by Jude Fisher
He allowed the words to drop into the silence like stones into a well; watched the ripples of reaction spread out across the Gathering.
‘The people of the north are men and women of foul manners and vile habits. Murderers, abductors, desecrators all. They have hated the South for half a thousand years; hated and envied it. How many wars have we fought in that time with this same enemy? Twelve and more; and each time the Goddess has smiled upon us and enabled us to drive them further from her fruitful shores, away from the heartlands of fire and purity, deep into the northern seas and rocky wastes where they belong with their barbarous religion, their mooncalf of a god, their eating of whales and horses and other vile practices. Some two score years ago the Rock was made sacrosanct to the name of the Goddess; washed with blood, cleansed with fire it was dedicated to Falla the Merciful, saver of souls. But what have we seen at this Allfair but disrespect and defilement? The prisoner – with an insouciance you might expect from her impious origins – has desecrated the Goddess’s Rock not once but twice – such is the contempt in which she, as a typical Eyran, holds our dearest beliefs. Not content with that, she destroys a holy place – a shrine made with loving hands to honour a brave and upstanding woman.’
He bowed to the Swan of Jetra and her grey-haired grandfathers.
‘Desecration against the men and women of our Empire; a violation of the Goddess herself. Sacrilege: the most despicable sin of all.’
‘Sacrilege . . .’ murmured the Istrians in the crowd. ‘Desecration . . .’
The Lord of Cantara grew contemplative. He began to walk the stage, all eyes upon him. He looked down upon where the Duke of Cera stood with Lord Sestran, disappointed men both. ‘And what have we all witnessed here tonight?’ he looked around the crowd as if expecting them to answer his question. They hung upon his every word, hungry for the next damning statement. ‘Not only have we seen they have no respect for our faith; but they have nothing but contempt for the generosity and sacrifice of our most noble families.’
He turned back to regard King Ravn Asharson.
‘There are many amongst us who believe it a sacrifice too great to bestow upon such a barbarian one of our finest and best, and we may rejoice that such an oblation has proved unnecessary given the man’s own mad and insulting choice . . .’
There were cries of ‘Shame!’; ‘It’s Falla’s own truth!’ and ‘Barbarian!’
Tycho paused, waiting for the murmuring to reach a crescendo and die away. ‘This woman has he chosen, above the extended hand of peace, the offers of shared bounty, marriage contracts with the flower of our land: offers made by our greatest lords, men who had rather see their precious daughters borne off into foreign lands and a life of torment than keep Falla’s fair gifts confined to our own treasury. Moreover, to add outrage to injury, this woman he values above Istria’s finest is a woman who can be bought and sold, a loose-moralled creature come here uninvited from the wagons of the Footloose!’
The Istrian crowd began to roar, though no one thought to enquire of the Lord of Cantara just how he might have come by such information. The Eyrans, meanwhile, unable to understand the sibilant hisses of the ranting southern lord, were growing restive.
Rui Finco frowned. He was unconvinced that matters were quite as clear-cut as Tycho Issian suggested; but even so, this anti-Eyran passion might yet be turned to good effect. He then waved his arms and called for quiet in the pavilion.
‘Thank you, my lord of Cantara, for your eloquent and impassioned speech.’ He turned to King Ravn. ‘Tycho Issian has had his say, and his argument has been most . . . persuasive. It is the feeling of the Istrian Council that if justice is not seen to be done upon this woman, there will be ugly scenes. What say you?’
Ravn looked annoyed. ‘I couldn’t make out more than one word in five of what the blasted man was shouting; but it seemed to me he was whipping up a ferment. However, if you turn the girl over to my authority, I can promise she will be suitably punished – for the wounding of the young man, if nothing more; for I am still unsatisfied as to her guilt on other matters.’
‘And what form would her punishment take, if we were to relinquish her to Eyran law?’
‘For the wounding, a blood-price to be paid by her family to the injured man’s family.’
Rui Finco smiled. ‘I fear that is not sufficient at all, my lord king.’
‘What more do you want?’
‘Let me ask my fellow lords.’ He conferred briefly with Prionan and the Dystras, then turned back to group on the dais. In the Old Tongue he declared: ‘There is no doubt that foul deeds have been done tonight. However, what is not in doubt is that this woman has admitted setting foot on land sacred to the Empire; land ceded to the south in the treaty made at the end of the last war. And she did this – not once in ignorance; but for a second time, in full knowledge of her act of defiance. And for this, my lord king I would seek your acquiescence to a burning.’
‘A burning?’ Ravn looked shocked. ‘That is not the Eyran way.’
The Lord of Forent turned a placid face to him. ‘Her violence has been against Istria, not Eyra. It is a cleansing fire we seek, to burn away the memory of this terrible night. I think if you check the Allfair statutes you will find this decision well within its parameters.’
Aran Aranson grabbed the Earl of Shepsey by the arm. ‘Egg, tell me what is happening? Someone here says they intend to burn my daughter.’
‘They may intend it,’ Egg Forstson returned, ‘but they shall not do it.’
Southeye’s face was flushed a dark and dangerous red. In Eyran he cried loudly, ‘The Empire lords say they will burn her!’
A roar of challenge went up from the Eyrans in the throng. Istrians started to band into tight groups of their own. ‘Bastard Istrians!’ someone shouted. ‘Murdering barbarians!’ cried an Istrian voice. Scuffles began to break out all over the Gathering.
Ravn looked out across the angry crowd. Wine-flushed faces. Belt-knives glinting in the candlelight. An angry mob, ready to divide and tear at one another. Was this how his kingship should start, at his first Allfair, at his Gathering? A sudden wish for this to be over; so that he could be quiet and naked in his own pavilion with his new bride overwhelmed him. After all: it was just one girl they wanted, rather that than a war. ‘Hold, Eyrans!’ he cried. His own people quieted; but the Istrians did not.
‘Burn her!’ they cried – in both the Empire Tongue and the Old.
Aran Aranson stormed the dais. Without a thought for royal protocol, he gripped his king by the arms. ‘Sire, this is madness! They are saying they will burn my daughter for climbing a rock—’
King Ravn Asharson stared down at the figure kneeling before him. There were tears in the man’s eyes. At once he felt disgusted, repelled. No good Eyran man should shed a tear. A sudden recognition struck him then as he placed together the name and the face of the man before him and as it did so, a huge dislike welled up in him. ‘Take your hands off me, man!’
‘Save my daughter, lord, I implore you—’
‘Aran Aranson, master of Rockfall, you once came to me seeking a ship.’
‘I did, sire.’
‘I asked you for some advice, I believe.’
Aran frowned. ‘I— I do not recall, sire.’
Ravn Asharson laughed. ‘Let me remind you, then. I asked you whom I should take to wife, and you said for all you cared I could take a troll.’ He turned to the Istrian lords. ‘Take the girl and burn her,’ he said harshly in the Old Tongue.
In Eyran he said softly: ‘I have my troll-wife to attend to.’
Sixteen
Holy Fire
The fighting started immediately, and with such explosive violence it was as if everyone had just been awaiting the opportunity, murderous thoughts seething away beneath a thin mask of gentility. At first it was just isolated pockets in the crowd and the damage was done with fists and feet; but then some Istrians started to smash apart the trestles and soon there were clubs
and staves in the fray. After that, it was belt-knives and cutlery. A man with a paring knife rammed into his eye stumbled past a group of Istrian women, who screamed and fled for the exit. Suddenly there were five hundred desperate folk surging to leave the tent. Empire women, hampered by their voluminous gowns, tripped and fell and were trampled by the next wave of guests. The canvas belled and flapped where the strain on the fabric had caused the wind-ropes to pull free. Mast-pillars swayed and threatened to fall. Sconces were knocked over. In moments, the canvas had caught fire and suffocating thick black smoke started to wind its way through the Gathering. People coughed and choked and clawed their way blindly towards the edges of the tent. The lucky ones managed to make it into the night air by worming under the loose canvas.
A band of Eyrans led by Halli Aranson fought through the adverse tide of humanity to within a few feet of where Katla still stood on the dais, ringed around with Allfair officials, all with their swords drawn. Seeing the Eyrans coming at them, the guard captain set four of his men to holding them back with the only proper weaponry in the tent, while with his sword of good Forent steel he slashed a new exit in the side of the pavilion through which the troop retreated swiftly with their prisoner.
Screaming like a demon, Tor Leeson vaulted onto the dais, pushing aside a cowering group of Istrian nobles, and hurled himself through the torn canvas in pursuit. With a huge stave he laid into the unfortunate last guard in line. The man fell down screaming, but the sound stopped abruptly with a dull squelch, and Tor re-emerged into the pavilion wielding an Istrian sword, a mad battle-light in his eye. ‘After me, lads!’ he yelled, and the Eyrans cheered.
Aran grabbed Halli by the arm. ‘I’m going back for as many weapons as I can carry,’ he shouted above the din. ‘Stay with Tor – and keep an eye out for Fent.’ Of his younger son there was no sign: for as soon as the fighting had begun, Fent had been off into the midst of the fray like a mongrel into a dogfight.
Halli raised his fist in assent, swarmed through the hole in the tent after his cousin and was swallowed by the night.
In the midst of the chaos, Fent Aranson looked up from the man he had just knocked unconscious with a lump of wood, and saw three Istrian women in black sabatkas casting aside their all-encompassing robes to reveal themselves as tough-looking men in full wargear. Intrigued, he put his head down and shouldered his way through the mêlée towards them. Thirty feet away he realised that he recognised the one with the beard as Joz Bearhand, a mercenary from a steading outside Whaleness who’d been selling his services to the highest bidder ever since the end of the last war. Folk said he’d got a taste for action that farming on North Island just could not match, and had gone as a sell-sword ever since. But why a group of sellswords should be disguising themselves as Istrian women at the Gathering he could not quite imagine. However, his fevered mind prompted him, not caring why this bizarre sight should have presented itself, they were Eyrans by birth and they had swords and just now that was all that mattered. Indeed, he thought, squinting through the smoke, the sword Joz had just drawn looked remarkably familiar. He ran closer until he could see it. Candlelight illuminated the Snowland Wolf wrapped in the coils of the Dragon of Wen . . . it was one of Katla’s swords; one of her best.
‘Joz!’ he cried. ‘Joz Bearhand!’
The grizzled man turned and scanned the crowd, but the chaos was too extreme to pick out a single detail. Urging on his companions, he charged towards the dais. A moment later, climbing across crawling backs and wounded bodies, Fent followed them.
Sitting on the top rail of the animal stockade, Saro Vingo watched the coils of thick black smoke rising from the other end of the fairground. He’d been wandering aimlessly for the past hour and more, at first in a fury, which had since cooled to confusion and doubt. It would, he had considered, be hard to go back, given what he’d done, what he’d said. In the heat of the moment – hating his brother for everything, hating his uncle for the vision he’d given him of his mother, hating his father for his unquestioning preference for Tanto – he’d truly meant to walk away from his family, from their greed and lack of principle, once and for all. But now he was unsure. For a start, where would he go? His first thought was of Katla Aransen: that hawklike face and strong hands, the way her touch had shivered on his skin. But Eyra was too foreign to him: he spoke none of the northerners’ harsh language, had no skills by which he could survive amongst such a tough, warlike people. To wander with the Footloose, watching the world go by from the back of a wagon, traversing mountain passes and broad river plains, pine forests and high plateaux was a temptation indeed. But what nomad would welcome him – an Istrian nobleman’s son; member of a race which had persecuted the Wandering Folk down the ages; brother to the man who had cold-bloodedly cut down Guaya’s grandfather – into their caravan? Even Guaya had not wanted to speak with him.
He was still embroiled in this stew of indecision when he saw the smoke rising in the east.
He started to walk back through the fairground, at first curious, then touched by a strange compulsion. Deciding it would be quicker to go along the strand than to weave between the tents, Saro ran directly downhill and out into the open, and then turned towards the Istrian quarter and the grand pavilion. Illuminated by the bright moon above, a long northern rowing boat was cresting the surf about thirty yards out from the shore. A tall man was pushing it through the shallows, the pale light turning his hair and beard to silver; while in the bow sat a woman in a deep red dress. Saro stared at them intently, a horrible suspicion forming.
Katla Aransen had been wearing a dress very like that when last he saw her. And the man was surely the one who had come to her stall, the one at whom she smiled so warmly . . .
Saro felt his heart plummet as if he had just stepped over a long, sheer drop. The moment at which he had first seen her, up on the Rock in the pale dawn light, curved through to this moment of departure and loss in a smooth and perfect arc.
She was gone; and with the same tall northerner he had met at her stall. Even then, he thought bitterly, even then I knew. The smoke forgotten, he turned on his heel, putting his back to the scene that had given him such sudden, unexpected pain. Feet crunching on the black pumice, he trudged back towards the Istrian quarter, and prepared himself to face his family’s collective wrath.
Mam slipped her dagger out of the folds of her preposterous green gown, slit the vile thing from neck to waist, and shrugged out of it like a mantis shedding its husk. Beneath it was her more natural carapace of mail and leather; her favourite sword strapped to one thigh, her throwing knives to the other. She grinned. A good fire always contributed nicely to the confusion. She’d tried to set it to create maximum smoke and minimum harm, but the canvas was parchment-dry after four days in the baking sun, and it had gone up rather more vigorously than she’d anticipated. As it was she took a robust view of such matters. Most of the folk here were at the Gathering for their own advancement – fat merchants finalising fat deals; fat nobles trying to sell off their fat daughters, everyone grasping after one thing or another. She had little sympathy with such people. From the age of eleven she’d lived off her wits, orphaned by war and raids. Her Uncle Garstan had taken her in for a while; but she soon found out why and it had not taken much soul-searching to decide that a life lived sleeping cold and hungry in hedge or ditch was preferable to one under a warm roof with a lecherous old hog.
Excellent vipers that they were, Joz and Knobber and Doc moulted their Istrian skins, and looked to their leader. She gave Dogbreath the signal. Dogo was immediately off and running, scrambling up onto the dais. Stormway and Southeye were busily bundling the King and his pale woman through a gash in the canvas, while Egg Forstson corralled another group of Eyran men and women, including the burly shipmaker and his pale-haired daughter.
As the others came storming through the milling throng, Mam made a quick gesture in the hand language they’d developed for use in the din of battle, and Knobber peeled off to the left
to join Dogo, who was even now leaping enthusiastically through the hole in the tent like a trickster’s terrier through a flaming hoop. Mam smiled. Her troop was the best, just as the bastard Istrian lord had said. She waited for Joz and Doc to win through to her, then leapt onto the dais and followed the King’s group into the darkness. Ahead of her she could see the luminous glow of the nomad woman’s robe, a beacon in the gloom. Very considerate, Mam thought. They caught up with them in seconds.
‘Let us assist you, sire,’ she called.
The King turned slowly. ‘Who’s there?’
‘We should get you and your woman away from here,’ Mam said smoothly, ignoring his question.
Southeye inserted himself between Mam and his king. ‘Mercenaries, sire,’ he said. ‘You and your lady keep going. Bran and I will see to them—’
In the fey moonlight, Ravn Asharson saw his trusted old adviser slump to his knees, eyes bulging in shock. Blood began to cascade from his mouth. Then he fell to the ground. With the sound of metal grating on bone and gristle, Mam wrenched her blade clear of the old man’s ribs. She gave the King a formal bow. ‘Allow me, sire.’
Moving to Ravn’s right side, she stepped over the body of Southeye and took the King by the arm. Doc wiped his sword on his leg. ‘Nice night for it, eh sire?’
Joz grabbed up the Rose of the World, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
‘We shall now escort you to a place of greater safety, my lord.’ Mam grinned with lupine ferocity. Twelve years ago it had taken her weeks to file her teeth to the points she owned now, but she’d never regretted it. Being a pretty child had resulted only in misery; but having the teeth of a wolf had extricated her from any number of difficult situations. She’d often thought about revisiting Uncle Garstan, but just knowing she could do so at any time was all she needed to keep her cheerful.
Blinking and confused, still in thrall to the bewitchment of the Rosa Eldi, King Ravn Asharson, Stallion of the North, followed her like a lamb.