Beasts of Tabat (5 page)

“Two are well-pocketed,” she says slyly.

“And the third?”

“I’ll be curious to see what you think of her.”

We stand together at the gate watching the young women of the school make their way across the courtyard in the evening snow. A cluster of older buildings makes up the school, once a Merchant’s estate but now housing the Gladiators-in-training and the school’s staff. The courtyard was once a garden. Now those trees and flowers are gone, replaced with flagstones and a sawdust circle. Rubble and icy sand fills the fountain.

Piper Hill had a melancholy air, as though thinking about what it once was. But the school feels livelier, as though the buildings here welcomed their transfiguration, their annual crop of new occupants.

Lucya points to a head, dark-haired, indistinguishable from the rest of the group. “The third new one. Skye Doria. Merchant-bred.”

I snort. “Soft then.”

“You were raised Merchant as a child, and see how far you have come? Which returns me to my point: new students entering.”

I look sideways at her frown. “Yes, that usually happens each year.”

“You know what I’m getting at.”

This argument again. “You think it’s time for me to step aside and let some younger blade, Djana for instance, replace me. But you forget—isn’t the tradition that we are driven from the ring in ignominious defeat, with crowds behind us, pelting the victor with cherry blossoms?”

“You
know
what I’m getting at. Give us an early Spring for once. Winter has left Tabat late for the past nineteen years because you always play her in the Spring Games. Look at the flowers around us. The city
wants
Spring.”

“I worked hard to get where I am.” I fix my attention on the students. Snow whirls, obscuring their heron-thin forms. “Did Donati step aside for me? No, my place was bought with blood and sweat and skill. Let them come and defeat me, if they can.”

“You are like flint.” Lucya’s scowl deepens.

“I have found that I am my own best advocate.”

Her eyes are shrewd and green as emeralds still. “If need be, I will dismiss you as an instructor. It’s not as though you are much of a presence here.”

That strikes a pang. It’s one thing if I myself were contemplating severing the tie, but it’s another thing to have it done for me. Teaching the young women here, seeing myself reflected in their eyes is sweet, seeing younger versions of myself who haven’t been forced to waste years with Jolietta, who haven’t been forced to wait till the last possible year before enrolling in the Brides of Steel. “You can’t.” The words seem less sure than they should.

I try again. “Beyond the question of my financial share, it adds to the school’s prestige to have me here teaching, even if you don’t pay me half what I’m worth.”

“And what good does it do the students if they can never advance because you will not step aside?”

I shrug and pull my cloak around myself. The wind will be cold outside these walls. “I’ll think about it.” I don’t meet her eyes. Life has enough petty irritations as it is. Maybe I’ll cut my ties with the school.

There’s Skye crossing the courtyard. Great clumps of snow tangle in her dark curls. She throws back her head, laughing at something the girl next to her says. Does she see me watching? Is she perhaps preening just a trifle for me?

Not yet. I won’t cut ties with the school quite yet.

***

Chapter Five

Marten’s Ferry

Teo didn’t like the Priest’s look. His hands were clammy but his face was red as though with blushes. His forehead under Teo’s hand was scorching hot. After a few minutes of hesitation, Teo examined the spot he had thought might be a Fairy sting.

The lump that lay under the skin confirmed his suspicions. He’d seen Lidiya treat such bites. That would be best, if she did it, but he didn’t think there was time enough for that. The parasite would grow and begin to control its host’s nervous system, making it little more than an empty shell moving about to suit the host’s needs until the Fairy was finally born.

It would not emerge from the wound that shifted under Teo’s fingers. No, it would burrow deeply, then upward, till it found itself in its host’s brain, which it would devour until sated. Once it was ready, it would eat its way out through his eyes or the soft tissues of his mouth.

It would have to be removed now, before it burrowed any deeper.

He built the fire as high as it would go and put the wineskin from the Priest’s pack to the side near it where the wine could warm without its container burning. He took the metal bowl and filled it with water before sifting in the mixture of dried fish and tea that was the last of the Priest’s store; this far on the journey, he’d nearly run out, and he’d confided in Teo that he was saving it for some special occasion, but it was the most sustaining and easily fed-to-a-patient substance that Teo could find in the pack. After a little thought, he added his store of dried meat as well. For what he had in mind the Priest would definitely require sustaining.

He had not seen it done, but he had listened to stories. Lidiya had taught him the signs of a Fairy sting and what to do if caught away from the village with one.

He prayed the Priest would stay asleep during the operation. That would make things easier. But as his knife poised above the mark, Grave’s eyes opened.

“I have to do this,” Teo said to him, afraid that the Priest would take this as some attempt to escape. “You have a Fairy egg in you. I need to take it out before it hatches and starts eating inward.”

Grave’s lids fluttered, but he said nothing. His forehead was red with fever. Teo wondered if the man even saw him. How would he react when he felt the cut of the knife? Would he thrash around, or think himself attacked and attack Teo in turn? He hesitated, not sure what he should do.

The words were barely audible, a breath escaping the Priest’s dry lips. “Give me something to bite on first,” he whispered. “I do not wish to crack a tooth as well.”

Teo took the leather bag that had held his meat and rolled it into a tight cigar, putting it sideways between the Priest’s lips.

“This will hurt,” he warned. He felt the words’ foolishness as soon as they left his mouth. Of course the Priest knew that this would hurt. Otherwise he would not have asked for something to bite down on during the operation. Teo took his own deep breath, steeling himself, and set the knife’s tip above the wound.

It was not a simple job. Blood welled up in the cut, obscuring the flesh. Teo had to keep pouring water over it to clear it, eliciting a hiss of pain from the Priest each time. Otherwise he remained silent, jaws clenched around the piece of leather.

Teo sluiced the wound again as he peered into it. There. As gently as he could, he eased the knife’s tip into the dark spot he could see. The flesh resisted for a moment—he should have sharpened the knife even more beforehand—before giving way with a tiny, delicate pop. The Priest inhaled raggedly.

That would kill the egg, perhaps, but it was not enough. Left inside, the creature would rot and the flesh around it would follow its example until the Priest would have to face the same choice Fyorl once had: cut away the limb or die.

Carefully, carefully, he used the thin tip to open the egg further. Clear fluid drained out. Then there was something struggling at the end of the knife blade, bumble-bee big and fighting to preserve itself and burrow further.

He jammed the tip into it. Muscles spasmed in the Priest’s face but he remained rigidly still.

Teo hooked the loathsome thing out and took no time to contemplate it as it hung mewling and wailing on the end. He flung it into the fire as quick as thought. With a last whimper, it curled into ash.

He washed the wound once more with water, checking to make sure there were no more traces of the creature. Then, taking the wineskin from where it lay near the fire, he directed the hot wine across the flesh to keep it from putrefaction. Tendons of agony twisted in Grave’s face.

He took needle and thread from the Priest’s kit and took four careful stitches in the skin, tying it back together to close that painful looking mouth of flesh. All the time the Priest was silent and still. When Teo took the leather from between his lips, he saw that it had been bitten almost entirely through.

When he had finished, Teo brought the Priest a mug of soupy tea and broth. Grave leaned back against the makeshift chair Teo had made of mounded snow and his bedroll and sipped it. His face looked as wan as the pale moon, just rising and silvering the snow.

“Thank you,” the Priest said.

Teo shrugged, uncomfortable and unsure what to say. “You’re welcome.”

“This changes nothing, unfortunately,” Grave said. “I know you don’t want to go to the Temples but I must take you there.”

Teo met his eyes.
Why not,
he wanted to ask.
I saved your life. Can’t you let me have mine?
Teo had dared to hope it, though he’d never said it out loud. Surely Grave would free him.

But if the thought crossed the Priest’s mind as well, he gave no sign of it. He closed and buckled his pack. “I understand why you had to go through my pack,” he said to Teo. “But be aware that according to Temple law, I could have you flogged for it. There are some in the Temple that take advantage of such things. You would do well to remember it in the future.”

“But if I hadn’t gone through it, I would not have been able to wash the wound,” Teo protested. “Wounds go bad readily in these parts, particularly Fairy bites. I had to make sure all traces of it were gone.”

The Priest regarded him, knife-eyed gaze intent. “Some might not trust in your knowledge of these things. Others might have something in their belongings that they cannot afford to have word spoken of. And others might simply take a dislike to you.”

“To me?”

Teo felt oddly wounded. He thought he was a likable enough fellow. It heartened him, actually, anticipation of Tabat where there would be no expectations that he would shift into another form and he could be whoever he pleased.

Thinking about it, though, Likable Teo had to admit that the Sullen Teo Grave had traveled with so far might not have been quite as pleasant.

“I am glad to be alive. I would have hated to have never seen the Temple Garden again or smell the flowers there when the purple moon is full,” Grave said. “But I will need time to recover. When we get to Marten’s Ferry, there should be a boat there, the
Water Lily
, about to head down to Tabat. I’m going to put you in the Pilot’s charge. His name is Eloquence, and I’m told he’s a good, devout man. He’ll get you there safely.”

He clearly meant the words to be reassuring. They only sunk Teo further into gloom, as though each syllable was another stone, weighing him down, making him sink down to his inevitable fate of servitude in the Temples.

In the end he nodded and went to get more firewood.

* * *

The rest of the trip was the worst thing Teo had ever endured.

He dragged the travois holding Grave over hills and more rocky slopes. He managed to wrestle the Priest across a stream. All the while, Grave, wrapped in ever-increasing fever from the wound, muttered and threatened him, although the threats seemed not so much directed at Teo as at phantoms. The Priest called him mother at times, uncle at others, and a scattering of other names to boot.

When the main road finally glimmered through the dark line of the trees, he could have sobbed with relief. Even then, he pulled the Priest another mile before a cart overtook him. An elderly driver taking two cows to Marten’s Ferry allowed him to pile Grave in the back. Teo was so tired he wasn’t sure he could pull himself up onto the cart, but he managed to climb up beside the Priest.

He crouched beside Grave, clutching at the cart’s side for balance as the vehicle bounced along from icy rut to icy rut. Grave muttered and turned his fever-flushed face from side to side as though seeking something.

In his weary haze, Teo barely noticed when they finally entered the town. When they pulled up before the Marten’s Ferry inn, the driver helped him half assist, half carry the Priest inside.

Grave’s flesh was hot as fire, even through the cloth of his robes in Teo’s grip. What if someone thought he’d done this to the Priest deliberately? Had he? Had he been careful enough cleaning the wound or had some sleeping part of his mind woken, glimpsed a chance at escape, and made his hand falter?

He found himself thrust aside as the innkeeper, a tall woman whose brassy hair piled atop her head made her seem even taller, became involved. Hands on her hips, she dispatched a maid for boiled water and clean towels, set another to building a fire in a ground floor guest chamber, and sent a runner to summon the town’s apothecary.

Teo hovered near the door of the chamber wondering what to do. He glanced out across the main room’s expanse towards the front door. If he made his way out, what then? Surely Grave was in no shape to identify him. He could claim some other destination, find another cart willing to carry him. Hope stirred in his heart. He could make the best of this.

Behind him, there was a harsh whisper.

A hand pulled at his shoulder.

“He wants to speak to you, boy,” the innkeeper snapped.

He moved to the bed where Grave lay tangled in blankets. The innkeeper fanned the new fire on the hearth, making it crackle and hiss.

“Boy …” Grave beckoned Teo closer.

Teo stepped nearer, trapped between the warmth emanating from the Priest and the fire’s matching heat. Despite his fever, Grave seemed alarmingly coherent.

A step in the doorway. Teo turned to see a new man there, a tousle-headed blonde wearing finer clothing than Teo had ever seen. Grave’s hand lifted and fell, summoning the new arrival as well.

“Eloquence Seaborn,” the man said, moving near.

“A good … Temple worshipper name,” Grave said, eyes moving between Teo and the man. “You are the Pilot of the …
Water Lily
?”

The man nodded. Teo’s heart sank.

“Take this boy … to the Temples.”

Teo looked to the door, but the man’s hand settled onto his shoulder, companionable but firm.

Grave fumbled in his robes and drew out Teo’s coin.

“Teo.” Grave’s eyes glittered with fever. “I will be along when I am fit to travel.” He handed the coin to Eloquence and sank back onto the pillow, eyes closed, as the apothecary entered.

Teo’s coin slipped into Eloquence’s pocket, along with all his hopes.

***