The Heirs of Hammerfell (18 page)

They were all armed; and Alastair saw a litter standing outside, well-veiled, like one he might see in Thendara; obviously it was intended to conceal a well-brought up and well-chaperoned lady.

One of the litter bearers saw Alastair and raised a hand in greeting, but the barwoman said in an undertone―but not so low that Alastair did not hear―"No; I thought the same when he came in, but he speaks like a lowlander." She assembled six plates of bread and six mugs of beer. "And the Lady Lenisa; would she like something? The wine's quite good, even though it's not good enough for―" she jerked her elbow at Alastair.

Alastair opened his mouth to protest; he was not accustomed to having anyone question his taste, especially one making no effort to conceal her opinion. Then he shut it again; if he was only an unregarded

outsider, his tastes would not be worth anything and he had already been noticed.

Outside the door the curtains of the litter opened and a pretty girl of fourteen or so, richly dressed in lowland silks of a lilac hue, got down from the litter and came into the barroom. She looked around for the woman who was evidently the head of her escort.

"Little lady," said the woman reprovingly, "you shouldn't come in here; I commanded wine for you―"

"I'd rather have a bowl of porridge," said the girl mutinously. "I'm cramped with sitting inside the litter, and I'm sick for some fresh air."

"Porridge you shall have, as fast as Dorcas can boil it," said the swordswoman, "can't she, Dorcas? But your grandfather will throw a fit if you are seen here in Hammerfell country."

"Aye, that he will," said the woman next to her, "Lord Storn wouldn't approve of you traveling here at all ... but the road is smoother this way―"

"Oh, Hammerfell!" said the girl in a pettish voice, "I have heard all my life that there were no living Hammerfells―"

"Aye, and so your grandfather believed till a moon or so ago," said the swordwoman,

"when the young duke killed your father―so get back in your litter like a good girl, before someone sees you and carries messages, and you wind up in the grave beside him."

The girl came and wound her arms coaxingly around the swordswoman. "Dear Dame Jarmilla," she murmured, "let me ride with you and not be stifled inside the litter. I'm not afraid of Hammerfells old or young, and since I haven't set eyes on my father since I was three years old, you can't truly expect me to grieve for him."

"What a way to talk," the woman―Dame Jarmilla?― replied, "Your grandfather would―"

"I'm tired of hearing what my grandfather would do; he must be given to fits, then," said the girl Lenisa. "If you think I'm afraid of Hammerfells―" she broke off, having noticed Jewel lying under the table.

"Oh, what a dear," she said, kneeling down beside her and extending her hand for the dog to sniff. "Well, what a fine old girl you are, then."

Jewel condescended to let the girl pat her on the ruff of long pale hair, lighter copper than the rest, round her neck. Lenisa raised her eyes to Alastair and looked full into them.

"What is her name?" she asked.

"Jewel," said Alastair honestly, before he realized that if this girl was, as she seemed to be, a granddaughter of Lord Storn, then she might well have heard that such a dog was the property of the Duchess of Hammerfell―but then again, they wouldn't be likely to remember the name of a puppy thought dead these eighteen years. At any rate, Alastair did not intend his identity to remain secret for long.

The girl was a Storn; this meant she was his deadliest enemy. Yet she was just a pretty fair-haired girl, her hair tied back in a long braid, her blue eyes meeting his in a frank and open way no girl in Thendara would ever have looked at him.

He- had heard tales of the boldness of mountain girls. Yd the blue eyes seemed innocent and even ingenuous; she was patting the dog affectionately.

"Lady Lenisa―" he began, but at that moment he heard the clatter of a horse outside on the road; then the sounds of another horse being tied up at

the rail outside. Jewel pricked up her ears, with a short, sharp bark of recognition, and bounded toward the tall old man who came in; he looked round, and saw Alastair where he sat, then frowned slightly at the array of swordswomen and made a signal to Alastair to remain where he was.

The senior swordswoman, the one Lenisa had addressed as Dame Jarmilla, came to

Lenisa and tugged at her collar. "Get up at once," she said in a taut voice. "Such behavior, sitting on the floor among strangers―"

"Oh, Jewel doesn't know what a stranger is―do you, girl?" Lenisa crooned, still holding out her hands to coax the dog back from the newcomer's feet. Dame Jarmilla pulled her up by main force and thrust her out through the door, though the girl was still

complaining that she hadn't had her porridge and that she didn't want to ride in the litter anyhow. The protests were cut off abruptly as the old swords-woman pushed her inside and yanked the curtains shut.

Alastair was still staring after the girl. How lovely she was! How fresh and innocent!

The man who had entered was bending over Jewel in delighted disbelief while she

sniffed at his feet with apparent joy, barking in short little barks, demanding attention.

He smiled at Alastair and said, "Bad luck, this day of all days, that Storn's girl chose to breakfast here with her ladies."

"Storn's girl?"

"The Lady Lenisa, Rupert's daughter, the old man's great-niece, but she calls him grandfather," the old man said. "The dog remembered me, but I don't suppose you do, lad? Though I recognize you well."

He said with wonder, "There's only one man on earth whose face could be so familiar, yet so new―my boy. We thought you dead!"

"You must be Markos," said Alastair. "My brother sent me; we must talk―" he noticed the woman Dorcas at the bar staring at them and amended, "privately, I think. Where can we go?"

"My place," said Markos. "Come along." Alastair paused only to leave some money on the bar, untie his horse, and lead her through the village street to a small cottage at the far end.

"Tie her in back," Markos said. "Conn's horse, I see. Half the county would recognize her; there'd be news of a stranger here all over the county in half a day, an' we don't need that. Bad luck that Storn's girl saw you, but I hear she's a spoiled bratty little thing, and doesn't care for anything much outside herself."

"I would hardly say that," Alastair protested. "She seemed―" and stopped; he had seen the girl only , for a few minutes and knew nothing about her. In any case she was the granddaughter of his sworn enemy and part of the feud which had destroyed his family; he had no business thinking about her in this way.

Markos led the way inside. The interior was clean enough; bare except for a fireplace with a few pots hanging on the edge, a couple of rough chairs, and a table formed by laying planks over a couple of trestles. The far end of the table was covered with a piece of white cloth, and on this cloth were two silver goblets, blazoned with the arms of Hammerfell. Markos, following his glance, said curtly, "Aye; I found them in the ashes a few days after the fire; kept them here in memory of my lord and lady. . . .

My lady―then she must be alive as well! I can hardly believe my eyes―Alastair, is it truly you?

Alastair unlaced the top of his shirt and drew the fabric aside to display the tattoo the old man had put there himself long years ago. Markos bowed silently.

"My lord duke," he said deferentially. "You had better tell me what happened. How did Conn find you? Did you see King Aidan?"

Alastair nodded and began to tell Markos about his reunion with his brother and his audience with the king.

11

After Alastair departed, Conn moped about the town house in a way that troubled

Erminie. She was ready to lavish on her son all the love she would have given him all those lost years, but he was far too grown-up for much display of affection. Now that Alastair was gone and they were alone, she realized poignantly that he was essentially a stranger to her. About all she could do was to question him about his favorite meals and give instructions to her housekeeper to provide them. It pleased her that he spent a good deal of his time in training the puppy Copper, and that he seemed to have a sure hand with such training. This made her think of his father. Rascard had insisted that he had little laran―Erminie wondered if his skill with horses and dogs was a type of laran riot fully known to her.

"You should go to the Tower for testing, my dear son," she told him one morning. "Your brother has

little laran, which means that you, as his twin, probably have more than your share; indeed I was sure of that while you were still a child."

Conn knew very little of laran, and had never handled a starstone; but when Erminie brought him one, he managed to key it so quickly and naturally that his mother was delighted; it was as if he had handled one every day of his life.

"Perhaps you will find your true work and mission in the Tower, Conn, when your brother is duke at Hammerfell," she hazarded. "You will not wish to be a hanger-on, little more than his steward or condom. That would hardly be a fitting use of your talents." At this, his brow darkened and she almost wished she had not spoken. After all, he, like Alastair, had grown up believing himself lone survivor and rightful Duke of Hammerfell. If he were jealous or resentful of his brother, he could hardly be blamed.

But to her great relief all he said was, "Whatever happens, I shall want to remain with my people; Markos taught me that I was responsible for them. Even if I am not their duke, they know me and they trust me. They may call me what they will. Condom is in its own way as honorable a title as duke."

"Even so," Erminie answered, "you have so much laran that it must be trained; an untrained telepath is a menace to himself and everyone around him."

Conn knew too well the truth in his mother's words. "Markos said as much when I was growing up," Conn agreed. "But Alastair? He has none?"

"Not enough to be worth the trouble of training," Erminie replied. "Though I sometimes think his skill with horses and dogs may well be a variation of the

old MacAran Gift. There were MacArans in your father's mother's family."

She walked to the sideboard and pulled out a scroll to show him. Conn was astonished to see she had produced a written record of his ancestors for the last eight or ten

generations; he studied it with interest, saying with a laugh, "I did not know they kept studbooks like this except on horses, Mother! And is it written down here how many of my father's people fell to this feud with Storn?"

"Yes," she said sadly, and showed him the markings which indicated that the ancestor in question had met a violent death as a result of the ancient feud.

At last he said, "I have lived and breathed this feud since I was able to button my own breeks; but I never knew till now just how much those bastards of Storn owed me; I thought only of a father and two older brothers. Now I see how many of my kin have fallen to Storn―" He broke off and stared into space.

"There are better things in life than vengeance, my son," she said.

"Are there?" he asked, and seemed to look straight through her; for a moment the increasingly familiar face of her son was again that of a total stranger and she wondered if she would ever know or understand this complex, quiet man who was her youngest.

But, concealing the chill she felt, she went on briskly, "As for your laran―I have enough skill in testing to know that you have an unusually strong talent for handling a matrix; and the access to that sort of technology can only be properly trained within a Tower. Fortunately, I have friends in most of the Towers; your cousin Edric Elhalyn is Keeper here at

Thendara Tower, and my kinsman Valentine was once a technician; either of them can teach you much, but for a time you should go and live within the walls of a Tower where you will be protected from the dangers of your emerging powers. I will speak at once to Valentine. Fortunately there will be no need to wait until the season when the monitors ride forth to test all the children of the Domains; I can speak to them and have you admitted at once. Without training, your full talent must yet be unborn, and you are old for such a transition."

Conn was a little confused at the speed with which this had all happened, but he was not at all averse to the idea, and also he was curious (as was every outsider in the Domains) about what went on within a Tower. He felt pleased and gratified to realize that he was one of the elect who could qualify to find out.

Once accepted for training, Erminie told him, he would be required to live among the Tower members.

"But you know everything about it, Mother; why can't you and Floria teach me?"

"It's not customary," Erminie said. "A mother does not teach a grown son, or a father his grown daughter; it's simply not done."

"Why not?"

"I don't know; it may go back to customs of the old days," Erminie said. "Whatever the reason, it's simply not done―and it's a taboo I wouldn't feel comfortable breaking. I will leave your training to our kinsmen, and later to a Tower. But Floria can teach you some things, if she will. I will ask, if you like," she added, sensing without words that Conn might be too shy to ask this kind of favor of a woman. "She will be here perhaps tonight, and if not, I see her, or

her father, every day or two; I'll make an opportunity to ask her."

Later that day, as Conn and Erminie took the little dog on her training leash through the streets, Conn said, "1 wonder if my brother has reached Hammerfell?"

"I should think perhaps so," Erminie said, "though I do not know what the roads are like now. You can find out with your laran if you wish."

Conn thought that over; he had shared his brother's experiences many times, but never purposefully. He did not know if he wanted to knowingly intrude on his brother's

thoughts; he was not yet accustomed to the idea. Still, if his mother suggested it, and Alastair had been brought up taking this for granted ―he would consider it. He turned his attention to Copper, running her through the standard training exercises of "Walk at heel," "Sit," and "Stay." He had always had a certain affinity for working with animals, and this was not the first puppy he had trained. Now it had been suggested to him, he thought it was possible that the intense affinity he felt for the little dog was some variety of what Erminie called laran; he had never thought of that, but believed it simply an acquired skill, like his ability to ride, or to fence. Was there nothing, then, which was his own? Did everything that he knew or could do, stem from this inheritance, a gift of the mysterious Comyn who had bred these skills into his line as he would breed horses for racing, or dogs for good temper? He felt very small, and inclined to resent them.