“Save your strength,” Dorna said. “She’s asleep. You ain’t waking her now.”
“Hey,” Ninavis said. When Janel didn’t respond, she screamed it.
A few people at the main camp looked over. “You need something, boss?” Dango shouted back.
Ninavis balanced on her good leg and bent down to shake Janel’s shoulder. The young noble gave no response.
“Dorna’s right,” Brother Qown said. “You won’t wake her. She’ll stay sleeping until the morning, and I’ve never seen anything hasten the process.”
Ninavis drew back, startled. “Priest, she’s not breathing.”
“Oh, she is,” he said. “Just slowly. And please, call me Brother Qown. I hate being called priest.”
“She’s not, priest. I can see she’s not breathing.”
Sir Baramon drew closer, listening to the conversation with growing alarm. “What magic is this?”
Dorna shrugged as she smoothed out her riding skirts. “She’s cursed. Ain’t nobody spreading those damn stories about ‘Danorak’ ever mention the curse?”
“What? But—”
Dorna gestured toward Janel’s sleeping form. “She’s asleep. The priest here says she ain’t dead right now, but you couldn’t tell it by my sight. She don’t breathe. Her body grows cold. Dead to the world, and that’s not just a figure of speech. Dead to the Living World. This estava could fall around our ears and she’d wake as much as any corpse would. Except when dawn comes, she’ll be right on her feet again, like she’d had a solid night of sleeping sound.”
Ninavis’s grip on Janel’s shoulder tightened. “I just assumed she was a witch.”
“Excuse me?” Dorna raised an eyebrow.
“Because she’s so strong. I thought she was a witch.”
“My foal don’t summon no demons!” Dorna looked ready to start her own fight.
“I mean—” Ninavis sighed. “I mean she uses magic. That makes her a witch, doesn’t it?” She waved a hand toward a crate on the ground. “Help me over there, would you, priest?”
She ignored his sigh as Brother Qown helped her over to the impromptu seat.
“The Count of Tolamer does not use magic,” Sir Baramon retorted.
Dorna and Brother Qown shared a look.
Dorna cocked her head. “Course she don’t. No one’s suggesting otherwise. Now why don’t you go check on our fine new friends from town—see how soon they’ll be ready for the funeral dinner? From the smell, I’d say somebody put some stew on or I’m still the Count of Leanan Pass.”2
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t owe you thudajé, you old crone.”
Dorna grinned. “Oh, my sweet Baramon. You’re under the count’s idorrá now, and I’m her lead mare. Close enough, eh? Now git. This ain’t for your tender ears.”
Sir Baramon huffed and retreated to the impromptu kitchen.
“You don’t like him, do you?” Ninavis asked.
“Sir Baramon? I love him to bits. I’ve known him since we were both colts, and if I ran with stallions and he ran with mares, we’d have married years ago.” She made a face. “Should have, anyway. We’d have made great herd parents.”
Ninavis looked down at the sleeping girl. “She looks her age when she’s asleep.” The bandit leader eased down onto the box, sitting full upon it once it proved sturdy enough to hold her weight. “My Hava would be as old.”
Brother Qown grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Wasn’t your fault.” She stared down at her lap for a long moment. “She was a sweet girl. A heart as pure as spring. You ever have children, Dorna?”
The old woman smiled and gestured toward Janel. “Don’t that one count? I love her like she were my own.”
Brother Qown wasn’t sure if he dared ask what had happened to Ninavis’s daughter.3 The woman’s pain ached tangibly, dark and private.
Ninavis preempted the priest and pointed to the sleeping count. “My husband died in the Hellmarch she stopped. My daughter, after that.”
Dorna and Brother Qown both grew still.
Ninavis waited for them to say something, say anything, but what could they say?
“I saw what demons do to people,” Ninavis continued. “They do horrible things, but they don’t … they don’t ‘curse’ them. So why don’t you two stop lying and tell me what’s going on?”
“We’re not lying,” Brother Qown said. “Janel is a special case.”
“Is she a witch or not?”
Brother Qown cleared his throat. “If your definition is someone who makes bargains with demons, then the answer is no.” Brother Qown was skating around the question, qualifying it with technicalities, but what choice did he have? “Tamin isn’t a witch either. You people confuse being able to use magic with witchcraft, when it’s not the same thing at all.”
“Not my people,” Ninavis reminded him. “Anyway, just tell me what happened to her. Tell me why she’s like this.”
“Oh, he don’t know,” Dorna said. She had an angry look on her face. “Qown only joined up with us a few months ago because his church ordered it. I’m sure that Father Zajhera told him what he was getting into, but hearing it secondhand ain’t the same as being there.”
Ninavis scowled. “And if I ask you for her story, are you going to tell me it’s none of my business?”
“Well, it ain’t, is it?”
“You’re wrong,” Ninavis said. “It is my business. I may not have been born here in Jorat, but my husband and daughter were both Joratese. I know enough about the customs here to understand that little girl just strolled into my backyard and stole my people right out from under me. Kalazan’s loyalty is to her now. He may be this banner’s new baron, but I guarantee you she’s his new count.” She cocked her head. “Not real sure how the old count’s going to feel about that.”
Dorna rolled her eyes. “Don’t much care. Old bastard should have put a stop to Tamin’s foolishness before it ever got this far.”
Ninavis raised her hand. “That’s not my point. My little band of thieves are horse folk just like you. And if there’s one thing I know about Joratese, it’s that you’re too damn trusting. I’m not. I need to know what kind of person I’m following, especially when you tell me she’s cursed.”
Dorna sighed. “I weren’t there when they went to Lonezh, when she was a child. I’d gone to the Festival of the Turning Leaves that year and—” She shook her head. “They was just visiting her father’s cousins. Nothing special. Going to see a tournament. I don’t know what happened either…”
“But the stories say—” Ninavis started to protest.
Dorna raised her hand. “Except the legends ain’t true, what they say about Danorak. She didn’t outrun the demons to get warning out to the emperor. She was caught up in it same as everyone else, but the demons didn’t kill Janel. Instead, their leader, this demon prince, well, he decides to possess her body so he can summon more demons. Wore her like a riding dress. So there’s this demon army on a trek of death and destruction from one side of Jorat to the other, commanded by an eight-year-old girl. Even after the emperor went and stopped the march, he couldn’t get that bastard to give up his pretty new body.”