Dangerous Waters (52 page)

An urgent voice called down the hallway from the door to the stairs. ‘My lady Zurenne? My lord Licanin?’

‘Captain Arigo?’ The baron jerked his head at one of his men. ‘Bring him here.’

‘He knows nothing,’ Zurenne said quickly. ‘No one does, but those here in this room. I will see anyone spreading gossip flogged.’ She warned Licanin’s troopers with a ferocious glare.

Jilseth reckoned she had as much hope of silencing them as of serving soup in a basket.

‘My lady. My lord.’ The portly captain Arigo puffed as he entered the room. ‘There’s smoke on the wind.’

‘How much? Where from?’ Licanin hurried to the window.

Everyone looked worried. Jilseth understood their concern. At the height of summer, with the standing crops ripe in the fields, an unchecked blaze could leave ten dead of winter hunger for every victim of the actual flames. Not that Hadrumal’s yeoman had to fear such disasters with mages on hand to stifle any spark.

‘Let me help.’ She didn’t wait for an answer from Licanin or Zurenne. ‘Open that casement,’ she ordered the trooper standing closest.

He was the one holding Raselle in a painfully tight grip. As he released her, the maid fled to stand beside her mistress. The trooper forced the window open with a squeal of hinges.

‘The wind’s coming from the sea,’ Arigo was explaining. ‘Something’s well alight towards the marshes.’

As the casement swung away from the mullion, it didn’t take a wizard to smell the burning on the evening air. A broad swath of the westerly sky was feverish red and soiled with charcoal streaks.

‘That’s some blaze,’ Licanin said uneasily.

Jilseth could taste the smoke. It was making her eyes water. She ignored such petty discomforts, concentrating with her wizardly senses instead. Air and earth might be opposed but fire and earth had no such quarrel. The burning carried on the breeze gave her the grasp she needed on the elusive element.

Jilseth closed her eyes, the better to follow the threads of the wind back to the marshes. Her magesight skipped along the fragments of ash carried aloft by the heat, each one with an elemental speck at its heart.

Whatever mages like Canfor or even Nolyen might claim for their own magic, every living thing was ultimately born of the earth, sharing its essence with the dazzle of diamonds and the humbleness of coal. Jilseth knew it was no coincidence that more Stone Masters and Mistresses had become Archmage of Hadrumal than wizards of any other affinity.

‘The saltings dry out so at this season.’ Arigo was wringing his hands. ‘Only a spark and they’ll be alight.’

‘It’ll burn itself out,’ someone said, complacent, ‘and the tides are springing high these next few days. That’ll douse any embers.’

‘Listen!’ Jilseth’s magic filled the room with noise, silencing them all.

She might have no hope of working clairaudience through water as Planir had but she could bend this ash-tainted breeze to the air-based spell readily enough.

The din that filled the room wasn’t the commotion of distant peasants fighting to save a cornfield, nor even the lamentation of some villager losing a house to such cursed misfortune.

Wherever that fire was burning, dying men were spending their last breath on curses. Women wailed and begged before screams tore at their throats as viciously as their ravagers tore at their clothing. The uncomprehending bawling of terrified children was mercilessly cut short by the slick of unseen blades. Harsh laughter echoed through the horror.

‘Stand aside!’ Jilseth flung a skein of smoke at the mirror hung over the hearth. The image only lasted a heartbeat but that was sufficient to show a corsair raiding party laying waste to a hamlet. There could be no mistaking the Archipelagan’s haphazard mix of finely wrought chainmail and crude leather armour, the men armed with curved swords.

‘That’s not the marshes,’ Arigo quavered.

‘Corrain said they come with the highest tides.’ Zurenne murmured as the nightmare vision dissipated. ‘That’s how he knew when to find them in the creeks where they take on water.’

‘How far inland are they?’ Lord Licanin seized Jilseth’s shoulder.

She shook him off. ‘One moment.’ As she took the measure of the spell, the gooseflesh that rose on her neck owed nothing to the breeze through the window. ‘They’re less than three leagues away.’

‘Are they coming here?’ Zurenne’s voice rose in panic.

Lord Licanin jabbed a finger at Captain Arigo. ‘Find me boys to ride the fastest horses in your stables. Not troopers. We’ll need their swords. Lads who know the back roads to Karpis and Tallat. Make haste!’

Jilseth hurried to the table and scooped the penknife out of the water. Starrid could wait. She needed to scry for those corsairs to see which way they might be headed. But should she bespeak Planir now or later?

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
T
HREE

Halferan, Caladhria

10th of Aft-Summer

Z
URENNE HAD THOUGHT
the longest, most desperate night of her life had followed that dreadful day when she’d learned that her husband was dead. Huddled in her bedchamber’s window seat, she watched the sky pale in the east while that evil red glowed undimmed in the west. She was too exhausted to decide if this was worse. All she knew was that this was different.

Before, she’d been trapped alone between disbelief and grief while stunned silence stifled the manor. Now she was assailed by noise and terror on all sides. The first of those fleeing the raiders had appeared while Licanin’s men were hammering on doors around Halferan village to raise the alarm. That had broken up the arguments in the manor’s courtyard as Arigo’s men decided who should be riding inland, or north, or south, to spread word further afield.

The lady wizard’s scrying had shown them this was no mere raid. A veritable army of corsairs was heading inland, burning and killing as they advanced.

Spurred to action by these panic-stricken arrivals, the Halferans had gone to recall the Licanin troopers from the village. They urged the demesne men to hurry to the farms where they laboured, to fetch hay carts and hurdles to block the roads, along with scythes, billhooks and pitchforks to make a stand along the hedgerows, to fend off attack through the fields.

Through the night, fleeing folk from the barony had arrived in successive waves of commotion. The demesne’s defenders herded them towards the manor. Wagons had already been dragged into the courtyard, laden with sacks and barrels salvaged from the tithe barns that flanked the village beyond the brook. With the new arrivals bringing whatever they had snatched up before they ran, the compound was soon crammed to overflowing.

The men departed as swiftly as they arrived. With bread and beer thrust in their hands, they were immediately drafted to the outlying defences.

That left their women and children wailing and shrieking below Zurenne’s windows from nightfall to first light. Their lamentations were only drowned out whenever urgent horses arrived or departed with the great gate slamming as they came and went.

Zurenne’s head ached fit to split in two. Though she’d retired to her bedchamber, she’d abandoned any hope of sleep. She still wore the gown which she’d donned yesterday, when she’d thought her greatest challenge would be facing down Lord Licanin’s displeasure.

The baron had written daily as he travelled from Ferl with that guardianship decree in his hand. Each letter had been more irate, commanding her to send her reply forthwith by his own messenger. Those bold young men had been forced to ride back empty handed. They could no more compel her to put pen to paper than Licanin’s hectoring could.

Then Jilseth had arrived, offering that tantalising hope of recovering Halferan’s gold and silver. With coin in the strong room, perhaps Zurenne would have been bold enough to defy Licanin. So much for that.

She heard a stealthy footfall outside her bedroom door. Raselle? Zurenne realised she was viciously thirsty, the jug of spring water by her bed long since emptied. She had no notion how long ago. No matter. Perhaps a tisane and some food would soothe her throbbing head.

The soft knock didn’t come. Those careful steps retreated. Zurenne slid her feet to the floor. She stared disbelieving at the door before hurrying to pull it open. ‘My lady wizard?’

Stood in the hallway, the wizard woman looked fit to drop, her eyes sunk in bruises of weariness. She spoke before Zurenne could ask what she wanted. ‘We need message slips and cylinders.’

‘For courier doves?’ Zurenne rebuked herself. What else would they be for? ‘Yes, I have some in my writing box.’

The night’s incessant mumble from the Great Hall grew momentarily louder. Then someone shut the door below on those who’d arrived bruised or with broken bones, trampled in some rush of panic to escape the corsairs. Belated terror had struck down several greybeards and crones with apoplexy on the road while other families had arrived with invalids and ailing children already loaded onto handcarts.

Zurenne was stricken with guilt. She should go downstairs and make certain that her orders had been heeded. She’d decreed that suckling babes and their mothers couldn’t be left to the chaos in the courtyard. They must have the dais while the rest of the hall was given over to the injured. The clutch of pregnant women was to be bedded down in the shrine. Drianon, Saedrin, Ostrin and every other deity must surely pity those most vulnerable and innocent of all.

‘What courier doves do you have in your lofts?’ Lord Licanin appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘What lords will they fly to?’

‘No barony has seen fit to send doves here since the turn of For-Summer.’ Zurenne rallied to accuse him. ‘Any dealings they have with Halferan have surely been referred to you.’

Licanin waved her away, appealing instead to Jilseth. ‘Can you—?’

She cut him short with a leaden shake of her head. ‘I can only bespeak another wizard.’

‘You’ve spoken to the Archmage?’ Once again Zurenne could have slapped herself for a fool. Of course Jilseth would have done that. Then why was the lady wizard looking so apprehensive? ‘Surely he is sending help?’

‘Caladhria’s concerns are none of wizardry’s, as we have told you, first to last.’ Jilseth looked at her, heavy-eyed. ‘He tells me to use my judgement in accordance with Hadrumal’s edicts.’

Licanin’s disgust was as eloquent as it was inaudible. He strode past Zurenne to push the withdrawing room door wide. Jilseth snapped her fingers and a scatter of sparks shot through the air. Zurenne blinked as scarlet streaked across her vision to light the lamp and candles.

‘You can tell us what we’re facing?’ Licanin demanded of Jilseth.

‘Of course.’ She flung out a hand and emerald magelight slopped over the rim of the basin left unheeded on the table.

Zurenne half expected the wizardry to stain the embroidered cloth. It merely faded to prosaic dampness.

Licanin hurried over to peer into the glowing bowl. Green magelight cast upwards to make an eerie mask of his drawn face. ‘Saedrin save us.’ His voice tightened with strain.

‘What is it?’ Zurenne took a step towards the table.

‘See to your children, my lady,’ Licanin snapped at her.

‘They are safely abed.’ As she’d opened the door to Jilseth, Zurenne had heard Neeny snoring, worn out by tantrums born of panic the previous evening.

Her indignation faltered as Licanin glowered. ‘Lady Ilysh isn’t. She’s downstairs tending her wounded tenantry.’ His sarcasm indicated he hadn’t forgotten the wedded dignity her daughter had claimed. He shook his head. ‘I wager she’s ordered every linen closet and blanket chest emptied by now.’

‘What?’ Zurenne stared at him.

‘Their grasp is closing around us.’ Jilseth was studying the bowl intently.

‘Show me.’ Licanin tugged a carelessly folded map from the unbuttoned breast of his tunic. He spread it on the table; some draughtsman’s painstaking work marred with smudged charcoal scrawls.

‘They’re here now, here and here.’ As Jilseth touched the parchment, her fingertip left a precise brown dot.