K M Frontain, page 16
“Careful, boy! That’s a strong stout!”
“It’s stout, all right! Gaah! It’s cussed warm!”
“It’s stout. It’s supposed to be warm.”
“Not this warm!”
“No ice this time of year,” the cook said regretfully. “Have to order it weeks ahead and it don’t last long. Very expensive.”
“Why don’t you keep the ale in the cellar?” he said. “It’s cool enough.”
“Only keep the new beer down there, until it’s settled enough for drinking.”
“Why not bring up the settled beer?”
The cook looked at him pointedly.
“Right,” he said after a moment. “Forgot.”
“Forgot what?” Gamis wanted to know.
“The master’s got ghouls in the wine cellar,” Kehfrey told him. He looked at the last of his pie regretfully and shoved it into his mouth. It was so good!
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Gamis stared at him in disbelief. “There’s no such thing. That’s just another of your stories.”
“It’s no story,” said the butler. “There are ghouls in the cellar.”
“Who gets the wine out? Or the beer that’s ready?” Kehfrey asked, disregarding Gamis’s awed expression.
“The master,” one of the younger men said. “The last one of us he sent down, he sent to punish him.”
“You mean he’s had other ghouls down there before the two I saw today?”
The servant nodded gravely.
“They’re still down there,” the cook whispered fearfully.
“Did he make it back up?” Gamis asked. “The servant, I mean.”
“No,” the butler said. “He’s one of them now.”
Gamis gaped at him. His blank gaze settled on his little brother, and he wondered if Kehfrey was a ghoul. He’d insisted he’d been dead, hadn’t he?
“Can I have more pie?” Kehfrey piped up in the silence.
“No,” the sorcerer answered from the hall door.
Gamis yelped in fright. Kehfrey turned about, wiping his mouth hastily with the back of his hand.
“You were supposed to have dressed,” Marun said to the child. The master was quite properly clothed in a suit of dull maroon. Only the white undershirt beneath his tunic provided any brightness to his outfit.
“I didn’t want to get pie on my new suit,” Kehfrey explained. The master’s expression frosted over. “I’m coming,” the boy said flatly, and left the bench to seek his clothes, which the butler had wisely placed on a clean counter. Kehfrey hauled on his undershirt and tunic, and afterward sat to pull on the stockings that had been provided. He buttoned them under the cuffs of his breeches. The butler handed him a pair of shoes.
They were a fine set, made of black leathe, and sporting brass buckles.
Kehfrey slipped them on and stood. They felt good on his feet.
“How did you know what size I needed?” His old shoes had been too large, handed down from Gamis. There had been holes in the soles.
“Never mind that,” his master said. “Come.” He turned about and left the kitchen. Obediently, Kehfrey followed after him.
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“Kehfrey!” Gamis hissed, having come to stand at the corridor door, where he peeked out anxiously.
“Just wait there!” Kehfrey hissed back at him.
Marun turned his head and looked coldly at Gamis. The boy gasped and pulled his head back behind the door. The sorcerer gave a slight disapproving shake of his head. “He doesn’t have the same courage as you, but he is not quite the ugly butthead you said he was.”
“When I said that, I was being kind. And I just told him there were ghouls in your basement. What do you expect him to do? Ask to see your nasty pets?”
“I expect you to behave more respectfully!” Marun snapped at him, looking down at the child warningly. His eyes narrowed. The gamin’s upper lip was swollen. “What happened to your lip?”
“Fell on it and lost my tooth,” Kehfrey said, grimacing so that his master could see the double gap formed by the two missing teeth in his upper jaw. His little tongue poked out momentarily.
Marun wasn’t certain if it was a taunt or not, and let the incident go.
“Where is the tooth?” he asked, his eyes intent on the child’s mouth. This boy—! He had that otherworldly air to him as well. He shared an exquisite structural beauty with his brother Vik. The features of his face were refined, and almost vulnerable in their childish sensuality.
“Swallowed it,” the boy announced. “Might come out the other end tomorrow.”
But certainly his vulgar character did not match his features. Marun gazed down at him flatly and then turned about. Behind, Kehfrey grinned wickedly, not a speck of vulnerability left unspoiled on his young face.
The master continued on until they were in the main hall. From there he led the boy into the library. Inside, he pulled a sheet of parchment from a desk drawer, sat down and wrote several symbols on the sheet.
Kehfrey, who had looked around at the many shelves with interest up until then, watched him curiously.
“These are letters,” Marun said to him. He listed their names and sounds. “I want you to memorize them.”
“I got it,” the boy said at once.
Marun eyed him suspiciously. “Are you saying you understand my orders, or that you have already memorized the letters?”
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“Already memorized them, of course.”
Without a word, Marun pulled another parchment from the drawer.
He placed it on the desk, stood and offered Kehfrey the seat. Kehfrey sat. Marun took the previous paper away. “Fine,” he said. “Write the symbol for Sen.”
Without hesitation, Kehfrey reproduced what he’d seen Marun inscribe. The sorcerer stared at the letter a second. It was a perfectly formed Sen, without a wobble to it. Anyone looking at it would not have thought a child had written it, especially an illiterate one.
“Pi!” he snapped.
Kehfrey wrote Pi. Once again the penmanship was flawless. Marun listed the remaining seven letters he’d chosen for the day. The boy scratched them down perfectly, with the exception of blotting ink on the last. This occurred after the child discovered he was running out of ink and dipped the nib into the well for more. He didn’t wipe the excess off and blotched the symbol.
“Sorry, never used a quill before,” he said apologetically.
“Never?”
“Just chalk and charcoal,” he explained, his pale features solemn. He repeated the letter, etching it without error.
Marun eyed him thoughtfully. “Write the word rain,” he commanded.
Kehfrey blinked up at him, hazel eyes huge and wary in his young face, and turned his head down. Frowning, he put the letters together. He wrote the word with only one error. Marun took the quill from him and wrote the word correctly.
“Oh,” the boy uttered.
“I find it hard to believe no one taught you to read or write!” Marun snapped at him.
“No one did!” he said, looking up at his master earnestly.
“Then how do you know how to spell rain?”
“I didn’t! I got it wrong! You never showed me that other letter!”
“Yet you did spell most of it!”
“Isn’t that what the letters are for?” The boy’s red brows almost met over his nose. “I thought you were testing me.”
“I was testing you!”
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Kehfrey blinked at him warily. The sorcerer stared back suspiciously.
A loud knock sounded from the front door. Distracted, they looked through the open library entrance. The butler appeared in the hall, paused when he saw his master, swallowed nervously and rushed on.
Marun heard the outer door open and then the announcement of the visitors, which on this occasion was an unusual and startled yelp.
“Hells!” he hissed. He stalked forward, beginning a spell immediately.
He ceased the casting the moment he discovered who stood in the hall.
“Olomo,” he greeted.
“I have returned for the boy!” the Ysepian assassin proclaimed.
Marun looked from him to the slight man at his side. Once again, family had arrived for Kehfrey. This short man had to be the child’s father; same nose and eyes, same noble brow, but a curling ginger beard hid the majority of his features. Both visitors were soaked. Giant puddles had already formed around their feet. The door stood wide, letting the blasting wind in and revealing two drenched nags below on the driveway.
Marun looked down at his butler, who sat upon the floor, gaping back and forth nervously.
“Get the horses in the stable!” he snapped at the man, and then turned about and went back into the library.
Kehfen stared after him. “That’s the sorcerer?” he said to Olomo.
“Yes,” affirmed the assassin.
Olomo shifted the Vessel slightly and walked toward the library, ignoring the butler, who had arisen and was backing off from them. They heard the outer door shut as they looked inside the library door. Behind them, the butler dashed back to the kitchen with his instructions for the stable hands. They paid this no mind. Instead, both their gazes landed squarely on the boy’s figure and froze there.
“Kehfrey!” his father shouted.
The child pulled his hands from his ears and smiled widely. “Pop! I lost my tooth and swallowed it! I’ve got a cussed gap the size of a cave!”
Kehfen rushed in and snatched the boy out of the chair. Kehfrey squeaked as the man squeezed him tightly against his sopping chest. “I thought you were dead!” his father whispered in abject relief.
“He was dead,” the sorcerer said.
Kehfen turned about with youngest son dangling.
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The master had gone to the window and looked out at the rainy scenery. “Who taught your son to read and write?” he demanded.
“What?” Kehfen said.
“Pop! You’re squeezing my breath out!” Kehfrey croaked. Hastily, Kehfen relaxed his hold on the boy, but he didn’t let him go.
“Who taught him to read and write?” the sorcerer repeated, turning to face the thief.
“No one. None of us know how,” Kehfen said, his expression tight with suspicion.
“Not even your wife?” the cold-faced man pressed.
“No. She’s just a woman.”
Someone spoke an impoliteness at the door. Kehfen whirled. A woman stood in the entrance, a very small woman, but also a very beautiful one. She had a pert nose, prettily curved lips and incredibly green eyes. Long curly black hair hung down her back from one large tail tied together with a ribbon.
“That’s Nicky,” Kehfrey introduced. “She gave me the stone.”
“For once you weren’t exaggerating,” Kehfen said as he watched the beauty walk in. She halted a few feet inside the room and lifted a sardonic brow at him.
Nicky had changed into a clean dress, this one deep red. Her skin was still pale, but she seemed perkier.
“Hi there, Nicky!,” Kehfrey said. “This is my Pop. Put me down, Pop! I’m not a baby anymore!”
Slowly, Kehfen lowered his son, his attention now fixed on the sorcerer. The man was surveying him once more, his face impassive.
“They take after you somewhat, don’t they?” the sorcerer
commented.
“What?”
“Your sons,” Marun said. “In particular Kehfrey, although his face seems finer. I assume he acquired the delicacy of his features from his noble born mother.”
Kehfen hardly cared to respond to such inconsequential comments.
“What’s going on, Kehfrey?” he said, his insides twisting with trepidation.
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Kehfrey sighed. Here it goes. “Right, Pop. Sit down.”
Kehfen gaped down at him a second and up at the sorcerer once more. The man just eyed him flatly. “Just get on with the explanation!”
Kehfen snapped, refusing to sit.
“Fine! Gamis showed up half an hour ago. He’s in the kitchen, likely wheedling another pie off the cook. Vik got caught a few hours ago. I think someone brought him here and left without him.” Kehfrey looked at Marun for confirmation. The sorcerer nodded once. The boy looked back and found his father sinking onto the desk chair, his face white.
“Vik and Gamis are both here?”
Kehfrey nodded.
“Are you expecting any other members of your family, Master Thief?” Marun said sardonically. Kehfen shook his head numbly.
Olomo, who had observed silently from the side of the door until now, stepped forward impatiently. “I have come for the boy!” he repeated.
“You sold the boy!” Marun snapped. “Do not think I will return him to you!”
Kehfen jumped up in outrage. “Sold the boy! You sold my Kehfrey?
He wasn’t yours to sell!”
Olomo scowled, but his eyes averted in shame nevertheless. “The idea was not mine. I killed the one who sold him.”
“You agreed!” Kehfrey shouted. “Bugger off!”
“I was wrong! I have come to right that wrong!”
“And you think I will just give the boy back to you?” the master said sarcastically.
“He’s not yours to give!” Kehfen shouted at him.
Kehfrey saw darkness swell around Marun. He stepped in front of his father. “Leave off him!” he cried.
Marun looked down at him warningly. “Tell your father who you belong to, boy.”
“Kehfrey belongs to no one!” his father said.
“Kehfrey!” Marun demanded.
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Kehfrey scowled. Looking his master in the eyes, he gave him what he wanted. Sort of. “I took up service under him, Pop,” he said. He heard his father gasp.
“Service!”
“Service!” Marun repeated. He glared at the boy, but then smiled, almost as if he couldn’t help the gesture. He glanced toward the woman, who eyed him darkly.
“He has spunk,” she remarked flatly.
“Like some others we know,” Marun retorted. “Isn’t that right, Hanicke?”
“Hanicke? That’s a pretty name,” Kehfrey said. “Can I call you Nicky anyway?”
She looked at him and barely smiled in response. The tension in the room lightened somewhat as Marun turned away to gaze out the window again. Kehfen knelt down in front of his son and held him immobile by the shoulders.
“What do you think you are up to, boy?”
“Have to keep you safe, don’t I? What with him looking for whatever Rook stole, none of you are.”
“What with Minister Lolte passing information on about your family, but not about the Syndicate, I would say he is correct,” Marun added without turning.
“What?” both Kehfrey and Kehfen said at once.
Marun turned. When he spoke, he spoke to the boy. “I’ve been working through the Minister of Justice,” he told the child. “He’s been handing me all sorts of interesting tidbits about your father, assuring me that Master Pehtre of Pehtre Vineyards is wrongfully accused.”
Kehfen hissed in anger and looked at Olomo accusingly.
“I knew nothing of this!” the Ysepian protested.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because he isn’t lying,” Kehfrey said. Both Olomo and Marun looked at him in surprise.
“Shit!” Kehfen hissed, yet glaring at Olomo. “If you don’t, then does Hiswil?”
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Marun now stared at the thief, his expression astonished. The boy’s father had accepted the child’s statement without question. Did the child see truths?
Olomo forced his gaze up from the boy and onto the father. “I don’t know. I don’t think he did last night. But he must have gone to Kortin with this report. Perhaps he knows now.”
“Why would they want to nail me for this?” Kehfen cried.
“Because Kortin is desperate since he can’t find bloody Rook,”
Kehfrey said to him. He looked at Marun. “Nicky’s already seen that Kortin will just betray us if we try to work a deal with him.”
Marun’s attention snapped toward the woman. “You predict for the boy now?” he said accusingly.
“Leave off her! She almost died looking! You bloody buggering—!”
“Kehfrey!” Nicky said urgently. “Manners!”
The child snapped his mouth shut too late. Marun showed no initial indication he was angry over the outburst, but he wasn’t about to let the insult pass. It was time to put the boy in his place. So thinking, he stepped around a chair and sat in it.
“Come here,” he commanded the child.
Kehfrey stomped forward. His father snatched him back. Marun looked up at the thief, and Kehfen felt as if he’d been hit in the stomach.
His son jerked out from beneath his numb fingers, to obediently approach the man he’d admitted, albeit in a highly qualified manner, to being his master.
The boy halted in front of Marun, his expression guarded. The sorcerer crooked a finger at him. Kehfrey perforce stepped closer, exhibiting no fear of a blow, but such was not his master’s intent. The sorcerer merely bent forward and whispered in the child’s ear. Kehfrey’s face blanched, but he listened without moving until Marun lifted his head and stared at the child pointedly. Kehfrey gave him one silent nod, turned away, and marched back to his father without looking at anyone.
“What did he say to you?” Kehfen asked.
“Never mind,” the boy refused.
Kehfen looked at the sorcerer. “Did you threaten my son?”
“No,” the man said softly, eyeing him coldly.
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Kehfen gaped at him without understanding, but then it dawned on him. The sorcerer hadn’t threatened Kehfrey. He had threatened someone else, someone Kehfrey loved.
For an instant, Kehfen stared at the sorcerer without an expression on his face, but after, his features transformed into an enraged snarl.
Kehfen pulled the knife from his belt and tossed it in one fluid motion.
The blade struck where’d he’d aimed it, straight through the heart.
