Wild Magic Page 5

  Magic, he thought sourly. Surely it was only magic that was likely to spirit him out of this place. If he could just take his courage in his hands and ride out of here in the dead of night he might chance upon a band of Wanderers who would take him in. And then perhaps he might find Guaya again, the little nomad girl whose grandfather Tanto had so needlessly killed and who, up to that horrible moment, had been his friend. Or he might travel north and try to discover what had happened to Katla Aransen. The red of the soil here was a daily reminder of her, for it was the exact dark, sandstone red of her hair; just as the pale blue of the sky on the northern horizon was the colour of her eyes. He found reminders of her all around him: in the curve of a piece of fruit, in a well-turned blade or a shout of laughter; in any mention of Eyra or talk of the imminent war with the North. She was everywhere, and nowhere. He did not even know if she was still alive. She had escaped the burning, Fabel told him, by sorcerous means; but Saro had touched her soul when she had laid hands on him at her knife-stall, and he knew there was no witchery in her; just a pure, natural energy. But night after night she continued to visit him in his dreams, her presence there as vibrant and physical as it had been in life, and his heart still yearned for her. That energy could not be gone from the world: he would surely know in his heart if she were dead . . .

  ‘Saro!’

  His reverie shattered, he turned to find Favio Vingo striding across the courtyard toward him, his face dark with anger. By the Lady, Saro thought unhappily, now what?

  His unspoken question was answered in no uncertain manner by a roundhouse slap from the man he had until recently believed to be his father, up to the moment some months back when he had been visited by that unwelcome, disturbing vision of his uncle lying with his mother . . .

  Fury rushed through him; but whether it was his own reaction to the painful assault upon his now-pounding ear, or a less tangible legacy of Favio’s temper, he could not ascertain.

  ‘How dare you treat your brother so!’

  Ah, thought Saro heart sinking. So that’s the way of it.

  ‘To strike a bed-ridden invalid is the worst and most cowardly act – and to strike him so hard as to leave such a mark—’

  Saro could hardly believe his ears. While his calumnies against Saro had so far been many and varied, Tanto had never yet accused him of physical violence, so this new allegation represented an escalation in Tanto’s lies. Although Saro knew it to be an exercise in futility, he felt that he should make some attempt to defend himself. ‘I did not hit Tanto,’ he said steadily. ‘If he has a mark on him it must be one of his own making.’

  This just antagonised Favio further. ‘Come with me!’ he roared. His fingers closed around Saro’s biceps with brutal force and he began to drag him bodily back towards the house.

  Saro was overcome by a flood of righteous anger which approached hatred, followed by a wave of scalding sorrow: for the wrong son was lying like a great white maggot in the sickbed while this mendacious, useless boy strode about glowing with health. Saro went bonelessly with Favio Vingo, his limbs and his mind no longer his own while the physical contact remained in place. On the threshold of Tanto’s chamber, however, Favio shoved Saro away from him so hard that the boy sprawled upon the tiles, and the maelstrom of emotions ebbed slowly away.

  When Saro gathered himself and looked up, he found his mother, swathed in her customary blue sabatka, weeping silently on a chair beside the bed and his brother propped up by a multitude of white pillows (no doubt, Saro found himself thinking incongruously, stuffed with the feathers of the most expensive Jetran geese and costing a good cantari apiece, while I sleep on a pallet stuffed with straw and a bag filled with chicken feathers from our own coops) staring at him with outraged eyes. Tanto’s bedshirt was torn open to reveal a dark bruise over the collarbone, or where the collarbone must be, hidden somewhere under all that soft white flesh. The wound was a livid red, already purpling. It must have required considerable force and determination to have done such damage to himself, Saro thought, once more taken aback at the extent of Tanto’s loathing for him.

  ‘I was not eating fast enough,’ Tanto complained in a miserable whine, his black eyes glinting with self-induced tears, all the while clasping Illustria’s thin hand in his own flabby great paw. ‘He kept hitting me again and again with the spoon—’

  Saro turned to their father. ‘This has nothing to do with me,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘How can you believe I would do such a thing?’

  But Favio’s expression was one of purest disgust; and not for the puling creature in the bed, either.

  Tanto savoured his triumph. ‘And when I cried out for him to stop, he took out his belt-dagger and thumped me so hard with the pommel that I thought he had stabbed me!’

  In victorious evidence of this he reached beneath the bedclothes and flourished what was in truth Saro’s own dagger.

  Saro stared at it, dumbfounded. His hand went to his waist, but he knew before he felt there that he was not wearing the belt on which he habitually carried the dagger. He could picture it now, slung over the back of the little cane chair in his own chamber on the next floor of the house. And the dagger had been in its tooled leather scabbard beside it when he left the room that morning. So how had Tanto managed to lay hands upon it?

  Tanto saw the doubt on his brother’s face and smiled evilly. ‘But of course I forgive you, Saro,’ he said softly, his eyes like gimlets. ‘I know I am a trial to nurse and that such care is not your natural calling. Which is why I have suggested to Father that since the Council is bound to be calling soon on all good men and true to take up arms for the Empire, we should be training you up as a soldier.’

  Saro stared at him in disbelief. Tanto knew well that he had no warrior skills. His swordsmanship was clumsy, his lancework worse: he had neither the taste nor the ability for combat. Nor could he rely on archery – he was a poor shot with a bow, too, not least because he could never stand to harm a living thing. He was fleet of foot and had an affinity with horses which enabled him to ride better than most; but as far as he could see all this qualified him to do was to leave the field of battle rather more swiftly than most, which would certainly be his inclination, since he had neither the aggression nor the blind patriotism required to split another man’s skull for no good reason other than to save his own skin.

  He opened his mouth to protest in horror, then closed it again as a new thought occurred to him. If he were to train as a soldier well enough to bring no dishonour to the Vingo name, then he might be allowed to leave Altea and make his much-wished-for escape. He turned his face to the man he called his father, who stood blocking the doorway, hands on his hips in a most uncompromising manner.

  ‘It is most magnanimous of my brother,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘to make this suggestion. If it would please you, sir, to allow me to redeem myself thus, then I will do my best to take on this task and acquire the skills necessary to a good soldier.’

  Favio Vingo looked taken aback. He had been surprised when Tanto had advocated the idea, but had put it down to the fact that since Tanto would never be able to don the Vingo armour and go into battle at the head of the Altean troop as the hero he would surely be, then the next best thing was that his brother should carry the family’s honour. But he was even more surprised at Saro’s response. He had been expecting a storm of protest from the boy who had, he knew well, little liking for such activities. That, or downright, surly refusal. This gracious acceptance spoke of filial responsibility, of humility and, at long last, a bit of manly pride. But while the boy’s attitude might have taken some of the sting out of his fury, there was still the matter of attacking Tanto to be attended to.

  ‘Since it is not in your nature to take good care of your brother, then you shall learn that care the hard way. I do not know why Tanto should feel warmly towards you when you have shown him such violence and malice, but he has made a special request of me, arguing that the bond between the two of you ne
eds to be strengthened. So, for the weeks to come, before, between and after you begin your training with Captain Bastido, you shall take over the duties of washing your brother’s person, clearing away his waste and applying the ointments prescribed by the chirurgeon. You will start these duties at dawn tomorrow. Tonight, though, you shall retire to your own chamber without food or light, and reflect upon the qualities that make for proper fraternal relations. Now, go to your room.’

  Saro was appalled. To have to train for soldiering, and give himself up to the untender mercies of Captain Galo ‘the Bastard’ Bastido was bad enough, for the man was a brute, and a sadistic one at that; but to have to touch his brother with his bare hands now Tanto’s thoughts were no longer cloaked by a miasma of his unconsciousness was truly the most horrible torment Saro could imagine.

  It was with leaden steps that he made his way upstairs.

  Three

  Halbo

  Lit from landward by the crimson rays of the fallen sun and from the sea by the ghostly light of the newly risen moon, the King’s capital of Halbo appeared between the silhouettes of the Pillars of Sur like a mirage. Amid the swells and folds of land which rose steeply from the narrow inlet, tiny amber lights twinkled in strings and clusters, and a large fire appeared to be burning down near the shore, illuminating the dark water and several dozen ships bobbing at anchor in the inner harbour.

  Then the Pillars themselves hove into full view, stretching three hundred feet into the black air and Katla gasped in amazement. Contrary to first impressions it seemed that these two great sentinel towers were no mere natural feature of the landscape, for as they closed upon them a myriad of tiny lights were revealed inside the rock, one upon another, to the height of maybe ten longhouses. Tiny figures moved past the lights at various junctures so that from a distance the lights seemed to jump and skitter; then a web of stairways and arches came into focus, running from the waterline to the summits, winding around and about the towers and into the cliff-face on either side of the inlet.

  It was a miracle of architecture: Katla stood there, hands on the gunwale, staring up into the night sky until her neck cricked, until she felt the touch of a finger drawn lightly down the line of her chin, which made her leap away with a shout. ‘Sur’s nuts! Keep your hands off me!’

  ‘Much better without the beard, my dear, if I may say so.’ Tam Fox was at her shoulder, his keen eyes boring into her, his white teeth gleaming in the silvery light. ‘And you really should be much more grateful that I did not cast you off in the faering and send you back to your Da.’ He took another step towards her, but Katla dodged away.

  ‘You’re a randy old goat,’ she said with a grin. ‘Go find yourself a nanny to tup.’ She stared back up at the pillar.

  ‘Extraordinary, isn’t it? A work of genius, or madness, if you believe the tales.’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she said, and it was true: the houses of the Westman Isles were sturdy and constructed low to withstand the fierce winds off the Northern Ocean, and all she had seen on her visit to the Allfair had been pavilions and tents and simple booths; nothing made to last or serve any function beyond that of temporary accommodation. She had heard, though, that the great cities of Istria – Jetra and Cera and Forent – were built around magnificent castles which mazed the eye and took the breath right out of your lungs.

  ‘The Pillars were hollowed out in the time of King Raik Horsehair, when the Eyrans were first driven north to these islands. He fortified the city in many cunning ways, and when he fell in the battle of the Sharking Straits, his wife carried on his work. They say it’s impregnable, you know. Much like you—’

  Katla rolled her eyes at him. ‘I know,’ she said crossly, ignoring his inference. ‘It’s what the city’s name signifies – Hal-bau – “safe house” in the old form, and no enemy has ever sneaked past its defences.’

  From the watchtower, a man shouted something that she could make neither head nor tail of, though the sound carried clearly in the night air; and after a moment Tam shouted back, ‘White Rose!’

  Katla looked at him.

  ‘The password,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It changes every few weeks; but since the King returned with the nomad woman they’ve all had to do with her: Rosa Eldi; the Rose of the North; Heart’s Desire; the King’s Rose.’

  ‘And what would happen if you didn’t know the password?’ Katla asked, puzzledly.

  Tam grinned. ‘Look there,’ he said, pointing to the rocks on which the tower was founded. A rim of white surf marked its seaward edge. ‘And there.’ He indicated the opposite pillar at the same level.

  Katla strained her eyes in the darkness. ‘I can see nothing.’

  ‘Just beneath the surface of the water there lies a chain forged of iron and blood and seithers’ charms,’ the mummers’ chief explained. ‘It’s attached at either side to two great winches in the towers. Our ships are shallow-draughted enough to skim the chain but any southern vessel that by some miracle made it across the Northern Ocean would ground upon it – one word from the watchmen and up it goes, tipping them over into the Sound. And then—’

  ‘What?’

  Tam shook his head. ‘Won’t speak of that,’ he said, making a superstitious gesture. He looked past her into the channel ahead. Behind them, the oars dipped and rose quietly and the steerboard man made delicate adjustments to their approach, so that the Snowland Wolf slipped into the lee of the eastern pillar and was swallowed by the cold shadow cast by the rising moon.

  There was a low grating noise, then the soft sound of water parting cleanly, and a moment later they were inside the inner harbour. Here, they changed course so that the ship angled to hug the land ever more closely – though as far as Katla could see, the middle way into the docks was wide and clear – so closely that Katla could see the gleam of green weed, swathes of limpets and barnacles, splashes of white guano on the rocks. They rounded a small headland, and suddenly Halbo spread itself before them. The hills rose sharply from the water, so that street after street of little low-built stone houses seemed to have been piled one on top of the other. Candles glowed in windows. Curls of cooking smoke spun up into the night air. In the midst of all this domesticity and order rose the pale walls of Halbo’s fortress, the High Castle, home of the Eyran kings since they first made the mainland their home. Squat and bleak, it was not beautiful, to Katla’s eye at least: but there was no denying that it was imposing. Thick turrets rose at the corners of the building, and the walls were pierced through with eyelets so that archers might lay waste an approaching enemy from the safety of the interior. The battlements were crenellated, and a steep bank rose up to the foot of the castle walls: it looked a difficult stronghold to overcome. Rows of barracks led away from the castle down to the harbour where they met a jumble of wharves and jetties and a harbour full of vessels. On the far western strand a great bonfire had been constructed to light the work of a hundred men, all of whom were stripped to the waist and covered from head to toe in the sheeny red of something that must surely be blood. Before them on the beach lay a huge shape from which protruded great white staves amid dark and glistening slabs of meat. Even from here, the stench was appalling.

  ‘By Sur,’ Katla whispered, ‘they look like the goblins that brought down the Giant Halvi to end the Battle of the Sun.’

  Tam laughed. ‘Haven’t you seen men butcher a whale before, Katla Aransen?’

  ‘A whale? But it’s vast! No whale that I have seen has been a quarter the size of that monster!’

  ‘Ah, the Westman Isles, where even the whales are as minnows! Sur was not smiling on your ancestors when he blew their settlement ship in to Rockfall, my dear.’

  Katla shot him a furious look.

  ‘Towering cliffs, windy uplands and women bred between wildcats and trolls; Rockfall’s speciality. Just the way I like them.’

  Tam Fox grabbed her by the waist and crushed her against his chest. Katla promptly spat in his eye and at the same moment
brought her knee up hard into his groin, but the mummers’ chief had been manhandling women all his life and knew himself an expert in such matters. Swivelling his hips, he evaded the main threat and took the wad of saliva on the cheek where it hung for a moment like cuckoo-spit, then bubbled off down his chin. Then he grinned from ear to ear.

  ‘They say that a bit of resistance gets the blood up,’ Tam said cheerfully. ‘But I’d rather you came to me of your own free will.’ When she started to struggle he said, ‘Hear me out!’ and imprisoned her arms in a time-honoured wrestling manoeuvre executed so neatly that Katla could not help but experience a brief moment of admiration. ‘I have a place close to the docks where we can go and get better acquainted,’ he added, nuzzling her neck. Katla’s teeth came close to catching his ear; but the mummer craned his head away with a laugh. ‘It’s not luxurious, but you’ll not notice once we’re started. I’ve been waiting all week for this, little troll. Did you not think I’d see through your disguise in seconds? I could spot you in a crowd of a thousand other women, all naked and with bags over their heads!’