Lynn Flewelling - The White Road

“There now,” Ulan told him, motioning the others out. “One servant will wait outside, should you have any difficulty, but no one will come in unless you call. Just let him know through the door when you’re ready to see me again.”

Trembling in his rags, Ilar mumbled, “You are very kind.”

“You are an Aurënfaie in need, Ilar. I won’t turn my back on you.”

“But you left me there.” He sounded more like a lost child than a man betrayed. “You ransomed so many others, but you left me in slavery.”

Ulan sighed. “Your master treated you well, and held you in high regard. Look at yourself, Ilar. I don’t mean to be cruel, but where can you turn, so scarred and broken that you can’t even bathe properly for fear of someone seeing the marks of slavery on your body? I’ve seen too many returned slaves kill themselves. Truly, I trusted your master to take better care of you.”

Ilar shivered and mumbled something Ulan didn’t quite catch.

“Bathe and rest, Ilar. You are safe here.” Ulan could feel the sudden tightening in his chest again. “Go on. I’ll come see you in a little while.”

Ulan controlled his breathing by will alone until he was safely behind the closed door of the next room. Then, collapsing into a chair, he pressed his handkerchief to his lips as he began to cough. It was no ordinary cough, this one. When the fit came upon him, it felt like an eagle tearing at his lungs. No one knew the severity of his condition except his personal healer, and she was sworn to silence. No one must know. As the coughing eased at last, he tasted blood. He spat into the linen handkerchief and saw with dread but no surprise that it was stained faintly pink.

He rested his head against the back of the chair and tried to relax as the pain slowly subsided. When he could stand again, he went to the wall adjoining Ilar’s chamber and moved a small tapestry aside to uncover the peephole there.

Ilar paced for a while, shivering and muttering to himself too softly for Ulan to hear. Finally he stopped with his back to Ulan and let the cloak fall, then pulled the tunic over his head.

The reason for Ilar’s plea for privacy was immediately apparent; the scars of severe floggings covered the back of his emaciated body from neck to knees, and quite a number of them were recent enough to still be scabbed over in places. Ulan had never known Charis to treat his slaves cruelly, and certainly not Ilar, whom he’d valued above all the others, and even spoke of freeing someday. No, something had happened—something to do with Ilar’s escape, no doubt.

The brand on Ilar’s calf was missing, too, just like the one on his forearm. While that would make keeping him a bit easier, it begged the question of how the marks had disappeared.

Perhaps some sort of obscuration spell? he wondered, though he’d heard nothing of Seregil or the other one having any particular skill of that nature.

If he could only find them, he’d have an answer to that.

Ilar turned around by the tub, reaching for a sponge on the bath tray.

Aura’s Light! Ulan stared, deeply shocked. Charis had never mentioned that Ilar had been castrated; Ulan had always had the impression that he was a kind master. Then again, the scars that remained were old ones, and Ilar’s manner toward his master had been respectful, not fearful. No, one of Ilar’s previous, less gentle masters had done this to him some time ago.

Ilar lowered himself unsteadily into the tub and began to cry again. Satisfied for now, Ulan let the tapestry fall back and returned to his study. His evening dose from the healer had been left for him there. The herbal potion still helped to ease the pain, but she’d had to make it much stronger of late.

At last, the boy came with word that Ilar wanted to see him. Ulan found him in the large bed, propped up against the bolsters with the comforter pulled up under his chin, his long wet hair soaking the silk of both.

“There now, that’s better isn’t it?” Ulan said, sitting down in the chair beside the bed. “Can you tell me how you came to be in such a state? Did Seregil í Korit do this to you?”

Ilar shook his head vehemently. “No … he would never …” But his gaze was vague now, and his attention clearly wandered.

“Do you bring news of the rhekaro, and the others?” Ulan knew he should let the poor man sleep, but he was too anxious for answers.

“Rhekaro?”

“Is it—” Ulan covered his mouth quickly with the stained handkerchief as another fit of coughing overtook him. This was as bad as the previous one. “Please go on,” he wheezed when it passed. “Tell me of the rhekaro,” he urged gently, trying to recapture Ilar’s attention.

“His child …”

Child? That was an odd way to look at it. “Did your master discover the elixir he promised me?”

Ilar gave him a blank look. “It can heal.”

Ah, yes! This was what Charis Yhakobin had promised in return for so much Virésse gold.

Ilar let out an hysterical little laugh. “They aren’t supposed to speak!”

A speaking elixir? The man was mad.

Ilar’s eyes went vaguer still. “Ilban would have—But there was a terrible sound! It hurt … stinking in the sun … but not Seregil and Alec … so beautiful under the sky!” Ilar’s twisted smile sent a chill up Ulan’s spine. “But the bodies! Oh, the bodies and the birds!”

“Whose bodies?”

“Ilban … all of them … Seregil … So beautiful!”

The way Ilar spoke of the Bôkthersan told Ulan that this wreck of a man still had strong feelings for Seregil, even after all these years. He’d guessed as much when Charis had sent word, asking that Seregil be delivered to him, as well as the boy.

“Seregil is not dead,” Ulan told him. “He is in Gedre.”

“Alive? Seregil is alive?” Something like joy momentarily lit that gaunt face. “Alive. But …” He reached out from under the comforter and pulled back the sleeve of his linen nightshirt to show Ulan the scratches, even as his eyes began to drift shut. “Beautiful.”

That word again, so incongruous with his actions. The man’s mind was obviously as fragile as his ruined body, skipping between thoughts and memories. Ulan took his hand and felt the delicate bones through the chapped skin. “Rest now, my friend. Sleep well, and we will talk more tomorrow.”

Ilar was asleep before Ulan reached the door.

The khirnari made his way slowly down to his private bath chamber. Hot needles of pain shot through his arthritic knees and feet. He was an old man, with the afflictions of age as well as sickness, but he couldn’t let that stop him from carrying out his duties. He’d been khirnari of Virésse for two hundred and seventy years—longer than any person in any clan had ever served. He’d never given his people any reason to feel worry or doubt about his leadership, and he had but one regret. The reopening of the port at Gedre had cut into the business of his fai’thast far more deeply than he’d anticipated when he’d struck the bargain at Sarikali, and this was largely the doing of Korit í Solun’s brat, Seregil, the exile. If the council that had judged Seregil all those years ago had been held anywhere but in that sacred haunted city, Ulan would have seen to it—quietly and skillfully, of course—that Seregil was given the proper sentence of dwai sholo. As it was, he’d discovered at Sarikali the sort of man he’d grown into—a spy and sneak thief of the highest order, and therefore a potential threat and one to be watched. For that reason Ulan had men in Rhíminee, and even one on the privateering ship Seregil owned, the Green Lady . Little happened on the water that Ulan í Sathil did not know about. He’d thought himself well rid of Seregil when he’d given him into the hands of the slavers.