| |
What a great way to spend the morning after Solstice.
Quinn knocked on the doorframe of Kiril’s quarters in the guest lodge. He hadn’t shown up at the healing room for a checkup, and questions were being raised, not least by Arwen.
Most of the complex still slept; the green and dining hall were almost eerily quiet. The air had cooled overnight, leaving behind a heavy dew that sent crystal lights flashing across the amphitheater as the sun struck the grass.
She wasn’t there by choice. Someone had to do it, and as usual Arwen chose her.
“Come on in,” he called. She pushed open the door and paused on the threshold.
His room was tight and tidy, nothing extraneous or out of place. Kiril stood by his bed, his back to her.
“Going somewhere?”
At her voice, he straightened and turned. He wore no tunic, and his trousers hung low on his hips. Quinn shifted her gaze away.
Forced her gaze away, to be perfectly accurate.
“I like to be prepared. What’s up, oh wonder woman?”
“What’s up with you? You’re supposed to report to the Healers.” Quinn leaned against the doorframe, her arms folded.
“So you can work your voodoo on that thing inside me, right? The thing and me, we’re getting real cozy.”
If putting up with this was the cost of being on council, she might resign. “Dammit, Kiril, just go to the healing room.”
“Care to make me?” The words ricocheted between them.
“I could.”
“And wouldn’t that be fun.”
Quinn paused to give the atmosphere time to cool, then said rationally, “Even you can’t want the demon loose in the Midland. And oddly, there are one or two people around here who care what happens to you.”
“Present company not included.” It wasn’t clear to Quinn whether he referred to her, to himself, or to both of them. “Let’s say I don’t take well to being kept tabs on, okay?” He turned back to the clutter of objects beside the pack, a tunic, the thing he called an insignia and the strange box he’d had when he and Joss crash landed. He retrieved a pair of sandals from under the window and added them to the pile.
“If you’re so afraid of the healing room,” she said, marshaling every bit of sweetness in her, “I can do part of the assessment here. Not all of it, though.”
He turned on her. “Did you actually say afraid?”
“Sure sounded like it to me.”
Kiril mirrored her stance, arms folded over his chest, defiance in his posture. “You have a nerve.”
Exasperated, she crossed the room to stand on the other side of the narrow bed. “You’re packing. Where are you going?”
He ignored the question. “If you want me in that healing room of yours, I suggest you send Dal. He’s the only one of you spooks I trust.”
“Dal’s in Stanstead, training their village healer and apothecary. He’ll be living there for a year or so.”
“Well, damn. That sure puts a cap on the level of civility around here, doesn’t it?”
Changing tack, Quinn said, “It’s important to know whether we contained that thing or not. It ought to matter to you, because frankly, you don’t look all that great. If you plan to take to the roads, shouldn’t you make certain you’re healthy first?”
Kiril tossed the pack on the floor and flopped on the bed. “Here I am, doctor. Check me over.” His grin dared her.
Quinn wasn’t one to be intimidated by skinny males with gigantic attitude. “Hold still.”
When she placed her hands on his chest, he jumped. He must have expected her to use a Healer’s technique, scanning his body without touching. But she wasn’t a Healer, and she wasn’t sensing for an illness or injury. She was ferreting out any remnants of that thing sealed in him, the energetic imprint of whatever attacked him in the hills.
“Is this gonna take long, Doc?” he drawled.
“As long as it takes. Shut up.”
He stretched. Muscles tightened under her hands. “Just stroke where the mood moves you.”
Shut up! She could live without that idea in her head, especially since he forced her to admit it had a certain appeal... she closed her eyes and tuned him out, years of practice coming to her aid.
When she opened her eyes, it wasn’t with good news. “It’s larger. For the love of creation, Kiril, go to the healing room. We’ll recruit a team to do another binding, and the Healers will help your headache.”
His brows went up. Did he think she couldn’t detect something as simple as that?
“I’ll tell them to expect you today. Are we clear?”
“Yes, ma’am. Anything you say, ma’am.”
He rolled onto his side and propped his head on an elbow to watch her leave. Which she did, hastily, fumbling the knob as she pulled the door closed after her.
~~
AFTER SHE LEFT KIRIL’S room, Quinn crossed the green to the Healers’ lodge. Daren needed to know to expect their recalcitrant patient for an examination before they re-did the binding. Then the two of them walked together to the conference room for an early council meeting before the delegation from Borgonne joined them.
“Let’s go through this one more time,” Arwen opened. “We’re facing a dilemma. They require our assistance, and as far as I know there’s no objection to giving it. But even if we could accumulate grain for them, how do we get it across the hills? Any thoughts?”
“We could put out a call, see what the closest towns can provide,” Cynth said. “But to feed a whole nation... Arwen, we couldn’t collect enough, much less ship it.”
“Seed won’t help if the drought continues,” Fergus added. “And the distance precludes fresh produce.”
“Convoys crossing the hills,” Daren said. “Perhaps they’d be okay if we recruited those with weaker Entrée to lead them? Do you think there’d be any interest?”
“It’s still a manual system that puts the participants at risk for ten days or more in each direction.” Quinn shuddered, remembering what her hands had sensed in Kiril only a short while ago. “Do we want to subject our people to that? Or theirs?”
“And the spells?” Arwen asked.
Blank looks around the table. “What about them?” Daren asked.
“How do you feel about them?”
“I don’t feel anything,” Fergus said slowly. “They’re a fact, like the hills themselves.”
“But is their existence beneficial to us? Or purely a detriment?”
At that moment the conference room door opened and the Borgonnians filed in. Cedric led them, his ribbons and badges bouncing gently on his overdeveloped middle. Gauvain gestured Ester to enter, then followed, taking them in at a glance.
Arwen, no doubt, had just arrived at the meat of the council’s discussion; their early arrival compromised her plans.
Well, they all had the sense to be careful with what they said. Arwen’s face smoothed out into a welcome. At a nod from her, Daren, who was closest, pulled the cord to summon a runner. Caff would be on its way soon.
Once the pleasantries had been dispensed with, Cedric opened the meeting. “Naturally we are grateful for your offers of assistance. We can foresee certain problems, however.”
“As can we,” Arwen interrupted smoothly. Quinn suspected that Orlan council meetings lasted for days and were ninety percent posturing. “So far, we have been unable to find an efficient way to overcome them. The reality is, there is no communication network of any kind across the hills, and little structure here in the Midland.”
“Oh, come,” Gauvain put in. “Traders move up and down the Midland constantly, between those two provinces of yours.”
There was a lull while they sorted out what he meant. “You are referring to the Northlands and Southlands?” Arwen asked. “They aren’t provinces, Gauvain. They’re autonomous.”
“And you have no central government to control them, even if they weren’t. But the fact remains that the Midland is the dominant economy. And trade caravans regularly ply your laughable roads.”
“You said it yourself. North and south. In terms of east-west movement, there is less. Generally speaking, each region is self-sustaining. We rarely receive agricultural produce from the west.” Arwen controlled the discussion easily, but Quinn sensed she was grateful when a light tap on the door signaled the arrival of refreshments.
With everyone supplied with caff and pastries, Gauvain smoothly took command of the Borgonne delegation. “How much help could the communities along the foothills be?”
“What is the population of Borgonne?”
“Approximately four thousand live in Orlan. I expect there are another eight thousand or so in the immediate outlying districts. There are a number of settlements further east, which we do not administer.”
“No single settlement in the Midland is so large,” Arwen murmured. “My guess is, we could arrange for grain for reseeding, or enough grain for grinding to last a nine-day. Based on the Motherhouse village and informal reports from Stanstead and a few other hamlets, that’s as far as we could stretch. After this year’s harvest, we’ll have more information, but in general the towns grow only what is needed, plus an emergency store. The work is too labor intensive to do more.”
“My good woman, this is an emergency,” Cedric put in. The man wore pomposity like a badge of office. Quinn was amused and a little relieved that everyone ignored him. Where Borgonne was concerned, the true seat of power had never been in question.
“Would you be willing to begin gathering foodstuffs, while we work out the logistics of transport across the hills?” Gauvain continued.
“We might. Depending on what you have in mind.”
“I’m sure you’ve considered the use of those with lesser Entrée to act as guides. If they were strong, they could serve as bearers as well.”
“Yes. However, that plan puts members of our population, and yours, at risk every time they set foot in the hills. Add the quantity required to feed your people... I’m not sure it’s feasible, even discounting the threat.”
Gauvain’s caff mug landed on the table with a thump. “I have a proposal that will remove the risk.” He used a dramatic pause to cast his gaze around the room. “We remove the spells from the hills.”
A beat of silence greeted his suggestion. “Is that even possible?” Fergus asked.
“It might be. Shall I continue?”
At Arwen’s nod, he said, “I have in my possession an old scroll which suggests that removal of the spell – or spells, the literature isn’t specific – requires a minimum of three Mages on each side of the hills, working in tandem. I also have developed a partial version of one spell.”
“But, as a guess, you have no certainty of how to complete the weave, or how many spells there are, or if the weaves from the Midland are the same as the ones from Borgonne.” Arwen leaned back in her chair with a skeptical frown. “We don’t even know what the hills look like without the spells, although most believe they are both taller and more extensive. Those not Weavers who ventured into the hills have suggested as much.”
“All true. Nor can I speak for the extent of your knowledge about the hills.”
“Next to nothing. We have no documents, and only recent history.”
“Including the unfortunate calamity that befell your Bard. But that was nothing to do with a spell. Rather, it was the Aura’s greater intensity on our side of the hills.”
“Yes, but that isn’t what I refer to.”
“You mean Kiril,” Quinn said, then wished she hadn’t. Gauvain was slick; he wouldn’t be above using Kiril as a pawn, or an experiment, as he had done with Willow.
“The one who gave me this unfortunate souvenir.” His hand touched the scar on his face. “I collided with him yesterday. There is something unusual about him. Not a Mage, not a person with Entrée, but some type of power I don’t understand.”
Quinn met Arwen’s eyes across the table. “Go ahead,” Arwen said. “Best we all provide as full a picture as possible.”
“It’s nothing good.” Quinn briefly narrated the attack by the lizard and the subsequent binding that had saved Kiril’s life but still, based on her reading earlier that morning, threatened to overtake him.
Gauvain listened intently, his concentration focused on Quinn. When she finished he said, “The energy I sensed... I was sure it connected to the hills somehow. I don’t suppose they brought back a souvenir of the beast, a piece of its hide, for instance?”
Quinn shuddered. “That energetic thing inside him, it’s as if it has tentacles. I had to call for help before it snatched me, the first time I went in. Thank the Sustainer they didn’t collect a souvenir, as you put it. The mere thought is frightening.”
“I see.” Gauvain poured a second mug of caff and lapsed into silence.
Arwen spoke. “So the spells on the hills aren’t simply of benign confusion. Perhaps you can better understand our reluctance to establish any kind of trade route through them.”
“I expect Kiril was attacked because he is not a Mage, and he ventured off the trail.”
“That’s our hypothesis.”
He turned the mug round and round in his elegant hands. “If anything, this reinforces my determination to remove the spells. Suppose such creatures were to get loose and venture into the Midland? If we can obviate the danger, both lands stand to gain from the trade.”
“What do you propose?” Arwen asked.
“To find or recreate the missing parts of the spells. To devise their reversal and coordinate their execution.”
“As I said, we have no documents from those times.”
“But you can probe the hills. And you have the man Kiril.”
Arwen ended it. “We will consider this. But I must tell you that my first reaction is not positive. Not only because of the challenges in creating reversal spells. I’m not at all convinced of the value to the Midland, should trade routes open between our lands.”
“I propose we discuss this further over lunch, if you would care to join me,” Gauvain said. “Undoubtedly we could offer goods of benefit to your... nation.”
You gave yourself away, Quinn thought. You almost added the word ‘backward’.
“I’ll meet you in the dining hall shortly after the bell,” Arwen said.
Gauvain stood and executed a nod that just missed being a bow in Arwen’s direction, then left the room. Ester and Cedric trailed out behind him. The council lingered, sensing something more.
“I’ve sent for Ezra,” Arwen said. “What happens here in the next few days may well determine the fate of the Midland. I’m worried.”
“Will he accept our refusal?” Daren asked. “I sense a larger scheme than relieving the drought. There’s a bid for power at work here. They view us as a way to solve a long-term problem, and to enhance the status of Borgonne.”
Arwen drummed her fingers on the table. “Vassals?”
“Would they dare?” Quinn asked. The entire tenor of the morning had troubled her. By the end of her stay in Orlan, Willow had come to respect, even enjoy the company of the haughty man who had just departed. But that had been in the context of a clash of individual wills, not a clash of cultures. Obviously, pompous little Cedric itched to annex the Midland, but he lacked both the clout and the capacity to do so. Gauvain, on the other hand, wielded power like a machete. She had no doubt he’d cut them down to achieve his ends.
After the meeting disbanded, Quinn walked with Arwen toward the older woman’s workroom. “Are you busy this afternoon?” Arwen asked.
“I want to check the healing room to see if Kiril turned up. Otherwise... what do you need?”
“Our mysterious weave... have you given it any attention recently?”
“With the mess with Kiril, no.”
With her hand on the knob, Arwen said, “Try to make time this afternoon. It won’t be live because Gauvain may well be with me, so he won’t be working on it himself, but I’ve placed an updated diagram in the cubby. He’s been manipulating it from here, and it modifies the picture.”
Quinn leaned against the wall. “How? Is he compromising the Midland?”
“I don’t believe so. Check the diagram and give me your opinion. It has changed, as if the perspective changes when approached from the west instead of the east. I’ve picked up a few new strands in the weave, but they seem to extend from Borgonne into the hills rather than touch the Midland. I think this represents a spell that is unique to his land.” Arwen hesitated. “There’s one current especially I want your opinion on. I won’t tell you where, but you’ll find it.”
Quinn sighed. The heat wave had ended and the day was bright, with a high clear sky and warmth to soothe even the most frazzled nerves. Generally she wasn’t much for the outdoors, but today her spirit cried for the balm of sun on her skin. “I’ll work on it after lunch.”
Arwen pulled her door open. “Meet me in the Scribes’ workroom before evening meal.”
Quinn set off. She had time before the bell rang for lunch, and she was determined to indulge herself in a short walk at least, breathing in clean air free of the taint of the Borgonnian presence in her home.