by Mark Eller
"I think it's time Mister Chatham left the room," Andrews said.
Sporlain had to agree. Chatham's usefulness was over. She gestured for him to leave, but he was already quietly closing the door.
"Him," Andrews said. "Chatham is first. His knowledge is uncomfortable." She shook her head. "It would have been so much easier if Bivins had drunk the coffee. She would have become very tractable for a week, and then she would have died. Now look at all the trouble she is causing. I tell you, Edel, being the designated heir of our House is barely worth the headache. Barely worth it at all."
Chapter 16
"We are not the barbarians your people think us to be," Heralda said as they rode. She used her young teeth to tear loose a bite from the small roasted hunk she held. Grease spread across her face and chin and nose, but she paid it little mind. She seemed to be counting on the rain to wash her clean.
Aaron rode with the motion of his mount's gait. His muscles were loose, flexible; his belly was full of meat that had been cooked and smoked the night before. The day was warm, and a soft mist fell from the cloud-choked sky, soaking his clothes and slicking his hair, both of which needed washing anyway. Flexing his belly, he felt tight muscles and little fat. His body had never put on extra flesh anyway, but his idle time in N'Ark had worn away at his conditioning. Holding out his right arm, he clenched his fingers. The play of tendon and muscle within his forearm was a pleasure to see. The tendon was not as strong as it had been in Last Chance. The muscles were not as pronounced, but they were there.
"We have a history," Heralda continued. "It is not a written history as you have. It is oral, but it is true."
"I'd be surprised if the Clan aren't more than Isabella thinks," Aaron replied. "Most Isabellans haven't seen that much of you. They've seen you as periodic nomads and warriors. They've also seen you subjugated. They haven't seen your deeper culture."
Heralda laughed. "I know Jut. I have even learned to read it, but I sometimes think I don't know it at all. I don't understand so many of the words you use."
"The Isabellans have only seen a small part of who you are," Aaron clarified. "Their judgment is made from that part." Water ran down the back of his neck. He was thankful he wasn't walking because nothing chaffed like wet clothes. The Freelorns had all stripped down to loincloths in order to protect their regular wear from the weather. Originally, Aaron had thought it disconcerting to ride with nearly nude women. His discomfort had not lasted long. These people saw little difference between skin and clothing.
"Did you know there are not truly thirty clans?" Heralda asked. "Not all of our clans are of the same size. Some, like the Freelorn, are very large. Others are much smaller. The war with your people destroyed several of the smallest ones. Only twenty-four clans remain."
Heralda reached into a fold of the blanket she sat astride, pulled out another strip of smoked deer meat, and chewed off a chunk. "Do you want some?"
Aaron shook his head.
Swallowing, Heralda gave him a grave look and continued her lesson. "There used to be more clans. I don't know how many. We had our cities and roads and even built boats to travel the river for trade. They were good roads, paved with rock and brick. I've seen a section of one a couple times. Weeds grow through the cracks, and many stones are broken, but it is amazing to me that we built roads that continued on for miles and miles. We don't travel them anymore, but my grandmother told me her grandmother used to travel on them sometimes."
"Why don't you use them now?" Aaron asked.
"Everything is too broken up. It would damage the feet of the horses. Besides, the roads no longer lead anywhere we want to go. All those villages and towns no longer exist. That is what happens in war. We used to love war, but that love hurt us." She shrugged and smiled. "I suppose we still like war, only we like it best when we win."
Canting her head, she gave Aaron a sideways look. "I killed two of your people. Maybe more, but I am sure of those two. I saw my arrows slide into them, and they screamed and fell. I pulled my arrows out of their bodies when the battle was over. I hope you don't hate me for killing your people, but I thought it had to be said."
Oh, Gods. Aaron gazed at the girl. Petite by Clan standards, her muscular body had not yet reached its full height. She was dark-haired and bright-eyed and taut-skinned. She rode proudly in the misting rain, water running down her hair to drip from its ends. Water gathered on her face, formed droplets that collided with other droplets, forming streams that sleeked down her face and neck and ran between the valley of her small breasts and then across a scar from a wound that should have killed her. She was a child becoming a woman. She had killed and thought it a simple matter, a thing of no real moment except for the occasional remembrance of pride.
She would have been twelve then. She might even have been eleven when she killed.
Aaron had no room to censure her. She was a killer, but she had killed only two. His crimes were far greater than hers.
"It was war. People die in war."
She nodded. "I know. I just did not know if you knew. Some people can not let go of a grudge. Delmac is like that. I would have mated semi-permanent with him if it not for that. It seems fate has something else in store for me."
Aaron sighed when she gave him a familiar look. Apparently Heralda no longer owned the disdain for non-clan shared by her elders. He hoped she wouldn't be hurt too badly by his rejection.
"He is not the only one," Heralda said seriously. "You are a moody one, too. Maybe it has to do with being a man. I have not met one yet who could be considered normal. You men take everything far too seriously. You need to learn to trust in the One God. You need to learn how to give Him your worries."
Aaron felt as if his head had been jerked around. He had not seen that coming.
Heralda's serious mien slowly changed to mirth, and the light in her eyes began dancing. "By the One God, from the look on your face, you thought I was going to offer you sex. Are all Isabellans this self-centered, or is it only you?"
Her horse leaped forward at a run. Tilting her head back, she released a gleeful screech as she passed the leaders and kept on going.
Aaron snorted, blowing a fine spray of water free from his nostrils. Her abrupt departure was more than a history/social/religious lesson aborted. It also marked the deflation of his male ego. Aaron was surprised to find himself disappointed. True, he would have said no to her offer, if for no other reason than to him she was still a child, but really, it would have been nice to have been asked.
* * *
"We build in stone." Delmac's voice was both proud and longing. For this moment, for this time, his habitual bitterness dissapeared. His eyes fastened on the structure before them with almost as much fascination and reverence as Aaron felt.
Aaron had never seen--or imagined--such a thing. He looked at the tower, at least forty feet tall, constructed entirely of flat, slate-like sheets of stone. The walls were at least five feet thick, he had been told, and sturdy. Not one ounce of mortar or cement had been used in even the largest of the cracks, though few of the cracks could be considered large. The rocks were set together in an intricate design that locked each section into place. The craftwork was so fine that Aaron had to look hard to discover most of the seams.
"May I go inside?" Aaron asked.
Delmac nodded consent. "Tradition says the first broch has stood for a thousand years. The way of making them is lost to us, although a few people still know the secret of constructing a dun. When a new dun is needed, they are sent for. Often a year passes before they arrive, sometimes longer."
Aaron shelved his questions on the exact nature of a dun as he moved inside the entrance and looked up. Several vertical openings cut into all four of the broch's walls admitted plenty of light. Ledges on a level with the openings ran around the perimeter of the structure. Old but solid ladders were set against the wall. He studied the construction of the thick wall and realized from the way the stones were laid that he did not lo
ok at one wall, he saw two. This was a building built around another building except that the two buildings had to be interlinked by the occasional crosshatching of sheeted rocks. He laid his hand across the building's rough surface and thought back to his conversation with Heralda, remembering her mention of roads, and realized those roads had once been paved with flat stones just like the ones in these walls.
"So you battled each other," he said. "There is no reason for this except for defense."
Delmac shrugged. "We once used it to store grain."
Aaron glanced at the large window openings and quirked an eyebrow. Any grain stored in here would soon be wet and rotting unless carefully placed and of small volume.
"We did battle," Bersalac admitted as she entered the building, "but new battles are rare. We are the Thirty Clans, now numbering twenty-four, and our land is vast enough to contain us all with comfort, but this was not always the case. At one time, we were more than eighty clans who found joy in battling one another."
She grimaced, then half-smiled. "Those days are finished. Restless clans became nomads who wander the land and raise the herds. Those who desire peace and comfort live in duns and villages. It was the only way that allowed us to survive ourselves." She frowned. "It is a way that saved us, a way I love, but it is also a way that destroyed our chance to advance in a manner similar to that of your people."
Aaron shook his head. "This thing is fantastic. Are there many of them?"
"We are the Thirty Clans," Bersalac said calmly. "We know of twenty-eight brochs."That math was easy enough for Aaron to figure out. When the wars between the clans were raging, those clans who had access to one of these brochs had the best chance of surviving. The warfare must have been drawn-out and horrendous. Aaron had a strong suspicion that Heralda was correct: The joy the clans felt in battle was best experienced by those who won. The dead couldn't voice an opinion.
He backed out of the broch and gazed over the landscape surrounding it. The terrain had changed in the weeks of travel. The flatlands of the valley were gone. He was in taller lands now, surrounded by grass-coated hills that rolled one into another. When riding over the top of one particularly tall hill the day before, he noticed that the hills seemed to undulate on endlessly, as if the earth had rippled and bulged until it cast up this expanse of land. Time had gentled and shaped it until it became a gentle vista.
The terrain was not the only thing that had changed during these past weeks. His body held the deep ache of long-used muscles, but no longer screamed in protest at the abuse he handed it. He could now sit on a horse for most of a day without any great discomfort. His legs were stronger, and his back no longer bent with cramped muscles. He felt stronger, more awake and aware and alive. Something, the air, the exercise, something in this journey had been good to him.
Face impassive, Yarga held Aaron's horse for him, paying this grand example of her heritage no mind at all. Aaron leaped up onto the blanket-covered back of his mount with practiced ease. By nomadic standards, he was clumsy and awkward, but few city dwellers would match him.
"How much further?" he asked.
Gerda tilted her head, wet a finger, held it up to the breeze, and sniffed the air. Nodding, she lowered her hand and assumed a look of wisdom.
"We will be there for the noon meal. I can smell it. I can feel it."
"Noon is more than an hour away," Aaron pointed out. "There shouldn't be much to smell from this distance."
"I do," she said, then heeled her horse and took the lead. "It will be good to get back," she called over her shoulder. "There is a small garden I am in the habit of tending. It is good to bring green things up from the earth."
Aaron watched her, back swaying slightly with the motion of her horse, and then he turned to Heralda. "How does she do that? Every time I ask her how far it is or how long we have until we reach someplace, she's always exactly right. Now she says she can smell food that's over an hour away and not yet cooked."
Laughing, Heralda reached over to slap the backside of his horse. Startled, his horse took a half dozen jogging steps before settling into a walk. Heralda's mount soon caught up.
"This is her home. Gerda is not a true wanderer, a true nomad. She lives two-thirds of the year in Telven. The rest of the year she travels with the herds. She has followed this path at least twenty times. We call her sort the Unsettled."
"The Unsettled?"
"We have found a way of life that works for most of us," Heralda said. "It is not a happy one for everybody." Turning in her saddle, she looked longingly back at the tower. "We have a history," she almost whispered. "We are not savages. We have a history and a God, and our God sometimes calls us to do His will."
* * *
Gerda was better than her word. Shortly before noon they topped a short rise, and Aaron found himself looking into a small quarter-mile-wide vale that, although narrow, seemed to run for more than two miles. Much of the land was plowed and cultivated. The fields did not stop with the flat lands. Plowed furrows circled up the sides of many of the hills. Thin trails of blue and green, rivulets and streams, threaded around the bases of some hills. Two blue sparkles revealed sunlight reflecting off the surface of small ponds. In the center of the vale were half a dozen longhouses and a number of smaller buildings as well as a rounded dome. Smoke rose from several fires. Aaron saw the small figures of people in the fields. A large number were busily engaged inside the village of Telven. No, Aaron corrected himself. Telven was not a village. Its life and routine may have been village-oriented, but its size was that of a small town. Heralda was correct. Her people were not truly savages. They were more than that. They were a culture and a civilization unique in itself, a culture now being polluted by outside influences impossible for them to escape.
The place appeared prosperous and peaceful and seductive. It drew upon something inside Aaron, pulled him. He looked to Gerda and wondered at the transformation of her features as she looked down on Telven with satisfaction and pride. She heeled her horse and led the descent.
Gerda kicked her horse into a run. Heralda released a scream of joy, and her horse raced past Aaron's. Before he knew it, he was the last in line, but his horse was starting to build up speed.
He was last into the village where people had already gathered around the restlessly dancing horses. Delmac shouted something in the language of the Clan. People yelled and laughed. Dogs barked, and children pushed at each other in an effort to get closer to the new arrivals. These clanspeople were different from the nomads. They were not leather-skinned and weather-beaten, they were smooth-skinned and straight-limbed. Men and women both had hair hanging well below their shoulders. Gold bangles hung from their wrists and necks.
Delmac spoke for several moments, then gestured toward Aaron.
"Gebace le mak mor fagerace mak Lieber. Gebace le mak mor fagerace mak Lieber odar mak latern."
Aaron clenched his teeth as cheers rose around him. Delmac was doing it again. He was saddling Aaron with that hated name. He was wiping away the last weeks of peaceful riding and contemplation, reminding Aaron of why he was here. He reached up to rub against an ache in the back of his neck while people cheered and children vied to get close. Lowering his hand, he nodded to Delmac's openly resentful stare.
"Yes," he said, loud enough for Delmac to hear. "Mak Lieber. I am Death."
"Are you really?" a familiar woman's voice asked. "I'm surprised to hear you say so. You used to be somewhat humble."
Stunned, Aaron shifted on his blanket saddle and looked down.
Large blue eyes set in a tanned face looked up into his. The face was older and the eyes were unsure. Her stance was halfway between a hesitant step forward and a cautious retreat.
Aaron no longer remembered birthdays, but she had to be eighteen or perhaps even nineteen. His stomach lurched. His heart faltered and fluttered. The coward in him chittered that he had to leave, had to run, had to transfer back to N'Ark or First Chance or Last Chance or someplace else that
was far away.
"Hello, Aaron Turner," Cathy said.
"Mistress Haig," he replied while old aches rose inside him.
Unpleasant shadows flitted across her eyes, and she worked her mouth as if it had encountered something unpleasantly bitter.
"Yes," she said. "Still."
Chapter 17
Filmore coughed and nodded toward the wine rack, one of the few items in the room that had not been tossed. "I want that Runeburg White. Always wanted to try the stuff but could never afford it." He coughed again and once more.
"Quiet!" Saundra hissed. His constant hacking got on her nerves. He was sick in the chest, fevered and light-headed, and it wasn't fair. He was sick when it should have been her.
"I have allergies," Filmore lied in a whisper. "If you wanted quiet you should've waited another week for them to clear up." He glared at her for a moment before continuing to pour more thin trails of cooking oil across the floor. "Are you sure you want to do this? The buildings around here are close together. The entire block could go up."
"Keep your voice down!" Saundra snapped while watching the four letters she had tossed into stove's fire pot curl and then catch flame. She added another small chunk of wood to the stove, careful to only put half the broken chair leg in the blaze since she would need it later. The fire burned strangely, but that was only natural since the stove had been converted from wood to propane. Good enough for the rich, she supposed, but damn it, she liked a nice wood fire. That was why she had turned off the propane cock, disconnected the line with tools found in the apartment, and hauled the stove into the dining room, taking care that the metal legs didn't screech against the floor and alarm the neighbors. The room was smoky because the smokestack was not connected anymore, but that didn't matter. There would be a two-story-tall hole in the ceiling soon enough.