The Barrow (42 page)

Annwyn sighed when Erim was gone. “I'm sure my brother knows what's best for me,” she said sourly.

Malia said nothing, but rummaged through the basket and produced some pastries left over from the day before, grabbed hastily from the kitchens in their flight from the city house—puff pastries rolled with egg and cilantro and basil and cheese and then baked.
I used to love these
, she thought as she took a bite of one of them. She frowned.
No, Harvald used to love these.
As she ate the pastry, she realized she was famished, and she ate another after she was done, and then another. Malia looked at her with surprise, but said nothing, glad that her mistress had finally regained her appetite.

Annwyn leaned back, finally, having had her fill for the moment.

“Where are Frallas and Silbeta?” she thought to ask. “Are they still with us?”

“Yes, my Lady, they are with their husbands,” said Malia. “Do you wish me to summon them?”

“No,” she said. “Let them find some peace for a time.” Frallas had recently married Sir Clodin, and Silbeta had been married to Sir Theodras for only a year. Helga and Elisa were married to knights in the direct service of her father; they'd been married for some years and now had their own children to care for.

Annwyn and Malia sat there quietly for a time, and Malia reached out and took her mistresses' hand in hers. The ship rocked gently, and they could occasionally hear the accented cries of the rivermen up top, the crack and roar of wind in the sails, and the neighs and whinnies of stalled horses somewhere else in the hold.

Elisa's baby finally stirred, and she started to squall loudly. Elisa and Helga woke up, young mothers trained to the sound, and then Ilona as well; but Henriette and Helga's three-year old kept sleeping. Malia quietly shared the pastries and some dried spiced sausages and fruits with those awake, while Elisa opened up her bodice to breast-feed little Elisabeta.

“How much longer?” whispered Ilona, looking wearily about the cabin; her eyes were shadowed and puffy, and she looked like she had been crying recently, though Annwyn did not remember seeing or hearing her weep. She also looked a little pallid, they all did, from the tossing of the ship.

“An hour or two, we're told, and then we'll be in Vesslos,” Malia said. She turned to Annwyn. “Where . . . where do you think we are going if not to Araswell, my Lady?” asked Malia. “Do they mean for us to take refuge in Vesslos?”

The other handmaidens stirred a bit at this news, looking at each other with worry. “We're not going to Araswell?” whispered Helga fiercely. “Why in the king's name not? The walls are high and strong, and your brother Albrecht awaits us there with his knights!” Annwyn thought for a bit as she watched Elisabeta suckling; the baby, at least, seemed content.

“My brother apparently does not think it is safe there,” said Annwyn. “Perhaps there are not enough knights. Baron Conor of Vesslos has always been of cordial relations with our father and is of the line of Thorodür, another shield-thane to King Orfewain, but I do not think he is so great a friend that my brother would expect a strong welcome there. And we did not receive many invitations from the Lodyrs who hold the baronies of the Plain of Horns, nor from Baron Galreuth of Collwyn, even before our fall from favor.”
And we have received none since
, she thought.

“Your father has never approved of Aurian families that have intermarried with Danians,” Malia said quietly.

“No, he has not, and almost all of our immediate neighbors have Danian blood in their lineages; it is one of the reasons he so preferred to be in the capital, and stand with his equals at the Court,” Annwyn said to her handmaiden. “The Cürwells of Abenton and the Liefrings of Misal Ruth have pure Aurian lineages; and of the great western families of Atallica, the Liefrings have been the most cordial since . . . our name became tarnished. Though that could always just be because we pass through their lands so often, on our way to and from the city. If we were to seek refuge somewhere, I would have thought perhaps it would be with Baron Wallis the Young at Misal Ruth . . .”

“Pure of blood they may be, but they follow the Old Religion in secret, and hold to old Athairi rites, my Lady!” said Helga. “Your father has never approved of them! It won't do for you to be seen taking refuge with those already tainted by such whispers!”

“Whispers indeed, Helga,” said Annwyn with a slight frown. “I would hope all of you know better than to merely repeat the gossip and innuendo that so often poisons the Court; the Baron and his family have never extended us anything but the most proper courtesy.” The handmaidens looked down and nodded, chagrined. “But if we were going to seek refuge with Baron Wallis, we would not be headed to Vesslos. We'd be sailing to the bridge at Tauria and his uncle, Lord Garin Liefring. I do not know my brother's mind in this . . .”

“Perhaps he means us to hide in the Hada Wold?” asked Malia.

“That's . . . that's preposterous,” said Annwyn.
Would he do that? Would he take our entire household into the woods to find refuge from those that pursue us?
She frowned. “Out of the question.”
Is our situation really so dire?
She looked at Malia. “Isn't it?”

She felt a sudden cramp in her stomach and winced. The sudden intake of solid food seemed to be triggering something potentially unpleasant. Annwyn looked around, suddenly worried.
And where do you suppose they keep the privies on a ship like this?
she wondered.

The bustling riverside docks in Vesslos, built of stone under its walls, were not as large as those in the seaports of Therapoli or her home of Berrina, or in the river port of Abenton, for that matter; but they were certainly larger than those in Pierham, where they'd entered the river. The
River King's Crown
and the
Pelican Diver
had been towed in amongst a half dozen boats of similar tonnage to be offloaded. There were at least two other docks that Erim could see with a crowd of smaller riverboats. She jumped down off the wide gangway onto the stone of the dock, happy to be on land again despite having reasonable sea legs. Most of the Aurian household of Orwain and Araswell had very little experience on the water, and this journey on the Abenbrae Estuary was the closest they had ever come to being on the sea; a few had paid for it with sea sickness and looked like they were at death's door. If she was glad to be back on land, then they were ecstatic in a way she thought almost comical. If they had ever lapsed in their devotions to the Divine King, they were making up for lost time now.

She looked up at the stout walls and dock gates of the baronial city; Vesslos sat on the eastern bank of the Vessbrae, one of the larger cities in the region, about the equal to Soros or Truse, though of course small in comparison to the capital. She thought back to the last time—was it really less than two weeks ago?—that she had been in Vesslos. Dwelling briefly on the parting words of Tall Duram, she was not sure this would be a city eager to see her and Stjepan again; but then it was a large city and there'd be no reason for them to be in the Free Quarter on this trip.
Better to wait a few months, or even a year or two, before stopping in to say hello
, she thought.
Assuming we're still alive then
.

Captain Wynram and the other Herla man, Captain Lolfyr, were already down at the end of the docks negotiating with the dock officers on the unloading fees. She looked behind her. Gilgwyr was groggily stumbling over the gangway, trying to shake the five hours or so of sleep that he'd managed to catch on the
River King's Crown
. He spotted her standing still amongst the stevedores and rivermen working the docks, and grunted with a wave and a nod. He pulled a plain dark coat around his clothes, and made his way down the stone docks to where she waited.

“Ah, young Erim,” he said with a smile that couldn't help but look halfway to a leer. “A bright good afternoon to you. Did you get any sleep? I had the most marvelous dreams on our river voyage, must be the fresh river air.”

“I am sufficiently rested, Master Gilgwyr,” she said with a curt smile.

“Excellent,” said Gilgwyr, rubbing his hands together with zest. “It's been some time since I was in Vesslos but I gather you were just here with Stjepan. Are you ready for our appointed mission?”

“Aye,” she said, then started repeating from memory: “‘Two wagons and a coach for the wounded and injured, for those on their way to Araswell; one coach capable of overland travel, for the Lady on our own trip, all to be held until the horses are disembarked and delivered. Provisions for two weeks journey off the roads, including water and wine, and plain clothing suitable for a well-off merchant's wife to help disguise the Lady and her handmaiden. And plain surcoats to disguise the knights, and make them look like mercenaries.'” Stjepan had been most clear on that last point; Arduin's men all bore the sigil of the Orwain family on their doublets, surcoats, and pourpoints. She looked at Gilgwyr. “You got the coin?”

He hefted a big fat leather coin purse that hung from his belt under his cloak. The bag was so packed with coin there wasn't even a jingle as he lightly shook it. “Your Treasurer is at your service, Lord Quartermaster,” he said. “Let us proceed to the markets!”

They turned and started making their way toward the dock gate into the city. A couple of the rivermen from the
River King's Crown
blew her a kiss as she and Gilgwyr walked past them on their way off the docks. She blushed and hoped Gilgwyr didn't notice.

“And you're sure it's the Bale Mole?” Arduin asked again. He stood on the deck of the small forecastle, leaning his elbow against the foremast, and peering past it to survey the battlements of the city of Vesslos. He still had on his cuisses and half-greaves, but had shed his upper armor in favor of a thick, quilted arming doublet. He had barely slept on the journey upriver, and not just because of fear of the river itself, but because every time he had closed his eyes he had seen the dead face of the squire Herefort.
The White Lady walks amongst us now, and has ever since Harvald's funeral
, he thought.
She has come to claim her fill, and I fear she is ravenous
.

“Yes,” said Stjepan, standing behind Arduin with Sir Helgi. “All the legends say he was buried somewhere in the dark hills of his sorcerous kingdom, and what has appeared of the map would seem to confirm it.” From inside his coat he produced his notebook and undid the twine that kept it closed. He flipped through the pages. “It was hard to piece it together, but I believe the words I've translated so far are meant to say: ‘
To the Barrow of our Fallen Lord, Azharad, King of Kings, first west upon the High Road from Garner Lais, into his Kingdom's Heart.
' There are symbols for Garner Lais, which was always represented on their old maps as a tower with a sword through it, and for Lost Tir'gaile: a crowned silver eagle.”

“These names mean nothing to me,” Arduin said dully, trying to clear the fog in his head.

“Garner Lais is one of the citadels of the Uthed Wold, the dark forest that was once the eastern reaches of the Kingdom of Azharad,” said Stjepan. “It's a dark ruin, as are all the citadels of that wood, but assuming the map was intended for someone amongst the Azharites or their hidden cult brethren in the east, then it makes sense the mapmaker would think they were starting through the Wold and Garner Lais. The Azharites still use those ruins today, by most accounts. There's an old road, hardly better than a hunter's path, that runs out of the wood and up into the Bale Mole, to the ancient hill town of Tir'gaile, which was blighted when the curse of the Sun Court fell upon Lost Uthedmael.”

“So we have to go through the Uthed Wold?” Arduin asked, rubbing his face with both hands.
That
name he knew, though his rational mind refused to believe the stories he'd heard about the wood.

“No,” said Stjepan, shaking his head. “It's possible to also get to Tir'gaile from the Wall, from the Watchtower of Mizer. We should head there. It'll be safer and easier for us. That's not a path that would be open to most Azharites or Nameless Cultists. But it's open for us.”