Daughter of Lir (38 page)

Lir was a city. Yes. A great and beautiful city. Some of its
houses were of stone. Most were of wood carved and painted with wonderful
artistry. There were green places, avenues of trees, flowers cascading over
walls and down staircases. The brilliance of the colors, the crowding together
of trees and houses, the throngs of people in bright clothing, in gold and
shell and amber, dizzied her; dazzled her.

Huon led them down the long wide way. It was straight, not
twisted and tangled as streets were in towns and villages; nor, because the
city was so great, did it curve round the circuit of the walls. It led to a
circle, a gathering of great houses. One was of stone, one of wood, one of
both.

King’s house, Mother’s house, temple. That much Rhian knew
from the teachings of her childhood. King’s house of stone, for men and war.
Mother’s house of wood, for women and peace. And temple wall of both, for the
alliance between them.

The temple was silent. Its doors were shut. The Mother’s
house was shut and barred. Only the king’s house was open to their coming.

Huon led them to the open gate. Armored men stood there.
They had spears in hand, held lightly, either to ward or to show the way.

Huon dismounted in front of them. Rhian chose to take that
as a sign to the rest. She stepped down from the chariot, tugging at Minas till
he secured the reins and followed her. On foot, leading the horses, they
entered the king’s house.

o0o

It was the largest house she had ever been in, and the
highest. Yet at heart it was like any other house in this country: a great room
with a hearth, and a cluster of lesser rooms behind, where the kitchens and the
storerooms were, the guardrooms, the servants’ quarters, the armories.

There were two stories to it, and a stair that ascended to
the second, where the king and his family and his guests would sleep. The whole
of Long Ford could have lived there, with all their kin, and taken up but a
portion of it.

They left the horses in the outer court, which in a lesser
house would have been an entry no larger than the stretch of a woman’s arms;
but here it was as large as a whole house in a village.

The hall was wide and airy. Its roof was held up on pillars
that had been great trees, and the center of the roof was open, letting in the
light and air and letting out the smoke of the fire.

The king sat by the hearth, flanked by half a dozen young
men whose faces made Rhian catch her breath. Emry seven times over, from
beardless youth to man of solid years: for each was an image of the other, and
the king no less than the rest.

These were his father and his brothers. Her father; her
brothers. She had the answer to the question she had asked Emry, so long ago
and so far away. Yes, they were all like him, and yes, they were all beautiful.

They stared at her as if she were a spirit come back from
the dead. With a soft clatter of hooves on stone paving, the mare came up
behind her and rested her head lightly on Rhian’s shoulder. They eased at that,
all at once, and the youngest said, “Oh! It’s the mare’s servant.” And somewhat
belatedly: “Lady, we welcome you to Lir.”

His elders frowned at him, but indulgently. He flushed. He
was very young; his voice was barely broken. It cracked as he said, “I’m sorry,
lady. My father should have said that.”

“It was a fine welcome,” Rhian said, “whoever gave it. I’m
honored to be in your city.”

“We are honored with your presence.” The king’s voice was
like Emry’s, dark and sweet. He rose; he was a tall man, and broad, towering
over all but the eldest of his sons. “And this is the prince from the sea of
grass?”

“This is Minas, king’s heir of the People of the Wind,” said
Rhian.

Minas was silent, standing very straight, eyes fixed on
something only he could see. She had insisted that he put on the clothes he had
worn to the festival in Larchwood; that he look like a prince and not a slave.
He had obeyed her without a word, but without any particular delight, either.

He did look well, and to her eyes, properly royal. How he
might seem to the king of Lir, she could not tell. The king studied Minas at
his leisure, in silence.

His sons followed suit, with the same careful lack of
expression, except for the youngest; his eyes were not friendly as he looked
Minas up and down. Minas came back from wherever his spirit had been, and met
those eyes, and said levelly, “Yes, I was reckoned worth your brother’s life.”

“One life means little beside the lives of all the Goddess’
people,” said the king. If he grieved, he held it at bay. “Gerent, you will
look after our guests. See that they’re housed and bathed and fed, and treated
with every possible honor.”

The boy looked as if he had been slapped. Still, as spoiled
as he might be, he was properly brought up. He bent his head in obedience.

“My lord,” Rhian said before Gerent could take them away,
“will you see the chariot first?”

“Are you not tired?” the king asked. “Hungry?”

“That will wait,” she said.

The king deferred to her. That was startling. But she was a
goddess’ servant, and he belonged to his people. Her rank was above his.

The chariot was waiting where they had left it, with their
two guards standing by it. A small crowd had gathered, mostly men and boys, but
a few women standing in the midst of them. None was dressed as a priestess.

They gave way before the king. He nodded to one or two of
the men, and bowed somewhat more deeply to the women. He walked a circle around
the chariot and its restive horses, examining it as closely as he had examined
Minas, and with the same lack of expression.

When he was done, he said to his sons who had followed him,
“See to the horses. Bring the chariot into the stables. And Gerent, do as I
bade you before.”

“Huon,” Rhian said equably, “show the king’s men how to tend
the harness. Rory, help with the chariot.”

No one dared contradict her. It was an odd feeling, not
exactly pleasant, but not too greatly unpleasant, either. With the horses taken
care of and the chariot as safe as it could be, she allowed Gerent to do his
father’s bidding.

Minas’ captivity was as easy here as it had been on the
way to Lir. There were no chains. He was dressed and tended and fed like a
prince. His bed was soft, the room airy, and part of its wall opened and
fastened back, so that he could look out on a stretch of green toward a house
such as he had seen before, in which these people kept their horses.

There was no feast of welcome that night, at least not for
him. He bathed alone but for a pair of silent menservants. He ate alone, and it
seemed he was expected to sleep alone. He was more weary than he had reckoned,
weary to the bone. He lay on the too-high, too-soft bed and fell into sleep as
into deep water.

o0o

The sun woke him, casting a beam across his face. It was
high enough to have risen above the wall of the house, and bright enough to
dazzle him. He sat up blinking, struggling for memory. He was not in a tent.
Nor was he on the steppe. The air was strange, heavy with the scents of water
and green things.

It came to him all at once, as he staggered to the window
and leaned on its frame. He was in the king’s house of Lir. His room was two
men’s height and more above the ground. Horses grazed below in a green paddock
between the house and the stable. He recognized Adis’ duns and the grey mare
who was a goddess.

There were clothes laid out, clean and new. They fit as if
made for him. They were plainer than the festival garb of Larchwood, but more
finely woven, and sturdy: made for use. There were no ornaments and no weapons.
That much of captivity, it seemed, he must suffer.

He ventured out of the sunlit room into airy dimness. He
stood in a gallery above the great open space with its banked fire. A few
servants were in it, but none acknowledged him.

He inched his way along the wall. He was a warrior of the
plains. He was not meant to perch on ledges. It was a great relief to come to
the stair, though that was its own horror. He edged down it, sliding a foot
along each step.

The tiling of the floor was not blessed earth, not quite,
but near enough. He restrained himself from clinging to it like a child to its
mother.

Even before servants he would not show himself weak. He
walked steadily away from the stair. A man approached him with a basket. In it
were bread, fruit, cheese. “To eat when you work,” the servant said with a dip
of the head, offering respect with the gift.

Minas took it half-blindly. “Work?” he asked.

“Come,” the servant said, smiling as if to a child. “Come
and see.”

Clutching the basket, Minas followed the servant out of the
king’s house and into the sunlight. There were people out and about, a good
number of them, men and women both. They busied themselves with tasks, some of
which he recognized, some not. One gathering out beyond the stable—that was
familiar.

They were gathered around the chariot. They had not, at
least, taken it apart. A pair of sturdy legs protruded from beneath it; a
woman’s voice echoed from the box. He understood enough to know that she was
commenting on the fastening of the axle to the body of the chariot.

The others listened with deference that warned him: when she
emerged, wriggling out from beneath the chariot, she reminded him rather fiercely
of Rhian. It was little to do with her looks—she was no beauty; she was sturdy,
rather, and foursquare, with a broad pleasant face and callused hands. But
something about her, the way she carried herself, the clarity of her eyes as
she raised them to him, spoke of the mare’s servant.

It was authority, he thought. Among the People, men had it;
particularly men who were clan chieftains and princes.

She looked him over as women did in this country, frankly,
letting him know what she thought of him. It seemed she approved. Mostly they
did, though he had heard a few remark that he was somewhat thin and very pale,
and they did not like it that he did not grow his beard. Such of it as he had,
which was little beside the men here.

But this woman seemed content with him as he was. She said
in the traders’ speech, “You’ll be teaching me to build these. The rest of
these here will do your bidding. Tell them of the wood, the leather, the metal,
how the wheels are made—one by one, in order, as it must be.”

“Is that a command?” Minas asked her.

Her smile had the same implacable sweetness as Rhian’s. “You
are not given a choice, no. But we do ask. In courtesy.”

“You are very courteous people here,” Minas said.

“Teach,” she said. Courteously.

That was his work: to teach. These outlanders knew nothing,
but guessed much. They knew the potter’s wheel and the wheel of the oxcart, if
not the chariot-wheel. They knew the carving of wood, the curing of leather.
And they knew bronze, which he did not.

Metos would covet their wealth of wood and hides and metal,
and their great numbers of willing craftsmen. When Minas began, there were half
a dozen. Before the sun touched the zenith, there must have been half a
hundred. He could not be sure: as many seemed to leave as to arrive, and those
who came later brought things that he had indicated a need for earlier. Some
had set to work splitting and cutting logs of wood. Others had begun to cut and
sew harness.

However soft these people might be, they had no fear of hard
work. They listened and learned, and they remembered well.

He forgot to eat that day, and only remembered to drink when
a bold-eyed girlchild brought him a cup brimming with cool water. When the
light began to fade, his pupils left him—they were not like Metos’ apprentices yet;
they did not have the strength to work through the night.

He let them go. He lingered till dark, alone and it seemed
forgotten. There was feasting in the king’s house, lamps lit, a fire burning,
savory scents wafting out into the chill of evening. He welcomed the bite of
hunger and the fiercer bite of loneliness. Those well befit a slave; and that,
after all, he was.

He dozed, maybe, sitting beside the chariot with his back to
the wheel. When he roused, the king sat beside him, wrapped in a mantle, and a
second lay warm over his own shoulders.

He blinked at the lord of Lir, still half in a dream. He had
been on the steppe, or perhaps in the shamans’ country, and yet he was also
here beside the river of souls, under the power of the western goddess. The king’s
face seemed part of the dream, so like Rhian, and so like the man with whom she
had bought Minas.

Out of that dream or waking vision, Minas said, “He is your
son, isn’t he? The one who stayed behind.”

“He is my heir,” said the king. His voice was quiet.

Minas nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, the gods would reckon that a
fair exchange.”

“They would,” said the king, still in that soft
expressionless tone.

“But you,” said Minas, “know a deep and abiding anger.”

“Do you not?” the king asked.

“To the bottom of my heart,” Minas said. “But what is done
is done. I gave my word, and I will keep it.”

“I have made no promises, secured no alliances. The mare’s
servant does not speak for me.”

Minas sat still in the darkness. “And yet you use me.”

“Why not? Doesn’t your king use every weapon set in his
hand?”

“And many that are not,” Minas said, “but which he can
take.”

There was a pause. The night wind played about the space
between the walls. At length the king said, “I will not ask you to assure me
that my son is safe. That is with the Goddess. But will he be treated well?”

“He was bought and not captured,” Minas said. “And she who
bought him is intrigued by him. If he’s clever and circumspect, he’ll keep her
intrigued, perhaps for a long time.”