Chains of Gold (5 page)

I closed my eyes to most of what went on, and Lonn was good to me; he did not cry out. Still, there was the lashing of the whips to be listened to, and the brutal shouts, and every so often someone jostled me; they even tried to force a scourge into my hand. I stood stiff and still, letting the rites swirl around me like an incomprehensible storm. Great fires were being kindled to either side of me, fragrant fires of alder and cornel and applewood, for immortality. I could smell the spicy smoke, and when a serpentine dance began, in two loops coiling around the fires, I could feel it sweeping by me.

“Rae,” said a soft, taut voice at my ear, “be ready.”

It was Arlen. I mustered myself and slowly opened my eyes. Lonn hung before me, limp and bloody but still breathing—I did not look at him but a little to one side of him, seeing him as a red man, no more. The smoke stung my eyes, bringing tears, and I watched the dance, a blur. Faster and faster Arlen led it in the heady smoke, the youths spinning and leaping behind him, the Gwyneda circling and shuffling—tears had made tracks in the chalk on their faces, and smoke had begrimed it, and their white robes were disheveled, but they did not care; I could hear them panting. The look on their faces was not cruel, as I had expected, but merely entranced. Frenzy was building. Faster, faster, the dance, as the king hung on the tree.…

With a great shout Arlen leaped and turned and sent his spear flying. Swift and true it flew, transfixing Lonn to the oak, cutting off his life in one moment. The shrewd blow had been struck, and the youths loosed their arrows and darts, and the white-robes closed in on Lonn like so many hounds, wild for the taste of his young limbs. But Arlen ran around the fire and came to me, and we walked swiftly away. Straight through the ring of lords and ladies we walked, and none of them tried to stop us or so much as looked at us, so spellbound were they with what was happening at the oak.

Once beyond the crowd Arlen touched my arm, and we sprang forward and ran for the stable. I saw that tears streaked his face—from the smoke or from sorrow? There was no time to ask or comfort. We reached the horse; already saddled and bridled it awaited us, a comely dapple gray, Lonn's charger. The mane shimmered eerily on its deeply curved crest, and on its flanks the dapples glowed darkly, nearly purple, the color of storm clouds. Winterking glory.… Arlen mounted and helped me up behind him. He made no sound, but I felt him shaking, felt his broad chest heave; it was sorrow.

“Do not weep,” I told him softly.

“How am I to help it? I loved him as a brother, and I did not somehow find a way to save him. I am a coward—”

“A harsh thing to say of the one for whom Lonn gave his life,” I reproved him.

A distant roar went up, the blood-shout from hundreds of throats, and Arlen sent the horse springing forward. Down to the shoreline it sped, through the willows, and out onto the black water it leaped, and straight across the surface of the Naga it galloped, sending up crownforms with its hooves. Once I looked back over my shoulder. The Sacred Isle was a nothingness, lost in winter mist; it might as well have never been. And already day had turned to dusk.

We came to the shore of the Secular Lands amidst a crowd of pavilions, and I realized that Arlen was riding at random, scarcely knowing what he was doing, or he would have taken us farther downriver, away from the lords' encampment. It did not matter. The lords and ladies were all on the Isle being sprinkled with blood, and the few servant folk who were about merely stared at us. I recognized my father's pavilion close at hand, its pointed top emblazoned with his sevenfold tower emblem.

“Wait,” I said to Arlen, “stop,” and he did not question me, only brought the horse to a halt. “Wait but a moment,” I told him, and I slid down and ran into the pavilion. My things were there, packed up in a chest as if to be sold; I never would have seen them again. I snatched up a pair of fur boots—slippers, really—and put them on my bare feet. I found my mantle—not the grand sable one I had worn to the Sacred Isle, but my everyday one of brown wool—and fastened it on. I gathered up some blankets. My father's manservant had come in and stood watching me with his mouth agape. “If you say so much as a word about this to anyone,” I told him grimly, “I will come back from my grave to haunt you.” It was of no use, I knew—of course the man would tell everything if Rahv asked. No one could withstand Rahv.

I ran for the horse and handed Arlen the blankets.

He took them numbly, laid them across his mount's withers, and helped me up behind him again. Day had nearly turned to dark by then. We started off downstream along the riverbank, and all the servants stood and watched us go without a sound.

Perversely, with the mantle gathered around me and the slippers warming my feet, I started shivering. I pulled up my hood. We followed the riverbank, guided by the faint gleam of water in darkness.

“Will they pursue us?” I asked Arlen, and he came out of his torpor sufficiently to answer me.

“The Gwyneda have no retainers that I know of, and they themselves never leave the island—that I know of. But they will be mightily wroth, I assure you. They might find ways.… And your father, will he not come after you?”

He most certainly would, and not because of love, either. With some thought of keeping our strength up—for I still was not hungry—I reached into my robe and found a hunk of bread. I offered some of it to Arlen. He shook his head.

“You eat it,” he said, so I did. Gnawing at it, I found myself suddenly famished and finished it all. I restrained myself from eating any more. We might need it later; the night was dark, and only the goddess knew what might be on the hunt for us.

FOUR

It was a hyperboreal storm, as it turned out, that first emperiled us. Down from the frozen mountains to the far north snow came hissing, and stinging shards of ice driven before a mighty blast, breath of harsh Bora. At once we could see nothing, not even the glimmer of the river; the night was all befogged by snow. And cold! The numbing cold of the day had been nothing compared to this biting, strength-sapping cold at the fore of a thin and coiling wind. It struck through all my defenses of wool and endurance to whatever warm core was left in me, and I began to be afraid. The realms of death were in the north, folks said, and such storms were of the goddess's sending.

“Name of the goddess!” Arlen exclaimed. “We are in the water.”

We had strayed into the river; we could hear it splashing about the horse's hooves. No wonder, as we could not see, and I did not understand the tone of shocked surprise in Arlen's voice until he spoke again.

“The—the power, it must be gone, somehow. The magic.”

The horse was walking in the water, not on it. As long as we kept to the shallows, I thought, it did not matter, but Arlen seemed stunned. A stammer came into his voice, and he kept talking even though he could not have known whether I was listening.

“But—I—I have ridden all the way down the Naga's tail, down the Long Lake and over the spires of the lost city that lies under the water, and I have ridden up through the Blackwater all the way to the Lakes of the Winds, all of us lads, we used to go in procession—”

I could see them in my mind's eye, the doomed youths on holiday, laughing amongst themselves, fair tunics and bare throats and proudly lifted heads, riding their bright and beautiful horses upon the surface of the Catena. I smiled with wonder, even though my flesh had started to freeze.

“—though we were never allowed to set foot on any shore except our own, the Sacred Isle, we or the steeds.”

The wind swallowed his words in a wild assault that made us both wince. We had to find shelter soon or we would both be dead. But how? The horse kept moving under us, but we could not see where we were going. Arlen must have had similar thoughts.

“I do not have a notion where—” he muttered. “Wait, a shore—”

We both felt the bump and the effort as the horse brought us out of the water, up a steep and rocky slope—my arms were locked around Arlen in a clutch as of a corpse, or I would have slid off backwards. Then the horse pushed a way into something that thwarted the force of the wind. Twigs against my face.… The horse stopped of its own accord.

“Yew,” Arlen said, for there were small round leaves on the twigs even then, in the deep of winter. “By my body, I know where we are! Rae, get down.”

I slid off, but my numbed legs would not hold me and I fell into the snow. It was not very deep, there under the trees. Arlen dismounted and dumped the blankets on top of me. I heard him struggling with the saddle and bridle, and he took one of the blankets for the horse, tying it onto the animal's body with the reins, but I did not realize that until later, for I was half in a stupor.

Presently Arlen found me, tugged me upright, and put his arm around me to steady me. “This way,” he murmured. “Come on.”

Out we went into the blast of the storm again, this time on foot. I followed him without question, leaning against him.

“Cerilla, walk,” he said sharply. “I cannot carry you. It is not far. In fact, it should be close at hand.”

The tone of his voice roused me, and I straightened. He was feeling about at what seemed to be the side of a hill. Then with a wordless grunt of discovery or satisfaction he took my shoulders, urged me down into a crouch, and guided me into a sort of cave or hole. I crawled in, silently cursing my long gown, which hindered me; I hitched it up to my hips, careless of the stones against my knees.

We were in a passage, I realized after a few moments, and it led downward as well as forward, and it was not large enough to stand in or even stoop in; nor did it seem that it ever intended to widen. Therein laired the darkest of all possible darks, and something in me rebelled against it. I stopped.

“Keep going,” said Arlen, behind me.

“What sort of place is this?” I protested, an edge in my voice.

“It is an out-of-the-wind place, and a somewhat-warmer place,” he replied just as snappishly—he was weary, too, and grieving. “Move!”

“It is a tomb,” I said, and instantly the words sent a chill of fear through me. It was true, though I had not allowed myself fully to think it until I spoke. At any moment I was likely to find bones under my hands. Or any of the things that live in the underground places of the dead, something worse than bones—

“Arlen,” I questioned, quietly this time, “have you ever been in here?”

“No. How could I? We were not allowed on any shore but our own. This is a crannog; it sits in the midst of the river, at a ford—”

I was not listening to him. “Great Mother,” I muttered, “what is likely to be in here?”

“For myself, I really do not care.” The despair in his voice wrung my heart. “If I could go before you, Rae, I would, but I came behind to stop up the entry somewhat.”

But I had already started off again. I crawled doggedly, slapping my hands down hard, trying not to think of what they might find, not thinking at all until I banged my head against something made of stone. I stopped with a small moan.

“What is it?” Arlen asked from behind me, apprehensive.

“Nothing.” Nothing but a squarish slab of stone, waist high. I felt to either side of me and found nothing but floor and air. Overhead, nothing either. The constricting stone walls and roof of the passage had widened, it seemed. Cautiously I straightened to my knees, then to my feet. There was room to stand. And it must have been warmer down there than I knew, for the pain of my bumped head was as a twinge compared to the pain in my reawakening legs. I gave up standing and slumped to the floor again, whimpering between clenched teeth. Arlen felt his way over to me.

“What is it, Rae? Have you found something?”

“No! I—am—perishing of cold, that is all.”

“Well, here.” He arranged the blanket on top of me, doubled it even, then moved away. I could hear him exploring our quarters as best he could in the utter darkness. The chamber was not large; the wall did not seem to be much beyond my feet.

“It seems to be a cenotaph, an empty tomb,” Arlen said when he had found his way back to me. “There is nothing in here except us.” He knew the questions in my mind. “Is the blanket helping?” he added.

“Not enough,” I grumped. Now that we were safe, for the time, all my daring had left me. I lay shivering and sullen.

“Well, let me lie with you then, for warmth.”

I hoped he had no thought except for that, for certainly I had never felt less amorous. He lifted the blanket, lay down close beside me, and I gasped—his flesh was icy, far colder than mine. Hastily I flung my mantle over him as well as the blanket, pressed myself against his chest, rubbing his back with my hands. Of course he would be frozen, he in only his tunic. I had thought it was his masculine hardness that had made him brave the cold without complaining, but I had been mistaken; so gripped was he by grief that he truly had not noticed. He might have died, not noticing.

“Flex your feet,” I ordered him. “Bend your toes.”

“Why?” He did not obey me. His head felt heavy against my arm.

“Arlen,” I said, terrified, “do not go to sleep, or you are likely never to awaken again.”

“It does not matter,” he murmured.

“It matters to me!” I cried in his ear, startling him. I felt him jump. “It matters to me,” I said again, more softly but more sternly. “Talk to me,” I added.

“What is there to say?” He was going to be troublesome.

“Tell me about yourself. I pledged my undying devotion to you some several hours ago; I would like to know something about you.”

I believe he nearly laughed; I felt a tremor in him. “There is not much to tell,” he said. “We boys were raised on the Sacred Isle from the time of our birth, given as much as we wanted to eat and made to keep our bodies chaste and beautiful for the goddess, and sometimes the white-robes got a hand's turn of work out of us, but for the most part of the time we ran wild.”