“What does that mean?”
“Just an endearment.”
A scent, the briefest impression, caught my nostrils. I stood up, facing east, letting the wind push my already-dry hair off my face. A game-trail led off that way; animals came to this water from all around. Insects chirred, somewhere. I sniffed again.
“What?” Cillian asked.
I shook my head. “Probably nothing. But for a moment there, I thought I smelled woodsmoke and roasting meat.”
He straightened, looking out into the dusk. “No fire that I can see. But we'll need to be alert tomorrow.”
A few hours after sunrise, and already sweat dripped down my back and between my breasts. Overhead, a carrion-bird—the first we had seen for some days—made slow circles in the sky, gyring higher into the pale, clear blue. No clouds interfered with the sun. Beneath our feet the soil between the sparse, coarse grasses felt grittier, dry and dusty, chafing when it found its way into our boots.
On a slight rise in the plain, Cillian halted. “Look,” he said, pointing. “Is that water?” I shaded my eyes with my hand. Light shimmered and gleamed along the eastern horizon.
“I'm not sure,” I answered. “Maybe—but maybe not. It could just be heat haze.” I followed the brightness north, then south. The shimmer of haze continued in both directions, but the wavering gleam did not. A lake? “I think it is water,” I concluded.
“Probably where this trail goes,” he replied. We'd chosen to follow the narrow, faint path since dawn for lack of any other guide. I had checked the sun frequently to ensure it was still heading east. We'd seen nothing of the animals that had made it, although from its width, the droppings, and the occasional mark in the soil, I felt certain they were the same deer-like creatures we had seen yesterday.
Cillian handed me the waterskin. I swallowed a mouthful, took another tiny sip, and gave it back to him. We resumed walking, not speaking: talking increased the need to drink and we needed to husband our water. The sun grew hotter every minute. Even if that is a lake, I thought, it is some miles off.
Swallows darted over the water, and as we approached a lanky heron launched itself slowly into the air, croaking. Gnats hovered in clouds over the small bushes at the edge. We stopped short of the bank, unsure of its stability, wary of what—or just possibly who—else might be here. Slowly we edged forward, keeping behind the bushes, crouching. Anyone fishing here, I told myself, would have seen us coming across the plain long ago. Tension rippled through me.
From the cover of the bushes I looked out across the water. I could make out a line of shrubs on the far shore. I looked east, then west. Nothing—no people, no animals—and no shoreline. I frowned, watching the water. A mat of grasses floated by, moving south. “Cillian,” I said, “this isn't a lake. I think it's a river.”
“A river? It's too wide.”
“Watch that mat of grasses,” I suggested, pointing. He found it, narrowing his eyes. I counted to ten, then twenty. “Well?”
“There's a current, certainly,” he said. “But it could just be the outlet for the lake pulling those grasses southward.”
“I can't see a shore, south or north,” I pointed out, “just the far bank—and if this is a lake it's a remarkably straight one; that bank runs even with this one for as far as I can see.” He gazed along the opposite bank, eyes tracing the bushes.
“You may be right,” he said eventually. “How are we ever going to cross this?”
“Walk north,” I offered, “and hope it narrows? It's flowing south, so it's only going to get wider in that direction. Do you remember anything from the maps?”
“Let me think,” he murmured. His eyes became distant, trying to recall the picture the maps made, to overlay it on this land and this water. I waited, watching, listening.
“I think,” he said finally, “that we are better to walk south: if this is the river I think it is, it will split into several channels further south when the land must become rockier, steeper. North of here the land is flat, and the river will still be wide.”
“Does this river have a name?” I asked, but before Cillian could answer a loud trumpeting split the air. From upriver, several large greyish-brown birds, long-necked and long-legged, rose from the grasses. “Something disturbed them,” I said. “Get down, among the bushes.”
We crouched low, waiting. The birds circled, still calling, going higher, not looking to land. Whatever had flushed them was still out there. Suddenly a pair of ducks launched themselves past us, quacking noisily: the threat grew closer. Cillian crawled forward. I put out a hand, trying to stop him, fear rising in my throat. He ignored me, crouching at the river's edge, peering out from among the leaves. “Lena,” he whispered, “come here. Look!”
I edged forward. Through the twigs and stems I could see the prow of a boat, curved and capped with a carven head, the sweep of oars carrying it forward. Cillian rocked back. “By the gods, Lena,” he murmured. “That's a Marai ship.”
Chapter Seven
My shocked eyes took in the gliding shape, the dozen oarsmen I could see, the people standing on board. One caught my attention: broad-shouldered but not tall, with a mane of red hair and a full, red beard. I stared. The man turned slightly, talking to his companion, a woman, and I had a clear look at his profile.
I scrambled to my feet, trying to run along the wooded riverbank. “Turlo!” I shouted, “Turlo!” Behind me I heard Cillian swear.
“What are you doing?”
I turned. “The man on board, the redhead—that's General Turlo. He's a friend, Cillian.” I watched the boat slowing, the oarsmen reversing their sweep, bringing the ship into the bank.
“A friend?” He was studying the ship, eyes narrowed.
“The woman is the lady Irmgard,” he said after a moment. “Ǻsmund's wife. What are they doing here?”
Fritjof's brother's wife, the one he had tried to force himself on. “We'll know in a minute,” I replied. As the ship settled against the bank some distance ahead of us, Turlo vaulted over the side. I ran to him to be swept up in his bearhug, hearing his laughter and my name. I laughed too in between my tears, hugging him close, until a thought flashed across my mind.
“Oh, Turlo, let me go,” I hiccupped. “I stink.”
He laughed again and released me, looking over my shoulder to Cillian. He held out a hand. “Cillian, is it not?” he asked.
I saw Cillian take a deep breath. “General Turlo,” he said, accepting the outstretched hand. “Well met.”
“More than well met, mo charaidh. I am counted a good hunter, but not so good I can find two people in all this empty land. Fortune has smiled on us all today,” Turlo answered, still grinning broadly. Behind him, other people were disembarking, approaching us. Hearing them, Turlo turned.
“Lady Irmgard,” he said to the woman who stepped forward, “you'll accept two more on your ship?”
“Of course. This is the woman of whom you spoke?” she said in our language, her accent strong.
“Aye, that she is. You know Cillian, of course. What a wonder it is that our paths have crossed.”
How did she know Cillian? He stepped forward, bowing. “Ǻdla Irmgard, you are gracious,” he said.
“Cillian na Perras,” she said. “Be welcome. It has been some years since we have traded thoughts.”
“Thank you, my lady,” he replied. As sunburned and windblown and filthy as I, yet the manners, the refinement, were impeccable, practiced. Trained as an emissary, he had told me once. A side of him I had never seen. “And this, my lady, is Lena, once a soldier of the Empire.”
“Your deeds are known to me,” she replied. “Be welcome, too.”
“Takkë,” I said, “my lady.” She blinked in surprise at my use of her language, smiling in appreciation.
Another man had come up to us as we spoke. “Cillian, Lena,” he said, a wide grin on his face. “I can't believe we found you!”
“Sorley? What are you doing here?” I asked. “Wha
t are you all doing here?”
“We'll tell you,” Turlo interrupted, “but for all our sakes, lassie, the pair of you need water, and not just to drink. And then food, I think, and stories to be told as we travel.”
Clean, fed, and with cups of a thin beer to drink, we sat on the deck. The ship had pushed out from the bank and we were moving steadily south along the broad river. Turlo insisted we tell our story first.
“Very little to tell,” Cillian said, when I suggested he start. “It took us about three months or a bit more to cross the Durrains. The weather was vicious at the end; we were caught in a hailstorm that might have killed us, but we were found, luckily, by two men from the nearest village. One of them was a man of the Empire, exiled twenty years ago.”
“What was his name?” Turlo asked.
“Oran,” I said.
“Oran of the sixth?”
“I don't know,” I said. “He never said. He's known as Fél, now.”
“I'm glad to know he's alive,” Turlo mused. “Killed a man in a stupid fight: the soldier had stolen a piece of meat from the kitchens, a particularly good piece that Oran had put aside for something. They had words, the soldier threw a punch, and Oran hit him with the iron frying-pan he happened to be holding. Cracked his skull.”
I burst out laughing. “I'm sorry,” I said. “What a thing to be exiled for.”
“Aye,” Turlo said regretfully, “and he was a very good cook. But the law is the law. What can you tell us about the people who took you in?”
“They call themselves the Kurzemë, a loose federation of villages, maybe twenty in all, scattered along river valleys on the eastern side of the Durrains,” Cillian answered. “The language has some similarities with Marái'sta. Illiterate, skilled hunters, basic metalwork, political structure is a headman, a headwoman, and a vēsturni. This last is difficult to explain, but essentially he is the wise man of the village who keeps their history and traditions. Once a year they meet collectively at a location on the plain for talks, marriages, trade.”
Turlo chuckled. “I see I shall have to have you write my reports for me,” he said. “Is that written down, by the bye?”
“Of course,” Cillian said, “With more detail. Yours to read whenever you would like, General.”
“Go on,” Turlo said.
“Lena, your turn,” Cillian said. He was leaving it up to me to tell the reasons we left, or not. Not seemed the better choice. I would be as concise as Cillian, or as close as I could manage.
“When spring came,” I began, “we resumed our journey. There is a dry grassland between the Durrains and this river, but there are also the remnants of a road, and stopping places where springs have been channelled or pooled. And the ruins of a temple, and at about half-way, the ruins of a fort.”
“A road?”
“The barest trace,” Cillian said. “But a temple, yes, a circle of carved pillars, once roofed, dedicated to a hero, a quasi-god of the East.”
“And the fort, Turlo,” I said, “had the same plan, down to the same courtyard and the same big bowl in it, as Wall's End.”
“How Perras would like to know this!” Sorley said.
“And where did this road go?” Turlo asked.
“To where we met you at the river, I believe,” Cillian said. “We lost all trace of it in the last part of our journey, but it had run directly east, and Lena kept us on that bearing the whole time.”
“Well done, both of you,” Turlo said. “Does this river have a name?” he asked, turning to Cillian.
“Ubë, if I remember correctly.”
“I have little doubt of that,” Turlo answered, a touch drily. “Can you tell us anything else about it? We have been navigating on what some of the lady Irmgard's men remember hearing from Fritjof's crew when they first returned, and Sorley's faint memories of a map or two.”
Cillian explained what he remembered, the three channels, suggesting rockier, broken land. “Rough waters, then,” Turlo said. “How much further south?”
“If the maps were accurate—let me think.” We waited. “It took us fifteen days to cross the grasslands, but three were rest days, so twelve—I would say a four-day sail, maybe five, from where we met.”
“I will let the steersman know,” Turlo said, turning to Irmgard. “With your permission, my lady?”
“Of course,” she said. “I have told you before, command him as you need.” She had remained quiet until now, clearly listening. I had glanced her way on and off, covertly studying her. Fair-haired like most northern women, I guessed her to be Cillian's age or a bit younger. Clearly the ship was hers. But other than her oarsmen and two women attendants, she was alone.
I remembered something. “Sorley,” I said, “when we met, you said, ‘I can't believe we found you’. Were you looking for us?”
“Not directly,” Turlo answered, “and certainly not here. But we are bound for Casil, if there is a Casil, and we thought you might be too. It was there I would have searched for you.”
“Why? We are exiled.” A thought struck me. “Surely you are not, too?”
“No, lassie, we are not, or not in the way you mean. I would have looked for you, because exiled or no, you are dear to me and I wanted to know you were safe, if I could.”
“As I wished to know you were, Cillian,” Sorley said. “And Lena, of course,” he added, with a slight bow of his head to me, “but it is you that Dagney and Perras and all the Ti'ach would most want word of, if we return.”
“I would not want to be a worry to them,” Cillian said, faintly ironic. Sorley shook his head slightly.
“You haven't changed at all,” he said, smiling. “You were always a worry to them, you fool.”
Cillian was taken aback by that. I could see it on his face, briefly, until he recovered his composure. “Was I now?” he said. “I will write a most abject letter of apology, then, and send it with you.”
Old defenses. Sorley just shook his head again and said nothing.
“General,” Cillian said, turning to Turlo, “what did you intend to convey by 'not exiled in the way you mean'?”
“Ah,” Turlo said, “now we come to it. This is not good news, not at all, so prepare yourselves.”
It would not be, I thought, for Turlo to be here. A cold fear began to gather inside me.
“There are three parts to it, so it will take some time.” Turlo continued. “Lady Irmgard, would you like to begin?”
“Mine may be the simplest,” she said. Her voice, although accented, was clear, a woman used to authority. “You were both at Fritjof's hall,” she gestured towards us, “so I need not tell that tale again. He had me imprisoned, with my women, a bit north of there. But not all there were as loyal as he thought, so by certain bribes I got a message to what remained of my husband's men, and they brought this little ship to rescue me, while Fritjof was—looking elsewhere, fighting to the south. I did not feel safe, anywhere in Varsland, and it was my steersman, Geiri, who suggested we sail east, saying Fritjof would never seek me there. So we began, and then my tale joins that of the lord Sorley and the General.”
She fell silent. Her fear of Fritjof must be strong, I thought, to risk a voyage into unknown lands.
“Mine is also simple,” Sorley said. “My father supported Fritjof. Our family, a very long time ago, came from Varsland, and it seems that in his heart he thinks of himself as Marai. I had left the Ti'ach—it was almost time for me to go, anyhow—because I felt I would be needed at home to help defend our people. I met one of our torpari on the road, fleeing south with a bag on his back and only a stick as protection. I turned around and went back to Linrathe, and then from Ti'ach to Ti'ach, with messages.” He paused, swallowed, struggle clear on his open face. “This is hard for me to say to myself, and worse to a countryman. Cillian, Linrathe has fallen.”
I shivered, from the news and from the piercing fear of how Cillian would react. His face was still. I put a hand on his arm, willing him to not give the reflexi
ve, brittle response I was afraid of. He took a deep breath, and I saw I had misjudged: the stillness had been focus, not shield.
“Lorcann. He did support Fritjof, then?” Cold enveloped me. Had we gambled and won our personal stake, only for the next roll of the dice to lead to this?
Turlo spoke, his voice firm. “The Emperor's choice, his, and only his. He knew the risks, better than anyone. This is not your grief to carry, either of you.”
“How can it not be?” Cillian said bitterly. “Would he have decided as he did, had I been just a random man of Linrathe? Lorcann would have been satisfied with my life; he could have exiled Lena, and let me die, and we—you—would have peace. You know that was the right thing to do, General. You gave your son to this cause; why should not the Emperor have done the same?”
“Darel was a soldier,” Turlo said, his voice rough, “and soldiers die. It is our truth. And that was not your fault either,” he said, looking at me. “Linrathan men killed my son, in confusion and anger, and I hold neither of you responsible.” He cleared his throat, falling silent.
I wiped tears from my face. I wanted to put my arms around Cillian, to feel him hold me, sharing this terrible grief, but this was not the place. I felt the weight of the silence. No, I thought. No.
“There is more, isn't there?” I asked in a small voice. “Turlo, why are you here, and not at Callan's side?”
I had once thought Turlo irrepressible. The delight of our unexpected meeting must have pushed aside care for a few hours, but now I saw the anguish he had hidden. “Not the Empire too?” I whispered.
“No,” he said, “not quite, or not when I left. But the Marai had far more ships and men than we could know, and with the men of Sorham, and some of Linrathe, with them...when I left, our troops—our people—were being beaten back from the coast.
“When you, Cillian, were at the Wall's End fort, you told us that Fritjof had claimed to have sailed east to another land and come home safely. We—The Emperor and Casyn and myself—talked about that off and on, and one night, when the situation had begun to look desperate, Callan gave me my orders: go east. Maybe the Eastern Empire lives on, he said, and maybe, just maybe, they would come to our aid. I argued, as you can guess, but Callan is the Emperor, and it was an order.”
Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy Page 77
