Eneas had seen enough brawls in his life-they were endemic among the troops, and common enough in the taverns of the towns at night. He knew that the bravery of the group would last only as long as their leader stayed untouched. The man with the wens was grinning now as he stooped down to pick up a piece of cordwood himself. He slapped the length of wood against a callused palm. “I’m thinkin’ you’ll be giving us that purse now, Vajiki, if you want to spare yourself a beatin’,” he said. “After all, three against one-”
That was as far he got. In a single motion, Eneas drew his sword from his scabbard and struck, the steel ringing and flashing in the sunlight. The coallier’s improvised club went spinning away, his hand still grasping the wood. The man gaped down at the stump as blood spurted from the arm. He howled as Eneas spun around, his sword now threatening the throat of the man with the knife. The coallier dropped his weapon and backed hastily away; the other was staring wide-eyed at the man with the wens, who had sunk to his knees, still howling, his remaining hand clasped around the stub of his forearm. “Tie that arm off to stop the bleeding if you want your friend to live,” Eneas said to the coalliers. He picked up the knife the man had dropped. “Where’s your charcoal?”
One of them gestured toward the crude hut. Eneas saw a cart there, dark lumps piled in one corner. A pile of burlap sacks were stacked near one of the wheels. He cleaned his blade on the grass of the field, sheathed it, and strode over to the cart and filled one of the sacks. The man whose hand he’d severed had subsided into moans and wails, falling to his side as his two companions knelt alongside him. Eneas slung the sack over his shoulder. He walked back to the coalliers and tossed a single gold solas on the grass between them-more money than they would have made for an entire wagonload of charcoal. They stared at the coin. The two younger men had tied a tourniquet around the stump of their leader, but his face was pale and the wens stood out like ruddy pebbles on his face. A wound like that, Eneas knew, was fatal as often as not: from blood loss, or from the Black Rot that often struck wounded limbs.
“May Cenzi have mercy on you,” he said to him. “And may He forgive you for impeding His will.”
With that, he shifted the weight of the sack on his shoulder and started back toward town.
Nico Morel
“ He’s just a boy, Karl. An innocent child. Don’t you dare hurt him.”
Nico heard Varina’s voice through the locked door as he huddled against the wooden wall in the pile of blankets. He heard a male voice reply-Karl? he wondered-but the voice was too low, and Nico couldn’t make out all the words through the wooden door separating them, only the phrase “… what I have to do.” Then the door opened, and Nico flung an arm over his eyes against the light coming from the other room. A shadow lurked in the doorway and came over to him, bootsteps loud on the creaking floorboards. Nico blinked up at the man; a glimpse of graying hair and a well-trimmed beard, and soft eyes that belied the grim line of the mouth under the mustache. The man’s bashta was fine and clean, the cloth shining and soft when it brushed against Nico’s skin as the man knelt in front of him. One of the ca’-and-cu’, Nico decided.
“I don’t know nothing,” Nico said again, wearily, before the man could speak. He’d said the words too many times already, in as many variations as his tired mind could summon. The woman-Varina-had asked him over and over again about Talis: if he knew where Talis was living now, how Talis was connected to him and his matarh, whether he knew where Talis was from or what he did, and where Talis had learned to use the Ilmodo (except that Varina sometimes used another word for ‘Ilmodo,’ which sounded like Scawth something or other). Nico hadn’t told them anything because he knew Talis wouldn’t want that. They wanted to hurt Talis; Nico was certain of that.
The man cupped his hand in front of Nico and spoke a strange word like the ones that Talis sometimes chanted when he was doing magic. Nico could feel the cold of the Ilmodo close to him, the hair on his forearms standing up as a ball of soft, yellow light appeared, like a ball of flame sitting on the man’s upturned palm. In the light, Nico could see the face clearly, and he gasped.
He knew that face. This was the man who had attacked Talis in the street: Ambassador ca’Vliomani, the Numetodo. Nico hissed and pressed his back against the wall, as if he could melt completely through the wood and out to freedom. He wanted the cold anger to fill him again, but he was so tired and frightened that he couldn’t summon up the feeling.
“Ah, so you do recognize me,” the man said. “I thought you might. I certainly recognize you, Nico.” He had an accent, but not the same one Talis had. This accent lilted and swirled, coming from deeper in the throat and not through the nose. He left out the “h’ in thought, saying it as “tot.” The ambassador lowered his hand to the floor and the ball of light rolled sluggishly from his hand to gutter against the floorboard. The long shadow of the man shifted on the walls.
“Are you going to hurt me?” Nico’s voice sounded tiny and nearly lost to his own ears: a husk, a whisper of breeze.
The man didn’t answer. Not directly. “The last time I saw you, Nico, I was nearly killed by the man with you. What was his name? Talis?” Nico was shaking his head, but the man smiled against his denial. “I really need to talk to Talis, Nico,” the man continued. “And I’ll bet you’d like to talk to him also.”
“You’re mad at him,” Nico said. “You’ll try to hurt him.”
“I’m not mad at him,” the Ambassador replied. “I know that’s hard for you to believe, but it’s true. There are things I need to ask him, urgent and important things, and he didn’t give me a chance. That’s all. We had a… a misunderstanding.”
“You promise?”
The man didn’t reply, but reached into a pouch tied to his side, unwrapped something in waxed paper, and held it out toward Nico. Nico flinched back away for a moment, then leaned forward again when the man continued to hold out his hand: there in the palm was a plump date drizzled with honey and dotted with diced sweetnut. Nico’s mouth watered; Varina had fed him bread and cheese and given him water, but he was still a little hungry after his long walk from Ville Paisli, and the sight of the date made his mouth water helplessly. “Go on, Nico, take it,” the man said. “I brought it just for you.”
Hesitantly, Nico reached for the candied fruit. When his fingers touched the loud, crinkled paper, he snatched the date from the man’s hand as quickly as he could. He stuffed it whole into his mouth, and the smoky sweetness of the honey rolled on his tongue, blending with the tart bite of the date. The man continued to smile, watching him. He thought the man’s face didn’t look so angry now, and there was a kindness in the wrinkles around his eyes.
“You know, I have great-children who are about your age,” the man said to Nico. “A little younger, but not much. You’d like them, I think, if you met them. They live on the Isle of Paeti. Do you know where that is?”
Nico nodded. Matarh had shown him a map of the Holdings, and pointed to the countries and made him learn them.
“Paeti’s a long way from here,” the man said. “But I’d like to go back there one day. What about you, Nico? Were you born here in Nessantico?”
Another nod. Nico licked his lips, tasting the sticky remnants of the honey.
“What about your matarh? Where’s she from?”
“Here.” The word came out half-strangled. The lingering taste of the date had turned bitter. He cleared his throat.
“Ah…” The man seemed to consider that for a moment, his gaze drifting momentarily away from Nico. He saw movement at the doorway and saw Varina leaning there. The man and Varina glanced at each other, and something in the way they looked made Nico think that they were a couple like Talis and his matarh. “And your vatarh? Is Talis from here?”