Chapter 78
They made it to Paislee in nine days. Dirk and Reithan pushed the horses hard, and they frequently rode through the bright ruddy nights, past small campsites set up by the numerous travelers on the road. Tia wished they’d let up the pace a little. There had been no sign of pursuit, and the long hours in the saddle had chafed her inner thighs raw. However, other than checking her hand occasionally, neither Reithan nor Dirk apparently had any thought for her pain or discomfort.
Eryk chatted away constantly, but the others didn’t talk much as they rode. Dirk appeared to have things on his mind, and Reithan seemed content with his own company. Tia hoped Dirk might be tormenting himself over the terrible thing he’d done, but she wasn’t quite ready to press him on the subject.
The problem of what to do about Dirk Provin plagued Tia constantly. Her personal vow to destroy him for killing Johan had, by necessity, been postponed for the time being. She was honest enough to admit (at least to herself) they might never have escaped Avacas without his help.
But she had another reason to delay her desire for vengeance. Dirk’s accusation in the palace haunted her.
You and
Reithan came here to kill Johan!
he’d said.
And now, because I
saved you the trouble of doing it yourself, you think you can condemnme with a clear conscience.
The words rattled around in her head like a neverending echo. He was right. She and Reithan had come to Avacas for
exactly
that reason. Had Dirk not intervened, she might be facing the same dilemma as Dirk.
Or maybe I wouldn’t,
she decided,
because when it came to
the crunch, I don’t think I could have gone through with it.
Lexie had warned her about that.
“There’s a stream up ahead,” Reithan said, interrupting her train of thought. “We should rest the horses. The second sun will set soon. We could use the rest.”
Tia nodded in agreement and followed Reithan, Dirk and Eryk off the shoulder to a small stream some distance from the road. She dismounted stiffly and led her horse to the water to allow her to drink.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began, finally deciding to broach the subject that had been gnawing at her all day. She wasn’t expecting a positive response, but she still felt that she had to ask.
“That must be a new and novel experience for you,” Dirk muttered as he helped Eryk down and led his chestnut to the stream beside her. He was always like that, bitter and sarcastic—even when she was trying to be civil. “Eryk, go see if you can find some firewood.”
“How much, Lord Dirk?
“As much as you can carry.”
The boy scuttled off into the undergrowth in search of kindling, leaving the others to tend the horses.
“I was wondering what you’re going to do once we get to Mil?” Tia asked.
Dirk continued to ignore her in favor of his horse.
“Are you going to tell everyone who you are?” she persisted. “What you did?”
He glanced at her with genuine amusement. “Are you serious?”
“Then what
are
you going to do?”
“I haven’t decided.” He turned his back on her again and continued to unsaddle his horse.
“Tia, we can settle this some other time,” Reithan suggested, as he pulled the saddle from his own mount.
“No, Reithan, we can’t,” she declared. “This needs to be settled before we get anywhere near the Baenlands. I want to know what he’s planning to do.”
“I’m not actually ‘planning to do’ anything,” Dirk told her.
“You said you wanted to join us.”
“Actually, I asked you to take me to Mil. I don’t recall volunteering for anything.”
“So you expect our help and offer nothing in return?”
“I just can’t win with you, can I?” Dirk said. “First you’re violently opposed to me going anywhere near Mil. Now I’m in trouble because you don’t think I’m dedicated enough to your cause.”
Reithan began to rub down his horse with a sheaf of leaves, a little impatiently. “Tia, leave him alone.”
“Why do you always side with him?”
“I don’t. I side with reason. And you’re being unreasonable.”
“
I’m
being unreasonable? What about him? He murdered his own father!”
Dirk jerked the saddle from the chestnut’s back and dumped it on the ground. “Don’t you understand, Tia? Until Johan Thorn washed up on that beach on Elcast, Wallin Provin was my father! I hardly knew Johan.”
“You must have felt something for him.”
“Why must I feel something? And where do you get off lecturing me about what I should feel for my father? What about what you feel for
your
mother?”
His question startled her. “That’s different!”
“Is it?” he asked, pushing past her to unsaddle the dun. He jerked the buckles on her girth strap free, and pulled the saddle off, dropping it on the ground next to his. “You’re a hypocrite, Tia. Given half a chance, you’d kill your own mother and never lose a moment’s sleep over it.”
“He’s got a point, Tia,” Reithan agreed.
“Ella Geon turned my father into a drug addict!” she cried.
“Johan Thorn turned my mother into an outcast,” Dirk replied quietly before turning away.
“I don’t
believe
you! Either of you! Ella Geon is evil! Johan Thorn was a good man. The best! There is no way you can equate her actions with his.”
“Nobody’s trying to,” Reithan said, trying to placate her. “But now is not the time to discuss this.”
“When is the right time, Reithan? Would you prefer to wait until he’s betrayed us to Antonov?”
“Would it help if I gave you my word that I
won’t
betray you?” Dirk asked, clearly not expecting her to believe him.
Tia glared at him, trying to read what was going on in that unfathomable mind. In the end she shrugged. There was no way to tell.
“I suppose if we have to take the word of the Butcher of Elcast, then we have no choice.” Dirk stopped and turned to stare at her. She’d finally said something to crack that icy facade. “How many people does one actually have to kill to be called a butcher, I wonder?” she asked, deliberately goading him.
Dirk stared at her for a moment and then he shrugged.
“Not nearly as many as I’d have to kill to be called a conqueror,” he said.
Later that evening, after they ate the last of the bread and cheese from Ivon’s house in Avacas, Dirk announced that he was going to check the road, to make sure they were still free of pursuit. Eryk hurried after him, as if he were afraid to let Dirk out of his sight. Tia was immediately suspicious.
“Tia...” Reithan warned. The night was warm, and the small fire had burned down to glowing coals. Reithan stretched his booted feet out and folded his arms behind his head.
“What?”
“Leave them alone.”
“I wasn’t—” she began, then sat down again with a guilty sigh. “All right, so I was going to follow them. How do we know he’s not leaving a message for someone, so they can follow us?”
“We don’t. But I’m willing to bet he isn’t.”
“Just remember it’s my life you’re gambling with, too.”
“Stop being so paranoid, Tia. We’re safe for the moment.”
“You’re joking, aren’t you? We’d be safer still trapped in Avacas. Actually, I think we’d be safer standing on the lip of a volcano that was about to erupt.”
“Dirk has nowhere else to go,” Reithan pointed out.
“He’s got a whole damn world to get lost in. Why, in the name of the Goddess, does he want to go to the Baenlands? What does he really want from us, Reithan? Do
you
know? He doesn’t seem interested in joining us.”
“I’m not sure he knows, exactly.”
“And yet you expect me to trust him? How do you know he isn’t just doing this to find out all he can about Mil? How do you know he isn’t planning to run straight back to his friends in Avacas as soon as he’s learned everything about us?”
“I don’t. But I
am
certain that
you’ll
drive him back to Avacas if you don’t stop goading him.”
“I’m supposed to just forget that he murdered Johan?”
“I think you’re jealous, actually.”
“
What?
”
“Dirk Provin is everything you want to be—”
“That’s absurd!” she cut in angrily.
“Is it?” Reithan asked. “I think you’re jealous that he had the courage to do what Johan asked, and you resent the fact that he’s Johan’s son. And while you’re thinking on that little paradox, you might like to wonder what your hatred is going to do to Mellie when we get back to Mil. Do you realize he’s her brother?”
“Don’t you dare bring poor Mellie into this! You’re insane and you’re wrong! I don’t envy anything about him. He’s a cold, heartless, spoiled Senetian lackey, and I think you’re an idiot for trusting him! He doesn’t care about us or what we’re fighting for.”
“This may come as a shock to you, Tia,” Dirk said from behind her, making her jump, “but the vast majority of Dhevynians live perfectly happy lives without ever feeling the need to fight for your noble and ultimately futile cause.”
Tia turned on him angrily. “The ones who aren’t burned at Landfall Festival, maybe,” she retorted. “But then, I guess that wouldn’t bother the Butcher of Elcast, would it?” It was the quickest way she knew to rile him, to call him that. “And for your information, Dirk Provin, our cause isn’t futile.”
“Isn’t it? Johan thought it was. Otherwise, wouldn’t he have done something to reclaim his throne? You don’t have the resources to take on Antonov, and you haven’t a chance of breaking Belagren’s grip on the hearts and minds of Dhevyn’s people.”
His statement echoed Johan’s sentiments so closely it frightened her. How many times had she and Reithan asked Johan why he wouldn’t do something to free Dhevyn? And how many times had Johan replied with almost the exact words that Dirk had used? She found herself falling back on the same argument she had used with Johan. “We
could
reclaim Dhevyn if we knew when the next Age of Shadows was due.”
“Ask your father,” he told her, disinterestedly. “Isn’t he the one who’s supposed to know it all?” He turned to Reithan, as if the subject was closed. “Eryk’s taking the first watch. I’ll relieve him in an hour or so. That’s about the limit of his concentration span.”
Tia was annoyed at his dismissal. And suspicious of it. He was faking this disinterest, she was certain, but he simply sat down and lay back, resting his head on his saddle and stared up at the red sky.
“Aren’t you even curious to know the truth?”
“I know the truth. Johan told me.”
“And you’re prepared to do nothing? If you’re as clever as everyone claims, then you might be the only person alive who could work out when the next Age of Shadows is due. But you won’t, will you? You’re just going to sit there and let the world roll on around you, pretending that it’s not your fault?”
“I don’t have to pretend it’s not my fault, Tia, because it never was. Stop trying to make me feel guilty about something I had no part in.”
“So you’re just going to walk away?”
“Actually, I thought
running
away would be smarter. Look, even if I was this genius everyone claims I am—which, incidentally, I’m
not
—I was training to be a physician. I don’t know anything about the suns or the skies.”
“Neris didn’t work it out for himself either, Dirk,” Reithan told him. “The information came from somewhere else. He just figured out how to decipher it.”
“What? Don’t tell me he had a vision.”
Reithan shook his head. “He found the secrets in the ruins in Omaxin.”
“Reithan!” Tia cried in alarm.
There was no need to tell him
that.
Dirk ignored her outburst. “So why don’t you just go to the ruins in Omaxin and find out for yourself?”
“After Neris realized what he’d unleashed by telling Belagren about when the Age of Light would return, he decided to destroy the information. He hid it behind a Labyrinth that nobody has ever been able to penetrate. Belagren has lost a score of Shadowdancers trying to find out.”
“What did he do? Fill the Labyrinth with man-eating monsters?”
“You could kill those,” Reithan said with a small smile. “Anyway, Neris is far too subtle to do anything so crude. The Labyrinth is a series of puzzles. If you can’t solve them—in the right sequence—they’ll kill you.”
Dirk stared at them. “And you think I could solve these puzzles? Or are you hoping I might die trying?”
“Actually, now that I think about it, either one would do,” Tia snapped.
Dirk was not amused. “Yesterday you were ready to kill me for what I’d done. Now that you’ve had a chance to think it over, you’ve decided I might have a use after all. What’s next, Tia? Are you going to suggest that I could be the next King of Dhevyn?”
“Would you want a throne you’d killed your own father to gain?”
“I didn’t kill Johan to gain his throne, Tia. And if I
was
going to kill anyone for their throne, I’d have killed Rainan, not Johan.”
“They used to call him the Eagle of Dhevyn.”
“What?” he asked, confused by her abrupt change of subject.
“Johan Thorn. They used to call him the Eagle of Dhevyn.”
Tia shifted around on the hard ground, looking for a comfortable position and settled down with her saddle as a pillow.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It just occurred to me,” she said, turning her back to him, “that the next person likely to wear that title is your good friend Kirshov Latanya.”
Chapter 79
The
Wanderer
was right where Reithan had left it, anchored in the sheltered waters of Paislee Harbor. It took most of the day to track down Blarenov, the man from the Brotherhood who was minding the boat. Reithan was finally able to arrange a meeting with him later that evening, in a warehouse near the docks. The message insisted that Reithan come alone, so Tia, Dirk and Eryk found a waterfront tavern filled with sailors, and agreed to wait there for Reithan’s return. The second sun had set and the docks were bathed in red light, but it was still early enough that the streets were crowded. Several wandering performers were doing their best to add to the general noise and confusion, blocking the sidewalks with the crowds that had gathered to watch them.
Dirk ordered ale for the three of them in the Anchor’s Arms. The noise from the bawdy songs and drunken sailors filling the place provided them with privacy better than if they’d been in a locked room out the back. They found a table tucked away in the corner of the tavern and said nothing to each other as they drank. Tia didn’t want to speak to Dirk anyway.
“Lord Dirk?”
“Yes, Eryk?”
“Can I go watch the mummers?”
There was a puppet show going on in the street outside, and a small clutch of laughing children had gathered to watch. Dirk glanced over his shoulder at them and nodded. “All right. But don’t wander off. And when the show is over, you come straight back here,” he said, giving him a few dorns to pay the players.
“I will,” he promised. Eryk clambered over his stool and hurried outside.
Tia watched him leave with a smile. She liked Eryk almost as much as she disliked Dirk.
“You’re very good with him,” she remarked, somewhat begrudgingly.
Dirk shrugged. “Somebody has to look out for him.”
“That’s what I can’t understand about you. You watch over Eryk like a mother hen, yet you killed your own father in cold blood.”
Dirk said nothing for a long moment, then slammed his tankard down in a splash of foaming ale and left the table without another word.
Tia watched him leave, gloating over the fact that she could rile him so easily. Then guilt replaced victory as another thought occurred to her. She could hear Reithan’s voice:
You
might like to wonder what your hatred is going to do to Mellie
when we get back to Mil. He’s her brother, too, remember...
What were they going to tell her?
Hey there, Mel, this is
Dirk Provin, the man who killed your father. Oh, and by the way,
he’s your brother...
How do you explain any of this to a twelve-year-old girl?
Tia was still trying to answer that question when Dirk’s seat was taken by a man Tia did not recognize. He smiled at her, looking her up and down for a moment, then nodded with satisfaction.
“How much?”
“What?” she asked in confusion.
“How much?” the man repeated. He was unshaven and dressed in a loose, sleeveless shirt and trousers made of tough material, a common garb for sailors the world over. The man glanced over his shoulder in the direction Dirk had gone and chuckled. “Guess the boy couldn’t afford it, eh?”
“The boy?” Tia said, still puzzling over the man’s question. Then it dawned on her what he was suggesting and she stiffened in alarm. “No! I mean, that’s not what he wanted... I’m not—”
“Come on, darlin’,” the sailor laughed. “There’s no need to play hard to get.”
“I’m waiting here for a friend,” she told him firmly.
“I’ll be your friend for the next hour,” he offered. “Three months at sea . . . I’ve just been paid...”
Tia swallowed the rest of her ale and stood up. “I’m not for sale.”
Without waiting for his reaction, she walked away from the table and pushed her way through the tavern and out into the street, cursing all men, and Dirk Provin in particular, for leaving her alone in the first place. That she’d driven him away with her anger and her taunts was something she wasn’t quite willing to admit to anyone, least of all herself.
Tia glanced up and down the street. The puppet show had finished, and she could see no sign of either Dirk or Eryk. She looked up at the sun, wondering how much longer Reithan would be. She hated Paislee and could not wait to be out of the grubby Senetian port and back in Mil. Across the street, a troop of Senetian guardsmen had stopped to watch a contortionist crossing his feet behind his ears while balanced on his fingertips.
“Hey! Don’t you just walk away from me like that!”
Tia glanced over her shoulder to find that the sailor had followed her outside.
“Leave me alone,” she told him. “I’m not a whore.”
“Listen, sweetie,” the man replied, grabbing her by the arm. “There’s only one type of woman who drinks alone in the Anchor’s Arms. Now, are you gonna do your job, or am I gonna have to get rough?” He clutched at her elbow so hard it was painful.
“Get your hands off me!” she warned coldly. For a moment, she debated screaming, but that would bring them to the attention of the guards, and selling her body to this persistent, foul-smelling sailor was actually preferable to falling back into the hands of Barin Welacin’s thugs. She looked around, but there was not a familiar face in sight. One of the guards glanced her way and she hurriedly looked down, hoping that if her description had been circulated, it wasn’t an accurate one.
“All right,” she said, shaking free of the sailor’s grasp and surreptitiously placing her bandaged hand behind her back, out of sight. “But not here. In the alley.”
The man smiled and let her go. “That’s better! How much?”
“Fifty copper dorns,” she told him. “In advance.”
The man fished around in his pocket and produced the required coins. He dropped them into her hand, and she made a show of counting them carefully, before turning into the alley beside the tavern. She led him as far from the guards as she could get, but the alley wasn’t particularly long, and even a moderately loud cry would easily attract their attention.
At the end of the litter-strewn lane, Tia turned to face the sailor, wondering if she could disable him silently. She had a bad feeling that when she drove her knee into this obnoxious fool’s groin (which was the only part of her body he would
ever
get to feel), his shout might alert the nearby guards. It was a risk she would have to take. There was no chance this sordid little interlude was going to end any other way.
The sailor was already pulling at the drawstring on his trousers as she faced him. He glanced at her and frowned impatiently.
“Come on, then,” he urged. “Get your clothes off.”
Tia assumed he would want to embrace her, giving her a chance to get close enough to knee him in the balls. He was more than an arm’s length away from her, and not nearly close enough for her to do any damage.
She smiled seductively. “Don’t you want to kiss me first?”
“I want to fuck you, you silly bitch, not court you.”
This was not even remotely going according to plan. He reached for her, and she instinctively flinched away from him.
“I just thought...” she began, realizing with dismay that she sounded just like the amateur she was.
Annoyed, the sailor grabbed her by the front of her shirt, tearing it open as he pulled her closer. Tia wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. One cry and the guards across the street would come running. His breath stank of ale, and his stubbled chin scratched her face as he tried to force his mouth over hers...
“I’d think twice about that one, if I were you.”
The sailor released his grip, and turned to face whoever had interrupted his sport. Tia stumbled backward, and nearly cried with relief when she realized it was Dirk. Her feelings of relief were followed almost immediately by the desire to howl with shame for the fact that he had found her like this. She would never be able to explain it. And she hated the idea that she might, yet again, find herself indebted to him for her life.
“Piss off, boy. I’ve already paid for her. You’ll have to wait your turn.”
Then again, I might not have to worry about owing him anything,
she thought. The sailor was twice Dirk’s size. If it came to a fight, Dirk would be annihilated.
“I don’t want a turn with her.” Dirk shrugged. “She’s got the pox.”
Tia bit down on her lip to stop herself crying out with outrage. The sailor took a step away from her with a frown.
“How d’you know?”
“My brother had her a few weeks ago,” Dirk informed the sailor. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the alley wall, talking in a disarming tone.
Some hero to the rescue you turned out to be, Dirk Provin.
“He’s already in the second stage of the disease. That comes a few weeks after the sores on your dick appear. I think the skin rashes are the worst bit, though . . . or maybe it’s the weeping lesions in your mouth and throat. My brother says he has them on his arse too, but I didn’t really care for a close look.”
The sailor looked quite horrified.
“Of course, he’s been pretty poorly since his glands began swelling and the fevers started,” Dirk continued gleefully. “Aches . . . pains . . . headaches that nearly kill him. But now that his hair is falling out—”
The sailor was gone from the alley before Dirk could finish the sentence. He watched him leave with a smile and then turned to look at Tia, and his momentary good humor faded. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” she replied, hastily covering her breasts with her torn shirt. She was having some trouble trying to retain the few shreds of dignity she had left. “It wasn’t necessary for you to intervene, you know. I was handling things quite well on my own.”
“So I noticed.” He shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to her. “Here. Reithan and Eryk are waiting for us at the jetty. That shirt is ruined. You can wear this until we get to the boat.”
Her first instinct was to refuse his offer, but she couldn’t walk the streets of Paislee unclothed. She snatched the jacket from his outstretched hand, and turned her back to him as she put it on. Although travel stained and a little worse for wear, the jacket was made of brocaded silk, and it was quite the most beautiful thing she had ever worn. She almost felt guilty for the sigh of pleasure that escaped her lips as she felt the whisper of silk against her skin.
“It wasn’t what you think,” she announced, squaring her shoulders as she turned back to face him. “I mean . . . it wasn’t what it looked like. I wasn’t—”
Dirk said nothing. He just let her prattle on like an idiot while he walked to the end of the alley and glanced up and down the street. The guards still had their backs to them as they watched the contortionist across the way.
“It’s all your fault, anyway,” she snapped, interpreting his silence as censure. A smattering of applause came from the crowd gathered around the contortionist as he finished his routine. Dirk watched the dispersing crowd for a moment, then hurried back to her as the guards began to turn around. “If you hadn’t left me alone in the tavern, that sailor would never have propositioned me, and I’d never—”
Tia never got to finish the sentence. Dirk quickly grabbed her by the shoulders, pushed her against the tavern wall and put his mouth over hers. Too stunned to object, she let him kiss her as if they were lovers suddenly reunited after months apart.
“Hey! You two! Get a room, for the Goddess’s sake!” a male voice yelled from the alley’s entrance. The shout was followed by several other men laughing, then it faded as the guards resumed their patrol.
Tia felt Dirk’s relief, felt him relax as he realized they were safe. Then she panicked, as she realized that she was kissing him back. She pushed him away, appalled to discover her breath coming in ragged gasps. Dirk stared at her, obviously as dumbstruck by the realization as she was.
“Of all the stupid things to do...” she began, certain she was blushing a deep shade of crimson. “Goddess! I thought you were supposed to be smarter than everyone else!”
“It worked,” he said, taking a step backward.
“Only because not even a Senetian guardsman would believe that anybody would try such a lame stunt to hide from them,” she snapped.
His eyes narrowed, the only outward sign of his irritation. “I could call them back, if you like. Maybe I could think up something better next time? Something that might meet your exacting standards?”
“Don’t bother,” she said, pushing past him. “There won’t be a next time. Not ever.”