The Barrow

by Mark Smylie

  The riverboats were soon ready, money changed hands with the stevedores and a bored duty officer who finally wandered over to see what they were doing, and then they cast off from the docks. They’d barely put a mile between them and the docks when Erim spotted the glint of sun on steel on the low hills behind the town. She whistled to get Stjepan’s attention, and they watched as a stream of horsemen came pouring over the hill from the east, banners snapping in the air. Stjepan reached into his satchel and pulled out his spyglass, a small side benefit of being a cartographer at the Court. He trained it on the incoming banners.

  “The Lord Constable’s banner, the banner of Lord Captain Conrad of the Inquisition, Captain Clodias of the City Watch . . . but not the Duke,” said Stjepan under his breath. “Well, that’s something, at least.”

  He handed the spyglass to Erim and she brought it to her eye, checking off the banners in view. “Nope, no Duke,” she said.

  “Just’n time, eh, Black-Heart?” came the captain’s voice behind them. She glanced over her shoulder to see Wynram behind them, looking at the same scene.

  “Aye, Master Wynram,” said Stjepan, more loudly. “Our thanks that your crew loaded us so quickly.”

  “Tweren’t a thing,” said Wynram, with a satisfied hrum deep in his throat.

  Behind them they heard a commotion; the squire Herefort had finally died. Weeping and fearful resignation swept through the members of the household that were on the River King’s Crown, and even the veteran knights seemed to lose heart at the news. Erim suspected that this was the first time that most of them probably understood what kind of trouble they were in; there’d been fear and danger in the night, but they’d been running hot and scared and angry then, and now one of them had actually died, and in the cold light of day. The household quietly debated what to do; landing at Vesslos with a youth dead from wounds would undoubtedly attract attention of a sort they didn’t want, and so Arduin made the decision that his body should be slipped into the river. Not the funeral pyre that should have been proper, but a close second for an Aurian, so that it might eventually find its way to their ancestor, Heth. The knights led the household in a round of prayers to the Divine King while his body was wrapped in clean white linens found in one of the hastily packed trunks.

  Erim could hear the Abenbrayer crew near her whispering their own prayers for the young man even though they didn’t know him; Erim guessed that a death on board their ship was not something they would let pass unobserved, but they were careful not to let the folk of Araswell hear them. Their prayers were a variation she’d heard before:

  Geniché, Earth Mother, First Mother,

  one of your sons lies dead.

  Set Djara’s daughters as his Guide,

  let Seedré light his path in the Great Dark

  as he approaches the Throne of Judgment.

  Let his ancestors know he is coming,

  that they may defend him against his accusers.

  The sacred river brings him to you.

  Yhera Abenbraea, guide him by the hand,

  and take him to Heth’s Halls in the Deep.

  Let him not be lost in the journey.

  Followers of the Old Religion, then, she thought, which made sense given their Athairi blood and river work. They’ll believe the ship’s been polluted by death, now; not a thing they’re frightened by, but they’ll perform rites to purify it the moment it gets to port and has been emptied of its Divine King passengers.

  And then the body of Herefort Hrum was ceremoniously slipped over the side and into the water.

  Stjepan and Erim watched his body float for a bit and then disappear beneath the choppy surface of the river. Arduin stood at the railings at a distance from everyone else, looking out onto the water for a while by himself; and then he turned and went down into the hold where his sister had been hidden with most of her handmaidens.

  “That was a pretty story you told Arduin back on the docks,” Erim said quietly after watching Arduin disappear below. Fatigue was weighing heavily on her eyelids, and she decided to go find a place to take a quick nap soon, but she still felt she had to say something to Stjepan. “Dark and gloomy, but with just enough hope that he doesn’t just jump in the river and drown himself.”

  “A story I very much hope comes true,” said Stjepan, casually studying the morning sun on the water.

  “A man like Arduin’s never been on the wrong side of the Inquisition,” said Erim. “He doesn’t really know how they operate. He thinks he knows, but he doesn’t. What they’ll do to Annwyn if they find her. What they’ll do to his household.”

  “No. No, he doesn’t have a clue,” said Stjepan, looking at her with a bleak expression full of anger. “But remember why we’re here. We’re here to follow a map.” He looked back out over the water. “So one thing at a time. Getting out of the city was the easy part. The hard part’s about to start.”

  I think I’m figuring out why everyone calls you Black-Heart, she thought.

  Annwyn roused herself from slumber, and wondered where she was. The light was dim; there was a low lantern gently swaying overhead, and sunlight streaming in somewhere nearby. She stared at the lantern and its movements, could feel the room swaying as well, and she smelt water and brine. This is different; the hold of a ship, then. She couldn’t remember if she had ever been on a ship before. She thought she had, but why and where? Being Aurian, her family always took the road over the bridge at Tauria when traveling to and from their ancestral halls and the capital, and at the bridge they would visit with its Lord, Garin Liefring, or his seneschal. Or had they taken a riverboat once when there was some sort of trouble with the bridge? She couldn’t remember.

  She looked around her; she was in a slightly separated part of the hold below decks, not quite a room exactly, but there was a partial wall and some wooden pillars that obscured the rest of the hold from where she lay. Odds and ends hung from the walls and ceiling, and tilted with the tossing and turning of the ship. She’d been placed on top of a small mound of cloth and burlap sacks and covered with a fox fur blanket; whatever was in the sacks was reasonably soft. Around her she saw a few of her handmaidens, sleeping fitfully on whatever soft place they could find. There were the two youngest and newest handmaidens in their household, Henriette and Ilona, both the daughters of respected tenants. Helga and Elisa slept nearby as well along with their children: Helga’s youngest, her three-year old son Odwen, and Elisa’s one-year old daughter Elisabeta. Several of the kitchen maids and other women from the household slept nearby with their young children. She did not see Frallas or Silbeta, or Malia at first, until she realized that Malia was sleeping on the floor of the hold right below her perch.

  She looked down at her chief handmaiden’s profile, studying it. Malia looked exhausted and disheveled; they all did. She wondered a bit at the ties that bound them all together, and at the fact that once again she had managed to plummet the household of her father and family into scandal and tragedy. She was too exhausted to feel anything but a kind of detached introspection, incapable even of feeling sad for herself or angry or piteous.

  Malia stirred, perhaps sensing the gaze of her mistress upon her. Her eyes opened, and blinked in confusion until they found Annwyn’s blue eyes looking down at her. Malia roused herself quickly.

  “My Lady, are you all right?” she asked quietly, trying not to wake the others.

  Annwyn gave her a nod. “Are we at sea?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “No, my Lady,” said Malia, shaking her head as she settled on her haunches by Annwyn’s makeshift bed. “Else we’d probably all be drowned by now and in the grasp of Heth. We are on the Abenbrae, where the Sea God’s curse against your kin does not reach, sailing upriver to Vesslos. Are you thirsty or hungry?”

  Annwyn was about to wave her off, when she suddenly realized that she was both. In fact, she was starving. She couldn’t remember when she last ate. “Yes, please, some food and drink,” she whispered with a small smile.r />
  “Wait here, my Lady, I’ll see what I can find,” Malia said, and she stood wearily and warily, testing her balance in the gently rocking hold. She wandered off and disappeared into the rest of the ship.

  Annwyn closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing for a while, trying to calm her fluttering stomach and nerves. She felt a slight twinge of nausea at the root of her stomach and in the back of her throat, but she couldn’t tell if it was seasickness from the rocking of the riverboat hoy, or if it was simply her body telling her that it was desperately in need of nourishment. She was not sure if it was appropriate yet to have an opinion on sailing and ships, but she was decidedly leaning toward being against such journeys in the future.

  Malia returned, bearing a small basket and a glass. A handsome youth was with her, all black leather and disheveled, bed-headed swagger, carrying a large, heavy jug of water, which the youth poured into the glass held by Malia. As Annwyn contemplated the newcomer, she decided that handsome was not so much the correct word as pretty.

  “I do not think I know you, sir,” she said. “Are you part of the crew of this ship?”

  “No, my Lady,” the youth said in a low, husky voice. “My name is Erim, I am a companion to Stjepan Black-Heart.”

  “Ah,” said Annwyn. Her eyes fell on a brace of hilts at the youth’s side. A street-fighting ruffian and duelist, then, by the looks of it. She took a sip from the proffered glass of water, and the water tasted sweet and wonderful to her parched lips and throat. She eyed Erim as she drank, and the youth seemed to grow uncomfortable.

  “Please forgive the intrusion, my Lady, but your handmaiden appeared to need some help with the water jug, and the rest of your household is asleep at the moment,” Erim said, and turned to go with a short bow.

  “Wait,” said Annwyn. She took another sip of water. “How long will we be on this ship?” She tried to remember the last time she’d talked to a man that wasn’t a member of her father’s household, or one of their regular suppliers or tenants.

  “Shouldn’t be more than another hour, maybe two,” said Erim. “I only just awoke myself after a short nap, and I, uh, spoke to a few of the crew. We’ve got a strong tailwind and the tide is with us, so we’ve been moving pretty fast. We’ll be in Vesslos before you know it.”

  “And we’ll be headed to Araswell after that, then,” Annwyn said. “To my father’s castle.”

  Erim stared at her for a moment, as though the youth didn’t know what to say. Both Malia and Annwyn looked at Erim, puzzled.

  “Ah,” said Erim finally. “Perhaps . . . perhaps you should speak to your Lord brother when he awakens.”

  “Why?” asked Annwyn, her eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

  “It is not my place to say, but . . .” Erim started then paused. “But . . . I believe the general agreement was that you would not be safe there, my Lady. You’ll really have to speak to either your Lord brother or to Black-Hea—to Master Stjepan.”

  “Of course,” Annwyn said with a dry smile. “Thank you, Master Erim.” Relieved, Erim bowed again and slipped back out of the secluded shelter.

  Annwyn sighed when Erim was gone. “I’m sure my brother knows what’s best for me,” she said sourly.

  Malia said nothing, but rummaged through the basket and produced some pastries left over from the day before, grabbed hastily from the kitchens in their flight from the city house—puff pastries rolled with egg and cilantro and basil and cheese and then baked. I used to love these, she thought as she took a bite of one of them. She frowned. No, Harvald used to love these. As she ate the pastry, she realized she was famished, and she ate another after she was done, and then another. Malia looked at her with surprise, but said nothing, glad that her mistress had finally regained her appetite.

  Annwyn leaned back, finally, having had her fill for the moment.

  “Where are Frallas and Silbeta?” she thought to ask. “Are they still with us?”

  “Yes, my Lady, they are with their husbands,” said Malia. “Do you wish me to summon them?”

  “No,” she said. “Let them find some peace for a time.” Frallas had recently married Sir Clodin, and Silbeta had been married to Sir Theodras for only a year. Helga and Elisa were married to knights in the direct service of her father; they’d been married for some years and now had their own children to care for.

  Annwyn and Malia sat there quietly for a time, and Malia reached out and took her mistresses’ hand in hers. The ship rocked gently, and they could occasionally hear the accented cries of the rivermen up top, the crack and roar of wind in the sails, and the neighs and whinnies of stalled horses somewhere else in the hold.

  Elisa’s baby finally stirred, and she started to squall loudly. Elisa and Helga woke up, young mothers trained to the sound, and then Ilona as well; but Henriette and Helga’s three-year old kept sleeping. Malia quietly shared the pastries and some dried spiced sausages and fruits with those awake, while Elisa opened up her bodice to breast-feed little Elisabeta.

  “How much longer?” whispered Ilona, looking wearily about the cabin; her eyes were shadowed and puffy, and she looked like she had been crying recently, though Annwyn did not remember seeing or hearing her weep. She also looked a little pallid, they all did, from the tossing of the ship.

  “An hour or two, we’re told, and then we’ll be in Vesslos,” Malia said. She turned to Annwyn. “Where . . . where do you think we are going if not to Araswell, my Lady?” asked Malia. “Do they mean for us to take refuge in Vesslos?”

  The other handmaidens stirred a bit at this news, looking at each other with worry. “We’re not going to Araswell?” whispered Helga fiercely. “Why in the king’s name not? The walls are high and strong, and your brother Albrecht awaits us there with his knights!” Annwyn thought for a bit as she watched Elisabeta suckling; the baby, at least, seemed content.

  “My brother apparently does not think it is safe there,” said Annwyn. “Perhaps there are not enough knights. Baron Conor of Vesslos has always been of cordial relations with our father and is of the line of Thorodür, another shield-thane to King Orfewain, but I do not think he is so great a friend that my brother would expect a strong welcome there. And we did not receive many invitations from the Lodyrs who hold the baronies of the Plain of Horns, nor from Baron Galreuth of Collwyn, even before our fall from favor.” And we have received none since, she thought.

  “Your father has never approved of Aurian families that have intermarried with Danians,” Malia said quietly.

  “No, he has not, and almost all of our immediate neighbors have Danian blood in their lineages; it is one of the reasons he so preferred to be in the capital, and stand with his equals at the Court,” Annwyn said to her handmaiden. “The Cürwells of Abenton and the Liefrings of Misal Ruth have pure Aurian lineages; and of the great western families of Atallica, the Liefrings have been the most cordial since . . . our name became tarnished. Though that could always just be because we pass through their lands so often, on our way to and from the city. If we were to seek refuge somewhere, I would have thought perhaps it would be with Baron Wallis the Young at Misal Ruth . . .”

  “Pure of blood they may be, but they follow the Old Religion in secret, and hold to old Athairi rites, my Lady!” said Helga. “Your father has never approved of them! It won’t do for you to be seen taking refuge with those already tainted by such whispers!”

  “Whispers indeed, Helga,” said Annwyn with a slight frown. “I would hope all of you know better than to merely repeat the gossip and innuendo that so often poisons the Court; the Baron and his family have never extended us anything but the most proper courtesy.” The handmaidens looked down and nodded, chagrined. “But if we were going to seek refuge with Baron Wallis, we would not be headed to Vesslos. We’d be sailing to the bridge at Tauria and his uncle, Lord Garin Liefring. I do not know my brother’s mind in this . . .”

  “Perhaps he means us to hide in the Hada Wold?” asked Malia.

  “That’s . . .
that’s preposterous,” said Annwyn. Would he do that? Would he take our entire household into the woods to find refuge from those that pursue us? She frowned. “Out of the question.” Is our situation really so dire? She looked at Malia. “Isn’t it?”

  She felt a sudden cramp in her stomach and winced. The sudden intake of solid food seemed to be triggering something potentially unpleasant. Annwyn looked around, suddenly worried. And where do you suppose they keep the privies on a ship like this? she wondered.

  The bustling riverside docks in Vesslos, built of stone under its walls, were not as large as those in the seaports of Therapoli or her home of Berrina, or in the river port of Abenton, for that matter; but they were certainly larger than those in Pierham, where they’d entered the river. The River King’s Crown and the Pelican Diver had been towed in amongst a half dozen boats of similar tonnage to be offloaded. There were at least two other docks that Erim could see with a crowd of smaller riverboats. She jumped down off the wide gangway onto the stone of the dock, happy to be on land again despite having reasonable sea legs. Most of the Aurian household of Orwain and Araswell had very little experience on the water, and this journey on the Abenbrae Estuary was the closest they had ever come to being on the sea; a few had paid for it with sea sickness and looked like they were at death’s door. If she was glad to be back on land, then they were ecstatic in a way she thought almost comical. If they had ever lapsed in their devotions to the Divine King, they were making up for lost time now.

  She looked up at the stout walls and dock gates of the baronial city; Vesslos sat on the eastern bank of the Vessbrae, one of the larger cities in the region, about the equal to Soros or Truse, though of course small in comparison to the capital. She thought back to the last time—was it really less than two weeks ago?—that she had been in Vesslos. Dwelling briefly on the parting words of Tall Duram, she was not sure this would be a city eager to see her and Stjepan again; but then it was a large city and there’d be no reason for them to be in the Free Quarter on this trip. Better to wait a few months, or even a year or two, before stopping in to say hello, she thought. Assuming we’re still alive then.