CHAPTER 8
THE NEXT FEW DAYS passed in much the same fashion.
The second day was worse than the first, even though they stopped much more frequently and went much more slowly. The inn had bigger rooms, however, and Slate got to sleep in a bed without a paladin sulking on the floor.
They did not ride for so long each day as they did the first. Learned Edmund chafed at the delay. Slate and Brenner merely chafed.
Caliban found them some kind of herbal gunk. It was full of comfrey, and stank to high heaven, but supposedly it healed saddle sores.
This was a difficult bit of self-medication, but Slate would have cut her own throat before asking Caliban for help—chivalry be drawn and quartered, there were limits—and Brenner would get entirely the wrong idea.
She had to barricade herself in her room and engage in a series of unfortunate pantless contortions to get the stuff on.
She never asked Brenner how he managed. She was afraid he’d tell her.
The third day was really bad. Slate and Brenner took to slugging poppy milk straight out of the bottle, which meant that they alternated giggling and whimpering. After about an hour of this, Caliban took the reins away from them and tied them in a string to his saddlebow. They found this amusing.
“If you keep drinking that stuff, you’re going to wind up addicted to it,” he warned them, as he watched the small glass bottle make the rounds again.
“Oh, yeah, I’m real worried,” said Brenner. “Remind me again, what were we on? Some kind of suicide mission, was it?” Slate snickered.
He stopped talking to them.
The scenery was not interesting enough to be distracting. It was all farm fields. Slate’s mother had come from farming stock and had been determined never to go back.
Once or twice, Slate had missed having a larger extended family to belong to, but looking at the fields and the people working them with hoes and spades, she offered up silent thanks.
I’ll light a candle for you, Mother. Two candles.
Ten candles. I bet these people have to deal with horses constantly.
Slate and Brenner sang rounds of dirty songs together. Brenner had a surprisingly good voice. Slate didn’t. She did get to enjoy watching Learned Edmund twitch when she went for the high notes.
Caliban was trying to pretend he didn’t know them, which was tricky when he was the one leading their horses.
At the inn that night, they sat propped up against the wall, shoulder to shoulder, while Caliban looked at them with irritation and Learned Edmund didn’t look at them at all.
“I could kill both of them,” said Brenner. “We could get to Anuket City on our own.”
He said it rather louder than he intended.
Learned Edmund’s eyes widened. Caliban simply shoved trencher bread in front of the assassin and said “You’d have to walk.
The Clockwork Boys are raiding up and down the southern trade roads.
No caravans unless you want to go to a completely different city-state and work your way down from there. ”
Brenner looked at Slate. Slate said “He’s probably right,” and picked at her bread. Poppy-milk killed your appetite, but she knew she should probably eat anyway.
“I could kill them just a little.”
“No.”
“I will never understand,” said Learned Edmund, apparently to Caliban, “why I was not placed in charge of this expedition.”
“Because you look about twelve,” said Slate, too tired to be diplomatic. “Do you even have to shave yet?”
The dedicate flushed scarlet. “I am nineteen!”
“I am thirty-seven,” said Caliban, “and if I can accept Mistress Slate’s leadership, so can you.”
“She hasn’t been leading!” said Learned Edmund. “She’s been drinking poppy and falling off her horse! You’re the one finding the inns and choosing the route.”
Caliban locked eyes with Slate. “She has delegated,” he said, his voice a low rumble, in sharp contrast to Learned Edmund’s. “Mistress Slate’s talents lie elsewhere. I assure you, they are considerable.”
“Damn straight they are,” said Brenner, snickering.
“Shut up, Brenner.”
Learned Edmund got up from the table and walked away without speaking.
Slate groaned and dropped back against the wall again. “Why did they send him on this trip? He hasn’t got a tattoo eating his arm off.”
“He volunteered,” said Caliban.
Slate blinked. So did Brenner.
“Among dedicates of the Many-Armed God, he is considered very…compassionate,” said Caliban.
“Dear god!”
Brenner whistled softly.
“How did you find that out?” asked Slate.
“I asked the Captain of the Guard.” He looked down at his hands with a small, ironic smile.
“The Many-Armed God’s temple were very keen to find their missing scholar in Anuket City, or, if he is dead, to find out what he was working on when he died.
They wanted his journal translated very badly.
And when Learned Edmund learned that those who accompanied the dedicate were expected to die, his heart was moved by pity at our fate.
He offered to go, both to find this scholar and because he knew that he was to be the designated survivor who would bring the information we gathered to the Dowager and the Many Armed God. ”
“Didn’t realize a woman would be in charge, I take it,” said Slate. Her head was clear, but she didn’t have to like it.
Caliban inclined his head. “He is young and not worldly. I truly do not think it occurred to him or his superiors.”
“Did he know they expected us all to die before we even got to the city?”
The paladin sighed. “I believe he was told that it was dangerous. But he is very young, and the young always believe that they are immortal.”
“Ugh.” Slate rubbed her shoulder and hissed with the pain.
“It should improve soon,” said Caliban.
“What, Learned Edmund?”
“No, the pain. Your body adapts to riding the way it adapts to practicing the sword.”
“I don’t do that either.”
He helped them both upstairs. Brenner fell into his room cursing. Slate eased herself onto the bed as if into hot water. Each individual muscle was still furious.
Without being asked, Caliban reached down and pulled her boots off.
“Gaaahh!…thanks.” Command. I am in command. Dammit, that child was right. I’ve been letting Caliban do it all. I should have interrogated the Captain of the Guard about Learned Edmund myself, and instead I was maundering around wall owing in my upcoming horrible death.
Dammit. And now I’m going to ask for even more.
No. Delegating. I’m delegating.
“Will you speak to Learned Edmund? Tell him…whatever.” She waved a hand vaguely. “Smooth it over.”
“I will do my best.” He stood at the foot of the bed in parade rest, apparently waiting to be dismissed.
“Use the voice on him,” muttered Slate.
The Knight-Champion looked startled for just a moment, and then he gave her a genuine smile. “You noticed?”
“Hard not to. If I could sound that trustworthy, I’d be rich.”
Well, maybe. Probably it only works if you’re six feet tall and look like a war-god.
“Most likely not,” he said, sounding a trifle apologetic. “I am afraid it only works if you believe what you’re saying.”
“You mean you can’t lie?”
“Normally? Of course I can, though I’m afraid it was never my strong suit. But if you are trying to make people trust you, you must trust your own word first. That’s why it works.”
“What awful con men you’d make.”
“That is the general idea.”
“What if you’re one of those loons who believe every word they’re saying?”
His smile faded. “People like that are dangerous,” he said. “We try to kill them quickly.” He shut the door behind him, and left Slate alone in the room.
Maybe Caliban had been right about adapting.
Maybe it was the awful herbal gunk. Whatever it was, after the third day, it started to get better.
Muscles either learned how to grip or stopped trying.
Joints loosened up. Slate could get out of the saddle at the end of the day, although she never could get back up into it without a mounting block.
Caliban took to sleeping in the stable whenever possible, presumably so that his demonic mutterings would bother no one but the horses.
Slate got up early one morning—or rather, her allergies to the mold in the room drove her out of bed before she suffocated—and she found the knight in the stable yard, chopping down shadows.
Slate melted into the shadows of a staircase and sat down. She pulled her knees up to her chin and watched him.
Forehand…backhand…turn…forehand…sweep…
It was a repetitive set of motions, oddly hypnotic. The arms moved, the sword swung, the shadows fell back.
The paladin was a pleasure to watch, she’d admit that. He was not wearing the shell of armor, and it would have taken a better woman than Slate not to admire the play of muscles under his skin. The thin cotton shirt didn’t leave much to the imagination.
The black ink across his arm was an ugly blotch beneath the fabric. It wriggled with each chop of the sword. Slate stifled a sigh.
Oh, well. We’re all damaged goods here, I suppose.
At the end of the sequence, Caliban dropped gracefully to his knees, a practiced move, and clasped both hands on the hilt of the upright sword. He bent his head, forehead pressed against the backs of his hands, and closed his eyes.
And there he stayed.
Long minutes slid by, and Slate’s ankles ached with sympathy. Inside his boots, his feet had to be white and bloodless. Unless the temple teaches knight-champions how to do that sort of thing…
Slate had not ever seen much point to prayer, but the intensity of that silent vigil was painful to watch. It seemed cruel that any god could hear such prayers and not respond at once.
She slid to her feet and slipped away before he saw her and she could ask what, if anything, he was praying for.
“I’ve never met an assassin before,” said Learned Edmund to Brenner, after they had been several days on the road.
“Speaking on behalf of assassins everywhere, we were perfectly happy with that.”