Above the Snowline

by Steph Swainston

‘But he might hurt himself.’

  ‘Oh, they’re quite used to sharp objects. We can get them later; he caches stuff behind the bar. Rubha, keep them under control - I’ve told you before!’

  Rubha gleamed at me like an angry cat, and went to sit on a slanting ladder that led to a loft where, presumably, Rhydanne slept.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘The lock just freezes anyway.’

  Rubha passed a strip of dried meat to her baby, who chewed it eagerly. He pushed his mother’s tangled tresses aside to ogle me over her shoulder. By the end of his second year he would be starting to hunt; he’d be a fully grown adult by the time he was ten.

  Rubha’s clothes were worn to shreds, her leggings stonewashed so many times they had faded from black to a brindled grey. She wore a threadbare Awian bodice, battered and with no eyeholes; she was so starved the edges of the material overlapped where it was laced. Bandages swathed her left foot, which looked horribly misshapen. Her ankle was purple and red threads of blood poisoning were climbing up it.

  ‘She was caught in a trap,’ said Ouzel.

  ‘Her foot?’

  ‘Yes. She was hunting in the forest and walked into one of the Awians’ spring traps. The sort with jagged jaws that’ll shatter a wolf’s leg. It bit her to the bone. She was there for hours before she managed to prise it open with her spear. So I also had to treat her for frostbite.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Yes. Last summer she was a proud hunter; now look at her. Pissed every day and with a Shira child. She was raped …’

  ‘By whom?’

  Ouzel sighed. ‘By some of the tame Rhydanne that Raven employs. She can’t run fast enough to escape them any more. By the Huntress, she can’t run at all!’ She clapped her hands and the lame woman looked up. ‘Rubha Dara, go and wash your foot again, the way I showed you. Rub some more silver ointment on it and use a clean dressing.’

  Rubha nodded and climbed into the loft, her baby clinging to her naturally, the way he had known since the day of his birth.

  ‘I keep telling her to find a husband to protect her. But of course no one wants to marry her because she can’t run. The men think her worthless, even more so than if she was a Shira. So she’s taken to drinking.’

  ‘I see.’

  Ouzel had surprised me by talking in Scree, the only non-Rhydanne apart from the Emperor I had ever heard speak the language. She had foiled the Awians trying to listen in on our conversation. ‘I’m impressed by your fluency,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I taught myself Scree. Twenty years trading with them, ha ha. I copied them, a little here and there.’

  ‘I’m coming round to the idea I should be the first to write Scree down.’

  ‘Shouldn’t think it’d be a long task for an immortal. It’s easy to learn - not that the settlers bother - but at first I couldn’t make Rhydanne talk to me. A few sentences and they’d run off. I discovered booze was the best bribe. I said to myself, Ouzel, there’s a mint of money to be made here if you go about it correctly, ha ha. So few Rhydanne haunt these valleys that I needed a trading post to bring them together. So I built the Hound close by the track which the Eyrie villagers used to get up to them, by the base of the cliffs where they hunt and shelter. The snowfield narrows here and gathers them together.’

  ‘Very clever.’

  ‘Thank you. All my own work. At first this bar was my bedroom. The trading room next. Then the outbuildings, ha ha. No Awian has climbed in Darkling as much as I have,’ she said, and hoisted up one trouser leg to show a hairy calf harder than a block of wood and a shin bone as sharp as a knife blade. ‘I owned nothing and had not one friend but poor Barguest. Sometimes when the wind howls I think he’s scratching outside, asking to be let in. Passing Rhydanne helped me, in return for good meat and drink, ha ha. Not like the shit Raven’s giving them.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘They’re a very interesting people. Forgive me, Comet. You obviously know! Oh, and by the way I’m sorry I swear. The words just slip out. I know who I’m talking to, but with all due respect, I’m rough.’

  ‘That’s all right. I’m pretty rough myself.’

  ‘I know …’ She paused. Then she clapped her hands together and said, ‘Do you want to see the back room? Where our actual commerce takes place?’

  She pointed past the punters to a door with one of the Rhydanne kilims hanging over it. Dellin was leaning on the wall beside it, seemingly lecturing a hunter. I thought I might be able to overhear, so I agreed. Ouzel rose, light on her feet but bearing her paunch before her, and stepped between the Rhydanne sitting on the floor. They hastily snatched their criss-crossed legs out of our path. A smell of wet suede and meaty breath rose from them. Heads turned to us and beads rattled as they stared at me with awe or confusion and wondered what to make of a winged Rhydanne.

  Gusts of wind swept around the walls. Wind boomed in the eaves, hustled ice-edged snow against the shutters and growled in the chimney. The burning stack of logs in the hearth collapsed with a crisp, metallic sound, shooting a twist of bright orange sparks up the chimney. But the shutters did not rattle, held by sturdy bolts, and the curtains drawn across them remained still, a testimony to Ouzel’s constant improvements to the building she seemed to love so much. If the furniture had been crafted by her hand, her workmanship had improved, because the older chairs and stools had been knocked together but the newer-looking ones were very professionally joined. Away from the damp entrance, the floor was comfortable too, completely covered in kilims. The gigantic floor cushions were of the same bright weave: pashm and cashmere in hundreds of tones of earthy red and orange, indigo and woad-blue, comfrey-brown; dyed by plants of the mountain meadows. Very occasional diamond patterns attested to the staggering heights of Rhydanne art.

  A greasy smell rose from the home-made candles on every table. Their holders had also clearly been made by Ouzel and were used so continually they were covered in tallow. Each was a fragment of crystal geode, sparkling clusters of quartz with a hole for the candle. She obviously had a professional eye for gewgaws. But the flames heading every candle were stunted, hazy balls a quarter of the size of a flame at sea level. There was just enough oxygen in the air to sustain them: they struggled and wobbled with every draught like beads on pins.

  I passed Dellin. ‘What are you chatting to these people about?’

  She fell quiet and turned her back.

  Ouzel held aside the curtain. ‘Come in.’

  I passed through, glanced over my shoulder and saw Dellin resume speaking with the hunter.

  The trading room glittered, every surface reflected the light! A collection of crystals filled the shelves on every wall, lined their bases and the sills of two windows. A geode opposite me in the corner of the room was fully my height, chipped in half to reveal its cavern bristling with purple amethyst.

  There were glossy black crystals, colourless transparent needles, pellucid cubes like mineral ice; all as lambent as Rhydanne eyes. Below the shelves, the contents of a line of hemp sacks glinted too: unsharpened knife blades, iron nails from tacks to nine-inch, brackets and alloy tent pegs. Brand new hammers hung from a rack. A shelf above them held packets of razors together with awls, files, chisels, saws, pliers, a crowbar and rolls of wire. Whetstones were stacked like child’s blocks at the end of the shelf.

  In another corner was a large chest with a pile of ledgers on top of it, and an enormous scale balance loaded with weights and a mound of ore. Two smaller chests, one full of native silver and the other of copper, looked as if their contents had melted and solidified again mid-flow. Beside them new, shining ladles were hooked all round the edge of an enormous cauldron packed full of cutlery.

  Above coffer and cauldron, another rack of shelves positively groaned with an array of fyrd-surplus goods: brass pots and pans, canteens, mugs and plates, carving knives, metal matchboxes, strike-a-lights, combs, cases containing sewing sets, tins of boot dubbing, bales of cotton fabric. There were burlap sacks
of oats and dried apples, a box of hazelnut flour with a scoop in it, and pyramids of tins and jars - the tins mostly of beans or vegetables and the jars mostly fruit, jam and boiled sweets. Five smoked and dried haunches of ham hung on thick strings from a row of hooks on the lowest shelf. And specifically for the Rhydanne there were boxes of silver beads, brown packets of salt - valuable this far up-slope - and a sheaf of spear shafts, even more valuable. In front of the chests a trapdoor led down into a dark basement, which seemed to be a pantry because I could just make out the top of another sack.

  Beside the door a folded canvas filled the air with the smell of fyrd camps, as did coils of rope hanging on butcher’s hooks and a pair of mended boots, reeking of goose grease and muddy laces. It was like a quartermaster’s store, knocked through into a sweet shop on one side and a delicatessen on the other. If you had declared to me as a little boy that the shopkeeper was away and I could steal what I wished, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I took it in with delight. Then my gaze fell on the desk and I realised I had overlooked the most important item in the whole emporium.

  ‘My son,’ said Ouzel.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.

  ‘Macan, rouse yourself and shake Comet’s hand.’

  He did so, then sank back behind the desk and peered at me curiously. ‘Macan’ simply meant ‘sonny’ in Scree, and I feared he might be a half-breed like me, but on close inspection he had not a drop of Rhydanne in him. In fact, if Ouzel had bred with anything in order to produce him, it seemed to have been an owl.

  ‘Can I use the desk for a while?’ I asked. ‘I need to write to the Emperor.’

  ‘Certainly. Get out of the way, Macan,’ Ouzel said. He relinquished his place at the desk, but neither of them seemed inclined to leave me in peace. She sat down on a sack of potatoes and shrewdly watched me write. ‘This is about Raven’s settlement, isn’t it?’

  ‘About Raven’s plans.’

  ‘Comet, that settlement is disturbing the Rhydanne. My customers, ha ha. It’s starving them all and frightening them away. I don’t know how they’ll survive.’ She opened the curtain and pointed to the bar. ‘See him asleep in the corner? Lainnir?’

  I looked up from my script and saw a hunter slumped against the wall. His face was rounded by fat and his belly was actually chubby. I had never seen a Rhydanne with any fat on him before. With his eyes closed he looked almost human.

  ‘He’s blind,’ Ouzel said. ‘He was one of Raven’s porters but they paid him in alcohol so toxic it blinded him. He was no use to them then, so they sacked him. Now he just sits there and drinks.’

  ‘We give him free stew,’ Macan added.

  ‘He’s just waiting to die. It’s so sad … You’ll see other cases about. Lesser cases but it’s the same damn thing. Look for the whites of their eyes turned yellow.’ She tapped a finger on her temple.

  I said, ‘Raven plans more than a settlement.’

  ‘Doesn’t surprise me. He’s destroying the balance, ha ha. Fewer Rhydanne are bringing furs than ever before. If Raven’s blundering turns them against Awians -’ she spread her wings ‘- what will I do?’

  ‘Are you afraid for your own safety?’

  She glanced at her son. ‘No, no. I’m afraid for the Hound. Raven’s taking my trade … I spent my life encouraging commerce and both Rhydanne and Awians benefited. But the Rhydanne sell to him now, instead of me, and he cheats them something awful.’

  ‘Give him an example, Mum.’

  ‘An example of the sort of crap Raven fobs them off with? Look here, Jant. Copper bracelets gilt with silver. And for a stack of wolf furs I give a Rhydanne a spear or two solid silver bangles. See what Raven gives them …’ She picked a spear head from the shelf. It was highly polished to catch the hunter’s fancy, but three times the length of a normal spear point and much narrower.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Raven started exchanging one of these for a pile of furs as high as the spear point is tall. So he began making longer ones to get more furs for his money. The Rhydanne didn’t complain because they thought bigger points must be better points. Fewer hunters come to me now, they want these. But these points don’t last as long as mine do, and the Rhydanne are beginning to notice.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m worried that they’ll conclude all Awians are giving them mean terms. Then they’ll stop trading with me.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ said Macan, ‘Carniss isn’t all bad. She says it is, but it isn’t. Their traders come here too and I charge them a lot.’

  Ouzel nodded. ‘And I’ll be charging them more in future! That’s the silver lining to this cloud, ha ha. As I always say: if life gives you marmots, make marmolade.’

  ‘Carniss will open up Darkling and bring more business,’ said Macan.

  ‘Other traders?’ I asked.

  ‘To begin with. Then, following in their footsteps, scientists, naturalists, artists and then even holidaymakers. Can’t you imagine it happening?’

  I could, actually.

  ‘Excise men! Trophy hunters! More of Tarmigan’s convicts!’ Ouzel said, and gruffly started rearranging boxes.

  Macan grinned. ‘She likes to get away from people. She’s not amused by the fact other lowlanders are following her up here. Are you, Mum?’

  ‘Huh. I wanted to see the savages my mother told me about when I was a girl. So as soon as I turned seventeen I left home and trekked to Eyrie. After a while I saw that Rhydanne aren’t savages at all. I began to admire them. I even began to envy them. You hear that, ha ha? They’re suited to the mountains and their ways are as good as the ways of city dwellers. Not that a city man will ever understand that.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  ‘Well, an immortal would be at ease in any place.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how few are. But I’m a boundary crosser and so are you.’

  ‘Ha ha. Thank you. Indebted for the compliment. You hear that, son? Most people never leave the surroundings they know. Most people are adapted to only one tiny region. City, mountain, they both have their faults and they should damn well leave each other alone. Any Rhydanne would be uncomfortable in Rachiswater.’

  She’s right, I thought, but Raven had been uncomfortable in Rachiswater too. He wants to destroy Tarmigan and raze every trace of his rule to remodel the kingdom around himself. Maybe only then would he find comfort.

  ‘Boundary crosser as I am, I don’t like the changes that are coming to Carniss. You’ve never left this valley, son; the changes will come to you. I don’t welcome them as much as you do.’

  I finished my letter, sealed it in an envelope and arranged with Ouzel for one of the Eyrie village traders to carry it post-haste to the Castle. I shook twenty, fifty, one hundred, two hundred pounds in fresh coins from my wallet and pressed them into her hand. ‘The best horse they can find. No expenses spared.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Now I had to return to Dellin. What she was saying to the hunters had been preying on my mind all this time. I dropped Ouzel’s pen in my pocket and looked out. Dellin was standing in the middle of the room, with the Rhydanne sitting around the walls listening intently. The Awian card players, with worried expressions, kept glancing through the gap between the hearth and its hood. Dellin was facing me, one graceful hand raised, and the orange flames seemed to cast a halo around her head, shining on her loosed hair, which flowed down almost to her waist. I could see the shadows of her long lashes on her upper cheeks. ‘My heart feels like bursting,’ she said. ‘This is our land. Listen to me and I will guide you. The Awians have more food and belongings than they can carry. We will take what we need.’

  A huntress interrupted her. ‘I’m not starving. The featherbacks skinned forty wolves in the last few days and left the carcasses in the forest. I can show you where.’

  ‘Are you scavenging, Miagail?’ Dellin asked.

  The beautiful huntress, kneeling on the rug with one leg tucked under her, blinked slowly like
a self-satisfied leopard. ‘Of course,’ she said with liquid smoothness.

  ‘Are Awians so wasteful they leave a feast of carrion?’

  ‘Certainly. Feocullan and I have seen them.’

  ‘So what will happen when they have killed every ibex, every wolf? At this rate none will be left to breed and Carnich will be empty. Then what will you do, Miagail Dara? The Awians hurl their kitchen scraps down the cliff. Will you scavenge those?’

  Miagail, who was wearing several heavy necklaces of silver and fox teeth, snarled and settled back. Dellin spread her arms again and addressed the room. ‘Listen, daimh, I love Carnich and its animals and will not part with them. I don’t want to move to the high plateaux. I want my children to live in this abundant valley as I do. We were born here, where there were no enclosures, where the wind blows free, and every huntress breathes freely and wanders where she will. Now the Awians have taken our country. They saw down the trees and slaughter the beasts. They think the very land belongs to them!’ She paused, but there was silence and blank faces all round.

  ‘The land?’ said Miagail eventually.

  ‘The Awians think they can take it as their property.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. It can’t belong to anyone.’

  ‘Of course not. But we must think like Awians, tell them the land is ours and we want it back. This is why we feel degraded, without understanding the reason, although we were all happy before. They have been stealing from us without replacing the goods they take.’

  At this a hubbub broke out, since every hunter knew the danger of pilfering from stores.

  ‘We must protect ourselves,’ she continued. ‘How? By fighting. Fighting will save Carnich! Do not accept their trade goods!’ The Rhydanne looked at each other. Some muttered and a few tried to shout her down, but Dellin raised her voice above them. ‘When we accept their clothes and steel the Awians assume we agree their goods are superior to our own.’

  ‘Some of their things are better,’ said Miagail.

  ‘No! They believe their goods are superior and so they conclude that they themselves are superior to us. So they think it natural we will cede Carnich to them. Just as we take the lives of animals, so they are justified in taking ours. Just as a swift hunter raids a slow herder, so they think us weak-willed. We should sew our own leather tents and knap our own points, because if we don’t, in time we will forget how to. Our knowledge will be gone, and when we need it, we will be forced to rely on the Awians instead. Look at Lainnir!’