When Jordan awoke again, it was to the sound of a flock of geese honking their way south. He climbed stiffly out of bed and went to the window to watch them. Calandria was already up—or she had never returned to bed at all.
Autumn was coming. The smell of woodsmoke pervaded the estate, and the dawn chill reminded him of waking at home to find snow on his blankets. He would drag his clothes into bed—icy and stiff, they would start him shivering immediately. Better to warm them under the covers, than to step into the cold air of the loft and put them on there. Quickly he would stomp downstairs, carrying his chamber pot like a lamp to set near the fire if its contents had frozen, otherwise by the door. And then to the chores, and breakfast.
Sleepy winter. He felt a sorrowful ache, remembering and knowing things would never be the same. Resting his head on his hands, he stared out at the brooding sky.
He heard movement near the fire, where they had lain August. He was awake, staring at the ceiling with a puzzled expression on his narrow face.
When Jordan walked over to him, August said, “It doesn’t hurt,” in a thin voice.
“It will if you move,” Jordan warned. Axel had coaxed him on that point. August was almost completely healed. They would have to trick him into thinking he was still hurt.
“I’m thirsty.” Jordan nodded and went to get some water from the table. He tilted a cup to August’s lips, and the man drank awkwardly.
“Where are we?”
“The tower. We’re going to move you to town tonight. You can recover there, out of sight of the Boros.”
“Ah.” August appeared to consider this. “Will I have a commission to come back to? Duelling is frowned on.”
“What about self-defense? You can claim you were attacked while you were out taking a piss.” Jordan shrugged. “We’ll think of something.”
August’s eyes squinched shut for a second. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m beholden.”
“I don’t think so.” Jordan sat back on the wood floor. “Why were you fighting?”
August sighed. “I saw Sheia’s man Andre acting suspiciously. I think he was stealing. Anyway, I followed him and challenged him, and he took me on. Maybe I should have raised the alarm, but… Linden has a curfew, and I was breaking it. I’d have had to explain myself too. And what about you? What were you doing out of your room?”
Jordan pointed to the window. “You woke me up.”
“Oh. …Sorry.” August grinned ironically. “We thought we were being so quiet.”
Jordan scowled. “Duelling is stupid.”
“I know.” August looked very serious now. “My older brother was killed in a duel.”
“So why did you do it?”
August stared at the ceiling pensively. “It gets easier to risk your life as you get older. I think women understand that when they have children. Suddenly they know they would give their life for their child, and it doesn’t bother them. With men it’s different, but we… trade our allegiance in the same way. At some point, if you’ve grown up at all, you have to decide that something outside yourself is more important than you are. Otherwise you’ll be a miserable bastard, and you’ll die screaming.” He closed one eye and peered at Jordan. “That make sense?”
“I don’t know,” Jordan said uncomfortably.
“You get perspective. You can stand outside your own death, a little. Not while you’re dying, though.” He frowned. “Shit, I was scared. Scared…” He closed his eyes.
“You should sleep more,” Jordan prompted.
“No. I like being awake. Alive, you know?” His face wrinkled; for a moment he looked as though he would cry. Jordan sat back on the wooden floor, blinking in surprise.
August swore. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! Things are coming to a head between my master and Sheia. He needs me right now, and I’ve let him down.”
“Yuri decided in favor of your master,” said Jordan.
“Yeah, but we know Sheia won’t stand for it. He’s going to lose everything, because his queen is going to lose her war. His only hope was to shelter under the Boros title. Now he can’t do that. We don’t know what he’s going to do, but he’s going to have to do it soon. Yuri’s living in his garden if he thinks Sheia will just accept his decision.”
Jordan shook his head, puzzled. “But what can Sheia do about it?”
“Don’t know.” August scowled. “He’s devilishly clever, the bastard. He’s probably celebrating my death right now; one less man to defend Linden.”
“Linden should leave.”
“And leave Sheia alone with Yuri’s family? No. We stay.”
A key rattled in the door. It opened and Axel poked his head in. “She here?” he asked.
“No.”
“Okay.” The door slammed again.
Jordan sighed. “You’d better rest,” he said to August. “I have to go study.”
*
Axel found Calandria on the manor’s roof. He’d thought she might be here; this was a good spot from which to signal her ship. The Desert Voice maintained a high orbit, waiting for its order to obliterate Armiger, and Calandria came up here to listen for its pulsed radio beacon every day. She seemed to need the reassurance of its presence, which was one of those unlikely character traits that people who didn’t know her well would find hard to credit.
“How are you doing?” he asked as he settled onto one of the crenels beside her. She was staring moodily out over the estate.
“Fine.” She shrugged. “Things are getting more and more complicated, that’s all. I was hoping we could get out without impacting the local culture at all. That seems unlikely now.”
“These people are used to miracles,” he said. “They’re part of the natural order here. Look.” He pointed east, where a pale crescent hung high in the sky: a vagabond moon. Another made a tiny dot above the southern horizon. “We aren’t doing anything supernatural, as far as these people are concerned.”
“I don’t like it,” she said. “Especially after last night. August’s wound is almost totally healed. That’s one miracle already. The Desert Voice is going to nuke Armiger, which is two.”
“Well, I’m afraid I have to add to the complications,” he said dolefully.
“Why? What’s happened now?”
Axel puffed his cheeks out. “This time I really was minding my own business. I went for a walk in the gardens. You know me, I think better on my feet, always have. Anyway, there’s the usual conspirators, sitting in shady bowers here and there in pairs. Very silly. As I’m walking, who should I see coming down the path, but the bastard himself.”
“Turcaret?”
“The very same.” Axel rolled his eyes. “Anyway, he calls me over like I’m some sort of lap-dog, you know—” he gestured with one hand, as if to bring something to heel, “and says, ‘I need to have a talk with you. Meet me in my quarters at eight o’clock tonight.’”
“Talk?” She frowned.
“Yeah.” Axel shrugged uneasily. Their cover story here might be blown. “So I said yes,” he finished unhappily.
“He’s forcing our hand,” she said.
“So what do we do? I told him I’d be there.”
“Wise, but obviously we can’t just react at this point. I wanted just a day or two more to pinpoint Armiger, but…” She nodded decisively. “I think we have enough.”
“You know where he is?”
“About a hundred kilometers from the Iapysian border,” she said. “Almost due south. More importantly, I think we’ve figured out where he’s going.”
“The queen?”
She nodded. “He seems to be interested in war. If he can use his powers to save Queen Galas, he might take over Iapysia. I thought before that the battle where the Winds intervened was a test. He may have wanted to find out what it would take to attract their attention. But it could be that he really does want to conquer a kingdom. Maybe he needs a large number of men to help him search for the Winds’ Achilles Heel, or some other resource he’s after.” She shrugged. “It’s all speculation.”
He grinned loosely. “So let me get this straight: we cut and run now, Turcaret sends the king’s guards after us, and where are we running, but straight into a war zone.”
She half-smiled. “Essentially, yes. The problem is what to do about Jordan.”
“We can’t very well leave him,” he said.
“We can’t very well take him with us either. Not only because he’ll slow us down. You and I are prepared for the danger, but he is not.”
“That’s where August comes in,” he said brightly.
“Absolutely not. We’ve already involved too many people.”
Axel threw up his hands. “Will you stop whining about that! It’s their world—you can’t treat these people like children. So a few of them find out what’s going on—what kind of crime is that?”
“That’s not the point. We keep adding extra concerns that just muddy the main issue, which is how to deal with Armiger as quickly as we can and get out.”
“Is the job all you care about?” He hopped down from the crenel. “These people aren’t going to cease to exist just because we go away. We kidnapped Jordan. What’s he going to do when we cut him loose? Haven’t you considered that?—or were you just planning to get him away from Turcaret and then cut him loose?”
She glowered at him. Obviously, she had been thinking just that.
“You’re not playing the whole game, Cal, you never do. We’re not just here to eliminate Armiger, we’re here to act like decent human beings. What’s wrong with getting to know people and helping them live their lives? And letting them help us live ours? I like Jordan. He did the right thing last night; he’ll be a man of solid character once he’s able to support himself.”
“Well,” she said coldly, “you’ve decided the right and wrong of it all, I see. So my opinion now isn’t going to matter.”
Axel clutched his black hair. “Your opinion matters! So does Jordan’s. So does August’s! We’re not just assassins, that’s all! Why don’t you get to know these people? Maybe you’ll like them. Maybe,” he laughed, “you and August will hit it off! What’s so bad about that?”
She stalked away. “We’ll leave tonight—with Jordan,” was all she said as she yanked up the lead-sheathed trapdoor.
Axel watched the door slam, then cursed. She hadn’t understood a word he was saying.
*
Armiger stood and wiped the sweat from his brow. He had been trying all afternoon to repair the damage he’d caused to Megan’s garden last night. Short of using some of his own nano, there was nothing more he could do.
“Very good,” she said. He turned. Megan leaned on the tall stump that marked the end of the garden. She smiled. “But seldom have I seen a man so grimy.”
“I told you I would fix it.”
She laughed. “One does not ‘fix’ growing things, Armiger. But… with practise, you could become a good gardener. I may leave the task to you for a while.”
He brushed back his hair. She seemed happy at the thought, and he did not want to disappoint her. Still… “I can’t stay,” he said.
Her face fell. “Why not? You’re not going back to your damnable army?”
“This is another army, and another war.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I want to talk to Queen Galas. She’s the only one on this off-chart world who seems to know what the Winds are. The only human on Ventus with vision. Naturally, she’s going to be killed for it. So I have to reach her immediately.”
Megan folded her arms under her breasts. “You know this queen?”
“No. Never met her.”
Megan watched him pick his way carefully out of the garden. He hadn’t said he was in love with the queen. Still, he was willing to leave Megan to see her.
He paused next to her, waiting for her to fall into step as he headed for the cottage. His recovery had been unnaturally swift, so that by now he showed no sign of having been at death’s door. Quite the contrary; his face glowed with health, and he moved with a cat-like grace he had sometimes caught her admiring. None of this surprised Megan; he was a morph, or some spirit very like that, so such powers were to be expected. But he was still a wounded man, she knew, regardless of his bodily strength. He walked and ate like one in shock, and their conversations had continued to be brief and awkward. Some men trod heavily on their own hurt; the worse it was, the harder they would push it down, but it showed—in premature age, in lines of exhaustion and anger in the face. And she well knew that a man who will not salve his own pain will often put all his energy into healing that of others’. To Megan, such brutality against oneself combined the most noble and foolish that men were capable of, and men of this sort drew her like magnets. Her own Matt had been like that. She believed only a woman could ease the intolerable pressure these men put on themselves.
So, Armiger was leaving. But she would be going with him, though he did not know it yet—and she had only this moment decided.
“I have money,” she said. “Enough for a horse, maybe two. Riding palfreys.”
“I only need one horse,” he said. Men were so obtuse sometimes; she half-smiled.
He strode easily through the thick grass, muscles moving in that fascinating synchrony she saw only in horses and men. “I’m not letting you in the house until you’re clean,” she said mischievously.
“You might have a long wait, then.” He grinned back at her. “Your little well only draws a cupful at a time. Do you propose to wash me a palm’s-width at a time?”
“That might be delightful,” she said. “But wait and see.”
When they reached the cottage, he laughed in surprise. “How long did this take you?” She had filled an entire washtub while he was in the garden.
“Well…” She put her hands behind her back and kicked the dirt. “I rather thought you would need it. So I started just after you left.”
“I do need it.” Unselfconsciously he stripped off his shirt. Her eyes widened as she saw he meant to do the same with his pants.
Armiger had only bathed in the presence of other men—officers and enlisted men, at river’s edge or encampment. It took him a moment to notice her sudden silence, then he realized he might be shocking her. By then he was naked, and had already stepped into the water.
He turned and their eyes met. Even as she stepped toward him, he felt his sex stirring. Since becoming embodied, he had not made love; it wasn’t necessary. Still, he had seen others do it many times, although the rapes performed by his men were distasteful, nothing like the love-making in which he had seen his remotes indulge.
Megan took a washcloth and wordlessly ran it up his leg. She did not look at him as she laved his calves and thighs; but his excitement was visible, and she raised her eyes to his as she brought the cloth there.
He reached to touch the nape of her neck. She sighed heavily, and ran her wet fingertips along his member. She kissed the flat of his stomach, then stood into his embrace.
Part of him wondered why he was doing this—an old, inhuman side whose voice had been losing strength and confidence over the past days. Another part of him, young and ancient at the same time, almost wept with desire and relief as he drew her dress down to bare her shoulders, and buried his face in her hair.
Megan dropped the dress completely, and stepped into the basin with him. “It’s been so long,” she whispered.
“Yes.” He lifted her onto him. The feeling awoke a torrent of memory—false or real, it no longer mattered. He encircled her with his arms. “Too long,” he murmured. Their mouths met, and neither spoke again.
*
Jordan came to himself suddenly. Calandria was standing in front of him, bathed in slanting evening light. Her face was framed by a wreath of fine black hair, tendrils of which caressed her forehead and the nape of her neck. She smiled at him. Jordan cleared his throat.
“How is our patient?” she asked, nodding to August. “Well enough to travel?”
“I feel fine,” said August. “The wound doesn’t seem so bad. I think I could even manage to hide it from Linden.”
“Really?” Calandria brushed a hand through her hair absently. “That might not be such a bad idea after all.”
Jordan was surprised by this. Last night she had been adamant about getting August out of the way so that he would not call further attention to them. The state of his wound was bound to be cause for comment, after all. Of course, if he himself hid it from his masters…
“Jordan, can I speak to you alone for a moment?” she asked. He nodded, smiled at August, who shrugged, and followed her into the hall.
She closed the heavy door, and said, “Our plans have changed.” Jordan felt a quickening sense of excitement, but said nothing. “We are leaving tonight,” she continued. As she spoke she watched his face closely. “I want you to pack our belongings and wait for me to return. Be prepared to move quickly,” she said.
“What about Armiger? I thought we were staying because we hadn’t figured out where he was.”
“Well. We have enough to make a start, don’t we?” she said brightly. Then she walked away, apparently confident.
Jordan reentered the room, and closed the door. “What’s up?” August asked him. The man was stretched out, seemingly at leisure, on his bedroll next to the fire.
Jordan shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said.
*
Axel raised his fist, then carefully loosened his knotted muscles and knocked politely on the tower door. It was a hard climb up here, past Turcaret’s guards then up a narrow windowless spiral stairway. He could barely make out gleams of light coming through cracks in the door. After a moment he heard shuffling footsteps, and the door opened inward.
“Come in, come in.” Controller Turcaret waved him inside.
Axel was surprised to find the controller was alone. The tower room he had been given was lovely. Tall leaded windows in all four walls admitted long shafts of afternoon light to gleam on the leaves of hundreds of plants festooning every surface. The chamber was tall, maybe six meters, and stone-floored. Whoever normally lived here had trusted to the sturdiness of the place, and had potted several young trees of respectable size. One, a willow, curled its long branches down over an iron-framed bed. Another overshadowed a writing desk. A wardrobe, several cabinets and a table sat half-hidden behind the foliage. There was a fireplace by the bed; the place might be quite cozy in the wintertime.
Axel crossed his arms, trying to manage a diplomatic smile. “Well. How are you?” he asked. It really should be Calandria at this meeting; but Turcaret had asked for Axel in particular, so Cal was off getting the horses ready, and he had to pretend to like this man for a few minutes. He manufactured a smile.
Turcaret brushed some leaves and a beetle off the table and motioned for Axel to sit. “Come in, Chan,” he said as he rummaged in a cabinet. “Make yourself comfortable.” He produced a bottle of wine and two glasses.
Axel eyed the bottle. “Are we celebrating something?”
Turcaret laughed darkly and uncorked the bottle. “We might be. That depends on how cooperative you are.”
“Does it have to do with your reasons for visiting the Boros?” asked Axel. What he really wanted to ask was, Did you follow us here?
“All in good time, man.” Turcaret made a shooing motion toward the wine glass. “Try it. I think you’ll appreciate it.”
Axel scowled, but picked up the glass. He took a sip. Instantly his diagnostic nano went to work. They detected no common poisons, although the liquid was full of substances foreign to them. That in itself was normal for Ventusian wine, Axel had discovered.
“Hmm.” He dismissed the paranoid thought that Turcaret might try to poison him, and took another sip. It was delightful stuff, so strong it seemed to dissolve into his soft palate before reaching the back of his throat.
He smiled at Turcaret and raised his glass. “All right,” he said. “Now what did you want to talk about?”
“Ah, that.” Turcaret steepled his hands and smiled. “It has to do with the little matter of your being an imposter.”
*
Daylight was seeping away outside. Jordan was fairly sure Calandria would wait for darkness before making any moves, but knowing that didn’t make the time pass any easier.
The time dragged. Jordan had packed everything in the ten minutes after Calandria left, and after that all he could do was wait. August had eyed him while he worked, but said nothing. He seemed content to let Jordan speak if he wished, but Jordan was distracted, and too upset to give the man much notice.
What confused Jordan even more was that Armiger and Megan were making love next to her fireplace. If he closed his eyes for even a second, he was there, seemingly touching her himself, and the vision was so mesmerizing he didn’t want to look away. It was powerfully arousing, and he couldn’t afford that—not tonight, and not with August in the room.
August kept twisting his body, flexing his arms, and touching his wounded side. He looked puzzled. Obviously he was trying to find some motion that would hurt enough to locate his wound. Jordan seized on the distraction.
“I told you, we’ve put something on it to kill the pain. You’ll just open it up if you move about.”
“No,” said August. “I can feel everywhere around there. It seems…” He threw the blankets off.
“Stop!”
August stood up. “I’ll be damned,” he said. He pressed his hand to his side. “It feels…” he looked up suddenly.
Jordan heard something. “Quiet!” he hissed. August looked up in surprise.
“What—?” Jordan waved him silent. He sidled over to the door and put his ear against it.
August hitched his pants up and came over as well. “What is it?” he whispered.
“I heard footsteps. They stopped just outside the door,” Jordan whispered back.
August planted his ear against the door. “I hear voices. Snuff out the candle, will you?”
Jordan ran to obey. August flattened himself against the wall next to the door, and Jordan barely had time to duck down behind the bed before someone pushed the door open, and three men stepped into the room.