“If something isn’t done, the young Lord will carry it on his shield. He wears the jewels of the Lords, and all they teach him is evil. Though I cannot fathom how it is possible, I’ve heard he is to be D’Arnath’s Heir.”
“That’s true.”
“Hand of Vasrin.” Sefaro’s shoulders slumped as if I had dropped the sky on them. “He must be turned from this path.” The chamberlain glanced up abruptly. Sharply curious. “Is that why you’re here, Eda? Can you turn him?”
“I don’t know. If I were closer to him… perhaps…”
“I can arrange it, if you wish.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am to make a list of all the house slaves and Drudges that serve here, and a list of possible replacements for each one, including myself. I could put your name on the list as a kitchen servant or a scrub. We have no need for sewing women in the Gray House, but such transfers aren’t out of the ordinary. I could put several of the sewing women on the list. Someone will just think it’s a mistake, but it wouldn’t be worth remedy. No one would believe for a moment that a Drudge would have any reason for preferring one station to another.”
“If you could do such a thing, it might mean more than you know.”
“I must not know anything.” A sweet smile illuminated his face. “Would that I could. But I will bury this gift of your trust like a squirrel buries an acorn in autumn and take my pleasure contemplating it through whatever is to come.” He gave me his sketch and the rolls of black and gray silk. “Ten of them. In the sizes I’ve written here. To be ready in a week.”
“Be easy, Sefaro,” I said. “May the Light shine on your Way.”
He smiled and returned the wooden token into my hand.
A week later, when I was sent to the Gray House to deliver the banners and take up my new assignment, a different slave sat on the chamberlain’s stool, and I had no token with which to allow him to speak.
CHAPTER 34
Gerick
It was sometime after my return from the desert that I first ran across the Leiran boy. I had been out riding with my new riding master, a nasty Zhid warrior named Fengara. She made Murn look as kind as the old housekeeper at Comigor. On that particular day, she had slaves set fires with some of the dry thorn bushes that passed for vegetation in Ce Uroth, and I had to make my horse carry me between them.
Zigget was the worst-tempered horse I had ever ridden, and at the first sight of the flaming barriers he went wild, rearing and kicking until I thought my arms might get pulled from their sockets before I had him through the first pair. He repaid my efforts by throwing me on the ground after every pass, snorting and threatening to trample me. Fengara was no help. She ridiculed me for my lack of riding skill and my inability to control the horse with my power. But nothing worked, no matter what I tried, words or whips or sorcery.
By sunset, Zigget was frothing and quivering and tossing his head, but I had no sympathy. I was a mass of bruises and scrapes and thought I might have torn something in my knee. No stable hands were anywhere in sight, so I wrestled Zigget into his box myself and slammed the gate. He bucked and kicked the walls until they shook.
“Bash your brains out, you stupid beast,” I yelled and started out of the stable.
I didn’t get ten paces from Zigget’s stall when my knee buckled. I sat heavily on the straw, wishing a plague on horses and the Lords and the vile, wretched desert. When the throbbing in my knee had eased back below the point of impossibility, and I had hauled myself up to my feet, I heard a soft voice from Zigget’s box. “A right mess you are. He oughtn’t have done it. Serve him right if you were to bash his brains out. Too bad there are those that care for him, or I’d bash him myself for leaving you like this.”
It was the wrong day to cross me. I hobbled back to the stall, determined to see who dared speak so of me. I would show him who could bash who. I threw open the gate of the stall, and there was Zigget, the most despicable beast in Ce Uroth, peaceably nuzzling a dirty boy who sat on an upturned barrel. The boy’s head was leaning on Zigget’s neck, not an arm’s length from the teeth that had come near removing my fingers earlier that day.
“What are you doing with my horse, slave?” For some reason the scene infuriated me near bursting.
The boy jumped up. He was not a slave, but one of the uncollared servants, a Drudge. I sometimes forgot they could talk, they were all so stupid.
“Well?”
He shrugged his shoulders and looked vague, as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. A snort and a thump from behind him distracted my attention. Zigget had kicked another hole in the wall.
I pulled out my knife. “I’ll take care of you, you cursed bag of bones. You’ll not live to throw me again.”
“If you’d treat him right, he wouldn’t go loony at the sight of you,” said the boy, stepping between me and the horse.
“Get out of my way.” I waved the knife at him.
“It’s not his fault.”
“He’s wild and wicked and deserves to die.” I pushed the boy aside, my knife ready to strike as soon as Zigget stopped bucking.
“I guess it’s all you know how to do any more-kill what doesn’t suit.” The boy wasn’t really talking to me, but I heard him clearly. Such anger rose up in me that before I knew it, I had him pinned to the floor, ready to put my knife in his throat instead of Zigget’s. Though he was bigger than me, he was easy. He knew nothing of true hand combat.
“Go ahead, if you want,” he said. “I’m nobody. That’s clear enough. But you’ll not master Firebreather without killing him. Then it’ll be nothing but killing forever.”
I held the knife over the boy for a long time, waiting for him to look scared, but he never did. My aching head was filled with darkness, and Parven stirred. So angry you are… What problem is there, young Lord?
“Nothing,” I gritted my teeth and stood up, pushing the boy away with my feet. I was too tired for the Lords. They always wanted to pick everything apart-use every bruise and every breath for a lesson. I wanted no more schooling today. This was an insolent, powerless boy and a stupid horse. “There’s nothing wrong. Fengara worked me hard, and I hate her, just as you wish. I’m hot and thirsty, and I have a knee the size of a melon. But since I’m not to be comfortable, it will take me a while to get back to the house, so leave me alone.”
Parven chuckled in my head, and it made me angry again.
“Leave me alone!” I let darkness roll over him, until I couldn’t hear him any more, and I felt like I was alone inside my head. It was oddly pleasing to know I could do such a thing.
Of course, the boy couldn’t have heard Parven. He looked at me strangely and laid his hand on Zigget’s neck. The demon horse nosed his hair like an old granny.
“How do you do that?” A suspicion came over me, and I laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. No, he was not Dar’Nethi.
“I call his name and tell him about grass. He likes it.”
“Grass?” When I spoke, Zigget flared his nostrils. I backed away in a hurry, out of range of a flying hoof. But to my everlasting annoyance, my foot slipped, and I ended up on the floor of the stall, my knife flying somewhere out of reach, and a hay bundle toppling off a stack right onto my head. The boy turned his face away quickly and made a choking noise. His shoulders started shaking. It seemed odd that he would be afraid, after being so calm when I was about to slit his throat.