StarCrossed. Part 2

We sailed in silence after that, as the broad highways and crowded river of Gerse gave way to farmland and open waters, leaving me to watch the endless water and reflect upon my own situation. And fortify myself a little for the journey ahead. Raffin Taradyce, at least, had a purse bulging with silver marks. He wouldn't miss a few.

Had it been a wise move, throwing my lot in with these people? I was completely at their mercy. They'd been nice enough so far, but once they slept off the drink and came to their senses, who could tell what they were planning? All right, maybe they weren't going to turn me over to Greenmen, but there were other dangers in the world. Raffin had picked me up for some reason, and I wanted to be ready when I figured out what that was.

I studied them. If I had to, I could probably take one of them out. But which one? I could summon the initiative to stab Phandre - but sweet, ner vous Merista? Durrel? I'd thought my days of defending myself that way were far behind me. But what happened to Tegen showed me how naive I'd been.

And even if the Pleasure Boat Four truly had no dark designs on me, what was I going to do once we reached this Favom Court?

As the sun rose higher, chasing off the moons, the fields and pastures were replaced by more and more trees. I had never seen such trees - vast, haunting things, stretched up into the heavens, reaching their branches over the water as if they would s.n.a.t.c.h me from the boat. Was this Celys's land, then? In the chill air from the water, I s.h.i.+vered.

I couldn't go back. With Tegen gone, and Ha.s.s missing, there wasn't anyone in the city I trusted enough to take me in. My rooms, such as they were, had surely already been searched, if not planted with Greenmen lying in wait. How long would they look for the girl that had been with Tegen? Ha.s.s was connected; he knew people at all levels of society, from street sc.u.m like me, to men like Lord Taradyce. I had no illusions about who he'd side with, when pressed.

And - be honest, Digger - there was no reason to suspect Tegen hadn't given me up.

They wouldn't have killed him outright; that wasn't the Greenmen's way. Sometimes people just . . . disappeared. We all knew what that meant.

Dungeons.

Torture.

The Inquisition.

I pulled my knees into my chest and pressed my cheek to my skirts. I knew what could happen. I had always known it could happen, but that was worlds away from the men in green stepping out of the shadows and drawing their swords in your face, jamming their hands up your skirts as you twisted and screamed, kicked and bit - I rubbed my wrist, where the short one almost had me. I'd have pulled hard enough to break my wrist, I think, if I'd needed to. I'd gotten a good kick in. Tegen could have that to remember, as they bent his beautiful fingers back, one by one, waiting for him to scream.

"What's the matter?" said a soft voice beside me. Durrel.

I sniffed and lifted my head, hoping my face didn't betray too much. "I think I'm just tired."

He reached for my hand but recoiled as I s.n.a.t.c.hed my arm back and pulled my sleeve down over the wound.

"You're injured." There were all kinds of questions in that brief sentence.

"It's nothing. I - fell, going over the temple wall. On the roses." I met his even gaze, willing him to ask me nothing else.

Finally his set jaw relaxed and he sat back. "You're freezing. Here." He pulled a damask robe from the bench and draped it around my shoulders. "Why don't you rest a while? We won't be at Favom for a few hours."

I heard another sentence beneath the words: Nothing can happen to you out here.

I wasn't safe, but I was safe enough, for the moment. As I lay back into the bench, my head cradled on Durrel's balled-up cloak, I wondered at him. Raffin Taradyce's boat, but I was here at Durrel's whim.

Before I could give that any more thought, I saw something in the distance and shot upright, my eyes locked on the sh.o.r.eline.

"What - what is it?" Durrel frowned and turned his head to follow my gaze. "G.o.ds," he swore, and lunged for Merista.

"What are you doing?" she cried, but he held her tight, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"Don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look," he repeated over and over.

Phandre and Raffin had stirred as well, and were silent as we sailed past. There on the northern bank stood the Adonia Laia, one of the royal palaces that had been converted to gaols during Bardolph's reign. But it wasn't the golden sandstone towers or the glint of the famous colored-gla.s.s windows that had snagged my attention.

It was the row of spikes lined up before it, thrust into the earth like a grisly fence line. Eleven of the spikes bore the severed and rotting heads of those who'd died in the Inquisition, victims of Werne the Bloodletter. I could not stop myself from counting, from searching for . . . Some were bare skulls, bleached white in the sun; some still had ribbons of flesh and hair clinging to bone. Some were hideously recognizable, if they had been your friends or loved ones. All of them topped spikes hung with shredded violet banners - a warning to anyone who might even sympathize with those who followed the G.o.ddess Sar.

Not seeing Tegen didn't make me feel any better. It only meant they hadn't gotten him up there yet.

A little apart from the row of heads stood a gruesome scarecrow, something white and tattered fluttering in the breeze behind its broken body. I pressed a hand to my mouth, feeling sick. A magic user - or one so accused, flayed and put on display. Beheading was too good for anyone with the gall to claim mysterious powers from Sar.

Something caught me by the arm, and I jumped, my hand flying to my boot cuff. My fingers found - nothing. My ankle sheath was empty, and suddenly I felt naked. I must have lost the knife during the fight. I didn't even remember drawing it.

The grip on my arm got my attention. It was Durrel, still clutching Merista. I read his message clear enough. This girl was important to him. So far, he had acted to protect me, but only so long as I was not a danger to anyone on board. If it came to a choice between Merista, or Raffin, or Phandre - and me . . . If it came to a confrontation with the Greenmen . . .

I nodded my understanding and dropped my hem, easing back against the cus.h.i.+oned seat.

"G.o.ds, what a world we live in," Raffin said.

"What was it?" Merista asked, rubbing her face as she sat up from Durrel's crus.h.i.+ng embrace. She looked us over and went sober. "Oh. Did we go through Traitors' Pa.s.s?" There was nothing to see now except pallid blots against a wall of gold. "It's so awful," she said. "How can the Inquisition do that?"

"They're savages," Phandre said with surprising bitterness. "And you, Celyn Contrare, or whoever you are, had better be grateful you didn't let those Little Daughters of Celys get their filthy hands on you!"

At long last, the wine and the sleepless night caught up with them and, one by one, my companions dozed off. I took swift advantage of the moment. It was easy enough lifting Raffin's purse, even with Phandre draped all over him, but Phandre, oddly enough, wore no jewelry. Disappointing - I'd have enjoyed stripping her of some of those fine feathers.

I found myself reluctant to steal from Durrel, but Merista wore two long strands of silver necklaces, tucked deep into her bodice. One silver link was worth a week's food, five could buy pa.s.sage on a vessel sail ing to Talanca. As she slept on her cousin's shoulder, I carefully worked the clasp and slid the chain free of her hair and dress, coiling it down my sleeve.

But as the silver snaked away, Merista's pale skin seemed to give off a strange, ethereal light of its own. As she breathed, a wavering, misty haze swirled across her neck, lifted her dark hair with colorless luminescence, spun like dust motes across her bare cheek and plump fingers. I yanked my hand back like I'd been burned. The silver gone, it was as clear to me as moonslight in a dark room.

Merista Nemair had magic.

Marau's b.a.l.l.s.

Two thoughts bound themselves together in my mind: Did the others know? Did they see? The first was dangerous for Merista - but the second put me at risk. By some twisted humor of the G.o.ds, I'd been born with the cursed skill to see the Mark of Sar, wherever that G.o.ddess had touched - the faintest traces of magic, eddying swirls of power that were invisible to everyone else. I wasn't Sar-touched; I had no magic of my own. But for whatever reason, for me, magic gave off a kind of glow, which lit up the user or the object like sunlight on water.

The silver chains - and now I realized the bracelet she wore, as well - must be used to bind Merista's powers. Somehow the silver worked against the magic, the way water doused a fire, keeping it suppressed and invisible. Normal people couldn't see the haze of power given off by the magical, but that didn't stop suspicious neighbors from pointing fingers, or Greenmen from stopping you on the street. It was safer just to keep that little spark buried deep where it could not escape. But Merista wore so much of it - I'd seen her cure Durrel's head ache with a touch, and she'd only had to doff the bracelet to do it. How much power was coursing under all that silver?

Cursing myself for a softhearted fool, I poured the chain from my sleeve into my cupped hand and pooled it carefully on the floor of the boat, just behind her slippered foot.

"Lady Merista," I whispered, trying to nudge her without actually touching her - I hated the way magic sparked and flared under my fingertips, even if I felt nothing. "Milady -"

She mumbled and s.h.i.+fted in her sleep, blinking awake.

"You've lost a necklace, I think." I grated out the words with effort, and showed her.

"Oh." Merista leaned down to retrieve the chain, and I saw that Durrel had woken up and was watching me again. By the G.o.ds, but those intense eyes were unsettling! Back home I'd smack him for it, but here I let my own gaze drop, wondering what he might have seen.

Eventually the rocking boat and my own rough night caught up with me, and the next thing I knew, Durrel was shaking me awake under four full moons. I jumped up, knocking his hand away. It was dark, I was stiff, and for a heartbeat I couldn't remember where I was.

"Easy there," Durrel said.

All my muscles tense, I glanced around, the day filling in its details in my memory. "I can't believe I slept so long," I said, surrept.i.tiously examining myself. Bruised and thirsty, but I seemed to be all here - and the letters were still tucked inside my bodice. Strangely, though, I had a soft dark hat in my lap.

"You must have been exhausted." Durrel retrieved the hat and perched it on his head. "Meri was afraid you'd burn."

I glanced between him and Merista, who smiled faintly at me. Who were these people? This was not the behavior I'd been led to expect from n.o.bs. But they'd saved my life, smuggled me past the Acolyte Guard, fed me, watched over me while I slept, and protected my delicate skin to boot. So far I hadn't done too badly in their company.

"We're almost to Favom," Merista said, pointing downriver, to where a pale shape hulked on the left bank. Favom Court. By night, there was little to see, and my small party grew quiet as we approached Durrel's home.

"It's not too late to keep on sailing, old boy," Raffin said, but Durrel shook his head.

"We need to get the girls in." He grinned and clapped Raffin on the shoulder. "Might as well take our medicine like men, eh? Pull to the left here. The mooring's under that big oak. Don't look so surprised, Raff - this is the real country, boyo."

We tumbled onto the dock in a s.h.i.+vering heap of wrinkled court clothes. Phandre fished a pocket mirror from somewhere - I had a sudden desperate longing for the thing, all gold and enamel, with a ma.s.sive green carnelian on its back - and examined herself. She gave her mane of tawny hair a violent shake that somehow managed to make her look even more polished, and, bowing low, reached deep inside her bodice to arrange her bosom. I thought Raffin's eyes would fall out of his skull.

Merista turned to me. "Here, let's get you tidied up a bit, Celyn." And under the bright light of the moons, she seized the laces of my bodice and undid me almost to my waist. I scrambled frantically for the let ters and managed to slip them into the lining of my sleeves before anyone noticed. She pinned up my tangled hair in her own gold fillet, brushed down my skirts, and finally p.r.o.nounced me "quite seemly."

"Dear Meri," Phandre said. "You were born to be a lady's maid."

And even in the moonslight, I saw Merista's pale face flush as she turned away from us.

Durrel glared at Phandre, and even Raffin noticed. "Oh, very nice, Phandre."

"What?" she said. "What'd I say?"

Durrel led us through the scrabbly undergrowth between the lap ping water and the cold stone walls of the keep, into a walled paddock and the stables beyond. As he pushed the door aside, the smells of hay and horseflesh rose in the cold clear air. Durrel motioned us to wait and stepped inside.

He returned a moment later, his face grim.

"Well, they got here before us."

"Who?" I said. Greenmen - here?

Durrel glanced at Raffin. "Our parents."

CHAPTER FOUR.

Raffin swore. "Not all of them?"

Never having contended with parents, I had a little trouble grasping the gravity of the situation, but Merista looked close to tears, Raffin had an expression on his face I can't begin to describe, and even Phandre was subdued. Well, for fat or lean, I had thrown my lot in with these people, and irritated parents seemed a mild alternative to what awaited me back in Gerse.

"There's nothing for it, I'm afraid," Durrel finally said. "The faster we get this over with, the faster it's over with." He ushered us all inside. Something rustled in the pungent darkness, too close to my head, and I jumped.

"Easy, Celyn," Durrel said. "It's just the horses."

"Horses," I echoed faintly. "Right."

"What will they do to us?" Merista whimpered, but Phandre was calm.

"You don't seem worried," I said.

She turned slowly to gaze down her perfect nose at me. "My father died in exile."

"Oh." b.a.s.t.a.r.d pigs, indeed.

"What are we going to tell them about Celyn?" Merista said.

"Don't worry," said Raffin, reviving a bit. "We'll say she's Phandre's maid."

And in the darkness, it was really impossible to tell who found that idea more offensive.

It was not until we had crossed the threshold that I remembered something critical: I knew Raffin's father.

The recollection brought me up short, and Phandre stumbled into me and swore. I felt like swearing myself. After that long day of fling ing myself blindly between danger and opportunity, I wasn't sure which this was. It had been a long time since I'd seen Lord Taradyce; would he recognize me? Would he help me? Have me seized for the thief I was and thrown into whatever served Favom as a dungeon?

I had no idea.

The jobs I'd done for Taradyce had been simple things - a councilman's incriminating love letters, a doctored accounts book for a s.h.i.+pping firm - your basic fodder for blackmail, and the kind of things n.o.blemen did to their enemies all the time. Only Taradyce made a career of spying on his friends as well.

The stables opened out onto wide, moonslit gardens, herby and fragrant and ridiculously tidy. Durrel marshaled us through a narrow, low-arched doorway - obviously a back way; I approved - and into a shadowed ser vice corridor.

"Easy here," he said, one arm raised to hold us back as he glanced down the pa.s.sage. From my position between Phandre and Raffin, I could hardly see anything but age-darkened stone and rumpled damask. The same sleepy quiet of the gardens, a smell of river and damp, and behind it - something cooking. If Tiboran truly loved me, we would head in that direction. n.o.bs might live off wine alone, but I required actual sustenance.

"We need an ally," Durrel said, and I detected a trace of mischief in his voice. He waved us across the corridor and toward the roasting chicken. Or was that rabbit? Rabbit was rare enough in the city; most establishments were likely to serve up an alley cat and - concentrate, Digger! This was no moment to let my guard down.

Round a corner and under another arch, and the five of us slinked into a warm, glowing kitchen - and nearly into a wide-eyed serving maid clutching a pot of grease. Immediately Durrel had his arm around her, one soft hand clamped against her mouth. He held his other finger to his lips. The corner of her mouth lifted in a smile behind her lord's hand. She gave us a wink and ducked out of our way. Nice. I would have found a less . . . charming way to silence her.

The stealth of our approach did not last long, however; once inside the kitchen, Merista gave a cry.

"Morva!" She flung herself headlong across the ruddy tiled floor, into the arms of a squat woman swathed head to foot in ap.r.o.ns and kerchiefs and veils.

The woman gathered Merista to her bosom and glared at the rest of us. "Ach, seedling, you're all right now. You, young master - your lord father will have words about this, mark me!"

I looked around the kitchen, realizing with devastation that all the work was being done for the wrong end of the meal. The fire had been tamped down, the spit was bereft of meat, and Morva s.h.i.+fted Merista aside just in time to avoid a splash of water cast on the floor from a scrub bucket. I tried hard not to moan.

Merista was pouring out the woeful account of her kidnapping and torture by the roguish knavery of her cousin and his friend, when Durrel's voice broke in. "Lady Morva, please get the girls some food. And make sure Celyn gets seconds. She missed breakfast."

When Morva's gaze came to me, her eyes grew shrewd, and for a moment I was sure I'd been caught out. "And what in Her holy name have you lot done to this poor girl, then? She's a fair mess!"

"We found her like that," Raffin put in cheerfully, and Phandre snickered.

"You! Do not speak in this kitchen if you don't wish to know what I think of Taradyce manners. Why, you'll have the -"