Juliet McKenna - The Warrior's Bond

“Her name’s Velindre, but that’s all I know of her,” I admitted reluctantly. “She says she’s interested in the winds and currents of Kellarin’s coast, but Planir thinks she may have ambitions to make a name for herself in Hadrumal.”

“If she hopes for a salvage due, she had best get in line behind those others looking to make a claim on the colony,” said Temar lightly.

I looked at him, assessing the hint of seriousness in his words. With an easy assumption of D’Olbriot authority over Kellarin running through the idle gossip of sworn and chosen over the last season, I’d been the only one suggesting the game might play out differently.

“Temar!” A thin woman came striding over the cobbles towards us, hood falling back from brown hair liberally streaked with grey and concern deepening the lines of age in her face. Though the rain had all but ceased, she was wiping her face in unthinking, repetitive gestures, speaking rapidly to Temar. Her speech was too thick with the intonation of Old Toremal for me, but I recognised her as the Demoiselle Tor Arrial, one of Kellarin’s few other surviving nobility. Temar nodded and looked at me. “Avila wishes to know where we are to lodge. Most of the crew and other passengers are claiming rooms in these inns.”

“We have everything you need made ready at the Shrine of Ostrin.” I spoke slowly in my most formal accent. Avila Tor Arrial looked at me sharply, one chapped hand clutching a cloak pin set with rubies and pale rose diamonds at her throat. After a pause she nodded and her gesture needed no translation, so I led the way, leaving behind the ramshackle dock-side for the more regular streets around the circle of Ostrin’s walls.

“I thought there were supposed to be more of you,” I remarked to Temar.

He shrugged. “When it came to it, they all found reasons to stay. The more we talk to the sailors, to the mages, the more we learn how our world has changed. At least in Kellarin we know what we are dealing with.” He fell silent and we walked without speaking until we reached the embrace of Ostrin’s walls.

“It’s this way.” I waved Avila through the gate welcoming all comers into the stone circle. The broad gravel sweep inside was busy with new arrivals, two coaches unloading a vociferous family presumably taking ship to north or south.

“Perhaps they were right to stay,” murmured Temar, eyes wide as he looked back out of the gate at the thriving town. “It is all so different, nothing as I remember it.”

“Let’s get you warm,” I urged, seeing a pallor I didn’t like in his face.

He followed me without protest to the comfortable guest house behind the main shrine to Ostrin. Maidservants were busy about the hospitality that is ever the god’s chief concern, offering soft towels, ewers of warm water and hot tisanes to stiff and chilled arrivals, porters discreetly depositing battered luggage in bedchambers.

“There are rooms reserved here for you and the Demoiselle Tor Arrial.” I led Temar up the broad stairway, wooden panelling gleaming with years of dedicated polish. “The sailors and mercenaries can shift for themselves in the inns but Messire thought you would welcome some privacy.” The exaggerated tales of the mariners and freebooters could supply sufficient grist to satisfy the rumour mill, so there was no need to expose Temar to intrusive curiosity.

That thought sparked another as I opened the door to the room I’d chosen for Temar. “The mage Velindre has invited herself to dine with me and Casuel this evening. Why don’t you and Avila eat in the upper parlour?”

Temar halted on the threshold to give me a narrow look before shrugging. “As you see fit.”

“There’s clean linen, shaving soap, razor.” I nodded at the washstand. “I’m next door if you need anything else.” I hesitated, wondering whether to offer companionship or allow the lad some solitude to gather his thoughts. A footfall behind me heralded a maidservant with a steaming jug of water so I stepped aside to let her pass.

“You must want to change.” Temar nodded at my sodden leather boots. His tight smile didn’t quite meet his eyes so I took the hint and withdrew, pulling his door closed.

A quick trip to the kitchens housed across the courtyard meant I could leave my cloak in the drying room and once I was satisfied that my orders for the evening’s meals were clearly understood I hurried back to the guest house. I found Casuel and Allin squaring up to each other in the main hall. Her high colour was cruelly unflattering but her folded arms were braced with resolve. Casuel, clutching a folded bundle of white, looked more baffled than annoyed.

My arrival gave Allin the chance to escape. “I’ll see you both at dinner.” With her curtsey a touch too hurried, she walked away just fast enough to betray her eagerness to flee.

“I only asked her to do some mending,” said Casuel crossly.

“I’m sure one of the maids would be glad of the extra work,” I suggested. “It’ll only cost you a few pennies and I don’t suppose a wizard’s linen is any different to anyone else’s.”

The realisation that he was standing there holding his small clothes for any passer-by to see sent Casuel scurrying up the stairs. Following at a more leisurely pace, I shed my soaked clothes gratefully, getting my blood flowing again with warm water and vigorous towelling before having a contemplative shave. I needed to know what Temar hoped to achieve on this visit, I decided, and some clue as to Velindre’s business would be useful. Concluding that it wouldn’t hurt to remind her of my standing with D’Olbriot, I dressed in the elegant attire my new status entitled me to claim from Toremal’s finest tailors at Messire’s expense. The price to me was wearing a mossy green that I didn’t particularly care for. A knock on my door came as I was buttoning my shirt. It was the Steward of the Shrine with a query about how long we were staying and just how many rooms were required, so I took up my more prosaic duties once more.

Temar lay down on the bed and hid his head beneath a down-filled pillow. Clamping it tight over his ears shut out the noises of the guest house: a man passing his door with a shouted query, someone else’s demands for fresh towels, the rough bumping of heavy burdens dragged up the wooden stairs. But he couldn’t banish the memories assailing him, the agony of the injured mage, the frantic prayers of his companions that Dastennin calm the sea, that Larasion quell the winds, that Saedrin spare them. The foul and desperate curses of the sailors echoed in his memory, the groans of ship’s timbers stressed beyond endurance, the wicked crack of snapping rope and the scream of someone lashed by the vicious ends. After all they had been through, after all they had endured, he and his companions had nearly drowned, so close to shore, within very sight of safety, all their hopes and those of the colony they had left behind sunk beneath Dastennin’s malice to feed the scavenging crabs.

Time passed unnoticed until loud disagreement from the room above forced itself into Temar’s misery. He emerged red-faced from beneath the pillow, tears and dirt smeared on his face. One shrewish voice rose indignant, prompting a harsh response that rang through the floorboards.

Temar couldn’t make out the meaning. How was he ever going to make good his bold boasts to Guinalle when it took all his concentration just to comprehend what people were saying? Albarn, Brive, all the others, they’d turned back from this insane attempt to revisit the world they had lost and no one had thought the worse of them. Why couldn’t he have done the same?