The Gathering of the Lost

by Helen Lowe

  It was very quiet after they left, with just the drip, drip, drip from the eaves and the rattle of rainwater in the guttering. Raven and his companions finished their ale and left, too, without saying anything about the incident. Carick pretended to read his book.

  “Why did you intervene?” He had forgotten that Malisande was in the stillroom and jumped when she spoke. She tilted her dark head as she stepped back into the kitchen, studying his small shrug. “Because Jarna already gets a hard enough time from Ser Bartrand, is that it?”

  Because I hate bullies, Carick thought, and all those who see vulnerability as an invitation to attack. “He doesn’t teach her the same way he does the other squires,” he said. “I’ve seen that—and the way Hamar and Audin try to make up for it.” He did not add that he had noticed how close Hamar and Jarna were as well, because he was not sure anyone else had yet.

  Malisande sat down on the opposite settle and drew up her feet, wrapping her arms around her knees. “You’re right. It’ll get her killed, one day. Or her friends,” she added, matter-of-fact, “trying to keep her alive.”

  They were both silent, staring at the flames. Malisande rested her chin on her knees. “You were clever, though. Not just taking the sting out of Linnet’s declaration for Ormond, but opening the way for Ghis to reinforce it.” Her eyes narrowed. “What Linnet said about Ormond and Emer was close to treason. And not wise either, in front of Brania and the Castellan’s men.”

  Carick thought about Audin’s head bent close to Ghiselaine’s, on the morning Maister Gervon’s body was found. “Does Ghiselaine support the peace?”

  “Who knows?” The damosel’s smile was as narrow as her eyes. “Both she and Ormond are bound to it through the treaty made with Caer Argent, but Emerian history is full of broken compacts. And more still that were made simply to be kept until the time was right.”

  “You’re a cynic,” Carick said, but Malisande shook her head.

  “No. A realist. But now, thanks to you, the whole matter will blow over and be forgotten, although it could so easily have been otherwise.” The dark brows crooked. “I did wonder, though, how you knew about that old saying—the one about Ormond and the valor of Emer?”

  Carick grinned. “I read it in a book, an old one from the library in Ar. I wanted to know more about Emer before I came here.”

  Malisande shook her head. “And that’s what you found? Still, it was useful tonight.” She straightened, stretching. “I think the rain may have slackened off. I had better get back to the castle.”

  A draft crept through the room and touched the back of Carick’s neck. “I’ll see you up the hill,” he said.

  “I’ll escort her.” Jarna appeared through the half-open door that led to the upper floor—almost, Carick thought, as though she had been waiting just out of sight on the stairs. The squire’s jaw was set, her eyes the slate-blue of storm clouds, and he wondered how much of their conversation she had overheard. “That is,” she said to Malisande, “if you don’t mind the smell of the stables.”

  “Jarna—” Carick began, but she cut him off.

  “I don’t need your kindness—or anyone’s pity.” The stormy eyes flashed at him, then back to Malisande. “You should be safe if I walk downwind of you.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be safe.” Malisande nodded to Carick. “Good night, Maister Carick.”

  By the time Carick went to bed the rain had definitely eased, and when he looked out the moon was showing its face through broken cloud. The same moon sailed through his dreams, silvering the droplets that fell in a steady drip from tree and hedge. A ground mist rose in pallid tendrils, and even in his dream Carick could smell damp earth and rain-misted wool as a cloak brushed against wet leaves. A hand, white as bone in the moonlight, grasped a mailed arm.

  “Fool!” a voice hissed, although all Carick could see was what looked like two cloaked shadows against the blackness of a wall. There might have been trees rising above the wall, but he could not be sure. “Why did you allow the River boy to interfere? I had primed the girl perfectly—but all for nothing now. Nothing!”

  “I am not one of your coterie.” Carick moved uneasily in his sleep, for the voice’s timbre was elusively familiar, despite the shadows woven through and around it. “Besides,” Carick could almost hear the speaker’s shrug, “stepping in once the scholar spoke up would have struck a false note, drawn the wrong kind of attention. And those present will remember what the girl said anyway.”

  “It could have been so much more—was intended to be!” The bone-white hand drew back and the voice hissed again. “I had heard you were unreliable. But don’t think that Aranraith won’t hear of it, if you upset what we do here again.”

  The shadowed voice remained indifferent. “Think well, spellbinder, before you make threats. You would not be the first to regret having crossed me.”

  The answering silence was strained as a cloud drifted across the dream moon. After a moment the hissing voice spoke again, but Carick could not hear what it said, or even decide whether it was male or female. When the cloud cleared, both the cloaked figures were gone and the only sound was the steady drip, drip—but when Carick forced himself awake, he realized that the water was coming from the inn’s eaves. Already his recollection of the dream was blurring, and he wondered if he had been mistaken in thinking the shadowed voice sounded familiar. And even if it had, could that not just have been the dream fitting a known voice to its twists and turns?

  Carick scowled and pummeled his pillow, trying to get comfortable. He slept poorly and woke half expecting more bad news, but the day that followed was uneventful. He yawned his way through it, and the strangeness of the dream faded. Over the next few days the roads grew busier, with the first merchant train arriving through the Long Pass. As soon as it departed another came up from the south, with news from Caer Argent, Aralorn, and sun-dry Lathayra. The inn’s rooms filled up, both with traders and Marcher folk coming to keep the festival with Lord Falk.

  “ ‘Keeping festival’ is what they call it,” Hamar told Carick with a grin. “What they mean is: judge my dispute, apprentice my child, formalize my betrothal.”

  “ ‘Betrothed on Summer’s Eve, wed at Midsummer’,” said Manan cheerfully, turning out yet another batch of the saffron buns that Carick found irresistible. “If we get any busier, Lord Falk may have to let the maister bunk down in his map room.”

  The castle itself was starting to be full to overflowing, but Carick thought a cot in the map room might be pleasant enough if it got him away from the constant coming and going. He had already had enough of stifled laughter from behind closed doors as everyone plotted over coming-of-age gifts, or the festival tokens to be given to lover or sweetheart. It was the last straw, he decided, one stiflingly warm afternoon, when he opened the map room door and found Girvase and Alianor standing close together, as though whispering secrets.

  “Haven’t you anything better to do?” he asked, exasperated. Yet although they jumped apart and apologized, then as quickly left, Carick found he could not concentrate on the fine detail of repairing maps. He didn’t want to watch whoever was on the training field either, pursuing the endless Emerian business of practicing war. Hamar might be in the forge, though, and need someone to hold a horse or pump the bellows—honest work, Carick told himself, and it will get me out of the castle.

  The inn forge was empty when he arrived, and the stable quiet as well, except for a small gray cat sitting on top of a grain bin. Carick paused, watching the dust motes in a bar of sunlight, and thought he heard voices from the orchard. He crossed the yard and entered the scrubbed coolness of the buttery, which was empty, too, although the voices were clearer and interspersed with a dull, repetitive thwack. Cautiously, Carick peered through the buttery’s outer door into the orchard.

  The thwack was Jarna, laying into one of the straw and timber dummies usually set up on the practice field, while Raven watched and Hamar sat on a nearby stump, his sheathed sword across h
is knees. Occasionally, the knight gave an instruction, his dark face impassive, but he seemed aware of Carick’s arrival and looked around, nodding for him to join them. Hamar nodded, too, but said nothing. As for Jarna, Carick doubted she knew he was there as she continued to attack the dummy. Sweat ran down her face, although she had knotted a rag around her forehead to keep it out of her eyes, and her shirt stuck to her back in dark patches. “One hundred,” she finally gasped out.

  “Take a few minutes, then we’ll go through the same pattern with Hamar.” Raven looked at Carick. “Unless Maister Carick would like to try his hand?”

  “Me?” Carick said. Hamar grinned, and even Jarna smiled.

  “Why not?” said Hamar. “Surely even scholars learn the sword, on the River?”

  “I’ve had a few lessons,” Carick admitted, “but they’re expensive. Only archery is compulsory for everyone—and the training’s provided free by the prince’s guard.”

  Hamar stood up. “You should take advantage of Ser Raven’s offer, then. He’s going to teach Jarn to counter opponents who are stronger and have a longer reach.”

  “I wondered why you were here.” Carick gestured at the orchard. “Is it a secret?”

  “No.” Raven nodded to Hamar, who unsheathed his sword and came to stand opposite Jarna. “But it’s good to be private when you learn something new.” He turned to the girl. “In the field, your horses will always be an advantage, given your ability to train them, but any knight can be unhorsed. So try what I have shown you. Hamar, don’t hold back.”

  Hamar came in like a storm, but instead of trying to meet the blows head-on, Jarna shifted her ground, parrying and feinting until she could slip a real blow through. The approach would work, Carick thought, watching critically, so long as she had room to maneuver and did not tire before her opponent. But then, anyone could tire in the chaos of battle, or trip, or be knocked down by a riderless horse. “I suppose,” he said, when Raven finally let the squires rest, “that no matter how strong or skilled you are, in many cases survival is still a matter of luck?”

  “Strength and skill help make luck,” Raven replied, “even in battle.”

  “Battles can go on for a long time,” Hamar said, recovering his breath. “But a duel’s over quickly. A matter of minutes, usually, even for skilled adversaries.”

  “Given the Duke’s new edict forbidding dueling amongst his knights,” Raven said dryly, “neither you nor Jarna will be fighting any.” He ignored Hamar’s rebellious expression, studying Jarna with a dispassionate eye. “Your stance could be stronger. We need to work on that.”

  Carick watched the knight adjust the girl’s placement of her feet and her grip on the sword. “How long has this been going on?” he asked Hamar.

  The squire shrugged again. “The best part of a week. He’s very good,” he added, almost grudgingly. “Adept with the sword and every other weapon I’ve seen him use.”

  “War is his trade,” Carick said. “You’d expect him to be good at it.”

  “True enough. But still—” Hamar hesitated, running a hand through his sweat darkened hair. “It does seem unusual that someone who’s that skilled should be a hedge knight. Things may be different on the River, but in Emer or Lathayra men like that stand at the right hand of the greatest lords.”

  Carick thought about that. “There must be some,” he said finally, “who prefer the open road to civilization and city walls, however much gold they may command within them. Maybe Ser Raven is of that kind.”

  “Maybe.” Hamar sounded doubtful, and Carick supposed it did sound unlikely in the context of the Emerian world. “Still,” the squire said again, “I’m grateful he’s putting the time into Jarn. She deserves it.”

  Ghiselaine, too, Carick noticed, was speaking with Jarna more often—making a point of it although the squire remained wary. But the Countess of Ormond was difficult to rebuff, especially when Alianor seconded her friendliness, although Linnet and Selia continued to stand aloof. Yet even their mood picked up as the weather stayed fair and everyone agreed that it would almost certainly be fine for Summer’s Eve. More travelers arrived at the inn, and Carick was certain that he would have to relocate to the map room soon—until one fine bright morning when a band of Hill people rode in to speak with Lord Falk.

  Chapter 17

  Oak and Hill

  Carick came running with everyone else and stared at the spirals of blue tattooing that covered the Hill people’s faces—and he gathered, listening to the murmurs around him, their entire bodies as well, beneath their leather and scale mail. The new arrivals formed themselves into two loose groups in the castle’s main hall: the first around a grizzled, powerful, middle-aged man standing beneath a white, horsetail banner; the second in a half circle about a weather-beaten woman of similar years, below a standard crowned with antlers. The two leaders bowed deeply to Lord Falk, who stood in greeting and called for the guest cup, a wide bowl of antique bronze with silver along the rim. He poured wine and then lifted the cup to each of the Hill chieftains in turn. “Hirn of Hillholt. Hawk of Barrowdun. What brings you to Normarch this spring?”

  The chieftain called Hirn took the cup and drank, before passing it to the woman. Both chieftains placed their lips on the same place where Falk had drunk, and after Hawk, the cup was passed around to each of their followers in turn. “We seek Normarch’s aid, Lord Castellan.” Hirn waited until the cup was handed back to Lord Falk before speaking again. “We call on the bond sworn between Oak and Hill, when your foster brother, the Duke, first came into his power.”

  Lord Falk was silent for a long moment, the morning sun glinting in his fox eyes. “A matter of importance, then,” he said at last, “especially since it brings Barrowdun and Hillholt together on the same errand.”

  The woman smiled thinly. “It’s true that Barrowdun and Hillholt are as likely to raid each other as stand together. But what preys on our farmsteads and hunting runs now is not of the Hills, even though the incursions against Barrowdun have been made to look like Hillholt work—and the attacks on Hillholt like ours.”

  “The brown bull of Barrowdun driven off and harried to its death in Dunmuir Slough,” Hirn said, his eyes fixed on the Castellan. “Hillholt’s swiftest horses found hamstrung and gutted by the Standing Stones, first having run mad with terror.”

  Lord Falk looked from one to the other. “But you both say that appearances lie?”

  Hirn shrugged. “If it were just those two incidents we might have believed it of the other. But steads and hunting camps have been razed and their inhabitants put to the blade: young and old, man, woman, and child. That is war, Lord Falk, not Hill raiding.”

  “And those few who have survived report uncanny things.” Carick caught the flicker of something that could have been fear in Hawk’s fierce eyes. “They speak of creatures who are half man and half beast, demons whose shapes change and shift beneath the moon.”

  “On every raid,” Hirn concluded harshly, “they have left something behind—a weapon of Barrowdun in the Hillholt camp, a token of Hillholt in the ruins of a Barrowdun farmstead. Someone, my lord, wants war in our Hills.”

  “And on my March,” said Lord Falk softly. He considered them from beneath his brows. “Someone who knows enough about Barrowdun and Hillholt to provide what should have been sufficient provocation for traditional enemies. I am curious, my friends, as to why you are here together with your clanfolk still in check?”

  The chieftains exchanged a sidewise glance; Hirn stroked his tattooed chin. “We pledged to your foster brother that there would be no more war in the Hills. But the long rivalry between our two clans is well known. What was unknown is that a youth of Hillholt went astray in his hunting, many years ago, and met a young woman out of Barrowdun who had turned her ankle in the ruins at High Tor.” He shrugged, half dour, half smiling. “What would you? It was Imuln’s festival of Summer’s Eve, then as it is now, and we became each other’s springtime love, Hawk of Barrowdun and I. There
was no future in it, we both knew that, and we have seen each other rarely since, but still—”

  “Still,” said Hawk, “we both remembered the person we had met that spring, and neither could believe these slayings were the other’s work. Or at least had sufficient doubt, taken together with our oath to your Duke, to pace out the truce-moot before we turned our clans loose, one against the other.”

  “And now,” Lord Falk said gravely, “you bring this matter to me.”

  The two chieftains inclined their heads, a gesture that was respectful yet without servility. “Our scouts,” said Hawk, “tell us that raider bands are gathering on the borders of our hunting runs. We fear they will strike soon and strike hard, and our numbers are few. So we invoke the bond sworn between us. Let the shade of Emer’s oak be cast over our hills, as was promised, against those who seek our destruction.”

  Carick felt a queer thrill, as though a current had rippled down some old line of power, touching everyone in that watchful hall. He guessed that the Castellan could not refuse the request, for he was the Duke’s warden in the north and these stocky, tattooed folk were keeping faith with the Oak-tree of Emer in their own, half-wild way. He saw that same knowledge in all the faces present, together with the reckoning of what force they could muster. “It could be a ploy,” Ser Bartrand said heavily, “to draw our strength away from Normarch, knowing that Ser Rannart is still tied up in the west.”

  “Either way,” said Raven, speaking up unexpectedly from his place off to one side, “the timing bodes ill, given the advent of Summer’s Eve.”