by Unknown
Sombre now, I took the time to meet his gaze. ‘Thank you. For the moment’s grace, I mean.’
‘Come,’ he replied. ‘We shouldn’t delay longer.’
Together, we picked a way through the moving crowd until we came abreast of Dieter. He was riding one of his own horses, a dove-chested fleabit mare. Gerlach fell back then, though I didn’t doubt he could still hear every word we exchanged.
‘Tell me about these people of yours,’ said Dieter, holding his reins in one hand, idly pulling the spare length through the fingers of his other.
‘I’ve never been this far from the Turholm before.’ My legs were too taut, the pressure urging my mare into a trot. I pulled her back with a soft curse for my nervousness. ‘I’m hardly an expert.’
‘Your mother lived past childbirth – you know something of them.’
‘A little, yes.’
‘Enough to insist I journey out instead of inviting them to me.’
I decided to gamble on the truth. If he was ignorant, it was giving up an advantage. But he had travelled and, in all likelihood, had learned of the Skythes’ ways already, making this a test. One I couldn’t afford to fail.
‘What do you want to know?’ I asked.
‘The best way to win their alliance would be a start.’
I swallowed my rising fear. ‘I don’t know, not for sure. Family’s my best guess. Otherwise … I suppose we find a bargain.’
‘Profound,’ he said, cutting me a mocking glance. ‘And the horses you had me bring – those are your bargaining chips?’
I looked back towards the baggage train. A handful of my House’s prize mounts picked their way across the slippery ground, their hides rugged against the weather.
‘Potentially,’ I said. ‘My mother brought Skythe horses as part of her binding contract. My father bred some Trakkan blood into them. He hoped to breed a horse with the looks of the Skythe mounts and the endurance of the Trakkans.’
‘Did he succeed?’
I shrugged. ‘More to the point, will the Skythes care? They value their horses, and that includes the purity of the line. Although of course I hope they’ll find the new line intriguing – they’ve better pulling strength and a longer lifespan, both of which could prove useful on the steppes.’
‘You’re saying the creatures I’m forcibly dragging up and down flooding hillsides in the hopes of winning an alliance might, in actual fact, offend these people?’
‘More or less,’ I said, then clamped my lips shut over an insane urge to giggle.
‘Tremendous. That’s truly …’ he hesitated over a curse, and finished with a sarcastic, ‘tremendous.’
‘My mother had a saying, from her people,’ I said. ‘She used to say, “Life isn’t fair. The sooner you learn, the faster you grow bitter.”’
‘Meaning?’ said Dieter after a moment’s puzzled silence. ‘What context did she use it in?’
‘I have no idea. Sometimes she was bitter, or not bitter so much as melancholy. Mostly, though, she was laughing. Usually at me.’
He laughed, and without time for thought I found myself smiling at him. Then, confused by my response, I looked away.
‘Tell me about her,’ said Dieter.
I shrugged, hesitating over a range of responses. ‘She … died when I was young. I don’t remember much. Nothing that can help in bargaining, leastways.’
‘You might be surprised,’ he said, then looked ahead awhile, apparently lost in thought.
What was he thinking of? The bargains he might strike?
‘Tell me about your mother,’ I said.
He looked at me askance, brows cocked.
‘What?’ I said. ‘You asked about mine. It’s only fair.’
‘If you take after your mother, driving a bargain with these people could prove difficult.’
‘Turn and turn about,’ I said, refusing to be distracted. ‘Besides, you claimed royal blood when we first met, but I don’t recognise your crest, if it’s your crest Gerlach wears.’
‘It isn’t,’ he said, not elaborating on what was, or whose crest the weasel was.
‘She wasn’t a woman to be trifled with,’ he added after a while. ‘Although my father, may the ravens devour his canny soul, tried to anyway.’
‘And the result?’
‘Ask my brother some time,’ he said, then spurred his horse ahead.
TWELVE
THE ENTIRE NILOFEN tribe turned out for our arrival, children racing to the outskirts of the camp to point at us, adults watching more warily. Excitement and nervousness put a flutter in my stomach as I rode. Every hoofbeat, every heartbeat, brought me closer to the moment I had hoped for throughout our journey, when my mother’s people would claim me as their own and lend me their strength to vanquish Dieter.
When it became obvious we intended to approach directly, a wall of Skythes formed between us and the main camp. Picking up on their elders’ caution, the children stood behind the adults. I rode with a nervous ball of anxiety and excitement lodged in the pit of my stomach.
Finally, our column halted and concertinaed in as the stragglers caught up. I didn’t need Gerlach to tell me Dieter would want me by his side for this, and spurred my horse forwards, Amalia following in my wake.
Level with Dieter, in the vanguard of our column, I felt a jolt at finally seeing my mother’s people. The Skythes were a tall folk, dark of skin and pitch of hair and eye. They had broad faces and clothes cut in long, swathed lines that made me think of the paper birch tree. They wore feathers and braids in their hair and some had paint on their broad, golden cheeks. They looked nothing like the way I remembered my mother.
Dieter turned to me. ‘I presume a small party is best?’
He didn’t need me to tell him. Another test? Or did he honestly rely on my knowledge of them?
I nodded, too anxious to trust my voice.
‘Gerlach, an escort, please,’ he said. ‘Mali, you stay here.’
Staring, fascinated by the wall of Skythes, Amalia appeared ready to ignore her brother. She didn’t move, however, as Dieter and I rode forward onto the open ground, Gerlach and his three soldiers feeling like far too thin a protection.
Inked and untouched faces alike giving little away, the Skythes watched our approach. None stepped forward, even when we drew to a halt before them.
Dieter allowed a moment of silence first. Then he offered their traditional salutation as fluently and naturally as if he’d been born to the tongue, his mastery exceeding mine. A shiver touched my nape. Always the man was testing me; always he was a step ahead.
The Skythe man who answered him wore a crest of eagle feathers woven into his hair, patterns of blue ink highlighting and distorting the angles of his face. ‘Those who come in peace are welcome,’ he replied, before casting an eye behind us, assessing our retinue.
‘My wife wished to meet her mother’s kin,’ said Dieter, drawing all eyes to me.
I stiffened my spine as they looked me over, seeking some sign, behind my veiled appearance, that I belonged to them.
‘Indeed?’ the tattooed man said coolly. ‘Few of our daughters would relinquish the sky for stone roofs.’
I cursed Grandmother for her refusal to allow me to keep in contact with my mother’s people. I needed both the Skythes and the drightens – and if I’d journeyed to them during my childhood I wouldn’t be standing before them now as an unknown supplicant.
Every one of the drightens would have toyed with the idea of killing you, the shadow-touched barbarian child, murmured Grandmother. Journeys are perilous undertakings.
That doesn’t help me now, I thought.
Accidents are common, child. Grandmother’s reply was swift. Coups aren’t.
I drew a deep breath and made my reply. ‘Her name was Laleh, daughter of Shadi. She was born of the Nilofen tribe, whose emblem is the spear and horse. She gave up the sky for love of Luitger Svanaten, son of the Duethin. My father.’
A long silence followed,
long enough to make me itch to add some further comment. But I fought the urge. Dieter held similarly silent.
The Skythes watched the tattooed leader, awaiting his decision.
‘Laleh was dear to us, and sorrowful we were to lose her to your halls,’ the Skythe chief said at last. ‘Our sorrow increased tenfold on learning of her untimely death. If you are truly her daughter, we have much to discuss. You may camp nearby. We will talk more on the morrow, after you have rested.’
The expressions on the faces of his fellow tribesmen relaxed into smiles. Slowly, careful not to let my shoulders slump, I released my pent breath.
The next day, Dieter’s entourage included Amalia – who emerged garbed after my own fashion, in a simple robe and gown, her brow concealed beneath a veil. My heart sank. So simply, so deftly, had Dieter removed any mystery surrounding my choice of dress. The Skythes would never ask about my veil now.
‘You look pale, Matte,’ said Dieter.
I shot him a glance full of hatred. He obviously sensed how much I loathed his calling me Matte, taking delight in trotting it out whenever I felt most powerless.
He tucked my arm under his with a laugh, and we set off towards the camp of the Nilofen, the ground crisp with cold and the pale sky vast with sunrise. Amalia and Gerlach followed with a handful of soldiers and two thralls to act as runners.
It didn’t matter, I resolved as we walked across the steppes. Dress his sister as he would, none of Dieter’s ploys mattered. These were my mother’s people, my people. They would guess what was amiss. I would make sure of it.
This time, instead of a wall of people blocking our approach, a way through the camp opened for us. Guided by the stares of those we passed, and by the boldest of the children running before us, we ventured into the camp’s heart.
The dwellings were all the same size and shape, great circular huts of wool felt fastened over wooden frames. Canvas flaps served as doors, all but a few tacked open. From within, broad faces watched us pass.
Every little detail woke Grandmother’s voice in my mind, a flood of minutiae she had never shared with me in life. The tattoos are significant: every arc and curve and line tells a story. Tribe and family are the least of it. Not everyone wore visible tattoos, but Grandmother had an answer for that, too. Some identities are covert. Don’t assume it’s for shame.
We came to a couple sitting cross-legged on the ground. The tent behind them spoke of their importance. It was made of a brilliant red felt, a spear and horse woven on its side in vibrant blue hues. The eagle-feathered speaker of the previous day looked to the elderly woman beside him, her face bare of inking but creased and weathered by time, her dark-streaked grey hair bound in a messy knot at her nape.
Looking at her, a shock of recognition jolted through my spine. I remembered this Skythe woman as she had looked over twenty years ago, her cheeks and hands smooth, her eyes bright and bold in her face. My mind reeled.
I had long been so accustomed to knowing what Grandmother would think, and what she would say, that I had simply accepted her voice in my head as a memory I could turn to, both for comfort and advice. This was more than knowing her well enough to guess her thoughts, however – I had her memories folded in amongst my own.
Moved by instinct and too dazed to question it, I sank to my knees and bowed my head to Shadi, saying, ‘Mother of my mother.’
The old woman gave a gleeful ha and held her arms up, tattoos on the back of her hands peeking from beneath her cuffs. ‘Didn’t I tell you, Ardas? Memory breeds true. Up with you, child, and let me look on you.’
I did as I was told and her mouth twisted. ‘H’m. Your father has given you a narrow face, I see.’
Her assessment made me selfconscious. I had never felt such an outsider before.
Shadi flicked a glance at Dieter, and bade him sit with a simple wave. ‘You are the husband she chose?’ she asked.
‘Say rather she is the wife I chose,’ he replied with a glint of humour that Shadi showed no interest in deciphering. He didn’t squirm under her examination and neither, when Shadi looked in her direction, did Amalia.
‘My sister,’ Dieter introduced her. ‘Amalia of House Raban.’
Shadi nodded and turned back to me as if she needed nothing more. ‘Well, child, this is not a social call. Why are you here? Why now?’
Surprise made me speechless, though Dieter laughed. ‘Forthright as your granddaughter, I see,’ he said. ‘Well, Matilde – answer them.’
Everyone was watching me and I picked my words carefully.
‘Because,’ I began, ‘my family are lost, and I have taken my grandmother’s throne. Or rather’ – the brand on my forehead burned so hot I thought it must show through the veil – ‘my husband has.’
Ardas searched my face. ‘You gave him your rank?’
The Skythes believe only a creature rotten with fear casts aside their power, Grandmother murmured. He looks for your strength, child. Pray find some.
‘I had little choice. My husband killed my family and my court for it. Relinquishing the throne was the price of my own life,’ I said.
If Dieter thought he’d left me with no allies, if he thought it safe to march a reluctant wife into the heart of her mother’s kin, more fool he. Ravens above, let Renatas still be safely hidden and not already captured and held hostage for my good behaviour.
Dieter had stiffened beside me, and I waited for the anger to crack his closed expression. Or the fear, should Ardas signal an attack. But nothing of the sort occurred. Instead, Ardas eyed Dieter with respect.
‘Good,’ Shadi pronounced. ‘You’ve taken a strong man.’
Their response confused me. I had lured Dieter here, away from the Turholm and his main strength of arms, where he would be at his weakest, in the hope that my mother’s people would support my cause and help me destroy him. And yet, far from condemning him, they seemed instead to be lauding him.
Perhaps their ease was no more than pretence, I thought wildly. Perhaps they were lulling Dieter into a false sense of security so they might seize him later, when his guard was down, when I was not in the path of danger. Surely. Please let it be so.
Gerlach’s strained expression showed he was entertaining the same thoughts. But the interview went on amicably. Dieter, gradually released from caution by their continued approval, relaxed into the conversation, flashing his smile about and drawing good humour from the Skythes in turn. Inch by inch Gerlach too relaxed, while on my other side Amalia grew increasingly white.
When we finally stood, I was so dazed that Dieter had to lift me to my feet. I don’t know what I said in leave-taking; perhaps Dieter spoke for both of us. I remember Shadi ducking in close to peer at me, and asking if I was well. I think I muttered something about being weary.
‘You’ll break your fast with me tomorrow, and tell me somewhat of your mother,’ she said, more a command than an invitation. ‘See your lady rests once back in the camp,’ she added to Amalia, earning me a scowl from Dieter’s sister.
We returned to camp, my arm tucked under Dieter’s, only his momentum keeping me walking forward. Fear fluttered behind my breastbone, my pulse stuttered.
I had played my hand. And failed.
Again.
Amalia peeled away and ducked into the shaded depths of our tent without a word, already worrying at the knots of her veil.
Dieter didn’t release his iron hold on my arm, walking me straight past my tent to his. Three steps in, he dropped my arm. I stopped, adrift in the dim interior, waiting for his fury to burst.
‘Bold ploy, my dear,’ he said. ‘You look a little white about the outcome, though. If you’re going to play this game, I’d advise you to judge your steps more cannily. Or learn not to flinch when you fall.’
I met his gaze as if I’d done nothing wrong. ‘You wanted them as allies, didn’t you? I believe I just won them to your side.’
In one swift step he stood before me, fingers digging again into my arms.
‘Make no mistake, Matilde – I should strike your head from your shoulders, or at the very least pattern that cheek of yours with my fist, for what you tried today. Ravens know you deserve it,’ he said, his eyes full of dark threats.
Fear poisoned the air in my lungs as I waited.
‘But, as it happens, you amuse me,’ he said, the lightened tone and abrupt disappearance of his anger confusing me. ‘And, intentionally or not, you have won me the allies you promised.’
His grip loosened but still he held me close, close enough to feel the warmth of him.
‘So, while I won’t yield your precious cousin, I will give you this much: you can sleep here tonight.’
Furious, I pulled free. ‘Your choice of punishment is as predictable as it is pitiful.’
He only laughed. ‘Sleep in your own tent then. My punishment will be of another kind entirely. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
His constant mockery made me want to spit blood. Instead, I turned away and pushed through the tent-flap into the morning sun, his laugh following me.
But I couldn’t count on Dieter’s amusement lasting. For my sake and that of Renatas, I had to strike a new bargain before we returned to the Turholm – or kill Dieter.
THIRTEEN
THE CAMP WAS too noisy, too full of Dieter’s men. Even those from my previous life had assumed the stamp of his reign. Five tents away, Leise bent over some stitching, occasionally stirring a cauldron beside her. Apart from a day or two of upheaval, the substitute of one Duethin for another had scarce touched her. Everywhere I looked, the world had moved on.
But I couldn’t.
I turned towards the Skythe camp, and my heart swelled until I could hardly breathe. What would it be like to slip into their midst, to discard my mantle and walk among them as a daughter of the wind and sky, no more than one of the tribe?
What would it be to be anonymous in the world?
If I fled, Dieter would pursue me. The men he sent might well kill me and any others if we dared oppose him. I would be brought back, penitent, to serve whatever other uses he had for me – besides providing him with his heir. I was figuring on giving you a child of your own, Matte, he’d said.