by Jude Fisher
Katla, having spent years learning to charm her father over her minor misdemeanours, took in the single-browed line of his frown and the flint in his eye and quailed. Her lips blue with the telltale signs of a fruit pie swiped from an unattended table, she wracked her brain for a suitable falsehood.
‘I just went for a walk – to watch the sun come up over Sur’s Castle,’ she said, careful on this occasion not to present him with an outright lie, for the expedition had almost started so.
‘We’re not in Eyra now,’ he said grimly, stating the obvious. ‘You can’t just wander around on your own at the Allfair. It isn’t safe.’
So it wasn’t anger, after all, but worry! He was worried about her. Relief swept over her: she laughed.
‘Who’s there to be afraid of? I’m not afraid of anyone, especially not men.’ She grinned, teasing out the emphasis on the last word. ‘You know perfectly well I can defend myself – didn’t I win the wrestling last summer?’
It was true. Slim and swift and lithely evasive, there had been no one who could pin her down. Wrestling Katla was like trying to wrestle an eel.
She bared her biceps and flexed as if to prove her point. Hammering metal and manning the bellows at the smithy had had its effect: a hard, round ball of muscle popped impressively into view. ‘Who’s going to tangle with that?’
But her father was not to be deflected. Moving far more quickly than you’d imagine likely for a man of his size, Aran lunged forward like a wolf going for a rabbit and seized her arm so hard that she winced. When he let go, the marks of his fingers were clearly visible in the smooth tan of her flesh. The smile faded from Katla’s face and an angry flush rose up her neck. An uncomfortable silence fell between father and daughter. Katla, afraid of her own temper, stared hard at the ground between her feet and started sullenly to trace a knotwork pattern in the black ash with her toe. As the silence lengthened, she found her unpredictable mind considering how she might incorporate this pattern into the hilt of the next seax she worked.
‘They’re odd about women, the Empire men,’ Aran said at last. ‘You can’t trust them – they have bizarre customs and it can make them behave dangerously. A few country grappling tricks won’t see you through; and, besides: you’re here on my sufferance. There was no need for me to bring you to an Allfair: it’s a waste of a fare, for me. Two stone of sardonyx I’m down because of you, with Fosti Goatbeard desperate to come this year. Could have bought your mother a nice shawl and some good jewellery with the proceeds. So having deprived your mother of her Fair-gift, and old Fosti of his place on the ship, you can repay my generosity by doing nothing, and I mean nothing, without my permission. Is that clear? And you stay always in my sight.’
Katla opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it. She’d wait until he was in a lighter mood, and then work her wiles on him, she thought with sudden savage resolve. Even in the islands, where women laboured as hard as men and were considered their equal in most things, Katla had found that her wiles provided her with a delightfully unfair advantage over her brothers.
‘Yes, Father,’ she said with apparent docility, and looking up through her lashes was gratified to see his expression soften.
‘Well, mind you do,’ he finished lamely.
Daughters. Why were they so much more difficult than sons?
At that moment one of his male offspring came crunching up the strand to join them. His brother and cousins were not far behind. Tall lads, and well-put-together, the Aransons and their cousins made a striking group. Halli took after his father: big and dark, with a nose that in age was likely to become as hooked as a hawk’s. Fent, like his sister, had Bera’s flaming hair, fine bones and skin – and their vanity, too, for he shaved like a southerner; but hard work had made whipcord of his muscles and packed his light frame with enough energy for three. As if to provide the greatest possible contrast, or to demonstrate the various appearances to be found in the Eyran Isles, Erno Hamson and Tor Leeson were so blond that their hair and beards shone like silver. Erno, whose mother had recently died, had plaited a complex memory-knot, complete with shells and strips of cloth, into his left braid. After two weeks at sea, the scraps of fabric were salty and faded, but the knots were as tight as ever. At night when he had sat his watch at the tiller, Katla had heard him quietly reciting the word-pattern he had made for his mother when first weaving the braid, his fingers retracing the loops and bindings to fix the pattern in his head –
‘This cloth the blue of your eyes
This shell your openhandedness
This the knot for wisdom given but never compelled
This knot for when you nursed me from fever . . .’
– and she had been surprised how one who by day could be so distant and diffident could in the night hours become so tender; and for this she almost liked him.
‘So, the wanderer returns!’ Fent beamed. ‘Thought you’d escape your chores, did you?’
‘Shirk your family duties?’ Tor made a face at her.
‘Leave it all for the boys with the muscle?’ said Halli, whose sharp eyes had not missed the flexed-biceps exchange between his father and sister.
Erno said nothing: he was always tongue-tied in Katla’s presence.
Aran looked impatient. ‘Did you bring the tents and the stalls in with this load?’
The lads nodded.
‘Right then – Fent and Erno, and you, Katla, come with me to get the booths set up. Halli and Tor, you keep the crew working to unship the cargo. I’ll be back in an hour and we’ll get the sardonyx weighed in and registered.’
Fent grinned at his sister, his incisors as sharp as any fox’s. ‘You can carry the ropes,’ he said. ‘Since you’re only a girl.’
He dodged her swinging fist with ease and jogged down the beach to the piles of equipment. There, light ash frames rested amongst rolls of trussed skins, waxed wool-cloth and coils of rope. Two huge iron cauldrons, together with their stands and pothooks, lay amid a welter of bowls and dishes, knives and hand-axes, where someone had thrown them down on the sand in a hurry to fetch the next load.
Fent swept an armful of the clutter into one of the cauldrons until a strange assortment of blades and bowls stuck out of the top. ‘There you are,’ he said to Katla. ‘If you think you’re hard enough.’
An iron cauldron this size was fantastically heavy – let alone one filled to the brim with kitchen implements. Katla knew this to be so: one had fallen once from a rusted-through hook and had almost crippled her: she’d danced aside quickly enough to avoid a crushed foot, but even a glancing blow had caused her to lose a toenail to it, and she’d had to bind her foot in cloth for a week, since she couldn’t get her boot over the swelling. With a grim look at her brother she hefted the thing two-handed and managed to stagger half a dozen paces with the cauldron skimming the surface of the sand, before staggering to a halt. Every fibre of her arms protested at the weight: they felt as if they’d stretched a knuckle-length already.
The boys burst out laughing. Even her father was grinning. She watched them, narrow-eyed, then picked it up again with one hand, her other arm waving wildly for balance, this time straightening the carrying arm and her back to keep the tension running through the bones rather than the muscles, a trick she’d learned from climbing overhanging rock. The cauldron lifted reluctantly and bumped painfully against her leg. Katla bit her lip and soldiered on. When, after some minutes of sweaty effort, she reached the crest of the beach, she set the cauldron down and looked back. Taking her obstinacy for granted, the men were no longer watching her: instead, they had gathered up the rest of the equipment and were trudging in her footsteps. When they caught up with her, Aran took the cauldron away and exchanged it for a tent-roll.
‘You have nothing to prove to me, daughter,’ he said gently and his eyes were as green as the sea. ‘I know your heart to be as great as any man’s.’
So saying, and as easily as if it had been a wooden bucket, he picked up the cauldron
, and strode quickly past her.
Aran and his family worked quickly and efficiently together, with barely a word of instruction passing between them, and less than an hour later they had erected a pair of tents, which would provide their living-space for the duration of the Allfair. And while the Eyran tents might not be as plush or as colourful as the rich Istrian pavilions Katla had seen at the foot of Sur’s Castle, they were both weatherproof and spacious, almost twenty feet long, fourteen broad and over ten feet high at the centre – large enough to house family, crew, cargo and wares.
A cold onshore breeze seemed to have sprung out of nowhere while they were working, making the tanned leather of the roof bell and flap. Katla, her hair having long since escaped its braid, ran to tension the wind-ropes, and found herself confronted by an Empire man in a rich blue cloak. With his dark complexion and cleanshaven chin, it was clear at once that he was not an island man. He wore a thin silver circlet in his black hair, which complemented the dusting of grey above his ears, and his skin was so smooth as to look like polished wood. He was taller than she was, but only just; yet he stared down the length of his thin nose at her as though she were something unpleasant he was about to tread in.
She stared back at him enquiringly, not sure, for once in her life, what to say.
Aran stepped silently to his daughter’s side. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’ he asked.
The foreign lord’s eyes swept insolently over Katla’s bare arms and wild hair, resting for a moment longer than propriety required on the hint of cleavage visible at the top of her sweat-streaked tunic, then turned to Aran. ‘I believe you sell fine knives,’ he stated smoothly. His voice was silky and light, and he spoke the Old Tongue with barely a trace of Istrian.
Aran nodded. ‘But we’re not open for business until after noon.’
‘I would like to be your first customer, to ensure I have the pick of your wares.’
‘Then you’ll need to be here when we open up,’ Aran said shortly. Katla could tell from his tone that something about the foreign lord irked him.
The Istrian raised an elegant eyebrow. ‘I see.’ He paused. He took a pouch from his belt, weighed it thoughtfully in his palm. ‘Might I not persuade you to open your stand now, for a sum to be mutually agreed?’
Aran laughed. ‘No. We won’t be ready till noon,’ he repeated.
The foreigner’s eyes flashed. He adjusted his cloak to one side so that his house insignia was for a second apparent, then let it fall back.
‘It is imperative that I have the pick of your wares. Only the best will do.’
‘I’m flattered that our reputation has reached the far countries,’ Aran said with care. ‘We could, perhaps, open just before noon for your convenience and Katla here will take you through her finest blades. They are pattern-welded to the highest—’
‘This . . . woman?’ The Istrian seemed appalled. ‘You let a woman show your daggers for you?’
Aran looked wary. ‘Of course. They are Katla’s own work, the finest in all of Eyra, even though it might not be seemly to boast of my daughter’s skills—’
The lord took a step backwards as if Aran had fouled the air between them. He made a complicated sign with his left hand and said something in his native language that was quite unintelligible to Eyran ears. At last he said: ‘I cannot buy a weapon touched by a woman, it would be quite unthinkable. Good day.’
He turned on his heel. Then, as if he had had second thoughts, he turned back again and addressed Katla direct. ‘There is a rumour circulating that a young Eyran woman was caught on top of Falla’s Rock at dawn this morning,’ he said, and his voice was cold and dangerous. ‘I hope, for your sake, and the sake of your family, whom I am sure are most fond of you, that that person was not you.’
Katla stared at him. ‘Why, no,’ she said at once and looked him right in the eye. They hadn’t caught her, after all: so it was no lie.
‘Because,’ he went on, ‘for a woman to trespass on Falla’s Rock is a capital offence. The Rock is sacred terrain: sacred to the Goddess. For any other female to set foot there is the deepest desecration.’
Fent stepped forward then, his face furious. ‘The Rock is Sur’s own ground—’ he started, but his father interrupted, his face grim: ‘It could not have been my daughter for, as you can see, we have been labouring together for many hours, and she has not in all that time left my sight.’
The Istrian lord looked somewhat appeased. ‘My apologies.’ He made as if to leave, but Aran said quickly, ‘Might I ask why you suspected the transgressor might have been my daughter?’
‘Why, her hair of course. The two lords who came upon her described her most carefully. Long red hair, they said, long hair in a braid that she took down and flaunted at them.’
Aran laughed. ‘It is our custom in the north, as well you know, my lord, for both the men and the women to wear their hair long; and many – like my son, Fent here – have hair both long and red. I fear the gentlemen who came upon the trespasser may not have been in the first flush of youth or have possessed the keenest eyes.’
The Istrian thought for a moment. He inclined his head. ‘That is indeed possible, sir: the Dystras are quite elderly men. Maybe they were mistaken. I hope so for your daughter’s sake; for the tale is becoming quite widespread and the officers are searching for the trespasser: she may encounter certain . . . difficulties around the Fair if others leap to the same conclusion.’
Aran held his gaze with complete composure, then the Istrian lord nodded. ‘May you have a fortunate Fair,’ he said formally, and walked away. His fine blue cloak rode the breeze behind him as if by elegant design.
The Eyrans watched him go. When he was well out of earshot, Aran grabbed Katla by the shoulder. ‘You little witch! I promised your mother I would not let you out of my sight, and already you’re in the deepest of trouble.’ He looked her up and down, taking in her short tunic, her bare legs and unkempt mane. Then without a word he caught her in an armlock and grabbed the ornamented knife Katla wore always at her waist belt. ‘Hold her hair up for me, Fent,’ he said in a tone that brooked no refusal.
Erno, standing behind them, gasped. Katla, realising what her father was about to do, struggled. But her father was more than a match for her in comparison to the untrained lads against whom she had wrestled and won at the summer games. Tightening the hold with one arm, he sawed at the handfuls of flaming hair that Fent, with a pained expression, held up taut for the knife. The tempered blade, one of the best Katla had ever made and of which she was inordinately proud, proved its worth by shearing through her tangled locks as if through finest silk. Great swathes of hair floated to the ground to glow like the fire that had once created the black ash upon which it fell.
‘Gather it up,’ Aran said to Erno, who hesitated, then dropped to his knees and started to stuff it into his shirt.
Seconds later, Aran let his daughter go. She stood there for a moment like a cornered bear, the fury emanating from her in waves. Then she turned and ran as if all the devils in the world were after her.
Fent stared at the piece of hair he was still grasping – warm in his hands, like a little living creature of flame – then dropped it slowly to the ground. He looked up at his father.
Aran grimaced. ‘It’s for her own good. If they find her they’ll want to burn her.’
He stuck the dagger into his own belt and rubbed his hands conclusively on his leather jerkin. Fine strands of red gold drifted away on the breeze. Aran watched them spiral away with an unreadable expression on his face, then, with a barked order to the lads, started down to the strand to see to the sardonyx.
Erno exchanged glances with Fent, his face white and strained. Fent stared back, his fair features in sharp contrast to his father’s. ‘You heard what he said.’ And when Erno hesitated, ‘It won’t come to that. If they try to take Katla all of Eyra will be up in arms.’ He kicked dust over the lock of hair, then stowed the mallet and remaining pegs swiftly
inside the tent. ‘Come on.’
They ran to catch up with the receding figure of the clan leader.
Two
The Footloose
Saro Vingo and his older brother Tanto had just finished grooming the second group of Vingo family bloodstock – a dozen of the finest Istrian colts: all dainty narrow heads, sheeny coats, long-limbed skittishness and sharp yellow teeth – and thanks to the latter, specifically a one-year-old beauty called Night’s Harbinger, a tricksy beast with a dubious temperament, Tanto was sitting on the ground, nursing a bitten forearm.
‘Bastard creature!’ He rubbed the skin ferociously. Distinct toothmarks showed up purple-red against the brown, testament to where Tanto had lost his temper with Night’s Harbinger – a fine-boned bay with a single white star on its forehead – and gripped him too hard when trying to brush out his forelock. Saro knew better than to force his will upon the animals thus: consequently they never bit him. It was a curious fact, though, that animals did not much like his brother. Tanto was always getting kicked or bitten by something. It was noticeable, too, how at home cats would slink silently past him, low on their hocks, close to the walls; while in the long, warm Istrian evenings, when the last rays of sun spilled through the tall windows to make honey-coloured pools of light on the polished floors, the greyhounds would watch him out of the corners of their anxious black eyes whenever he moved from his chair, which was rare enough, so long as there was a pitcher of bier or a flask of araque at hand.
‘It’ll be a killer, that one,’ Tanto muttered darkly. ‘I told Father the last time it bit me that we’d be better off serving it to the dogs than shipping it all the way to the Allfair on the bastard barge.’ He picked up a piece of black stone, walked it adroitly between his fingers for a few seconds, then threw it with sudden vicious force at the offending animal. Accurate as ever, Tanto’s shot hit the horse on the tender spot between haunch and flank, and the creature shied up and sped off to the other side of the enclosure, white panic encircling its eyes. ‘Worthless runt!’