Disciple, Part I: For Want of a Piglet Read online

  In a moment, I was the last one a-horse. Working one foot free, I picked myself up and swung but a muscle sharply protested, making me lose my balance and scrabble at the saddle as I fell. My ankle twisted in the stirrup and jammed before I landed. One leg in the air, I got up as far as my elbows before the pressure on my ankle stopped me.

  I had my free foot down and was trying to lift myself with that and one hand, reaching for the stirrup, when boots came running.

  “Father’s beard, did you fall? Are you hurt?” Strong arms scooped me up and he hoisted me against his shoulders. He smelled of oiled mail and leather. “Wedged in there good,” the knight said as I reached for my stirrup.

  Pal shifted to back away and the knight clicked his tongue a few times. Pal’s ears straightened and he stood still. My rescuer pried my boot free, thankfully, and I put both feet down.

  “Thank you, sir…?”

  He’d let his hood down and thrown his cloak’s shoulders back; the open sun bleached his hair to palest blond and his eyes matched the sky. He’d been Blessed by Saint Woden — two ridges of grey horn erupted at his hairline and cut across his crown. Scar tissue hemmed the line between scalp and Blessing like a fingernail cuticle. Between the ridges, his knight’s crest was long enough to tie in a flaxen pig tail but the rest was only grown back enough, since Ansehen, to color his scalp. All the knights shaved their heads down to a crest the eve before battle, and many kept that bit of a tail even if they never rode again.

  His tabard had a sergeant’s single brass ring knotted on each epaulette to mark his rank in the Prince’s Guard. His sword, hanging from a double-wrapped belt, barely cleared the ground by his foot.

  “Anders,” he supplied. “Sir Anders Bockmann.” He had an infectious smile, too. With a glance around at the empty road, the oat fields, and the mild commotion at the well, he sketched a bow. “Dame Kate, a pleasure to meet you even if you were upside-down at the time. Not broken?”

  I checked. “Only a little twist.” I’d skinned the heels of my hands, and brushed the dirt out of the scrapes.

  “First time on a horse? Walk a bit.” Anders gestured at the space around the well. “Stretch your legs before they knot up.”

  I had to agree. “They’re sore already.” My hood had slipped a bit and I pulled it back up as I took a few steps. My ankle hitched a little, but I kept going.

  Anders walked with me. “Riding’s more work than it looks.”

  “But easy enough for you, if you know horses so well. Or only Pal? That was a command, wasn’t it, the…?” I clicked in imitation.

  He nodded. “Hold,” he translated. “Bockmann horses, all, to get us to Vorspitz.” Turning, Sir Anders whistled short and sharp and some two dozen horses looked toward him, ears perked. But then the first bucket of well water was tipped into the trough and they jostled to drink.

  I kept walking, circling the watering-stop. Prince Kiefan stood holding the well’s rope as the massive bucket drained. He tracked us, a faint frown marring his brow. I pulled my hood further up, ears burning, and continued. He’d told me not to speak. Twice.

  “You’re limping a bit,” Sir Anders said. “Are you sure it’s not sprained? Here, I know a sprain from a break.”

  He indicated the field’s stone wall and I leaned against it. Sir Anders had my boot and wool sock off in a moment and stroked both hands up my foot. My bones shifted a little, pinching the corner of my mouth. By how he checked my ankle, he did know a thing or two. And it might be a mild sprain but it was no break.

  “No, I’m sure you’re not a horse,” he said, flashing me a grin.

  I couldn’t help a chuckle. His thumb massaging my instep was nice, too. “Checking my soundness?” I asked, quietly.

  “Can’t have you foundering—”

  Sir Anders’ head jerked hard as the prince appeared behind him; there must’ve been a cuff across the head, too quick to see. Then Sir Anders was eye to eye with the prince, both tensed and sharp, before I could gasp in surprise. Speed Blessings on both of them, and now that Sir Anders was half turned away I could see how his horn ridges joined and continued as one down the back of his head. They followed his spine down neck, betwixt shoulders, all the way to —

  I couldn’t see that part, of course, under his clothes. We’d had knights on the operating table often enough during the Ansehen battle that I’d seen most of their secrets. Admittedly, the thought of these two knights in less than full mail and winter cloaks made for a distracting thought.

  Prince Kiefan spat something, and it took my Blessing a moment to recognize and point me toward the translation. It was Arceal, something to the effect of, “Keep your eye on the mission and not her.”

  Sir Anders bowed, curtly, and went to help see to the horses.

  My pulse jittered as the prince spared me a glance. “Keep your hood up and quiet,” was all he said.

  I sat in my saddle, sweating under the felt, holding my tongue. Despite the strange, dramatic morning in the Grand Chapel and the harriers at Gabel, this day had turned stiflingly dull.

  The road delivered us to the Felsherz River, which crossed the broad valley from the eastern Eispitzen mountains to join the Neva River. Clusters of a few houses around a tavern and an Orderhaus cropped up on the roadside every now and then. We kept riding even though people came out to see us. Cantered through, even.

  Prince Kiefan let us rest often enough, but didn’t speak or even wave when we passed vegetable wagons or knots of harvesters scything the fields. Sir Anders and Ther Boristan and Ilya handled that. They chattered along for hours about horses and riding gear, happy as magpies. The Prince’s Guard rode at the rear, in orderly lines.

  I kept quiet, as ordered.

  Since Prince Kiefan had spoken some Arceal, I closed my eyes and reviewed my lessons in that language. Because Saint Qadeem Blessed me with memory at twelve, I could recall any moment of any day in perfect clarity. My horn ridges weren’t so pronounced as a knight’s speed or anticipation Blessing, but the two grey nubs at my hairline were easy to spot. The rest barely peeked through my hair.

  The saints chose their disciples for their own reasons. Odd, true, for Saint Qadeem to choose a peasant girl, but I’d been duly sent up to the Order’s main campus for two years of reading and writing lessons. Languages had come later, after Master Parselev plucked me from the ranks of memory-Blessed students and apprenticed me. Odder, that, and there’d been some feathers ruffled over it. The Elect chose from the ranks of other physicians’ apprentices — advanced students of worthy skill. Not some Englic peasant who could barely read. But elect and saints were never wrong in their choices. Not to be questioned, in the end.

  Maybe someday I could ask Saint Qadeem why, if I dared.

  The sun was low and the lone mountain, Woden, cast its long shadow. No question who owned this broad valley; Woden stood alone. Its city, Wodenberg, lying on its southern flank, was only a smudge in the distance. The castle, perched on the low sub-peak, caught the afternoon light.

  A good stretch past another village, we came to a cistern in the stream’s bank. Prince Kiefan chose the trodden-flat apron around the cistern’s trough for a campsite and both Ilya and Ther Boristan set to unpacking our saddlebags. The prince began drawing water for all the horses, as he had each time we’d stopped.

  Sour he might be, but he didn’t turn up his nose at labor.

  I landed on my feet from the saddle but a twinge in my ankle still made me wince. Then I tried to walk and found my thighs and butt had fused into one solid knot. Or so it felt. On Sir Anders’ advice, I’d hobbled around whenever I was off Pal, but now I was reduced to mincing my way to the campfire circle where Ther Boristan was setting up his firewood.

  Trees lined the quick-running river. Ilya hobbled to and fro to bring armfuls of branches. He suffered as much as I from the day’s ride but he declined help from any of the Guard. Ther Boristan arranged kindling under his careful stack of wood. Pinching his thumb and two fingers together, he r
eached down to let his hand hover just over the clump of dry grass he’d tented with twigs. I felt a little kir move, echoing from him as he focused. A glow rose to his fingertips and gathered into a twinkle of light. Snapping his fingers, he dropped the spark charm onto the kindling. The grass caught, flames chewed up the twigs merrily and the fire was soon crackling.

  I stopped Ilya when he stood up with a wince after watching the fire start. “You’ll be quicker if you let me unknot those cramps,” I said. “And I know you’re suffering too, Ther.”

  “Would you have kir for both of us?” Ther Boristan asked.

  “I’ve made no charms today,” Ilya said, extending his right hand as if to shake, “but I’m no physician. Take mine and use it for yourself. I’ll manage as I am.” He was charm-handed. A single nub of horn broke the skin on the back of his right hand, where he could give his kir to someone else if he did not use his day’s worth.

  “No, I’ll have some willow bark once he boils water,” I said.

  “I’ll drink it,” Ilya said. “Truly, Dame Kate, I’ll be well. I’ve ridden before, simply not often. More than the two of you, likely.”

  I gave in. “Thank you. Let me see to Ther Boristan first. May I?”

  Boristan stood stiffly from the campfire. “What do you require, m’lady?”

  It was something of a reach, but I slipped my hand under the collars of his layered cotes at the back of his neck. Then I called my kir and it welled up warm in my chest. It tingled down my arm as I sent it along, and its glow rose on my hand as it gathered. Answering, Ther Boristan’s kir rose to the light from inside him. It spun in little whorls and ripples of color across his skin, visible despite his clothes thanks to my hand on him.

  In living flesh, kir took shape and danced in slow, deliberate patterns. Meridians carried fresh kir to the dances and helped orchestrate. Where flesh broke, the pattern was interrupted. Where kir was pinched or knotted, the flesh felt pain without a wound.

  I sent my kir down Ther Boristan’s spine, his prime meridian, and my gaze went with it. His kir tangled and stumbled where the muscles were tense and overworked. With a little focus, I smoothed them out. Like combing out your hair, the tangles fought it but I loosened them till they came free. As the whorls unknotted, the muscles relaxed and the pain faded.

  “Mustn’t tell your wife of Dame Kate’s studying your ass,” Ilya said with a smirk.

  I think Ther Boristan blushed, under his beard. “Is that why you declined?”

  “She’d be angry if she learned.” Ilya nodded. “Now for yourself,” he said to me, holding out his hand again.

  I laid my palm on Ilya’s charm-node and kir tingled, tickled, through my skin and up my arm. Sending it down my spine, I combed it through my own knotted kir. It put up a bit of struggle and I had to go carefully, finding the larger tangles and twisting them loose. Little by little, they came free.

  “Much better.” I smiled. “Now, what can I do while the water boils?”

  They sent me to unpack the bedrolls while Ther Boristan cooked for just the few of us. The Guards saw to their own, though I think they grew jealous as the mouth-watering scent developed. Ilya dutifully drank the bitter willow bark tea to ease his own aches the simpler way. The horses jostled around Sir Anders, as he had the feedbag of oats, and he spoke to them in clicks and whistles as he portioned out their dinners. When it came to our own meals, I was handed a trencher, a handsome wooden trencher, covered with pan-cooked potatoes and cabbage and salt pork. I started to pass it on, but the others already had theirs. It was all for me.

  I was hungry enough to lick it clean. It was stunningly delicious. Ther Boristan only shrugged. “My wife lets me cook,” he admitted. “That gives her more time to weave.”

  The sky darkened overhead as I helped clean up. Five of the Flock moons were high in the sky and a sixth was rising. The seventh, the shy one called Love, would not be back until the Shepherd waned. Puffy clouds caught the last light as the sun fell below the western mountains. When I crossed my legs by the stone-ringed campfire again, the shadows were thickening in earnest.

  My bedroll tempted me. But something more important had stewed me all day. Prince Kiefan had told me to be quiet and I had. None of this had been my plan, or anyone’s other than my master and Saint Qadeem, but obeying had come easily enough. More than simply being the prince, he carried himself like an alerted tomcat. Both the knights did. Sir Anders could break that illusion with one of his easy grins, but on Prince Kiefan it only made me think of the stories I’d heard after the battle at Ansehen. Of the cavalry charge he’d led, and that on the battlefield his Blessings made him unstoppable.

  “Majesty?” I had to know. “May I ask something?”

  Across the fire, Prince Kiefan glanced at me. “You may. But ‘Sir Kiefan,’ not ‘majesty.’ Not out here.”

  “This can’t be to deliver reinforcements, can it?” Once I started, I couldn’t help saying it all. “Even if the prince went himself, he wouldn’t bring a Ther and a physician’s apprentice. And why leave before dawn, hoods pulled up and silent?”

  I’d thought he’d glare or snap but he only watched, eyes measuring me. I’d let my braid down, for the night, and wrapped it around my hand as I waited. Sir Anders, sitting beside him, raised his eyebrows when the prince glanced at him sidelong.

  Prince Kiefan — Sir — said, “Baron Eismann sent word that the lamia have been growing bolder of late. Coming down from the kir fount on Himmelbaum and taking sheep. Children, too. We’re to lead a hunt of them before the snows get too deep and the lamia get any hungrier. Do you know about them?”

  Monsters. They haunted the Winter Wood, in children’s tales. “Only what stories say. Are they so dangerous as the monsters Arcea sent to invade us?”

  “Centaurs are made things,” Sir Kiefan said, “Saint Woden told us. Forged by Arcea’s saints from men and horses. Lamia are animals — raised on the waters of a kir fount, but only animals. The kir makes them powerful. Clever.”

  When he paused, I asked, “As kir makes the Blessed powerful?”

  “I’ve never hunted lamia. Baron Eismann wrote that a physician is prudent to bring. Lamia are cunning and cruel. He’ll advise us as best he can.” His voice dropped as his thoughts strayed, and it seemed he left much unsaid.

  “But why must I hide? Why bring Ther Boristan? Surely they have Thers of their own.”

  He fixed me with a steady look and spoke slowly. “We meant to bring the Elect, but lacking him — this is no place for a girl that’s not discipled to Saint Woden. So keep your hood up. We’re hunting lamia. That is what you’ve been told.”

  My head cocked, on reflex, weighing that. There was more to come, I didn’t doubt. “Yes, m’lord,” I responded, quietly. “I see.”

  I thought I saw the corner of his mouth pick up a little, at that.

  Ther Boristan rode with a book open in his hands, and I tapped Pal until he ambled up alongside. Ther sketched on the blank page with a piece of charcoal wrapped in linen. He noticed me and, with a smile, tipped it for me to see. It was Sir Kiefan, caught looking away and his Blessing’s ridges rising fierce and sharp through the down of regrowing hair. His braided knight’s crest swung as if he’d turned abruptly.

  Leaning close, I whispered, “It’s a good likeness.”

  Ther Boristan shrugged, humble. “Blessings fascinate me. Especially those few with multiple Blessings. To think we’ve two of them here — I couldn’t help trying a sketch. I hope you don’t mind if I sketch you? The memory Blessing’s uncommon, too.”

  Fortunately, Sir Anders and the prince were absorbed in conversation, safely ahead of us. I could disobey a little. I murmured, “I wouldn’t mind. What about your Blessing? Saint Qadeem spoke to you, I saw.” Ther had nothing on his head, nor his hands, so I thought he must have the strength Blessing, which was easy to conceal. That was one of Saint Aleksandr’s Blessings, though, as well as Saint Woden’s. Not Saint Qadeem’s at all.

  Boristan
offered his hand to me. “Craft-handed, m’lady. It barely shows. Both Saint Qadeem and Aleksandr have been kind to me.”

  I felt his fan of bones and knuckles -- oversized, true, now that I touched them -- and sure enough, the ridges lurked below his skin. “No surprise your sketch is so true, then.”

  Ilya slowed down on the other side, curious. He nodded when Ther Boristan showed him the sketch. “So serious,” Ilya said, of it. “He does smile sometimes, truly.”

  “Does he?” Ther Boristan commented, for me.

  “M’lord does smile. I’ve worked in the castle long enough to see it for myself. Heard a laugh, even. When His Majesty isn’t on hand, the prince isn’t much different from any other young knight. More serious, perhaps.”

  “His Majesty’s serious indeed.”

  “He keeps Prince Kiefan close under his wing,” Ilya said, his humor fading. But then he grinned again. “Many a maiden wishes he didn’t, that’s the Father’s own truth. But he’s a good prince. Never puts on airs, like some nobles do.”

  I kept to a murmur, leaning toward Ilya. “You work in the castle?”

  “Oh, yes, always have. Since Papa let me tag along with him to the stables. Started me in the scullery and I picked up a bit here, a bit there. Whatever’s needed around the courtyard, I’m your man.”

  “On hunting trips, too?”

  Ilya nodded. “The hounds know me well. Nearly got myself gored by an elk, one hunt, up on Lake Neva. Majesty gave me a bonus for that, while I was laid up from the trampling. Very kind of him.”

  Boristan had gotten in a few more lines on his sketch, adding Kiefan’s shoulder. “Have you been on hunting trips?” I asked him.

  “Me? No, never. Since I took vows, I’m either home or at the Order. The abbot wants me on hand.” When I nudged for more, he said, “I’ve been his secretary going on ten years now.”

  As I thought it, I said, “They must trust you.”

  “He’s trusted me with private things, now and then. Things not to be spoken of.”