Chains of Gold (2 page)

“Are you hungry?” the youth asked. “Shall I get you something to eat?”

I stirred from my trance of hope and misery to violently shake my head. I had never felt less hungry.

“A cup of mulled wine?”

“No,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
Help,
my eyes signaled, and he nodded gravely.

“Call on me for whatever you desire,” he told me, “no matter what the hour. My name is Lonn.” He bowed and left, closing the door behind him.

The white-robed ones finished undressing me without a word, not leaving me even my shift. I held my chin high against their unspoken hostility. Perhaps they were mute, I thought. Only later did I learn of the rule of silence that kept them from speaking to seculars, the rule Lonn had broken.

The room where they stripped me was as cold as their silence, as bare as my body, with gray stone walls lacking any hangings, an unshuttered window slot set too high to see from, a hearth fire burning sullen and low. No furnishings except a great grim bed. The white-robes guided me to it, placed me naked between the chill sheets. That done, they left me, taking my clothing with them.

“Wait!” I told them. I wanted to ask them questions, make them answer me. But I was not Rahv; my voice quavered. They closed the door behind them.

Alone again, I lay and looked at the door.

It bore neither bar nor lock, for sacred brides, like sacred kings, were supposed to come willingly to the ceremonials. I would not be killed or even so much as flogged: I was expected merely to bed a stranger, bear a son, and be cloistered the rest of my life. What matter that I had petitioned the goddess for a true love? It was an honor to be the winterking's bride. A bar on the door, or a lock, would have been admission of the wrongness of my being there.

I smiled sourly. Like my father, the Gwyneda were no fools, and they had taken my clothing as their surety. Also, perhaps there was a guard outside the door, or a white-robed figure skulking near the first turning.

I waited, watching the gray twilight fade from the window slot, the dying firelight fade from the room, until all was sable black. Sometimes footsteps sounded in the corridor, sometimes voices. I waited, listening, until all night noises seemed to be stilled.

I moved, waited, moved again. I got up, shivering, wrapped a blanket around me as best I could, and felt my way to the door.

In no way could I guess what punishment might be mine if a guard stood beyond the door. Punishments were erratic, in my experience, and severe. But a strong anger stirred in me, longtime anger urging me on. So my father thought he could barter me away like a whelp, give me where he saw fit, as if I were no more than a slave! I had heard a minstrel's song, once, about a faraway father who loved his daughter, and it had stayed in me like a knife tip broken off in a wound.

Softly I pushed open the door.

No guard. The corridor was dimly lit by rushlights held in sconces and smoking as they burned, giving forth more stinking gloom than light. No one stood near, as far as I could see through the smoke. Barefoot, I padded back the way I had been brought in, edged my head around the corner. A glimpse of white robe, sound of footsteps; I jumped back and ran on tiptoe in the opposite direction, under a shadowy archway, past—a serpent's head thrust in my face, the body spiraling up a pillar! I nearly screamed. But in a moment I saw that it was a carving, stone or wood, and shakily I went on.

For what seemed like a parlous long time I pattered about, choosing my direction at random, shying at corners, descending stairways when I found them, often forced to flee from shadows or footfalls. The carved snakes lurked everywhere, as was fitting in a place sacred to the goddess. I saw them on walls, on doorjambs and lintels, even coiled on the floor. Always I watched them narrowly as I passed, thinking uneasily that if a carved wooden swan had come to life, so might one of these—or perhaps there were real serpents about as well. Soon I felt other reason for unease. The hold of the goddess seemed huge, labyrinthine, far larger than it should have been, could have been, on that river isle. Sorcery, I grew certain. No wonder the Gwyneda had felt no need to guard me, had left me in bed like a child put out of mind for the night.

Silently I vowed that I would find my way out, even though I was likely to die in the freezing cold—already I was freezing within the walls, my feet completely numb. And there would be the icy water to brave, for I had no way to cross the river. None of it mattered. I had to get out.

Call on him, that youth had said, that Lonn. What nonsense. How was I to call on him?

Remembering his warm glance, his candid gaze, I felt resolve suddenly melt into despair—the mere thought of help had undone me. My eyes blinked shut against tears. “Lonn,” I murmured to myself, “Lonn,” and I continued to walk, blindly, very tired, not much caring any more what happened to me, whether I blundered into white-robes or fell down a stone spiral stairway or met with a genuine serpent. I no longer so much as listened for danger. “Lonn,” I whispered.

Wind and snow on my face.

Astonished, I opened my eyes, saw a white blur of a night. I was out, unbeknownst. Snow hissed and seethed in the wind, curling against my ankles; I stood in snow and had not even felt it with my frozen feet. Nor could I remember passing any gate or entry. But I felt the wind plainly enough, and the stinging cold, biting through my blanket as if it were spider-web. I jerked myself out of astonishment and ran.

“Lonn,” I whispered between panting breaths, “guide me again.”

I could see somewhat, for even on the darkest night there is always a dim glow outdoors—ghostlight, folk called it. Faint spirit fire lit the white smother of snow, and ahead of me a dark building loomed—a boathouse, I hoped. I had run half the length of the isle, and water had to lie near, though I could not hear the rush of it above the wind. But would a swan boat obey me? Perhaps if I yet again invoked the name of Lonn.…

Whispering to Lonn, I found the door and slipped within, then stood hearkening in utter blackness as the wind howled and shrieked outside. This place was warm, blessedly so, and I sensed stirrings, and I smelled—horses? A stable?

But what could be the use of horses to me? To anyone, on this isle?

There was no bridge to the shore, I knew. But in a more unreasoning way I knew that I had been led to these horses. It would have been shameful to scorn such a gift, even though I had never sat on a horse in my life—riding was not permitted, lest I harm my maidenhead. But I had seen men riding away often enough, and suddenly I felt a fierce desire to do the same. I stepped forward, feeling at the darkness, searching for a bridle or halter, finding only the rough wooden partition of a stall—

A footfall sounded somewhere nearby. Panicked, I flung myself into the stall, banging against the hocks of an unseen horse. The creature gave a startled jump but moved to one side without kicking me, and I lay in the straw trying to quiet my breathing, trying to listen above the clamor of my heart.

“Lonn?” a voice said softly, a masculine voice full of beauty and ardor, as if a song echoed in it. An unaccountable thrill and yearning took hold of me at the mere sound of that voice.

He walked past me and stood at the door, whoever he was, seeming to find his way quite surely even in the dense darkness. Who might he be, there in the deep of night? He stood for a while as if waiting, and then he sighed, and I wondered the more. Idly he moved off, patting horses and whispering to them.

A light floated past the window, lantern glow, and the door opened.

“Lonn.” The same melodious voice spoke, gladness and relief in it.

“Who else?” Lonn retorted lightly. He closed the door behind him, hung his lantern on a hook, and unshielded it. I flattened myself in terror of the light.

“I knew you would come.” The other strode over to stand beside him.

“And I knew you would be here, taking comfort in the steeds. You have always been besotted by animals.… Arlen, have you yet found yourself a modicum of sense?”

I shivered with surprise. It was the winterking himself, he who was destined to wed me and die! Forthwith I moved, feeling that I must see him. Risking noise—the wailing of the wind masked most noise, anyway—I sat up, inched forward, and found a crack in the boards, looked through it.…

Great Mother of us all! No one had told me that he was young and tall and beautiful; how was I to know? I had thought Lonn fair, but Arlen's extravagant beauty stunned me. Some wanton energy filled him so that his every move sang to me; he seemed godlike, almost shining, his very hair crisp and alive, as if he wore a crown of flame—it was red, that marvelous many-tinged red of a chestnut horse in sunlight. And the features of his face, surpassingly lovely, their symmetry, the fawn-hued sheen of his skin, and his eyes—his eyes were as green as green springtime grass. And I gasped in glad pain at the pathos of his sad, smiling mouth.

Arlen of the Sacred Isle. With an eerie insight I knew, even then, that I would love him till I died.

TWO

“A modicum of sense?” Arlen said, and he shook his glorious head, his hair shining like a red hawk's feathers in firelight. “What has sense to do with what is happening?”

Little enough, I thought, gasping again with the pain of my thawing feet. Little enough sense. They had not heard me; my noise was lost in the sound of wind outside. Arlen smiled and sat on a barley bin, and Lonn sat beside him, looking commonplace next to his splendor.

“Even so, I must ask you yet once more to think,” said Lonn in that warm, steady way of his, and Arlen glanced at him in annoyance.

“Don't badger me, my good friend, please. Not this last night that is given us to share.”

“I must! Arlen, I cannot bear it. They will tie you up to that bloody tree, tie you with willow thongs and beat you until you faint—”

“I know,” said Arlen.

“—and then they will put out your eyes.”

Those incredible eyes. I shuddered and closed my own. I had not known it was to be so cruel.

“I know,” Arlen said sharply. “Lonn, stop it.”

“I cannot,” said Lonn. “Then they will castrate you. And after the death blow you will be flayed—”

“Say no more, I tell you!” Arlen made a small, furious sound in his throat and sprang up, turning his back on Lonn, and patted several horses at random. I watched, seeing the anguish on his face, furious at Lonn in my turn.

“And then they will sever your joints,” said Lonn, very softly, “and gut you, and hack you apart, catching your blood in a silver basin, and they will sprinkle us—” He choked, unable to go on. Pitiful pain in his voice—it was impossible any longer to be angry at him.

“Why?” Arlen spoke without turning around. “Why are you doing this to me? They have told us these things since we were striplings.”

“They have told us so that we would not hear, not really know, not understand—how horrible—”

Silence.

“Arlen, go, flee,” Lonn said softly at last. “Live.”

Arlen turned back toward him, his face hard and fair, like a carving. “I would rather be dead than dishonored,” he said. “A coward—”

“There is no dishonor in putting an end to madness.”

“The sacred rites of the goddess, madness?” For a moment Arlen's green eyes blazed, but then he merely looked weary. “Lonn, I have no desire to quarrel with you. Please.”

“All right,” said Lonn stubbornly, meaning that it was not right at all. “If honor is of such concern to you, then think of the girl,
her
honor. She will be bound to know no man but you, one hour's wedlove in all her life and then celibacy. Suppose she has promised herself to a sweetheart? She is not here of her own will, any more than we are. Likely she will be foresworn.”

I could have laughed or cried. Me, a sweetheart, in sterile Stanehold, with father standing guard? Arlen must have thought something of the same sort, for he laughed out loud, mocking laughter yet not unmelodious.

“A daughter of that precious Rahv? She'll be black as a crow and hard as flint, not likely to care for any lover or honor either. Save your concern, Lonn.”

“But I think she is not of corvine sort, Arl,” Lonn remarked with meaning in his glance.

“You've
seen
her? How in the many kingdoms did you manage—”

“I blundered in.”

Arlen sat down again, sighing and shaking his fiery head, and Lonn spoke on.

“She is a gentle thing; I swear it from just my glimpse of her. No crow, Arl, for all that her hair shines black as the Naga. She seemed more like—like a dusky flower, a fragile blossom.”

I snorted. Perhaps they heard me and thought I was a horse.

“Not that she lacked spirit,” Lonn added hastily, as if I had reproached him. “She looked ready to bolt. You have seen the panicky glance of a tethered yearling …? But no flinty shell, Arlen. This—this horror, how is she to withstand it? What is to become of her?”

He spoke with an ardor that made me stare, forgetting any resentment, that made Arlen stare as well, made him furrow his fair brow.

“What do you want of me?” he asked Lonn quietly.

“Go away. Live. Let her return to her home.”

“No one knows what would happen if the winterking did not come to the ceremony,” Arlen replied, not in argument this time but in genuine keen-edged thought. “Likely they would slay someone else in my stead, and that one would not thank me. As for the lady Cerilla, they might be inclined to punish her in order to avert the wrath of the goddess.” His voice was very low, with a stillness in it. “Indeed, they would be as likely to slay her quite slowly as to free her.”

“Surely Rahv would not allow harm to come to her,” Lonn said fiercely.

“I am not so sure,” Arlen replied, and I knew that truth spoke in him, that he interceded for my life as Lonn interceded for his, and I shivered where I sat in the darkened stall.