Garin sighed, rose, and took their tankards to the barrel to refill them. For a few minutes they drank in a companionable silence.
“It’s that nasty tongue that actually got our Otho exiled,” Garin remarked. “Not paying his debt was the formal charge, but he showed the judges—well, shall we say less than full respect?”
“I can believe it of him. Tell me somewhat. Will things go badly for my lady because of me?”
“Why would they? She’s a widow and the mistress of Haen Marn as well. If she chooses to keep her bed warm at night, who’s to say her nay?”
“Well, things are a fair bit different in my country.”
“True, true, but we’re not in it, are we?” Garin smiled, just briefly.
“Well, so we’re not.”
They drank for a few moments more.
“I do wonder about Enj,” Garin said. “I get the odd feeling that he’s staying away on purpose, odd because the servants here have all confirmed what I’ve been thinking all along. He’s going to covet the joining of this hunt.”
“Splendid, but if he doesn’t even know we’re here—”
Garin looked at him and lifted one eyebrow.
“You think he does know?”
“Rori, we’re in Haen Marn. The lady and her brood are not what you’d call ordinary souls, are they now?”
“Um, well, true spoken. Let me see, we got here just before the moon turned full, she went to her dark time, and now she’s what?”
“She reached the waxing quarter last night.” All at once Garin looked into his tankard and struggled to suppress a grin. “No doubt you’ve been a bit too busy, like, to notice.”
Rhodry swung one hand toward him in a mock blow.
“Be that as it may,” Garin went on with some dignity. “The summer’s not getting any younger. You’re going to have a fine time of it up on the Roof of the World if you don’t get yourself there soon, and it’s not what you’d call a short journey.”
“True. Well, I’ll go see if I can find Angmar. She’s often in the tower this time of day.”
In the tower was indeed where he found her. Angmar had persuaded Avain to set her basin upon the table and sit in a proper chair; she herself sat opposite, while Rhodry leaned against the wall and watched them, two golden heads together in the sunlight, the one so strong, the other so vulnerable to every ill whim of a world she’d never be able to understand. Safe under her mother’s protection Avain was so sunny, so loving, that it was hard not to like the child. Even the dourest servant, Angmar’s maid, always had a smile for her when she came up to help with some task or other.
“She will get round to Enj some while soon,” Angmar said. “There be no hurrying the child. I doubt me if she may choose what she do see or not.”
“Probably not, truly.”
Not that he would have blamed her, but Rhodry did have a brief wondering if Angmar was postponing his leaving for her own reasons. He wondered about himself, as well, and his own lost appetite for taking up the burden of his Wyrd. When Avain started talking in broken fragments of words and sentences, Angmar frowned, trying to decipher.
“An odd thing, this. She do tell that back in the city of men, the many-towered city where first she did see you, a woman be looking for you, and that she does vex herself over your being gone. A woman with white hair, and very frail and slender. Be it your mother, Rori?”
Rhodry laughed.
“It’s not, but the dweomermaster who laid the geas upon me to find the dragon.”
Told this news, Avain giggled, cocking her head first one way, then the other, several times running in a sort of dance before her mother stopped her with a gentle hand on the cheek. She looked down again, frowning into her basin, shaking it every now and then to dance the ripples round, then all at once cried out. She began babbling in a flood of words that even Angmar had trouble understanding. At last, however, something came clear. Angmar looked up, pale and trembling.
“Rori, the town where that geas master does live? It be sieged. A huge army camps all round it, and they be neither human nor Mountain People, but some strange folk the like of which she can barely tell. Hairy, she says, and that’s all she does say, hairy and big, Mam, hairy and big.”
Rhodry grunted. The news hit him as a physical pain, a run of rage down his back that wrenched him away from the wall and made him arch like Dar’s bow. When Avain cried out, he forced himself calm, unclenched his fists, and let out his breath in a gasp. He knelt by her chair and smiled.
“My thanks,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
His tone, his smile, made her smile in return. Angmar spoke for a moment or two in a soothing way. In a few moments the lass returned to her scrying, murmuring Enj’s name.
“We’d best be gone,” Angmar said. “With you here she’ll be returning to that siege, and I want that not.”
“Nor do I, my lady.”
Rhodry clattered down the staircase, waited for her just outside the tower while he stared across the lake without truly seeing either water or hill. Together they walked down to the shore without saying a word and stood, a little ways apart, watching the waves run up onto pale sand. The wind whistled round Haen Marn like a dirge.
“Will you be leaving us straightaway?” Angmar said at last.
“To go back to Cengarn, you mean? What good would that do, one more swordsman against an army? The lord of that city has powerful allies. No doubt they’ll be riding to relieve him with all the men they can scrape together. I can’t know, but I think me that the best thing I can do is carry out my geas.” All at once he laughed, a brief echo of his berserker’s howl. “I doubt me if the dweomer will give me much choice.”
“I did wonder. You have spoke to me many times about your friends in that city.”
“And my heart aches for all of them caught there. It’s a terrible thing, being besieged.”
“So I’ve heard. My mother was taken in a siege, and she did often tell me of it, when she were in one of her black moods and crying for her homeland.”
“Your mother was one of the Mountain People, then?”
“Nah nah nah. It were them what took her, as tribute like when her town fell”
Rhodry spun round to stare. She smiled, a wry twist of her mouth.
“Envoy Garin be a good man, and many of his people, they too be good folk, but they do like to nurse their injuries and claim how they were put upon by my mother’s folk, by our folk, Rori. But it do take two to twist a rope, I always say, and not all the injustice does get birthed south of the Deverry border.”
“Just so. And so you were raised in a dwarf hold?”
“I was, and brought here when the lord of Haen Marn did need a wife. They did rightly think that I would flourish more in the sun and air, where a Mountain woman would have sickened and pined.”
“You weren’t given much choice in the matter, were you?”
“None.” Her mouth twisted in the same smile. “But I were well pleased, all the same, to walk in the light, and he were in his way a good man. When he did drown, I wept.”
He could hear old pain in her voice. He glanced round—no one in sight—and took her hand to pull her close beside him. She sighed, letting her head rest against his shoulder, just briefly before she pulled away.
“Where Enj be I know not,” she said. “I would worry about those enemies who did try to prevent you here, but Avain has seen him many times, safe and on his way.”
Rhodry heard then what she must have heard, the crunch of footsteps on gravel. With a face as sour as old vinegar and the smell of it hanging about her as well, the maidservant walked out from among the trees. When she said something in Dwarvish, Angmar nodded agreement.
“It be needful for me to go, Rori. They be pickling beef, and I must be unlocking the salt chest.”
“I’d best go back with you if I want to reach the manse.”
The maidservant shot him a glance of pure venom, as if she’d been hoping he’d stay by th
e lake and end up feeding one of the beasts.
Otho and Mic had rejoined Garin in the great hall. When Rhodry came trotting in, they all slewed round and looked at him.
“What’s so wrong?” Garin said.
“Cengarn’s under siege. Avain saw it in her basin.”
Garin went dead-still, sat for a long time with his hand frozen round his tankard’s handle. Otho and Mic said nothing, either, merely watched the envoy as if waiting for orders. At last he muttered a few words in Dwarvish.
“Ye gods,” he whispered in Deverrian. “Grim news, Rori. Grim, grim news indeed. I’ve got to get back to Lin Serr as soon as ever I can. We have alliances with Cadmar, after all, and kin in that town as well.” He rose, setting the tankard down. “I must find Angmar. Otho, I hate to let you negotiate on your own over your debt, but—”
“Oh, don’t vex yourself about that.” A note of cheer crept into Otho’s voice. “I’ll manage, I’ll manage.”
“If I find out later you’ve been miserly, you’ll pay double in fines.” Garin hesitated, considering something. “Well, I’ll speak with Angmar. It’s too late in the day to leave right now, anyway.”
He ran out, leaving the rest of them looking round at each other with not a word more to say.
That night Rhodry retired to their chamber early, undressed and got into bed, lying awake with his hands tucked under his head to wait for Angmar while she settled Avain down out in the tower. Moonlight poured through the unshuttered windows, and the damp summer breeze ruffled his hair. He had lived through a number of sieges in his life, on both sides of the town walls. No matter how hard he tried to banish them, memories crowded round him of the horrors a long siege would bring. Worse yet were his memories of a town falling to the besiegers, himself among them. He knew all too well how brutally a man could act after long months of frustration under some stubborn enemy’s walls. He sat up, shaking his head hard as if he could spit out the taste of shame. He got up and went to sit in the window seat until Angmar came in to distract him from his remembering.
She barred the door behind her, then set her candle-lantern down on the little table. He got up and kissed her, then lay down on the bed to watch while she undressed, taking her time, primly folding each piece of clothing and laying it down on top of a wooden chest.
“You’re truly beautiful,” he said.
“Do you be thinking so? Always I did feel so strange and ugly, in the dwarf hold and to my husband as well, too tall and spindly, like, and with this yellow hair.”
“I’m not one of the Mountain People.”
She smiled and lay down, turning into his arms for a kiss. Before he could take another one, she laid her fingertips on his mouth.
“Tell me one thing first, Rori. Is it that you’ve seen the woman in white these past few days?”
“I haven’t.”
“When did you see her last?”
She sounded so urgent that he considered with some care.
“I do remember,” he said finally. “It was some days ago, and we were lying here, and just before I took you into my arms, I thought I saw her, standing by the window. For a moment it gave me pause, but then she vanished.”
“And you’ve not seen her since?”
“I haven’t.”
“Truly? Now that does gladden my heart.”
There was such an odd note in her voice, a thrill of hope like a songbird flying free into sunlight, that he raised himself up on one elbow to look at her. In the guttering light of the candle, her face revealed nothing.
“Be there somewhat wrong?” she said.
“Naught. I just wondered why you asked.”
“Now that be a thing I may never answer.”
She threw her arms round his neck and pulled him down, guiding his hand to her breast. He found it easy to forget memories and questions both.
On the morrow morning Enj came home. Rhodry was walking down by the lake when he heard, far away and to the north, the sound of a gong, echoing like a call over the water. In a few minutes he heard the boatmen shouting back and forth up at the manse. He ran round the shore and arrived at the boathouse in time to see them untying the beast-headed boat from the jetty. With a grin, the helmsman gestured him aboard.
“Gong?” he said.
Rhodry laughed and swung himself on board, working his way to the bow and the gong. The anchorman waited there, too, but instead of his flower of hooks, he carried a simple hawser. When they pushed off, rowing in long smooth pulls, Rhodry began striking two-handed in a regular rhythm while the helmsman and anchorman both screamed and yelled and made every ungodly noise they could think of to drive the beasts away. Between strokes he watched the dark hills on the northern shore come closer and the waterfall resolve itself from a silver line into a roar and plunge of river. As the boat veered off from the white water, the mists caught the sun and turned into a veil of rainbows.
With the helmsman barking orders they headed into a tiny cove and a rickety wood jetty. Waiting for them, his pack sitting beside him on the bleached and gaping boards,stood a young man of the Mountain People, though he was tall for one of them at a good five and a half feet.
“Enj?” Rhodry said
The anchorman nodded yes, judging distance with narrow eyes as the oarsmen maneuvered the boat nearer and nearer the end of the jetty. They swung her round, backing water frantically, and let the currents and tides bob her closer and closer. Enj called something out in Dwarvish, slung his pack on board, and jumped down after it before the anchorman could throw him the rope. When the boat shuddered, the anchorman rolled his eyes Rhodry’s way, as if inviting him to share his scorn for such a show. As the oarsmen moved her out again, Enj came forward, speaking to everyone in turn in Dwarvish, then stopped cold at the sight of Rhodry.
“Good morrow,” Rhodry said. “My name’s Rori.”
“And I be Enj. A Deverry man, are you? I do apologize for my surprise, but we don’t see many guests here. Do let me relieve you of that gong work.”
“My thanks.”
As the boat turned into open water, Rhodry got out of the way on the other side of the bow. Where Avain had taken after her mother, Enj must have favored his father, Rhodry supposed. He had the high dwarven cheekbones and flat nose, and his hair was a brown close to black, as was his close-cropped beard. Even though his eyes were green like his sister’s, they were narrow, shadowed under heavy dwarven brows. As they rowed back across, Rhodry was wondering just how the son was going to react to the news that a stranger was bedding his mother. It was a complication that, he supposed, he might have thought of earlier.
On the landing the entire household waited to greet them. Enj waved to them from the boat, but as soon as he was ashore he hurried to his mother, threw one arm round her, and kissed her on the forehead. Talking urgently together they headed off toward the tower, no doubt to let Avain see him home and safe. Garin and Rhodry walked back up to the manse together and some ways behind everyone else.
“So that’s Enj, is it?” Rhodry said. “He doesn’t look in the least daft, not to me, anyway.”
Garin seemed to be biting his tongue.
“Imph,” he said at last. “I’m cursed glad to see him, I don’t mind telling you. I’ll spend the day negotiating with him to take up Otho’s clan debt and making arrangements for the provisioning and all, and then I’ve got to be heading back to Lin Serr. I hope you understand, Rori. If things were different, I’d go with you, just to keep Otho civil if naught else, but as it is, with the siege and all—”
“Of course I understand. And with Mic along, the old man will behave himself somewhat.”
“So we can hope.”
Since it was several hours before Angmar and Enj returned to the great hall, Rhodry had a good long wonder what mother and son might be discussing. Round noon, when they walked into the great hall, servants appeared as well, to lay a meal. For a few moments everyone exchanged strained pleasantries in Dwarvish while Angmar took her usual place
at the head of the table and Enj hovered near her chair. Rhodry waited near the hearth to let him have the family seat at his mother’s right hand if he chose. The hall fell silent; everyone, servants and all, turned to watch the pair of them.
Enj glanced round and pointed to another chair that was standing against the wall, half-round and heavily carved. When he snapped out an order to a servant, everyone in the room who knew Dwarvish gasped in surprise. The servant picked it up and put it at the end of the table opposite Angmar. Once it was settled, Enj sat down on the bench by his mother’s right hand, leaving only one place for Rhodry to sit, and glanced his way with a brief smile,
“My thanks,” Rhodry said.
As he sat down in the chair that had once belonged to her husband, Angmar looked down the length of the table between them with eyes that showed no feeling at all — She remembers that I’m leaving, he thought. For a moment he nearly howled aloud in rage at the Wyrd that kept tearing his life into pieces and then shredding what few scraps of happiness he redeemed from the ruin. He wanted to jump up and run outside, screaming like a madman. Instead he picked up his tankard and had a long swallow of ale. At the signal the servants came forward and began serving food.
With the meal Garin broached the job ahead to Enj, and once everyone had finished eating, the negotiations began in earnest. Even though for courtesy’s sake Garin kept the talk in Deverrian, Rhodry said little. As long as he was eventually satisfied with the settlement, the details were none of his affair, not under either of their systems of laws. Angmar, however, listened closely, murmuring a word of advice to her son every now and again—shrewd advice, too, from the way it made Otho wince. He needed it, too, since everyone there could see that he’d have gone off tracking a dragon for no repayment at all.
As the afternoon heat dragged on through this mire of haggling, Rhodry muttered a few excuses and fled. Down by the lakeshore the wind growled through the rocks and whined in the trees. Rhodry found himself a spot under a bent and twisted pine where he could sit in the cool. For a long time he stared out across the lake at the silver riband of water falling over the cliffs on the far shore. He was tired, he supposed, merely tired to the bone of all his wandering, tired of fighting in one battle after another, whether he fought with a sword or with dweomer that he didn’t even really understand. Why else would he be hating the idea of leaving Haen Marn?
Days of Blood and Fire Page 40