Pel in turn introduced the other men in the squad, but so quickly that Berwynna could remember none of their names. She contented herself with smiling as the men milled around, fussing over Otho, who spoke pleasantly to some of them.
“The old man actually looks happy,” Dougie whispered to her. “The end of the world must be near or suchlike.”
Berwynna stifled a laugh.
For the trip to Lin Serr, Berwynna and Otho shared one of the mules while the rest of the men walked. Just at sunset they reached the farm Enj had mentioned, a cluster of wooden buildings. A high stone wall separated it from its fields, just bursting with the green life of young grain.
“By the gods!” Mic said. “This place looks like a Deverry dun.”
“There’s a reason for that.” Pel glanced at Berwynna and lowered his voice. “I’ll tell you later. It’s more than a bit grim.”
Berwynna was about to protest that she didn’t need sheltering from grim truths, but their hosts, a noisy troop of about twenty young men of the Mountain Folk, had flung open the gates and were inviting them in. When they heard that Berwynna came from Haen Marn, they all bowed to her and her alone.
“Come in, come in, my lady.” The man who spoke seemed older than the rest. “Welcome to our humble house.”
With its rough plank floor and whitewashed walls, their great hall may have been humble, but it seemed like luxury after the river trip. A big hearth graced one wall, and a plank table ran down the length of the room. On the wall opposite the hearth hung a row of double axes, gleaming in the sunset light that came in the windows.
As the evening went on, Berwynna realized that she was being treated like a great lady—like Lord Douglas’ wife back home, she thought, since Dougie’s grandmother was the only great lady she’d ever seen. They seated her at the head of the long plank table and served her meal first. She drank mead when the rest were given ale. When the mead made her yawn, several of the young men lit candle lanterns and showed her and Dougie to a chamber that, judging from the sock left lying on the floor by the door, had been hastily vacated by someone else. Another fellow brought up hot water for them to wash with, and he took away her dirty dresses to launder them.
“I’ll be glad to have my dresses back,” Berwynna told Dougie. “I didn’t want to go to Lin Serr wearing Mic’s spare brigga.”
“It sounds too grand a place for that.” Dougie scowled at his own filthy shirt. “I could use a bit of washing myself, but naught I could borrow here would fit me.”
“You look like a stork among chickens, truly. I’ll have to make you a second shirt if we can find some cloth somewhere.”
On the morrow, when they set out for Lin Serr, once again Berwynna and Otho rode while everyone else walked. Although the road ran through peaceful-looking farmland, here and there beside it stood stone towers some forty feet high, each circled by a stone wall.
“Do people live in those?” Berwynna asked Enj, who was leading her mule.
“They do,” Enj said. “They’re easily defended in case the Horsekin come a-raiding.”
“They look new.”
“They are. The Horsekin didn’t raid until about forty-some years ago.”
Toward noon they came to a small grove of oak trees. Although some had reached full growth, and their green canopies nodded high in the light wind, a few were mere saplings of some six feet, while others of various heights stood in between. Their regular arrangement in a rough square made it clear that they’d been planted and coppiced over long years. In the open middle of the square grew brushy shrubs and short grass. Berwynna assumed that they were about to stop for a meal and a rest, but Enj had a surprise in store for her. He handed the lead rope of Berwynna’s mule to Dougie, then knelt down among the shrubs. He picked up a flat-sided rock and pounded it sharply on the ground.
“What in God’s name?” Dougie muttered. “Has he gone daft?”
“I don’t know,” Berwynna said. “But when he beat on the ground, it sounded hollow.”
Sure enough, in but a few moments Enj stood up and stepped back. Berwynna heard a massive rumble, then a loud creaking, and slowly a square of ground slid sideways, bushes and all, to reveal a hole of some ten feet on a side.
“The entrance to the city,” Enj called out. “Or one of them.”
A long easy slope of stone ramp led down into dim light and shadow. Thanks to the descriptions Enj had given her of the city, Berwynna was expecting that the ramp would lead a long mysterious way down, but in about fifty yards it leveled out onto the floor of a huge, rough-hewn room that smelled of mules and dust. A squad of men armed with war axes stood around, at ease when Berwynna first glimpsed them, but suddenly one of them shouted. Axes at the ready, they advanced on Enj and Pel and began to all talk at once. Enj shouted back and joined the argument, which was so loud and disjointed that Berwynna couldn’t follow it. She did clearly hear “red-haired giant” and “from Haen Marn.”
“Ah,” Mic said. “My people haven’t changed any, I see. Our folk love to argue, Wynni.”
“So I see, or maybe I should say, so I hear. What’s the trouble, Uncle Mic?”
“Dougie. They don’t want to allow him into the city because he’s not one of the Mountain Folk.”
“Well, if he can’t go in, neither will I, and that’s that.”
“I’ll go tell Enj that.”
“Please do! What do they expect? That we’re supposed to let him sleep outside by himself like a dog?”
“Well, no. They said something about a trading caravan camping outside the main gates. Apparently they think he’d be welcome there or suchlike. But do be patient! I’ll talk with them and come up with something to change their minds.”
Mic hurried off to join the shouting match. Dougie helped Berwynna down from her mule. She considered telling him about the argument, then decided it would be better to refrain from worrying him, since she had no intention of deserting him. While Dougie watched the argument, Berwynna took the chance to look in the mule pack where she’d hidden the dweomer book. Much to her relief, it lay safely nestled in her spare clothing.
Finally Mic returned triumphant.
“Very well, Lady Berwynna,” Mic said in the Alban tongue, “you and your betrothed, the noble lord, Douglas of Alban, may enter the city together. You’ll have a chamber called the envoy’s quarters, set aside for visitors of the right sort.”
“Lady and noble lord are we?” Berwynna laughed at him. “I take it you lied about us.”
“Well, that you come from Haen Marn is as good as being a lady.” Mic turned to Dougie. “Remember that your father is a rich and powerful man back in your home country.”
“Of course he is,” Dougie said, grinning. “Vast holdings of land and many cattle.”
“That’s it! Good lad! Now, we’re waiting for someone to bring a carrying chair for Otho. See that tunnel over there? It leads to the entrance of the high city, where your chamber is.” Mic paused to wipe away sudden tears, but he was smiling in delight. “And my father—that’s your grandfather—will meet us there, too.”
One of Envoy Kov’s duties was setting up trade terms whenever caravans came to Lin Serr. A typical summer brought six or seven, thanks to the demand for Mountain-worked jewelry. The largest, however, always came from Cerr Cawnen, a city that had been founded by escaped bondfolk from Deverry some centuries earlier. The first caravan leader Kov could remember was a man named Verrarc, replaced upon his death by his apprentice, Jahdo. Recently Jahdo, too, had given up making the long hard trip from the east and turned the trading business over to his grandson, Aethel.
That morning Aethel had brought his caravan in to Lin Serr’s open parkland behind its first walls. Twenty muleteers were busily setting up camp and unloading a long line of mules. The huge panniers appeared heavy but in truth weren’t much of a burden for the animals, because Aethel had brought woolen goods, his usual items for trade. None of the Mountain Folk cared to raise sheep, not that they would have had much pastu
re for them if they had.
This trip, however, Aethel had brought something of more value as well, or so he told Kov as they stood at the foot of the zigzag stairs that led up to Lin Serr’s doors. He was a stout young man, Aethel, a good six feet tall with a broad face, brightened by perennially ruddy cheeks, and narrow blue eyes under pale eyebrows that matched his pale hair. At the moment he was leaning like a shepherd on his long quarterstaff of heavy oak.
“You may or may not remember,” Aethel said, “that our first traders brought opals and suchlike to Lin Serr.”
“I don’t remember,” Kov said, “but I’ve heard of it. Fine stones they were, too. The vein petered out some years ago, didn’t it?”
“It did just that. But another’s been found. I did bring some good stones with me.”
“Splendid! No doubt you’ll have customers for those.”
“We were thinking that mayhap one of your jewelers would be wanting to come back to Cerr Cawnen with me—to give us some advice, like, for the mining of them. We’d pay a good hire, of course.”
“Now, I can’t speak for anyone else, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone found your offer tempting. I—What’s all this?”
Kov turned around to look up at the landing at the cliff top. Someone was standing at the edge, waving his arms, and yelling, “Envoy Kov!” over and over.
“What is it?” Kov yelled back.
“Haen Marn! Haen Marn’s come back, and some of them are here! Enj and his sister.”
Kov’s first thought was that he’d misheard. The fellow up top ran down the stairs to the first bend.
“From Haen Marn,” he repeated. “Enj is here with his sister and a red-haired giant.”
“Well, now,” Aethel said, “that does sound interesting, I must say.”
“So it does. If you’ll forgive me, I’d best go up.”
“We’ll be here when you come down again.” Aethel laughed at his own joke. “Now, my grandfather, he did tell me somewhat about Haen Marn. He’ll be wanting to know what’s happened with the place.”
“I’ll share the news when I return, fear not!”
Kov puffed up the stairs and met the messenger, who turned out to be his cousin Jorn. The Haen Marn party had been put up in the foreign envoy’s quarters.
“Because of the giant,” Jorn told him. “By Gonn’s hairy cock, I’ve seen some tall Deverry men, but this one’s the biggest yet! Anyway, Enj’s sister wouldn’t let us keep him outside, so we compromised. ”
“Good, good. I take it the island’s found its way home, then.”
“Enj will tell you all about it. He thinks Westfolk dweomer brought it back.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s right.”
Jorn stared at him in stunned disbelief. Kov smiled and continued up the stairs.
At the top of the cliff, they crossed the broad landing and walked through Lin Serr’s steel-clad doors to the circular entrance hall. A small crowd had gathered on the mosaic floor. Enj and a couple of guards from the upper plateau hovered over a frail elderly man in a carrying chair. Nearby, a man named Mic that Kov faintly remembered from many years past stood with his arm around Vron. Vron, Kov remembered more clearly, a man always in mourning for his son, killed by Horsekin—or so everyone had believed. Now Vron was grinning as if his face would split from having that son restored to him.
The red-haired giant, wrapped in a plaid blanket, towered above them all, including the most beautiful girl Kov had ever seen, or so he thought her at that moment. She was tall for a Mountain Woman, just his own height, slender, with raven-dark hair, dark blue eyes, and high cheekbones. Much to Kov’s annoyance, the red-haired giant was resting one huge hand on her shoulder in a proprietary gesture.
“There’s Kov!” Enj called out. “Kov, this is my half sister Berwynna. Wynni, this is another cousin of ours.”
“But a distant one,” Kov said hastily. He wanted to avoid any chance of her thinking of him as too close a relative to marry or suchlike.
“I’m beginning to wonder,” Berwynna said, “if we’re related to everybody in Lin Serr.”
“Not quite.” Vron kept grinning at everyone and everything. “I hope my son here’s been a decent uncle to you?”
“He has, most certainly, Grandfather.”
Berwynna turned slightly to look up at her giant. She spoke quickly in a language that Kov didn’t know, though its cadences sounded much like Deverrian to him. He could catch names here and there, though, and assumed that she was translating the conversation for him.
“Cousin Kov,” she said in the Mountain tongue, “this is my betrothed, Lord Douglas of Alban.”
“Ah.” Betrothed? Kov decided that he disliked the man. “Please tell him how pleased I am to meet him, then. Um, and where’s Alban?”
“A very long way away,” Berwynna said. “It’s rather hard to explain. ”
“I’ll tell you later,” Enj said. “Mic, no doubt you’ll want to go down to the deep city to see your mother.”
“I certainly do!” Mic was grinning almost as hard as Vron. “This is a grand day indeed! Here, Wynni, come with us, although—” He hesitated, then turned to Douglas and spoke in the same strange language that Berwynna had used earlier.
Douglas glowered and spit out a few words in answer. Berwynna joined in, and for a few moments the three of them argued. Finally Douglas shrugged and wiped the scowl off his face.
“Wynni won’t go without him,” Mic said to Kov, “and really, I do understand why. It’s not like my mother’s her grandmother, after all.”
Berwynna stood on tiptoe to reach up and kiss Douglas on his dirty cheek. Kov managed a thin smile at this display of loyalty.
“Kov,” Enj said, “would you get Otho settled in a guest chamber? ” He gestured at the elderly man in the chair, who had dozed off. “He’s not very well.”
As much as Kov had been hoping to speak with Berwynna, he had too much respect for the aged to refuse. “Of course,” he said, “and then I’d best get back to Aethel’s caravan.” He glanced at Vron. “Cerr Cawnen’s very interested in hiring someone from your jewelers’ guild. You might want to go talk with him before he leaves.”
“I’ll do that,” Vron said, “after I help you get Otho settled in our compound.”
Vron squatted down by the carrying chair to speak to his aged brother. Kov lingered, watching as Berwynna followed Enj across the entrance hall to take a look at the envoy’s quarters. She moved so gracefully—entrancing! Kov thought. Someone cleared his throat entirely too loudly. Kov glanced up to see Douglas the Giant, arms crossed across his broad chest, glaring at him.
“Dougie?” Mic stepped forward and spoke in Deverrian. “Go join Berwynna. Go take a look at your chamber.”
“Good,” Dougie said in broken Deverrian. “I need wash, too.”
Kov turned away fast and from then on, concentrated on the tasks he had in hand.
Berwynna had never seen a room as heavily decorated as the foreign envoy’s quarters. The pierced carvings on the wooden shutters, folded back on either side of the one large window, shamed the moldy tapestries she’d noticed during her one visit to Dougie’s grandfather’s dun back in Alban, when Marnmara and her herbs had been called to treat a fever. The tall steel panels, set at intervals along the walls, far outshone anything else in that lordship’s possession. She spent a long time studying the engraved pictures upon them: hunting scenes and battles set off by borders of delicate patterns.
“This is a lovely chamber,” Berwynna said. “These pictures are beautiful.”
“So they are,” Dougie said. “But it’s better because you’re staying with me.”
“Well, it annoys me that everyone treats you like some kind of large dog.”
“Not half as much as it annoys me.” But he grinned at her.
“Wynni, please tell him I’m truly sorry,” Enj said. “It’s just the way that the Mountain Folk are. It has naught to do with him personall
y. ”
Berwynna translated, and Dougie smiled Enj’s way to show that he understood. Berwynna continued her slow circuit of the room. The bed would be just wide enough, she decided, for the two of them. It certainly looked comfortable with its finely woven blue blankets. On top of a carved chest lay a strange stone object in the shape of a tube tightly wound into a spiral. At first she thought it was a carving of a snail, though oddly flat and as big as both her hands laid side by side.
“Enj,” Berwynna said, “what is that?”
“I’m not sure,” Enj said. “The miners find them embedded in sea-rock when they’re splitting slates and then clean them up for trinkets.”
“I wondered because I saw part of one sticking out of the cliff. I thought maybe it was some sort of rune or magical mark.”
“Alas, naught so interesting,” Enj said, smiling. “The cliff’s made of sea-rock, so I’m not surprised you saw one there. Now, would you tell Dougie that there’s not a bathing tub in all of Lin Serr that’ll fit him. If he’d like, we can go down to the parkland for a swim. I could use a wash myself.”
Berwynna translated back and forth.
“That would do splendidly.” Dougie told her. “But will you mind my going?”
“Not at all. Mic promised that someone would bring me hot water up here.” She returned to speaking Dwarvish. “But one last question, brother of mine. Where are all the women?”
“Down in the deep city,” Enj said with a furtive glance Dougie’s way. “I’ll explain some other time.”
Dougie’s eyes narrowed; apparently he suspected that once again, he was being excluded. Berwynna patted him on the arm.
“There, there, my love,” she said in the Alban language, which Enj, of course, couldn’t understand. “I’ll tell you whatever they tell me, and they won’t have to know a thing about it.”
After they found a chamber for Otho near Vron’s own, Kov and Vron arranged for an elaborate dinner to be served in Berwynna and Dougie’s chamber. Kov shamelessly invited himself, and Otho insisted on joining them, but Vron bowed out.
“I’ll let you get acquainted with them all,” Vron said. “I want to go bargain with that caravan leader. I want to get some of those opals before they’re all sold.”
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