by Tad Williams
He could still hear the echoes of his cry dissipating as the world turned to water before his eyes. The door of Traveler’s Hall swung, and Binabik did not come.
21
Cold Comforts
Duke Isgrimnur of Elvritshalla had put a little too much pressure on the blade. The knife leaped from the wood and nicked his thumb, freeing a sudden stripe of blood just below the knuckle. He famed a curse, dropped the piece of heartwood to the ground and stuck his thumb in his mouth.
Frekke is right, he thought,—damn him. I’ll never have the knack of this. I don’t even know why I try.
He did know, though: he had convinced old Frekke to show him the rudiments of carving during his virtual imprisonment at the Hayholt. Anything, he had reasoned, was preferable to pacing about the castle’s halls and battlements like a chained bear. The old soldier, who had served the Duke’s father Isbeorn as well, had patiently shown Isgrimnur how to choose the wood, how to spy out the natural spirit that lurked inside, and how to release it, chip by chip, from the prisoning grain. Watching Frekke at work—his eyes nearly shut, his scarred lip quirked in an unconscious smile—the demons and fish and lively beasts that climbed into being from beneath his knife had seemed the inevitable solutions to the questions the world put forth, questions of randomness and confusion in the shape of a tree limb, the position of a rock, the vagaries of rain clouds.
Sucking on his wounded thumb, the duke toyed in a disordered way with such thoughts—for all Frekke’s claims, Isgrimnur found it damnably hard to think about anything at all while he was carving: the knife and wood seemed at odds, in pitched battle that might elude his vigilance at any moment to slide over into tragedy.
Like now, he thought, sucking and tasting blood.
Isgrimnur sheathed his knife and stood up. All around him his men were hard at work, cleaning a brace of rabbits, tending the fire, getting camp ready for the evening. He moved toward the blaze, turned, and stood with his broad backside to the flames. His earlier thought of rainstorms came back to him as he looked up at the rapidly-graying sky.
So here it is Maia-month, he mused. And here we are, less than twenty leagues north of Erchester…and where did that storm come from?
At the time, some three hours gone, Isgrimnur and his band had been in hot pursuit of the brigands who had waylaid them at the abbey. The Duke still had no idea who the men had been—some of them had been countrymen, but none had familiar faces—or why they had done what they had. Their leader had worn a helmet in the form of a snarling hound’s face, but Isgrimnur had never heard of such an emblem. He might not have even survived to wonder, but for the black-robed monk who had screamed a warning from the St. Hoderund’s gateway just before toppling with an arrow between his shoulder blades. The fighting had been fierce, but the monk’s death…God’s mercy to him, whoever he was…had served notice, and the Duke’s men had been ready for the attack. They had lost only young Hove on the initial charge; Einskaldir had been wounded, but killed his man anyway, and another beside. The enemy had not been looking for a fair fight, Isgrimnur thought sourly. Faced by Isgrimnur and his guard, fighting men all and itching for action after months in the castle, the would-be ambushers had fled across the abbey commons to the stables, where their horses were apparently saddled and waiting.
The duke and his men, after a quick inspection found none of the monks alive to explain what had occurred, had resaddled and followed. It might have been more politic to stay and bury Hove and the Hoderundans, but Isgrimnur’s blood had been fired. He wanted to know who, and he wanted to know why.
It was not to be, however. The brigands had gotten a start of some ten minutes on the Rimmersmen, and their horses were fresh. The Duke’s men had sighted them once, a moving shadow sweeping down off Vine Hill onto the plain, heading through the low hills toward the Wealdhelm Road
. The sight had filled Isgrimnur’s company with new life, and they had spurred their horses down the slope into the valleys of the Wealdhelm foothills. Their mounts seemed to have caught some of their excitement, drawing up reserves of strength; for a brief while it had seemed that they might run the waylayers down, coming on them from behind like a vengeful cloud rolling across the plain.
Instead, a strange thing had happened. One moment they had been rolling along in the sunlight, then the world had grown perceptibly darker. When it did not change, when half a mile later the hills around them were still lifeless and gray, Isgrimnur had looked up to see a knot of steel-colored clouds swirling in the sky overhead, a fist of shadow over the sun. A dim, grumbling crack, and suddenly the sky was spilling rain—a splatter at first, then torrents.
“Where did this come from?” Einskaldir had shouted across to him, a hissing mist now pulled like a curtain between them. Isgrimnur had no idea, but it had troubled him greatly—he had never seen a storm come up so fast out of a relatively clear sky. When a moment later one of the men’s horses had slipped on the wet, matted grass and stumbled, throwing its rider—who, thank Aedon, landed safely—Isgrimnur raised his voice and bellowed his troops to a halt.
So it was that they had elected to make camp, here only a league or so from the Wealdhelm road. The duke had briefly considered going back to the abbey, but the men and horses were tired, and the blaze that had been roaring from the main buildings when they rode off suggested there would probably be little to go back for. Wounded Einskaldir, however—who, though Isgrimnur knew better, sometimes seemed to possess no emotions save a general fierceness—had ridden right back to the abbey for Hove’s body, and to pick up anything else that might give a clue to the attackers’ identities or motivations. Knowing Einskaldir and his ways, the duke had given in quickly, stipulating only that he must take Sludig along, who was a slightly less ardent spirit. Sludig was a fine soldier, but nevertheless valued his own skin enough to provide some counterweight to bright-burning Einskaldir.
So here I stand, Isgrimnur thought in tired disgust, baking my bum in front of the campfire while the young men do the work. Curse age, curse my aching back, curse Elias, curse these damnable times! He looked down at the din, then stooped and took up the piece of wood lying there which he had hoped some miracle would help him shape into a Tree, to lie against his wife Gutrun’s breast when he returned to her.
And curse carving! He gave it to the flames.
He was tossing rabbit bones into the fire, feeling a little better for having eaten, when there came a sudden roll of hoofbeats. Isgrimnur dropped his hands to wipe grease on his kirtle, and his liegemen did the same—it would not do to have a slippery hand on axe or sword. It sounded like a very small company of riders, two or three at most; still, no one relaxed until Einskaldir and his white horse came clear against the twilight. Sludig rode just behind, leading a third mount across whose pommel were draped…two bodies.
Two bodies, but, as Einskaldir explained in his terse manner, only one a corpse.
“A boy,” Einskaldir grunted, his dark beard already shiny with rabbit fat. “Found him nosing about. Thought we should bring him along.”
“Why?” Isgrimnur rumbled. “He doesn’t look like anything but a scavenger.”
Einskaldir shrugged. Fair-haired Sludig, his companion, grinned affably: it hadn’t been his idea.
“No houses around. We saw no boy at the abbey. Where did he come from?” Einskaldir cut loose another piece with his knife. “When we grabbed him, he yelled for someone. ‘Bennah,’ or ‘Binnock,’ couldn’t say for sure.”
Isgrimnur turned away to briefly survey Hove’s body, now laid out on a cloak. He was kin, the cousin of his son Isorn’s wife—not close kin, but close enough by the customs of the cold north that Isgrimnur felt a deep pang of remorse as he stared down at the young man’s snow-pale face, at his thin yellow beard.
From there he turned to the captive, still bound at the wrists, but lowered from the horse to lie propped against a rock. The boy was only a year or two younger than Hove, thin but wiry, and the sight of his freckled face and s
hock of reddish hair tugged at Isgrimnur’s memory. He could not summon the reminder forth. The youth was still stunned from the tap Einskaldir had given him, eyes closed and mouth slack.
Looks like any poor peasant lout, the duke thought, except for those boots—which I’ll wager he found at the abbey. Why in the name of Memur’s Fountain did Einskaldir bring him? What am I supposed to do with him? Kill him? Keep him? Leave him to starve?
“Let’s get to finding rocks,” the duke said at last. “Hove will need a cairn—this looks like wolf country to me.”
Night had come down; the outcroppings of rock that dotted the desolate plain below Wealdhelm were only clumps of deeper shadow. The fire had been stoked high, and the men were listening to Sludig sing a bawdy song. Isgrimnur knew only too well why men who had been blooded, who had lost one of their own—Hove’s undistinguished pile of stones was one of the shadow-clumps out beyond the firelight—might feel the urge to indulge in such foolishness. As he himself had said months ago, standing across the table from King Elias, there were frightening rumors on the wind. Here on the open plain, dwarfed but not protected by the looming hills, things that were travelers’ tales in the Hayholt or Elvritshalla, ghost-fables to enliven a dull evening, were no longer so easy to brush aside with a laughing remark. So the men sang, and their voices made an off-key but very human sound in the night wilderness.
And ghost-tales aside, Isgrimnur thought, we were attacked today, and for no reason I can fathom. They were waiting for us. Waiting! What in the name of sweet Usires does that mean?!
It could have been that the brigands were merely waiting for the next group of travelers who might stop at the abbey—but why? If they were only after robbing and whatnot, why not pillage the abbey itself, a place likely to have at least a fine reliquary or two? And why wait for chance travelers at an abbey in the first place, where there would naturally be witnesses to any act of thievery?
Not that we’ve got many witnesses left, damn their eyes. One, maybe, if that boy proves to have seen anything.
It just did not make good sense. Waiting to waylay a company of travelers who, even in these times, might prove to be king’s guardsmen—who had, in fact, turned out to be armed, battle-honed northerners.
So the possibility had to be entertained that he and his men had been the targets. Why? And just as importantly, who? Isgrimnur’s enemies, Skali of Kaldskyrke being a prime example, were well known to him, and none of the bandits had been recognized as members of Skali’s clan. Besides, Skali was gone back to Kaldskyrke long ago, and how could he have known that Isgrimnur, sick to death of inactivity and fearing for the safety of his duchy, would decide at last to confront Elias and, after an argument, receive his reluctant royal permission to take his men north?
“We need you here, Uncle,” he told me. He knew I had stopped believing that long ago. Just wanted to keep his eye on me, that’s what I think.
Still, Elias had not resisted anywhere near as strongly as the duke had anticipated; the argument had seemed to Isgrimnur only a matter of form, as though Elias had known the confrontation was coming, and had decided to accede already.
Frustrated by the circles his thoughts were following, Isgrimnur was about to lever himself up and off to his bedroll when Frekke came to him, the fire at the aged soldier’s back making him a gaunt, shambling shadow.
“A moment, your Lordship.”
Isgrimnur suppressed a grin. The old bastard must be drunk. He only got formal when he was in his cups.
“Frekke?”
“It’s that boy, sire, the one Einskaldir brought back. He’s awake. Thought your Lordship might like to chat with him.” He swayed a little, but quickly turned it into a gesture of pulling up his breeches.
“Well, I suppose.” The breeze was up. Isgrimnur pulled his kirtle tighter and started to turn, then stopped. “Frekke?”
“Lordship?”
“I threw another damned carving in the fire.”
“I ’spected you would, sire.”
As Frekke wheeled around to head back to the beer jug, Isgrimnur was positive the old man wore a tiny smile. Well, damn him and his wood, anyway.
The boy was sitting up, chewing the meat from a bone. Einskaldir sat on a rock beside him looking deceptively relaxed—Isgrimnur had never seen the man relax. The firelight could not reach Einskaldir’s deep-set stare, but the boy, when he looked up, was as wide-eyed as a deer surprised at a forest pond.
At the duke’s approach the boy stopped chewing and regarded Isgrimnur suspiciously for a moment, mouth half-open. But then, even by fireglow, Isgrimnur saw something pass across the boy’s face…was it relief? Isgrimnur was troubled. He had expected, despite Einskaldir’s suspicions—the man, after all, was as prickly with mistrust as a hedgehog—to find a frightened peasant boy, terrified or at least dully apprehensive. This one looked like a peasant, an ignorant cotsman’s son in tattered clothes, covered in dirt, but there was a certain alertness to his gaze that made the duke wonder if perhaps Einskaldir hadn’t been right.
“Here now, boy,” he said gruffly in the Westerling speech, “what were you doing poking about the abbey?”
“I think I’m going to slit his throat now,” Einskaldir said in Rimmerspakk, pleasant tone in horrid contrast to his words. Isgrimnur scowled, wondering if the man had lost his mind, then realized as the boy continued to stare blandly up at him that Einskaldir was only probing to find if the boy spoke their tongue.
Well, if he does, he’s one of the coolest wits I’ve ever seen, Isgrimnur thought. No, it beggared imagination to think a boy this age in the camp of armed strangers could have understood Einskaldir’s chilling words and not reacted at all.
“He doesn’t understand,” the duke said to his liegeman in their Rimmersgard tongue. “But he is a calm one, isn’t he?” Einskaldir grunted an affirmative and scratched his chin through his dark beard.
“Now, boy,” the duke resumed, “I asked you once. Speak! What brought you to the abbey?”
The youth lowered his eyes and set the bone he had been gnawing on the ground. Isgrimnur again felt a tug at his memory, but still could summon nothing.
“I was…I was looking for…for some new shoes to wear.” The boy gestured to his clean, well-cared-for boots. The duke picked him out by his accent as an Erkynlander, and something more…but what?
“And you found some, I see.” The duke squatted, so that he was at eye level. “Do you know you can be hanged for stealing from the unburied dead?”
Finally, a satisfying reaction! The boy’s heartfelt flinch at the threat could not have been studied, Isgrimnur felt sure. Good.
“I’m sorry…master. I didn’t mean any harm. I was hungry from walking, and my feet hurt…”
“Walking from where?” He had it now. The boy spoke too well to be a woodsman’s brat. He was a priest’s boy, or a shopkeeper’s son, or some such. He’d run away, no doubt.
The youth held Isgrimnur’s stare for a moment; again the duke had the feeling the boy was calculating. A runaway from a seminary, perhaps, or a monastery? What was he hiding?
The boy spoke at last. “I…I have left my master, sir. My parents…my parents apprenticed me to a chandler. He beat me.”
“What chandler? Where? Quickly!”
“Mo…Malachias! In Erchester!”
It makes sense, mostly, the duke decided. Except for two details.
“What are you doing here, then? What brought you to Saint Hoderund’s? And who,” Isgrimnur lanced in, now, “is Bennah?”
“Bennah?”
Einskaldir, who had been listening with half-closed eyes, leaned forward. “He knows, Duke,” he said in Rimmerspakk, “he said ‘Bennah’ or ‘Binnock,’ that’s sure.”
“How about ‘Binnock,’ then?” Isgrimnur dropped a wide hand on the captive’s shoulder, and felt only a twinge of regret when the boy winced.
“Binnock…? Oh, Binnock…my dog sir. Master’s, actually. He ran away, too.” And the boy actually s
miled, a lopsided grin that he quickly suppressed. Despite his misgivings the old duke found himself liking the lad.
“I’m heading for Naglimund, sir,” the boy continued quickly. “I heard the abbey fed travelers like me. When I saw the…the bodies, the dead men, I was scared—but I needed some boots, sir, I truly did. Those monks were good Aedonites, sir—they wouldn’t have minded, would they?”
“Naglimund?” The duke’s eyes narrowed, and he sensed Einskaldir grow a little more taut, if such a thing was possible, at the boy’s side. “Why Naglimund? Why not Stanshire, or Hasu Vale?”
“I have a friend there.” Behind Isgrimnur Sludig’s voice rose, careening through a final drunken chorus. The boy made a gesture in the direction of the fire circle. “He’s a harper, sir. He told me if I ran away from…Malachias, to come to him and he would help me.”
“A harper? At Naglimund?” Isgrimnur stared intently, but the boy’s face, though shadowed, was as innocent as cream. Isgrimnur suddenly felt disgusted with the whole business. Look at me! Questioning a chandler’s boy as if he had single-handedly led the ambush at the abbey! What a damnable day it has been!
Einskaldir was still not satisfied. He bent his face close to the boy’s ear and asked, in his heavily-accented speech, “What is the Naglimund harper’s name?”
The youth turned, alarmed, but seemingly from the sudden proximity of Einskaldir rather than the question, for a moment later he blithely responded.
“Sangfugol.”
“Frayja’s Paps!” Isgrimnur cursed, and climbed heavily to his feet. “I know him. That’s enough. I believe you,, boy.” Einskaldir had turned away, pivoting on his rocky seat to watch the men laughing and arguing at the fire. “You may stay with us, boy, if you like,” the duke said. “We will be stopping at Naglimund, and thanks to those whoreson bastards we have Hove’s horse going riderless. This is hard country for a stripling to cross alone, and these days it’s near as much as slitting your own throat to travel out of company. Here.” He walked to one of the horses and pulled a saddle blanket down, tossing it to the youth. “Bed down wherever you like, as long as it’s close in. Easier for the man standing sentry if we’re not strung out like a flock of straying sheep.” He stared at the thistledown hair starting out in all directions, and the bright eyes. “Einskaldir fed you. Do you need aught?”