Wide-cut sleeves. A woman.
She vanished over the rim.
A blow caught him in the ribs, a rock fell and bounced. He dodged the second. It came from the guard who had desisted from striking him and his father before. But he had to move and turn his back and yet balance the yoke and the buckets, so he could not run. The third stone caught him. And so did the fourth.
• • •
When the thralls lay down their mattocks and began to load the broken ore into the barrows the first captain looked, saying nothing. Afterward he gestured to Arnten and Arntat. “You two — or you one and half” — the guards guffawed — “take the tools to the tunnel. The rest of you to the forge.” Two by two, the nains stooped and took up the barrow poles. Low at first like a mutter, then a rumble, as though the voices had descended from mouth to throat and chest; then so very high it seemed almost that they sang not at all as they padded along the curving path; and then cry after cry, as great wave after great wave breaking upon the rocks —
The swans fly overhead
And the nains see them.
The moles tunnel through the earth
And the nains see them.
The guards could not ken the words, but the sound of the chant made them uneasy. They howled and mocked, they threw stones, small ones but vicious and thrown hard.
The king’s fire gives no light,
The queen’s light gives no fire,
Evil, evil, are these times,
These carrion times, consumed by crows.
When will the wizards’ mouths be fed.
And the nains see it?
The tools were gathered and bundled together like great faggots of firewood. Father and son bowed their backs beneath their loads and turned their faces toward the tunnel. It was not the load that made Arntat tremble now, nor was it his last labor of the day that made him sweat and gasp. Unwilling, unwilling, slow, were his steps and he craned his neck at the darkening sky as though he would never see it again.
Beyond them the guards seemed to have been taken by a frenzy, stoning the nains and shouting and feinting at them with clubs and spears. But above all such noise the wild chant continued to be heard.
The king’s evil rots like rust,
And the nains see it.
When will the stars throw down their spears,
And the nains see it.
Then may this kingdom turn to dust,
And the nains see it.
Sometimes the bigger Arn trudged back and forth in the tunnel, head stooped low — perhaps for safety, perhaps from apathy — hands against the sides as though at any moment he might push one or another of them aside. Sometimes he shambled on all his limbs, head weaving from side to side. But he was sitting motionless when the dry bracken rustled as it sometimes did, as though remembering when it was alive and yielding to each slight breeze. And a woman came in. She first saw the smaller Arn, and for just a moment the smooth composure of her face was disturbed — how curious, then, her expression! He moved at once to his father’s side and her face was as before. In a single motion, effortless, graceful, she seated herself, her legs tucked under, her hands resting in her lap. Son looked at father and he thought his father looked as though he had always been looking at her.
“Yet another son gotten, Ahaz-mazra,” she said. “And so much younger than the others.” She made a slight sound as if pleasantly relaxing from some not too onerous task and she said, “You will want to know about your other sons.”
Lips barely moving, he said, “Either they died or they made their peace. I can do them no good. Nor they me.”
Calmly: “You may do good for this one then,” she said.
This one, crouching next to his father, was not much thinking how good could be done for him. Part of his mind was entranced by the appearance of her. Part of his mind scurried and searched, as a squirrel rousting nuts, for certain words his father had said — when? Long, long ago. When they were free.
‘Tis nought to you what’s my-name-then. But now he knew, his fullfather’s name then was Ahaz-mazra and if this woman knew it she had known him then. Her underdress, beneath which her feet were tucked, was all of blue. He had never seen so much cloth of blue before, blue was a precious color, a sky color, and he had heard more than one say that far-far-away at the farthermost edge of the world dwelt the Sky Gatherers and that all the blue in the world came from them, scarce, scarce, precious and beautiful blue: but his old uncle had said this was in no way true and that blue was made from an herb called woad; it did not flourish in Thule, was brought from the barbar-lands and traded for amber, weight for weight.
Ahaz-mazra. And not Arn.
My other begotten sons … made upon empty bearhide in lawful bedchamber. Her sleeveless overdress was the whitest white he had ever seen, paler than the common pallor of barkcloth, and came to her knees. Round yoke and hem were broad and complex broider-work in several colors, flowers and leaves and thicket — something else which he could not quite determine and which peered out of the thicket. Around her neck was a rope of pieces of amber wrapped in golden wire. Her face was strong, serious, totally self-assured. Although she had come from the free, the outside world, she had come neither to triumph nor to condescend. I have dabbled. Why was that word in his mind? … have dabbled … Or should it be dappled? That made no sense. Yet the memory that went with the words was of his father’s face dappled by leaf shadows as he held for a passing moment a branch he presently threw upon the fire. I have —
“I have done ill enough for him by getting him,” said his father now to the strange woman. Who said a strange, strange thing indeed.
“You may get him back with you whither you both came — on a ship already prepared in all things — at dawn tide three days hence,” she said. “You have only to renounce the curse on iron and to swear by your shadow and by his that it shall stay renounced. And you may even delay compliance to the last — when the third day’s sun comes up and shadows first appear — upon the very shore beside the ship.”
The sick, confused look, which had been absent since her entrance, now returned to the man’s face. He muttered, uncertainly, “The third day’s sun?”
“It is three days’ journey to where the boats are.”
He squinted, trying to resolve all into sense. Then he in one swift rush was on his feet and Arnten cried out and put his hands on his own head as though feeling the pain of his father’s crash into the tunnel top. But one or two fingers’ breadth away, the man’s head stayed, stooped. The woman had not moved. She did not even raise her eyes. And the man fell to a charging position, his eyes level with hers, his face very close to hers, his eyes now suffused with blood.
“Innahat — erex,” he cried, “ah, eh! Does that crow still live, that he has stolen all the wits of thee? ‘Wither we both came?’ ‘By ship?’ ‘Renounce the curse on iron?’ What babblement is this? From nowhere did we come by ship! No word of any curse on iron heard I ever till my cub here did mention it, before we fell into the nets of your long-tongued lord! ‘Swear by my shadow and by his?’ Eh, ah! By my shadow and by his, then — ”
• • •
More than once, after having returned in from out, Arnten had felt sickened and dizzied. The sun might have been the cause, beating as it did on him all day. Such a moment came upon him suddenly as he wondered what great oath his father was about to swear upon their twain shadows. He closed his eyes. He did not hear if the oath were sworn. He did hear the distant droning of the nains as they returned, as their voices rose suddenly and dropped again. The strange woman was now gone, he saw. He saw his father’s eyes were fixed on his and all manner of strange things he saw in them.
“Eh, ah, Bear! What odd thing we seed by yonder tunnel-mouth but two, or three! Howt did leap! A hare! Was’t an omen, eh?”
“I ken’t not, if omen ‘tiz,” another nain said. “But ‘twas as thee say, senior Aar-heved-heved-aar, a great puss-longears indeed, and would I’d a snare to catch sh
e doe-hare, do she return — eh? — cub?”
For this other nain looked now at Arnten, who had stood up, although still dizzied, waving his hand, trying frantically to put a thought into words before the thought fled. “The hare came in!” he said, almost stammering. “The hare came in! What way she came in, would she not go out?”
The man put an arm around his son. The comforting nain-drone and nain musk surrounded them. The boy’s head drooped upon his father’s side. He felt weak and sore and hungry. Food would come. Words sang in his head and faint fires danced there. Bee and salmon, wolf and bear. A rough hand rested gently on him. Tiger, lion, mole and hare.
Fetters do not bind the moles.
And the nains see them.
Chapter VIII
Aar-heved-heved-aar that night sent a youngster nain to search out the passage where the hare had run. Guards did not trust the lower levels at night, would not even if the nains were gone. Posts and watch fires were at pit mouth only. Even wind and rain could not drive the guards more than a few feet inside after full dark. The nain-senior knew this, but did not trust the slickskins as cowards any more than he trusted them as braves; he chose to lessen all risks. It was not true that nains had full vision in the dark, but in this wise their eyes were in between those of men and those of beasts. The younger nain reported that although the tunnel appeared to be a blind gut, yet it did not end clean. A huge pile of debris at one end seemed to show that it might not always have been a blind gut — that perhaps the roof had fallen in at one time. And, more than this, the younger nain had sought and found the scent of the hare and it had seemed to go on up the pile of detritus to its peak.
“But I clambered not after it,” he concluded.
“Wisely,” said the senior. “For though I be as much a-zeal as any to be gone from here, needless risks we must not take. It is man who is impetuous, but we nains do be deliberate, so — ”
“Feed the wizards.”
Aar-heved-heved-aar, true to his penultimate word, reflected. Then, “Eh, ah, Bear. Say thee well.”
“Feed the wizards!”
The nain-senior looked up at the man — for all his breadth, the nain was no taller than Arnten — and nodded his massive head. “That must be our aim, hard task though it be. It is the coming death of iron which has turned this king’s head mad and turned his hands against us all. His need be great. But is our need not greater? If he do die tonight and tomorrow we be told that we be free, what then? Iron be our life, without iron we be dead nains. ‘Tiz but the first step, getting gone from here. He will pursue we, but if he should not, what, eh? We do make the hoe, but we hoe not; we have traded iron and iron’s work for most our food. We make the spearhead, but we cast no spear. And if we will to eat in the woods, as the wild brawnes do — say, ah! — be not the wild brawnes a fitter match for us, be we not armed with iron?”
He uttered a long, shuddering cry and his head shook so from side to side that his thick hair rustled upon his broad and shaggy shoulders. “Men gender much,” he said, “and the men-wives bear often. Nains gender seldom for our passion be for the forge and few are the nain-brains our shes do get. Before the Great Bear took starfire and gave it we and beteached we how to delve and deliver metal from the earth’s belly and to mold and shape it as the bears do mold and shape their cubs — before even the yore-tide — men were few and nains were few and lived they twain folk far apart, for broad and long be Thule.
“But since then men have swarmed — yet the nain’s numbers do stay the same. Still be Nainland far from menland, eh but ah, it be not so far as once ‘twas! Men can hunt without iron, men can farm without iron, men can still beget them many mennikins without iron; men can do without iron and I betell thee this: If men may live without iron, men may live without nains.”
The echo of his voice was long in his listeners’ minds.
He divided them into nine watches and to each watch he assigned a third part of one night. And the first watch for the first third of the first night began at once to clear away with slow care the rubble at the end of what they had begun to call the Doe-Hare’s Den. The nains stripped off their leather kilts and piled loose stone therein, then gathered up the corners four and slung the juried bags over their shoulders and trudged away on noiseless feet to empty their loads well out of sight in yet another disused corridor. And then to return. Thus, while the work went on, none lost more rest than one-third of every third night; and, after many nights, the toilers in the Doe-Hare’s Den, pausing a moment for rest, recognized in their nostrils the bitter, faint, familiar smell of woodsmoke — and recognized that an aperture, of whatsoever a nature, existed between them in their captivity and the unfettered outside world.
• • •
And thus the elusive memory returned to the boy. Remembering woodsmoke and firelight and father’s words, he said, “The strange woman who was here. Was she the queen of love with whom you dabbled and dallied?”
A silence. “Eh, she was.”
“Be that why the king do hate thee?”
A growl. “She said he never knew.”
“Then why do he hate thee?”
A grunt. “Has thee forgot my tale of how he and me vowed a compact and at the end stood face to face to fight for treasure and for life, winner take all?”
“No, I remember that.”
A cough. A second, longer, deeper cough. A gasp. “I won. He lay at my feet. He groveled and gibbered. I raised him up, gave him half the plunder and I spared his life. That is why. For this he cannot forgive me.”
• • •
In the darkness he heard droning of dry and dusty voices and he knew it was the wizards that he heard. He heard them droning as though ineffably bored and weary, as though repeating over and over to themselves, lest they forget, forcing their dust-choked voices and thinking with dust-choked minds, at a great distance away, repeating something of great importance which must not be forgotten — The Bear dies, iron dies. The Bear dies, iron dies. As the Bear comes to life, so must iron come to life. As the Bear comes to life, so must iron come to life. A pause, a faint gasp, the click of voices in dry, dusty throats. And again and again the droning recommenced. The Bear sleeps in the ground, so must iron sleep in the ground. As the Bear sleeps its death-sleep-life, so must iron …
The Bear dies, iron dies …
Endlessly he heard this. The sound ebbed and faded away as he felt himself gently rocked.
“What?”
“Bear’s boy, it be time.”
Time for iron, time for … But the droning voices were away and gone. Had he heard them echoing thinly in a cavern somewhere? Or was it only the familiar echo of the nain voices in the mine? Confused, already forgetting, he got up.
Still half-asleep he followed, sometimes stumbling, as the men filed from their sleeping-cell into unguarded tunnels. In the Doe-Hare’s Den he saw the now familiar sight of and heard the now familiar sounds of debris and detritus being shoveled and scraped into the carrying-skins. But while this still went on he heard those who watched and who waited discussing whither they should go when they had made their escape from the mines: and should they go in one body for defense, or should they split up and make their several — or it might be their many — ways, in order to divide and so to weaken their pursuers.
He did not hear if an answer had been concluded, let alone what it was, for Aar-heved-heved-aar took hold of him and said, “Bear’s boy, ‘tis thought they have broken through up ahead. Get thee up then, for thee be but small as compare to us and maybe can find out — ”
The senior nain did not finish his phrase, but propelled Arnten forward, saying, “Up, then, and up and up.”
Though so much diminished, still the pile was high and required climbing. He half scuttled and he half slid as he set to climbing. And he had somehow a fear that, though he went on his way slow enough, still, he might strike his head there in the darkness; and from this fear he went slower. And every few paces he paused and thrust his ha
nds forward.
And by and by he felt his hand as it scraped the face of the cavern suddenly fall through into nothingness, and he fell forward a bit and he grunted rather than cried out. And ahead of him, where yet he could not see, ahead of him in the black, black, blackness, something moved which was even blacker (though how he knew this he did not know). Something made a sudden movement and a sudden noise and he had the impression that something had been waiting and hearkening, listening very closely, he had an impression of a head cocked to one side —
And before he himself could do more, the sound from the other side of the hole ceased to be startled, flurried, resolved itself into the flap of wings in the darkness.
And he and all of them heard the sudden sharp cry of a crow. And again, farther away. And once more, faint.
• • •
Now the work quickened, concentrated and focused on enlarging the opening. An opening onto the world at large? Or into another cave? If the latter, still, this next cave must itself open onto the world at large, else how came any bird to be there? But the stone or bone blades of their picks no longer sank into rubble. Either they sprang back as they were swung against the lips of the scrape-hole or they shattered. The nains began to mutter. Then Arn came forward on all fours, reached out his long, shaggy arms, felt and pawed and groped in the darkness.
“It seems that two slabs of rock all but meet face to face here,” he said. “Some bit of softer stone did rest between them, as might a piece of stale bread between a dead man’s teeth —
“Now, part of that had weathered away, else that hare had neither entered nor left — and we have battered away the rest — but the teeth be fixed firm. Somehow we must crack the jawbones, then. So — ”
His voice fell into a muttering growl. “We must break the jaws of the rock,” he said once more. “How?” he muttered. “How? How?”
• • •
A dull glow from a brazier of coals made shadows as the king moved slowly and painfully upon his bed. Something scuttled outside the chamber. Someone entered on hands and knees. The king lifted his head, stopped, groaned, rubbed his face, moaned.
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