Harpy's Flight
Page 7
Ki looked about the table. Slices of dripping fresh meat heaped on platters; colorful chopped and spiced fruits; bright vegetables in wide bowls. Sawdust and ashes in her mouth, gravel in her throat.
Guests began to stand, to step away from the table. People were leaving in groups of twos and threes. An exhausted Lars was accepting their farewells. His face was gray. No one bade goodbye to Ki. Lars would have been grateful for a similar silence. It was a disturbed, disgruntled group of people that were leaving. Heedless of manners, Ki rested her elbows on the table and cradled her face in her hands.
A touch on her shoulder. She looked up quickly. Haftor’s dark eyes were haunted now, an uneven flush on his face. He looked almost drunk to Ki but did not smell of wine. He looked down into the face she turned up to his. When he spoke, it seemed he formed the words with difficulty.
“You did not merit the harshness of my words. I realize it now, and in a few days the others will as well. Few of them know you at all; that makes it harder. Ignorance, not malice. A will stronger than any of us, even Cora. It doesn’t undo the damage to know that, but it makes the wound throb a little less hot. If any are to be called to fault, it should be Rufus and Cora. They should not have permitted you to lead us, even with Cora as guide. They should not have been so anxious to have the Rite so soon. They should have versed you better in our customs. But I think you know how Cora is. To know they had died months ago made her all the more anxious to loose them properly as soon as she could. I’ll try not to hold it against you, Ki. But people here tonight were frightened badly and feel cheated of their Rite. Some will wish you had never returned to Harper’s Ford.“
Ki bowed her head. This was probably as close as she would get to kind words from anyone tonight. Like a child, she wanted to shriek out to the departing guests that it was not her fault, that she didn’t mean to do it. Haftor seemed to read her thoughts, for he patted her shoulder awkwardly before he moved away from her.
Ki remained motionless, caring little what anyone thought of her behavior now. The mutter of voices was less. She heard the door close firmly. Silence fell. Ki sat listening to it and waiting for the humming in her ears to cease as well. A log fell suddenly in the fireplace. Footsteps, and the chink of gathered crockery. Lars was stacking the plates on the table. Ki rose disspiritedly to help him.
She picked up two plates, eyed the food remaining on them, and set them down uncertainly. She pushed her seven small cups into a cluster and gathered the ones from the next place setting. She paused, and set them down. She did not know how to do this, and she could not make her mind go logically. If only the humming would stop. She felt overwhelmed by even this simple task. She did not know how to clean up after a meal of twenty-some people. She longed to be crouched by her night fire, wiping out her single cup, polishing clean her wooden bowl with a bit of hard bread. She wanted to be alone again with her grief.
Her head began to throb with a dull pounding. Her eyes were sandy and dry, her mouth thick. Weariness fell on her like a dark, heavy blanket. She raised her cold hands to her hot face. Footsteps came behind her.
“If you don’t mind, Lars, I shall go to my wagon and sleep. Leave the mess. I’ll help you clear it in the morning.�
“I think we must have words first, you and I, about what you did here tonight.�
Ki jerked about to face Rufus. His voice had been cold, his face was stern. But even he recoiled from the emptiness in Ki’s eyes. He composed himself quickly. “It’s a little late for remorse, Ki. You did your damage very completely.�
Ki stood looking into his short, wide face. He had his mother’s dark hair. Only his eyes had a look like Sven’s, but Sven’s had never been so cold. Ki did not try to speak. To this man she could never explain anything.
“Let her go, Rufus. Can’t you see she’s completely exhausted? Your words had better wait for tomorrow when your head is cooler and Mother is better. This night has rattled our family to the core. Let’s not complete it with a rift.� As Rufus glared at his youngest brother’s impertinence, Lars turned to Ki.
“Go to bed. Not in your wagon, like a stranger, but under our roof, as is right. There is a lot of healing for all of us to do. Let us begin it tonight.�
Ki went as if reprieved, forgetting even to take a candle. In the darkness of the room, she let her body drop onto the bed. She willed herself to the blackness of sleep. But when it came, it plunged her back into the deep, warm waters. The same images drifted past her slowly, and the humming became the far-off whistle of an endlessly hunting Harpy.
Ki’s fingers tucked up the last strands of hair into the mourner’s knots she still wore. She wondered if Vandien was already asleep beneath the wagon, rolled up in her shagdeer cover. The echo of his words still disturbed her. She shook her head slowly, feeling her knotted hair brush against the back of her neck. She thought she had put those memories aside, buried them deep. Sven’s family and its customs were no longer any concern of hers. The damage she had done them had been inadvertent. She had never meant them harm, but had only wanted to shelter them from the grisliness of the truth. She pushed her guilt back down in her mind, refusing to dwell on it. It was done. She rode alone. Through the swirled glass of her tiny window she picked up the tiny, bright points of a few stars. She must sleep now if she were to make her early start.
She curled up under the worn blankets, nestling her body into the straw mattress. She forced her mind back beyond the painful memories. She took out her memories of Sven and fondled them. Almost she could touch again that long, pale body of his, the almost hairless chest drawn smooth against hers. His beard, when he had begun to have one, had been reddish, a little darker than the blond hair of his head. It had been softly rough against her face. He had been a head taller than she when first they made their agreement formal, and after he had grown even taller and filled out with manhood. His hands had been large upon her, but ever gentle. Ki closed her eyes tightly cradling herself in her memories. She slept.
Four
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Morning poked gray fingers in the cuddy window, to stir Ki within the homey shelter of Sven’s blankets. Without, the sounds of early morning and the tiniest vapors of chill slipping in through the crack under the window. Within, semi-darkness and body warmth and immense comfort. Ki could hear his footsteps moving about, stirring up the embers of last night’s fire. Now he would be putting the kettle on. There was the chink of mugs, then the creak and list of the wagon as a man’s weight was put upon it. He would be moving silently so that the children would not wake. He fumbled at the door. It slid, then caught harshly on the hook Ki had latched the night before.
Ki was jerked out of fantasy to wakefulness. She rolled off the edge of the bed and landed on her feet. She saw his fingers in the crack of the door, tugging, trying to open it quietly.
“I’m awake.� She spoke flatly, without fear, warning him.
There was a motionless silence outside the door. Then she heard him jump lightly down from the wagon. Ki hastily refolded her blankets and pulled her boots on. She closed the door, unhooked it, and slid it open. As she climbed out onto the seat, she nearly upset a steaming mug of tea that rested there. The chill of morning hit Ki in the face. Vandien was unsuccessfully trying to coax Sigurd to the harness. The gray bared his big teeth snidely and put back his ears.
“What do you want, man?� Ki demanded of him as she climbed down off the wagon.
The tone of Ki’s voice froze Vandien. When he turned slowly to face her, his eyes were hooded, his mouth humorless.
“An early start, as promised. I’ve been over this pass before in kinder weather. I tell you that in this weather we shall need every scrap of daylight we can muster for traveling if we are to reach a safe stopping place tonight. The Sisters do not let any pass
easily. The longer we take, the longer we shall be in their shadows. Now I shall ask you a question. Why do you snarl at me in such a suspicious voice?“
Ki’s head was cocked, her smile thin. “Suspicious? Of someone who wanted to steal only one of my horses? I dislike being awakened by someone trying to enter my wagon.�
“I was bringing you a mug of hot tea. That was all.�
Vandien’s voice had become soft and very low. His arms hung loose at his sides. Everything about his posture spoke of offended innocence. Ki would not be taken in so easily.
“What would stir your heart to such consideration for me?� she asked acidly.
Ki spun to keep her eyes on Vandien as he strode rapidly past her. He stooped suddenly and threw her the carefully folded shagdeer cover. It thudded solidly against Ki’s chest as she caught it. He had not tossed it gently.
“I can’t imagine what would provoke me into relapsing into civilized behavior.�
He moved to the fire, began to kick it apart with more energy than the task called for. Ki looked about. He had stored most of her gear already, incorrectly. The shagdeer cover was still clasped to her chest. Slowly she took it to the wagon and put it inside on the sleeping platform. As she came out of the cuddy again she looked down at the mug of tea on the seat. She sat down on the seat, and sipped at the tea thoughtfully. It was already lukewarm in the chilly air. She looked down into the mug as she spoke.
“You didn’t want anything to eat?�
Vandien stopped trampling the ashes. “I hadn’t thought about it,� he admitted, a bit stiffly. “I’ve become accustomed to eating rather infrequently lately.� He glanced up at the sky. “Sun’s already climbing.�
“We’ll eat as we travel, then,� Ki replied briskly. She hopped down from the seat, stowed her mug. She chirrupped to the team. Sigmund and Sigurd raised their heads. Sigurd snorted in disgust, but they both came ponderously to take their places. Ki moved between them surely, fastening straps become stiff with cold, warming the icy bits in her palms before slipping them into place. Vandien stood apart, watching. His one move to help had been met with a warning stamp from Sigurd.
Ki clambered onto the wagon and picked up the reins. There was a moment of awkwardness; Vandien stood on the frozen ground beside the wagon, looking up. Ki looked down into his dog-brown eyes. His curly hair hung low over his forehead and stirred slightly in the chill wind. By daylight, he was a lithe, narrow man, hardly larger than Ki herself. He did not fit her experience. In time, she might grow to like his mocking ways and unpretentious stance. But she did not want to take the time. She would take him over the pass, as she had promised last night. But no more than that. She was sick to death of having others involved in her day-to-day living. Never again would she let anyone depend on her for anything. If his knowledge of the pass could help her through it, she would consider it an even bargain.
Slowly Ki moved over on the wide plank seat. She motioned him to get up. He was scarcely settled before she released the brake and shook the reins. The wooden wheels jerked out of their frosty emplacements. The creak and sway of the wagon began.
Ki slid the door of the cuddy open behind them. “There’s food in the cupboard under the window. Apples, cheese, and I think a slab of salt fish.�
He moved to fetch it, touching nothing in the cuddy other than the cupboard she had indicated. He emerged from the cuddy and set the food on the seat between them. Ki waited, guiding the team, and then glanced over at him impatiently.
“I haven’t a knife,� he reminded her.
The wheels creaked, the wagon swayed. Ki kept her eyes on the trail ahead as she drew the short knife from her belt and passed it to him. A moment later she felt a nudge and took from him a slab of cheese on a slice of dried fish. They ate slowly. The withered apples could not completely clear the salt of the fish from their mouths. Ki reached back, snagged the wine skin, drank, and passed it to Vandien. He accepted it, drank briefly as she had, and passed it back. Ki rehooked it and shut the cuddy door. Vandien leaned back on it, stretching his booted legs before him.
“I had almost forgotten how pleasant it could be to ride instead of walk. I shall hate to see the deep snow. You will know then, as I do, that it makes the way impassable for a wagon. You will decide to turn back then.�
“I am going through,� Ki asserted quietly. “And the wagon goes under me.� Vandien gave a snort of what might have been amusement. Ki did not deign to reply.
The wagon-trail ground upward, twisting and dodging among stands of spruce and snaggles of alder that grew in the shelter of rocky outcroppings. Where the bare outcroppings of rock thrust tall, the trail detoured around them. Often it seemed to pass on the far side of hummocks of land instead of winding closer to the pass. Ki wondered who had made such a roundabout trail to go through the mountains. The grade was easier on the pulling team, true, but sometimes the detours of the path made little sense to her. Ki had used passes that followed the bed of a river, or sought the lowest place in a range of mountains to cross. This trail seemed to do nothing but sneak and slink across the face of the mountains. Sometimes the path seemed to run out entirely, and the team pulled the wagon over flat, lichened rocks and mossy places. Ki saw little sign of game, other than an occasional school of lichen mantas. They were only distinguishable from the gray-green lichen they consumed by their comic flutters as they moved hastily from the wagon path. In places, they coated the earth, hiding the trail.
Once, Ki thought she had lost the trail entirely. But just then Vandien raised a gaunt hand, jabbing a finger between a stand of trees and an outcropping of gray rock.
“There are the Sisters! First glimpse you get of them.�
Ki followed the direction of his point. She had expected the Sisters to be the two tallest mountains in the range, or at least the two they would pass between. They were not. White snow shone on the mountain’s face. Their trail ran clearly across it and around. They would have a drop-off on one side of the wagon and a sheer wall of rock on the other. The mountain rose straight up from the trail’s edge, smooth and white. Where the mountain rose straightest and the drop-off on the other side was most extreme, the Sisters stood. Ki now understood the sign back at the inn.
The Sisters were a strange outcropping of black stone, jutting in relief from the smooth plane of the otherwise gray rock of the mountain. They shone smooth and dark, free of any traces of snow. They looked like the stylized, symmetrical silhouette of two long-haired Humans. The faces were patrician, royal in outline, the noses and lips of the two faces lightly touching: Sisters, greeting one another.
“Did you see them!� Vandien exclaimed as another stand of trees veiled them from Ki’s eyes.
Ki nodded, strangely moved at the sight. Vandien seemed to understand the rise of emotions in her. “Devotion. To me, they always seem to sing of selfless love. This is the only place on the trail that gives you a full view of them. Up close, they lose the resemblance and turn into plain outcroppings of black rock. But from here it’s a sight to make a minstrel weep. The first time I saw them I longed to be an artist, to capture them in some way. Then I realized they were already captured, for all time, in the best possible form. No mere Human could improve on that!�
His dark eyes snapped and glowed wi’th intense pleasure. He flung himself back against the cuddy door. Ki could find no further words to add to his. But she had caught his spirit of admiration for the Sisters. He seemed pleased that she shared it.
By midmorning they were into shallow snow. It went from a wet layer that the horses’ hooves churned up into mud to a deeper layer that made the wagon wheels stick and slide. The team heaved at the traces, sweat showing on their gray, dappled coats as steam rose from them. Their progress slowed. There was no broken trai
l ahead of them. Snow blanketed it smoothly. No encouraging footprints or wagon tracks led the way. When Ki stopped the team briefly at noon, Vandien shrugged knowingly and looked at her from the corner of his eyes. She ignored him. Climbing from the wagon, she waded forward through the calf-deep snow to the team. She dried their coats with firm strokes of a piece of sheepskin. Patient Sigmund nuzzled her thankfully, but Sigurd only rolled his eyes dolorously.
“Time to turn back?� Vandien asked lightly as she climbed back onto the seat.
“No. As we go higher, the snow should be drier. The wheels will stop their cursed slipping. The horses will not be working as hard. Though,� she added, suddenly frank, “I will admit we are not making as good time as I had hoped for. I may not have figured correctly the amount of time we will need. The trail snakes about.�
“Powder snow will not be as wet, but it will be deeper,� Vandien commented sourly. “And, past the tree line, you will find the snow deeper than you might expect. Soil and brush give way to rock and lichen there. Nothing grows to break the drifts. But let us go on. We may as well ride in comfort as far as we can before we abandon the wagon.“
Ki glared at him. Then she unfastened the cuddy door and slid it open. When she came out she passed Vandien several sticks of smoked meat. She settled beside him once more and took up the reins. With a shake, she started the team. The twisted tough sticks of meat filled their mouths and kept Vandien from any more speech.
The broken trail fell away behind them as they wound their way up the mountain. The tall trees they had traveled between in the morning grew shorter as the day progressed. The air became colder, making the skin of Ki’s face feel stiff and strange to her. She gave the team their heads, shaking her own head at Vandien when he wanted to take the reins for her. She moved back into the cuddy. She returned shortly wearing a heavy wool cloak and fur-skinned gloves. She pulled the thick hood up about her face as she sat down. From under one arm she produced a thick shawl of undyed gray sheep’s wool. Vandien wrapped it about himself gratefully, but without comment. His own garments were worn to thinness from his sojourn in the hills. Though he had not complained, Ki had noticed his shivering. She wondered what small demon in herself made her want him to admit to feeling cold. Grudgingly, she admired the way he handled himself. He made no demands, nor offered humble thanks. For Ki, it made her giving easier. Bad enough that he had dog eyes without him dog-fawning on her.