Blood Witch (13 page)

Yenic held onto
Barruch's reins, arguing with the giant with every inch of his body
and punctuating his words with short jabs of the reins.

Alaysha stepped
close enough to take them from Yenic and touched Barruch's white
spot affectionately. He backstepped away from her, turning his nose
discretely away. She couldn't say she blamed him; he probably
believed she'd neglected him and left him to Yenic and Aedus, two
people he loved but who she doubted fed him parsnips or peaches,
knowing his penchant for breaking wind afterwards.

"Everything is
fine, Old Man," she murmured. "I haven't forgotten you."

He sniffled at her
ribcage, and whinnied shortly. He was ever mindful of blood. For a
warhorse, he was terribly finicky.

"This isn't the
time," she told him and turned to ask what the plan was of the
men.

The men's voices
rose, Gael's blowing over Barruch's back to where Alaysha stood,
trying to re-establish trust with her mount.

"You're not
going," Gael was saying, to Yenic or herself, she wasn't sure.

Saxa's hands had
begun wringing around each other as she tried to explain that she'd
only gone to the garden for a moment.

"Did you see
anyone?" Gael's mount snorted, almost echoing its master's
disposition.

Saxa shook her
head. "Just an arrow in his bed. Oh Deities. My boy."

In the end, it was Yenic who left on Barruch and
Alaysha had to content herself with trifling things that could seem
useful if looked at hard enough: chief among them collecting Aedus
and sending her house to house, stable by stable, to question the
good folk of Sarum. The witch at a woman's door would surely do
more to halt the search than help it, and Alaysha agreed when Aedus
said it with bald observation.

Trudging back to Saxa's cottage, Alaysha had a
thought.

"I wonder if I might make use of one of your
better linens," she asked Saxa, knowing the woman would offer it
without question. Sure enough, Saxa produced from a fragrant trunk,
a long slip of gauzy linen died the color of young grass. It
smelled strongly of lavendar and cinnamon, and another, odd scent
she couldn't name.

It fit perfectly over her head with tails long
enough to veil the lower half of her face.

"Does Yuri know Saxon is missing?"

Saxa shook her head. "There's been no time to
tell him. I haven't seen Yuri in two turns."

"Is that odd?"

Saxa nodded. "When he's in Sarum, he always
comes to me for his late night meal." Her hands began to coil
within each other, and it was only then that Alyasha realized just
how concerned the young mother was.

"You don't think Yuri has him?"

It was a touchy question but it had to be
asked.

"Why then the arrow?"

Indeed. The arrow reminded Alaysha of Edulph,
but surely he couldn't have made it back inside the city walls, and
even if he had, why steal the heir? Why not aim to kill the
leader?

It made little sense, but she couldn't think of
anyone who would be interested in a frail child not yet off his
mother's teat. She did know her father would be furious at Saxa. He
had waited long for a male of his own body to train as his
successor to his sacred Sarum.

"What of the shaman?"

"Theron? What use could he have for my boy?"

Alaysha had her own thoughts. Yuri was obviously
ill, and the shaman and Bronwyn and Bodiccia knew it, or were
hiding it, or both. The evidence as to why was undoubtedly at the
top of the parapet. She suspected the shaman had peculiar healing
habits that were not quite so benevolent as Saxa's herbal healing
methods; why else the secretiveness about who he was caring for at
the top of the stairs.

What he would do with a healthy child of Yuri's
blood to strengthen the Emir's, she didn't want to guess.

She'd had Gael to get her in the first time;
now, she'd have to rely on her own cunning. Covering the tattaus
was the first step. Gathering wild onions and carrots would be the
next. Bodiccia always fed Yuri from the fields if she could,
believing the wild things tasted superior to the growing ones. Of
course she'd let a poor harvester come beyond the kitchen door,
especially one offering sweet bounty from nature.

She would need her sword, too, and pulled it
down from its peg behind Saxa's fire pit. She wasted no time
explaining to Saxa's curious gaze, rather, set about to fool
Bodiccia into letting her close to the kitchen. From there, it was
a matter of sneaking to the corridors and up the parapet
stairs.

She found she needn't have bothered with the
basket of goods. Bodiccia was nowhere near the kitchens, and
neither were she and Bronwyn at her father's chamber doors. Instead
it was a middling youth and two burly warriors Alaysha recognized
from her last campaign. Further proof that Yuri was not within, but
was somewhere else in his fair city.

It shouldn't have been as easy as it was to pass
them by and the hairs on the back of her neck stood at rapt
attention, waiting for some small draft of movement to give them
away should someone come near. Should they stop her, or worse,
follow her, she wasn't sure how she would respond. Sending the
thirst was out of the question. Pulling her sword meant she'd have
to kill. Neither was the right thing to do, merely to satisfy some
curiosity. She realized the smartest thing to do was to take off
the veil and let them assume she had a right to be there.

She smelled them behind her long before she
heard them, just as she reached the base of the narrow stone steps.
The torches blazed in their sconces, inviting her forward, and just
beyond, as the stairwell curved, the torches were replaced by oil
lamps that guttered in the draft of air that traveled down.

She sighed and turned to the men, pulling the
veil's end and letting it trail to the floor.

The youth had obviously heard of her but not
seen her before. The shock of seeing the tattaus on her chin, black
and thick, was written plain on his face. The other two merely
looked annoyed.

"They say the witch will eat a man's soul," the
boy mumbled and reached for his dirk.

"Yours would be a pitiful meal," she said and
addressed the men when she saw talking to him would be useless. "I
want to go up the stairs. I have business."

"What business could the Emir's witch have
within his Keep?"

"What else, you fool, but the Emir's
business."

The two exchanged looks even as the youth had
taken to staring at the stone floor and clenching and unclenching
his fists as though the movement could distract the witch from
psyching him dry. She had to repress a laugh.

It took several heartbeats of staring them
confidently down, before one, the obvious veteran, nodded his
grudging assent. If the shaman or Saxon were there, these fools
obviously knew nothing. She wasted no time questioning whether it
would be revoked and moved up the stairs as quickly and quietly as
she could.

When she came to the only door at the top, with
no further hall, she paused and waited, listening for the hum of
activity that might come from beyond. Hearing none, she listened at
the door, her ear pressed close, the dampness of stone around her
smelling of moss and old earth. It would be foolish to charge in,
even if Yuri was in there, even if the shaman was in there, even if
Yuri and the shaman had Saxon by the heels and were spinning him
cruelly through the air. He could be surrounded by his guard, or
worse, by the Python-thighed Bodiccia, and while Alaysha was
confident in her abilities, she also knew in her healing state,
that she was no match for the fiercess of that woman. In truth, she
doubted she would be a match in any state. Many men were no match
for that woman, and thus the reason for her being one of Yuri's
most trusted.

No. Best she listen for the giveaway of voices
or a light cough on the other side. She swore she could hear her
own heart beating and she waited, then finally caught the murmur of
a voice, somewhere beyond the door. Perhaps to the left, close to
the outer wall. It was barely audible, but she knew it wasn't
Yuri's. It sounded like a woman's. Bodiccia's voice, it must
be.

Alaysha pulled in a bracing breath, tasted the
sourness of damp stone and held it in her lungs. If she was going
to do it, best she do it without delay. Best also if she enter
slowly, with her broadsword on her back ready to be pulled into
service.

She gripped the door handle and pushed, making
certain to keep one hand ready to grab for the sword if need be.
Bodiccia was large, but she was also fast as a serpent. And if
taken by surprise, the woman would react without thinking, not
caring who was charging in.

The door swung open and Alaysha took in the room
with gawking eyes, her leg muscles coiled for flight or fight.

Someone was in a bed, yes, but it wasn't Yuri
and neither was it Saxon. She thought she felt the rapid firing of
her heart when she realized that, that she noticed a most curious
thing about the person lying there.

It was a young girl, a teenager, really, with
long black hair and a swath of linens across her chin and neck. She
could have been a scrawny thing beneath the blankets because there
was barely any mounds of flesh to create much of a form.

The girl turned to her and Alaysha knew in the
moment it was the girl from the day of the attack. The one in the
iron Smith shop being scalded by boiling water. The eyes were
hauntingly familiar.

Strange that a girl of chattel would be in here
in Yuri's keep, being tended to by the shaman if the vials of
potions next to her on the table were any indication.

Confused, Alaysha stripped the room into bare
essence with her eyes. She stepped in and could hear a soft whimper
come from beneath the girl's bandages.

"Who are you?" She asked, but while the girl's
eyes looked as though they wanted to answer, the response came from
Alaysha's left.

"You, apparently."

The sword was pulled from its scabbard before
Alaysha could think, and she kicked the door closed so that she
could see who lurked behind it. It clacked into its frame and left
Alaysha open to the woman standing next to the parapet window.
Tall. Hair like Saxa's, but so beautiful it made Alaysha's pride
hurt just to look at her.

The eyes that look back for mismatched: one
orange the way a dying fire is orange, the other almost milky
white. A ribbon of tattaus stretched across her chin.

Alaysha heard herself stammering and worked to
get the very simple few words off her tongue.

"You're the witch of flame," she finally
said.

The woman slid forward as though she were made
of fire and was licking from stump to branch instead of scuffling
along a floor made of stone. There was barely a sound. Seemingly,
little movement. She put out her hand.

"My birth name is Aislin."

It was nearly too much to take in, but in a way
it felt anti-climactic. Alaysha had waited and worried for this
meeting for nearly a fortnight, ever since she'd heard of the
woman's existence, and now the moment was upon her.

Aislin glanced at the bed where the scalded girl
lay, her eyes in the full panic of a beast cornered.

"Poor thing," she said and perched on the edge.
Her hand went to the girl's cheek, just above the bandages and
Alaysha watched the young girl's eyes for signs that the witch was
the reason for the panic. But no, the girl's eyes didn't shift. It
was almost as though they had no ability to reason or had lost the
power to show anything but the one emotion. Only when she looked at
Alaysha did the girl react.

"I've done nothing to her," she said, thinking
Aislin must have noticed.

The witch seemed unaffected by the admission. "I
know," she said. "It's your father who has her afraid."

Alaysha breathed slowly, listening behind her,
expecting Yuri to be at her back, but no. Nothing.

"She's not afraid because he's here," Aislin
said.

Alaysha looked at the girl. "He's been telling
her stories about me." It sounded flat, even to her own ears, but
it made the most sense. Yuri was forever telling people how
powerful his witch was. Sometimes he didn't need to use a tool to
make it effective.

"I do hear that you're a nasty, heartless
killer."

Alaysha wanted to say it was true, but she had
the feeling this woman would see through the lie. "You said this
girl was supposed to be me."

Aislin's hand moved to the girl's hair, pushing
strands aside thoughtfully. "She does look a bit like you. Don't
you think so?"

She glanced up sharply and met Alaysha's eyes.
"But not where it matters."

"The eyes," Alaysha guessed and the witch
smiled.

"The eyes. Yours haven't begun to change, I see.
So you are young yet."

"I have almost nineteen seasons."

"And a full tattau you don't know what to do
with."

Alaysha made a conscious effort not to chew the
inside of her cheek or to let her hand rise to touch her chin.

Aislin seemed to notice the effort it took for
Alaysha to remain still. "It takes many years to gain the full
ribbon. How did you come by yours so quickly?"

Alaysha felt as though she'd done something
wrong and she inched away just slightly, lowering her blade, but
not sheathing it.

"My nohmah," she said.

"Grandmother."

"My aunt." Alaysha couldn't keep her eyes off
the girl on the bed. "I didn't know any better." She looked the
scrawny form over. "Why is my father telling this girl stories?
What is she to him?"

"I suspect she means very little judging by the
blisters she has on her chin." Aislin sighed and rose from the bed.
Before Alaysha could understand what was happening, Aislin tugged
at the bandage, pulling it up over the top half of the girl's face,
and the girl let loose a sob. Her face from the bottom lip was
covered weeping blisters that all but marred her skin. It looked as
though someone had rubbed soot into the sores or that she had gone
under a poor artist's needle. Alaysha had to steel herself not to
look away.