CHAPTER FIFTEEN - RETURN TO LOTH KAVNOR

Sorcha scrambled off the bed, dragging the sheet with her, and went over the whole room, becoming increasing frantic as each detail confirmed the awful suspicion that her conscious mind refused to even acknowledge. She caught herself hyperventilating again and had to lean against the bedstead, still clutching the sheet around her nakedness.

Her terror receded when she heard footsteps outside, only to return with double force when she heard voices too and knew that whoever approached was not DeSilva. She moved to get dressed, only to freeze like a rabbit when the footsteps stopped outside the door. The voices went on, muffled tones resolving into words, a language and accent she had not heard in almost a year; Silvan, spoken in the dialect of the western provinces where she had been born. It took a moment for her ear, used for so long to Kellion and the argot lingua of the wilds, to comprehend the words of the two women outside.

“...ye ken for sure?”

“Aye, well, if not this one then the next; the light was frae one o' the windows here along.”

“Och, if ye're winding me up wi' this...”

“Ahm no', I swear!”

Sorcha stood listening to the women's voices, her heart crawling sickeningly up her throat, petrified and praying wordlessly that this was all the magic of Bed of Swords weaving a nightmare from which she might somehow wake.

The door opened and Sorcha swallowed a scream, twitched as if to bolt but found her feet rooted to the spot by sheer terror. There in the doorway stood two Silvan soldiers, their plaid-trimmed cloaks marking them for clanswomen, silver masks flashing in the light of the lantern that one of them held high.

The woman with the lamp saw only a glimpse of Sorcha's face, prompting instinctive Silvan embarrassment; she turned away at once, stumbling over an apology as she lowered the lamp.

The second woman saw the tattoos on Sorcha's arm and shoulders, and started forward. Sorcha darted back, but the clanswoman grabbed a fistful of the bedsheet. Trapped, Sorcha froze.

“Bring that light here!” She snapped, hauling Sorcha close and grabbing her by the jaw.

The light came up again as the other woman drew near, silent and suspicious now as she too glimpsed Sorcha's tattoos.

“Who are you?” The woman holding Sorcha demanded.

Sorcha stared into the silver mirror of the woman's mask, seeing her own terrified face reflected there. She tried to speak, but the tight whimper she managed only enraged the clanswoman; in one rough motion, she tore the sheet from Sorcha's grasp and kicked her feet away. Sorcha collapsed, sobbing. The clanswoman glanced once at her tattooed body, then dropped the sheet over her in contempt.

Sorcha gathered the sheet back in place and lay where she was, trembling and fighting down tears.

The two clanswomen conferred, speaking quickly, the one with the light whispering, the other snarling in response.

“I dinnae ken this, what's going on?”

“I ken the tats, she's a Kellion slave-witch! What she's doing buck nekkid in a bedroom I'm sure I dinnae ken at all!”

“Ye ken there's intruders in the Loth?!”

“Aye.”

The woman kicked Sorcha in the side.

“Talk up, ye pathetic skunner; where's ye man, eh?”

“He... he...” Sorcha managed, only to be interrupted with finality when DeSilva himself kicked the door open with a snarl.

“He's right here!”

The clanswomen spun around, both reaching for their swords only to freeze where they stood; DeSilva had a pistol in either hand.

“Move and you die,” he said.

“Grab the girl!” one of the women barked; her companion flung the lantern at DeSilva and grabbed Sorcha by the hair.

DeSilva ducked, but the lantern missed regardless and smashed on the doorframe in a splash of fire. He rose to bring his guns to bear at once, but the other clanswoman was already on him; before he could find his aim even at such close range, a head-butt to the face dropped him insensible.

Sorcha hung whimpering in her captor's grip, using both hands to keep the pressure off her hair. The other clanswoman fetched a candle from a shelf, lit it from the flames of the shattered lantern, then stamped out the small fires on the carpet and nearby tapestry.

Stooping over DeSilva, the clanswoman swore. “He's Kraag; see his teeth there!”

Sorcha at last found her voice. “He's not Kraag!”

Both women stared at her. Then the one holding Sorcha's hair leaned down to study her eyes, the only part of any Silvan's face that anyone ever saw.

“Sorcha?” The woman's eyes widened in amazement. “Hie, hinnie, that's never you...?”

Both women turned as one to stare at DeSilva.

“Then that would be...?”

“That's him,” Sorcha whispered. “That's Montesinos DeSilva, the man my sister was supposed to marry.”

Sorcha stumbled through the passages of Loth Kavnor, a blanket around her shoulders and pulled up around her head to hide her face. It was almost dawn, and word of the incident had spread faster than the smell of breakfast; as Sorcha was hustled along, doors opened and masked Silvan faces stared at her.

Sorcha paid no heed to them or her surroundings; she knew already where she was being taken. Passages and stairs passed by unheeded, leading to the door of her aunt's office. A hand on her shoulder signalled a halt, and she was dumped down in a chair outside the office to wait.

Sorcha huddled in her blanket, emotionally numb, staring into nothing while she waited. Eventually, DeSilva was dumped in the seat next to her. A bruise was rising on his brow, and his nose was bleeding. His sword and gunbelts had been taken. He glanced at Sorcha, noticing that she was still naked beneath the blanket.

“They didn't even let you get dressed?” When she did not answer, he rounded on the guards standing nearby. “You didn't even let her get dressed?!”

One of the guards put her swordpoint to his chest, but DeSilva rose to his feet regardless, his face transfigured to a snarl. The second guardswoman drew steel, but held back, watching nervously.

“You vicious bunch of dykes!” DeSilva raged. “You're all modesty and abstinence, but first chance you get, you're dragging one of your own naked through the halls! Yeah, very moral, very Silvan. Very nice.” He snorted in disgust and sat down again at Sorcha's side.

The guards lowered their weapons but did not put them away.

DeSilva took Sorcha's hand in his, but she pulled away, refusing to look at him. They sat in silence for an unknown time before the office door opened. The guards hustled Sorcha and DeSilva to their feet, she unprotesting, he cussing in gutter-Kellion.

The guards hustled them into the office and shoved them into two chairs that stood before the Warden's desk Duella Kavnor, Warden of the dam, Sorcha's aunt, waited a few long moments before lifting her masked eyes to study the prisoners.

"Now I assume," she said, assiduously not looking at Sorcha's face, "that you have both come lately from the fracas at Narillion."

"Fracas?" DeSilva echoed, dabbing at his nose with the hem off his cloak. "You know about that, then?”

"The first refugees reached us last week," Duella confirmed.

"I didn't think anyone made it across the Kessel," DeSilva said, "what with the blizzard and the monsters and so on."

Sorcha's aunt paused to write 'blizzard' and 'monsters' on a notepad before steepling her fingers at DeSilva again. "The Kellion army crossed the Kessel without difficulty and is even now advancing on Loth Kavnor."

"That's one of the things we came to tell you," Sorcha mumbled, unable to meet her aunt's eyes.

“Except they're not Kellions,” DeSilva insisted. “They're Kraag.”

Duella tapped her pen on the notepad but did not write anything down. After a long pause, she opened a drawer in her desk, took out a Silvan mask, and threw it across the desk into Sorcha's lap.

“Put that on.”

Sorcha obeyed, fumbling one-handed with the straps while she held the blanket around herself as best she could. Duella turned her attention to DeSilva, studying his Kellion features and Kraagish fangs.

“Two possibilities occur,” she said. “It could be that you, DeSilva, led Sorcha and her squad a merry chase that somehow occasioned you to undergo the rites of the barbarian Kraag, while Sorcha...” she paused, studying the tattoos left uncovered by the blanket, then she went on; “I'm sure it would make a fine tale, and leave you both utterly blameless at the end. On the other hand, I could be looking at a Kraagish spy and his concubine, a former Silvan soldier of the clan broken to slavery until she would even help her master penetrate the Loth in readiness for a Kraag army to lay siege.”

“Oh, don't be absurd,” DeSilva scoffed. “Why bring a slave to assault a fortress?”

“Only a member of the clan would know the way through the lower floodgates up into the dam.”

Sorcha pretended not to catch DeSilva's glance. Her silent prayers that he would say no more went unheeded; DeSilva frowned, then snapped his fingers in recollection.

“Sabra told me that; there are tunnels all through the dam, you madwomen send your daughters down to hunt giant rats and whatnot, that's why Sabra was so scared of the dark.”

Duella's eyes flashed anger. “How did you penetrate Loth Kavnor?” She demanded, but this time DeSilva kept silent.

“Magic,” Sorcha said, in a very small voice.

Duella's mask was expressionless, but her silence spoke volumes.

“Show her something, Monte.”

“Me?” DeSilva overplayed his mild surprise. “Alright.”

The Dancing Ring was on his finger; he extended his hand above the lamp on the desk and turned his palm upwards. A spout of fire leapt up from his hand and the Pyriad twirled and performed in the air. Duella sat back and steepled her fingers with the pen balanced across her knuckles, singularly unimpressed.

DeSilva clenched his fist tight and said, “Stantine Fenn.”

The Dancing Ring flashed blue, and heat rolled out from the gem. Duella let out a grunt as if struck a physical blow and had to lean on the desk to sit upright. Sorcha whimpered and wilted in her chair, starting to slide to the floor. DeSilva released his tight fist and the killing warmth faded away.

“These are questions I cannot properly investigate,” Duella said. She was breathless from even brief exposure to Fenn's power. “Sorcha... I have decided to refer this matter to the Inquisitrix.”

Sorcha drew a strangled breath and started to cry.

“Suck that noise in!” Duella barked, but all Sorcha could do was to muffle her sobs in the blanket.

“The Inquisitrix will discover the truth,” Duella said, as if convincing herself. “I'm sorry, Sorcha; I wish there was another way.”

Sorcha was silent, rocking back and forth now in her chair while her fingers fluttered at the lipless mouth of her mask.

In a slightly gentler tone, Duella added, “Sorcha...You must have known this would happen.”

Sorcha nodded miserably.

“Then I'm impressed you came back. It shows character.” Duella stood up and called for the guards. Four clanswomen entered and ranged themselves in a line across the wall. Duella addressed the sergeant; “Detail someone to take Sorcha to her old room. Leave a watch on the door but I see no need to lock her in. Be nice to her and make sure she's left alone.”

One of the clanswomen helped Sorcha up from her chair and took her away. Duella turned a basilisk glare on DeSilva.

“Sergeant, find a nice secure room for the Warmistress' nephew and lock him away until I decide what to do with him.”

Sorcha followed her guard in silence, head down and hands clasping the blanket tight about herself. She was grateful that they met no one on the short walk to her old suite of rooms in the north tower. Her room occupied the upper floors of the minaret; she had to bite her lip when they passed the landing to Sabra's rooms on the floor below. She tripped on the last step and the guardswoman had to catch her before she fell.

“Are you alright?” the woman asked, and Sorcha vaguely recognised her voice as belonging to a distant cousin but could not place her name.

“No, not really. I've just got to sit and wait now for the Inquisitrix; would you be happy?”

Sorcha's rooms had been dusted but otherwise untouched in her absence. A large couch and low table stood between the two narrow windows on the western wall. On the south wall stood a dresser, opposite a tapestry framed on either side by recessed doors into the rest of the suite. Sorcha went into her old bedroom; her guard trailed after her and stood on the threshold.

“You've not got to wait long.”

“No, only a few days, perhaps a week. I'll be sitting here in the ashes of my childhood while Monte languishes in a dungeon.”

“Sorcha... you'll not waiting nearly that long.”

Sorcha giggled, a note of hysteria in her voice. “The Abbey is fifty miles from here.”

“But the Inquisitrix isn't; she's already here. The Clan Chaplain is ill and the Inquisitrix came to hear her confession. She's with her now. If the Chaplain dies...”

Sorcha sat on the bed, the rest of her cousin's words drowned out by the rushing in her ears.

“She might see me tonight.”

“...Aye. You best put some clothes on. Do you want something to eat?”

Sorcha shook her head and sat listlessly for a long time after her cousin left her alone. Eventually she dropped the blanket, went into the bathroom, spun the taps, and waited while the hot water worked its way through the pipes.

A warm rain began from hidden fonts in the ceiling, growing rapidly hotter until steam began to fill the room. Sorcha stood beneath the pure water for a long time, countless hot wet lances kissing her tattooed skin, then turned another faucet to add soap and minerals to the downpour. Soon, bubbles formed and slithered on her skin, sliding down her hips and thighs while she kneaded soap into her hair. Thoroughly soapy, she spun the taps again to let the water run clean, rinsing the soap and dirt of her long journey off her exhausted body.

Washed, she wrapped herself in a towel and wandered back into her bedroom, picking through the ornaments and momentos of childhood dotted around the chamber. She found fresh shirts and breeches in the chest of drawers, her spare tabard and boots in the wardrobe.

Dressed, she sat on the bed again and combed out her hair, watching her reflection in the dresser mirror at a distance. The harem costume was a tangle of silk on the floor. Sorcha wrapped it around the shoes and threw the bundle on the bed, crossed the room, and sat at the dresser, staring at her reflection until she heard voices in the passage outside.

There was a knock at the door and her cousin's voice said, “Sorcha? It’s time; they're here to take you downstairs.”

Before Sorcha could respond, the door opened and two women wearing the robes of Silvanni clerics came in, assistants to the Inquisitrix. Sorcha had barely stood up from the desk before they grabbed her arms and hustled out into the corridor. She briefly glimpsed her cousin still holding the door, heard her call plaintively, “Oh aye, go easy on her...”

Frogmarched through Loth Kavnor's keep, Sorcha was brought at last to a cell containing a desk and two chairs. Manacles hung from the ceiling above the table and a rack of whips stood against one wall. The Inquisitrix stood by the tiny, barred window, looking out over the dam and the fifty-foot drop to the bottom of the valley. She did not move when Sorcha came in, waiting until the Silvanni attendants had departed and shut the door.