“Crow,” he said, and the man turned toward him. “I give you guesting in the House of Trieve.”
He thought later that of all the things he had done, that had been the high god’s doing the most. The crow’s eyes flew open, as did the doctor’s and the boy’s, the only other two who had heard him. Guesting was the obligation of the lord, and it was not granted lightly. It would be all over Trieve in an hour, what he had done; a part of him thought of Jessamy’s reaction with wryness. He gestured to the others, and they left the crow to his meager cell.
He was still thinking about it when he returned to his chamber after the night meal. Jessamy did not join him, and he ate in the kitchen with some of the men, discussing his plans for a guard. Trieve had been able to call up all of three hundred fighting men when Stavin threw in his lot with Red Gold Bridge last year. Nearly all of them had died, in part because they were mostly farmers and smallholders. Stavin had never seen to the training of his men.
Crae had discovered that Stavin had not done much to keep Trieve well in hand. No, I knew that before, he thought. But it was not my place—the place of a captain—to say anything, even though we were friends.
They sat at the table long into the night, over tankards of Trieve’s good beer and some stronger drink, talking over his plans.
“Swords, crossbows, hand-to-hand fighting,” he said, ticking off what they had to learn. The grooms and the housemen leaned forward, eyes shining, and Crae grinned. The boy who sat watch at the door to the crow’s prison was with his father, hanging on his elders’ every word. It was good to know that they didn’t lack for will, even if they had no training. “It makes no sense for only lords to learn to fight.” His grin faded, and he nodded at the storeroom door. There was naught but silence coming from the crow. “They are our enemy now.”
“We only ever heard tales of them before,” a young farmer said, in for the night from one of the far villages. “Tales the children frightened each other with. Now the tales are constant; they rove everywhere and fear nothing.”
“When you go back to your village, let everyone know I need men,” Crae said. “We’ll start training tomorrow.” His head went dizzy again, and he grimaced. He needed a captain for this task, but he would have to get them started. He could not delay before he could engage an experienced soldier.
“Are you well, sir?” someone said. They looked at him anxiously. It was a different sight than when he had first arrived as lord. They had been cautious then, not sure of who he was and what he meant for Trieve and for them. Now they put their hope in him and needed him to be well.
“I will be,” he said. He had to be.
He was more than a little drunk when he limped back up the stairs to his chamber, his leg aching from his exertions. He pushed open the door and stared in surprise. The room was bare. The hearth had been swept. His bed had been stripped, and his chest of belongings, with his clothes and his gear, was gone.
“Oh, sir,” said Calyne, hurrying up with an armful of linens. “Lady Jessamy had asked us to clear out your old room and be moved to Lord Stav—the lord’s chamber.”
She had, had she? Jessamy had made some sort of statement with the move, but for the life of him, he could not figure out what it could be. He turned and followed Calyne. Stavin’s room was large, with two glazed windows overlooking the terraces. A few candles burned in sconces over the bed, and Crae couldn’t help breaking out in a grin at the grandness. This bed was long enough for his lanky frame, and its carved bedposts rose to the high ceiling. His humble chest sat against one wall, and a huge desk dominated the other. The books on Trieve’s history that he had been reading before the attack had been placed on a bookshelf above it.
He had to steel himself to cross the threshold. It felt like a desecration; he felt like an imposter, even with the summoning still quivering somewhere below his heartbeat.
Calyne left him, and he undressed in the semidarkness. Hardly knowing what compelled him, although he knew he was drunk and restless and lonely, he opened his chest. Even in the half dark he knew what he was looking for and found it beneath the rest of his clothes and papers. Far below at the bottom he felt for the cold little thing that Lynna had brought with her to Red Gold Bridge. It was wrapped in her white shirt, the one she wore all the way to Trieve when they looked for a guardian last winter. He knew it by heart, its fine material and plain buttons, and the neatly sewn-up tear in the sleeve. He had made that tear himself when her arm had been broken by a crow’s heavy staff and he’d had to make sure the bone did not pierce the skin. She couldn’t wear the shirt after her arm had been set. And so he had kept it in his chest, neatly wrapped around the cold black device.
He pulled it out. The little device felt strangely light yet substantial. It was made of metal, or glass, or some other smooth material. It was hinged at one end but he dared not lift the narrow lid. The last time it was open the thing shrieked to wake the dead. He had managed to silence it, but he didn’t know how, and he wasn’t sure he could do it again.
If Lynna knew he had it, she never mentioned it. She had, after all, left it behind as a distraction when she made her escape from Red Gold Bridge.
Both Lynna and the stranger man Bahard had said the devices could be used to call upon someone. Bahard had said they didn’t work in Aeritan, though. Too bad; he was almost befuddled enough by drink to try. He could see himself opening up the small device and calling out her name. Lynna. Lynn. If he summoned, would she come?
And if she answered, what then? He was married, a lord. She could have no place here, nor he with her, in her country.
He wrapped up the little object in the shirt and replaced them both at the bottom of the chest. Then he put himself into his solitary bed, hoping he woke without as much of a hangover as he seemed to be in store for.
Four
The underpass where the black road crossed over the highway was filled with litter and stank of men, excrement, and whiskey. Marthen’s nose twitched as the smells finally reached him in his stupor. He moved his hand feebly, his first thought for his small jug of harsh whiskey. It was still there, tucked next to his side. His next move was for the handgun. It, too, still rested in his trousers pocket, heavy and substantial against his side. Relieved, he opened his eyes and looked straight up at the concrete bridge above him. Pigeons cooed and strutted, their perch stained with droppings. The saddle created an uncomfortable pillow and strained his neck.
The bridge hummed with the rush of traffic overhead, the rhythmic thudding of tires over the concrete seams echoing along with his aching head.
Carefully, he turned his head first to the left. Nearby, a handful of men squatted over their few belongings: ragged blankets, bags stuffed with cans, a wheeled basket. He turned his head the other way, his tangled hair falling into his eyes so it took a moment for his vision to clear.
“Nice saddle,” came a voice in his ear.
A pair of dark blue eyes, bright like a bird’s, peered back at him, inches from his face. Marthen waited for his close-range vision to clear. The man continued to stare at him. He had gray hair, a lined and sunken face, and a bulbous drunkard’s nose. Once Marthen could gauge men as well as he could run a battle. Now he couldn’t tell if this man were a simpleton as well as a drunkard. He waved his hand peevishly.
“Help me up,” he ordered, his voice raspy. The man put an arm under Marthen’s shoulder and lifted him, then scooted back to give him room. Marthen waited for the world to stop spinning and then said carefully,
“Where am I?”
“Under a 684 overpass. Or as I like to call it, the crossroads of despair.”
Marthen stared at him. Those were not the words of a simpleton. A strange feeling came over him, one he couldn’t identify. “Is that in North Salem?”
The man snorted. “Close enough. Why? You rich?” He glanced at the saddle.
Rich? Like a noble? He looked at the man more closely.
“No, not rich.” Not noble. “I must
find someone.”
It sounded so weak to himself that he half expected the man to laugh at him. His strange acquaintance remained solemn.
“They won’t have you,” he said.
It was Marthen’s turn to laugh, a dry little croak. “That was made clear to me.” Lord Terrick’s parting words had assured him he would stand in his way if Marthen attempted to petition the Council for Kate Mossland. He knew he would be blocked in this world as well. No matter. He had been boxed in before and slipped free.
Marthen had traveled months to find her. He had sold his warhorse, then his gear, and finally his sword, all for whispers of this portal, rumors in dark places paid for by coin passed secretively from hand to hand.
He kept the saddle and the gun. The saddle was all that remained of Kate Mossland in Aeritan. The gun was a gift from the Brythern lord Hare. Marthen knew that Hare played his own game, and the gun was meant to set Marthen in motion as if he were the lord’s playing piece. Marthen took pleasure in thwarting him. He would use the gun for his own purposes.
Marthen fumbled for the small jug of whiskey. It still had a few swallows. The man’s eyes were fixated on the bottle now. Marthen handed it over, and the man took a small sip. Marthen felt a surge of the old triumph. He wished he still had Grayne, his competent aide-de-camp, but his lieutenant had left him many months ago. Then again, it hardly mattered. Grayne would be all at sea in this strange world, no better than Marthen himself.
“I saw her. She was in a—car,” he said, using the unfamiliar word that he had learned from her last year. “I came for her, and saw her, but I don’t know where she went or how to find her again.”
It had been unbelievable. He had stepped out of the gordath in the woods and into this new world. He hadn’t walked far before he saw the marvels of the world she came from, the brightness, the smells, the rush of noise, the cars moving so quickly on the roads so black and smooth.
He waited on the side of the road, hungover, weak, and unsure, still disoriented from his passage through the gordath, when a car slowed and stopped near where he stood on the verge, half in the trees. And through the glass of the window he saw her, and she saw him. Their eyes caught. He took in her burgeoning surprise, the realization, and the fear.
The car sped off, but not before he thought he saw her scream.
It was another day before he understood his impossible luck and how he could not be so lucky again. Not even the soldier’s god—not any god—would be able to find her in this place. He was on his own.
He wasn’t sure how he ended up underneath this bridge, but maybe it was another kind of luck.
“You don’t look like the romantic type,” his new friend said. He handed back the jug, and again his eyes fixed on it.
“No.” Marthen took a much smaller sip but didn’t hand it back. “Help me find her.”
The man jerked his gaze away from the whiskey back to Marthen’s face. “What? Jesus, you at least need a name.”
“I have a name. Is that all I need?”
“Shit, man. I don’t know. You have an address? Where she lives?”
“She lives here.”
The man gave him all of his attention now. “If she lives here, she isn’t going to give you the time of day. Who is she? Ex-wife? I’m telling you, you mess with the townies, more than just asking for a buck, you are in trouble.”
They had gotten some attention now from the other men under the bridge. Marthen thought it was like the old stories about crows who lived under bridges and accosted travelers on their paths with riddles. These men were not crows, though. They were drunkards and broken, sad and lost, but they didn’t have the madness of the crows.
Once he commanded an army of tens of thousands of men, including the wild crows of Aeritan. Now he had these sorry men.
He made himself stand up. The overpass stretched overhead, and the rushing traffic was like the wind in the high pines of Temia, the thudding of the tires like a drumbeat. They all looked at him, and he felt again the fullness that came when he addressed his army before battle. He began softly, and they had to strain to hear him over the cooing of the pigeons and the incessant traffic.
“So you are pent up beneath this bridge,” he said. “You hide here, you drink here, you stink here.”
Someone laughed, and someone else shushed him. He looked at the man who had first helped him. He already thought of him as his lieutenant. The man’s attention was fixed wholeheartedly on him now.
“How are you called?”
The man blinked uncertainly.
“Gary.” Close enough to Grayne. The soldier god was smiling on him—or laughing. Marthen bent low.
“Do you like your prison, Gary? Your crossroads of despair?”
Gary had a strange expression, as if he knew what Marthen was doing, and he was falling for it anyway. He is no simpleton, Marthen thought. But I have no need of simpletons. At least not in my lieutenants.
Gary leaned in low, too, and their conversation became private. “I don’t know what you think you are doing, but you are crazy if you think you can start a revolution. These guys are hard up, but they’d sell their own mother for a drink or a hit. If you cause enough trouble, you will bring the cops down on all of us, and believe me, this is paradise compared to a real jail.”
“So you do like your prison,” Marthen said, loud enough for the others to hear. “Do you want to stay?”
“I—no! That’s not what I mean . . .” Gary trailed off uncertainly.
“Anyone else? Anyone else want to stay under this bridge until they come to roust you out? Burn you out?”
There was a rumbling of discontent.
“I’m looking for a woman,” he told them. “She is not yet full grown and lives with her parents. Her name is Kate Mossland. Help me find her.” He paused. He could see their confusion and indecision, and he contained his impatience. Once he had commanded crows, and that took promises and strength and cunning. He could bend these men to his will. Once he had Kate Mossland, he could still use these men for his purposes. This time, his army would not be disbanded.
From the back someone held up his hand. He was still young, his face not as weathered as the rest of the men, but it was fair on its way to becoming that way.
“So, you mean she’s still a teenager? ’Cause, yeah, school’s out, but all the kids hang out by the lake in the summer.” He glanced around and shrugged. “I could show you where.”
“Lynn! One of the horses is loose,” Mrs. Felz called from the kitchen. Lynn glanced over from the living room, where she was going through the mail. Bills, insurance—who knew there was so much expense to owning a horse farm?
“I’m coming,” she called back and hurried out the front door. She looked down the drive, where the kitchen window overlooked the entrance to the farm. Sure enough, there was a chestnut horse meandering along the drive, browsing on the tall weeds along the verge.
It wasn’t one of hers. Someone must have lost a horse from a neighboring farm, and it wandered over here.
“Shoot,” she said, half under her breath. She didn’t like strange horses coming through. Whose ever it turned out to be would be informed, in as friendly a way as possible, that they needed to keep their gates shut. She headed back through the kitchen, grabbing a halter and lead rope from the hook in the mudroom, and let herself out the back. Mrs. Felz followed, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She had been doing the dishes.
That was another thing; it seemed like Mrs. Felz planned on staying. First she tidied up the barn apartment, then she took Lynn’s house in hand, and now she just made herself useful. Lynn couldn’t bring herself to tell her to leave, and Mrs. Felz seemed perfectly happy to do things. When Lynn brought it up tentatively, Joe’s mom had just smiled and said, “If it’s all right with you, I’ll stay till I wear out my welcome. My husband, Abel—well, let’s just say it’s more peaceful here right now than home.” Lynn lost her courage and left it like that.
She walked up
to the horse, keeping her stride slow but purposeful. The horse kept grazing, but it swiveled its ears toward her to keep track of her progress. It was a gelding, and it was starving. Its backbone stuck up, and its ribs showed. Automatically she registered its conformation—probably part quarter horse with maybe some Thoroughbred. It was a little more than fifteen hands, too small for her but a good solid size. Smallish feet, the head the shape that quarter horse breeders called the bulldog type, with its short jowls and wide forehead. Nice-looking horse. Too bad she wanted to kill its owner for letting it starve half to death.
“Hi,” she said, when she got close enough. “Hey there, boy. I’ve got something better for you in the barn.” She held the halter and lead rope behind her back in case he was halter-shy. He raised his head and looked at her and snorted. He was clearly uneasy but hadn’t tried to trot off. She stopped and waited, turning her head to the side. She wasn’t a horse whis perer, but sometimes if you just didn’t look a horse in the eye, horses found it easier to approach you. She breathed easily as if she had nothing better to do than stand in the sun, just as if she were a horse herself. Then she ambled forward a few steps, not quite toward the horse. He made to turn on his haunches but she placed herself in front of him. He turned the other way, but she was there, too, all the time still far enough away that she was no threat.
The moment he gave in, she knew. He lowered his head, swiveled his ears at half alert, and waited. She came up to him, put the halter on, and patted him soothingly. He had cuts all over his face and flanks, some quite deep, as if he had been flayed. They were recent, too, scabbed over but still fresh. Lynn gasped a little. What had happened to him? Who could have done this?
“Okay, boy, easy, easy,” she said. “Let’s head over to the barn, and I’ll get you water, hay. You want a carrot? I can get you a carrot.”
He waited patiently, flicking an ear at her nonsense, and she clucked to him and started leading him back up to the barn. She would put the word out about who might have starved, beaten, and misplaced a perfectly good horse, but she wasn’t sure what she would come up with. She was confident that none of her neighbors were the type to treat a horse this way.
Red Gold Bridge Page 6
