Above the Snowline (42 page)

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Authors: Steph Swainston

Tags: #Fantasy

BOOK: Above the Snowline
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The cup of hot coffee warmed my hands. I relaxed on the maroon velvet cushions of Raven’s window seat and looked out at the truly incredible view. How beautiful it was! How wild and remote! The fog had completely cleared, the sky was brilliant blue and the enormous double peak of Klannich filled the window. It reared from its forested skirts, which seemed to have been creased and torn with the strength of the mountain eager to reach the heavens. The bare rock of its nearer summit faced to the four points of the compass and its smooth walls met in a point crowned with ice.
 
If I pressed my face to the cold glass and looked left, I could see the second summit some distance behind it, a tower of rock ending in a tilted summit like a thorn, hooded with white. Plumes of spindrift curled off it, blowing round into a complete spiral. Indeed, the whole peak looked as if it was bowed under a raging wind. Between the two peaks a narrow chasm hung like a vertical sword cut in the solid rock, crusted with ice and filled with a nameless glacier.
 
It was breathtaking. I exulted: this was my reward for yesterday’s ordeal! The view was worth the climb. The more effort one makes, the more one is repaid by seeing such treasures. I was still aching, but now, surrounded by halls of air stretching to the roof of the world, I felt as if I could lean out and take flight over the forest. The occasional snowflake feathered against the window, but they somehow fell from a completely cloudless sky. I filled my eyes with the view: I feasted on it. Then I wondered why there was no trace of Raven’s activities. After two years had he made no impact on the forest? The pine trees carpeting the lower third of Klannich seemed untouched, pocketed with curls of rising mist. Their branches, fattened with snow, seemed black in contrast, and peculiarly sharply focused in the frosty air. My eyesight is excellent but, ranging over the forest far below as if I was gliding, I imagined my vision perfected to the acuity of an eagle’s.
 
I began to notice, here and there, scars of sawn wood and broken branches standing out among the snow-rounded mass. The forest was so immense that the efforts of Raven’s settlers had had little impact on its overall appearance. This landscape resists efforts to tame it - no Awian terms can ever be forced upon it - it will always remain wild and unbowed. Raven would never own gardens like those his brother enjoys, no, not even if he lived to be immortal.
 
A man could find peace here, bounded by the knife-sharp horizon, with the shadow of Klannich passing over him as if it were a sundial, and quilted with silence deeper than the drifts. I would not change one pine needle of it, if I could have that peace. But peace is the last thing Raven wants.
 
I sighed and descended to the table. I poured myself another cup of coffee, black because the only option was goat’s milk. Raven had not been expecting me. Jant hadn’t warned him of my arrival - in fact, he apparently hadn’t returned to the keep at all since I saw him - and my entrance sent them into a panic. Raven was out hunting Rhydanne, so Snipe took charge. He gave me his own room, in his log cabin in the bailey. A glass of mulled wine, a hot bath and a change of clothes cured me of my shivering. I conversed a little with him and found him to be an intelligent and capable man, if uneducated: a fine choice for a steward. In an unflustered manner he related the latest news I’d hoped to hear from Jant. Raven and his men did not return until well after dark, and I didn’t see him. I slept well and I felt acclimatised this morning, ready to meet him.
 
Jant still showed not a feather. He must be off searching for Dellin. It was natural and right for him to search for his love. Given how he feels he can act no other way. I hoped he’d found her and could convince her to feel the same - no man can win a woman without a great deal of talking - and the thought of their love warmed my heart.
 
Noises drifted up from the hall below: a guitar being tuned, hammering as a blacksmith installed the kiln. I love New Year’s Eve. This is the winter solstice; tonight is the longest night of the year. As calculated by the Starglass, after tonight we leave December behind for January. The days will slowly grow longer and we will again be heading into spring. This night is always special. No matter how long I live the excitement will always steal up on me. Servants bustled hither and thither, preparing tonight’s feast, putting the final touches to the arrangements they must have been planning for months. Across the country, preparations were taking place on a massive scale, and here too, although it was December above the snowline, the whole keep was in a sweat.
 
I loved the atmosphere of waiting, of delighted anticipation and secrecy. The presents were wrapped and rafters decked with holly. The Shattering was always my favourite time of year.
 
I took my coffee to the fireside and relaxed into a high-backed chair with arms of sensuously silky, warm pine. They curved into scrolls like the heads of violins, an oddly familiar shape. I stood up and examined them, then I lifted away the wolf skins hanging on the chair’s back and seat. Elegant art nouveau tendrils spanned the back, which spread, with room for wings, and tapered into stylised blue roses with clinging briers. The slender legs, beautifully bowed, segued down to eagle’s claws clutching rosebuds. It was a replica of the Silver Throne! Oh, Raven, you silly fool! You would do better to hide your ambition than to sit every day in a wooden copy of the throne of Awia! Laughing, I threw the skins back over it, arranging them as before, and as I did so I noticed how, in his anxiety, he had scored tiny scratches at the end of one of the arms with his ring.
 
I tried the throne for size again and stretched my legs towards the fireplace. You can tell a great deal about someone by examining their room, and infinitely more so if they have designed it themselves. The damn chandelier was the first thing I saw when Snipe showed me in. No one could fail to notice it. It dominated the room like a gigantic jellyfish, suspended from the ceiling with its candles all askew. It was not to blame. I hated what Raven meant by it. Strings of crystals, clutters of baroque pendants and its chain heavier than an Insect leash, it had been an heirloom of the previous dynasty. Around eighty years ago Raven’s grandfather had seized it from the bankrupt Tanagers when he had taken Tanager Hall and the crown of the country. The Rachiswaters had kept it for two generations with their other prizes, the spoil of their success. God knows how Raven had dragged it up here, but maybe he wanted it to prove he was still heir presumptive - or, even worse, as a superstitious trinket to ensure the nation would be his one day. He had never liked the chandelier when it hung in his brother’s palace - he cannot like it now. So, you see the heart of a possessed man: clear and flawless ice, always frozen, never melting.
 
He was like a musical instrument pitched to one note but producing two sounds: one melancholy, the other fearsome. When he was melancholy, I found it incredible that he would ever be cheerful again. When he was absorbed in some project he became cheery, and I could not believe he would ever be dejected again. I turned my back on the chandelier and dwelt instead on the coat of arms carved over the fireplace, which interested me most of all. As I studied it Raven entered. ‘Happy New Year’s Eve!’
 
‘Happy New Year’s Eve, Lightning,’ he said. ‘Good to see you!’
 
We shook hands and I relinquished the faux throne to him. By god, he looked older - he looked haggard. His short dark hair stood up like iron filings with a nearby magnet, and his eyes were a peculiar pale grey, without any flecks in the iris - like silver coins - which is a feature of the Rachiswater family. The alarming wound in his face had knitted but the scar tissue was still pink and shiny. He had cured it well, but not so the wound in his heart, which he kept fresh and bleeding every day in his lust for revenge.
 
‘To what do I owe this visit?’
 
‘Good wishes from Micawater. I haven’t seen you for two years. I thought I’d ride up and see this manor house you have built for yourself. And I am overwhelmed by your feat. Designing and constructing this in such a short time! You’re a polymath.’
 
Raven was all smiles. He gave a convincing performance of being beside himself with joy. ‘You should have sent word you were coming. I haven’t even a New Year’s present to give you. A pity the Messenger is too busy with the Rhydanne.’
 
‘As a matter of fact I did send him ahead, but he seems to have been waylaid. A case of the hare and the tortoise.’
 
Raven switched to the High language, the royal tongue, so I did too; it must have been years since he had used it.
 
I presented him with a package containing two books which I’d selected from the shelf in Foin and the reeve’s son had wrapped in marbled paper. Raven accepted it eagerly. Although, of course, he was supposed to wait until tomorrow, he took a knife from the table, sliced the string and unwrapped the books so reverently I felt embarrassed. They were a leather-bound volume of Conure’s poetry from the twelfth century and a new libretto of
The Miser King
.
 
‘Thank you,’ he said, overcome with gratitude. ‘Thank you very much.’
 
‘You’re welcome.’
 
‘I have almost no books, only the few I brought here. Did you know my brother was starving me of them?’
 
‘No.’
 
‘You know I’ve a thirst for books, Lightning. But since I arrived Tarmigan has only let me have five and, believe me, I know them word for word.’ He moved aside an untidy pile of letters and rummaged about until he unearthed a very worn copy of
Myths and Legends of Ancient Awia
. He pushed it triumphantly in my direction. ‘One of them was your own! Don’t you think my brother was cruel not to let me buy more?’
 
‘Yes.’
 
‘Truly we’re living through the age of unenlightenment!’
 
I said, ‘I wish I had known. When I return home I will send you some crates full.’
 
‘Really?’
 
‘Yes. You can rebuild your library. Just list the titles you want, or you could always leave it to my taste . . .’
 
‘Both, I think! A little of both. Thank you very much.’ He picked up
Myths and Legends
and handled it with respect. ‘I have read everything you’ve written. I started with all your works on archery, which I know word for word.’
 
‘So do all my Challengers.’ I laughed.
 
‘Then I went on to read all your fiction.
Insects at Murrelet Manor
.
The Bride of Summerday
.’ He opened the book at its mark and tapped the story headed, ‘Lynette and Telamon, or, the Rose of Ressond’. ‘I especially love the bit where Telamon shoots all the Insects.’
 
‘That never happened, you know.’
 
‘Oh, I realise. But the description is so detailed, such rich coloratura. Your imagination is superb . . . I especially love Conure. Thank you, thank you . . . Tonight I’ll find you a present in return.’
 
‘There’s no need.’
 
‘It’s traditional. Why break tradition? You of all people know its value.’ He poured himself some coffee and added some of the dismayingly musty goats’ milk.
 
‘I was admiring your fireplace. Is that your new coat of arms?’
 
‘Yes. New is the word. I only chose it last week, and the herald’s office in Rachiswater hasn’t yet confirmed it.’
 
‘They will.’
 
‘I’m sure they will. My brother has no say in the matter.’
 
He mentioned his brother more easily than I had imagined, and appeared so relaxed you would have thought him innocent. Not the slightest vestige of doubt, hatred, or the struggle and horror of the battle to come clouded his silver eyes. The emblem was carved with an unsettling vehemence: a crescent moon transfixed by a vertical arrow. ‘What does it signify?’
 
‘Something the Messenger said. He was in a trading post, high up on the bank of the glacier. My steward occasionally conducts business there, and he found Jant carousing with the Rhydanne. Their ringleader, Shira Dellin—’

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