Steal the Dragon

2

Like a plague of locusts, the ravenous tide of war had fed upon the small Darranian village of Tallonwood, leaving destruction in its wake. Several once-fertile fields lay barren, the salt from the mines that were the region’s greatest source of wealth turning the rich earth into sterile soil that drifted in the winds, a silent testament to the centuries-old feud between Darran and its neighbor Reth.

As the closest village to Westhold (so named because it lay to the west of the salt mine), one of the principal holds in east Darran and Lord Karsten’s family estate, Tallonwood had been overrun on numerous occasions. The once-prosperous village was poor now, even by Darranian standards. After Darran had lost its most recent war with Reth, even the richest of the villagers had trouble putting food on the table. Last winter, which was mild by all accounts, two of the elders and three infants had died from lack of food.

Lord Karsten, who ruled Westhold and several surrounding villages, including Tallonwood, was one of the few Darranian lords who had not revoked the ancient laws that made it punishable by death for peasants to hunt in the forests. He worried that the animal populations might be decimated as they were elsewhere in Darran; peasants were less valuable to his recreational pursuits. His overseer saw that his wishes were followed.

One of the few buildings in decent repair in the village belonged to Tris, a healer of rare talent. His reputation had spread beyond the village, and the nobles from the hold sought him out for the healing of their gout, indigestion and boils, for which services he charged them royally.

Without Tris, Tallonwood would have suffered far worse than it had this past winter. Using the gold and jewels he charged the nobles, he bought grain from the hold’s stores and cattle to slaughter.

When the hold’s reserves were too lean to allow the hold castellan to sell any more, Tris risked the wrath of Lord Karsten and hunted the forest animals himself. He maintained that years of sneaking around catching herbs unaware lent him stealth that served him well against both the forest animals and the two-legged beasts that the overseer hired to keep the peasants from helping themselves.

In the front room of his two-room cottage, Tris wiped down the counter that kept his customers’ children out of the various pots and jars that he stored on the shelves. The rag that he used was not as stained as his powerful hands, which were presently an interesting shade of lilac. He’d found a patch of avendar on his walk this morning, an herb useful for making burn salve and dark purple dye.

To his immense surprise, the healer had found contentment in the little village. He was even fond of the neat little cottage that stood on the other side of a small hill from Tallonwood. The location allowed him the illusion of privacy and the convenience of being upstream from the village waste.

Tris looked up, rubbing his beard, as the door chimes announced the entrance of the headman’s mother, Trenna.

Old and crippled as she was, she carried herself with an air that made even the lord treat her with respect. If she’d been born in another place, she would have been trained as a mage. In Darran she was the village wisewoman, advising the elders on such things as which goat would give more milk and which should be butchered, or when the first snow would fall.

If Tris knew that her accuracy was due to something other than observation and experience, then she knew that there was more than herbs in Tris’s recipes. The magic that they used was different, but it was magic just the same.

It had been Trenna, searching for an elusive plant, who found Tris where his own people had left him: bound and waiting to die. Her magic sometimes expressed itself in the rare ability to see into future possibilities. That gift allowed her to discern his nature and see hope for her village. She offered him a bargain.

If she freed him, he would serve her village for a year as healer. The conditions would be difficult. Her people were hostile to magic, so he would have to hide his nature—at the same time helping them to the best of his abilities.

Tris had been waiting patiently for death. Even if he could have escaped, his rash act of kindness would have exiled him from his people forever. Dying did not seem so harsh—until he’d been offered a chance at a life. He agreed to her terms.

The bonds that held him were designed to resist magic, but not the simple steel knife that Trenna used when hunting plants for her potions. After she healed his wounds with her crude herb lore (Tris had difficulty working the healing magic on himself), Trenna told the village elders that he was a relative, a healer who had grown tired of his travels and had come to stay there.

The elders accepted her story. Trenna was getting too frail to carry out the duties of healer, and there was no one skilled enough to take her place. They accepted Tris gratefully; in their desperation they were willing to overlook his foreignness.

Tris wasn’t sure Trenna understood what he was, but she knew that he would cause no harm to the people of Tallonwood, and that was all that mattered to her. His year was long over, but he remained in Tallonwood. He had nowhere else to go.

“Lady.” He greeted Trenna in his peculiarly accented Darranian. He took the swollen hand that she extended over the counter and kissed it gently in true courtier sty le.

“Sir,” she smiled up at his gentle flirting; he was taller than any man in the village, and she was a small woman. “How are you this fine spring morning?”

“Remarkably well. I just got back from wandering in the woods and I discovered another patch of thyme; the old one was getting picked over. Can I mix a powder for your rheumatism? I found some tharmud root last week that should make this batch more potent.”

“If you please,” she answered. When he turned to his work, she flexed her hands carefully. They were noticeably less swollen than they had been before he’d touched her.

Tris was usually careful that the villagers saw nothing that they wouldn’t expect to see. For Trenna, though, he could be as theatrical as he liked—she enjoyed it almost as much as he did. So his ingredients were mixed with flashes of light and strange noises, and the end result had an eerie green glow when he put it into the leather bag.

“Now,” he said handing it to her, “remember to take this in the morning and at night. You can take one other dose during the day if you must. If you need it more often than that, come back and see me. Steep the powder in hot water for as long as you can hold your breath before you drink it.”

She smiled at him, giving him a glimpse of the beauty she had once been, and started to take the bag. When their hands touched, she let the pouch fall unheeded to the floor and clutched him with a strength that belied her swollen joints. He felt the pulse of her magic under his fingers.

Her body hummed with tension as she spoke in a strained voice. “Two come from Sianim… a man and… the dancer. You must aid them stem the tide of the cat god… Beware the creatures he calls from the Swamp.” She swallowed and gasped for air, like a fish on land. Sweat glistened on her forehead and she shifted her urgent grip to his forearms, her tongue twisting around a few phrases of his native language.

The magic released her, and she shook as if she’d been out in a blizzard. Before she could fall, Tris rolled across the counter, heedless of the small planter he sent tumbling to the floor, caught her and gently lowered her to the padded oak bench that spanned the far wall. He sat next to her and kept his arm around her until she quit shaking.

“Sorry,” she said when she could.

He shook his head in exasperation. “Lady, I thank you for your advice—you have nothing to apologize for. Do you remember what you said?”

She shook her head. “No. Sometimes I can remember—or at least see pictures, but… I saw a flash of red and green gems… No, I think they were eyes.” She shook her head again. “That’s all. I hope that it will do you some good.”

Again he took her hand and kissed it, “That, Lady, is best left for time to tell us. May I see you home?”

She smiled and stood up slowly, but steadily enough. “No. For some reason I am feeling much better now. If you could retrieve my powder for me, I will pay you and go”

Tris gave her the powder but shook his head when she offered him a bit of copper. “No. Send your grandson over if you’d like. There’s a corner of the roof that needs rethatching before the next rain. He’s grown to be quite a craftsman under Edgar’s tutelage.” She and he both knew that he’d pay her grandson when he came, but after a moment she nodded and left.

Tris watched her leave, and with a soft voice he repeated the phrases that Trenna had spoken in his own language: the first lines of the bonding ceremony. He had been alone for so long… Was there to be an end to it?

After a moment of stillness, he found a broom and began to remove the remnants of the planter from his floor, gently picking up the plants and setting them aside for repotting.

The dining hall in Lord Karsten’s hold was large enough to seat six hundred people, but only one of the six ancient, rough-hewn tables was being used. This room showed the improvements that Lord Karsten was making throughout Westhold.

Several of the heavy timbers that supported the ceiling were obviously new. A circular fireplace complete with chimney dominated the center of the room, replacing the more common fire pit. The crude openings high in the outer wall, necessary with a fire pit, had been filled with colored glass visible from outside the keep.

Rialla stood quietly behind and just slightly to the left of where Laeth sat, her eyes focused on the floor, like any proper slave. She’d had surprisingly little difficulty adjusting to being a slave again; it helped tremendously to know that she was just pretending. Once she took on the role, her nervousness faded until she almost enjoyed herself. She was comfortable enough that she was beginning to suffer from the most chronic condition of slavery—boredom.

Darran was as she remembered it, though she’d never dealt with nobility in their own element before. The place she’d spent most of her time as a slave was a private club where all the young, rich men went to sow their wild oats, away from proper company.

Rialla snorted softly to herself. Darranians did even that in a very civilized manner; they had a customary procedure for breaking society’s edicts.

She and Laeth had been at Westhold for over a week, and Rialla had learned nothing about the political situation here that Ren probably didn’t already know. If it weren’t for the entertainment she found in watching the properly trained Darranian nobles deal with Laeth, she would have been really bored.

He was well connected, and no one wanted to offend him; on the other hand, his complete disregard for propriety could not be ignored. Noblemen just did not become mercenaries; and if they did, they should have the good sense to be defensive about it.

Laeth was more than happy to scandalize his listeners with stories that Rialla suspected he made up on the spot. Second Division General Tyborn had carried the head of a fallen enemy to Sianim, but he didn’t hang it over his dining table—at least Rialla had never seen it there.

Laeth took care to insure Rialla knew who was who—greeting people by their full names. She in turn made a great effort to remember people’s identities and what faction they were with. The latter had been simple up to this point, since most of the people who were invited for the full week of festivities were staunch supporters of Lord Karsten.

At the thought of Laeth’s brother, Rialla suppressed a smile. Who would have conceived a wildman like Laeth could have a brother like Lord Karsten?

They looked alike enough, though to Rialla most Darranians had that tendency. They even had a few of the same characteristics. Lord Karsten was eloquent and intelligent, if even more bound by the rules of society than most Darranians—something that Rialla would have sworn was impossible. He was so charming it would have been difficult not to like him, if one weren’t a slave or peasant. He was unfailingly courteous to even the most menial of servants, but Karsten was unconcerned, not unaware, that his overseer was an animal who abused servants, peasants and slaves alike.

He talked of change and the importance of reforms, working for them with the dedication of a zealot. The revisions that Lord Karsten had made in Darran law would do a tremendous amount of good for the peasants and middle-class citizens of Darran; but his own serfs were starving.

All in all, Rialla preferred his younger brother, who saw with clearer vision, and was much less bound by society’s strictures.

Laeth had slipped back into his role as prodigal son, and rubbed shoulders with Darranian nobility as comfortably as he did with the mercenaries of Sianim. Even seated beside his brother’s wife, Marri, he didn’t lose the easy charm. Only Rialla knew from the whispered conversations she had with Laeth at night that his feelings for Marri hadn’t changed.

There were over a hundred people in the dining hall. Laeth had told Rialla that by the next evening that number would triple, and over five hundred people would attend the ball two nights hence. The day after that, she and Laeth would return to Sianim. For all the drama and high emotion that had started this trip, it was beginning to look as though they might return to Sianim without incident—or information.

When Laeth finished his meal and waved Rialla back from the table, she assumed a position near a window where the wind would give her a little fresh air.

She was the only slave in the room. It was unusual and vulgar to bring one’s slave to a public function, but Laeth shrugged it off and said that he had only recently purchased her and wanted to keep an eye on her for a while. Since it was obvious that she was expensive (the tattoo proclaimed her a highly trained dancer as well as indicating who trained her), no one made a fuss.

Laeth was talking with a small group of people consisting of Lord Karsten, the sharp-eyed, fox-faced Lord Jarroh, who was Karsten’s constant companion, and Lady Marri, who clutched her husband’s arm tightly and stood with her gaze fixed determinedly on the floor. Rialla wondered absently about the topic of conversation. Laeth’s face held the sardonic smile he adopted to hide his feelings. Karsten appeared to be pale under his deeply tanned skin.

As Rialla watched with growing speculation, sweat gathered on Karsten’s forehead and trickled down his temple. He said something and bowed to excuse himself. He gave his wife’s shoulder a dismissing pat, and put her clinging hand on Lord Jarroh’s arm.

As Karsten turned to go, he collapsed suddenly—falling to his knees. Laeth was there only a moment before Lord Jarroh, who was hampered by Marri’s grip. Laeth managed to get a shoulder under his brother’s arm and half carried him to a heavily stuffed sofa.

Her erratic empathy chose that moment to flare briefly to life, and Rialla cringed at the pain Karsten was suffering, though the sofa was close enough that she could tell not a sound crossed his lips. He merely gripped Laeth’s hand and closed his eyes.

With Laeth kneeling at the head of the sofa, Marri had little choice but to pull up a padded bench and sit near the foot.

With an imperious gesture, Lord Jarroh summoned a waiter carrying a tray full of empty glasses. His cool voice was decisive enough to carry over the growing chaos in the room.

“Send a groom and an extra horse to the healer in the village. Tell him it’s urgent, Lord Karsten is ill.” His voice had a bite that sent the waiter running out, heedless of the few glasses that fell from his tray to the floor and shattered.

Lord Jarroh’s eye fell on Rialla and he summoned her to him as well. “Go to the kitchens and have one of the maids bring up clean cloths, hot and cold water. Find a house servant and tell him to bring blankets.” If she hadn’t seen the muscle jump in the side of his face, Rialla would have thought Lord Jarroh as unaffected as he looked.

Rialla ran off to follow Lord Jarroh’s orders with as much speed as the waiter had shown. Lord Jarroh’s name had the same magic as his voice: all Rialla did was mention who sent her and the house and kitchen servants scrambled to obey. She was on her way back to the dining hall when she noticed a stranger in servant’s garb slip out of the room.

It wouldn’t have caught her attention, since Lord Jarroh had been in the process of emptying the room of unnecessary onlookers when she left, except she didn’t recognize the man’s face. Rialla thought she knew all the indoor servants in Westhold, at least by sight. This was one she’d never seen, but he strolled down the hall as if he’d been born here.

Rialla glanced casually around to make sure that no one was in the hall, and then started after him. In the broad corridors of the main floor of the keep it was difficult to follow without being seen, but the servant didn’t seem to notice her. He sauntered casually to an ornate brass-and-wood door that led outside and left the keep.

He walked around the side of the building to the stable yard where the hold livestock was kept. Rialla hesitated; there were not many reasons that a slave would be wandering through the stable. She was bound to be questioned, and she wasn’t sure that it was worth calling attention to herself. Before she made a decision, the servant returned from the stable mounted on a well-bred courser he must have had saddled and waiting.

Rialla watched him ride at a nonchalant trot to the outer gates. As he passed through, another horse bolted into the courtyard, lathered and blown. To Rialla’s surprise its rider pulled it to a skidding halt next to where she stood, just outside the ostentatious door.

She had little chance for anything other than a brief glimpse of the man’s bearded face and the impression that he was big. He swung down, shoved the reins at her and yanked the saddlebags off his mount.

“Take him to the stables and see that he’s cared for,” he ordered shortly. Without waiting for a reply, he ran to the door she’d just left.

She rubbed the sweating gelding’s head soothingly to calm him. He was a sturdy enough animal, in good shape —but of no particular breeding; not a horse a noble would ride.

His rider hadn’t been wearing nobleman’s clothes either, for all the confidence in his command. Rialla concluded that he must be the healer that Lord Jarroh had sent for; there would have just been enough time for a messenger to make it to the village and back.

The horse butted her impatiently with his head, and she began walking him toward the stable. Even though the man she’d followed was long gone, she could ask about him in the stables; there was just something about the way the servant had been so casual in the midst of the confusion of Lord Karsten’s collapse that made her curious about him.

The stables were dark and cool and smelled like horses and fresh straw—none of the foul odors that would hint of slovenliness. Rialla felt herself relax in the familiar atmosphere.

The horse she was leading whinnied piercingly at the scent of the unfamiliar animals. A stable boy appeared from a nearby stall. He tossed Rialla a friendly smile and reached for the reins, saying, “The healer’s beastie, eh? Here now, I’ll cool him out a bit and find an empty corner to stick him in.”

Rialla handed the horse over to him and then asked, “Did you see the man that just came in here and took out a liver-chestnut mare?” A proper slave would never attempt conversation with anyone other than another slave, but the groom seemed cordial enough.

The boy glanced around, probably to see if anyone was watching—a stable boy was hired to work, not to chatter with slaves. Satisfied that everyone else was busy, he said, “That was the Lord Winterseine’s man, Tamas. He’s here a lot. If I were you, I’d try and avoid him if you can.”

“Winterseine or Tamas?” Rialla asked.

“Tamas. Winterseine’s all right. Tamas, though, is awful quick with a whip or a fist.” The boy looked at her meaningfully. “He likes it rough, makes him feel powerful. Stay out of his way unless you like it that way too.” Without further delay he led the horse down the aisle to begin cooling it off.

Thoughtfully, Rialla returned to the castle and sneaked back into the room where she’d left Laeth—or at least she tried to sneak back in. Laeth met her at the door and said in furious tones that the whole room could hear, “Where have you been, girl? It couldn’t have taken you so long to carry out Lord Jarroh’s orders.”

Rialla took in the room at a glance. Her fragmented talent caught the suspicion that was in the air, directed at Laeth. She bowed her head humbly and said in clear tones that would carry, “Master, this morning you told me to see if I could find the pin you were missing. When someone mentioned a groom, I remembered that you were wearing it yesterday afternoon when you went hunting, but I didn’t see you wear it to dinner. I thought that maybe when you were in the stall with the servant girl…” She cowered nervously, as if realizing that she shouldn’t have said anything about that.

Someone laughed and made an obscene comment; sleeping with servants was commonplace, but not to be talked about in public. Laeth backhanded her forcefully on her face, knocking her to the ground. It looked more impressive than it was. Laeth’s blow was no worse than many a strike they’d exchanged on the practice floor at Sianim. Like any good slave, Rialla cowered and whimpered; all slaves learn quickly that if it looks as if the blow hurt, it isn’t as likely to be repeated.

To Rialla’s astonishment, a large, gentle hand touched her shoulder and the healer helped her to her feet. “She was near the stables and took my horse when I arrived. You shouldn’t give orders unless you want them followed, my lord.”

Rialla barely restrained a gasp at the healer’s tones. No commoner talked to a noble in that tone of voice—not if he wanted to live to face the morning.

Mercenary or not, Laeth’s upbringing as a Darranian noble caused his eyes to flash with outrage. The healer didn’t give Laeth a chance to reply before turning to Lord Jarroh. “I have managed to counteract the poison in Lord Karsten’s system. He’ll be weak, but should be well enough in an hour or so. I’ll leave my bill with the clerk as usual.” He swept out of the room with as much presence as any of the nobles.

Deliberately Laeth reacted to his frustrated anger as most of his peers would have under the circumstance. He knocked Rialla to the ground again, hitting her open-handed on her cheek with a blow that was more flash than substance.

“Wait for me in my room,” he snarled.

Rialla scurried gratefully out, and holding a hand to her face, she headed to the bedroom while Laeth complained loudly about poorly trained slaves.

As she turned the first corner of the hallway, Rialla was stopped by a hand on her arm. Startled, she looked up to see the healer. Before she could draw away, he touched her untattooed cheek with his hand. Raising an eyebrow, he tilted her head so he could see the side of her face clearly in the torchlight.

“There is no mark where he hit you.” His comment was in a mild tone, but firmly spoken. Clearly he would have answers before he left her alone.

Rialla looked around frantically and saw with relief that there was no one in the vicinity. She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into the nearest room. From the glimpse she had while the door was open, it seemed to be an unused study in the midst of remodeling. There were no windows to allow light in, and it was as dark as a cave in the small room after she pulled the door closed. Rialla made a frustrated sound.

“Hold on,” she said, falling out of character. “I’ll find a flint…” There was a crash as she fell over an object left in the middle of the floor and cracked her head on something hard.

“Perhaps I might be of some assistance.” A light flared as the healer spoke, a candle flickering in his hand. His voice was carefully void of humor, but there was something in his face that hinted at it, and Rialla glared balefully at him from her position on the floor before she remembered that she was supposed to be a slave.

It was the first time that she’d had a chance to look closely at him, and she realized what had troubled her before: the healer was no more Darranian than she was. It wasn’t just that he was taller and bigger boned, but his coloring was wrong. His hair was almost blond, though the short-trimmed beard was darker. His eyes were hazel, but they weren’t as green as hers; his had flecks of light blue that seemed to come and go in the candlelight.

Ignoring her glare, the healer said, “Now, you will please explain to me how you got hit hard enough to knock you to the ground without even so much as a red mark on your face.”

Rialla jumped lithely to her feet, with the grace of the dancer she was, and dusted herself off to gain some time to think. Finally she said, “Lord Laeth needs to keep up appearances, but he doesn’t want to damage me. The blow was a warning more than a punishment. He disciplines me in other ways.” It was the best that she could come up with on short notice, and it wasn’t very good.

“That was Lord Laeth,” the healer’s voice took on an odd tone, “visiting from Sianim?”

Wary of the interest in his voice, Rialla nodded.

The healer raised an eyebrow and reached out unexpectedly to touch her face, muttering a few words under his breath as he did so. He jerked his hand away, as if from something hot, and an intense expression that she couldn’t interpret crossed his face.

“Who would have thought it?” he said obscurely, and smiled. “I thought that Sianim frowned on slavery.”

Rialla felt as if she’d missed half of the conversation, and groped for an answer. “My master told them I was his servant and they pretended to believe him.” It was the explanation that she and Laeth had chosen, but it sounded threadbare to her ears.

He shook his head, but shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose, what your story is. My name is Tris. When you need me, anyone in Tallonwood can tell you where to find me.” With that odd statement he blew out the candle and left the room.

Rialla stared stupidly after him. Healers, she supposed, ought to be a bit eccentric, but this one seemed to push it to an extreme.

Cautiously Rialla opened the door and checked the hall. Seeing no one, she continued up the stairs to the suite of rooms that she shared with Laeth.

It was late when Laeth returned to his rooms. He was pale and seemed shaken by the attempt on his brother’s life.

Without a word, Rialla helped him take off the formal, close-fitting dining jacket. She hung it up and silently offered him a cup of warmed brandy, then perched on a fragile table, ignoring the knickknacks that sat on either side of her, and waited for him to speak.

Just as he opened his mouth, the door shook with a series of impassioned knocks. Rialla slipped back off the table and stood near a wall looking discreet, like a good slave—not that the woman who entered when Laeth opened the door had any interest in Rialla.

“Laeth, you must leave. They think that you were the one who attempted to kill Karsten. They say that you’d have the most to gain from his death.” Marri was very much a Darranian lady. She reminded Rialla of a frantic butterfly: beautiful and useless.

Laeth looked at Marri, and not even Rialla could read his face. He shook his head slowly. “There are many people that stand to gain by Karsten’s death, lady. He is threatening to unite Darran with a country full of abominations. The Eastern miners are worried that he’s going to cede mining territory back to Reth; the slavers are worried because he’s threatening their livelihood. Indeed, unless someone saw you come in here, there is no reason to believe that my motive for killing my brother is stronger than anyone else’s.”

Marri shook her head at him with apparent exasperation, her dark eyes flashing with anger. “Plague it, Laeth. Don’t give me that lordly sneer, it doesn’t suit you. No one saw me come here.”

Laeth bowed his head and said politely, “Accept my apologies, madam. Pray feel free to leave if my sneer offends you.”

Marri closed her eyes and took a deep breath. There were white lines of anger along her aristocratic cheekbones. “Will you listen to me, you mule?” Rialla bit back a smile, and decided that she might like Marri after all.

“Do you think I’d risk coming here if I weren’t certain you were in danger?” continued Marri sharply. “Don’t be any stupider than you must. There is someone here who is deliberately setting you up to be Karsten’s murderer—there is no reason suspicion of you would be that strong otherwise.”

Her voice softened. “Karsten knows that someone is trying to kill him, and we have taken every precaution against his assassination. You are not needed here. He may think that you are here for his birthday, but I know you better. Nothing less than the attempt on his life last month would have induced you to return.”

Laeth raised an eyebrow and sauntered back to his bed, where he sat down and began to tug off his boots. “Every precaution? It didn’t seem to help him much tonight, did it?”

“Neither did you!” she replied hotly. Rialla noticed a hint of moisture in her eyes. “I can’t stand worrying about both of you.”

“Tears, Marri?” asked Laeth in a biting voice.

“Yes, plague take you.” Marri wiped her eyes quickly. “I’m sorry for what happened before, but it wasn’t solely my fault. You left me for a year without any word of how to reach you. My parents were in debt and losing the manor, and your brother proposed marriage to me. I have a younger brother and three younger sisters; do you think I should have let them be reduced to poverty when I could stop it? You hadn’t even made a firm offer to me, let alone my parents. Should I have told them not to accept Karsten’s offer because his brother had flirted with me?”

Midway through her speech Laeth had lost his cold manner. Instead he clenched his fists and stared at the floor. When he spoke, it was in a voice very close to a whisper. “It was more than flirtation, Marri.”

Her anger left her abruptly, and there was only sadness in her face. “I know that, but how could I have explained it to my father? I’m not sure that I believed it all the time myself. When you left, you didn’t tell me where you were going or what you were going to do.”

“You knew that I’d be back.”

“Did I?” she questioned, and then sighed. “I suppose that I did, but you didn’t say so.”

She paced the room, ignoring Rialla’s presence. After a while Marri said, “I really do care for him, you know. The chances that he’ll survive until the princess marries King Myr are not very good. He explained it to me, as if I were a child, and then patted me on the head and said that you’d look after me.” She bowed her head and clenched her arms around her midriff. “Gods,” she said bleakly.

It was too much for Laeth. Without his temper to protect him, he couldn’t resist her misery. He left the bed and, with one boot on, strode to Marri and wrapped his arms around her. “Nothing is going to happen to me, and I’ll do my best to see that nothing happens to Karsten either. You’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

Laeth hugged her and rested his chin on the top of her head, staring blindly at a wall. Marri leaned against him a moment and then whispered, “I’d better go, before my maid starts to worry. She wouldn’t say anything, but it’s better not to tempt fate.”

Laeth allowed her to draw away and then said, “I’m sorry, Marri. I’m sorry that I didn’t talk to your father. I’m sorry that you’re worried.” He slanted a faint grin at her and lightened his tone. “I’m even sorry that I’m a stupid mule. Karsten is a good man, even if he is my brother.”

He took Marri’s arm in a formal hold and escorted her to the door. “Thank you for your warning, lady. I’ll keep it in mind. If you find out who started the rumor that I’m behind the assassination attempt, I would like to know his name—but send a servant with a message.”

He put a hand on the door to open it, and Rialla casually attempted to use the remnants of her talent to scan for someone lurking in the hall. She suspected that even if there were someone there, she wouldn’t be able to tell—so she was astounded when she found something.

“Laeth, stop,” she hissed urgently, abandoning her post against the wall to sprint to the door and hold it shut. “There’s someone out there. Wait.” Taking a deep breath, she pressed her forehead against the smooth wood of the door. The person outside the room was in a consuming rage; only the force of his emotions allowed her contact at all. Sweating, she tried to find out more.

The anger she felt was directed at… the cat. The miserable, sharp-toed, speedy tabby who’d left with the tasty scrap of meat he was saving for a snack… Rialla could feel the flush of embarrassment that crept up her fair skin. It was one of the castle dogs. The hunting dogs were allowed full run of the keep—one of Karsten’s little eccentricities.

Animal thoughts had always been easier to pick up than human ones—their thoughts were simpler and more tightly connected to their emotions. She could pick up their thoughts almost as easily as she could touch their emotions.

She was just about to turn and try to explain why she’d stopped Marri from going out when she caught the last edge of a thought… a whisper of resentment at the leash that kept him from the cat. She tried again, without success, to touch the person on the other side of the door, but only the dog came in clear.

Her head was starting to ache with the effort of stretching the old scars that limited her empathy, but she ignored it. Unable to reach the person, she touched the animal a different way. Clearly audible on the other side of the door, the guard dog began barking.

Laeth narrowed his eyes at her, but waving Marri out of sight of the door, he called out in a loud voice, “Girl! Go see what is wrong with that plaguing dog, and shut it up!” He strode to the bed and sat down on it, beginning to struggle with the remaining close-fitting, knee-high boot.

“Yes, Master,” Rialla replied demurely and yanked at the ties that held her hair up. She bit her lips to make them look kissed and opened the ties at the top of her tunic.

She cracked the door and slipped out, but not before she gave the man outside a clear view of Laeth tugging at his boot. She didn’t recognize the man holding the dog, but that wasn’t surprising. He wore the uniform of the guards—they kept mostly to the grounds and away from the keep; she only knew the indoor servants.

He took a good look at her and lost a few more inches of leather to the straining dog. She bit her bottom lip and leaned back against the door with all the sultriness a dance-trained slave was capable of displaying.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked in a husky voice.

The man’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Laeth’s voice carried clearly through the door. “Shut that beast up now!”

Rialla gave a squeak of fright and ran to the dog, crooning, “Shh, puppy, that’s a good boy.”

That pulled the guard’s attention from the shadows of her cleavage. “Don’t. He’s a trained guard dog… He’ll kill you.” He said the last in a small voice as the dog rolled over in ecstasy onto the slave’s lap while she rubbed his belly.

She turned her big emerald eyes at the guard and said inanely, “I’ve always had a way with dogs. Do you think that he’ll start barking again, if I quit petting him? My master has an awful temper: if he hears the dog bark again, he’s liable to kill it.” She watched the guard closely and whispered, “And probably you as well.”

Everyone knew that Laeth had spent the last two years training in Sianim. Rumor had it, truthfully enough, that Laeth’s temper was even more impressive than his outrageousness.

The big guard swallowed and grabbed the dog’s collar. As he did so, Rialla touched his hand briefly for a minute and caught a stray thought:… couldn’t use the coppers I’ll get for this job if I were a corpse …

He’d been paid to spy, but on whom? Rialla watched as the guard tugged the dog down the hall and around the corner. Once she could have read him as easily as she could close her eyes. She hit the floor in frustration and jumped to her feet.

Opening the door to Laeth’s chambers, Rialla said, “All clear.”

Marri slipped out and gave Rialla a penetrating look before leaving in the opposite direction the guard had taken. Rialla stepped into the room and closed the door gently behind her.

“All right, Ria, just how did you know someone was there?” Laeth was lying on top of the colorful tick on the bed with his hands behind his head and his legs crossed.

Rialla leaned against the door and said, “Would you believe that I heard them?”

“After the dog started barking, yes. But I doubt you could hear them walking from the opposite side of that door,” replied Laeth shortly.

“Hmm,” said Rialla in a frivolous tone, tapping her chin in thought. “How about…”

“The truth,” said Laeth firmly.

“You won’t like it, and probably won’t believe it either,” commented Rialla, wandering back over to the little table she’d sat on before and fiddling with a hideous purple glass vase.

“Ria.” He sounded impatient.

She put the vase back. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I am an empath. Sort of anyway.”

“A what?” asked Laeth incredulously.

“An empath. You know, ‘I know what you feel… I know your thoughts.’ ” Her voice took on a sonorous and slightly sinister tone, but she easily dropped it again as she continued, “Like the mindspeakers in the traveling fairs.”

He sat up and said with obvious disbelief, “You can read people’s minds?”

“Well, I used to be able to, but not much anymore.” She picked up a crude figurine and continued, “Animals are easier. I can pick up emotions pretty clearly if they’re strong ones, and occasionally the thoughts that go with them. Marri thinks that you’re as handsome as ever.” She nodded at his start of surprise.

“You read Marri?” This time there was a strong thread of anger in his tone.

“Nothing that anyone couldn’t have seen in her face if they were looking.” Her voice was noncommittal and she set the figurine next to the vase. She wanted to back away from his anger; somehow it was harder to resist her conditioning while wearing the garb of a slave.

“Plague it, Rialla, that’s worse than eavesdropping. You violated her privacy!” He stood up, and she could see his outrage tightening the muscles of his arms. She could feel her heartbeat pick up as he closed in on her.

She could either fight back or cower. The latter was smarter, but if she cowered she might as well be the slave whose guise she wore.

“You Darranians and your overdeveloped sense of propriety,” she said with a quiet bitterness that stopped him short. “I know all about the rules by which you live your lives. Take the aristocratic, immaculate Lord Jarroh, your brother’s best friend and staunchest ally. He frequented the little bar where I danced. He never spilled a drop of the single glass of white wine he drank. One must never be excessive when imbibing alcohol. He always tipped the waiter—just the proper amount. Then he went upstairs and beat the little slave girl he kept there. Sometimes he used a whip, sometimes he used his fist. Crippled as I am, I still felt her pain every time, including the last time—when he killed her.” She smiled at him humorlessly. “His slave had seen twelve summers when she died.”

She could see that the anger had left him, but now that she had started she couldn’t stop. “The slave trainer responsible for my capture took twenty-three other people from my clan at the same time. Twenty of them he tortured and killed. I felt each of their deaths too. Thanks to that I can’t simply turn my abilities off and on as I used to: I hear what I hear.” She raised her brows and continued with bitter mockery, “I am sorry if that offends your Darranian sense of decorum.”

Laeth’s face was curiously blank. He reached out and touched her cheek with one hand. It wasn’t until then that she realized that she was crying or that she’d backed away from him despite her determination not to do so. The door was solid against her back.

“Sorry,” he said in a soft voice. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He went back to the bed and lay on it, closing his eyes. In the same soft voice he said, “What was a guard doing patrolling the corridor when he should be out on the walls?”

She closed her eyes too, and pressed harder against the door. Her voice when she spoke was quietly controlled. “Sometimes if I have physical contact with a person, I can pick up a few scattered thoughts. I think someone bribed him to come here, but I couldn’t tell who he was supposed to be watching. It could be you, or Marri, or any of the fifteen other people in this wing of the keep.

“If it was Marri he was watching,” she continued after a moment’s pause, “he probably followed her from her rooms. He’d know that she came in—but not that she came out before you had time to do anything. If he was sent to watch you, he may or may not have been here to see Marri come. If he was watching someone else, we don’t have any worries.”

“You said that you couldn’t tell who he was looking for. Could you tell who paid him?” Laeth’s voice was still excessively gentle, so she knew that her face wasn’t as blank as she wanted it to be, and she redoubled her efforts.

“No,” she answered. The metal of the doorknob was cold against her hand. “I could tell it was someone that the guard was not afraid of, and that this wasn’t the first time he’d asked the guard to do this kind of work. The guard wasn’t worried about leaving his post, so it was someone with enough authority to stop any punishments. It wasn’t your brother, because he wouldn’t have had to bribe the guard at all. You’d know who would best fit such a description.”

“Lord Jarroh?” he suggested, doubtfully.

Rialla opened her eyes and shook her head. “No. All the servants are terrified of him and I’m sure that the guards would be too. Besides, that’s not his style. He would never hire someone to spy; it’s not something that a proper noble would do.”

“The only other person besides Lord Jarroh, my brother and myself with the authority to halt a punishment would be my uncle, Lord Winterseine. But he’s not here yet.”

“How about the overseer?” asked Rialla.

Laeth shook his head. “Dram’s orders wouldn’t be questioned. He’d never have to bribe a guard to patrol the corridors of the keep rather than the walls. Not to mention that the guard would be terrified of him.”

Rialla nodded and then said, “Lord Winterseine’s servant Tamas was here this evening.”

Laeth nodded. “I saw him and asked around. He came with Uncle’s luggage as he always does. Were you chasing after him this evening? I wondered where you were. He probably left to tell Uncle about the poisoning attempt.”

“Couldn’t he have arranged for a guard to watch someone for your uncle?” suggested Rialla.

“He could have,” replied Laeth, “but I just can’t see my uncle doing something as improper as spying; he’s worse than Karsten when it comes to decorous behavior.”

“It is possible that the guard was sent to protect someone rather than spy on them,” Rialla commented. “I don’t suppose talking about it all night will help us. I think I will sleep in the slaves’ quarters; sometimes they have information no one else has.”

Before he had a chance to protest, Rialla slipped through the door and into the darkened hallway.

The slaves’ quarters were in the basement, next to the wine cellar. Rialla supposed that they had originally been put there so as not to use space in the valuable ground floor, while allowing the slaves to attend their owners quickly. Whatever the reason, the result was that the quarters were more comfortable than the rest of the castle. Underground there were no chilly drafts in the winter, and in the summer when the rest of the castle was baking, the quarters were cool enough to need the single blanket that lay neatly at the foot of all the bunks.

In Darran, slaves were used for pleasure rather than work, so most were female. The few male slaves primarily worked in pleasure houses where a wealthy Darranian would be preserved from the social stigmatism of homosexuality. Women in Darran did not own slaves. With little need to separate male and female, the slave quarters at Westhold consisted of a single, large room.

Rialla didn’t really expect to find out anything in the quarters, but she wasn’t ready to relax and sleep either. It might have been a touch from her talent or just instinct, but something caused her to hesitate before she entered.

“… sleep here. You will stay here until I come for you in the morning. Do you understand?”

The man’s voice was gentle and quiet. There was nothing in it to account for the sudden cramping of Rialla’s stomach or the shaking of her hands.

She turned frantically to the locked door of the wine cellar. Traders teach their children how to pick locks and pockets as soon as the tots are tall enough to reach a doorknob. The wine cellar lock had never been intended to keep out anyone but the servants, and it gave her little trouble.

Rialla closed the door of the cellar quietly behind her. She huddled against the wood in the darkness and heard the man’s hard-soled boots click across the stone floor. He paused briefly before the wine cellar door, as if he’d heard it open. But he continued up the stairs without investigating further.

Rialla folded her arms around her knees and listened to the pounding of her heart in her ears. What was her former owner doing in Lord Karsten’s hold? As Laeth had put it, Karsten would be as likely to invite a swineherd as a slave trainer to his celebration.

She’d spent seven years as his slave, but most of that time was spent in the little bar in Kentar, the capital city of Darran. The rest had been in a small estate in the south. Uneasily, she remembered little hints that he might have been more than a simple slave trainer: the servants who called him “lord,” and the ambience of age and respectability at the estate where she was trained.

If he was highly connected, it would be possible for him to take part in polite society, as long as his occupation as a slave trainer could be kept quiet. Laeth, she knew, had never had any interest in the slave trade. It was feasible that Laeth knew her former owner, but didn’t know he was a slave trainer.

Rialla knew that she ought to go back to Laeth’s room and warn him that the slave trainer was in the castle, but… in the dark, beer-scented room she was safe. She curled into a tighter ball in the corner of the room and rested her cheek against the side of a wooden barrel, letting the rough wood dig into her tattooed skin.

She despised the cowardice that had been beaten into her, but that didn’t keep her from shaking with bone-deep tremors. If her father could see her, he would be ashamed. She’d worked so hard to shed the habits of a slave, and all it took to bring them back was Laeth’s anger or her old master’s voice.

She swore silently and dug her nails into her palms, reminding herself that he would be unlikely to visit the quarters again this night. With a shuddering sigh, she came to her feet, wiping the tears from her face with the sides of her hands. Like most of the Traders she had good night vision, but in the underground cellar the darkness was absolute. It took her a moment to find the latch on the door.

Taking a deep breath, she exited the wine cellar, locked it, and walked with outward calm to the slave quarters. If one of the slaves noticed that she’d been crying, they wouldn’t comment upon it—such was a slave’s lot. Quietly she let herself into the large room.

A few scattered torches lit the large room, allowing Rialla to see that only twenty of the bunks were occupied. That meant the rest of the slaves were either working, or sleeping in their owner’s rooms. There was no one awake, so Rialla strode quietly to a pair of unoccupied bunks away from the door.

She climbed to the top bunk and stretched out on it: only a new slave would take the vulnerable bottom bunk. Among slaves, status was very important. Occasionally fights broke out in the quarters when one slave tried to establish dominance. The top bunk offered some protection against unwanted aggression.

Rialla had started to close her eyes when she heard a slight noise from the bottom bunk next to her. She leaned over the edge of her bed and looked at the girl lying there.

As a Trader, and later as a horse trainer in Sianim, she’d seen every color that a person could come in—from her own pale ivory to the deep bronze of the Ynstrah people—but this slave’s skin was closer to black. Fine dark hair that might be brown or red in daylight cloaked her shoulders in waves of curls. Her face was buried in the thin mattress and her body shook as she cried.

Rialla reached a hand to the girl, but caught herself in time. She was doing the best that she could to end slavery in Darran, but she couldn’t do anything for this other slave now.

Rialla dreamed that night of a foreign land inhabited by people who looked like the strange slave girl. They spoke a language that she had never heard before, but understood in a way that her empathic abilities had once allowed her. It was a nightmarish dream with feverlike images that randomly appeared and disappeared without warning.

She awoke in a cold sweat with a screaming pain in her chest. Leaping quickly off the bunk, she took a step toward the strange girl’s bed, but it was too late.

From somewhere the other slave had found an eating knife that she’d used to stab herself in the chest. Rialla gasped harshly with the pain of the slave’s wound, feeling as if something had torn through the barrier that had blocked her abilities for more than a decade. The dull knife’s work had been made even more painful because the girl didn’t know where to stab herself. Still, her amateurish attempt worked after a fashion. Even as Rialla watched, the girl took a last breath and smiled.

Rialla looked at the body of the girl that she now knew almost as intimately as she knew herself. The young slave had been an empath strong enough to project her fears past Rialla’s mental scars and into her dreams.

Rialla knew the slave’s name and that she was fifteen summers old. She knew that somewhere in a foreign land the girl’s family thought that she was serving the gods—a position of highest honor. They had let her go with sadness, but she had gone gladly as the servant of Altis had requested.

Rialla could feel the echoes of the girl’s horror and disgust when she found out what her duties were going to be. She could tell without looking that the girl’s back would be covered with fresh whip marks and that the inside of her thighs were bruised badly enough that it would show even on her dark skin.

Rialla tightened her jaw and carefully stepped around the blood that was pooling on the floor. A slave avoided attracting unpleasant attention. By the time the body was discovered, there would be no slave left in the quarters and none would admit sleeping there last night—but only the knowledge that the slave trainer would probably be sleeping allowed Rialla to start up the stairs that led to the main part of the keep.

She entered Laeth’s sleeping chamber quietly, without waking him. She sat on the hard-sprung sofa near the bed and stared into the darkness, waiting for the dawn.