Winter Be My Shield (28 page)

‘If you're going to blame anyone for the troubles we face, blame the priests and the clans who purged the mages a hundred years ago,' Isidro said from the doorway. ‘If Ricalan had mages of her own, Kell would never have become what he is today and all those who have suffered at his hands would have been spared.'

‘Enough of this!' Mira said, with a rattle of her beaded braids. ‘Honoured Priestess, you will treat my guests as though they were my own kin, or I will tell my elders of this insult and advise them that the leadership of Drysprings should be reassigned.' She took a deep breath. ‘Of course, I understand that Sierra's presence here is distressing to you and all those under your guidance. I will make a personal contribution towards the purification that must take place when we leave — but only if you leave me and my guests in peace tonight.'

The old woman frowned, her parchment skin settling into a landscape of creased folds. ‘Will you swear to me on the honour of your clan that you'll leave in the morning? I have my village to think of as well. It's bad enough that she's brought her taint into the temple grounds — I don't want her contaminating those innocent lives as well.'

‘We will be riding out early,' Mira said and then frowned at Isidro, still clinging to the doorway to keep his feet. ‘With the possible exception of Isidro. If he is not strong enough to ride out with us, he may have to remain as your guest for a few days longer, until he recovers.'

‘That won't be necessary,' Isidro said. ‘I just need a few hours' sleep. I'll be fine in the morning.'

Grateful for the distraction, Sierra turned her back on the priests and went to his side.

Isidro let her and Rhia shepherd him through the doorway and into the chamber. It was small but well appointed — a wide stone platform running along the far wall was heated by flues beneath, well padded with mats of grass and felt to provide a warm bed. Without any prompting, Isidro lay down and covered his eyes with his good hand while Sierra sat by his feet to pull off his boots. ‘I'll be alright in the morning,' he said again.

While Cam went to fetch their gear, Sierra shifted the lamps so they wouldn't shine in Isidro's eyes and Rhia ducked out through the curtained doorway to speak to the temple's physician. Heavy curtains sewn from layers of cloth hung over the lattice panels to keep noise and draughts out but Sierra could just hear their murmured conversation beyond the partition.

‘Do you really think it's wise to let the sorcerer remain so close to a sick man?' the physician said. ‘She seems to care for him, but surely there's great danger in letting her stay.'

‘I'm not pleased by it either,' Rhia said. ‘But he's fond of her and grows upset if anyone tries to separate them. Lady Mira has promised we will leave tomorrow and if he is not well enough to travel, well then, the parting will be unavoidable. Now, his arm is very swollen — you will have to replace the bandages and splints once it goes down …'

Isidro lifted his head. ‘What are they talking about? I can't quite hear it from here.'

Sierra shook her head. ‘Neither can I — it's too muffled. Here, let me help you take that coat off.'

He'd grown even thinner over the last few days and Sierra began to fear that Mira and Rhia were right and it would take much more than a night's rest to restore him. Earlier that afternoon she'd steeled herself to leave him behind, but now she couldn't bear the thought of riding away and leaving him so weak and defenceless.

Cam returned with their bedding and gear, followed by a temple servant bearing bowls of stew set out on a tray. She wore the plain grey wrap of a temple dependant and, though her eyes flickered to Sierra's face, she stopped short of meeting her gaze, instead thrusting the tray towards Sierra and retreating without a word, not responding at all when Sierra managed to stammer out some thanks.

Cam took the tray from her and set it down on a stool. ‘I think she's deaf,' he said. ‘The cook was talking to her like a halfwit when he told her to bring the food.'

Sierra kept herself from glancing at Isidro, hoping desperately that he hadn't noticed the woman. Becoming a temple servant was the last resort for the crippled and the destitute, those who had no families or whose kin lacked the means or the will to care for them. They were fed and clothed but it was a mean existence and one Isidro was destined for if the Wolf Clan didn't make good on their promise to shelter him — if the king's men didn't find him first.

Cam kept his eyes lowered as he examined the meal and Sierra had no doubt he was thinking the same thing.

When he passed the bowls around the scent of food made Sierra's stomach growl, reminding her she hadn't eaten since noon. Isidro accepted his without enthusiasm and when he smelled it he blanched and handed it back. ‘I'm not hungry.'

‘Eat it — for pity's sake, you're skin and bone.'

Isidro shook his head and pushed it away. ‘Take it — the smell is turning my stomach.'

Sierra set the earthenware lid back on it to keep the heat and the odours in. ‘I'll put it here by your bed,' she said, shifting a lamp along the shelf near his head to make room. ‘So you can reach it if you get hungry during the night.'

He nodded once and then settled back into his furs. ‘Will you sleep here tonight? I want you nearby, in case …'

‘Of course,' she said.

‘You might as well use Isidro's bedding,' Cam said, shoving a bundle of blankets and furs her way. ‘We can find you some more in the morning.'

‘I'm not sure how,' Sierra said. ‘I've nothing of value to trade and I doubt that either the priests or the Wolf Clan will be moved to charity.'

‘Oh, I'm sure I can convince Mira to replace it,' Cam said. ‘Sirri … there's something you should think about. You might be better off following your original plan and striking out on your own.'

Sierra paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth. ‘Why?' she said. ‘Because it worked so well the first time?' Then Isidro turned his head towards them and Sierra felt her heart sink. ‘Is it because of Isidro? I know it's my fault he's hurt again.'

Cam raised his hands in a gesture of peace. ‘That's not it at all. I'm talking about you. We pushed Mira into this truce, but there's no way of knowing how it'll end. The Wolf Clan is known for its intolerance of sorcery. Chances are the clan will turn on you again and this time they'll make sure you don't see them coming.'

Sierra looked from him to Isidro and back again. ‘You think I should leave?'

‘It's an option,' Cam said. ‘I can convince Mira to give you the supplies and money you'd need and she's too spooked by all this to set someone on your trail again.'

‘But … Rasten knows where you are. The Wolf Clan can't protect you from him and if I disappear you'll be the first ones he hunts down …'

Cam and Isidro exchanged a glance. ‘To be perfectly honest,' Cam said, ‘our chances of making it to midsummer were never that great.'

‘We're dead men walking,' Isidro said. ‘Have been for years.'

Sierra shook her head. ‘No. I can't do it. You … The two of you are the only friends I have and I won't abandon you again. If it comes to the worst we'll go down fighting together, I promise you that. But I won't leave.'

 

Cam slept poorly, even though he was weary to the bone. When he woke in the belly of the night to hear soft music playing, he knew he wasn't the only one failing to find any rest.

Music was a rare thing in his world. In the years he'd lived among the Raiders, singing came on the nights after a successful raid, drunken bawls of triumph as the spoils were shared out and any women taken
captive were passed around. This was different: a delicate and complex air plucked from the strings of a fine instrument. It was intriguing enough to make him pull on his clothes and seek it out.

He followed the sound out into the common room. After so many years of living rough in the wilderness, wandering alone through the Priests' Hall seemed surreal. The temple was by no means a rich one — the hot springs for which it had been established had dried up suddenly nearly a hundred years before. The temple had gone into a long decline but the stonework and the carvings within the hall were freshly painted and the embroidered blankets hanging across doorways and over the latticework were bright and clean. In his stained and filthy clothes Cam felt like a beggar in a palace.

The music led him through the doorway in the stove-wall and into the kitchen — and that was like kitchens everywhere. Shelves bolted against the walls held leaning stacks of bowls and wooden utensils, and blackened pots hung from hooks in the ceiling. Baskets of wood and kindling had been shoved against the wall to wait until morning and a couple of cauldrons bubbled sluggishly as tomorrow's breakfast simmered over dying coals. A collection of buckets had been left around the stove, each one containing a block of ice set out to melt overnight in the kitchen's lingering warmth.

Against one wall was a wide bench where the head cook could sit and oversee all the activity in the kitchen. Mira sat upon it with her legs crossed and her back against the wall. With her head bowed she held her setar nestled in her lap as her fingers danced over the strings. At the scrape of his boot on the stone floor she looked up with a little gasp of surprise and her fingers faltered.

‘Cam! You startled me! I didn't think anyone would be able to hear me if I played in here.'

Cam shrugged. ‘I was already awake.'

Mira shifted along on the bench and beckoned to him to join her. She had changed from her travelling clothes into garments more befitting a member of the ruling clans. Her jacket had wide, full sleeves embroidered in bright colours, the sort that would be ruined by heavy work like cooking or tending the fire but would hang gracefully from her wrist while she played. ‘I couldn't sleep either,' she said as Cam settled beside her and stretched his feet out to the stove. ‘I kept having bad dreams.'

‘Rasten?'

Mira nodded, running her fingers nervously along the strings. ‘I've really messed this up, haven't I?'

The quaver in her voice tugged something inside of him and Cam wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Isidro didn't get along with Mira. He thought she was too much a creature of politics, too steeped in a life of expediency and power-play to ever be trusted. And Mira, since she was a politician born and bred, sensed Isidro's distrust and was always on her guard around him, but with Cam she let her defences down. She'd invited him to her furs on a whim back when she first met the pair of fugitives and found a safe haven for them in the service of her clan.

Ruhavera was full of men vying for Mira's attention. As daughter of the clan chief, her favour was a prize the young bloods of Ricalan's nobility fought over. Prince or not, Cam had never expected to hold her interest, but the relationship had persisted even after he and Isidro took up their positions among the Raiders and was renewed every time they could snatch a night or a few hours together. Cam knew it was more friendship than love and had no doubt that Mira had other men back in Ruhavera. Fidelity was only expected upon marriage and perhaps not even then for someone so highly placed as the chieftain's heir, although it would be a different matter once she was married to Grand Duke Osebian Angessovar.

‘Well,' Cam said. ‘Sending those men after Sierra wasn't the best decision you could have made, but it's worked out for the best. If Isidro hadn't seen them and gone after her, there's a good chance Rasten would have taken her back tonight.'

‘Ah, Isidro …' Mira swept her braids back from her face. ‘I still feel sick over what's happened to him. No matter what the elders say, he was wounded in our service and we're honour-bound to provide for him. But when they hear about this … I'll have to be very careful how I explain it all. You know how they view sorcery. There were some who were dead against sheltering Isidro at all. Even with his father's bloodlines they would have excluded him because of his mother's taint. Rhia told me he's sleeping with her — if the clan hears of this everything I've put in place will come unravelled.'

Cam's heart sank. The Wolf Clan was his only hope of finding a safe haven for Isidro. If they turned him out no one else would dare take him in. ‘By the Black Sun, is it as bad as that?'

Mira nodded. ‘I didn't tell you earlier because I didn't want to worry you. I thought it was all settled, but now … ye Gods, I always thought the priests were exaggerating when they said a mage can poison everything around them, just by being there, but it's true!'

‘Mira, that's nothing but superstition —'

‘Is it? Look at you. You found this little mage half-dead in the snow and carried her home. No one could blame you for that — anyone would have done the same — but within a few days a Mesentreian officer in the middle of nowhere recognises you. Next thing you know, one of your band is dead, another injured and you're running for your lives with Lord Rasten on your trail. Tonight Isidro set out to help her only to end up hurt all over again.' She gave him a sidelong look. ‘And you're hurt, too, I know. I can see it in your face when you move.'

Cam remembered the dreadful cold as Rasten had pinned him down to the ice. The palm-sized welts on his chest throbbed and stung despite the salve Rhia had given him.

‘And it's not over yet,' Mira went on. ‘Once word reaches the clan that I called a truce with her, they'll turn on me. We have factions of our own and there are plenty who like to picture themselves in Lady Tarya's place. If I was there I might have a chance to make them see it my way but I can't go home now. We have to chase after Rasten. Our only hope is to kill him before he can return to his master.' Mira dropped her head into her hands. ‘Perhaps you should have let Rasten take her. Let her bring disaster down upon them instead.'