Wind Over Bone: The Estralony Cycle #2 (Young Adult Fantasy Romance) (23 page)

A man stood next to a window, dim light falling around him.

Starlight.

A girl dropped a rag. “My lord Savvel!”

Savvel felt his face, then his chest and stomach. “What, what, what?” he said. It was the dark of the moon. Sarid had forgotten Oluindre’s rule.

She rematerialized right in front of him. “Shadows,” she shouted. “Get in the shadows!”

But it was too late: some of the servants were pointing, some running from the dining hall. Sarid pushed Savvel out of the starlight, and he was a sparhawk again, flapping wildly. She thought for a sickening moment he would attempt a window, turn human in the starlight, and fall to his death. But he flew upwards into a corner of the ceiling and alighted on a rafter. Sarid became a wind and blew out the window nearest him. She changed back and sat down on the big, round outside sill, looking in.

And then her heart leapt into her mouth because a man inside was explaining, “It’s your brother up there. In the rafters.”

“
A bird?” His voice made her face go very hot. “How much wine did you drink, Mikal?”

“
Now
it’s a bird, but I saw him, his own self.”

“
It’s a goshawk.” Sarid could barely make out his face, but it was him––his feet always stood wide apart like that, as though he were about to start into a run. “Probably escaped from the mews. Someone send Andrei with a ladder.”

“
It was him,” said the girl who had spoken first. “All of us saw him.”

“
Then we’ll coax him down,” said Rischa, “and ask him very nicely to change back to himself.”

“
No, Your Grace,” said a little girl. “Put him in the light.”

Sarid forced herself to take a deep breath––just Rischa she could deal with, but not all of them. She looked toward Savvel, who was crouched on his rafter, picking up one foot and then the other in a sort of nervous dance––and saw a hole in the ceiling.

Everyone on the ground was talking at once, and she whispered to Savvel, “Behind you––a hole.”

She saw out the corner of her eye that Rischa had got very still.

“Was he the only one you saw?” he asked the servants, and Savvel turned his head around, lifted off, and disappeared through the hole.

“
There was a girl with white hair,” said the little girl.

Sarid turned to a wind and followed Savvel through the hole.

Her feet thumped onto a floor. The attic they had come into had one round window set in the gable. It was barely light enough to see the record books and parchment stacked under the pitched roof.

The sparhawk perched on a tower of books, out of the light. “It’s always good to be recognized in your own home.”

“He knows,” said Sarid. She heard shoes drumming on wooden stairs, and turned round. “He’s coming.” The noise got very loud. The door banged open and Rischa burst through, knocking over a stack of parchment.

He swatted it away. “Where’s my brother?” he said immediately.

His jacket was white with dust. She started laughing. Her shoulders jerked, shook up her tightened gut, and when she thought how hysterical she must sound she only laughed harder.

He stared at her, two angry red spots on his cheeks. She choked off the laughter.

Savvel flew to the floor, landed among the scattered paper, and became human. He said to her, “I always thought you were remarkably capable at keeping your head, for a woman.”

Rischa gaped at his brother. “Did she force that on you?”

“No,” said Savvel. “I wanted to come.”

“
She’s putting words in your mouth.”

Savvel scratched his cheek. “How can I prove she’s not?”

“You can’t,” said Rischa.

“
I can. Ask me something she wouldn’t know. Nothing embarrassing.”

“
All right.” He sneezed and wiped dust off his face. “What did you give me for my seventh birthday?”

“
A hammer. I dipped it in pig’s blood and said I used it in the Anturvy Rebellion.”

“
Scared me shitless.” Rischa put his hands in his hair and made a noise like he was being strangled. “All you do is scare me shitless. Where’d you go, Savya? I heard all sorts of mad things––”

Savvel walked over to his brother and rubbed his hands as though Rischa were a little girl. “Calm down.” He pulled Rischa into a hug, and Rischa stood like a stone in his arms. Savvel said into his ear, “We’ve lots to discuss. Time to put away your toys.”

Rischa pushed him away. “You haven’t changed a bit. Why is your hair short?”

Savvel touched his hair. “Leva cut it off.”

“Leva Haek?”

“
Pretty girl. You should give her a chance.”

“
Why did she come?” Rischa pointed toward Sarid.

“
Sarid’s here to negotiate,” Savvel said. “And a fine job she’s doing.”

“
Right now she’s wondering why she brought you,” said Sarid.

“
Negotiate?” said Rischa.

“
On behalf of eastern Lorila,” said Savvel. “Most of them want a war. I still like you, though. Leva, too, for all you think she’s a horrible nuisance.”

Rischa stared at the floor. He looked up and said, “They’d supplant me with you?”

“Yes,” said Savvel. “If you don’t do what they want.”

“
They’d have a hard time of it,” Rischa said matter-of-factly. “I’ve both the Felns behind me.”

“
Don’t be so certain. The Felns could just as likely decide I’d be the better Ravyir. I am older.”

Rischa looked scornful. “They know you’re mad.”

“I thought you two cared for each other,” said Sarid.

“
I love my brother,” said Rischa. He was talking to Savvel. “But Lorila can’t have a joker king.”

Sarid was silent, waiting for Savvel to say something scathing. But he just said, “You’re right. And I have everyone in the east almost convinced of it. There’s a snag, though.”

Rischa’s face changed; his mouth went tight. “No.”

Sarid was reminded of a dog made unable by some natural law to let go of a bone.

“Yelse’s evil,” said Savvel. “And if she weren’t, she’d still be a bad choice for a wife.”

“
You want to kill her,” said Rischa. He clenched his hands. “You all want to kill her, like that imbecile Vanli. Why do you hate her? She’s only ever been quiet and good and sweet.”

“
She’s evil,” said Sarid. “She tells you what you want to hear and shows you what you want to see. She’s a witch. A very bad witch.”

He turned to her and snarled, “Why should I listen to you?”

“Because you fell in love with me,” she said. She looked him straight in the eye, and was astonished by her lack of feeling. “And defended me, when all the while it was I who drove your brother mad. You’re too susceptible to a pretty face.”

“
And you’re eighteen and human,” said Savvel, “and you fall in love with everything that raises your little flag.”

This proved too much for Rischa, who shoved Savvel hard into the wall. Parchment flew around. The sparhawk beat its wings and gave an indignant
kleeee.

“
Enough,” said Sarid.

Savvel stepped back into the starlight. “Or she’ll have to start blowing.”

Rischa said in one angry breath: “Even if you’re right and I’m too busy whacking off to think straight, Yelse has nothing to do with it. They do her wrong––they do me wrong––they plan every bit of my life out and leave no room for what I want––”

“
You’re too young to do what you want,” said Savvel. “And you have too many people subject to you. The whole country depends on you for protection and stability and there’s no use crying about not getting what you want, because like it or not, you’re the grandson of old shaggy Ainya.”

“
Rochel was too,” said Rischa. “She eloped.”

“
You
can’t,” said Savvel. “She’d a clearly delineated net beneath her that included her sister and you and me, and what do you have? A madman?”

“
There’s Olan––”

“
Caveira? And Grete Eianhurt. And Augol and Keldanst and a whole host of others. You see the problem? There’s no clear line of succession after us. If you stepped down, there’d be multiple Ravyirs, and petty kings, and gushing blood, and smashed heads. If you elope with the girl there’ll be blood; if make her Ravinya there’ll be blood. The only choice a decent man could make is to let her go.”

“
Decent?” said Rischa. “Unconscionable and cruel more like. I couldn’t live with myself. She has no one else to go to, and she saved my life.”

“
Horseshit,” said Savvel.

“
I saved your life,” said Sarid.

Rischa almost sneered. “What a thing to tell me. Everyone saw her do it.”

“They saw a blonde woman,” said Sarid.

“
She was soaking,” said Rischa.

“
Veles’ horns––We were all soaking.”

“
Because of you.” Rischa shook his head, and put his hands in his pockets. “I think you’re both mad, that’s what I think.”

“
Let’s go find Yelse,” said Savvel to Sarid. “I can see my brother will be unreasonable so long as she’s alive.”

Rischa went pale. “I’ll kill you,” he said, “if you hurt her.” His teeth glinted. His gums were blood-red in his white face, and darkness seemed to spread out from him. “I’ll kill you. I swear it, I will.”

It turned Sarid cold. “We’re going now,” she said, backing away. “To let you think it over.” And because she wasn’t sure she could stand more of him.

Rischa diminished in size. He glanced toward the window, and back to them. “Savvel’s staying.”

“After you whomped me?” said Savvel. “I don’t think so.”

“
You’re human in the light,” said Rischa, and moved toward the door. “I’m not stupid. You can’t fly out the window. I’m calling them up––”

Sarid moved her hand and blew the door shut with a snap. Rischa ran up to it and yelled, “To me!” But he couldn’t continue, because something caught in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Sarid said. Rischa put a hand to his neck. “You can’t speak above a whisper.”

His eyes moved frantically and his voice came out in a rasp. “What did you do?”

“Don’t ruin your voice,” she said. “I’ll take it off when the sun rises and Savvel can leave.”

Savvel looked unsympathetically at his brother. “What’ll we do in the meantime? Have a game of blind-the-traitor?” He clicked his tongue. “Wouldn’t be fair. When Rischa and I play there’s usually yelling.”

“I hate you,” Rischa whispered.

And he sat sullenly in the corner for the rest of the night while Sarid flipped through record books and corrected the arithmetic, and Savvel chased a mouse around the attic. He caught it and skewered it on a talon. He snapped off the tail and gave it to Rischa.

By that time the stars had faded in the lightening sky. Savvel was everywhere a bird. He asked to be turned human again, so he could speak with his brother one last time.

Sarid did so, and she lifted the spell from Rischa.

“Do me a favor,” said Savvel. “Just one thing. I dare you.”

“
What?” Rischa didn’t move from his corner.

“
Don’t let Yelse kiss you on the mouth for a while.”

Rischa rubbed his nose. “Why?”

“Something to do with smicking.”

“
What’s smicking?”

Savvel frowned. “Don’t remember. Think of it as training in fortitude.”

Sarid turned Savvel back to a bird, and they jumped out the window.

Twenty-One

They sat on the branch of a beech some way outside the city. The morning sun burnished Savvel’s feathers. A ring dove cooed in a bush nearby, and Savvel turned his head toward the noise and shuffled along the branch, then stopped. His chest feathers plumped out. “I’m not hungry.” He looked at Sarid with a rolling eye. “Are we going to visit your sister?”

The branch was big; Sarid tucked her feet under her. She sighed, wishing her unhappiness would drain out with her breath. “I’m taking you back to Dirlan, goosebrain. Then we’ll decide what to do.”

“It’d save us a trip if we decided what to do here.”

“
Theoretically,” said Sarid, “it should only have taken me five minutes to go from Dirlan to Meliona. But I had you to think of.”

Savvel turned around on his branch. “I’m baggage.”

“Easily stolen. I’m not giving my sister the chance.” She leaned her head against the trunk. “We can’t have a war,” she said. “We can’t. There’s got to be an easier way to shake
her
loose of him.”

“
Kill her.”

“
Easier than that. If we could just get him to
see
what she is…” Sarid pulled a strip of bark from the tree, and thought, for some reason, of pressing a palm against Rischa’s mouth.

***

They knew the lay of the land now, and made it back in two days to the city on the falls. They alighted on the girls’ balcony. A thin drizzle darkened the flagstones, and bent the plants over their pots in sad arcs, and Leva saw them first. She was sitting under an eve, sucking on a quill. A blank parchment lay on the table before her. Silently she stood up, walked over. She swung her fist back and slugged Sarid in the gut.

Sarid bent over, wheezing like she’d climbed a tower. She put her hands on her stomach. “I suppose I deserved that.”

Leva put her fingers at her temples as if to draw some of the anger out. “Did you swap brains with a squirrel?” She called into the room, “They’re back.”

Mari came out the door, her dark hair in a frazzle over her face. “Well?” she said. “Doubtless it all went to plan. Did they bicker much?”

“Like flies over a shit,” said Sarid. “I wanted to swat them.” She pushed past Mari and sat in a chair, breathing shallowly.

“
Charming girl.” Savvel put his hands on either side of the doorway. Then he lay down on the floor, his face outside in the rain, arms stretched out behind him. “All that flying did me in.”

“
Strange place to be done in,” said Mari, stepping over him.

“
You’ve beat me down.”

Leva stepped inside and trod on his finger. He yelped. “You’re lucky it wasn’t your nose,” she said.

“What ought we to do?” said Sarid to no one, rubbing her eyes.

“
Savvel’d better show himself to Caveira and the Eianhurts,” said Mari. “Right away. It might repair some damage.”

Savvel wiped his face with his arm. “Come with me, Ida. The Eianhurt woman scares me.”

As if to give his words portent the rain started pouring, making a mist over the stone. The sky glowed with a wicked green that came into the room and stuck to the walls and furniture.

“
How insignificant and stupid all this is,” said Sarid, watching the rain, “compared to the weather.”

Savvel looked at her with an odd expression. “Profound.”

“Pity we can’t harness it,” said Leva.

“
I don’t know about that,” said Sarid. And she began to think, and Savvel to fret, so she went with him.

Out in the hall they asked a page where Caveira was. The boy yawned and laughed at Savvel, whose shirt was soaked just at the shoulders.

“
The south-facing salon, I think.” He picked at his teeth with a nail. “Keep the rain out of your ears, milords.” He ran off without bowing.

The salon’s doors stood wide open, so the sticky air could circulate. The doorman glanced absently at the floor and mashed something under his shoe. By the time he looked up Savvel and Sarid were inside.

Grete and Cai Eianhurt and Duke Caveira stood by the window. The dame said, “Uinard said he was spotted in Pengrava. But there’re lots of tall men with dark hair in Pengrava.”

“
The
Adra’s
begun,” said Caveira, looking at the rain. “The storms will last all week. If he’s in Pengrava, it’ll take twice as long to travel by road.”

“
Are they going by road, do you think?” said Cai Eianhurt.

Grete Eianhurt’s gaze drifted over Cai’s shoulder, and her face froze. She wrestled with her look of surprise and said to Savvel, “Good of you to return.”

The rest of them turned round and made a chorus of ‘oh’s’.

Savvel walked forward. “My apologies, madam––”

“Keep your apologies to yourself.” Grete strode toward him so vigorously her gray hair fell out of its twist. “The air is already blustering with idiot noise.”

“
You went to speak with your brother, didn’t you?” said Caveira. “What did he say?”

“
Shove off,” said Savvel.

Caveira frowned. “I was merely––”

“That’s what he said.”

Dame Eianhurt put her hands on her hips. “War, then.”

“Now––what? What are you––No,” said Savvel. “No. Sarid hasn’t even
thought
what she might do with Yelse––”

“
Lady Hyeda can’t help us,” said the dame. “She’s thoughtless and inconsiderate, and we can no longer trust her.”

“
Well, then,” said Sarid. She spoke softly, but they all turned and were quiet. “Go your own way. Go to war. It doesn’t matter.”

Savvel stared at her, surprised.

“Doesn’t matter?” said the dame. “What?  Have you planned something?” She flicked her skirts contemptuously.

“
If I had I wouldn’t tell you what,” said Sarid. “You are no use to me whatsoever. I’m done with you. Goodbye.”

She turned and walked out the door.

The guard was slack-mouthed and leaning on his staff, and he turned his head, watching her go. She heard Savvel fall into step behind her.

“
Damn me if I go to war,” he said. “Tell me your plan.” When she didn’t look back at him, he grabbed hold of her arm. “Summon a saebel? Bind your father?”

“
He’s too human,” she said, pulling her arm away. “I could summon him, but not bind him. But”––she smiled, because she did have a plan, or the beginning of one––“I don’t think I need him.”

“
You’re right. All we need’s a barrel of niter.”

He reminded her of an angry tomcat.

“How would you like to be a mouse?” she said.

“
I would’ve thought a hawk was enough.”

“
Not literally. Like a character in a play.”

“
Who’s the cat?”

“
Yelse, idiot.”

He backed away. “I’m not sure I like this play. Yelse’s got some marvelous big claws.”

“Yes, she does. I’ll have to get them stuck in something.”

“
Who will play the lead?”

“
Leva.”

“
Leva and Yelse?” He laughed. “Let me sit and watch.”

“
We need you as an actor.”

“
The three of us all together? There’ll be an audience, I hope, or I shan’t expect to give it my hardest effort.”

“
Rischa.”

Savvel looked as though she had thrown a bucket of water over his head.

“I’m changing out of this shirt,” he said.

Sarid wasn’t eager to go back to Mari and Leva just yet, so she went with him to his apartments.

***

The door was unlocked. The place was beyond chambermaid-neat: the tiles had been polished and the velvet brushed, and in the bedroom was a new wall hanging with a great, yellow rose on it.

“Ugh,” said Savvel. He looked at the chair underneath it. There was a stocking draped over the back; a sewing needle stuck out of the heel.

Sarid nudged Savvel and pointed to the bed. Sleeping face-down upon it was a man with red hair.

Savvel pulled the sewing needle loose and pricked the man’s foot.

Yoffin jumped up and cried, “The cock of the porpoise!”

“Crawled under the door and littered the place with droppings, have you?”

“
My dear lord,” Yoffin said, and sat up.

“
Where’d you come from?”

“
The street, where I trained pigeons to shit on noblemen.”

“
You must have done an awful job. Where’d you come from just now?”

“
Merstig. Where my sister lives.”

“
How’d you know I was here?”

“
The pigeons showed me.”

Savvel glanced above him. “The guard just let you in?”

“Rubnik and I, yes. We’re a charming pair.”

“
Who’s Rubnik?”

“
Rubnik,” called Yoffin. “Pay your respects to His Royal Highness.”

A small boy came out of a side room, yawning and dragging his feet. Sarid recognized him as the page who’d told them to keep the rain out of their ears.

He took a long look at Savvel, and said, “Doesn’t look like a prince.”

“
A catamite?” said Savvel.

“
My nephew,” said Yoffin. “He wanted to enter the service of a great lord.” He grinned.

“
He should have looked under the west bridge,” said Savvel.

“
He was adamant.”

“
What shall he do in my service?”

“
Take off your boots,” said Yoffin, “so I don’t have to.”

Savvel bent over the boy, contemplating him. “I don’t think he’ll be able to lift them.”

“I’d rather bite them off,” said the boy.

“
Your blessing was a failure, sharklet,” said Savvel. “Your uncle’s pouring rain into my ears.”

“
I live to serve,” said Yoffin.

“
Does the boy?” Savvel took Rubnik by the arm. “Here’s my first errand. Go out to the gardens and gather a basket of flowers. Get them quick before they’re bruised.”

“
Girl’s work,” said Rubnik, pulling away from him.

“
Why do you think I’m asking? After you’ve got them, ask your uncle for a vase. He carries a collection wherever he goes.”

The boy went out into the rain with a knife and a chamber pot, and Sarid said to Yoffin, “You’d let your nephew work for
Savvel?
”

“
So long’s you’re keeping him under your thumb, Gurd,” said Yoffin, and he kissed her cheek.

The boy came back with the chamber pot full of peonies, tulips, and white iris-like flowers Sarid didn’t know. It smelled very good, for a chamber pot.

“Good lad,” said Savvel, and Yoffin produced a green vase with a long, shapely neck. Rubnik shoved the flowers inside, crushing a peony.

“
Unbelievable.” Savvel held it up. “It looks so like her. Red, white, and poisonous.”

“
What are you doing?” said Sarid, who couldn’t keep the words in any longer.

“
Giving Leva flowers.”

“
I would worry, but I know how chaste you are.”

“
My intentions are entirely innocent. My heart belongs to you. Come with me. Bring the vase, Rubnik. The Haek sisters will find you irresistible.”

***

Outside the girls’ rooms Savvel said to Rubnik, who held the vase extended before him as though it were a giant spider, “Now stay out in the hall so I can call your name out loud. It’s funny.” Sarid shook her head and pulled Savvel through the door.

Mari and Leva walked into the parlor from an inner room. “What happened?” said Leva. “What did Grete Eianhurt do?”

“The linen maid,” said Mari, “said she ground her teeth so much this past week she left white filings on the pillow.”

“
Grete Eianhurt told Sarid she can no longer help us,” said Savvel.

“
No!” said Mari.”

“
She can’t mean it,” said Leva.

“
Oh, but she did,” said Savvel. “And I know it’s a blow so I’ve brought you flowers, and a boy. Rubnik,” he called, “come here.”

Rubnik came in and slammed the vase so hard on a table Sarid was surprised the glass didn’t shatter. Some petals fell off the tulips.