Tale of Birle (15 page)

The wood of ship and mast creaked and groaned at its work. Birle wondered if there was any drinking water. It must be afternoon, she thought, watching the shadow of the canopy overhead, and of the sail. Watching the shadows, she knew they must be traveling west. She wondered if they would travel all night and all day, if that explained the rowers' exhaustion. She wondered if she might ask for water.

“I don't know,” Orien's voice spoke low, and desperate. “I can't stand—and I have no weapon—and I brought you to this. I the Earl that would be. You should know, Birle—I saw Gladaegal's eyes that night, on me, my brother's eyes; and I couldn't say if he was seeing a murderer or the next victim. To see him so, my brother—so, while the courage was in me, that same night, I left. To give him his earldom. I wanted to do right, Birle.”

Birle had never doubted that.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, again. When he swallowed she could see the rise and fall of his throat. She didn't know how to help him and she almost couldn't bear to look at him. She looked down the length of the ship, wishing she could summon water.

The large rower had been wakened by their voices. He stared at her. She could do nothing but stare back at him, although out of kindness she ought to have looked away.

She had seen such an expression in the eyes of a dog kicked, or beaten. The uncomprehending eyes were fixed on her face and the lips opened and closed, although the mouth formed no words. He was a giant, she saw, now that he sat up on the bench—huge and strong. But his eyes hung in his face, as if they had started to slip down, and been caught up by their inner corners, and the lids hung down over them. She could have wept to see his huge, misshapen face—the projecting forehead and long jawline, the child's nose, and the thick mouth skewed off to the side. The monster threw back his head and made a sound that drowned out the wind and the creaking wood. If he had been a dog it would have been a howl, but because he was a form of man it was a groan. He raised his two huge hands up, and slammed them down as fists onto the seat. His hands too were chained.

Ker rushed forward and jerked from behind on a noose tied around the monster's neck. The monster coughed, lifted his hands to ease his throat, then sat quiet. He turned to his captor, with the eyes of a whipped dog.

“Hoy, Captain! Everybody's awake,” Ker called. “Even the boy.”

The boy cowered back against the side of the ship, but whether to protect himself from Ker or from the monster, Birle couldn't tell.

“Get up, boy, there's work to do,” Ker said. He stepped to the mast and uncleated a rope. The boy stood up, and shuffled over beside him with his manacled feet. He raised his arms to catch the lowering boom, and the falling sail. He staggered as they fell on him.

Without its sail, the ship bounced on the waves, and turned its side to the wind. When it lay like that, Birle could see the shoreline Orien had seen. The shore was green with forest, a thick, dark green of rising land, close enough to swim to, for strong swimmers who were not manacled with iron that would drag them down, under the water.

The wind pulled at the sail, snapping it like linens hung out on a line to dry. Ker cursed and struggled, while the boy staggered, weeping. When Ker had wrapped ropes around the sail, he shoved the boy back onto the seat. “Get to it,” he ordered the rowers.

Birle knew they were moving toward land because all she could see was empty sea, moving in waves out to the edge of the sky. After a while, the boy crawled under the platform to drag out the anchor, and pull it to where the monster sat. Without even rising from his seat, the giant picked the huge iron hook up and dropped it into the water. The anchor dragged, then bit and held. The ship swung around.

The boy brought them bowls of water and chunks of bread. The brothers ate by themselves beside the lashed tiller. There, they lit a brazier and roasted chunks of meat over its flames. Despite his size, the monster was given no more to eat than the rest of them—and that he wolfed down. Birle could swallow no more than half of her bread, and Orien had to force the last of his down his throat, she saw. The boy nibbled at his. She held the dark bread in her hand, then made herself rip off another piece. The monster's mouth made chewing motions as he watched her eat, like a mother feeding her child. He was hungry. How long he had been fed so little, no more than the starveling boy who rowed with him, she could not guess. But his huge body must need more food than the boy's, she thought, her mind sluggish. Big men had big appetites, that was what Nan said, and this mindless giant must have a mighty appetite. Her own belly was uncomfortably swollen with the water and bread, as if it had become accustomed to eating nothing.

Birle moved her heavy feet around until she could kneel, then held out the bread to him.

She didn't dare come too close. His huge, chained hands reached out to her. His fingers closed around the bread and brought it to his crooked mouth. Birle retreated.

He made a low grunting noise, deep in his throat, which she took for thanks. Then his mouth moved, one side pulling up. This was a smile, Birle thought, and felt her eyes fill with tears. Hunger and thirst made her weak and weepy, she thought, blinking. Hunger and thirst and the monster's smile, which had a terrible, sad sweetness. She blinked, and tears ran out of her eyes. He held out what was left of the bread to her. Birle shook her head, and held her hands out with the palms facing him, in a pushing-away gesture. He seemed to understand, and crammed the rest of the bread into his mouth, chewing it with little noises of satisfaction.

The boy had watched this, his hands busy as a bird's beak on his own bread. Now he cried out. “Torson! Torson!” She's feeding him!”

The giant's eyes grew fearful, and he paddled at the air in front of him with his hands, like a child paddling at the river's edge.

“I saw her!” the boy cried.

The two men moved up the ship toward them.

“Do I get a reward?” the boy asked.

Ker clipped him a blow on his shoulder that sent him huddling back against the side of the ship. His face crumpled and he wept noisily. “But I told you, I helped you. I'm hungry,” he blubbered.

Ker wheeled around, and Birle couldn't see his face. The boy could see it, and he stopped his noise. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his ragged shirt, and bent low on his seat.

The brothers sat down on either side of the platform. Birle moved closer to Orien, who seemed to be taking no note of what went on around him. “You do the talking,” Ker said.

“With pleasure,” Torson agreed, and looked from Birle to Orien and back to Birle. “I hope you've enough strength to understand us.”

“I understand you,” Orien said.

Torson ignored Orien's haughty tone. “Well then. You've been saved from certain death, and we are glad to have been of service to you. I hope you'll be glad to pay your debt to us.”

Blue waves danced under the lowering sun. The sun turned red as it fell to the horizon, and shone into the faces of the two men, causing them to squint. Squinting, they seemed even more dangerous.

“We paid our passage,” she reminded Ker.

“Birle,” Orien warned her to silence.

“Birle is it?” Torson nodded as if her name satisfied him. “Well, you'll have to know, Birle, that my brother isn't much judge, and you've already drunk in ale the value of those knives.” Birle closed her mouth. This man didn't use words truly; he spoke to amuse himself.

“You owe us your lives, don't you agree? That should be worth some profit to us, you can't quarrel with that. A man can't make his living taking knives in exchange for food, and drink, and passage, can he? But my brother and I have an idea,” Torson said.

“And what might that be?” Orien asked.

“Oh, I think you know, little birds. Two little birds, a robin and a sparrow.” Torson smiled again at his own humor. Birle did not smile. “I know a market for caged birds, don't we, Ker.”

“We'll take four birds to market, then?”

“Didn't I spend hours telling you just that?”

“You dress it up with so many words—I like things plain.”

Orien drew himself to his feet. Birle put up a hand to pull him down—they were in the power of these men, it was no time for Orien to try whatever he was going to try. He brushed her hand away. He stood there at the rail of the ship, looking down on all of them. This was as he must have stood in his grandfather's hall. For all the starved and ragged look of him, he stood there a Lord.

“I'm worth more than you realize,” Orien announced.

Torson laughed aloud. “Why, this is no sparrow you've netted, Ker. It's a hawk. Tell us your story, hawk. Don't keep us guessing at it.”

“Orien,” Birle said. He paid no attention to her.

“There's a rich ransom would be paid for me.”

“Oh yes? Any fool can see that, of course. Anybody would know who Orien is. But I'd like to hear it from your own lips: Who is going to pay this ransom?”

“The Earl of Sutherland.”

That wiped their faces clear of mockery.

“Not just a hawk, a peregrine. Tell us more, peregrine. Tell us who this Earl is and where he keeps his strong boxes.”

“In the Kingdom.”

“And which kingdom might that be?” Torson asked. He had turned to look up at Orien, as if Orien were an actor on a stage.

“The Kingdom lies to the north and inland, upriver. It lies between mountains and forest.”

“Oh
that
kingdom,” Torson said. “I've heard all about that kingdom.”

“Well, I haven't,” Ker grumbled.

“But you have, Brother. Where all the women are fair, and all the men rich, you remember. Where crops grow without tending, and no man goes hungry. And the crown worn by the King has a stone in it larger than”—he gestured to the monster—“Yul's fist. A stone as red as fresh blood. If a man could find that kingdom, and if he could find a way to have that stone, he'd never work again.”

“That's stories,” Ker said, disgusted.

Torson laid his hand over his heart in mocking sorrow. “Do you think so? Do you think our peregrine is just a sparrow after all? A clever sparrow, a bold one—hoping we were too simple to know the tales?”

“But it's true,” Birle said.

“And you are one of the fair women,” Torson said. Ker snickered.

“The Kingdom is there,” Birle insisted. “Merchants have seen it, coming up from the south to sell at the fairs.”

“I've heard those merchants, in their cups. Warriors as large as Yul, all in silver armor. The wild men of the forest, whose arrows never miss. The King's golden barge, which he travels down the rivers on. The secret path under the mountain with a stone gate that raises and lowers to a word only the King knows. The merchants love to talk of that kingdom.”

Birle had never heard such tales. If she had heard them she would not have believed them.

“There's truth in the stories, for all that they aren't true,” Orien said. “There will be a bag of gold for each of you, if we are returned.”

“Now it's ransom for both? Where can we claim it?” Torson asked.

“We go north to the river, and thence inland,” Orien answered.

“It's wonderful, really, isn't it, Birle?” Torson invited her to join the mockery. “The bottomless sea to the trackless forest, and at journey's end the fabled kingdom. That's enough from you, sparrow. I'd rather hear about Birle.”

“Aye,” Ker agreed, with an eagerness that made Birle uneasy.

“What are you, Birle? Wife, whore, sister?”

For a minute, Orien didn't understand. When he did, his whole posture changed. His proud shoulders relaxed, and he leaned back against the bow. His eyes were mocking, and his smile echoed the smiles of the brothers. Orien became a man Birle didn't know, and not to be trusted. He didn't look at her. “A woman's of more value than a man?” he asked.

“She might be. She can be,” Torson said.

“I can tell you this: Birle's no wife—nor strumpet. I'm a patient man.” Orien laughed, and pulled at his beard with his hand. “She's but a girl, still. Let the peaches ripen, before you take them from the branch: That's the advice my grandfather gave me.”

“Your grandfather the Earl?” Torson played a game of words.

“If you'd prefer him so, of course he will be,” Orien answered.

“You'd no father, then?”

“Ah, my father. Now he was a great peach-picker. My grandfather saved his breath where my father was concerned.” They all three laughed at this. In its sound and meaning, Orien's laughter seemed no different from the others'.

Fear rose in Birle, like the tide rising silently on rocks. She looked from Orien's strangely unfamiliar face to the faces of the two men, to the boy watching from his corner, to the monster's bewildered face.

“Have you nothing to say for yourself, Birle?” Torson asked her.

“I serve him,” she answered, with as much boldness as her fear would allow her.

Ker leaned toward her. She could back no farther away than she was, on the small platform. Orien stood away, and she was alone.

“Cleaned and combed, she might not be bad,” Ker said. “You always tell me, Brother, that only blood can be relied on, when I've said we need wives to answer our needs and care for us. Did you never think that we might take one wife, between us?”

Birle's body couldn't move, but her spirit shrank within her. She could go over the side, she thought, and if she couldn't swim she could drown. Ker's hand moved along the rough boards toward her.

“I take it that a woman isn't worth much, even at best,” Orien's voice asked. Birle stared at the thick fingers of the hand. “How much would a girl fetch?” he asked, as if the answer didn't matter much to him.

“More than a bold lad would,” Torson said. “A mettlesome hawk is a trouble and danger, but a plump little robin—”