As they walked further down the corridor, she heard a low murmur that might have been water or voices and then more raucous laughter and a baying that sounded like a pack of hounds. They turned a corner and suddenly the source of the noise was in front of them. The hall was long and low, almost like a tunnel through the black rock. Two great fires blazed at each end, so that everyone within was lit with a golden glow. There were dogs here, scores of them, but the baying came from the men at whose feet they lay. She’d never heard talk so loud or so unrestrained. Her uncle kept a table far colder than this.
Lin had told her there was little food in Winter’s Hammer but he’d said nothing of ale. She could see great vats of it on the tables and guessed that as much again already swirled in the men’s guts. If this was the wedding party, it had started long before the bride arrived.
A table stood on a pedestal at the far end of the room and the dozen people seated along its length faced the other revellers. Nethmi’s prow god had been brought on its palanquin to sit in front of them. The firelight cast odd, dancing shadows behind it, as if its arms were swaying in time to the wailing music coming from a group of players at one side of the room.
When she’d walked half the length of the hall, someone finally noticed her. There was a shout, which echoed from the rock walls, and in its wake a silence so total she heard the scrape of the chair as the man at the centre of the high table rose to his feet.
‘Lady Nethmi!’ he shouted. ‘Come, come – no need to be shy.’ Lord Thilak’s portrait hadn’t done him justice. It had shown a grey-haired, stern man, but this fox-fur wrapped figure was bright with drink and pleasure and his smile was welcoming.
She took a hesitant step closer. ‘I … my lord, I don’t know the mountain ways. What is my role in this wedding?’
‘Role? Why to look pretty, say yes and later – well, a gentleman doesn’t speak of such things, eh?’
There was a roar of laughter around the room. Nethmi blushed but forced herself to meet his eye. ‘I hope, my lord, that you’ll think I’ve fulfilled at least the first of those.’
‘Indeed you have! Your portrait was a pale reflection of your true beauty.’ He rose to his feet and, to her shock, vaulted over the table and then jumped from the platform until he was by her side. Up close, she could see that what she had taken for bulk was thick muscle. His face was finely sculpted and though he was old, there was no hint of infirmity about him.
‘Come, let me greet my bride properly.’ He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, and as he did whispered, ‘Have no fear, Lady Nethmi. Smile and curtsy and follow where I lead and all will be well.’
Something that had been wound tight in her chest loosened a little and she ventured a smile. ‘That too I can do, my lord.’
‘Let’s begin, then! You’ll meet my companions and vassals soon enough, but first you must meet my god. This is Mistislav, lord of snow, and I’m sure he’ll be happy to adopt Peacebringer as his son when he’s made his acquaintance.’
He gestured to the pedestal in front of them. Her own prow god glittered in the torchlight. Beside him was what she had taken for an unformed lump of white rock. Now she saw that it held the hint of some not-quite-human form. The rock didn’t appear carved; some other force had shaped it. She understood now why Lin had seemed shocked by Peacebringer. Her prow god looked a safe and man-made thing beside this primitive, unknowable figure.
Thilak didn’t need to prod her for her to curtsy deeply before it.
‘Good. Good,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s an odd-looking fellow, I know, but he’s served me well enough in my years here.’
The ceremony was a blur after that. She was garlanded with small, withered flowers and told to turn five times, first leftward, then rightward. Bites of food were given to her, some sweet, some sour, some so vile she had to fight not to spit them out. She drank from a gold-chased horn, feeling the burn of something strongly alcoholic down her throat, and through it all Thilak was there to guide her with a gentle hand or a soft word. Finally he bowed and handed her a metal ring jangling with heavy iron keys. ‘I give you the keys to my home,’ he said, ‘along with the key to my heart.’
Then it was over, and she was seated beside her new husband at the high table. His men had returned to their merrymaking and the roar of conversation washed up and down the long, low hall. Thilak introduced her to their dozen tablemates but she forgot the names as soon as he spoke them, her head heavy with exhaustion and the drink they’d made her consume. She noticed a tribesman of around Thilak’s age, thin-faced and solemn, and two Ashane who spent the whole meal arguing with each other, voices raised and cheeks flushed with displeasure.
At the far end of the table sat a young man who looked to be some mixed-blood relative of Thilak’s. Though his skin was pale and his hair as yellow and coarse as straw, he shared her husband’s sharp nose and crooked smile. But he was monstrously, improbably fat, rolls of it spilling from the sides of his chair to brush against his sour-faced neighbour. Only one other woman was present, a savage with greying hair and lined skin. She had laugh lines around her mouth but nothing about her behaviour during the meal suggested how she’d acquired them – she remained stony-faced throughout. She barely spoke, only watched Nethmi with thoughtful eyes.
Nethmi didn’t mind. She had no energy for conversation and little appetite for food. She let the servants fill her plate and nibbled at its contents, willing the meal to end.
‘Hold on a little longer,’ Thilak whispered in her ear. ‘It will all be over soon.’
Soon meant three toasts and then a speech that must have lasted an hour or more. She didn’t understand the words but from the roars of laughter and leering glances thrown in her direction she could guess what they were. And then the speech was over and Thilak rose and offered her his hand. She took it and hoped he couldn’t feel her shaking. She knew a wife’s duty and she would do it, however much it hurt. At least her husband seemed a kind man.
He led her the length of the hall and she held her head high, meeting the assessing glances of his men with proud eyes. Outside the hall, the cold slammed into her. Thilak saw her shiver and put his arm around her shoulders. His body was furnace-warm and she made herself relax and lean into it.
‘A difficult day, I know,’ he said as he led her up a flight of stairs, then down a corridor carpeted with wolf pelts.
She shrugged. ‘A long day, my lord.’
‘Good, good.’ He smiled at her abstractedly as he stopped before a wooden door. She expected him to open it, but he turned to face her. ‘Tell me, when were your last courses?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your courses, your monthlies – when did you last bleed?’
She blushed fiercely, a combination of shame and anger. ‘Two weeks ago.’
‘Ah.’ He opened the door but set his back to it, blocking her way. ‘You won’t be fertile until you finish bleeding again. Well, there’s no rush, I suppose.’
She was so shocked that he’d almost shut the door on her before she roused herself and shouted, ‘Wait!’
The door creaked fully open again and his head poked round. ‘What? Oh yes, of course. You don’t know your way around yet, do you? Go to the end of this corridor, take the left turn then the second right and you’ll find your room – the third on the left. Your woman will come in the morning to bring your breakfast.’
He shut the door again and from inside his room came a clattering that might have been him removing his sword. She stared at the door for a long while, but the corridor was chilly and dark and she was aching with exhaustion. He wasn’t coming out. She drew a deep breath and began the walk to her room.
When she reached the end of the corridor she found herself face to face with the woman from the high table at dinner. The pale-skinned savage nodded curtly at Nethmi but didn’t pause as she walked by.
Nethmi turned to watch as the woman went to Thilak’s door and opened it without knocking. As minutes passed and she did
n’t emerge, Nethmi’s incredulity slowly curdled into something sour. So much for any hope that her life could be better here, out of her uncle’s shadow. So much for her belief that she had left the masks behind in Whitewood. People hid who they truly were everywhere, but now she understood exactly what mask she would be asked to wear in Winter’s Hammer. Her chest felt hollow with anger as she continued on her way to her empty room.
7
The thick goatskin tent let in only a trickle of dawn light, but it always woke Krish. In the bleary uncertainty of returned consciousness he briefly thought it just another day and rolled to his feet to begin it. But when his eyes focused he saw his mother watching him from across the dead fire. His father – no, not his father. Now he was fully awake, his memory of the night before was cuttingly sharp. The man he’d thought his father had wrapped all the skins and furs around himself. The woman he’d thought was his mother shivered on the ground, one arm wrapped around her middle with the hand tucked beneath her armpit, the other flung out to the side at an unnatural angle. Krish could see the swelling and purple bruising around her twisted elbow.
He dropped to his knees beside her. ‘Is it broken?’
She shook her head and looked uneasily at her husband, though he’d drunk himself into a stupor on bag after bag of fermented goat’s milk and would be unlikely to wake before noon.
Krish touched the skin of her elbow and she flinched away. ‘It is broken. Let me send a message for the healer.’ He knew that his voice was strangely tight. He wasn’t sure if he’d forgiven her for her lies, but he couldn’t stop caring about her.
She shook her head. ‘We don’t have the coin to waste on a bruise. It will heal itself. A few days should see it right.’
‘Then I’ll stay and help you. The herd are safe enough. They don’t need me, not today.’
‘No! No. Go out and do your work. He’ll be angry if you don’t. And with me he’ll be sorry this morning, he always is. It’s just his way, he doesn’t really mean it. He didn’t mean what he said to you last night. You understand that, don’t you, Krishanjit?’
He grunted, because he didn’t understand. ‘I’ll be gone then. But you can send a boy to fetch me if you need me.’ He bent down to kiss her on the forehead, then thought better of it. He gave her an awkward half smile instead and hurried from the tent.
The rest of the village had woken too. His neighbours nodded at him at he passed, the young men on the way to mind their own herds and the fathers to the hunt. The women would remain in the tents in this cold season; no gardens to tend and plenty of salting and smoking and weaving to be done. The girls had the worst of it, sent to the river to break the ice and wash their family’s pots. Their hands would redden and chap and later in life they’d twist with arthritis from all that hard use.
Krish wondered how many of them had known about him. Every one of them, probably. They’d have asked how his mother had a child when her belly had never swelled. He felt like the butt of a secret joke and hurried away from them all to begin the long and wearying climb to the herd.
The goats were scattered across the hill outside the cave where Dapple was tied. The billy bleated as he approached, an indignant note in his voice. Krish reached out carefully, wary of his horns, but the animal let him untie the harness around his neck and chest before bounding over the rocks towards the rest. They were nosing through the frost to find the hardy plants that had survived it. There were few enough of them, and Krish knew he’d soon have to begin feeding them the grain they’d stored after the harvest. It was early in the season for that. It had been a hard year: a cold year and getting colder.
He scratched Shorty between the ears, then climbed the rise to begin his headcount. The goats’ yellow eyes turned to watch as he walked among them. He found their impassive regard comforting. They didn’t care who his mother and father were. But who were his mother and father? They’d thrown him away, he knew that much. Maybe he was better off with the people he’d thought his parents. His da might not have wanted him, but at least he’d kept him.
He was so lost in the maze of his own thoughts he almost didn’t notice when the count came up short. Snowy was missing and her unnamed kid with her. Weak as she still was, he knew she couldn’t have gone far, and it didn’t take him long to find her. She’d crossed the next ridge in search of food, probably hungrier than her fellows because of her child. She’d found a whole bush, green and tempting, its shiny leaves and red berries stark against the white-rimed ground.
Snowy lay next to the bush. Her sides were heaving and he could see a pool of shit at her rear where she’d lost control of her bowels. She was still alive, though, and might stay that way if she hadn’t eaten too many of the poisonous berries. He could crush some spinewort and mix it with water, force her to swallow it and hope it made her bring up the rest of her lethal meal.
It was too late for the kid. Its little body lay between her legs and chest, huddled against an udder from which it could no longer suckle. Snowy watched Krish with bloodshot eyes as she licked at the body and then nudged it with her nose. She bleated pitifully when it didn’t move.
‘It’s no good,’ he told her. ‘You fed him the poison in your milk. You killed him, Snowy.’
He sat on the ground beside her and rested his hand on the kid. Its corpse was already cold; soon enough it would be frozen solid. There was enough meat on it for a meal or two in these lean times, but the flesh would be full of the berries’ poison. The thought of eating the little creature turned his stomach anyway. There were rocks enough to build a cairn and no heat in the air to rot the flesh and sicken the herd. Snowy’s kid would have a proper memorial.
He’d been crying since he saw Snowy by the bush and realised what it meant. He drew a shuddering breath to try to stop, but it hitched on another sob and he rested his head on his knees and let it out. Nothing was right. Nothing was fair.
He felt drained when it was over, as if something more than water had seeped out of him. His throat was raw as he drew icy breaths through it, but his mind felt clearer. He looked at the bush again, with its half-nibbled leaves and very red berries. Then he rose to his feet and began to pick them.
His ma was surprised to see him back so early but his da was gone, as he’d hoped, probably on the trail of that wild pig whose tracks had been spotted around the village. His mother had been trying to weave, but it was impossible with her injured arm and she’d left her work tangled at her side and was instead chopping the vegetables for dinner. That was awkward too with just one hand. He could see blood smeared across the white bulb of the turnip where she’d cut herself with the knife.
‘Here, let me.’ He prised the knife from her fingers and set about chopping.
Her face was drawn, with dark circles under her eyes. His probably looked the same. He doubted either of them had slept well the night before.
She turned more fully into the light, revealing the ugly purple swelling around her right eye. ‘You’re home early. Is all well with the herd?’
‘Well enough. Ma, you look ready to fall. Why don’t you close your eyes for a little while?’
The bedding was behind a screen on the other side of the tent. She’d be out of sight if she went.
She shook her head. ‘You don’t need –’
‘Go!’ he said, more sharply than he intended. He made an effort to gentle his voice. ‘I hurt just looking at you, Ma. You’ll work better when you’re a little rested, anyway.’ He put a hand against her uninjured arm, but his fingers were trembling and he quickly snatched them back and clenched them into a fist.
She blinked up at him and he wasn’t sure what she read in his expression, but she sighed and nodded. ‘Maybe a minute or two. You don’t need to do this, though.’
‘I want to. Go sleep. I love you.’ He was surprised to feel the words slipping out and the way they choked up his throat.
There were tears in her eyes too as she gave him a hard, one-armed hug. ‘I love you too, Krishanji
t, since the day … I always have.’
He waited until she was safely hidden behind the screen before he took up the knife and continued chopping the vegetables. She’d never taught him to cook – it was women’s work – but he’d seen her do it a thousand times. He set the vegetables aside and fetched the meat. He took a large strip of smoked goat’s meat and chopped it. He wanted this stew to be appetising.
He piled all the ingredients into the pot with a scoop of water and set it to boiling over the fire. When it was bubbling, he took out the berries. He’d counted the number on the untouched branches, then those on the branches Snowy had nibbled, and figured she’d eaten about ten of the things. That had been enough to kill her kid but had left her merely sick. He’d tended her after he buried the little body and he thought she’d survive.
Snowy was heavy, but not as heavy as a full-grown man; maybe a third his father’s weight and no more than half his. Krish had reached his full height but long illness had kept him scrawny. So he could eat twenty berries and not die, his mother likewise. But his father – his father always took the headman’s share of the food. Krish thought back to their last meal, when his mother had put three full ladles into his father’s bowl and only one into each of theirs. That was five ladles altogether, five portions. Twenty berries each for him and his mother, sixty for his father. That was an awful lot – more than he’d reckoned. Had he picked that many?
He shot a look at the screen, but his mother remained behind it. Still, he kept his back to it to shield his hands as he counted out the berries from the pouch at his belt. There were eighty-nine. Fewer than he’d hoped, but they’d have to do the job. He scooped them up and dropped them in the stew. They mixed in easily, their red colour soon lost in the brown. He didn’t know their flavour, though. Would it be too off-putting? His mother still had a good stock of herbs. Moss-flower had a strong taste and his father was partial to it. He threw in a half-handful and mixed that around too.
Smiler's Fair: Book I of The Hollow Gods Page 10
