The Winter Road

by Adrian Selby

  Amondell itself was a fort with heavy stone walls, though most of the huts and a few longhouses was out around the slopes, for there was quarries near though most were abandoned, littered with theits and smaller, exiles finding a living in the secluded vales among the hills around our bloodlands. The Amondsen Longhouse, the fort, was built in more prosperous times, when north and south of the Circle would meet, when the trade I now sought was strong, and Amondsen stone carvers was sought all over the Circle.

  As a girl I could walk the length of our fort’s walls and see in the blocks of stone the story of our rope, ancestors leading buffalo in a dance, the songs that tamed them long lost, the carving of Grishtid the Tree drawing the Amondsen recipe for a poison strong enough to drop a wolf in the Frenzy, so saving many of her sons. Like the other children I loved her other carving more, celebrating her sniffing mix, the envy of all the Auksen clans. Her giant nose was shaped as though sticking out of the stone itself, and I would put flowers in the nostrils whenever I could.

  All of this I hoped to show Mosa and Aude, but my heart broke as we passed Cronnel’s Hill and I saw Khiese’s banner over the longhouse in the distance. I felt Aude’s hand on my shoulder, for he led his horse just behind mine. “I’m sorry, Teyr.”

  I had no way of hiding my tears, for I was not prepared for how it hurt, how peaceful everything looked, no stain of war or battle, just as though Amondell had shrugged off all our pasts like a wet cloak, same as Crimore.

  The mist was thickening as we drove the wagons through the surrounding trees and crops up the main trail to the gates of the fort, attracting out of their huts and houses my family.

  I took the scrollcases from Othbutter out of their sack that was now mine with Crogan gone, and I waited for Eirin and Chalky to join me in riding up to the gate.

  “They all look like you, Master, well, the men do,” said Chalky, for the men razored their heads, leaving only their beards, while the women kept long hair at the back of the head, and this would be twisted and tied all ways as they fancied.

  I smiled at him; he tried to lighten the mood for they all knew I was upset and still reckoning with the sight of those banners, my last and stupid and prideful hope gone before I even got to see my brother.

  I looked over the stones of the walls as we approached. They was green with moss and dirt, grasses growing tall in front of them. There was carvings that had spikes driven through them so they could support lean-ups and small sheds for goats, hens and the like.

  The two gate guards, seeing us, got themselves puffed up a bit and come out to meet us.

  “What’s your business?” said one.

  “Don’t you recognise her, yer cock, that’s Teyr, chief’s sister. Moving home, are you?”

  “What do you think, Pavul?” I said, the man’s name coming to me just then. “Dear Halfussen, look at you, you’ve somehow managed to grow up a bit.”

  I opened my arms for an embrace. It took him a moment, which was instructive, though he give me a good hug all the same.

  “How’s my brother?”

  “Has a keep now, Lithessen woman, older than you, Skershe she’s called. Seems quiet and all, but I reckon she does a lot of talking behind her teeth.”

  Then I heard movement from behind the walls, the deep clack of the bolts to Amondell House’s door being pulled and the gate we was stood outside then also being opened. I never knew them to be shut before, not before nightfall anyway.

  I was keen to see if he had children. Didn’t think much of a Lithessen match though. I walked past Pavul and into the grand courtyard, cobbled, big and grand enough for many more wagons than we had. A lot of justice was done here way back up the rope, and hundreds would have been hanged here as well. The Auksens wasn’t always chief clan in these lands.

  Chalky and Eirin followed me in. Thruun was stood with Skershe and their boy, must have been four years or so. I saw she’d taken the razor, for the Lithessens did not shave their heads, and she was in weathered woollens and tunic, hands earthy from keeping their runs, I expect. He always did need looking after. The big steel chief’s chain looked heavy on him, being small in his shoulders and arms, though his tunic filled out well enough at the front. Don’t know whether it was because he’d always seem a boy to me, but he looked still no more than twenty, smooth round face, a feeble-looking beard dribbling from his chin.

  “Sillindar watch you, Thruun.”

  “My sister, the second lady of Khasgal. You still call yourself Teyr Amondsen?”

  I had taken a half a step towards him, but he stood still, and I felt foolish as he spat out his bitterness.

  “Yes, brother. I do.”

  “You visit us with plenty of steel.”

  “We—I—have come to the Circle with a bold proposal, but I see one bolder still flies over our house.”

  “Our house?” He sniffed. He held a hand out behind him in a gesture. “This is my keep, Skershe.”

  She did step forward for an embrace and I was grateful.

  “Welcome home, Teyr.” She leaned back but kept her hands on my arms to have a good look at me. I knew she found me wanting, or interesting at least for I was strong in the arms and shoulders, while my head and my face must have looked to her as it did to me, like it had been dragged through scree.

  “And this is our boy, Drun.” He kept looking at me, then his da, maybe fearing he might be told to kiss me. He didn’t look more than a few white twigs in a bag of wool, beech-blond curls, and over his tunic he wore a belt and scabbard obviously made for him to pretend he was a soldier. He sucked his thumb and stared at us without moving, but I felt myself wanting to kneel and talk to him.

  “He’s a fine-looking boy.”

  “He’s such trouble, knocking his head and scratching his arms and rips in his clothes,” said Skershe.

  Hers was problems I loved to have.

  “You been busy on the runs,” I said to Skershe, for nobody said a thing for a moment. The banner flying over us all put a silence on us hard to shift.

  “Can never have enough guira, or carrots for this one.”

  “Our boy Mosa would love to help, can’t get him out of our runs.”

  I realised at that moment I hadn’t told Thruun about him.

  “I’m pleased for you, Teyr,” he said. “Children change everything, don’t they? But your friends you need to introduce, and you should all come in so we can talk more about it all.” Skershe was about to speak when a voice from behind me put a big smile on my face.

  “Teyr, my girl, let me look at you.”

  We all turned to see Kerrig, my uncle, Ma’s brother. He walked with a stick now, his bandy legs more bowed than ever, and the years had sucked a good bit of fat away. There was some wisps of white hair left that he no longer razored and a beard white as long as I’d been alive, one my ma said I’d try and pull off altogether when I was a dut on his knee.

  He stood before me, looking down his bruised potato of a nose, then turned to Eirin and the others.

  “She gets more beautiful each time I see her.” His eyes was full up and he set me off crying, the old bastard. He pulled me to him, smelled still of the seashore, the whale oil he’d make candles from, a smell I loved all my life because of him. “I missed you, Teyr,” he said, muffled by my cloak. “I spoke to old Sillindar a few times asking if he’d let you know to come home, see your ma when she was ill.”

  “Come on now, Uncle,” said Thruun. “She wasn’t here when ma died, and you’ve seen her since then.”

  He held me a bit longer, then stepped back, wiped his eyes and looked us over. “Well, you bring a van and it’s led by this fierce young beauty, is it?”

  “That’s Eirin, Unc, Othbutter’s captain. This is Chalky Knossen, a merchant who’s sharing in this expedition.”

  “Uncle, please, let’s get them inside, they’ve been on the trail.”

  “Excuse me, Chief Amondsen,” said Eirin, “could we bring the wagons into the yard here for the night?”
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  “You’re under our watch,” said Kerrig, which he had no right to say as it was Thruun’s place to say that we was under their shelter. He give Thruun a look then, and it seemed like he offered the watch because Thruun might not.

  “Will it put you in any difficulty with Khiese?” I said, saving a bit of face for him though fuck knows why.

  “We’ve had word from Gruma’s crew, saw you up at the Almet. We have to refuse you shelter. Might be I’ll be flogged or worse for Kerrig’s oath. Pavul, fetch wood and coal. Captain, take Moirs there and he’ll find somewhere for your horses.”

  Thruun turned and went inside the longhouse without another word. Skershe picked up Drun and followed him in.

  Chalky put a hand on my shoulder as he walked past me.

  “Don’t beat yourself up, Master,” he said. “We take what we’re given and leave when we can.”

  “He won’t be flogged for it though; my uncle will.”

  Night settled in and rain was coming down good across Amonvale. In the longhouse there was a sweaty fog of smoke, fat and kannab that we’d shredded a block of by way of a gift to my family. There was no tower in our longhouse like there was the Seikkersons. The chief has his own firepit up some steps from the communal pit, and there was only two other rooms, one for his living and one a jail. We was more cautious now, Yalle and Bela outside with the wagons and a couple of Skallern’s men, while Sanger said he’d hide out in the Amondell vale with a few of Jinsy’s bowmen.

  Thruun had put out mutton, eggs and cheese, with a good oily soup made with duck.

  I sat at his pit with Aude, Thad, Kerrig and Eirin. We spoke haltingly of weather, harvest. Kerrig did his best.

  “Had a chat with your keep, Teyr, while we brushed down the horses. Told him all about you growing up. Always getting your brother in trouble.”

  “True enough,” said Thruun. “Ma was always running after her because she’d be out the gate and in the fields or over the pass.”

  “I was never one for the pots, pans and scrubbing.”

  “You’re right there,” said Aude. “I never realised just how much mischief you were when I met you.”

  I elbowed Kerrig and held his hand while he dipped bread in his soup before him. It was quiet then about our pit, strained. I had little of the small conversation in me that night and all day we had danced around what was the real bother while I helped Skershe and the other women with the veg and the baking. Thruun made that he was busy and could not see me. I was upset, and it built up with each mouthful of food until it boiled over.

  “What happened, Brother,” I said. “Why is that fucking banner over our home?”

  “Our home? Saying it’s ours don’t make it true.”

  “I know, I left. There’s men that’s left and come back after years and still called it such. The Seikkersons give their banners up too, Khiese took Crimore by showing a line of their tribute clans’ boys, threatened to cut all their throats. What did he threaten you with?”

  “My own boy and all our boys. They went into our theits after dark, put the dogs and the few guards out with powders, probably landed them with slings, then they’re helpless, it’s burn and kill everyone if they don’t give up our rope. Those that give them up without a fuss, he spared, those that tried to fight him suffered. He’d finish the Amondsen rope, he said, had finished twenty such ropes since he found his crew. He had a hundred or so with him, more than we could defend against.”

  “Was it?” said Kerrig.

  A look passed between them, and Unc’s hand, which I held, tensed.

  “We got fifty if we’re lucky, Uncle Terrig. And he caught us quiet, had our folk out of the houses past the bailey. I couldn’t see them killed.”

  “Neither could Thende. He’s dead now,” I said.

  “And his people live?”

  “They do, as Khieses.”

  “Then they live, and he died well, for their rope is not cut.”

  “It is fucking cut, because Jeife has no heir and Khiese will put the chief’s hoop on the beard of one of his own the moment Jeife steps out of line. He has captains he will have promised spoils to.”

  I looked over at Aude and Thad. They could say nothing. Thruun put down his bowl slowly.

  “What are you here for, Teyr? I heard Crogan himself got killed at Crimore, and you’ve got a crew of his best soldiers following you about the Circle along with sacks of plant and salt and weapons, the last of which we sorely need and the want of which might have helped us when Khiese came. You could’ve brought all this years ago and made a peace.”

  “I’m building a road. I was going to build a road. From Hillfast to Stockson at least, bring trade to the Circle, twenty leagues a day not five or six. Such trade, the levies, these things could enrich everyone and the Amondsen clan well placed on the edge of the plains.”

  A smirk come over his face then.

  “Hillfast to Stockson!” He said it loud, and it silenced the house, cutting over the laughter and talk at all the tables. “You should all know that our sister, Teyr, thinks to build a road, a proper road, from Hillfast to Stockson. Five hundred leagues of road by a rider’s reckoning. Over hills, plains, bogs, mountains.” One or two cheered then, misreading the moment. Mosa joined them but was shushed by Edma, Chalky’s keep.

  “You must be a very rich woman, Teyr. Is she, Aude? Is she rich enough?”

  “No, Chief, she brings Chalky to share that burden, and others the cost of the bridges and the outposts she’s built near Elder Hill—”

  “She builds outposts, my sister, outposts in the west, while winters take our young for want of plant and stores. Bethut, sat there, a hard-working jacker these last fifteen years, you remember Bethut, Sister? You used to help his na sniff for flag root across Cratt’s Bluff and you helped him with his letters so his old da wouldn’t cuff him about so much. They lost their second this last winter, a boy of three. What might a few silvers worth of your coin have bought us, I wonder.”

  “Thruun, please, don’t.”

  “No, Teyr, I was mad enough you come back eight years ago and took so little interest in Amondell without our ma, and badmouthing our da while about it, but I did not speak out because he would not raise a word to you for Ma’s sake. Well I’m saying it now, now you’re here to bring us a road, a fucking road! A road full of beggars and disease, thieves and foreigners stealing an acre of common here and there, killing some boar or sniffing and taking from us what’s ours, despoiling the bloodlands our fathers died for. It’ll be of more use to bandits than our trails that have done us since before even our greddas and gretnas were babes. I expect Crimore told you the same. They saw you and Othbutter, that clan bleeding us for their silks, and rightly doubted you.”

  “Khiese is bleeding you out, you have to see that, Thruun, painting your boys white and sending them off to die. His tithes are harsh, his laws worse. He’s a savage, a warlord,” I said.

  “He’s Circle born and Circle bred. He asks, he does not take. For the matter of his banner we have peace here, we eat, and you share it, Sister, you and your Hillfast worthies. If you’re here to ask permission to build a road, you do not have it. You are not one of this clan, you don’t raise its sons or work its land, you’ve not healed us or fought with us.”

  Aude was looking into his mug, but he was shaking his head. He stood then, glared at my brother.

  “I would be proud of a sister such as Teyr, were I you. You mock this ambition yet many leagues have been covered with cords and bridges, outposts that give shelter to all. From her hard-earned wealth and wisdom she builds what only great kings dare to do, more than Othbutter has ever done. This plant, these weapons you sorely need, they might arrive with you the year round if the wagons of merchants were not so likely to break or be robbed by clans who have forgotten to reckon in their common interest.”

  He unclenched his fists, looked at me before looking down, concerned he’d spoken out of turn. A few of my van banged their cups and I shivered
with love for him. My brother was at a loss then, aware that he would be speaking ill of guests.

  “We’ll leave tomorrow, Chief,” I said. “We have abused your watch, I have abused your watch, and I’m sorry, sorry to all of you.” I stood and Aude took his cue and joined me. Kerrig give me a wink, I think to tell me that I’d done the right thing in saying I was sorry. We took Mosa out with us and went to the hay barn, where we was put up with most of Eirin’s men. Mosa was sleepy and we soon got him off, the hushed voices of the soldiers below our loft in their cups and pipes helping him settle under the furs.

  “I’m sorry I spoke out, love,” said Aude.

  “Don’t be. You don’t know what it means to me, the way you’ve stood with me and how you stood up for me in there. I’m just sorry it’s all fucked. My road won’t get past Elder Hill, will it, not while Khiese lives.”

  “They won’t be helped, bluebell. And you’ve kept your promise to the Oskoro, all these years later. You did your best.”

  And there it was, a dark flash in my mind, a thought, its lingering trail mocking my words. Had I yet done enough? It fed on itself in the blink of an eye. Kill Khiese. Kill him for everyone’s sake.

  “Teyr?”

  “What.”

  “You did your best.”

  “I did.”

  He pushed a sigh through his nose before putting his hand on my shoulder, his fingers squeezing the muscle there. It both softened and saddened me, for how he coped with his own sadness sometimes was to kiss or hold me, to make something loving of it, to defy it and shed his hurt or anger with me. I put my hand on his shoulder as we lay there, and he was crying silently, his body twitching while he held his breath against it.

  “Aude, my keep, what is it?”