We rode north at pace, stopping occasionally to relieve ourselves, and for food and water for us and the horses. The men were courteous but firm. The sun sank behind the hills, forcing us to ride more slowly, and eventually to stop, in the shelter of boulders beside a small stream. My arm ached steadily, and I could see the fatigue on Dagney's face.
We were allowed to go a distance off to empty our bladders. At the campsite, one man guarded us as the others built a fire and saw to the horses. Niáll walked off beyond the campfire. He returned a few minutes later.
“There are many stars, and no sign of rain,” he said. “No tents are needed tonight.”
“We have no blankets,” Dagney protested. Whatever was in the pot over the flames was beginning to simmer, the scent of broth rising.
“We have blankets for you,” he said. “You will be warm enough, beside the fire, if you sleep side-by-side.” I knew, from my days and nights on the road and on patrol, that he was right. I wondered where we were, in relation to Sinarrstorp, and whether the Eirën would send out men to search for us. Frustration rose. I could not even ask Dagney, because Niáll spoke the language I would have to use. I realized, suddenly, that that was why Dagney had requested we speak my language, to let me know that anything I said would be understood by our captors.
Later we were given bowls of broth, thick with barley and beans, and chunks of a dark bread. Fair trail food, and tasty enough; the hard-cooked eggs and cold mutton of lunch had been hours ago, and the porridge of breakfast even longer. We ate, and then went briefly out into the night again, returning to blankets spread by the fire, with rolled sheepskins for pillows. Dagney helped me pull off my riding boots, and I hers, and we settled onto the ground, wrapping the blankets around us, Dagney closest to the fire at my insistence. Under the cover of the blanket, I moved my secca to where I could easily reach it. We had not been searched for weapons. I guessed they would not think to: we were women. From beyond the firelight an owl called, a long, wavering cry. Fatigue seeped into my bones and my mind. I slept.
For the next three days, we rode north and west at a steady but not gruelling pace. The weather, thankfully, held, although it grew colder as we moved north. Ice edged small ponds in the mornings. The men were generous with the night-time fires, and with food; it was clear we were not to suffer privation.
Behind a boulder on the second morning, crouched to urinate, I whispered to Dagney. “What do they want from us?”
“You, I think,” she whispered back. “I cannot think what value I might have to them, so it must be you.”
But why? I turned that question around and around in my head as we rode, reaching only one answer: King Fritjof wanted me for what I knew of the Empire. He had no faith in prophecy, and no fear of fever: he planned to invade. I grew more sure as I thought it out. But if that was why he wanted me, why did he want Donnalch? To ask him to join in this attack? And if he said no—then what? Donnalch's life would be forfeit, I thought, and the Marai would sweep down through Linrathe, its army scattered by our truce, and into the Empire.
I murmured this to Dagney, again as we emptied our bladders, the only time we had to exchange thoughts out of hearing of the men. Her face paled, but she whispered calmly, “I had the same thought. I think you are right; it fits with what I have heard of Fritjof. But the Marai will not send all their men through Linrathe to the Wall. Some, yes, but it will be boats, along the coast and up the rivers, that make up their greatest force.”
I straightened, hands automatically tying my breeches, tucking the secca into its hidden position along my groin. My mind focused on what Dagney had just said.
“Come, Lady Dagney, Lena!” Niáll shouted, closer than I had thought him. But not close enough to hear, I reassured myself. Whatever orders the men had been given, they must have included giving us no chance to complain of any indignity to our bodies or our privacy. They were scrupulous in leaving us alone. But I said no more.
We had repelled an invasion just two years ago. Could we do it again? But that time we had had six months’ warning, six months of preparation and planning. If there were any chance, then word had to get to the Wall. Gregor would bring the story of Marai riding freely south of the Sterre to the Linrathan commanders at the Wall, but would they tell the Empire's Wall commanders? And even if they did, what would those men make of it, knowing nothing of these people, of their command of boats and the sea?
At the camp that night, after we had eaten, Niáll stood over us by the fire. “Play for us, if you would, Lady?” he asked Dagney. I saw the quick look of surprise on her face, followed by acquiescence.
“If you like,” she said. “I will need a minute to tune my ladhar, though.” She fetched the instrument, plucking the strings and adjusting the tension on the pegs until she was satisfied. Then, quietly, she began to play.
After a few minutes of the ladhar only, she started to sing, in a language I thought must be that of the Marai. Sometimes the men joined in, sometimes they simply listened. After an hour or so, she began a song I thought I recognized, the preliminary notes she played bringing back the words of the chorus to me: ‘A shining river dulled by blood’. Niáll stiffened.
“Not that one,” he said sharply. “That's enough music. We should sleep now.”
†††††
I could smell the sea long before I could see it. We rode to the top of a ridge, and there before us was the ebb and swell of waves, and the scream of gulls. An archipelago of islands dotted the sea, separated from the mainland by a tidal channel. On the largest of these islands a long, low building dominated.
The tide was going out, revealing with each ebb a causeway linking the mainland with the largest island. An hour, I estimated, before we could ride across safely. My thought was echoed by Niáll. “We wait,” he said, “but not long. Dismount.”
Four days earlier we had crossed the Sterre. The building on the island reminded me of that boundary wall: not stone, like the southern Wall, but primarily timber and sod, reinforced with stone buttresses. The hall, from what I could see, echoed this construction. It looked new, the wood not yet weathered grey, standing on the highest land on the island. Below it, straggling down to the tideline, were other buildings, workshops and houses, I guessed, all sharing the yellow gleam of new wood.
I swung down off Clio. I could use both arms now, and wore no bandage nor sling. Loosening her girth, I looked over to Niáll.
“I'll have to walk my mare across,” I said. “She doesn't like water.”
He nodded in acknowledgement. A shout came from over the water. We had been seen. Words were exchanged, with much gesturing. I saw a man running up to the hall. Delivering the news of our arrival, no doubt.
I watched the tide receding, and the red bills of the big black-and-white sea-pies probing for food along the exposed rocks, just as they did at Tirvan. Smaller brown plovers ran on the shingle, picking up things too small to see. Homesickness flowed into me, an almost physical pain. I turned to look along the headland to hide the welling tears. Just south of where we stood, a small jetty nosed out into the sea. Moored to it, listing into the shingle with the retreating tide, were two small rowboats. Somewhere over on the island would be another jetty, and more boats, for crossing when the tide was high. I heard my name, and looked back at the group. Dagney and Niáll were talking.
Dagney left his side and came over to me. “Walk a bit along the shingle with me,” she said. “There are things you need to know, before we cross, and Niáll feels I should tell you now, and beyond the hearing of the other men.”
I frowned. I handed Clio's reins to one of the escort and followed Dagney. What could the men not hear? At the jetty, she stopped. “Here will do,” she said.
“What is it you need to tell me?”
“Wherever it is Fritjof has been for the last two years, he has brought back customs new to the Marai, ones that concern us. He houses his women in a separate hall now, and rarely, and only at his command, are they allow
ed into the men's presence, to dine, or in my case, to entertain. Your clothes will be taken: women are forbidden breeches, so if you can find a way to hide your secca, do it, although I think our belongings will be searched. And if it is your time to bleed, Lena, you may not come into the presence of the men at all, but stay in the women's hall.”
What did it matter if I bled or not? But Dagney was not done. “If Fritjof were to take an interest in you,” she hesitated, “he is giving women no choice, if he decides he wants them.”
“But I am not a Marai woman!”
“True. That may work in your favour. And the Teannasach is pledged to your safety, for whatever that is worth here. But you needed to know.”
I saw her point. I wondered if our captors' scrupulous respect of our privacy and our bodies on the ride here meant that I was already seen as belonging to soon-to-be-king Fritjof. The thought made me shudder. I swallowed. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “We are still in Sorham. Fritjof is choosing to be crowned in lands ceded to Linrathe in exchange for tribute long years past. He is making a statement that all can understand. And perhaps equally as frightening, no one from Sorham has told the Teannasach that he has built a hall here.” So perhaps my earlier fears of treachery were not far off, I thought. Dagney continued, her voice at a natural pitch again. “Follow my lead in all things; I doubt they will separate us, as they will need me to translate for you. Now come, Niáll is signalling. It's time to cross.”
I led Clio across without incident, the occasional wave lapping over the cobbled causeway. Probably I could have ridden, but I wasn't willing to take the chance. Niáll rode ahead of us, the other men following Dagney and myself. On the island shore I remounted, riding at a walk to the open area at one end of the hall.
A tall man waited for us, flanked by two guards. He towered over them both by at least a head, his pale hair tied back from his bearded face. We dismounted. Niáll said something; the tall man made a gesture of acknowledgement. His eyes travelled to Dagney.
“Scáeli Dagney, Härskaran,” Niáll said. Dagney bent her knee, her eyes down. So this was Fritjof. He had cold eyes.
“En mathúyr?” Fritjof said. “Mer heithra, scáeli.[1]“ He said something else, and Dagney stood. Fritjof's gaze turned to me. I saw his eyes narrow. He glanced at Niáll.
“Lena,” he explained, “Gistel te Teannasach, fo handa marren, Härskaran.[2]”
I inclined my head, but did nothing more. Fritjof frowned. He snapped an order, jerking his head to the left.
“Härskaran,” Niáll replied. “Come with me,” he said. “I will take you to the women's hall. There you can wash, and proper clothes will be found for you. Take your saddlebags, but leave your horses.”
Chapter Eleven
The women’s hall stood down the hillside, in a flat area sheltered by cliffs on two sides. At a doorway Niáll halted. He knocked and called out, but did not open the door. A moment later it swung open, and a girl of perhaps twelve looked out at us. She gasped when she saw Dagney and I, and ran back in, calling.
A woman, perhaps in her thirties, came to the door, dressed in a rich embroidered tunic and skirt. She looked at us both, and then at Niáll, questioningly. I caught our names in the exchange, and I thought the word Härskaran. Dagney added something, and the woman beckoned us into the hall.
“Just follow my lead,” Dagney said to me. “They will make us welcome here, and I have told them you do not speak the language, so they will not expect you to understand them. I will translate.”
We were shown to seats on a bench covered with furs, and wooden cups filled with a hot tea brought to us. The women crowded around while Dagney and the headwoman, as I thought of her, spoke. I sipped the tea, looking around.
One long room made up the central portion of the hall, its roof supported by tall pillars and arches of wood, not dissimilar in structure to the meeting hall in Tirvan, although that had eight sides, whereas this was a rectangular building. Beyond the pillars, where the roof dropped lower to meet the walls, the space had been partitioned, and divided from the hall by curtains, mostly of woven wool, although I saw one or two that were fur. Private spaces. Underfoot, the floor was of wide boards, covered with woven rugs. Hearths burned along the central space, warming and lighting the hall.
“Lena,” Dagney said, putting an end to my observations, “this is Rothny, wife to Fritjof and the highest-ranking woman of the Marai. I have explained who you are, and why you are with us. Be respectful, be friendly, but do not trust too much.” A smile never left her face as she spoke. “Greet Rothny, if you will; the words are 'Mer heithra, Fräskaran Rothny'.”[3]
I turned to face Rothny. Inclining my head as I had for Fritjof, I repeated the words as best I could. Rothny smiled. “Glaéder min halla.”[4]
Dagney stood. “Come now,” she said to me. “The women have prepared baths for us, and fresh clothes, and I for one will welcome both.” I followed her again. Behind one of the woven curtains two baths, looking like oval half-barrels, waited, steaming slightly. I put my saddlebag down, waiting to see what Dagney did. The women who had led us to the baths left the space, pulling the curtain closed, and in the dim light we undressed and climbed into the baths.
The water's heat penetrated my limbs, easing aches I had grown accustomed to on the ride. I heard Dagney sigh with relief. We soaked for some time without speaking. I found soap on a small shelf near my head and washed, submersing myself completely to rinse off, and to wash my hair. Two women slipped in, each with a bucket of steaming water to add to the baths, disappeared again, and returned with clothes and towels. I lay in the water until it began to cool, then stepped out, reaching for the towel that had been left on a small stool, folded on top of the clothes.
“What happens now?” I said to Dagney, who was also drying herself.
“We go to the hall to eat the mid-day meal with the men; the Härskaran—Fritjof—has asked for us. The Fräskaran will accompany us,” she answered, the last muffled as she pulled a tunic over her head. I picked up the clothes left for me from the stool. A woollen tunic, and a skirt of the same fabric. I dressed. The skirt, falling nearly to my ankles, felt confining, for all it was loose enough.
I looked around for my saddlebag, which held my light shoes. I could not see it, nor the clothes I had so recently taken off. “Where are our things?” I asked.
“Probably at our sleeping quarters,” Dagney said. “Did you hide your secca?”
“It's in the boot sheath,” I answered. “But that won't fool a determined searcher for long.”
“I don't think the Fräskaran's women will be looking for a weapon,” Dagney said. “Unless Niáll has let it be known you may be armed, and there is no reason he would know that; he has been serving Fritjof since before Leste attempted its invasion of your country. So, hope that Rothny's serving women don't decide to clean your riding boots.” She ran a bone comb through her hair, wincing at a tangle.
The curtain slid back, and one of the serving women beckoned to us. We followed her along the central space to another curtain. The woman pulled it back, showing us two beds with a table between them. The contents of our saddlebags had been neatly arranged on shelves over the beds. My boots and my slippers stood at the end of the left-hand bed, Dagney's at the right.
“Takkë,” Dagney said. She sat on her bed, combing her hair dry. The serving woman spoke, gesturing at the comb; Dagney shook her head. “Takkë,” she said again, this time with clear dismissal in her voice. I had no trouble understanding that exchange, I thought.
“I should have insisted you learn the language of the Marai,” she said. “At least you'd have a few words. Takkë is thank you; vaëre, please. Have you looked at your boots?” Her tone remained conversational.
I bent to check the hidden sheath. My secca remained in place. “Should I leave it there?”
She shook her head. “No. Somewhere safer, if you can think of a place.”
She followed my eyes. “A good thought,” she said. “Yes, custom here too says each woman washes her own, unless she is very ill; even the Fräskaran would not usually ask that of her serving women. No one will touch them. I am a bit surprised they were even unpacked, but I suppose they had orders to completely empty the saddlebags, and they are in a case.”
“Good.” I untied the soft leather case, then wrapped my secca in the stained cloths it held. Once the package was returned to the shelves I slipped my feet into my indoor slippers. The skirt caught at them, irritating me. I couldn't remember the last time I had worn skirts. At the ceremony binding me to my apprenticeship? I wondered. It seemed unlikely.
I heard soft footsteps approaching. A question, in Rothny's clear voice. “Ja,” Dagney said, tying back her hair. A hand moved the curtain aside. “Time to eat,” Dagney said to me, standing. The Fräskaran waited for us, in the same embroidered tunic as earlier, but now with bracelets on both arms and several rings on her fingers. Braids encircled her head like a crown. She gestured.
“Vaëre.” As we moved toward the centre of the hall, she held up a hand. “Din ladhar, scáeli,” she said, “vaëre.” Regardless of the 'please', I didn't think this was a request. Dagney nodded, and retrieved her instrument.
Fritjof's hall rang with voices as we entered. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw a long table set crossways to the length of the room, raised on a wooden platform about two-thirds of the distance down the hall. Fritjof sat in a tall chair, facing the lower tables and benches, an empty chair to his right. Donnalch sat to his left. His face lit when he saw us, but as I met his eyes across the space I saw warning in them, after the relief.
Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy Page 51
