When Huld had dried my back, I reached for the drawstring on my breeches. Huld took a step back. “I go,” she said. “I come back, help you dress, ja?”
At Tirvan, like all the women's villages of the Empire, and on the Wall, there were no nudity taboos among women. I had bathed and swam and washed among girls and women of all ages since I was a toddler. Huld's modesty startled me, especially as she had had no problem with either seeing or touching my naked upper body. “You can stay,” I said. “I don't mind.”
She blushed. “Ja?” I nodded, stepping out of my breeches and under-breeches. I washed, feeling Huld's eyes on me. I glanced over at her as I dried myself. Music floated up from the hall. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes wide. I felt an answering tug, deep and low, and looked away. Did she even know what it was she was feeling?
I dressed again, in cleaner clothes, and followed Huld downstairs to the hall. The meal was clearly over; Dagney and Tori sat on tall stools in front of the table, ladhars on their laps; around the periphery of the room men and women sat or stood; children sprawled on the floor. The fire in the huge fireplace glowed, giving off the same smell I remembered from Perras's room. Wall-sconces lit the rest of the hall. We found a space, and a stool for me, on the outer wall. I saw eyes turn my way: I guessed my presence and my role as a hostage to the peace had spread among the folk of this torp. Or perhaps, I reflected, it was simply that I wore breeches. Most folk, I saw, had on what looked like their best clothes. To honour Dagney, I realized.
Tori said something to Dagney, and they began a song, the melody jaunty, quickly repeated. The smallest children began to dance to it, jumping up and down, twirling, slightly older ones attempting a few more complex steps. My foot began to tap. Hands started to clap, and then one or two couples stood to dance, hands and feet in rapid motion.
After a few bars Dagney began to sing, the words, like the music, simple and repetitious. Voices from the room began to sing the chorus. The music gained in speed; hands clapped faster, feet moved rhythmically and rapidly. Voices sung louder. The music reached a climax of beats, and ended.
I realized I was grinning. It did not matter here that I couldn't understand the words. Music was its own language, not needing translation. After another song, not dissimilar to the last, Dagney changed the tuning on her ladhar, and began a slower melody.
“Women's dance,” Huld said in my ear. “You try?” I hesitated. “Is slow,” she added.
Why not? I liked to dance, even if I did not do it well. I followed Huld out onto the floor, joining maybe a dozen other women. We lined up in two rows, facing each other. The women began a slow clap, matching the beat of the music, advancing to meet each other. I followed suit, clapping my good hand against my thigh. When we met, we held our hands high to clap against our partner's, then linked arms to circle around each other. A few steps backward, still clapping, and we repeated the moves. I was awkward at first, with only one free hand and arm, but as the ladhar's melody became a little faster, we met its challenge, our feet and hands moving more quickly. On the third time our hands met, we held them up to allow the furthest right couple to move under our linked hands.
When it was our turn to duck under the canopy of hands, Huld kept my right hand firmly in her left, her skin warm against mine. Our hips brushed as we ran to the end of the line. As we took our places she caught my eye: her face was flushed, her eyes dark, and she smiled in delight. I smiled back, unable not to, feeling the beat of the music reverberating through me.
The dance was done. Huld kept my hand in hers, leading me outside into the cool night. Stars whitewashed the sky, the night cloudless. Huld led me behind an outbuilding. In the shelter of its walls she turned and kissed me, hard and urgent. I felt desire shoot through me. How long since I had taken comfort in lovemaking? Weeks, now, maybe months, brief interludes with other Guards, affirmations of life amongst the deaths. Huld's hands had begun to move. I pulled away. “No?” she said. I could hear the puzzlement in her voice.
“How old are you?” I whispered.
In the starlight, I saw her smile. “Eighteen years,” she said. “A woman. I choose this, yes?” She paused. “And you not first,” she added.
Her kisses had told me that. “Is this accepted?” I whispered.
“No,” she said. “But no one sees; they all dance, or if out in night like us, what they do is secret too.” She drew a finger down from my lips, along my neck, and lower. I shuddered.
“Then, yes,” I said, sliding my hands down her back, drawing her to me, my lips finding hers. This time she pulled away.
“Come,” she said. I let her lead me again, through a door and up, by feel, a wooden ladder, into the loft of a byre. Below us cattle slept, warming the shed. I felt hay beneath my feet, and sank to my knees, pulling Huld down beside me. Faint music drifted in from the hall. We fell into the hay, lips joined, hands exploring, touch and scent and sensation our only guides in the utter blackness of the night.
Chapter Ten
In the morning, Huld was not among those gathered in the hall to bid us farewell. Late in the night we had slipped back, separately, to our own rooms, when voices outside told us the torpari were returning to their cottages. Finding hay still in my hair this morning, I hoped we had been unseen.
After the lovemaking Huld had curved herself against me, one finger stroking my cheek. “Tell me of her,” she murmured.
“Who?” I asked, already drifting into sleep.
“The woman who hurt you. You make love for the body, for pleasure, yes? Not for heart. You hold back what inside you.”
I rolled away from her, staring into the darkness. Huld put out a hand to touch me. “I not upset,” she said. “Just say what think. I wrong?”
“No,” I said slowly. “You are not.”
“Tell me,” she urged. “Talk is good.”
Was it? “Her name is Maya,” I said. “When Tirvan—my village—voted to fight against the invasion from Leste, she chose exile from Tirvan rather than fight. I stayed to fight, but when it was over, I went to find her.”
“And she not want you?”
“No,” I answered, “She didn't, because she had found like-minded women and they were going to start a new village, one open only to those who had been exiled from their home villages. There would have been no place for me.”
“Is sad,” Huld said.
“I understood that, though,” I said into the night. “It was the second time, later, that I could not understand.”
“You join up again, then?”
“Not quite,” I said, hesitating, looking for a simple way to explain. “After Linrathe invaded, I stayed in the south. I had a male lover for a while, and he had a son in a village that grew grapes and made wine, and so I went there, to help raise his son.”
“So, you not fight again?”
“Not at first, no. The woman who was raising Valle—the boy—decided to go to Casilla, our one city, to live with a friend, who had a child of about the same age. I went with her. We weren't lovers, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. I found work on the fishing boats—Casilla is on the coast—and helped support us. And then Maya came looking for Valle, too, because his father was her brother. She moved in, and after a while, she asked me to leave. She told me I had no reason to be there, and she wanted me to go.”
“So, your man, he your Maya's brother?”
“Yes,” I said.
“She know?”
“No,” I said. “I never told her.”
“Then why send you away?”
“I don't know,” I said. “I don't know.” I felt the mix of anger and humiliation I always did, when I thought of that time. Huld lay silent for some minutes.
“Was only pleasure with this man, too?” she asked.
It was easy to speak the truth in the dark. “No,” I said. “It started as comfort, but by the end, when he had to leave for his ship, I loved him.”
“Then we try for comfort, again,” she w
hispered, running her hand down my arm. I turned back to her, to the taste of her lips and the heat of her skin against mine.
At breakfast, Dagney had not asked where I had disappeared to the night before. Dressed for riding, she ate hungrily, speaking only of the danta versions Toli had transcribed for her, and where we would ride to tonight: another torp, the Eirën named Sinarr. Sinarrstorp, she said, was a good day's ride to the east, across the hills, but Bartol had sent a boy on a pony at dawn, to tell them we were coming.
I also ate with hunger. My arm pained me less, and I could move my fingers and wrist more easily. Free of intense pain, and buoyed by last night's lovemaking, I had an appetite. We ate porridge and bacon, and barley bread with honey, all tasting wonderful to me. What sky I could see through the narrow windows was blue. I looked forward to the day's ride with only Dagney. Perhaps I would get some of my questions answered.
I smiled and said meas to Bartol and Torunn and Toli, and to anyone who spoke to me. I did not look for Huld. She had told me early this morning when she had come to help me dress that she would not be here. “I go red,” she had said, as she salved and bound my arm, “and others see, maybe remember we gone from dance. It not shame, leannan; but for me and you only. You understand?” I had assured her I did. I felt much the same. At the Wall and throughout the Empire, all pairings were accepted and unremarkable, unless the age difference was too great, but I did not understand the structures and mores of Linrathe. I too, I thought, would 'go red', if anyone were to guess what Huld and I had been doing in the hayloft. Or even in my room this morning, although we had had time for little more than a few kisses.
The thought must have made me smile, because Dagney suddenly spoke. “You are looking much better this morning, Lena. I was glad to see you dancing last night; it has done you good. You slept well?”
“Very well,” I said truthfully. “And my arm hurts much less this morning. Look,” I added, wiggling my fingers.
“Pleasure helps the body heal,” Dagney said. I felt my face grow hot. She continued, either not noticing or choosing to ignore my flush. “Now, are you finished? We have a long way to go today, and should get started.”
We rode through the early morning sunshine along a reasonable track, the route, Dagney told me, that traders took with their pack animals between the torps. The boy who had ridden to Sinarrstorp at dawn on a sure-footed hill pony would have taken a different route through the hills, faster, but also easy to lose, or be lost on.
“If Sinarrstorp is so close,” I asked, “won't their danta be the same as Bartolstorp?”
“Not necessarily,” she answered, turning her head to talk to me; the track, while good, was not quite wide enough for us to ride abreast. “It will depend, in part, on where the families came from, originally; if most share an ancestral village with Bartolstorp, then, yes, the danta will be much the same. But if not, and I do not know if they did or didn't, then the danta may be very different.”
Where they came from originally? “Haven't these people been here, well, forever?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Where would these ancestral villages be?”
“In the north,” she said. “When we spoke of this, when you first came to the Ti'ach, perhaps we made it too simple. The Sterre is the boundary between Sorham and Linrathe, and Linrathe pays tribute to Varsland for Sorham, but by the time of the battle of the Tabha, many with northern blood had settled in these lands as well. They chose to stay, when the Marai withdrew for the last time, and it is those people who farm the torplands hereabout.”
“And everyone lives peacefully?” I asked.
Dagney laughed. “Yes,” she answered. “It was all so long ago. Bartol and Toli and Sinarr, and their torpari, if you asked them, would tell you they are Linrathan, not Marai, or even Sorhaman, although they likely have distant family there. There is trade between us, and people do move back and forth, but their allegiance is to the Teannasach, not to King Herlief, or rather, Fritjof, now.”
I thought of Gregor's reaction to the Marai soldiers; certainly, he had not been pleased to see them in Linrathe. And why should Dagney not know how her own people thought? But even those who appeared most loyal could have secret sympathies, or else Linrathe would not have found the Wall open to them two years past. I kept my thoughts to myself.
“Well,” Dagney said after a minute. “We have a long ride, the weather is good, and so we have the time and opportunity to talk. What would you like to know, Lena?”
I had so many questions. Part of me wanted Dagney to explain how relationships—between men and women, or otherwise—worked here in Linrathe, enlarging on the conversation we had started. On the other hand, I might find myself flushing again, and Huld had asked for privacy. Our brief liaison could not be known; I had no idea what the punishment—for her or me—might be. My thoughts went back to my last conversation with Perras.
“The Eastern Fever,” I said. “Perras told me the Eastern Empire fell because of it, but we did not have time for him to fully explain. He said you could, on the ride.”
She said nothing for a moment, and then, unexpectedly, began to sing.
A ring around, a ring around
A ring of blossom hiding thorn,
We dance and dance but only one
Will stand alone now all forlorn.
“Do you know that song, Lena?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” I said, puzzled. “It's the ring-game song; I played it as a child. But what has that to do with the Eastern Fever?”
“That is what it is about,” she said. “Like the danta, it is more than a child's game-song. It is a memory of how the red rash of the fever killed almost everyone. When you chose the one who would stay standing at the word ‘now’, you were playing at being the lone survivor of ten or a dozen or even more in a village or farmstead.”
“That's horrible,” I said, grimacing. “But I never liked the game. I hated to be the one left standing, fingers pointed at me, and the others going on without me.”
“On to death, and to whatever lies beyond,” she said. “but that is how it was supposed to make you feel, bereft and terrified, as the lone survivor at a torp might.”
“Where did this fever come from?” I asked, “And why did it go away?”
“I can answer the first to some extent,” Dagney said. The path had widened slightly, and I could ride beside her now. “It began in Casil, the capital of the Eastern Empire, and then its outposts and colonies. It was probably spread by those who were sent as messengers, or perhaps by people fleeing Casil. In either case, it killed almost everyone, including, we must assume, the Emperor and his heirs. But how it got to Casil is not known to us, although some writings suggest it came with traders from countries even further east. And why it disappeared? That I do not know, although perhaps it has something to do with the cold. For while there were deaths, in Linrathe and in the Empire—and more in the Empire than in Linrathe—north and east of the Durrains only a comparative few died.”
I thought about something she had said. “Deaths in the Empire, and Linrathe, but not further north?”
She shook her head. “No. Or if there were, they were negligible. That is why the Marai rebuilt the Sterre, to keep us out, to keep the fever from their lands. It is also why they have never travelled south to your lands, because, as I said, the fever was worse there than it was here in Linrathe. Did Perras tell you of their prophecy? They were to explore to the west, to find there a land of grapevines and honey and mild weather. They believe they were spared from the fever to fulfill that prophecy, but only if they never go east or south?” I nodded. “So,” she went on, “even though they are great sea and river-farers, they have not ventured south or east, but only west, for all these years.”
“So, no one knows,” I said, after a minute or two of contemplation, “what might be left now, over the mountains?”
“None who have travelled that way have returned to tell us,” she said. That meant, I realized, that people had trave
lled east, beyond the Durrains. I wondered if any of the Empire's men had done so; I knew of soldiers who had scouted into the mountain range, but beyond it? I opened my mouth to ask Dagney more about these travellers, when I saw, riding rapidly towards us on the path, two mounted men, wearing the colours of Fritjof. I also saw their drawn swords.
I reined Clio to a halt. Beside me, Dagney did the same with her mare. Metal clinked behind me. I turned in the saddle to see two more riders approaching. The same livery, the same drawn weapons. This was an ambush.
How had they known where we were? Thoughts of Gregor's loyalty, and then of Bartolstorp, flitted through my mind. But no: more likely they had simply followed us, waiting until we were in a good spot to be taken easily. No betrayals. I met Dagney's eyes. She shook her head, made a small gesture of resignation with her hands, both almost imperceptible. My secca was on my waist. I pulled my tunic over it.
The men surrounded us, blocking the path from all directions. One spoke to Dagney, in a tongue more guttural than that of Linrathe; the language of the Marai, I assumed. She replied. I caught nothing in the flow of words, but another man spoke again, this time addressing me.
“You will come with us, my ladies. King Fritjof wishes to extend his hospitality to include you both, and we are to escort you at all haste to his crowning.” Polite as the words were, I knew we had no choice. Had the boy sent to ride to Sinarrstorp made it, I wondered, or had he been intercepted? If he had reached his destination, then we would be missed this evening. If not...
“We will come,” Dagney said, as politely as if the invitation had been real, although I could see a tiny flutter in her cheek. “I am honoured to be invited, as I am sure Lena is too.” She looked toward me. I could see the warning in her eyes.
“I am honoured,” I said, hoping my voice was steady.
“That is good,” the leader said. I thought I recognized him: he had presented Fritjof's letter to Donnalch, yesterday morning. Niáll, I remembered, the Linrathan. Who escorted Donnalch now? Two of the men rode forward, grasping the bridles of our mares and attaching a lead rein to each. All pretense of an invitation accepted vanished. Clio tossed her head, protesting. I soothed her with voice and hands, inwardly matching her protest.
Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy Page 50
