The Fall of the Dagger (The Forsaken Lands) (41 page)

He left her then, unsettled, one part of him glad to be gone, another part regretful. Still, when he walked away from the palace later, he felt more relief than misgiving, as if a burden had been lifted. He knew who he was, and now that he knew, his parentage mattered less, not more.

Back at Proctor House he relayed Fritillary’s request to Gerelda. “I suspect she’s going to offer you a job,” he said.

“How do you feel about that?” she asked.

He hunted for the right words, his need to have her at his side a physical ache that he wasn’t sure how to express. “I hope you’ll turn it down and come with me to Ardrone. Where you could work for the Prime. Or, I imagine, for the king, if you felt so inclined.”

“The Prime’s lover
and
a king’s lawyer. Hmmm. Tempting. Such influence!”

“As long as it wasn’t the other way around.”

“The other—Oh!” She started to laugh. “No. I think not.” She grinned wickedly. “I’ve no intention of being your lawyer. I wouldn’t mind checking out the first of those professional options though.”

He brightened. “Right now?”

“Prime’s lover, king’s lawyer
and
keeping the Pontifect waiting. Be careful, Saker. All this power is going to go to my head.”

He held his arms wide and she walked into them. “How long do you think we can keep her waiting?” he asked.

“Who cares?”

B
etany.

Sorrel looked down on the port spread out below her in the sunshine, the wharves and houses decorating the curving harbour edge liked coloured embroidery on a collar. Beyond, out of sight, was the Ardmeer Estuary, and further away still, the shores of Lowmeer.

Three years since she had been here last. No, more. She had been accompanying Princess Mathilda on her way to be married. Piper had not been born.

She looked across from the back of her mount to where Ardhi sat on his horse, face miserable. “Sore?” she asked.

He grimaced. “An inadequate description. Try ‘agony’, or ‘tortured’.” They didn’t have horses in Chenderawasi, and he wasn’t yet comfortable in the saddle over long distances.

Saker, who had Piper in front of him on his saddle, chuckled. The child had clung to him over the past couple of days on the ride from Throssel, as if she knew this might be the last time she saw him for a while.

His feather piece was still around his neck, and so was Sorrel’s. They had discussed the question of how to use them for days and had reached no real consensus until the night they left Throssel. Sorrel, upset, had argued hard against using them at all until the twins showed signs of sorcery. Saker had countered using Fritillary’s reasoning. In the end, they had both looked towards Ardhi and he was the one who made the decision.

“We should trust the
sakti
,” he’d told them. “Every time we’ve been in trouble, it has acted to save us if we were doing the right thing at the right time.”

Sorrel was dubious. “So you’re saying that if we act unwisely or with bad intentions, the
sakti
won’t help?”

“When I tried to steal the dagger back from Saker, it refused to come. It had to stay with him until the right moment.”

“So what do you suggest?” Saker asked.

“I suggest you give your remaining piece of feather to Piper before Sorrel and I leave for Lowmeer, and we see what happens.”

That was where the matter rested as they rode on down into Betany. The ternion was about to split and they had no idea how the future would unfold. Saker was with them only to say goodbye, after which he’d ride back to Throssel and Gerelda and his new post. He hadn’t even asked the king for leave to go to Betany; he’d just ridden off with them again within a sennight of arriving in Throssel from Vavala.

Ryce
, she thought, amused,
is going to discover that his new Prime is not as compliant as he might wish.
There was a strength in Saker now that she didn’t quite recognise: a quiet resolution tinged with sadness, as if he knew where he was headed and accepted the sorrow that came with its advantages.

She was, if she was honest, hurt that he wasn’t coming with them to Ustgrind. After all, they didn’t know what was going to happen. Mathilda could take Piper from them for ever, and there would be nothing they could do to prevent it. She had thought Saker would put Piper first, that he would want to help them explain her situation to Mathilda. She had only to look at his face to know that the prospect of being separated from the child tore him apart.

Maybe she was being unfair. It would have been awkward for him to meet Mathilda again, given what had happened in the past, and of course he was choosing to be Prime because it gave him influence over Ryce, thereby aiding the Chenderawasi Islands. Better still, he had limited his term as Prime: ten years – which would come to an end around the time the twins were on the threshold of adulthood, and approaching the possibility of sorcerous power.

Ever since they’d left Vavala, they had been thrashing out their future paths. Saker’s was already clear. Hers and Ardhi’s were still muddy, but they both knew they’d have to spend time at the Lowmian court, and that it would be ideal if Ardhi found some way to influence Lowmian merchants.

Saker wasn’t the only one who was making a sacrifice.

I will be placing myself in Mathilda’s hands, probably for the rest of my life. I might always have to be part of court life, whether I like it or not.

Her denial of personal inclinations, though, was nothing compared to Ardhi’s. His penance for the death of the Raja meant a lifetime in exile, far from his beloved islands.

As their horses ambled on their way down the slope to the port, Ardhi drew up his mount beside hers as they followed Saker. “A smile for your thoughts,” he said, and gave her one of his engaging grins.

She smiled back. He could always do that for her: in a trice, turn a grim thought into a moment of joy, just with the way his face lit up and with the love she read in his glance.

“I was thinking of you and your future,” she said. “Worrying about how you will manage in Ustgrind.”

“Better than you think. I learned much at Javenka University, but I learned even more elsewhere. Don’t forget, at fourteen I was sailing to Kotabanta with our Chenderawasi traders, watching my elders in their business transactions. On board
Spice Dragon
under Captain Lustgrader, and when I was working for Uthen Kesleer’s trading company, I learned much about arrogance and ruthlessness and greed. All that time on board
Golden Petrel
, I was watching and learning better ways to achieve objectives. I know how to deal with merchants and traders and profiteers, the good and the bad. If that’s my future, I won’t be a helpless weevil in a rice pot on the fire, I promise you.”

“But will you hate it?”

“How can I possibly hate what I do for my people and for Piper? And for you? I will miss Chenderawasi until the day I die, but that doesn’t mean my life here will be miserable or unhappy! Never think that. It will be a challenge, an interesting life. Besides, I’d rather have a life with you in it than a life elsewhere without you.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Should I wonder where you learned to say such beguiling things to a woman?”

“Oh, I also learned when to keep secrets…”

They exchanged another smile, and she rode on, more comfortable in her thoughts. Certainly, she reflected, this time she didn’t have to worry about money. The last time she’d departed Ardrone, she’d had
no coin at all. This time, Juster had not only insisted on making good his bet to Saker, ten per cent of the worth of the
Golden Petrel
’s spice cargo, but he’d also paid an officer’s cut to Ardhi for his services on board ship. More surprising was the purse handed to her by Prince Ryce, for her care of his niece. It felt astonishingly heavy. She had not yet opened it, and worried incessantly about being robbed.

Now that is a new anxiety to have
, she thought.
How odd.

Once in the port, Saker, in his role as Ardronese Prime, arranged for them to stay at the local Va-faith cloister. While the others adjourned to the portside inn to order a meal, he went to book a passage to Ustgrind for a couple and their child. Afterwards, he visited the oak shrine and had a long and troubled conversation with its shrine keeper. When he finally arrived at the inn, he was subdued.

“What’s the matter?” Sorrel asked, handing him a plate of bread, cheese and pickles. “You look pale.”

“I just had a serious conversation with Cob Thyme. She’s the shrine keeper here.” He glanced at Piper, but she wasn’t paying him any attention. “We discussed ridding someone of a sorcerous contamination. I asked for permission to try it in her shrine, in case we need to tap added power from the Way of the Oak. Cob wasn’t happy with the idea. In fact, she said outright that killing a sorcerer’s offspring was surely safer than trying to cure her. After that she disappeared for a while into the back of the shrine – to pray about it, she said. When she came back, she said all right, we could try.”

“What changed her mind?” Sorrel asked.

“I think she communicated with the unseen guardian.”

They exchanged glances, wondering if that was a glimmer of hope. They all knew the shrine keeper was right. It would be safer. But how could they even consider such a solution? It was Piper’s life! However, if an unseen guardian approved, then maybe…

“Quite apart from Piper,” Saker said softly, “there’s Prince Karel. Anyway, she said to come back this evening after she’d made arrangements. I’m not sure what that means.”

“Did you get the boat tickets?” Ardhi asked. “When do we leave Betany?

“Yes. On the packet boat, leaving with the tide, mid-morning. By
the way, I thought it was more politic to say you’re a family. I think that’s what you ought to do once you get to Ustgrind, too.”

“I might have trouble explaining how I have a child of almost three, when I was not expecting a baby last time I was there,” Sorrel pointed out. “Would you like some bread, love?”

This last was directed to Piper, who had been patting the cat over by the fire, but was now climbing up on Saker’s knee. She drummed her heels against him. “Want!”

Saker cocked his head at her.

“Please, some bread, Papa Saker.”

Smiling at her, he tore off a piece from the loaf for her before he turned his attention back to Sorrel. “If the subject comes up, say you met Ardhi when he was working for Uthen Kesleer and you were the Regala’s handmaiden. Be vague.”

“That’s hardly going to work, considering Piper’s age,” she said.

“True,” Saker conceded, “but once you’ve talked to Mathilda, and depending on what she wants, you might find it better to pass off Piper as a child at least nine months younger than the prince-regal. It will discourage any idea of twins, for a start, if the Regala is worried about anyone thinking of that possibility.”

Yet another lie. But did it matter? “There’s no reason we can’t be married, is there,” Sorrel said, making it a statement rather than a question.

“In fact, rather than as a fiction? No, of course not,” Saker said.

“You’re a cleric. Who better than the Ardronese Prime to perform a wedding ceremony?”

“I do have the Prime’s seal with me.”

“Do women ask men to marry them here?” Ardhi asked, interested. “In Chenderawasi, it’s always the man’s father who goes to the woman’s mother and—”

“Oh, puddle it, Ardhi. We are getting married. We don’t have parents, either of us, and if I waited for you to ask me directly, I’d die of old age still unmarried.”

“Do you
really
want to wed this termagant?” Saker asked Ardhi, amused.

“Can you suggest anyone else suitable?”

Sorrel pulled a face at them. “Oh, curdle the both of you. Be
serious! Let’s do it, Ardhi. Now. At least we could be honest when we say we’re wed, as we’ll have to do in Lowmeer. They are much more persnickety about who’s bedding whom there. We can marry here in the shrine, with documents supplied by the chief cleric of Betany, signed and stamped by the Prime. How much more respectable can one be?”

Ardhi glanced at Piper, and laughed.

“All right, it would be more respectable if the date preceded the birth date of our supposed daughter, but still, isn’t Va-faith happy to legitimise relationships?”

“Indeed. You don’t have a hope, Ardhi. Grin and bear it.”

“What’s marry? And what’s a – a – term-grunt?” Piper asked, which left them laughing.

Respectable the procedure that afternoon may have been, elaborate it was not. Their simple vows were said, while touching the branch of the shrine-oak known as the wedding bough. The ceremony was witnessed only by Saker and an old man who happened to be praying at the shrine. The shrine keeper was nowhere to be seen.

After that, they signed the registration book at the town cleric’s office – in practical terms, that was all it took: a few minutes of their time. When they stepped out into the empty street, dusk had dimmed the sky and lamps were being lit inside the portside houses, the light shining through windows to make twinkling paths across the water.

“Wedding ceremonies last at least three days in Chenderawasi,” Ardhi remarked. “Are you sure we are married?”

“You have it on the best authority,” Saker said. “Me. Don’t try and wriggle out of it.”

“I had a big wedding once,” she told them, slipping her hand into Ardhi’s. “Believe me, it’s not the event that matters.”

Saker glanced down at Piper, standing at his side, holding his hand. “I do believe it would be best if I look after you tonight, Piper, my love. Would you like to hear the story about the kitty who sailed to the Summer Seas by accident?”

“Yes!” She raised a dimpled face to his and grabbed his hand. “Yes!”

“But before that, we have something to show you,” he said. “Let’s go back to the oak shrine.”

The underside of the tree shrine was lit by several candle lamps hanging from boughs, and the keeper greeted them unhappily when they returned. She was a tiny woman, a head shorter than Sorrel, with a tangle of grey hair in a matted mass down her back. She wrinkled her nose in distaste when she saw Piper. “This is the child?” she asked.

“Yes,” Saker replied.

Ardhi lifted Piper up to sit on one of the low boughs. She’d picked up an acorn from the ground and was playing with it.

Cob Thyme tilted her head, looking at her. “There’s no doubt what she is?”

“None.” Saker removed the leather thong from around his neck, unstoppered the bambu and tipped the piece of Chenderawasi plume into his palm.

Piper glanced up and saw it. She reached out to seize it. “Pretty! Mine?”

As her hand closed over the piece, she went rigid with shock, then screamed. She opened her fist and the feather drifted to the ground. In the centre of her palm, a black smudge had appeared, an ugly, grimy mark. She stared at it in shock. “Don’t like that! Don’t want!”

“She means the smutch, not the feather,” Sorrel said, as she gathered the child into her arms. “Hush, darling, everything’s fine.” Over the top of Piper’s head, her gaze pleaded for help.

Saker picked up the feather. “Piper, sweetheart, this will take the smutch away, if you let it.”

Piper had buried her head in Sorrel’s shoulder, and after a moment she peeped out to look at him. “Feather’s pretty. Can I have it?”

Hold out your hand like this, palm up,” Ardhi said, showing her.

She did as he asked, and Saker laid the feather on top of the smutch. “The oak tree gave you an acorn for one hand,” he said, “and now you have a feather from Ardhi’s land in the other. Think about how beautiful they are, and that black smutch will go away and it will never come back, because you don’t want it there, do you?”