Aurian

8 Bondage

As usual, Anvar never saw the sly foot that tripped him. He was carrying the heavy bin full of meat offal and vegetable peelings toward the kitchen’s outer door when there was a sharp pain in his ankle. Then he was down, sprawling on the flagstones that he had scrubbed only this morning, in a welter of blood and stinking garbage.

The Head Cook’s furious bellow silenced the titters of the other kitchen workers. “Stupid, clumsy oaf!” Janok’s heavy boot caught Anvar hard in the stomach, in the ribs, and in the face. Seizing a broom that had been propped against the wall, Janok began to beat him, cursing him all the while. Anvar howled as the heavy shank struck down repeatedly on his back and shoulders. He tried to crawl away to escape the blows, but his feet slipped on the slimy offal and he went facedown into the bloody mess, cracking his chin hard on the stone floor. Dimly, he heard someone laugh. It saved him. Raging, Janok turned on the watching servants. “What are you standing there for? Get back to work, before I beat the lot of you. It lacks but two hours to the Solstice Feast!” He threw the broom across Anvar’s body and gave him one last kick for good measure. “Get this mess cleaned up, you!”

Whimpering, Anvar struggled to rise, afraid of the consequences if he did not.HHe felt sick and breathless, his body clenched in a knot of pain. Gently he probed the side of his face, where Janok’s boot had struck. Nothing seemed broken, but his jaw hurt, and he would have another bruise to go with the marks that Janok’s fists had left yesterday, and the days before. Using the broom for support, Anvar hauled himself shakily upright. No one offered to help him. Stiffly, painfully, he began to sweep up the mess. Now he would have the floor to scrub again.

The four months that Anvar had spent in the kitchens of the Academy had been a living nightmare. There were only eight Magefolk, but they were very awkward in their eating habits. They wanted separate and elaborate meals at different times and places, and refused to eat together in the Great Hall adjoining the kitchen. This made a great deal of work—and Janok gave Anvar all the worst tasks. The Head Cook was an evil-tempered bully who brutalized all the kitchen menials, but he had selected Anvar out for special attention.

Each day Anvar scrubbed the greasy stone floors, peeled root vegetables, and washed an endless succession of dishes until his hands were cracked and raw. Janok made him scrape and polish the blackened copper pots until they gleamed. He cleaned the silver, took out the rubbish, and cut and fetched wood for the ovens and ranges until his back ached. All he was given to eat were kitchen scraps. If Anvar dropped or broke anything, he was beaten. If he managed to drag his way to the end of a day without getting into trouble, Janok found an excuse to hit him anyway.

Things might have been easier if Anvar had made any friends among the other menials, but they were a miserable, surly lot, and letting someone else bear the brunt of the Head Cook’s temper suited them very well. Janok had made a point of telling them that Anvar had murdered his mother, and kitchen gossip being what it was, the tale grew with every telling. No one spoke to him, except to curse him or give him orders, and they went out of their way to get him into trouble with cruel practical jokes. When his back was turned, they poured boiling water into the pots he was washing, so that he scalded his hands. When he cleaned the silver, tarnished items would vanish, to reappear when Janok entered the room. If he was carrying hot food or trays of 3ishr£s, he was tripped or pushed so that his burden went flying. They blamed him for their own mistakes, too. If anything went wrong in the kitchen, it was Anvar’s fault.

Anvar was in constant torment over what the Archmage had done to him. How had he come to be here? Whenever he tried to remember what had happened in Miathan’s quarters, his thoughts were erased by the agony that knifed through his skull. After a while, it became easier to believe that he was being punished for Ria’s death. Anvar was consumed with grief for his mother, and he truly believed he was to blame. If he had been on time, she would still be alive. He might as well have murdered her. So great was his despair that only the thought of Sara kept him from taking his own life. What had become of her? He had let her down when she needed him. Anvar fretted himself sick over her fate, and that of her unborn child. But he was helpless—imprisoned here with the conspicuous Magefolk bondmark tattoed on the back of his left hand in indelible dye. In the early days, before his spirit was utterly broken, Anvar had considered trying to escape in one of the carts that brought fresh produce from the markets to the Academy each day, but it was hopeless. Janok had him watched constantly, and even if he had managed to get away, the penalties for runaway bondservants were severe.

Now the Winter Solstice was upon them, but the holiday brought no joy to Anvar. Once they had finished preparing the Mages’ Solstice Feast, the kitchen menials were free to celebrate the festival. Casks of ale were broached, and a lively party was soon under way in the kitchen. There was eating, drinking— lots of drinking—and a great deal of horseplay. Drunken couples cavorted on tables where food would be prepared tomorrow, and Janok had the youngest laundry maid facedown over the bags of flour that were stacked in a corner; his flushed, sweating face contorted in a slack leer as he lifted her skirts. Judging from her muffled shrieks, she was not enjoying the experience—but Janok was king of his little domain, and gave her no choice.

Anvar, watching from his damp and squalid sleeping place beneath the stone sinks, felt sick with disgust. They had excluded him from their festivities, and for once he was glad. It was now, when everyort? was celebrating, that he missed his home and family most keenly. Anvar crouched in his dank, cramped refuge, nursing his bruises and grief. Had he not been late that morning, Ria would be alive now. He and Sara would be married, and looking forward to the birth of their child in the spring. Anvar wondered where she was tonight, and how she was spending her Solstice. Overcome with despair, he wept. Anvar was exhausted. His body was weak and aching from grinding toil and Janok’s brutal beatings, and activity in the kitchen that day had been frantic, because of the Mages’ feast. Despite the din, he eventually dozed. When he awakened everything was quiet. The fire had burned low and the servants were snoring where they lay, sleeping off the ale. Anvar sat up, his pain and weariness forgotten. This was his chance to escape! At last he could see Sara, and set his mind at rest. Perhaps they could run away together!

D’arvan thought the Great Hall looked magnificent in its festive finery. He loved this vast, imposing chamber. For some reason, it had always been the place where he felt most at home. Its double row of supporting pillars, cunningly carved from dark stone in the shape of trees whose branches interlaced to support the ceiling, had been decorated with bright-berried evergreens, and Magelight blazed golden in crystal globes on the walls. The dancing flames of scarlet candles were reflected in the polished wood of the tables, and a huge log fire roared in the massive fireplace.

It was late, and most of the Magefolk had already retired. Elewin, the Academy’s Chief Steward, was up in the gallery serving mulled wine to the tired musicians, to fortify them for their journey home through the snow, and servants were clearing away the remains of the Solstice Feast. Though traditionally only the fruits of the wildwood were eaten at Solstice, Janok had outdone himself this year. D’arvan had been staggered by the variety of foodstuffs served. Haunches of venison and a roast boar stuffed with herbs and wild apples; roast pheasant and swan decorated with their own plumage, and pigeon and rabbit pies. Succulent trout from forest streams had been broiled with flaked nuts, and there were wild roots and winter greens, dried mushrooms in a sauce of wild garlic, and a mound of truffles. During the growing season, Janok’s nfiost trusted workers had scoured the woods near the city, seeking ingredients for this feast, and had preserved fruits and berries in syrups and fortified wines for cakes, tarts, and sweetmeats crystallized with honey. D’arvan sat back, and loosened his belt. What a feast it had been!

Aurian’s yawn pulled him back from his thoughts. “Well, that’s it for me,” she said. “I’m worn out. Forral almost battered me to death in sword practice this morning, and I have to be up early tomorrow for more of the same, Solstice Day or no. Good night, D’arvan.”

“Good night, Aurian, and—” D’arvan cursed the wretched shyness that always kept him so tongue-tied. “And thank you for keeping me company tonight,” he finished softly.

Aurian smiled. “Thank you, D’arvan. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. Gods, but these Magefolk feasts are dull!”

The wealth of feeling in her words was a comfort to him. She had stayed with him for most of the evening, telling him about her current Healing studies with Meiriel, and her new Mortal friends at the Garrison, but all the time he had thought she was doing it from pity, since Davorshan had so hurtfully ignored his presence. His twin had spent the whole night dancing with Eliseth, dining with Eliseth, laughing and flirting with her. He had eyes for no one else. Now the pair were seated near the fire, lingering over their goblets of wine, deep in conversation.

Aurian, as if she knew what was troubling him, frowned at Eliseth and her rapt companion. “D’arvan,” she said, “It’s none of my business, but maybe you spend too much time with your brother. If you want, you would be welcome to visit the Garrison with me sometimes. They’re good people, you’d like them, and I think you need a change of company.”

D’arvan stared at her, startled and lost for an answer. Go among a lot of strangers? Alone? The notion terrified him. He had never done anything without his brother! Yet he appreciated the kindness of her offer. It seemed she had noticed that during these last months, Davorshan had been spending more and more time with Eliseth and her friends.

D’arvan twisted his hands together beneath the table, fighting despair. Davorshan had said that the Weather-Mage was teaching him to bring forth some of his dormant powers. If it was true—and his brother never lied to him—then he, D’arvan, was now the only powerless Mage in the Academy! He shivered. How long would Miathan let him stay, if he had no powers? Where would he go if the Archmage cast him out? “Are you all right?” Aurian sounded concerned. D’arvan longed to confide in her and ask for her help—oh Gods, he needed a friend right now! But his crippling shyness kept him silent, and he didn’t want her to blame his brother. For some reason, she had never liked Davorshan. “I must be tired,” he prevaricated. “Perhaps I’ll go to bed.”

Aurian raised a skeptical eyebrow, then shrugged slightly. “Good idea—that’s where I’m going. Anyway, think about what I said. The offer is always open. And D’arvan, if you ever need someone to talk to—well, I’m available.”

After she had gone, D’arvan sat alone, waiting for his brother. Eventually, growing weary, he went to bid his twin good night. Davorshan sat beside Eliseth, his arm around her shoulders, their heads very close as they talked in soft voices. The Magewoman was stunning in a gown of shimmering ice-blue. Her long hair was intricately braided and coiled with a thin, interlacing silver chain. At D’arvan’s hesitant approach, Davorshan looked up sharply. Attuned as always to his twin’s thoughts, D’arvan sensed annoyance, a flicker of guilt—and something else. Something wrong.

Before he could identify it, Davorshan’s shields slammed down, shutting him out for the first time in their lives. D’arvan reeled as though he had been struck. He had never felt so alone —as if a part of himself had been brutally torn away. The isolation—the loss—the uncertainty—he was too overwhelmed by pain and confusion to speak.

“How dare you spy on me!” Davorshan shouted, his face flushing crimson. “I’m sick of you following me around with that pathetic expression on your face! Get away from me, do you hear? Leave me alone!”

D’arvan was stunned by the bitter hostility of his brother’s tone. As he fled, gulping back sobs, he was pursued by the sound of Eliseth’s silvery laughter.

Anvar tiptoed across the floor of the cavernous kitchen, carefully avoiding the sleeping bodies. The door opened silently to a swirl of fine, wind-driven snow. Anvar grabbed an empty flour sack to cover his head and shoulders and slipped outside, closing the door quietly behind him. The night was bitterly cold. The darkened courtyard was empty, and no lights burned in the Mages’ Tower. The two guards at the upper gate were huddled over a brazier in the gatehouse with a shared bottle, playing dice and keeping out of the icy wind that pierced Anvar’s filthy, ragged clothing as he lurked in the shadows. Every minute or so, one of the guards would look up from the game, keeping an eye on the gate. Anvar cursed. He had to escape—he had to! Butiiow? The bitter wind was rapidly sucking the heat from his body, and every minute he lingered here increased his chance of being discovered.

Voices! Anvar jumped. His heart hammering wildly, he peered round the corner of the building, to see the door of the Great Hall open, spilling golden light onto the snow. A group of figures came out, all cloaked and hooded, and bearing a variety of oddly shaped burdens, well wrapped against the cold. Of course! Anvar remembered hearing that there would be musicians at the Mage’s feast. Now they were going home. Going out!

Not daring to consider the risks, Anvar hid in the shadows of the narrow alley between the infirmary and the kitchens until they had all passed him, heading for the gates. He darted across the intervening space, keeping low, and tagged on to the end of the group, hoping his sack would pass for a hood in the dim light. The tired musicians, muffled deep in their cloaks and only concerned with getting home out of the cold, never noticed the addition to their number. Nor did the tipsy guards. “Joyous Solstice,” they called as the musicians went through. As the gate clanged shut behind him, Anvar sagged with relief.

There was a new watchman in the gatehouse at the bottom of the hill. He was younger than the one Anvar remembered from years ago. He was mulling ale at his small fireplace as the musicians approached, and was more concerned with his steaming jug than anything else. He opened the spiked iron gates with scarcely a glance, and waved them impatiently through. Free! Anvar’s heart soared^The musicians passed over the causeway and into the tree-lined avenue leading to the bridge that crossed back into the city. Anvar detached himself from the group and hid until they were well away, before crossing the slender stone span himself. Once across the river, he circled through the back streets to give the wharves a wide berth, keeping a watchful eye out for patrols from the Garrison. Avoiding groups of drunken revelers, he angled back toward the towpath and made his way upriver.

The journey seemed longer than he remembered. The snow fell thicker now, and was heaping in drifts across the path. Visibility was poor, and Anvar was forced to stay near the thickets on the bank with their clutching, thorny limbs—or run the risk of blundering into the river. The exertion of his escape had intensified the pain of his battered body, and he shook with cold and fatigue as the wind blew into his face, blinding him with its burden of snow. Stubbornly he staggered on, drawn by the thought of seeing Sara again.

The shadowy figure of a woman, cloaked and hooded against the snow, stood by the mill looking down at the speeding, glimmering waters of the millrace.

Anvar’s heart beat fast. “Sara?” he whispered.

The woman spun round with a sharp exclamation. “Anvar!” It was Verla, Sara’s mother.

“Please,” Anvar begged her, ignoring the hostility in her voice. “I’ve got to see Sara. Is she all right?”

“How can you ask? How dare you come here, after all the anguish you’ve caused us?”

“What do you mean?” He grasped her shoulders. “What has happened? Tell me!”

“All right!” Verla spat. She shook herself free from his grip. “After what happened,” she said grimly, “Jard refused to let Sara bear your child. He took her to a back-street midwife in the city.”

“No!” Anvar tried out in horror.

“Oh, yes. The woman got rid of the babe, but things went amiss, and now Sara will never bear children.”

Anvar sank to his knees on the snowy path, his head in his hands. “Oh, Gods,” he whispered. Sara! His child!

“After that,” Verla continued remorselessly, “Jard sold her in marriage to Vannor.”

“What? The Vannor?” Anvar gasped. No one crossed the most powerful merchant in the city—especially if they had heard the dark rumors about his violent past on the wharves, before he became rich and respectable.

“The same,” Verla said bitterly. “He didn’t mind that she was barren. He has children from his first wife. He wanted Sara in his bed, and he was prepared to pay. I don’t know whether she’s happy—we never see her. I hope you’re pleased with what you’ve done, Anvar. Now get away from here. I never want to set eyes on you again!”

Anvar was opening his mouth to protest, when a heavy blow cracked across the back of his head. Stunned and half blind with pain, he collapsed onto the snow. The last thing he heard was Jard’s voice. “Well done, Verla! Tie him up, while I go-for the Guards.” The miller seized his hand, examining the brand by the light of the torch he carried. “There’s sure to be a reward for a runaway bondservant.”

It was Midwinter’s Night, the longest of the year, and D’arvan, lying awake, had counted many dark hours before Davorshan returned with the dawn to the rooms that he shared with his brother. D’arvan had been left in no doubt as to the way in which his twin had passed the night. With his concentration distracted by passion, Davorshan’s shielding was fitful; his link with his brother was too strong and reflexive to be broken on a whim. D’arvan had been tortured by such thoughts, such feelings, such glimpses of Eliseth, lying naked on a white fur coverlet. The chiming silver of her laugh—the burning of her touch, imprinted on his skin as it was on his brother’s—the slippery touch of cool satin sheets—his own lone and shameful spending, which had echoed the climax of Davorshan’s frantic lust and in its passing left him drained and guilty, and sick at heart.

Even after the storm of Davorshan’s passion had finally and mercifully spent itself, D’arvan had passed a wretched night. His thoughts, still scattered by the shock of the brutal, abrupt isolation from his twin’s mind and the maelstrom of lust that had followed, had been wavering back and forth between grief and anger and guilt—blaming his brother, blaming Eliseth, and blaming himself. Davorshan is all I have—that thought wove through and through the others in an endless litany of despair. It’s always been that way, but now he has someone else . . . What will I do without him?

Throughout their lives, the twins had been forced to depend on one another, D’arvan could barely remember his father and mother—Bavordran and Adrina had elected to pass from their lives when he had been very small, but the fact that they had chosen to bear two infants, and then abandoned them so precipitately, made no sense to the young Mage. The older Magefolk would never speak of it, but his parents had not been happy together, D’arvan was sure—as sure as he was that his mother, at least, had not wanted to leave him. He had a vague, confused memory of a savage quarrel, and Adrina’s face all streaked with tears as she rocked him to sleep. He had never seen her again. With their parents gone, the twins had been raised, in a careless fashion, by Meiriel and Finbarr and the Academy’s servants, and had very naturally compensated for the lack of parental love by their devotion to one another—a bond that had been suddenly, and savagely, severed by Eliseth.

Before Davorshan entered their room, D’arvan had sensed his return. He always knew when his brother was close. And though he dreaded seeing his twin once more, he was glad of any respite from his anguished thoughts—until the brother of his soul crept in, grinning smugly, and reeking of wine and Eliseth’s heavy perfume. He tiptoed past D’arvan’s bed without sparing him a single glance.

“It’s all right—I’m awake. You needn’t bother to creep!” The venom in his own voice surprised D’arvan—but the anger had won out, after all.

Davorshan lacked even the grace to look guilty. Not for a single moment did his complacent expression alter. Shrugging, he sat down on the bottom of D’arvan’s bed, all openness and charm, his hostile shielding seemingly banished. “You have good reason to be angry with me,” he said. “Listen, D’ar—I’m sorry about what happened earlier, at the feast. It was just that I wanted to be alone with Eliseth—you’ll see how it is, when you find someone of your own. I never meant to shut you out so suddenly, but there are some things that you just cannot share —not even with your own dear brother.”

Even a few short hours ago, D’arvan would have believed him. Would have trusted him, and rejoiced that their differences had been explained, and dismissed. Davorshan’s mind was open to him once more, in all its old comforting familiarity. Except . . . Acting on pure instinct, D’arvan swept up all the bitterness and treachery and pain that had formed the dregs of this wretched night, and fashioned them into a lancelike probe of will that stabbed searchingly into his brother’s mind.

Davorshan had no warning—no time in which to react. “Curse you!” he shrieked, recoiling and slamming up a block with which to foil the piercing attack. But it was too late. D’arvan’s probe had already encountered the hard, dark, pulsing core of secrets that his brother had so cunningly concealed behind his open guise.

Shaking, D’arvan snatched back his probe as though he had been burned. Gods—why did I do it? he thought despairingly. Why couldn’t I leave well enough alone? This second betrayal hurts even worse than the first!

“Why did you do that?” Davorshan’s sorrowful whisper echoed his thoughts. “I want this—I want her, and nothing— not even you—will keep me from her! But truly, brother, I had no wish to hurt you.”

It might have been the truth—Davorshan certainly seemed sincere—but D’arvan had had enough of lies and treachery. He could not risk a third betrayal. “Leave me alone—just leave me alone!” For the first time in his life, he closed his mind to his brother, and turned his face away, staring steadfastly at the wall through tear-blurred eyes until he heard Davorshan seek his bed. It was the hardest, most painful thing he had ever done. To distract his mind from the crushing weight of loneliness, he fueled his faltering courage with his anger against his brother, and forced himself to think of Aurian and her offer. Perhaps she was right—if he could no longer count on his brother, perhaps he ought to meet other people. After the Solstice, he would ask her to take him to the Garrison. Until then, he would simply mourn.