by P. J. Fox
Which, although the bond was silent on the subject, she had an idea.
“I cannot give you children” he said abruptly.
She waited for half a beat, and then nodded. She knew this. Had known it since before they were married. Accepting the limitation had been a sacrifice, although her feelings for her husband made any other choice impossible. Even so, she’d felt the loss as that door closed. She’d always pictured herself as a mother. Had spent her life thus far, indeed, caring for others. To do otherwise seemed unnatural.
But Asher…. He’d been such a sad child, when she met him. Was still. She helped him with his studies and helped him to talk over his problems and didn’t tell on him when she caught him being naughty. Although they both knew that Tristan knew.
“His presence in our lives,” she said, “more than compensates for the sacrifice.”
“I require an heir. I wish to recognize him as such.”
“He is your child.”
This was a relationship that, long before she knew of Tristan’s true nature, she’d never doubted. One had only to see them together. That he hadn’t participated directly in Asher’s conception meant naught. Not that, she reflected with some amusement, anyone would believe that he hadn’t.
“A formal adoption requires your name.”
But not, she knew, her consent. As a mere woman, Isla had no legal standing in any part of Morven. That Tristan was discussing the issue with her at all was merely polite. The ultimately empty gesture of a concerned husband, who wished his wife to feel included.
“I love him,” she said simply. But there was something that worried her. Although she was certain that Tristan had considered the problem. “He’d no longer be a hostage.”
Tristan sipped his wine. Snow-laden gusts of wind battered the windows. Outside, rare would be the man who could see much beyond his nose. “This is true,” he said finally. “But this is a matter on which I’ve expended considerable thought. Maeve has proven herself willing to sacrifice the child, time and time again.” There had been more than one plot against the boy, discovered at the last possible moment. And, Isla feared—they all feared—that there would be more.
“She ever sought to use him for her own advantage,” he continued. “That he might be worth more, as a creature in unto himself, has undoubtedly never occurred to her.”
Isla nodded, slowly.
“That she moves against us now, even into the North, knowing full well that the child is here….” He trailed off. “She has played her hand,” he said. His tone was speculative. “She, the dim-witted sow that she is, has shown us that diplomacy is pointless.”
Isla nodded again. If Maeve was willing to sacrifice her child’s life—for Asher’s was, by the terms reached at Ullswater Ford, now forfeit—for the speculative benefit of stealth, she truly had no conscience. Not even a messenger, not even a raven, for her child’s life. Rather, Maeve no doubt imagined that her men were even now moving infiltrating the villages north of the passes. Preparing to sweep down on in a tide on her son’s home.
Men that Tristan had sent Hart to deal with.
For Maeve, there would be no mercy.
“Asher has greater worth to me than to Maeve, and greater worth as my son than hers.”
“Will there be war?”
Tristan was silent for a long time. And then, “yes.”
“Oh.” Isla’s voice was small.
“Unless Maeve can be stopped.” He shook his head. A slight movement. “She cannot win. Not in the long run. She simply does not have the resources. But she’s too vain, and those who follow her too stupid, to acknowledge this. Instead, they’ll fight. And continue to fight. And take this kingdom down with them in a storm of swords and hellfire before old age or bankruptcy ends them. Or simple bad luck. The wise man sees reason, and picks his battles, but the fool never stops—regardless of the terror he causes. He destroys what he claims to covet, all in the service of keeping it from the next man.”
“I’m afraid.”
Tristan pulled her to him, and held her. “Don’t be.”
“When do you plan to acknowledge Asher?”
“Soon. As soon as Hart returns from Molag.”
TWELVE
“Summer child.” The man snorted.
If man could even be considered the proper term.
He wasn’t a man, he was a mountain.
Bjorn Treesinger was two score hands if he was an inch, wrapped in furs and with flame red hair in every direction. His skin was so pale as to be translucent and his eyes, his eyes were the flat yellow of a wolf’s. He wore a bizarre collection of totems around his neck and woven into his beard. His most prized possession, judging from how he fondled it, was a necklace that appeared to be made from human teeth.
Bjorn’s own teeth had been filed down into points.
He grinned.
Hart cast a flat look in his direction, but said nothing. He turned his attention back to the road. Or, rather, to the gap in the trees that signaled its presence. His horse labored to break through drifts that, when he dismounted, came up to Hart’s waist. There had been no other travelers this way. That they, themselves had passed would be obvious.
Hart worried.
Their plan was to ride for another hour and then make camp, rising long before dawn to approach Molag. The hour of the wolf: that hour when a man’s life’s ebb was at its weakest. They’d attack and, as the sun rose over the mountains, Molag would burn.
That was, of course, if they hadn’t been spotted. If the rebels didn’t have intelligence just as good as theirs. If the local chief’s intelligence was good in the first place.
So many if’s.
“Still missing your mother’s teat, no doubt.” Bjorn’s tone was jovial.
Around them, the world was a mute white. There were no birds. Frozen pine boughs shook, dumping snow on them as they passed. Hart hadn’t seen another animal, of any kind, for hours.
He glanced up at the sun, calculating the time. “No,” he said, his mind still elsewhere, “missing your mother’s.”
Bjorn, who didn’t seem at all perturbed by the silence, let out a roaring laugh. He clapped Hart so hard on the back that Hart, unprepared, almost flew from his saddle. “The summer child speaks!”
Summer child was, Hart had gathered, a derogatory term for those who’d grown up in the South. Or, if they’d grown up in the North, those who’d experienced no true hardship. The term also encompassed men who enjoyed being buggered by other men, Bjorn had pointed out helpfully. And men who moisturized.
Hart’s fine raiment and lack of foul personal odor had drawn great comment from their new companions. Who also viewed Callas as similarly, to use Bjorn’s term, woman-like. Bjorn had asked earlier, with no rancor, if Hart and Callas bedded each other regularly.
Hart had not deigned to reply.
One of the other tribesmen had offered to shoot Hart a stoat, so he could rub it on himself and smell less like a woman.
Hart knew that the tribesmen favored the habit of hunting while robed in freshly killed animals. Especially stoats, whose scent glands emitted an odor so awful as to fell a grown man to his knees. Doing so masked their own scents, and thus their presence from potential prey. Hart supposed, as he now considered the issue, that this tactic might work in hunting men also. Although if the rebels did have spies, or at least the foresight to send scouts into the passes, they’d Hardly be likely to mistake Hart for an especially large rodent.
He smiled slightly.
“Ah,” Bjorn agreed, “my mother’s breasts are large and milky white. She’s given birth to eight babies, and my father still sings their praises.”
Callas suppressed a choking noise.
“Eight?” Hart asked.
“Aye! And fine sons all. None as fine as Bjorn, though.”
“Let me guess.” Callas turned in his saddle. “You sired the others with her.”
Bjorn let out another roaring laugh.
They’
d reached a narrow, deep channel that, due to the force of the current, hadn’t frozen. The water was perfectly clear, roiling in on itself over a ribbon of rounded stones, but silent. The noise of its passing was absorbed by the snow.
Dismounting, Hart strode to the bank. Those stones nearest that breached the water’s surface were mounded in white. Not too deep, then. They wouldn’t need to look for another place to cross. He glanced skyward again. A good thing.
“This water is too deep,” Bjorn said, beside him.
Hart glanced at his companion. The tribesman moved surprisingly quietly, when he wanted to. And his tone had changed. Grown speculative. He didn’t seem nervous, precisely, but he was clearly disturbed. By something.
“This tarn feeds from higher up.” He gestured. “There should be little water, in this month. Not this much until Flowers Month.” He paused again, and then shook his head. “Molag sits above this tarn. Molag and her sister village, Altag.”
Hart nodded slowly. He understood what Bjorn was saying and understood, too, for the first time why Bjorn had been elected leader of the contingent of tribesmen who’d come to join them. Someone, or rather a group of them, was melting snow for cooking high above them. Cooking, and washing, and who knew what else. Perhaps clearing snow from the ground to make room for weapons practice.
Either way, there were more people in Molag than usual.
Hart, returning to his horse, swung back into the saddle. His gaze met Bjorn’s, a man he now studied with new eyes. Perhaps there was a reason Owen Silverbeard had placed so much faith in this man, time and time again. Owen Silverbeard, who wasn’t nearly as old as his name suggested. He was, in fact, quite young to be a chief. But he’d beaten his competitors handily, winning the election by a landslide. An election that took place after what was known as a chief’s moot, a tournament of speeches, creative problem solving, and feats of strength. Some lasted mere days while others, weeks. According to Bjorn, one had lasted a year.
They crossed the tarn in silence.
Hart’s sense of unease had not abated.
Bjorn led them to a campsite that, he assured Hart, was “suitable for girls.”
After dismounting and hobbling the horses, they began to clear the snow. The work was hard and soon Hart could feel himself sweating through his shirt. Regardless of what Bjorn and his men might claim, after five nights in the saddle there was no need for that stoat.
He thrust his shovel into a snowdrift and then, pressing his knuckles into the small of his back, stretched to ease the tension there.
Callas was digging a hole for the fire. Building the fire beneath ground would do much to hide the flames from inquiring eyes. The smoke, too.
Hart had come to understand that Bjorn’s coarse and often inappropriate humor was a means of easing the tension they all felt. By this point, Hart half expected to feel an arrow in his back at any moment. A tingling spot had developed, right between his shoulder blades.
He sat down by the fire, using one of his saddlebags as a bench, and studied his surroundings in the fading light. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to eat, and drink, and snatch a few hours’ sleep. But, most of all, he wanted to be alone. To ponder, and to pray for guidance. To his new lord, and to the only lord who’d ever answered his prayers.
Strangely, he caught himself thinking about Lissa.
Who was, he decided with some humor, undoubtedly pleasuring one of the town’s fatter merchants at that precise moment. While he was here, keeping time with an equally revolting man. Bjorn Treesinger, who still hadn’t explained his surname, was chatting with his horse. Who appeared to be genuinely enjoying the attention.
The man might be intelligent, he might not be about to get Hart killed after all, but he’d never be likeable.
Above him, the tall pines seemed to grow together. Like skeletal fingers, reaching toward some center point. A steel gray sky that promised more snow was fading into black.
He’d lain in the forest near home, outside of Barghast, staring up at the sky as it snowed. The contrast of white on black was stunning. Ghostlike. He felt like he’d entered another world. The snow falling made the tops of the trees appear to be shrouded in mist.
Sitting up, finally, cold and covered in snow, he hadn’t noticed. Or cared. He’d felt nothing so much as a sense of exhilaration.
This was his home, and he would defend it.
He made a silent promise to his God.
An errant gust of wind blew through the trees. The fire crackled. There was still no noise.
“Summer child.” Bjorn settled in beside him. “Have you no testicles?”
Hart jumped. “What?”
Callas erupted in laughter. The wretch. The other men were sharing their own fire. No man wanted to eat with his master. Rather, he wanted to relax. Hart wished he could relax.
“I…what?” He felt like such a fool. Couldn’t he come up with a better response? Callas and Bjorn both must think him an idiot. And was there nothing else to discuss on this cursed trek through the wilderness other than his manhood?
Bjorn patted him affectionately on the cheek. “So smooth. Like a baby’s. Or a woman’s. Like a woman’s posteriors!” He cackled.
“I shave.” Why wasn’t Callas saving him?
Callas, opening his flask, appeared to be settling in for a show.
Bjorn began to serve out their supper, thick slabs of a revolting combination of inedibles called black pudding. Blood, milk, suet and oatmeal were heated together until they formed a paste thick enough to congeal when cooled. Into a sort of hideous, eggplant-colored log. Bjorn flavored his with pennyroyal, making it, in his mind, a delicacy above all others. Hart felt his gorge rise, but allowed no outward sign of discomfort. He’d be damned if Bjorn would call him a girl again.
Bjorn, for his own part, fell to with gusto. “How do you attract the women,” he asked, mid-chew, “when they can scarcely tell the difference between you and themselves?”
“By taking his pants off,” Callas volunteered.
Now he spoke.
“Right there, in the public square? You approach a strange woman and drop your braies?” Bjorn seemed entirely too interested. “Do you not get killed for such a thing? No tribeswoman,” he added, “would stand for such disrespect.” Bjorn swilled some ale, and spat.
“What?” Hart said stupidly.
“The woman picks you. All men know that.”
“Then you must be single.”
“I have three wives!” Bjorn grinned, exposing his teeth again. “Three wives and eleven children, seven of them boys.”
“There might be something to that stoat suggestion.”
Hart shot Callas a murderous look.
“What!” Callas threw up his hands. “You’re the one who wants to get married.”
“You are not married?” Bjorn seemed stunned by this revelation.
“Er, no.”
“Have you no women at all?”
“I, ah….” Hart trailed off, miserable.
“Do you not care for women?”
“Oh, I care for them.”
“Perhaps if you sang them songs, instead of dropping your—”
“Back in his first home, before he came North and became my blood brother,” Callas informed Bjorn, “he slept most nights with a pig. A pig to which he gave quite a pretty name.”
“Ah.” Bjorn pondered this information. And then, “ah.”
“Callas,” Hart replied, “has no intention of ever getting married.”
Bjorn’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “None? Then you must have no testicles.”
“Let’s drop his braies and look.”
“Now I’ll have you know—”
“Callas,” Hart said confidentially, leaning in closer to Bjorn, “has sworn an oath of devotion to the Gods to remain pure.”
Callas’ eyes widened.
Bjorn sat back, his massive hands on his knees. “Well no wonder,” he said, a tone of awe in his voice, “you city dwe
llers need our help.”
THIRTEEN
They crept toward Molag.
Overhead, the moon was reaching its zenith. Soon, it would begin to set. There was still no sound.
Molag was a decent-sized settlement, boasting several families. Among the clans, family was a loosely defined term. Each longhouse consisted, not of one husband and wife couple but of several. Usually at least one half of each couple was related, in some manner, to at least one other person under the same roof: meaning that five brothers might live together, all with their families, or some mixture of brothers, sisters, and cousins. A man might build a longhouse for him and his brothers, and then find one morning that his wife’s cousin’s sister in law—the cousin still living several settlements away—had turned up on his doorstep, claiming kinship and its protections.
Which meant that a village of even three longhouses could hold a sizeable population indeed, of four score or more individuals.
Molag had something in the order of ten longhouses, each of them from twenty to thirty spans wide and as long as several hundred. Although most were not so grand. In terms of structure, the traditional longhouse was supported by two marching rows of columns. Thus, the interior was divided into three long aisles. Wood was scarce in the mountains, mostly used for much-needed heat. Which meant that rare was the longhouse constructed entirely of wood. The walls and roof were, rather, usually constructed of turf. Or, in the case of wealthier families, stone.
Tribal settlements resembled nothing of the villages Hart was used to. Rather than a town square with a marketplace, shops, and other public spaces, they tended to be more elaborate farm settlements. Even crafters tended to work from home, vending their goods there also. The only non-residential buildings were grain silos and the occasional barn.
A circumstance, which made attack convenient: large groups of men, all huddled together for warmth.
