Greylady

by Peter Morwood

  Jord Koutlan and his folk might have been glad to see the back of him, but the further north and west he went – and the more he learned how to moderate that frightening hauteur in his speech – the more eager the people were to see him. And especially, to hear him. They had heard of Albans, the people from across the sea, but they had never seen one. Heaven alone knew what they had heard from their own lords, or what they had been expecting from the rumours of war that had filtered down from the high places; but at least they seemed to find him more or less acceptable. Certainly he was neither seen as nor treated as an invader and an enemy. What they saw instead was just a foreign traveller, if so rare a creature was ever ‘just’ anything. Bayrd was much sought after as a source of news from the outside world, and still more so when it became known that he could speak without need of an interpreter. Granted, he spoke oddly, sometimes with the rounded, dignified phrases of the High Lords and their retainers, and sometimes – as if trying too hard to be a peasant – short and slangy; but then he was young, and the young were known to be always notoriously slipshod in their speech.

  Bayrd was rather surprised, and not especially pleased, when in one village all the children old enough to understand were brought into the headman’s cottage by twos and threes so that they could look at him and remember for afterwards. The annoyance came when he heard how they were remembering not Bayrd ar’Talvlyn, kailin-eir, Bannerman and clan-lord’s Companion. They were remembering ‘The man from the Empire’. Where that Empire was, the village headman didn’t know, and not even the most carefully worded questions could tell him until Bayrd realized the truth behind the situation, and grinned ruefully at his own short-sightedness. This small, land­locked, isolated community, who had never seen the sea but only heard of it as an element in stories, could not conceive of anything else they had not seen without adding one or more of those legendary characteristics. The land across the sea had to be an Empire. It was so big, and had so many people living in it, that it couldn’t be anything less.

  Now was the wrong time to start explaining Droselan politics; these people had enough difficulty with their own uncaring local lords without trying to comprehend the convoluted mental workings of someone like King Daykin of

  Kalitz. And as for that one – or indeed any of his contemporaries – at the head of an empire…

  Only good manners and the knowledge that he would have to account for it kept Bayrd from laughing aloud. Kalitz and the other small domains had only just stopped fighting amongst themselves, and the thought of a Droselan Empire was nothing more than a bad joke.

  King Daykin; king indeed. For all his high-sounding titles, of which king was only one, he was little more than the foremost brigand among other brigands, a little warlord with delusions of his own grandeur, his importance in the great scheme of things. And they had helped make him what he was: Bayrd’s people, the Albans, with all their concern over personal honour, had helped raise that paltry despot. They had, he now suspected, helped bring to Kalitz and to as many of the surrounding lands as Daykin’s small army could reach, the same petty tyrannies as this country suffered. Force, and the threat of force; the usual policy of minds to small to comprehend that ruling a people might require something more than just the behaviour of a thug at the head of other thugs.

  They gave him food and lodging in exchange for his news, and the new songs and stories he could tell them – those told twice and sometimes three times while Bayrd watched his words, even more important than the face of the ‘man from the Empire’, being committed to memory. Those words, those stories and songs, would be remembered when he was a shadowy figure in the dim past, a mysterious stranger who had passed by on his own private business that was of no account save only that it brought him here. The words might even last long enough to see a Droselan Empire after all; but that would take more years than Bayrd cared to think about.

  Granted, that lodging was sometimes no more than a pile of straw shaped into a mattress by the blanket over it; more often it was a pallet unrolled near the fire, and once or twice a room of his very own, even if the family who offered it had to put themselves to some inconvenient sleeping rearrangements. But once the offer was made, they would not hear his objections. Unlike Jord Koutlan’s village, these Pryteneks – or had he traveled far enough north for them to be Elthans now? – were a truly hospitable people, made more so because that hospitality was all they could give him. They were not poor, at least not the way Bayrd thought of poverty as he had seen it in Vlekh and Yuvan, while the Kalitzak armies rolled to and fro in search of supremacy. But nor were they wealthy. They seemed not to go hungry, and in the deep winter of a country at war, that was as much as any could hope for.

  The food they gave him was winter fare: meat and fish all treated the same way, dried or salted or smoked. Military rations by any other name. Bayrd grinned crookedly at that, like a man greeting an old friend he is not entirely glad to see again so soon. They were cooked with beans, or lentils, or…any of the other things that would keep. It usually meant things that were also more or less tasteless. Except, of course, for the ever-present salt. Despite the hares that Jord Koutlan had been carrying, there was never any game, and Bayrd soon learned why – and why the big hunter had been so frightened to be caught red-handed. The lesser lords of this land were granted their hunting-rights by the higher, those to whom they owed allegiance, and both high and low guarded those rights with all the jealousy Bayrd had seen in Kalitz – and even more ferocity. A man caught carrying game, or a woman caught cooking it, would be tied wrist and ankle to four horses and ripped apart. There was no referral of the sentence to any higher authority, and no appeal. With that knowledge as a sharp sauce for his meals, Bayrd ar’Talvlyn chewed on the dried, smoked, salted meat, and did his best to like it.

  The drink was better. Sometimes it was milk, from goats or more rarely cows; in other places it might be odd herbal decoctions, hot or cold, with alcohol brewed or distilled in, or just as often not. But Bayrd preferred their ale; any ale, all ales, the many beers of different styles of brewing. He had all but forgotten how much he enjoyed it, because the better part of a year had passed since he had last tasted any. Instead of ale from Kalitz, the Albans had brought wine: the great hogsheads of costly vintages had already been in the harbours, and sometimes still in the holds, of the ships they had ‘borrowed’ from King Daykin. It was not just more easily transported, but every soldier knew that it could be cut several times with water before the flavour was seriously affected. Not so with beer; and to drink beer one first had to plant grain crops. The Albans had been busy with other matters than farming since they reached Gelert’s domain…

  Of all the beers, his favourite was a brew he was given in that same village which believed he came from the Empire over the sea. Whether it was wheat beer or white beer he was never sure either then or later; the old man who told him the name slurred his words even worse than Bayrd himself, and after the third time of asking had left him no wiser and was beginning to make him look foolish, he gave up and accepted it for what it was. Which was thin, pale blond stuff, sharp as buttermilk and just as refreshing, but the villagers didn’t drink it like that. Instead, for extra flavour they mixed in the juice of wild raspberries which had been boiled until it thickened into syrup, or for health a green essence of sweet woodruff, the herb called ‘woodmaster’. Either way – and had he not reminded himself that there might be little enough for the brewers themselves come the spring – Bayrd knew he could have consumed many happy mugfuls and never become drunk; he could almost see the alcohol burn off as he talked, and talked, and never tired of talking, any more than his listeners tired of hearing him.

  * * * *

  “We are the earth, and of the earth, and bring forth all that grows upon the earth,” said Youenn Kloatr, the headman of Redmer. There was a shy pride in the way the words were spoken; shy, and very understated, almost as if the man was afraid what he said might be taken in the wrong way. “It is ou
r skill which grows the food we eat; and our toil in the cold rain, and our sweat in the hot sun.”

  “And the lords?” prompted Bayrd gently. “High Lord Gelert of Prytenon, maybe?” He had been living in the village for five days, long enough that they had come to trust him a little. There was also the advantage that since he was now in

  High Lord Yakez’s province of Elthan, what was said about any neighbouring lord was less likely to be guarded by the fear of reprisals.

  “The lords…” Youenn looked sidelong at him, twisting thoughtfully at the ends of his iron-grey moustache. “The lords and their vassals defend us. Against other lords and their vassals. It doesn’t matter whether they are here or not: the cattle are stolen, the crops are burned, the women and boys are raped, and… And one raiding-party of lords’-men looks very like another. It doesn’t matter if it’s in reprisal for a raid, or to provoke a raid, or–-”

  “Or your own lord Benart, giving himself reason to go raiding into another lord’s domain?” Youenn looked shocked, but it was a mechanical expression, the shock of a man who had already considered that possibility for himself and not dared to give credence to his suspicions. “One raiding-party looks very much like another: you said so yourself.”

  “They wouldn’t raid Lord Benart’s own…”

  “No?” said Bayrd sardonically. “If his neighbours gave up raiding for a couple of seasons, and did nothing to provoke him, then what use would your lord have for so many warriors to ‘defend’ his territory and give him such prestige? Youenn Kloatr, I’ve kept my eyes and ears open. My people may be the invaders in this country, but the ordinary folk have less hatred for us than for their own overlords. Why would that be, do you think? Unless I’m right.”

  The headman turned slightly to stare him full in the face, came to some conclusion about what he read from Bayrd’s expression, and abruptly abandoned the nervous editing of his opinion into something that would make acceptable repetition. “Very well, Ayelbann’r. I agree. You are right. All the lords, theirs, ours, anyone’s – even yours, deny it if you dare – are the boots which tread upon the land, knowing they will have its support beneath them.” Youenn took a long drink of his beer, but looked better for having relieved his feelings to a neutral observer.

  And we’re just another boot, thought Bayrd. Whether the Albans tread lightly or not makes no difference to him. He doesn’t really

  care. Because he knows we can’t tread more heavily than the High Lords like Gelert and Yakez have already done.

  For all of that, Redmer was better off than most of the villages he had seen, because the local lord Benart’s retainers had not come raiding for supplies. The reason, as Youenn told him, watching with bright eyes for his reaction, was because they were so close to the haunted castle. Bayrd stumbled over that word for a few seconds, until the headman elaborated for his benefit. “The strong place on the hill. Dunarat. Lord Ared’s Hold, they called it in the old time. Over by the Forest of Baylen.”

  “Oh, a fortress. Why didn’t you…” He waved the quibble away. “Never mind. Ared’s hold by the woods. Dunn’ar’h’ath.” Bayrd sounded the word out to himself as if testing its flavour. “All that in four syllables. Or three, the way you pronounce it. Your language has been rubbed a little smooth since then.”

  “And it will be rubbed down still more in times to come,” said Youenn simply. “That’s the way of things. Time is like water on stone, and wears things away as it passes – and the young are always more hasty than the old, in the way they speak as much as in everything else. But the Old Speech serves to remind us of what has been. I look at a rock on the ground, and I see the mountain it was. I speak of Dunarat, and I see the great fortress that once stood on the hill.”

  “In your time? Your father’s?”

  “How old do you think I look, margh-arlut’ horsemaster horselord?” Bayrd grinned at the title, rather liking it, and at the way the headman tried to sound scandalized though his eyes were twinkling. “Just because you’re a mere child, anyone older must be an ancient…”

  He prepared each of them another drink; this time it wasn’t strong, sweet black winter beer splashed with cheerful abandon into the big turned-wood mazers, but a carefully-measured dollop of something clear and syrupy and honey-smelling into small red clayware cups. Bayrd knew what to expect even before the fire exploded on the back of his throat – though he had not expected quite so much of it.

  “Honey, and I think herbs,” he said after a few seconds, and the aspirated ‘h’ sound came out as a wheezy squeak each time. “But the rest… The rest has to be metal polish and lamp-oil. Lit lamp-oil at that.”

  “Heh. You like it. Good. Keeps the cold out, eh?” Youenn poured another, which as usual with roughly distilled alcohol, went down a good deal more smoothly. “Not all the grain goes into beer and bread. Some we use to honour the Father of Fires.”

  “Father, Tesh and the Maiden,” said Bayrd automatically, dipping a finger into the honeyfire and flicking a drop towards the hearth, where it flared briefly and made a smell like singed sugar. The habit had become ingrained while he lived in the barracks at Kalitz, and whether he believed or not, it was simple courtesy to any who did. One more proof, if he needed any more, that these people had passed through Drosul and Vlekh. “And the Light of Heaven.”

  “The honey for that,” said Youenn Kloatr. “Think how much the bees work in the summer, under Her light. And we can taste that light, that summer heat, and smell those flowers – even now, with the snow on the ground. Drink, and be glad of it.”

  Bayrd did, and was.

  “You said Dunarat was on the hill,” he said some time later, circling the conversation back towards his own points of interest. “Which hill? I saw nothing.”

  “Out yonder.”

  Bayrd turned his head to follow the line of the outstretched arm, then walked to the door of the cottage and peered out, wincing slightly as the cold outside air bit at his nose and ears. Not all the black beer and honeyfire in the world was anything more than illusory protection against a winter evening. Though the day and the light were dying, it was still bright enough that he could see the snow-covered bulk of the hill overlooking Redmer village, but apart from that huge empty curve against the skyline, he saw nothing ‘yonder’, and said so.

  “Of course not.” Youenn managed to imply he was an idiot for thinking any such thing, even though it probably came from youth and inexperience of the wicked world rather than solid bone between the ears, and all without being so rude as to let the implication take more form than a quirked eyebrow. “It’s haunted. You think we would live so close to a haunted place?”

  “But the lords’-men think—”

  “They think, horselord. And we help them.” The headman twirled his moustache again and gave Bayrd a charming grin, one that managed to combine every possible variant of satisfaction with a plain hint of what he thought of people who believed everything they were told. “Thinking is not their best skill.”

  “Then where—”

  “A day. Maybe closer. Much closer on a horse. They ride horses, so they think,” again that roguish leer, “that it’s just as close for us. And if not, if they ask why we fear something a full day’s journey away, why then,” Youenn Kloatr shrugged expressively, “we tell them how all the village had to move because the haunting was too bad for us. And they leave us alone.”

  “Friend Youenn, I like the way your mind works. I really do. Now tell me truthfully, just you and me: how haunted is it really?”

  The headman looked at him thoughtfully, debating perhaps how many lies, exaggerations and just plain damn good stories he could foist off on a guest in the course of a single evening. Then he shrugged. “Go find out, if you must know. I – all of us here – sleep better for not knowing. Its presence keeps the lords’-men away, and helps us keep our corn and pigs and all the rest right here, where we can use them rather than Lord Benart. So it can’t be such a bad haunting after all. Can it?�
�

  “I, er, I suppose not.”

  It might also be the sort of place where a man looking for that sort of person could find a sorcerer; or where the man looking for a sorcerer might be able to ask about such matters aloud. If he was going to summon up enough courage to actually ask questions, and it was high time he did something of the sort, Bayrd had already decided that this worldly, cynical chieftain might be the best man with which to start. At least, once he had been to the haunted citadel and come back again. If he came back.

  That could well prove to be the greatest challenge of all.

  8

  Arrowsong

  Bayrd Ar’Talvlyn sat quietly and gazed at the headman of Redmer while thoughts ticked through his head like water dripping on rock. ‘How did Ared’s fortress of Dunarat come to be haunted in the first place?’ he said eventually, and then, trying to keep the question thrilling-story light, added, “Was it unrequited love or suicide? Or something as simple as sudden death or bloody murder?”

  “Neither,” said Youenn, and from the sound of him he wasn’t at all convinced about how light Bayrd wanted the information. He sipped reflectively at his honeyfire, then topped up his cup with the nonchalance of a man well accustomed to the sweetly wicked stuff. “Or maybe both.”

  And that, thought Bayrd, tells me exactly nothing more than I didn’t already know.

  The Elthanek headman looked up suddenly and gave his guest a lopsided grin. “It depends, horselord,” he said, “on your point of view.”

  Bayrd shook his head, not so much in denial as like a fist-fighter clearing the effect of an unexpected punch. “My view is that you’ve got someone here who has never heard this tale before, and thus doesn’t know the places where you can effectively be asked to hurry it up.” Youenn said nothing, but he smiled, shrugged, and offered Bayrd more honeyfire. The Alban looked at it, at his cup, licked his lips and produced a matching shrug. “Why not?” he said. “So long as you get around to answering the question eventually – and so long as I can still remember what the answer was. Or the question, come to that.”