Planir burst out laughing. “That’s not quite how I would put it.” He rose and crossed to the sideboard standing with unobtrusive elegance against the wall. If Messire paid me half what that piece might fetch on a good day in a Col auction house, I’d have spent my spring and summer profitably. The Archmage took two bottles from the array resting in carved cradles. “You said you were lunching with Shiv? Take this with my compliments.”
I stood to take the gift. “That’s very good of you.” If he thought he was going to pay me off with a couple of bottles of even this finest vintage, the wizard was a few sticks short of a bundle. “You’ll be able to bespeak, what’s his name, Casuel by tonight? You and Messire should be able to agree a sum between you soon enough. I’ll call back for your contribution tomorrow?” I was tempted to ask if he could get me news of Ryshad but decided against putting myself in his debt.
“Make it the day after,” Planir suggested. “Rest assured, Livak, you won’t find me ungenerous. I know what we owe you and your friends.”
There were two edges to that, so I replied in kind. “Assisting you has proved the experience of a lifetime, Archmage.”
A thought halted me on the threshold. “I was very sorry to hear about Otrick.” I had no need to pretend sincerity. “I didn’t know him well, but I liked what I saw of the old pirate. I really did hope that Aritane would know how to bring him back to himself.”
Planir ducked his head against a sudden grimace, lifting his face a moment later, mask fully restored. “At least we can bid him a proper farewell now, him and the others so afflicted.” He coughed. “Let’s hope these are the last deaths we add to the reckoning. Just as I pay my debts, Livak, I collect what’s due. The Elietimm will pay in full.” He smiled with all the warmth of frostbite.
I managed a fleeting quirk of my lips and closed the door behind me, tucking the wine in the crook of my arm.
Othilsoke, 23rd of Aft-Summer
Keisyl took a long draft of cold water and closed his eyes, savoring the kiss of wind and sun on his brow. If only he could stay here like this, forever, never having to look on his problems again.
“Keis? Lad?” Chance breeze lifted the wary hail over the edge of the hollow.
Keisyl walked out onto the track to see two figures toiling up from the lower reaches of the valley, faces muffled against the dust, clothes stained with sweat. He walked down to meet them, leather jug in one hand and horn cups in the other.
“Mother, Fithian.” He handed each a drink and refilled the proffered cups wordlessly.
“So what’s it all about, Keisy?” Ismenia demanded once she had regained her breath.
“Fith?” Keisyl turned to his uncle in some surprise.
The old man shook his tousled silver head, mouth down-turned. “Not for me to say, lad.” He mopped his forehead with a sleeve, the faded yellow of the cuff newly mended with brighter thread. “It’s for you two alone. I’ll go on up and look to the workings.”
Ismenia watched him go with a mixture of resignation, irritation and affection. “He’s been itching to get back to the diggings, the old fool. Goats is boys’ work, as far as he’s concerned. All right, Keisy, what is so important I have to leave the girls and come hiking all the way up here? I’m not as young as I was, you know.”
Keisyl managed a faint smile at her determined cheerfulness. It died in the next breath. “Come and see.”
Walking into the dell, he skirted the long-dead ashes of the fire and went to the sturdy tool cache. The door was secured by a simple wooden wedge, which Keisyl kicked aside with the split toe of his boot. Reaching into the gloom, he dragged a cowering figure out into the sunlight.
Ismenia’s hands leaped to her face to stifle a startled cry. “Jeirran?”
Keisyl looked down at the naked figure hunched on the ground, hair and beard matted with dirt where they hadn’t been scorched away by fire, body smeared with heedless filth, feet foul with sores, hands bleeding from raw blisters, one finger missing its nail and swollen into a suppurating mass. “I think so,” he said finally.
The sound of voices lifted the wretch’s head, face blank, mouth slack and drool glistening on chapped and crusted lips. The eyes were the worst, blue as ever but as mindless as those newly opened in a mewling pup.
“I thought he was dead,” whispered Ismenia. “I thought Maewelin had claimed her due, rot his heart!”
“Looks like Misaen wanted him after all.” Keisyl chewed on a thumbnail. “Now what do we do with him?”
“Where did you find him?” Ismenia shook her head in wonderment.
“He was scuttling around the diggings.” Keisyl couldn’t restrain a shudder. “I thought it was some gwelgar knitted out of grass and mud, come to look for naughty children.”
His laugh had no humor in it but the miserable thing looked up and mimicked him, the sound hoarse and horrible.
Keisyl raised a hand but could not land the blow. He turned away, shivering despite the hot sun. Ismenia looked down at the hollow shell of a man, just staring vacantly at nothing again. “What are we to do with him?”
Keisyl heaved a reluctant sigh. “I suppose we can keep him up here for a while, clean him up, feed him up.” He looked with distaste at the sores where a few maggots still clung. “If it were only me involved, as Misaen made me, I’d do nothing, Mother, I’d drive him off and bless the day, but Eirys—”
“You think Eirys needs this?” Ismenia turned sharply. “You think Eirys, after Sheltya scared her half witless before declaring her guilt-free, do you think she needs this wreck of a man to drain her of hope and life when she should be looking to her child? Eirys must never know of this. You must never speak of it, never breathe a word, not even on your deathbed, not even when Solstice sun stirs your bones.” She fell silent, trembling, narrow shoulders hunched as she clasped her hands in a vain effort to still them.
Keisyl drew his mother inside strong arms, her faded hair fluttering against the frayed collar of his shirt. Gradually her trembling eased. “So what do we do?”
Ismenia gently eased herself free, patting Keisyl’s shoulder in meaningless reassurance and smoothing the laces of his shirt. “He owes the soke a life, doesn’t he?”
Keisyl drew a long breath before answering. “There’s Eirys’ baby?”
Ismenia shook her head. “That’s not the same. That child is her gift to the blood, and as long as she still mopes for Jeirran I can’t see her bringing another to bed. Why didn’t he die at the Teyvafess?” she raged suddenly, “Then we could have shown her the body and had done.”
“And if she’d had his bones to lay in the cavern, that grief could have killed the babe in her belly.” Keisyl shook his head. “It was only the hope that he might somehow still live that saved her. You said so yourself.”
“So do we take that hope from her? If she’s brought to bed before the turn of the season, I wouldn’t give much for the chances of the child coming through the winter.” Ismenia pulled the embroidered kerchief from her head and twisted the cloth around her hands. “He owes the soke a life,” she repeated softly. “If it weren’t for him, I’d still have my Teiro, my baby boy.” Her face crumpled as if she was about to weep and she hid her face in the meadow flowers dotting the white linen.
Keisyl scrubbed away his own sudden, angry tears and reached for his mother’s hands, but when she lifted her eyes they were dry and resolved. “He owes the soke a life and we will claim it.”
“We have that right, don’t we?” said Keisyl cautiously. “Kinder than letting him wander and starve or die of a fever.”
“I don’t want to be kind,” said Ismenia bitterly. “I’d like to stake him out for the ravens, Maewelin be my witness! No, his life is forfeit and better that we know he is dead than wonder when he’s going to come scraping at the gatepost like a lost hound come home.”
“He found his way here, Misaen only knows how,” agreed Keisyl with distaste.