Juliet McKenna - The Gambler's Fortune

Ismenia shook her head. “That’s not the same. That child is her gift to the blood, and as long as she still mopes for Jeirran I can’t see her bringing another to bed. Why didn’t he die at the Teyvafess?” she raged suddenly, “Then we could have shown her the body and had done.”

“And if she’d had his bones to lay in the cavern, that grief could have killed the babe in her belly.” Keisyl shook his head. “It was only the hope that he might somehow still live that saved her. You said so yourself.”

“So do we take that hope from her? If she’s brought to bed before the turn of the season, I wouldn’t give much for the chances of the child coming through the winter.” Ismenia pulled the embroidered kerchief from her head and twisted the cloth around her hands. “He owes the soke a life,” she repeated softly. “If it weren’t for him, I’d still have my Teiro, my baby boy.” Her face crumpled as if she was about to weep and she hid her face in the meadow flowers dotting the white linen.

Keisyl scrubbed away his own sudden, angry tears and reached for his mother’s hands, but when she lifted her eyes they were dry and resolved. “He owes the soke a life and we will claim it.”

“We have that right, don’t we?” said Keisyl cautiously. “Kinder than letting him wander and starve or die of a fever.”

“I don’t want to be kind,” said Ismenia bitterly. “I’d like to stake him out for the ravens, Maewelin be my witness! No, his life is forfeit and better that we know he is dead than wonder when he’s going to come scraping at the gatepost like a lost hound come home.”

“He found his way here, Misaen only knows how,” agreed Keisyl with distaste.

Ismenia reached for the sun-scorched shoulder draped with foul hair, but drew her hand back. “I’m not touching it,” she muttered. “Keisy, get me a stick and fetch yourself a hammer or something. I know where to go.”

Keisyl frowned. “Do we want Fithian?”

Ismenia shook her head. “Our choice, our burden.”

It didn’t take much prodding to get the wretch to its feet, following the old woman biddably enough as she led the way up beyond the workings. They crossed the ridge, the rustling grasses of a sheltered plateau, going beyond to skirt a spread of tangled bushes and finally climbing over a stony speckled bank to find a marshy stretch of broken ground dotted with thick green tussocks.

“The old ways were hard, but so were the times, and given all we’ve been through this year, I think old ways are called for.“ Ismenia looked sharply at Keisyl. ”You know what to do?”

Keisyl stepped behind the blankly staring figure and hefted the rock hammer in practiced hands. The blow came in hard and sure; the pitiable thing fell face forward and Ismenia pressed her narrow boot down on the back of its neck, pressing hard into the thick brown water of the bog. Keisyl waited silently until she withdrew her foot and then used the hammer to push the corpse farther into the mire.

“I’d have been within my rights to drown him unstunned,” Ismenia said, but with little passion. “If the bog takes him and tans him, then that’s Misaen’s judgment. Still, you can come up here next spring. If there are any bones, you can take them to the cavern in the Lidrasoke. Let him rest with his people and whisper a warning to any who might think to follow his example.”

“Come on, my lovely, let’s get home.” She clapped her hands briskly together and turned to begin walking so fast Keisyl had to hurry to keep up. “We must look forward now,” she continued. “We have Eirys and the baby to care for. Maewelin has finally blessed Theilyn, so there’ll be no come-by-chance to spoil her prospects. In a year or so we can think about taking her out and about. There are a few likely lads I have my eye on, so if I invite their mothers and sisters to coo over the baby, Theilyn will have a chance to meet them with no one making anything of it. Perhaps she’ll make a sensible choice if she’s allowed to take her time. One daughter falling in love at first sight, all overcome by Solstice jollities, is quite enough. And there’s nothing like a babe in arms to get a maiden feeling broody.” She tucked her arm through Keisyl’s and smiled up at him.

“There’ll be some pretty girl, last in a long family, willing to take her rights in coin and leave her fess to bring children and laughter to ours again, for the sake of a husband as handsome as you.”

“Perhaps, one day,” allowed Keisyl dryly, but his eyes were wistful.

“We must look forward now,” repeated Ismenia firmly. They left the bog without a backward glance.

I had to look around the crowded tap room two or three times before I finally spotted Pered laughing in a corner with a friend. Pushing my way through a gaggle of prentice wizards, I waved to him. He stood up, taking the bottles of wine to free my hands. I snapped my fingers at a serving maid who barely spared me a look and smiled at her when her head spun back for a startled second glance. “Wine please, Ferl River if you have it.”

Pered gave me a hug and then held me at arm’s length, shaking his head. “You are going to have to do something about that hair.”

“Does it really look that bad?” I asked quizzically.

“You look like that striped butter toffee my sister makes for her children,” he said frankly. “Ryshad will hate it.”

I shrugged. “I’ve seen him in a beard. I’m not about to risk dying it after bleach; it’ll go green or all fall out.”

Pered’s ready laugh narrowed his hazel eyes. “Oh, I’ve finished the copy of that song book. Don’t let me forget to give it to you.”

“Many thanks. You don’t think anyone will be wondering why Shiv’s been so keen to study it, do you?” I didn’t particularly want attention drawn his way, especially not when someone might remember the mage’s lover was one of Hadrumal’s most accomplished scriveners.

Pered shook his head. “Not when he’s spending every day closeted with Usara and that Mountain woman, hammering out some new theory on this Artifice.”

“Has he had a chance to bespeak anyone in Toremal yet?” I tried to sound offhand but had to answer Pered’s knowing grin with a sheepish smile of my own.

“He bespoke Casuel last night. Cas was being his usual petty-minded self but he did tell Shiv that your Ryshad has ‘performed signal service to the Emperor, even if with somewhat unexpected consequences.’ Apparently Ryshad wants you to take a ship for Toremal or Zyoutessela as soon as you can. You’d better book passage and make haste to reclaim your beloved from the delights of the Empire.”

“As soon as Planir pays up,” I said firmly, quelling my own desire to head straight down to the docks and jump on the nearest ship. “Signal service to the Emperor” had to mean Ryshad would have winnings to equal mine, didn’t it?

Pered nodded at the bottles. “Our esteemed Archmage probably thinks that fair payment.”

“Something on account, perhaps. He doesn’t buy me off so easily.” I tapped my goblet of Ferl River white against the green glass of the vintage Califerian flagons. “They can wash down lunch.”

Pered took a long swallow of his ale. “As soon as the others arrive, we can go home. Shiv’s been busy all morning and I must have made ten trips to the market for things he’s been wanting.”

I ran a finger around a puddle on the tabletop. “How’s he taken the news about Otrick?”

The good humor faded from Pered’s blunt-featured face. “Badly. He’s spent the last few nights just staring at the ceiling, muttering how if he’d been allowed to go then something would have been found to save the old pirate.”