Redwing (5 page)

“If you will allow Samik to escort you to your carriage, I will make arrangements immediately, my lord.” Though making it seem like a service, his father would be all too happy to comply—
sooner shipped, sooner paid
was one of his favorite mottoes.

“Do so.” Jago paused on the stairs, breathing heavily. “Damn this business, with its underground storage. They should invent a wine that thrives in the light of day.”

“Indeed, my lord.” Ziv was too smart to point out that most customers were content to sit in the ground-floor office and have sample bottles brought up to them; it was Jago himself who insisted on visiting the cellars and choosing the specific bottle from each vintage to sample, saying, “So I know what I'm drinking is what I am buying.”

Samik trailed after the warlord as he proceeded to the front door—the man knew the way perfectly well and hardly needed an escort. His mother waited to greet Jago, curtseying prettily and enduring it graciously when he grabbed her by the waist, puckered up and smacked her noisily on both cheeks.
As close to the mouth as he could manage
, Samik thought with disgust, but he held his peace.

Jago's carriage awaited in the cobbled street beyond the gate. “Allow me, my lord,” said Samik, as he darted ahead to hold the gate open. Jago went through and headed for the carriage door his man held waiting. “A pleasure doing business with you, my lord,” Samik said to the back of Jago's head. But the man had already forgotten him.

Jago had one foot on the step of his carriage when Merik came flying down the street, howling like a dervish from the Forbidden Caves. Head down, hands clapped over one eye, he showed no sign of seeing the three people standing in his way.

“Merik, watch out!” Samik shouted, but it was too late. His brother ran smack into Jago's broad backside. The man looked immovable as a mountain, but he must have been off his balance, because he fell right on top of the bawling boy.

Elida came puffing up in Merik's wake. “He got a hornet sting,” she began and then stopped in confused shock and growing horror.

Samik and the coachman, who had both jumped in to help, were thrown back violently by a snarling Jago. The coachman resumed his station by the coach steps, face stony, eyes averted. Samik stood back warily, waiting for the big man to rise so he could scoop Merik into the house.

But he didn't rise. With a string of curses, he turned on the boy pinned underneath him and began to beat him.

It was pandemonium—Jago bellowing, Merik crying and struggling, Samik and the maid both shouting at the warlord to stop. Samik's mother came flying out the door, jumped in and began hauling on the big man's shoulders, trying to pry him off her boy. Samik leaped in to help, but Jago was heavy and strong, his rage growing rather than spending itself, and they could not shift him. He had his hands around Merik's neck now, shaking the boy up and down like a rag doll. Samik's mother began shrieking at him and raining blows on his head, but she might as well have been a mosquito for all the notice he took. Merik was not crying anymore—he was blue and silent, eyes bulging in terror. Jago was killing him.

Samik cast around desperately for some kind of weapon. He could pry up a cobblestone—no, it would take too long. Merik's life was surely now measured in seconds, not minutes. There was all kinds of debris on the street, but none of it heavy enough to—

The house idol. He sat in his tiny alcove cut into the wall beside the front door, eight thumbs of solid stone, supposedly protecting the home from thieves. Well, he could protect them now.

Samik snatched the stone idol from its base and raced back to Jago. Merik was unconscious now.
God of all gods,
let him be unconscious, not dead,
thought Samik. He raised the idol and brought it down with all his strength on the back of the warlord's head. The crunch, Jago's collapse onto the cobblestones, the blood staining around his head, all seemed to happen in a slow, silent dream.

And then things happened very fast indeed. He vaguely heard his mother calling servants, sending for the bonesetter, ordering his brother and Jago to be carried inside. But Samik was inside before anyone else, yanked in the door and dragged into the cellar by his father, who muttered at him, “Lie low here until I come back for you.” He was in trouble, he knew that. If Jago died, he had committed murder, and though it would surely be found to be justified, Jago's clansmen were not likely to leave his punishment to a judge. And if he lived…

If Jago lives, I'm a dead man.
Samik was scared now, really scared. The man was a warlord—for the first time, Samik really considered what that meant, and the inherent risk of doing business with such a man. A warlord with a murderous temper. There was no way for an ordinary person to protect himself against a warlord with a grudge—and Jago would hold a grudge all right. He would hold it for as long as it took to get satisfaction.

Samik's father had evidently come to the same conclusion, for he hurried down the stairs a short time later carrying a travel bag and Samik's cloak.

“They're both alive,” he replied to Samik's first question. “The bonesetter says Merik will live, but he can't say if…” His voice faltered, and he gulped in a couple of fast breaths. His father was close to crying, Samik realized, and that scared him more than everything else.

“He can't say,” his father repeated, deliberately now, “if he will be all right, or if he might be damaged in the head.”

Damaged in the head
. The words were ominous, but Samik didn't quite know what they meant. While he debated the wisdom of asking, his father stepped up to him and clutched him in a hard hug. “He is only alive because of you,” Ziv whispered. “You have our eternal thanks, your mother's and mine. But you have put yourself in great danger.”

“Jago—how is he?” Samik asked. His father shook his head.

“Still unconscious. He looks likely to live but…same as Merik. You broke his skull with that statue. He might recover and be his same old evil self, or he might end up unable to speak, or weak in his legs…or crazy.” His father gave a strained bark of laughter. “Though as we just saw, he is already crazy.”

“He'll come after me if he can, won't he?”

Ziv nodded. “As sure as morning follows night. Samik, you'll have to leave. The man can hire the best assassins in the country—and he will. The only way I can think to keep you alive is to make you disappear.”

“Where will I go?”

Ziv was counting out coins as he spoke. “Go to your mother's land—Jago's spy network will not extend so far. I've sent for a hire coach, so it won't be identified as mine. It will take you to Guara harbor. From there you can get on a trade ship to—well, anywhere in Prosper will do. They mostly go to Shiphaven. Take the first one you can get.”

Samik nodded mechanically, trying to make his mind think ahead when it wanted to be stunned and stupid. He slung the purse his father gave him around his neck and tucked it inside his tunic, then stood holding a second pouch, unsure of where to stash it.

“Take K'waaf,” his father said. “He'll protect you with his life.”

“How long will I stay?”

“I don't know, Samik.” His father looked worried. “It will be longer than your money will last. You'll need to find a way to earn more.”

“I'll take my viol,” said Samik. At least it would be a good place to hide the extra money. “Didn't Mother always say the Backenders love music and pay a good penny to hear it?”

Ziv nodded. “It's a start. There isn't time for a better plan—the magistrate's men will be here before long, and you must be gone when they arrive.”

When Ziv returned with the viol case and a leather dog lead, Samik shrugged into his coat and slung the bag over his shoulder. “What did you pack in there, anyway?”

“Not much,” his father confessed. “Clothes, a map of Prosper that your mother keeps and—well, I tossed in a couple of small bottles.” He smiled weakly. “Thought they might be fortifying.”

Samik hitched a deep breath, trying to grasp the fact that he was about to walk out the door, leave his family and head into an unknown land. “Is the coach here?”

His father nodded. “In the back alley. Go out the scullery door and take the dog from the kennel on your way. Hopefully Jago and his men don't know about K'waaf.”

They stood awkwardly. “How will I know when…?” Samik began. His father lifted his hands helplessly.

“If Jago recovers, this house will be watched. I don't know…give it three moon cycles anyway. Then, if you have landed in a place where you can stay for a while, try to send a message. If it's safe for you to return, I'll send word—or come and get you myself.”

That was the last Samik had seen of his family.

SEVEN

R
owan had been so absorbed in Aydin's story that it took him a minute to realize that it was done. Incredible, that such violence and menace could just break into a family's life. Imagine living in a country where “warlords” were an everyday reality…

Aydin stretched out his long legs and propped them, crossed at the ankle, on the empty chair and yawned hugely.
Ettie's chair
, thought Rowan, but Ettie wouldn't have minded. Besides, he wasn't done with Aydin's story.

“How long have you—?”

“About a fortnight,” said Aydin cheerfully. “And already I am nearly out of money. My education in frugal living has been woefully inadequate, I'm afraid.” He sat up straighter and looked hopefully around the little scullery. “Kiar's Great Ax, I'm hungry. Is there any…?”

“Not a scrap,” Rowan said firmly. “Not for you or for Kiar, whoever that is.” He hadn't been bothering with a midday meal lately, through indifference as much as thrift, but now his stomach growled its agreement with Aydin. Damn the man; he'd felt fine before Aydin mentioned food.

“Look, I have an idea,” Rowan ventured. “We're stuck here for today anyway, so why don't we try to find some music we can play together and try our luck at the inn tonight?”

“There are two,” Aydin offered. “If the first won't feed us, we'll try the other.”

Two inns. Rowan groaned inwardly; he could have done perfectly well on his own in one inn and left the other to Aydin, with no need to feel guilty. Now he was stuck with a partner who played exquisite music completely unsuited to the little rural towns that dotted this part of the country. “Fine,” he said. “My point is we should practice together.”

“Yes, yes.” Aydin flapped a hand up and down dismissively, and Rowan felt his face tighten with anger.

“I can't play on an empty stomach. Wait here and I'll see what I can scramble up.” Aydin was shrugging into his heavy coat as he spoke. He turned the collar up against the rain and slipped out the door.

“WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?”

Aydin had returned with ends of sausage, heels of bread and a cold cooked turkey neck.

“That girl, the one who let me sleep in the root cellar. Summer, her name is.” Aydin swallowed a mouthful of sausage and grinned. “She likes me. I promised we would play at her inn tonight though—you don't mind?”

Rowan shook his head, bemused. Who would have thought a rich merchant's son would be such an accomplished moocher?

At last Aydin was ready to get to work. “We'll have to play your Backender music, I suppose.” He pulled his viol from the case and plucked at the strings to test their tuning.

Rowan busied himself with his own instrument, slipping on the shoulder strap and resting the box on his left knee before unhooking the bellows. He warmed up with a snatch of a simple jig, deliberately picking one of the tunes Aydin had butchered in the market the day before.

Check it out, smart-arse
, he thought, as his fingertips skipped over the buttons. Just a couple of lines, before moving on to arpeggios to stretch out his fingers. He looked up to find Aydin staring at him.

“That's…What were you playing there?”

“We call those arpeggios.” Rowan smiled wickedly. It was nice to have the tables turned, if only for a moment.

“No, before—is that what I was playing?”

Rowan shook his head. “No, it's what you were
trying
to play. It's called ‘The Cat and the Cream.'”

Aydin seemed oblivious to the dig, all business now. “Play it again,” he commanded. Then, noticing Rowan's raised eyebrows, he added, “Please.”

It was a tune Rowan hadn't played for years, except as a warm-up or when requested by an audience member. But his mother had taught him not to sneer at the old favorites. “It may be old and worn-out to you,” she said, “but people in the country towns don't get to hear music every day. Why shouldn't they want to hear a tune they know and love?”

He played it with care, driving the rhythm along while flickering—light and precise—over the melody and trills. “Like a fairy dancing on the neck of a galloping horse,” his dad used to say. And he took it fast, holding back just enough to keep the melody clear, his right knee jigging in time.

When Rowan was done, Aydin let out a long whistle of admiration. “I bought some music in Shiphaven,” he said. “And I played it right, but it still sounded like crap. All the tunes did.” He shrugged. “I thought you Backenders just had bad music.”

It was an apology, of sorts. Now Rowan could afford to be gracious. “I'd probably murder your music, too, if I tried to play from a score without ever hearing it.” He grinned. “Why don't you pull out whatever you bought, and we'll work on those tunes first?”

THE OWNER OF THE PIG'S EAR listened to Rowan's proposal with open skepticism. When Rowan wound to a halt, he tipped his grizzled chin toward Aydin. “'Twas you playing in the square yesterday.” The chin moved skyward, revealing a pouched throat bristling with several days' growth of heavy beard. (“I thought he had a hedgehog nesting under there!” Aydin joked later.) While the man gave his stubble a slow, thorough scratch, apparently as a polite alternative to saying what he had thought of Aydin's playing, Rowan quickly pulled his box out of the case.