She’d never had so much company or entertainment, either. If either the gwerbret or the prince were in attendance in the hall—and they could only enter with their wives’ permission—a bard was allowed to join them as well, either to sing or to perform tales in the form known as “Conversations.” When the women were alone, Labanna would devote herself to her work. She had the entire dun to administer, with all its problems of managing servants and supplies. The other women, and Labanna herself when she had time, occupied themselves with their perpetual sewing, since every piece of clothing that anyone wore in the dun was made there as well. Being as she’d always loved to sew, Carra was perfectly happy to do her share. She’d never had such a choice of fine cloths in her life before, either, nor so many colors of thread.
Carra had come to Cengarn only a few weeks before, fleeing a marriage to a rich but ugly old lord that her brother had arranged, all unknowing that she was already pregnant by her elven prince. Since the journey had been anything but easy, she’d arrived utterly exhausted. At first, sitting in a sunny chair and basking in the attention of other women had been the greatest luxury of all. Yet soon enough she’d recovered her strength, and with the recovery she began to realize how greatly her marriage had changed her life.
Back when she’d been living in her brother’s dun, a useless third sister dumped onto his care by the death of his father, Carra had had a great deal more freedom to go about alone and on her whims. Now, whenever she announced she wanted to go for a walk in the ward, Labanna summoned pages to attend her. Whenever she wanted to leave the dun, vast consultations occurred, and the equerry or chamberlain, if not both, along with several men from her husband’s war-band, escorted her. If Labanna had orders to give, such as to the cook in the kitchen hut, then Carra was allowed to go with her, but again, the two women were never alone, always moving in a crowd of pages, servants, and the noble-born servitors themselves.
“I used to love to go riding,” she remarked one day. “Just me, you know. Or maybe I’d take a couple of dogs, and we’d just go trotting round my brother’s lands. Naught evil ever happened to me, really it didn’t.”
The three older women merely smiled, leaving her wondering if she’d actually spoken aloud or not.
“Well,” Carra went on. “Soon I’m going to be really pregnant, and I won’t be able to ride then. So that’s why I want to go now.”
“My dear child,” Labanna said at last. “You’re not some scruffy younger daughter anymore, but a married woman and a princess. Soon you’ll be traveling to your husband’s country, and that will simply have to be enough adventure for you.”
“Which reminds me,” Ocradda broke in. As the elder of the two serving women, she was Labanna’s main confidante in the dun. “Is it really wise to allow the princess to ride so far in her condition?”
“I feel fine,” Carra said. “And I rode all the way here, didn’t I?”
“A good point, Occa.” Again, Labanna spoke as if Carra had said not a word. “But I’m afraid her place lies with Tier husband’s people. When he rides out, she’ll have to ride with him.”
Carra decided that she hated hearing about her “place.” She felt that she’d become a treasured plate or goblet, put safely on a shelf where none could harm it.
Her mood wasn’t helped any by her husband’s attitude. Every evening Dar appeared at the door of the hail to escort her down to dinner, and he spent of course his nights in the chamber they shared, but by and large he seemed to be leaving her alone as much as he could. She did realize that often he and his men went out hunting to repay the gwerbret’s hospitality, because in this rough part of the country, venison provided much of the meat. At other times, though, it seemed to heir that he was merely lounging round with his men instead of sitting with her. When she complained to him, he seemed mostly puzzled, remarking that he knew she had her woman’s life to live and that he didn’t wish to be in her way. She knew better than to complain to Labanna, who saw her own husband as rarely. But theirs was an ordinary sort of marriage, she would think, all fixed up by their clans, and Dar said he married me out of love. At times it seemed to her that all the best parts of her life were long over, and she was, after all, but sixteen summers old.
The long days they spent worrying about the foreign raiders began to get on everyone’s nerves as well. The women had heard all the reports of farms burned, families killed, pregnant women butchered by men little better than beasts. The threat hung large that these raiders might only be the advance scouts for an army. One particularly hot afternoon they found themselves squabbling over very little until Labanna took charge.
“I think it would do everyone good if we set about planning some sort of feast or entertainment,” Labanna said. “I’d best go down and consult with my husband, but this waiting must be hard on his riders, too.” She glanced Carra’s way, imparting a small lesson. “Morale, my dear, is very important out here in the border country.”
“I’ll remember that, my lady. If you’re going down to the great hall, may I come, too?”
“Of course, dear. Just call the others, and we’ll all go down together.”
In a crowd of women Carra made her way into the great hall to find it filled with the various warbands, all drinking hard and looking, indeed, grim-faced and tired. At the table of honor Prince Daralanteriel was sitting with the other lords, but when Carra started to run to him, Labanna caught her arm with a motherly hand.
“The men are discussing matters of supply and such-like, dear. We’ll just take the second table over here. It gets a bit of a breeze, anyway.”
Carra was forced to sit at the lady’s right hand and watch her husband from some ten feet away. He was a hand’ some man, Dar, exceptionally so even for one of the West-folk, with jet-black hair and pale gray eyes, cat-slit to reveal a lavender pupil. Yet it wasn’t his good looks that had snared her heart, but the way that he’d always been so kind to her, when she’d been unhappy in her brother’s dun. Now it seemed that he barely noticed she was there. She told herself that she was only being foolish, to say nothing of vain and selfish, but she’d left behind everything she’d ever known for Dar, her family and clan, a group of friends built up over her entire life, the familiar sights of her ancestral lands and those of her neighbors. Soon she’d be leaving the very country of her birth and her own people. When she wondered if perhaps she’d made a mistake, her heart thudded in sheer panic.
Eventually Labanna caught her lord’s attention and was summoned to join the gwerbret. In the great hall men came and went; servants rushed round trying to keep everyone’s tankard full; dogs barked and squabbled among themselves. When Labanna returned, the noble-born servitors came with her to discuss plans for a feast and a series of mock combats. As the great hall grew hot as well as thunderously noisy, Carra began to feel sick to her stomach.
“My dear?” Ocradda leaned over and touched her hand. “You look pale. Let me summon a page to escort you upstairs. I think a little nap would do you a world of good.”
“I think my lady’s exactly right,” Carra said. “And my thanks.”
Once she was back in her chamber, however, and lying down in the cool, she felt quite recovered. For a few moments she dutifully tried to sleep, then got up and wandered over to the window. When she looked down she could see all sorts of people scurrying round the ward. Probably Labanna had already set things in motion for this feast, a vast event that would take days to plan and prepare. It occurred to her that she might be able to go down for a walk and not even be noticed. Better yet! All at once she remembered the boy’s clothes she’d worn when she rode away from her family to join Daralanteriel. If she put those on, perhaps she could sneak out to the stables and get her horse. She’d usually saddled her own horse, back in the days before her marriage. I’m not that pregnant yet, she thought. No reason I can’t do it again!
Her plan worked. Dressed like a dirty page, with her hair hidden by an elven leather hat, she seemed to have turned i
nvisible. Her own gelding, Gwerlas, a buckskin Western Hunter, turned out to be stabled right at the end of a line of stalls. She had him out and saddled without a soul noticing. Getting out of the dun through the guarded gates was, of course, a different matter altogether. She led Gwer up by a roundabout way, then waited in the partial shelter of a stack of firewood until the two guards started talking with a gaggle of servant girls. Carra mounted and trotted out, looking straight ahead as if she had every right to do so. Neither guard hailed her, and she turned down into the streets of Cengarn.
After a few hundred yards she dismounted again, because in that twisting maze, cluttered with townsfolk hurrying about their business, leading a horse was much easier than riding one. By traveling as straight downhill as the streets would let her she eventually found the South Gate, and there luck tossed her a fine roll of dice. Some twenty feet inside the gate a wagon had overturned with a spew of turnips. Teamster, townsfolk, and guards alike were clustering round, yelling at one another about the best way to get it righted. Carra mounted, urged Gwer to a trot, and was out and gone before anyone noticed the lad on the buckskin horse.
As soon as she was well clear, she kicked Gwer to a canter, turning off the road and heading to the west, riding randomly, and singing as she rode in the warm summer sun. Because of the sun, and because Gwer hadn’t been getting the exercise he needed, she soon slowed him to a walk. They ambled through the meadows round Cengarn, ending up due west of the town, resting there to let Gwer cool down and Carra look up at the cliffs and the impressive dun above, then rode on to the trees that lined the little stream. She dismounted to let Gwer drink, stood beside him while he did, and simply watched the water flow in the dappled shade. For a few moments she was no longer a married woman and a princess, and that was all, truly, that she’d wanted—a few moments respite.
“I don’t want to go back just yet,” she remarked to Gwerlas. “This really is silly of me, but oh, it feels so wonderful to not be anything for a while, just me again. And besides, it’s a good jest, slipping out on everyone like that.”
He snorted, tossing drops from his muzzle.
“We should have brought Lightning, too. He’d have liked this, getting free of the dun. Oh!”
All at once her heart sank. As soon as they noticed she was gone, they’d be right on her trail to fetch her back, because Lightning would lead them straight to her. She’d forgotten about that when she’d carelessly left him behind. Unless—she could remember what the heroes always did in the bard songs, when their beloved’s husband or some other enemy was hunting them down. She knelt, tested the water, and found it cold but not dangerously so to a horse’s legs.
“It might work. Look, Gwer, the stream’s really shallow, and it’s nice and sandy on the bottom, so you won’t slip or suchlike.”
She mounted, urged him into the ford, and after a brief moment’s argument got him to start picking his way upstream, heading roughly north. They were hidden, too, by the corridor of trees hugging the banks, so that none of the cowherds from the nearby farm even saw her as she rode past without leaving a scent that a dog could follow.
Rhodry was sitting in the great hall, drinking with Yraen over on the riders’ side, when Prince Daralanteriel came racing in from the ward. In a towering panic he rushed right by the gwerbret and the table of honor, ran cursing through the crowd, and finally fetched up at Rhodry’s side.
“Carra’s gone!” he burst out in Elvish. “I’ve looked all over for her. Her dog’s here, but her horse is gone from the stables.”
All the men near slewed round to stare at this foreign outburst. Swearing in two languages Rhodry swung himself clear of the bench and stood.
“Tell the gwerbret! We’ll get every man in this dun out scouring the countryside for her. By the Dark Sun herself, Your Highness, who knows what’s out there, waiting for a chance at her?”
Dar made a keening sound deep in his throat, then turned and ran back to the puzzled lords, who had all risen from their chairs to stare at his untidy progress through the hall. Every other person in it was whispering in a buzzing tide of speculation. Rhodry quickly translated Dar’s tale for the other riders, started to give Yraen an order, then stopped in sheer surprise. His friend had gone dead-pale.
“Do you know somewhat about this?” Rhodry snapped.
“What? Not in the least. What do you mean?” Yraen hauled himself to his feet. “I’m just—well—worried, that’s all.”
Terrified was more like it. For a moment Rhodry flirted with the implausible idea that Yraen might be a traitor; then the obvious occurred.
“Ye gods!” he hissed, “And a fine choice of a woman to fall in love with! She couldn’t get much more above you.”
Yraen swore and hit him in the ribs so hard that it hurt, Rhodry laughed, but under his breath to keep the others from hearing.
“No time to discuss the proprieties now,” Rhodry said. “Go saddle our horses, will you? I’m going to stick right close to Lord Matyc in this hunt. You do the same.”
Yet, in any event Rhodry and Yraen ended up separated, simply because not even one of the gods could organize a search party of over two hundred men without some confusion. Rhodry suspected, in fact, that Yraen had slipped away from him to avoid awkward questions. He reminded himself that tormenting a man like Yraen about a hopeless love affair was as much dangerous as cruel and put the matter firmly out of his mind.
When the search parties left the town, Rhodry simply joined Lord Matyc’s men without waiting to be asked. Just in case Matyc took this chance to arrange some kind of accident for the princess, he was determined to be near enough to stop it.
While Carra may have been headstrong at times, she was never stupid. Even as she plotted a careful route from stream to thicket to rocks to stream again, she made sure that she kept the towers of the town always in view and close in case she needed to make a strong gallop back to safety. With his bloodlines Gwerlas could no doubt have outrun most of the horses in the entire province if he’d had to; to make sure, she rested him often.
When she first heard the hunting horns blowing, she was riding well to the east of Cengarn down a little lane between two plowed fields. She rose in the stirrups, cocking her head to listen just as they came again—a lot of horns, spreading out from the direction of the dun. At first she wondered why the men would start a hunt so late in the day; then she realized that Dar must have called out the warbands to look for her. Her pleasure at her joke turned sour.
“They’re all going to be furious.”
Gwer snorted with a toss of his head.
It occurred to her that if she could stay undiscovered long enough, she might be able to cut round behind them and slip back inside unseen, where she could, perhaps, pretend she’d never left. She might have fallen asleep in one of the gardens, perhaps, where Dar might not have thought to look for her. It was worth a try. She turned back the way she’d come and began retracing her circuitous route, from cow shed to stream to thicket to duck pond, spiraling in toward the city gates. Although she heard horns and even saw, at a great distance, horsemen galloping by, no one ever came her way.
When she was in sight of the south gates, she paused, rising in the stirrups to peer at the walled town, marching up its hills and looming over her. She could just pick out the tiny figures of guards, pacing back and forth. The east gate, she decided, would offer her the best chance of getting in unseen, simply because it was narrow and old, opening onto a little-used track that existed for the convenience of cowherds and farmers come to market with produce. Sure enough, when she approached the town from the east, she saw no one at the gates, neither standing watch nor loitering.
“Good,” she remarked to Gwerlas. “The hard part, though, is going to be getting back through the dun gates. Well, one thing at a time.”
She dismounted and led the horse in. The wall here stood a good ten feet thick, and the “gate” was more a tunnel with a stout oak and iron-bound door standing half-open a
t the far end. As they hurried through, heading for the sunlight and the town, she passed big piles of rocks, stockpiled to clog the opening in case of an attack. Just as she led Gwerlas out into the dusty street, a man stepped in front of her. She screamed aloud when he grabbed her arm, but it was only Yraen, snarling as he barred her way.
“I thought so,” he snapped. “If you were clever enough to get out, I figured you were clever enough to try to get back in and pretend naught had ever happened.”
“You let me go! I’m a princess now, and you’re supposed to be humble round me.”
“Don’t you realize what a scare you’ve given us all? Ye gods!” He gave her arm a shake. “You could have been killed, riding out on your own.”
“I was safe enough. I made sure of that.”
“Hah! You without even a table dagger in your belt! And with all this talk of shape-changers riding the winds and evil spirits under every bush and stile! Are you daft?”
“All I wanted was to be alone for just a little while. You don’t know what it’s like, being shut up like a prized mare, never getting to do anything without half the court following you round.”
At that he let her go.
“Well, I do know, as a matter of fact. But ye gods, Carra! I mean, Princess, Your Highness—you’re right. My apologies. I forget myself.”
“Well, it’s hard to remember to be formal and all that when we nearly got ourselves killed together.”
Yraen nodded, looking absently away.
“So we did, so we did. Here, mount up, will you? And I’ll lead your horse back for you.”
“I can walk, thank you very much.”
“Ye gods, don’t come over all haughty on me, will you? Get on your wretched horse before I put you on him.”
“Just try.” Carra set her hands on her hips.
For a moment they glared at each other.
“Well, I don’t suppose your husband would take it kindly if I did lay hands on you. Walk if you want to.”
Days of Blood and Fire Page 16