by Andre Norton
Her eyes went from one to the other. “It was bad enough when we were hosting but a single blank shield. Now there will be ten of those men here for several days. What could we do to prevent it if they discovered she was one of them and chose either to take or slaughter her? How could we stop even one of them, a warrior and with his war bird to help him?
“There is the matter of our own safety and that of our collection as well. No other Falconer males may have come to Lormt, but a few of their women have. One of those was so little pleased by what she discovered that she attempted to tear the manuscript she had been reading. Only the fact that Jerro chanced to be present and intervened saved it, but all he could do against one of these mercenaries, should he respond in a similar fashion, would be to get himself killed.”
Duratan let her finish speaking before raising his hand for silence. “We have nothing to fear, and neither does your friend Pyra. As I told you, I know something of these men. They are hard and cold by our lights, but they are honorable. They will not do violence to anyone under our protection after our having received them as we did, and you may be assured that none of them will be so maddened by anything he learns that he will attempt to destroy the volume in which he read it. Such lack of control is not permitted to any of their kind.”
Aden sighed. “I hope you are right, my friend. I would not have much heart for turning that mercenary commander away after what he has done, but I dread to think of war blighting Lormt, and that is his work and the work of all his people, all their males at the least.”
“True, but it is work they often turn to life's service, as they did when they helped bring my people across the mountains in their flight from Karsten and in the fighting they have done for both Estcarp and High Hallack. They do not serve the Dark or the Shadow, nor do they knowingly bind themselves to an evil cause or remain with such a cause once its nature is discovered.—We have received many far worse here, my friends, and have suffered no harm as a result. These Bird Warriors will do us or ours no injury, and already this leader of theirs has added to our store of knowledge. It may well be that they will increase it still further.”
3
Both Falconers slept through most of the following twenty-four hours, and for the three days following that, Tarlach was busy with his escort, settling them in for their brief stay and replenishing their supplies for the last stage of their journey to the column to which they owed ultimate allegiance, that of Commandant Varnel, Warlord of the Falconer race. Although there were only nine men, ten including himself, the demands on his time and energy were great, for they held strictly to custom, and he alone, as their chief officer, had dealings with the people of Lormt.
It was well for him that this was so. There had been no perceptible change in the Lady Una's condition. That she still lived was taken as an encouraging sign by those attending her, but beyond that, they could give no answers and offered no definite hope, however guarded.
He contrived to see her each day on the claim that it was his responsibility to affirm that his employer was yet alive and well tended, but he derived no comfort from the wrenchingly short visits. The Daleswoman grew ever thinner, ever more frail to the eye. She retained her beauty, but it showed an increasingly ethereal cast, as if her body as well as her spirit were preparing to begin the journey on the final road that would take her to the Halls of the Valiant.
It rent his heart to see her thus, and he ached to press his lips to hers, to merely touch the small, scarred hand, but he was never left alone with her and so had to hold back, keeping to the pose circumstance decreed that he must assume. When he left the chamber where she lay each day, it was with the certainty that it was for the final time.
Despair and the anguish of irreparable loss ate into him like a canker, but the Captain did not allow himself to sink utterly into depression. He had no heart for the search which had set him on the road to Lormt, but he made himself begin it as soon as Brennan and his other comrades departed late on the fourth morning after his coming there. He had taken the fate of his race on himself and must now carry on with the work of securing it. For his own sake, he dared not do otherwise. His grief and impotence would drive him mad if he had nothing else upon which to fix his mind, even if it required the full force of his will to make himself do so.
Una slipped into natural sleep during her fourth day at Lormt, and shortly before dawn on the following morning, her eyes finally opened.
She looked about her, puzzled, then memory returned in full force, and she stiffened.
Pyra, the Falconer woman who was Aden's friend and a healer in her own right, had been sitting beside her and quickly lay a soothing hand on her arm. “Easy, my Lady. You are safe. This is Lormt, and I am Pyra, a guest here as well and a healer.”
The Daleswoman nodded her understanding but did not relax. Her eyes swept the small room seeking one they did not find.
A spear twisted inside her. “The Captain?” she asked, trying to hold her voice steady, although it was an effort to speak at all. “The commander of my escort? Is he all right? I saw him spring toward me when the rock fell… .”
“He is well,” the other woman assured her. “It was he who brought you to us. He rode with you in his arms for nearly three days, pausing only to change mounts during the whole of that time,” she added with a sudden pride that would have surprised her had she really been aware of it.
Once again, Una of Seakeep nodded. She said nothing more, but her fear remained with her. She did not doubt that the man would indeed have so battled the Grim Commandant for her sake, but this stranger might also lie to her and hold to that lie until she judged her patient sufficiently strong to bear the truth.
The other woman stood up. It was easy enough to read the Holdlady's thoughts, and determination firmed within her. Una's recovery would be slow indeed with this tearing her.
She went to the door. As she expected, not one but two young people sat in the hall outside. Many of the local folk sent their children to Lormt to serve as hands and feet and laborers for the community in exchange for the knowledge they could thereby gain. Most left soon, when it was time to be apprenticed to their life's work, but a few like these two and like Aden before them either showed a bent for some trade requiring further training or a love of learning itself and formally bound themselves for service here. Youth was youth, however, no matter the strength of devotion to a course of study, and friendship flourished in these quiet, twisting halls as readily as it did in the hold of a lord, and these two boys were rarely apart when one or the other of them enjoyed any free time.
“Good,” she said suddenly, enjoying startling both in the midst of what she was certain was an escape plan. There was a stream not too great a ride from Lormt whose deeper pools sheltered some very large and wily trout. “I can use the pair of you. Meron, you are studying heal-craft. Stay with the Lady Una. You, Luukey, get Aden out of bed. Tell her her patient is awake.”
“With pleasure! But what about you?”
“I have something to do. I shall return as soon as I have finished. Be off now, and be quick!”
Tarlach sat by the table, not really seeing the two scrolls unrolled on its surface. He was thinking rather of Seakeep, of how his comrades and the Dalesfolk would weather the winter to come.
It would be well into the spring now before they would be able to return there. Before he could return. It was all too likely that he would be traveling alone.
Always he came back to that!
He arose and began pacing. The most of the strange community of scholars in whose company he found himself were long since abed and, indeed, were not many hours from rising again, but he was still up and fully dressed. He had slept but little since he had thrown off the effects of his race to reach this place. There was nothing to try or tire his body here, and he was not able to chain the turmoil boiling in his mind and heart for more than a few hours at a time.
Perhaps once he resumed his own search in earnest, sleep wou
ld come to him more readily. He hoped that would prove the case, for he had little love of awareness right now and even less for these long hours alone with his thoughts.
A knock came at the door. The Captain was surprised but quickly drew on his winged helmet and gave permission for his visitor to enter.
The woman Pyra. One of those attending Una. Here it was, then.
He steeled himself, looked into her face.
Tarlach turned away from her for fear of betraying himself. Hers was not the expression of one who carried tidings of death.
She stepped toward him, although she took care not to approach him too closely. “I ask pardon for intruding, Captain, but you did ask to be informed immediately of any radical change in the Lady Una's condition.”
The Falconer leader faced her once more. “There has been a turn?” His voice was deadly calm, as if he were inquiring about the morrow's probable weather.
The woman nodded. “Her crisis is over. She is awake, and she will live.”
He bowed his head. Praise the Horned Lord. …
“Thanks given for bearing the news,” he said, seeming to dismiss her with that.
Unfeeling savage! she snarled in her mind, but she had not come here for his sake.
Una of Seakeep had not betrayed herself directly, not even when the jumbled speech and restlessness of fever had gripped her most strongly, and her fear just now had been controlled. It might only be the response of a brave and caring woman to the possibility of another's dying for her, even one she paid to stand her defense. As for the Talisman, Pyra knew she could be entirely mistaken about the significance of the piece.
That it was meaningful in some sense was evident. When she and Aden had undressed their patient, they had discovered two pendants, each suspended from its own chain, which the woman was wearing close beneath her clothing. One was a tiny golden amulet of Gunnora, and this they had not thought to remove, for they welcomed the aid of the Great One who was the protector of women in their fight for Una's life. The other was silver, small as well but exquisitely fashioned, the image of a falcon diving with a blood red stone in its talons.
It proved to be a thing of Power. When she first, and then Aden, had tried to remove it, the silver bird had gently but very definitely slipped from their hands. Seeing that it was somehow bound to the Holdruler and that it rested easily beside Gunnora's symbol, they had left it be.
That there might be any connection between this woman of High Hallack's Dales and one of her blank shields seemed utterly impossible, ridiculous, at first thought, but the idea of coincidence was more incredible still, particularly since Pyra had discovered in her own reading that Falconer men had once been wont to make such things and that they, too, could not be taken from those who created them or to whom they had been freely given.
She had not spoken of her suspicion, and it seemed well that she had not, for it appeared now that she had indeed been wrong or that any feeling which did exist was only on the Holdlady's part, perhaps the very reason why she wore the piece concealed.
Maybe. Pyra could not claim to know these men, or men at all really, and knew she might well have misread what she thought she had seen in the Falconer's half-screened face when he had looked down upon the unconscious woman.
Instinct said she had not. Anguish was anguish and was in some part the lot of all humanity. No race or sex escaped its lash entirely.
She studied him carefully and without seeming to do so. Had he really received her news so coldly, or was this a man who had known such terror that all his will would not have been sufficient to master what he felt, had he given any rein whatsoever to his relief?
“I am sorry, Captain, but we must ask a service of you. The Lady Una remembers that you attempted to save her from the boulder and fears that you might have been struck yourself. Her concern is strong enough to affect the course of her recovery.”
He straightened visibly. “My presence would help?”
“Yes. The sooner this worry is lifted from her, the better. You would not have to remain long. Indeed, with the gravity of her injuries, that could not be permitted.”
“Let us go,” he ordered tightly. “We are wasting time.”
The mercenary knew his way to the infirmary room by this time, although he had been glad of a guide on his first visit there. The interior of the deceptively uncomplicated-looking building was, in keeping with the others comprising Lormt, a veritable maze of corridors and small chambers. It would take long familiarity with this ancient place before one could be completely free of the danger of losing himself, at least temporarily, in its winding ways.
Aden answered her friend's soft knock. She looked from Pyra to the warrior and nodded her approval. “Excellent. I would have sent for you myself in the morning, Bird Warrior, but this is probably better. Come in.”
“The Holdlady will most likely want to confer with him alone,” the other woman suggested quickly. “Seakeepdale's concerns are not ours.”
Lormt's healer hesitated, then yielded. “You are right.—Very well, Bird Warrior, but warn her that she can have only a few minutes. She is not yet in a condition to conduct real business.”
The Captain's heart pounded rapidly as he entered the restfully lighted room where the Daleswoman lay.
He stopped just inside the door. Una was sitting up, supported by pillows. She was pale and so thin that her jade eyes seemed huge in their now tiny setting, but her smile flashed with wonderful brilliance when she caught sight of him.
“Tarlach,” she whispered.
He reached the bed in a few strides and took the chair beside it, being careful not to draw so close that he might accidentally jar her. His fingers brushed the beautiful, wan cheek, then fell away again. “I wanted to say so much throughout all this,” he told her in a voice thick beyond its wont, “but now I have no words.”
“They are hardly needed. Pyra told me what you did.” Her eyes ranged his face, what she could see of it beneath the helm he dared not remove lest the healers return before he could set it in place again. Even with that to mask him, she saw how worn he looked and cringed in her heart because she was responsible for doing this to him.
That was past, but now that she had assured herself that Tarlach was truly all right, another fear troubled her. They were not the only ones who had been present when the ill-sent rock had fallen.
“Was anyone else hurt?” she asked.
“No. Except for you, we were fortunate.”
“How is Bravery?”
“She misses you. She would scarcely settle at all until I took a shirt of yours from your saddlebag and spread it out for her to lie upon. Your scent eased her.”
“Poor little thing!”
“She has succeeded in establishing herself very well. Storm Challenger is intimidating, strange and a warrior besides, but she is familiar and has made herself a favorite with the people here.”
The woman nodded. That would be so. Bravery was a quiet little cat and always ready to show affection. She would naturally be pleasing company for the serious-minded, elderly residents of Lormt, and the younger scholars and those performing the labor of the place would enjoy her playfulness.
Tarlach's smile reached his gray eyes. “Most of them want to protect her, I think, to keep her as much as possible out of my unsavory company.” He laughed softly as her expression clouded. “I doubt anyone actually regards me as bad, just a bit too fierce for their liking.—Now that you have returned to us, she will probably be permitted to spend at least some time with you each day.”
“I should love that!” Una settled herself more comfortably against her pillows. “How does your search go?”
“I have not resumed it yet.” He saw her frown and hastened to go on. “I slept away the first day and have been busy with our comrades since. They are not gone long.”
“Your Falconers’ clannish ways are a might hard on your senior officers,” she remarked dryly.
“At times,” the man admit
ted, “though I was happy enough to have my mind thus occupied on this occasion.”
“It is just as well that you delayed. Now I shall be able to work with you as we had intended.”
He stared at her. “Woman, are you mad? Do you imagine I am going to allow—”
“I can read in bed as readily as at a table, and I shall be far better off for having something concrete to do. It will not benefit me to lie here fretting.”
“We shall see what those two healers have to say about it.”
Una of Seakeep laughed. “That, Bird Warrior, is a coward's escape!”
A knock silenced the retort he would have made, and he turned to see the woman who had led the battle for Una's life enter the room.
“I am sorry, my Lady,” Aden said even as she scanned her patient's face to see if she had already overtaxed herself, “but you must rest now. You could too easily tire yourself as yet.”
Tarlach came to his feet and, after giving the Holdruler proper salute, quit the chamber with a light heart.
4
The Falconer came to the familiar reading hall Aden had specified shortly after dawn and found Aden waiting for him there despite the broken night both had known.
It was a chamber like to the very many others of its nature dividing the interiors not only of Lormt's buildings and towers but worming through the walls themselves. A number of rectangular tables filled its center, their surfaces large enough to support big tomes and scrolls and the materials necessary to copy from or repair them. The chairs drawn up around them showed more care and ingenuity of construction than he had seen elsewhere in the complex's furniture, being designed to provide support and comfort for one sitting long hours in them. Light came from the long, narrow windows lining the right-hand wall but was supplemented by candles carefully placed in broad-based holders to minimize the chance of their being accidentally knocked over or of wax damage to the documents under study.