“You’d better be, pal.” I blew on the pigments to dry them before letting my cuffs fall loose and unlaced. “What do you think?” I turned to Sorgrad, who was gazing out over the valley, motionless as the mountains themselves. The long twilight was nearly upon us now and the peaks behind him were gilded by the sunset. Snowfields on one hand were fringed with lace against the buttery softness of the rock. The dark peak was warmed, severity muted by shadow, a fallacy of beauty in the deceptive light.
He drew his gaze back from distant illusions to the realities of the present. “Some dirt in your hair?”
I scooped up a handful of dust. ’Gren was about to stuff the grubby smock into his pack in place of the thin blanket Sorgrad pulled out. “Wait a moment.” I took the crudely dried meat out of the pocket. “A trace of scent is always the final touch, isn’t it?” I rubbed the sticky lump against the ripped neck of my blouse, the blackened residue of blood smelling both sweet and metallic at the same time. “Let’s get this masquerade on the boards.” I wrapped myself in the blanket, the bold pattern of blue chevrons against the yellow wool unmistakable and well worth the coin it had cost us down in the foothills. I wondered if that peaceable little village was just a burned-out ruin by now.
’Gren caught me up in his arms and I lolled boneless against his narrow shoulder. He made nothing of my weight, and I felt the haste in his steps as we headed for the rekin. An insane urge to giggle swelled in my throat as I recalled playing the wilting blossom like this one year at the Selerima races. The impulse died on my next breath; we weren’t here gulling touts out of coin, busy crowds to hide us from bully boys with nailed boots and pickaxe helves.
I let my jaw slacken in despair, eyes blank and lifeless. I’d once seen a brutalized girl mercilessly used by Lescari mercenaries; I recalled her terror-filled screams, her agonized hysteria as she had clung to me and Halice, barely able to stand, once ’Gren and Sorgrad had raised a riot and fought through to rescue her. The memory helped me force a few sluggish tears, not so many as to risk runnels in the paints on my face but just enough to give my eyes a crystal sheen of grief to convince onlookers. Niello would have been proud of me. Beneath the façade of helpless victim, I steeled myself.
Sharper notes rose in the voices around us, horrified questions, hisses of outrage and pity. ’Gren’s strong arms held me close and I hid my face in his chest. The metal links dug into my cheek at every step but I was willing to add a few real scrapes to the painted deceits. Sorgrad’s forbidding presence stopped anyone getting too close, rebuffing offers of help with a curt explanation. We were going straight to the Sheltya, for healing and for justice. The cautious agreement I heard wasn’t as wholehearted as I might have expected.
“Jeirran will already have avenged the insult, like as not.” One voice sounded loud in the jumble of concerned voices. This assertion raised a full-blooded roar of approval. I pondered this as I was carried, limp as a discarded doll. Would taking the Elietimm out of the scales be enough to unbalance Mountain Men determined on war? My grimace of frustration could be one of pain for the onlookers. No, I’d worry about the fate of the uplands later, or preferably leave it to someone else. I just wanted the Elietimm enchanter.
“Let us pass!” Sorgrad’s demand was nicely pitched between challenge and supplication, a break in his voice suggesting near intolerable anguish. “We need to see Sheltya!”
“What’s your concern?” The guard’s voice trailed away as Sorgrad stepped aside to reveal my pitiable form cradled in ’Gren’s arms. I felt the beat of his heart picking up pace beneath his hauberk and smelled the sharpness of fresh sweat. My own pulse was rapid in the hollow of my throat, every sinew tense.
“I’ll get one of the women to tend to her,” said the gate ward hastily.
“We want to see Sheltya,” demanded Sorgrad. “Not some wise woman. We’ve tended to her hurts as best we can but we don’t know exactly what happened. We need Sheltya’s care for her memory, to tell us just what those misbegotten lowlanders did to her!” The air of suppressed fury in his voice was most effective. I let tears spill over my lashes, shuddering faintly like an injured animal.
“I’ll send for someone,” offered the hapless guard.
“Maewelin freeze your seed!” spat Sorgrad. “Do you keep us on the threshold like lowland beggars, every curious eye to see her shame, every eager ear to hear her misery?”
“What’s going on here?” A new voice, older, less easily swayed by his own emotion or anyone else’s.
Sorgrad modified his tone accordingly, respectful and to the point. “Our sister was attacked as we traveled. We were told there were Sheltya who could ease her memory. We can wait but not here, where everyone can stare. The fewer who know…” He let his voice trail off.
“Traw, take them to the kitchen yard,” the voice ordered briskly. “I’ll send word to Sheltya—”
“Would that be Cullam?” asked Sorgrad eagerly.
“No, it’ll be Aritane or one of her people.” The voice did not like to be interrupted. “She’ll send somebody as is convenient. There are more than your sister needing healing this day.”
“My thanks,” Sorgrad began but the voice was already turning away to deal with the new sentries.
I let my eyes wander around seemingly unfocused as we followed Traw the gate ward around to the back of the rekin. The court of the fess was thronged with people, some walking fast with an air of purpose, others slowing at the end of a long, hot day, weariness in gait and faces. Tension lay beneath the rumble of conversation, ripe with anticipation and antagonism. All seemed rapt in their own concerns.
The doors to the kitchen and scullery of the rekin stood open, lamplight spilling out into the slowly deepening dusk. A low wall bounded a paved yard where a sizable number of men and women sat with various degrees of patience. Most of the men bore obvious battle wounds, some with dressings tied tight around legs and feet, a couple with bandaged heads. One had the bruised eyes and dark stains behind his ears that always bode ill. The women made up for the silent men with animated conversation. Some were seeking lotions for burns from fire or sun; two others were looking for Sheltya support in some quarrel. A couple of young girls were going to and fro with bread and meat, beakers and bottles, and as we approached an elderly man emerged from the rekin, scratching his head in apparent confusion. He moved aside with a muttered apology as an agitated youth pushed past, one hand clasped tight around bloody linen swathing his remaining two fingers and thumb.
’Gren set me carefully down on the broad coping of the little wall, my face away from the revealing light. Sorgrad stepped over the notional barrier to sit facing the rekin, alert to every coming and going. I raised a cautious corner of my blanket to conceal my face and to dab away sweat that might set my bruises running.
“So what now?” ’Gren demanded.
Sorgrad leaned back so I could see his face. “No one seems overly interested in us.”
“Any guards?” I picked off bits of the gritty stuff at the corner of my eye. This was no time to find myself blinded by tears.
“Not that I can see,” murmured Sorgrad. “Plenty of people going in and out, but no one seems to be asking their business.”
“We should get hunting, while we’re sure they’re not expecting us,” I decided. “There’s no point waiting for some Sheltya to come and look inside my head and call me a liar.” I wasn’t ever going to risk aetheric magic rummaging through my memories again.
“We go in through the side door, and if anyone comes asking we’re looking for this Aritane?” ’Gren asked.
“Privies are that way,” nodded Sorgrad.
In the privacy of the fetid little outhouse, I tied up my drooping stocking and checked my belt-pouch, making sure everything I was going to need was ready. I took a moment to look down at my hands. They were steady enough in the dim light filtering through the half-moon cut in the wooden door. It was time to draw the runes and see how they lay.
Teyvasoke,
18th of Aft-Summer
Eresken turned aside from the sturdy arch of pale stone that spanned the chuckling river. Crunching across gravel, he dipped a handful of water from the dimpled surface; he spat crossly—the taint of beasts was bitter in the water. Straightening up, he knuckled the small of his back and waited for the stubborn ache in the back of his legs to ease. He’d never walked so many leagues in his life!
Scorn soured his stomach. These fools had so much land and yet they used so little of it to good effect. Properly managed, even the parched desolation of Aritane’s once beloved home would support a fertile clan breeding loyal sons eager to fight. No wonder Misaen had sent the best of his people to be refined in the howling crucible of the ocean islands.
At least these soft stay-at-homes had a proper attitude to encroachment on their territory. Eresken shook his head in renewed wonder. It was so easy to persuade these people their lands were under threat, that the loss of so much as an arm’s length out of all this bounty would leave them destitute. His father would have no reason to criticize his efforts there. The Elietimm’s spirits rose, the ache in his muscles fading.
He noted the number of fires across the river, busy cooking suppers made known on the fragrant breeze. Were these fresh fools flocking to the cause or had Jeirran arrived back before him? Exasperation darkened Eresken’s mood; he’d meant to keep a closer eye on the bumptious fool, but what with keeping his own force toeing the line and making sure Aritane had this valley under her thumb, when had he had the time? Cold striking up from the water hit him like an omen of his father’s disapproval. He’d better get some sleep, the better to take charge of this multifaceted task once more.
A hand shook him by the elbow. “What do you want?” he snapped, a vicious glare searing the man hesitating beside him.
Reflexive anger straightened the man and his face hardened in the failing light. “What’s the delay? We’ve been marching since noon without a break.”
“Of course.” Eresken managed a conciliatory tone. He held the man’s eyes for a moment, searching blunt features beneath a grubby bandage obscuring one brow. There was weariness in the man’s mind, and an ominous shadow of doubt, both in the wisdom of taking on the lowlands and in the men and women supposedly leading this campaign, all because of a few reverses when the sheepherders turned defiant and some tree dwellers bolder than the rest had loosed their pinpricks on unwary stragglers. So much for the bold and mighty Anyatimm who had driven his forefathers away. Were these fair-weather warriors to be the guardians of the ancestral lands? The sooner true heirs of Misaen claimed these peaks, the better. Let worthy men see the real secrets revealed by Solstice suns.
Eresken curbed his contempt lest it seep into the man’s unwitting perception. He reached through clouding tiredness and looming misgiving and dragged a memory of recent looting to the forefront of the man’s mind. He struck an echo from the guilty delight in such easy spoils and the relish of violence let loose. The man’s face lightened, all in no more time than it had taken Eresken to draw a long breath. The Elietimm considered thrusting deeper, but his own exhaustion and exasperation balked at further effort.
“Take the goods we recovered to the stores-master at the fess.” Eresken laid a friendly hand on the man’s shoulder. “When it’s all been noted, tell him you’ve my authority to take back the ale. We’ve won some mighty victories and I think we’re due a little celebration!”
“Misaen made you true gold!” The man shouted his extravagant approval to the bedraggled troops and Eresken muttered a complex chant beneath his breath. With that charm following him, the man’s renewed enthusiasm would be carried along by his words into the minds of any he spoke with. That should keep the fools from brooding on recent minor setbacks.
The long column of laden men trudged across the bridge. Most were silent, many glum, faces set and shoulders bowed. They were just tired, Eresken decided; a good night’s sleep, a few days’ rest, Jeirran’s undoubted eloquence with the whisper of Elietimm enchantment running beneath it and he would have them marching down again to grind the Forest Folk beneath an iron heel. His stomach growled low but insistent at a tempting savor of frying onion. When had he last eaten?
Men burdened with litters and supporting the ungainly struggles of walking wounded had reached the bridge now. “Go straight to the fess,” Eresken told them, face concerned. “Sheltya will tend your hurts.” And soothe away memories of pain along with disloyalty stirred by the shock of injury, Aritane’s scruples be cursed.
Grazed and bruised faces lightened with gratitude. “Come on, I’ll walk with you.” Best to get these miserable failures out of sight. Bloodied stumps and gashed limbs would only spoil the goodwill mixed from a few looted barrels and some judicious manipulation of memory.
Crossing the bridge with the first of the litters, Eresken considered the simpletons gawking by their campfires. Could he enlist Aritane’s help in turning the thoughts of the more fatigued back to the rage that had first spurred them on? Eresken warned himself against demanding too much of her too soon. Aritane’s usefulness still depended on her cherishing the illusion that, though breaking her vows and defying her elders, she was still working for the greater good of her people.
Raucous cheering distracted him. A group of men were clustered around a figure whose beard and hair glowed golden in the light of the flames. So Jeirran and his men were back earlier than expected from the lowlands. Eresken’s annoyance was tainted with jealousy. Had Jeirran won some great victory that had enabled him to return in triumph?
“You all go on up to the rekin.” Eresken turned to the wounded men who had obediently halted to wait for him. “I must just speak with Jeirran.” He forced a smile to answer the grins of admiration the men were turning to their leader. Jeirran’s voice was loud, his gestures animated. “It sounds as if he has successes to report, doesn’t it?” There would also be food he could commandeer to stifle his gnawing hunger.