He had the stocky build of his family and, like them, was no doubt inclined to put on fat, but his face was surprisingly comely, or would have been if not for the wide grin that split it.
“Hello, hello!” he said again, rubbing his hands together as if in anticipation of a particularly sumptuous feast. “How is it that we have never met before? I see that I have denied myself a treat.”
Jame blinked. What big, white teeth. What cold eyes.
“I won’t say ‘welcome,’” she said, “since you’ve already made yourself at home. To what do we owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit?”
“Oh, I was hunting in the area and thought I would drop in. You have some of our runaway yondri whom I would like to reclaim. Also, I understand that my sister Mustard is here. After we finish our business, I will be happy to escort her home.”
“And what exactly is our business?”
“Surely you’ve guessed that, a clever girl like you. I’m here to reclaim this keep for the Caineron, of course. It is ours, after all. Who else’s, given the work my great-grand-uncle put into it and its proximity to Restormir? Oh, no doubt you’ve had fun here, but the time for summer forts and playing randon is over. These two”—he indicated Brier and Corvine—“have probably egged you on. They made a poor deal when they left our house for yours so, of course, they would like to give us a black eye. It’s high time, though, that you outgrew their petty games and returned to your true role.”
“Which is?”
His grin widened. “It needn’t be unpleasant, being a woman.”
“Shall I ask Mustard about that?”
His grin remained but it showed, if anything, more teeth, bared in a sudden, ferocious rictus.
“My sister is mine. She always has been. She always will be. She knows that.”
Jame nearly went back a step.
“Even when we were little,” Must had said, “he tried to play his games with me.”
“You will understand,” she said carefully, “why I don’t invite you in.”
“What, not even for breakfast?”
“You ate one of our cows last night. Are you hungry again so soon?”
Tiggeri made a face. “We expected the game to be more plentiful, this far north. You must be short on rations too, with no one in a position to resupply you and so much of the winter left to go. Wouldn’t your people be more comfortable back at Gothregor?”
“No,” said Jame, and left.
“Now what?” Brier asked as they walked back to the keep.
“He doesn’t know that, thanks to the gates, we’re well supplied. A siege isn’t going to work. And, even at three to one, Tagmeth isn’t readily open to assault. I wonder if he came on his own, as he seemed to suggest or if his father sent him.”
“Huh. A bit of both, perhaps. My sense is that Lord Caineron isn’t ready to move against us himself, openly. On the other hand, Tiggeri couldn’t take so large a force, surely every Kendar sworn to him personally, out of Restormir without being noticed.”
“Not a hunt, then?”
“It’s possible, but unlikely. From the sound of it, Tiggeri—somehow—got word that Mustard was here and came on an excuse. At the least, his father didn’t stop him. Trying to seize Tagmeth could be both revenge and a sop to daddy.”
“Which suggests that Caldane won’t back him up if he fails. That’s something. Are the rest of the cattle safely back inside?”
“Yes. He found one of the cows that we missed, perhaps already dead. There wasn’t time to send the dogs out to search for more. So, we wait him out?”
“No one has to leave Tagmeth at all except, eventually, me, and that won’t be until the High Council meeting toward the end of winter.”
Brier frowned. “You mean to attend?”
“I’m my brother’s lordan, aren’t I? Besides, I want to see what Tori has been up to all of this time.”
II
THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS PASSED quietly enough.
Every morning Tiggeri cheerfully hailed the keep.
Every afternoon his randon officers conducted maneuvers outside the camp while he and his young kinsmen went hunting. His idea seemed to be that the Tagmeth garrison would take the hint from these martial exercises, come to their senses, and give up. Or perhaps he was only putting on a show as a joke. With Tiggeri, it was hard to tell.
Meanwhile, the keep continued to guard the bridge and road, but otherwise went on about its business, if with many a wary glance across the river.
For herself, Jame tried to ignore her unwelcome neighbor. That was hard, however, with so insouciant a foe camped on her doorstep, making so much noise. Although she told herself that this was a waiting game, daily she fought the urge to bring it to an end. But how?
In the evenings, Lyra haunted her quarters.
When they had returned to the keep so precipitously, in such a confusion of agitated cattle, the Caineron girl had jumped off her pony and scuttled through the open gate into the oasis. Jame didn’t think that anyone had noticed her arrival or abrupt departure. Since then she had stayed out of sight, but crept back into the keep at night for food and company.
On the sixth evening, Jame watched as the girl wolfed down a cold dinner of chicken and pea-pasty. With no one to help her dress, she had become quite disheveled, her hair a tangled mess and the charcoal mask sketched on her unwashed face nearly smudged away. She was also still unusually quiet.
“I used to admire brother Tiggeri,” she said suddenly. “He’s always so funny.”
“Is that admirable?”
“I thought so. You see, he never lets anything hurt him.”
“Is that what you fear, being hurt?”
Lyra regarded her half-eaten pasty, not meeting Jame’s eyes. “Of course. Doesn’t everyone? Well, maybe not you. You don’t seem to care.”
“I care. I just don’t let it stop me.”
“But you’re strong. I’m not. All of my life, I’ve been at other people’s mercy, or lack of it. It’s helped that they don’t take me seriously. ‘Lyra Lack-wit.’ Even you call me that. And it’s true—isn’t it?”
Jame considered. “I don’t think that you’re stupid, just immature.”
Lyra flushed. “I’m only a child. No one seems to remember that.”
It said something about Lyra’s state of mind that she would make such an admission, but it was true. Jame didn’t know exactly how old Lyra was. Among the long-lived Highborn, however, she wouldn’t come of age until she turned twenty-seven, many years from now.
“Sorry,” she said. “Technically, I’m still a child too, but I’ve had a lot more experience than you. Then, too, I keep running into you in difficult situations.”—Which Lyra usually mishandled. Small surprise there, considering. “But you’ve started asking yourself questions. You want to understand.”
“Do I? What’s so wonderful about growing up? Grown-ups get hurt all of the time.”
“True. Even Tiggeri.”
Lyra shot her a sidelong look. “D’you think so?”
“I think that right now Tiggeri is in considerable pain, for all of his jaunty air. He’s lost perhaps the only person he’s ever loved, and he doesn’t even know yet that that loss is forever. When he finds out . . . well, let’s just hope that he doesn’t. But you said that you used to admire him. Don’t you anymore?”
“I—I don’t think so. He’s caused a lot of trouble, hasn’t he? I was beginning to think, even before this, that people around him suffered more than they should, for all that he made his friends laugh. Then I—I played that joke in the Merikit village. It wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone, but Prid was so angry and Gran Cyd made me feel so—so small. I still don’t entirely understand why everyone was so upset, but they were. Being funny isn’t enough, is it?”
“No. You have to consider the effect on others. Not that humor is always bad, or the only way to cause pain. Trinity knows, I’m not very funny myself, more like absurd, and I’ve hurt a lot of people. W
ell, yes, sometimes on purpose, but not always. It just happens. The best I can do is to try to be responsible.”
Soon after, looking thoughtful, Lyra slipped away again to take shelter in the oasis. Jame wondered if she had encountered her Builder neighbors yet, and guessed that she hadn’t. Talk about doing harm. How were the little people managing with this continuing invasion of their refuge? Surely, one way or another, they had suffered enough already. However, the keep needed the fruits of their labors, especially now with the enemy at its gates. She should talk to them again, soon, if they would grant her that privilege.
Sleep that night brought troubled dreams.
Tai-tastigon shook to its foundations with the untempling of the gods. Whose fault was that? There was Bane on the Mercy Seat, flayed alive, and Bane again, presumably dead, in the pesthole behind Mount Alban, guarding the Book Bound in Pale Leather and the Ivory Knife.
“That knife may have been given to me to use,” she had said to the haunt singer Ashe. “What if I need it someday?”
“Then call. I think that he will bring it to you . . . with help.”
Jame shuddered. Into her mind came the image of that “help”: a trail of disintegrating victims ridden and discarded as Bane ate the soul out of each in turn.
“Sweet Trinity. Whose responsibility will that be?”
“His, who feeds. And hers, who calls.”
The Book and the Knife. Only two of us, Kindrie and I, have begun to face the possibility that we are part of the Tyr-ridan. Mine is the Knife. The Book—Kindrie’s or Tori’s, when neither knows how to read the master runes?
Oh, Tori. Something had haunted him. Again she saw that pitiful figure huddled outside the Haunted Lands keep, unable to face what lurked within. Ganth was bad enough. What could be worse?
The Book and the Knife, yes, but what of the Serpent Skin Cloak?
Golden eyes, a voice softer than the shadows that enfolded it: “He . . . it . . . they are still coming, but slowly. Wait.”
For what? For how long?
Dammit, no one told her anything, and she was supposed to save the world—or was that to destroy it?
I don’t want to hurt anyone, so why do I keep doing it?
She had forgotten something. What?
Jame woke with a start, to the muted light of early morning snow and Jorin’s grumble of complaint from under the blankets.
It was seven days since she had last seen Bear. Where was he?
III
IT HAD SNOWED HARD over night, leaving a foot-deep blanket, heavy and white. Those Kendar out first into the island’s lower meadow quickly discovered that this bounty was perfect for another snowball fight. Projectiles were flying when Jame arrived to see what the shouting was all about.
A snowball sailed over the river and hit a cadet with a wet smack on the shoulder. Tiggeri’s guards had joined the fray. In a moment, the air over the Silver was full of taunts and hurtling balls, more and more as Kendar joined the battle on either side.
This was as it should be, thought Jame, watching their joyful play. Kendar should only fight Kendar in jest. Anything else was . . . obscene.
Brier, beside her, caught a snowball before it could hit her in the face.
“Huh,” said the Southron, brushing away the icy crust to reveal an embedded rock.
The trickster was back.
Jame regarded the laughing ten-commands—Damson’s, Berry’s, and Char’s. No one looked back at her, too intent on their fun, no doubt needing it after the past week’s tension.
Someone on the far bank yelped in pain. From the blood trickling down his face, he also had been stuck by a rock.
Soon after, randon arrived to break up the game. Jame recognized one of them from the randon college at Tentir, an instructor named Acon who, while hard, had always played fair despite house politics. As annoyed as she was by Tiggeri, as upset by the thought of a traitor on her own side, it cheered Jame to recall the good Caineron she had known, including the Commandant and Gorbel, assuming the latter hadn’t betrayed Must’s presence here to his brother as Brier supposed.
Soon afterward, the opposite camp began to stir uneasily. Passing Kendar glanced at the grand tent, from which Tiggeri had yet to emerge. Others huddled together, murmuring. His young kinsmen arrived in a rush, pushing aside the guards. Someone in the tent cried out—oh, such a sound of pain, and grief, and rage. Then all was ominously still again. Jame found herself on the parapet watching the scene across the river.
“What is it?” asked Rue, trying to hand her a bowl of porridge that she ignored.
“I don’t know. Something bad.”
Tiggeri appeared in the tent’s door and stood there for a moment, breathing hard. He saw Jame, but didn’t salute her. Even from this distance, she felt the heat of his eyes. Then he headed for the bridge.
Jame went to meet him.
“Oh, you diddled me prettily,” he said when they were face to face.
Behind him, his kinsmen glared at her with even less control than he had so far managed. Jame wondered if they were bound to him and feeding off the core of his rage. Her own guards as one lowered their spear points to cover her. Brier and Corvine slipped through them to tower at her back.
Tiggeri didn’t seem to notice them. “When were you going to tell me that Mustard was dead?”
“How did you know that she was here?”
He sneered, too angry to dissemble. “Even your own people know what an unnatural thing you are. One of them told one of my scouts. Then, this morning, I received this.” He brandished a wrinkled, bloody paper in a shaking hand.
Jame felt her heart sink. “It was wrapped around a stone, wasn’t it?”
“See? You can be truthful when you try.”
Brier surged forward a step, but Jame held her back.
“Think,” she said evenly. “I am a Highborn, a lordan, and a randon cadet. I always tell the truth. To do otherwise would be the death of honor.”
Tiggeri smiled, showing all of his teeth.
“You randon,” said one of his followers, also grinning.
“Always so honorable,” said a second.
“Always so superior.” A third.
Yes, they were mirroring their liege lord, and some of the Kendar as well, who shuffled forward half a step wearing ugly expressions.
“I want my son,” said Tiggeri.
“The child is under my protection. That was his mother’s dying wish.”
“What does that matter? I want him.”
Jame didn’t answer.
Tiggeri’s teeth audibly ground. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and stalked off, his people withdrawing with him.
Jame wondered, was that it? She was also about to retreat when someone shouted, “Shields up!”
All around her, shields were unslung and raised overhead, barely in time. A flight of arrows plucked at their hardened leather covers, one finding a gap and plunging through to pin a Kendar’s foot to the ground.
Caineron yelled their battle cry.
The reserve Knorth ten-command surged up.
Caught in the midst of Kendar half again her size, Jame was lifted off her feet and shoved backward out of the crush.
“Tagmeth to the rear!”
Brier picked her up. “After all,” she said, “you are unarmed.”
IV
THE BATTLE ON THE BRIDGE RAGED, intermittently, for the rest of the day. Because the way was too narrow to carry by force, wave after wave broke against the defenders, both sides fighting in relays of fresh troops. More flights of arrows stitched the sky, some aimed into the keep itself, until, it seemed, the attackers ran out. Casualties remained light, but they did occur, especially among the Caineron.
“Hard slogging,” Marc commented as he and Jame watched from the battlements. “Can’t they see that this isn’t going to work?”
“I think Tiggeri is past reason and so, therefore, are many of his troops. Watch. Some throw themselves into it; others are just
trading blows with us, and we’re only trying to hold them back. At this rate, though, even with replacements, both sides are going to fight themselves to exhaustion.”
“Then what?”
“Trinity only knows.”
Marc again presented her with the bowl of soup that he had brought up with him from the kitchen, and again she waved it away.
“No breakfast and now no lunch?”
“This takes away my appetite.” Below, a space had cleared between the combatants as it did periodically to allow for the removal of the wounded. “Kencyr shouldn’t fight Kencyr. Even the ones that want to kill us—that’s only because they’re bound to a Highborn madman.”
“You really do idolize the Kendar, don’t you?”
“D’you think so? What about any of this conflict is natural?”
“That depends on how you define ‘nature.’ It has happened before. It will happen again. That’s just the way things are.”
“Then ‘the way things are’ stinks.”
Marc smiled at her, a bit sadly. “I hope that we never give cause to disappoint you, for our sake more than for yours.”
Marc had a way of making her feel very young and very naïve. Just the same:
Some things need to be broken, she thought, scowling. Surely this is one of them.
Dusk brought the reluctant withdrawal of the attackers. The garrison continued to man the bridge under flaring torches and the faint light of a crescent moon. By turns, ten-commands went in for a hardy supper of yackcarn roast and baked apples. Jame, again, had no taste for either.
She was at the parapet, half dozing where she stood, when Brier touched her shoulder.
“Look.”
Figures had gathered on the opposite shore. Dark shapes edged out into the current.
“God’s claws,” said Jame, staring. “They’re trying to ford the river.”
Their rafts were logs bound loosely together, ridden with their legs in the water. Jame wondered why they weren’t swept away. Then she saw that ropes connected the two shores, anchored on the island’s side by the wall around the lower pasture. Had they shot them across attached to arrows, or had the trickster been busy again? Whichever, they now edged out into the current, hauling themselves hand over hand.
The Gates of Tagmeth (Chronicles of the Kencyrath Book 8) Page 31