The soft yellow gown was the best linen her mother could make. It was nothing like the tunic Arawn wore, which was of a linen so fine the warp and weft threads were invisible. His tunic had been bleached to a fine white. His undershirt was a dark blue color Ilsa had never seen before.
She fingered the soft linen folds of her dress, then put it back in the chest. Then, with a convulsive movement, she put the veil and pale gray mantle back in the chest, too.
It left her with the pair of hair combs. She ran her thumb over the carving at the top. Lavender and poppies and a butterfly.
Ilsa got to her feet, dropped the lid of the chest closed and moved back to the door of the cottage. She looked up at the platform. Nothing was visible from down here.
She picked up her cloak and put it on. After another hesitation, she grabbed her bow and arrows. She pushed the hair combs into the arrow bag and slung the items over her shoulder, then stepped out to where Arawn sat upon his big stallion, waiting for her.
Ilsa closed the cottage door. The hinges squealed. She pressed her hand against the door.
“My lord, we must hurry if we’re to make Lorient before the gates are closed for the night,” a soldier said, his tone urgent. The other horses moved about the clearing with restless steps, anxious to leave.
Arawn leaned down toward Ilsa and held out his arm. “Hurry,” he said.
Ilsa pressed her lips together.
Arawn leaned closer, so his voice would reach only her. “I will not have it said I married an unwilling woman. Take my hand and at least appear to be pleased with the arrangement.”
He thrust out his hand again.
His words startled her and prodded her into gripping his wrist and hoisting herself up to settle behind him on the stallion’s back. As before, she gripped his belt, unwilling to be more forward than that.
Arawn said nothing else. The horse wheeled and bolted forward and Ilsa clung as best she could. There would be nothing worse than falling from his horse and further delaying them. She didn’t know how far away Lorient was, for she had never been there. She did know it was on the bank where two mighty rivers met, the closest point the Brocéliande kingdom came to the open sea, three miles away.
The journey to Lorient was a wild ride of hammering hooves, blowing horses and streaming wind. It grew colder as the sun dipped toward the horizon and Ilsa was glad to be wearing the thick cloak and to be behind Arawn. He grew warmer as the air grew colder, although she still would not let herself touch him. She was too aware of the dried mud that adorned her cloak and her.
She did not see their route, for the remaining soldiers gathered about the king and rode close beside him. Brown cloaks, pale blue sky and the occasional tree was all that was visible.
When the road sloped sharply downward, she clutched at Arawn, caught off guard.
“Hold on,” he said gruffly, the first thing he had said since they had left the cottage.
As the horses clattered down the descending road, for the first time Ilsa saw over his shoulder into the river valley before them. The river was wide and slow, mightier than the stream which served Brandérion. Where the road met the river, a stout jetty jutted.
The horses galloped onto the jetty, then onto a pontoon that rocked wildly at the sudden weight of horses and men. The pontoon was large enough to take all of them. Two of the men swung out of their saddles, picked up the bottom of two ropes connecting the pontoon to the jetty and hauled on it.
The pontoon shivered and inched away from the jetty, while the top rope crept toward the jetty at the same speed. The two ropes were just one, which curved over a wheel on the jetty and traveled back to the pontoon.
Arawn’s horse turned, prancing and snorting, giving her a view of the ropes extending across the river to a jetty on the other side. The ropes and pulleys made a simple navigation and steering system.
A third man, then a fourth, climbed from their horses to the deck of the pontoon and hauled on the same bottom rope, moving them along faster. The other jetty approached quickly. The horses jumped up onto the jetty, the riders mounted and they got underway once more.
The sun was on their left and almost touching the horizon. The horses climbed a short slope onto a road that drove through trees so directly Ilsa wondered if it was an old Roman road, like the spear-cast straight road leading to Vannes.
The road drilled through trees. The men relaxed now they had crossed the river and didn’t guard their king so closely. Their distance let Ilsa take in more of the countryside they passed through. The trees were interrupted by cots and houses and tiny villages that they rode through without pause or slowing down.
Then, abruptly, the road sloped down to another river, this one smaller. On the other side of the river the road climbed the high banks and ran for another half mile until it reached a great town.
Ilsa stared at the town, fascinated. It reminded her of Vannes. They both had ramparts of rammed earth, which in better years would be covered in grasses and gorse. High palisades with sharp points thrust from the ramparts. Like Vannes, a deep ditch surrounded Lorient’s ramparts. Stones and more sharpened logs thrust up from the sides of the ditch. Anyone unfortunate enough to fall into the ditch would spear themselves upon one point or another, or dash themselves against the rocks.
From her vantage point at the top of the river bank, Ilsa saw large sections of the wall running parallel to the river they would cross. The wall turned in a big curve to follow the line of the larger river they had already traversed. No trees hid the rivers from the view of anyone standing in the towers along the wall. Towers were mounted over the wall. Braziers burned inside the tower rooms and silhouettes of guards moved in front of the flames.
Four towers framed two sets of gates. The gates each faced one of the two rivers. At the moment they stood open. By the quickening of the gait of the horses, Ilsa suspected the gates would soon be closed.
Surely they would open the gates again for their king? Were they so afraid of the night they would not let even Arawn and his men inside once the gates had closed?
It was another question to add to her list.
A ferry waited at the bottom of the bank. The broad, flat boat had low sides the horses could easily step over, although they shied and snorted protests as they were led aboard.
Arawn hoisted Ilsa to the sand bank. He swung down from his stallion and patted his nose, then talked to him softly as he led him toward the boat and coaxed him to step into the flat bottom.
The ferryman dug his pole in and pushed the ferry out into the water, his shoulders working hard.
The entire crossing, the horses’ eyes rolled nervously, as the boat swung and turned. The current was swift here, although the ferryman didn’t seem worried.
Ilsa gripped the corner of Arawn’s stallion’s saddle cloth and held her teeth together. She wanted to roll her eyes and jump about like the horses. She had only seen a large town like this once in her life and had not enjoyed it.
This was a measure of what was to come, she realized. It was just one of the changes she had agreed to let into her life. When Arawn had been trying to convince her to marry him, deep in the forest, she had not considered that agreeing would bring about such differences.
She studied the approaching town. From here on the water, the town standing upon the promontory between the two rivers looked tall and forbidding. They approached from the east. Already, deep shadows cast over the town on this side. Beyond the forbidding fence, nothing showed.
What had she agreed to? What was before her?
The horses leapt happily out of the boat when it crunched upon the shingles on the other side of the ferry. The men murmured among themselves. A soft laugh sounded. They were glad to be home, too.
Arawn climbed back upon his horse and held out his arm for her to swing herself up. He didn’t look at her. He gazed upon his town. As soon as she settled, he touched the stallion and the obedient beast shot off once more. Everyone followed.
&nb
sp; The flat, smooth road from the ferry rose along the bank at a gentle slope. The surface was good, hard earth, tamped well, with no holes or big stones to trip horses or break cart axels.
At the south-facing gate, the larger of the two, the road pivoted and ran straight to the gate. A plank bridge crossed the ditch. A walkway ran over the gates and guards stood over newcomers to inspect them.
A shout went up when they recognized Arawn. The riders behind him replied.
In front of Arawn’s horse, soldiers scattered, getting out of the way in a hurry. They passed through the gate.
The street they galloped along ran directly to the center of the town. Houses and buildings sat on either side, all of them grander than anything Ilsa had ever seen. They all seemed to blaze with light. Men and women and children lingered in front of the houses and shops. The shops were closing for the night. More people headed for home, moving along the edges of the street and only glancing up briefly as the pack of horsemen shot past.
Columns of stone and red-tiled roofs broke up the prosaic thatched roofs and white walls.
Order and straight lines were everywhere Ilsa looked, from the hard edges of the stone verandahs, to the sharp corners of the buildings, the angled roofs and the road itself. Nowhere did chaotic nature show.
Even here, the lack of water showed. No grass or weeds grew in the poor, packed dirt between buildings.
The road carved into the side of a low hill with a flat, broad top. The slope of the road was mild enough to be managed by carts and horses.
Distinctly styled buildings dotted the top of the hill. If the buildings had not been made by Romans, they had been made by someone who understood the Roman way with houses. This, then, must be the king’s house.
The walls were whitewashed. The roofs were all curved clay tiles, with sharp slopes and angles everywhere. On this side, facing the town and the road up to the buildings, none of the walls had any windows. As the road climbed, though, more of the big buildings came into view. The main building had three wings, all with four stories. The ground floor was wider than the floors above, with a roof jutting over a deep verandah. The verandah had waist-high walls and slender columns holding up the roof. Ilsa could not see beyond the half-walls for the verandahs were twilight dark. Lamplight and firelight showed at the many windows and doors along their length.
The white walls above the verandah roof showed three lines of small windows, marking the floors. Then another roofline, broken by angled planes jutting over square projections that must house larger rooms with higher ceilings.
Four floors! How many people lived in the king’s house?
A great many people moved about the open space between the three wings. Many of them wore simple tunics and sandals. They would be slaves, most likely. Ilsa had never met a slave before. No one in her village could afford to buy a slave, let alone house and feed them.
Other people moved about the large square between the three-sided house, most of them men and all of them armed.
Between the house and the top of the road was a barren area that in better years was likely grass-filled. And on either side of the road, taking up at least half the open area, was a…
Ilsa lacked the words to describe it. She would call it a pond made by men. Likely, it had another name. The pond was square, with walls low enough for a man to sit upon. Four men sat on the wall right now or stood beside it. Water filled only the lower portion of the pond. Like the river at home, the water was dark green and noxious.
Someone had taken the trouble to build a flat bridge for the road to run straight across the middle of the pond, instead of forcing travelers around it. They clattered over the bridge into the open, gravel-covered square between the three wings of the house. A cry went up. “The king! The king!”
Servants and slaves came running with torches blazing as Arawn’s men dismounted. Arawn held out his arm to her and Ilsa slid down to the ground, turning her head to take in everything.
The servants took the horses, including Arawn’s.
A man in an elegant full-length tunic and dark colored cloak with gold edging came up to Arawn and murmured. He had tanned skin and black eyes.
Arawn nodded, frowning, as he listened to the man. Around them, the soldiers stretched and muttered, paying Ilsa no attention at all.
Directly ahead, in the center of the middle wing of the house, the verandah jutted forward, making it even deeper. No wall crossed the front of the verandah in the wider section. Three columns bracketed each corner, holding up the roof that also projected out over the deepened verandah. The open section was at least twenty of Ilsa’s steps in width, if not more. The house had no front wall across the width. Instead, the room was open to the elements. A row of pillars marked where the wall would have been. In the middle of the pillars, two were missing, making an opening.
Beyond the pillars, the room was filled with deep shadow, although Ilsa glimpsed the gleam of white and gold and the darker outlines of shapes. Chairs, perhaps. Just the scale and grandness of the room made Ilsa wonder if it was where the king met great lords and guests and diplomats.
Arawn gestured toward Ilsa and said to the elegant man. “This is Ilsa. Take her to the women’s quarters. I will explain about her later. For now there are things I must take care of.” He nodded at Ilsa and strode to one of the side wings of the house, and stepped onto the verandah through the opening on that side.
Ilsa’s heart sank. In this vast building full of strangers, Arawn was the only person she knew even slightly.
“I am Stilicho,” the elegant man said. “Come with me.” He moved across the gravel, his sandals crunching, heading in the opposite direction to that taken by Arawn.
Ilsa readjusted her bow and followed him. He was much taller than her and she had to hurry to keep up with him. “Are you a lord, Stilicho?” she asked.
“I am the king’s private secretary,” Stilicho said. “And I am a slave,” he added.
Ilsa’s eyes widened. She reassessed the man. She glanced at the good wool of his tunic. His sandals were whole and clean. He even smelled clean. “A slave can be a secretary?” she asked. “You can read?”
“One cannot be a secretary if one does not read and write.” He seemed amused.
“How can you read if you’re a slave?”
“I could read before I became a slave,” he said, with quiet dignity. He stepped onto the verandah, through the opening in the waist-high wall and moved down it toward the end of the wing. “You do not read?”
“Of course not.”
“You are…a hunter?” he guessed, his gaze taking in her bow.
“Sometimes. When I must be.”
At the far end of the verandah, two guards stood each on one side of a big door with a round handle in the middle. More torches burned in sconces on the walls beside them, lighting the verandah. Beyond the verandah, night had dropped, leaving a streak of red across the western sky.
Stilicho turned the handle on the door and thrust the door open. Then he stepped aside and indicated she should enter.
Ilsa swallowed, staring at the curtain just inside the door. The curtain hid everything. “I should go in?” she murmured.
“I certainly cannot,” Stilicho said, his tone dry. “I am a slave, not a eunuch.”
Ilsa didn’t know what a eunuch was. From his tone, she guessed it was something even worse than being a slave.
Her heart squeezing and jumping, Ilsa took an even firmer grip on her bow and stepped inside. The door thudded shut behind her, leaving her to pull the curtain aside and move in.
Chapter Six
The fabric of the curtain was rich, with gold thread running through it and purple and blue. Ilsa had never seen a fabric with multiple colors woven into the material and not merely embroidered on it. She had never seen such rich colors, either. A woman of remarkable skill had woven it, in Ilsa’s estimation.
Soft voices sounded beyond the curtain. The air in the room was warm.
; Ilsa could not stand here forever, even if she wanted to. Besides, the curtain did not completely cut off the view of the room. It hung four paces away from the door so that when the door was open, no one could see inside the room. Once the door closed, the view to either side of the curtain was unblocked.
The walls of the room were not drab daub. They had been painted. The lower half of the wall was a deep red and the upper half was a creamy yellow, with golden lines drawn on it. The lines curved into symmetrical flourishes in the corners. To Ilsa’s left a column stood with an urn upon it.
Her throat contracted. Was there water in the urn?
A long stool sat to the right with a length of fine woolen cloth draped over one end, as if someone had discarded it there.
Both the urn and the stool seemed to invite further exploration. There would be sights beyond the curtain she had never seen before. She raised her hand to pull aside the curtain then dropped it. Maybe she was supposed to walk around the curtain? She didn’t know and was ashamed of her ignorance.
She raised her hand again and dropped it, breathing hard.
No one would come to enquire what she wanted, even though the voices beyond the curtain must have heard the door open and close. Did they not care? Did they not worry who was standing there? Only, the door was guarded. Enemies would not get past the guards only to linger on the doorstep this way.
Ilsa curled her hand into a fist and moved beyond the curtain to the right, where the bench sat. Where the curtain ended, there was another four paces to the wall. Ilsa stepped into the space and paused, her heart leaping.
She had been right to expect new sights.
There were many women in the room. Some of them were standing or working at the back of the room. Four women rested on couches pulled into an open square in the middle of the room. One of the four women had the dark skin of a Saracen and the most beautiful eyes. Another had pale Saxon hair and the black eyes of a Celt. These two women both assessed Ilsa, then looked at the other two.
Dragon Kin Page 5