The Thousand Names Part 36

"And ever since then," Bobby went on, "I've been seeing things. Or hearing them. Or . . . something. It's hard to explain."

"Seeing things?" Winter said. That she had not expected.

"It's not quite seeing," Bobby said. "Feeling, maybe. Like there's something out there, pressing on me, but I can't quite-I don't know." She stared into the depths of her drink. "Like I said, I'm going mad."

Winter glanced at Feor. The Khandarai girl was regarding Bobby intently.

"She says she's seeing things," Winter translated, and Feor nodded.

"She can sense others who possess power," Feor said. "Me, for example. And perhaps some of Mother's children remain in the city. All who are touched by magic can do this to one degree or another, but . . ." She sighed. "As I told you, obv-scar-iot should have been bound to someone who had trained from girlhood to accept its gifts. What it will do to someone so completely unprepared I do not know."

Winter turned back to the corporal, cleared her throat, and realized she had absolutely no idea how to begin. She'd planned for this, but everything she'd practiced in the privacy of her room had flown out of her mind. She took a long swallow of beer to cover it, coughed a bit at the bitter flavor, and cleared her throat again.

Finally, she said, "All right. The thing is . . ." She trailed off again.

"The thing is?" Bobby prompted.

Winter sighed. "You're not going crazy. But I suspect you're going to think I am. Just listen, okay?"

The corporal nodded obediently. Winter drew a long breath.

"You got hit on the climb," Winter said. "You know that much. We found you afterward, and it . . . looked bad."

"You promised me," Bobby said in a small voice.

"No cutters," Winter agreed. "Folsom carried you back to my tent, and Graff did what he could."

"Did he-" Bobby's features screwed up as she tried to find a way of asking whether Graff had discovered her secret, without revealing that secret in the process. Winter took pity on her and nodded.

"I know," she said.

"Oh." Bobby's eyes were wide. "Who else?"

"Graff, obviously. And Feor."

"That's why you brought her along," Bobby said. "I was wondering." She hesitated. "And . . . are you . . ."

"We're not going to tell anyone, if that's what you mean."

The relief was plain on Bobby's face. She dropped her eyes and, apparently noticing her drink for the first time, ventured a sip. Her lip curled in disgust as the taste registered.

"It takes everyone that way the first time," Winter said automatically.

"What makes them try it a second time?"

"Stubborn curiosity, I think." Winter shook her head. "Anyway, I'm not finished."

"So Graff patched me up?"

"Graff told me you were dying," Winter said, "and that there was nothing he could do. It was after he left that Feor . . ."

She stopped. This was the sticking point, after all, the bit where any sane, modern, civilized person would listen to her story and laugh. She didn't think Bobby would-after all, she could see the evidence for herself-but Winter's cheeks colored anyway.

"Feor healed you," she forced out. "With . . . magic. I don't pretend to really understand it."

"Magic?" Bobby looked at the Khandarai girl, who met her eyes calmly. "She . . . prayed, or something? She is a priestess, I suppose-"

"Not like that." Winter closed her eyes. "I know this sounds mad, but I was there. It was real, and . . ." She trailed off, at a loss for words, then shook her head again and glared at Bobby. "That patch of skin. It's still-odd, isn't it?"

Bobby nodded. "But that's just a . . . sort of a scar, right?"

"It's not. You know it's not."

There was a long silence. Both of them turned to look at Feor, who appeared unruffled by the attention.

"So . . . ," Bobby said. "She's a wizard, then?"

"Like I said, I don't understand this any better than you do. She calls herself a naathem, which literally means *one who has read.' The spell she used-she would say naath, *reading'-if I'm getting this right, it's called obv-scar-iot. Beyond that . . ." Winter spread her hands. "I don't know if this means anything to you, but she asked me for permission before she did anything. She thought you might not want to live under those circ.u.mstances, I guess. I told her to do it. So if you're angry, you can be angry at me."

Bobby just stared. Winter gulped from her beer.

"I brought her along because I thought you might have . . . questions," she said. "I can translate for you."

The corporal nodded slowly. Feor glanced at Winter.

"I told her," Winter said in Khandarai.

"I guessed that from her face," Feor said. "Ask her how she feels, aside from the odd sensations."

"Feor wants to know if you feel all right," Winter translated. "The visions, she says, are a kind of side effect of the spell."

"I feel fine," Bobby said.

Winter rendered this for Feor, who said, "She will be stronger now and require less sleep. Injuries will heal very quickly."

Winter blinked at her. "You didn't tell me any of that."

"There wasn't time," Feor said.

Winter nodded slowly and translated for Bobby. The corporal looked a bit shaken.

"So this thing is . . . still in me?" She looked down at herself. "How long does it last?"

When that question was put to Feor in Khandarai, she shook her head. "It was not merely a healing. Obv-scar-iot is bound to her. It will not leave her until her death."

"Forever," Winter said to Bobby. "Or until you die, anyway."

Feor looked uncomfortable, as though there were something she wanted to say but could not. Bobby was staring down at her hands. The silence grew and grew, until it was unbearable, and Winter couldn't help but speak.

"As long as we're sharing secrets," she said, "I feel like you ought to have one of mine. It should balance the scales a bit."

Bobby blinked and looked up. "Secrets?"

Winter nodded. Her throat felt suddenly thick, and she had to force the words out. "Secrets." She took a deep breath. "I am a-"

"Oh!" Bobby interrupted. "A girl. I know."

Winter deflated, feeling an irrational anger rising. "You knew? How? Does everyone know?"

Bobby raised her hands defensively. "It was nothing you did. I wouldn't have known if I didn't already know. I mean-" She put her head to one side, realizing that last hadn't made much sense. "If I hadn't known, in advance, that you were a woman, then I would never have guessed it just by looking at you."

Winter sat openmouthed, rage replaced by shock. "You knew . . . in advance?"

"Not exactly knew," Bobby said. "It was more of a rumor. But once I got here and I saw you, I thought, *Well, that has to be her, doesn't it?'"

"You'd-" Winter broke off and looked sharply at Bobby. "Where did you hear this rumor?"

"I don't remember exactly," Bobby said. "But everyone at Mrs. Wilmore's has heard of Winter the Soldier."

a a a "I," Winter said shakily, after a long silence, "need a drink."

"You have a drink," Bobby pointed out.

"I need a better one."

In the time it took to go into the corridor, find a hostess, and order a bottle, Winter did her best to compose herself. By the time she sat back down at the little table, she felt almost calm, and her voice barely wavered when she said, "You were at Mrs. Wilmore's?"

Bobby nodded. "Since I was ten."

"And they've heard of me?"

"Of course," Bobby said. "It's like a school legend. Every new girl hears it eventually."

The hostess stepped in with another tray, this one bearing a fresh set of clay cups and an unlabeled bottle of murky liquid. Winter grabbed the bottle, poured herself a cup, and drank it in one go, feeling the vicious stuff burn its way down her throat and into her stomach.

"What exactly does this legend say?" she ventured.

"I must have heard a dozen versions," Bobby said. "But they all agree that there was an inmate named Winter, and that she escaped from the Prison, which no one had ever done before. I heard stories that she'd gone to Vordan and become a thief, or that she ran off into the country and made herself the concubine of a bandit chieftain, but most people seemed to think that she dressed up as a man and joined the army."

Anna and Leeya must have told someone. Her friends had sworn up and down that they would take the secret of her escape to the grave, along with her tentative plan to be free of Mrs. Wilmore's clutches forever by using the army to get beyond her reach. Looking back, though, Winter could see that was a lot to expect from a couple of teenage girls. I'm not sure I could have held my tongue, if I were in their place.

"I never thought about becoming a bandit concubine," Winter said dully. "Maybe I should have."

"When I got here," Bobby said, "and you became our sergeant, I thought it had to be the same Winter. It's not that uncommon a name, but . . . it felt like it was meant to happen." Her young face had regained some of its eagerness.

"But how did you escape?"

"I stole a bag of coin from the office," Bobby said proudly. "And I got to know one of the carters who brought in food. After a while I convinced him to smuggle me out."

"Sounds like you had an easier time of it than I did," Winter muttered. Then, catching Bobby's flushed cheeks, she got an idea of the sort of "convincing" the carter had required, and shook her head. "Sorry. I didn't mean that."

"I couldn't believe I'd actually met you," Bobby said, looking as though a weight had been removed from her shoulders. "I thought for the longest time about whether I should tell you, but it seemed like a risk. You had everyone fooled, and I couldn't bear being the one who screwed it up. So I just went along."

"These . . . legends," Winter said. "Do they mention anyone besides me?"

"Not that I recall," Bobby said. "Saints, I wish I could tell the girls at the Prison that I'd met you. Sarah would just about explode."

Winter fought down a looming specter, with green eyes and long red hair. Can you be haunted by someone who isn't dead? Her throat was tight as she poured herself another drink. They don't even remember her.

"All right," she said again. "Is that enough secrets for one night?"

Bobby looked a bit startled. "I wanted to ask you-"

"Later. Right now I am planning to get very drunk. The two of you are welcome to join me." She repeated this in Khandarai, as a courtesy.

Feor looked down at her beer. "Alcohol was not permitted among the sahl-irusk when I was growing up," she said. "The eckmahl were fond of it, however, and I was always curious as to what they found so attractive."

"There you go." Winter turned to Bobby. "What about you? Ever been really drunk?"

Bobby shook her head, blushing. "Some of the girls at Mrs. Wilmore's would sneak a little bit, but I never did."

"Can't be a soldier if you've never been really drunk," Winter said. "I'll get us another bottle."

And maybe then, she thought, I won't dream.

Chapter Eighteen.

MARCUS.

After drinking to Adrecht, they'd had to drink toasts to the other captains, to be polite, and then to the king, the Princess Royal, and the Last Duke, and of course to Prince Exopter their royal host. At that point Marcus' memory became a little blurry, though he was fairly certain Jen had suggested getting out the regimental roll and going through every name on the list, amidst a fit of giggles.

While things had not actually come to that, they'd made a fair start on the bottle, and it had been all Marcus could do to find his way back to his room at the end of the night. Jen, one arm thrown around his shoulders like an old comrade, had suggested he sleep where he was, but he was fairly certain she was drunk enough that she didn't mean it the way it sounded.

He woke the next morning feeling surprisingly fresh, and moreover suddenly confident of what he had to do. He pa.s.sed over his usual shabby uniform in favor of his dress blues, which Fitz had carefully laundered. His room included a mirror, miraculously unsmashed during the sack, and he stopped for a moment to regard himself with some satisfaction. If not the spitting image of the young man who'd graduated from the War College, he looked at least like a proper Vordanai officer.

Fitz was waiting in the antechamber, immaculate as usual, bearing a sheaf of paperwork under his arm. He saluted smartly as Marcus emerged. Marcus wondered if the young man's hearing was good enough to tell when his chief was up and about, or if he just stood poised in front of the door all morning, like a guard dog.

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning." Marcus glanced at the papers. "Anything really important in there?"