Elephant Thief

by Lia Patterson

  * * *

  I swept into the hall looking the very picture of a Sikhandi lady. The effect was only spoilt by having to stop after a few steps to lift the hem of my robes, because they collected all the rushes laid on the floor for their sweet scent. We entered through a back door from the family quarters directly onto a raised dais containing the table of honour. I suspected the hall had been built first and the rooms behind it added later, slowly growing to enclose the entire courtyard. It was an impressive building, crafted solely from wood, from the floor boards to the thick walls rising around us, the rafters disappearing in the darkness above. During the day, a few high windows shed light, but now oil lamps cast their warm light over the assembly and braziers placed down the central aisle provided warmth.

  My first impression was of men everywhere. They sat at the tables set up for the evening meal, talking loudly, laughing and boasting, their deep voices filling the hall. I caught snatches of conversation, all to do with the trade of war. Most faces were turned towards the high table, full of speculation, and I caught sight of Lord Rhys’s men sharing a table near the front. The man with the missing tooth, who had asked me to play the lute the other night, gave me a wide grin of greeting. I smiled back, grateful for a friendly face.

  Cerwen took my arm and introduced me to the housekeeper, a plain clad woman with her steel grey hair tied up in a bun that no hair dared to escape, and explained that I ate no meat.

  “Can you see to it that Lady Arisha’s needs are met?” Cerwen asked.

  A sharp gaze concentrated on me for a moment. “Of course.”

  “Thank you,” I said politely. “And I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “It’s no inconvenience, you just get the same as the old lady.” The words were accompanied by a nod of dismissal.

  “Which old lady?” I asked.

  “Lord Rhys’s grandmother,” came the curt reply. One of the boys laying the tables dropped his load of wooden platters, and with a mutter she hurried away.

  “Don’t mind Bethan,” Cerwen said. “She gets annoyed if everything isn’t absolutely perfect. But we couldn’t do without her; she’s loyal to a fault.” She sighed. “It will be worse for the farewell feast, I’ll have to play hostess for Rhys. I wish he would just hurry up with getting married!”

  I caught sight of Lady Enit and her daughter entering that moment and thought that here was one who would only be too pleased to take Cerwen’s place. Owena wore a low-cut dress of pale primrose silk and with her blond hair floating about her face gave the impression of a flower waiting to be plucked. Out of pure whimsy I imagined her with her hair cut short and grinned to myself.

  Just then the object of her desire entered by the main doors, accompanied by Lord Pellyn and Taren. Instantly Owena’s face turned towards him like a flower to the sun. Lord Rhys had his dog trotting at his heels and walking down the central aisle he nodded a greeting here and there or stopped briefly to exchange a few words. All the talk died down, and the men stood up as he passed. I had to admit that he had a magnetic presence, drawing all attention to himself: the lord of the hall.

  When he stepped onto the dais, he flashed a smile at the housekeeper, whose stern face softened briefly, and swept his eyes over the assembled company. It seemed to me his gaze lingered on me a moment and I wondered if he remembered our earlier argument. However, his face gave nothing away as a servant pulled out the ornately carved chair at the centre of the high table and he took his place facing the hall.

  A brief flurry followed while the guests of honour sorted themselves out. To my surprise that also included me. Cerwen told me to sit between her and Taren, with Lord Rhys on her other side, while Lord Pellyn and his family sat at their host’s right.

  Bethan presented Lord Rhys with a drinking horn that he raised high in the air. “Guests, be welcome!”

  He took a deep draft and sat down. Everyone followed his lead, and the servants bustled up with food and drink. It felt strange to sit in the stiff embrace of a chair instead of reclining on cushions and to have so many eyes watching me, but at least Bethan was true to her word and had me served with very tasty baked vegetables on a bed of rice. I simply did my best to ignore the cuts of meat the others had on their plates.

  “Is Lord Rhys’s grandmother here too?” I asked Cerwen.

  She shook her head. “No, she has her meals in her rooms.”

  “And she eats no meat either?”

  “Grandmother used to be a Guardian of the Springs as a girl,” Cerwen explained, “and I suppose she kept some of their customs.”

  I pricked my ears, for I had heard of Aneirion’s elusive priesthood, living deep in the woods, but seldom seen. “Really? May I meet her?”

  “She keeps very much to herself.”

  Taren winked at me. “Lady Enit wanted to pay her respects to her and introduce Owena. She has tried three times to see her, but Lady Luned is always asleep. Or so Bethan claims.”

  Cerwen giggled. “Oh, Bethan is at daggers drawn with Lady Enit anyway, ever since the woman offered to teach her a superior way to prepare roast boar.”

  Taren whistled through his teeth. “I had no idea that Lady Enit has a death wish,” he whispered, making us laugh.

  To my surprise I enjoyed the meal, with Taren’s extravagant banter making Cerwen blush several times. Kestrel sat on his other side and very soon we were discussing horse care, finding a lot of common ground. Lord Rhys meanwhile had all his attention claimed by Lord Pellyn, but every so often Owena would put in a word of admiration for his cleverness. I could almost have felt sorry for the man, except that perhaps he enjoyed that kind of adulation.

  Suddenly there was a brief lull in the conversation, broken by Lady Enit’s strident voice. “So tell us, Lady Arisha,” she said, catching my attention, “how did you like the training this afternoon?”

  I whipped my head round to find her leaning forward, gazing at me down the table. A hush fell, and Lord Rhys frowned.

  “I found it instructive,” I said, lifting my chin in challenge.

  “Instructive?” Her sharp voice set my teeth on edge. “So how do you think it compares to the training of your own soldiers?”

  My first impulse on being put so clearly in the camp of their enemy was to say that the Sikhandi would wipe the floor with them, purely to spite her. Why was she goading me this way? But reminding myself that the woman had lost both husband and son to Prince Maziar, I strove for a conciliatory answer. “I’m hardly an expert.”

  It was Lord Pellyn’s turn to lean forward. “Oh, surely after all that time in Prince Bahram’s camp, you can give us a considered opinion?”

  Lord Rhys put down his knife with a clang. “Pellyn, it was Lady Arisha’s father who served the prince. She merely accompanied him.”

  “I thought that elephant out there was hers?” He made Hami sound like a monster.

  “It is,” I snapped. Lord Rhys did not contradict me this time.

  Lord Pellyn considered me down his beak of a nose. “You’ve trained the beast yourself, haven’t you?”

  I smiled. “Yes. I’ve taught Hami to crack nuts with his feet.”

  “What?”

  Cerwen rushed in bravely. “Oh yes, Lady Arisha showed me this morning.” She turned to Lord Rhys with forced enthusiasm. “You should have seen it, all the boys clustered round and wanted to have a go.”

  “Elephants crush more than nuts!” Lord Pellyn exclaimed.

  My own temper stirred. “Yes,” I agreed and looked pointedly at him. “They crush skulls.”

  “You dare! I’m warning you…”

  “Pellyn,” Lord Rhys put in evenly. “I have said this once before: Lady Arisha is my guest. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  The other man closed his mouth abruptly at the quiet menace in Lord Rhys’s tone, but Lady Enit was made of sterner stuff – or perhaps just more foolish.

  “Isn’t it the characteristic of guests that they may leave if they wish to?” she asked.
/>   “Lady Arisha may leave at any time,” he replied with narrowed eyes. “I have already offered to provide her with an escort to the border.”

  Lady Enit turned to me again. “Ah, so you’re staying here by choice?” And with no good intentions, her tone implied.

  “I won’t leave without Hami.”

  Lord Pellyn grabbed his goblet. “Rhys, don’t be deceived by a pretty face, she has to be up to mischief. I think you should arrest her and lock her up. Or at least pack her off across the border to her own people!”

  The notion left me momentarily speechless. What if Lord Rhys went along with this plan? I caught his eye and opened my mouth for a fiery protest.

  But to my surprise he laughed out loud. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare.”

  Owena must have decided we had ignored her long enough. She put a delicate hand on his sleeve. “Surely there’s nothing you wouldn’t dare.”

  A corner of his mouth quirked. “Your faith is touching, Lady Owena. Alas, you’ve never had a bucket of cold and dirty water upended over your head.” He straightened up. “No, Lady Arisha may stay or leave as she pleases.”

  “I wouldn’t give Hami dirty water,” I muttered. His mouth twitched again.

  However, Lady Enit was not willing to leave this open declaration of his protection unanswered. “Just you wait,” she said, “she’ll murder us all in our sleep.”

  The smile was wiped from Lord Rhys’s face, and an awful silence fell. For myself, I was heartily tired of being made responsible for every wrong the Sikhandi had ever done in this country. As if no Aneiry had ever burnt down one of our villages or carried off the women and children. I opened my mouth for a scathing reply, but Lord Rhys pre-empted me.

  “Lady Enit,” he said in a low voice, almost a whisper, “are you implying that I cannot guarantee the guest peace?” It was the Eagle speaking and by the expression on her face, Lady Enit had not encountered him before.

  She swallowed hard. “No, of course not, Lord Rhys.”

  After a moment Taren broke the silence with a question regarding horse breeding, which Kestrel answered valiantly, and slowly the conversation returned to normal. Soon after, the servants served the sweet course, but I declined the rhubarb pie. Deep inside, I was still simmering with rage at Lady Enit’s attempt to turn me into the enemy.

  I crumpled my napkin when suddenly something wet touched my fingers. Startled out of my thoughts, I lifted the table cloth to find Duach there, panting and wagging his tail. I scratched him behind the ears, which earned me an adoring look. Ah well, I still had one friend here! But my earlier feeling of ease had gone, and though Kestrel did his best to pretend nothing had happened and kept talking about horses, I no longer felt welcome and longed for the meal to end.

  However, when the servants had cleared away the plates, a stool was brought out and set in front of the high table, at the edge of the dais. A whispered query to Cerwen elicited the information that a round of songs by the host’s and his guests’ bards would follow.

  Rhys’s bard was a grey haired man, and though his voice filled the hall with its deep and mellow sound, my schooled ear detected a few wobbly notes in his playing. Yet what he might lack in technical finesse, he made up for with his obvious love for the songs he played.

  Under cover of the applause Cerwen leant over. “Ceredig was my uncle’s bard,” she whispered, “and he’s been with Rhys through all the hard times of hiding in the hills.”

  Next Pellyn’s bard stepped forward, an elegant black and red coat thrown over his shoulder, which he draped around him as he sat down on the stool. He chose a rousing cry to war as his offering, and the men loved it, banging their tankards on the tables in accompaniment. I had to admit he played well, but I could not like the subject matter he had chosen. When he finished with a flourish, I hoped for a chance to retire unobtrusively and pushed back my chair in preparation to rising.

  That moment a loud voice called from one of the tables. “But we have another bard. Lady Arisha, will you play us one of your songs?”

  I froze in my seat. It was my old friend, the man with the missing tooth, who beamed at me, proud of his brilliant idea!

  Cerwen turned to me. “You play?”

  “Oh no!” I answered, thoroughly appalled. “Just for my own pleasure.” When the man and his friends kept repeating the suggestion, I made a shushing motion.

  “Let us have Almond Eyes,” one of the men called loudly.

  Lady Enit’s loud voice cut in. “An excellent idea,” she said, “why don’t you regale us with some Sikhandi court music?” The woman was enjoying my discomfiture!

  Lord Pellyn leant forward too. “That would surely be something never before heard in this hall.”

  His mother tittered at his words. “And for good reason.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Very well!” The next moment I could have kicked myself for not refusing the challenge. Fool!

  Lord Rhys frowned. “Lady Arisha, are you sure? I will not have my guests pressured.”

  A single look at Lady Enit’s gloating face sufficed to make up my mind. “I’m sure.”

  Lord Rhys hesitated, but sent Wynn to fetch my lute from Cerwen’s room. Far too quickly the boy returned and I had to take my place on the small stool facing the hall. While I settled my robes about me, Lord Rhys’s bard Ceredig held my lute and then bent down to me.

  “Just ignore them and pretend you’re singing to one person alone,” he whispered.

  I could have hugged the old man for his kindness. “Is it very obvious I’ve never done this before?”

  He gave me a wink. “Only to me. Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”

  Duach had accompanied me and now lay at my feet, completely unconcerned by all the eyes directed at us. I did my best to do the same as I tuned the lute and frantically wondered what song to play. Should I offer an apology first for my poor skill? In my mind’s eye I could see Lady Enit smiling triumphantly and again cursed my impulsiveness. Had he been here, my father would no doubt have told me to look first before I leapt down the dragon’s throat!

  And my mother? Long forgotten words came back to me. Straighten your back, relax your wrists, sing from the heart. And I knew what to do. After quickly running through a couple of variations, I stilled and just sat there waiting for the hall to quiet down. In a surprisingly short time a hush descended.

  The other bards had offered their songs to the high table, but I looked at the men filling the hall. “There once was a soldier of Sikhand,” I said, my voice wobbling a little. “He is nameless and I beg you not to judge him too harshly, for he led an uncertain life. Often he had to march on meagre food or none at all, in pouring rain or scorching sun, and whenever he drank a drop too much his captain would berate him.” I saw some of the men nodding in sympathy at that.

  My fingers shook as I began to play the first notes, and I was only too aware of my shortcomings compared to the professional bards. I took a deep breath. “This is his story.”

  I launched into the first verse of Almond Eyes and for some reason Lord Rhys’s image came into my head. That moment I decided to take his bard’s advice and pretend I was singing for him alone. Let him realise that the Sikhandi were men, not just straw targets!

  As before, the men liked the catchy tune and Lord Rhys’s men sang along when we reached the chorus, with the others quickly picking it up. The soldier’s duties took him all over the empire, from the shores of the Inland Sea, where he fell in love with a fisherman’s daughter, to Arrashar, where a young courtesan’s apprentice caught his fancy, to the desert plains in the east, where a nomad girl wanted him to come with her. He loved them all, but for one reason or another he never found happiness. The men laughed or sighed in sympathy as first a strict father chased him away and he had to jump over the side of a boat into cold water, next one of the courtesan’s customers had him thrown out without a stitch of clothing on and finally his captain caught him sneaking out of the camp and put him in the stocks. More conquest
s followed, all of them with almond eyes, yet he had to leave them all.

  The soldiers of the Victorious Fifth could sing this song for hours while they marched and loved to invent further verses on the fly, but few of them were fitting for the ears of ladies, so I had to pick and choose. As I reached the final verse, I modulated the melody into a minor key and slowed down.

  “Almond eyes, almond eyes, weeping at our sad good-byes,” I sang and tried to put some of the soldier’s sorrow into my voice. “By the dawn I must be gone, for the emperor calls me on.” The last notes faded away.

  Silence fell and I looked up to find Lord Rhys watching me with a strange expression on his face. For the space of a single heartbeat his eyes held mine, dark and intense, and around us the world melted away. I caught my breath. Then the men started clapping and I became aware of the sights and sounds of the hall again, as if a spell had been broken.

  “Well done,” Ceredig said. “See, I told you not to worry.”

  I gave him a tremulous smile, still feeling shaken deep inside, and got up hastily from the stool. A wave of exhaustion ran through me.

  My friend with the missing tooth wanted another song at this point, but Father had taught me to quit while ahead, so I declined and soon after took my leave of the high table. Kestrel and Taren both regretted me leaving so early, but Lord Rhys said nothing, his eyes now hooded.

  TWELVE

  When I went to give Hami his morning wash the next day, the courtyard was full of horses. Lord Rhys, looking slightly guilty, was instructing his men to trot them round the tree where the elephant was shackled. The horses rolled their eyes and foam flecked their sides, but the riders persevered. It took no great intelligence to guess the purpose of the exercise: getting the horses used to the presence of elephants.

  Hami ignored the horses, far more interested in his food than them, but I crossed my arms on my chest and observed the training. They were good riders, I had to admit, and used firm kindness rather than coercion to guide their mounts. I could have eased the horses’ fear of course, as I had done at my father’s request with the Sikhandi horses, but that would have been helping the enemy, so I just watched.