by Sylvia Kelso
They came bounding up into the wood like the proverbial hounds on a scent. Two young men, muscular and fit as troublecrew, with farmers’ sunburnt, weathered faces under the
ubiquitous knitted caps. And they were trackers. The leader had run his eyes right to me along Therkon’s traces before he jerked up his head and stopped.
In a moment he said, “You’re the girl.”
My heart almost jammed my throat. But caution or joy alike, there could only be one answer. I managed to whisper, “Yes.”
He scanned me, a hillman’s quick expert check. The face was frank enough, broad cheekbones, open, curious expression, pale skin bearing a healthy flush. He was barely breathing hard, though his sleeveless jerkin and rolled shirt-sleeves bore leaf and twig wrack as well as sweat.
“Aye, y’r brother found us.” No doubt my face had been an open book. “Tumbled out o’ Kjelfield spinney flat on his face.” The accent was thick as Nouip’s, with a slight but different drawl. “An’ near as short o’ words. But he tell’t enough to follow.” He made a brief gesture behind him. “Skeag ’n me back-tracked.”
No huge task, from what I had done myself. But the corollaries were pressing away my breath. “M-my brother. Is he—where is he?”
He should have been back with if not before them, if he had not been able to do it last night. Had Two’s worst projections become reality, had he fallen, slipped, injured himself?
“Nay, lass.” The first one was beside me. “He found us in ane piece, did ye not hear? No thanks to the track he took.” Another glance back. “We had him to the house, but he was aye beside himself about ye. An’ we’ve no healer ourselves, m’cousin’s off down-coast. So we fed him, and lent him a field-coat. And he was off, down to Ve Pool, before yestreen eve.”
Ve Pool. A southern town. A port? Frotha had mentioned it. He had gone after a healer. He could not have come back in the time. “He, he asked you to come up?”
The pause, their faces, made my tongue dry in my mouth. “It’s far to Ve, Ve Pool? He could not come back?”
The silence was worse than their looks. I took a step forward, nearly losing all control and bawling, What is it, what’s happened, what do you know?”
“Ve Pool,” the first said in a hurry. “It’s a way, aye, but we tell’t him the healer’s house.” He took an audible breath. “If he made haste, an’ he did haste, we thought, he’d be back before dark. So. We waited.” He gave me a hangdog look. “’Till t’was too late to start.”
“So,” Skeag picked up, in a matching accent but a note or two deeper, “we were away up here the morn, soon as we could track.”
Forgive us, both faces said, for the delay, for leaving a stranger injured and alone in wilderness we at least know well. Then Skeag worked his shoulder, and for the first time I noticed the packs both of them bore.
“We brought what we thought handy. An’ right glad, to see ye up o’ y’rself, an’ this far to the fore.”
Oh, Mother, some distant voice was crying. O, Mother, O Dhe, O Lord of the River and all the other world-gods, let it not be true. Let it be a story, a misunderstanding, a mistake.
My lips were cold. I seemed to fumble the words. “But he—my brother.”
The first one took me lightly but firmly by the arm. Only when Two did not spark did I realise I was swaying on my feet.
“He went,” he said quietly, “to Ve Pool. He knew his way. An’ he’d find it, if he found us.”
“Then what—how—why hasn’t he—”
There was pity in that look, and something more.
“T’would be the will o’ the gate-watch—an’ mebbe t’lord
Stokka—that he’s not come back.”
Chapter XI
Could I have run headlong out of their farmyard down the seaward cart-track to Ve Pool, I would have outstripped light itself. But when they undid the chair of linked hands that had borne me the last two miles downhill, my own traitorous legs gave way.
They were very patient. They carried me into the dour grey farmhouse, sunk amid its ancient herb-garden, and deposited me on a settle by the central hearth. “No’ Ve Pool today, lass. We’d take ye, an’ welcome, but we’ve not time now. We’re fair athwart the lambing. Can ye not hear?” And indeed, the house rang with the bedlam of orphan lambs squalling from the nearest byre. If lambing had taken them up the fields to encounter Therkon, and they had already spared precious time to retrieve me, I could not ask more of them now.
“Were Veenn home to fettle ’em—but Eemis said, Cross-birth. She’ll maybe be back the night. We’ll get y’r gear then. Dath,” Skeag finished, “start the milk heatin’. I’ll see to this.”
He found me some bruise salve, washed my arm and re-bound it, with a bandage this time. I managed to keep my own shirt at least half on, until he brought me a voluminous replacement, under which I could slip the knife-sheaths quite off and bundle them in Nouip’s cloak. With its rounded ends and unshapen stone wall-slabs, the house was eerily like Nouip’s, but its slate roof had a fire-vent, the furniture was all wood, there were rugs and woven cloths. And the ache in my heart was infinitely worse. As Skeag set down the salve I caught his sleeve.
“Who’s Stokka?” I said.
His face changed. He answered flatly, “Master o’ Ve Pool. An’ half the bay lands round.”
“Why would he—my brother—” But I could imagine far too many causes why Therkon, with Hvestang at his side, imperial hauteur in all too close reserve, and in a perfect panic about me, might fall afoul a town lord. Especially one who invoked a look like Skeag’s. “I have to go!”
“Small help,” a new voice snapped, “to run y’rself arse over head into Stokka’s brangles. If ye didna break y’r own neck first.”
Skeag said, “Mam, can ye see to this?” on a note of clear relief. As he scuttled round to Dath by the warming pots, the cracked old voice retorted dourly, “See to it. Aye.”
She was creased and bent and shrunken as a mis-cured lamb hide, but her eye was alert as her speech. “An’ a bonny lass for breakin’ bones over: as ye’d likely guess.” She passed the salve with one hand while the other propped her stick on the settle. “Small wonder that—brither—o’ yours was in a fuss.”
My head ached, my heart ached worse, panic was a fire in my gut. But none of it would help me here.
“Stokka, ma’am.” It was not quite what Skeag had said, but ‘ma’am’ might do. “He, what’s he like?”
She cocked an ear to my voice. Then she took my hand, turning it up and down, running her fingers to the wrist. “Such fine skin, both o’ ye. Smooth as petals. An’ regular blackamoors.” She actually sounded admiring. Her eyes came up, rheumy and sunken and sharp as tacks. “Outsea, would it be?”
“Outsea, yes, ma’am.” Would I have to fence here as we had with Skatir? “Stokka?”
“Stokka’s greedy as a herrin’ gull an’ cold as three-day fish. An’ a fine Outland lad wi’ such a blade droppin’ in Stokka’s back gate’ll not smooth out for a pretty look.” Another piercing glance. “Put the salve on. Then ye’d best have somethin’ to eat.”
They ran sheep, with just a couple of milking cows, their sole cultivation a tiny field of gold and bronze brindleflowers. A precious crop, petals for the Isles’ most exotic perfume, pollen for their own four hives. She directed me to honey and sheep-cheese for the day-old bread, with a herb-tea to follow—“helps the aches”—and chattered throughout: the neighbours who shared the “high vales,” the seven mile cart-track which brought up the community’s flour. “For we work naught but hides and wool.” The virtues of her grand-daughter, who had drawn two fine lads to the farm. “And she’ll have it after me, as she should.”
I fidgeted through it all, maddened alternately by the pang of my ribs and the fire in my brain. At this very moment Therkon could be embroiling himself beyond salvage, captured, imprisoned
. . . would Stokka recognise Hvestang? What would he do if he did? What if Therkon’s imperial dignity ran riot again? If his stomach misbehaved, with neither healer nor healing to hand?
Her own hand caught my shoulder as I tried to scramble up. “Look’ee, lass. Ye’re hirplin’ sidelong an’ breathin’ like a lung-sick ewe. If ye could get down there today, ye’d bring him more trouble than help.”
She was right. Bitterly, cruelly right. But I could not help the stifled protest.
“I let him go. I got myself hurt to start with. It’s my fault.”
“Aye. Times we think so.” The hand tightened. “Veenn’s likely left the willow-bark. Now, ye can help me make a posset—I don’t get about much better than ye are—an’ then, middle-day or no, ye’ll be best tryin’ to sleep.”
* * * *
Veenn came in late afternoon, a brisk, silent, compact woman with an elusive likeness to the men and her grandmother both. Between greetings and starting supper she felt over my side. Nodded to my, “I think I cracked something,” said, “Ribs, aye,” and held up two fingers. “But ye’ve not started the bone-joiners, an’ they’re worse than crackin’ a bone. I’ll strap ye up, for surety. Take more willow tea. Here’s a needle to fix y’r shirt-sleeve. Ye can try to walk, the morn.”
And with the lamb-stew bubbling steadily over the renewed fire, she sat down by me on the hearthside, and speared one steady grey-blue look into my face.
“How came ye,” she said, “to be on t’Fell Cliff?”
I stammered. Her gaze sharpened. “Ye ne’er came up this way.”
“No. No . . .” That look told me I was facing the true House-head. And she would have answers, whether I chose or not.
“We, we’re Outsea.” Whatever the risk, safety might lie in truth. “We lost our folk in a wreck. We came to Jurrick, to see if there was word of them. And, um, we had to come south. Overland.”
Her eyebrows climbed to her short brown hair. “Ye came from Jurrick overland? Right through the Brettabreck?”
“The hills up there? Yes.”
She breathed a while. Then, “An’ where were ye bound?”
This at least was easier. “We hoped to find a port. Take ship. Go on south.”
“South?” This time her grandmother, in the settle behind her, stirred too. “What did ye want down there?”
Desperation winged my wits. “Do you know an island called Carsia?”
“Ye mean, Kaastria?” Her brows went up and stayed. “What d’ ye want with Kaastria? Especially now?”
“Now?”
“Kaastria’s waste. The ports’re gone. Hondeland town’s gone. The folk’re gone. The wave—They’ve talked of it all year. What d’ye want there?”
“What wave?” I could not have stopped Two if I had wanted. The first actual details of a destruction, at last. “Where did it come from? What did it do?”
She stared as if I had run crazed. “What did it do? It o’er-ran Hondeland, that’s what it did. Took half the town folk, and most o’ the farms. An’ foundered the fishin’ boats. They had to turn off, those that lived, an’ take ship for elsewhere.”
“And where did it . . .”
Her face shut. “Where d’ye think it came from? Waves come out o’ the sea.”
The stew bubbled. The fire cracked. Black water rose silently behind my lungs. I tried desperately not to let Two voice the final too betraying word.
“I meant: was there a storm? A—and which direction? North, west, south?”
She made a hand-push. “Storm, not that I hear. Hondeland looked east. Behind Bakki cape, to ward t’ sou’easterlies.” She shrugged. “T’ wave came west, I suppose.” Her brows came down again. “But what did ye want there?”
I scratched frantically for truth, at least as a base. “There was a boat. A wreck, on our shores. Someone gave us a message. We were to find Kaastria . . .”
“Why’d ye not take ship in Jurrick, then?”
“It, ah, I—” The headache had fuddled me, the willowbark had slowed my wits. “We, ah—”
“Had this sword I’m hearin’ of aught to do with it?”
The answer must have been plain enough. She frowned openly.
“What happened in Jurrick?”
I held my temples with both hands. The herb tea had eased some aches, but the urgency was unslaked. And perhaps the only safe way of fencing here was truth. But not all the truth.
“We wrecked near Sickle island. We got the sword there, and it made trouble in Grithsperry—”
“Girl, ye’re worse than a cow for holdin’ up milk. How did ye get the sword?”
I looked in that steely grey-blue eye and knew she would not let be until she knew.
“It was a gift. From a, a Seer. She said, he would have use for it.”
The eyes went suddenly wide. “The Seer of Evvamoor?” She almost drew back. I could only nod. When she spoke, her voice had hushed.
“Aye, that’d put an orca ’mong t’herrin’ for Grithsperry. An’ Jurrick too?”
She knew something of what Hvestang was, if her family had not recognised the blade itself.
“The lords—they called us wolfs-head, yes.”
“So ye took to the hills. An’ carried it right across.” It was something close to accolade. Then her shoulders rose. “An’ now y’r feckless lad runs it right in Stokka’s mouth!”
“He didn’t know, he—! What will Stokka do?”
“Sit, girl. Nothin’ you can do, right now. As for Stokka, no sayin’ what he’ll do. He’s a creature o’ humours. Most of ’em bad.” The frown was back. “Tiran’s luck him seein’ it at all. But if the lad’s not here—”
“The gate guard?”
“Nay, they’d take Stokka aught such that caught their eye.” The frown blackened. “Tiran’s luck indeed!”
Two broke in irresistibly. “Who is Tiran?”
“What, ye’ve never—?” She swung round on the hearth coping and pointed to the coign of the door, central in the long wall, as so often in the Isles. “D’ye see that?”
It was the household shrine: a small wall cupboard held the familiar crowd of candles, the familiar unfamiliar shapes. The Mother, if only by the figurine’s largely symbolic skirts. And the other, the unknown.
“The Mither, you know her? The Lady o’ Summer? Aye? Well, t’other has to have his honor too. That’s the one chases her, and fights her, and beats her and is beaten, year by year. That’s Tiran. The Winter Man.”
The Winter Man. The Winter Man’s cloak, Skatir had called Nouip’s other gift. No doubt my own eyes popped, for she gave me a shrewd stare and I stammered, “We know the Mother, she’s our own Lady, but I never heard of that.”
“Belongs to the Isles, maybe. Of the Isles, surely.” Her lip curled. “Stokka’s own lord, they say down there.” Her eye returned to me, holding a frown. “When the boys come we’ll eat, and then ye’re for bed, girl. Little enough ye’ll likely do with Stokka. But ye’ll have more chance, in a day or so.”
The woman of the house, indeed, I thought. In more than one sense, I found, when they settled me on a pallet and pile of bolsters by the hearthside, the grand-dam creaked off behind the curtain at the room end, and Veenn and Skeag and Dath all climbed into the big main bed across the hearth.
Skeag must have seen my face. He looked surly for the first time, and growled, “Not like the Empire, hey?” And sudden tears stung my eyes.
“Not like the Empire, no. But I live beyond it. And in my place, my own mother—she has two husbands herself.”
Iskarda. It stabbed me harder than the cursed ribs. Snow and mud along the streetline, my own hills rising above. My own folk, my own family, my mother, my fathers, returned safe from their own quest, out to meet me at the gate.
I lay holding tears back in the big bed’s confounded silence, feeli
ng suddenly more at home, and at the same time more
bitterly alien than ever before.
* * * *
Veenn was out with the men before daylight, leaving the matriarch to shepherd me. Yes, there was porridge in the breakfast pot, and no, I could not go out till Veenn saw me again. “Ye’ve eyes on ye like a wood-owl and if ye slept two winks t’wasn’t one by next. If ye’re buzzin’ to do something, wash y’r face in the bucket there.”
And comb my hair. Laborious enough, if with my own new comb. The men had retrieved our packs while I slept. Bolsters and blankets had to be folded, the fire stoked, orphans’ milk pots prepared. Scraps thrown from the door for fowls. Mild exercise, thankful distraction, for perhaps half an hour. From thought of where Therkon might be, and with whom, and what he was doing now.
I looked desperately round me. Then Two’s reflex dovetailed with Azo’s schooling: this time, there were crucial questions to ask.
Like the men, the matriarch had a civilian’s recall. Ve Pool lay at the end of a bay behind a long hilly peninsula, welcome shelter from the southerlies. Of its relative size she had no idea. “Bigger than Jurrick? I’ve ne’er been north.” One land gate opened from the outer wards, beyond the market-space, at the end of the inland road. Guarded, yes. “Stokka’d not leave a mouse-hole without ward.” But his close retainers lived with him, round “t’brech.”
The “brech,” presumably a fort, sat on a hillock, with a prospect over the peninsula’s quarter-mile neck. The healer’s house was on the street to the brech’s single door. She had some idea of the size, but further questions made her stare. “Iron or wood? Bars? Eh, lass, how’d I know? How many paces from the gate to the healer’s house? To the brech door? How many guards at the gate? With what gear? When do the watches change? Lass, why d’ye ask? How d’ye know to ask all this?”
I tried not to grind my teeth. The cheek would hurt. And then the anxiety became too much to contain.
“Ma’am, my brother. He’s not my brother. He’s . . . an ally. A great ally. Of my folk. He’s, highborn. He’s never been alone without, uh, watchers. Troublecrew. My folk at least trained me. I’m the only ward he has left!”