Having her muscles corded into knots was not the worst of it, Chemoise knew. Giving an endowment of grace affected the gut. The first few weeks would be hard. From now on, she would only be able to eat broth and thin soups.
“I’ll bear it gladly,” Chemoise said.
“Good,” the facilitator said. “Good girl.”
He went to a small pile of forcibles and picked one up, held it near the candle for a moment, studying the rune on its head. It looked like a tiny branding iron. He must have found some imperfection, for he pulled out a small blunt instrument and began pressing one edge of the rune outward.
“Forgive the wait,” he apologized. “The blood metal bends easily, and is often damaged during travel.”
“I understand,” Chemoise said.
Chemoise watched Brielle. Aside from her shallow breathing, Brielle showed little sign of life. Chemoise saw a tear seeping from one eye.
It’s painful to be so clenched, she realized. Giving an endowment of grace is torture.
When the facilitator finished, he glanced at Chemoise. “Now,” he said. “I want you to look at the candle.” Chemoise glanced at the candle, then turned her attention back to Brielle. Each time that she had seen the endowment ceremony before, the potential Dedicate had stared at the lord who would receive his gift.
“No, don’t look at her,” the facilitator warned. “Keep your eye on the candle. Look to the light.”
Of course, Chemoise realized. We look at our lords because they are handsome, with their endowments of glamour, and it makes it easier for us to give ourselves. But staring at a wretched vector would only unnerve a potential Dedicate.
Chemoise looked at the candle as the facilitator began to half chant, half sing, in a rich voice. She couldn’t understand the words. As far as she knew they were only sounds. But they were sounds that comforted her, and made her want to give of herself. She could feel that yearning grow, like a potent fire.
The candle flame flickered and sputtered as the facilitator whirled around the room several times, and then placed the forcible on Chemoise’s arm.
The touch of it sent a thrill of shock through her. Often she’d heard of the “kiss of the forcible.” She imagined from this that the touch of the metal must somehow be soft and sensual at first. But it wasn’t a kiss. Instead, she almost felt as if the forcible were a leech that hooked its round mouth to her skin, and began sucking something vital from her.
As soon as the forcible touched her, the head of it began to heat, and the elasticity in her muscles drained away. Her right biceps cramped inordinately, so that she caught her breath.
She gave herself, willed herself to think about Gaborn in his hour of need. The candle flame flickered like the tongue of a snake, and she watched it, ignoring the urgent sound of the facilitator’s chant. Outside in the city, she heard cocks crowing, serenading the sunset.
The pain in her arm spread down to her elbow and up to the socket of her right arm. Beads of perspiration broke on her brow, and one trickled down the ridge of her nose. The forcible seemed to become a flame itself. It burned her arm, and she smelled singed hair and cooking flesh.
She glanced down at the tip of the forcible in surprise. She’d been listening for hours as people gave endowments, and in turn nearly all of them had cried out in pain. Some said that the pain of a forcible was unspeakable, unbearable, but as Chemoise’s arm burned, she felt determined to bear it.
So she closed her eyes, focused upon her king, and upon the people that she loved. The pain flared so that suddenly she felt as if her whole arm was on fire. She gritted her teeth.
This I can bear, she told herself. This I can bear.
And suddenly the pain blossomed a hundred-fold. Every muscle in her body seemed to cramp at once, so that she bent over in pain far more exquisite than anything she had ever imagined. Though she wanted to scream, to give voice to that pain, all that issued from her lips was a grunt.
Chemoise’s world went black.
33
In his Father’s Footsteps
It is the duty of every man to conduct his affairs in a manner that will make it both an honor and a challenge for his offspring to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Borenson, Myrrima, and Sarka Kaul rode away from the reaver lines, putting a mile or more between them and the marching horde that spanned from horizon to horizon.
Sarka Kaul stared ahead, his eyes unfocused. “There is good news and bad. Raj Ahten and Queen Lowicker have formed an alliance. They will allow troops to enter Carris from the north, in hopes that all of them die, leaving half of Rofehavan open to conquest. But even they do not guess what aid the night might bring.”
“Hah!” Borenson laughed in sheer delight to have a Days as his counselor. “Tell me, friend, what will this ‘Council’ of yours do when they discover that you’ve betrayed their secrets?”
“There is only one punishment for such as me—death,” Sarka Kaul answered. “They will torture my twin first, a slow, laborious process. When minds are twinned, you share more than common memories. I will see what she sees, feel what she feels, hear what she hears, until the very last moment. When she dies, I will most likely die with her, for one cannot hope to live after being torn from a bond so intimate as the one that we share.”
Borenson fell silent, ashamed that he had laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“It’s not your doing,” Sarka Kaul said. “I made that bargain long ago. Right now, my twin lies to the Council, saying that you threw me into the ocean and that I am adrift at sea, clinging to a bit of wood. My only hope is that I live to help guide you until nightfall.”
“And my hope for you,” Myrrima said, “is that the Council never learns what has happened, and that your twin can escape.”
They had not gone far when they met a lone rider, galloping south along the prairie. He was a Knight Equitable by the look of him, wearing some outdated beetle breastplate from northern Mystarria, along with a black horned helmet with ring mail that flowed like hair down his back, a style seen only among the Khdun warriors of Old Indhopal. He bore an ornate lance of black basswood, a rather princely weapon.
He came riding toward them on a gray horse, grinning broadly. Borenson recognized him as Sir Pitts, a castle guard from the Courts of Tide.
“What do you plan to do?” Borenson called out, nodding toward the line of marching reavers, “terrify them with your fashion sense?”
“Got in a tangle with a scarlet sorceress this morning,” Pitts said, grinning broadly. “She ripped off me chainmail and chewed up me helm! Luckily, I skinnied out of ’em, or she’d have had me for breakfast, too.”
Pitts rode near. Obviously, he’d scavenged his armor from dead warriors, and was forced to wear anything that seemed a close fit. Across the brow of his saddle were half a dozen philia taken from the bunghole of a reaver. They dangled from the saddle like dead eels, smelling of moldy garlic. Averan said that that smell was the death cry of a reaver. Borenson could see the dried blood now that blackened the man’s brow. It was dark and copious, and if Pitts managed to live through the coming battle, he would surely carry some enviable scars. After all, how many men could say that they’d escaped from a reaver’s mouth?
Borenson laughed aloud. “Someday you’ll have to tell me the tale in full, and I’ll pay a couple of pints of ale for the honor. But for now, how goes the battle?”
Pitts nodded toward the north. “The Earth King warned us to guard Carris, and that’s what we’ll do. But High Marshal Chondler isn’t waiting for the reavers to attack. He’s sending lancers against them, near the head of their column. It’s a bloody row up there.”
“How far to the front?” Borenson asked.