by K J Taylor
A hand tugged at her sleeve. “My lady?”
She looked around and saw Torc. Even now the boy’s face reminded her of Welyn, and she had to stop herself from crying out. “Yes?”
Torc backed away. “I’m sorry, my lady. I just wondered if you could tell me where Lord Arenadd is.”
Caedmon stepped in and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Torc! Don’t ye dare question the lady!”
Torc yelped. “I’m sorry! I just wanted to know if he was hurt or anything. I’m sorry.”
“He is in the infirmary, tending to the wounded,” said Skade.
“He’s not hurt then, my lady?” said Caedmon.
Skade gave him a look. “I see you have no troubles with questioning the lady.”
“I’m the elder among the slaves, my lady,” Caedmon answered calmly. “It’s my duty to ask the questions and pass the answers on to the others.”
“I see. No, Lord Arenadd is not hurt. But he is grieving for his father,” said Skade.
Caedmon’s face fell. “Not Cardock?”
“Yes. He died defending me, and Arenadd is distraught.”
Torc groaned. “Oh, no.”
“This was madness,” Caedmon muttered. “How many are there dead?”
“At least forty of our men,” said Skade.
“Madness! Using slaves as an attack force—and what exactly is Lord Arenadd planning to do with us next? First we were runaways; now we’re killers. If we’re caught, we’ll all hang.” Caedmon gripped his stick and muttered Northern curses under his breath.
“You forget yourself,” Skade said coldly. “You are not in a position to question your master’s decisions.”
Caedmon bowed. “Forgive me, my lady,” he said stiffly and walked away.
Torc watched him go. “I’ve never heard him say anything like that before.”
“No, and he should not have said it, either,” said Skade. “Now you should go to the kitchens, Torc. We are going to eat here tonight, all together.”
Torc stared at her. “What, all in the same room? At the same table? My lady.”
Skade smiled very slightly. So much like Welyn. “Of course. We have won a great victory here today and must celebrate. Now go. There is work to do.”
By evening, the fortress had been fully occupied by the slaves. They had cleaned out the rooms, taking anything that looked useful. Every scrap of food from the storerooms had been brought out, and the armoury, too, had been emptied. The surviving guards had been locked away and provided with bread and water, and the dead had been removed from the mess hall. Prydwen had posted sentries on top of the walls, to watch out for any travellers coming up the road.
Meanwhile, the slaves assigned to the kitchens had been working their hardest preparing a range of dishes to be served that evening in the mess hall, where the long tables had been righted and stocked with enough chairs for everyone.
Amid all this work, however, one person remained conspicuously absent: Arenadd. Skade eventually lost patience and went to the infirmary to look for him, but was told he had left some time ago. When she went in search of him she failed to find him or Skandar, either, but questioning eventually revealed where they both were.
“Lord Arenadd went down to the vault, my lady. The griffin followed; they’ve been down there for a long while.”
“They are with the bodies?” said Skade, startled.
“Yes, my lady. The door’s locked, but I went past and heard some strange sounds.”
“What sounds?” said Skade.
The man shook his head. “Like metal.”
Skade felt an unpleasant churning in her stomach as she made for the door to the vault, which did indeed prove to be locked. She thumped on it. “Arenadd? Arenadd, are you there?”
There was silence, and then a scrape of wood from the other side. The door swung open and Arenadd appeared, looking pale and tired. He blinked at her. “Oh. Hello.”
Skade looked past him but only saw the huge bulk of Skandar approaching. “How is he?”
“Better. Excuse me, I have to go upstairs.” Arenadd pushed past her and walked up the corridor toward the stairs. Skade flattened herself against the wall to let Skandar through; the griffin glanced briefly at her and then limped off after his friend.
Skade hesitated, thinking of looking inside the vault for some clue, but instead followed Skandar, hoping to catch up with Arenadd. But the griffin, only just able to fit through the corridor, blocked her way, and she had to follow him at a distance as he struggled up the stairs.
The three of them made the short journey back up to the second level of the fort, where Arenadd opened a large studded door. Skandar followed him through it, and Skade ran to catch up.
“Arenadd!”
Arenadd paused in the act of closing the door. “Yes?”
She stopped. “What are you doing?”
Arenadd rubbed his eyes. “I found a razor and a comb in one of the rooms. I need to have a bath and neaten myself up a bit.”
“In the forge?”
“I see you found a new gown,” said Arenadd, ignoring her. “It looks good on you. I shouldn’t be long; I’ll see you downstairs later, all right?” That said, he closed the door.
Skade glared at it and walked away.
The slaves held their impromptu victory feast after moonrise, every man packed into the mess hall who wasn’t on sentry duty or in the infirmary. The slaves assigned to the kitchens had done their best, and had provided roasted and salted meat, boiled potatoes, bread and butter, dried fruit and two barrels of mead. The slaves sat around the table in no particular order and eagerly bit in, and the air was soon full of their talk.
Skade, standing awkwardly by the doorway, watched them. There was an apprehensive feel in the room, but she could hear relief and even pride in the men’s voices as well. They had fought a battle and won it, and now they had food and shelter and a true sense of safety for the first time in weeks. For now they could afford to enjoy themselves a little.
Skade scratched her neck. Arenadd hadn’t reappeared since he had locked himself up in the forge, and she had finally commanded the slaves to begin eating without him.
She chewed at the food she had taken from the nearest table, and sighed. Caedmon and Prydwen had both invited her to sit with them, but she disliked the idea of being surrounded by so many humans, and hunger had forced her to stay in the mess hall, feeling jittery and anxious. She hated being out of sight of the sky and wished Arenadd was there to calm her down.
She wondered, abruptly, if he was all right. He hadn’t looked well when she had seen him, and there had been something about the way he acted. She still didn’t understand a lot of human behaviour. They communicated things with their faces, but she only knew a few expressions. Had there been something in Arenadd’s face that she should have noticed, something he wanted to tell her but without words? His father was dead: was there something she should have said or done, something he needed from her?
She sighed miserably. I am a cripple. Once I was strong, but now my wings are gone and I know nothing. Once I was the protector, but now—
You failed to protect Welyn, her inner voice told her harshly. You watched him die. Why do you think you can protect Arenadd, who loves you? Your talons are gone; your magic is gone; you know nothing and can do nothing. Fool. Weak fool.
Skade hissed to herself and tore a piece of bread in half.
A few moments later, the back of her neck prickled. She looked up sharply, alerted by something that took her a few moments to identify.
The hall had gone quiet. Every man there was looking toward the opposite door, and Skade quickly saw why. She dropped the bread and almost ran toward it.
“Arenadd!”
He stepped into the hall and treated her to a genuine smile. “Hello, Skade. Have you had something to eat?”
“I have, and so have your friends,” said Skade. She looked him up and down. “I see you have groomed yourself.”
He h
ad washed himself and paid particular attention to his hair, which had been trimmed, cleaned and combed. It hung in a curly mane over his shoulders. He had also shaved and styled the tangled mess of his facial hair and now wore a small, pointed thin beard that suited him quite well. He had even, by the looks of it, washed and darned his robe, though there was a bandage wrapped around his throat that she didn’t remember seeing before.
“Yes, and I’m very pleased about that,” he said, patting his hair. “I looked like something out of a drainage ditch.”
Skandar shoved his way past and into the hall at this point, and instantly limped over to the nearest table and dragged a platter of meat onto the floor. The slaves yelled and darted out of the way, but the griffin completely ignored them and began to eat.
Arenadd groaned. “Sorry! Sorry, he’s not very—oh, never mind. Is there a spare seat anywhere?”
Caedmon came hurrying over. “Of course, my lord. Follow me. And you, too, my lady.”
Skade fell in behind Arenadd, feeling oddly relieved, and let herself be ushered to a seat beside him at the head of one of the tables. Caedmon and Torc brought over the choicest dishes for them to share, and poured two cups of mead.
Arenadd started to eat at once. “Thank gods. I’m ravenous.”
Skade watched him. “Are you ... well?”
“Well enough,” he said briefly. “And you? That cut on your forehead looks painful.”
“I am fine,” said Skade. “But I was—I did not know if—I thought that perhaps you were not well,” she finished lamely.
Arenadd picked up his cup. “I’m fine. My head still aches a bit, but it should be okay.”
“But your father is dead.”
He paused at that, and she saw some expression move over his face that could have been pain. “Yes. We’ll burn him with the others tomorrow, before we leave. I’m going to take his ashes north with me. It’s what he would have wanted.”
“Why?” said Skade, mystified.
“Because—well, it’s symbolic. Even if he’s dead, part of him can still come with us. Does that make sense?”
“Very little,” said Skade. “But who am I to judge?”
Arenadd smiled slightly. “I’m sorry if I was a bit standoffish before. I had things to think about.”
“What things?” said Skade.
“Things,” he said enigmatically.
“Yes, and what things would they be?” said Skade.
“Just things. Go on, have something to eat. We should enjoy it while it lasts; I don’t know how long it’ll take us to get to where we’re going.”
“Where are we going?” said Skade. “We were always going north, but do you know where in the North?”
“We obviously can’t go into any of the villages,” said Arenadd, “so we’ll have to find somewhere else. An uninhabited place. Somewhere further north, where no-one lives.”
“You think we can survive there?” said Skade.
“I hope so.” Arenadd began spreading butter on a slice of bread and left it at that.
Skade considered pressing him further but decided there would be time for that later. In the meantime, she ate.
The feast went on, and the men ate their fill. Skandar finished his stolen meat and then settled down against the wall closest to Arenadd but as far away from the humans as he could get; he alternately tore at his bandages and glared at the slaves.
Eventually the food was gone, along with most of the mead, and the slaves had settled down, sleepy and contented.
That was when Arenadd stood up. “Excuse me.”
The people at his table looked up, but most of the room’s other occupants didn’t hear him and continued to chat among themselves.
Arenadd drew himself up. “Listen to me!”
Silence fell at once, and every man looked toward him.
Arenadd gave a satisfied smile. “Thank you,” he said. “Now, I have some things to say.” He paused a moment and then walked around the table to stand at the centre of the room. “My friends,” he said. “And friends are what I hope you are, and it’s how I think of you. I don’t like to think of you as my property or as my underlings. I’ve led people before, even into dangerous situations. When I lived at Eagleholm I had to work with the city guard to capture smugglers, and even though I was in command we worked together as a team and every man there had his say. That’s how a group should always work.” He began to pace back and forth.
“Tonight, while we celebrate our victory—and that was what it was—I want to talk to you about someone. That someone is my father. His name was Cardock Skandarson. When he was only ten, Lady Riona sold the slaves she had at Eagleholm. Only a handful of them stayed behind; they were children who were too young to be sold. My father was freed and given an apprenticeship to a boot maker. Many years later he fell in love with another freed slave, Annir. I was their only child, and they named me Arenadd after Arenadd the Sage.” Arenadd stopped pacing and frowned, his shoulders hunching slightly.
“I grew up as the only Northern child in the village. The other freed slaves had returned to Tara as soon as they were old enough, but my parents didn’t want to travel with an infant, and so I grew up in Idun. They were the only people of my race I knew. My father always wanted to return to the North when I was a little older, but I destroyed his dreams without even realising it: I became a griffiner. Lady Riona had me swear loyalty to her, and I became her man from then on. And my father—I know he was proud, in a way, but he didn’t show it. After what griffiners had done to his people, he saw it as a kind of betrayal. We argued—fought. My father had always told me that I should be proud of my heritage, and at first I listened. But after we began fighting, all that came to an end. I refused to answer to ‘Arenadd’ and began to call myself ‘Arren Cardockson,’ like a Southerner. I moved into the city and almost never visited my parents at all; I refused to speak the Northern tongue. I even cursed my own people. I didn’t want to be a Northerner. I wanted to be a Southerner, and I believed I was, with all my heart. I believed that it didn’t matter how I looked if I was a Southerner at heart, if I made myself be more than that.
“I listened to what my tutors said; I believed everything they told me about my race. But I knew I was more than just a savage; I was intelligent, educated. I could rise above my birth, become something special.” He looked at them intensely. “I want you to understand that. All of you. I was ashamed. Truly ashamed. I was at war with my own blood, my own race, my own self. My father never forgave me for it. And yet he never stopped loving me, and he never stopped hoping that one day I would understand the things he was always trying to make me see. And today, I did see.” Arenadd spread his hands, holding them out palm up. “And it was you that I saw,” he said. “All of you. Here, today, the men in this hall showed me the truth. You showed me why I should never be ashamed; you taught me that I should be proud. All my life people have spat at me and cursed me behind my back because I was a Northerner. But you never did. You made me be proud; you made me feel that I was blessed, by these eyes, this hair, this robe, this pale skin. Even though you were born into slavery, you had the courage and the strength to do what I asked of you. You showed me what true men of Tara can do. And even though my father died today, fighting beside you, I know he would have been happy to know that I know. And for that”—he bowed low—“I thank you.”
There was silence once Arenadd stopped speaking. And then, without any warning, three figures rose from the table.
Prydwen, Dafydd and Garnoc. The three Northerners looked at Arenadd, then at each other, and then Prydwen lifted his face to the ceiling and howled. It was a wolf howl—long, low and mournful—and after a few moments his two friends joined in.
Arenadd looked startled for a moment, but then he grinned. He cupped his hands around his mouth and howled back, and soon every man in the room was doing likewise. The howls filled the hall, mingled with whoops and cheers, and Skade looked on, puzzled.
Skandar looked
up, his tail lashing in sudden alarm. The howling made him bristle, and he began to hiss. Finally, provoked, he opened his beak and screeched. The noise cut across the howling, and everyone started nervously, staring at him. Skandar glared back, and then, as suddenly as the howling had begun, everyone there started to laugh.
Skandar looked affronted and opened his beak a few times, apparently considering another screech, before he decided to ignore them.
The laughter died away, and Arenadd wiped his eyes. “Don’t mind him; I’m sure he just wanted to join in. Now,” he said, once the fresh laughter this provoked had ended, “I’ve been thinking alone this evening.” He looked seriously at them. “After a victory in battle, generals usually give their soldiers extra pay. But what use would money be to you? You’re slaves. You’ve spent your whole lives doing as you’re told and have been given nothing in return. But still, even slaves sometimes get rewards from their masters when they do well, don’t they? And I have a reward for you.” Arenadd pointed abruptly. “Garnoc. Come here, please.”
The burly slave rose from his seat. “Me, sir?”
“Yes, you. Come here.”
Garnoc did. “What d’ye want from me, sir?”
Arenadd looked him up and down in a calculating kind of way. “Do you trust me, Garnoc?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. And do you want the reward I have for you?”
“I . . . think so, sir.”
“Then I need you to do exactly as I say,” said Arenadd.
“I will, sir.”
Arenadd nodded. “Stand very still and raise your chin. Yes, like that. And stand absolutely still. Don’t move for any reason. Not even slightly. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Garnoc.
“Good.” Arenadd reached into his robe and brought out an iron blacksmith’s hammer, holding it tightly in one hand. “Then you’ll have your reward now.”
Garnoc’s eyes widened. “Sir? What are you doing?”
A strange smile came over Arenadd’s face. “Join me, Garnoc,” he said, and swung the hammer as hard as he could.
