Roland hurried downstairs. The common room was full. Peasants fleeing south clustered at some tables, while squires who were heading north with their lords sat at others. These young men were sharpening blades or rubbing oil into leather or chain mail. A few of the lords, dressed oddly in tunics and hose and quilted undermail, were seated on stools along the bar.
The smells of fresh bread and meat were inviting enough to make Roland repent of his vow to leave here hungry. He took a vacant stool. Two knights were arguing vigorously about how much to feed a warhorse before charging into battle, and one of the men nodded at Roland, as if encouraging him to enter the fray. He wondered if the fellow knew him, or if he believed Roland was a lord because of the fine new bearskin cloak he wore, and his new tunic and pants and boots. Roland knew he was dressed like a noble. Soon he heard a squire whisper the name Borenson.
The innkeeper brought him some honeyed tea in a mustache mug, and he began to eat a loaf of rye bread, dipping it in a trencher of rich gravy thick with floating chunks of pork.
As Roland ate, he began to muse about the events of the past week. This was the second time in a week that he’d wakened to a kiss....
Seven days earlier, he’d felt a touch on his cheek—a gentle, tentative touch, as if a spider crawled over him and bolted awake, heart pounding.
He’d been startled to find himself in a dim room, lying abed at midday. The walls were of heavy stone, his mat of feathers and straw. He knew the place at once by the tang of sea air. Outside, terns and gulls cried as if in solitary lament, while huge ocean swells surged against battlements hewn from ancient rock at the base of the tower. As a Dedicate who gave metabolism, he’d slept fast for twenty years. Somehow, over the many years that he’d slept, Roland had felt those waves lashing during storms, making the whole keep shudder under their impact, endlessly wearing away the rock.
He was in the Blue Tower, a few miles east of the Courts of Tide in the Caroll Sea.
The small chamber he inhabited was surprisingly sparse in its decor, almost like a tomb: no table or chairs, no tapestry or rugs to cover the bare walls or floor. No wardrobe for clothes, or even a peg on the wall where one might hang a robe. It was not a room for a man to live in, only to sleep in for endless ages. Aside from the mattress and Roland, the small chamber held only a young woman who leapt back to the foot of the bed, beside a wash bucket. He saw her by a dim light cast from a salt-encrusted window. She was a sweet thing with an oval-shaped face, eyes of pale blue, and hair the color of straw. She wore a wreath of tiny dried violets in her hair. The touch of her long hair on his face was what had awakened him.
Her face reddened with embarrassment and she crouched back a bit on her haunches. “Pardon me,” she stammered. “Mistress Hetta bade me cleanse you.” She held up a wash rag defensively, as if to prove her good intentions.
Yet the moisture on his lips tasted not of some stale rag but of a girl’s kiss. Perhaps she had meant to cleanse him, but decided to seek more enticing diversion,
“I’ll get you some help,” she said, dropping her rag into the bucket. She half-turned from where she huddled.
Roland grabbed her wrist, quick as a mongoose taking a cobra. Because of his speed, he had been forced to give his, metabolism into the King’s service.
“How long have I slept?” he begged. His mouth felt terribly dry, and the words made his throat itch. “What year is it?”
“Year?” the young woman asked, barely fighting his grasp. He held her lightly. She could have broken away, but chose instead to stay. He caught the scent of her: clean, a hint of lilac water in her hair—or perhaps it was the dried violets. “It is the twenty-second year of the reign of Mendellas Draken Orden.”
The news did not surprise him; yet her words were like a blow. Twenty-one years. It has been twenty-one years since I gave my endowment of metabolism into the service of the King. Twenty-one years of sleeping on this cot while young women occasionally clean me or spoon broth down my throat and make sure that I still breathe
He’d given his metabolism to a young warrior, a sergeant named Drayden. In those twenty-one years, Drayden would have aged more than forty, while Roland slept and aged not a day.
It seemed but moments ago that Roland knelt before Drayden and young King Orden. The facilitators sang in birdlike voices, pressing their forcibles into his chest, calling the endowment from him. He’d felt the unspeakable pain of the forcibles, smelled flesh and the hairs of his chest begin to burn, felt the overwhelming fatigue as the facilitators drew forth his metabolism. He’d cried in pain and terror at the last, and seemingly had fallen forever.
Because Roland was now awake, he knew that Drayden was dead. If a man gave use of an attribute to a lord, then once that lord died, the attribute returned to the Dedicate. Whether Drayden had died in battle or abed, Roland could not know. But now that Roland was one of the Restored, it meant Drayden was certainly dead.
“I’ll go now,” the girl said, struggling just a bit.
Roland felt the soft hairs on her forearm. She had a pair of pimples on her face, but in time he imagined that she would become a beauty.
“My mouth is dry,” Roland said, still holding her.
“I’ll get water,” she promised. She quit struggling—as if by relinquishing she hoped he might let her go.
Roland released her wrist, but stared hard into her face. He was a handsome young man—with his long red hair tied back, a strong chin, piercing blue eyes, and a svelte, muscular body.
He asked, “Just now, when you were kissing me in my sleep, was it me, you wanted, or did you fantasize, about some other man?”
The girl shook with fright, looked to the small wooden door of Roland’s chamber, as if to make sure it was closed. She ducked her head shyly, and whispered, “You.”
Roland studied her face. A few freckles, a straight mouth, a delicate nose. He wanted to kiss her, just behind her small left ear.
To fill the silence, the girl began to chatter. “I’ve been washing you since I was ten. I...in that time, I’ve come to know your body well. There is kindness in your face, and cruelty; and beauty. I sometimes wonder what kind of man you are, and I hoped that you would awaken before I married. My name is Sera, Sera Crier. My father and mother and sisters all died in a mud slide when I was small, so now I serve here in the keep.”
“Do you even know my name?” Roland asked.
“Borenson. Roland Borenson. Everyone in the keep knows you. You are the father of a captain of the King’s Guard. Your son serves as bodyguard to Prince Gaborn.”
Roland wondered. He’d had no son that he’d ever heard of. But he’d had a young wife when he gave his endowment, though she would be getting old by now. He had not known when he’d given his metabolism that she carried a child.
He wondered if this girl spoke aright. He wondered why she was attracted to him. He asked, “You know my name. Do you also know that I am a murderer?”
The girl drew back in astonishment.
“I killed a man,” Roland admitted. He wondered why he told her that. But although the man had died twenty years ago, for him it had happened only hours ago, and the feel of the man’s guts in his hand was still fresh on his mind.
“I’m sure you had good reason.”
“I found him in bed with my wife. I slit him open like a fish, yet even as I did, I had to wonder why. Ours was an arranged marriage and a poor match by any measure. I did not care for the girl, and she hated me. Killing the man was a waste. I think I did it to hurt her. I don’t know.
“For years you have wondered what kind of man I am, Sera. Do you think you know?”
Sera Crier licked her lips. Now she began to tremble. “Any other man would have lost his head for such a deed. The King must have liked you well. Perhaps he too saw some kindness masked by your cruelty.”