by Adam Corby
XVII
Egland Downs
WHEN THE BARBARIANS FELL upon Vapio in the dusty heat, they swept aside the womanish charioteers and put to the sack the towered city of the age-old High Kings. The notorious pleasure-gardens they found already burning: for the High Charan Arstomenes, apprised of the enemy’s approach, had resumed the custom of his ancestors and in the midst of his last debauch adorned his death with the lives of his votaries, the graceful, besotted nobility of the Empire.
But when they gained the Eglands, the barbarians found before them not cities rising high behind stone walls, but thousands of scattered ranches and horse-herds splendid as the winds. An army greeted them as well, the greatest army ever seen by man: the army of the League of Elna pitched on the flank of the river Eaffash on the wide flat plain of Egland Downs.
The barbarians passed on, avid for Tarendahardil. They left behind them stark death where the army of the League had been, but they left the ranchers in peace.
The folk of those ranches lived on as they had before.
Of the Eglanders there were two classes. The elite riders of the High Charanti of the House of Esothan fell at Egland Downs; the ranchers, earth-colored, humble men with no thought beyond their herds, survived. And now those horsemen rode the rolling plains as they had for centuries.
In a broad bowl of land set between three softly falling slopes of the plain, a man named Eno had his ranch. Here he had come as a young man with his father, freed and made rich by their service to the Imperial House. Now as a stout man of middle age he had a good, coin-keeping wife, six strong sons, several daughters, and a herd of two hundred of the finest stock, swift, long-legged beauties with the scent of God in their nostrils.
One pass late in the second autumn after Egland Downs it fell out that Galn, Eno’s third son, entered the hall where the household was at table for the third meal. They had been noisy before, but at Galn’s appearance fell silent.
Eno put his fat thumb in his belt and greeted his son. ‘Come eat with us if you have hunger. Is it already time for Arnam to ride on the ridges and watch for the enemy?’
Galn stepped deeper into the hall and drew off the wide-brimmed hat of the horsemen. ‘Father, I was riding as you bade me, when I saw two strangers on the plain.’
‘Were they armed?’ asked Arnam.
‘No, they are not with the barbarians,’ Galn answered. ‘The one was doubtful of looks, but the other was tall, of lordly features and bearing, and spoke in the language of the court. When we approached them, they would not speak of their business nor of where they went, but only bade me guide them some place where they might eat and rest. They wear ragged garments, their hair and beards are wild, and their wind-burnt cheeks hollow. They were never slaves, nor ranchers, nor field-workers, nor merchants, nor craftsmen of the cities. They were fighting-men once, but now they cross beneath Goddess with little meat and water – not even a single horse. So, seeing their unhappy state and thinking that here were two men who had lost all at the hands of the Cursed One, I brought them here. Even now they wait without the hall to see if you will grant them courtesy, father.’
‘Then bring them here before us, my son,’ said Eno. ‘For no doubt you have reason, and these two men deserve our shelter. But when you have led them in, Galn, go out again with your men and ride the circuit lest this prove a trick.’
Galn nodded and went. Meanwhile the hall fell noisy with wondering who the strangers might be, and what good fortune their visit should bring.
When the men appeared in the hall, the talk fell off. Galn had been right about these two. Their arms were too hard, their bearing too proud, their eyes too bold. The tall one perhaps was well enough, but his fellow, as broad as he was tall, made the householders uneasy. Over his chest he wore a string of huge, evil teeth, the like of which none had seen before. His features too were strange, and his looks were scornful. His body was mottled with scars of sword-wounds, knife-marks, burn-welts and lance-wounds. Even Eno was struck at the sight of him.
At length however, gathering his courage, Eno stood so that the Goddesslight falling through the windows threw his shadow across the old horse-lances and sword set for decoration on the wall.
‘Greetings, friends,’ he said. ‘Brothers I should say, for we are all joined against the common foe. I am Eno, and this is my house. Here find welcome, and any help or comfort we can offer you.’
Briefly the tall one inclined his head. ‘I thank you and accept your hospitality,’ he said in the ritual phrase of the guest. ‘May Goddess shine on you, and may God, who is ever a wanderer, see your kindness this pass.’
Eno bowed and made greetings on behalf of each member of his family. The tall one said, ‘I am Torval, and this man you may call Brinbal, the Strong One. I am a Rukorian who fought beneath the walls of Bollakarvil when she fell last year. Since then I have been sick, and this man tended me. We crossed the Sontil, and escaped that place but a week or so ago. Since then we have wandered here hungry, sore and weary, yet most of all anxious for news. We have heard nothing of the happenings of the world for more than a year.’
At this they greatly wondered around the table, for they had never heard of anyone who had traversed the Sontil and emerged from it still living. But Eno, who had learned the ways of the highborn during his service for the nal Bordakasha, made space at the table and placed before the guests meat and cheese and fermented mare’s milk. ‘And if there is anything else you wish, sir,’ he added, ‘only tell us, and there will be legs to run and fetch it.’
‘Let the food be first,’ Torval said. ‘Later I will say what else I will require. But while we eat, tell me the events of the world. What news is there of your lord, the Charan Farnese – and of Tarendahardil and her Divine Majesty the Empress?’
‘Alas, sir,’ said Eno, lowering his face, ‘there I have but one sad tale after another to rob you of your hunger. But will your companion not eat with us?’ The massive stranger had not taken his place at the table, but instead sat on a round stone stool against the far wall, and shook his head at every offer of food or drink the house-women made.
The Rukorian shrugged. ‘He will do as he likes. He is a barbarian, and my captive.’
There was silence. Eno cleared his throat and asked rather nervously, ‘Then, sir, should not some care be taken? We have no place to hold men. Perhaps the cave below, where we store our milks and meats?’
Torval barked a bitter laugh. ‘Let him be. He has sworn me and his word is good.’
‘If that is so, sir, then indeed marvels attend you with every appearance of dark God,’ Eno said, glancing at the huge-muscled barbarian. But later when the general noise had uprisen anew, he leaned across the corner of the table to Kamalan his second son and said, ‘See you keep careful watch over the barbarian – be always between him and those old lances on the wall.’
Throughout the meal the householders cast fearful glances at the huge-bodied man. There were times in the course of the recounting of the year’s events, when some of them would curse the barbarians or their leader. Then an awkward silence would fall over them, all but the Rukorian, who went on eating as before; and none dared look at the barbarian.
But that one sat steadfast on the stone, eating nothing, drinking nothing, seeing nothing, seeing all.
The Rukorian put many questions to Eno about the fall of Tarendahardil and the siege of Renda the Black Citadel, but he seemed moved only when he learned of the death of the Charan Farnese.
‘Yes, sir, it struck us all,’ Eno said. ‘He was a great lord, a noble lord, and of a long ago time as it seems to me now. We won’t see his like again! Not that I knew him, or that he was ever even kind with me, or relented on his privileges the breadth of a stalk of hay – but he was of the old sort, and there was a way about him that you couldn’t help but admire.’
‘He was sick a long while,’ the Rukorian said.
‘Ah, but still, he had lived so long, it was a blow when it came. There’s no one in the plains who c
an remember a time when we weren’t ruled by the Charan. He left behind no heir, you know. He was the last of the Esothan, and left his horses and halls to the Charan Ampeánor of Rukor – your own lord, sir – him that had been all but a son to him. At least, that was the way I always heard of it, and I was in the service of her majesty the Empress some years back, when she was a girl. Would you hear of his last weeks, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then, that was in early summer, wasn’t it, Rilltor? Yes, that’s it: the foals were new upon the fields at the time, and the Charan held one in his arms and kissed its ears in blessing.
‘From ranch to ranch the Charan went, with a few friends, old men almost as well born as himself, the last of the Empire. They bore him on a litter between horses when his strength was too light to have command of the saddle. And they pitched the red tent upon a ridge, and he sat in a chair in the shadow and saw us ranchers as we came to him. Of disputes, quarrels, and the like he refused to hear a word: all he cared about was the horses. No one was allowed to speak a word about the court or the wars. It was piteous to see him, sir, weak and gasping as he was. All the flesh had gone from his face, there was only bone and veins, blue and purplish, and the big scornful eyes and harsh wet mouth. Words came to him slowly, and everyone knew the end was near. He seemed not sorry, but glad of it, in my own mind.’
Eno sighed and drank more of the mare’s milk.
‘It was at the end of the shortsleep after we saw him that he was found, sir. The old men borrowed spades and went up on the ridge and dug a pit, and cast in the stiff thin body, all stripped naked and raw. Then they threw the dark dirt on top of him and made a mound, over which they drove horses until it was flat again.
‘It seemed horrible to me. They spoke none of the rites, nor even set down stones in the outline of a barge to face Goddess and voyage his ka to the Blessed Shores. But so he had commanded it, they said. The old ones struck the red tent and set free the horses that had borne his litter, and then they rode off as the winds go. What became of them, or of the Charan’s servants, no man knows. But this is sure, none of them held a lance at Egland Downs. Out there’s where they left him, sir, upon that ridge through the window. The spot is green now, but my son Arnam left a stone to mark it. They say he wanted his body to go back to the dirt out of which Goddess had fashioned it, to feed the grasses that feed the horses. For he had lost all hope and joy in the works and world of men. The virtuous men, he said, had all departed from the world, and now all that survive them are beasts, madmen and the gods of pain.’
* * *
Later that pass the Rukorian knelt on the grass beside the stone, and looked upon the ground that held the rotten remnants of the High Charan Farnese, once the greatest general of his age, preeminent noble of the Court of the Bordakasha, Regent for an Empress and a Prince. And he, who had loved that bitter, proud old man better than any other, wept without shame, and dug his fingers in the worm-ridden dirt.
Long hours he stayed there, lost in the melancholy winds of his thoughts. Weary, weary, but his mind ran drunken on, and he could know no peace. So many had fallen in a year! Was Farnese truly gone, and in such a hateful manner? Ampeánor had had no legitimate brothers, no sisters at all; he had detested his father and loathed his mother. This one old man had been all the kin he had had, and all the love he had owned he had shared between Farnese and Allissál.
The sky was clouded, yet here and there breaks let fall mournful showers of the wheat-colored light of Goddess in Her Autumn House. The light swept slowly across the Eglands, which now appeared for the first time to Ampeánor’s eyes to be empty.
He felt the hours that had passed. It was late, past time for the fifth meal. He staggered up and made his way back to the ranch.
* * *
The master and his sons still sat to table drinking the fermented mare’s milk. Galn had joined them, for it was Keasner’s time to keep the ridges.
When they woke from the shortsleep, they found the barbarian as they had left him, sitting on the stone stool in the hall. The men went to their labor, and the women swept the hall nervously, going wide from the stone stool. In time the hour came for the fourth meal, and the household gathered anew.
Eno sent his sixth son Berlan to remind the Rukorian of the hour, but the boy, who had only nine summers, returned shyly to whisper in his father’s great ear that the stranger knelt still on the death-place of the High Charan, and had not moved at Berlan’s calls.
Eno shook his head sadly, and refilled his bowl. ‘Surely he is no mere lancer, that one. He reminds me of the High Charan. Could Farnese have had a son after all?’
The barbarian sat as ever, Goddess gleaming off his burnished skin. The shadow behind him seemed darker and more solid than the wall on which it was cast, and the light seemed evil when it glinted off the teeth that overspread his chest.
After some moments, Arnam set down the liquor-pot loudly, and his wife Elprin asked, ‘Why does he sit like that, and why don’t he eat? Can’t he go elsewhere?’
‘Hush, wife,’ said Arnam.
‘Hey, barbarian,’ called out Galn, who had drunk more of the mare’s milk than his custom. ‘Don’t you even want some of this?’ He hoisted the liquor-pot.
‘Do not tempt him, son,’ Eno said. ‘He is still a savage.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ Galn said.
‘I remember Egland Downs too, brother,’ said Arnam, looking at their father.
‘Can’t he even shut those eyes of his?’ Elprin said.
‘Do not speak of him,’ Eno’s wife said. ‘The lord said he is safe. Let him be.’
‘And when did a dirt-wallowing barbarian ever hold his word?’ asked Arnam.
Elprin giggled. Eno refilled his bowl.
‘Hush,’ said Rilltor. ‘He might hear you.’
‘He can’t understand us any better than a dog,’ Arnam said. ‘He only speaks his own foul tongue.’
‘Time for us to leave them to it,’ Rilltor told the other women. The men sat about the table drinking. But Gundoen sat steadfast on the stone, eating nothing, drinking nothing, seeing nothing, seeing all.
It was some time later when the door opened and Ampeánor stepped again into the hall. He drew off the riding-cloak and began to eat.
Eno set down his bowl and said, ‘The women are readying a dimchamber for you, lord. You are welcome to anything that is ours for as long as you please to stay.’
‘We go after the first meal. I would see Tarendahardil again as soon as I can.’
‘Lord, it is not my part to question you. But is it wise to venture so near that city? The barbarians must still be there. There are safer roads to Rukor.’
‘I go not to Rukor, but to Tarendahardil.’
‘Take me with you,’ Arnam said. ‘I want to fight the barbarians. I’m not afraid!’
‘Take me, too!’ Galn said.
The man they knew as Torval looked them over: bent-legged, raw-boned ranch-boys, their faces burnt by the wind. He shook his head. ‘I must go alone if I am to remain unseen.’
Eno sighed. ‘Listen to the lord, boys, and be wise. You are young, and have your lives ahead of you.’
Arnam and Galn looked each other in the eye. Galn said, ‘What road is safest to the City?’
‘Better avoid the Imperial roads,’ Arnam said. ‘Grellantor saw hired men of the Cursed One riding in bands on the Southern Way, a week or less ago.’
‘They’re all over,’ Kamalan said. ‘There’s only one place they won’t go.’
‘Yes, because no man will go that way for fear of his very soul,’ Eno said. ‘Even the barbarians shun the haunted fields of Egland Downs.’
‘Yes, tell us about it, father,’ Arnam said. ‘You know so much about it, don’t you?’
The master of the house set down his bowl. ‘Ah, lads, don’t blame me if I chose the safer path and wouldn’t let you die. Two or three untrained youths would have added nothing to the League. And then how great a loss to
me, if one of you had fallen? Was I not proved wise in the end?’
But the young men only frowned.
‘Still,’ Eno said. ‘It hurt me to give no aid to her majesty. I should not be saying this, I suppose, but I dare say there is not another man in all the ranches with so much reason to defend her. I was a servant of hers, when she was but a child and my father was stable-master of the castle where they raised her. Why, I even saw her in her nakedness and had the pleasure of her, which is more than many a high lord can claim.’
The Rukorian cast his gaze up and down the length of the Eglander’s fat body. ‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘Yes, it is true before Goddess, I lay in love with the Empress Allissál herself,’ Eno said. ‘And, sir, I was the first to have that pleasure, for it was I that pierced her maiden’s veil.’
‘Ah, father,’ said Kamalan with a sly distrusting smile, ‘you never told us this tale before.’
‘No, nor you nor any other, not even Rilltor. For I am a man of honor. And why it is I speak it now I cannot say, save to lay it on the knees of Goddess who has filled this drink with such strength. It was the season before the old Emperor died, that her highness the Princess came to me in the stables, and drew me down and put her hands about me, for I was a well-favored youth, and she was hot to learn the ways of love. Later, after she became Empress, she granted my father and me our freedom, and give us gold with which to buy this ranch. And so all you boys were born free, for Rilltor and I wed after I was a free man, as you know well.’
‘Do you mean it is true?’ asked Galn. ‘The Empress knows you?’
‘Yes, son, as she knows few others.’
‘Then you could have sent us to her majesty with words of introduction? And we would have been presented at the court?’ Arnam asked.
‘Why, I suppose that is not too far from true,’ Eno said, reaching for the liquor-pot.
‘But this a foul-mouthed lie you tell,’ the Rukorian said. He rose to his feet and leaned his fists on the table. Then Eno bethought himself, and let go the pot.
‘Indeed, my lord, it is not. I speak no slander of her majesty, whom the Couple look after and protect from lies. I would gladly take back my words, seeing how they have wrought in you, lord, but I cannot swallow back simple truth. I did indeed lie with the young Princess in the hay of the stables, near the horses in the cool shadow. At first I was unwilling, as a loyal servant of my lord. It was she who fell all hot with longing for me, and putting her hands beneath my tunic made me promise to teach her the ways of Goddess. And such was her beauty that I did as I wished with her, many times. And for that she gave me many gifts.’
