Bard smiles and retreats, saying to the guard, “I’ve had a little experience.” More than a little.
Before all that long the guards begin to file into the great hall. The guard with Bard guides him to a table at the rear.
“The travelers’ table.”
No one joins him, which is hardly surprising, given how late in the year it is, late for the heights of the Westhorns, anyway. The dinner consists of a cross between a casserole and a stew with a game meat, most likely red deer, accompanied by a healthy slice of maize bread.
In time, he is summoned to the front of the hall where he seats himself on the dais and begins to sing.
All day I dragged a boat of stone
And came home when you weren’t alone,
So I took all those blasted rocks
And buried all your boyish fancy locks …
And took you for a ride in my boat of stone …
The song is archaic, but the melody is lively, and the guards seem to like it, as he’d thought they might.
“Another,” suggests the Marshal.
He fingers the strings for a moment, thinking, then plays a series of chords leading into the next song.
The way is always too far,
As the west mountains are
As solid as sky towers,
As empty as showers …
In the end, he has sung for close to a glass.
The Marshal merely nods to him before she leaves the dais. Neither Aemris nor Blynna even look in his direction.
IX
Bard sings after dinner every evening for over an eightday. He always sings the first song to the Marshal, and all the others to the guards.
He still dreams the dreams of what he must bring to pass, and he often wakes in the travelers’ quarters drenched in sweat and shivering. The smell of that sweat nauseates him, and he must wash up completely and frequently, despite the bone-numbing chill of the water.
On sixday evening, the Marshal stops him after half a glass and motions him to the dais and to a chair placed beside her.
“You sing far too well for a traveling minstrel.”
“I will admit I do not travel often. This past half year has been the first in a very long time. I have stayed here longer than anywhere else.”
“Do you wish to leave?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I am here to sing for you.”
The Marshal looks to the healer, who nods, almost sadly. The Marshal looks back to him. “Then … perhaps I should let you. You may accompany me.” She stands.
He immediately does as well, then walks beside her, if a half pace back, as she climbs the stone steps to the upper level and a sitting room behind a heavy oak door.
The two guards position themselves just inside the door.
She seats herself in a leather upholstered straight armchair.
He takes a lower stool from the wall and places it several yards from her.
“You’re not as old as you look,” says the Marshal, a faint smile tingeing her lips.
“Far older in some ways, younger in others.” Otherwise you would not find me here.
“You’ve circled much of Candar to gain my attention. Why?”
“The simplest and most honest answer is because I must.” His reply is also totally true.
“From one like you, that is indeed a compliment.”
“To a woman who will determine the entire future of the world, it is a fact.”
“Do you ever lie?”
“No … except … I do not always tell all I know.”
“Truth is the most deceiving of lies.”
“It is.”
“How are you deceiving me?”
“I’ve tried not to deceive you about why I am here.”
“Why is that?”
“To sing to you, so that what can be, will be.”
“Then … you should sing.”
Without another word, he eases the guitar into position and begins.
Catch a falling fire; hold it to the skies,
Never let it die away,
For love may come and fill your lonely eyes
With the light of more than day …
With the words and the silvered notes from the strings, he weaves truth into the song, as much as he can.
Her eyes are bright when he finishes.
“Perhaps a song more appropriate to…,” he suggests.
“The season? Of course. Since it is almost harvest…”
When the plains grass whispers gold
When the red blooms flower bold—
The Marshal holds up her hand and looks to the two guards. “You can leave now.”
The younger immediately rises. The older offers an inquiring glance.
The Marshal merely nods. She does not speak until the door to the chamber is closed and the echo of boots on the stone steps has faded. “Where did you learn that song?”
“From my grandmother … quite some time ago.” He pauses. “There are others I could have sung.”
“Such as?” Her voice is cool, and anything but coy.
He fingers the guitar and begins again.
When I was single, I looked at the skies.
Now I’ve a consort, I listen to lies,
Lies about horses that speak in the darks,
Lies about cats and theories of quarks …
“Enough.” The single word is cold. “You never said from where you came?”
“As I told you when I came, I traveled from Clynya to Certis and the white city, then through Gallos. Carefully, of course.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He does not answer, not in spoken words, but his fingers caress the strings.
Oh, Nylan was a mage, and a mighty smith was he.
With rock from the heights and a lightning blade built he …
She frowns. “That’s not an answer.”
“But it is. You don’t know that song. It was banned by Ryba, but it was first sung by the singer who composed your anthem, the one you don’t sing when outsiders are around.”
From the skies of long-lost Heaven
To the heights of Westwind keep …
“You’re one of them … one of the Ancients.”
“I’ve been called that … for lack of a better word.”
“Why are you here?”
“To sing you songs, at your pleasure. Only at your pleasure.”
“The druids have never meant harm to Westwind…” The first hint of tentativeness enters her voice, then vanishes. “I would hear your songs, but your songs, not ours.”
“I can sing those … and others.”
“My name is Dylyss.” She says no other word, just waits.
His fingers once more find the strings.
When lightning spares the peaks and splits from one to three,
And the stars shine bright enough that the blindest man can see,
Then that’s when we’ll be home, back to the forest free,
That’s when we’ll face no trials and live within our tree …
He can see the puzzlement on her face, but he finishes the song and begins another, one not quite so sardonic.
The daring old smith with the hammer of light,
He struck down the Lancers of Cyad so bright …
He sings quietly, warmly, with all his skill and honesty, for well over a glass until he knows the time is right. The last lines of the last song will be absolutely true, but necessary for all that must and will come.
When the soareagle takes flight,
You are the fire of the night,
And the light of this day,
The balm for an endless wand’ring way.
You are … you are … you are …
The sun in the shining sky …
When he finishes, he stands and places the guitar on the side table before taking her hand.
She leads him, and that, also, is as it must be, and should be.
/>
X
The bard looks from the small window in the Black Tower toward the ice needle that is Freyja, a spire of ice-sheathed rock that dominates the heights of the Westhorns … and Westwind. The white light of the sun catches only the tip of that ice needle, creating the impression of an upthrust dark blade with a shining white point.
The winter has been long, and he has sung almost all the songs he knows, and composed a few more. Some of those he has not sung. Some he may not sing for years. Some … perhaps never.
His dreams have largely faded … and he only wakes transfixed occasionally. That saddens him, and always will.
Before long the deep snows will melt enough that roads to the west—those beyond Westwind, for the guards keep the major ways within the heights open no matter what—will open. Then he will leave … for a time.
He senses a familiar presence on the ancient steps, and hears the bootsteps on the stone, but he does not turn.
“I thought I would find you here. When will you be leaving?”
“I’ve said nothing.”
“You haven’t needed to. You need to return to … your home…” The tall woman in the black leathers does not mention the Great Forest. She never has. Neither has he.
“I will come back.”
“When I am dead and gone? Like the others?”
“Late next fall.” Once and no more.
“You are one who promises little.”
“I have never broken a promise. Ever.” And, that, too, is true.
She takes his hand. “The roads will not be clear below Westwind for another eightday.”
They descend the ancient stone steps together.
* * *
In time, he may sleep without dreaming.
In time.
I had written thirteen novels about Recluce, but never a story—until Eric Flint asked me to do so.
SISTERS OF SARRONNYN, SISTERS OF WESTWIND
I
The Roof of the World was still frozen in winter gray, and the sun had not yet cleared the peaks to the east or shone on Freyja when I caught sight of Fiera coming up the old stone steps from the entrance to Tower Black.
I moved to intercept her. “What were you doing, Guard Fiera?”
“I was coming to the main hall, Guard Captain.” Fiera did not look directly at me, but past me, a trick many Westwind guards had tried over the years. Even my own sister, especially my own sister, could not fool me.
“Using the east passage?”
Fiera flushed. “Yes, Guard Captain.”
“Assignations before breakfast, yet? When did you sneak out of the barracks?”
She straightened, as she always did when she decided to flaunt something or when she knew she’d been caught. “He kissed me, Guard Captain. Creslin did.”
Oh, Fiera, do not lie to me. I did not voice the words. “I seriously doubt that the esteemed son of the Marshall would have even known you were in the east passage. It is seldom traveled before dawn in winter. If anyone kissed anyone, you kissed him. What was he doing? Why were you following him?”
Fiera’s eyes dropped. “He was just there. By himself. He was walking the passage.”
“You’re a fool! If the Marshall ever finds out, you’ll be posted to High Ice for the rest of the winter this year, and for all of next year with no relief. That would be after you were given to the most needy of the consorts until you were with child. You’d never see the child after you bore her, and you’d spend your shortened life on remote duty, perhaps even on the winter road crews.”
This time, my words reached her. She swallowed. “I meant no harm. He’s always looked at me. I just … wanted him to know before he leaves for Sarronnyn.”
“He knows now. If I see you anywhere near him, if I hear a whisper…”
“Yes, Guard Captain … please … Shierra.”
“What was he doing near Tower Black?” I asked again.
“I do not know, Guard Captain. He was wearing field dress, without a winter parka. He looked like any other guard.” Fiera’s eyes met mine fully for the first time.
We both knew that young Creslin, for all his abilities with a blade, was anything but another guard. He was the only male ever trained with the Guards, and yet his masculine skills had not been neglected. He could play the guitar better than any minstrel, and I’d heard his voice when he sang. It seemed that he could call a soft breeze in the heat of summer, and more than a few of those who had guarded his door had come away with tears in their eyes. Fiera had been one of them, unhappily. He’d even called an ice storm once. Only once, after he had discovered he’d been promised to the Sub-Tyrant of Sarronnyn.
Shortly, after more words with Fiera, I walked down the steps to the door of the ancient tower to check on what might have happened.
I always thought that tales of love were romantic nothings meant for men, not for the guards—or guard captains of Westwind—although I worried about my younger sister, and her actions in the east passage showed that I was right to worry. Fiera was close to ten years younger than I. We had not been close as children. I’ve always felt that sisters were either inseparable or distant. We were distant. Much as I tried to bridge that distance, much as I tried to offer kindness and advice, Fiera rejected both. When I attempted kindness, she said, “I know you’re trying to be nice, but I’m not you. I have to do things my own way.” She said much the same thing when I first offered advice. After a time, I only offered simple courtesy, as one would to any other Westwind guard, and no advice at all.
To my relief, the Tower Black door was locked, as it always was and should have been. There might have been boot prints in the frost, but even as a guard captain, I was not about to report what I could not prove, not when it might lead to revealing Fiera’s indiscretion. Besides, what difference could it have made? Fiera had not made a fatal error, and young Creslin would be leaving Westwind forever, within days, to become the consort of the Sub-Tyrant of Sarronnyn.
II
Four mornings later, Guard Commander Aemris summoned the ten Westwind Guard Captains to the duty room below the great hall. She said nothing at all for a time. Her eyes traveled from one face to another.
“Some of you may have heard the news,” Aemris finally said. “Lord Creslin skied off the side of the mountain into a snowstorm. The detachment was unable to find him. The Marshall has declared mourning.”
“How?…”
“The weather…”
“He wasn’t supplied…”
“There are some skis and supplies missing from Tower Black. He must have taken them. Do any of you know anything about that?”
I almost froze in place when Aemris dropped those words, but I quickly asked, “How could he?”
The Guard Commander turned to me. “He does have some magely abilities. He coated the walls of the South Tower with ice the night after his consorting was announced. The ice is still there. None of the duty guards saw him near Tower Black recently, but he could have taken the gear weeks ago. Or he could have used some sort of magely concealment and made his way there.”
Not a single guard captain spoke.
Aemris shook her head. “Men. They expect to be pampered. Even when they’re not, and you do everything for them, what does it get you? He’s probably frozen solid in the highlands, and we’ll find his body in the spring or summer.”
I tried not to move my face, but just nod.
“You don’t think so, Guard Captain?”
Everyone was looking at me.
“I’ve seen him with a blade and on skis and in the field trials, ser. He’s very good, but he doesn’t know it. That will make him cautious.”
“For the sake of the Marshall and the Marshalle, I hope so. For the sake of the rest of us…” Aemris said no more.
I understood her concerns, but for Fiera’s sake, I could only hope Creslin would survive and find some sort of happiness. Despite all the fancies of men and all the tales of the minstrels, most stories of lost or unr
equited love end when lovers or would-be lovers are parted. In the real world, they never find each other again, and that was probably for the best, because time changes us all.
III
For weeks after Creslin vanished, Fiera was silent. She threw herself into arms practice, so much so that, one morning, as ice flakes drifted across the courtyard under a gray sky, I had to caution her, if quietly.
“Getting yourself impaled on a practice blade won’t bring him back.”
“They’re blunted,” she snapped back.
“That just means the entry wound is jagged and worse.”
“You should talk, sister dearest. I’ve seen you watch him as well.”
“I have. I admit it. But only because I admired him, young as he was. I had no illusions.”
“You don’t understand. You never will. Don’t talk to me.”
“Very well.” I didn’t mention Creslin again, even indirectly.
IV
Slightly more than a year passed. The sun began to climb higher in the sky that spring, foreshadowing the short and glorious summer on the Roof of the World. The ice began to melt, if but slightly at midday, and the healer in black appeared at the gates of Westwind. Since she was a woman, she was admitted.
Word spread through the Guard like a forest fire in early fall. Creslin was alive. He had somehow found the Sub-Tyrant of Sarronnyn, or she had found him, and the Duke of Montgren had married them and named them as co-regents of Recluce. I’d never heard anything much about Recluce, save that it was a large and mostly deserted isle across the Gulf of Candar to the east of Lydiar.
Fiera avoided me, and that was as well, for what could I have said to her? Creslin was alive, but wed to another, as had been fated from his birth. No male heir to the Marshall could ever remain in Westwind, and none ever had.
That night after inspecting the duty guards, I settled onto my pallet in the private corner alcove I merited as a guard captain without a consort.
I awoke in a tower. It was Tower Black, and the walls rose up around me. I looked up, but the stones extended farther than I could make out. The stone steps led upward, and I began to climb them. Yet they never ended, and at each landing, the doorway to the outside had been blocked by a stone statue of an unsmiling Creslin in the garb of a Westwind Guard. Behind the statue, the archway had been filled in with small black stones and deep gray mortar. I kept climbing, past landing after landing with the same statue of Creslin. The walls rose into a gray mist above me. Blood began to seep from my boots. I refused to say anything. I kept climbing. Surely, there had to be a way out of the tower. There had to be …
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