Rhodry laughed.
“It hadn’t occurred to me, truly. But of course you’re right, and it’s a relief as well, knowing that.”
They went downstairs to the great hall and a meal set for them and Angmar alone, strong ale and beef, mostly, though an elderly servant brought in a scant ration of bread apiece before retreating as if he were afraid they’d ask for more. Rhodry and Garin shared a trencher at one side of the table, the other two dwarves at the other, while Angmar ate alone and sparingly in her chair at the table’s head. Outside the wind rustled and whistled. Shutters banged in distant windows, the front door creaked, candles guttered on the table and in the sconces, while from outside came the slap and murmur of waves on the shore.
Rhodry thought on occasion of making conversation, but whenever he glanced Angmar’s way, she seemed so distant,so wrapped in brooding, that he found nothing to say. In the shadowed light she seemed too young to have a grown son, though no doubt as a dwarven half-breed she had a life span as uncertain as his own. While he never would have considered her beautiful—and he suspected that such a soft compliment would have offended her—she was an attractive woman, slender and muscled all at once, reminding him in some ways of Jill when she’d been young. Loosed, her mane of blond hair would set off her high cheekbones and clean features, he supposed. Every now and then she would glance his way, but her dark eyes revealed nothing of her possible opinion of him.
All at once Mic swore and slewed round on the bench. When Rhodry looked toward the door, he saw the woman in white, her silver tore gleaming in the candlelight, leaning on her spear and watching them while tears ran down her cheeks. Although the dwarves sat stunned, Rhodry swung himself free of the bench.
“My lady,” he said. “We meet again. My sword is at your service if you have need of it.”
She smiled and, smiling, disappeared.
Openmouthed and gaping the dwarves exchanged troubled glances on the edge of words, but Angmar merely picked up her tankard and had a sip of ale in such an ordinary way that Rhodry felt abruptly foolish. He sat down again, looking her way. She merely smiled vaguely, then attended to her meal. Rhodry decided that following her lead was the best idea. The dwarves seemed to agree as well, and for a while they all ate in silence.
“Be there enough food on my table for you?” Angmar said at last.
“There is, my lady,” Garin said. “And you have our humble thanks indeed for so splendid a meal.”
She rose and walked out of the room without another word. The servant bustled in with a bowl of apples, then withdrew. For a few moments they all waited, but when there was no sign of Angmar, Mic could stand it no longer.
“What was that woman with the spear?” he burst out. “A ghost?”
“I’ve no idea,” Garin said. “I didn’t see any apparitions before, when I was here the other two times, I mean.”
“I was going to ask you that,” Rhodry said. “You saw naught so weird?”
“Naught, except, well, for Haen Marn itself, and the road to it. I came on strict business from our merchant guilds, of course, on some mundane affairs, not hunting dragons in the midst of a dweomer war.”
“Bound to be a bit of a difference,” Otho sighed. “These cursed bizarre things seem to hover round our Rori here like flies round horseshit.”
“Otho!” everyone snapped at once.
Otho mugged dignity and poured himself more ale. Though they lingered by the fire a long time that evening, drinking and wondering about the woman in white, Angmar never returned.
Although the servants brought her guests everything they needed, the lady kept herself hidden all the next day as well. It was sunny, too humid for sitting in the great hall, and Rhodry and the dwarves walked round the island, though none of them went too close to the waterline for fear of the long-necked beasts. The wind lapped at the water and drove waves on the pale sand of the island’s shore, rustled in the trees, whined and sighed through the warren of buildings clustering round the stone tower. Every now and then Rhodry thought he heard a woman weeping, but most likely, or so he told himself, it was only the wind.
“Tell me somewhat, Garin,” Rhodry said. “Well, if you can, anyway. What does the name Haen Marn mean? Old what?”
Garin laughed.
“Haen may sound like the hen in your tongue, but in ours it means black. Haen Marn. Black stone.”
“Ah. My apologies.”
Their circuit brought them back round to the boathouse and the jetty, where the oarsmen of the day before were sit’ ting, legs dangling over the edge, and fishing. When Garin hailed them, they spoke up in Dwarvish, beckoning for the guests to join them. Rather than listen to talk he couldn’t understand, Rhodry decided to head back to the manse. He wouldn’t mind a tankard of ale, he decided, and the servants had made it clear that it was theirs for the asking.
He began following the path that had led, the night before, through the kitchen garden and to the door. Ahead, through the trees, he could see the peaked roof of the manse and beyond that the stone tower. He walked along, thinking that the path was a bit longer than he’d been remembering, rounded a little bend, and found himself at the lakeshore. He’d taken a wrong fork, no doubt, and he turned to retrace his steps. Ahead rose the manse, on the other side of a stone wall and some hedges. He headed toward it, found himself among trees, could still see the manse, walked a few yards more, and saw the boathouse directly ahead of him.
“Oh. Well, more fool me!”
Still, he decided to try one more time. This time he sighted on a shed near the manse in the hopes that perhaps he could trick whatever road dweomer lay upon the place. The path led him right along to the lakeshore on the opposite side of the island. He turned to find the tower directly in his way.
“Rori!”
Angmar came striding along the lakeshore. He waited, afraid that if he went toward her, he’d lose her.
“My apologies,” she called out. “You’ve no dwarven blood, and by your onliness it be not allowed for you to come near the manse.”
“I see. This place has some powerful dweomers upon it.”
“You might say that.”
She strode up and joined him, her golden hair shining thick in the sun.
“No doubt you be a-wondering when my son will get himself home. From what the envoy has said, this task be needful for you to complete soon.”
“It is, truly. And sadly, as well. Haen Marn seems a pleasant place for a man to linger.”
She smiled, just faintly.
Rhodry caught movement out of the corner of his eye, glanced at the lake, and saw the woman with the spear, standing upon the water and watching him. When he caught his breath, Angmar turned and saw her as well. As before, the woman wept until he spoke to her.
“My lady, please, what aches your heart so badly?”
She vanished without a word. Angmar was considering him with a peculiar lack of expression, as if it were important for her to show not a shred of feeling.
“Well, here,” Rhodry said. “I don’t know how much it’s lawful for me to ask.”
“Ask all you want. The answering is mine to judge.”
“Fair enough, then. Whose spirit is that?”
“It be good you do ask, but that I mayn’t answer.”
“Ah. I rather thought not. Did you lay the dweomers here, my lady?”
“I did not, though I may maintain them, for I were not born here on Haen Marn.”
“And it’s needful that the lady of this place be born here?”
“It is. The last true lady had only sons, and I was brought here for the marrying of her eldest.” She seemed amused about something. “I think me you do understand the unwinding of dweomer ways more than another man might, Rori.”
“Whether I wanted it or no, the dweomer has ruled my life, my lady. I feel like one of those wild horses out on the grasslands, caught in elven ropes and dragged off where I’ve no stomach to go.”
“A bitter man you so
und.”
“Do I? I suppose so. My Wyrd’s been a bitter one, you see, and it’s ruled me ever since I was a lad. I’ve given up kicking and let them saddle me.”
He strode to the edge of the lake, stooped and picked up a stone, rubbing it between his fingers. In a moment she joined him. When Rhodry sailed the stone flat over the lake, it skipped seven times before it finally sank, far out from shore.
“A good toss,” Angmar said, grinning.
“In Aberwyn, where I was born, they say that seven skips like that mean a good omen.”
“Do they now? Let us hope they be right,”
For a few moments they stood together looking across to the far shore. In the hot sun the forest exhaled a fine blue mist, beyond the power, apparently, of the endless wind to blow away.
“Well now,” Angmar said abruptly. “I do think my daughter may know when her brother will come back to Haen Marn.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
Angmar glanced up at the stone tower.
“I do, though a pitiful creature she be, a mooncalf, truly.”
“That aches my heart to hear.”
“Tell me, would you let her look upon you? I do have a reason for the asking.”
“Well, then, of course.”
“My thanks. Come with me.”
Angmar strode off, heading away from the lake toward the tower. Rhodry followed as she pushed open a heavy oak door in its base and led him inside to a tiny room smelling of damp and stone. An iron staircase spiraled up past landings and into shadow.
“You wear some talisman of hiding power, don’t you?” Angmar said.
“I do.” Automatically he laid his hand on his shirt over the lapis lazuli. “Why do you ask?”
“Curiosity and naught more. I did think so, when she lost the sight of you. Come up.”
They climbed up to the first landing, all piled up with full sacks and shabby chests, a broken chair, a heap of firewood. Inside the tower the wind moaned and hummed. Angmar pitched her voice louder to carry over it.
“I would not wish you to think she be prisoned here. She herself does cling to the heights and refuse the ground.”
As they were climbing to the next landing, Angmar suddenly paused and called out.
“Avain, Avain!”
Although no one answered they resumed their climb, coming out on the next landing into a proper room (though the stairs continued through it), sunny and bright from big windows, even though the walls were dark, undressed stone. To one side stood a table and a half-round chair. Sitting next to the chair on the floor among clean straw was a lass, no more than fifteen summers, Rhodry supposed, as yellow-haired as her mother, but plump in a soft and puffy way, with a big round face nodding over a round body. In her lap she held a broad but shallow silver basin, filled with water, and she was staring into it and singing to herself, a high tuneless song without words.
“Avain?” Angmar whispered. “We do have a guest, my sweet.”
She looked up at Rhodry with the dragon eyes of his dreams. They were round, nearly lidless, and green, slit vertically like a cat’s or elven eyes, with the yellow iris showing.When she smiled, he was expecting fangs, but all else about her was human enough. She spoke a few words in Dwarvish.
“She says that she did see you in the town where men live,” Angmar said. “Do be forgiving of her. It were a struggle to teach her what little of her own tongue she knows, and any else were beyond her.”
“Of course, my lady. Tell her that when I slept, I saw her watching me.”
“Did you now?”
When Angmar spoke to the lass, she laughed and clapped her hands, joggling the basin. Sunlight flashed on moving water, and the glints speared her attention. With a little contented sigh, she nestled into her straw and stared at the moving patterns. Every now and then she dipped a finger in the basin and touched a drop to her forehead, just above the bridge of her nose.
“I’ll ask her about Enj.”
Angmar knelt beside her in the straw and spoke a few words. For a long moment the lass frowned into her basin, then replied in a singsong of Dwarvish.
“She does see him for away, though he be a-heading in a homewards direction,” Angmar translated. “He does love to wander, our Enj, and all his father’s people do think him dafter than his sister for it, his walking here and there in the light of the sun, just for the seeing of what may lie upon the ground. But what she sees she sees in this water, and if ever the basin spill, then she do weep and carry on until someone brings the filling of it again.”
“Why did you watch me, Avain?”
Angmar laughed and didn’t repeat the question.
“A word such as why will have no meaning for the likes of her, Rori. She sees all that does concern Haen Marn, and so your approaching did appear to her, just as the approaching of a storm or some doings of the beasts in the lake would appear.”
“Oh. Well and good, then.”
So this was why he’d been expected. He could remember how neutral the dragon eyes had felt in his dreams, a simple noting of his presence and naught else, unlike the malice of the other pair. She must have been telling her mother of his progress all along their way, until of course Othara had given him the talisman.
“But the boatmen knew I was hunting a dragon.”
“Avain did say this thing, many times over. I did wonder how she knew, but the poor child could not tell me, though I did ask the question in as many simple ways as I could invent. It distressed her so that I did stop, for she would weep at the mention of you after that.”
“Then my apologies. Here, tell her that I mean this dragon no harm, that I only wish its aid in a grave matter.”
“Be that true? She will know the truth of it, you see.”
“I swear it on my silver dagger.”
When Angmar passed the information on, Avain looked up with the most beautiful smile that Rhodry had ever seen on a child’s face, joyful, relieved, and loving all at once, though her dragon’s eyes never blinked the whole long while she looked at him. Angmar ran her hand through her daughter’s hair, smiling herself while she straightened out the tangles. Avain leaned into the touch of her hand like a dog. When Angmar spoke to her briefly, the lass nodded and returned to her basin of water, perfectly happy, apparently, even when her mother rose to go.
“Again we will ask her for some news of Enj,” Angmar said. “Let us be going down now.”
Angmar escorted him to the manse by a path that stayed put and ordinary, but she stopped outside the door.
“I won’t come in,” she said. “I’ll be seeing about my daughter’s food, and I’ll go up and help her with the eating of it. Cutting meat she cannot do. But one last thing. Before I did find you upon the lakeshore, I met Envoy Garin, and he did complain to me about the chamber in which you sleep.”
“Oh, here, no need to worry about that! It’s perfectly fine for a man like me.”
“Some of my servants care not for those with elven blood. I’ll have it tended to and a better chamber given.”
Without another word she walked off, heading for one of the side buildings. Rhodry went inside the manse and found Garin, Mic, and Otho sitting in the great hall at a table by the main door to catch the air and sunlight. When he joined them, the elderly servant brought him a tankard of ale, then glided away again. All the other tables in die vast room stayed empty.
“The silence here is beginning to gripe my soul,” Rhodry said. “I’m used to a bit of life in a hall, I am.”
“Me, too,” Garin said. “It was different last time I was here. The boatmen ate with us, and there were always people coming and going. I seem to remember a bard, too, or at least a singer with a harp, if he wasn’t a proper bard.”
“Was Angmar lady here then?”
“She was, but her husband was still alive, of course. Hum.” Garin considered for a moment. “Most likely being a widow has broken the poor woman’s little heart. A sad thing it was. He was dr
owned in a storm, and here her daughter was just born by a fortnight.”
“Living in this cursed wind would drive me draft,” Otho said. “Worse for a woman, I should think, all this whining and wailing air.”
“Er, about her husband?” Mic put in. “You say he was drowned? Did they recover his body?”
“They did, and he’s buried over in die hills with his ancestors,” Garin answered. ‘Why?”
“I was just thinking about that beast we saw.”
“Ych!” Otho snapped. “Don’t be disgusting!”
“For a change, your uncle and I agree about somewhat,” Rhodry said, softening the remark with a grin. “Her husband was one of the Mountain People, then?”
“Well, he looked like one of us. A tall man, for us, but not unduly so.” Garin paused, stroking his beard. “He said he was of dwarven blood, and truly, I never saw a thing to counter him.”
“You sound doubtful anyway.”
“True, true.” Garin glanced round. “This isn’t the place to be discussing it, though.”
“Of course. My apologies.”
All that day, and on into the evening, Rhodry stayed on guard, watching and listening for the woman in white, but he never saw her. At the evening meal Angmar ate as silently and as sparingly as before, then left before the men were done—to tend her daughter, Rhodry supposed. After the meal was cleared away, Garin brought out dice, and the three dwarves settled in to one of their tournaments. Wondering whether the prize would go for squabbling or dicing, Rhodry watched for a while, then made his good nights, took a candle end, and went upstairs.
He found his old chamber empty, remembered that Angmar had promised him a better one, and stood in the corridor, wondering whom to ask where his gear and bedroll might be. Drawn, perhaps, by the candlelight, an elderly dwarven woman, her gray hair tied back in a thong, came shuffling along, carrying a punched tin candle-lantern that threw dots and slashes of light over the deep carved walls.
“Follow me,” was all she said.
Days of Blood and Fire Page 34