CHAPTER 16

ONE CUP AND ONE PLATE

LEESHA WATCHED AS WONDA and Gared faced off in the Corelings’ Graveyard, circling slowly. Wonda was taller than any other woman in the Hollow, including the refugees, but giant Gared dwarfed her regardless. She was fifteen, and Gared near to thirty. Still, Gared wore a look of intense concentration, while Wonda’s face was calm.

Suddenly he lunged, grabbing for her, but Wonda caught his wrist in one hand and pivoted, pressing his elbow hard with her other hand as she sidestepped and used the force of his own attack to throw him onto his back on the cobbles.

“Corespawn it!” Gared roared.

“Well done,” the Painted Man congratulated Wonda as she gave Gared a hand to help him up. Since he had begun giving sharusahk lessons to the Hollowers, she had shown herself to be his best student by far.

“Sharusahk teaches diverting force,” the Painted Man reminded Gared. “You can’t keep using the wild swings you would against a coreling.”

“Or a tree,” Wonda added, bringing titters from many of the female students. The Cutters glared. More than a few of them had found themselves defeated by female students, something no man was used to.

“Try again,” the Painted Man said. “Keep your limbs in close and your balance centered. Don’t give her an opening.

“And you,” he added, turning to Wonda, “don’t grow overconfident. The weakest dal’Sharum still has a lifetime of training against your few months. They’ll be your true test.” Wonda nodded, her smile disappearing, and she and Gared bowed and began to circle again.

“They’re learning quickly,” Leesha said as the Painted Man came to join her and Rojer. She never trained with the other Hollowers, but she watched carefully each day as they practiced the sharukin, her quick mind cataloguing every move.

Again, Wonda threw Gared onto his back. Leesha shook her head wistfully. “It really is a beautiful art. It’s a shame its only purpose is to maim and kill.”

“The people that invented it are no different,” the Painted Man said. “Brilliant, beautiful, and deadly beyond reckoning.”

“And you’re sure they’re coming?” Leesha asked.

“There isn’t a doubt in my mind,” the Painted Man said, “much as I wish otherwise.”

“What do you think Duke Rhinebeck will do?” she asked.

The Painted Man shrugged. “I met him a handful of times in my Messenger days, but I know little of his heart.”

“There’s not much to know,” Rojer said. “Rhinebeck spends his hours doing three things: counting money, drinking wine, and bedding younger and younger brides, hoping one of them will bear him an heir.”

“He’s seedless?” Leesha asked in surprise.

“I wouldn’t call him that anyplace where it might be overheard,” Rojer warned. “He’s hung Herb Gatherers for less insult. He blames his wives.”

“They always do,” Leesha said. “As if being seedless somehow makes them less a man.”

“Doesn’t it?” Rojer asked.

“Don’t be absurd,” Leesha said, but even the Painted Man looked at her doubtfully.

“Regardless,” Leesha said, “fertility was one of Bruna’s specialties, and she taught me well. Perhaps I can win favor by curing him.”

“Favor?” Rojer asked. “He ’d make you his duchess for it, and get the child on you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Painted Man said. “Even if your herbs can awaken his seed, it could be months before there was any proof of it. we’ll need more leverage than that.”

“More leverage than an army of desert warriors on his doorstep?” Rojer asked.

“Rhinebeck will need to mobilize well before it comes to that, if he’s to have any hope of stopping Jardir,” the Painted Man said, “and dukes are not men apt to take such risks without great convincing.”

“You’ll have Rhinebeck’s brothers to contend with, as well,” Rojer said. “Prince Mickael will take the throne if Rhinebeck dies without an heir, and Prince Pether is Shepherd of the Tenders of the Creator. Thamos, the youngest, leads Rhinebeck’s guards, the Wooden Soldiers.”

“Are any of them likely to see reason?” Leesha asked.

“Not likely,” Rojer said. “The one to convince is Lord Janson, the first minister. None of the princes could find their boots without Janson. Not a thing goes on in Angiers that Janson doesn’t track in his neat ledgers, and the royal family delegates almost everything to him.”

“So if Janson doesn’t support us, it’s unlikely the duke will, either,” the Painted Man said.

Rojer nodded. “Janson is a coward,” he warned. “Getting him to agree to war…” He shrugged. “It won’t be easy. You may have to resort to other methods.” The Painted Man and Leesha looked at him curiously.

“You’re the ripping Painted Man,” Rojer said. “Half the people south of Miln think you’re the Deliverer already. A few meetings with the Tenders and the right tales spun at the Jongleurs’ Guildhouse, and the other half will believe it, too.”

“No,” the Painted Man said. “I won’t pretend to be something I’m not, even for this.”

“Who is to say you’re not?” Leesha asked.

The Painted Man turned to her in surprise. “Not you, too. It’s bad enough from the Jongleur eager for tales and the Tender blind with faith, but you’re an Herb Gatherer. Knowledge cures your patients, not prayer.”

“I’m also a ward witch,” Leesha said, “and you made me so. It’s honest word I put more store in books of science than the Tenders’ Canon, but science falls short of explaining why a few squiggles in the dirt can bar a coreling or do it harm. There’s more to the universe than science. Perhaps there’s room for a Deliverer, too.”

“I’m not Heaven-sent,” the Painted Man said. “The things I’ve done…no Heaven would have me.”

“Many believe the Deliverers of old were just men, like you,” Leesha said. “Generals who arose when the time was right and the people needed them. Will you turn your back on humanity over semantics?”

“It ent semantics,” the Painted Man said. “Folk start looking to me to solve all their problems, they’ll never learn to solve their own.”

He turned to Rojer. “Everything set?”

Rojer nodded. “Horses laden and saddled. We can leave when you’re ready.”

It had been over a month since spring melt, and the trees lining the Messenger road to Angiers were green with fresh leaves. Rojer held tightly to Leesha as they rode. He had never been much of a rider and generally mistrusted horses, especially those not hitched to a cart. Fortunately, he was small enough to ride behind Leesha without straining a beast too far. As with everything she turned her mind to, Leesha had mastered riding in short order, and commanded the horse with confidence.

It didn’t help his churning stomach that they were returning to Angiers. When he had left the city with Leesha a year ago, it had been as much to save his own life as to help her get home. He wasn’t eager to return, even alongside his powerful friends, especially when it meant letting the Jongleurs’ Guild know he was still alive.

“Is he overweight?” Leesha asked.

“Hm?” Rojer said.

“Duke Rhinebeck,” Leesha said. “Is he overweight? Does he drink?”

“Yes and yes,” Rojer said. “He looks like he swallowed the whole beer barrel, and it’s not far from the truth.”

Leesha had been asking him questions about the duke all morning, her ever-active mind already working on a diagnosis and potential cure, though she had yet to meet the man. Rojer knew her work was important, but it had been close to ten years since he had lived in the palace. Many of her questions taxed his memory, and he had no idea if his answers were still accurate.

“Does he sometimes have trouble performing abed?” Leesha asked.

“How in the Core would I know?” Rojer snapped. “He wasn’t the boy-buggering type.”

Leesha frowned at him, and Rojer immediately felt ashamed.