by Jack Vance
Aillas chose goods from the wagon: a sack of meal, two flitches of bacon, salt, two round cheeses, a sack of wine, a ham, a goodly bundle of onions, a crock of preserved goose, a rack of salt fish, a bag of raisins and dried apricots. He packed the supplies in the tarpaulin and loaded it upon the best of the draught horses, which now would carry the pack.
Tatzel came to sit in the doorway of the hut, where she demurely combed the short curling locks of her hair. Aillas remembered the crutch he had contrived for her use. After the briefest of hesitations, he went to get it, along with the trout he had speared. The crutch he gave to Tatzel. "This may help you to walk."
Aillas entered the hut, took up the two cloaks, shook them out, and gave a final glance to the corpse. The next person to enter the hut would discover a sight to startle him.
Returning into the wholesome outer air, Aillas said: "Come! Before long this place will be swarming with Ska, depending on how far the boy must run with his news."
Tatzel pointed up the trail. "Someone is coming now; best that you flee while you can save yourself."
Turning to look, Aillas discovered an old man approaching with four goats. He wore garments of bast, straw sandals and a low wide-brimmed hat of woven straw. Each of his goats carried a small pack. As he drew abreast of the hut, he turned an incurious glance from Aillas to Tatzel and would have passed without a word, had not Aillas called out: "Hold a moment, if you will."
The old man halted, politely but without enthusiasm.
Aillas said: "I am strange to these parts; perhaps you can direct me."
"I will do my best, sir."
Aillas pointed down the valley. "Where does the road lead?"
"It is ten miles down to Glostra, which is a village and a Ska outpost, where they keep a goodly barracks."
"And up the road?"
"There are several turnings. If one keeps to the main trail he comes to the High Moor, and there he will find the Windy Way to Poelitetz."
Aillas nodded; this was more or less what he had expected. He signalled to the old man. "Come with me, and tie your goats to the wagon, if you like."
The old man dubiously followed Aillas to the hut. Here Aillas showed him the two corpses. "They came up the road with the wagon. They attacked me and I killed them. Who are they?"
"In the hut with the beard: he is a half-breed Ska. The other is known as Fedrik the Snake. Both were bandits in the service of Torqual, or so it is said."
"Torqual. ... I have heard the name."
"He is chief of the bandits, and his lair is Castle Ang, where he cannot be attacked."
"Much depends upon who is attacking, and how," said Aillas. "Where is the fort, so that we may avoid it?"
"Fifteen miles along the trail you will discover three pines by the road, with a ram's skull nailed to each. Here the road forks. The way to the right leads to Ang. I have seen it once only, and the entry was guarded by two knights in full armour impaled on stakes. I will go there never again."
"I see that the second of your goats carries a good iron pannikin," said Aillas. "Will you trade this pannikin for a horse, a wagon and a supply of victual as to keep you fat for a year?"
"The trade would seem to be fair, from my point of view," said the old man cautiously. "These articles are naturally yours to bestow."
"I have claimed them and no one disputes me. However, should we make the trade, I suggest that you take the goods as quickly as possible to some secret place, if for no other reason than to forestall envy."
"That is wise counsel," agreed the old man. "I hereby effect the trade."
"Further, you have never seen us and we have never seen you."
"Precisely so. At this moment I hear only the echo of ghost-voices carried on the wind."
II
THE SUN SANK BEHIND AILLAS AND TATZEL as they rode up the valley, with the line to the pack horse tied to the back of her saddle. Aillas carried both bows and both quivers.
The valley narrowed and rose at a gradient which caused the river to gurgle and tumble and leap when it came upon a boulder in its bed. Soft pines and cedars appeared in copses and single sentinels; draws and gullies entered the valley from either side, each with its trickle of a stream.
Late in the afternoon the wind began to rise and clouds raced overhead; rain might be approaching from the sea: a dismal prospect.
Sunset gilded the high mountain ridges; the valleys began to fill with dusk. Aillas turned up one of the tributary valleys, and after about a hundred yards of leading his horse along the banks of a rivulet, came upon a grassy glade protected from the wind and where their fire could not be seen by night-wanderers along the road.
Tatzel was not pleased with the campsite and looked back and forth with disapproval. "Why do we stay at this rude place?"
"So that we may not be troubled during the night by strangers," explained Aillas.
"We are plunging ever more deeply into wilderness. Where are you taking us, or do you know?"
"I hope to find a way serene and peaceful over the high moors, thence down into South Ulfland and so back to Doun Darric. Eventually I will take you to Domreis in Troicinet."
"I do not care to visit these places," said Tatzel coldly. "Do not my wishes carry weight?"
Aillas laughed. "You will discover that, as a slave, your wishes are entirely ignored."
Tatzel scowled and seemed not to hear. Aillas collected wood, arranged rocks to form a fire-place, and while doing so discovered a fine sheet of hard green serpentine almost a foot square and no more than half an inch thick. He struck up a fire, laid out the trout, and turned to Tatzel who sat on a log nearby, watching the preparations with an air of boredom.
Aillas said: "Tonight you shall cook, while I put up a shelter against the weather."
Tatzel shook her head. "I know nothing of such things."
"I will explain what you must do. Cut fat from the ham, try it out slowly in the pannikin, so that the fat does not smoke. Meanwhile cut the trout into pieces. When the fat is ready, fry the fish, with great care that the fish does not scorch. When the fish is nicely browned, put the pan aside. Then mix some meal with water, and make thin cakes. Press them down on the griddle, which will now be hot." Aillas indicated the sheet of serpentine. "Turn the cakes when they are done on one side, and cook on the other side."
"This is knowledge I do not care to learn."
Aillas reflected. "I can cut a switch and beat you well, until you cry for mercy, even though I am tired. Or I can do these tasks myself and serve you politely to your pleasure. Or I can let you go hungry and cold, which is the course of least exertion to myself. Which would you suggest?"
Tatzel cocked her head judiciously to the side, but made no recommendation.
Aillas said: "Truly, I do not care to beat you. I wish to serve you even less. So it seems that you must cook or go without your supper. And remember, in the morning, it will be the same all over again."
Tatzel said scornfully: "I will eat apricots and drink wine."
"You will do nothing of the sort: Further, you may arrange your own bed. Or sit in the rain all night, for all I care."
Tatzel looked glumly into the fire with arms clasped around her knees. Meanwhile Aillas contrived a tent from the tarpaulin, then, gathering armfuls of rank grass, arranged a bed.
Tatzel, taking note that the bed was intended for a single person, uttered a sibilant curse, and furiously set about preparing the supper. Aillas thereupon gathered more grass and extended the bed.
The two ate in silence. For Aillas, food had never tasted better than this fried trout and griddle-cakes, with slices of onion and gulps of wine. Overhead the wind sighed through the trees and the flames swirled back and forth. Aillas at last went to water the horses, and then tethered them where they could graze to advantage.
Tatzel watched him sidelong, but when he returned to the fire, she was once more brooding into the flames.
Aillas drank a final gulp from the wine-sack. Tatzel watched
him covertly. Aillas smiled into the fire. "Where did you hide my knife?" This was the knife with which Tatzel had cut the trout into pieces.
Tatzel pondered a moment, then reached inside her tunic and drew the knife from the waist-band of her trousers. Aillas reached out quickly and took the knife.
Tatzel rubbed her wrist. "You hurt me."
"Not so much as you might have hurt me while I slept."
Tatzel responded with a bored shrug. After a moment Aillas rose to his feet. He carried such of the provisions as might be damaged by rain to the shelter of the tent. Now he took up the bows and tested first one, then the other, gauging smoothness, power and strength of construction. Both were good bows, but one was better and this, with the arrows, he tucked under the grass where he would sleep, convenient to his hand, but not available to the reach of Tatzel's fingers. The other bow he put on the fire and burned.
Tatzel watched with her mouth drooping. "I am truly perplexed."
"Indeed? What is it this time?"
"Why do you stubbornly hold me captive? My own preference is to be free, and I only impede you on your journey. Apparently you do not even intend to use me as a woman."
Aillas thought back across the events of the day. He muttered: "I could not bring myself to touch you."
"Most peculiar! Suddenly you respect my rank!"
"Wrong."
"Because of the bandit, then." Tatzel blinked, and Aillas thought he saw tears glistening in her eyes. "What could I gain by fighting? I am in the power of Otherlings: escaped slaves and bandits; now I am apathetic. Do as you like with me."
Aillas made a scornful sound. "Save your dramatics. I told you last night and again tonight: I would never force myself upon you."
Tatzel looked at him sidelong. "Then what are your plans? I am mystified by your conduct."
"It is quite simple. I was enslaved and compelled to serve you at Castle Sank, to my abiding fury. I swore that some day there would be an accounting. Now you are the slave and you must serve me according to my whims. What could be simpler? There is even a kind of beauty in the symmetry of events. Try to enjoy this artful beauty as much as I do!"
Tatzel merely compressed her lips, "I am not a slave! I am the Lady Tatzel of Castle Sank!"
"Those bandits, were they impressed with your rank?"
"They were Otherlings, but partly of Ska blood."
"What is the relevance of that? They were both depraved. I killed them with pleasure."
"With arrows and ambushes," sneered Tatzel. "You dare not confront the Ska otherwise."
Aillas made a wry face. "In a certain sense, that is true. So far as I am concerned, war is neither a game nor an occasion for gallantry, but rather an unpleasant event to be settled with the least possible hurt for one's self. ... Do you know of a Ska named Torqual?"
At first Tatzel seemed disinclined to answer. Then she said: "I know of Torqual. He is a third cousin to me. But I have seen him only once. He is no longer considered Ska, and now he is gone to another land."
"He has returned, and his den is up yonder, under Noc. Tonight we have drunk his wine and consumed his onions. The trout was my own."
Tatzel looked off down the gully where a nocturnal beast had caused a rustling among the leaves. She looked back to Aillas. "Torqual is said to keep close reckonings. I suspect that you will pay a dear price for your feast."
"I much prefer to enjoy Torqual's bounty free of charge," said Aillas. "Still, no one knows how the future will go. It is a dark and awful country, this North Ulfland."
"I have never found it so," said Tatzel in a reasonable voice.
"You have never been a slave until now... .Come. It is time we were asleep. The wagon-boy will talk everywhere of the noble Ska lady, and the valley will swarm with Ska soldiers. I want to make an early start."
"Sleep, then," said Tatzel indifferently. "I will sit up for yet a little while."
"Then I must tie you with rope lest you wander off during the night. In these places odd creatures move about in the dark; would you want to be dragged down into a cave?"
With poor grace Tatzel limped over to the bed. "We still must use the rope for the sake of security. I sleep soundly, and I might never awake if during the night a rock fell upon my head." He passed the rope around Tatzel's waist, made it fast in a tight-bowline which she could not untie, and secured the ends to his own waist, thus constraining her close beside him.
Tatzel lay down and Aillas covered her with her cloak. The moon, three-quarters full, shone through a rift in the leaves and played full upon her face, softening her features and causing her to seem entrancingly pretty. For a moment Aillas looked down at her, wondering as to the quality of the half-sleepy half-scornful smile which momentarily twitched at her mouth. ... He turned away, before images could form in his mind and, lying down beside her, covered himself with his own cloak... . Had he overlooked anything? Weapons? All secure. Rope? The knots were out of her reach. He relaxed and presently fell asleep.
III
AILLAS AROSE AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN. There had been no rain and he discovered a live coal among the ashes. He covered it with dry grass and blew up a fire. Yawning and shivering, Tatzel crept from her bed and huddled before the blaze, warming her hands. Aillas brought out bacon and the sack of meal, which Tatzel pretended not to notice. Aillas spoke a few terse words; after scowling and darting a glance at his back, Tatzel set herself to frying bacon and baking griddle-cakes. Aillas saddled the horses and made them ready for the trail.
In the dewy pre-dawn stillness Aillas and Tatzel ate their breakfast, and neither chose to speak.
Aillas loaded the pack-horse, helped Tatzel into the saddle and they departed the ravine. Coming to the trail Aillas stopped to look and listen, but discovered no evidence of traffic, and once again the two set off up the valley, and all the while Aillas kept a close watch down the valley behind them.
They rode through perilous territory. Aillas pushed the horses to their best speed, that they might pass by the fork to Castle Ang as early in the day as possible.
As the miles passed by, the landscape became ever more grand. At the sides of the valley cliffs reared high, sometimes lofting above tumbles of boulders, sometimes rising from stands of massive pines and firs.
The sun appeared above the eastern ridge and shone upon three pines standing tall beside the trail, with a ram's skull nailed to the trunk of each. At this place the road forked, one way leading off to the right. With alacrity and a lightening of the spirit Aillas rode past the ominous fork and put it out of sight behind them.
The horses began to labor, both for the pace Aillas had set and for the gradient of the trail. Up, up, and up, traversing and twisting, back and forth under hanging ledges and bulging boulders, across an occasional mountain meadow: so went the trail, thence once again up on a new slant.
An hour after passing the fork to Ang, Aillas led the way to a secluded nook at the back of a forest of pines. He dismounted, and helped Tatzel to the ground. Here they would rest during the middle of the day, and so lessen the chances of meeting other riders, who, in these regions, could only be sources of danger. Tatzel seemed to feel that prudence of this sort was both furtive and ludicrous. "You are as timid as a rabbit," she told Aillas. "Do you live your life in fear, always peeking and peering, and jerking about wide-eyed at a whisper?"
"You have found me out," said Aillas. "I cringe to a thousand fears. It must be the ultimate abasement when a man is considered a coward by his own slaves."
Tatzel uttered a jeering laugh and stretched herself out on a sunny patch of sand.
Aillas leaned back against a tree and looked around the skyline. Despite all, Tatzel's comments had irked him. Could she truly think him timid, merely for exercising ordinary caution? More than likely so. In her own experience, men travelled the countryside without dreading unpleasant events. "Before long the Ska will be peeking and peering too," Aillas told her. "They are no longer chivvying a few poor peasants from pillar to pos
t; now they have the Troice to contend with and this is a far different matter."
"If all Troice are as prudent as you, we are in little difficulty."
"So it may be," said Aillas. Again he searched the skyline, but discovered only rock and air. Ragged clouds racing along the wind, passed from time to time in front of the sun, with their swift shadows following up the valley.
Tatzel, lying with her head on her arms watched him. "What are you looking for?"
"Someone keeping watch from the ridge... . Rest while you can. From now on we ride by night."
Tatzel closed her eyes and presently seemed to sleep.
At noon they ate ham and cheese and cold griddle-cakes. The sun passed across the zenith. Clouds came in greater numbers, and soon the sun was lost behind an overcast. Tatzel, huddling in her cloak, grumbled at the chilly gusts of wind, and recommended that Aillas erect the tent.
Aillas shook his head. "This is coward's weather! Scouts and sentinels are blinded by the mist, and bandits rob only when the weather is fine. Come! We ride!"
He bundled away the ham and cheese and once more they set off up the trail.
The afternoon passed slowly and without comfort. An hour before sunset the winds decreased to puffs and gusts, while the overcast cracked and broke. A dozen beams spurted down at the wild landscape, bringing clots of color to the otherwise drab scenery.
Aillas halted to rest the horses. As he looked back the way they had come, the full scope of the valley opened before him, and now, only a mile ahead, the edge of the plateau cut across the sky.
Aillas led the way up the trail, though once again he felt exposed to the observation of any who might be guarding the valley.
The trail arrived at the final steep slope; Aillas dismounted to spare his horse. Back and forth he trudged: step after slow step, until he too became winded and paused to catch his breath, the horses, bobbing their heads and snorting softly, gradually recovered from their exertions. Deep shade surrounded the group, with beams from the low sun breaking through rifts to illuminate banks and reefs of cloud to the east.
