The Willow Branch

by Lela Markham

  “I’ve these baskets of laundry to take to the infirmary, but they’re too heavy. Could you carry one?”

  “Well and good then.” Gregyn swung one up to his shoulder and grasped the handle of the other so she could carry half the load.

  “You look done in,” she remarked. “They had riders working in there today, didn’t they?”

  “Aye. Put a cloth over three men’s faces today,” he announced, actually remembering that he’d felt sad over one of them. Only for a heartbeat, but it must have showed on his face.

  “Tis sad when so many die so young,” she said. “You don’t remember my name, do you?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m very tired tonight.”

  “Naryna,” she told him. “You smell like a man who bathed after the shift.”

  “I did.”

  They bent to lower the basket to the ground next to similar baskets. A large tent had been erected in the middle of the ward and a small booth outside the door was where the baskets were held until they were needed. Gregyn lowered his basket to the ground as well. As they turned, a couple of riders came out bearing a stretcher between them with a cloth-wrapped body upon it.

  “I’m wanting to feel alive,” Naryna announced, staring at him boldly. Her blue eyes locked with his and her breasts heaved slightly under her bodice. He felt his body respond to the sight and when she held out her hand to draw him toward the stables, he took it willingly enough without any thought of what Talidd might say about it.

  Shadow Brothers

  The Ammonyts assembled and camped in Gilead; the Israelites gathered together and camped in Mizpah. The leaders of Gilead said to one another, “Who is willing to lead the charge against the Ammonites? He will become the leader of all who live in Gilead!”

  Jephthah the Gileadite was a brave warrior. His mother was a prostitute, but Gilead was his father. Gilead’s wife also gave him sons. When his wife’s sons grew up, they made Jephthah leave, saying to him, “You are not going to inherit any of our father’s wealth, because you are another woman’s son.” Jephthah left his half-brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws joined Jephthah’s gang and traveled with him.

  Some time later the Ammonites attacked Israel and the leaders of Gilead asked Jephthah to come back from the land of Tob. They said, :Come, be our commander, so we can fight with the Ammonites.” Jephthah said to the leaders of Gilead, “But you hated me and made me leave my father’s house. Why do you come to me now, when you are in trouble?” The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That may be true, but now we pledge our loyalty to you. Come fight with the Ammonites, then you will become the leader of all who live in Gilead.” Jephthah agreed, saying, “All right! If you take me back to fight with the Ammonites and the Lord gives them to me, I will be your leader.” The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will judge any grievance you have against us, if we do not do as you say.” Jephthah went with the leaders of Gilead. The people made him their leader and commander. Jephthah repeated the terms of the agreement before the Lord in Mizpah (could this be the Foundation Stone?).

  From the Scriptos of the One, Writings of Judges

  Recorded by Blethry, Priest of Bel, Moryn FY 941

  Founding Year 931

  Dun Llyr - the Bog

  The streets of Llyr were filthy and crowded. Gilyan held her cloak about her as she stumbled over broken cobbles, head down, face smudged with dirt and dried tears. She’d been wandering all day. The small bag of food Nalyna had provided had been spent last night. and she’d had naught a morsel this day. The day’s heat seemed unbearable as she stumbled along, yet last night she‘d huddled down in an alleyway, teeth chattering from the cold.

  A group of young men, street toughs by the look of them, brushed past her. She tried to hold herself away from them. One of them muttered something vile and shoved her toward the wall of a building. She stumbled and fell to her knees, the paving piercing her skin. People walked by as she dusted off her hands, picked pebbles from her stinging knees and climbed to her feet. Nobody offered to help.

  She could not live like this! How did the people around her survive from day to day, much less to have children and conduct business? She felt beset and chased, hungry and thirsty and incredibly grubby. What must she do to find a safe place?

  The Golden Unicorn was supposedly in the infamous slum known as the Bog. She’d heard all manner of fantastical tales concerning wicked men and women in that section of the city. All cities had such a neighborhood. Yet she’d never seen it. The buildings round her looked rough enough for this to be a slum and certainly the people she’d met were crude enough, but she feared to ask for directions and expose herself as an innocent among wolves.

  The babe within her stirred, or mayhap it was her imagination. The small swelling in her white belly that represented Maryn’s child was more precious to her than her own life and yet its life depended upon hers. What must she do to protect it?

  Her da’s behavior yesterday stirred rage within her once more. How could he act that way? He’d always been kind and loving. Did he fear Perryn so much? And what of Perryn? Although she’d never met him, even Maryn had called him honorable and forthright. What had changed him so that men like her father, twice his age and with a warband as strong as the Celdryan force, feared him?

  Anger won’t fill your belly, lass.

  True-thought. She had been sorely treated, but tears and anger would not save her babe or put food in her belly. She had to find a place of safety. Looking round her, she thought that very unlikely.

  Llyr was a vast city, actually larger than Celdrya in its population. Nalyna had walked with her to the end of the rich houses built against the dun walls, making it seem as if they were obeying Braedyn’s orders. Nalyna never asked if she’d changed her mind about the darkwife. She said she’d tell Braedyn that Gilyan had balked at the door and backed away into the crowd of the market square before Nalyna could stop her.

  “The Bog is that way,“ she said when they reached the market square where, presumably, a darkwife could be found. They were in the merchant neighborhood, surrounded by large homes that were nearly brochs sheltered behind high walls. Gilyan’s feet now ached more than her ribs. She’d never walked so far in her life. She wanted to sit down and rest.

  She turned to Nalyna, who turned to her.

  “There is so much I would say,” she fumbled. “Now I can‘t think of the words.”

  “Thanks would be enough, child. I wish I could do more. The Bog is that way,” she announced firmly, pointing down into the city. “Walk until you get to the docks and then go west toward the fortress. When you reach the merchant square above the Hanolan dock, start asking after the Golden Unicorn. Someone will know it. I‘ll have to raise an alaram soon enough -- I‘ll wait for the watch call. You need to be far away from here by then.”

  They embraced, then Gilyan shouldered the small bag of food and turned toward the docks and Nalyna disappeared into the crowd. That had been nearly a day gone.

  Gilyan had felt hope this morning when she’d come upon the docks. She’d turned west and entered what she supposed were the slums known as the Bog. The narrow streets here, hemmed in on both sides with walls of brown stone, were filthy and the smell of sewerage was everywhere. Men brushed past her, bumping her arm and laughing when she reeled away. Aye, this had to be the Bog. She’d heard tales of this place where the dregs of society eked out a living by beating each other to death and all other manner of horrible activity.

  Overwhelmed with the knowledge of how far her life had fallen, Gilyan stopped walking and stared about her. She had yet to find the market square and the afternoon was growing late. She could not spend another night in another alley. She screwed up her courage and turned to a passing woman who carried a large basket of laundry.

  “Excuse me, but I’m seeking an inn in this area. It’s called the Golden Unicorn.“

  The woman, dressed in ragged, but clean dresses, paused and stared at Gilyan as if
she’d grown two heads.

  “What would a pretty young lass like you want with the Golden Unicorn?“

  “I’m meeting someone there,“ Gilyan replied. “You know it?“

  “Aye,“ the woman said, sounding reluctant. Truly, she was about the age Gilyan’s mother would be if she’d not died having her last child. She looked round the neighborhood, eyes upon the rooftops. “It’s in that direction,“ she said, pointing in the general direction of the fortress, but more upslope. “I’ve never been myself, but it’s right round there. There‘s a bell tower by the market square. People there will know of it.“

  “Thanks to you,“ Gilyan said.

  The woman grunted, shrugged her shoulders and moved on. Gilyan started in the direction she’d indicated with renewed hope and vigor. That buoyed her forward, but the market square was nearly deserted by the time she reached it. She stopped where a man and woman were closing up their stall and asked after the Golden Unicorn, but they didn’t know of the inn. She rounded a group of shuttered stalls and saw the bell tower at the end of a row and hurried to it, until she saw that there was a squad of town guards gathering there. She stepped back into the stalls, realizing this was a guard station. She might have known -- a bell tower for ringing alaram.

  Gilyan hurried down the row and found a man shuttering his leather shoppe.

  “I’m looking after the Golden Unicorn,” she said, made bold by urgency. She would not spend another night out in an alley.

  “Are you now?” he said, eying her oddly. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be asking. You know the bell tower?” He apparently saw somewhat in her eyes. “I’m not saying go up there and introduce yourself. It’s a landmark, you see. Think of it like a sun dial. If the sun were behind it, go as if the shadow were pointing to the 4th watch. Go four streets in and look toward the left. You should find it easily enough.”

  Gilyan listened as the squad marched off down the street. She peeked out to find the ground before the bell tower to be deserted. Reviewing the man’s instructions, she set out once more.

  This area might still have been in the Bog, but the buildings seemed a bit better maintained and the streets didn’t smell nearly as bad. She actually smelled flowers from the other side of some of the outer walls. That there were outer walls spoke of a higher class neighborhood than most she’d passed through today. And then she saw the sign.

  Like all inns, taverns and businesses in a nation of largely illiterate folk, the Golden Unicorn had a sign that gave its name pictographically. The brightly painted wooden sign showed a golden unicorn rearing on its hind legs, pawing at a blue sky. Oddly, the sign also had the words “Golden Unicorn” worked round the picture. Rarely did the inn owners read and write themselves. This gave Gilyan hope that her brother had the right of it. It looked a fairly prosperous inn -- three stories tall and surrounded by a high outer wall. The front doors were barred, but there were lights glowing inside the windows. Gilyan walked round the side and saw a gate in the outer wall A man of middle years with a sword at his hip waited on a stool by that gate. Gilyan’s mouth went dry.

  To come so far and find that it had been a cruel joke would be too much. Why would an inn send patrons round the side and post a tough at the gate? Gilyan did not know. Still, the sun’s heat was rapidly leaving the stones beneath her feet and she was determined not to spend another night out in the cold.

  The guard looked up as she approached.

  “What you be seeking, lass?” he asked in a pleasant enough voice. There was a cudgel at his belt as well, but his hands stayed well away from them.

  “I was told by someone to come to the Golden Unicorn.”

  “Were you now? And who would be telling you somewhat like that?”

  “My brother.”

  “Does your brother have a name?”

  “Caedyn.”

  The tough gave her a shrewd gaze from top to bottom and back up to her face.

  “A moment, please,” he said. He rapped lightly on the gate. A small door, just large enough for a face, opened and he spoke to someone on the far side in low tones so that she could not understand what he said. The message door closed and he turned back to her. “You can sit on my stool, lass, while we wait.”

  Hesitantly, Gilyan smoothed her skirts and sat down. The guard was dark and his speech was spiced with some accent she didn’t recognize. White teeth flashed when he smiled. He didn’t seem threatening, but the whole area of the Bog was threatening, so she remained wary.

  Many heartbeats passed while they waited. A man in a fine set of stripped breecs came to the gate and the guard, whose name appeared quite foreign, ushered him in like someone he’d known his whole life. The gate, she surmised, was barred from within and only opened when Manoa signaled.

  The message door opened and a younger man’s face appeared.

  “She can come in and wait in the garden,” he announced.

  “That’s Gwin. He’s a nice enough fellow,” Manoa assured her, as if they were long friends. He handed her through the gate. Gilyan found herself in a gatehouse of sorts where the young man, Gwin, apparently waited. There were three doors in the other walls and Gwin, a hard-muscled man with reddish hair, pointed to the one on Gilyan’s right.

  “There’s the garden. Bradlyn says you can sit on the bench outside this door and wait. It’s more pleasant than the alley.”

  The garden outside the indicated door was a kitchen garden, fleshly turned for the most part, but with herbs growing near the out-kitchen. She could hear the clatter of pots and the call of female voices within the hut. There was a board fence separating the kitchen garden from some other garden, where she could hear music and pleasant voices and see the reflection of torchlight along the top. She looked up and to her left to see the three-storied inn’s back wall with large pleasant windows lit from within.

  She somewhat lost track of time after that. It was growing chill and the bench she sat upon was stone. She’d begun to contemplate making demands when the guard hut door opened and Gwin gestured for her to follow him. They entered the building itself this time. A tall, imposing man dressed in fine clothes waited in a somewhat dark hallway that smelled of flowers.

  “Thanks to you, Gwin. I’ll take her from here.”

  The young man withdrew, leaving Gilyan with this stranger.

  “I’m Bradlyn. Come, Shyralan awaits.”

  They climbed a curving set of stairs to what might have been the third floor and he ushered her into what could have been a ladies’ greeting chamber in her father’s dun. Morikan carpets cushioned a clean floor and tapestries, albeit of a floral nature, adorned the stone walls. A pleasant, but low fire twinkled at the hearth, which drafted nicely.

  A woman rested on a divan, her silk skirts of shimmering blue arranged for their best effect. Her dark hair was arranged in a fashion favored by Hanolan -- loops and braids and without a head scarf.

  “Gilyan of Llyr nee Umhall, I presume,” she said in a throaty voice. “Please, be seated. You may eat if you wish.”

  Gilyan saw the platter of meat, cheese, bread and fruit then. Hesitantly, but driven by hunger, she popped a spring berry in her mouth and then filled a pewter charger with some of the variety available and sat down.

  “I take it you’re pregnant,” Shyralan said. Gilyan gave her a startled look. She laughed. “Why else would a noble woman come here? You were betrothed to Prince Maryn. Is it his?”

  Gilyan hesitated. Shyralan swung her feet down from the divan and sat forward.

  “I’m Shyralan and I own the Golden Unicorn. If you’re to stay here, you must be honest with me.” Gilyan nodded stiffly. “And I take it the family did not react well?”

  “P-perryn accused me of lying and my father took his side.”

  Shyralan nodded.

  “Maryn’s bastard would be a threat to Perryn’s heirs,” she explained as calmly as any noblewoman might. “I daresay it’s likely Perryn had somewhat to do with his brother’s death.”

&nbs
p; That had not occurred to Gilyan. Her heart beat a little faster.

  “It would explain your father’s reaction. Fortunately, your brother recognizes that a bastard child may have power in the future.” Caedyn had surely been trained in political intrigue as he was to take the rule at her father’s death. “You understand why you had to come here alone, unaided?”

  “Nay. Do you know why Caedyn sent that I shouldn’t spend coin on a carriage?”

  “Your brother gave you a purse?” Gilyan raised an eyebrow. She might be noble, but she did understand the value of a silver. Shyralan eyed her with eyes the color of her dress for a couple of heartbeats before laughing lightly. “The Golden Unicorn and the noble women of Celdrya have had a long history, almost as long as the Temples of the Moon, but the dun must appear not to know of us. At least here, we let you keep the child. That studied ignorance is why you can keep your child.”

  “What is this place?” Gilyan demanded.

  “You haven’t guessed?” Shyralan waited a moment, but Gilyan continued staring at her, waiting. “Noblemen, wealthy merchants, city officials, they have the same needs as a common laborer, but they want company that raises to their level.”

  Gilyan opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. Shyralan waited.

  “This is a brothel?” The madam nodded. Gilyan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. For a moment she took in the opulent surroundings. “I apprehend that this is not a common brothel.”

  “That would be true.”

  “Has my brother sold me as a harlot?”

  “Nay. The purse you carry, if it has the correct amount of coin, will buy your stay here until the end of your confinement. You may choose to remain or go out on your own when that time comes. Mayhap Caedyn will have resolved your situation by then. That is the usual way of it. If not, well, there are worst places and more distasteful occupations for a woman with no skills and an inconvenient bastard within. If you think differently, you can go out into the night and see how long it is before someone lifts your purse and you have to sell yourself for far less than you’re worth. If you want what protection your brother can offer, I’ll take your dowry now,” Shyralan said, holding out a strong, but lovely hand. After a moment of thought, Gilyan drew the purse from her bosom and handed it over. Shyralan did not open it, just hefted it in her knowing hand and then slid it into her own bosom. Then she rang a bell on the table next to the divan.