Liviapolis – Master Kronmir
It had been one of the coldest rides of his life. Kronmir lost the little finger from his left hand as soon as he found a doctor, and it took him three long days to get warm again, even among the civilised hypocausts of Liviapolis.
Master Kronmir posed as a wealthy merchant this time, and he rented rooms at the Silver Chalice, an inn much frequented by Etruscans and other foreigners.
The army was still absent from the city, and he made his rounds as soon as he felt warm and secure. He spent half a day making purchases, merely to assure himself that he was not being followed, and then he visited his best agents and left them Christmas presents – amulets fashioned by Aeskepiles. He left them coded instructions for the use of the amulets and his warmest wishes for the New Year, and then he began cautiously probing for a malcontent among the newly recruited sailors at the now-thriving Navy Yard.
The malcontent was a fool, and a dangerous, malicious fool – the worst sort of agent. But Kronmir had little choice. He used the tool to hand. And he had to meet Snea, the fool, in person – he couldn’t be trusted to a cut-out – and that was dangerous.
Kronmir was taking chances. And he knew, as few men really did, where that path had to lead.
South of N’gara – Nat Tyler
Tyler left the Faery Knight’s castle at the break of day, well aware of what kind of trek awaited him. There was no force to hold him, and he walked free of the hold’s magicks, not quite fleeing. When he crossed the hold’s not-quite-visible sanctuary line – the border of the lord’s power – he saw moths out in the snow, a hundred or more of the things fluttering weakly against the bitter cold among the trees, like snowy owls without heads. He didn’t like them much as an omen, and he liked them even less when two followed him.
Perhaps it helped him that he didn’t particularly care whether he lived or died.
At some point in the past, he’d known how much of this was on his own head, but he’d had weeks to revisit his version of events, and by the time his feet were crunching along on frozen snow, supported by the web of rawhide thong on rackets that the Outwallers used, he no longer thought about Bess, or how long he’d loved her. He kept his thoughts fixed firmly on the uselessness of the younger generation of Jacks, not one of whom had wanted to accompany him.
I’ll free the poor serfs if’n I have to do it myself, Tyler said. And a pox on Bill Redmede and that harlot.
He made it a day on anger, and another. Anger burns very clear in the winter. And the weather was as kind as winter can be – clear and cold, yes, but without the sudden thaw that might have killed a man travelling alone. Tyler was no fool, for all that he was consumed with jealousy and rage, and he made camp early, gathered immense piles of brush and dry wood – easy enough with the snow four feet above the forest floor. He camped under downed spruce trees, or built shelters of spruce bows, and he had his Outwaller sleigh – he pulled it himself – on which to lie on a thick pallet of skins. The wood of the sleigh and the layers of fur and the warmth of the fire kept him alive, and every morning he fried a piece of his frozen bacon and prepared to face another day. He expected to be fifteen days crossing the Wild, if he was lucky; by the time he reached the villages around Albinkirk he’d be out of food and desperate.
If he lived that long, it would be a wonder. But he couldn’t stay and watch the remnants of the Jacks betray everything they stood for. They would soon turn Bill Redmede into a lord and follow the Faery Knight into servitude.
On his third night on the trail, he downed a deer with his bow and tracked it by blood spore across a ridge. He was late making camp and not as careful as he might have been – worried, more than anything, that he’d felt something give in his bow when he drew to his ear in the deep cold. He gathered firewood in a near frenzy, and sweated too much into his clothes, for which he’d pay in the deep darkness of midnight when the slick of sweat next to his skin turned to a pool of ice water.
But full darkness found him cooking deer meat in front of a respectable fire, and he’d made a good shelter in the lee of a downed, dead tree that had fallen in a windstorm and taken its roots with it, so that the roots made a wall and an overhang, studded with rocks big enough to split his skull if they fell on his head. But there was room enough to wedge his little sleigh in place and he sat on it, eating hot meat and drinking hot water.
He heard the crunching of footsteps on the snow when it was far too late. He rose to his feet, wondering who, or what would be out in this weather, at this time of year, and then there was a man – tall and straight, with thick white hair tied back with a quill-wrapped thong. The man wore a heavy robe of squirrel skins that was as black as the night around them, and he bore a staff that seemed to be made of iron, and he had no gloves.
‘May I be welcome at your fire?’ asked the man.
Nat Tyler had walked the world a long time. He got his sword hilt under his hand and then turned. ‘You ain’t no man, to need my fire. Whatever you are – if you are a guest, take a guest’s oath.’
The black-clad man bowed. ‘You are wise. I will do no harm at this fire, or indeed, to the fire’s maker,’ he said.
Tyler nodded. ‘I’ve sassafras tea, if’n you have a mind to it,’ he said.
‘Do you know who I am?’ asked the figure.
Tyler nodded. ‘You smell like Thorn, to me,’ he said.
The figure rose and bowed again. ‘You are wise. Wiser than your comrade, who betrayed me.’
Tyler crossed his fingers inside his mitten. ‘I ain’t no friend o’ Bill Redmede’s just now, Warlock, but he never betrayed you. You wanted dominion. We want no one to hold dominion over others. We was allies. And you wasn’t much of an ally to us.’
Thorn’s gaze was steady across the fire. ‘Nonetheless, you are leaving Redmede. With plans of your own.’
‘I am,’ Tyler admitted.
‘I could use you,’ Thorn said.
Tyler smiled toothlessly. ‘Aye, Warlock. I imagine you could use me. But I’d rather not be used.’
Thorn laughed mirthlessly. ‘You are a bold rogue, and I am out of practice in such converse. What do you want, to do my will?’
Tyler took a deep breath. He let it out slowly, and watched as it turned to white mist. He wondered how many breaths he had left. ‘I doubt you have anything I want,’ he said.
‘What if I told you that your Bess only loves Bill Redmede because the irk lord has cast a glamour on her? And on your friend? They aren’t even acting under their own wills. They are puppets.’
A stick snapped. Something let out a very animal-like grunt and Tyler stood up and drew his sword – an absurd motion when he was sitting across the fire from Thorn, who was unmoved.
A third figure glided into the firelight.
‘Ill met by firelight, tressssspasssser.’ Tapio’s fangs glinted like metal. ‘You are a fine one to ssspeak of puppetssss. Man, you accept ssstrange guessstsss at your fire.’
Thorn turned his head. ‘Tapio. You are very foolish, coming out of your circle of power.’
‘Not-a-man, you are very far from your own, do you not think? ’ The irk stood easily on the snow.
Thorn rose and faced it, holding his staff before him. ‘Shall we have our contest now?’ he asked.
The irk shrugged. ‘I would regret killing this man, who is my guest friend.’
Thorn didn’t move, even so much as an eyebrow. The shape of Speaker of Tongues was his perfect cloak – it looked like the body of a man, and yet had a thousand pockets to hold surprises.
He drew one and threw it.
Tapio flicked it away in the twitch of an eyebrow. ‘I could help you, Thorn,’ he said.
‘Help me? We are foes!’ Thorn said, reaching for a more subtle preparation to cast.