Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (9 page)

This time Sivisal gave me a look with some pride in it. “Well, he’s a sturdy boy, sir. If we can get him back to camp without any more adventure, I expect he’ll get by all right.”

That was that, it seemed. Kirith Kirin’s servant took his cloak. Uncle Sivisal led me back to our fire — with the new arrivals, there were three campfires now. He lectured me, but seemed pleased I had distinguished myself with an escapade. I would have gotten more scolding, I guess, except after a few minutes Kirith Kirin summoned him back for more talk.

When he turned, he wore a clearly worried expression, and my heart sank. I was in trouble after all, I guessed. We got our dinner-portion, nearly a feast compared with our traveling rations, and he led me away from the fire.

His face let me know this was more serious than my straying across the bridge. “Commander Imral sent Kirith Kirin a message the night we met him,” Uncle Sivisal said. “It was about your family. Our family.”

I became still, and a chill passed over me, like the touch of the ghost in the city. “Why?”

“He sent soldiers to guard your farm.” Sivisal watched me somberly. “Soldiers who know their business and will be seen by nobody. Commander Imral asked him to do that.”

This news threw me into some confusion. Sivisal allowed me to sip wine from his cup. “They’re afraid the Queen’s soldiers will make trouble for your family.”

“But they didn’t see us, they don’t know who we are.”

“The woman in the White Cloak knows how to find out,” my uncle said.

“You mean you think she traced our path that same day —” My own words choked me.

“Don’t worry. They’ll be all right.” But he hardly seemed convinced of that himself.

We ate our supper. He brought me a cup of watered wine when we returned to the fire. Some talk passed during dinner, about other things, camp news, a fresh rumor from Cordyssa. I was picturing my mother, doing, as she had promised, the things she had always done.

After a while I asked, “When will the soldiers be there?”

“Soon,” Uncle Sivisal said, but from his manner I wondered if soon would be soon enough.

After this, the pleasant fire and the sound of voices made me sad, and I asked Uncle Sivisal if I could walk by the river for a while. Mercifully he omitted any mention of my recent wandering, maybe because his spirits were low. He directed me to stay in sight of the campfire.

As my eyes adjusted to darkness, I could see the river and walked there. When a thought tried to come into my mind I shut it out. I watched the river and listened to the sounds of its passing. Close to its freshness I felt peace, even warmth after a while, more than the fire had been able to bring. I stayed till the white moon was high. Back at the fires, figures sat drinking wine, their voices reaching me without any distinctness of words. I crawled into my bed without returning to the fire. My mind was full and fought sleep for a long time. Finally Uncle Sivisal went to bed, nearby, and I took comfort in that. A few days ago he had been a stranger, but now he was my only kin in sight. I lay under the soft infthil leaves with fear in my mind, till sleep came. I had no dreams.

5

In the morning we sang Velunen and set out on the ride around the river city. Through the early hours we traveled in the shadow of the city walls, a vast circumference. Prince Kirith and his companions rode at the head of our company, the rest of us after. Toward midday we crossed over another stone bridge, this one less grand than the last, though it was also built when Falamar was King. camp was particularly pleasant that night with the stone abutments of the bridge to reflect the fire and protect us from wind.

At sunset we sang Kithilunen. Kirith Kirin was there but simply watched and listened, saying nothing before and nothing after. A hunting party had gone out during the day and we ate well on what they had killed. That evening only one fire was laid, and Kirith Kirin sat among the rest of us. No one acted as if this were anything unusual. He was boisterous, telling many stories and leading some rounds of singing. It was obvious he was well-loved; in his presence even Sivisal became animated. Kirith Kirin made my uncle show him the arrow-wound and Sivisal did so proudly. The Prince complimented his bravery and remarked that the wound appeared to be healing well. I hoped he would say something to me also, but he did not. Through the evening I watched Kirith Kirin, wishing for some excuse to talk to him. Uncloaked children are expected to be quiet and bother nobody at such gatherings, and adults are expected to ignore them. Still, once or twice his gaze fell on me.

In the morning we formed for ride and crossed the bridge. The forest grew bright and open, the canopy lighter though the undergrowth was still sparse. I asked Uncle Sivisal about the change when we stopped to rest our horses. This part of Arthen was called “Tiisvarthen” or “Goldenwood”, and was a favored place for camp in the early spring before the chill of winter has entirely passed. At that time of year goldenflower trees blossomed here, heavy with petals and scent, and in late spring the blossoms would shower down from the branches and cover the ground. These trees were still budding.

That evening we made camp for the last time in open forest. The white moon rose early and some stars were shining. We were close to a clear stream called Mithuun where I bathed while waiting for supper, amid clear light dying in the golden trees. I picked a spot far from the cookware, being shy of my own nakedness, but I lingered in the water once I was there. My mother had packed oil of elgerath for my journey; I used the last of it in the stream, the fresh smell lingering on my skin. The forest was hushed and still, full of early moonlight, the singing of wind in trees, shadows crossing and re-crossing. As I dressed in my clean tunic the newness of this world took me afresh, the strangeness of having bathed in a forest glade, of dressing by moonlight and listening to sounds from a camp full of strangers.

When I returned to camp the place was full of bright sound, the smell of supper and spilled wine filling the clearing where we had settled for the night. Again, no separate fire was laid for the Jhinuuserret but for a long time Kirith Kirin did not come to supper. Neither did Lady Karsten.

I got food for myself and found a seat in the shadows of the fire. Some of the soldiers had already drunk pretty deeply and in many directions one saw flushed faces reflecting firelight or heard voices tinged with the warm echo of good company and pleasant beverage. From beyond the blaze I could hear Trysvyn singing a song in High Speech. Though I couldn’t understand the words I heard the sadness in it, both in Trysvyn’s clear voice and in the song itself. I felt a sudden longing to know what she was singing. I heard the word Cunuduerum again and again.

Uncle Sivisal sat with me. We drank to each other’s health and sat in the light with our cups balanced in our hands. We spoke pleasantly on many subjects, calm friendly conversation that made me feel less like a stranger to him. He told me then that my mother had taken him to visit the place where Grandmother Fysyyn’s smoke went up while he was on the farm. It was hard for him to fathom that his mother was dead. His last memory of her was from many years before, when she was still fairly young. When he talked about her I could see the child saying good-bye to his mother before riding away to the wild forest. She had told him he was bound for a life that would change him from boy to man maybe more quickly than plains life would have, and that he was destined for long service to a great lord. He was the forerunner, the first of her blood to return to Arthen. He must be credit to her. I could hear her voice in the words as he said them.

I told him what there was to tell about her death. I guess it was clear she had meant a lot to me. We talked, also, about the soldiers Kirith Kirin had sent to keep watch on Kinth’s farm. He gave me sober advice. “Don’t think about it. There isn’t anything you can do for them one way or another. If the Kyminax witch meant to find your farm she’ll have done so. If she didn’t have the time or the will, then nothing is wrong and nothing will happen.”

“The Kyminax witch?”

“Julassa Kyminax,” he whispered. “She’s the strongest of the southern magicians, all except Drudaen himself. That’s who was chasing us.”

I had all but finished the wine by then. Uncle Sivisal studied me in silence, a more tender appraisal than usual. I poked my finger into the moist humus. We talked about camp a while and I tried to pay attention. I asked about the soldier’s training; many people on the ride had been at pains to tell me how strenuous a soldier’s first years could be, though I figured they wanted to frighten me for their amusement, as people do. Uncle Sivisal’s description was not much less grim, though he had faith from somewhere, he claimed, that I would do pretty well. He told me there were not often boys of my age in camp and to be careful, and when I thought he only meant I would have trouble making friends he did not press the point.

Sivisal left me to talk to another friend and I went off for a walk. Beyond the fire circle the forest was dark but full of sounds. When I couldn’t see any trail ahead of me I gauged my best path by the sound of the creek flowing. By the time my eyes had adjusted to moonlight I had covered a nice piece of ground already and I kept walking till I found a clearing full of moonlight, bright as day.

Above, stars wheeled slowly in patterns partly broken long ago by YY-Mother or by chance. In Aeryn the stars change from night to night, never in a regular way, so we are taught early how to recognize the ones we know when they appear. I said the names of a few of the ones I could see tonight: Fisth, Yurvure, Aryaemen, circled by the Four Hundred Boys. These were companions from my days leading the sheep through the hills of the lower Fenax, Aryaemen in particular, called also the Traveler’s Star, because she is most recognizable when she is there, surrounded by her veil, a dusty gold. We have a legend that when YY first grew angry with the world she broke the stars so that they no longer moved across the heavens in an orderly way, so that one night there is one white moon, and one night there is one red moon, and one night there are both, and we can tell they are the moons we are used to, but we can never count the days by their movements, as people once could, long ago.

In the same way, in daylight, we have counted four suns, four kinds of light that fall on us, and so we are the land of four suns and three moons, which is the oldest name for Aeryn that we know.

I heard footsteps on branches from the direction of camp and turned, expecting someone had followed me. I could see well enough to distinguish a tall, hooded figure near the curve of the creek. The figure drew down his hood. Kirith Kirin approached me timidly, moonlight coloring his face, outlining his shoulders. I was too surprised to react, I stood there stupidly. He said, “I watched you sneaking away. You passed my tent.”

“I got tired of the party. I never saw a tent.”

“No. I didn’t think you had.” He walked quite close, pausing behind me. I counted his slow, calm breaths. “Stars,” he said, in a voice tinged with reverence. “So many. One never sees them often enough.”

“I was looking at them too. You can’t see the night sky from many places inside the Woodland.”

He chuckled. “Yes, I know. There are clearings like this one but one must know where to find them.” He unclasped the cloak and let it fall to the ground, freeing his arms. He wore a light, spare garment beneath, cut like a tunic but draped more elaborately, fastened by jeweled pins at either shoulder and by a belt of silver loops at his waist. His arms and legs were bare. “Do you like the Woodland so far?”

“Maybe. I think so. If I had stayed on the farm I would only have had to worry about the sheep.”

He pulled a twig from a neighboring stand of cilidur, the glossy leaves spiraling round the tough black stem; one by one he stripped each leaf from its place, calmly gathering the leaves in his palm. I thought he meant to save them, since cilidur leaves when dried make a fragrant tea, but when he had done stripping the branch he proceeded to tear each leaf to bits. The dense smell floated in the air round both of us. At last he said, “Your life will always be full of new worries here, Jessex. You’ll never know the whole catalog. Even here alone with me you face danger of a kind, but of such a subtle kind you may not realize its presence.”

He said this plainly, but there was something questioning in the directness of his gaze. I sat beside him on the fallen log, rearranging a fold of his cloak to make room. “The danger for me here would be that I might stay too long.”

He let the bits of leaf flutter from his hands. The rich smell rose up in final fullness. “Yes,” he said, with a heaviness in his manner that made me wonder if he wanted to be alone.

“Do you want me to leave? I’ll go away if you ask.”

His answering smile was hard to read. “Perhaps you should.”

He said nothing else. The peace of the night had passed beyond us both. I went back to the fire without a word, feeling only a little scalded, nothing more.