As always Halice’s thoughts were more immediately practical. “Why’s Ryshad so set on making bricks? Isn’t there enough stone here to keep him happy?” She nodded at bright scars marking the age-stained grey masonry. Beyond using the place as a quarry, most colonists had no use for these uncomfortable reminders of years lost while they lay insensible under enchantment.
“Not with him and Temar insisting that everyone’s cesspit is stone lined,” I told her. “Have you seen all the warehouses, market halls and workshops they’re planning?” I’d been shown the drawings, in exhaustive detail; every footing to be set firm with stone and topped with all the bricks Werdel could turn out. Vithrancel’s past would underpin its future as D’Alsennin took the lead in turning his face to the here and now rather than the long lost past.
I got carefully out of Larn’s boat on the far side. Breeched and booted, we easily gained on Catrice’s mother, her strides hampered by the petticoats rustling beneath her hurrying skirts.
A lofty hall appeared round a turn in the gravel path, surrounding wall newly repaired in sharp contrast to the tumbledown ruins on either hand. This time-worn dwelling had been built by the long-dead Messire Den Rannion who’d invited the colonists on their ill-fated venture. It had been their first sanctuary in that confused season when Planir had reawakened them. We had all fought with our backs against these walls, mercenaries, mages and ancient Tormalin alike when the Elietimm had attacked, determined to kill any rival claimants to this land. Guinalle, more formally Demoiselle For Priminale, had tended the wounded in the ancient steading using her life-giving Artifice in despite of Elietimm enchantments. By the time the sufferers had either died or recovered, Guinalle had quietly had the place re-roofed and the perimeter wall made secure. No one had had any luck since suggesting the highest-born surviving noblewoman of the original colony move herself across the river, which at least kept the stink of boiling medicaments away from the rest of us. As an apothecary’s customer whenever I had the chance rather than a devotee of the still room, I’d never realised quite how much pungent preparation woad needed.
“You can do the talking,” I said to Halice.
Halice shook her head. “You can’t blame her on Ryshad’s account for ever.”
“I don’t,” I said indignantly.
Halice shot me a sceptical look. “A blind man in a fog can see how he mistrusts Artifice.”
“I’ve done more than half the scholars in Vanam to unearth lost aetheric magic,” I protested. “I brought back no end of lore from the Forest and the Mountains last year.”
“You still walk stiff-legged around Guinalle because of what happened to Ryshad,” said Halice mildly.
My dismissive noise came out rather more non-committal than I intended. Drianon be my witness, I occasionally caught myself watching Ryshad as he slept, wondering if any trace of the enchantment that had enthralled him remained. The bodies of the colonists had been sealed away in the Edisgesset cavern when Guinalle worked the enchantment that locked their true selves, the very essence of their lives, into rings, jewellery and, in Temar D’Alsennin’s case, into his sword. Those vital tokens had been sent back to Toremal to summon aid but the few who escaped the destruction of Kel Ar’Ayen found their Empire in the toils of anarchy. No rescue had ever come.
I didn’t know how body and consciousness had been separated. The thought of what Guinalle called Higher Artifice gave me gooseflesh. Eventually—and the scholars of Vanam continued to argue with Hadrumal’s wizards as to why—these sleeping minds had stirred the dreams of whosoever chance or some god’s fancy had left holding the artefact. The first hints of the lost colony’s true fate had emerged from the contradiction and exaggeration of legend.
But Planir the Black, fabled Archmage of Hadrumal wasn’t ever one to leave things to chance or even to Saedrin himself. He’d made sure Ryshad was given Temar D’Alsennin’s sword, hoping similarities between the two men would form a bond to reach across the shades and bring back the answers Planir wanted. It had worked, after a fashion, but I still considered the way Ryshad’s body had been possessed by Temar’s questing mind too high a price.
But only fools argue over a hand that’s been played out. All those runes had been gathered for drawing anew and I planned to make the best of my luck and Ryshad’s.
We followed Catrice’s mother through the darkly stained gate now reinforced with pale new timber. The courtyard of the ancient steading was busy; Guinalle wasn’t alone on this side of the river. Masons cleaned stone reclaimed from the ruins and men studied a plan, pegs and cord for marking something in their hands. I recalled Ryshad mentioning a kiln wanted hereabouts to burn rubble into lime for his precious mortar.
The outraged matron ignored everyone as she hurried into the wide hall. “Demoiselle, Demoiselle, a moment of your time, if you please.”
We followed and I wrinkled my nose at a faint smell of paint. Looking up I saw the roof had been repanelled since my last visit, its decoration begun. The first pious scene completed showed Saedrin sorting his keys by the door to the Otherworld while Poldrion poled his ferry of newly dead across the river that flows through the shades.
I looked for Guinalle and found her by a long table covered with a pungent array of greenery dotted with early flowers in blue and yellow. A woman a touch below my own height, she was neatly made with a trim waist to balance rounded hips and a bosom to catch a man’s eye. Dressed in the same work-stained broadcloth as the other women, the golden chain that girdled her nevertheless marked her rank, carrying a chatelaine’s keys, knife and small mesh purse. The women sorting herbs for immediate decoction or bundling sprigs for drying looked up with ready curiosity at Catrice’s mother. The busy hum of conversation took on a speculative note.
“Mistress Cheven.” Guinalle ushered the red-faced matron into a side aisle where withy screens separated bays into an illusion of privacy. I favoured the inquisitive women with a sunny smile while Halice leaned on the doorpost, dour faced, prompting most to tend their steeping jars and tincture bottles.
“One of those filth—” Catrice’s mother struggled for words to express her contempt, accents of Toremal strengthened by emotion and echoing round the stone walls. “He calls my girl a slut, says she lays with any who asks, claiming her babe as his.” Fury choked her to silence before abruptly deserting her, leaving her plump face slack with the threat of tears.
“Calm yourself.” Guinalle looked past Mistress Cheven as she pressed the woman to take a stool. “Corps Commander Halice is here and I imagine about the same business.” She beckoned to us with unconscious authority.
Halice walked over unhurried, me a pace behind. “Mistress Cheven, Demoiselle Tor Priminale.” She bowed and Guinalle sketched a perfunctory curtsey out of archaic habit. “I came to warn you about Peyt right enough. He’s out to make trouble for Deglain and slandering Catrice was the best thing he could think of. There was a fight—” Halice raised a hand to soothe Mistress Cheven’s inarticulate distress. “Peyt came off second best and he’ll feel the sharp edge of my tongue as well as due punishment. It was Deg I wanted to talk to you about, Demoiselle.” She looked at Guinalle. “Back in Lescar, hired as a corps, I’d have him flogged for messing with a girl, if she was unwilling. If she was willing but found with child, I’d pay him off and promise him all the torments of Poldrion’s demons if I ever found he’d abandoned them. But I’d still be calling him to account for throwing the first punch in a brawl.”
“But this is not Lescar,” Guinalle concluded Halice’s unspoken thought.
“Deglain’s a good man, not one to fight unless sore provoked.” Mistress Cheven looked concerned. “Me and her father, we’re glad to see Catrice keep company with him. They’ve been talking about wedding this Solstice coming. Back when, that is, if we still held to old customs, they’d be handfasted long since.”