by Helen Gosney
“Couldn’t they make up their minds on one style?” Rose wondered, pondering a topiary emu and stone maiden standing happily together, staring at her over the fence.
“Maybe they didn’t want to be boring,” Rowan answered lightly, “I rather like it myself, ‘tis certainly much more interesting than... what was it called, now... Frumenty? You know, that place with all those long thin houses...”
“Oh, yes, Frumenty...” she replied, wrinkling her nose.
They thought about the town they had passed through on their travels. It had only been a small place, just a few streets at right angles to each other. Every house had been made of timber, unpainted and weathered to a soft silver-grey, and all built to the same plan - long and thin as Rowan said, three-storied, with tall narrow windows, high shingled roofs, and a single narrow doorway opening directly onto the street. A tall spindly gorna tree had stood morosely between each house. The people had all been tall and thin and somewhat morose too. Suspicious of outsiders, none of them would speak of the strangeness that abounded elsewhere; indeed, they claimed to have noticed nothing amiss... but every gorna tree had had leaves of bright magenta.
“They were odd, weren’t they?” Rose chuckled, “The Gods know that most people don’t want to think about what’s going on... but most people will at least admit to themselves that things are very strange right now, and have been for quite a while.”
“Cris said he thought people are too frightened to think about it, too frightened to think that the Gods might have abandoned them. I think maybe he’s right,” said Rowan thoughtfully. “What do you think about Cris coming with us, Rose?”
“Oh, I was a bit surprised, but I think it’ll be all right, don’t you? I don’t imagine he’ll murder us in our sleep. I wonder how he’ll cope with sleeping on the ground though,” she said cheerfully, “He seems like a good man, and I think that hearing your story has just finally stirred him into some sort of action. Anyway, he’ll be someone else to talk to, if nothing else.”
“Aye, that’s what I think too, it sounded like he’d at least been thinking about what’s been going on lately, and as you say, he’ll be someone else for us to talk to. If he finds the ground too hard he can always come back to Gnash,” Rowan replied with a smile, “I truly don’t think he’s likely to attack us, but if he does, I’m sure you can see him off.”
Before Rose could think up a suitable reply, Rowan said in a surprised sort of way, “I think this must be your Gardens.”
They stood on a high point above the Blon. Below them the steep land had been terraced all the way down to a narrow path at the water’s edge and filled with a bewildering variety of trees, shrubs and flowers. A narrow suspension bridge led across to the top of the sheer cliff on the other side of the river.
“What do you think, Rose? Walking down all those steps in the garden itself, so you can get a good close look, or out onto the bridge and see the whole thing at once?”
Rose thought about it. She knew only too well how quickly Rowan always navigated steps; he couldn’t seem to help himself. And of course they’d have to climb back up the damned things once they’d reached the bottom. She looked across at the bridge. It was very high and very narrow, but she supposed she could always grab hold of Rowan if she slipped. Surely they wouldn’t both fall in the river. She thought a bit more.
“It seems a shame not to see it up close now we’re finally here,” she said, “But you can sit here and wait if you like, and then I won’t have to gallop to keep up with you.” She smiled at him to take the sting out of her words.
He grinned back at her, unoffended.
“Good idea, Rose. Don’t hurry though; I’m not in a rush to go to the market! I’m happy to just wander about a bit, maybe out onto the bridge if it’s not going to sway too much and tip me off… And then a little rest on this grass, I think. You can just shout if any more louts or hordes of dirty old men leap out of the bushes and come after you. I’ll come and rescue you.”
“Thank you very much,” she said drily, “I’ll do that. My hero.” She batted her eyelashes at him, just as he’d done to her earlier, and they went laughing on their separate ways.
The Gardens were magnificent. Great banks of azaleas and rhododendrons blazed with colour and there were beds of crinums and Zoster lilies; patches of schizanthus, Lia’s lanterns and blue and yellow diplos glowed like jewels. Small bright green ferns spread their lacy fronds everywhere and snakelike vines carrying huge golden bellflowers scrambled over a few artistically scattered rocks. Lovely spikes of delphiniums jostled for space with a smaller starlike flower that Rose didn’t know, and bright heartsblood and pansies and catsclaw trailed over the edges of the terraces.
At one point Rose looked across to see Rowan standing in the middle of the bridge. He waved to her, causing it to sway alarmingly and she was glad she wasn’t out there with him. She wandered happily along the gravel paths and down the inevitable flights of steps. There wasn’t a weed in sight, but she did see several gardeners toiling away. They exchanged cheerful good mornings as she passed. The youngest of them, a young apprentice who’d seen her coming and tried not to stare too openly, plucked up his courage and shyly gave her a spray of tiny, perfect white roses to put in her hair. She smiled and thanked the lad, who blushed furiously much to the delight of the others. How wonderful to have someone else to pull out the wretched weeds, she thought lazily as she stopped for a rest under a fine stand of gorna trees with leaves of the proper shade of bluish-grey.
She looked across at spreading eucalypts alive with birds feeding in their blossom-laden branches and then back up the steep, beautiful terraces and all the steps awaiting her along the pathway and sighed. It had been worth the effort, she thought. The whole garden was filled with birdsong and the hum of busy insects, and the sudden flash of small silver lizards and bright butterflies’ wings. Delicious, heady scents filled the air and the sheer variety of flowers, leaves and bark was astounding, blending as it somehow did into a glorious harmonious whole. There was even a little creek that meandered through the gardens and tumbled over the terraces. And not a lout or a dirty old man in sight. She sighed happily again. She spoke with the gardeners again for a while as she passed by on the return journey, much to their delight and the happy confusion of the young apprentice. It wasn’t often that folk would stop and speak with them, certainly not such a lovely woman and certainly not one who actually knew something about the plants she was seeing. The older men smiled to themselves as they heard the lad sigh as he watched her walk away.
As she came back along the final path Rose saw Rowan sitting on the grass just inside the ornate wrought iron gates that protected the Gardens. She wondered briefly why anyone would bother to have such impressive gates when there was no wall or fence, nothing else to keep unwelcome visitors out. How odd, she thought, but then all of Gnash was a bit odd to her eyes. Interesting, but odd.
Rowan was entranced by the antics of a group of young rosellas playing and splashing in a birdbath. A couple of birds sat on his shoulders, amusing themselves by pulling at his hair as another one nibbled at his fingers. As she watched him he started to sneeze. The rosellas flapped their wings and screeched their displeasure at such behaviour, but none of them flew away until Rose walked up and sat beside her brother.
“Damn! I thought I’d be fine up here,” he snuffled as he blew his nose and looked around, “I wonder what’s set me off in all this lot… it could be any damned thing I suppose. I’m sorry, Rose, I think I’d better go back up the road a bit and wait for you there,” he managed as several huge sneezes followed in quick succession.
Rose looked at him fondly and shook her head.
“No, it’s fine, Rowan, I’ve seen it now... it is lovely, isn’t it, even if it does make you sneeze your poor head off?”
“Aye, ‘tis, but...” he wheezed, wiping his streaming eyes and nose as they headed back towards the market.
**********
They split
up when they got to the market, agreeing to meet by a saddler’s stall. Rose knew that would keep Rowan happily occupied while she did the bargaining that he so detested. He’d wandered about, bought the few things that Rose had entrusted him with at a good price, and was looking idly at the saddler’s wares when his sharp ears heard a pair of dwarven voices talking softly together fairly close by. He looked around carefully. Yes, there they were. Undoubtedly husband and wife, dressed in neat homespuns and good heavy boots and well laden with bags and packages. He tried not to stare at the little fellow’s magnificent braided beard, while at the same time trying to work out his clan. It was fiendishly complicated to an outsider, but then folk said that about Siannen braiding too.
“How do you suppose it is that man wears a g’Hakken ring, Harl?” the dwarf woman said quietly.
“A what…? No, you must be mistaken, my love. Which man? Where?”
“That one, there… the very tall one with the long red braid…”
“The tall one with the long red braid carries g’Hakken daggers too, my dear… the hilts are quite plain, but they’re of g’Hakken make or I’m a ferret.”
Rowan turned and walked over to them as they stood trying to see his hand and his sheathed daggers without appearing to be doing it. He was well up with dwarven etiquette after living with the g’Hakken and he knew they wouldn’t be offended by his speaking to them, but he’d have to observe the niceties. All the same, they’d be happy to have their burning curiosity satisfied. He was tempted to defy convention and simply hold a dagger in his left hand so that they could see both.
There was a sudden horrified gasp, “Look… look at his beard…”
Dammit. He’d forgotten about that. Of course they’d be shocked to the core to see a man with a beard as Rowan’s always was now: short and neatly braided close to the skin in the way that befitted a member of the g’Hakken clan of Wirran. And they’d certainly make it their business to find out just what the hell he thought he was doing. The husband in particular looked ready to take him on. He thought he should probably try to calm them down a bit first, if he could.
“My greetings to you and your clan. My name is Rowan d’Rhys del’Quist of the Forest Giant clan of Sian,” he said in his fluent Dwar, knowing that their sense of insult would be soothed somewhat by his addressing them in their own tongue. “I see you are concerned by my appearance, and I apologise if you are offended… but the truth of it is that I lived with the g’Hakken in Wirran for a time as a lad, with Master Smith Findarel, son of Geldarel and they… they made me a member of the clan,’ tis why my beard is braided so. Of course it doesn’t compare to a proper dwarf’s beard, but… well, ‘tis the best I can do…” he thought the dwarves seemed a bit happier with that admission, and it was the simple truth after all. No man could hope to grow a beard as magnificent as a dwarf’s waistlength pride and joy. He wasn’t about to embarrass the clan or himself with a relatively pathetic straggly effort and so he’d made this compromise: the g’Hakken were happy with it and so was he, and he simply didn’t care what anyone else thought. “The clan mark is on my right shoulderblade, but I think it might cause offence to some here if I was to take off my shirt to show you.”
The dwarf Harl grinned at him, relieved to hear the name of the renowned Master Smith, relieved too that he wouldn’t have to be taking on this very competent looking young man.
“Aye, it might, though I truly don’t know why. ‘Tisn’t as if you’re an ugly bugger, like some…” his voice trailed off as his wife cuffed him around the ears.
“Harl!” she said furiously, “Truly, you’ve got the manners of a … a…” she looked up at Rowan in apology. “Your pardon, Rowan del… er… Sir, he meant no offence to you or your clan.”
“None taken, my lady. Please, just call me Rowan,” he smiled at them both again.
“Thank you. We be Caran and Harl of the g’Missien clan,” she said, “And you are truly of the g’Hakken? I don’t mean to doubt you, but they…”
“They can be um… prickly with outsiders, ‘tis true, but…” he glanced around quickly, saw nobody looking their way, and slipped his right arm from his sleeve.
The dwarves gaped at the unmistakeable clan mark tattooed onto the man’s back, gaped too at the scars on his shoulder and body.
“I… I never thought to see that mark on a man, Rowan. I didn’t mean to offend you…” Caran began.
Rowan smiled at her as he adjusted his shirt.
“There is no offence, Caran, truly. I thought the same as you. I was overwhelmed when Finn… er, Findarel suggested it to me.”
“And that is how you speak Dwar so well?” Caran asked.
“Aye, ‘tis. And as for the rest, well… the ring was one of a pair, a wedding gift to my wife and me from the clan. The daggers I, um, won in a fencing competition.”
Harl looked at him very closely indeed. There weren’t too many fencing competitions with such a prize… only one, in fact.
“So you’re the dwarf Champion the g’Hakken have been on about at the last few Dwarf Moots,” he said slowly.
Rowan shrugged. He hadn’t been to the Dwarf Moot, held every five years, but he’d heard quite a bit about it from Dann and Owen.
“’Tis what Finn… er, Findarel… calls me,” he admitted.
“Ha! He would too, the daft old bugger,” Harl laughed suddenly, “They’re a tall lot, the g’Hakken, but you’d be the tallest dwarf ever, I’m thinking.”
“Finn says that too,” Rowan smiled at him, pleased that his unintended offence seemed to have been forgiven and forgotten.
“Now, will you honour us by joining us for a meal, Rowan? And your wife, of course,” Harl asked in the formal way of most dwarves, knowing that Rowan would show him the daggers when he disarmed himself on entering the dwarven home and Caran would be able to satisfy her burning curiosity as to exactly how a man had come to be adopted into the notoriously reclusive g’Hakken clan.
“It would be my honour to join you. Thank you. But my… my wife is dead. She and our baby died almost two years ago. I wear her ring now, as is the custom of my people. She wears mine.” He looked away for a moment. “My sister is with me though.”
He felt a small rough hand take his and squeeze it gently.
“We grieve for your loss, Rowan,” Caran said softly, “It is never an easy thing to lose wife or child. Both together is especially cruel. Please join us though, if you feel you can. And of course your sister too.”
“Aye, thank you, we will, when she finds me again. She shouldn’t be much longer,” he looked down at her kind face, “Would you like to see Zara’s ring properly?” He slipped it from his finger and held it out to her, knowing she’d be thrilled to see it.
Her face lit up as she took it carefully, awed at the sheer beauty of it.
“Truly, ‘tis lovely, Rowan. There is nothing like g’Hakken work, ‘tis unmistakeable. ‘Tis an unusual design though. They make little jewellery, and ‘tis usually not like this,” she said quietly.
“No, Caran, ‘tisn’t. ‘Tis like that, with the leaves, because my clan are foresters, and that’s why there is a tree on the daggers too. We live among the Forest Giant trees of Sian… would you like me to tell you of them later? And show you the daggers, Harl? Not here in the open though, people will think I’m trying to rob you if I do it here.”
“Aye, I’d like to see them… And it would be wiser to wait until we‘re out of these crowds before you show the daggers, folk do get nervous over nothing sometimes. But where is your sister, Rowan… here in the market, you said?”
“Aye, she’s here somewhere,” he looked about him. At least with his height he could see over the crowd fairly well. He saw an unmistakeable head of bright auburn hair heading towards him. “She’s coming now, she won’t be long I shouldn’t think.”
“Does she speak Dwar as well as you, Rowan?” Harl asked.
Rowan shook his head.
“No, Harl,” he said, “She wasn’t
with me when I lived with the g’Hakken, and she’s not of the clan. She can speak it a bit though, there’s a couple of families of the g’Farrien clan at home.”
“I’m sure we’ll manage,” Caran said in the Common Tongue, her bright eyes twinkling.
Within a short time Rose had joined them, delighted to meet the dwarves who Rowan had befriended. His braided beard always caused controversy and consternation among dwarves, as was to be expected, and she’d been worried the first couple of times it’d happened. Dwarves could be very forceful about such things, but even the feistiest dwarf would think twice before taking on Rowan - anyone with any sense at all would, she thought - and his fluent Dwar and his g’Hakken tattoo quickly sorted things out.
A short time after that, Caran and Rose walked back to the dwarves’ house, chatting together happily. Harl and Rowan trailed behind, heavily burdened with packages as was proper and talking about Rowan’s daggers.
**********
9. “… he carries more scars… worse scars than those you might see.”
Cris had been busy too. He’d had a little trouble finding his friend Marle, but finally he’d run him to ground in a small open plaza not far from the Great Square of the Gods. They sat there drinking fruma juice and watching the world go by. They made an odd pair - Cris small and slight, and Marle tall and muscular with shining black skin, flashing dark eyes and a mop of tightly curled black hair. Cris told Marle that he was going away for a time, he wasn’t sure exactly how long, but it could be for quite a while...
Marle’s teeth shone gleaming white as he grinned at his friend.
“That’s all right, Cris, I’m happy to look after all the little rats and mouses for you, don’t matter how long you’re away for neither. And I promise I won’t fight you for them when you get back,” he laughed happily at his own wit. Nothing was ever a problem to Marle; he’d do anything for anyone and do it well.
After he left Marle, Cris went on to the Great Square. As he expected, Hess and Tadeus were sitting there, munching peanuts and playing yet another game of chess. They greeted him warmly, for both priests liked Cris and after their conversations of the previous day both were keen to see him again. They chatted for a while about this and that, enjoying the sunshine.