K M Frontain, page 15
There was a momentary quiet beyond the door, and then Olomo continued speaking, his voice urgent, so urgent his accent made his speech almost unintelligible.
“You must come with me to the manor! Kehfrey is alive!”
Kehfen slowly straightened and his mouth opened in hopeful
surprise. He stepped forward. Wilf pulled him back.
“It’s a trick!” he hissed “Hiswil said he admitted to being an assassin.
Olomo told him there were more in that house.”
“Kehfen!” Olomo called. “I killed the leader of the Pek Tol faction! I have the Vessel! We must return for Kehfrey! The boy is alive and well!”
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Kehfen pulled his arm out of Wilf’s grasp and stepped toward the door. “What are you going on about?” he called to the man. He left the door shut.
“Kehfrey is alive!” Olomo repeated. “He is in the manor!”
“You said he died!” Wilf accused. “You’re a traitor!”
“Yes, he died,” Olomo answered. “But he lives again.”
“How can that be?” Kehfen demanded. He stared at the door
intently.
“I do not know exactly,” Olomo responded. “I only know the quarrel went straight through him. He was dead, but when I returned, he began to breathe again. He said he had a stone.”
“That stone!” Wilf whispered.
“A quarrel!” Kehfen uttered in awe.
“What about it?” Wilf said. “We can’t trust what he says.”
“Kehfrey said a crossbow bolt would kill him. He said the stone would save his life. He had his hand in his pocket constantly.”
Hastily, Kehfen moved forward and unlocked the door. Behind, Wilf readied for an attack. The swinging door revealed Olomo, but he leaned against the hall on the further side, in no condition to assail anyone. A large red stain had spread down his left side. Blood seeped from a wound beneath his heart and dripped onto the floor. With his right arm, he cradled a wooden box against his side. Kehfen stared at him in shock.
“You’re bloody dying!” he said.
“I will not die. The knife but scraped across my ribs. It bleeds too much however. I need to stop it.”
Kehfen darted forward and dragged him into the bare room. He pushed the taller man down until he sat on the floor. “Get me something to bind it with,” he said to Wilf.
“We have nothing but the mattress Mum sleeps on. The baby has nothing but a shawl!”
“Then give me your tunic!” Kehfen said. Angrily, Wilf hauled his tunic off and handed it to Kehfen, to then watch resentfully as his stepfather ripped the fine green fabric into bandages.
“How did you do this?” Kehfen asked as he began to wind the dressing around the Ysepian’s chest.
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“I fought Simre for the Vessel,” Olomo answered bleakly, indicating the wooden box at his side. “I killed his followers. I have sinned.”
“Sinned!” Wilf sneered. “You abandoned Pop for that damned box!”
Olomo looked up at him sorrowfully. “I have sinned. I left the one foretold to lead us to Ishpaäf in the hands of a sorcerer.”
Kehfen froze. “Sorcerer?”
“Yes,” Olomo said tiredly. “He who owns the house is a powerful sorcerer.”
“Kehfrey is with a sorcerer?” Kehfen demanded.
“Yes,” Olomo affirmed.
“You left my son with a sorcerer!” he shouted. In the further room, Canella’s voice lifted querulously.
“Hsst!” Wilf warned needlessly.
“Quick!” Kehfen said. “Tell her Kehfrey’s alive and I’m going to fetch him.”
“What! We can’t do that yet! Olomo could be lying to us!”
“I do not lie,” Olomo said with some of his former pride. “I have spoken the truth. An assassin has no need for lies when he is not on mission. Kehfrey lives.”
“And is in a sorcerer’s house!” Wilf hissed back. His mother called again. “If you leave with him, what’s to say that you won’t just disappear and never come back?” he said to Kehfen.
“Your father will come back,” Olomo assured him. “After he sees to his son’s apprenticeship.”
“What?” Kehfen cried.
“We have no time for this argument. You must come with me now.
The boy must be taught the ways. We must see the sorcerer. We must secure his cooperation.”
“How the gods cussed hells will we do that? He’s after Kortin!”
“Kehfrey has suggested the sorcerer make a pact with the Syndicate. I believe the sorcerer is willing to listen.”
“Shit!” Wilf swore. Again his mother called. An infant’s wail joined her cry.
“She has given birth!” Olomo said.
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“A girl.” Kehfen knotted the bandage and stood, offering Olomo a hand up. The assassin accepted it and lifted himself with a stifled grunt of pain. “Go in to your Mum!” Kehfen snapped at Wilf.
Wilf scowled at him. “Go in yourself! Tell her what you’re about to do!”
“No, gods bust it! She’ll keep me hours explaining! You go!”
Wilf eyed him angrily. After a brief clash of wills, he grabbed Kehfen and hugged him hard. He let go and stomped to the door of the inner chamber. “Be careful,” he said over his shoulder.
“I will be,” Kehfen replied. Outside, thunder peeled. “Crud! Of all the times for it to start raining. Come on,” he snapped at Olomo.
“Before she yells at me to get in there.”
Olomo followed him out the door, the Vessel clutched tightly beneath his right arm.
***
Marun’s servants sat in the kitchen like soldiers besieged. The kitchen staff, the household staff, they were all to be found in that one room.
Despite the heat, they gathered near the cooking area like beleaguered men near a fire in the dark, loath to abandon the comfort of flames.
Flames could ward off ghouls.
Kehfrey stood in the corner of the kitchen, his clean hair glinting the same colour as the copper pots hanging off the hooks overhead. Where the light hit the crinkles, it gleamed perhaps redder than copper, but the effect was ephemeral, shifting with the motions of his body.
He held the new suit of clothes one of the staff had handed him, wondering if he should dress here, or dress upstairs. Apprehending that going back up would require coming back down again to fetch water, he determined to damn any modesty he had left and dress in the kitchen.
“Why are you all here?” he said to the men huddled there. “When do you ever get any work done? Some of you lot aren’t kitchen help.”
“We work when he’s elsewhere,” a young man in dark grey livery told him.
“If we can help it,” another added.
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“And if you can’t?” Kehfrey looked past the cook. Was that pie on the counter over there?
“Then we move very quietly,” said an older man who wore the same livery as the other household staff, but who also bore a fancy cravat with gold thread along the edges. Kehfrey took him for the boss of this terrorized gang. “Why does he have you?” this man said.
“Have me? He doesn’t have me.”
“He has you,” the man insisted. “He has all of us.”
“Does he? Are you all slaves?” Their flat stares were answer enough.
“Right,” Kehfrey said. He glanced sideways. That was definitely pie, several of them. What would it take to get his hands on one?
He let his towel drop and started with the new black breeches, ignoring the staring men. He put a foot in one leg. Lightning clapped close by outside. Startled, he looked out the kitchen window, to discover a pair of familiar eyes staring in at him in shock. Kehfrey yelped in surprise, lost his balance and tumbled forward. His baby tooth snapped loose as he hit the floor.
“Aiie! Crud!”
He spat blood. His tooth lay on the stone floor. A gust of wind swirled around him. Looking up, he saw the boss rushing out the door.
Two others followed quickly. Hurriedly, Kehfrey snatched his tooth up and pulled his breeches on. He was about to rush out, half naked, when the men came back, hauling a twisting and cursing Gamis between them.
“Get off him! He’s just my brother!”
“Another one?” said the older man, dripping water from his face.
The last of them shut the door on the torrential rain.
“Yes, another one! Put him down, then!” Kehfrey snapped at them.
“The Master must be informed,” the older servant said flatly.
“So, I’ll tell him! Here now, Gamis. Get your butt on that seat.”
He crossed over to his brother and pulled him away from the semi-stupefied servants. Gamis, on his part, had been hanging quiescent between them the moment Kehfrey had spoken. He was dripping copiously. Kehfrey directed his bewildered brother over to an empty chair and shoved him down. Then he rushed back for his abandoned towel and threw it over Gamis’s shoulders.
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“There you go. Just sit there and drip dry.” He darted toward the pies and hustled back with one. “Save me half.”
“Here now!” the cook said.
“Hear what? The Master? I’ll see to it!” Kehfrey darted toward the inner door. “Wait a minute!” he said, pulling up sharply. He ran to the counter, grabbed a fork and tossed it at Gamis, who caught it and continued to gape at him. The cook gaped at Gamis and then at Kehfrey.
Eyeing him wisely, Kehfrey decided the man wasn’t going to protest further. “Where’s the water for drinking?” he asked the rotund fellow.
“In the barrel,” came the answer.
Kehfrey took a look and found the indicated vessel near the door. A row of clean pitchers stood on a shelf above it. He grabbed one and filled it, and then rushed out the door. He came back seconds later, almost bumping into a pursuer. It was the older servant who had insisted they were all slaves.
“What are you doing?” the man demanded.
“Getting water for Nicky.” Kehfrey darted around him. “Mind you save that half for me!” he shouted at befuddled Gamis, and then turned about again, circuiting the servant nimbly.
“Gods bust it!” he heard his brother exclaim. “Isn’t he dead?”
Kehfrey grinned, ran out the corridor and headed up the stairs. “Not for a long time,” he whispered to himself. “Tried it and didn’t care for it.”
“Wait, you!” shouted the servant.
Kehfrey heard him gasp in horror. He turned at the top of the stairs to find the man standing fearfully in the centre of the hall, both hands clapped over his mouth. “I said I’d tell him! Go back and hide!”
The door down the hall opened. Marun stalked out of his room and glared at Kehfrey. “What did you do now?” he demanded. He glanced over the balustrade and saw his butler, white faced and anxious in the foyer. The sorcerer’s gaze returned to Kehfrey. The boy had to be the one at fault. The butler never dared to displease. Ever.
Kehfrey looked his master up and down with immense interest.
“You’re naked,” he said needlessly.
“And you’re not. Where did you get those breeches?”
“Staff fetched a suit for me.”
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“Why aren’t you wearing the rest of it?”
“Gamis distracted me. But don’t worry! I have him busy eating pie.”
Marun blinked at him. From inside the room, Vik shouted. “Kehfrey!
Get Gamis and run!”
The sorcerer shut the door on him. “Is your entire family going to drop in to see you, one by one?” he said, his expression cynical.
“Have you hurt Vik?” Kehfrey demanded.
“No. Unless you count his pride. Go and tell your other brother he’s invited to stay for supper.” He opened the door. Vik, with only breeches on, attempted to dart out. Marun caught him and shoved him back in.
“And if any other members of your family show up, be certain to have the staff set places for them,” he directed as he pressed Vik inward.
“Where’d you get all those scars, then?” Kehfrey hollered as the door thudded to. He waited for an answer, but the door stayed shut. His door, however, opened. Nicky poked her head out, dripping wet and with soapy water running down from her hair.
“Kehfrey! What are you doing now?” she whispered. She shut one eye as the soap threatened it. She had apparently recovered enough to begin washing her hair.
“I was getting you drinking water,” he whispered back.
He rushed forward and handed the pitcher to her. She wore only a towel. It gaped as she snatched the pitcher, which was too heavy for one hand. Caught between losing the towel and dumping the pitcher, she opted for losing the towel. Kehfrey’s face lengthened as if it would follow the towel down. She couldn’t help grinning at his shocked expression, but then the grin faded.
“What happened to your face?” she said.
“Uh… Fell on the floor,” he reported. Wasn’t that interesting?
Everything about her seemed so very well placed, even when it wasn’t bobbing in water. And that was such an interesting cleft between her legs.
What an oddly pretty junction. Better than most he managed a peek at.
“And the tooth?” she whispered. “Where is it?”
“In my pocket,” he said, his eyes still on the junction.
“Quick! Swallow it!” she ordered him.
“What? Why?”
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“Do you want him to get it?”
Kehfrey blinked. Comprehension dawned and he thrust his hand in his new breeches, to pull the tooth out and toss it into his mouth. She handed the pitcher back to him and picked up her towel. When she’d risen, the boy had already swallowed the tooth and spilled a large quantity of water onto his chest. She wiped the spill from him with the towel, exhibiting no apparent concern over her nakedness. He gaped up at her.
After a moment, his brows furrowed pensively.
“What?” she said.
“Mum wouldn’t be caught without clothes.”
“Your mother is probably less than a tenth my age,” she pointed out.
“You live as long as I do, and some things just don’t bother you anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because they just don’t seem important. In some places, they aren’t.”
He looked at the parts that everyone else hid. “They look important to me,” he said. She laughed, grabbed the pitcher from him and shut the door on his astonished face. “Hi, now!” he objected.
She opened the door a crack. She was still smiling. “What?”
“What’s to stop him from getting my tooth when it comes out the other end?”
She laughed again. “Not even he will look there,” she said, and shut the door again.
Frowning, Kehfrey turned about, made his way back to the stairs, and walked down them slowly. “What would he do with it, I wonder?” Three more steps down, he suddenly remembered the pie. “Gamis!” he hissed.
He had better have saved him that half!
***
“Pop said you were dead,” Gamis told him.
“I was dead.” He shoved another mouthful of pie into his face. Oh, it was so good!
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“You were not! Or you’d still be dead!” his brother retorted. Kehfrey glowered at him, dripping a gob of berry from one side of his mouth.
“You eat like a pig,” Gamis added.
Kehfrey ignored the insult. He wasn’t going to waste a taste of pie on that feeble slight. He took his time and chewed the pie thoroughly. The drip was duly shoved in the moment he had room for it.
“Where’d you get that mark on your chest?” Gamis asked. His little brother sat across the kitchen table in only his breeches, having decided to forgo dressing until he’d finished the pie. Kehfrey hadn’t trusted Gamis not to eat the rest of it while he was further occupied.
“Told you. I was dead!” he said.
“What the hells do you mean?” Gamis shouted.
“Here now!” the butler hissed. “Be quiet! If he comes down, I’ll tan you both!”
“Why are you here?” Kehfrey demanded of Gamis. “Why are you here alone?”
“Pop made Wilf and Vik promise not to do anything stupid or dangerous. So there was only me left to check the place out for your body.”
“You came to get my body?”
“I wanted to bury it.”
“Very nice of you,” Kehfrey said sarcastically.
Gamis scowled at him. “Well, fine! I won’t bother seeing you properly buried a second time.” Kehfrey grinned at that. Gamis grinned back. “Give me another piece,” he cajoled.
“You had your half! You had half of mine!”
“Vik disappeared,” Gamis informed him then.
“Vik is here,” Kehfrey informed him in turn.
Gamis’s mouth dropped open. “What! He broke a sworn oath!”
“I don’t think so,” Kehfrey at once defended. “He wouldn’t.”
Would he? Ah, damn! He’d gone and gotten Vik in trouble. And buggered.
“Ah, fuck!”
“Watch your language, boy!” the butler said.
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Kehfrey ignored him and so did Gamis, who continued speaking.
“Then what’s he doing here? Pop told him not to do anything without his leave.”
“We can ask him when he comes down,” Kehfrey mumbled around a mouthful. If Vik ever did come down. Damned sorcerer. Shoving Vik back into the room like that. Where’d the great brute get all those scars on his back? Those had been interesting. A veritable maze.
“Come down from where?” Gamis asked.
“The master’s bedroom,” the butler said with a nasty tone. Kehfrey turned his head and glared at the man, who eyed him back as repressively. The butler had yet to forgive the boy for making him shout in the main hall.
“The master’s bedroom?” Gamis repeated. “Bloody hells!”
“You’re invited to supper,” Kehfrey said.
“Bloody buggered-to-death misbegotten he-goats!”
Kehfrey snickered and almost choked on crust. The cook shoved a mug of beer at him. He took it gratefully and downed a fair quantity.
