Читать книгу The Mountain's Call - Caitlin Brennan - Страница 11

Rider Andres left the newcomers to sort themselves out. It seemed a logical thing for him to do. They had all come to the same Call, and they were all gifted with magic in some degree. Those who passed the testing would be part of a brotherhood as close as any that humans knew.

For tonight and until the testing was over, they were all bitter rivals. Some of them had been there for months, since shortly after the Call went out. Those had formed an uneasy alliance. Later comers had fallen into divisions of their own. The last three arrivals, by default, were yet another faction.

“If we’re lucky,” said a lanky young nobleman in silk and gold, “a quarter of us will pass into the school—and maybe one of those will become a rider. It’s not enough to be Called. That only means you have ears to hear. You have to be a great number of other things besides.”

“Such as?” said Iliya. He was his lively and garrulous self again, now he had had his moment in the sun.

“Such as a Beastmaster. A scholar. A reader of signs and omens. A dancer. One of the tests is in dancing, did you know?”

“No one knows what the tests will be,” someone said from the edge of the room. “That’s what makes them so hard. There’s no way to study, and no way to cheat.”

“Nonsense,” said the nobleman. “There have been riders in my family for generations. We all know what they test for, if not exactly how they test from year to year.”

“It’s the how that kills you,” Iliya said lightly. “I can dance. Will they ask us to sing, too?”

“Sometimes they do,” the nobleman said.

“Then I’ll be a master,” Iliya said. He beamed at them all. “Can you believe it? We’re here. We’ve come to the Mountain!”

His enthusiasm was infectious. Even the nobleman allowed himself a small, tight smile. Valeria could have kissed Iliya. There had been an ugly undercurrent in the conversation, but he had dissipated it.

Not long after the last of the Called came in, servants came with plates and bowls and platters and fed them a simple dinner. The stew was made with roots and beans and vegetables, no meat, but it was good, and filling. It came with loaves of the heavy brown bread that Valeria had smelled baking, and wedges of sharp yellow cheese. To drink with it they had a cask of ale and a tall jar of wine.

They were all encouraged to eat and drink their fill. “There will be no breakfast tomorrow,” the chief of the servants said, “and nothing to drink but water until the testing is over. Enjoy yourselves while you can. The next time you see this much food, you’ll either be eating it in the candidates’ mess or taking potluck on the road.”

A collective sigh ran through the room. Someone at the end opposite Valeria dived for the bread. As if that had been a signal, they all fell to it.

In spite of the warning, she refrained from gorging herself. She wanted strength, not a sick stomach. She drank a little wine to steady herself, but she watered it heavily.

Not every one of the Called could hold his liquor. Some did not hold their food so well, either. By the time she left, the mess hall reminded her forcibly of a soldiers’ tavern.

She was the first to leave. All the bunks were made up, including three new ones. She recognized her saddlebags at the foot of one, and Iliya’s shabby-elegant and heavily embroidered pack on the bunk above it.

She intended to sleep as long and well as she could manage, but for the moment she was still wide awake. The door to the outside was not barred, which surprised her. She had thought that the Called would be locked in until after the testing.

Something touched her awareness as she opened the door and slipped through it. It felt like a light set of wards, just enough to let a mage know that someone had gone through the door. Without even thinking, she raised her own protections. The wards withdrew, convinced that nothing was there.

She found her way by the same instinct that had disposed of the wards. This place was so full of magic that she could follow the currents of it wherever she wanted to go.

One led her to the stable where guests’ horses were kept. Her black and Iliya’s bay mare and Dacius’ mule were stalled side by side and perfectly content. Of course they would be. Here of all places, people knew how to look after horses.

She fed each of them a bit of bread that she had brought from the mess hall. They were pleased to accept tribute, although none of them was hungry.

Once she had given them their due, she sought out another current, one that led her past the rest of the horses in the stable. None of them was anything but ordinary. She had yet to see any of the white stallions. When she tried to discover where they were, she was gently but firmly turned aside. All in good time, said a voice that was not a voice. She knew somehow that it was one of the stallions.

The current she followed was leading toward something much more mortal. The stable door opened on a narrow street. At the end of that she turned left into another square than the one she had seen when she first entered the school. This one was empty in the evening light, although she could sense the presence of people behind the blank walls and narrow windows. Behind one of those walls, she found the people she was looking for.

The hostages reacted variously to her arrival. Donn snarled and went back to his mug of ale. Gavin and Conory grinned and saluted her. The others were asleep in beds much more luxurious than she had been given.

“He’s in the jakes,” Gavin said before she could ask. He raised his voice in a roar. “Euan! Euan Rohe! Wipe your arse and come out of there. You’ve got company.”

“No need for that,” she said. Her ears were still ringing from Gavin’s bellow. “I only wanted to see that you were here, and that you were well. And to apologize for—”

“The magic had you,” Conory said. “We know.” He filled a mug sloppily and held it out. “Here. It’s almost decent, for imperial horse-piss.”

Valeria drank a sip to be polite, but then she excused herself. This was not a night to spend drinking with the Caletanni. She needed her head in one piece for whatever would happen in the morning.

She took a different and somewhat roundabout way back. The sun was setting and the shadows were long. The school was much larger than she would have thought, as large as the town of Mallia, where she had joined the caravan. Now and then she saw people intent on errands of their own, but none of them spoke to her. They all seemed to be servants, or else everyone here wore the same plain clothes. She had yet to see anyone but Andres whom she would have recognized as a rider.

Euan caught up with her on the edge of the square with the fountain, directly inside the gate. She felt him before she saw or heard him. It was like a storm coming, a presence so strong that it almost frightened her. He had no magic except the power to lead men, but that was enough.

She could have escaped before he found her. She stopped instead and waited beside the fountain, while the sunset stained the sky with blood and gold.

Her eyes were full of it when she lowered them to meet his. He seemed taken aback. The magic must be running strong in her, for him to see it.

He was too proud to say anything about it. Instead he said, “You didn’t stay.”

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said. “I’m not supposed to be out.”

“Neither am I,” he said with a hint of his usual humor. “Our test is to stay put until called for.”

“I’m sure they won’t cast you out for failing it.”

She saw the gleam of teeth under the red mustache. It was hard sometimes to tell whether he was smiling or snarling. At the moment it seemed to be a bit of both. “No, they’re saddled with us until the emperor tells them to let us go.”

“I didn’t know they answered to him,” she said.

“Sometimes they do.” He seemed to realize he was looming over her. He sat on the fountain’s rim, not too close to her. “Now tell me why you really came to find me.”

“That was why. And,” she added, “because I couldn’t sleep, and it was an excuse to go prowling.”

That was certainly a smile. “Now that I can believe. What will you do when you’re a rider? The discipline’s hard, I hear. It’s like being a priest.”

“Riders ride,” she said. “That’s what they are.”

“Any time they want?”

“Often enough,” she said.

“Well then,” said Euan, “when you pass all the tests, promise you’ll come once in a while to rescue me. I’m no kind of rider. They’ll have me hauling manure to make me useful.”

“When I pass the tests,” she said. The evening air was chill, but that was not why she shivered. “If you have any luck to offer, I’ll take it.”

“I make my own luck,” said Euan. “I’ve plenty to spare.” He smiled a remarkably sweet smile. “Take it with you, as much as you need. Go and sleep. Dream of victory. Be the bear and the bull and the stallion. Be strong.”

If he only knew, she thought. She had a powerful, almost overwhelming urge to kiss him.

That would have been a very unwise thing to do. She hoped her departure did not look too much like flight.