THE WOMAN: VIII

The double line of small fires went north and south as far as Serroi could see. “I didn’t quite expect this,” she said quietly. She tugged at the strap of the boy’s cap as the bright dots blurred then steadied. The Tarr was beginning to wear off. She straightened her back and looked around.

“What are those fires?” Dinafar sounded awed.

“Pilgrim campfires. Along the Highroad. On their way to Oras, walking, I imagine.”

Clouds were gathering overhead. The first half of the Gather was up over the horizon and still free of cloudcover, touching the hillsides with silver light. The moon-knot was pulling tighter. For a moment Serroi was tempted to renew her energy with another Tarr button and keep riding. There was certainly enough light. No time, no time, she thought. She looked to the North. A day and a half riding, longer if I walk. And there’s Dinafar to deal with. She looked at the girl beside her. “Dina.”

“Yes, meie?”

“The Highroad goes south almost the whole way to the Biserica valley. You could be there in half a passage, twenty days of steady riding. There and safe.” She waited for questions, but Dinafar was silent, watching her. “The other way, that goes to Oras. You’ve seen the danger I’m in. Go south, little one. Knock at the Biserica gates, they’ll take you in. You don’t need me anymore—if you ever did.”

“I’m going with you.” In the moonlight Serroi could see Dinafar’s face take on its sullen, stubborn scowl. “If you won’t take me with you,” she went on, “I’ll follow you.”

Serroi shivered. “We’d better camp.” She scanned the hillside below. There was a small grove of brellim about a quarter of a mile ahead. “There,” she said, pointing.

They tied one groundsheet on a slant against the wind and spread out their blankets on the other after Serroi weighted it down with a few rocks, some of the many dredged up by the brellim’s mobile roots. As Dinafar gathered wood for the fire, Serroi unsaddled the macain and turned them loose to graze. They worked in silence, putting aside the quarrel that lay between them until they’d eaten.

The fire had burned down to coals. Serroi shook the cha pot, poured the last of the liquid into her cup. Then she crossed to her blankets and settled down under the slant of the groundsheet. She sipped at the cha and looked down at Dinafar lying beside her.

“Five days ago.… Maiden bless, only five days … five days ago my shieldmate and I were part of the Doamna’s guard in Oras.” She rubbed at her eyes and drank some cha. “The Doamna, Domnor Hern’s head wife, Floarin, a royal bitch. Tayyan … Tayyan was a mountain lord’s niece. A Stenda. Her father taught her a boy’s skills and a love for racing macain.” She smiled. “A racing macai would make our pair look pale. She loved those savage, near intractable beasts with a passion no one could beat out of her and sneaked away to races whenever she could, even after our training was done and we were sent out on ward.”

Dinafar wriggled around until she was lying on her back, her legs drawn up, her hands laced behind her head. “I don’t see …” she began, then pressed her lips together, blushing because she dared to interrupt.

Serroi lifted a hand. “I know. I ramble. It’s the drug, I think. I hope. Never mind, I’ll get on with the story. Five days ago, just about this time.…” She flicked her fingers at the fragments of sky visible through the leaves. “When we were going off duty, Tayyan pulled me aside. She’d heard about a macain race, an illegal one, held outside the city walls. The Sons of the Flame had managed to shut down all the races at the arena, called them incitement to sin. For some reason, I didn’t know what at the time, Morescad had ordered all the meien warding at the Plaz confined to their quarters for the night. Tayyan wanted me to go with her, said Morescad was a stiff idiot with bone for a brain and no reason to order the meien curfewed except he didn’t like us. She said she didn’t see any reason to obey him. She’d met one of her father’s old riding mates. A distant relative. And he’d told her of the race. As I said, she loved the racing macain and she hadn’t seen a good race for a long time. She was determined to go. I let her persuade me. We went out of the Plaz through the Doamna’s private garden and over the wall into the stables on the far side.” Serroi sighed and turned away, watching red run across black on the dying coals. “At least she had that. It was a good time. We came back into the city drunk with much wine and more excitement.”

They clattered over the cobbles, Tayyan excited and counting her winnings, Serroi quiet and increasingly disturbed. Her eye-spot throbbed uneasily and she had a sense of impending disaster.

“Here.” Tayyan caught Serroi’s hand. “This is yours.” She dropped coins into the small palm and closed short fingers over them. “I put down a couple of decsets for you.”

Serroi shook her head. “You know I don’t play those games.”

“You’ll spoil no sport tonight, little worrier.” Tayyan lifted her hands to the gathering clouds, yawned and groaned with the pleasure of stretching stiff muscles.

Serroi walked several minutes in silence, then she sighed and put the coins in her money sack. “Thanks,” she said.

They continued in silence until they came to the bulk of stone that was the Domnor’s Plaz. The Plaz stable backed against the outer wall, close to a small, seldom-used door. Serroi and Tayyan stopped across the street. While Tayyan waited, Serroi probed for guards. “Nothing,” she whispered. “Come on.”

They climbed the pole gate, both of them having some difficulty with balance, Serroi grimly concentrating, Tayyan full of giggles and nonsense until they both nearly tumbled in the thick macai muck in the corral. They slogged through the muck, weaving unsteadily around the sleeping macain, then started fumbling through the dusty vines tumbling down the wall. “Hey, where’s the rope?” Tayyan’s hoarse whisper sounded loud even over the increasing wind. “Maiden’s breasts, windrunner, what the hell’d you do with the rope?”

“Shh,” Serroi hissed. “Wake the macai. Wake ol’ Morescad.” She jerked at the vines, sneezing as the leaves dropped dust and pollen around her. “Must be here. Who’d wade through that slop but a pair of idiots like us?”

Tayyan looked briefly offended, then she giggled and lifted a filthy boot. “Wash it off in Floarin’s pool. Wonder what the royal cow’ll think when she gets a whiff of its new perfume.”

“Unh.” Serroi shook the rope free of the vines. “You first or me?” Taking Tayyan’s snort for an answer, she started climbing, making hard work of it as the wine fumes wheeled in her head.

They got up the rope with whispered curses and slipping boots then slid down into the garden. Serroi started to shake loose the grappel and pull the rope in. Tavyan tried to drag her away, but she jerked loose, stumbling back into a pleshtree, bringing overripe fruit down around her. While Tayyan watched, swaying and grinning. Serroi scraped a dollop of plesh off her front. “My rope, it’s my damn rope, you grinning beanpole,” she hissed. “Be damned if I leave it hanging there.”

“Scrap.” Grinning still, Tavyan forgot her impatience, stalked regally over to the shallow bathing pool and splashed into it, sloshing about while Serroi reeled in the rope and tied it back on her weaponbelt. Serroi watched the lanky form dancing about, kicking up noisy gouts of water, then she ran unsteadily to join her shieldmate, gloom forgotten for the moment. They splashed about in the pool clutching at each other, giggling at the thought of the dignified Floarin’s rage if she ever discovered what they’d done.

When the clouds began to obscure the moons Serroi shivered and climbed back onto the grass. Tayyan was quieter also, the wine beginning to wear off. The two meie looked at each other, sighed, climbed out of the pool, and walked silently toward the guarddoor. Abruptly Serroi clutched at Tayyan’s arm halting her. “Someone coming,” she hissed. “I feel.…” Her eye-spot was throbbing crazily and the stink of danger was thick in her nostrils. “Bad,” she murmured. Tayyan grew quiet and alert, the years of training clicking on. The meien faded into the dense shadow of the shrubbery, watching as two dark figures came through the small door in the outer wall and strode across the patch of grass toward the Plaz.

Serroi touched the hilt of Tayyan’s sword. Tayyan shook her head. They were in no position to challenge anyone.

The two men stood a moment in front of a section of wall then seemed to melt into the stone. The meien waited a dozen heartbeats then raced across the grass to that portion of the wall where the men had stood. Serroi touched her eye-spot, raised her brows. Tayyan nodded, a sharp assenting jerk of her head. “Catch them inside,” she breathed, then she giggled softly. “Hanky-panky in the harem.”

“Hush.” Serroi felt along the wall until her eye-spot throbbed. She pressed hard and felt a slice of stone tilt under her fingers. Behind it there was a hollow with a T-bar protruding from the back. She twisted the end of the T.

With a whispery scrape, a section of the wall swung in-ward. Tayyan pushed past Serroi as she hesitated, unable to summon any of her shieldmate’s glee to lighten the foreboding that was a cold hard knot in her stomach. Shaking her head, she followed Tayyan into the darkness.

For an eternity they twisted through the dusty passage lit at long intervals by guttering candles, their flames flickering in a sourceless draft. Serroi concentrated on moving soundlessly, cold with fear and with the certainty of disaster ahead; she had no thought of arguing Tayyan out of this; she knew too well her shieldmate’s stubbornness when her curiosity was aroused.

In spite of her caution she almost bumped into Tayyan as she turned a sharp corner. Her shieldmate crouched by a break in the wall, peering through peepholes in a heavy door. She tapped Tayyan on the shoulder, braced herself on one hand and pushed her head against Tayyan’s and peered through one of the holes.

Four people inside. She saw three of them as fluttering shadows, her eyes fixing on one. A Nor. She pulled away and leaned her forehead against the cold stone, colder than the stone. A Nor. She pressed her hand to her mouth, swallowed, tried to steady her breathing. She looked at Tayyan; her shieldmate’s body was a taut arc, she was breathing quickly through her mouth. Serroi closed her eyes a moment, then forced herself to look again.

The room was square and small, walls covered by heavy tapestries woven into erotic scenes that brought a blush to her face. Her eyes slipped hastily over the Nor, then came back to him. Even as she shivered with fear she knew he was one of the lesser Nor, a street Norid or a fifth-rank Norit. That didn’t matter, he still dominated the room, making the others look like paper cutouts. He was a thin man with red-brown skin and stiff black hair, his narrow body clad in a seamless black robe that hung from his bony shoulders and reached his ankles without touching flesh. Her stomach churned and she shook until she couldn’t trust herself so she turned from him and examined the others in the room.

Lybor. Domnor Hern’s second wife. A tall Stenda woman, richly blonde with the pale petal skin of the highborn and the soul of an adder, as Serroi know only too well, having suffered her tongue for the length of her ward. Lybor had a gift for finding her weakest spot and twisting a knife in it. She sat in the throne chair at the foot of a curtained bed. Her shadow and confidant, Picior the poisonous, stood beside her, her deepset blue eyes dull and unreadable, her twisted wrinkled face uglier than ever. She was wearing a different robe, a black tube much like the Nor’s robe, a silver flame in a circle appliquéed on the front, riding a slant as her high pot belly pushed against the black cloth. A Follower of the Flame, Maiden bless, I didn’t know.

Morescad stood on Lybor’s other side. Morescad the General. Serroi caught her breath, understanding now the reason for the curfew; he wouldn’t want meien or anyone else wandering around loose. Advisor to the Domnor. Lord general of the Army. Head of the Domnor’s Plaz. Head of the Noses, the men who threaded the land sniffing out trouble. Serroi wrinkled her nose. There was a sensual arrogance that oozed out of his voice, eyes, stance, whenever he spoke to her or any of the other meien technically in his charge. Something about her seemed to fascinate him. More than once he’d stroked his fingers over her forehead like a man casually caressing a pet animal.

Lybor touched her upper lip with the back of her forefinger, then ran the finger along the curve of her evebrow. “You came to us offering your services, Ser Nor. This frail one wonders why.” Without waiting for the Norid’s answer, she lowered her blue eyes, then raised them suddenly to his. She smiled. Small hollows flirted in her cheeks. “Welcome, Ser Nor.” Her voice was dark music. Serroi felt herself responding to its caress in spite of what she knew; she could see the Norid softening, although he controlled himself immediately. Lybor smiled again and held out her hand. “You honor us.”

The Norid touched her fingers briefly. Bowing his head, he said, “Doamna, one who has services to sell seeks the highest market that suits his wares.” He straightened. “You are displeased with the Domnor.”

Lybor turned to Picior and stared into the dull blue eyes for a long moment, nodded and swung back to face the Norid. “Hern’s a fool.” She drew the tips of her fingers slowly along the smooth stone of the chair arm. “A fat little fool who lets scum walk over him. He laughs at me when I try to demand respect from the mud working in the woman’s quarters. He doesn’t care about anything but his food and some new little bitch he’s hot for.” She smiled at the Norid. “You know what we want, Ser Nor; you knew before you came to us, I’m sure of that. Strings to pull to make Hern look like a man. Strings to make him do what we want.” Again she touched her upper lip, let her finger slide along the lovely line of her jaw. “For the good of the mijloc, Ser Nor.”

Morescad stirred beside her. “For the good of the mijloc,” he repeated, contempt in his dark eyes. He smiled and dropped his hand on Lybor’s shoulder.

The Norid’s slitted eyes moved from the woman to the big man. “Your rationalizations are your business, Domani.” He rubbed his thumb across his fingers. “Mine is the gold you pay for my services.”

Serroi felt bile rising in her throat. The fools, the stupid damn fools, don’t they realize what they’re getting into? She pulled away, pressed her hands against her eyes, then touched Tayyan on the cheek; when her shieldmate looked around, she jerked her thumb along the passage. Tayyan shook her head impatiently and put her eye back to the hole. Serroi hesitated then looked for herself.

The Norid dropped his hands. “What you ask can be done. But not until the Moongather. The Demon Road is widest then. See that the Domnor is alone in his bedroom on the night of the Gather. Be sure the guards outside his door are ones you can trust to keep themselves and any snoopers out of the room, no matter what they hear within. The business will take several hours. Your part is to arrange this. Mine is to prepare myself to call the demon forth. I will have half my fee now, the rest when the work is done.”

Lybor turned to Picior. A silent communion passed between them then Picior went out. Lybor turned to the Norid. “You will have it, Ser Nor. First, though, some wine to seal our bargain.”

Picior came back with a tray and three glasses. A crusty, cobwebbed bottle rested between them. The old woman filled the glasses and offered them to each.

Morescad grinned and lifted his glass. “To the Domnor, dancing to the strings we’ll be pulling.”

Tayyan hissed with rage, forgetting where she was. Her scabbard scraped against the stone as she came to her feet.

Morescad heard both small sounds. He leaped for the passage, his sword snatched out and questing.

Shaking with fear and sick to her stomach, with a strength that came out of nowhere, Serroi dragged Tayyan away, breaking through the Stenda blindrage, persuading her to run.

Run—through the rat hole in the walls—run—feet pounding in pursuit—run—leap up the tree, fall over the wall, breaking the fall with handfuls of vine—splatting into the macai muck—guards pounding after them—another coming after them—shouts behind—darkness and fear behind—clatter through the streets, running blindly toward the city wall—run and run and run—Tayyan sitting in a pool of blood, clutching at a leg transfixed by a crossbow quarrel—crouch on the roof—shiver with fear—the Norid comes—run—scramble frantically over slippery roofs with stormwinds snatching at her, accusing eyes pursuing her—the Norid behind her—after her.

“So I abandoned her, broke my shieldmate oath and left her to die. I got over the wall, stole a boat. You know the rest, Dina. Know how the land itself seems to be searching for me. Plaz guards and Teyn’s Berseyd. Traxim and Maiden knows who else sniffing for me. The Nearga-Nor and the Sons of the Flame moving against me and anyone who might dare help me. And I have to go back.” She rubbed wearily at her forehead.

Dinafar closed her fingers around Serroi’s ankle. “No. You heard what the Tercel said. You can’t think she’s still alive.”

“No.” Serroi jumped to her feet, emptied the last of the water over the coals and kicked dirt over them. She came back and pulled her boots off, then stretched out on the blankets. Overhead the lightning was beginning to flicker. The wind sang over and around the slanted groundsheet, bowing it in like a sail. The first raindrops splatted down around them. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “He could have lied to frighten me or punish me for what I did to him. I’ve got to know, Dina. And that’s not all, not the most important thing, I have to warn the Domnor.” She dropped her head on crossed forearms; Dinafar’s large hands patted her shoulder clumsily. She turned her head and met the girl’s anxious green-brown eyes.

“You’ll just get killed,” Dinafar whispered.

Serroi turned onto her back and lay staring up at the wind-whipped leaves. “If that were all.” She caught the girl’s hand and snugged it against her cheek. “Fifteen years ago I escaped one Nor. Though escaped isn’t exactly the right word; he left me to die, but I refused to oblige him. I lived, but I’m still not free of him.” She chuckled drowsily. “Never mind, I’m talking mostly to scare away nightmares. Those fools haven’t the least idea who’ll be pulling those strings they boasted about. Not them, that’s sure. The Nearga-Nor will make fools of them through that Norid. He’ll be running the Mijloc, though why he wants that, why they want that, I don’t know. They don’t understand feeling, life, like color to the blind. They put people in boxes and are surprised when they don’t fit, lumpy feelings, lumpy people, don’t fit in boxes. They’ve got Sankoy, must have Sankoy, the Berseyd only work on the Teyn’s command. After the Mijloc now. And the Biserica.” She drifted into silence, listening to the sounds of the breaking storm.

“Shouldn’t you let the Biserica know what’s happening?” Dinafar’s soft voice arrested her slow drop into sleep. “Let’s both go south in the morning.”

Serroi blinked, rubbed her hands over her face. “Too long, twenty days to the Biserica, hard riding.” She yawned. “Besides, there’s still Hern.”

The girl sat very still, her torso a dark silhouette edged with light from the flashing in the sky. The rain was coming down more steadily, drumming on the hard earth, on the taut skin of the groundsheet. “To live with myself, Dina, I have to go back.” She yawned again, circled her fingers around the girl’s wrist. “You don’t have to come. Better go south, the traxim saw you with me but you should be safe enough alone. You can tell Yael-mri what I told you. Yael-mri, our Prieti-meien. You’ll like her. Be a favor to me. I’ll feel better with her knowing in case I fail.”

“You won’t fail.” The girl’s voice was very soft but totally certain. “You can’t so you won’t. And you needn’t expect me to leave you. What would I do if one of those stinking birds came at me? You’re dressed like a boy. They’ll be looking for one person or for two females, not a brother and a sister—if you can fix your skin.”

“I haven’t got the energy to argue, girl.” Serroi chuckled as she wrapped herself in her blankets. “Go to sleep. We’ll be walking tomorrow, turn the macain loose, they’ll have to forage for themselves. I think you’re a fool, but I’ll be glad of your company.” With a last yawn, she closed her eyes and was soon asleep.