The meal was small, bread, cheese and the heavily seasoned remains of what was at most half a chicken.
“I’m a terrible cook,” Alornis confessed. Vaelin noted she hadn’t eaten anything. “That was mother’s skill.”
Reva cleared the last crumb from her plate and gave a small burp. “Wasn’t so bad.”
“Your mother?” Vaelin asked. “She’s . . . not here?”
Alornis shook her head. “Just after last Winterfall. The bloody cough. Aspect Elera was very kind, did everything she could, but . . .” She trailed off, eyes downcast.
“I’m sorry, sister.”
“You shouldn’t call me that. The King’s Law says I’m not your sister, that this house isn’t mine and every scrap Father owned his by right. I had to beg the magistrate to stay on a month before the bailiffs come for the rest. And he only did that because Master Benril said he’d paint his portrait free of charge.”
“Master Benril Lenial, of the Third Order? You know him?”
“I’m his apprentice, well more of an unpaid assistant in truth, but I’m learning a lot.” She gestured at the far wall where numerous sheets of parchment were pinned to the plaster. Vaelin got up and went closer, blinking in wonder at the sight of the drawings. The subjects were wide and varied, a horse, a sparrow, the old oak outside, a woman carrying a bread basket, all rendered in charcoal or ink with a clarity that was little short of astounding.
“By the Father.” Reva had moved to his side and was staring at the drawings with the kind of wide-eyed admiration he thought beyond her. The gaze she turned on his sister was awed, even a little fearful. “This touches the Dark,” she whispered.
Alornis managed to hold her laugh for a second or two before it burst from her. “It’s just marks on paper. I’ve always done it. I’ll draw you if you like.”
Reva turned away. “No.”
“But you’re so pretty, you’d make a fine study . . .”
“I said no!” She went to the door, face hard and angry, then paused. Vaelin noted how white her knuckles were on the doorjamb and there was a soft lilting note from the blood-song. He had heard it before, fainter but still there, when they first began travelling with Janril’s players and he noticed her watching Ellora as she practised one of her dances. Her gaze had been rapt, fascinated, then suddenly furious. She closed her eyes tight and he saw her murmur one of her prayers to the World Father.
“My apologies,” she said, still not looking at Alornis. “This is not my house.” She glanced at Vaelin. “This night is for you and your sister. I’ll find a room to bed down in.” Her tone became harder. “We’ll conclude our business in the morning.” With that she went into the hallway. There were only faint scuffs as she moved through the house, she had a knack for stealth.
“Your travelling companion?” Alornis asked.
“You meet all kinds on the road.” He returned to the table. “My father really left you with nothing?”
“It wasn’t his fault.” Her tone had an edge to it. “Whatever coin we had went fast when the sickness came. Any lands he held, or rights to pension, disappeared when he stopped being Battle Lord. His friends, men he had been to war with, no longer knew him. It was not an easy time, brother.”
He could see the reproach in her gaze, knowing he had earned it. “There was no place for me here,” he said. “Or so I thought. You knew him, grew up under his eyes. I did not. If he wasn’t at war, he was training his horses or his men, and when he was here . . .” The tall black-eyed man stared down at the boy with the wooden sword and no smile came to his lips as the boy lunged at him, laughing but also pleading. “Teach me, Father! Teach me! Teach me!” The black-eyed man batted the sword away and commanded a steward to take the boy to the house, turning back to continue grooming his horse . . .
“He loved you,” Alornis told him. “He never lied to me, I always knew who you were, who I was, that we did not share a mother. That every hour of every day he wished with all his heart he hadn’t followed your mother’s wish. He wanted you to know that. As the sickness grew worse and he couldn’t leave his bed, it was all he could talk of.”
There was a sudden thump of something heavy hitting the floor above, a man’s voice raised in alarm then a snarl. Reva.
“Oh no,” Alornis groaned. “He doesn’t usually wake up until well past the tenth hour.”
Vaelin rushed upstairs, finding Reva astride a tall, handsome but unshaven young man, knife held rock-still at his throat. “An outlaw, Darkblade!” she said. “An outlaw in your sister’s house.”
“Merely a poet, I assure you,” the young man said.
Reva loomed over him. “Quiet you! Come into a young maid’s house, would you? Itch in your breeches is there?”
“Reva!” Vaelin said. He was wary of touching her. The scene in the kitchen had left her wound tight and in need of release, any touch like to make her snap like a drawn bowstring. He kept his voice calm. “This man is a friend. Let him up, please.”
Reva’s nostrils flared and she gave a final snarl before rolling away, coming smoothly to her feet as her knife disappeared into its sheath.
“You always did have dangerous pets, my lord,” the young man said from the floor.
Reva started forward again but Vaelin put himself between them, offering the young man a hand and hauling him upright in a haze of cheap wine. “You shouldn’t bait her, Alucius,” he said. “She’s a better student than you ever were.”
Alucius Al Hestian sat on the red-brick well in the yard, blinking in the morning sun, eyes dark and red, sipping from a flask as Vaelin joined him. The practice with Reva had been more vigorous than usual. She had plenty of anger left over from the night before and seemed more determined than ever to land at least one blow with the ash rod. Defeating her had not been easy and his shirt was damp with sweat.
“Brother’s Friend?” he asked, nodding at the flask as he hauled the bucket from the well.
“It’s called Wolf’s Blood these days,” Alucius replied, raising the flask in salute. “Some enterprising former soldiers of yours set themselves up in a distillery with their pensions, started churning out bottles of the regiment’s favourite tipple by the thousand. I hear they’re rich as Far West Merchants these days.”
“Good for them.” He settled the bucket on the rim of the well, scooping water to his mouth with the wooden ladle. “Your father is well?”
“Still hates you with a fiery passion, if that’s what you mean.” Alucius’s grin faded. “But he’s . . . a quieter man these days. The King has a new Battle Lord now.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Indeed, Varius Al Trendil. Hero of the Bloody Hill and the taking of Linesh.”
Vaelin remembered a taciturn man biting down angry words born of frustrated greed. “Many victories to his name?”
“There’s not been a real battle in the Realm since the Usurper’s Revolt. But he was singularly efficient in quelling all those riots and rebellions.”
“I see.” He took another drink and rested himself next to Alucius. “I find myself compelled to ask an indelicate question.”
“Why is a drunken poet sleeping in your sister’s house?”
“Quite.”
“He thinks he’s protecting me,” Alornis said from the kitchen doorway. “Breakfast’s ready.”
Breakfast was a sparse serving of ham and eggs which disappeared almost as soon as it touched Reva’s plate. He could see her resisting the impulse to ask for more, but her stomach felt no need to restrain a loud rumble. “Here.” Alucius pushed his own untouched plate towards her, his unstoppered flask still in his hand. “Peace offering. Wouldn’t want you cutting my throat for a meal.”
Reva favoured him with a curled lip but accepted the food readily enough.
“Our father died three years ago,” Vaelin said to Alornis. “Why has it taken so long for the King to claim his property?”
She shrugged. “Who can say? The slow wheels of bureaucracy perhaps.”
The ship that carried him from the Meldenean Islands had called in at South Tower little over a month ago. Plenty of time for a fast horse to ride to the capital. A man as hated as you shouldn’t expect to avoid recognition. He suspected the wheels of bureaucracy had ground much faster than she knew.