Son of Avonar

CHAPTER 4

When I woke, I was startled to find Aeren’s face an arm’s length from my own. He sat on the floor cross-legged, peering at me quizzically, his finger poised to touch my cheeks. I sat up abruptly, and he jerked his hand away.

“Keep your paws to yourself,” I said, straightening my shift and running my fingers through my tangled hair, wishing he would point his eyes in some other direction, wishing I knew some way to banish dreams.

Aeren knitted his brow at my words, as if working at it hard enough would make the syllables fall together in a way that made sense.

Was it was worth the trouble to keep talking to the man? Could the sheer number of my words somehow alleviate his lack of understanding? I grimaced at him. “How am I to get rid of you? I’d hoped you were just another bad dream.”

He tried his best to speak, but again produced nothing beyond hoarse croaking. As his attempts grew more desperate—and remained fruitless—his knuckles turned white and his face scarlet.

“Calm yourself. Like as not you’ve had a blow to the head and it’s unsettled you.” I tried to mime the words. Ineptly, as it appeared. He waved a hand as if to clear the air of my foolishness, while kicking savagely at a chair that toppled onto my woodbox, scattering twigs and limbs all over the floor and leaving my lone glass lamp in danger of tumbling off a shelf.

“Get out of here!” I said, pointing at the door. “Go and introduce yourself to Darzid.”

He didn’t go, of course, but I swore I would not attempt to communicate again. I ignored him and went about my morning’s work, stepping over his long legs when I needed to, controlling the temptation to drop an iron kettle on his head.

When I peeled my flat round of bread from the iron plate in the hearth, I expected him to pounce on it. But he remained seated on the floor, his back against my bed. He dug the heel of his hand into his temple, squeezing his eyes shut as if the bright sunlight that streamed through the door pained them.

“Are you ill?” Dismayed at the thought, I broke my vow of silence. “Curse you forever if you’ve brought fever here.”

Whether or not he understood my clownish gestures, he shook his head as if to clear it, got to his feet, and stumbled out the door into the sunny morning. Before I could even wish him good riddance, he crumpled to the dirt. I hurried to his side, experiencing a perfectly idiotic wave of guilt, as if by wishing him away so fervently, I was somehow responsible for his collapse. Moments earlier, I had been wishing him dead.

“What’s wrong with you?” I said, tapping his cheek when I could get no response. He still didn’t move. But when I shook his left shoulder, his eyes flew open, and he cried out with bloodless lips, almost rising up off the ground. “All right, all right. Let’s get you inside.”

Once I had dragged and wrestled him onto the bed, I pulled aside the makeshift tunic. The mark on his shoulder that I remembered as a mere scratch was now swollen purple, hot, hard, and seeping a foul-smelling black fluid. I’d never seen anything like it. Dredging up what I knew of such matters, I scalded my knife and lanced the wound, trying to get as much of the vile fluid out of it as I could. Aeren almost bit through his lip as I worked. “I’ve got to do this,” I said, grabbing a dry cloth to blot his brow. “You’ve gotten something nasty in it.”

As I applied a stone-root poultice to Aeren’s shoulder, he drifted off to sleep, leaving me awash in memory. How not? I even found myself whispering, J’den encour. The words meant heal swiftly in the language of the J’Ettanne. Unfortunately, the words had no efficacy coming from me.

Have you learned nothing, stupid woman? I threw down my towels and left the man to his fevered moaning, busying myself by splitting and stacking wood, filling the woodbox, hauling in extra water, pouring water on the garden, anything to stop thinking. Flour and water, salt and millet went into a bowl for more hearthbread. I threw the rabbit bones and two shriveled carrots in a pot of water on the hearth to make broth. Starving the bastard would not get him out of my bed. I needed him away from the valley. What if Darzid decided to make another sweep?

Aeren awoke near sunset, somewhat surprised to find himself in my bed and mostly undressed again. He watched silently as I made willowbark tea, mixing it with yarrow and a spoonful of wine to ease his pain and fever.

“Don’t get any ideas,” I said, deliberately and obviously holding the steaming cup above his bare torso and discreetly covered nether parts before putting it to his lips. He made no move to take the cup as he drank. “You’ve done yourself no service, running through the underbrush as you did.” Setting the cup aside, I changed the dressing on his shoulder. Not long after I finished, his fever shot skyward again, and he slipped back into restless sleep. I sat up with him most of that night, applying cold cloths to his face and body, dribbling willowbark tea down his throat, and cursing myself for a fool.

The next morning, when I woke from an uncomfortable few hours on the floor, Aeren was sitting up, his eyes fixed so intently on my face that I could almost feel their heat on my skin. Sitting on the side of the bed, I removed the bandages and was astonished to see the horrid wound well on its way to healing, only a bit red and slightly tender. Youth has distinct advantages when it comes to recuperation. “So, you’re better this morning,” I said. Fires of Annadis, why did he stare so?

Once I had renewed the dressing and tied up the bandage again, I busied myself about the cottage, trying to break the lock of his gaze while tidying up the remnants of my herbs and pots.

After a wobbly visit outdoors—I did not even consider following him out—he seated himself at the table. With one hand he gestured at his stomach and his mouth, while with the other he pointed accusingly at the idle pots beside the hearth. Though sorely tempted to grant such rudeness the empty reward it deserved, I threw onions, cheese, and my last five eggs into a skillet on the fire. He’d been none too well fed when I’d found him; after his fever, he must be weak as an infant, and I wanted him to put leagues between us today. “Sorry, I’m not adept at bludgeoning rabbits. You’ll have to do with what I’ve got.”

I was convinced of his recuperative powers when I saw what he ate that morning: an entire round of hearthbread and every bite of my eggs. No encouragement to moderation had any effect on him, and when he emptied his bowl, he banged it down on the table in front of me, pointing a reproachful finger at its desolation. When I refused to cook anything more, he ate all the wild plums from the basket on the table and used his spoon to break off great slabs of cheese. Before I could get it wrapped up and stowed back in the stone-lined hole in the bank behind the cottage, he had eaten a quarter of the pale yellow wheel that I had planned to last until autumn.

Astonishingly, Aeren was pacing the floor by midday, restless with inactivity, not fever. I shoved a pail into his hand. “Fetch some water and I’ll heat it, so you can wash before you go.” But either he didn’t understand my gestures or didn’t want to understand. He dropped the pail at my feet, retrieved the dwindling cheese yet again from my crude larder, and sprawled on the woven rug beside the hearth to eat more of it. Grinding my teeth, I fetched water from the stream for my own washing, seriously considering whether it was enough to drown the brute. When I returned to the house, he was rummaging through my things again, just as he had on the first day.

“Get out of there,” I said, slamming the lid of the clothes chest. Only quick reflexes saved his fingers from being crushed. “What are you looking for?”

With precise and insistent gestures, he demanded a sword.

When I made it clear I had nothing of the sort, he stomped away angrily and sat sulking by the pail of water, dabbling his hand in it and watching the dirt swirl around his hand as he rubbed two dirty fingers together. “That’s mine,” I said, moving the pail away from him and setting another log on the fire. “I’m no serving maid or bath-girl. You’re quite well enough to take care of yourself, and you smell like a stable.” I held my nose to illustrate my point.

He looked me in the eye and kicked over the pail, spilling the water all over my floor.

“As you wish. I’ve no time for spoiled children.”

I began to sort the burdock, scabwort, sparrow-tongue, and bristling spur nettle that I would trade for eggs and butter in the village, purposely ignoring Aeren and the mess he had made; I would not give him the satisfaction of watching me clean it up. A childish response to match his childish behavior. But the hostility in his gaze told me that his anger was anything but childish. The swelling in my throat was only now subsiding, and the slightest touch reminded me of the bruises that remained. Whyever had I brought him here? Never again. Never.

When the plants were clean and bundled, I snatched up my sewing things and a shift that needed mending and moved out to the bench outside the door. The sun beat softly on my face, and the rasp of bees in the clover was the only disturbance on the hot, still morning. Aeren followed me out, slouching in the shadow of the doorway for a while. Then, abruptly, he strode to the center of the meadow and began to wave his hands about in jerking motions, like a scarecrow come to life. Soon he was whirling and thrusting, bending and kicking, rolling onto the ground, and then picking himself up again.

Dropping my work in my lap, I watched in fascination, certain he’d gone mad.

But gradually his movements lost their insistent frenzy and became more fluid, and I at last recognized their patterns: lunge, spin, slash, parry… Swordplay: graceful, powerful, masterful. Whoever was chasing him had better make sure the man never got his hands on a sword. I glanced uneasily about the boundaries of the meadow. Who was he? Why was Darzid after him?

The display ended abruptly when Aeren stumbled over a rock and fell to the grass. Bent over his knees, chest heaving, he slammed his fist to the earth, then dragged himself to his feet, trudged back up the path, and flopped wearily to the ground in front of the cottage. Without favoring me with so much as a glance, he began tracing his finger in the dirt, drawing a rough geometric pattern of lines, curves, and arrows or cross-marks with a crude beast to each side.

I twisted my head to see from the proper angle. Something about the arrangement of it whispered at me of familiarity. “What is it?” I said, tipping my head at the drawing.

He ignored me.

But the exercise gave me a thought. I sat down beside Aeren and began drawing in the dirt myself. “This is the house.” I pointed to my picture and to the real one. He nodded, frowning. “This is the ridge.” I marked on my map the place where I’d found him, the trail to the village, the river, the bridge, and the road. He waited for more. “Isn’t any of this familiar? Where do you come from?” I added more features. “Montevial is to the north,” I said. “King Evard’s royal city.”

He just shook his head and looked blank. Then he began drawing a map of his own, adding roads, towers, mountains, then furiously erasing and changing them. It was no geography I recognized.

How was I ever to get him gone if he couldn’t tell me where he was going or where he’d been? We needed words. So I began to call out objects around the cottage and to name the things I drew. He learned incredibly fast. When I quizzed him, saying door or sky or sword and having him point to the object or the picture of it, he always got it right. He was either deceiving me that he didn’t understand Leiran or his ranked among the quickest minds I’d ever known.

I tried writing words, but he couldn’t read them. I tried to think of a way for him to tell who he was or who were his people, but he could not. I pointed to myself and to my house, then tried to find out where on his drawing was his dwelling, but he shook his head angrily and kicked dirt over his attempts. Perhaps he had been banished or disinherited. I tried drawing the devices of prominent noble houses, but he recognized none of them. And then I drew Evard’s royal dragon ensign, but it evoked neither fear nor loathing nor any sense of familiarity, and I began to wonder if he had lost his memory along with his voice. After an hour of this his lips were thin and hard, his nostrils flared, and his knuckles white. I went back to teaching him words, and he liked that better. Unfortunately, though he didn’t seem particularly happy, he didn’t look in the least inclined to leave.

By midday I’d had enough, so I packed up my knife and my bundled plants and started down the track toward the village. Aeren wanted to come with me, but I waved him away. I could just imagine the uproar if I took a half-naked stranger into Dunfarrie.

“They’ll arrest you. Put you in the pillory to wait for those who were hunting you, and all of this will be for nothing. If you want to leave, then by all means go, but take a different way at least.” I’m not sure what my gestures communicated. He pouted like a spoiled child. Maybe he would be gone by the time I came back.

The path from my cottage entered Dunfarrie behind Gareth Crowley’s pigsties. Crowley’s hovel and its collapsing fence poked up from his muddy barnyard, all of it sprawled across the foot of the hill as if a particularly nasty avalanche had buried a respectable dwelling. I circled wide and came to the dirt road that meandered past the sorely overgrown statues of Annadis and Jerrat—no priest from any temple could be bothered to come and tend so small a shrine as Dunfarrie’s—and through the jumble of tired wood-frame houses and shops to the Dun Bridge. The afternoon was still and warm, the stench of barnyard filth hanging over the stifling village.

The few people I passed hurried by with averted eyes or touched their fingers to their brows without speaking. The villagers tolerated me and my unsavory past out of respect for Anne and Jonah, but they kept a wary distance. I was well content to do the same. Life was difficult enough without moping over other people’s hardships.

Jacopo, of course, was different. If it hadn’t been for Jacopo, Jonah’s younger brother, I could never have survived in the valley after Anne and Jonah died. He had no family of his own, and he came up every few days to help me cut firewood or work the garden, or to make soap or candles. He had taught me to snare rabbits and squirrels, and to make jack, the thin, tough strips of smoked meat that would keep forever. Every fall he helped me make the cottage tight against the coming cold. Jaco was all of my family and all of my friends together.

Eyed suspiciously by a bronze rooster, I picked my way through a cramped chicken yard to the back stoop of a tidy, sod-roofed house, where I traded my bundled dye plants to Mag the weaver for ten eggs and a fist-sized lump of butter wrapped in a rag. Jaco’s shop was not as tidy as Mag’s house. The outside had not been whitewashed since King Gevron’s father ruled Leire, and the dirt-and soot-grimed window allowed little daylight inside. I pushed open the door and three cats made a break for freedom across my feet. “Jaco, are you here?”

Jacopo had taken up shopkeeping after thirty years wandering the world as a sailor. An Isker saber had slashed the muscles of one leg, leaving it too stiff for scrambling in a ship’s rigging, so he had made his way home to Dunfarrie. Out of this dusty room he sold all manner of things: old boots, clothes, anchors, rusty lanterns, cracked bowls, farm implements. Anything he could find or trade for, he would set in his shop, and someone would want it eventually.

“What’re you up to in town this day, girl? It’s not your usual.” Jacopo emerged from the back room carrying a crate of rusty nails. He was very much like Jonah, wispy white hair and kind brown eyes. Though no taller than I, he had broad shoulders and a barrel chest, and the hands that gripped the heavy crate were wide, with short, powerful fingers. He set down the crate, then wiped his forehead with a rag. “Summer’s on us today, for sure.”

“Jaco, we need to talk. Privately.”

“Not a soul in town to hear, I’d wager. Everyone’s gone out to Augusto’s. With the eviction tomorrow, everyone thinks either to help him move out or to steal whatever they can get their hands on. After the flogging, Augusto can’t move fast enough to keep up with his children, much less his belongings.”

I drew a pair of rickety stools close together where we could see the shop door. Jacopo pulled a wadded leather pouch from the pocket of his worn blue sailor’s coat, extracted a pipe, and filled it from a battered tin.

“Yesterday a stranger showed up on the ridge…”

When I was done, the pipe remained unlit. “And he can’t speak at all?”

“Not a syllable. But he’s not accustomed to it nor to rough living or having to do for himself. I can’t seem to convince him to leave. So what am I to do with him?”

“Give him over to Graeme Rowan. That’s the only way to stay clear of trouble.”

I shook my head. “Darzid’s surely spoken with Rowan. Our upright sheriff would turn Aeren over straightaway. I won’t do it.”

“But if he’s a thief—”

“We’ve no evidence this man has broken any law, and whatever his crime, I’ve doubts he can remember it. He’s not even sure of his name.”

“Perhaps he’s not the one the captain’s hunting. Likely he’s just a fellow wrecked himself on the Snags and wandered up the ridge. I’ve seen many a body with the clothes washed right off them after getting caught up at the Snags, though mostly they were dead.”

“I won’t believe that. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

“What if I was to trot down to the docks and have a smoke with Graeme, see what he knows?”

“You won’t mention Aeren or me?”

“I’ll be as clever as a boy when there’s work to be done.”

“I’ll watch the shop.” I had to offer, though I thoroughly disliked the task.

“Right then. Have a look through my bins and see if there’s aught to dress the fellow in. I’ll be back in a bit.”

I delved into the three great wooden clothes bins. That the contents of the bins were entirely dead people’s clothes didn’t bother me. Dead was dead. The former owners weren’t going to come back and haunt those who found some use for their breeches. I came up with gray under-drawers, a long tunic of russet, some worn and greasy loose breeches of brown kersey with a drawstring to hold them up, and canvas leggings. Aeren was clearly unused to going barefoot. His feet were soft, battered by the stones and sticks of the forest path, and the lack of calluses told me he was accustomed to boots that fit, not these hobnailed monstrosities the rest of us wore that weighed like oak and were no more yielding. The only thing Jacopo’s bins provided were sandals that looked as if they’d been chewed by a goat.

I had watched the shop for Jacopo on other occasions. I wasn’t much good at it. Jacopo could talk to a customer for an hour about nothing, and before you knew it, a woman who had come in search of a spoon would leave with two crocks, a bowl, three shirts, and a ladle. I rarely managed to get past “Good day.” Fortunately, only two people came into the shop while Jacopo was out.

Mary Fetterling, a bony woman of indeterminate age, brought in a tidy bundle of clothes: a thin summer cloak, a boy’s stiff jacket, some stirrup-footed leggings, and a pair of patched and baggy farmer’s trousers. Her graying hair flew about her head in distracted tangles, and her eyes darted from here to there, never fixing on anything. “I’ve Tim’s things. He won’t be needin” them no more. And I could use a penny.“ Tim was the last of Mary’s four sons, one of thousands of Leiran conscripts dead from Evard’s determination to conquer the desert kingdom of Iskeran, the only one of the Four Realms not under Leiran rule. Mary’s husband had been lost in King Gevron’s campaign against Valleor, and her other three boys in Evard’s conquest of Kerotea.

I had grown up with soldiers, but they were men hired by my father to defend his house and support his obligations to his king, not conscripts. Conscripts were necessary in a war—I understood that—but at the least they deserved good officers and reasoned strategies. And for a family to lose all of its sons…

“Jaco isn’t here, but I’m sure he’d give at least two coppers.” The clothes weren’t worth so much, but Jacopo had taught me his ways.

The woman dipped her head. “Thank you, ma’am. A fella that was with him come to tell me of him. It’s been nigh on two years that it happened, and I didn’t hear of it till this week. But I wasn’t surprised. A mother knows. Tim was my youngest. He would always come—”

“I’m sorry about your boy.” Useless words. Not worth the effort to voice them. But I didn’t want to hear of her sorrows. I swatted at a fly buzzing about my face.

“They say he died brave,” she said. “Blessed Annadis will remember his name.” She clutched her pennies and went on her way. Neither my words nor Jaco’s coppers would keep her fed for long. And I’d seen no evidence that having either of the disinterested Holy Twins remember a dead soldier’s name benefited his family in the least. Mary would end up harnessing herself to a plow on some noble’s leasehold east of Dunfarrie and pull until she dropped dead from it. I hated working the shop.

An hour later, a ragged boy barged through the door carrying a wad of dingy rags, shouts of “Run, Donkey” following him. Underneath a scraggly mop of honey-brown hair and thirteen years’ accumulation of dirt were a thin freckled face and ears that seemed too large for his scrawny frame. One of his legs was shorter than the other, and he loped through the village with an off-kilter gait that left one expecting him to crash into the nearest obstacle at any moment. Paulo was his name. Almost everyone in Dunfarrie called him Donkey.

The boy pulled up short when he saw me, and he quickly stuffed his bundle behind his back. “Where’s Jaco?”

“Out. Do you have something for him?”

“Nope. Nothin”.“ He ducked his head, touched his forehead, and backed toward the door.

“Come, what’s in your hand? You know I work the shop when Jacopo’s away.”

“Nope. I’ll wait.”

“Wait for what?” Jacopo stepped through the doorway, pipe smoke curling about his head.

The boy looked from Jaco to me, hesitating.

“I think Paulo has a treasure for you, Jaco.”

“What’ve you got, boy? Out with it. I’ve no time to dally.”

With a sideways glance at me, the boy unfolded the filthy cloth. Between the stained folds lay a silver dagger half again the length of Paulo’s hand. The guard was a simple, elegant curve, and both guard and hilt were densely filled with intricate engraving that guttered as it caught the light.

Jacopo voiced our mutual astonishment. “Where in perdition did you come up with such a thing?”

“Found it, Jaco. Honest. Left on the ground. Nobody about.” The boy held it well out of my reach. “Didn’t steal it. I promise.”

“Not saying you did.” Jaco stroked the gleaming blade. “Just trying to figure out where such a fine thing might have come from.”

I thought I might understand the boy’s anxiety. The villagers were well aware of my origins. “You needn’t fret, Paulo. I’ve not owned anything so fine for a number of years.” Ten, to be precise. “Here, let me see if I can recognize the markings.”

The boy allowed me to move in a little closer, but kept his thin hand firmly on the knife. A beautiful weapon. Wickedly sharp. I examined the engraving, and the day lurched off in a new direction. “Where did you find it, Paulo? Where exactly?”

Jacopo peeked over the boy’s head and waggled his eyebrows at me in question.

“On the ridge up to the head of Poacher’s Creek.” Paulo glanced suspiciously from Jaco to me. “It’s a fine thing. If you can’t pay, I might try Sheriff. He needs a good one.” The boy was studiously diffident. “Or someone as comes downriver might want it. No hurry.”

I still had Jacopo’s eye and shook my head ever so slightly.

Jacopo turned the dagger over in his hands. “Well, I suppose you could take it to Graeme and he might buy it, but then he might well take it without paying, as maybe it was evidence or something lost as someone will want. All I could give for it would be a silver penny.”

“Three!” Glorious avarice burst through the boy’s hangdog manner.

“Two, and not a copper more.”

Paulo’s eyes gleamed. “Done!” In moments the boy was trotting down the road, carrying more money than he could ever have thought to see in his life.

“Now what is it you find so almighty fascinating about this little bit of wickedness, young lady? It’s cost me dear.”

I pointed to the engraved device on its hilt. “This is the mark Aeren was trying to draw in the dirt.” His version had been crude, but it was unmistakable: a rectangular shield with two rampant lions supporting a curved arch. Not arrows or crosses, but two starbursts sat atop the arch and a third underneath it. I didn’t mention the nagging familiarity that still refused to resolve itself. “The knife might help us trace him, or perhaps there’s another clue at the spring.”

“Hmm. Or it might belong to the other odd fellow what’s been hanging about…”

“Another one? Tell me!”

Jacopo rolled the dagger in a cleaner rag. “Found Graeme havin‘ a pint at the Heron. He was low about Barti Gesso’s thievin” Mistress Jennai’s flour. Barti did it no question, but he’s got seven little ones to feed and his hold’s got the blight. Mistress Jennai wants half the flesh off Barti’s back, and Graeme’s got to do it, so—“

“Spare me the sheriff’s moral dilemmas, Jaco. With two floggings and an eviction within three days, I don’t think I can muster any sympathy for him.”

Sheriffs were constable, judge, and hangman in most Leiran towns and villages. They were charged to enforce the king’s law, to support the king’s whims, and to prevent interference with the conscript gangs, tax collectors, and quartermasters who ensured the unending supplies of lives, money, food, and horses for the king’s wars. But such duties had been acquired only in the past century. The badge sewn on a sheriff’s coat was scarlet, fashioned in the shape of a flaming sword, for the office had been created to enforce the extermination laws—to root out sorcerers in every corner of the realm and burn them.

“You’re still hard on Graeme, Seri. He’s a fair man and does his job well. I’ve known him since he was a boy.”

“I won’t argue it again. So what else did he say?”

“He talked of the king’s men come riding through yesterday looking for the missing servant. They told him no more’n they told you. But then he said another fellow come through here a few days ago, an odd one, dressed as a nob from Kerotea, but his look was not such as would fit his clothes. Said the man was telling how his groom run off with a prize horse, and he was offering a reward for either the groom or the beast.”

“Aeren is no—”

“Now just haul in your jib. Graeme believes the man wasn’t looking for no horse, neither. The fellow couldn’t even describe the horse other than it was big and white.

Right odd, Graeme said. For certain, he was no king’s man. This Kerotean is staying down to Grenatte, and he wants Graeme to let him know right off if there’s any word of the horse or the groom, but not tell anyone else that might be asking. Says the groom is tall, light-haired, about twenty and some years, fair in the face, but with a testy temper. The boy’s not quite right in the head, he says. Might be talkin‘ wild.“

“He’s lying. If I’d not seen Aeren’s hands or feet, perhaps, or noted his manner. Or if I’d not learned how intelligent he is, I might have believed it. But he’s no groom, and he’s not incompetent.” No groom practiced the kind of martial exercises Aeren had been doing that morning. The more I thought of the whole matter, the odder it was.

“It’s a mystery, for sure. Graeme says he plans to look into it. And after hearing all this and knowing this little trinket is involved”—Jaco tapped the bundle on his hand— “I don’t know but what we’d best get you out of it as quick as we may.”

“I’m not getting involved in anyone’s problems. I’m going to give Aeren the clothes and send him off to Montevial. Could I take the dagger back with me?” Seeing Aeren’s reaction to it might be interesting.

“Surely. But I think I’ll come along with it and get a look at your new friend myself.”

I hefted the bundle of clothes, Tim Fetterling’s gray cloak, and my bag of eggs and butter, while Jacopo found an unused knife sheath, bundled it with the knife, and grabbed his walking stick. We strolled in quiet companionship past the clay statues of the Twins, glaring from their unkempt shrine, across the fields, and up the trail into the woods. The shadows were already lengthening.

My breath stopped when I glimpsed the still form sprawled on the grass under the eaves of the forest. Stars of night, was he dead? I sped across the meadow and dropped to my knees beside the body, but I had scarcely noted that Aeren was only sleeping when I found myself face down with my arms pinned painfully behind my back, my nose in the dirt, and not a breath left in my lungs.

“A blight on your thick head,” I said, gasping. “It’s only me and a friend.”

At my first word, Aeren released me. By the time I had dragged myself to my knees and reassured myself that neither arms nor neck were broken, he stood ten paces away from me, taut, wary, and watching Jacopo limp across the meadow.

“Demons! The rascal didn’t hurt you?” said Jacopo, no longer leaning on the sturdy length of hickory, but gripping one end of it fiercely.

I crept across the grass and leaned my back against a tree, rubbing my shoulder and neck and brushing the leaves and dirt from my skirt. “Easy, Jaco. I’m fine. Just a second layer of bruises.”

“He’s been trained to fight,” said Jacopo, glowering at the young man. “No doubt of that. Quick and smooth. Strong, too, I’ll be bound. What’s he done to you, little girl?” Jacopo bent over to take a look at my neck.

“Ouch!” The old sailor was a ham-handed nursemaid.

Before Jacopo could apologize, Aeren grabbed his collar and shoved the old man away so forcefully that Jaco crashed into the dead lower branches of a pine tree. When the young man dropped to his knees beside me and reached for my neck, I flinched. To my surprise, his fingers brushed my skin quite gently. His brow was creased, as if he couldn’t understand how the marks had come about.

“I’ll live,” I said, trying to calm the situation before he got more agitated. “We startled you.”

His frown deepened, and he moved in closer, his bulk pressing me against the tree as he tugged at the tie that would loosen the gathered neck of my shift.

“Get away from me.” With an ungentle hand to his chest, I managed to squirm out from between him and the tree. But he removed my hand and moved closer again, yanking the cloth down to bare my throat. With a stiff forearm I knocked his hand aside, while with the other hand, I reached through my pocket, drew my knife, and pointed it at his belly. I knew where to hurt a man, and I knew how to talk to a brute, whether he spoke the same language or not. “Get. Away. From. Me.”

Face a deep scarlet, he let go of my clothes. Then, baring his teeth, he grabbed my forearm and twisted it until the knife dropped to the ground. For a moment I thought he might break my wrist or snatch up the weapon and turn it on me. But instead, he pushed me to the ground, stood up, and walked away.

Jacopo gave me a hand up, stood close by my shoulder, and raised his stick to Aeren’s back. “May the good god Jerrat drown you, you filthy devil—”

“Wait, Jaco.” No point in letting things get out of hand. I retrieved my dagger and sheathed it. “Aeren”—I repeated his name several times and waited until he turned around again to lay my hand on Jacopo’s shoulder—“this is my friend Jacopo from Dunfarrie. Jaco, this is… Lord Aeren of somewhere.” Jaco was busy mopping his forehead with a kerchief, and his grudging bow was less than gentlemanly.

Aeren ignored both Jacopo and my introduction. With a sour expression, he gestured to his stomach and his mouth and pointed to the cottage.

“I’ve better things to do, you wretched beast. Time to fend for yourself a bit.” I rummaged amid the eggs and butter in my pack and pulled out a well-bruised wild plum, left from my morning on Poacher’s Ridge. I threw the plum at Aeren. Hard.

He caught it in one hand, deftly enough to prevent the soft fruit from splattering on him. As he bit into it, one corner of his mouth twitched. Smug little bastard.

I tossed the clothes bundle at his feet. Once he had finished the plum and flipped the stem into the trees, he squatted down beside the pile and, one by one, lifted the items by the tip of one finger. He examined each carefully, then gave me such a look of scornful disbelief that, despite all my annoyance, I could do nothing but burst out laughing. It seemed like a century since I had laughed, and finding myself doing so at an unpleasant brute of a man who had come near throttling me twice within a week was strange indeed. Aeren flushed, snatched the bundle of clothes, and disappeared into the trees.

“If ever I’ve seen a spoiled lordling, it has to be this one,” I said, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. “Did you see his nose turn up? I’ve nursed him until I’m exhausted and full of splinters from sleeping on the floor, I’ve fed him half my food stocks, so that I’ll be doing well to have a meal next week, and here he sits in Anne’s old sheet and disdains something a hundred times better. I just don’t think he’s some common riverman, wrecked on the Snags.”

“Mmm. No half-wit groom, neither.” Jacopo fingered his own knife and did not laugh with me. “He’s a killer, Seri. I’ve seen no man with such moves who wasn’t, whether lowborn or high. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

I clasped my hands about my knees and leaned back against the tree. “On that we are in complete agreement.”

A short time later Aeren emerged from the woods dressed in Jacopo’s gifts. He picked at the rough cloth uncomfortably, like a small boy dressed in his first stiff-collared suit.

“I sympathize,” I said. “I can’t say I prefer kersey or russet to silk.”

“Do you think he understands what you say?” said Jacopo, as Aeren snatched my pack and rummaged through it, dropping it with an annoyed grunt when he found nothing of interest. Raking me with a glare, the young man strode across the field toward the cottage.

“Most likely not, but I’m less likely to take an ax to him if I say what I think.” If he had broken my eggs, I was going to kill him.

“He looks older than you said.”

Aeren soon returned, tearing at a hunk of the chewy hearthbread as a hunting dog tears at a doe. He did look more like mid-to late twenties than early. I had always considered myself a keen observer of such things. Perhaps it was his illness had changed him or the afternoon sunlight, revealing what forest shadows, soft mornings, and lamplight had hidden.

“Show him the dagger, Jaco.”

“I’m thinking that might not be clever.”

“As you said, a knife is no more dangerous than his hands. If he’s of a mind to make away with us, then he needs no knife to do it. But somehow…” Twice in the past hour I’d seen his rage surge. Twice I had seen it quelled. Perhaps I was getting cocky.

Jacopo tossed the bundle on the ground in between us and nudged the coverings open with his stick. Aeren picked up the weapon and ran his fingers slowly over its shining length, examining it curiously, especially the device on the hilt. His expression exhibited no sign of recognition. The knife’s heft and balance were pleasing to him, though, and he snatched up the sheath and fastened it to his cloth belt. I didn’t particularly like the idea, but wasn’t going to argue. I wasn’t afraid of him. I hadn’t been afraid for ten years. What could anyone do to hurt me?

“Come on,” I said, scrambling to my feet, “let’s take a look at where Paulo found the knife. Maybe Aeren got in a fight there… got whacked on the head or something. Whatever happened, seeing the place might force him to remember where he came from or where he was going. I want him gone by nightfall.”

The angle of the sun was steep as the three of us set out on the trail to the spring. Through the trees we glimpsed the grassy hillsides brushed with gold. I showed Jaco where I’d first encountered Aeren, and where the hunters had ridden through, and I tried to get Aeren to show us which way he had come down the hill. He was unsure, but as we wandered up higher, beyond the boundary of the trees, his steps slowed. His eyes darted about, the lines of his face drawn tight, his fists clenching and unclenching.

“A little farther,” I said, pointing up the hill.

A cool, rock-lined grotto taller than a man split the side of the hill near the ridgetop. At the base of the smooth boulders was the spring. The clear, blue-green pool spilled over moss-covered stones into the stream that carved its way down the sunny hillside into the dark line of the trees.

Jacopo and I searched the soft ground for tracks or any sign that something unusual had gone on in the place. The only thing I found was a rusty ladle thrown into the pool, probably the offering of some drought-blighted farmer hoping to appease a local water spirit. Despite the priests’ best efforts to stamp out all remnants of any gods but Annadis and Jerrat, a few stubborn, desperate people persisted in their desperate superstitions.

After a fruitless half-hour, I flopped down on a rock in the shade, discouraged. “There’s nothing here.” Why did I care? Perhaps he was exactly the thief Darzid claimed.

Jacopo sagged onto the rock beside me, mopping his brow. “It would help if I knew what we were looking for.”

“Enough is enough, Jaco. We’ll give him some food, point him toward Montevial, and let him take his chances. He’s certainly not defenseless, and if he sells the knife, he can keep himself far better than you or me.”

Aeren wandered about the hillside restlessly, frustration shadowing his handsome features. He had drawn the silver dagger, and every few steps he would stop and glare at it, until at last, with an explosive croak that was the only expletive he could manage, he threw it at the boulder that sheltered the pool. His face did not change expression when the dagger embedded itself to the hilt in the smooth and unbroken rock face, heeding its impenetrable solidity no more than if it had been a loaf of bread.

“Demons of the deep!” Jacopo jerked backward as if struck in the head.

I thought my heart had stopped. Every nerve in my body quivered with the charge that lingered in the air. Enchantment… It was like the fleeting embrace of lightning, or the kiss of fire’s breath on frozen flesh, or a moment’s memory of passion that stands every hair on its end, flushing the skin with exotic sensation. Ten years since I’d felt the like—almost fifteen since the first time, the day I discovered that the man I loved was a sorcerer.