by Angus Wells
“So long as it’s hot,” Calandryll declared.
“You could boil lobsters in it,” said the innkeeper. “Talking of which, shall I have the kitchen prepare your dinner? We keep a fixed menu here, but I can promise you it’s good.”
“As soon we’re done,” Bracht agreed.
“A boy’ll bring you to your room after,” Portus promised. “Key’s in the door and dinner’ll be waiting.”
The Kern nodded his thanks and downed his ale. Calandryll followed suit, a trifle slower, and they hefted their saddlebags and walked toward the inner door. There, a corridor revealed a narrow staircase leading to the upper level and the kitchen, from which came appetizing smells to confirm Portus’s boast, the woman who had called beckoning them to an open doorway that emitted clouds of steam. “It’s all set out,” she said, lifting her apron to wipe at her sweat-beaded face. “Shout when you’re ready.”
They went into the bathroom, finding a massive wooden tub awash with near-boiling water, coarse soap and rough towels laid out on a table beside two buckets of cold water. Without further ado they stripped and lowered themselves into the bath. Both set their sheated swords upright against the tub.
“So we follow his trail,” Bracht murmured, scrubbing vigorously at his scarred chest.
“But weeks behind.” Calandryll felt the aches begin to ease from his body, sighing contentedly. For all the urgency of their quest, at this moment he wanted nothing more than to lay back in the hot water, letting it work its simple magic.
“He makes no effort to conceal himself,” Bracht said, “and mayhap travels in no great haste—if we ride hard . . .”
“Aye.” Calandryll sank deeper, the water lapping against his chin, the heat rendering him drowsy. To think of Rhythamun was difficult as he relaxed; to contemplate what they should do if—when!—they caught up harder: he forced his drooping eyes open, his mind to concentrate. “But what then?”
“Then”—Bracht shrugged, grinning fiercely— “what happens happens. Some godly intervention, perhaps.”
Calandryll grunted vague agreement, less confident than the Kern. It was Bracht’s way to take each day as it came, his still to worry, to ponder the outcome of events. He was not, despite the intervention of Burash in Kandahar, certain that they could rely on the Younger Gods coming to their aid; yet without such assistance he could envisage no means by which they might overcome the warlock. They, after all, were no more than human, frail as all mortal flesh, while Rhythamun had at his command all the powers of the occult. Blades were of no account against that strength, yet steel and cunning were all they had, save hope. Perhaps, he mused, it was better to adopt Bracht’s pragmatism; and hope the gods would play a part.
He pushed doubt away and himself upright, applying soap with a determination that sent water slopping over the edges of the tub.
When they both were done, doused with cold water and toweled dry, dressed again, they quit the bath chamber and called for someone to bring them to their room. One of the stable boys came running, leading them up the stairs to a chamber overlooking the courtyard, two beds against the wall, the bulk of a chimney between imparting a cozy warmth.
“The lady awaits you downstairs,” the child advised them, staring with wide-eyed curiosity. “Are you really Kern frees words?”
“Aye,” Bracht replied, and to Calandryll when the gaping child was gone, “It seems my guising is effective.”
“Indeed.” Calandryll adjusted his scabbard, grinning ruefully. “While I remain on foot. Ahorse my body must yet remember how hard a saddle is.”
Bracht chuckled. “A few days on the road will bring that back.”
“Aye,” Calandryll groaned, “a few hard days.”
Still chuckling, Bracht motioned him through the door and they went down to the common room to find Katya.
She sat alone to the rear of the dining area, a mug of ale untouched before her, her face somber, ignoring the curious stares that came her way. The smile she offered them was brief and her grey eyes were cloudy with some indefinable emotion. They took places to either side as Portus bustled up with brimming mugs in hand, announcing the imminent arrival of their dinner.
“The grey suits you?” asked Bracht.
“You chose well.”
Her voice was dull and Calandryll saw a flicker of concern spark in Bracht’s eyes. He sought to divert her by telling her what they had learned of Daven Tyras, but still she remained introverted, only nodding in response, unlike her usual self.
“Do we set a hard pace, and he not hurry,” Bracht said with a sidelong glance at Calandryll, “we may yet overtake him ere we reach Gannshold.”
“Aye,” was all she said to that and Calandryll saw Bracht frown, his own face registering doubt at this uncharacteristic dullness.
Soup was set before them then and they ate awhile in a silence broken at last by the woman.
“I had not thought it would feel like this,” she murmured, pushing her bowl away still half full. “I feel . . . alone,”
“We are with you,” Bracht said gently.
“Aye.” She favored them each with a wan smile. “And I thank you for that, but still . . .” She shook her head, eyes lowered as the bowls were removed and platters of roasted meat set in their places. “Forgive me.”
It came as a shock to Calandryll to see tears glisten in the corners of her eyes, moist announcement of a vulnerability he had not seen in her before, nor suspected. He saw Bracht take her hand, holding it gently, his voice low as he bent toward her. What the Kern said he could not hear, but Katya brightened a little and ducked her head once, straightening on the bench and flexing her shoulders as if she sought to shuck off the melancholy that gripped her.
“I have never before been apart from my folk,” she said quietly. “I had not thought we should be separated; nor, when we parted, that I should feel it so. It will pass, I suppose.”
This was said fiercer, as if she endeavored to convince herself, and Bracht said earnestly, “It will, my word on it.”
“And your word is good,” she said as softly as before.
Bracht nodded. “I know what it is to leave your homeland and your people, to go among strangers,” he said. “Calandryll, too. Three wanderers, we are, but while we are together we are, in a fashion, among our own folk.”
Katya smiled again at that reassurance, but there remained about her still that air of loss, as if she wanted to accept his words but could not, entirely, believe in them.
“Time heals the wounds of parting,” Calandryll offered, and would have said more had Portus not joined them, settling himself across the table with genial in-sensitivity. He inquired how they liked their dinner, blithely ignorant of Bracht’s hostile glare, remarking on Katya’s lack of appetite as if he feared his cuisine failed to meet with their approval.
“The meal is excellent,” Calandryll said tactfully, “but we rode hard today and the lady is tired.”
Katya flashed him a grateful glance for that and soon after excused herself.
“We leave at first light,” Bracht called as she moved away, answered with a wave.
Portus watched her depart, his eyes admiring. “A handsome woman,” he murmured. “Not like any Kern I’ve seen.”
Both men ignored the question implicit in his voice, though he seemed neither to notice or take offense, but promptly engaged them in another somewhat one-sided conversation. They ate as he talked, content to listen and pick up what news they might, learning that Tobias had passed a night in the caravanserai several weeks ago; that the word out of Kandahar was of a land divided, Sathoman ek’Hennem holding all the eastern coast as the Tyrant massed an army to confront the rebels; that all trade with the war-torn kingdom had ceased. It was mostly gossip and among it all there was little of interest or advantage, save that Daven Tyras rode a piebald horse and traveled alone. They let him prattle on until his attention was diverted by other patrons demanding service and took that opportunity to find their beds.
They were, as Calandryll had anticipated, soft, and he sank rapidly into a dreamless sleep, emerging reluctantly as Bracht shook his shoulder, bidding him rise.
He clambered from the warmth of the bed, shivering as he dressed, remembering to draw his hair back and bind it in the fashion of Cuan na’For. As an afterthought, he checked his pillow, pleased to find no trace of black on the linen: the dye the Kern had used seemed most effective. Then, carrying their cloaks and saddlebags, they went together to Katya’s chamber. She was clad and seemed anxious to depart, though no more cheerful than the night before. Calandryll thought she likely sought the occupation of travel as a palliative and certainly she ate her breakfast with better appetite, or at least speedily, as though it represented an unwanted delay.
They settled their account, Portus markedly less garrulous in the cold light of morning, and fetched their animals from the stables.
The sun was barely above the horizon, a sullen disc of dull gold that cast unwelcoming light over the frost riming the cobbles, their breath steaming as they cinched harness and swung astride the horses. None others were about so early, save the inn’s folk, and they clattered out onto the road as if they were the only three in all the world. To the north, long banks of livid cloud, lit yellow along their undersides, hung low in the sky, presaging an unseasonal snowfall, as though the elements themselves were disarrayed. The wind was off the sea, tangy with ocean scent, but as they cantered northward it swung around, driving the cloud banks steadily closer. By midmorning snow skirled from a sky gone entirely grey, melting in great droplets on their cloaks and the hides of the sweating horses, layering the countryside with a mantle of white. By noon it was falling harder, gathering on the road so that the packed dirt grew treacherous and they were forced to proceed slower, wary of the horses stumbling. Even so, they held a fast enough pace that by midafternoon they had reached the second caravanserai.
They halted there only long enough to rest the animals and drink mulled wine, purchasing sufficient food to see them through the night and the next day, continuing on against the advice of the innkeeper, who promised them more snow would fall, likely through what remained of the day and all the night.
His warning proved correct for the snow fell steadily thicker, a curtain of drifting whiteness as impenetrable as the dark, bringing an early twilight that found them on a stretch of road running lonely through woodland where great trees arched denuded limbs over their heads, the trunks offering the only likely shelter.
Bracht called a halt, Calandryll willing enough in this inhospitable landscape to concede him leadership and Katya still sunk in despondency, and took them a little way off the road. He appeared unperturbed by their situation, walking the stallion deeper among the trees until he found a glade where cypress and cedars grew close enough together their branches met to form a threadbare semblance of a roof. He dismounted there, setting Calandryll and Katya to gathering wood for a fire while he rubbed down the horses and mantled them with saddle blankets.
Calandryll had thought himself capable by now of surviving in the wild, but to his embarrassment he found it impossible to light the pile of branches, the sparks he struck from his tinderbox spluttering and dying amid the kindling without hint of flame. Furiously he drove flint against striker, with no better results, expressing his frustration with curses as he was forced to recognize his inexperience. He started as a hand touched his shoulder, face reddening as he turned from his task to find Katya standing close.
“Like this,” she advised with a quick, apologetic smile, stooping to add moss to his construction, taking the tinderbox from him and succeeding at her first attempt to raise a flame. “It takes practice.”
“Which our outlaw prince lacks,” Bracht observed, grinning.
Once, in another life, Calandryll might have resented the Kern’s cheerful gibe, but now he only shrugged, returning Bracht’s grin.
“My time with you is a constant education,” he said, chuckling.
“Another lesson, then,” Bracht declared. “I shall teach you how to make a bedchamber.”
He took Calandryll off into the wood as Katya blew the fire to life, indicating the fallen branches that might be used to form a crude sleeping platform and those that would provide shelter overhead. Under his instruction Calandryll built a rough lean-to, the Kern more rapidly setting up two others.
“It will do for now,” he remarked, “but in Wessyl, if not before, we must kit ourselves against this weather.”
“We should have thought to bring canvas from the warboat,” Katya murmured, the brief display of good humor she had evinced at Calandryll’s fruitless attempt at fire lighting dissolving like the snow that drifted through the branches.
“I’d not thought to find snow so far south,” Bracht said.
Katya nodded without speaking again, crouching with her hands thrust out to the rising flames, her head lowered as if she sought consolation in the blaze.
“Still, we shall be comfortable enough.” Bracht spoke to her back; Calandryll thought he would reach out, touch her, but he seemed to think better of it and made no move, only adding, “We shall sleep dry tonight, and we’ve food.”
He got no answer, and with a troubled glance in her direction set a kettle filled with snow to boil, adding to it what they had purchased earlier so that soon a savory stew simmered.
They ate, the ride and the cold edging their appetites, the stew welcome insulation against the pervading chill. Bracht made some attempt at cheerful conversation, but Katya remained silent save when directly addressed, her mood serving to emphasize the bleakness of their surroundings, and in time the Kern gave up, suggesting they take to their makeshift beds. He banked the fire so that it should last through the night and they each climbed into their respective shelters.
Calandryll stretched out on a layer of springy branches, sweet-scented and comfortable enough, those above and his cloak holding off the snow if not the cold that seemed to creep inexorably through his body. The fire warmed one side of him, but the other, no matter how tight he wrapped himself in the cloak, remained chilled and he turned constantly, wondering how his companions fared. Both, it seemed, were more accustomed to such hardship, for as he lay shivering restlessly he heard no sounds from their lean-tos, only the crackle of smoldering branches and the sizzling of melted snow, the shuffling and blowing of the horses. He had thought himself inured to discomfort, but this was very different to sleeping rough in Kandahar or the nights spent in the sticky heat of Gessyth, and he began to wonder how he might cope on the plains of Cuan na’For should they need to enter that land. He would, he supposed, adapt in time—he had already adjusted to so many changes—but for now, he decided, he had never felt less comfortable. He yawned hugely and closed his eyes, willing himself to ignore the cold.
It seemed an impossible task and he was surprised, when he opened his eyes again, to realize that the light was changed, the snow no longer drifting canes-cent from the darkness but paled and glittering against a brightening sky: dawn was come and he had slept. His teeth started promptly to chattering again and he crawled from the piney shelter to add fresh branches to the fire, groaning as stiffened limbs protested the movement. He huddled awhile by the blaze, luxuriating in its warmth, watching the eastern sky fade from salmon pink to a blue the color of slate, decorated with shafts of gold by the rising sun. Birds began to sing and he hoped that presaged an end to the snowfall as he pushed upright and went to where the patient horses waited.
They appeared to have suffered no ill effects; indeed, they seemed to have spent a more comfortable night than he, clustering close together to share their body warmth, greeting him with soft snickers and a shaking of heads that sent flakes tumbling in kaleidoscope colors from their manes. He doled them each a measure of oats and returned to the fire, filling the kettle with fresh snow as Bracht emerged.
The Kern was as little inconvenienced as the animals, stretching as though risen from a bed of duck down, his dark
face split by a sizable grin as he saw Calandryll’s expression. He looked toward the animals and Calandryll said, “They’re fed,” the announcement greeted with a nod of approval. He scooped up a handful of snow, rubbing it over his face in lieu of washing, and walked off into the trees.
While he attended to his personal needs Katya rose, no less lithe, as if such nights were usual in Vanu. She glanced at the sky and murmured, “The snow will stop soon,” then she, too, disappeared among the timber. Calandryll spilled tea into the kettle, his companions’ cheerful hardiness serving only to remind him of his own discomfort. Morosely he stirred the brew.
“Your bed was not to your liking?”
He looked up as Bracht came out of the trees, his downturned mouth all the answer the Kern needed. Bracht chuckled and began to rummage through the saddlebags in search of breakfast. Calandryll said, “Katya claims the snow will stop soon.”
Bracht looked up and nodded. “Soon enough, but still it will slow us. The road will likely be hard going.” He turned as snow crunched under Katya’s boots. “How say you?”
The woman shrugged and Calandryll thought she seemed no more cheerful. She said, “Today. Come tomorrow’s dawn it will be melting.”
Calandryll bowed to their superior weather lore, content for now to allow the fire to restore warmth to blood and joints and muscles.
“The inns along this road,” Katya asked, “are they all so close?”
“For travelers in wagons,” he replied, mildly pleased that in this at least he knew more than they. “For traders and the like, who move slower than we.”
Katya grunted a curse. Bracht said, “Then we use them only when we must,” and chuckled as Calandryll groaned. “We’ll purchase tents when we can—a good tent is shelter enough,”
Calandryll could think of no suitable answer: speed was of the essence, its price, it seemed, discomfort.
Hot tea and breakfast, for all it consisted of no more than dried beef and hard biscuits, cheered him a little and he felt somewhat happier as they mounted and returned to the road.