The Shadow Isle (41 page)
Authors: Katharine Kerr
“As you wish, Your Grace, but if I may make a suggestion, Lord Mirryn and his men are leaving later in the day—”
“Splendid!” Ridvar broke in. “That will save my men the journey. ”
Salamander was just gathering up his supplies when Lady Drwmigga appeared in the doorway of the bedchamber. He bowed to her, and she favored him with a smile.
“Our thanks,” she said, then shot her husband a glance.
“Indeed,” Ridvar said. “Our thanks.”
Salamander reminded himself to tell Branna that while Drwmigga did have her bovine qualities, she at least knew how to prod her husband into courtesy, which boded as well for the future of the rhan as did her obvious fertility.
When he came downstairs, Salamander saw Daralanteriel sitting at the honor table with Voran, Mirryn, and Calonderiel. Salamander stopped to mention that Ridvar wanted to send for Gerran’s wife, though he left out any mention of the apology. Mirryn readily agreed to take the message back to the Red Wolf dun.
“I’ll send a letter to Dalla at the same time,” Dar said. “She and her women can come with Solla. Here, Mirryn, take Vantalaber and five archers with you, will you? They can escort the women back and spare you the journey.”
“My thanks, Your Highness, “ Mirryn said. “I’ll do just that.” Dar turned to Salamander. “Ah, I see you’ve got pens and the like with you.”
“I don’t need to write a letter,” Salamander said in Elvish. “I can just tell her.”
“True,” Dar answered in the same, “but it’s for the sake of appearances, or do you want everyone in the Red Wolf dun wondering why Dalla’s leaving?”
“Right enough.” Salamander sat down with a sigh. “I’ll write it out now.”
Once he’d handed the messages over to Mirryn, Salamander went looking for Neb. He found him up in Gerran’s chamber with something of a crowd. In the curve of the wall near the window, Canna and her children sat on some worn, thin cushions placed on a tattered bit of carpet. The younger daughter looked up when Salamander came in and smiled at him. She was too young, Salamander supposed, to understand the full import of what had happened to her family. The elder lass stared straight out at nothing. Canna herself seemed too exhausted to notice his arrival. The baby slept in his mother’s arms, so soundly that Salamander assumed Canna or another woman in the dun had been able to nurse him at last.
Nicedd, Clae, and the Horsekin prisoner Sharak were all sitting on the floor at the foot of the narrow bed while Gerran perched on a high stool. Neb was examining the raw wound. On the bed nearby lay clean bandages, folded from rags, while at his feet lay filthy ones. Although Salamander knew nothing of the healer’s craft, he did notice that no smell of contagion hung in the air.
“How fares our Falcon’s wing?” Salamander said. “You look a good bit better this morn, Gerro.”
“I feel better,” Gerran said. “Now that I’ve survived what Neb did to me.”
“I’ll admit that it was a bit rough,” Neb said. “But it looks to me like the mead washed out the corrupted humors. That was the most important thing.”
“I don’t understand what you mean by that,” Gerran said.
“Have you ever watched someone make cheese?” Neb said. “You fill a bowl with fresh sweet milk, then stir in some rennet. In a few hours, the whole bowl is sour and curdled. Well, the dirt in your wound turned some of your blood into a substance much like rennet. If the curdling had spread—”
“Never mind,” Gerran said. “I understand now. No need for the details.”
“Very well. Now I’m going to bandage it up again. Do your best not to move that arm. Clae, you’re going to have to cut up your lordship’s meat for him, help him dress, and the like.”
Clae nodded his agreement. Gerran muttered something foul under his breath.
“The cursed bandages itch,” Gerran said, more loudly. “And I don’t need my meat cut up like a child’s.”
“You’ll have to endure it,” Neb said with a snap in his voice. “Do you want to be able to parry with a shield again?”
Gerran made a sour face and nodded a yes.
“If that wound doesn’t heal quickly and cleanly,” Neb went on, “it’ll leave a huge scar, and that scar will pull every time you lift somewhat heavy on the arm, like a shield.”
“Oh, well and good, then.”
“Clae will have help soon,” Salamander joined in. “His grace has sent a message off to your wife, Gerran, inviting her here to take care of you.”
“Oh, ye gods!” Gerran snapped. “I don’t want her riding—”
“Gerro,” Neb interrupted, “she’s a tough northern lass, and she’s not even that far gone with child.”
Gerran’s expression turned even more sour.
“The perfect wife for a tough northern lord,” Salamander said. “She can always borrow that mother’s saddle Dalla was using. Dalla and the rest will be coming with her, and then, alas, my Falcon, we’ll be leaving you and heading west.” He glanced Neb’s way. “With Govvin butchered on his own altar, Voran’s lawsuit has become rather more than superfluous, as the justiciar himself remarked this very morn.”
“They won’t be needing me as a witness, then,” Neb said. “I’ll teach Solla how to deal with this injury when she gets here, and then I’ll return to the prince’s camp.”
As another consequence of the end of the lawsuit, Daralanteriel decided to remove all his people from the gwerbret’s dun with the exception of Gerran and his pack of dependents. Since he wanted Gerran to save his wife’s recovered inheritance for the building of the Falcon dun, Dar gave Lord Blethry a horse—a silver-gray gelding—in fee to feed his vassal and his vassal’s people for as long as necessary. He also handed Nicedd some coins for his part in the battle. The silver dagger professed such fulsome gratitude that Salamander could assume Dar had given him far too much.
“What did you just hand over?” Salamander said in Elvish.
“Just some coins I had from the trading last autumn,” Dar said. “A couple of silver ones and a bunch of coppers.”
“Dar, you’re going to have to learn about money and the handling of money.”
“Ai! I suppose you’re right. Another blasted thing to worry about!”
Before they left the dun, Salamander had one last detail to attend to. He wanted their Gel da’Thae allies to question Sharak, but as Gerran’s prisoner, the lad would stay with him. Salamander had some coin of his own. He told Gerran what he had in mind, then made a great show of buying Sharak from him. Neb had already reset the boy’s wrist and hand with proper wooden splints.
“I’ll teach you some marketplace tricks,” Salamander told Sharak in a mix of Deverrian and Horsekin, “once that all heals.”
Sharak nodded and stared at the floor without speaking. Salamander doubted if the lad had really understood much, but since Sharak followed him out to the ward readily enough, he must have recognized Salamander as his new owner. When the pages and grooms brought out their horses, Salamander had Sharak mount up behind him. In a disorganized procession Dar led his men through Cengarn to the camp in the meadow below the town. Dar waved Salamander up to ride beside him.
“Pir came with us,” Dar said. “Shall we have him talk to the prisoner?”
“I’d rather not put any more strain on Pir’s loyalty to you,” Salamander said. “It’s been hard on him, this business of helping us in our war on his fellow Gel da’Thae. Besides, when Grallezar gets here, she’ll know all the right questions. She understands the way they structure their armies and the like.”
“Very well, then. We’ll wait.”
Besides Pir, of course, there were other Gel da’Thae men with the alar. When Salamander asked them, they took charge of Sharak, who was just about the same age as Vek, but he noticed, as the day wore on, that they gave him brusque orders and made him wait to eat until everyone else had finished. In their eyes, too, he was a slave.
Some hours after noon, Prince Voran, with all his men and his retinue, joined the alar down in the meadow. Salamander escorted the prince to Dar’s tent.
“We’ll be leaving on the morrow,” Voran told Dar. “I can’t say that I’m eager to get back to Cerrgonney, but duty is duty. I decided that we’d eaten enough of Ridvar’s provisions. He’ll need to bring his warband up to full strength, and his vassals will need to do the same, with the Horsekin raiding along the border.”
“Just so,” Dar said. “I wonder how many raiding parties they sent out? Huh, those men that broke through our lines—they’ll have an interesting tale to tell their officers if they manage to rejoin the main force. I hope hearing it makes them shit into their boots.”
Voran laughed and nodded. “Me, too. Now, if Lady Grallezar can get more information out of that Horsekin prisoner, I’d very much appreciate your sharing it with me.”
“Of course. You’ll be in—”
“Gwingedd. It’s the westernmost town in Cerrgonney, but still a long ride from your border. Well, I’ll be returning to Cengarn in late summer. If the news isn’t urgent, it can wait till then.”
News, however, arrived that very evening. Just as the sun was touching the western horizon, the silver wyrm flew in. Downriver from the camp and its nervous horses, the dragon met with the princes, Voran’s captain Caenvyr, and Calonderiel for a council of war. Salamander tagged along on the pretense of acting as a scribe, since Neb was staying in the dun to tend Gerran’s wound.
The dragon lay in the soft grass with his hind legs tucked under him and his forepaws neatly folded at his chest. In the silky twilight he seemed to glimmer, like a full moon, perhaps, shining among the green. The men stood around his enormous head, though Voran kept well back, more than glad, apparently, to let Daralanteriel speak for both of them.
“Rori, it’s a good thing we agreed to meet here,” Dar said. “We won’t be returning to the Red Wolf dun.”
“Very well,” Rori said. “Where will you be heading next?”
“West to Twenty Streams Rock, and then perhaps north up to the edge of the tablelands, depending on the grazing. Then maybe west again, assuming it’s safe to do so.”
“With luck it will be. I saw an army, all right. They’re Horsekin, not Gel da’Thae, so they must have come down from the far north.”
“I take it they’re heading south.”
“They are. I followed them for some days, keeping out of their sight. Here’s the interesting thing. They had about five hundred horsemen, some spearmen, some archers—a sizable amount of men, truly—but the baggage train was far larger than they’d need for themselves. Riding with it were a lot of important-looking men who weren’t armed, and then straggling behind were a troop of chained slaves.”
Voran came closer with an acknowledging nod the dragon’s way. “What I don’t understand is what they hope to gain. Aren’t the Northlands mostly wilderness, except for the Gel da’Thae towns and the like?”
“For now they are,” Rori said. “Wilderness can be turned into farmland quick enough. We destroyed Zakh Gral, so now they’ll have to start all over, if they want a fortress near the Westlands. No doubt they thought we’d never know if they built one out there.”
“Of course!” Voran said. “The slaves—they’re there to do the heavy work of building walls.”
Dar cursed under his breath.
“This lot may not be building the fortress itself,” Rori continued. “It doesn’t seem like they have enough men for that, truly.”
“They could be setting up a base camp for a push farther south,” Voran said. “If they’re going to build a new fortress, they’ll have to move a lot of men and materials south to the site.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Then those raiders we just thwarted were most likely sent as a feint, a move to keep us watching the border and not farther north.”
“An excellent point, Your Highness.” The dragon inclined his massive head in Voran’s direction. “Now, I intend to find out what they’re doing, but I won’t leave you unguarded. Arzosah will be joining you in a few days to keep a watch as you travel. I’ll rest here tonight, then fly north again.”
“My sincere thanks. We need to know what the wretched scum are up to, because I have an ally in the northwest.” Dar glanced at Calonderiel. “One we need to warn at the very least.”
“True spoken,” Calonderiel said. “Cerr Cawnen.”
"We’ll be leaving on the morrow,” Mic said. "I’ve made all the arrangements with Aethel.”
"Splendid!” Berwynna said. “If Cerr Cawnen’s as interesting as Lin Serr, I can hardly wait to see it.”
PART III
THE NORTHLANDS SUMMER, 1160
Each element of the four—Fire, Air, Water, and Earth— has its particular virtues and its vices. Thus the Mountain Folk are steadfast yet grasping, the Westfolk clever yet cold to those unlike them. Only in the Children of Aethyr do all the elements mix. This means that while our race can serve the Light to a greater degree than most, we also have the greatest propensity of all for furthering the Darkness.
—The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
LORD MIRRYN LED HIS MEN
back from Cengarn on a day washed with summer rain. Dallandra was sitting in the women’s hall, watching Solla and Adranna spinning wool with Branna’s device, when she heard the gatekeeper’s horn, a joyous blast of notes. Solla let go of the spinner’s handle and jumped up to rush to the window. She laid both hands on the sill and looked out, then turned back, her face pale and her eyes wide.
“Mirro and the men are in the ward,” she said, “but not my lord, and Daumyr’s got a cut on his face.”
Dallandra got to her feet and hurried over to catch Solla’s hand. Solla was trembling, and she looked up at Dallandra with the eyes of a frightened child.
“Let’s go down,” Dallandra said. “There will be messages, but I’m sure as I can be that Gerran’s safe and well.”
Since Salamander had already told her the news, Dallandra had solid grounds for that certainty, not that she could tell Solla. Hand in hand they hurried down the stairs and reached the great hall just as Mirryn came striding in. He paused halfway to the table of honor and bowed to the two women.
“Gerro’s safe in Cengarn, Solla,” Mirryn called out. “He’s injured, truly, but it’s not much as long as he doesn’t ride and suchlike. ”
Solla smiled and laid her free hand over her heart as if bidding it to be still. The color in her cheeks slowly returned to a normal pink from pale. She squeezed Dallandra’s hand, then let it go with a whispered, “My thanks.”
“What’s all this, lad?” At the table of honor Cadryc got to his feet. “Trouble?”
“There was, Your Grace.” Mirryn reached inside his shirt and brought out two silver message tubes. “Horsekin raiders on the border.” Mirryn allowed himself a brief smile. “They’ve been dealt with.”
The Red Wolf men, followed by six Westfolk archers, were filing into the hall. Daumyr, who indeed had a long scabbing cut on one cheek, bowed to the tieryn. “Begging Your Grace’s pardon and all for interrupting,” Daumyr said, “but you should know that our captain acquitted himself cursed well on the field. Prince Dar commended him.”
Cadryc grinned, beaming like the smile in the full moon. “That’s my lad!” He glanced around and saw a servant lass. “Mead all round, lass! Bring it fast!”
The lass scurried off to do his bidding. Mirryn handed Solla the messages. “The one with your brother’s seal is for you alone,” Mirryn said. “Interesting things happened in Dun Cengarn.”
Since Dallandra already knew everything in those messages and more, she left the tieryn’s household to their celebration and went back upstairs to her chamber. Judging by the ache in her breasts, she judged that Dari was due for a feeding. Sure enough, she came in to see Sidro carrying a squalling baby as she walked back and forth, singing in a vain effort to distract Dari from her hunger.
“Here’s your mama, little one,” Sidro said. “Just in time.”
Dallandra sat down in the chair by the window, pulled up her tunic, and took the baby, who fastened herself onto the nearest nipple with no need for coaxing.
“Like a leech,” Dalla said. “Malamala’s little leech.”
Dari took no notice. Dallandra leaned back and watched the gray mist falling softly outside the window. Nursing her daughter filled her with a great tenderness toward the smelly little bundle, yet she wondered if she could honestly call it love.
When she’s older,
Dalla thought,
she’ll be more interesting then.
“Nasty weather to be riding in,” Sidro remarked.
“I hope it clears by tomorrow.” Dallandra craned her neck and considered the pale gray clouds. “It probably will, but I don’t much care. I want to get on the road.”
“You must miss the banadar dreadful like.”
Dallandra sighed and considered what to say. “Him, too,” she said at last. “But more to the point, I’m needed up there, and so are all of us, you, me, Grallezar, Branna, and, of course, Solla, for Gerran’s sake.”
“I see.” Sidro thought this all over carefully. “You know, Wise One, it’s all been so much to my good, knowing you and Valandario. Before I did play with the dweomer like a toy, but now I see that it be a duty for those who have it, beyond what they might want in life.”
“Very well put. Tell me, do you still long for Laz?”
“I know not if I do or not. The more days I do spend with Pir, the more I think he should be my first man, mayhap my only man, but truly, often before did I think to break free of Laz, and never could I do it.” Sidro raised both hands palm up, then shrugged. “If never I do see him again, my heart will ache, but Pir’s will be gladdened, and so I ken not if I wish Laz back or not.”
"Your hands, they be mostly healed,” Marnmara said. "It no longer be needful to pull the scars apart.”
"I cannot tell you how much it gladdens my heart to hear that,” Laz said.
They were sitting in Haen Marn’s great hall at a table under a window. Sunlight streamed in and glinted off the surface of the bowl of herbed water in which Laz’s hands were soaking. He lifted out his right hand and considered the scars while the water dripped away. They were soft, pink, and whole without the painful cracks between them. The left hand also looked as healthy as it would ever be. When Marnmara handed him a rag, he dried his hands, then laid them on the table for her inspection.
“Truly,” she said, “there be naught more for me to do. Mayhap you’ll master the fingers better as time goes on.”
“I’ll hope so. I suppose I’d best be on my way.”
She smiled at the hesitation in his voice. “It were best,” she said. “Your wyrd lies not here.”
When Angmar came downstairs for the evening meal, Laz told her that he’d be leaving on the morrow morning. She considered him sadly, then nodded her approval.
“My lady?” Laz said. “Has Avain seen Berwynna in her basin?”
“She has,” Angmar said. “Surrounded by stone, Avain said, so I think me Mic and Enj did take her down to Lin Serr.” For a brief moment she smiled. “Avain did see Enj. He be coming home, at least.”
The smile faded, and Angmar walked on past without another word. She sat down at the head of the table in her usual place, then leaned back, staring out across the great hall. Marnmara took Laz to one side and whispered.
“Her heart be so torn with fear for my wretched sister,” Mara said, “that she does think of naught else.”
“It’s a sad thing.” Laz dropped his voice as well. “I suppose Wynni loves her Dougie too much to let him go off without her.”
Marnmara’s eyes grew wide, and she stared at him, as puzzled as if he’d spoken in some foreign tongue. “Here,” she said finally, “be that why she did run away? Because of Dougie?”
“I’m assuming so. Surely you knew she’d been creeping into his chamber at night.”
“Never did such a thing occur to me! The little slut!”
“Here, that’s a vicious thing to say! Why do you hate your sister so?”
“I don’t hate her.” Mara scowled at the floor. “It be just that Mam does favor her over me. Huh! Look at the small reward Wynni did give her for it, too.”
“What? When did she ever favor Wynni?”
“Always does she talk of the work Wynni does for us all.”
“Oh? Well, I’ve heard her speak more of the Lady of the Isle than the lass who helps in the kitchen.”
“It be so unfair! I ken how grand it does sound, that I be the lady of this isle. Mam does go on and on about it, how I be the lady, and so I must do this, and I must do that, and truly, at times I do wonder if she ever does see me, just me.”
“Ah, I think I’m beginning to understand. But she loves Wynni just because Wynni is Wynni.”
“True spoken.” She paused, looking up at him with wide eyes. “I be frightened, Laz. I must marry, Mam tells me, some man of the Mountain Folk, and I want not to marry or have aught to do with such things. All Wynni needs must do is live her life as she chooses, and it be not fair!”
“I see. You envy her.”
Mara nodded.
“I’ll tell you somewhat. I’ll wager that Wynni thinks your mam loves you more, and that, in truth, Angmar loves you both the same.”
Tears filled Mara’s eyes. With an irritable shake of her sleeve she brushed them away. Moments like this one forced Laz to remember just how young she was, no matter how powerful her dweomers were or would become. “I think me,” he said, “that when you meet a man who pleases you, what you want and don’t want will change.”
She looked up, shocked, then smoothed her face into an unread-ably bland expression. “Mayhap. Mam does say the same. I’ll think on it.”
In the morning, Marnmara walked with him down to the pier. The dragon boat stood ready, bobbing in the slack waves of the lake. Some distance from it, out of earshot of the boatmen, Mara stopped Laz for a few last words.
“I slept not much, this past night,” Marnmara said, “for there be much to brood about. The nature of this isle does much concern me, but you, too, were in my thoughts.”
“For that I’ll thank you,” Laz said.
“You’d best wait for gratitude till you hear what I did see.” She paused for a smile. “You did teach me many things it were needful for me to know, Laz, and for that my heart be grateful. So I did scry upon your wyrd. You stand in the middle of a dangerous road, and which way you might go, I cannot say. I will tell you, though, that one way leads to great evil, for I think me you did much evil in lives past. Go that way, and great evil will befall you in return. The other way leads to the saving of you. There be more than one way to pay the debts you owe.”
Laz found himself shocked speechless.
“It be your choice, which way you turn on the road. For your sake I do hope you choose the correct way.”
“So do I.” Laz suddenly found himself laughing, a high nervous giggle. “So do I.” He choked the noise back with an effort of will. “Can you tell me more about—”
“I can’t. It be not given for me to know. My thanks again for your teaching.”
Marnmara smiled again, patted him on the arm, then turned and walked back to the manse. As Laz watched her go, he found himself wanting to run after her and beg her to let him stay in safety on the island. Yet his old life lay close at hand, his men, his sorcery, and above all, Sidro. With a sigh, he picked up his meager bundle of belongings and headed for the pier.
The boatmen rowed him across without comment, but when they reached the shallows, Lon stopped him as he was about to go over the side.
“You sure you’ll fare well here?” Lon said.
“I hope so,” Laz said, grinning. “I always have before.”
“Well and good, then. Here’s luck to you!”
Laz jumped down into the shallows. When Lon handed down the bundle, Laz caught it twixt his lower arms and his chest. He distrusted his stumps of hands when it came to carrying something heavy, but he safely splashed across and gained the shore. By the time he turned to look back, the dragon boat had put out into deep water. The clanging of the gong echoed around the valley, then slowly faded away as the boat disappeared into the rising mist.
Laz had a moment of wondering if the island itself would disappear into that mist and never be seen again. If it did, would he regret it? A little, he decided, perhaps he’d regret it a little, for Marnmara’s sake.
Clutching his bundle, he walked away from the lake and clambered partway up the side of a low hill to the shelter of three gnarled trees, bent low by a perpetual wind. He set the bundle under them, then sat down in the long grass. From his perch he could see that the island still stood in the middle of the lake. Perhaps one day he’d return—a pretty idea, he decided, but at the moment, what he needed to do was leave it behind.
“I’m home,” he said aloud. “Well, in a manner of speaking. It can’t be more than a few hundred miles away.”
Now that he was free of Haen Marn’s water veil, he could scry again. As an experiment he brought out the black crystal and looked into it. He realized immediately that he was seeing through it to its white twin: in a greenish murk of lake water a dead log lay directly in the crystal’s narrow field of vision. Beyond it some large thing swam, indistinguishable in the clouded light.
“One of those beasts, no doubt,” Laz said to the crystal. “Well, your twin came with us, but it’s still well and truly lost. I can’t imagine anyone being willing to dive down and fetch it out.”
With a shudder at the thought of the lake beasts and their toothy mouths, he put the black crystal back in his sack. To scry for persons, especially those whom he knew well, the long grass waving in the wind would serve as an adequate focus.
The first person in his thoughts was Sidro. Her image came to him straightaway, standing outside a painted Westfolk tent and talking with Exalted Mother Grallezar. Both women looked excited and happy, laughing as they exchanged some sort of jest. Sidro must have left the forest on her own, he assumed, and sheltered among the Ancients with Grallezar and her refugees. As he watched, two blurry shapes, which he assumed belonged to Ancients, began to take the tent down. When he pulled back to see more of the area around Sidro, he realized that she was part of a small group who apparently had camped by a road.
What of the rest of his men? When he sent his mind out to Pir, he saw him walking through a herd of Westfolk horses in a very different encampment. Vek? He was in the same camp as Pir, spreading wet clothing to dry on tall grass. He scried out Faharn next, but rather than living among the Ancients, he and the remaining men had made a camp in open country—somewhere. Laz couldn’t recognize the place, an undistinguished stretch of grass, a stream that wound through boulders and straggly trees, and in the distance, some hills. It could have been anywhere in the Northlands. As he scried through the camp, Laz recognized nine of the men. The rest appeared only as the blurry aura-shapes of persons he’d never seen in the flesh.
