Juliet McKenna - The Swordsman's Oath

“Hard all round, as far as I can tell, and not wanting anyone’s pity.” I slung my saddlebag over my shoulder. “Didn’t she used to be a mercenary in Lescar?”

“That’s what Livak told me.” Shiv picked up a battered satchel. “She also said Halice’s biggest advantage is that people take one look at her and treat her like the village idiot’s foolish sister.”

I smiled. “I can see that. How did she break her leg?”

“Took a bad fall with a horse on a rocky road.” Shiv grimaced in sympathy. “She’s lucky she kept the leg at all.”

I was about to speak when Halice appeared at the doorway and we jumped like slacking apprentices. She was certainly quiet on her feet for a cripple.

“There’s wood needs chopping.”

“I’ll do it.” Shiv tried for a friendly smile as he took the well-honed axe and I followed them out to the back of the house. As Shiv stripped to his shirt and made a competent start on a stack of wood, I caught a momentary expression of surprise on Halice’s face before she realized I was there and her countenance went blank once more. I piled split logs into the basket but turned when I heard evenly weighted footsteps behind me.

“Livak!” Shiv greeted her warmly, leaning on the axe.

She halted, opened her mouth, and closed it again. I allowed myself the luxury of admiring the way her closely cut jerkin clung lovingly to the curve of her bosom. Livak was a little thinner than when I’d last seen her and her red hair was longer, tied back in a rough braid that left her green eyes bright in her pale face, her wandering father’s Forest blood showing through more clearly than I remembered. She was carrying a curd cheese, pale in its muslin wrappings.

“Hello Shiv. Not got anyone else to bother?”

She stalked into the homely warmth of the flagstoned kitchen where Viltred was resting his beard on his chest, eyes drowsy. Starting at the sound of the door, his face brightened with curiosity about this bold female in her buff breeches. Livak ignored him.

“Drianon save me, Shiv, I really don’t want your kind of aggravation,” she grumbled, but as she turned she flashed me a quick smile, which ran warmth through me like a shot of spirits.

As Halice turned from tending the broad hearth that dominated the far wall, I saw Livak raise an eyebrow in infinitesimal query, but she had no more than a minute tightening of Halice’s lips in return. It meant nothing to me but I know that my mother and any of her sisters habitually tell each other more with half a glance than a hundred words. I wondered just how much attention Livak paid to Halice’s opinion.

“So what have you been doing with yourself over the winter?” Shiv stacked firewood in neat rows.

“Whatever it is that you want, you’ve thrown a losing hand of runes, Shiv,” Livak warned him.

“I gather you’ve been over the border recently?” Shiv’s tone was relaxed, but I wasn’t fooled. I caught Livak shooting a questioning glance at Halice, who shook her head slowly to say she had not been talking out of turn. I held my peace; I’d plot my course when I knew if the wind was veering or backing.

“We’ve been working the recruiting camps along the Rel, me and Sorgrad and Sorgren, two brothers we know,” said Livak slowly. “All the mercenaries are just looking to drink and roll the runes until the better weather gets the fighting properly underway, and the corps-masters fix their contracts. We’ve been fleecing the little lambs trotting up to enlist, woolly heads all full of idiotic ballads.”

Livak challenged Shiv with a bold grin. She was rewarded with an ill-concealed snort of disgust as Viltred shifted on his fireside settle. Livak turned to him, a provocative spark in her eyes, deliberately coarsening her Ensaimin accent.

“Look at it this way, old man, if some young idiot off to fight in someone else’s war loses his money and gear before he gets to enlist, at least he stays alive.”

Viltred fixed her with an unexpectedly steely gaze as she smirked at him. “Young lady. Our business is far more—”

“All in good time,” Shiv interrupted him smoothly. “What do you think of the prospects in Lescar this year?”

His pose was easy and careless, his angular face open and inviting. With his tone softened by the lilt of the fenlands around Kevil, he was every minstrel’s idea of a typical Caladhrian, securely tied to land and family and probably none too bright. It was very convincing, or it would be if you’d never seen him throwing handfuls of power around and blasting Ice Islanders clean into the Otherworld, probably far enough and fast enough to save them negotiating Poldrion’s ferry fee.

“The Duke of Parnilesse is dead in very murky circumstances, and his three sons all dispute the succession.” Livak managed a thoughtful tone but I could see the wariness behind her eyes. “Their territory will be ripe for the taking if they can’t raise the coin for one of the better corps-masters.”

That was interesting information; surely the eldest son should have inherited without argument? After all, it’s the obstinate Lescari insistence on line-of-blood succession that started their pointless wars in the first place.

“From what I’ve been hearing, the old Duke was almost certainly poisoned.” Halice observed as she briskly tended the chicken now split and skewered above the fire. She reached into the salt box hanging on the chimney breast and seasoned a pot seething in a trivet in the embers. “Sorgrad reckons his sons’ll start their own little war before Solstice.”

I wondered how best to get a letter to Messire from hereabouts, and if I could warn Aiten’s family.

“Shivvalan!” snapped Viltred. “Planir’s business is far more important than Lescar’s trivial quarrels.”

There was an awkward silence until Livak spoke up, sarcasm coloring her tone.

“Yes, go on, Shiv,” she invited. “But let me give you one rune for free—there’s no power this side of the Otherworld will get me mixed up with the Archmage again.”

There was no hint of compromise in her voice. I wondered just what throw of the bones Shiv thought would get her working for wizards again.

“Viltred here has had some valuables stolen and we were wondering if you would help us retrieve the goods.”

Unable to conceal her start of recognition at the old man’s name, Livak characteristically went on attack. “Would you be the Viltred who used to work with that madman Azazir?”

The old man scowled at her. “Azazir was one of the greatest minds magic has seen in ten generations, young lady—”

“Azazir was so far beyond reason he couldn’t find it with a spy-glass and let me tell you—”

Shiv cut in hurriedly. “Please, Livak, we really do need your help. The raiders were Ice Islanders.”

Livak paled. “Have you got your hat over your ears? No!”

“We’ll make it worth your while,” Shiv persisted.

“I don’t need your coin, Shiv, or the Archmage’s,” spat Livak.

“Think it through, Livak.” Shiv gestured with an eloquent hand. “These people can’t have been here long, not with the spring storms on the ocean only just over. We have an early scent of them—we can dig a bloody great pit for the bastards to fall into! We’ll have them by the stones, ready to squeeze!” Shiv’s face was as intense as I had ever seen it.

“And if Planir the Black decides this bear-pit needs live bait in the bottom of it, he’ll just grab the nearest warm body and I, for one, have no intention of being around to play the goat.” Livak crossed to the hearth, defiance in every line of her stance. She drew herself up next to Halice but I saw the other woman was staring at Shiv with a concentration that startled me.