The Horse Lord (The Book of Years Series 1)

by Peter Morwood

  The minstrel’s response was far from comforting.

  “I know it,” he said. “‘The Fall of Kalarr cu Ruruc.’” He studied Aldric with eyes blue as faded cornflowers. “And no tale for this occasion. Your pardon, lord, I will not sing that song tonight.” And he left, his departure marked by Haranil-arluth’s bow to honour him. It was an action which by custom the entire hall copied, and which helped Aldric control the uneasy expression on his face.

  Only Duergar noticed. “The Kalarr story is an interesting one, my lord,” he said, “though for the most part quite untrue.” Aldric’s mouth shaped a silent “Oh?” and the historian explained, but without his earlier entertaining wit. This rambling, long-winded lecture lacked any spark of interest, and Aldric quickly regretted ever raising the subject.

  Kalarr, so the story went, was a warlord and sorcerer in the days before the Clan Wars, when the loyalty of Alba’s petty rulers varied with the distance from their Overlord and intrigue was as common as breathing. No one could say where cu Ruruc came from; he simply was, and offered aid to each group of conspirators until they were together in one place at a clan gathering in his citadel of Ut Ergan. There he slew his erstwhile allies with fire from the air, and seized their lands for his own.

  “A fanciful way of saying he had them murdered while they were drunk,” said Duergar. “It was the usual way of things back then, so storymakers—” he jerked his head towards where the old harper had sat, “—like to season the tale with magic to make it more exciting.”

  The Overlord, undeceived, gathered his warriors and rode north, defeating Cu Ruruc’s army in a battle near Baelen Forest. The sorcerer was killed, but the Overlord and many nobles also fell and rivalry between their ambitious sons led to the Clan Wars and all that followed.

  Aldric had read those histories many times before, but worse than learning nothing new was the way Duergar talked down to him like a child, and not a very bright one at that. He yawned, a slow, exaggerated and supremely insolent yawn like a cat’s, and Duergar stopped in the middle of another convoluted sentence.

  “Do I bore you, my lord?”

  “Yes,” said Aldric as bluntly as manners allowed. “You must be aware I’m twenty years old, because this banquet – where you’re a guest – is to celebrate the fact. Yet you’re treating me like an infant. Deliberately.” Duergar’s bland unchanging smile set his teeth on edge, and when the scholar made benevolent noises as if to soothe a squalling baby, Aldric lost his temper. Even though he kept his voice down, his thinned lips and narrowed eyes made his feelings all too clear.

  “If your intention this evening was to be offensive, Master Duergar, then I applaud your success. I don’t know why you did it. I don’t want to know why. So I’ll thank you to keep—” He bit down on his words before they went too far. “Good evening.” Rising without a bow, not even a nod, he stalked away.

  Duergar watched him go with eyes which never blinked, then smiled and drank more wine.

  Aldric’s anger had changed its focus within five steps. Now he raged inwardly at himself for having broken one of the oldest rules of conduct for high-clan kailinin. It had nothing to do with weapons or honour, and all to do with simple good manners. Courtesy to guests meant courtesy at all times, and doing otherwise on this day of all days made him look exactly like an irritable child. Being treated as one by Duergar only made matters worse. More brooding and more wine might have compounded the error, but the arrival of his father’s Companion and Bannerman saved him.

  Eskar Tereyl was more than just Haranil’s right-hand man and foremost warrior; he was a confidant, keeper of secrets, adviser and friend. That quiet, full-armoured presence became the steadying influence Aldric required, and knowing everything was ready for his coming-of-age ceremony was as sobering as a splash of cold water. There were times to be angry, times to be drunk, and times to be foolish. None of those times were now.

  He followed Eskar out to prepare for the rituals.

  *

  Aldric knelt before his father, first on one knee then on both with a deep bow each time. The movement ended with an inclined head and his right hand, the sword-hand to defend his honour, pressed over his heart. It was the only time in his life he would be expected to give First Obeisance to anyone other than royalty, and he did it well. Then he straightened, took the Book of Ancestors from yscop Gyreth, bowed to the priest and pressed the ancient holy relic to his brow. From Lord Dacurre’s hands he received his father’s taiken with a hand-span of blade unsheathed, and touched it to his lips, wary of the weapon’s age as much as its edge.

  Haranil Talvalin rose from his seat, laid both hands on his son’s head and swept up the hair at the back to secure it with a crested clip. Though several clans required the full head of hair be combed back and put into braid, this single horsetail had sufficed for twenty generations of Talvalin warriors. Then he freed the long locks from behind Aldric’s ears and let them fall along each cheek to the jaw-hinge. Again, some kailinin braided these ear-locks as they braided their warrior’s queue – Joren did it once in a while – but clan Talvalin preferred simplicity.

  Haranil stepped back and Aldric acknowledged him with hand on heart and head held high, Second Obeisance from a kailin-eir to his lord. He stood upright, drew a deep breath, then spoke the oath that would govern him from this moment onward.

  “I am kailin-eir Aldric Talvalin,” he said. “Know me. Know I have a Word of Binding. Upon that Word I now take threefold oath: to keep the honour of my House and Clan, even to the ending of my life; to keep the laws of Heaven and the King, that my name and ancestors be not shamed; to be the King’s liege man, and live and die as may best serve him. Under Heaven and before the company here assembled, upon my Word all this I truly swear.”

  Everyone present bowed, high and low together making the Third Obeisance between equals. When they straightened, Joren looped the scabbard-belt of a new taiken longsword over his brother’s head and fastened a silver crest-collar round his neck. Its crest, despite everything said and unsaid, was the kourgath wildcat after all. Then Lord Santon stepped forward, purple and dark blue Colour-Robe contrasting with the pale skin of his clan, and Aldric’s mouth went dry as he stared at the slender black dirk held out towards him. Santon moved his hands apart and the triple-edged blade slid free, a glittering icicle of steel.

  This was a tsepan, last of the Three Blades.

  Now it was a badge of rank and a piece of masculine jewellery, its materials of the very finest for the sake of the wearer’s honour. But it remained an echo of the older, harsher rules which once laid down both the living and the dying of an Alban warrior. The tsepan’s blade was for its owner; it had no other purpose. There were reasons for that use even now: to avoid tormented capture by an implacable, dishonourable enemy or to take leave of a body shattered past healing after accidental fall or rolling horse. It was even a means of self-execution as repentance, though never admission of guilt, to keep land and wealth from falling forfeit to the crown.

  But in war, when common sense prevailed over pride and bloody obsession with honour, the tsepan had another aspect. If a man lay split asunder by sword or axe any means to end his pain was mercy, yet there was always risk of provoking a feud. So each kailin’s dirk was for himself, marked with his own crest, a guiltless blade for some compassionate hand to make his passage to the darkness quick and clean.

  Santon spoke the old phrases in High Alban, the Horse-Lords’ priestly tongue, no longer used except for rituals such as this. “Behold thy blade, black and belt-borne. Honourable it is, pride-protecting, death without dishonour’s darkness. Mark its meaning in thy mind with Word of Binding and with blood.” From the corner of one eye Aldric saw servants unroll a length of bandage, and he shivered.

  “Word and blood will bind me. I will bear the blade.” He held out his open left hand, muscles taut to stop the fingers trembling, and looked away as Lord Santon put steel to the offered skin. Oath-taking in staged drama always overplayed
the stroke as a potentially crippling slash. Reality was more delicate, cutting deep enough to make the required white cicatrice yet not enough to risk the muscles and tendons just beneath, and receiving the cuts at Eskorrethen was as much token of trust as rite of passage.

  Santon kept that trust as he sliced once with each edge so Duty to Heaven, Clan and Crown each left its mark, each cut finishing with a small back-twist of the blade to leave a clear-marked scar and nothing else.

  White-faced, Aldric watched the rows of glistening beads rise red as hawthorn berries from his palm until a fine linen bandage covered them. He felt a little queasy, because as the saying went, ‘None look with ease on their own blood’. The tsepan was so keen the wounds had barely hurt, but now a hot throbbing pulse crawled up his arm. He cradled one hand in the other and bowed, then retired for a while as was his right.

  The ceremony was over, and his life for the next few years could proceed in ordered fashion. Youth spent in weapon-training had prepared him for service in a garrison, officer rank when he earned it, promotion to the Guards’ cavalry barrack in Cerdor then Companion and Bannerman to another high-clan lord. Not an appealing prospect, though better than the alternate choice for a landless third son. Aldric Talvalin had never seen himself as a priest.

  He grinned at the thought and went to find a drink.

  *

  Aldric reined in his chestnut gelding at the crest of a small rise and twisted around to look back at Dunrath’s distant bulk. The loftier turrets and the donjon of the citadel gleamed straw-gold in the sunrise; the rest was still shrouded by mist and pre-dawn gloom, with only a few firefly specks to show where people were up and about. Aldric hunched deeper into the fur collar of his long riding-coat, for autumn was coming to its close and the days were growing short and chilly. The horse stamped and shook its mane, eager to be off. With a final glance he settled into his saddle and let the beast make its own way down the slope, towards the broad straight road that led to Radmur.

  *

  “Radmur? At this time of year?” Joren had laughed when he first heard Aldric’s plan, treating it as a joke until he realised his young brother was serious. “And why, may I ask, are you so set on going?”

  “Why do you ask, when I’ve told you once already? I want to see my friends before winter closes in, because there won’t be time come spring before I go into service with Leyruz.” Joren frowned and drew breath, but Aldric got there first. “With Leyruz-arluth. Sorry.”

  “Eight leagues is a fair distance even in summer. You’d not find me doing it.”

  “I’m not you.”

  “No, praise Heaven!”

  The big man’s vehemence made Aldric grin. Joren was right, nobody he knew was worth a twenty-five-mile social call in the present weather, but it was an acceptable excuse to cover what he didn’t know. Aldric unlocked a chest, rummaged through the clothes inside, then started clearing three months of accumulated debris from the pockets of his favourite leather jerkin. Something fell with a clank against the bottom of the trunk, and he fished out a decrepit, rusty sword-hilt with a broken chain through its pommel. The flakes of corrosion it sprinkled everywhere made him mutter vulgarities under his breath.

  Joren stared out of a window, wondering how his little brother had grown up to be a well-read fool who collected rubbish and went visiting in foul weather for no good reason. “It wouldn’t be a woman, hmm?”

  If he hadn’t been watching the shifting grey clouds Joren might have questioned the sharp look shot at him, a look banished by the realisation he was joking again. Aldric laughed carefully, dropped the old sword-hilt back into the half-empty chest and resumed his packing.

  “Wrong again. If – when I find a lady, she’ll live a damn sight nearer home!”

  *

  Aldric cantered on, whistling between his teeth. Apart from the few yeomen and an occasional merchant who gave him “Good day” and respectful bows, the road was empty and winter unquestionably drawing near. Everything was grey – the sky, the hills, the clumps of woodland, even the road beyond a bowshot’s distance – and Aldric wondered more than once why indeed he hadn’t stayed at home. Haranil-arluth had granted him three days of liberty, pleasing enough until the old man elaborated. It meant a day to go, a day to stay and a day to return, no more. Aldric made the mistake of trying to argue, and learned he was no longer a child with whims indulged by a good-natured father.

  “Heed the bidding of your lord, kailin,” said Haranil, and that was that.

  The smooth sad wail of a wolf floated down from the woods beyond the ridge, and Aldric resisted a temptation to jam in his heels. He hadn’t forgotten the strange events after the boar-hunt, nor Duergar Vathach’s dismissive remarks at the banquet.

  Strange man, he thought. Spends all day in the library or wandering about the woods, seldom gets back till after dark, never heeds the weather…

  A raindrop in the eye interrupted his musing. Bad weather might not concern Duergar, but Aldric hated getting wet. He shook the gelding to a gallop and reached a handy way-house in time to watch the brief downpour pass overhead from beside the comfort of its well-stoked fireplace.

  “Short and sharp and soon over,” said the keepers.

  Aldric hoped they were right. He had a long way to go.

  *

  He and the horse were both tired when at last they reached the walled city of Radmur.

  Stiff and saddle-sore, he stood in his stirrups as the beast trotted towards the gates, their welcoming lanterns and a brief greeting with wardens more courteous than last time once they saw how he wore his hair. But he still had to turn his steed over to a city groom since horses were forbidden beyond the perimeter roads of most Alban cities. The ache in thighs and back made him consider a chair and bearers, until he reminded himself mock-sternly that he was no fat merchant but a Talvalin kailin-eir, young and supposedly fit. Aching or not, he walked the rest of the way on his own two legs.

  Allowed for the first time to carry a taiken within the city walls, Aldric paused in the doorway of The Brimming Tankard to confirm it still hung in peace position across his back with the hilt at his shoulder. A longsword worn that way couldn’t be drawn, and the implied threat if it dropped to his hip was penalised by law, so he checked it was secure. The action would have seemed more thoughtful if he hadn’t made the same ostentatious movement half a dozen times since entering Radmur. This time was like all the other times, and nobody took the slightest notice.

  Tewal’s tavern was much as he’d last seen it, snug and quiet under adzed oak beams and rich with delicious cooking smells. The taproom had a fire like a forge and dishes of salted dainties to encourage thirst and deep drinking. Aldric ordered a cup of wine, confiscated a bowl of dried-beef slivers and began munching. It had been a long day, and he was ravenous.

  Only a few minutes passed before Tewal himself emerged from the kitchen, cheerful as always. “I thought I’d seen the last of you till spring, my lord,” he said, and regardless of the younger man’s new warrior-rank slapped him on the back. Aldric winced, because the short chubby man had big, broad hands and he slapped as if knocking dust from a rug.

  “There’s no need to sound so disappointed,” he said. Tewal tugged his grey-flecked ginger beard and shook his head.

  “Oh no, dear me no, not like that at all, my lord. I said to Egyth only today, Egyth my dear, said I, now his hair’s up and he wears the Blades, young lord Aldric might come calling for a—”

  Aldric held up one hand for silence before Tewal got into his stride. The innkeeper always made him feel out of breath. “Please, Tewal, not right now. I’m so hungry my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut. Feed me first, let me wash it down with a flask of white, very cold, then you can tell me everything you’ve said to everybody this past week.”

  “And you’ll want your usual room?” Aldric went pink about the ears and Tewal continued without a pause. “Though now I recall, one of the double chambers is still free. As a belated Eskorret
hen gift, perhaps?” Aldric nodded and buried his nose in his wine-cup to avoid more questions. “I’ll send a boy to the stables for your bags, my lord. Settle yourself in and eat, at… At this table, I think.” It was near the back of the common-room, in a secluded booth. “Popular with guests who like privacy.”

  Tewal bustled off and Aldric sat down, wondering how he took everything in his stride so easily. The Tankard quickly filled with other customers and Aldric, never fond of crowds, was grateful for his quiet corner. Then the food started to arrive, each dish leaving the kitchen when it became ready to eat, and he stopped fretting. Tewal’s wife Egyth brought him a bowl of peppery lamb-and-lentil broth, garnished it with a generous scatter of small buttered dumplings, and carried on sporadic conversation while he ate.

  They swapped gossip until his main dish arrived: a chicken crisp and brown from the spit, roasted vegetables, warm crusty bread and a sharp relish of pickled gooseberries. Egyth left him to give it his full attention, but Aldric had barely freshened his palate with a sip of wine and lifted his knife when he paused in mid-cut.

  Not because of the wine, his head was harder than that. This was a feeling of being watched. Yet a glance across the busy room saw only merchants with their ledgers and long-stemmed pipes, city councilmen and their wives, off-duty guards officers and their ladies of the moment. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Until his gaze reached the door, and there she was.

  *

  Her name was Ilen. Aldric knew little else about her, and he hadn’t pressed for more. There was already enough potential for confusion, because when they first met she had been – for all he knew, still was – already casually partnered with a friend of a friend in Radmur. Ilen had been more amused than confused by the situation and not concerned at all, but gave no hint of what his next step should be.

  Joren had guarded his young brother’s morals with the same attention as teaching him to fight, so previous attempts at what passed for romance had been fumbling, inconclusive and no help at all. Aldric grew up shy, obsessively honourable, extremely frustrated and remained, at twenty years and ten days old, nervously virginal in all the ways that mattered. His visit to Radmur was meant to remedy the situation, since at their last meeting Ilen’s friendship showed willingness to become much more friendly. Perhaps even intimate.