King Callie: Callie's Saga, Book One (29 page)

He can try
, she thought.
He can damn well try.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

The morning sun did its best to blind Royth, and failed. He still saw the single traveler’s inn ahead of them, curled next to a well-trod road - as comfortable as lovers, with a gentle path to its front door. Which, odd to him, was closed. The Sparrow - “Sage,” she’d told him, and little else - lead him out of the forest, past the creeping brush and the errant branches. Her steps were well-placed and careful; she broke not so much as a twig. Royth expected it, of course, from a Sparrow; to watch her weave through the woods was impressive all the same.

He was less delighted to see her abandon all caution, and head straight for the inn, beneath the blinding sun. Panic seized his heart, and he stopped in his tracks. “What are you doing?” he hissed. “Wait for dark. Then we approach.”

“Caution’s had its day, Brother Shrike,” she said, without a stop; he could hear the sneer in her voice. “There’s no need for miles around. We can step out of the shadows now.” Royth picked up his pace, to catch up with her - but stayed cautious, all the same. He knew better than to trust a Sparrow. He had been one, after all. Sage glanced back at him, over her shoulder. “Relax, Royth,” she said. “We’re home to roost.” They were words he hadn’t heard in some time, words that should’ve calmed him with their hidden meaning: the inn was a safe house. He thought to sneak a rock from the grass, or the road proper, but decided against it. They’d notice. And they wouldn’t take kindly to it.

She strolled with casual ease through the tall grass, towards the closed door. Royth looked up; he saw the flash of a man’s face in the window above. He hurried his pace, and matched hers. Sage hummed a lilting melody to herself, and approached the door. She knocked once, twice, and once again. Royth shifted on his feet, and took breaths to soothe his nerves. The oak door creaked open; a slender, balding man in his late thirties opened it.

“We’re closed,” he said. “Death in the family.”

“We only wish to stay the night,” the Sparrow said. “We’re on our way to Swallows’ Ridge.”

“Can’t say I’ve heard of it,” he replied. “How do you get there?’

She turned to the side, and lifted up part of her blouse to show a tattoo on her ribs, on the side - the simple outline of a bird in flight. “Five leagues under cover of night, and twenty more by path of stone,” she said, as she pulled the blouse back down.

“And him?” the man asked. “Who’s he?”

“Challenge him,” she replied. “He says he’s a Shrike.” She glanced up at Royth with daring eyes, and then back to the man. “I’d like to see him prove it.”

The man turned to Royth, with arms crossed. “Why do you seek Swallow’s Ridge?”

Without hesitation, Royth showed him his tattoo, and spoke his piece. “I have left a faraway home, and travel south with the wind. I seek only a place to rest my beak.”

The man glanced around, then opened the door to let them in. Royth heard it lock it behind them. “Welcome home, Sister Sparrow and Brother Shrike,” he said, before he led them down the hall, and into the cellar. “This way.”

They walked down the stairs, and into the torch lit cellar, where he pulled on an inconspicuous bottle, and a door opened behind him. “Go ahead,” he said. “And step carefully.”

Royth glanced around the passage. “I don’t think I’ve been to this one,” he muttered. Sage took the lead, again, and he followed.

“It’s not new,” she replied. “But funny, all the same… Yom above, I really did almost kill a Shrike, didn’t I?” she asked as she turned to face him; she walked backwards with a wicked, mocking smile on her face.

“I wouldn’t call that ‘almost’,” Royth said. “I’d call it pitiful.”

Her smile turned to a withering glare. ”Pitiful?” she said. “What’s pitiful is a Shrike who can See wasting his years in a shit-bog like Barra.”

“I had my reasons,” Royth said, stony. “And my orders.”

“Orders,” she scoffed. “Please. You should be in Silenia, or Odryg, or Xie Tse - freezing your ass off in Kersik, even. And you chose
Barra
,” she chuckled, and turned around, to face forward again. “Pathetic.”

“They saved my life,” he said, “And I repaid them with death. I meant to do penance behind those bars… I doubt you even know what that is,” he said. She’d baited him into harsh, cutting words; he responded in kind. “If you have
any
regrets about what you’ve done, I’d be shocked.”

Royth’s words were met with an unexpected reaction. “It’s very easy to make that mistake,” she said, hesitant, distant. “But not all of us were born of flesh and stone, Brother Shrike. We were all something else before we became the devils in the dark.” Royth felt the wind change, and a new tension in the room rose with the air; the acrid must gave way to fresh cool, air, and he noticed a room in the distance; a room with natural light.

“Come,” Sage said. “They’re waiting for us.”

She said nothing else as they walked through the dimly lit passage, until they came to a circular room with high dome-like ceilings, leading into a pipe. Around it, Royth saw neatly organized outfits of commoner’s clothing, military uniforms, false noses, masks, and a wall of easily concealed swords and daggers. He recognized the purpose of the designs, but the shapes and make were distant to him - lethal grandchildren of the blades he’d known well.

In the center of the room was a table, and standing around that table were an older woman - somewhere between her fiftieth and sixtieth years, greyed hair, but with round cheeks and cutting brown eyes - and two fresh-faced, scowling women with nary a wrinkle. The older woman, he recognized. The woman of a hundred faces, who taught him to lie… among other skills. The others, he did not know - he wouldn’t have had reason to, after all. When he had last seen Mother Swallow, they would have been newborns, wrapped in swaddling cloth.

Mother Swallow looked up, and scrunched her little nose. “Shall I count your failures, Sparrow Sage?” she asked, bitter. “For not only is your partner is dead, but this man stands in front of me when he should be rotting in a grave.”

“He’s a Shrike,” Sage replied, and grit her teeth. “He’s one of us. And if it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have escaped.” Royth was surprised by her words for the second time in as many minutes; he didn’t think she’d be so quick to defend him. The two women next to Mother Swallow looked tense - as if they were hardly expecting a duel in the middle of the room.

“Of course not,” Mother Swallow replied, dismissive. “It was an interesting predicament. I didn’t have time to place a new Shrike, so I put my confidence in your abilities… and it was betrayed.” She eyed Sage carefully; Royth had remembered that look, which came just before the talons. He decided to intervene.

“Your confidence wasn’t betrayed,” Royth said, as he interrupted her. “She almost killed me, but was caught in an ambush.”

“I do not trade in ‘almosts’, Zstraki,” the Mother Swallow coolly replied, “I trade in corpses and absolutes.”

Sage pulled the ebony token from her purse, and tossed it casually on the table; it rattled its way to Mother Swallow, where she clamped a hand over it. “It was your customer’s decision that Royth live, and leave the kingdom in my care,” Sage said. Royth watched as Mother Swallow turned her hand over, to glance at it. She looked up at Sage, and at Royth.

“So it was,” Mother Swallow said, with a scoff. “That leaves us in strange waters, does it not, Zstraki?”

Royth nodded. “It does,” he said. “I’d say Sparrow Sage succeeded in her task. And I am here, for you to do what you will with me.”

“We will not kill you,” she sighed. “What else is to be done eludes me at the moment.”

“Then I have a proposal, Mother Swallow,” he said. “Take me back into your flock.”

She weighed it, for a moment; Royth watched as her head tilted slightly, and a thin crease of a smile appeared. “Why?” she asked. “Your skills have dulled. You haven’t the recklessness of youth. And without the trust offered in the King’s Service, you are very visible, and you are very vulnerable.” He knew what Mother Swallow played at. She sought to unbalance him; he remained calm.

“That may be true,” he said. He nodded to Sage. “But she needs guidance. And I can See. If you’re blind to those benefits, then perhaps I’m not the one who’s expendable,” Royth added. He knew it was a gamble; he wanted Mother Swallow to know he played her game, too. But he didn’t think she would take the insult so well; in fact, he didn’t expect her to laugh. Royth believed she didn’t know how.

“Hah!” she chortled. “Still sharp,” she said. “And still stupid.”

“Less than you think,” he said. “I survived under you. And not until the week I was to be killed did they realize who I was. Twenty years of trust and love, before the twist of the knife, all earned by one who’s been a Sparrow,” he gestured to Sage. “She has talent and skill, but she lacks a gentle touch.”

Sage bristled. “I have it if needed,” she said.

“I doubt that very much,” he said, as he locked eyes with Mother Swallow - and completely ignored Sage. “I’ll be her partner.”

Mother Swallow arched an eyebrow. “You know the risks,” she said. “And the deeds expected of you.”

“I do,” Royth said. He outstretched a hand, to her. “My life is yours.”

Mother Swallow clucked her tongue. “You give me far more than that, Sparrow,” she said, as she took his hand. “Far, far more than that.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

When the Duchess returned from her travels with a large collection of fabrics, many were puzzled by her acquisitions - but Caliandra knew what treasures hidden inside them. Caliandra watched from the ramparts as Bevi and Sophine brought their horses through the portcullis, laden with silks, linens and even velvet. Caliandra felt a thrill race through her; one of those bundles held the parts of Peacebringer.
Her
Peacebringer.

The fabrics were brought up to her room by a coterie of servants, and Sophine at the head - ignoring the guards outside, who thought it nothing suspicious. When all the large bolts of cloth were brought up and placed upon her bed, and the servants had left, Caliandra closed the door behind them.

“Did you find them?” Caliandra asked her mother. Sophine glared her, and raised a single finger to her lips. Caliandra asked again, quieter; “Are they here? They’re here, aren’t they?”

“Look in the velvet,” Sophine whispered, as she proceeded to unravel thin white linen, wrapped around a staff almost her full height. Caliandra watched as it dropped to reveal a rod of shining steel and unknown black wood that she knew too well, from all its years at her father’s side. Sophine laid it gently on the bed, next to the other fabrics.

Caliandra hurried to the velvet packet on her bed, and unfolded it as quick as she was able; shining back at her, beneath the many layers, was the head of Peacebringer.

“Yom be good,” she said, hushed. “You did it. I thought -”

“All things are possible with gold,” Sophine said quietly, as she approached her surprised daughter. “The only question that remains is what to do, and to that, we know the answer.”

Caliandra lifted up the axe head; it felt far lighter than it looked, as though it were all carved of wood and air. She thought it might float away. “Then you’ve called for an assembly of the Ministry?” Caliandra asked.

“Of course,” Sophine said. “I’ve scheduled it for tomorrow morning. They think it regards the matter of Eliya and Mas’s escape, with heavy emphasis on our relations with Kersik - but I think they’ll be just as eager to put the matter of the true King behind them.” She paused. “Oh, that you could just combine them now, and save us the trouble…”

Caliandra shook her head. “If only,” she said. “They’d never believe it otherwise. The greater concern would be getting the axe in, unnoticed… I know,” Caliandra said, as her voice rose to an excited whisper.“There’s a passage in the servant’s room, next door. It goes through the back rooms, into the study. If we keep the parts there, and the head of the axe is put into a bag, I can manage it.”

“And do not forget the proof,” Sophine said, looking at the lumpier bags. “You’ll have to leave them in the passage behind you.” Sophine sighed. “I suppose I should be grateful,” she muttered. “All those years of disobedience will finally bear fruit.”

Caliandra lay the axe head back on the velvet, and ran her fingers over it. It was breathlessly beautiful; deadly, stately art. She could feel something inside it call to her; an urge that threatened all reason, that demanded she combine the axe with the haft, then and there. It sang through her veins, and exhilarated her with visions of taking her rightful place; it erased every doubt she had about losing Iaen, about her own strength, and about her future. And in that moment, she knew Royth was right.

“It speaks to me,” Caliandra said, as her excitement built. “Peacebringer wants to be whole again.” She looked up at Sophine with awe, and surprise. “Royth was telling the truth. It’s me. I’m going to be
king
.” Her mother’s eyes welled with tears of joy. It was a great relief for Caliandra, to know that her mother’s risks had not been in vain - and that there was pride in what her daughter would become.

“You must send word to the soldier you met, and arrange for the other witnesses to be present,” Sophine asked. “Can you do it without raising suspicion?”