The Book of Forbidden Wisdom (25 page)

The Great Houses were built on blood.

 

T
rey and Renn weren't going to be able to hold the door much longer. Already they had to stand to either side of it as the great axe blows came through the wood. They could only hope to cut down our enemies—­Leth, Kalo, the freemen—­as they came through the threshold.

My father watched as the door began to splinter.

“Stop, Kalo,” he yelled, “I order you. Lord Leth—­the Arbitrator made us allies. The documents will be void, and you'll lose the penalty.”

“They're beyond that,” I said. “I don't think Leth cares about the penalty anymore.”

A piece flew out of the door.

“Leth always had a bad look about him,” said my father.

“You loved Leth,” I said. “You adored his acres, his meadows, his mines and timber. Leth was just fine by you.”

And once, what seemed like so long ago, I had thought Leth was fine enough too.

The door was almost down.

“Trey,” said Renn. “Get ready.”

And the axe ploughed through the door a last time.

W
e didn't have a chance. I pushed a protesting Silky behind me as Renn and Trey prepared to take down at least the first man to step through the door.

I heard my father draw his sword.

“Get ready,” he said. “Angel, you have
The Book
—­you have to get out if you can, if there's a lull in the fighting.”

“I won't let them get to her,” said Trey.

“We can't be taken,” said my father. “Or we die badly. We make our stand here. Silky, we'll probably go down first—­you're going to have to fight to the end. I'm sorry.”

And that's when I saw that Silky had found a bolt somewhere and was carefully fitting it to her crossbow.

“For heaven's sake, Father,” she said. “I'm not a
baby
.”

The door was only an empty standing frame now. There was a moment's silence. As if in slow motion, dust and fragments of wood swirled in a single beam of light that came from a high window.

We all waited.

The air cleared; we could just make out two figures, one with the axe.

One spoke to the other.

“If you think I'm just going to walk into the room, you're wrong.” The words were measured, but there was a quaver in the voice.

“You're not exactly terrifying the enemy by saying that,” said the one with the axe. The voice was light and easy, ironic and very familiar.

I stepped forward; Trey automatically gestured me back, but I pushed ahead of him.

“Zinda.” I held out my arms.

“
Zinda
?” Silky leapt forward, tripped, and sent a bolt into the wall. It didn't seem the time to make a point of it.

“Angel?” A head poked in, and then Zinda stepped through. “And Golden Hair?” She embraced me.

“We're all here,” I said. “And my father as well.”

Zinda and the other figure at the door relaxed visibly. “You might have identified yourselves more clearly,” Zinda said. “We couldn't hear you, and getting down that door was seriously hard work. We thought you were the last of the bad lot and were hiding—­and we didn't want you coming up behind us when we left.” Then she gave up the pose of a warrior and put down the axe, and I embraced her all over again. And then I hugged Lark, who was staring at all of us in disbelief.

“We didn't know what was behind the door,” Lark said. “I thought perhaps it might be death.”

“Seems not,” said Zinda. “And it looks like this lot felt the same way. Last stand?”

“Last stand.”

“You all right, Golden Hair?”

Silky lowered her now bolt-­less bow and nodded.

“Bard?”

“Here.”

“Faceless Trey?”

“Present.”

While I didn't like her use of the word
faceless,
she had called him by his name; she must have grown to like him a great deal.

“You don't look so faceless anymore, Trey,” Zinda said.

“Perhaps not,” said Trey.

Zinda just stared at my father until he began to look uncomfortable.

“I'm Lord Kestling of Montrose,” he said. She looked blank. “I'm the father of Silky and Angel.”

“Ah, I see,” said Zinda. ”A father.”

I laughed. Then I held her at arm's length and looked her in the face. There were deep lines where there had been none, and her hair was flecked with grey. She would not be the same again. Not after Caro. And I began to have a hint at what I was getting into with all this feeling business.

“Why did you come?” I asked.

“We finished off the ‘Lidans,” said Zinda. “Then we had some more guests. Two women, one of whom I knew—­Niamh of Shibbeth—­came through. After that, men came looking for you; they said they were your kindred. We let them pass. But then I began to think we had done the wrong thing.”

“And then you had to rescue me
again,
” said Silky. She sounded despondent.

Zinda spoke gently. “I think you did well, Silky,” she said. “To make it so far. To survive for so long. And you've done your own share of rescuing.”

And Silky smiled. For a girl who had been about to fight to her death, she looked remarkably cheerful.

“But where's Leth?” I asked. “And the others?”

“That odious Leth,” said Zinda, “is in our custody. As is your odious brother, Kalo. You have a number of unpleasant male associates.”

“Hey!” said Trey.

She ignored him. “We had to take down three freemen and one indentured servant. I feel bad about the servant, but he left us no choice.”

“Large man?”

“With a bloody face.”

“I'm sorry for that.”

“Come,” said Zinda. “You need cool water and good food. And the others from the village will want to see you.”

“You fought the dark riders without knowing we were here?”

“They attacked,” said Zinda. “We fought. Although when I think about it, I should have known we'd find you. Trouble follows you around.” I was about to protest, but she simply smiled. “And so does luck.”

With that, we left behind the blood soaked room of
The Book.
Zinda and Lark led us to an open courtyard behind one of the dilapidated buildings.

“Lark found this place,” she said.

I recognized many of the women who were there. I had carted rocks with them, built fortifications and brought down the attacking ‘Lidans. I felt I knew them in a way I didn't know the ­people I had called friends while growing up. These were more like family. Like sisters. Silky moved easily among them, checking to see if the archers remembered the new stance she had taught them right before the attack, asking after women she had known but didn't see there, shedding tears at bad news.

I lacked her touch, but I sat, and Lark brought me water and cucumbers and dried meat (I remembered the ‘Lidan horse that had been slaughtered), and we ate our food together, and Lark told me all that had happened after we had left. I didn't know where Trey and Renn were, but I knew that they would be well cared for.

“After you left, Zinda fought to recover Caro's body,” said Lark. “It was a foolish chance, but none of us dared stop her. She took that axe she carries now and hacked her way through. When she returned she was all blood, but she had Caro's body in her arms. I tried to speak to her, but she turned away from me. The others were too afraid to approach her.”

“Is she—­” I paused. “Is she all right?”

“We buried Caro that night,” said Lark. “It seemed to help. But no, I don't think she's all right. They were like the closest of sisters.”

After Lark said that, I couldn't bear to think about it.

In the afternoon, as I stood with Trey and watched, Zinda released the freemen after first taking their weapons and then confiscating most of their horses.

One of them made as if to complain, but she cut him off short.

“Call it the spoils of war,” said Zinda. “You attacked us without provocation, and, in return, we're giving you your lives and freedom. If I were you, I'd call it even.” And even the freeman's companions shouted him down, glad to get away with their lives.

That evening we moved out of the Spiral City and made camp in the meadow beyond. Six women guarded Kalo and Leth, and any two of them could have taken the men down. I was not likely to underestimate the women of The Village of Broken Women ever again.

Renn sang as the evening drew in. I could tell nothing of what he was thinking by the songs that he chose. Some of them were comic songs; some were ballads, and he sang the lay of the Great Lady and the Invisible Mountain, perhaps in honor of our hosts. Trey and Silky and I sat toward the back. I was moody, and after Renn made me both laugh and cry, Trey got up stiffly.

“It's time we both faced it,” he said to me.

“What are you talking about?”

“You've fallen in love with Renn,” he said. “Can we just say it now?”

“Oh
no,
” said Silky.

“Please stop, Trey,” I said. “You don't know what you're saying.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Renn is different and dark and interesting,” I said. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“No. I don't really want to hear. And I wish I didn't know.”

“
Trey,
” said Silky, “don't be
obtuse
.” She was proud of her vocabulary.

“Sit down,” I said, and at first he kept stubbornly on his feet. “Trey—­please sit down.”

Perhaps he was startled at my “please,” or perhaps he was just tired of standing, but Trey sat.

“Renn's a bard,” I explained carefully. “He's also—­attractive. I'm attracted to him. That's all.”

“That's enough. It's pretty obvious what's going on with me, though, isn't it?” said Trey. “I'm assuming the way I feel is no longer some kind of big secret.”

“Well,” I said, “no.”

“But it's not fair to you, is it?” he asked. “If it ever was.”

With that, Trey got up and walked off into the twilight.

“Why did you just let him
go
?” asked Silky.

“Trey makes me so unhappy that it's confusing,” I said. “And then there's Renn.”

“You just like him because he's all
murky,
” said Silky.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do,” said Silky. “But I know how it'll end.”

“I wish you'd tell me.”

“No,” said Silky. “It's going to be a
surprise
.”

We sat and listened to Renn for a while longer, and then I stood up and followed Trey into the growing darkness.

 

I
followed him to a dried-­up riverbed. The moon wasn't up yet, but I could still make out his pale face and his light shirt.

He didn't turn toward me.

“I was proud of being your rescuer,” he said.

“We should take turns doing the rescuing. My turn.”

“Better go away, Angel,” he said. “You're all right. You can take care of yourself, and I really do know that's a good thing.”

“Then what is this about?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Trey.”

Silky, I knew, was in anguish over the rift between Trey and me.

So, it turned out, was I.

We walked down from the clearing and onto the dry riverbed. The dusk was moving into night.

“Wait for me, Trey,” I said. He stood still. When I had caught up to him, we walked together, and we were silent, although it wasn't like the old days. It wasn't a comfortable silence.

“I always wanted to marry you, you know,” he said.

“Maybe you shouldn't say anything,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I might as well tell it now. All those long years of friendship—­each day I knew I wanted you, and each day I knew we could never marry. I had no land to please your father. And I couldn't make you love me—­not that way.”

“Trey—­”

“Not enough to throw away everything and live on a sliver of land,” he said. “And then after your wedding was broken, and you came with me, I had hope.”

“Trey,” I said again, but I could hear the difference in my tone.

We had missed so much.

“I would have married you,” he said. “Even if you did it solely to save your honor. Even if you meant it about living together as brother and sister.”

“And there was a time,” I said, “not long ago, when I would have married you entirely for my honor's sake. I understood nothing. I wouldn't do that to you now.”

“I imagine not.”

“It has nothing to do with your face, Trey. My whole life I never really loved anyone. Not that way.”

“Leth? At the beginning?”

“No,” I said. “Even my father saw my indifference. But it seemed the thing I was supposed to do, and I thought it was good that I would become very powerful. I understand more about power now.”

“We all do.”

We walked on. I thought of all the time I'd spent with chaperones and attendants and those paid to protect my virtue. I took his hand.

“That feels nice,” he said.

“To me too.”

“I'll never marry now, of course. Even if before I could have brought myself to marry someone other than you, it wouldn't have been fair to her. And no woman would have me now.”

“Of course you'll marry.” His hand was warm in mine.

“With this face?”

“Have you seen the lumpish, dough-­faced man-­boys that girls trip over each other to marry?”

“
Landed
lumpish dough-­faced man-­boys.”

I dropped my eyes and looked down at my shoes thoughtfully. They were damp and muddy.

“Do you love Renn?” he asked. “Am I right? If I am, I'll never bother you again. Angel?”

“Yes?”

I forced myself to raise my eyes. Trey stood before me. All Renn's interesting darkness now looked like no more than moodiness. Renn was probably a good man, but I didn't know him at all. Love him? No.

I looked closely at Trey's face. Marred, imperfect, broken. I would have given anything to put him back together again.

I still understood nothing.

As I saw Trey now, standing before me, I also saw all the years we'd spent together. I found I was thinking of his fine-­boned hands, and how he could use them to handle a horse, a thousand-­pound animal kept quiet, controlled and collected.

I had known nothing about love; I had known nothing about my own desire. I had been stupid from the first moment of Trey's rescue, when I had thrown myself into his arms and let him take me off into the unknown.

For the first time since we had been children, Trey and I were completely alone with each other. And I knew, suddenly, what chaperones were for.

I released his hand and reached up to his face. At first he flinched, and then he caught my hands in his.

It was almost dark. A light breeze ruffled my hair, and from somewhere came the scent of wild roses.

“It's all right,” I said.

“What do you want, Angel?” He was hesitant, uneasy. And then he let me touch him.

I touched the shiny new scar tissue with the tips of my fingers. Then I leaned up, and I kissed the edges of the marred space beneath his right eye. What to do next came as naturally as Silky's aim with a crossbow was true. I kissed the left side of his face—­here, and there, and there. And then I kissed his mouth.

The voices of my chaperones and tutors and friends and family and Arbitrators were utterly stilled.

At first I could feel him hesitate, and then he pulled me to him, and I grabbed a handful of his thick hair as he kissed me softly, deeply.

I started unbuttoning my shirt, and he put his arms on my shoulders and looked into my eyes.

“Is this what you want, Angel?” His breath was short, and so was mine.

“It's what I've wanted for a long time,” I said. “I've just been too stupid to know.”

He finished unbuttoning my shirt and then pulled it down, partway down my arms. Then one of his hands was around my waist, and he kissed my throat.

A shock of pleasure ran through me. We were near the bank of the dry riverbed, and he pushed me, gently, against it, and then we were both pulling up my skirt as he kissed my forehead, my eyes, my cheeks.

“I love you, Angel,” he whispered hoarsely, and I was about to reply when out of the darkness a form in a flowing white shift materialized.

“Angel?”

It was Silky.

We scrambled. I buttoned my shirt while Trey tried to pull down my skirt and do up his pants at the same time.

“Just a moment, Silky,” I called. I was having a little trouble breathing.

That's when Trey and I started laughing softly. Trey's hands shook with laughter as we both realized that my shirt was misbuttoned.

“Are you all right?” asked Silky. She was fully visible now, which meant that we were visible to her. Trey and I looked at each other, realized that we were too close together and frantically backed away.

“I'm fine,” I said to Silky. “And Trey's fine, too.”

“Are you two
fighting
? It looked like you were actually fighting.”

With that, the laughter bubbled up again.

By the time we got back to the clearing with Silky, Trey and I were both suitably serious and covered in all the right places.

“You've been a while,” said Renn, and I thought that maybe he knew. He sounded casual, as if something had happened, but that, whatever it was, it didn't matter much to him. I had never felt farther from his world.

“I needed the air,” I said, which was so patently absurd that I almost began laughing again. There was, after all, air all around us.

“Well,” said Silky. “This time
I'm
not the one wandering off somewhere.”

I felt flustered. I needed something to sew. Something to clean. Something to occupy myself with. I found Jasmine's bridle and started rubbing it with a soft cloth. Trey went to look at the horses.

Silky came up beside me. She was close. So close that Renn and Trey couldn't hear, and I feared, for an instant, that she had understood what had happened between Trey and me. But she was a young fourteen, and, besides, what we had been doing was so impossible and taboo and, well, unlikely, that—­

I started to laugh again.

“What's happening, Angel?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I said, muffling my laughter. “Maybe it's anxious laughter. I was talking with Trey, you know. He's upset about his face.”

I suspected he was less upset now.

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Silky.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“I feel bad.” She lowered her voice. “Because I think Trey's face is so
horrible
. He frightens me. He looks like a
monster
. He—­“

“Come to the point, Silky,” I said crisply.

“Well,” she said. “I just realized something. Just now. And I wanted to check with you that I'm right. Because it's still
Trey,
isn't it? And his face won't be so scary when I'm
used
to it.”

“Oh, honey,” I said. “Soon it won't be scary at all.”

“At least it's gotten better.”

I stopped fussing with Jasmine's bridle and turned and looked closely at Silky.

“What do you mean?”

“It's getting
better
. His face isn't nearly so stiff, and the shiny bits look softer, and—­“

“Are you sure?”

“Of
course
I'm sure,” said Silky. “Or I wouldn't say it. The Aman fungus must still be working, don't you think?”

“Maybe.”

Getting better
. For a moment I could visualize such a scenario, and then I stopped—­because it didn't matter.

“You two are full of secrets tonight,” Renn called out to Silky and me.

“We're sisters,” I said. “What do you expect?” And I moved toward the horses then to be with Trey.

“I wish we could race,” said Trey. “What do you say, Angel? A race in the dark with unknown obstacles ahead taken at a pace we can't control. What could go wrong?”

“You could break your necks,” Renn's disembodied voice called out from the darkness. No privacy. No doubt my father was listening too.

“If there were just a little moon,” I said, “I'd take you up on it.”

“Bran's faster than Jasmine,” said Trey. “I'd win.”

I moved until I was as close as I could be to Trey without touching.

“We've both already won,” I said.