Beneath the Veil Read online

  "If I'd been one of Rosten's men, you'd all be in prison or worse. I followed you because I could!"

  "The pup speaks true," said Moravian. "Our precautions are perhaps lacking. With all the new troops in the streets –"

  "It's not the streets we need fear," said Daelyn. "It's the passage outside the gates yonder. Anything we do in here can still be explained away. But not once we go beyond that wall."

  "Then I say let's get going," Gerard said with a glance at the sky. "Before we're caught out."

  The women had said naught this entire time, but that was no surprise. They wouldn't have been used to speaking for themselves. They had merely stood, waiting to be told what to do.

  Watching them place their lives and those of their children in the hands of others, I'd never been so grateful to my mother for making the choice to raise me as male. The risks had been huge, and still were, but her choice had allowed me to at least be able to think for and defend myself. Guilt slashed at me. I hadn't once tried to contact her in all the months I'd been in Daelyn's employ. I vowed to seek her out...if I survived the night.

  "Right. We're almost there." Penryn nodded toward the distant end of the field, where the crumbling city wall separated the fields from the others outside, and the forest and mountains beyond. "After that, it was up to you."

  "There's one small item we've left undiscussed." The hissing, whining voice curled out of the shack's darkness. A man stepped out of the shadows. He wore Alyrian fashion, but badly, as though he weren't used to it. His doublet hung open, unlaced, beneath a too-long cloak that hung ragged-hemmed on the ground. His codpiece bobbled unbound with every step. His hair was long, though not as long even as mine, and it was as dirty and unkempt as the rest of him.

  "Ho, Barnabus," said Freet. "You've got your fee. Be off with you until the next time."

  I couldn't miss the way the women moved away from Barnabus and clutched their children closer. The small boy and girl clung to their mothers' legs, and when he bent to leer at the girl, she hid her face and began to cry.

  "Oh, not so nice to Barnabus now, are we? When we have what we wants from old Barnabus?"

  Now I could smell the man, a mixture of old sweat, ale and rancid food. I backed away, putting myself in front of Daelyn. Barnabus turned toward Carinda.

  "Mistress, old Barnabus has left his home, risked his life, to serve you. Alls he asks is a little more respect."

  Carinda's nose wrinkled. "And your service has not gone unnoticed, Barnabus. Your work here is greatly appreciated."

  The man cocked his head in a grotesque parody of simpering flirtation. "'Tis dangerous work, living here in Alyria, finding the women what wants to leave their homes and making certain they get here without getting caught...."

  "And you are well-paid for your endeavors." Daelyn skillfully cut off the man's rant. "More than well-paid. You have the gratitude of two monarchs."

  Barnabus's sly, sidelong glance sent a chill running up my already shuddering spine. "Yes," was all he said, but gave that single word a depth of meaning I didn't like.

  Daelyn seemed to notice it too, because he stepped closer and clapped him on the shoulder. "We don't do this for the glory, Barnabus."

  "Of course not, my prince." The man's lips sprayed spittle as he spoke.

  Daelyn stepped back from him with a barely contained wince. He turned to me. "Here you are, Aeris, and though it's not my choice, I see no other way than to have you come with us."

  "Can he be trusted?" cried Freet.

  My fists went up. "Of course I can."

  Lir gave a low chuckle. "Trusted to jump to conclusions and take foolhardy risks."

  "Enough!" Carinda snapped at us. "We don't have time for this muck. Let's get these babies to safety."

  I was ashamed to have forgotten the children waiting in patient silence beside their mothers. "I want to help."

  She nodded, then turned and scooped one of the larger children. "Carry the other one."

  He was lighter than I expected, his legs bony under the layers of clothes. I held him on my back, and his little arms clutched around my neck as he gripped me with his legs. His head rested between my shoulder blades.

  I'd never held a child before. My uncle's sons had all been born much later than I, and most had still been in their mothers' care when I left. Men are not interested in their offspring until the lads are old enough to stop shiteing in their clouts. Infants and toddlers, no matter their gender, wear the same clothes, leave their hair uncut, live in the same rooms. When a boy is five, old enough to feed himself and wipe his own arse, he's taken from his mother and sent to live with his father and brothers in another part of the house if the family is poor or middle class, and perhaps in another house altogether if the family is wealthy. He's given his first set of silks, his first case of unguents, oils and perfumes, his first circlet to bind back the hair that will never again be cut unless in punishment for breaking the law. He's trained in the tasks considered worthy of men: fighting, hunting, fishing, falconing, story-telling, dance. Girls are given their first haircuts and follyblankets and sent to work wherever it is deemed they can provide service. By the time they reach their first flow, most young women will have also been assigned a man to bear children for.

  Carrying the child, I'd never felt so protective of anything in my life. I followed the others as they set off over the frosted field, and though the child was light, his weight was greater than any load I'd ever held.

  Alyria had once been contained by a city wall that had fallen mostly into ruin over the past hundred years. The country's last great war had been the Battle for Protection – a war to keep out the traders and travelers the ruling body believed brought the plague that killed the male children. With only one border open to the outside, Alyria hadn't been difficult to defend. Those traders who now braved the trip over the mountains, across the desert or over the sea brought little and took away less. Alyria subsisted on its rich and fertile soil, its multitude of natural resources, and the laboring backs of its overabundance of women.

  We reached the far edge of the joba melon field and the crumbling pile of brick that now served only to disrupt the sowing, plowing and harvesting of the fields. When we stopped to crawl through one of the broken places, Lir took an infant from the woman who needed to tend one of the older children for a moment. For an instant, the sight of him cradling the baby had my heart thumping fiercely. The hands I knew were capable of killing a man held the little one with a tenderness so obvious it brought tears to my eyes. He looked up and caught my gaze with his.

  The silence stretched and grew between us, an exchange of no words but much emotion. Lir had reached down deep into my soul and pulled out all my secrets. All my hopes. For that brief moment, I felt he knew all of me.

  Then the baby in his hands let out a whimper and he handed it back to the mother. The moment passed, but not the feelings it had risen in me. Foreboding swept over me, and I twisted my back to let the little boy slide down and take my hand, instead.

  Freet and Penryn had been the first through the hole in the wall. Gerard followed, hand on his sword, and then two of the women and an infant. Carinda went next with the child in her arms. Just as Daelyn put his foot to the bricks, we heard the first cry.

  Lir looked back again at me, our eyes locked, his wide and full of fear. He pushed Daelyn out of the way and leaped through the hole, sword already drawn.

  I pressed the child's hand into that of the woman behind me and followed Lir. The smell of blood hit me as soon as I went through the wall. Most of it came from the huddled forms on the ground, two of them. One with silver hair. The other with flaming red.

  Penryn sliced at two men who wore the white shields of Rosten's army. Guards. A third met Lir's blows with more luck than skill as Lir slipped on the icy ground and went to his knees, then rolled away from the soldier's hacking sword.

  The woman holding the baby cringed against the wall, her bundle clutched against her. Moravian s