Song of the Beast

by Carol Berg

  Ridemark discipline would permit no further breaking of the silence, so I would learn nothing more of their plan. But it was easy enough to guess. Somehow they had learned that MacAllister was inside. As soon as the wedding guests were gone, they would take him as easily as boys stealing blackberries. The question was whether they had a man inside keeping watch on the Senai. If so, the problem was far more difficult. My instinct said not. Best test it quickly. More guests were straggling away down the road, and soon the teylark would cry again with a far deadlier message.

  How was I to get to the door? If the watchers were counting who came out and who returned, my unexpected appearance could set off the very attack I feared. Amid the cheers and laughter of the company, another flower-draped couple darted out the front door into a rose arbor to express their fervent hopes as to the newlyweds’ fertility. Before I could figure out how to take the girl’s place, they were strolling back to the inn.

  An unendurable quarter of an hour until someone else staggered out of the doorway. The pudgy man relieved himself against my pile of bricks, happily singing mournful songs of youth and love along with the piper’s tune. Clearly the fellow had drunk a barrel of ale. I plowed a foot straight into his belly before he could get himself tucked up again. It knocked the wind right out of him. I dragged him into a stinking slaughtering shed, trussed him up with my belt and a scrap of rope, then patted his cheeks and his exposed bit of Udema manhood. “We’re setting up a surprise for the groom,” I whispered in his ear, counting him too drunk to remember that the groom had already gone. “Hold quiet here until he comes, and we’ll have a good laugh.” Udema love bawdy jokes.

  My victim giggled, then shushed himself, spluttering. “Shhh ... no noise ... good joke ... shhh ...” He would most likely fall asleep and dream a hilarious outcome. I borrowed his cloak and stumbled across the yard toward the inn, growling a note or two as I went.

  Perhaps twenty people occupied the lamplit common room. Most of them were gathered about two long tables littered with empty tankards, baskets of flowers, pools of ale, and the bones, crumbs, and rinds of a farmer’s feasting. They were singing at least three different songs at once and drinking prodigiously. A fat man snored from one corner of the room, while an exhausted serving girl carried a heavy tray of filled mugs to replenish the table, and a drowsy Elhim turned a goose on a spit. No one in the group had the air of a Rider.

  MacAllister and the two Elhim huddled over a small table to one side of the party, not looking at anyone. I shed my stolen cloak and startled the three of them out of a year’s peace when I dropped onto the bench beside MacAllister. “You’ve got to get out of here right now ...” I said, forestalling the Elhim’s greetings as I told them of the circle of Riders posed at the edge of the forest. “We can pretend we’re wedding guests. Head down the road with some of these others.” Even as I said it, three young men fell weeping on each other’s shoulders and waved farewell to the others, holding each other upright as they staggered out the door.

  “They’re sure to have a checkpoint on the road,” said Tarwyl.

  “Through the woods might be better, then,” said MacAllister. “We could slip between the watchers.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “These will be experienced Ridemark scouts, and the moon’s full. You couldn’t do anything in the woods they wouldn’t notice.”

  “Well,” said Davyn. “There’s one thing they wouldn’t notice.” He nodded his head toward a burly man who had his hand down a blond woman’s bodice while she slathered his mooning face with kisses. The other partygoers began cheering and garlanding the two with flowers. A fiddler took up the piper’s tune.

  “Tjasse’s gift!” toasted a red-haired farmer with a feathered hat. “May Ule sire fifty sons!”

  “May Norla birth healthy babes!” cried a wizened woman, who then sucked down a tankard of ale without taking a breath. The group laughed and applauded when the burly man and the blond woman, draped in flowers and already half-undressed, ran out into the night bearing the blessings of Tjasse. The more matings at this celebration, the more pleased Tjasse would be and thus the more likely to bless the newlyweds with children. Two more fawning pairs were close to bolting.

  “Offer to buy a round for the party,” said Davyn, placing a silver coin on the table. “Make your good wishes. And ... demonstrate your sincerity.” He jerked his head at me. He had to be joking. MacAllister flushed, his gaze riveted on his mug.

  “We’ll take the road and kill the sentry if we get stopped,” I said. “Attach ourselves to the other guests here. Or do something else ... set fire to the place to cause a commotion.”

  Tarwyl ignored me, wrinkling his brow. “You could each approach one of the guests. At a Udema wedding party anyone is fair game—well, I don’t think they’d take me or Davyn.” He grinned. “But of course if you two were together it would be easier. Once you were sure the watchers had lost interest—a convincing few moments at most—you could be away. We’ll come along later. Meet you at the shop in Aberswyl. Aidan knows where it is. Are you game?”

  MacAllister glanced over at me bleakly. “We’ll think of something else.”

  The Elhim were right, and we had to be quick. “I can do what’s necessary. You keep saying the same of yourself. Prove it.”

  Davyn was sympathetic. “I understand that customs differ widely in these particular matters—”

  “Stop talking and do it,” I said, fighting not to scream at them. Every time the music fell quiet, I feared I would hear the teylark’s hunting call that meant now.

  “Begin here,” said Davyn, laying a hand firmly on Aidan’s arm as the Senai started to stand up. “Do not these activities take fire in small ways?”

  A grinning Tarwyl raised his cup and proclaimed loudly in his deep voice, “To our human friends who have developed such affection for each other—an uncommon bond, unrivaled in all of history.”

  If we were not so desperate, I might have laughed at Tarwyl. MacAllister closed his eyes and murmured, “Vellya, god of fools, defend us.” Then he raised his mug to Tarwyl, drank deep, and laid his arm around my shoulders as if trying to do it without touching me.

  “Your turn, Lara,” said Davyn. “We’re trying to attract attention here, if you recall. From your current aspect you might well be mistaken for a part of this bench.” The two Elhim were having more fun than the Udema.

  “Put your hands on him, Lara,” whispered Tarwyl, unable to smother his grin. “I’m sure hands are important.” I gritted my teeth and clasped the gloved hand that rested so lightly on my shoulder, and I put my other hand on Aidan’s cheek, pulling it close to mine.

  “This isn’t going to work,” I said. “I can’t—”

  “Perhaps it would help to think of something else.” Aidan’s head was resting on mine. He whispered in my ear, “Did I ever tell you about the time I was chasing bats out of a cave and set my hair on fire?”

  I turned my head and stared at him, sure he’d gone mad.

  “Oh, gods, don’t look at me,” he whispered, ducking his head so that I could only feel the heat from his rush of embarrassment. “Do you think these people will notice if we take the Elhim with us for tutors? Were ever two players so woefully miscast?”

  From such a close view, I could not miss the nervous terror behind his merry humor. Suddenly I understood a great deal about him that I had never imagined. “You’ve never ... in all your youth ... all the people you met ... the women and girls fawning over you ...”

  “I never had time. Always traveling. Preoccupied. Tangled with gods and music. And I’d been brought up so strictly. You just didn’t ... not even to look ... until you’d known someone a long—Until you married. And I never learned—Damn! Am I red enough now?”

  To Davyn’s and Tarwyl’s immense satisfaction, I burst out laughing. Was nothing ever easy? I’d thought he was only excessively modest or disgusted by my common manner or revolted by my ugliness. I had never imagined that a Senai nob
le who had grown to manhood in the world could be a virgin.

  “Laugh as you will,” he growled quietly. “But you’re perhaps not so worldly as all that. You were only thirteen when you took up with Elhim!”

  “I grew up in a tent smaller than this room with my parents, two grandmothers, two uncles, one aunt, three cousins, and an older brother with many friends. Modesty is not a value the clan prizes, nor is celibacy. There is nothing that you don’t see and nothing that you don’t hear, and a Ridemark girl is available to her father’s friends and her brother’s friends and any Dragon Rider when she is eleven.” I said it lightly, but it had been yet another teaching of my true place in the clan. There was nothing of pleasure in the remembrance of ale-sotted men and groping boys in the dark corners of the family tent.

  “Ah ... Well.” He didn’t know quite what to say. “I’ll do as you command me, then.”

  “The couple at the end of the table are the bride’s parents,” whispered Davyn, who had been observing the Udema while we were babbling. “And they’ve sent a boy to light their lantern.”

  “Time for the second chorus,” said MacAllister. “Perhaps I can do better at this part. I suppose you’ll have to bear with me.” His grin chased away a shadow from his face. I had most likely revolted him with my unclean past. He looped my hands over one of his arms so he could grip his ale mug securely with both hands; then he approached the wedding party, wobbling a little as if he’d drunk as much as they.

  “Greetings, good friends,” he said, slurring his words ever so slightly and bowing to the stocky blond pair at the end of the table. “Please excuse my intrusion on this happy occasion, but I could not hold back my congratulations and best wishes for the bride and groom—not when I am so blessed myself.” He pulled his elbow inward. I took the hint and clung to him. “Innkeeper! A round for these good Udema. And a toast”—he drained his mug with a flourish and tossed it onto the pile of empty ones littering the table—“to the happy union. May Tjasse bless them with ... all her blessings!” To my astonishment he threw his arms around me and, with tenderness quite at odds with his performance, he kissed me on the left side—the scarred side—of my face. “I am reminded of a verse from one of your great poets. ...” Softly he pressed my horrid cheek to his chest as he began speaking in the tongue of the Udema rather than the common speech. I did not know the words, but he did not slur them; rather he caressed them with his beautiful voice as gently as his hands were unbinding my hair. Before he was finished every eye among the Udema was swimming with tears. I was on the verge of panic.

  As the wedding guests wiped their eyes and murmured their thanks, Aidan leaned over and buried his face fiercely in my neck. I had to wrench myself to pay attention to his whispered words. “What about the time I was practicing on my flute while riding my horse and knocked myself silly on a tree branch?”

  I buried my disbelieving laughter in his chest, while a large, soggy Udema woman next to me snuffled and said, “Tjasse’s gift ... you lucky, lucky girl.” In an instant we were blanketed with daisies and milkweed, and amid sentimental blathering about Ule’s seed and Norla’s womb, we ran out the door.

  “To the left of the road,” I said, trying to recapture my wits. There were fewer trees to the left, which meant the watchers were farther apart. And it was hillier, which meant it would be easier to get out of sight. “And make likely noises.” With as many sighs and moans and giggles as we could muster, we hurried into the trees. At about the right distance for the Ridemark perimeter, I yanked MacAllister toward a broad-trunked oak, pushing him down on his knees to mask his height. I pulled his head up against my belly and draped my unbound hair over his head. “We’re going to push farther into the woods,” I said. He did not answer. His breath came fast, and he must have felt the Riders close, for he was trembling. After a moment we ran on, stopping twice more as if we could not contain our desire, until we found a dark, grassy hollow sheltered with monkberry bushes. We rolled onto the ground, and I draped his long cloak over us, making sure that no observer would hear or see anything to question.

  I tried to keep my mind on the deception, on the mockery we made rather than the living man who knelt beside me doing his best not to touch me again. But after only a few moments more we stopped. Just as if we had done the thing we mimed, we suddenly lay still and quiet in the darkness under his cloak, all merriment fled, all cleverness exhausted. No satisfaction, though. Only the lingering kiss on my scarred cheek was left of our playacting. I had never felt anything like it. Lucky, lucky girl. Foolish, stupid girl.

  I shifted to sit up, and, when my arm brushed his, Aidan jerked away as if it scalded him. Disgusted with myself, I threw off the cloak. “We’ve got to hurry. If we’re lucky, they’ll think we’ve fallen asleep. Davyn said to go south and that you’d know the path. Is that right?”

  “I’ll know it.” His voice was husky, and he wrapped his cloak tight, strange for a warm night, as we scrambled through the woods toward the southern guide star just visible through the trees.

  When we reached a narrow, rutted track, he pointed to the right, still without words. Too much hung between us, like the sultry nights of summer when you need a thunderstorm to clear the air. “A good ruse,” I said. “Better than chains and whips, at least.” He didn’t answer even then, and I dismissed the remembrance I carried on my face. We hurried through the night, ready to bolt into the trees when the inevitable pursuit would catch us up.

  Chapter 25

  Three times we were forced to duck into the trees to avoid Ridemark search parties or messengers racing down the road toward Aberswyl. We had to hide a fourth time when a party passed us from the other direction and set up a checkpoint two hundred paces behind us. Their commander gave them the order to spread out and search the woods, and we took our chance and ran, keeping to the edge of the trees, hoping their noise would mask our own. Just about the time we thought it was safe to get back out on the road instead of clambering through gullies and over fallen trees, we came on a second checkpoint. Torches blazed to either side of the road, but only three men stood guard. We dared not proceed through the woods lest the rest of their party be waiting for us, yet we could not fight three. Trapped. If the two search parties converged we’d be caught.

  But as we crouched low in the scrub, debating how to proceed, two horsemen passed by very slowly ... slight, with blond, curly hair ... Elhim. “Hsst, Davyn,” I called softly. They were listening for us. Tarwyl slid off his mount and stepped into our hiding place, proclaiming loudly that he had to relieve himself—though Elhim truly had very different habits than humans and were far better at controlling such urges.

  “You two take the horses,” said Tarwyl. “They’ll not expect you mounted, and they’ll assume you’ve already passed through the first checkpoints if you’ve made it thus far.”

  We had no time for planning or deception. The longer we delayed, the more likely the searchers would stumble on us. “Ride hard and don’t stop,” I whispered to MacAllister. Our only advantage would be surprise. We could not risk stopping for the checkpoint in some vain hope to convince the clansmen that we weren’t who they thought. So Davyn dismounted as if to take his turn in the trees, and Aidan and I mounted up. The Elhim spoke to their clever horses, slapped them hard on their rumps, and Aidan and I shot forward between the two guards like bolts from a crossbow. We left the warriors scrambling for their horses and screaming for their comrades. I would have sworn I heard the Elhim laughing from the forest.

  The little horses from Cor Talaith raced through the night, up and down the rolling ribbon of road, and in no more than half an hour we were slipping through the quiet lanes of Aberswyl. MacAllister led me into a small, muddy stableyard behind a dark shop labeled, Mervil, Tailor.

  “We’ve been staying here,” said the Senai, pointing me up a wooden staircase stuck onto the back of the tall, narrow building. “There are beds in the room upstairs. If you’re as tired as I am, you won’t mind the clutter. We’
ve been preparing ... Ah, well, you’ll see in the morning.”

  “And what of you?”

  “I ... think I’ll stay down here. Unsaddle the horses. Wait for the Elhim.”

  “I’ll help.”

  I reached for the buckles, but MacAllister tugged on the reins to move the beast away from me. “Please go. I’ll do it. I need—Please.” His voice was tight, his eyes averted. I was too tired to argue or question. If he preferred to sleep with the horses rather than in the same room with me, that was his affair. Perhaps he thought I would ravish him. Or perhaps he had finally realized how close he was to being dead. He’s a madman. Who cares what he thinks?

  The hot little room over the tailor shop had five pallets on the floor. Every other bit of space was crammed with gaudy, useless junk: piles and rolls of silk and satin, boxes of thread and lace and beads, a long worktable littered with scraps of silver wire, fabric, and thread. Various articles of clothing, fit for no one but whores and princes, hung about the walls. I saw no evidence of my companions’ preparations for our assault on Aberthain Lair, but I was too tired to be curious, even when I laid down my head and stared into the empty eyeholes of a silver mask.

  I woke up in early afternoon and found Davyn and Tarwyl occupying two of the pallets. Davyn’s eyes opened just after mine, and he sprang off of the floor as if he’d slept fifteen hours instead of five. “Ah, Lara, it was good to find you safe last night.” He yawned, peered out the tiny window, yelled, “Sausage!” to someone in the yard below, and then kicked Tarwyl, who was sprawled on the pallet next to the door. “Up, lazy wretch. We’ve slept away the morning, which leaves us less than ten hours to finish this.”

  Tarwyl groaned and pulled a blanket over his head. In Cor Talaith Tarwyl had been well known for sleeping like the dead and never speaking a word until he’d been awake for an hour. Davyn started to kick him again, but thought better of it. Instead, he poured water from a flowered pitcher onto his friend’s head, blanket and all. While Tarwyl leaped up, cursing and rubbing his dripping hair, Davyn grabbed a biscuit from a plate of them on the worktable. He grinned at my curiosity and waved his biscuit about the room. “Have you guessed how we’re going to get you into Aberthain Lair?”