‘Oh,’ she said, slightly bewildered. ‘You mean in a poetic sort of way! Even so—’
He shook his head, chuckling. ‘Pardon, lady, but no! Poetry comes into it, poetry is to our minds what the hammer is to our hands – but what it expresses is real. A true smith can hardly help putting himself into his work, though it’s better done deliberately ’ more focused, you might say.’
She stared again, half laughing. ‘Oh, come! You’re not one of these superstitious peddlers, I can see that! I always wondered why Northerners ever believed in all that – mumbo-jumbo! I hoped I’d meet an intelligent one some day, a man of some, well, wisdom, some learning, and hear what he thought! And now – really, you’re just playacting like the rest of them!’
‘Lady, whether I’m wise or learned’s not for me to say. But I wouldn’t lie to you.’
She bridled. ‘Well, if you believe it all yourself, then, you can’t be very wise, can you? Such nonsense!’ She stared moodily at the horizon, screwing up her eyes. ‘It’s not as if you can actually see it working, can you? These charms and spells and things, there’s no proof they actually do anything, is there? You can’t watch them in action, striking sparks like a tinderbox or something, can you?’
‘As a matter of fact …’ said Kunrad, and grinned at her expression. He slid the bracelet down his wrist, and passed it over to her. ‘Did you not wonder how we came through the Marshlands, where even the corsairs could barely follow? I made this, as my father taught me; and I have always made them well.’
She held the bracelet by its short chain, as if it was going to bite her. ‘It’s quite beautiful, in its way. I’ve heard of these. They’re just lodestones, aren’t they?’
‘They are not, lady. The poorly made ones that reach the South may behave no better, perhaps, for they will point north if that’s what’s expected of them. Hold it steady, and think of a place, a direction – your home, perhaps, that you have left. Think hard, to make up for your lack of belief!’
The bracelet was swinging as she rode, in a kind of gentle half-spin; but as she lifted it to her face and glared dubiously at it, brows furrowing, its swing changed. The spin grew slightly, and then lessened; the swinging did not stop, but the bias was obviously different. ‘The spearhead slot, see the way it faces – back there to the mountain-roots? Is that where your home lies?’
She would not look at him. ‘Somewhere that way, yes! Though it is not our true home, that castle. My father only holds it from the Lord Warden; we no longer have any estates. Our true home is our old house in Ker Bryhaine itself, though—’
She caught her breath. The swing had changed again. The face she turned on him was wide-eyed, hovering on the edge of anger because it was easier to admit than fright. ‘Are you doing this? You’re laughing at me, aren’t you? It’s a trick, I suppose—’
‘A poor return for your kindness if it was, lady! But you challenged a truth that runs deep in my blood. Try a true test, that can be no trick. Hold your horse a moment, steady the bracelet, think of where your true love lies, his home, your destination. For that I could have no way of knowing.’
Moving apart from the caravan a moment, she steadied the bracelet in her hands, closed her eyes, frowned hard. Then her eyes flew open. The bracelet was spinning wildly, unnaturally, this way and that. Maybe it favoured a direction one moment, another the next; it was too fast to be sure. ‘Oh!’ she breathed, outraged. ‘Why … You are laughing at me! Here! Take it! Take the horrible thing!’ She tossed it up as violently as if it were a poisonous snake. Kunrad’s large hand scooped it deftly out of the air. Her cheeks flamed the shade of her flowing hair. She pulled on her reins and dug in her heels. ‘Thank you, Mastersmith! I think I’ll ride inside again, for today! All day! Thank you very much!’
She spurred hastily back to the carriage. Gille came cantering up, alive with questions; but none of them found answers. But deep inside, Kunrad, rather to his own surprise, was chuckling.
The ride was a leisurely one, as befitted the ladies, and when early in the evening they came to a pleasant grassy dell by a clear swift streamlet, they made camp at once. Fires were kindled and cauldrons set out. The smiths were about to join the soldiers when the captain appeared, wearing a very straight face and bringing Kunrad a courteous invitation from the Lady Alais. ‘Wups! Nanny fancies ’im!’ chortled one of the soldiers, earning an appalled glare from the captain. And certainly when he approached the other fire, the figure that rose to greet him was not Alais.
A rather tall, lean, stooping figure held out long wrinkled fingers to be kissed, with a tremendous air of courtly delicacy and a waft of faded flower scent. ‘The Mastersmith Kunrad, is it not? Do be seated – no, here on the cushions, I insist! My lady will be with us presently! There!’ She beamed at him in a rather short-sighted way, while he marvelled at how this old grey mare had managed to suggest by the sheer tone of her voice that to be a mastersmith was both something remarkable, hopelessly inferior and nothing to be ashamed of all the same. ‘I am Mistress Nolys, but I cannot remember the last time anyone called me that. The present Lord Warden’s father, possibly. Otherwise everyone calls me Nanny, so you may also, if you wish.’ She beamed again, with an intensity that lit up her wrinkled horsy face.
He found himself warming to her, though he suspected there was a considerable wit behind the dim green eyes, like weathered glass.
‘I’m greatly honoured, er – Nanny,’ he said gravely.
‘And now – but ah! Here comes my darling duckie now!’ Alais ruined what would have been a grand entrance by putting her hands to her eyes.
‘Nanny darling, must you?’ She drew breath, and swept her skirts around to face Kunrad as he rose. Her dress was a vivid green that set the grass to shame, yet made something immensely pleasing out of her hair and creamy skin. It even suited her freckles, and it caught the flashing brilliance of her eyes. ‘You are very welcome, Master Kunrad.’
‘I’m honoured. ‘Truly.’ Her fingers were cool, and the flowers she bore were in their first bloom. She sat again, and motioned him to do the same. ‘Nanny will fetch our food – no, stay! I want to talk to you.’ She looked at him very gravely. ‘I was rude to you this afternoon. Suppose there were some truth to your clever little device, what would you think it told you?’
He shrugged. ‘That you were uncertain, perhaps; unsure of yourself. I wouldn’t make anything of that. Very normal and usual for a gi – young lady about to marry, I’m sure.’
She looked immensely relieved. ‘Yes. Almost a joke, really. And a little upsetting to find oneself so … predictable. I keep telling myself I shoudn’t be. Something I want more than anything else on earth, that I’ve always wanted, yet I hesitate …’
Kunrad nodded. ‘Perhaps because you want it so much? It comes almost too soon?’
‘Yes!’ she said, startled and grateful. ‘Yes! I didn’t think anyone would understand that. I hardly do myself!’ She gave him a sudden arch smile. ‘You must know a lot about the way we think!’
It was Kunrad’s turn to look startled. ‘Women? I? Hardly a thing. Anyone from my town’d fall about laughing. About wanting, maybe. I’ve had a few lessons in that lately. It’s my prentice Gille who’s the expert on women, I suppose. A flaming nuisance with them, too.’
She chuckled earthily. ‘Yes, I can see he might be. He’s going to be very popular in Bryhaine, with that swarthy sort of face and the dark eyes. Just wait till all the old Syndics’ wives get a sight of him! They’ll all want to mother him! Aoh, my deah deah boyyy—’ Kunrad chortled at her mimicry. ‘Who knows, it might help your cause! But I think he’s the wrong kind of authority. Mostly, mmm, horizontal, and that has its limits – I’m told, I mean. But you – he doesn’t bother your wife, does he?’
‘Mine? He’d have a job. I haven’t got one.’
‘Now that lowers my opinion of Northern women right away. I suppose they couldn’t compete with a really nice large sooty anvil, or something?’
�
�Something like that. Anvils don’t talk back.’
‘Nonsense!’ she said briskly. ‘You want someone who can talk back. They just have to say something sensible, that’s all – oh, thank you, Nanny!’
The bowls were silver, and work fine enough to please even Kunrad, but the food in them was the same stew as the soldiers had. There was a fine wine, though, white and green-tasting, in goblets that really did startle him. They were of cut crystal, age-worn and cloudy, set in a holder of a strange gold-and-silver alloy called orichalcum, and deeply and magnificently carven. The design was a landscape of some kind, a deep valley and a high tower beneath which a tall waterfall flowed, its waters sculpted so that the low light of an afternoon sun seemed to play gold across the ripples, and the foam at the falls-foot glittered silver. Above the tower, in pure gold, rose an applied emblem in antique style of Raven, Friend of Men, carrying off the sun.
He became aware that the women were watching him as he turned the piece this way and that; and the firelight shone in their eyes with something of the same glitter. ‘I wondered if you would see something about the goblets,’ said Alais. ‘Are there these – these virtues in them, then?’
‘Are there—’ He almost choked. The design itself ran and coursed with glittering threads of virtues, but the golden emblem blazed and pulsed with a single brilliant force, so powerful that it seemed to pain his eyes like hot needles. It spoke to him of strength in adversity, of loyalty in trial, of gallantry in defeat and victory alike, of feelings of love and hate so strong he could hardly contain them, let alone speak of them. ‘This … whoever made this was a smith of power. Far greater than I will ever be, but also … not mad, perhaps, but very far from ordinary in his mind. It almost challenges me to go on holding this.’
She nodded gravely, and the old woman raised a hand. ‘I feel the same. You see truly, for these were made some three hundred years since, far in the East that is lost to us, for my lady’s line. For, know you, she is a Kermorvan, and that, that is—’
‘The ancient royal line, the house that once ruled both Northern and Southern folk in the East-kingdoms of old. Yes, the name’s not forgotten in our land – far from it! I knew it at once. So did the corsairs, mind you. And this is an heirloom of yours?’
‘It is,’ she said softly, ‘it and the others like it, for they were made for my forebears by Lord Vayde himself. The design is the great Gate of Kerys itself.’
‘Vayde!’ Kunrad raised the glass above the level of his eyes, in the respectful gesture with which smiths seek out the maker’s mark on some fine work. There it was, large and forceful, the two characters entwined which stood for VK, Vayde of Kerys, last latecomer from that legendary land. To his eyes they burned a dull emberred, He lowered the goblet, a little shakily, pledged the women with all the ceremony he knew, and sipped the wine. Cold seemed to sear his veins, but it was cold fire, strengthening.
‘No wonder you’re a remarkable family,’ he managed, ‘if you drink from these all the time. This is like … I don’t know, a thunderstorm captured in metal.’
She smiled regretfully. ‘I’ve never felt anything, not that I could be sure of. Nanny won’t touch them, though, not without a cloth. And as to remarkable, well, we’re not what we were. Our estates have gone – our enemies’ doing, partly, but our own, as well. Too much living in past glories, too much … Well, now my father holds a position of honour, but only a minor one, and by my Lord Warden’s kindness, in truth. My brothers hold offices of some weight in Ker Bryhaine, but under the Syndicacy, not by right. My Lord Warden is nearer a king than any man alive today, and he deserves it more, I must admit.’
‘Well,’ said Kunrad, ‘you’re uniting his right and yours, aren’t you? Maybe your children will have the best of both!’
She blushed quickly. The old woman chuckled. ‘Now, my dear, this bluff Northerner is indulging you too much, to talk of yourself all the time. We must hear of him, what brings him so far from his homeland and into so much peril? A quest of honour, perhaps? It cannot merely be to gather up a debt, to be worth so great an expense of effort.’
Kunrad flushed, in his turn. He was still exhausted, and the strong wine was working on him. ‘Honour is part of it, yes. And other concerns it is hard to explain. There was a work, that in a sense I have been labouring on all my life …’
He meant to tell only a part of his tale, for he feared that these sothran lordlings would tend to stick together, however just they might be. He named no names, but still he knew he was saying more than he meant, by the tone of his voice and the words he chose.
‘… and so, to make a long story short, I came south by sea, and the corsairs took us. I am a fool, perhaps, to pursue a thief with so little hope of success. But I have never had anything but my work, and that was taken away from me. And my land was insulted, a slug’s bright trail of theft and arson stretched down it, and at least one death also. That I will have him answer for! Before a fair court if I can; but if not, before my own hand.’
He felt the words fall like lead, and was surprised at the indignation in Alais’s voice. ‘And so you should! It does you credit! I hear your injury in everything you say! Do you not agree, Nanny?’
‘A dangerous quest, my dear!’ said the old woman reflectively. ‘But then honour is always hung about with danger, is it not? Danger for oneself and others, who may be whirled along in its path. A man of Anlaithann, you say?’
‘Merthian, he called himself,’ said Kunrad tonelessly, wishing he had never heard the name. The old woman had unerringly put her finger on what bothered him most. Nonetheless he noticed the quick exchange of glances between her and the girl.
‘So,’ said Alais, ‘the Lord of Anlaithann. Then you had certainly better appeal to the Lord Warden.’
‘You know this man, then?’
‘A little,’ she said. ‘My Lord Warden knows him better, I think. I cannot believe – but never mind about that! He will hear your plea, and I will see that he does!’ She smiled, radiantly he thought. ‘He is a just man, of that I can assure you. Perhaps this can be settled peacefully. But, yes, Nanny, we’re in danger of talking about me again. And I want to hear about the Marshes, and the corsairs. For it was partly to get me away from a land become so dangerous that my father let me come south to the Warden so early. Our marriage was not due for another six months yet, whereas now it will only be a few weeks hence! Oh dear – myself again! In the name of the Powers, Master Kunrad, say something! How ever did they catch you?’
Kunrad was not over-eager to bring back the darkness, even in memory; but he was glad enough to change the subject. He talked, the strange ancient goblet fast in his hand, and it seemed to give him strength. The women listened in silence as he told his tale. When she heard of the fortress, the girl’s eyes blazed. ‘My father said there must be such a lair! Ten years ago he said it, and my Lord Warden agrees now, too – but will those slugabed cynics of Syndics listen? The reports we’ve sent, the accounts of the raids, and what answer have we had, what action? The Marchwarden’s forces should be amply sufficient to suppress mere sporadic local raiding – but how in the name of Amicac do you find the raiders in time, without spreading yourself so thin you cannot meet any threat adequately?’ Her excited eyes caught the firelight as she leaned forward, and the flame danced upon her ruddy hair and finely freckled cheeks, so that she looked like some primal firespirit of the younger world. ‘And now you bring us this news!’
‘I will tell it to anyone you wish, lady!’ he said, setting down the goblet with exaggerated care. ‘And in such a way as they’ll hearken to. But for now …’
‘Yes, of course!’ she said. ‘Go sleep, for tomorrow’s a longer ride! And Mastersmith – if you would share it with me, I’d be greatly honoured!’
Even Olvar was mildly curious when he returned to their fire, and Gille practically beside himself. But Kunrad said little, wrapped himself in his blanket, and lay looking at the Southland stars till he drifted off into sleep.
> The sun woke him, rising into a sky of cloudless blue, and a day that promised to be even warmer than the ones before. Olvar felt restored enough to ride; the soldiers found him their stoutest horse, and pretended to bet on who would end up carrying who. Him they had treated almost like some sort of pet or talking animal at first, but he was now well accepted, not least by association with Kunrad. Gille joined him; they had made friends, with the younger men especially, although at Kunrad’s dire warning they had been careful to keep their counsel. Kunrad rode ahead to the leading coach, to find Alais practising mounting from its footboard, to the old woman’s great distress.
‘Master Kunrad!’ she called out, in the middle of one such dangerous manoeuvre. ‘Isn’t it an absolutely glorious sky?’
‘It is,’ he said, bowing to the old woman, and carefully shepherding Alais into her saddle, ‘and a fair country beneath. Mine’s bleak and barren by comparison. And cold. You know, I never realised it before, but I think I’ve been cold all my life? Maybe it was living so near the Great Ice. I can feel the sun warming my bones here. And the trees and the grasses and the flowers, the birds – so rich, so open. And soon it’ll all be yours.’
‘Mine?’ She laughed. ‘Say rather, I’ll belong to it, or that we’ll belong to the same lord. It’s his to hold, not mine. If I had any lands, he’d have those as well. Why’re you looking so stuffed?’
Kunrad blinked. ‘You don’t mind that?’
‘No – why should I?’
Kunrad scratched his head. ‘We, well, we think of things a bit differently in the North. A wife has rights in her husband’s goods and so on, as he hers – a partnership. She’s a person, an equal, not a possession.’
She smiled lazily up at him. ‘An equal, eh? Very well, Mastersmith – how many equals have you got? How many women smiths are there?’
Kunrad was taken aback. He was no good whatever at humming and hawing. ‘Well … there have been some, I know …’
The Castle of the Winds Page 21
