the saint Renata had been trained by. I felt a sober nod from Qadeem through my bond. His talk of the Empress sparing me for my flesh-forging talents flicked back to mind.

“You know this saint?” Kiefan was quick to ask.

The answer did not come as quickly. “I knew something of him. Enough to say this: he loves his art above all else. All else. He does not see monsters in what he makes. And if you talk to these centaurs, these minotaurs, you may not see monsters either — as you have seen beyond the Blessings.” That, he directed toward Captain Eith and Elect Teleri. “Which are, themselves, yes, a bit of flesh forging. As is what Elect Kate did to mend Captain Aleksandra’s leg. It is in the doing that a talent is healing or is monstrous. It is never simple.”

Silence followed. I felt the weight of that, of a sudden. The peg leg I’d made for Captain Aleks, and the boy’s replacement sheep eye, had been to help them. Perhaps some would be frightened or call it monstrous. The minotaur’s rumbling, gravelly voice had been a man’s despite his bull’s muzzle, twitching ears, and the horns. He’d said little of where he was from and stuck to what was expected of his men if they wished to be treated well.

“Even a talent for killing?” Kiefan asked.

Qadeem gave him a thin smile. “It is never simple.”

“What do they do if there’s no war?” Duke Seagrace spoke up from my other side. “The centaurs and minotaurs?”

“They serve for life. It’s their oath. Those left maimed may be laborers. Many fight in the gladiator pits until they die there. Few options, but the Empress sees that they are busy.”

That turned the talk to gladiator pits — there was one in Temitte, it would seem. My thoughts lingered on my sheep-eyed boy, though, and the minotaur’s dazzling pattern. An eye seemed an innocent thing in comparison. And simple. How one could put a bull’s head onto a man —

For a moment, I saw those two archers’ faces the moment my charm hit and pictured each piece hanging in air. Waiting for something new to be added.

My blood ran cold.