Though heir to the ancient house of Bro-heyek, Soka’s peers treated him little better than a servant, thanks to his father’s incessant border tussles and Soka’s dubious position as hostage to the court. He gained little sympathy even when the Iisand ordered his eye put out after Thevul Raakin made yet another incursion against one of his neighbors.
Soka had been nine years old then, but the memory of his father’s indifference and betrayal lurked constantly in his expression—in the hard twist of his lips and the sharp glint in his remaining eye. It was that expression that drew Metyein. Metyein understood it all too well. The two men had become instant brothers, kindred spirits. It was Metyein who secretly taught Soka swordplay, and in return Soka taught him to navigate the waters of the court, the thick undercurrents and lurking reefs.
If Soka still lived, Metyein would find him. If he was dead, Metyein would have vengeance for him.
He didn’t remember ever feeling such pain, not even when they took his eye. His legs felt weighted by heaps of hot coals—so heavy he couldn’t move them, and so raw with pain, he would gladly have cut them off to be free of it. Soka opened his eye, wondering where Pelodra had brought him.
He saw nothing.
Panic struck him like a bolt of lightning. He flipped his head back and forth, reaching up to rub at his eye, discovering that his hands were leashed to the boards on which he lay and that his eyes were blindfolded. He yanked his arms against the restraints and then cried out when pain flared in his body. He fell back, panting.
Where was he? How had they been captured? He couldn’t think; his mind was sluggish and thick and his head pounded. Then he heard footsteps and muffled voices, the sound of a bolt sliding back and the creak of hinges followed by a wash of cool air, and the smell of an expensive musky perfume. His balls shrivelled. He knew that scent. . . .
“
This
is what you brought me?” came a haughty, austere voice. The hairs on Soka’s arms prickled. Not
him
. Good Lady, not him.
“This one was
supposed
to be dead. Where, pray tell, is the Lord Marshal’s son?”
“He ordered me off. Wanted me to take this piece of
skraa
instead. What could I do?” Pelodra’s gravelly voice was high and whiny.
“Not enough, apparently.”
“Wasn’t time with your men closing in. And the master is a stubborn man, and Urviik was there besides,” Pelodra defended. “Young Vare was gut-shot anyhow. One of your men put an arrow right through his middle. Wasn’t gonna live long after that.”
“So you brought me this instead.” Soka felt a hand pushing on his shoulders and tensed.
“Ah, you’re awake. Leave us. I’ll deal with you later.”
Soka heard Pelodra’s heavy treads and the squeak and thump of the door shutting. He felt the Verit’s hand on his head, stroking his hair. A shiver he couldn’t suppress shook his body.
The Verit chuckled. “What am I going to do with you?” he murmured. “I am told you will heal.” Soka felt the Verit move away, heard the sound of him pacing, the swish of his clothing, the soft
clink
of his sword. Soka’s mouth went dry, and his heart pounded in his chest. He fought to remain still and not struggle against his ropes. Aare would enjoy that. It took everything Soka had to keep still, memories of an earlier time intruding. Then he’d been strapped down, his head wedged in place, straps biting into his forehead and chin. No blindfold then. But blindness was to come.
The room had been a card salon, with marble floors, bright red curtains and tasteful plush furniture. It had been just before breakfast. The Iisand had business elsewhere and had sent eighteen-year-old Aare in his stead. Because someone royal had to bear witness and take possession of the bloody token—the message to his father that the Iisand would tolerate no more defiance. Soka remembered drinking the draft the herbalist gave him and the feeling of paralyzing lassitude that descended. The drug prevented him from feeling the panic he knew he ought to feel as the young Verit stood over him and explained what he wanted done, his finger soft against Soka’s skin.
“But Daz Aare!” protested the healer-turned-torturer. “These are not your father’s commands.”
“Am I not my father’s voice in this room? Oppose me and you oppose him.” He paused. Soka could hear the menace in the silence like a snake crawling up his leg. “Be assured I will not fail to remember this day. Nor will your family.”
The healer made no answer but began to lay out his tools with soft metallic sounds. Then there was the sound of flint and steel and the smell of burning coals, the murmuring of voices as the healer instructed his assistants. Tears rolled from the corners of Soka’s eyes as he lay helpless. Too soon the cutting began.
“Be certain to leave the eye whole,” Aare ordered. “His are a distinctive color, and his father must see that the message is genuine.”
Soka remembered the shining curve of the blade. Dull-edged and narrow, hammered smooth and wafer thin, its elegant length filled his vision like a shining, curved tooth. Cool fingers held his eyelids open. The smell of sage sausages and stale ale puffed hotly over Soka’s cheeks. The blade slid under his upper eyelid. It probed deeper, touching places too horrifying to think about.
Soka’s mouth filled with vomit. There was nothing to do but choke or swallow it down again. His throat jerked. Then there was a tugging sensation, a levering. The shaft of the tool pressed hard against the bridge of his nose and the healer’s knuckles ground against Soka’s forehead. Soka struggled to close his eyes against the tool’s prying force, but the fingers held his eyelids firmly open.
Suddenly the tension released and he cried out relief. But it wasn’t over.
“Help me up. Can’t get enough strength on it from down here.”
Suddenly he found himself straddled, the healer’s weight settling heavily onto his chest. Quickly as it had stopped, the pressure began again. The healer leaned against the handle of the blade. Soka twisted against the confining straps, straining his head away from the blade.
Suddenly his eye gave with a soft
plop
. The healer fell forward at the abrupt release, knocking his elbow against Soka’s nose. At the same moment there was a sickening squelching sound and dizziness swept Soka as his vision shifted and split. Suddenly he was staring simultaneously up at the ceiling and down at the legs and crotch of the man lying across his chest. An unmerciful itching sensation assaulted his left eye, and there was a coolness where nothing cold should be.
“Put it back,” his nine-year-old self sobbed. “Lady help me!”
“Next part is a bit tricky,” rasped the healer, breathing heavily as he slid to the floor. “Got to cauterize the bleeders quick. Hold those needles in the coals. No, not that way. Like that. And have that ointment ready. Quicker we get it on the less chance it’ll turn septic.”
Then there was more tugging. Soka felt it deep in his skull. No one spoke to him. He was like meat on a butcher’s table. He heard himself sniveling but could not make himself stop. At last the tugging halted. The nauseating smell of burning flesh filled the room. Soka retched again as he realized it was his flesh that was burning.
“That should do it. We ought to bandage his eye, let it heal. Sewing it up now could mean serious trouble.”
“No. Finish it. Exactly as I ordered. Quickly now, the troops are waiting.”
The answering silence was thick, but soon Soka felt the work begin again. First the stitching, then the cutting. A map of his father’s lands. A permanent reminder so that neither he nor his father would forget their limits. Aare had brought something to rub into the cuts so that they would scar. After, Soka had been left in the care of the tutors hired by the Iisand and paid for out of his father’s tithes. They said little, giving him more of the drug so that he would sleep.
“I won’t kill you, of course.” Aare’s cultured voice brought Soka back to the present, to the hard table, to the blindfold and the ropes around his wrists. He was sweating, and his body was shaking. “I may yet find a way for you to be useful. I shall think on it. In the meantime, you shall enjoy my hospitality.”
Soka started when Aare’s fingers trailed over his face, lingering at his lips. “You might be amusing, one way or another.”
Soka jerked his head away. “Blinded and tied? Your tastes have become plebian, Daz Aare.”
“Who better to know than you? It’s said your father got you on his favorite mare.”
“It is a well-known fact that the men of my family have the equipment to satisfy even a horse, while yours . . .” Soka lifted his arm as high as it would go and twitched the pinkie finger back and forth. “I think perhaps you are more suited to mice and rats?”
“Do remember that you live only by my mercy,” came Aare’s clipped reply. He moved closer, bending over the table. “You are blindfolded now, but I could easily make the dark permanent. I trust you haven’t forgotten.”
Soka’s mouth opened, but fear closed it again.
Aare chuckled. Then Soka felt the Verit’s hand on his crotch. It rested there, cupping his balls. “Another thing you shouldn’t forget—you could lose these and still remain useful to me.”
Soka said nothing, the air fleeing his lungs.
Aare chuckled again. “I shall return soon. I will expect you to act then as befits your position.”
The door opened and closed, and Soka remained in darkness. He cursed himself.
Why did I antagonize Aare?
He knew better. Now he must survive, heal his wounds and then plan an escape. He must find Metyein, warn him of his enemy. He didn’t believe Pelodra’s story that Metyein had been shot fatally. It was a self-serving lie, meant to protect the traitorous groom from the wrath of his master. Nor could he trust Aare to tell him the truth. No, Soka wouldn’t believe it until he saw Metyein’s body for himself.
Chapter 16
T
here was no way to know if the sun was shining or not. The world was drawn in shades of charcoal. Koduteel huddled within its walls, a beetling mass of snow-shrouded buildings. Clouds billowed on the horizon, and the wind keened through the streets. Reisil braced her hands against the stone parapet, staring up at the pewter sky.
Today Saljane was coming home.
Reisil’s right arm was sheathed from knuckles to throat in a supple leather gauntlet. Fire-hardened oak slats had been fitted into pockets on the underside of the leather sleeve, running in flat spokes around her forearm and horizontally over her shoulder. The glove, forearm and shoulder had been reinforced with plates of boiled leather and showed both the scars of hard use and the polished sheen of recent care.
Reisil ached to hold Saljane, to scratch her fingers through the goshawk’s crisp feathers and feel the caress of Saljane’s beak against her cheek. “Come on! Come home to me!” She called, startling herself when her voice echoed in the stony courtyard.
~The wind blows strongly. I am almost there
.
Reisil grinned and waved, though Saljane was in no danger of not seeing her. Bound heart and soul as they were, she could find Reisil in a tule fog with her eyes closed.
Reisil held up her fist. The black speck grew with agonizing slowness. Saljane circled, her wings bright against the dark clouds. She plunged out of the sky like a bolt from a crossbow. Her wings flared, and her talons clamped around Reisil’s raised fist. Reisil drew her in, pressing her cheek to Saljane’s sleek feathers, smelling the goshawk’s familiar warm, musty smell mixed with the scent of evergreens and mountains.
~I missed you so much.
Joy. Belonging. Satisfaction. Hunger.
Reisil sniffed and laughed, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Right,” she said, carrying Saljane inside. The luxurious palace room held a four-post canopy bed on a broad pedestal, a hearth large enough to stand inside, a wardrobe, a closet for bathing and dressing, a divan, a handful of chairs, a table, a writing desk and a dresser. A wine-colored carpet patterned with gold leaves and fruit covered the slate floor, and tapestries of hunting scenes adorned the walls.
Reisil lifted Saljane up onto a tall perch made of red cedar standing at the foot of the bed.
~Either you have been stuffing yourself this winter, or I have become a weakling in your absence.
~I hunt with skill
.
Reisil smiled at Saljane’s smug satisfaction.
Saljane mantled, shaking her feathers like a dog. She flicked a glance at Reisil and then at the tray of meat sitting on the table.
~Hungry
.
Reisil’s smile widened. “Go ahead. Stuff yourself. You’ve had a long journey.”
Saljane leaped from her perch with alacrity and glided to the table, where she snatched at the meat.
“We have a gala tonight,” Reisil said, retreating to her wardrobe. “For the Scallacians. The city is buzzing. Hopefully with everyone gawking at them, no one will notice me.”
She paused to look at herself in the mirror before dressing. Giving in to Sodur’s nagging about her appearance, she had turned herself over to a tailor and a brace of maids to renovate her from the ragged-nailed, haggard-faced drudge she’d become. The thin, broken ends of her hair had been trimmed, washed, and plied with a variety of emollients and herbal rinses. It now shone like a raven’s wing. It was caught up on the crown of her head with silver clasps and tumbled down her back in a smooth fall. No number of curling devices could convince it to do otherwise than hang straight.
Reisil grudgingly acknowledged she did look a lot better. Nor had her wait on the gusty balcony done more than loosen a few strands of hair and heighten the color in her cheeks.
Reisil smoothed her hands down her sides. She had not worn anything so fine or feminine since Kallas, since that fateful night of Ceriba’s abduction. The memory rose jagged-edged and fierce. The person she had been forced to become since then needed the armor of leather and coarse cloth, severe hair, rough skin and the gray cloak Sodur complained about.