“Aye,” Donnalch said, nodding. “And therefore, his right to treat with me. I am guessing that not all Marai wanted Fritjof as their king. His brother would have had supporters. Personally, I, too, would have preferred Ǻsmund, but that,” he warned, “cannot be said to anyone, mind.”
“Now,” he said briskly. “Gregor, you will stay with the Lady Dagney and Lena. Will you return to the Ti'ach, Lady?”
“Not immediately, unless Lena wishes to,” Dagney replied. “Having started, I would like to continue with my plans to collect danta. There are three torps I had hoped to stop at. If Lena and Gregor are willing, we could visit each for a day, and then return to the Ti'ach. The riding will not be strenuous, Lena; they are only an hour or two apart, and they will be generous to us, as travellers and a scáeli. And you will see a bit more of our land, and our people.”
I considered. Why not? It would give me time alone with Dagney, and surely now we would be able to talk, if not while riding then when we stopped. “Yes,” I said, “I would like that.”
Donnalch nodded. “Good,” he said briefly. “But when you return to the Ti'ach, ask Perras to spread the word of Fritjof's accession. It should be known, at least among the Ti’acha.”
“Of course,” Dagney said. Should the Emperor know? I wondered. Would he care? Did he even know who ruled the Marai, or even of the Marai? There was no mention of them, in Colm's history of the Empire.
“Cillian,” Donnalch said. “You will come with me. You will keep your eyes open, and listen and remember. Watch who speaks to whom, who is unhappy, who is angry. But give no opinion, even if asked, and above all put no words to paper. If something troubles you, find me. You understand?”
“I do, Teannasach,” Cillian said. He looked, I noted, happier than I had seen him look before. Or if not happy, then interested. Intrigued. That was the right word, I thought. Intrigued.
Donnalch took Gregor aside, speaking to him quietly. Dagney and I waited. “Where do we go now?” I asked.
“Just a bit further north,” she answered, “on the same path that the Teannasach will ride, for a little way. We take a track that branches off to the left, back up a bit into the hill. There is a torp there, the one these sheep belong to, and they will feed us and give us a place to sleep tonight, and we will sing and tell stories. But I was hoping that Cillian might stay with us, to write down the words of songs we will hear tonight. Otherwise, I must do it from memory.” She smiled a bit ruefully. “And that was easier when I was twenty. But I will manage.”
This was nothing I could help with: I barely recognized half-a-dozen words. “What's a torp?” I asked, remembering Donnalch had used the word earlier.
“A farm and its collection of cottages. Not a village, but not a lone house, either,” she answered. “The farmer—the Eirën—holds the land; the cottagers, or torpari, work for him, but have a bit of land for themselves. Much like the Ti'acha, in fact,” she added.
Gregor rode back to us, his face grim. I wondered what Donnalch had said to him. Dagney, with the ease of authority and long acquaintance, simply asked. “What's wrong, Gregor?”
He shook his head. “Marai, riding bold as hoodie crows into Linrathe, with a Linrathan to guide them. I don't like it, Lady. The Sterre's been unguarded, or under-guarded, for too long.”
“And is not the Teannasach sending you for more men to do so, now Fritjof has claimed the throne?” Dagney spoke in an undertone, not looking toward the small party of men.
“Aye, Lady, but I must see you safely back to the Ti'ach first, and you have places you wish to visit. So, it will be a ten-day before our men reach the Sterre, and that's too long.”
Dagney made a gesture of impatience. “I have ridden these hills for thirty years. What do I need an escort for now?” Gregor looked uncomfortable.
“It's not you, Lady,” I said. “It's me, the hostage. Gregor is charged with keeping me safe, and with ensuring I don't escape. When we are back at the Ti'ach, I am guessing Sorley will be asked to take on that role, so that Gregor can ride to the Wall. Am I right, Gregor?”
He looked even more uncomfortable, but nodded his head. “You are,” he murmured.
“And if I give my word? Would that be enough?” Our eyes met. He assessed my words, his gaze level.
“It would be for me,” he said finally. “But it's not my decision.”
“Teannasach!” Dagney called. “A word, before you ride?”
Donnalch said something to the two Marai, reining his horse away from them. He trotted over to us. “Lady?” he asked.
Dagney kept her voice pitched low. “Let Gregor ride south,” she said. “Lena will pledge her word to not try to escape. Surely that is enough?” He hesitated. “Fritjof’s men riding freely in Linrathe, and one of them knowing every inch of this land?” Dagney echoed Gregor's words. “You need more men at the Sterre. Which is more important, Donnalch?”
The jangle of a bit caught my attention. I looked over to see the Marai riding towards us. Donnalch saw them too. “You are right,” he whispered. “Gregor, as soon as you can, ride south. Ignore what I say, now,” he finished. Raising his voice only slightly, he said, “and do not tire the women, Gregor. Keep the pace slow and the distances short. I will see you at the Ti'ach in a ten-day.” He held a hand up to the messengers, who had stopped only a pace or two away from us, Ardan behind them. “Find some new songs, Lady,” he said. He raised his voice. “And now I must ride to bid farewell to one king, and honour another.” He swung his horse around, signalling it with heels and hands. It leapt forward, galloping across the heath, Fritjof's men, taken by surprise, lagging behind. We watched them for a minute, until Dagney spoke.
“Come,” she said. “We should follow them; one might just look back. You will know where you can leave us, Gregor.”
“Aye,” he said. “There's more than one path from Bartolstorp to the Tabha. Greet my mother for me, will you, Lady, and my father and brother? I would have liked to have seen them, but this need is greater.”
Half an hour later, in a fold of the hill, Gregor raised a hand in farewell and turned off the track we followed, onto what looked to me like a sheep trail along the side of the valley. “Ride safely,” Dagney called to him, reining her mare to a stop. I followed suit. She looked at me. “Another half-hour to Bartolstorp,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“I'm fine,” I said. She nodded, and we began to walk along the track again. After a minute, Dagney began to speak.
“Gregor's family have held this torp for many generations,” she said, “long before the borders were set, and his torpari have been mostly the same families for all those years, as well. I will be asking them about a danta called ‘Sostrae lys yn dhur’; that is ‘the dark and pale sisters’, in your tongue. It tells, in its simplest meaning, of the drowning of the pale sister, the younger, by the older one, for the older one wants the younger's lover. The dark sister takes the younger one to the sea, where she drowns her, then tells her lover that the girl has run away with another. The body floats down a river, where it is found by a miller, who recognizes her and tells her lover, who in the meantime has wed the dark sister in despair. The grieving lover strings his ladhar with the pale sister's hair, but he will never again play the instrument for his dark wife, reserving it for when he is alone, to hear his true love sing to him.”
“How horrible,” I said. “Sisters, drowning each other over a man?”
Dagney laughed. “You forget,” she said gently, “that here a man confers status and protection to his wife, and a dark mind might see that as a reason to commit murder. But I do not believe that is what the song is about at all, except on its surface.”
“What, then?”
“I think it is about one people's conquering of another, probably in a sea battle, and how the conquered people keep their beliefs and ideas alive in secret, by song and story and custom, hidden from their overlords.”
I considered. It made sense, in an obscure way.
> “What peoples? What battle?” I asked, genuinely curious now.
Dagney shook her head. “That is what I am trying to find out. If I can transcribe different versions of the song, from here in the south to the versions sung in the Rathe Hoys, I can look at the details, and perhaps work it out. It is very old, and I already know it varies greatly in the tellings: sometimes the girls are the daughters of a king, sometimes of a farmer. While both a king or a farmer represent the land, I think the versions with a king may be older, closer to the truth.”
We rode on. I thought about what Dagney had said. Songs, for me, were just verses sung around a fire, stories set to music, but I had never thought about what they might mean. Was the song I had learned from Tice anything more than a soldier's lament for leaving his lover? What was it Colm had said? Something about tax rolls and court records telling a story, if you knew how to hear it. If history lived in those dry documents, did it also live in songs?
A shout from ahead of us brought me out of my reverie. I saw a shepherd hurrying towards us, his dog at his heels. “Scáeli Dagney,” he said, and then much more, but I could understand none of it, the words soft and sibilant, running together like music. Dagney replied to him, gesturing. I heard my name. The shepherd looked up at me. I smiled a greeting. He nodded, and then, turning back to Dagney pointed down the track.
“Meas,” Dagney said. She turned in her saddle to me. “Torunn—that's Gregor's mother—is at the house. Bartol and his older son, who is also named Bartol but is called Toli to distinguish him, are out on the hill with the men, mending walls. The shepherd will send his son to tell them we are here. Bartol has some words of your language, and Toli more, if I remember rightly, but I doubt Torunn has any; this will be awkward for you, Lena, but it cannot be helped. I will do my best to help you understand what is being said.”
We rode into the torp a few minutes later. It was not dissimilar to the Ti’ach, as Dagney had said, with a largish farmhouse and a courtyard of outbuildings, but here there was no doubt that the concerns of sheep and cattle over-ruled all. It was not dirty, precisely, but the air echoed to the constant bleating from a pen of ewes and lambs, and the remains of a depleted stack of hay slumped to one side of the yard. Pigeons flew up from the muddy flagstones as we rode in, circling to land on the house roof. A sheepdog yipped from where it lay beside the sheepcote, but did not approach us.
A woman appeared at the open front door to the house, shading her eyes against the sun. “Scáeli Dagney,” she said, and then a torrent of words I could not understand. Dagney dismounted, indicating to me to do the same. I did, fatigue suddenly washing through me.
A boy appeared to take our horses, leading them off somewhere. “Lena,” Dagney said to me, “this is Konë Torunn, wife to Bartol, who heads this torp.” I smiled at the tall woman, her dark hair braided and pinned over her head; her frame lean and wiry. Her sleeves were rolled up, and an apron covered the dark dress she wore: she had been working. Dagney said something to Torunn: I caught Gregor's name. Torunn smiled, her blue eyes crinkling, and said something, a question, I thought, from the inflection. Dagney laughed, and nodded. “She asks if he is well,” she said to me.
Gesturing, Torunn led us into the house. Like the Ti'ach, it had a big central room, but unlike the Ti’ach, this was both kitchen and hall. A long table ran widthwise across the room; behind it were the hearth, where a pot hung over the flames, and the table itself was crowded with rising bread, a sack of grain, a platter of soup bones. A young woman was chopping root vegetables at one end of the table. From her build, and her face and eyes, I took her to be a close relation of Torunn—a daughter?—but she seemed too young. At Dagney's direction I sat, my arm throbbing. It had been improving, but this morning's accident had worsened it. I flexed my fingers, feeling pain shoot up the arm.
“Lena, this is Huld, Torunn's grand-daughter. Gregor's niece,” Dagney added. Huld smiled at me. “Welcome,” she said in strongly accented tones.
“Meas,” I remembered to say, surprised that she spoke my language. My surprise must have shown, for she smiled again.
“I learn to speak your words,” she said haltingly, “My Athàir...my father...he teach. My many-times mother’s mother come from your land.”
Gregor had alluded to that, I remembered.
“You learn our words?” Huld asked.
I spread my hands, shaking my head. “Only one or two,” I said. “Forla,” I added.
“We practice,” she said. Torunn said something to her, and she ducked her head and went back to the vegetables, glancing at me occasionally. I wrapped my hands around the mug of tea Torunn had placed in front of me, welcoming the warmth, almost too tired to sip it.
Dagney and Torunn spoke at length. I let the sounds slip by, not trying to recognize anything, slowly drinking my tea. Through the open door, I heard the sheepdog whine, and footsteps, and a moment later two men entered the room. Gregor's father, Bartol, I thought, and his brother Toli.
Bartol strode forward to hug Dagney, an enveloping hug of real welcome. She was well-known here, I realized, as Toli also embraced her, if not as enthusiastically as his father. The room filled with talk and laughter. I finished my tea. Its warmth had revived me briefly, but now I felt tiredness overwhelming me again. It had been days since I slept well, the pain and awkwardness of my arm waking me every time I moved in my sleep. I shifted my stool, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit, the scrape of the wooden legs along the flagged floor sounding loudly and discordantly. Heads turned my way.
“Lena,” Dagney said, “forgive me. Your arm needs tending, and you need to rest.” A word to Torunn had us being ushered up a flight of stone stairs to the sleeping chambers, where Torunn opened a door to a small room. One narrow bed, and a chest, was all the furniture it held.
I sat on the bed as Dagney unbound my arm and examined it. She tutted. “Give me a moment,” she said, and left the room. A minute or two later she returned, carrying my saddlebags, followed by Huld carrying a bowl of water.
Dagney eased my tunic over my head and gently pulled it free of my arms, and then did the same with the linen undertunic I wore. I shivered slightly in the cool of the room, but the water Dagney bathed my arm in was warm, and the salve made my skin tingle. I felt Huld's eyes on me, but I did not look up. Dagney's ministrations were gentle, but I could feel tears threatening.
My arm salved and rebound, Dagney helped me dress again and sent Huld away with the bowl of cooling water. As soon as Huld closed the door behind her, I could not keep the tears away. Dagney, murmuring words of comfort, put an arm around me, and let me cry.
“I'm sorry,” I said after a few minutes, snuffling. She handed me the cloth with which she had bathed my arm, and I found a dryer corner to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. “It's just—”
“All new. You are not here by choice, and you cannot understand what is being said. And in addition, you are in pain and tired. All very good reasons to cry,” Dagney said. I forced a smile. “Now,” she went on, “I think you should rest. Sleep, if you can. I will explain to Torunn, and we will not expect you at dinner, but someone will bring you soup and bread later. All right?”
I nodded. It was exactly what I needed. I lay down on the bed and let Dagney remove my boots and pull a blanket over me. She stroked my hair briefly before she left me. I did not sleep immediately, but lay, feeling the throbbing in my arm subsiding, thinking. I felt so alone. I had spent much time by myself before, riding between villages and inns, during watch-duty on the Wall, but at the end of the day there had almost always been someone to talk to, if I wished, or just to listen to others’ conversations. Even if I had purposely remained on the periphery, I had still been part of what was happening. I had not realized what a barrier not understanding what was being said would be.
On top of this, I was frustrated. There was so much I wanted to know, both for myself and to take back to the Empire, and every time an opportunity presented itself to learn more it was t
hwarted. I was failing in my task. I shifted on the bed, rolling over on one side. I will just have to get Dagney to talk to me, I thought, as I drifted into sleep.
The sound of a ladhar drifting up from below woke me some time later. No light came in through the small window. The sun had set. I sat up. My bladder twinged. Reaching under the bed with my good hand, I felt around for the chamber pot; finding it, I crouched beside the bed to relieve myself.
A soft knock at the door came just as I adjusted my breeches. I pushed the chamber pot under the bed. “Yes?” I called. The door opened. Huld came in carrying a tray. She pushed the door closed again with her hip, putting the tray on the chest.
“Food,” she said, gesturing.
“Meas, Huld,” I replied. The soup smelled good: lamb and barley, I thought, and the bread looked fresh-baked. There was nowhere except the bed on which to sit, so I sat on the edge. Huld put the tray on my knees, and I picked up the spoon. One spoonful reminded me how hungry I was. I ate with appetite, trying to not gulp my food. Huld perched on the side of the chest, watching me.
When I was done, she took the tray from me. “Come for music?” she asked. I hesitated. I felt grubby, travel-stained, not fit for company.
“Allech'i, Huld, vann?” I asked. “To wash,” I added in my own language, pointing to the washbowl on the end of the chest.
“Ahh, ja,” she replied, jumping up. Taking the tray, she went back downstairs, to return five minutes later with a jug of steaming water, a towel, and a chunk of soap.
“I help?” she asked, as I struggled with my tunic.
“Ja,” I replied gratefully. I could handle my breeches, but pulling a tunic over my head one-handed was a challenge. She lifted the outer tunic, and then the under, over my head carefully. “Meas,” I said, and bent to my washing.
After a few minutes, she took the soap from me. I looked at her questioningly. She smiled, and began to wash my back. Her hands on me were firm, and after the first surprise I let myself enjoy the feeling. I had last had a bath at the Ti’ach, some days ago now. While I had grown accustomed to brief washes and long gaps between baths on the Wall, I preferred to be clean.
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