Flesh and Fire (36 page)

Jerzy forced the doubts away. “Over the past year, my master has been hearing rumors, stories. A Vineart disappeared, mysteriously. Protection spells faltered, vattings failed without cause. . .our own vineyard was attacked by an infestation out of season—something that could not happen on its own.”

Ao looked interested, but not concerned. “All those things, could they just be coincidence, a run of bad luck, or a decantation somehow gone awry?”

“They could. My master says that most of those he heard from assumed they were, each individual thing happening only to them. But then. . .Ao, in your travels, have you heard of sea serpents?”

“There is no such thing as sea—” Ao stopped. “Are there?”

“I’ve seen one.”

That stopped Ao cold for a second.

“Sea serpents. Creatures of magic. They are attacking coastal towns, two at least, but there are likely more, unreported.”

He waited for Ao to make the connection.

“Merchant ships? The cargos that are delayed. . .You think. . .”

Jerzy made a helpless gesture. “My master fears that this is all part of a single attack, that someone is using magic to attack.”

“Against Vinearts? Another Vineart? But why? I mean . . .” Ao frowned, working it out aloud. “Princes go to war for power, or land, or sometimes just because the other insulted them. Vinearts. . .why would a Vineart war on another? For his vines? I thought that they were handed down, that they stayed within your. . .family lines, or whatever you call it?”

“If a Vineart has secondary yards, he usually deeds them to his student,” Jerzy agreed. “There are only so many places the vines grow, and attempts to move them. . .rarely succeed.” Jerzy stopped, unwilling to say more. Malech had taught him that
vin magica
required three elements: vines, soil, and weather. If one was missing, there was no mustus, and if there was no mustus, there was no
vin magica,
and no spellwine. That wasn’t a secret, exactly. But something kept his tongue still. Bad enough, that he had shared as much as he had with an outsider.

“So if there is some threat—why are you here? Why aren’t you defending your master’s lands like a good student? Except, against what?” Ao answered his own question. “You don’t know who is behind it or why, you have no proof, so anything you do will be seen as an act of aggression, of power gathering. . .exactly what you’re forbidden to do. And if the princes see that. . .they could use it as reason to break the Commands as well. Steal your vines, use violence . . . take magic for their own.”

Ao let out a low whistle and stared out into the vineyard, too. “Sin Washer, there’s a problem and no mistake. And your master sent you here”—he answered his own question again—“because Aleppan is a trade city. There’s no gossip that’s not repeated here, at some point. That’s why you’ve been trying to listen in—and why you came to me. Because my people travel widely, hear more than you ever could.”

Ao’s voice had gone flat, and for a moment Jerzy was afraid that his friend was angry, or felt used. “I. . .I am sorry. I didn’t know. . .I didn’t mean to—”

“Blessed Joran’s wheels,” Ao said, and Jerzy realized the trader was laughing. “Jerzy, stop apologizing! I’m honored! Now”—he leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial tone—“what do you need me to do?”

Chapter 22

Jerzy woke, feeling
strangely ill. He lay still, the high bed and oversized chamber as familiar to him now as his bedroom back in The Berengia, and waited for the feeling to subside. The sun was barely slipping through his window, which meant that e was still plenty of time before he needed to join Giordan for their morning meal.

The journal the Vineart had given him lay on the table by his bed, and Jerzy reached over to touch the pebbled leather cover. He had fallen asleep the night before studying sketches of different vine leaves, comparing the subtle differences in shape and color, and his dreams had been filled with the stink of serpent flesh and the crackling of fire, until the stink had been banished by a hot, dry wind. The combination of fire and wind were terrible omens; merely remembering the dream made his stomach hurt worse.

He forced himself to think of something more comforting. Ao had agreed to help. Simply having someone to talk with had eased a great deal of Jerzy’s unease. Having a trader scouting for more rumors, more disquiet, could only be useful. And if that trader had no use for magics, scorned their use of spellwines, then none could say he, Jerzy, was manipulating power, could they?

Malech would not approve.

“Then I won’t tell him,” Jerzy said. The words, spoken into the cool stillness of the room, were shocking, and he flinched a little but did not take them back.

You are green, still,
Malech had said.
Not ready. But I have no choice.

Neither did Jerzy, not anymore. Not if he was to do what was needed. And the dream lingered in his memory, making his stomach roil again.

Forcing himself to move, despite the nausea, Jerzy threw back the covers and looked outside to check the height of the sun. Deciding there was time, he went down to the washroom. Even without Detta there to remind him, the weekly bath had become a habit, and more, the deep-seated tub of hot water was a small luxury he would be sorry to give up.

Later, his hair slicked back and tied at his neck with a leather strap and his skin freshly scrubbed, Jerzy walked the hallway to the ante-chamber where he and Giordan took their morning meal. But before he reached the open archway, he stopped, hearing another voice coming from within.

The Washer.

Manners told him to hang back and wait: if this were Malech’s study, he would not even think of entering unbidden. Curiosity pushed him forward. But even as he came to the lintel, the voices stopped, and he heard the sound of a chair being pushed back against the stone floor.

“Vineart Giordan?” Formality seemed reasonable caution, considering what he had overheard in the courtyard the day before.

“Ah, Jerzy.” Giordan was standing, his back to the far wall. Washer Darian was still seated, looking comfortable as a cat with a rat well trapped. The door to the workrooms behind Giordan was closed, which was unusual. Jerzy took all this in with a quick glance, and then cast his eyes down like a good, obedient servant.

“I believe it is time now for Jerzy to resume his studies, Brother Darian. Perhaps we can continue our discussions another time?”

“Yes.” Jerzy could feel Darian’s gaze on him, but did not look up. Ao said his face was too honest; he could not risk letting the Washer see anything there, not now that he had something to hide.

“Indeed,” Darian said, and for a terrifying second Jerzy thought the man was responding to his own thoughts. But no, he was talking to Giordan. “It appears as though you two have much to go over. You are only here for a little while longer, no? I am sure that you will have much to report back to your master, when you return.”

The Washer’s voice was calm, almost jovial, but Jerzy could feel the knife hidden inside. He didn’t look up, and the Washer didn’t force the issue.

When they were alone, Jerzy raised his gaze to see Giordan had moved to the worktable, fussing with the sheets of tasting notes. “I want you to go down to the yard and check for mite damage.”

Mites set on the underside of the leaves, chewing them into lacy tatters. They were also a mostly harmless nuisance, not something he should be spending time on, especially not now. Jerzy started to protest, but the words died in his throat. Giordan’s body language was different. The careless, almost lazy way the Vineart held himself normally, which said “come in, be welcome, no harm,” had been replaced by a coiled anger, drawn in every muscle of his body. A casual observer might not see it. A servant might know something was wrong. A slave knew to get out of the way, now.

A year of freedom was nothing against the instincts of a lifetime in the sleep house. Jerzy left without a word, returning to his room only long enough to change to thicker soled shoes, and, on a whim, add a small skin of water to his belt, hooking it next to the knife Malech had given him, and a pair of thin leather gloves that covered his palm but left his fingers free to work. He looked down at the belt and, despite his concerns, smiled. A Vineart’s kit: all he lacked was the hook-handled tasting spoon.

Following that same instinct, he used the side exit through the stable enclosures, rather than going out through one of the public doors. It took slightly longer to walk to the vineyard that way, but fewer people used it and, unlike the doors to the cellar, it was not identified with Vinearts. Right now, that suited him.

A young mule colt decided to follow him along the length of the fence. Its dam watched calmly, unconcerned even when Jerzy pushed the colt’s head away, when it tried to chomp on the gloves. It was a cute beast, though, and Jerzy paused to scratch behind one of its floppy, furry ears, inhaling the fresh, healthy smell of animal, straw, and sweat. Some of the tension that coiled in his stomach, the remains of the morning’s ill-feeling worsened by seeing the Washer, and by Giordan’s obvious dismissal of him, eased slightly at the animal’s uncomplicated pleasure.

“It’s not a bad life,” he told the mule. “Stand in the sun, eat your grass, pull the wagon when they hitch it to you, let them worry about what’s in the cart or where it needs to go.”

The colt reached over the fence and nipped again at the gloves with its large, flat teeth, clearly agreeing with Jerzy’s assessment. He could, he supposed, simply not go, instead walk into the city proper. . . .But the idea of rebellion came and went quickly. Giordan had told him to do something. He would do it.

Walking with the air of someone with an unpleasant but necessary task ahead of him, Jerzy saw only the occasional traveler on the road, exchanging passing nods as they each went their way. His mind kept replaying the scene in Giordan’s rooms, and the Washer’s overheard words the day before, about dangers within as well as without. By the time he hopped over the low fence and felt his feet touch the dirt, his mood had not improved—but he did have a second, more important reason for checking on the vines.

A quick survey of a double-handful of random plants turned up only an occasional mite-bitten leaf, certainly not enough to warrant the labor of washing down each row. His obligation taken care of, Jerzy picked a spot deep within the rows of green-leafed vines, and knelt down, letting the leaves of the vines rest on the bare skin of his arms and shoulders. The air was still morning-chill, but that wasn’t why he shivered. Again, there was the touch of the vines against his awareness, faint enough to dismiss as his imagination if he hadn’t been waiting for it.

Something had happened between the Washer and Giordan. Something that made Giordan not want to teach him—perhaps not want to spend time with him, want to get him out of the way with a useless chore. Why? The Washer was chasing after something. . .and if Giordan knew something, or had heard something, or was somehow, some way, involved. . .

Ao had promised to dig out what he could in the maiar’s court itself, but if Giordan was somehow tied into it now, there was one thing only he, Jerzy, could do.

The soil pressed against the knees of his trou, his fingers digging down into the soil, feeling the texture between his fingers, the weight and heft of it against his skin. His fingertips encountered the gnarled roots, sliding up along the nearest stem, feeling the rough skin of the vine, the pulsing beat of life within the hard flesh matching his own life-pulse.

This was not his vineyard. These were not his wines. But Giordan had brought him in, allowed him to take part in the crafting, and the vines recognized the touch of their own within him.

Lifting one hand, he spat into his palm the way he had seen Malech do. The spittle glistened against his skin, mixing with the dirt to make a muddy smudge. The worm of doubt wriggled in again. He was too young to have enough quiet-magic yet, too green to be able to do what he was doing.

Green. Untried. Unready.
His failure with the weatherwine haunted him. The fear of failure snarling at his back, hot breath on his neck.

“I did not fail. I will not fail. Master Malech sent me. Master Malech trusted me to do what needed to be done.”

There was no reason to doubt that. No reason to doubt his master at all.

Reaching with the muddy hand, he lifted the leaves until he found what he was looking for: a small cluster of early-budding grapes, still small, but filled with juice and starting to show faint red streaks along their skin. Plucking one bulb from the bunch, he let it rest against his skin, then closed his fist around it, squeezing hard until the skin split and the wet pulp mixed with the spittle.

Opening his palm, he didn’t let himself hesitate, but licked his palm clean, taking back his spittle and the harsh bitter flesh of the grape.

Weathervine. Not the vines of his master. These had not accepted him, had placed no mark upon his skin, and yet. . .Giordan had allowed him to participate in vinification; he had let their juice sit on his tongue, felt the change as vinification forced the magic from potential into truth.

“Let me in,” he asked the vines, not even aware that he was speaking. “Let me know. . .”

His fist clenched, even as his arm spasmed and he fell forward, hitting his head against the vine, knocking it askew. Every handspan of his body felt like a thousand grubs were wriggling against it, digging into the meat, stinging and biting in a way that was sharp but not actually painful.

Holding the sensations with half of his awareness, Jerzy reached for his memories of the sea serpent, the smell and feel of it moving through the water, the stink of the chunks of flesh, the tingle of magic as Malech tested the remains.

Master Malech had not recognized the magic that created the sea serpent. The magewine had not recognized the legacy it came from. And yet Giordan himself spoke of how unique this soil was, how subtle and powerful. . .and how little others knew of how it was crafted.

And something was wrong here in Aleppan. Something that brought the Washers here, curious enough to make Giordan angry. Was it only the Brotherhood questioning Giordan’s actions in taking in the student of another? But Giordan had knocked down those questions before, without hesitation. Something new had occurred. It might not have anything to do with the conversation Jerzy had overheard between the maiar and the Washer in the courtyard. . ..

But it might.

And that connection might lead back to the attacks elsewhere, the things Master Malech worried about. Might. Maybe. No proof, no certainty. But something—some tingle in his blood that whispered for trust—told him it was so.

Only magic spoke like that. If it was Giordan’s magic, if his host was involved, then Jerzy had to know.

He concentrated, letting the feel of the magic settle into his awareness. Soil, weather, vine, Vineart. Four elements of magic, each recognizable in the final issue. Here, in the rawest, purest sense, without vinification redirecting it, Jerzy could find not the slightest echo of the fire-root infestation, or the more overt “stink” of the sea serpent’s flesh. No decay or death, only the clean aroma of rain and wind.

These vines—he would risk enough to say weathervines anywhere—could not have been at the root of the magic they had encountered so far.

The relief he felt was not a surprise—he had not wanted to think that Giordan could be involved. Underneath that, though, there was a niggle of dissatisfaction and disappointment. If there had been a connection, he would have been the one to find it, the one to solve the mystery, the one to hand the solution to Master Malech. He would have been. . .

Jerzy’s imagination failed him at that point, and the rush of the magic began to drain from him, leaving his limbs heavy and aching. He tried to sit up, feeling a wave of dizziness hit him worse even than being shipboard, a disorientation that was not helped by a hard hand closing around his arm and roughly yanking him back onto his feet.

“What have you done!” Brother Darian cried, pulling him away from the vines by force, his voice pitched not for Jerzy’s ears, but those of the others standing on the other side of the fence, unwilling to step over that border into a Vineart’s lands. Jerzy was able to focus enough to see that the Washer was wearing formal robes, and that his eyes had a wide, almost maniacal gleam to them.

Sar Anton, standing just on the other side of the fence, reached over and grabbed Jerzy from the Washer, hauling him forcibly onto the road. “Witness!” he cried, shaking Jerzy until he thought his eyes might be jolted from his head, and the words spoken over his head became a jumble of noise. “Sin Washer bear witness, this boy has used magic not given unto him, has usurped another Vineart’s rights, and broken Commandment!”

THEY MADE A strange parade back to the palazzo, Sar Anton and another man on horseback, Brother Darian and a third man driving a small cart, with Jerzy behind them, his hands and feet bound with rope they pulled from the cart. People stopped and stared at the grim-faced men, but otherwise fell back and gave them room. Jerzy stared out at the passing scenery, the rush of magic having given way to a coldness deep in his bones, and all he could think was how disappointed Malech would be in him.

They pulled him from the cart, loosening the ties at his legs enough so that he could walk, and moved him up the stairs he had arrived at a month before in such different circumstances. The maiar met them at the front entrance, flanked by two guardsmen and an aide, and Jerzy had the sudden feeling that none of this was by chance.