The Raven Warrior (14 page)

Farry and his people bought all we could bring them, and we banked the gold and silver with the Veneti.

We hit two more places, both smaller than the first but almost as rich. And when we turned our boats back toward home, we slept on sacks lumpy with loot. When we landed at Ure’s steading hidden in an estuary to the north, I was a real queen and we were all rich.

Ure piloted the boats to land. His people had a hall near the sea, high enough up to escape the tides but not so far as to be in among the trees.

“They are sacred, these big, dark pines,” Ure told me. “And proprietary rites must be made before we can cut one.”

An age agone, a river cut through the mountains and down, opening a path where none had been before and emptying into a lake that mingled at last with the sea. The path the river cut through the trees was densely overgrown by the gigantic pines, and they had fallen or been cut to form a screen over the rushing white water beneath.

“The salmon come here,” Ure said. “Wonderful fish fighting their way up the savage rapids to the top. Many die, but those who live taste of the wild, pure water, the clean pine, and the wind that rushes through the river cut to the sea. We are theirs, these dauntless creatures, and they are ours when we two are sundered. And some day we will be, if I read aright. They and we will both die.”

A long speech for him.

I was wearing in my soul the dullness and sorrow of the battles I fought and won.

“You are older now,” Ure said, “than when you set out.”

“Yes,” I said as I climbed out of the boat and walked up the beach toward the hall. “I have touched the dead and they left their mark on me. No, I am not as young as I was.”

Ure laughed.

“Where do your people live?” I asked.

The hall stood alone in the narrow, dry land strip between sea and forest. That forest was something remarkable. Dense, the trees giants that let in only a little light, and with a carpet of needles so thick I was sure that every step was cushioned by them. There was very little light beneath those trees except in those odd places where a lightning-burned tree had fallen, leaving an opening in the entwined branches of the canopy.

I looked at Ure sideways and repeated my question. “Where do your people live?”

I had trusted him when we started out. But then we had nothing worth stealing. Now we were dripping gold, and Ure was no candidate for sainthood.

Maeniel and Gray were at my side, but as always it was Maeniel’s word I sought. He considered Ure as one wolf does another. Ure didn’t flinch.

Gray looked offended. “My uncle’s hospitality is sacr—” He broke off because Ure laughed again.

“My Lord Maeniel, have you ever gone for a walk in a large city after dark, with a full purse at your belt?”

“Yes,” Maeniel answered. “When I wanted to introduce some variety into my diet.”

“In that instance I was stranded in Constantinople without money to pay my passage back. And a purse may be weighted with lead, as well as gold.”

“True,” Maeniel answered. “Where is this leading?”

“Not to treachery,” Ure said. “Sometimes the biter is . . . bitten. I wouldn’t chance it.”

The boys were disembarking from the boats now and wading into shore. Only they weren’t boys any longer. Nor were they only armed with slings. They each carried a sword, most had helmets, all had shields. Assorted knives, axes, and a variety of maces completed their equipment.

We wore a variety of clothing, some of it still reeking of blood spilled when the original owners took their death wounds. In my case I had the woolen mantle Ure found for me after we destroyed the first pirate nest. And yes, despite airing it out, it still stank of smoke—nice—and carried the sharp, bitter taint of burned meat—not so nice. Under it I wore a white silk dress, part of a curtain or bedsheet—who knows? I threw it over one shoulder. Albe had whipped a seam up on the side that passed under my arm. I drew it in at the waist with a belt, gold knot-work adorned by pearls and clouded emeralds.

In addition, three torques were at my neck, two gold and one silver, a half dozen bracelets, several anklets. Golden scroll bracelets clung to my upper arms. All proclaimed my leader status and my success against the pirates.

I wore no weapons; I needed none. My right hand had been baptized by blood as it burned its way through a warrior’s body. The complex metal knot-work that is my people’s vision of the universe clustered so thickly there that it was almost impossible to see the skin, or at least it did when I felt frightened or angry. At other times I was as I had always been: pale, fair but with a light tan. My hair was coming in again, red-gold curls all over my head as yet too short to dress.

No, I could see why even so tough an old pirate as Ure might not care to try robbing us now.

“But you know,” Ure continued, “my people will feast you and expect presents in return . . . and then late tonight, after the feast, we will want some of your . . .” He grinned, one bushy brow lifted. “Yes, they will want some of your . . . luck.”

As he spoke, I saw the girls all rigged out in their best finery, strolling down to greet the men.

An hour or so later, we sat in the great hall. I had the high seat with Maeniel, Ure, and Gray. The hall was shaped like an overturned ship. The fire pit ran down the center. It was a long one, and a whole deer, two boars, and a wild bull were turning on spits over the coals. The air was heavy with the scent of roasting meat, mead, beer, and blood.

Yes, there had been a quarrel over the champion’s portion—but Maeniel didn’t let it come to a killing. Albe was hell bent on proving herself as dangerous a warrior as any of the men, and she had. Seems she was mistress of the art of unarmed combat. Some of the Pictish women were deadly in that respect.

This is, you see, the salmon leap. The scarlet-bellied fish carries no sword, but it can climb the most treacherous rapids and waterfalls by simply using the coiled power of its muscles. As did Albe. Confronted by her adversary, she dropped her weapon and, pushing off from the table, somersaulted over his head, landed behind him, and whacked him in the head with a lead-lined glove she just happened to be wearing.

He awakened eventually, somewhat the worse for wear, and forgot the quarrel. Soon he was hanging on Albe’s neck, swearing he would love her forever.

“Yes,” Maeniel said. “If she keeps his brains addled enough, he probably will.”

I ate well enough. Wild boar is a wonderful meat and these had fattened on pine nuts and bracken. The flavor of the ribs was delicate, yet rich. The beer was deeply malted, dark, and sweet. And the mead. Ah, what can be said of that. This was a mountain brew, and in summer on the high slopes beyond the forest, before the sheep arrived at their summer pasture, the heather blooms, joined by the gorse. The pimpernel twines among the lupines, white, yellow, deep blue, and daisies grow everywhere, black, orange banded with red and yellow. The bees stagger drunkenly from flower to flower, maddened by the springtime.

A drought bespeaks the splendor of summer’s return and seeps into a young woman’s blood, bones, and hot loins. Makes her feel a goddess, and she dreams of love but feels the rise of lust the way a proud tree feels the sap racing up to fill the buds on the branches with flowers.

So did I think, sitting in Ure’s hall.

As it grew later, the feast became more rowdy. The boys had their fill of battle, but many—most perhaps—knew nothing of love. They were, as I said, the weak, the poor, the outcasts, the despised. The ones the young girls mocked, knowing no reason to want to make a match with them. Now they were blooded! Men! Wealthy warriors, who had dared the proving touch of battle and the sea.

Most would be sought after now. Some would want to return, parade their success, and strut in front of the girls who had ignored or made fun of them, thinking now their families would sing another tune. And given the massive amount of loot in our hollow ships, almost certainly they would find their popularity quite gratifying.

But of others, I wondered. For some the cruelty had been so unrelenting, the wounds inflicted so deep, the pain and loneliness so devastating to their minds and spirits that they would seek other harbors rather than endure what to them was a farrago of hypocrisy. Turn their backs on the communities that sometimes only allowed them to survive, and seek other, more welcoming steadings.

I thought this might be true of Albe and Wic. They and the other girls sat near me and watched with cynical eyes the rather graceful and all-too-willing seduction of their male companions.

“Be some sore heads in the morning,” Wic commented.

Albe chuckled in reply. “What I want to see is who’s wearing what in the morning. The jewelry, I mean.”

“The girls will get a lot of it. I’m resigned to that. I should have gotten Gray and Maeniel to . . .”

“No,” Albe said. “It was only to be expected. You’re their queen, not a wet nurse.”

“Do you have to sit here?” Wic asked. “I know the kings do, but my back teeth are floating . . . all that damn beer. . . .”

“Let’s go visit the bushes before . . .”

Just then one of the boys got up, wove toward the fire pit, pulled down his trousers. His organ lifted nicely, and unaided, shot an arcing stream into the flames. He was cheered on raucously by the assembled company.

“He’s proud of it,” Albe said. “Look, no hands!”

Wic grunted and tossed the contents of a wine cup into the fire. It roared up, and the exhibitionist let out a wild yell and fled, pulling his trousers up as he did. He turned, glared at Wic, and called her a couple of interesting things. She answered in the same vein, and two of her more descriptive epithets were new to me and imaginative enough to raise my eyebrows.

Dugald, I thought, would be horrified.

“I don’t think my royal highness has to sit through this nonsense,” I said. “Let’s go check the boats. Most of the wealth we’ve . . . stolen . . . captured . . . is there.”

We eased out into the clean night. Together the three of us walked toward the beach, where the ships were pulled up on the one finger of sand running along the rocky shingle. This close to the sea, it was cold, and drifting billows of mist flowed around us from time to time, moving steadily inland into the pine forests clothing the mountainside.

No human has a nose like a wolf, but what I have was trained by association with my family, and I am conscious of odors others overlook or ignore. When we got close to the beached boats, I smelled Maeniel, wolf, wood smoke, human male perspiration. Wolf is not dog, but a sharper scent of wild with a tinge of blood. It reminded me of Mother. Hers was almost sweet, not so bloody, rather like milk.

I was surprised. I hadn’t seen him leave the hall. But then, knowing Maeniel, I knew I shouldn’t be surprised.

I didn’t speak, but began to rummage in the boat for the shoes Talorcan, the Boar, had given me. I was lacing them on when Maeniel broke cover and joined us.

“Ure left a message for you. He told me to tell you come to his . . . lair, he called it. He has something he wants to discuss with you.”

It’s not an easy place to go, his lair, as he puts it. More fog surged past us, pushed by the sea wind. I could taste it on my lips. I would say, the road to his dwelling is a test in itself.

“The river flows down the mountainside steeply here.” Maeniel pointed up the slope at the end of the inlet, where white water emerged from slopes covered with giant pines into the brackish lake at the head of the fiord.

“The trees have been felled to form a sort of ladder over the river. I don’t know how they did it, because the pines are yet living trees. But each is canted over the rapids from one side or the other, and you must climb from trunk to trunk to get to the top. A dangerous journey.”

“Sounds like something Ure would do,” I said.

Maeniel chuckled. “He is a strange one.”

“He is a sorcerer,” I said.

Maeniel studied my face for a second. “No doubt,” he answered. “For he smells of the trees, even on the sea or after the battle. Filthy, burned, muddy, bloody, he still reeked of rosin and needles, damp bark and mist. Yes, the mist there eddies on the shore and into the forest by night. He is strange. Cold, but not evil, I think. Yes, go climb the mountain, and as you take each step, leave grief behind in your journey to the top.”

“I would I could do that,” Albe said.

“My grief is on my face,” Wic said, speaking of the ugly birthmark that disfigured her. “I can never leave it behind.”

“Why don’t you try?” Albe told her.

She shrugged, but when I walked into the forest, she followed.

It wasn’t an easy climb, but then, I wore the shoes Talorcan gave me. They gave my feet strong purchase on the broad tree trunks that were stretched over the river. It ran through a shallow, steep ravine, down toward the beach. The water was whipped to a froth by the jagged rocks that rose up from the riverbed like so many fangs.

I found the mead I had taken burned out of my body, and the difficulty of climbing from one tree trunk to another held all my attention. Between the spray from the pale rapids and the eddying mist, it was wet on the tree ladder, and I suppose it was cold. But the effort it took to gain each upward step soon had all three of us gasping and sweating.

This was no ladder to be climbed step by step. As we gained each tree trunk, we must walk along the damp, sometimes slippery moss-covered trunk to find the safest spot to cross to the one above it. Below, the river hissed, gushed, and sometimes roared beneath us.

“Would we be killed, I wonder, if we fell?” Albe asked.

I looked down and considered the mess of rock and white-water spume. Yes, there were places where it looked as though the drop wasn’t that great or the grade the water flowed over not that steep.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Depends where you happen to land. But I see areas where the water pools clear of rocks and debris. Yes, the current’s swift, but you could get your footing in the shallows.”

But as we climbed higher and higher, the journey grew more perilous. There was further to fall.