“Did you find any trace of the General?” Gregor asked, as I slowly sipped another cup of ale, and Bjørn slept in a chair. Food had been brought, and the boy had eaten a little before his eyelids had drooped.
“He’ll make a soldier, if he can sleep that easily anywhere,” Gregor commented. Druise could do that, I thought, and pushed the memory away.
“None,” I said, responding to Gregor’s earlier question. “I went all the way to the narrow sea, but no sign, and no one on the coast had seen him either.”
He pursed his lips. “A loss,” he said. “You’re going to Dun Ceànnar in the morning?”
“Is all well there?”
“Aye. The Teannasach’s well, and his cousins too. He refused to allow forts to be built on the coast, to the displeasure of the Governor of Ésparias, I heard. But the treaty gave him the right.”
We talked a while longer, until I began to yawn. I picked up Bjørn, who barely stirred, and carried him to the bedroom prepared for us, and we slept in comfort under woven blankets and furs until well after the usual breakfast time the next morning. Then I found the bath house, and by the time the sun was high, we were cleaner than we had been in weeks. Or perhaps months.
Even the pony had been groomed, and its rough harness cleaned. A horse waited for me as well. I wondered what Gregor had told the soldiers who had brought us over the Sterre last night, but when he came to bid us farewell, I didn’t ask. I wasn’t a toscaire now, privy to such things. I wasn’t Lord Sorley, either: Dugar had witnessed the instructions I had written, ceding Gundarstorp to Roghan, and by Sorham’s traditions I had relinquished any title too. I was a landless scáeli, and nothing more.
“Bjørn,” I began, when we were away from the Sterre and not yet being followed by Dun Ceannar’s guards. “We are in Linrathe now, you understand?” He nodded. “I am taking you to this country’s leader, the Teannasach. Only he, and perhaps his advisors, will know who you really are. To everyone else, you remain my son. Your mother was a girl from Gundarstorp.”
“Can I say she was Irmgard?” he asked.
“It would be safer to call her Irmë.”
“I’ll try to remember,” he said. He looked up from the pony. “Am I going to live with the...the Teannasach?”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps you will go to a school. That might be better. You should be well educated.”
“I can’t stay with you?” I heard just a hint of plaintiveness in the question.
“No,” I said gently.
“Why not?”
“Because,” I said, “I don’t know where I’m going.”
We were in luck; the Dun Ceànnar guards recognized me, and so there was no tiresome questioning, or searches, and we were in Ruar’s presence by early afternoon. He’d grinned hugely on seeing me, and the embrace that accompanied the kiss of welcome had been enthusiastic. His cousin Oisín’s was more subdued, but he too was genuinely happy to see me.
“Daoíre is at Wall’s End. I have met the Governor, too; in the autumn.” Ruar told me. He turned to the boy. “But who is this?”
“My son,” I said, with Oisín in the room. “Bjørn.”
I would not be the first channàdarra man with a child, or several. Ruar gave me a level look. “Oisín, please leave us.”
When his cousin had gone, he looked at the boy closely. “Who are you?”
Bjørn glanced up at me. I nodded. “You can tell the Teannasach.” I wanted the boy to speak the words, to keep his true identity clear in his mind. “Bjørn, prince of Varsland,” the boy said, pride evident. “My father was Ǻsmund; my mother is Irmgard.”
“You are the younger prince?” Ruar asked. He’d shot me a look, but he addressed Bjørn.
“Yes. My brother Bryngyl is the heir. I have been sent here for safety.”
“And to test my support against Fritjof?” the Teannasach asked. “Who knows he is here, Sorley?”
“My brother, and the Harr of Dugarstorp, and perhaps their wives.” I explained how we’d spent the winter, and how we’d travelled.
“You have no objection to the deception continuing? That he is your son?”
“None,” I said. “I’d be proud if he was.”
“Then,” Ruar said, coming to a rapid decision, “he shouldn’t stay at Dun Ceànnar. Where would you send him, were he truly yours, Sorley?”
“To the Ti’ach na Asgaill,” I said. I’d noted Bjørn’s quickness with numbers, his ability to estimate the number of sheep in a flock almost at a glance; how easily he divided up food for a given number of days.
“Then Asgaill will have him. But I would like him to stay with me a few days.”
“Of course.” Why not? It would delay me only a little, and it would be a valid postponement of what I had to do next. I hadn’t quite told Bjørn the truth when I’d said I didn’t know where I was going: I did, but it would be briefly. I couldn’t stay; Lena had made that clear. After that I truly had no idea.
Ruar called for food then, and while we ate I explained to Bjørn what his life would be like at the Ti’ach. He nodded solemnly. “Like the schoolroom at Dugarstorp, but bigger.”
“Exactly.”
“Can I have the pony?”
“Yes.” The shaggy animal was the right mount for a torpari-born boy acknowledged by his noble father. He’d need something better in a year or two. I’d have to arrange for that before I left.
Later, when the steward had taken Bjørn away to find him clothes and the other trappings he would need at the Ti’ach, Ruar questioned me in detail about the Härren of Sorham; who he could trust, who would follow a strong leader, and who would consider profit before anything else. He’d matured, physically, over the winter, dark hair shadowing his chin and cheeks now, his chest and shoulders and neck broader.
“I can marry next year,” he said. “Or at least betroth a girl. Who is there? Did you learn that?”
“Bjørn says Earl Olavi has a daughter, and so does Aaro. Olavi’s is older, thirteen, he thinks. Helvi, her name is.”
“Won’t she be destined for Bryngyl?”
“They want a marriage alliance. Offer soon, and I think they’ll accept. Take the fish that’s in the net, we’d say in Sorham.”
He nodded. “She could come to be schooled here too, maybe at the Ti’ach na Iorlath? Skills in healing are good for a woman to have. If she’s thirteen, it will be some years before we can actually marry, and I too could further my learning.”
A sound plan, I thought, although it would need to be carefully executed. But Ruar was still speaking. “If I am to offer marriage to the girl, a message will need to be sent.”
Why not? It would be something to do. I could be Saaren again. “I must go to Wall’s End first,” I said. “I have a duty to discharge there.”
Ruar smiled. “Not you, Sorley. I have another task for you. I am not risking Linrathe’s newest scáeli again. Bhradaín was horrified when he learned where you had gone.”
“What is it you want me to do, then?”
“On your way to Wall’s End, there is a letter that must go to the Lady Dagney. It concerns appointments to the Ti’ach, and as you are riding south, I would prefer you deliver it.”
Chapter 54
15 years after the battle of the Taiva
We’d been at the Ti’ach for five days when Karl arrived. He came alone. Barì offered us his teaching room. At my request, he stayed to hear our discussion.
Karl sat across from me, his arms folded. Shorter than me, and stockier, but about my age. “I sold them those horses,” he said. “That’s all.”
“You aided Marai men bearing arms.” I kept my body relaxed, my voice reasoned.
“His wife had been stolen, and the young one’s bride.”
“Is that what they told you?” I didn’t believe him, although the tightness in his voice could, just possibly, be fear. I had Ruar’s ear, and he knew it.
“Ja. They said Dugi wanted the girl for himself, and he took them both to ensure
her compliance.” If he knew they were with Dugi, then why had the Marai been riding south?
“You didn’t just sell them horses,” I said. “You told them to avoid the coastal torps, and how to come at Dugarstorp from the south. They knew you would assist them, which is why they brought their boat to your lands.”
“I trade with them,” he said. “Just as your brother does, and Dugar, and all the Härren on this coast.”
“Trade,” I said, “is one thing. Abetting an armed raid in Sorham is quite another.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” he snarled.
“Very little, just now,” I said. “I’ll keep the horses, unless you want to pay the price of a trained war animal.”
“Ridden by a girl?”
“Ridden by the daughter of the woman who killed Fritjof,” I said, allowing my voice to become cold. “A girl who put knives into two of those Marai.”
His eyes widened fractionally. So the shepherd hadn’t told him who Gwenna was. No love lost between him and his Harr?
“Fuck,” Karl said. “I didn’t know. I mean that, Sorley. I thought she was just a girl being escorted to this school. Scáeli’en do that, don’t they?”
“You didn’t wonder why there was a guard with us? Scáeli’en travel alone, as we are meant to be free from attack.”
“Didn’t know he was a guard. I suppose I thought he was just someone you met on the road.”
I was inclined to believe this part. I waited, wanting to hear what else he would say.
“Keep the horses,” he offered.
“I will,” I said mildly. “Comiádh, is Harr Karl supporting the Ti’ach?”
“I have been considering how,” Karl said, before Barì could speak.
“Shall I tell you how, or would you prefer to wait for the Teannasach’s judgement?” I asked. “Ruar may still impose his own penalties, of course, but it will go easier for you, I should think, if you have cooperated with my suggestions.”
Karl rubbed the back of his neck. Ruar could strip him of his lands for what he’d done. “What do you want?”
I knew what the Ti’ach needed, from a conversation in the baths at my own school, weeks ago. Karl’s hands clenched when I told him, but he didn’t argue. A hundred sheep, and the grazing lands to support them, where his land ran along the valley almost to the Ti’ach. “And if the shepherd who brought you our message wants to come with them, him and his dog, all the better,” I added as an afterthought. I didn’t want the man punished.
We wrote two copies of the agreement, and signed them both. One would stay here; one I would take to Dun Ceànnar. I was — just — within my rights and power as the senior scáeli of Linrathe to do this. Perhaps.
I walked with Barì and Karl out into the summer sunshine, and after a word to the Comiádh, walked a little further with Karl.
“No one,” I said, “has to know why you ceded the land, except the three of us here, and the Teannasach.”
“Now what do you want?” he growled.
“A promise. That whatever talk happens in your hall about the superiority of Marai rule stops. You’ll think of a reason you’ve changed your mind. And — how old are your children?”
“Grown men and women,” he said. “The youngest boy is sixteen.”
“Send him here for a year or two,” I said. “He’ll be company for Roghan’s son.”
“He’ll hate it.”
“So will Hairle,” I said. I bade him a civil farewell. Barì and I watched him ride away. “I know little of sheep,” the Comiádh said. “I hope the shepherd comes with them.”
“I rather think he might. But you may need more than a shepherd. I’m going to tell Pietar and Roghan that Karl gave the Ti’ach land and sheep, but not why. They’ll almost certainly do the same, or be shamed in the eyes of other Härren. You’ll need torpari, but if Karl sends his shepherd, the others will find someone willing to move.”
Barì threw his head back in a deep laugh. “And here I thought Cillian was the negotiator. But who will manage all this?”
I grinned. “You’ll shortly have two sixteen-year olds who don’t want to be here. Hairle will certainly be competent to manage a small torp: I was, at his age. Likely Karl’s son will be too. Teach them some history and thought when you can, and leave the lands to them.”
Chapter 55
I called a halt beside a small burn, at the spot where its descent to the sea began. Before us lay Gundarstorp, the hall nestled against the side of a low hill, its cottages and outbuildings scattered along the same rise of land. White crests of waves ran to the shingle of the crescent cove, and the breeze carried the scent of drying fish. The tears I blinked away had nothing to do with the wind.
I’d been back several times in the eight years since Ruar had married Helvi, her bride-gift of Sorham making it possible. I knew my nephews and my nieces, and my half-brother, and my father’s second wife, and I was welcomed as both family and scáeli. My brother had tried to give me the lands back, but I had refused. “You should be Harr,” I had told him, “not steward, and Hairle is the heir in either case. My life is elsewhere, Roghan.” It was, and I had no regrets, but not everything or everyone I loved was at the Ti’ach.
“The sea is beautiful,” Gwenna said from beside me.
“It is,” I agreed. “But not always as calm as it looks today. In storms, it can be vicious.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the ruins of a circular tower on the headland.
“The tårn? I don’t know. It’s ancient.”
“A lighthouse, maybe?” Druise suggested.
“Maybe. Maybe a watchtower. The sheep shelter in it, sometimes.” Roghan and I had climbed among its stones and in the hollow between its inner and outer wall, pretending to be Marai raiders. I wondered if his children had done the same, if he had allowed them to play at what had really happened such a short time before. Probably.
Gwenna still stared at it. “Look back over the past, at the empires that rose and fell,” she said, almost under her breath. “It wasn’t the Eastern Empire that built that, was it?”
“No one knows who built it, or when,” I told her. “Shall we keep going? It’s nearly time for the midday meal.”
I hadn’t seen my brother for two years. He hugged me, his grin wide. I hadn’t told him I was coming; I didn’t need to. You are going home, Cillian had said. I’d demurred, but he wasn’t wrong, not entirely. “Roghan,” I said after kissing him, “you are well?”
“As can be. Who is this with you, brother?”
Gwenna and Druise had dismounted and waited by their horses. Roghan’s hand was on my shoulder. He was looking at Druise.
“Druisius. Gwenna’s bodyguard.” Druise stepped forward to clasp his hand. “And a fine musician in his own right,” I added, “as you will hear tonight, perhaps.” Roghan’s expression changed, but it was my first words that had caused his reaction. He’d heard me speak of her, often enough.
“My lady Gwenna,” He inclined his head. “Welcome to Gundarstorp.”
“Harr Roghan, thank you,” she said. “Are your lands the northern reach of Sorham?”
“As far north as it is possible to be, except for the Raske Hoys,” Roghan said with a smile. From the doorway to the house, a young man stepped out into the sunlight. Pale haired, of medium height, solidly muscled from the work of the torp. His eyes flicked among us, but they rested on Gwenna.
He was sixteen. She was graceful and assured, and as beautiful as her father had been, twenty-three years earlier. “Hairle,” I said, to break the spell. I held out my arms. “Come here.” He came, with a last glance at Gwenna, for the kiss of greeting. My namesake.
Then the other children spilled out of the house, followed by calm Betis, who had been meant to be my wife, and Maj, my stepmother, who was barely older than I. Kisses and hugs and introductions done, I looked around, not seeing my half-brother. “Where’s Nyle?”
“Gone trading,” Roghan said. �
�He’s nineteen now, and there’s little for him here. So he took a place on a ship heading east to trade furs and amber.”
“East?” I said. “Down the Ubë?”
“Your fault,” he said, grinning. “After he heard your danta, he could talk of little else. Come, brother, let’s eat.”
After a meal that went on much longer than it should have at midday on a busy torp, Betis stopped by my chair. “You have posed us a problem,” she said. Gwenna had gone off with the oldest girl, for reasons I guessed after seeing them speaking together in low tones. Better here than during our travels, I thought, and we’d be home again in less than a month. But it reminded me I had a package of anash to give Betis: the plant did not survive this far north.
“And that is?” I asked.
“The princess should have the best room. Unless I ask Hairle to move back with his brothers, we only have Nyle’s room unoccupied, so you and Druisius will have to share. And that is disrespectful to a scáeli.”
“I am not here as a scáeli,” I said. “Sharing is not a hardship. But do not call Gwenna ‘the princess’ in her hearing. She is not fond of the title.”
“She did not baulk when your brother called her ‘my lady’,” Druise said. He’d been quiet throughout the meal. “She is beginning to accept who she is, I think,”
I had noticed. “Just use her name, Betis. Let her be just a girl a little longer.”
Roghan came back in from outdoors. “Are you coming, Sorley? The barley is doing very well this year, and we have new racks for drying the fish.”
“All right,” I said, getting up. “Come, Druise. I’ve seen your subura; it’s time you saw my childhood home.”
Farming had been as foreign to Druise as his marketplace upbringing had been to me, but over the years at our Ti’ach, with me managing the torp, he’d learned some things. Enough to ask intelligent questions about how this thin land was kept fertile, and he made admiring comments about the horses.
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