The Wild Road (36 page)

It did not shock. It did not stun. It was not chased away by horror that she could possibly think such a terrible thing. Instead, Audrun carefully allowed herself to explore that thought.

Karadath.
Dead
. No more nightmares. No more Meggie terrified of her own mother.

“Oh Mother, oh blessed Mother, forgive me . . .” Her muffled voice died away as she pressed a palm against her mouth. She cut off the plea. No. She neither wanted nor needed forgiveness. The Mother was a Mother. The Mother would understand.

All was clear. It unfolded before her.

Karadath. Dead.

Audrun knew her capabilities. She accepted limitations. She understood that it was a task she could not accomplish alone.

Omri. The failed, faded
dioscuri
. The man who was no longer a man, but a castrate, a slave. He had spoken of tradition, of understanding, of acceptance. It was the way things were done among his people. The risks that were taken by
dioscuri
.

But if
she
could think of killing a man—if a woman from a culture, from a family, where murder was abhorrent, could think of killing, couldn't he?

The voices of her children drifted in from the open door. A shadow appeared, fled, was banished by the man himself, bringing her a meal.

Audrun elbowed herself upward, set her back once more against the cushion. She accepted the bowl of broth. The aroma stirred hunger—a normal, healthy hunger, the first in days.

She smiled at Omri and gave him her thanks.

He would never, Audrun knew, kill for her.

But possibly, potentially, he might kill
with
her.

Chapter 34

I
N CARDATHA, SANCORRA'S
largest city, the warlord's huge palace squatted in the center of Market Square, dwarfing it. Called a
gher
, it was round and tall with a flat-topped, conical roof. Walls were formed of crisscrossed, lashed-together lattices of stripped saplings covered by hides of many shapes and colors, stitched together by red leather thongs. A large but low square plank platform extended beyond the circular
gher
. It always struck Brodhi as a permanent structure, but the Hecari were nomadic; every part of the
gher
was easily broken down into sections and bundles for transport.

Two years before, on the day before the warlord's arrival (which Brodhi had witnessed) men taken as slaves during the conquest and now watched by warriors, came into the city on blue-painted wagons. In the very center of Market Square, they climbed down and swarmed over the wagons, taking the materials they needed. They lay down the platform planks on risers, set up the lattices, stretched bundled sections, stitched and fastened hide into place. By the time they were done, the
gher
took up much of Market Square. The slaves promptly climbed back into their wagons and drove away, disappearing into crowded streets.

Deprived of their usual spaces, merchants set up wooden stalls in streets and alleyways. The plethora of livestock, often escaping flimsy pens, turned narrow stone-paved streets into treacherous and pungent footing. Wagons could only pass where stalls were not too large. Above the noise of animals and stall-holders' sing-song pitches, one heard cursing and shouting from wagon drivers.

At the mouth of Market Square, as Alorn and Timmon left the party and rode through to the square, Brodhi glanced back briefly. Jorda had pulled aside to let a wagon coming from the opposite direction pass, and another driver had abused that by squeezing in behind. Jorda was effectively blocked. Behind him, on the second supply wagon, the farmsteader looked nearly as grim. Bethid, beside him on the tall seat, clearly was not looking forward to climbing down into the muck.

Horseback, Brodhi held a distinct advantage. He turned back, guided the horse through steadily, and reined in beside the farmsteader's wagon. Bethid transferred her gaze from the fouled street to him, eyebrows rising in inquiry.

Brodhi moved his horse sideways, close against the wagon, with a few taps of his left boot heel. Not one to question good fortune no matter how unexpected, Bethid rose on the seat, swung a leg across the horse's rump, and slid into place behind the saddle, murmuring a word of thanks.

“Not far,” Brodhi said, referring to the courier's guildhall, “but you'll see the Guildmaster with your boots relatively clean.” And he guided his horse toward the square.

IT WAS NEARLY
impossible for Jorda to make any headway through the crowded market stalls. Davyn followed as best he could, since he had no idea where they should go for the supplies Jorda needed. Eventually the karavan-master found a narrow offshoot of a twisting alley, stopped the team, and turned around on his high seat to catch Davyn's eye.

He raised his voice. “We'll leave the wagons and teams here. There's no chance we can put them outside the shops and load directly into them.” Jorda climbed down and removed from under the seat two pairs of wooden wheel chocks roped together. “You've a set, too.”

And so Davyn mimicked the karavan-master, making certain the wagon would roll neither forward nor backward. He straightened and looked around. The buildings stood very close on either side of the alley, throwing shadows into canyons of dressed stone. He could not help but feel uneasy. They were not so far from a busy lane, but it would nonetheless be a simple matter for someone to slip into the narrow walkway and appropriate the wagons.

And he damned the fact that he thought in such terms now. Once, it would never have crossed his mind that some might be bent on stealing horses and wagons.

Jorda saw the concern. He smiled grimly. “I expect—” He broke off briefly. “Ah, here comes help now.”

“Help” consisted of boys somewhere between youth and manhood. They wore soiled clothing nearly outgrown, and were they
his
children, Davyn would have sent them off to wash faces and hands. But they were not his children. His children were in Alisanos.

Blessed Mother, but he ached with pain and grief every time he thought of his family trapped in the deepwood.

“Four of you,” Jorda noted, not privy to Davyn's emotions. “Two for each wagon.” He removed coin rings from a pocket and tossed one to each boy. “Watch them well, and if everything is as I left it, there will be more coin in it for you.”

The boys nodded. Two slipped by to join Jorda, while two remained near Davyn.

Jorda glanced at Davyn. “There will be boys at the markets more than happy to carry things back to the wagon for us.”

Nodding, Davyn fell in beside Jorda as he walked out of the narrow alley to the wider lane. The karavan-master wound his way through the crowds, and eventually the lane opened into the square.

Davyn danced aside to avoid a goat bent on escape, trailing a broken rope, and as as he crossed from lane into Market Square, he stopped short. “
Mother of Moons
!”

Jorda heard him. In the lead, he glanced back over his shoulder. Then he nodded realization, halting. “The
gher
,” he said with a weary note in his voice. “That's what they call it, the Hecari. The warlord's palace.”

Davyn was struck dumb. Even in dreams he could not have imagined such a structure. Huge, round, and hides of all sizes and shapes stitched together with leather thongs dyed red. It sat atop a low wooden platform on risers, and crimson banners flew from iron crooks, taller than a man, at each platform corner. A massive red banner hung from the flat-topped, conical roof. But it was the huge doorway that caught his attention after the first startled impression. The wooden doorjamb was sheathed in intricate, deep-carved, intertwined designs. And everywhere was the gleam of gold.

Warlord. So close. Just inside. The man who had sent death and chaos into Sancorra, riding with armies of brutal warriors who overwhelmed the province. Rivers of men wielding warclubs, blowpipes, poisoned darts; who built cairns of stripped Sancorran skulls. Thousands had died, women and children as well as those who attempted to defend the province. One man, just one man's appetite for power had caused all.

Davyn noted the warrior-guards ringing the
gher
and posted at platform corners. Oiled skulls were naked save for scalplocks gleaming slick in the sun. Golden ear-spools stretched their lobes. Eyebrows were shaved. The lower halves of their faces were stained a rich indigo.

“Don't stare,” Jorda told him sharply. “Never stare at a Hecari. It's viewed as a challenge.”

Davyn choked out a blurted sound of disbelief. “What challenge am I? I'm a man who gathered his family and fled.”

“A
wise
man,” Jorda refuted, “against a race such as this. Now look aside, and we'll go on. You can catch glimpses later, when we've got what we came for.”

As instructed, Davyn looked aside. But as he walked once more with Jorda, he shot quick, sidelong glances at the massive
gher
. How could a man not stare at it? It was wholly foreign. Wholly alien. It was, in its own way, more powerful a statement of domination than the piles of skulls scattered across the province.

Davyn raised his voice to the karavan-master, his tone plainly bitter: “Do you know, if I were brought before him, I would ask a question. I would ask him: ‘
Why?
'”

Jorda grunted. “Because he can.”

Davyn thought about that a moment. It struck him as no answer at all. Why would a man conquer provinces just because he could?

He petitioned the Mother.
Help me to understand
.

To understand why one man's orders had stripped from Davyn everything he valued: farmstead and family.

One man's whimsy?

AS GUILDMASTER, AS
man, he had always intimidated Bethid. She supposed he intended that, but not necessarily because she was a woman—and the only woman in the guild, at that. She knew other young couriers, male couriers, were as intimidated, though they need not worry that he judged them the same as he did her. Because she was a woman. And it mattered to the Guildmaster.

She stood now in the chamber built of hewn stone, tall iron candle racks in each corner, shedding pale, ochre-tinted illumination. All four walls were tapestry-hung to cut the chill of winter when the stone grew cold. Wooden shelving contained scrolls in cases, end caps carefully marked with a symbol that identified each. On wider shelves, unrolled scrolls were carefully stacked in precise piles.

The Guildmaster was working in a logbook as she entered the chamber and assumed her place before the wide wooden table. Eventually he looked up at her. He waited.

Telling this man about the loss of Churri was the hardest thing Bethid had ever done. Not because her wages would be docked, but because the horse had meant so much to her. Along the way, sharing the wagon seat with the farmsteader, she had forced herself to think about how she might discover from fellow couriers if they would support her idea to draw Sancorrans from Cardatha and gather them at the settlement; about how to broach the topic. And then, about how they might go about implementing the plan.

Again, she thought about Churri. And in the presence of a man who would not understand.

Explanation finished, Bethid resolutely fixed her eyes on the huge map pinned to the tapestry behind the Guildmaster. As always, she marveled at the rich colors inked onto the vellum, the accuracy of detail marking where courier routes, rivers, cities, villages, hamlets, and various destinations lay. She noted, with a twitch of surprise, that the tent settlement and the surrounding deepwood had been drawn onto the map since she had last been in the chamber. Ah. Brodhi, of course.

The Guildmaster sat back in his chair, idly tapping quill against his chin. “A draka,” he said.

Bethid met his gray eyes and nodded. “Yes, sir. It would have had me as well, but Brodhi pulled me to safety in time.”

His face was tanned and weathered from years of riding under the sun. He wore his usual black with the heavy silver Guildmaster's brooch fastened at his left shoulder. Short-cropped hair was graying. The ice in his eyes did not promise an easy interview. But then, he had opposed admitting her to the guild. He had been newly appointed, and it was his predecessor who had permitted Bethid to enter the trials.

Irony shaded his tone. “Heroic of Brodhi.”

Bethid felt warmth rise in her face. She bit back what she wanted to say:
No doubt you'd rather I were taken than Churri
. Which was undoubtedly true, but not something one said to the Guildmaster. She had always been scrupulously polite around him, to give him no reason for dismissing her from service. She knew he would do it more quickly to her than anyone else.