Shadow Gate

6

Joss woke up in his private chamber in Argent Hall to find a woman lying beside him on the sleeping mat, naked, tousled, and barely covered by the thin cotton coverlet. He sat up cautiously, rubbing his aching head. He had no idea how she had gotten there.

With a sigh, she rolled over, exposing a face he recognized and eyes that, opening, were clearly alert. She'd been awake for some time.

'The hells!' he muttered, staring at her in shock.

She sat up, exposing a pleasing, muscular figure ripped by healed scars. The worst ran from her left shoulder across the mauled remains of a breast and down past her ribs to pucker to a finish by her belly button.

'Regrets already?' she asked with a smile half of amusement and half of a woman thinking of giving an idiot man a slap to the face.

'Verena,' he said, glad that at least he remembered her name and feeling ten parts stupid and ten parts hungover. Last night's activities surfaced in his memory as he woke up fully. Oh, yes, he remembered it all now.

She chuckled.

'No regrets at all,' he said feelingly. 'It was well worth the doing. I just suddenly realized that I am marshal of this hall now and you are a fawkner here, working under my authority. I'm not sure I should have – I'm accustomed to being a simple reeve – what I'm trying to say is-'

'That you don't want it said you took advantage of your position to get a woman into your bed?' she asked with a laugh. 'Rest easy. You took a lot of coaxing, and an entire pitcher of cheap rice wine before I managed to talk you into it.'

The chamber was strewn with clothing. This scene and its musky aftermath were nothing new, but with the weight of his new authority it didn't seem as carefree as it once had.

'Heya, Joss! Listen. We're of an age. I have living a twenty-year-old son and fifteen-year-old twin daughters, may the gods give me

patience. My husband has been dead these ten years. It was a marriage arranged by the clan. He and I were never close. I have no wish to remarry, and since the clan got what it wanted from the match – my son has followed his grandfather into the guild – they have no further claim on me. My work and my life are here at Argent Hall. Still, I'm not dead. Yet. You're an attractive man. If you've a wish for this to end here, then say so. I'll swallow my aging pride and say nothing more of it.'

It was true she wasn't a young woman with the breathtaking lithe charm granted by youth and worn by youth so carelessly. But women who had experienced the world possessed confidence and humor and wisdom, a sense of perspective that very young women lacked, so on the whole he preferred older women. She wasn't pretty, but she was attractive in every way that mattered: clear eyes, a good face, a love for her own body and its pleasures, and the strength of mind to match the rest. She knew what she wanted and she wasn't afraid to try for it. She reached out to find the dregs of the wine, poured him a tumbler, and handed it over. She'd been raked across the back, too, the wound treated so well the scars had remained supple.

'Where's that one from?' he asked.

'Which?' she asked, twisting to display first her back and then the horrible disfiguring gash across her front. 'These are the two worst. The others-' She had a nick on her chin, another nick on her right shoulder, and a single white line running down one forearm. 'These are like kisses. Sometimes those cursed eagles try to be affectionate and don't know their own strength. Even this one, the back, that's when U'ushu was trying to play and missed his aim. He's dead now, poor thing. He was a good bird. They all are, mostly, as long as you know how to handle them.'

He gently traced what remained of her left breast. 'What about this one?'

She said nothing for a moment, face pensive. She took the tumbler out of his hand and drained it. 'Sheh! You need a new stock of wine. This is bitter even for being so cheap. Anyway, that's a gift from an eagle named Tumna. She's the worst-tempered raptor I've encountered, although I will tell you I put a lot of the blame on her reeve. He was an altogether foul character and he didn't care for her

as she needed. He was one of those who transferred in during the bad years leading up to the days when Marshal Yordenas held sway here.'

'Tumna?'

'Her reeve's name was Horas.'

'Was?'

'She killed him. That same day you and Clan Hall and the out-landers rid us of Yordenas and his allies.'

'Eiya! I remember now. That's a serious charge, when an eagle kills its reeve. When did she do this to you?'

She shook her head. 'A few years back, when Horas first arrived here. She came to trust me later. We fawkners don't dwell on such things or we'd not be able to do our work.'

He saw the warning look in her eyes, the set of her mouth and the way she had a breath half held in, but he couldn't quite let go. Maybe only because he wasn't sure if he'd betrayed her trust by allowing himself to sleep with her. 'We all know the dangers of working with the eagles. But I'm only close to Scar, and he'd never hurt me. I don't know how you fawkners do it, training the young ones, treating the ones who are injured and in pain and most likely to lash out… teaching an eagle who's mauled you to trust you. Where do you find the courage?'

She slid a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer.

'It makes me feel alive,' she murmured, and kissed him.

Amazingly, her breath was still sweet, although he was sure his was sour. A great deal more came clear about what had passed between them last night, indeed it did, and he wrapped his arms around her and settled her closer.

A hard rapping, tat tat tat tat tat, sounded on the outer doors.

'The hells!' he swore.

She cocked her head to one side to listen, then grinned and stretched. 'Take your pleasure while you can, Marshal, for they will be clamoring for you as soon as you blink.'

Didn't anything ruffle her feathers? Neh, surely not. She had more courage than he'd ever know. She'd faced the creature that tried to kill her, and won its trust.

She began to gather the clothing tossed here and there about the

tiny sleeping chamber. He stood and caught her lightly by the wrist. She looked at him, studying his face.

'Listen, Verena,' he said. 'I thank you for what you offered me. I'm glad for it. But I'm marshal now, and I have to think whether it's best for the hall that I share such a relationship with a fawkner who works under my authority. I just don't know. It all came on me so suddenly. I'm not sure how to negotiate these currents, much less rebuild the hall after Marshal Yordenas tried his best to destroy it.'

'You're honest. I appreciate that.'

'I'm not saying that-'

'Joss. I'm looking for a pleasant way to pass the evening now and again, that's all. I think you're pretty well accustomed to women's admiration, so you have to believe me – even if it's difficult for you to do so – that I'm not looking for more than that. Nor will I sit around pining for you. And maybe this isn't such a good idea. We have enough complications as it is. It's true enough that Argent Hall needs us all to work hard and together if we mean to restore it to what it ought to be. We have forty eagles or more come home to the hall looking for new reeves, and a raft of hopeful candidates knocking at the gates-'

The pounding resumed, a thapping that made his head hammer right between the eyes.

She grinned. 'I would have thought you held your wine better than this. Go on.' She handed him the vest she'd unlaced last night, then tugged on her own pair of leather trousers.

'Marshal Joss?'

'I'm coming!'

He dressed, then tossed the coverlet back on the sleeping mat and decided to roll it up and store it away later. Verena picked up the empty pitcher and the pair of tumblers, slid the door open with a foot, and marched across the outer chamber of the marshal's cote to the outer door. Joss, trying to smear the muzziness out of his eyes, stepped into the outer chamber and slid the inner door shut just as she slid open the outer door. A pair of reeves and a fawkner in a linen coat stood on the covered porch.

The fawkner said, 'Morning, Rena,' as Verena stepped past him and hunted for her sandals by the stairs. 'That cursed Tumna is still hanging about. We were thinking she'd fly on off to the mountains

like any normal bird that's lost its reeve does, but maybe she's gone rogue. She's looking for someone else's head to rip off.'

Verena turned to give the other fawkner a hard stare. 'She's a good bird. Don't go thinking otherwise.'

The two reeves watched this exchange with interest, grinning first at the fawkners and then at Joss. He ignored them and sat down in front of the cluttered desk that was the marshal's worktable, but all he could do was to stare in disgust at the hopeless disarray: two pots of unstoppered ink turning to sludge; a writing brush left uncleaned so its fine hair tip had dried into a twisted horn; a pile of paper needing a clerk to read to him; a mug filled with chits, each one marked with a name so he could resolve a long-standing dispute over duty rosters; a pair of blue and black glass-bead bracelets -what in the hells were those doing here?

'You didn't waste much time,' said the older reeve, sauntering in when he hadn't been invited. 'The story in the hall this morning goes that she got you drunk last night and hauled you off by the – Eiya! A new version of the usual tale, I admit, but with the same ending.'

Joss squinted up at the man he thought of as 'the Snake'. 'Volias. Greetings of the day to you, too. Why are you hammering on my door?'

'That was Siras, here.' He gestured to the younger reeve, who was still standing at the threshold.

'Come in,' said Joss wearily, beckoning to Siras and the old fawkner, whose name he had forgotten. Verena's footfalls crunched away down the gravel path. 'I'm not awake yet.'

'I'll fetch tea and soup from the cook,' said Siras hastily and, without attempting to come in, he took himself off.

'Is the news that bad?' asked Joss, eyeing first the Snake's smirking face and then the old fawkner's serious expression.

Unexpectedly, the old man smiled. His was a sweet smile rather like a child's. 'Neh, Marshal. It's a good morning when we wake up to know we're shed of Yordenas and the rest of his hateful crew.'

'I admire you fawkers and reeves who stuck it out despite everything for the sake of the eagles and the hall,' said Joss. 'You did well. I mean that, Geddi.' The name surfaced at last.

'Begging your pardon, it's Askar. Geddi is taller and about twenty years younger by my reckoning.'

Volias snickered.

'Why are you here to plague me?' asked Joss. 'Didn't I send you back to Clan Hall?'

'Commander sent me right back again. There's trouble everywhere, Joss.'

'Wherever I see your ugly face. Aui! I recall now. You returned yesterday. High Haldia is fallen to an army larger and better-disciplined than the one that attacked Olossi.'

'That's right,' said Volias more soberly. 'That we managed a victory here in the South and sent that second army into flight is by the mercy of the gods.'

' "By the mercy of the gods, and the cunning of the out-lander,"' added Askar. 'As it says in the tale. After you've had a sip of tea and a swallow of soup, Marshal, there's duty rosters to sort out. The fawkners would like to talk to you about the injured eagles. The senior reeves need to talk to you. The training master wants a word about how to sort out so many novices at one time. The hall steward needs your imprint to ask for a tithing increase since we're feeding so many new novices and eagles, with more to come. And besides there are a hundred new young hopefuls still waiting in the western parade grounds, each one eager to try for an eagle.'

'Amazing how they will come,' said Volias in a thoughtful tone, spoken in a way that made even Joss want to know what had provoked those words. Then he laughed scornfully, ruining the effect. 'Eh! So this morning when passing out rice balls among them, Darga and Medard got to talking in loud voices about how that cursed eagle – Tumna – slaughtered her very own reeve. They did go into detail of what the remains looked like. A puncture wound in the chest big enough to slither through, which eels were doing. His head half ripped off, dangling by a few tendons, and one arm clean gone. By the time they were through talking, a good twenty of those bright-eyed innocents had slunk out the gates heading for home.'

Joss grunted, feeling the headache reemerge. 'Askar, have we a clerk who can read all these contracts and correspondence, and write replies?'

'Neh, Marshal. Marshal Alyon did have a good clerk on retainer from the temple of Sapanasu in Olossi, but when Yordenas came in

he sent the man packing and kept that Devouring girl to read his letters for him.'

'And read more of him besides, I am sure,' said the Snake with his habitual sneer.

Joss felt his anger rising. Siras clattered up the steps, kicked off his sandals, and brought in a tray of tea and soupy which he set on the desk in the last cleared space.

'Well now, Volias,' said Askar in his same serious tone, 'you might think so, and many did think so, but I'm not so certain. I doubt the Devouring girl danced to Yordenas's melody.'

The Devouring girl.

All memories of the sweet night he had spent with Verena vanished like so much chaff blown away under a stiff wind. Hoping his hand's tremor would be interpreted as exhaustion and wine-sickness, he sipped at the tea. The cook had kindly brewed thin medallions of ginger with a sprinkling of dried purple arrowroot flowers, good for hangovers.

'With your permission, Ruti will fly me into Olossi this morning so I can go to the temple of Sapanasu and see about them sending us a clerk for the work needs doing here,' continued Askar. He went into detail about what needed the marshal's oversight and what usually ran well without his interference.

As Joss listened, he drank the spicy soup and drained the tea, glad to have the conversation move onto less volatile ground. Askar hadn't much of a sense of humor, but he knew what was needed for a reeve hall to run smoothly.

'I'm fortunate to have you,' he said when Askar had done. He set bowl and cup on the tray, grabbed a knife, his short staff, and, after a moment's consideration, a pair of loose jesses. 'How did you and the others manage not to lose hope while Yordenas ruled here, with those dirty, corrupt reeves gathered around him? They must have made life miserable, and dangerous, for the rest of you.'

Askar shook his head. 'We did what had to be done. Of course, now we know there was another mind, working at a distance to corrupt Argent Hall and the council of Olossi. That Yordenas was simply a tool.'

'This battle isn't done yet,' said Joss. 'Our war is just beginning.'