Chapter 5:
Issue of Malice
I
The girl looked back only once when Hanuvar called to her, the wind throwing dark tresses across her face. Then she stepped into the air and plummeted from sight.
There was no point running any further, but Hanuvar didn’t slow until he’d reached the ancient stone fence girding the cliff edge. Over the wind and the roll of surf and the cry of gulls he’d heard a piercing scream. It was incongruous, deceptive, for the girl herself could not possibly have survived to produce it.
A hundred feet below sailors stared out from their deck at the motionless thing in a pink dress twisted across the rocks. A group of figures huddled along the nearest of the harbor docks, among them Izivar in her green, hands to her mouth in horror while a slight figure in a stola beside her turned away. Julivar.
An ugly end for such a young life, and as Hanuvar looked down he thought back to what little he could guess about the stranger. She had appeared well kept. What could have driven her to take the irrevocable step? A troubled home life? A lover’s betrayal? An unwanted child?
He was acquainted with a wealth of tragedies already, but this one did not leave Hanuvar unburdened, either emotionally or practically, for his rush in the girl’s wake had been noted, and within the hour he found himself at the center of an inquiry by the local legionaries, wondering if he’d chased the girl to her death. He explained he was following Izivar Lenereva, there to meet her sister at the dock. After additional testimony from other witnesses who had gathered on the hillside, he found himself cleared.
The homely centurion from the local fort was dismayed by the entire incident, remarking darkly that there’d been a run of suicides this summer. “All young people,” he said. He looked over the cliff. Below, a band of sailors had formed a human chain to pass buckets along to wash off the blood. The body had already been carried off.
“Any idea why?” Hanuvar asked.
The centurion shook his head. “These sorts of things happen in groups of youngsters sometimes. Like a terrible fashion. It’s much better when they’re competing to find the blackest horse or the most scandalous poem. They never think about the people left behind. I’m going to have to tell the girl’s mother. I hear her father’s out of town.”
Hanuvar had passed along and received enough bad news over his life that he understood the soldier’s discomfort. He nodded his sympathy and followed the centurion down from the overlook then left him at the side street where he’d spotted Izivar’s carriage.
She sat under the awning of a counter restaurant further along the street, her elegant brow creased with worry. There was no sign of either her maid, Serliva, or of her young half-sister Julivar.
When she noticed him her slim shoulders eased in her stola, although she pretended no particular interest. She ran a finger through her curling dark hair and pushed off the restaurant stool.
When Hanuvar drew close she fell in beside him and the two started down the street for the carriage, past expensive waterfront shops.
“Where’s Julilvar?” Hanuvar asked softly.
“I sent the carriage back to the villa with her and Serliva—and your horse—while I waited. It’s had time to return and wait some more. You’ve been gone a while.”
“Is she all right?”
Izivar frowned. “She saw the entire thing. She even knew that poor girl who died.”
That only partly explained Izivar’s discomfort; her continuing tension was surely related to her fear for Hanuvar during his interrogation.
“The questions were all routine,” he said. “It’s nothing to be worried about.”
“No?” She did not say that she had feared for his life, and her own, as well as the lives of all those under their protection who would be arrested for harboring an enemy of the state if his true identity were discovered, as well as the fates of all those they’d be unable to save if they were led away in chains. Her sharp look conveyed the depth of her disquiet despite her outward composure.
Hanuvar opened the carriage door for her and she called to the driver that they would be returning home. She then climbed inside, and he followed, shutting the door.
Izivar sank into the cushions on the bench beside him. She reached for his hand and clutched fiercely to it for most of the ride. He let their physical proximity assuage any lingering fright. By mutual consent they spoke only of simple things, like the fine pheasant dinner Izivar had arranged for the evening to welcome Julivar’s return home from their holdings to the north, and what Hanuvar would need for his ride west tomorrow. Upon arrival at the villa, Izivar announced that she wished to check on Julivar. The servants directed her to the outer garden.
Hanuvar went with her, both to greet the young lady and to assess her well-being after the tragedy they’d witnessed.
Julivar had abandoned her stola for a Dervan boy’s tunic, so short it barely reached her knees, and had traded out sandals for sturdy riding boots. Holding the dulled sword Hanuvar had gifted her earlier that year, she advanced across a flat patch of grass, delivering a different cut to an imaginary foe with each step—right-side head strike, left-side neck strike, stomach thrust, right-side chest strike, left-side chest strike, right eye, left, overhead blow. It was a standard fighting drill, and Julivar executed the moves with an intensity beyond her years. Though her arms were lean, Hanuvar would not have liked to have been on the receiving end of those attacks.
Izivar frowned briefly at him as they stopped to watch. He pretended not to notice. She hadn’t been thrilled by Julivar’s interest in martial training, preferring her sister return to her earlier interest, ship design, and she hadn’t liked Hanuvar offering instruction when he noted her stances and strikes lacked refinement.
Julivar glanced toward them, but did not interrupt her drill until she had finished two more complete patterns, reaching the end of the sward. She then turned, beamed at them, and waved her free hand.
She had not changed greatly since he’d first met her—she was a bright, coltish, irrepressible energy. She shared her sister’s curling hair and small hooked nose, although her own eyes were a darker brown. Sheathing her sword with an ease that evidenced practice, she started for them.
“Decius!” she cried. She spoke in clean, unaccented Dervan, addressing Hanuvar by his assumed name, as did all of those in Izivar’s circle. “Are you all right? Wasn’t that horrible? I’ve been practicing every day. Can you tell? Are my stances long enough? And I’ve been running, too. These are great boots for that.”
Hanuvar couldn’t help smiling at her enthusiasm, and hugged her when she threw herself forward with arms outstretched. Fate was strange. He had never known his own child at this age, but he had come to cherish the daughter of the man who’d driven him from Volanus.
“Your stances are much better,” Hanuvar said as they pulled apart. “And so are all of your inner strikes. Have you been practicing your blocks as well?”
“I have! Himli12 sometimes pretends to strike at me and I parry. I’ve gotten pretty fast.”
“And you remember to block on the upswing, not the downswing?”
“I try.”
“It can make a difference, especially countering the blow of a stronger opponent.” He did not add that most men would be stronger than her even after she filled out—if she filled out. One-on-one, the typical male soldier could bring greater power on a strike than the average female, which was best countered with greater skill. The Eltyr honed their accuracy with spear and bow and sling to legendary proficiency. “And archery?”
“That still needs a lot of work,” Julivar admitted. “I think I need a better bow.”
That reminded him very much of young Melgar’s insistence that it wasn’t his own lack of practice that was the problem, but the tools he used. He ruffled her hair as he had his youngest brother’s. “I’ll have to see how you’re handling it.”
Izivar cleared her throat, and both of them turned to her at the same moment. “I couldn’t help noting today your stola looked a little worn, and too heavy for the summer.”
“Oh it definitely is,” Julivar agreed. “It’s fine for up north, but down here I couldn’t wait to get out of it.”
“I thought we could go shopping this afternoon. There are some lovely summer fabrics in the square this year. And a new jewelry store with some fine pieces.”
Committed though she was to sword work, Julivar hadn’t abandoned a love of ornamentation, and her face brightened in interest. “Oh!” Then her expression fell and she turned to Hanuvar. “Can we look at my bow later? I haven’t been able to go shopping at a real market in months!”
“Of course. Go spend time with your sister.”
“Let me get changed.” Julivar took a single step forward then turned as though she’d just remembered something important. Her countenance was suddenly somber. “You’ve seen a lot of people die, haven’t you?” Typical for her, she didn’t wait for an answer to her first question. “I’ve only seen a few,” she added, mouth twisting in displeasure. “How common is it to see something . . . waft up from the body?”
“It’s not,” he answered. “What did you see?”
Julivar looked to her sister, apparently just as puzzled as Hanuvar, then gathered her thoughts before answering. “It was a kind of sparkly shimmer after Atolia’s body struck the rock. I was looking right at her when it happened, and I didn’t imagine it. Have you ever seen anything like that?”
“No.”
“I thought maybe it was just something that happened, when a spirit left a body, and that you might have seen it a lot.”
He shook his head. “I’ve never seen that.”
Julivar’s mouth twisted thoughtfully.
“It was probably just the sun shining off the water,” Izivar suggested. “Why don’t you run and get ready? I’ll go freshen up.”
II
Phrenius still couldn’t decide whether the drop or the landing had been funnier. Atolia had actually flapped her arms a bit on the way down, as if she thought to take flight, and then thrown her hands out in front as though she could shield herself from impact. He was still chuckling at how dumb that was.
When she’d landed, one of her thumbs had popped off and bounced straight up from the rocks to land with a splat on the plank of a transport ship. The horrified cry from the old Ruminian who’d just missed getting struck by it had been almost as laughable as the screaming girl on the dock.
Now, though, his mood was glum, for he was almost back to his aunt’s villa. He hated the sight of the place. Many a merchant or tradesman had finer accommodations than the crumbling home behind its tumbledown stone wall. Phrenius preferred always to come through the side closest to his room. The front would take him through the central courtyard, where his slug of an aunt lazed about with her fat old friends and their smug slaves. He scowled at the bent old one sweeping the walk.
Once back to the tiny little room his aunt had given him, he slammed his door then pushed yesterday’s clothes off his chest and set down the dark wooden box he’d carried, long as his forearm. He’d opened it once on the way back, but just to be sure he undid the bronze clasp and opened it a second time. The old brown tunic still lay within. And the spirit was there again. He could feel it, loosely anchored. The thing was never fully sated, but always experienced a brief diminution in intensity after it secured prey. He sensed its regard brush against him. “Ah, ah, ah,” he cautioned, and closed the lid, his hand tracing along the swirling marks carefully burned into the wood.
The spirit had no sense of loyalty, no matter how much satisfaction he’d brought it. “You ought to know better by now. I’ll find you someone new, but it won’t be me.”
He set the box on the bed, then walked to his smaller chest in the corner, flipped it open, and reached for the incense bag.
But his fingers clutched only emptiness. Cursing, Phrenius rooted around in the chest some more, but it wasn’t beneath the new undergarments his mother had insisted on sending with him, and it wasn’t under the other items. The incense was gone.
And then, glowering, he realized what had happened. He stalked to the door and threw it open. His voice rose in a screech. “Aunt Galla! Where’s my incense?”
“What?” Her answer, from the distant courtyard, drawled out the vowel in a long slur.
She was impossible. He raised his voice. “My incense! Did you take it?” He glared daggers at the frowzy-haired slave who glowered at him from around the corner.
“Yes!” she cried, with savage delight. “It stinks! I told you not to burn that awful concoction in my house, so I had it thrown out!”
He cursed her foully.
“You watch your tongue, you grubby little reprobate, or I’ll send you back to your mother! I told you to get rid of it!”
He cursed her some more, under his breath, and gave the watching slave a few choice instructions about what he could do with himself.
“Did you hear me?” the old bag shouted again. He knew she hadn’t bothered to push off the couch where she lay. “You keep a civil tongue in your head, or you’ll be punished!”
He screwed up his face in a mockery of hers and mimed her threat in an undertone, then retreated to his room and slammed the door. He knew her slaves hated him almost as much as his aunt did, and had considerably more stamina, which is why he congratulated himself on having the foresight to set some of the incense aside in a more secret place.
He pushed the heavy chest away from the foot of his bed and felt around for the loose floorboard. He swore again as his efforts jabbed a splinter into his finger. Gods! Why was everything against him? He saw the end of the splinter but couldn’t grasp it. He’d have to have one of the slaves pull it free later.
Now, though, he reached inside the dark cavity he’d revealed. He knew there weren’t likely to be snakes, but a neighbor had once told him about poisonous centipedes, and scorpions, so he snatched the tiny pouch and lifted it up, whining his fear while he tossed it down. He nudged it into the light with his sandal. Nothing was crawling on the brown cloth on one side, so he grasped it with the tips of his fingers and turned it over, breathing a sigh of relief when there was nothing clinging on the other side, either.
Organization was not among Phrenius’ strengths. Once he had the extra supply, it took him nearly a quarter hour to round up the incense plate, steel, and flint. His aunt and her nasty old slaves hated the stench of the incense, so it would never have occurred to him to admit that the dark red and gold powdery stuff made him wrinkle his own nose. There was only enough for one good dosing, and Phrenius deployed his favorite curse word a few more times when he saw that, because he’d have to pay the extortionate price to that snotty boy at the temple to get more. Then came the trial of getting a good spark from the steel and flint, because he’d forgotten to grab a candle and he wasn’t about to get up to fetch one now.
Finally, though, the smoke was streaming up from the incense plate, and Phrenius brought his stringy naked body close to it, especially his face and hands, which he’d been told were most important. While there was a faint sweetness to the scent, the more prominent notes were swampy with a hint of rotting fruit. To best protect himself he had to sit naked by the stuff and keep his clothing wadded up next to it so that the fabric thoroughly absorbed the smell.
While he performed his ablutions before the incense he thought of flat-chested Atolia and how she’d had it coming for asking him why he always smelled like a funeral. She’d always seemed so prissy and certain of herself it had been a true delight when the spirit showed him how deeply rooted her own doubts about her appearance ran. She had spent most of her time worrying whether that clerk at the market actually liked her. She’d been a pointless waste of flesh, and he was glad she was gone.
He’d have to find a new target for the spirit, though, and soon. Once again he put aside the temptation of choosing his aunt, because he didn’t think she’d leave the villa to him or Mother in the will.
He redressed when the incense was spent, conscious of the echo of new voices in the home. More of his aunt’s ugly friends had come.
Phrenius slunk away from his room and was making for the kitchens when he overheard one of the women in the courtyard talking about Atolia’s jump.
He crept to the courtyard doorway and crouched to one side, peeking out past the shaded walk and through a fern leaf to where meaty redheaded Maia sat on a cushioned chair. She was in midsentence.
“. . . dreadful mess. And do you know who should be on the dock but that Volani woman, Izivar Lenereva, and her little sister—that girl screamed so loud that some legionaries ran out from the fort. The Lenerevas saw the poor young thing land on the rocks not more than a few feet away from them.”
So it was a Volani who’d seen the fall? Phrenius still didn’t understand why there were any Volani alive. Hadn’t the last emperor gone to war to kill them all?
Aunt Galla cooed meaninglessly. She sat in the shade, his view of her screened by bushes. “Does anyone know why Atolia jumped?”
Phrenius sneered.
Maia nodded her plump chins. “At first people were suspicious of a man they spotted right up next to where she leaped, but it turns out he saw her climbing over the fence and tried to get to her in time.”
“Probably mad for sex,” Aunt Galla said. She suspected that all men probably were, or perhaps hoped it.
“Well, the legionaries didn’t think so, or they wouldn’t have let him go.”
Aunt Galla sniffed to let her doubts be known. “Has anyone gone to Atolia’s family yet?”
Maia had nothing to offer in response but speculation, so Phrenius lost interest and crept away. He hadn’t decided on who he’d introduce the spirit to next, but figured he’d find some likely prospects at the town square. He filled up his coin purse, dreading the inevitable haggling with the temple boy, tucked the spirit’s box under one arm, and slunk from the building.
He took his lunch from a counter restaurant. Fish stew. He was so tired of the fish that the Apicians seemed to put in every meal, and he hated the way the sailors came to the restaurant and flirted with the big-breasted girl behind the counter. He didn’t like the way she flashed her eyes at them, either. She’d never looked at him that way, and men of his family were a lot more important than those sailors who couldn’t even afford to wear different tunics day to day.
He’d about decided to single her out for the spirit, except that it would be hard to get her alone, and getting his targets alone really helped.
While he hunched over the counter, chewing and mulling over his approach, an older woman in a green dress, with dark hair in long ringlets, passed without looking within. Phrenius didn’t realize why he recognized her until he noted the skinny girl walking with her, ahead of a young female slave. These were those Volani his aunt and her cow friend were talking about.
Phrenius chuckled. The gods themselves had given a sign, just like they’d done when they sent the white boar for Ention to prove his might. He swallowed a final bite of his food, and was so eager to get moving that he tripped over the leg of his stool as he grabbed his spirit box. The sailors laughed and pointed; the waitress looked his way, lips twisting in amusement. He whispered his favorite word again at the thought of her. She’d be next.
Beyond a pair of eateries the street broadened into a square. Merchants sold goods from carts around a fountain with a central porpoise spewing water into a shallow pool shaded by well-pruned elms. Several of the mobile establishments offered dessert breads and candied nuts, others carried selections of wooden toys, hats, and umbrellas.
None of these products interested the Volani, though. The woman and her slave poked through the colorful fabric in front of a cloth merchant’s store. The slave with them held up material to the light and laughed, seeing how transparent it was. The girl appeared taken with some yellow linen, then flitted off to stare at some shining chains hanging in the front of a neighboring store. The wispy clerk looked as though she wanted to engage her, but was being monopolized by a graybeard loudly vacillating over what necklace he ought to buy his granddaughter.
Phrenius slipped up beside the girl. She glanced over at him, sizing him up and dismissing him as unworthy of notice in the same instance, and returned to her inspection of the necklaces.
He felt sweat bead his forehead. She didn’t know how much power he had. If she’d been nice to him, he might have been merciful, but she’d pay now.
“You’re a skinny little skinflint, aren’t you?” Phrenius hissed.
“What?” She turned to him in surprise, dark brows lifting. Probably she wasn’t used to hearing the truth.
“You Volani are always greedy for a better deal, aren’t you?” he asked. “It doesn’t matter how many jewels you pile on. No one will want that scrawny body of yours. There’s more cleavage between your toes than on your chest.” He felt the spirit’s interest rise—it had liked that particular insult.
Something seized his shoulder in a vise and he stumbled as he was forcibly pulled around.
The Volani woman in green glared down at him. “WHAT is wrong with you?”
“I don’t like Volani, you harlot bitch,” he said. She gasped and he wrestled out from under her grip. He turned to sneer at the girl, watching openmouthed. “You’ve got a man’s nose, too, you ugly piece.” He laughed as he walked away. The spirit never laughed, exactly, but his tenuous connection with the thing vibrated in anticipation.
He heard the slap of sandals race after him and turned. The young slave woman had her hand up and ready to hit him, eyes blazing.
“Serliva!” the woman in green called. “Leave him be. He’s not worth it.”
“Yeah, leave me be, slave,” Phrenius said. “Or I’ll buy you and beat you.”
“I’m no slave.” The woman delivered a stinging strike to his check that sent him reeling. “And you reek.”
He cursed at her as she stepped away with a grimace. Head high, she strode back to her mistress and the girl.
Phrenius shouted after her, letting her know what he thought of them. The hat merchant told him to take his mouth and get off the street, and the woman selling umbrellas glared at him, but he put his hand to his reddened cheek, cursed at them all, and made for a bench in the shadow of a tree on the fountain’s far side. He could see just how upset the girl was, for her shoulders hunched in protectively and her head was bowed. She shielded her weedy frame by crossing her arms.
“She looks like she’s going to cry,” Phrenius said mockingly. And then he opened the box lid a tiny crack. The spirit had sensed her now. It wouldn’t take long for it to root into her. It never did.
III
The ten young men lined up before Hanuvar were handsome and healthy. Of average and remarkably similar height, each wore a clean gray tunic and sturdy calf-length brown boots. Though they exuded the odor of horse flesh and manure, they were scrupulously shaved and their hair had been styled with the care usually only accorded the very rich. All but one had the same medium cut, their locks fluffed and trimmed and combed to perfection. Two fellows of Ermanian extraction possessed reddish brown tops. The pair beside them, identifiably Birani, had jet-black locks, and next to them stood two with the distinctive long chins of Irimacians, crowned with whitish blond hair.
Hanuvar happened to know that every one of these grooms had been purchased to better match the horse they cared for. As he advanced down the line, it was easy to imagine that pair matching some duns, that pair tending some whites, and so on.
He stopped, frowning, in front of the man at the end whose scalp was almost completely barren, apart from some scabs and uneven tufts. Hanuvar balled hands on his hips. “Are you sure you can’t part with one that isn’t bald?” he asked petulantly.
“I’m afraid not.” The slave holder’s chief steward, another slave, had kept a few paces behind Hanuvar. He was dressed even more extravagantly than Hanuvar himself, in soft doe-leather sandals and a billowy white tunic. An immaculate white band kept curling yellow hair from his eyes. He had the air of a handsome man who knew it, although he must have likewise known he was ten years too old to pull off his boyish haircut. Hanuvar wondered if that was his master’s preference.
Hanuvar wore travelling clothes that were only a step down in flowy froth from the steward, and a multitude of shining bracelets decorated one arm. Several were on loan from Izivar. “Why did you bring all of them out, then?” he asked peevishly. “Several of these are much better looking.”
“I wanted you to see just how fine a set they were,” the steward protested. “They’ve been well kept, as you can tell. The master wouldn’t have wanted to part with any of them, but, well. Gaius there just can’t present very well anymore, can he?”
The steward indicated the man with missing hair. Gaius’ actual Volani name was Aspar, and the profession given on the record of his slave sale was pharmacist’s assistant. But the Dervans had given him a new profession and renamed him after the emperor responsible for the genocide of his people. Hanuvar glanced briefly at the man beside the Volani. A close match in skin tone, he looked to be from the tip of Tyvol, with locks a dark shade of brown near to black, not too different from Hanuvar’s own, except where the gray was showing.
Hanuvar frowned and pointed at Aspar. “How is his health otherwise?”
“Heathy as a horse,” the steward said, then laughed at his own joke. Hanuvar joined in as though the comment had been very clever.
“Go on, Gaius.” The steward stepped up to Aspar. “Show the man your teeth.”
As Aspar complied, the steward beamed, and Hanuvar pretended great interest in the strong even smile.
“You see?” the steward asked. “They’re not only all in place, they’re all straight and clean. I made sure I acquired only the best men for the master.”
Hanuvar peered for a long while, then stepped back. Aspar, watching glumly, closed his mouth.
“And what’s happened to his hair?” Hanuvar asked.
“No one knows!” The steward threw his hands up in consternation. “We had the master’s physician check him over, but he can’t figure it out. Maybe this is how Volani men go bald.” He chuckled.
“He’s not as pleasant to look at as I’d hoped,” Hanuvar mused.
“Oh, he’s fine. Just shave the rest of the hair off and slap a wig on him. That’s what Hadirans do. No one will know. Maybe your mistress will even like having him topped differently for various occasions.”
Hanuvar grunted doubtfully. “What she won’t like is if I pay full price for damaged goods.”
The steward must have known there was no way past that problem, and let out a breath in acknowledgment. “I know, I know.”
They haggled for a bit, and then Hanuvar sighed dramatically at the agreed upon sum and motioned Antires forward. “Pay the man and take his papers.”
Antires, dressed in a comparatively sober but well-tailored tunic, bowed and pulled the correct count of currency from a satchel while the steward motioned for his own assistant, who whistled. At that signal a boy trotted out of the stable office with a little platter holding cups.
“Oh, what’s this?” Hanuvar asked perkily.
“I thought it fit to celebrate after the sale,” the steward said. “And if you didn’t want to buy, well, then there’d be two drinks for me!” He laughed and Hanuvar joined in.
The cups contained a spiced mix of wine and honey that was rather pleasant on a warm day, for it was chilled. “Exquisite!” Hanuvar said.
“I thought you might enjoy it.” The steward watched the rest of the slaves being led off. Antires guided Aspar down the track to where Hanuvar’s carriage sat. “Tomorrow I’m going to have to start scouring this whole peninsula for a man with hair just like the master’s favorite bay. It shall take forever. It’s not just about the hair color, you know. Their height, musculature, and even their disposition must harmonize. Finding the replacement shall require weeks of trudging all up and down the coastline.” The steward lowered his cup with a sigh and swirled the remaining liquid inside. “These sorts of dire situations always fall upon me.”
“It sounds an incredible trial.”
After a few more moments of chitchat, Hanuvar bade the steward farewell, handed the goblet off to the boy, and walked down the lane to climb into the carriage. Aspar was seated on the bench in front with Antires, whom Hanuvar directed to get under way.
Two miles out from the villa, a figure climbed down the hill from a shady oak and waited along the empty country lane.
Antires drew to a stop.
Hanuvar opened the door and welcomed in both Aspar, warily hopeful, and Carthalo. The chief of his spies wore a plain brown travelling tunic and ankle boots. A sturdy man with receding dark hair, he possessed a pleasant though unremarkable face, one that might be glimpsed and easily forgotten.
“You look terrible,” Carthalo said to Aspar in their native Volani, although his tone was approving. “How do you feel?”
“Strange, I guess.” The younger man’s dazed expression clouded with an anxiety he hadn’t spoken of until then. “Will it grow back?” As instructed, he had been carefully pulling hairs off his head nightly for weeks.
“Probably,” Carthalo answered levelly. “But the freedom’s permanent.”
Bemusedly putting a hand to his head, Aspar looked across the seat to Hanuvar and continued in the same language. “I’m really going to be free?”
Hanuvar nodded gravely, but this didn’t satisfy Aspar, who returned his attention to Carthalo. He’d been the one who’d arranged the scheme after the owner had refused all sales inquiries but couldn’t deal directly by then because he’d been seen.
“You surely are,” Carthalo said. “You won’t ever have to groom another horse. Unless you want to.”
Aspar stared at them both as though he had heard the word of a phantom, whose promises were untrustworthy at best.
“You are both Volani,” the man said, the faintest hint of a question in his delivery.
Hanuvar nodded encouragingly. “You’re among friends.”
“What are your names?”
“For now,” Hanuvar said, “it’s best if we just keep to our Dervan ones.”
Aspar shifted to another topic without shifting his gaze. “Have you freed other people?”
“We have.”
“Have you freed my sister?”
“Did you see her in the slave pens?” Hanuvar asked. He expected the answer to be negative, but Aspar nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes, yes, I did. But we were separated.”
The odds then were much better for her, though her fate might still be problematic. “What name did she give the Dervans?” Hanuvar asked.
“Her true name,” Aspar affirmed. “Sonispa. Sonispa Etlaniva.”
Hanuvar nodded once. “She lives. She has already been recovered. She had been assigned as a handmaiden to an old matriarch in Utria.” He did not add that she was now nervous and uncomfortable in the presence of men, even those of her own people. The important thing was that she lived. Healing might yet take place.
Aspar looked more anxious than ever. “She’s free? Is she all right?”
“She’s fit and free,” Carthalo answered. “And you’ll be able to see her in a week or two.”
The younger man put hands to his face. Very softly he began to weep.
Hanuvar looked politely away. Carthalo met his eyes, his own gaze morose and heavy with sympathy. There was a message there, as could only be communicated by two who knew each other well.
By carriage their journey back east took almost two full days, and it was with great relief that Hanuvar climbed down in front of Izivar’s stables. He left Carthalo to settle Aspar into place and headed in through the servant’s entrance, spirits lighter at the thought of seeing Izivar.
She had heard the carriage roll in and was waiting tensely for him in the little vestibule past the servant’s door. She wore her favorite green stola with matching earrings, and her dark hair and skin were rich with the perfumed scents he had come to love. Her servants were absent, so she embraced him fully then stepped back. Though her eyes were warm, the anxiety in them reminded Hanuvar of how she had appeared when he’d returned from the questioning by the Dervan soldiers.
“Your trip went well?” she asked. “You got Aspar away from the Dervans?”
“Yes. What’s wrong?”
“Oh. There are a lot of worries.” She glanced away as if she might change the subject, then came to a decision and looked at him directly. “I’m worried about Julivar. She hasn’t been the same since you left.”
Hanuvar quirked an eyebrow.
“I think it was whatever the terrible boy said. The one from the marketplace.” She needn’t have clarified. She’d relayed the entire incident to Hanuvar the same evening it had happened.
“Boys want attention,” he said, “and some are foolish enough they think insults—”
She cut him off. “That’s not it. He wasn’t wanting her attention. He wanted her dead. And I swear she’s acting like she wants herself dead too.”
“That doesn’t sound like Julivar.”
“I can’t make any headway with her, at all.” Izivar’s hands fluttered uselessly. This, too, was uncharacteristic. She usually had very firm opinions about proper courses of action, and little hesitation in taking them.
“Do you want me to talk to her?” Izivar appeared to be implying that, although he felt compelled to verify. The emotional turmoil of young women was not his particular field of expertise.
She understood, and explained. “She respects you. We both know the chief reason she came south was to learn more of your sword moves.”
“Sword moves,” he repeated, but she wasn’t in a playful mood and simply looked back. “I thought you disproved of her interest in martial studies.”
“Well, now I’m more desperate to see any spark of enthusiasm, even if she wanted to take up chariot racing.”
His first thought had been to read any correspondence then bathe and eat. But Izivar was not one to be idly nervous. “Have any important reports come in?”
“Some letters. None with the mark.” Izivar was referring to the special note signifying highly urgent material hidden in the coded language Carthalo had devised.
He asked where Julivar might be found.
She had taken up residence in the courtyard, but she wasn’t practicing sword work. She sat on the stone border of a raised garden bed, knees pulled up to her chin so that her legs were completely hidden by her dress. Only her sandaled toes were visible. She looked as though she hoped to hide under her clothes completely, as if by working hard enough she might entirely disappear.
She didn’t react to Hanuvar until he was right in front of her. He expected she might have been crying, but her eyes were dry and deep with loathing, though it did not seem especially directed at him.
“Do you mind if I sit?”
She shrugged, and he took the stone beside her.
“Have you been practicing your steps?” he asked.
Her only response was a second shrug.
“Your sister told me about what happened in the market. Why do you care about what some rude young man says?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Her voice was so soft he barely heard her.
“Any blow hurts more if it strikes a weak point, or finds an unhealed wound. Is that what happened?”
She shifted; from that he gauged that he might have scored a point, though he was still uncertain of this game’s rules.
“I don’t know who he is,” Hanuvar continued. “But I know who you are. The Julivar I know would snap her fingers and tell that boy what he could do with himself.”
She interrupted him. “You don’t. Not really. You’ve only known me a few months.”
“We went into battle together, Julivar,” he reminded her. “That is a bond between us no one can break.”
“It wasn’t a real battle.”
“Lives would have been lost if we hadn’t acted. Maybe our own. And if the emperor had died in your halls? It might have been the end of all the Volani in Tyvol.”
He had won the ground, so she changed it. “You’re just here because Izivar told you to come.”
“She asked me,” Hanuvar conceded. “But I wanted to see you.”
“You’ve seen me. Tell her I’m fine.”
“Are you?” He paused and decided to try a different approach. “I’m going to eat.” He patted the side of the bench in conclusion. “Change into your athletic gear and meet me out here in an hour.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You don’t look very busy.”
“I don’t feel well.”
“You’ll feel better with some exercise.”
“I said I don’t want to.” Her voice took on an uncharacteristic peevish tone. “And the last I heard, you weren’t in charge of me.”
This young lady sounded so different from the one he knew it was difficult to believe her one and the same. Apparently the young man’s words had injured her deeply. “Wounds fester if they don’t get aired out. And a body needs exercise if it’s to heal properly.”
“I’m not really any good. I’ll never be an Eltyr.”
“You have aptitude. With practice you’ll be even better.”
“It’s easy for you to say. You’re good at everything.”
He sighed. “I’m well practiced with what’s actually a small handful of skills, and those are dwarfed by all the things I don’t know how to do. You could be as good if you wished to devote the same amount of time to your own interests, although I hope you’ll be more balanced than I am.”
“I’m going inside.” She slid off the bench and slouched away from him, eyes low. Troubled, he watched her leave.
He found Izivar seated with Antires on the back patio. A meal had already been laid out, and Antires was thoughtfully tapping the side of a half-full wine cup while munching. Both he and Izivar looked up at his entrance.
Hanuvar poured himself a cup, then drank it down. The watered wine was sweet and cool and fresh, but it did not restore him.
“I spoke with Julivar,” he said. “I understand why you’re worried. She’s not acting like herself. I can’t tell why she hasn’t shrugged this off.” He poured another cup and sat down across from Izivar. There was bread and cheese, and a welcome soup with greens that smelled faintly of lime, a Volani specialty known as mulinest.
Antires swallowed and reached for more bread. He rubbed it into olive oil and then gestured with it, the crust glistening in sunlight. “I’ve been talking to Izivar about it. Do you know, this whole thing reminds me of a Herrenic legend.”
Nearly every incident reminded the Herrene in some way of an existing story. But he offered his thoughts this time without the customary sparkle in his eye.
“What legend?” Izivar asked.
“There’s a kind of ghost that feeds on bravery, reducing men to fear. It comes up in some of our plays, in battle scenes. You might have heard of it.”
Izivar, waiting tensely, said nothing.
Antires continued his thought. “There’s another, that feeds on joy and leaves people empty and disconsolate.”
Izivar’s expression grew sharp. “What does it look like?”
“Like nothing. It’s a spirit.” Antires sounded almost defensive.
“Julivar saw something leave that girl’s body,” Izivar said to Hanuvar.
“You said it was probably sunlight.”
“What if I was wrong, and Julivar was right? There have been a series of suicides this summer, right here. All young people.”
“So the centurion said. What do you propose we do?”
“What do the Herrenes do?” Izivar looked to Antires, who had stuffed more bread into his mouth, and held up a finger as though it were not already evident he had to chew and swallow before answering.
Even after finishing, Antires hesitated with the air of someone about to announce bad news. “It never ends well in myths,” he said. “But the old stories exaggerate everything, don’t they? If someone suspected there was a malignant spirit involved, I suppose they would make a sacrifice at the local temple to Hereptus and consult a priest there. That would be the equivalent of Lutar for Dervans,” he added.
“There’s a small temple to Lutar on the town outskirts.” Izivar was starting to rise before she took note of Hanuvar’s plate.
“I’ll eat quickly,” he promised.
He’d been looking forward to a good soak as well, not just because he was dirty, but owing to the stiffness of being on the road for most of the last week. But seeing the extent of Izivar’s worry, he put his plans aside. Julivar was her last surviving sibling, for another sister had died years before and her younger brother had been slain last year. More than that, owing to the difference in their ages, Izivar’s oversight of Julivar was more than a little maternal.
Hanuvar wolfed down some food and then he and Antires and Izivar headed out.
Just beyond the town’s western gate stood the building they sought, a small square structure the size of an overgrown shrine, not much larger than a hermit’s shack rendered in stone. A cemetery stretched on to the west, its disorderly rows of variously carved stone monuments desolate and abandoned but for creeping ivy and moss. Some of the forbidding crypts beside the road were far larger than the little temple to Lutar.
The twin pillars supporting the temple’s pediment climbed only a little over eight feet, and the interior itself proved tiny. Hanuvar glimpsed the suggestion of carved relief along the walls, but the only proper lighting emerged from a brazier beside the altar, where a short youth adjusted mistletoe.
He turned at their footfall, his pimpled face marred by an irritated expression, as though their presence was something that must be endured rather than welcomed. His clothes were the traditional charcoal gray of Lutar’s robes. Almost certainly he was an acolyte. “Have you lost someone?” he asked. He sounded as though a discussion about death and funerals might be inconvenient for him today.
Hanuvar was already searching past him for someone more useful. This being a minor temple, there was no actual statue to the Dervan god of the underworld, merely a representation of his sober, bearded countenance carved in stone on the back wall behind the sacrificial altar. A pair of slim dark doors were hidden in the shadows to either side.
“Where is the temple priest?” Izivar asked.
“He’s not here at the moment,” the boy said. “I am prepared to help you.” He bowed his head.
Izivar ignored his invitation. “Where is he?”
“He is resting in his chambers. I assure you—”
“This is the Lady Izivar Lenereva,” Hanuvar interrupted, “a close personal friend of Emperor Enarius. She needs to speak to the priest. Where are his chambers?”
“His home lies just behind the temple,” the boy said. Inspired by the mention of Izivar’s proximity to power, the boy grew briefly more engaged. “But he is in mourning and hasn’t welcomed company in a while.”
“Who died?” Hanuvar asked.
“His wife.”
“How long ago?”
“This spring. He’s been taking solace with every meal.” The boy smirked and mimed tipping a bottle towards his mouth.
Hanuvar was glad to leave him. Beyond the temple, a humble villa lay behind high stone walls and an iron gate someone had forgotten to fully close. The door was answered by a stooped old slave who was either incapable of speech or inclined against it, for he listened to their wish to speak to his master, grunted, then beckoned them inside.
They passed through the little house and into to a small courtyard with an immaculate garden. The doorman gestured vaguely toward the rectangular pool surrounded by stone in the garden’s center, and left, wordless.
Another gray-haired man tended the edge of the pond, in which water lilies grew. His back was to them as he plucked weeds from between stone slabs.
Hanuvar cleared his throat as they approached, but it wasn’t until they came into the weed puller’s line of sight that the man looked up. He appeared to have grayed prematurely, for his face wasn’t heavily lined. His tunic was old, but well laundered. Brown, yellow-flecked eyes that were sunk into some inner world regarded them diffidently.
“Forgive our intrusion,” Izivar said. “Are you the Priest of Lutar?”
“I am.” The man glanced down at a fringe of dandelion poking out between the slabs two stones ahead.
“We’ve come to you for help. I’m Izivar Lenereva. I’m concerned that my sister is being tormented by a kind of spirit.”
“In Herrenia we call it a sulisima,” Antires supplied helpfully.
The priest weighed this information. He raised a tarnished metal cup to his lips, then eyed it with distaste and lowered it without drinking.
He listened despondently as Izivar described how her sister’s character had changed. Hanuvar watched the priest’s face, noting that while the man was bleary, he wasn’t really drunk. Perhaps he wanted to be. The priest’s expression fell further when Antires repeated the number of suicides among the Oscani youth over the summer. “No one has told me of this,” he said.
“Your acolyte said you’ve been in mourning.”
“I have still managed funerals.” He massaged his forehead. “Wait. There was one young woman . . . Were the others seasonal visitors?”
Hanuvar looked to Izivar for confirmation.
“I think so,” she said. In which case their wealthy families would almost surely have had the bodies transported by sea back to family plots elsewhere.
The priest pushed to his feet, then adjusted his tunic. “Spirits from without are often less dangerous than those from within. Your sister may simply be suffering from the insecurities of youth, and the society of troubled people her age. Is she betrothed?”
“She is not.”
“Should she be? Are her friends all wed?” When Izivar frowned, he tried a different line of inquiry. “Did she know any of the others?”
“She saw one of them die, and recognized her from a visit last year. I don’t know about the others.”
Antires seemed to be interested in checking the man’s credentials. “Have you dealt with any malevolent spirits around here?”
The priest scratched his head. “In early spring I drove a specter away from a woman near Edanalla, only a day’s ride out. A relative had passed, a bitter man who wished to squash the joy of his fellows in life and meant to keep doing it in death. A specter. Or sulisima.” He nodded to Antires, then turned to Izivar. “I’m not saying that one of them’s bothering your sister, Lady. But there will be no harm in me speaking with her, if you wish.”
“If it is a spirit, how can it be stopped?” Izivar asked.
“Well, there are rituals, of course. But the crucial thing is that you know from where the specter came. You find something important or familiar to it. A sandal or tunic or knife if it was a man. A dress or jewelry if it was a woman. Maybe the lock of a child’s hair. You draw it in with this familiar thing, and then enclose it in a box with a seal mark. You then consign the box to a fire, after you prepare some rituals.”
The priest was refreshingly forthcoming. At no point had he implied a temple donation might be necessary, or offered an unctuous condolence.
“What if you don’t know where the specter came from?” Izivar asked.
Hanuvar had been wondering the same thing.
The priest nodded slowly. “You can try kenentari incense. Hadiran stuff. I think there are some Turian herbs that may work as well. The problem with the Turians is they never actually want to share their knowledge, and you can’t count on them to sell you the real product. The Hadiran stuff is more expensive, but more trustworthy. I have some,” he added.
“I am most grateful for your offer to speak to my sister,” Izivar said resolutely. “We would be pleased to accompany you to our home. Today. With some of this incense.”
The priest considered this and ran a hand back through his unruly hair. “Yes,” he said. “Permit me a moment to change. Perhaps I could offer you refreshments?” he asked belatedly.
They declined, and walked about the little island of greenery, admiring the carefully tended plants, and a row of vases with blooming violets.
The priest returned in a formal charcoal tunic and better sandals. He had run a brush through his hair. Seeing their contemplation of his sanctuary he said: “It’s lovely, isn’t it? This was my wife’s work. We could not have children, and I think she took comfort in the life she nourished in this space. I am glad to be able to say that I complimented her hand here while she lived, but I find myself wishing I had done so more regularly. And paid more attention to what she did, for no matter how I work, it does not bloom as well under my fingers.” At that thought he glanced down at his hand and ran it again through his hair. “Enough. Come.”
Hanuvar did not ask how she had died. The man’s quiet reverence for his lost love touched him.
The priest led them back to the temple and opened the narrow doors on the left Hanuvar had noted while the acolyte watched alertly. A small pantry was revealed, into which the priest advanced, lifting his lantern to a storage shelf. Before very long he returned to the main chamber of the temple, his expression troubled. He spoke to the acolyte. “Atticus, where is the Hadiran incense?”
The boy’s eyes shifted. Not with uncertainty, but discomfort. “Don’t you remember? You said we had run out.”
“I said no such thing.” The priest was unflinching. “There was a fair bit left.”
“No, sir. There really wasn’t. I remember you commenting on it just last week when you wandered through.”
“Did I?” The priest’s certainty faded. Perhaps he remembered visiting while drunk.
Hanuvar advanced on the boy until the youth had backed into a wall. He put a hand to his shoulder. “I think you’ve done something with it.”
“What would I want with Hadiran incense?”
“I think you might have been selling it,” Hanuvar suggested. It hadn’t been a difficult guess, given that the priest had told them it was expensive. He saw he’d judged rightly because of the sudden stilling of the boy’s roving eyes.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Atticus said.
Hanuvar’s hand tightened on the boy’s shoulder. He pulled him forward and turned him to face the priest, whose brows had drawn sternly together.
“I’m very disappointed,” the priest said. “Where is it?”
Atticus confessed on the instant. “Phrenius Apernius has it. I don’t know what he wants it for, but he’s been mad for it. Threatening, really. I was afraid what he’d do if I didn’t sell it to him.”
“If you were really afraid, you’ve have told me. Who is he?”
“Just a boy in town.”
“You’re bad at this,” Hanuvar said, and tightened his grip on both of the young man’s bony shoulders from behind. “Why does Phrenius want this special incense? He wouldn’t know about it unless you’d told him.”
The boy nodded to the priest. “He knows him, he just doesn’t remember.”
“I don’t know him.”
“But you do!” Atticus protested. “He’s the one who asked you all those questions about the specter in the spring. Remember?”
The priest’s expression cleared. “Yes. But that was in Edanalla. What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know. But he’s living with his aunt now.”
The priest looked thoughtful for a moment. And then his eyes sharpened and turned fully upon Atticus. “What did you do with his uncle’s box?”
“I burned it, just like you instructed.”
“Did you?” The priest scowled. “It strikes me now that Phrenius was asking an awful lot of questions about specter boxes and disposals, and the rituals.”
“What does this boy look like?” Izivar asked. “Is he skinny, about this tall, and sneering?” She raised her hand to a height near her nose. “With shifty eyes and a foul mouth?”
“That’s him measured to the ounce,” the boy agreed.
Izivar turned to Hanuvar. “He’s the rude one at the square. And he was at the dock, watching when that poor girl jumped. I heard him laugh. He tried to stifle it, and I thought it was just one of those strange reactions people sometimes have . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she turned to the priest. “Are you saying that the boy’s controlling this spirit somehow? With the incense?”
The priest shook his head. “He’s protecting himself from harm with the incense. You can’t control a spirit like this, but I suppose you might be able to direct it in some limited ways.”
Hanuvar addressed the acolyte. “Where does this boy live?”
Atticus gulped and told them.
The priest’s13 voice was stern as he addressed Atticus. “Because of you, five girls are dead. And a sixth is in danger. I hope you enjoyed your money. Leave my sight and never enter it again.”
IV
For a few days Phrenius wasn’t certain the specter really had hold of the girl, for the skinny Volani bitch didn’t respond the way the others had, even when he prodded with more cogent observations about her obvious faults. But eventually he felt its malicious delight growing and through the link he’d even glimpsed her imagining the ends she envisioned for herself. Before much longer he knew which one she had chosen, and when his gut tightened with resolve he understood he’d have to run. Like a lot of them, once she had decided she hurried out to get things over with, probably because she was afraid she’d change her mind. All females were cowards at heart. He sped out from the villa and raced down for the tide pool northeast of town.
Pleasant beaches, along with convenient natural harbors, were a rare commodity throughout most of the Tyvolian coast. The majority were accessible only via descents along steep cliff sides. Hidden shoals and sandbars jeopardized shipping; sharp rocks and treacherous currents endangered swimmers. From some previous visit the girl had learned of a tiny, bowl-shaped inlet that was deceptively inviting to bathers when the tide was low and a lethal trap when high. Despite warnings, people died there almost every year. And the Lenereva girl planned to be another of them.
Phrenius wondered just how much of her drowning he’d be able to see. How quickly would the waves overpower her? Would she struggle much? Or would she just sink under the way that idiot Marcella had when she swam a few dozen feet out from the shore?
He navigated around the bushy headland and onto the worn track that led down a steep slope, arriving finally atop a natural wall above a swirling cauldron of sea and foam contained by the outthrust arms of the cliff. The wall had a single small break facing the sea, no more than a dozen paces wide.
Julivar Lenereva stood at the elevated base of the rocky bowl, staring out at the gap. She must have made her way along the rough trail at the height rather than walking down the more worn path leading into the churning surf. She looked as if she were going to jump and at only twenty feet up she was sure to survive the drop. Probably she’d panic, and try to swim, and thus be thrown against the rocks repeatedly. She’d end up a battered, bloody mess and he had timed his arrival for the show almost perfectly.
Grinning, Phrenius crept carefully along the top of the encircling walls, moving between craggy boulders to maximize his view while keeping out of sight.
Julivar took a deep breath and leapt out to plunge feet first into the dark gray roil. For a heartbeat or ten Phrenius wondered if she’d already been swept away. Then her black wet head broke free, and she gasped from the cold, spitting water and struggling as a surge slapped her face.
He smiled, relishing the fight to come.
Phrenius didn’t hear the clattering down the path until it was very close, and the sound of sandals on stone startled him. He whirled, heart pounding, and discovered an older man in ordinary travel clothes hurrying onto the wild rampart. Gray strands flecked his dark hair and his expression was grim. Limned by the sun were other figures on the cliff behind; Phrenius started in surprise, then fear, for something about the set of the stranger’s face and his implacable advance scared him. Phrenius felt for his knife before realizing he could move further behind the boulders to hide. Though his view would be spoiled, he should still be able to savor the shrieks and general commotion.
Below, Phrenius felt the specter’s hold on the Volani wretch loosening. That was strange—sometimes the girls fought for control in the earlier stages, but not so late, not with any real strength.
The man shouted for Julivar to hang on. Phrenius heard shuffling and a larger body hitting the water as well as some more scrambling along the ledge only a few feet from where he sheltered. He could not resist a look, and spotted a Herrene walking cautiously along the cliffside while scanning the water, a long rope in hand.
V
It was Izivar who’d guessed Julivar’s destination, remembering how her sister had been horrified by an account of a drowned beach party there years previous.
Hanuvar feared the girl had run somewhere else to die and that they wasted their efforts toward the wrong direction. He’d even hoped that they were all wrong and that Julivar was less troubled than she’d seemed.
Close as he’d been to his siblings, Hanuvar had never understood why he hadn’t sensed when they, too, were endangered, or dying, for he’d known men and women with such connections. It seemed Izivar and Julivar possessed one, for Hanuvar found the young lady exactly where Izivar had feared, in a high-sided, bowl-shaped cove with a narrow opening to the sea. The murderous boy was nowhere to be seen. Julivar floundered in the lethal waters below.
Somewhere behind him Antires hurried with a rope. And that would be the safest way to secure Julivar’s survival. But he’d outpaced his friend and he wasn’t sure there was time to wait.
He shucked off sandals and sword belt while he eyed the churn to get a sense of its flow. With each new wave sweeping in through the rocky gap, the surface water gathered power in a chaotic dance, funneling along the sides until it slammed the rear wall in a thunder of spray. Presumably an equally powerful force shifted the water beneath out to sea.
He leapt out from the wall, striking the cool waves feet first. He sank down until the lower currents spun him so he faced the opening.
He kicked up and his head cleared the spray, far to the left of where he’d expected. The water pushed him inexorably toward the gap. Julivar fought it with a solid effort but each new wave sent her spinning.
He flung himself toward her, laboring with every stroke and kick against the ocean’s might. The seawater was constantly in his eyes so that when he finally reached Julivar it was more by accident and the current’s pull than actual design.
Her face was a mask of anguish.
He shouted to be heard over the crashing surf. “Hold your breath. Focus on floating—” Then a wave stole his voice. She clung to him with one arm as he pulled her tight.
He allowed the flood to slosh them until a brief lull and then shouted: “Now! Deep breath. Under together.” He sank with her and found nothing but sand with his feet. Pushing off and sliding along the undercurrent brought them nearer the sidewall. He kicked with powerful legs and pulled water with his free arm. The girl he held in the other fluttered her feet and moved her arms but progress was minimal. He thought he heard someone shouting, but the surf’s roar was so great he couldn’t be certain, and he had no way to gauge from where it had come.
Sheer stubbornness coupled with titanic effort got him within grasping distance of a rock near the steep upward slope, then the waves slammed them into it. He managed to twist so his back took the impact’s brunt, but his shoulder and waist were scraped badly. Julivar cried out as a swell flung one of her arms into an abrasive fluted stone and drew blood in a long row of jagged scratches.
A rope dropped from above and Hanuvar lunged for it, abrading his calf on submerged rock. His hand closed on the lifeline. He knew a brief moment of panic as he lost hold of Julivar, then she clutched his tunic and he guided the rope into her hands.
“Go,” he called, and she somehow found the strength to pull herself hand over hand up the humped stone and out of the water. She paused at the bottom of the rocky trail and looked back at Hanuvar, water dripping from her hairline into her eyes.
He had braced himself against the eager current by clawing to the uneven cliff wall. “Go on!” he called. A further wave swept over his head, then cleared away in time for him to see her using one hand on the rope while she dragged herself up the arduous slope with the other.
Hanuvar was watching Julivar’s climb for safety when loneliness stabbed him. Something cool and coruscating passed across his face. It felt at first as though a light net had crossed him, but when he brushed his free hand over his eyes there was nothing there . . . apart from the weight of his own failures.
You have rescued this girl, a voice seemed to say, but it was the wrong choice. You always make the wrong choices. You’re my last child, and you save the daughter of our enemies?
Somehow his father was there in the water with him, his expression caustic and disproving. You failed us. You brought our people to doom. What did you think you would find? Glory? Peace? Do you think the Dervans would have struck back with such hatred had you not fought so hard?
He wiped salt spray from his eyes, but the vision persisted, even as he was jostled against the jagged stone. I would have done it better. You were rash, and young. I could have told you the Dervans would never yield. And you should have known southern Tyvol would never give you the men you needed. Nor would Volanus, not with the Lenerevas guiding the assembly. They were ever against us. And now you’re literally in bed with them. His father’s lips twisted in a scathing sneer. You should have killed yourself in shame long ago.
Hanuvar was no stranger to doubt, and the sense his father might well have managed many things better than he, but he had long since schooled himself to make the best choices he could, and to reexamine mistakes only to avoid them. Sleepless nights of recrimination did no good for an officer or the men he led.
Yet he was weary, and alone, and reminded that he had survived when so many others had not. From out of nowhere the thought of Julivar’s tormenter rose in his mind. He even imagined his features, though he had never seen him, for he could perfectly picture a narrow face twisted in mockery. And then he perceived that the boy was somehow connected, through this thing that tormented him with his father’s image.
Hanuvar eyed the vision, grief and sorrow and all his hates welling up within him. Though it be twisted, there was truth in the searing words.
He shook his head. The wise learned from failure, they did not succumb to it, and life still offered many joys. The people he loved deserved better from him than self-pity and resignation.
“You’re not real,” he said aloud. “Do not look to me or mine to work your miseries.”
The specter shouted in his face. “Let go! Open your mouth and breathe deep!”
But Hanuvar turned from it and pulled himself free from the water, then, one hand on the rope, the other braced on the steep slope, started toward his anxious friend, legs shaking with exertion. Julivar leaned against Antires, breathing heavily, eyes closed. He heard the specter shout at him even above the pounding surf, then caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A screaming figure plunged from the cliff. At the same instant the spirit was gone, taking its miasma with it.
Fearful for Izivar, Hanuvar twisted toward the churning water, and after a moment caught sight of a boy’s head bobbing in the current. He even heard a choked scream for help. It was soon followed by others, garbled by the waves.
Hanuvar climbed until he had both feet securely under him, on the steep slope. He clasped the arm of his loyal friend, his eyes conveying his thanks.
Beside him, Julivar looked weary and small. Water dripped steadily down her bedraggled hair.
Antires thoughtfully contemplated the surf, where the boy still cried feebly. “Should we help him?”
Hanuvar answered between deep breaths. “No.”
The playwright seemed only a little surprised. He undid the rope he’d braced against an outcropping.
Julivar paused once to watch the boy rocked by the wave swells, then turned away, leaning against Hanuvar as they walked to Izivar, waiting where the encircling arms met the cliff. She enfolded Julivar in a deep embrace and pulled her further inland. Hanuvar looked back to where the boy had been and saw only the crashing waves and rocks.
Twenty paces back from the cliff, near where their horses grazed, the priest had placed a rectangular wooden box amongst some scree and now sprinkled dark powder about it in a tight circle. He tossed tinder down on it from the pack he’d brought with him, struggled briefly with some flint, and soon had a low fire underway. It swept hungrily upon the box. Wordless and grim, the priest watched it burn. He met Hanuvar’s eyes only once, then stood and watched the fire, like a sentry sworn to hold a post with his life.
“We should get closer to the fire,” Izivar suggested.
“Not that fire.” Hanuvar was chilled himself, especially with the full force of the wind off the headland beating into him, but he wanted no closer to magics than he already was.
“I kept thinking of him,” Julivar said, breath ragged as she sank onto a patch of grass. Her gaze was piercing as an arrow. “The whole time. But it wasn’t until I saw him again that I knew that I’d been feeling his hate. That sometimes the voice I’d heard was his.”
Hanuvar brushed a lock of cold wet hair from her forehead. The shy smile she gave him was embarrassed and apologetic. She took his hand when he offered and let him help her to her feet. He squeezed her and kissed the top of her head.
Izivar watched approvingly, rubbing her back the while, then, when Julivar leaned back toward her, hugged her tightly.
“How do you think he ended up like that?” Antires asked. “Was he mistreated? Spoiled? Abused?”
Hanuvar didn’t much care. “There’s a host of possibilities. But others who come from terrible situations grow into perfectly fine human beings. Put him from your thoughts.” He spoke to Izivar. “How did the boy happen to fall in?”
She was a moment answering. When she did, it was with cool disdain that brooked no challenge. “I had to get the box from him. And then he slipped. Julivar, let’s get you home.”
Julivar’s improvement was gradual. By the next week she was nearly her old self, although was ever after slightly more reserved. Certainly she had become even more fixated upon improving her fighting skills. Hanuvar enjoyed instructing her, and I joined in the training.
Izivar did not entirely care for her sister’s relentless application of Hanuvar’s exercise regime. For all that, Izivar often came to watch us during even the simplest training, moments that she would have been expected to excuse herself from, and I knew then she understood how different that garden would have been if her sister had never again been there to pace across its stones and strike imagined enemies.
We had made great inroads into our efforts to liberate the Volani held in the Oscanus region. Hanuvar deployed me to make initial contact with some laboring at a sort of resort for vacationing Dervans, but I found the matter challenging in a number of unique ways. When I returned to report to Hanuvar I discovered him absent and Izivar more pensive than usual.
For Carthalo had learned of a mad new plan hatched by the revenant legate. And he and Hanuvar had set upon a dangerous course of action. If successful, it might finally lead them to Narisia herself. But it would require them to work for long days under assumed identities with men paid to hunt down any they could find with the blood of the Cabera family.
—Sosilos, Book Fourteen
12. The capable foreman and reliable manager overseeing Selanto whenever Izivar or Hanuvar were absent, not to be confused with the long dead father of Hanuvar and his siblings.—Sosilos
13. Astute readers will have noted Antires never directly named the priest of Lutar, and he confessed to me in a letter that is because while he noted his name, he had accidentally smudged the letters and by the time he set the story down had no easy way to learn the truth. He wrote further that he had considered inventing a name, but that he had respected and rather liked the fellow and thought it would be even less honorable to assign him the wrong name than to refer to him by his title. When I sought him out he was several years dead, but the community still spoke well of Silus Delnian.—Silenus