Cattra's Legacy

by Anna Mackenzie

  Her heart sank. She hadn’t realised how much she’d relied on gaining the traders’ help, though even without it she was sure of her course. Lying in her bed the night before, she’d seen the city again and felt certain it was Elion. If Marit refused to help she’d follow the traders as close as she dared; close enough that wolves and bandits might not trouble her.

  But Marit, scowling from beneath dense brows, had not finished. ‘Pelon’s death put an end to your childhood, I’ll warrant.’ He sucked at his teeth then let out a spicy gust of breath. ‘You carry your own belongings and you do as you’re told. No complaints or I’ll leave you by the roadside to make your way alone.’

  Risha nodded eagerly.

  ‘We leave at dawn. Be ready at your door before sunrise. We’ll not wait.’

  He turned away and Risha, dismissed, made her way back between the stalls. In the centre of the village she paused, the reality of leaving sinking in. Whether she belonged here or not, Torfell was the only home she’d ever known.

  Veering from the houses, she climbed the path to the cemetery, a knot of loss pulling taut in her belly. A few straggling wildflowers had begun to colonise the soil of Pelon’s grave. Risha sank to her knees beside them.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t left me,’ she whispered. Above her head the branches of a mountain ash swayed, the leaves rustling like fluttering pages. ‘And that I’d told you I loved you.’

  The surrounding gravestones, intricately carved in the delicately veined Torfell stone, seemed to watch her doubtfully.

  She lifted her chin. ‘Next time I come here, I’ll bring you a headstone, finer than any of theirs,’ she said fiercely. ‘I promise you won’t be forgotten.’

  3

  The mountain road

  The path the traders followed was narrow and steep so that they walked in single file, their mules scattered between them. By the end of the second day, Risha’s shoulders ached from the weight of her pack, though it contained little enough: food and clothes, together with Pelon’s manuscript and the few things she hoped to exchange for coin beyond the mountains. Everything else she’d gifted to Ganny, leaving the cottage as bare as it had been when Pelon had first seen it, though a lot more habitable.

  When Marit called a halt she found Amos, the young piper, standing beside her. ‘How’re your feet? When I joined Marit, my first week was agony. Shouldn’t have set out in new boots.’ His smile was engaging.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Risha mumbled. It was the first time they’d spoken, though she’d caught him watching her once or twice.

  ‘The steepest section comes tomorrow, but once we’re over the Pass it’s only two days to Polton and that mostly downhill.’ He smiled. ‘Me, I’m looking forward to Caledon. But you’re maybe not going that far.’

  Risha ignored his implied question. ‘Have you been with the traders long?’

  Taking her evasion in his stride, Amos launched into a story of his travels that made her laugh despite her weariness.

  ‘If you’ve energy to spare, you might better use it to help make camp,’ Sulba growled.

  Amos winked as he turned away, but as Risha set out to gather firewood the young man’s question returned to trouble her. Her relief that Marit had agreed to let her join the traders faltered in the face of the realisation that soon, perhaps in no more than a few days, she would be obliged to abandon the security they offered.

  Her sleep, when it came, was troubled by nightmares. In the deep dark she woke with sweat slicking her skin and the baying of a hound hanging in her ears. An owl called and some small nocturnal creature shrieked its last complaint. Close at hand someone muttered and snored. Risha rolled onto her side. A figure was crouched beside the stacked packs. As he straightened she recognised Sulba, the light from the low-burning embers casting a reddish glow across his broad face. Risha shrank into her blanket, trying to ignore her suspicion that the bags he’d been searching were not his own.

  When Barc shook her shoulder Risha’s eyes were slow to open. The others were up already, though the sky was showing just the first faint hint of dawn. ‘Wear these today,’ Barc said, pushing a soft bundle toward her. ‘They belong to Geet but she says you might borrow them.’

  Shaking out the bundle, Risha found a pair of trousers, a boy’s jerkin and a tattered scarf. As soon as they were on the road Geet had changed to men’s garb, but Risha preferred her own clothes and would have said so, had Barc not already been striding away across the campsite.

  Remembering Marit’s directive, Risha swallowed her objection and ducked behind a rock to change. The trousers were too big so she cinched them in with the scarf. The jerkin was a better fit, but she felt self-conscious as she walked back to the fire.

  Geet looked her over and nodded. ‘I’ll get you a hat.’

  ‘I don’t need —’

  ‘To keep your hair out of sight,’ Geet added, as if it explained things.

  Risha spooned herself a bowl of lumpy porridge, shivering in the morning’s chill.

  Amos, appearing at her elbow, grinned as he took in her clothes. ‘Eat well,’ he advised. ‘We’ve a long day ahead.’ His mouth stretched in a yawn.

  ‘Did you sleep badly?’ Risha asked, remembering her disturbed sleep.

  ‘Up half the night on sentry duty.’

  She glanced at the shadowed slope above their campsite. Hunters occasionally saw signs of wolves and wildcats in the mountains above Torfell, but they generally kept clear of people. ‘Are predators a threat?’

  ‘More than you might imagine,’ Amos answered dryly.

  ‘At least the ones we meet here don’t pretend to be anything other than they are,’ Geet said. ‘Here.’ Taking hold of Risha’s hair, she twisted it into a rope and pinned it high on her head. ‘For the next two days, you’re a boy. Understand?’

  Though she didn’t, Risha nodded.

  Geet clamped a floppy felt hat over Risha’s head, tucked a few loose strands of hair out of sight, and marched off to deal with her next chore.

  Amos raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s as friendly as I’ve ever seen her.’

  Before she could reply Marit signalled a start. As Risha stooped to lift her pack, Barc reached past her. ‘Just till we’re over the Pass,’ he said, hefting it on top of the already enormous load his mule carried.

  ‘I can manage,’ she began.

  ‘Good,’ Barc said, handing her the mule’s lead-rope.

  She quickly found herself hemmed in by pack animals before and behind, her feet following their plodding steps — and sometimes skipping to avoid their hooves — as they wound higher up the mountain.

  Marit called a halt at mid-morning. The path had narrowed till it was little more than a thread stitched across the rugged hillside and the group clustered awkwardly. As the men’s eyes roamed the crags above, Risha noticed that Sulba and Teman were missing. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, as Barc checked the mule’s load.

  ‘Just the usual. Once we’re over the Pass, it’ll go easier. Keep alert.’

  When Marit gave the signal to move on, Barc leant close. ‘If anything happens, hold onto the mule — she’s done this route often enough and she’s not given to panic.’ He slapped the animal’s neck affectionately, lifting dust from her hide. ‘I’ll get to you as soon as I can. And if I don’t,’ Barc paused, his eyes intent upon hers, ‘trust Marit or Sulba. No one else. They’ll see you safe.’ He was gone before she had a chance to ask precisely what he’d meant, or to query his choice of protectors.

  With the mountain’s quiet broken only by the soft plod of hooves and the creak of the animals’ loads, Risha recalled Bram claiming that the traders exaggerated their stories of the dangers of the road. Tightening her grip on the rope, she found herself hoping he was right.

  The attack, when it came, was fast and confusing. One minute Risha was walking quietly beside Barc’s mule, the next the animal was rearing, the lead-rope tearing at her palms. Men’s shouts echoed from the slopes, the braying of mules adding to t
he din. Something flew past her head and Risha flinched. The mule lurched sideways, dragging her from her feet. She struggled up. An arrow thudded into the pack near her shoulder. She hauled on the rope, her breath sawing in ragged gasps.

  There was no time to look for the others; all her attention was on Barc’s skittering mule. She nearly had it under control when the animal in front shied and lashed out with its heels, barely missing Risha’s thigh and catching Barc’s mule a glancing blow. The creature plunged from the track, towing Risha in its wake. It was all she could do to keep from slipping under its hooves as it floundered for stable footing on the rough slope below the path. She was near tears when a brown hand gripped the animal’s halter.

  Barc forced the mule in a tight circle, sparing her a grin more snarl than smile. ‘Are you all right?’

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. He had an unsheathed sword in his hand, blood darkening its blade.

  All around men were battling their animals into submission. Most held swords or cudgels. Geet was sitting beside the track nursing one arm. There was no sign of Marit or Sulba.

  ‘They usually try it on the way in but we were early this year and caught them napping.’ He ran a soothing hand down the mule’s heaving sides and Risha saw that two arrows protruded from the animal’s packs, one deep enough to have bitten into flesh — little wonder it had reared.

  Barc’s eyes scanned the hillside. ‘Go and see if Geet’s all right.’

  Risha hurried to where the woman sat, her face pale and beaded with sweat. ‘How bad are you hurt?’

  Geet bared her teeth. ‘I took a kick from Teman’s stupid mule.’

  Risha peeled back the woman’s sleeve. There was an ominous bulge in her forearm, swelling rising around it, the flesh already mottled with bruises to come. ‘It needs strapping and a compress.’

  Geet shook her head. ‘No time. We need to move.’

  Risha pulled the scarf from her waist and folded it into a sling. With her arm settled within it, Geet looked marginally more comfortable. ‘There’s a hank of twine in the outside flap of my pack. You can use it for a belt.’

  Before Risha could answer, Marit came limping towards them. ‘Are you all right, Geet?’

  The woman took a swig from the flask he offered. ‘Are you?’

  Following her gaze, Risha saw that blood stained Marit’s trousers above his right knee.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  Marit soon had them rallied and moving. He set scouts on the hillsides, but no one’s eyes were still. Sulba reappeared, silently resuming his position at the rear. His tunic was torn and, like Barc, there was blood on his sword. Risha shut it from her mind.

  When they stopped to make camp, Risha splinted Geet’s arm. ‘It’s a clean break at least,’ she said.

  Geet’s reply came through gritted teeth. ‘You’ve done that before.’

  Risha decided against confessing that her previous experience of tending injuries ran only to goats. Geet settled into her bedroll, refusing further help.

  Hitching her arms around her drawn-up knees, Risha stared into the flames, nodding gratefully when Barc handed her a plate of hastily heated stew.

  ‘Is it always like this?’ she asked as he lowered himself beside her.

  ‘There’s always the risk. Some years it’s better, some worse.’

  The fire crackled within its ring of stones. Marit had debated the merits of having no fire at all, but in the end settled for keeping it small and posting extra sentries.

  ‘The bandits are mainly after food or goods they can trade,’ Barc said. ‘And women.’

  ‘Is that why you asked me to wear these?’ She flicked at the knee of her baggy trousers.

  Barc nodded. ‘It was Geet’s idea. Marit was worried when she joined us, but it’s worked so far.’

  ‘Will they attack again?’

  ‘Maybe. Probably not. They’ll have gone off to lick their wounds — we gave them more than they expected. Sulba and Marit came at them from behind after they hit us.’

  She considered this. ‘Is it worth the risk?’ she asked. ‘If you lost a mule and all your trade goods…’

  Barc shrugged. ‘Would Torfell survive if we didn’t?’

  4

  The northern reach

  ‘There it is,’ Amos said, sweeping his arm to encompass the view from east to west. ‘The northern reach of the plains. Is it not a fine sight?’

  Risha stared, wordless, at the vastness before her. Immediately below, the mountains tumbled into foothills that lay like a loosely rumpled blanket. To her right the dips and folds of hills continued as far as she could see. To the left, in the far distance, they were absorbed in a dense band of green. Ahead, the hills smoothed into rolling, golden downland.

  ‘Over there, in the distance, is what remains of Great Caledon Forest. It once covered the plains, but it’s been beaten back to the hills around Fratton. And there: see that sparkle of blue, far off on the horizon?’ He paused to grin at Risha’s marvelling expression. ‘That’s CaledonWater.’

  Risha had never seen a landscape that wasn’t bound by jagged peaks, and though she’d read her father’s account of Elgard, she’d not understood its true extent. Torfell and all the mountains around it were no more than a tiny corner at the kingdom’s furthest edge.

  ‘Two more nights on the road, then we’ll reach Polton. It’s nothing much,’ Amos added. ‘A provincial town, smaller than many and more backward than most.’

  ‘But with a good clean inn that offers a hearty meal and a soft bed,’ Barc spoke from behind them.

  Risha turned to face him, her eyes still alight. ‘And after Polton? Where then?’

  Barc shrugged. ‘Marit is yet to decide. It’s more than two years since we last visited Fratton.’

  ‘The roads are better in Westlaw and the towns more prosperous. And if we went via Caledon, we could follow the river to Elion before heading north again and west,’ Amos suggested.

  ‘Elion!’ Risha interrupted.

  Barc frowned. ‘The cities are a trader’s nightmare. There’s more profit in small towns where we’re a novelty. Risha, Geet was looking for you — something about the poultice you used on her arm.’

  With a polite nod to Amos, Barc steered Risha back towards the camp. As soon as they were out of earshot he swung her to face him. ‘Learn to keep your thoughts in your head. It’s no one’s business where you plan to go next.’

  Her mouth dropped open. ‘I didn’t speak of my business! All I said was—’

  ‘All you said, by words or not, was that you plan to go to Elion.’ His fingers bit into her arm. ‘The world is a dangerous place, Risha. It’s rash to trust anyone you know only a little. People are mostly not what they seem.’

  ‘Then I’m rash to trust you, for you are certainly not what you seem.’

  To her surprise, Barc laughed. ‘Perhaps not, but I’m a friend to you. Amos — I’m not so sure.’

  Risha’s chin lifted. ‘As my friends are no one’s business but my own, I shall choose for myself whether I pay heed to your opinion.’

  Barc’s smile disappeared. ‘You must have inherited contrariness from your mother, for you surely didn’t learn it from Pelon,’ he snapped. ‘When you find Geet, tell her I sent you, and count the number of questions she asks.’

  He strode away, leaving Risha to wonder what he had meant about her mother. He knew more than he was telling her, of that she was certain. And though it was true that Amos asked a lot of questions while Geet and the others did not, it signified nothing beyond his interest in people. Didn’t it? She scowled after Barc, resenting the doubts he had set jumping.

  When she found Geet — and discovered the woman hadn’t been looking for her at all — it did nothing to sweeten her mood.

  That night she sat apart, her ill temper encouraging even Amos to keep his distance. She would be glad, she decided, when her journey was ended.

  It was close to dark when the traders straggled wearily in
to Polton, Marit leading them directly to an inn several streets back from the main road. Risha stared at her surroundings. The town was far larger than Torfell and, to her inexperienced eyes, seemed teeming with activity.

  The innkeeper welcomed them, though he eyed Geet — still wearing her men’s garb — warily. He scarcely gave Risha a glance, but had his wife bustle the pair of them off to a room that, to Risha’s delight, contained not only beds but a tub. She soaked till the water grew cool and Geet warned she’d miss dinner.

  Despite her intention to make the most of her first stay at an inn, Risha found her eyelids drooping even as she ate the rich stew and freshly baked bread they were served, while the mug of sweet ale quickly befuddled her mind.

  ‘The little one is worn out,’ she heard Marit say.

  ‘We’ll go up.’

  She didn’t resist as Geet led her yawning to their room. ‘I don’t know why I’m so tired,’ she murmured, as the woman knelt to tug off her boots.

  Geet muttered something about ale as Risha sank onto the bed. It felt soft as the winter pelt of a mountain hare. Light as a moth’s wing, something nudged at her: a bed canopied with stars, a wall of flowers, and somewhere further away than memory, a song. Then she was asleep.

  Risha woke to sunlight and a delicious sense of ease. She stretched and found that her body still ached, but less than it had over the last few mornings. Dressing quickly she followed her nose to the kitchens, where a girl half her age served her rolls and a jug of fresh creamy milk. She was still there when Barc found her.

  ‘You take easily to civilisation I see,’ he said with a smile. ‘Finish your breakfast and I’ll show you the town.’

  The network of streets and busy roadways alarmed her, the buildings seeming to press in on either side. Risha kept close to Barc and tried not to flinch as carts rumbled past only a hand-span away and people spilled from side streets and doorways into their path. A woman knocked her sideways with the basket she carried without any hint of apology.