[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (4 page)

“True enough, but you’ve never been above a
day’s ride from there your life long. What more natural than you should look
for your home?” He stared off into the distance, frowning. “That’s
the other side of the wandering life, Lanen, that you’d never learn by dreaming
about it. This bout will pass quickly enough, you’re just fresh away from the
place. But if you take to it the way you say you wish to, I’ll tell you now
there’s more to come.”

“What more?” I asked, curious. Jamie
had always been resolutely silent about his life before he came to us, and I
had always wondered. This sounded promising.

“Ah, Lanen!” He sighed deeply with old
memories. “I wandered the world from the time I was seventeen, fifteen
years ere I came to Hadronsstead. It might be well enough to wander if you’ve a
place and people to come back to, but I tell you now there’s no desolation like
wanting to go home and truly not knowing where it is.”

I had never heard Jamie so bitter. His voice had
grown rougher; if I hadn’t known better I’d have thought him near tears.

“Is it really so terrible?” I asked
quietly.

He looked over at me and smiled. “Not for
you, lass. No, we all long to change to the other way if we get the chance or
think we do. I wouldn’t leave Hadronsstead for the world now, but you’ve known
nothing else. You go on a wandering, my girl. There’s a wondrous lot to see out
there,” he said, nodding east ahead of us. “Including that storm,
which won’t wait for us to find it.”

I saw nothing but a thin dark line out on the
plain.

“We’d best get moving, we’ll need
shelter.”

“Jamie, it’s a good hour away at
least.”

“Not out here it isn’t. Now move!”

W e found nothing better than a small wood to
take coyer in before it hit. I had never seen a storm move so fast. It was a
typical autumn storm otherwise, a windy blast of drenching rain followed by a
cold drizzle that was better and worse by turns, but never stopped completely .

After the downpour was over we moved on through
the cold rain. Jamie knew of an Inn we might stop at, but it meant a far longer
days ride than we had planned. It was miserable on the road, but anything was
better than trying to camp in that muck. We rode for hours in the dark and were
soaked through completely when we arrived, just before midnight. By then Jamie
and I had ridden some way ahead of the hands and the horses, to make arrangements
for men and beasts.

I had only ever been to the village inn near
Hadronsstead, and that had been much earlier in the evening. I had expected
that all inns would thus be well lit and cheery. This was the first time we had
so much as travelled after sunset, and I thought it easily the most dismal
place I had ever seen. All was dark save for a tired red gleam of firelight
under the front door. Such of the cobbled yard as I could see by cloud-covered
moonlight was thickly tufted with grass, the sign of a slovenly keeper. I told
Jamie as muèh.

“Would you rather ride all night in this
damn drizzle and catch your death, then?” he grumped at me. He hated rain.
“Besides, we should rest the horses. It may look a bit threadbare but ifs
not such a bad place. Just quiet.” He slid stiffly off his horse and tried
the door. It was locked, only sense in these parts after midnight to my mind.
But Jamie was in no mood to wait. He pounded on the door, raising loud,
startling echoes in the courtyard. “Ho, innkeeper!” he yelled.
“There’s travellers and horse.s here, enough to make your fortune in
stabling fees.”

There was no response. Jamie tried again,
knocking and shouting. “Ho, within there! Open the door, ifs raining like
all Seven Hells out here!”

The door was jerked open suddenly by a man who
made me feel tiny. He was well taller than I and made three of me sideways.
“Come in then and stop your damned shouting,” he rumbled.
        
.

Jamie seemed as startled as I, though he
recovered quickly.

“Your pardon, Master, but we’ve been riding
all day in this muck. We’ve seventeen horses to stable, the others are corning
behind. Have you room for us all?”

“How many of you?” the giant asked,
warily.

“Us two and three more with the horses,
maybe a quarter hour behind.”

“The stable’s that way,” grunted the
giant, pointing to the run-down building across the courtyard. He disappeared
back within doors, leaving us to make our own way.

We left our two horses standing in the yard and
groped our way inside the stable. The door was not latched.

Jamie dug out a candle stub from his pack and
managed to light it with flint and tinder. Carrying it before him, he found an
oil lamp hanging from the wall and lit it.

The stable was in a terrible state; the reek of
ancient manure rose from the stalls, old straw lay rotting everywhere, rusted
bits and broken tack lay abandoned in odd corners.

I was furious. I may not have the touch, but I
grew up with horses. This was appalling.

“A bit threadbare? Jamie, have you lost
your—?”

“Quiet!” he hissed. “Keep your
voice down or we’re lost. I’ve never seen that man before, the old owner’ s
died or worse. Get out your dagger.”

I drew steel for the first time in self-defense.
I was frightened, excited and sick to my stomach.

“We_must get away from here, Lanen. You
stand behind the door and—”

“I wouldn’t do that, Lanen,” said a
deep rumble from the door. “Unless you’re tired of the old man here.”
The candlelight caught the dull gleam of rusting steel as the giant innkeeper
entered, preceded bya long wicked-looking knife. I hoped that all the dark red
on the blade was rust. .

“Just you put that little pigsticker on the
ground, lad,” he said to me, keeping bis eyes and his knife on Jamie. I
hesitated, looking to Jamie.

“Do as he says, lad,” Jamie said, putting
a slight stress on the “lad.” I obeyed but in a kind of shock. Not at
the ruffian.. At Jamie. His voice was the voice of a stranger, cold and hard
and merciless.

“Good,” rumbled the giant. He had not
noticed the change in Jamie’s voice, or had ‘dismissed it as fear. “Now,
throw down your purses. Business has been slow,” he laughed. “Time
this place made me a profit. Seventeen horses should keep me through till
spring.”

Jamie started moving slowly away from the
door—directly away from me—and the giant followed mm. “No, I don’t think
so,” said Jamie in that wintry voice.

The instant the giant’s back was turned to me I
retrieved my dagger, slipping a little as I fetched it. I might as well have
shouted.

“Drop it, I said!” cried the giant,
whirling towards me. I drew back my hand and threw.

The dagger bounced off his hardened leather
jerkin.

“Damn it!” I yelled without thinking,
my voice high-pitched with anger.

“You’re no bad!” he grunted, an evil
grin breaking on his face. “I’ve all the luck tonight, you’ll make a tasty
change aftaaaahh…”

He slumped to the ground, blood streaming from
his mouth Jamie stabbed him once more through the back, twisting the blade,
making certain.

I ran out of the stable and was violently sick.

I tried not to hear when Jamie dragged the body
behind the barn. Suddenly he was beside me. “Come on, we’re leaving. Bring
the horses round to the road. Now.”

He handed me my dagger and went up to the door of
the inn, sword in hand. I walked my mare Shadow and Jamie’s Blaze out to the
road, slowly, calming them as best I could in my state. At least the rain had
stopped.

Jamie soon emerged, carrying a largish sack.

I wondered if there was still blood on his hands.

“Lanen,” he said quietly. His voice was
as it always used to be, low and kind, the voice I loved more than any other in
all the world. “All’s well, he was alone. I found some decent food and a
little silver. It’ll be handy when we come to the next town.”

I couldn’t speak, though I did try. Words seemed
meaningless.

“Lanen, I had to,” he said, pleading
against my unspoken words. “I never wished his death, but he’d have killed
us both when he was done with you.”

I forced myself to speak, unclenching my teeth
only by an effort of will. “Jamie, I’ve seen death before. Hells, I tried
to kill him myself.”

“And forgot everything I ever taught
you,” Jamie said, trying to make light of it. “Never throw away your
weapon, Lanen, not in close quarters like that, it’s …”

“That’s what made me sick, Jamie,” I
said through my teeth. “Not his death. You.” I looked at him, I could
see his face now a little in cloud-spattered moonlight, confused, hurt.
“Where did you learn to kill like that? I never asked when you taught me
the sword behind Hadron’s back. Where did you learn it? Where were—what—damn
it, Jamie, who are you?”

“I haven’t changed, Lanen. I am who I have
always been,” he said quietly.

“No. I heard your voice, it was cold and
hard and—”

“Lanen!” he said, and his voice was
tired in the darkness. “Not now. We must get moving.” In the quiet
night we could hear the hands and the horses coming along the road.
“There’s another town not three miles away with a clean Inn and a groom
who knows his business. The horses are all tired, we have to get them inside
and settled. We’ll stay there and take a rest day. We’ve enough time before the
fair.”

I didn’t answer. He reached out to me. Without
thinking I moved away, my head full of the vision of his hands covered in
blood.

“As you will,” he said, his voice a
blend of disgust, hurt and weariness. “Mount up, we’ve three miles yet to
go before we rest.” .
    
.

He told the lads only that there was no room for
us here and we’d have to keep going. We did not speak on the road, though my
mind never stilled. I kept trying to understand how the quick, merciless killer
in the stable could be the loving friend of my childhood.

We reached the town and woke the innkeeper.
Jamie’s only words to me were that I might sleep late if I liked, we’ d not set
out until the day after the morrow. I fell exhausted into bed and dreamt
horrors.

Come morning the girl came knocking to call me
for breakfast. I sent her down with orders for a hot bath and breakfast brought
up. She had to wake me again when the bath was ready.

I emerged about ten. Despite my weariness of
heart it was wonderful to be clean, my new-washed hair in a loose braid down my
back, my filthy tunic and leggings scrubbed. I carried them down to dry before
the great tire in the public room. I’d have used the windowsill in my room had
there been any chance of sun, but it was a cold, grey day, with the certain
promise of dreary rain morning to night. Somehow that fit.

Jamie was waiting for me at a table near the
fire. There were no others in the room save for an older couple in a corner,
and they paid us no heed.

My terrible night visions were largely dispelled
by the sight of him. He had found the wherewithal to bathe as well. He sat
waiting, at first glance looking much as he always had, neat and clean and
utterly himself.

Though he didn’t usually start drinking this
early.

When I had draped my wet clothes over a bench I
joined him. Without speaking he pushed an empty tankard over to me and filled
it from the jug on the table. I drained it in moments, refilled it and ordered
another jug.

“How did you sleep?” he asked. His
voice was rough.

“Terribly. You?”

“About that well,” he said. Now I was
closer I saw that he looked years older this morning, dark circles under his
eyes, his face scored with lines I had never noticed, the silver in his hair
more pronounced than before. He lowered his voice. “I haven’t killed
anything but chickens for longer than you’ve been alive, Lanen. I assure you I
take no pleasure in it, if that’s what you thought. But our lives were over if
he had lived.”

“I know. Truly, I do know that I owe you my
life. But—”

“But?”

I was still having trouble speaking, and I stared
at my drink. “Jamie—you terrified me. Your voice—I never imagined you
could—damn, I don’t know how to say this.” I glanced over at him. There he
sat, his eyes as kind as they had ever been, his face full of sadness but still
the face of my dearest friend. I started to look down again when I realised I
had to say this to his face. I owed him that.

I spoke barely above a whisper but I looked
straight in his eyes. “Jamie, you knew exactly how to kill him. Swift and
sure. He dropped in the midst of a word, he was dead before he knew he was in
trouble. I was—sickened at seeing that in you. I always thought you the kindest
man alive. I’ve seen you walk away from any number of fights, but you killed
him like one born to the deed.”

He sighed, only the slightest sound of regret.
“Very well, Lanen. If you wish to know, I will tell you. Be warned, this
concerns you as much as it does me.” The shadow of a smile crossed his
lips. “I’ve meant to tell you for a while now, though I had hoped for a
time of my own choosing.” He emptied his tankard and refilled it, drinking
deep. “There is much to tell, but now you’ve asked you shall know all of
it. At the very least it will help you to see past last night.”