Greylady

by Peter Morwood

  Bayrd had always felt envious of men and women who could put their hair in braid without needing to see what they were doing. There were no women on this bucket, and no men of his own blood-clan. Though he liked to look neat in his armour in case someone like the Lord Albanak saw him – neat troop-leaders were noticed, and got promotions – he wasn’t so desperate that he would ask just anyone to tie his braid.

  Men of other lines never touched a warrior’s hair except when using the braid for its final purpose, as a handle for his severed head. With the weight of that implication behind it, to do so at any other time and for any other reason was an insult cancelled only by blood. Killing one of the crew at this stage was a fairly pointless exercise.

  And while being the man who started a clan-war over the same trivial matter would get him many things, promotion and advancement – except to the top of a tall, sharp stake – were not among them. As he ducked into the cabin where he had stowed such of his gear as survived the storm, the thought tickled Bayrd’s somewhat quirky and peculiar sense of humour, producing a bark of laughter that made a pair of passing sailors drop a hundred feet of rigging on their own feet, very hard…

  * * * *

  Bayrd ar’Talvlyn stood ankle-deep in the ebbing tide and supervised the unloading of the forty horses his ship had been carrying. Legs dangling, they hung from the cargo-nets slung around their bellies as resignedly quiet as pet cats picked up by children. Bayrd favoured them with a crooked grin, not fooled for a minute. Rubbing the still-raw scrape between his brows and mindful of what had almost happened when these same docile beasts were loaded, he stood well back.

  There was a pile of gear on the beach, from this ship and many others, and Bayrd was not the only one to have been burrowing in it before landing. Many of the other warriors had come to the same conclusion regarding armour – theirs – and weapons – other people’s. There were already several fully armoured kailinin trudging heavily about on the beach, waiting for their horses, and from what he could see of them, Bayrd felt that he had got the better part of the bargain.

  He had chosen to wear only half-harness – combat leathers, a light helmet, his lamellar tsalaer and its pair of plated sleeves – until he felt less weary, or at least until one of his horses was on shore and able to carry part of the weight for him. The battle harness was not especially heavy in itself, but to a man bone-weary from being battered by a storm, it was heavy enough.

  There were other reasons why he had left off his mail-shirt and armoured leggings: for fear of what seawater might do to their steel. All the rigid metal parts of Alban armour were lacquered against wear, weather and the occasional drenching, but that didn’t mean it could be treated casually. A crack in the lacquer, an invisible eating-away beneath it, and all of a sudden you might find that one of the iron scales was no more than a puff of rust, and there was a blade in your guts. All for the want of a little care.

  Bayrd backed off as Yarak was swung over the side. Of the five horses he owned, she was by far his favourite – and for all her dainty looks, by far the most dangerous if the devil bit her. Bayrd wouldn’t have had it otherwise. The little grey mare was a pure-blood Ferhana, quick as a cat and eager for anything, whether it was hunting or war. She had cost him eight months’ pay, and he had lost weight in the saving of it, being reluctant to spend on himself what might go to buy the mare that few days sooner. One day soon, Bayrd intended to get back all the money he had spent, and much more besides, when he put Yarak out to stud with some of the other clan-lords’ high-mettled stallions. But not just yet.

  Yes, and while you’re dreaming, you might start thinking about another match, between you and a high-clan lord’s cseirin-born daughter.

  One that would bring him into line for lordship of a clan of his own. The ar’Talvlyns were low-clan, and had been since they left the plains of Old Alba; if they hadn’t achieved lordly status yet, they never would. Bayrd shook his head and laughed to himself. The hurt was fading, if he could think about taking another wife. It had been such a stupid accident, so avoidable… The cargo-crane’s ratchets slipped a few teeth with a metallic screech, and Yarak whinnied nervously.

  “Gently, damn you!” Bayrd roared at the sailors working its crank. “Hurt the horse, and I’ll hurt you!” He meant it, and not just because of any risk to his investment. Mahaut had helped him buy the horse, and when she had been killed by that drunken cart-driver – may his spirit long wander between the winds! thought Bayrd, though even the curse was growing automatic and its venom attenuated by time – he had thrown himself into his work, gained two levels of rank, and lavished any affection that remained on the little grey.

  Sometimes she returned it, nosing after apples or sap-sugar lumps with her velvety muzzle; and sometimes, out of sorts with the world, she responded by using him for target practice with her razory hoofs. Just like a woman. But then there were times when he too could be out of sorts, and he understood the way she felt. He could guess the way she would feel when her feet hit the water, although from the way she wasn’t squirming, the sea-voyage had taken some of the ginger out of her. It was just as well. There was a quarter-bred Andarran stallion to be dealt with yet, and three nondescript riding horses, and Bayrd had no desire to see Yarak take off down the beach in an excess of opinionated high spirits.

  For one thing, there was far too much beach. She would be over the horizon before she ran out of hard, smooth, flat sand, and until she did, Yarak would see no reason to stop. If the idiot sailors had been any good at their job, they would have beached their ship the way so many others had done, throwing the rudders over at the right time so that now, with the tide receding, the vessels were beginning to heel over. Other kailinin were able to disembark their horses by slanted, sanded gangplanks. Why was he the only person dealing with a crane, and one operated by idiots at that?

  * * * *

  Sorcery would have been a good idea: a softly-spoken spell to float the horses and the baggage and the passengers safely to shore – even though Bayrd had been told that the power of sorcery was greatly exaggerated by those who didn’t know its limitations. Hospodar Skarpeya knew.

  In fact, bringing Skarpeya would have been a good idea, except that everyone else was blaming him for their exile, and not the true guilty party, King Daykin of Kalitz.

  Bayrd kept his thoughts very much to himself on that matter, but he had met the man in the city of Kalitzim, when most of the others had not. It had been a strange encounter: Bayrd had known who he was, since the wizard had been pointed out at a distance on several occasions. But he hadn’t been able to disapprove of him in the reflex, unthinking way that seemed to be required. There was nothing to dislike; or rather, he amended, nothing had been apparent from their brief meeting.

  In fact, since Skarpeya had admired the horses being exercised in the ring, making enough knowledgeable comments that he plainly knew what he was talking about – and had praised Yarak most of all – Bayrd had come close to actually liking the man. He was a sorcerer, an-pestrior, something detestable. Liking him, or even thinking about not disliking him, was all wrong.

  Wasn’t it?

  “You think too much, ar’Talvlyn.”

  Mahaut’s father had said so more than once, and had not meant it kindly. “You think too much, and about the wrong things.” Now there was real disapproval, if you wanted to see it done properly. He was not the only one to use that very phrase, either before or since, but Esak ar’Doren seemed more able than most to put his own twist of venom into the words. Bayrd had a sharp, quick mind, with plenty of willingness to use it both for his own good and that of others when he was allowed to do so, though that was seldom enough. In a junior officer of low-clan birth, it was a trait that seemed to make people nervous, or suspicious, or even downright angry. Sometimes all three at once. Even though Esak was of a clan no more important than the ar’Talvlyns, he considered that his ambitions were higher than theirs and required all the help he could provide: cash, political c
ontacts – and his daughter, married advantageously to bring in more of both. Not married to someone unimportant for something as valueless as love.

  In fact, disapproval was wrong. It was nothing so strong. Not hatred, and certainly not loathing; just irritation and dislike, the level of emotion a man might feel when he wants to swat a fly in the room and it won’t oblige by coming close enough.

  And Bayrd was out of reach. In all the years and throughout all the changes since they had left the steppes and become what passed for civilized – in that they now killed people who were not their enemies because they were paid to do so – one thing had stayed the same about the Albans. The rights of their women remained as they had been when the scattered name-families lived in the wide grass country, when survival in a land that could turn harsh and savage depended on equal responsibility for that survival. Depending on the family, those might be only the usual domestic privileges – which in the ordering of the home and the raising of young children outranked those of any man short of the clan-lord – or they might have all the rights of a linefather short of commanding in war. Arranged marriage was not unusual, but it required the agreement of the son – or daughter – in question, and like sons, the daughters always had the rights of choice or of refusal in the matter of marriage, even to being permitted to wed an enemy if the possibility of such a situation arose. Several lasting alliances had developed out of such marriages – and several vicious small clan-wars, but it was always considered that those might have happened anyway.

  There had been some attempts at change, certainly, when some of the menfolk saw how meek and demure the ladies of Kalitz and Drosul seemed to be by comparison with their own women. But others saw what lay beneath the façade: pretty decorations for a rich man’s house, and a source of children for his posterity, but nothing else. Small wonder the Droselan cities had so many courtesans: they were the source of companionship and intelligent conversation that Droselan men no longer sought at home – not because it wasn’t there, just because they didn’t expect to find it.

  When Mahaut decided she would accept Bayrd ar’Talvlyn’s offer of marriage, there was nothing her father could do about it. His claims that she was marrying beneath her station fell on deaf ears. For one thing it was patently untrue, the two clans being of equal rank, and for another, it was apparent not only to them both but to other members of their two families that Esak ar’Doren’s concern was not so much for Mahaut as for his own advancement. To attach his daughter, and his daughter’s name, and thus his name and that of his clan to someone more important than a low-clan kailin, no more than a Captain-of-One-Hundred in the Guard Company of a little foreign king.

  Things had not gone the way he intended, and when they were free at last of Esak’s whining – by the Lord Albanak’s decree, for the sake of peace in their house and in his – Bayrd and Mahaut were happy for the two years before the accident.

  And afterwards… Afterwards her father blamed Bayrd. Of course.

  He listened to the accusations no more than he had listened to the complaints, or at least gave no sign of listening, although inside, in his darker moments, Bayrd ar’Talvlyn wondered if it might not have been true. If there was something he could have done. Something simple, something obvious: staying at home that day, or insisting that Mahaut do so. It would have been so easy – and yet a woman that meek wouldn’t have been Mahaut.

  Oh, Light of Heaven, how I miss her…

  Yarak’s hoofs splashed into the shallow water, and she started to struggle for the first time. Bayrd’s mind jumped from the past to the present, and he hurried forwards to release her from the cargo-net. The grey mare snorted and stamped, splashing him, but didn’t try to bite a chunk out of the hand with which he patted her nose. That was encouraging at least. Bayrd led her out of the sea and saddled her quickly – the saddle and bridle had been laid out ready on top of the rest of his gear – then hobbled her with a loop of leading-rein around one foreleg. Assured that she wouldn’t be going anywhere without him, he returned to the ship and yelled for them to send the next horse down.

  It was going to be a long afternoon.

  * * * *

  Farren the poacher awoke from a sound sleep with the sun in his eyes, flakes of dried bracken crunching between his teeth, and an uncomfortable awareness that the sand beneath the bracken had managed to grittily insinuate itself into the damper crevices of his person. He yawned, scratched, stretched, and stared up into the cloudless sky.

  High above him, white flecks slid and spiralled lazily across the blue: gulls returning to the sea after spending the stormy night well inland. Farren hastily examined his clothing. No, there were no white spots to match the ones overhead. And anyway, that was supposed to be lucky.

  “Lucky for the washerwoman,” the poacher growled. The gulls yelled derisively at each other, but he ignored them. All was calm, all was peaceful, and there were no sounds save the distant crashing of the waves and the cries of potentially profitable wildlife. He relaxed again, suspecting that the storm last night was to blame. Farren had never been fond of windy weather, with or without rain to keep it company. It had made him sleep badly, when he had managed to sleep at all, and now he was starting awake at every little sound. Ignoring the sandpaper scraping of sand in his crotch, he punched the makeshift mattress of bracken back into a more comfortable shape, and settled back to snooze a little longer.

  Then he sat bolt upright again, frozen like the wild animals he so often hunted, with the instinctive knowledge that neither the sun in the heavens nor the gulls in the air nor the waves on the shore had been the cause of his awakening. Farren’s eyes widened in shock. It had been a sound, something more felt than heard, something from so deep in his sleep that he had no memory of it, and no recognition either.

  Then he heard it once more, and this time he was wide awake: but there was still no recognition of the alien noise, a long, grinding crunch rumbling up from the beach, slicing through all the other noises of the summer afternoon like a razor through fine silk. Something massive had run up the beach and slammed into the bank of shingle and pebbles separating the land from the open sea beyond. As all his scornful dismissals of the old tales came rushing back like waves through a breached sea-wall, a spasm of superstitious terror cramped his guts. The Lords and Ladies of the Deep Sea did not need a storm to help them leave their realm – and then, with an embarrassed grin, he realized that whatever he was hearing, it was not the sound of gigantic footsteps. The grating boom came again, and then again, each time closer together, until those individual impacts merged into a single constant mutter of noise.

  Farren rose cautiously from his nest in the bracken. Though his sharp ears could hear something that might have been the beat of hoofs, it was a thin thread woven into the blanket of sound rolling in from the sea. This was not just some Prytenek lord exercising his horses along the flat, open strand of Dunakr; and to the poacher’s mercenary mind, that meant it might be something worth knowing, either for personal use or because the High Lord Gelert might pay well to learn about…whatever it was. Either way, he moved more furtively than usual. It was just as well.

  He had seen ships before, but only as scraps of bright cloth far out at sea when the sun struck colour from their sails. Those had been no more perilous than butterflies, or chips of bark floated in a children’s race across a pond. These were no butterflies.

  Some were driven by the wind in their sails – or their remnants of sails – others were towed either by their better-canvassed brethren or by the low, long vessels that moved in a swirl of oar-foam and paid no heed to the winds of the world. By this way and by that they rode in towards the shore, iron beaks and wooden hulls cresting each breaking wave until they slammed deep into the land like a predator’s claws into its prey. The long curve of the shoreline was crammed with ships, and there were more – many, many more – drifting silently from the heat-mist out in the bay.

  There had been raids before. Sea-robbers from acros
s the eastern ocean occasionally appeared like wolves in a sheep-fold, seized whatever could be found within half a day’s march of the coast, and then made off with their booty before the High Lord and his men could descend on them. After many years of harassment, the people of Prytenon had given up hoping for a swift response from Gelert’s people – whose predecessors for generations back had been no more effectual, seeing all this as a game that they would or would not play depending on their mood – and adopted their own simple solution. They moved everything they couldn’t stand to lose a full day’s march inland.

  As Farren huddled behind a tussock of sea-grass and watched the ships begin to disgorge their cargo of people, it was plain even to the uneducated poacher that a day’s march was no longer an obstacle. This was no raid.

  It was an invasion.

  2

  Claiming

  Bayrd Ar’Talvlyn SAT on a heap of baggage and chewed slowly on a piece of smoked and salted beef. It had all the tenderness of a slab of wood, though fortunately somewhat more flavour. He rinsed the accumulated saltiness from his mouth with a small, careful swallow of watered wine, and peered into the pottery flask in an attempt to see how much was left. From the gurgling sound it had made as he drank, not much. That was a problem.

  Bayrd’s military talents lay less with grand strategy than with tactics and more important still, with logistics and supply. An army may march on its stomach, as various wise generals had said in the past – and would doubtless say again, it being too memorable an aphorism to waste – but it’ll trip on its tongue if the tongue’s too dry. Bayrd had coined the saying himself, only to find that it was considered yet another demonstration of a man too clever for his own good. There was little point in offering views and opinions if they were ignored or dismissed all the time, but he kept trying. Sooner or later someone would take notice, not just of what he said and did, but of what he might be worth – and what promotions might come with it. Until then… He sighed, and tried to tear another few shreds from the unyielding strip of beef.