Darkburn Book 3: The Gates of Kelvha by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 38

The female Riders now had an extra horse, thanks to Yaret, who had somehow cajoled a small, tetchy hack out of the stable-master. It would do for Piril, although Maeneb thought that personally she would not go near the animal. Janeya would ride Yaret’s scruffy little pack-horse Helba, because the fine-looking Poda would draw too much attention to her.

Each new arrival had a sword, also thanks to Yaret who had managed to purchase two short, light swords from somewhere or other. Where, she had not said, and Maeneb had not cared enough to ask. The new recruits had borrowed clothing from the female Riders; dun-coloured breeches and tunics, shapeless and unflattering. Not that that mattered. Indeed, it was preferable that nothing about the two should catch the eye.

Delgeb and the other women had been informed of their identity – in part. The story they were spun had almost worked. Yaret had told them that the Kelvhan arrivals were both maid-servants of the dead Janeya, who were fleeing punishment although they had done nothing wrong. The true Janeya wore her hair in tight, unattractive braids and kept her head down: she was so changed from the joyous girl of the evening in the music room that hardly any of the women Riders recognised her.

Delgeb was the exception. On seeing her, she named the girl at once. But after some grumbling, she had agreed that Janeya and Piril could join the female Riders’ forces, at least until they had all left Inner Kelvha; and that Huldarion would not be told.

Maeneb doubted if either girl would linger with the Riders after they were safely out of Kelvha City – let alone get as far as joining battle. All the same, for their disguise to be more fully effective, it had been decided that they could do with some sort of armour. Although chain mail was expensive, either leather or lightweight plate would do.

So now Maeneb was trawling the eastern market for cheap armour – a job she disliked, yet had volunteered for, because it got her out of her now over-crowded lodgings. Not that the market was any better. It was just a different set of voices.

There are too many people everywhere, she thought with distaste and dismay as she picked a way between the crowded stalls. And so much watching of each other! So much planning to defraud, and fleece, and rob!

That was how she interpreted their busy minds, at least: the complex interlacing patterns made a net of unspoken wishing and intent. It reminded her strangely of the Farwth – that impenetrable, intertwining mass of stems and trunks and leaves and reaching tendrils. There were plenty of tendrils here too, in the market, largely reaching towards money.

The northern quarter would have been a cheaper place to seek her wares but all the markets there were closed. Here, in the eastern quarter, the markets were still functioning normally regardless of the smoke that hung in the air like a grim reminder of the fire. The prosperous east did not care about what happened in the poverty-stricken north. Those shattered streets, with their pitiable denizens… Her mind sought for Leor whom she had last seen there on that dreadful evening, and did not find him. So he must be still shielding himself.

And that was because of Adon – who according to Leor had set the fires burning. She presumed that Leor had by now informed Huldarion of Adon’s involvement. She herself had not spoken to Huldarion for several days; and was thankful not to see him, with her new and guilty knowledge of the two concealed women. It was a secret and a task that she would rather not have had.

As she strolled amongst the stalls, against the stream of city-dwellers, she knew that she was being watched. It must be obvious to the stall-holders that she was a member of the Vonn. What was less clear was whether this was an advantage to her.

On the one hand, she was regarded as prey, being innocent in the ways of Kelvhan markets, and a foolish female to boot; on the other hand, she detected in the close-knit web of thought a surprising amount of interest, and even of respect – amongst the women stall-holders at any rate.

Perhaps they envied her her freedom, for despite her male garb Maeneb did not attempt to conceal her gender. That had seldom worked for her. Unlike Durba or Yaret, she didn’t have a face and figure that could readily pass as a young man’s. So she drew curious glances from those around her, although the shopkeepers – even the male ones – were uniformly courteous.

“How much for this one?” she asked the owner of a chainware store, a barrel of a man surrounded by bowed rails of flopping armour like so many sad hanging headless corpses.

“Eight drebs, si….” He began to say sir, and then, not knowing whether to switch to saying ma’am, stopped altogether.

“Hmph. That seems a lot.” She put the corselet back on the rail. It was a pity Janeya hadn’t thought to smuggle a few hundred drebs out of her castle quarters. But she had arrived with nothing at all but tears, which showed no sign of being quenched. The girl was determined to grieve, and Maeneb was finding it quite tiresome.

“Does anywhere round here sell leather armour?” she asked the shopkeeper.

He was torn between amusement and surprise. “Not here. What good is leather armour? You might have found some in the northern quarter, up on Old Tanneries Row, but…” He sobered rapidly and shook his head. “Not now. A bad business. Those fire demons…”

“Darkburns,” Maeneb said. “Yes. They are hotter than you could imagine.”

A young man surveying a nearby rail of hauberks looked up at her and laughed. “You’d know, would you?”

“I have fought them.”

“Fought them? Really? It’s true what they say about you Vonn women, then? I’d like to see you in a battle. Women fight like cats, all hiss and scratches.”

She did not bother to reply to this. But her aloofness only seemed to encourage him. He took a step closer.

“I’ll bet you fight like a cat in bed as well.” He looked her up and down. “You shouldn’t be dressing up in leather armour, and going out to fight, my girl. You’re too pretty for that. You should be in silk and lace in some man’s bed. I’d have you in my bed any day.”

The shopkeeper glanced at him sidelong, but did not intervene. The young man was fashionably dressed – pointed boots, gold shoulder tassels, red-gold hair, and a neat gold beard on his pointed chin: probably nobility. Better stay polite.

“Thank you sir,” she said, “but I prefer my life.”

He stared at her in theatrical incredulity. “A life spent in breeches on a horse? Waving your toy sword around?” He gestured at the long knife which hung, as always, from her belt. “You’re taking a man’s place, don’t you know that? Or maybe those Vonn aren’t man enough to tell you so.”

“I take no-one’s place,” she said with dignity. “I am merely one of many women in their army.”

“Too many, if you ask me.”

She couldn’t resist. “I didn’t ask you,” she said, and added as an afterthought, “sir.”

The stare became colder. “Do you know who I am?”

“How could I? Sir.” She was aware that the silent shopkeeper was now definitely alarmed. His heavy mind was becoming agitated; so she turned to him and said, “Thank you for your help,” before she walked away.

It was a pity about the leather armour. Perhaps she could return here later on and haggle for the chain-mail, if she found nothing cheaper….

However, some yards further down the street she saw the glint of plate. As she approached, a row of little suns shone down at her from the high wooden frame: breastplates and cuirasses, and the smaller crescent moons of thigh protectors. They were unnecessarily ornate and when she reached up to touch one, the plate metal was too thin to be effective. These were ornamental, not intended for serious use.

But they would be light. And thin and ineffective armour would not matter if the two women never got as far as battle. Janeya and the maid were bound to disappear as soon as they left Inner Kelvha. So these accoutrements might do.

When Maeneb peered into the shop hoping to haggle with the owner, there was no-one to be seen. So she wandered round to the back: a narrow alcove between wooden walls, that held more plate armour, but plain and unadorned this time – for it had not yet been embossed. Better still. Metal stamps bearing various heraldic crests were stacked on a high set of shelves. She picked one up and looked at it: which family was that?

She was thrown off her feet. Her heart began to race; her breathing stopped. One hand was gripping her hair painfully, another tightly grasping round her body, lifting her up and dragging her despite her struggles into the shadow of the alcove.

“I’ll tell you who I am. And I’m not somebody to be treated in that insolent way.”

The grating voice was behind her ear. She began to reach instinctively for her belt but he grabbed her wrist before she could find the knife-hilt.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said, and pinning her hands to her body with his arm he drew the long knife from its sheath and threw it away. It landed with a clatter on a pile of armour. Maeneb tried to twist free, kicking at his legs, but he was stronger. Much stronger. He pulled her around to face him and when she tried to wrench herself away he slapped her face, not especially hard. As he tugged at her shirt and she felt the stitching rip, she grew infuriated. She writhed in his grasp without success and he slapped her again, but harder: that one hurt.

“Don’t you know what women are for?” he said, and he dragged her close against his face and kissed her. It was horrible, vile, a disgusting mouth on hers, an even more disgusting tongue; it was an insult, flooding her with fury and revulsion, and when her free hand found the little fruit knife in her left-hand pocket she pulled it out and stabbed him with it in the side of the neck.

“What?” the man said in surprise, and put his hand up to the knife. His grip loosened as he paused, touching the hilt embedded in his neck, his eyes startled. She had plunged it in deep.

Maeneb shook off his weakening grasp and freed herself. He did not try to stop her. His fingers were still on the handle of the fruit knife. He seemed to be wondering what to do.

“You stabbed me,” he said, more bewildered than angry.

“Of course I did.” She snatched up her long knife from the heap of metal and ran out down the side of the shop. When she glanced back he must have pulled the fruit knife out: for blood was leaping in long pulses from his neck, spattering the breastplates that hung around him, and his shaking hand did nothing to hold it back. His sleeve was already drenched in his own blood and then he was lunging with his arms, reaching helplessly for something before he started to slump forward.

Stars in heaven, I’ve killed him, Maeneb thought as she stood amidst the miniature suns and moons at the front of the shop. The world seemed shrunk to this small space around her, a tiny universe. I shouldn’t have gone for the artery. But it was instinct. I’ve killed a Kelvhan nobleman. What do I do now?

Walk. Just walk away. There was still no shopkeeper in sight, although there were several people browsing other stalls a little further off. She patted a breastplate as if deciding not to buy it after all and strolled on down the cobbled path. Everyone seemed to be occupied with other wares and did not notice her particularly.

So she kept walking steadily down the row of stalls and across the junction to the next row. She was perhaps forty yards away before she heard the first clamour: a shout, some running feet, more shouts – for help, guards, help…

Maeneb kept on walking, just an ordinary Vonn who was exploring and didn’t know her way around. She scratched her head and in the movement surreptitiously checked her hand and arm for blood. There was none on her that she could see. He shouldn’t have pulled that knife out. He shouldn’t have tried to rip her shirt off. His own fault.

But my fault, my fault. I could have just screamed and shouted and somebody would have come to help me. Wouldn’t they, surely? Or they would have come to do nothing. Come to watch. He was a lord, he could do what he liked. Who was he? Did I kill him? Is he dead? If I didn’t kill him, then he can point his finger at me…

She found that she had walked to the edge of the stalls and now she paused, shaken and disorientated. Where could she go? Her lodgings were behind her, through the market. She could not retrace that route, not now. The castle wall loomed close upon her right hand side.

And suddenly behind her surged the rumour, swelling, growing in force, a tide of outraged exclamations. It had moved as fast as she had.

“Dead?” said a woman five feet away, her voice high and shocked. “Stabbed? What, in our market?”

Maeneb pretended not to hear; or not to understand the Kelvhan words. As a group of four men consulted for a few seconds and then began to march along the street behind her, their minds purposeful and angry, she turned to walk away from them towards the wall. She tried to concentrate on keeping her pace even, her movements smooth and languid. But she could feel herself almost jerking with alarm. Where was she heading for? There was nowhere to go in this direction except right up to the castle gate.

So that was where she went. When she walked up to it, the two guards, as usual, stood beside it with long halberds pointing to the sky. Somebody was running up to speak urgently to the guard on the left side of the gate even as Maeneb addressed the man on the right.

“I have business with the Lady Gaelera,” she said clearly.

At once he stepped aside and opened the little side door for her. Maeneb passed through the short dark tunnel and stood inside the castle, in the sudden silent chill of shadow by the high stone wall. The urgent clamour of the market crowd was shut out entirely.

What now? She could try to find Huldarion and explain to him, seek his protection. But no, she couldn’t, that would be disastrous. What, one of his Riders murdering a noble? His Kelvhan host? No matter why – it was unthinkable. The consequences.

As she stood there wondering what to do – perhaps Parthenal could advise her – the guard who was still waiting by the entrance said,

“My lady of the Vonn? Where did you wish to go?”

There was only one answer she could give. “I have an interview with the Lady Gaelera,” she said, “but I have forgotten the way to her rooms.”

“Through the inner archway, turn left and follow the long cloister to the west tower...”

“Ah, yes, I remember now. Thank you.”

She walked sedately. She was too distinctive. Too identifiable. Who had seen her, back at the plate-armour stall? Had anyone? What would they do – would they follow her in here? The chain-mail seller. He’d heard the nobleman taunt her. What would he say? She must have been seen. Everyone was seen in Kelvha. There was no privacy. Now she was aware of guards at various corners of the castle: servants in the cloister, and some half-glimpsed figure that slipped out of her line of vision. No-one went unnoticed.

She had to go to Gaelera’s quarters. It would be noted and wondered at, but so would anything else she did. And at least nobody would be likely to barge in there.

By the time she reached the west tower her mind was a tumult of fears and unanswered questions. She hated confusion in other people’s minds and now she found she hated it even more within her own. It was weakening, disabling.

The one thing she had not thought of was what to do or say after she had climbed the stone staircase and knocked upon Gaelera’s door. The cowed maid opened it and let her in without a single question. She led Maeneb to the door of the parlour and announced her in a whisper before retreating.

Gaelera sat there in the window-seat, her embroidery on her lap as if she had not moved since the last time Maeneb visited. Only her dress was different. She did not rise but looked up in mute enquiry.

“I think I have just killed a man,” said Maeneb. Her voice would not work properly.

Gaelera gazed at her for a long moment before putting down her needlework with deliberate care. Then she stood up. Some expression crossed her face but Maeneb could not read it.

“Tell me,” she said.

Belatedly, Maeneb turned her head to check for the presence of the maid.

“She knows not to stay,” said Gaelera. “And if she stayed, she would know not to hear. What man?”

“I don’t know. A noble. I think. I am sure he was a noble.”

“Come here,” said Gaelera. She beckoned Maeneb, almost solicitous, and made her sit down next to the heap of embroidery on the cushions. Maeneb looked over her shoulder through the latticed window at the empty courtyard far below. Suddenly two pairs of soldiers crossed it, marching swiftly.

She swallowed. “I was in the eastern market, shopping for armour.” She did not say why nor did Gaelera ask. Instead Gaelera sat on the other side of the pile of fabric and listened intently, perfectly still with her head a little tilted, while Maeneb described what had happened.

“You think he died,” said Gaelera finally.

“Before I left the market I heard cries that he was dead.”

“Cries mean nothing. People love to exaggerate.”

“I aimed for the artery,” said Maeneb. “There was no point otherwise.”

Gaelera nodded slowly. Her face bore the glimmer of a smile. “Describe the man. His clothing.”

So Maeneb tried, recalling his thin neat beard, the dyed and carefully curled red-gold hair, the braid and tassels. His height – tall, strong, athletic. His probable age: the early twenties.

“Ah,” said Gaelera. She stood up, went in a stately rustling manner to the door and rang a small bell on a ledge next to it. When the maid appeared she said,

“I have an errand for you. I wish for dark-blue double-twisted thread, ten yards. Buy it from the larger silk-seller in the western market. You know the one?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Wear my insignia. Ask for any news. I would like to hear what is happening out in the world.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Go now.” Once the maid had departed, Gaelera said, “She is really quite an intelligent girl. And a discreet one. If we discover that you have truly killed a man, what will you do next?”

“I have no idea,” said Maeneb miserably. “I suppose I had better leave, disappear, before I bring disgrace upon the Vonn.”

Gaelera raised an eyebrow. “Well, that could be a last resort. Come. We will eat.”

Motioning to Maeneb to stand up she led her out of the parlour and further down the tapestry-lined passage to another chamber. This was a warm room, almost too warm; for it contained a large, glowing fireplace with a griddle and an oven at one end. There was a long cupboard bearing on its top a stoneware basin and canisters and jars and open bowls of fruit and eggs.

This must be Gaelera’s private kitchen, she assumed, although it was very plain compared to the ornateness of the parlour. There were no views overlooking the courtyard, no cushioned window-seat, only high stools by a dark wood table. The single window looked onto a wall.

“We will make fried cakes,” Gaelera said. Unhooking a white pinafore apron from the door, she put it on over her immaculate gown, and tied it behind her back. It looked so incongruous that Maeneb did not know what to think.

Gaelera took up a bowl and broke an egg into it. “What do you eat in your lodgings?”

“I mostly buy food ready-made from the stalls,” said Maeneb. “The others cook. I don’t know what.” She never joined them at the table in the dank, low-ceilinged kitchen of her lodgings, but ate nearly always by herself.

“You will like my fried cakes,” said Gaelera. It was spoken like a command. She carefully beat flour into the egg, a little at a time, and added a dash of what was probably cream and a pinch of spices. Neither woman spoke until Gaelera added, in a conversational tone,

“Sometimes I have thought I would have liked to be a mother.”

“I am sure that one day you will have that pleasure.”

“No. I don’t require the husband, nor do I really want the children. They are tiresome. But I should like to be head of my own household.”

Maeneb looked around the kitchen. “It seems you have a household here.”

“A toy one. A single woman cannot head a household unless she is a widow.” Gaelera placed a knob of butter on the griddle and watched it sizzle into smoking nothingness. She spooned a dollop of her thick mixture onto it and said, “I am surprised at Meya, for that reason. She has a very comfortable life here and yet she has chosen to give it up for an unknown man and a wandering existence.”

“I am sure Huldarion is–”

“Oh, yes, I am sure he will be an excellent husband, as husbands go. But I had not thought of her as an adventurer. And I am surprised Huldarion chose her. I had thought that he would pick Janeya.” She placed a second spoonful of the thick batter on the griddle and took a step back to survey it as it began to spread. There was a crackling and a smell of frying which in other circumstances would have been quite pleasant. “But Janeya is dead. I saw her body.”

Maeneb stood like a statue. “It was very tragic,” she managed to say.

“Life in the castle often is. I really don’t know why. Life should be simple. The body could have been anyone’s, you know. No face.”

“I… thought it wore Janeya’s dress?”

“Where did you hear that?” asked Gaelera, still studying the griddle. “No matter. Please bring me a plate from inside the tall cupboard.”

Maeneb found the plates. After a few more minutes of sizzling the cakes were served. Gaelera bid her sit down at the table to eat. She was right; her fried cake was very good, or would have been if Maeneb had been hungry. But her throat seemed to have closed up. Nevertheless she took as long as possible in eating because she could not think of anything to say.

Gaelera also took her time, eating fastidiously, cutting her cake into minute pieces.

“I hear the fires are all out now,” she said after a while.

“I think so.” Maeneb felt more able to talk about this subject. “There is just the smell of smoke everywhere, and a layer of ash. Some of the Riders have volunteered to go back there and help clear up. But I have not been in the northern quarter since that evening.”

“It seems a darkburn was being kept secretly beneath the walls.”

“So I heard also,” said Maeneb, since whether it had been concealed before or not, the darkburn’s presence was certainly no secret now. Everyone knew; and everyone had a theory. “The people called it a fire-demon,” she added.

Gaelera looked up and stared into space for a few seconds. “I wonder why my father kept it there.”

“I suppose he thought it would be safe,” said Maeneb.

“Ah.” She ate another tiny piece of pancake. “But it wasn’t. It was freed. I wonder by whom.”

“So do I,” said Maeneb with feeling. She had the odd idea that Yaret had something to do with it: certainly Yaret’s mind had been all over the place lately, and although she had told Maeneb that she hadn’t been anywhere that night, Maeneb did not think she had been in the lodgings. When Maeneb woke she had been present, certainly, but not asleep. And the boots stowed underneath her bunk had been damply muddy.

“It is said that the guards failed in their duty.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Maeneb.

“Of course they had to obey my father. If he had told them to set free the darkburn they would have been required to do so.”

“Unless they found it already gone,” said Maeneb. Then she stared down at her plate, appalled at what she had just said. How to recover? “I… I am quite sure your father would never have instructed them to do any such thing. He would not have dreamed of freeing the darkburn.” She cursed herself. Her mind was as distracted as Yaret’s, or worse; for otherwise she would never have thoughtlessly agreed with the assumption that Nerogun had plotted to release the darkburn.

But why had Gaelera said that? How had she known? Leor had told Maeneb that the city had been deliberately set on fire. Maybe he had told others too… or could Gaelera’s father have hinted to her what had really happened?

Gaelera’s mind, however, was still a curtained blank. Nor did her voice give any clue to her true thoughts as she went on, musingly.

“It merely seemed the sort of thing that my lord Post-Regent might well do. He enjoys inflicting suffering, of course,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Especially if he could turn it to account. Maybe it had something to do with Janeya’s death. So sudden and unfortunate.”

Once again, at Janeya’s name, Maeneb froze. But Gaelera did not seem to notice. She stood up, went over to the fire and poured two more spoonfuls of the cake mixture onto the griddle. Although Maeneb wanted to decline hers, she found herself unable. Neither of them spoke, but listened to the hiss and whisper of the frying until Gaelera said, “But if the darkburn did not set the fires.” She paused and seemed to wait.

Maeneb felt an overwhelming urge to fill the gap. Even if Gaelera already knew.

“There is a person called Adon,” she said, and then she also stopped. Perhaps she had said too much. No, certainly she had said too much.

But Gaelera did not appear to take note of her words. Carefully she lifted the hot cakes from the griddle. The silent eating of them, and the clearing of the table, filled the space with slow domestic ritual which felt strangely weighted with significance. Then Gaelera took off her spotless pinafore and hung it up before suggesting they return to the parlour. As they sat down in the window-seat the maid returned.

“Ma’am, here is your thread. The news in the market is all of a murder just this morning, ma’am.”

“Indeed? Who died? What happened?” Gaelera put her head on one side alertly. Maeneb stared at the floor.

“Ma’am, it seems it is not clear what happened, but Lord Daravun was found at an armoury shop with a knife in his neck.”

“Lord Daravun! And who did it?”

“Ma’am, that is not known. Lord Daravun died soon after he was discovered. He was unable to speak.”

“How unfortunate,” said Gaelera calmly, reaching for her embroidery. “Were there no witnesses?”

“It seems not, ma’am.”

“And the weapon?”

“A small knife, ma’am. They say it bears the forge mark of Martun: the smithy under the north wall.”

“Ah.” Gaelera nodded. “I expect it is a local man, then.”

“The guards are investigating, ma’am.”

“Good. Let us hope they find the culprit without delay. A footpad, I have no doubt. You may go now.” Once the maid had left she said, “Lord Daravun. Well, well.”

“Is he important?” asked Maeneb, and immediately despised the query, because every man was important to himself, and his rank should make no difference. But at the same time she knew that it would hardly matter here if she had killed a beggar.

“He was moderately important,” said Gaelera, meditatively. “In himself, not at all. In his rank and family, more so. His uncle is my father’s cousin.”

“Really? I am very sorry,” said Maeneb, realising with some shame that she was now expressing true regret for the first time. Until now she had thought only of the effect upon herself.

“I am not particularly sorry,” Gaelera said. “Nor will my father be. Daravun was a self-regarding man, though generally harmless.”

“I did not find him so.”

“Evidently. How did you come to have a knife made by Martun’s smithy? Have you visited it?”

“I have never been inside it,” Maeneb said. “The knife was given me. It was a fruit knife.”

“Given you by whom?”

“By another Rider.” She was reluctant to name Rothir, but Gaelera let it pass.

“It is of interest,” she said, “because Martun is himself high-born. You might not realise it to look at him, for the man is deformed, but he is of the family of Shargun and a minor lord in his own right.”

“Then why is he a blacksmith?”

“Because of his deformity, of course. It has been also rumoured that he may have an acquaintance with the temple of Borgun.” Gaelera laid down her sewing and stared into space.

“So what do I do now?” said Maeneb miserably.

“You do nothing. You go home and wait. Behave as you would normally.”

“I’ll try. But what if I’m identified? There was a shopkeeper who saw Lord Daravun approach me...”

“Where?”

“At a chain-mail stall.”

“I will sound my father out about the matter,” said Gaelera calmly. “The chain-mail man may well decide to keep his mouth shut rather than risk the difficulties of involvement. In any case I can enquire without mentioning the Vonn. My father has ultimate say over what his guards discover. I wish to sound him out about some other matters also. It is a good thing that you came to me.” She held out her hand, and Maeneb realised that she was being dismissed.

“I thank you,” she said, standing up.

“For what?” asked Gaelera coolly.

“For the fried cakes, and, er…”

“For more than that, I hope.”

But Maeneb had recollected herself. “For your sympathy and help, my lady,” she said, with a bow.

“I have no sympathy. It is an emotion unknown to me. But you may have my help hereafter if I think it useful.” Gaelera rose from her seat, her skirt stiff and rustling around her, and escorted Maeneb to the door. “Daravun,” she said reflectively. “And Shargun. And my father. Well. There are so many interesting possibilities.”