The headman stopped in the doorway of the tirot and spoke to the woman by the cooking fire. At her reply he motioned to the boys to take off their shoes before they stepped onto the rugs which covered the floor.
Then, an arm around each of their shoulders, he pushed them gently forward to meet the direct appraisal of another pair of brown eyes, darker than Tsandro's. The searching gaze held them long enough to make the boys uncomfortable and they began to suspect that they were unwelcome guests for this forceful looking woman with her broad face and her powerful arms. She spoke again sharply to Nyokhen, who still stood quietly behind the pair.
"My wife wants to know if you never smile."
They could not help themselves then, and when they grinned broadly, she beamed back at them and said something else.
"She says good. One old . . . I do not know how to say this word in the Lake tongue. One old-smelly-one around here who does not smile is quite enough. Come, put down your packs. Sleep anywhere you wish on the platform over there and take as many blankets as you need. My wife's name is Patamo." At the sound of her name, the woman turned from the fire and beamed at them again. "Inside this tirot she is chief. Everyone must ask her permission to come in, even me, and inside everyone must do as she says. You have a good chance to do as you wish, because you do not understand her words. This is a rare opportunity in life."
Both the boys had by now begun to understand that their host's grave expression concealed a dry humour and to suspect that a ready sense of fun often lay hidden behind the serious Hamna faces.
*
After supper they wandered round the tarn. There were clouds drifting among the stars, faintly lit by a moon as yet invisible behind the mountains. From a distance in the darkness the camp looked like a village. Lamplight spilled brightly from open doorways and shone upwards in soft cones illuminating the smoke drifting through the central vents. Voices carried to them across the water. Dogs barked and goats bleated nearby. Occasional figures were outlined passing from tirot to tirot.
"It looks so lovely and so peaceful, Berin. I think I'd fancy living up here. No school. No mucking out cowsheds. No ditching, no weeding, no houses and sheds to paint." Caldar sighed. "It's almost too good to be true."
His friend laughed. "What about winter in these tirots instead of that nice big fire in Taccen's kitchen? And I'll bet they go hungry often enough. I think you'd find it's a hard life."
"Don't spoil it. Why d’you have to be so logical? I think it's perfect. Anyway, what's wrong with a hard life?"
Berin burst out laughing again. "You're hopeless. It's like trying to argue with Pirwal." Pirwal was Berin's sister, a bright ten-year old woman-to-be who had already learned to shift the ground of any argument too fast for her rational brother to keep up.
The debate about Hamna life carried them slowly back to the camp, where they turned aside to Tsandro's tent to see Rasscu. It was in darkness and their quiet calls of Tsandro's name elicited no response. They were just leaving, when she appeared, coming from the camp.
"How is he, Tsandro?" Caldar asked.
"Same. Not more bad. But long time same is bad. Tomorrow Tinker come. Perhaps help."
"How can he help? More medicines?" Caldar found himself falling into the doctor's abbreviated speech.
"Tinker know very much. Heal body. Heal spirit also. Perhaps."
There was no more forthcoming, so the boys returned to their tirot to find it empty apart from Patamo, who beckoned them in with a welcoming smile. It was warm inside after the chill of the night air. The boys spread out their blankets, lay down to talk, and before they knew it, drifted off to sleep.
Patamo, her hands kneading the dough for the morning's bread with casual skill, nodded in satisfaction to herself as they fell silent. They needed to sleep, these gajja youths. Exhaustion hid close behind their bright eyes and quick movements.
At first she had been angry at Nyokhen for bringing them to the camp. The rescued man had been one thing; he was gajja, but maybe it had been his only chance of life. But the two youths! Her husband knew the law as well as any; yet she had found herself reminding him with some asperity that he would have to justify himself at the next meeting of family heads.
Later, when he had explained his reasons to her, she was inclined to agree with him. And now? She shivered. Now she was astounded and a little fearful. The lad had chosen the right things without hesitation at supper, bowl, cup and spoon, and had unerringly settled down to sleep above the spot where she had hidden the Repo's amulet.
Why should she be surprised? It was true, her family had carried the knowledge for generations in total secrecy - not even Nyokhen knew the whole of it; a trust from such a distant past that none of its keepers really believed it any more. And yet someday it was bound to happen. It just surprised her that…what? ....that it was now.
Was she fooling herself? The wolves had singled out the short youth and they were to be trusted. After all without them this meeting might never have happened. They had led the hunters over the western pass, the furthest west any of the family had hunted for a generation. Nyokhen admitted that he had been uneasy, but he had followed, recognising that some strange compulsion seemed to be driving their four-footed hunting partners. His surprise was total when their quarry turned out to be, not game, but three gajja in need of help.
Was the boy to be a Meshke then? Or even a Radorpa, as she was beginning to believe? Patamo shrugged without pausing as she divided the dough. The Tinker might know. She would tell Nyokhen and they would wait on Pithar's coming. Times were changing, that was for sure, and good news would be welcome for once.
The boys woke to the insistent tap of rain on the tirot wall and a pale wash of daylight coming in from the door. The tirot was empty, but moments later Patamo came bustling in, rain dripping from her wide-brimmed straw hat, her eyes almost disappearing as a wide smile creased her brown face. She fed them some wonderful creamy porridge, then ignored them while she baked some flat buns.
For the rest of the morning they felt increasingly useless. There was no one to ask if they could help at anything and it was cold and wet enough outside to discourage walking about. They ran across and checked with Tsandro that Rasscu was still holding out. After sitting and watching his unmoving face for ten minutes they went disconsolately back to Nyokhen's tirot to find it empty: even Patamo and her big hat had disappeared.
When the clouds began to break up about midday, they could see why it had been feeling colder. There was fresh snow on the mountains, nearly down to the camp, and the breeze remained chill. Their spirits however lifted with the rising clouds. Wayward shafts of sunshine played on the scene above, lighting pine trees feathered with snow and touching magical towers of pure white high overhead. Everywhere was the glint and the sound of water, rushing, bubbling, tumbling, pounding.
"Like new life, eh?" Nyokhen came up beside them. "We are never short of water in the mountains. Or of beauty."
"Isn't there an awful lot of snow up there now?" Berin asked, pointing at the mountain wall on the east side of the valley. "Will they be able to get across? Your son and the other man, I mean."
"If the Tinker is willing to come, the snow will not stop them. Maybe they will be slower. It is very tiring when the snow is new and some places are dangerous too with fshethiss; that is our word which means a big sliding of snow."
"We call it an avalanche."
"Avalanche. Thank you. Yes, you will see avalanches in the next day or two. Now, will you share our midday meal? Then this afternoon you can explore a little more."
"Can we help with anything, Nyokhen? Are there any jobs we can do?" The boredom of a rainy morning had already made Caldar forget yesterday's dream of a perfect life of leisure.
The headman studied the ground in silence for a moment. Then lifting his head, he said, "You have no obligation to work. You are our guests."
"We want to." Caldar replied firmly. Berin nodded in agreement, hardly able to believe he was hea
ring Caldar ask for work..
"Very well." Nyokhen started to lead them back to the tirot. "You can help with the wood gathering. I will arrange for you to go with the others this afternoon.”
After a simple lunch, Nyokhen handed them over to a couple of gray-bearded older men, who soon dispelled any feeling of superiority in the youths when they started walking swiftly up through the steep forests. Four children had come along as well, all girls who looked about nine or ten years old. They also skipped up the hillside chattering, while the boys laboured to keep up. As soon as they stopped, the girls dispersed to gather sticks and small branches into big piles. The men began to tackle a couple of fallen pines with a large saw. They gave the boys two axes to trim off the branches, while they set to work to cut up the main trunk into lengths. Everyone worked hard, with the sunshine growing stronger and the snow melting from the trees and the ground all around them.
Caldar grew hot and sweaty and felt the onset of a headache as he began to tire. He looked around. The men had nearly finished their second cut. Two of the girls were in sight, working near a sun-filled gap in the forest about a fifty paces away.
A faint rumble caught his attention. An avalanche? Very likely from what Nyokhen had said. Perhaps from the gap in the trees he could catch sight of it. His tiredness forgotten, he ran past the busy girls to the edge of the open space, which turned out to be a large gully maybe two hundred paces across, running the full height of the hillside. It was full of scrubby bushes and the other two girls were there gathering sticks. The rumble was louder now. He scanned the mountains across the valley, but disappointingly there was no sign of falling snow.
As he turned to go back, he saw with disbelief a huge boulder bound over the rim of the gully high above with a savage whirring noise. He watched, transfixed, as it crashed down in huge leaps straight past the petrified girls. More whirring heralded a whole array of rocks of all sizes which started to cascade down into the gully, filling it with a mind-numbing roar and making the whole hillside shake with an endless reverberating crashing.
The girls were running desperately for the trees. Even as one of them stumbled to safety, Caldar saw the other fall limply, stunned by a stone, thirty yards out in the open. One terrifying glimpse up the gully showed the air black with falling rock, while over the rim above whirled a whole pine tree borne on a huge surging wave of snow. Without knowing how he got there, he found himself crouched beside the small figure There was no chance of reaching the trees, and again too quickly for conscious thought, he threw himself into a tiny hollow behind a boulder, the helpless girl sheltered under his body.
The tremendous noise of the avalanche battered his ears, and the smell of cordite from the clashing rocks filled his nostrils. Something big ang hard thumped into his leg and he huddled in even tighter behind the pitifully small boulder which sheltered them. Suddenly everything went dark and he felt he was drowning in a freezing mist which tried to fill his lungs. Then a great soft weight settled about his body and held him fast as the avalanche hissed into silence. They both had their faces in an air pocket right below the boulder, Caldar still gasping from the icy spindrift, the girl so motionless he did not know if she was still alive.
He struggled desperately to free his arms and legs, and found that the snow had compacted around him like mortar. Within minutes he was exhausted, but he knew he must not stop. If the others could not find them, it would be up to him to dig their way out before the cold or lack of air wore him down. He was gathering himself for even bigger efforts when the snow suddenly collapsed and someone's boot stood on his stomach.
Things happened very quickly after that. There was a shout as the boot was removed, then a flurry of activity all round as several pairs of hands dug and pulled them out. Caldar's legs were without feeling, and he was half carried into the trees, followed by one of the men with the small figure of the girl in his arms. The rescuers of all ages clustered around in a highly charged mixture of jubilation and concern. Berin kept asking his friend over and over if he was injured.
"Can't tell," Caldar gasped. "Ooooh! My legs! Sensation's just coming back."
"Want me to rub them?"
"No, no. Just let me be. I'm happy enough now I'm out of that hole. How d'you find us so quickly?"
"One of the girls saw you jump behind that boulder, so we knew pretty well where you were.”
"How's the girl?"
"She had blood on her head. I'll go and find out."
Berin returned a few minutes later to where Caldar was now sitting up.
"Better?"
"Yes. This leg hurts, but it's not bad. I'll try standing up in a minute. How is she?"
"Well, she's conscious and they reckon she hasn’t broken anything. But they're worried about her head, she’s still dazed."
Both of the men came over to have another look at Caldar at this point. When he signalled that he had been hit on the thigh, they insisted on inspecting the huge bruise, until they were satisfied that nothing was broken. Then they signed to him to stand up. The pain made him wince as he rose to his feet under their appraising eyes, but he managed to totter unsteadily to where the girl was lying. Her eyes were open and she was looking around her, but dully with no awareness in her glance.
One of the men presented Caldar with a sturdy walking stick he had just cut. There was recognition and respect in the eyes of the Hamna now, and the three other girls watched him with a kind of awe that made him uneasy. When they set off down to the camp, the men taking turns to carry the injured girl, Caldar found himself the subject of considerable competition as he limped along with his stick: each of the girls wanted to hold his free hand, eager to help the wounded hero down the mountain.
Seeing Caldar as the focus for all this feminine attention, Berin began to acquire serious injuries of his own, limping grotesquely and groaning and nursing a broken arm. It was not long before the young faces around were grinning in appreciation of his efforts and soon he had a girl happily on each hand.
They deserted him when the little procession approached the camp, running ahead to tell the news to Tsandro and after that to everyone else. A crowd quickly gathered and followed the injured girl to Tsandro's tirot. Coming along behind, Caldar was shakier than ever now, and despite the little hand which tugged at him to follow the others, he made straight for Nyokhen's home. No one was in, and with Berin looking on anxiously, he sank down onto his bed with a sigh of relief and went to sleep.
Empire, Karkor
“The Malefori are always causing trouble, my lady.”
Colonel Theyn was flattered by the obvious value the princess always accorded to his reports. He was pleased with his pupil - at least one member of the Imperial household had the right priorities. She was attracted to him too, she had made that clear in many subtle ways, and she had no lovers, his spies were quite certain of that. Perhaps she offered an even quicker path to his goals. He didn’t fully trust her yet, but his confidence was growing with every meeting. The butterfly image she presented at court he now viewed with respect as a superb act; there was no trace of that here in her private quarters.
“But this has a different feel to it. The leadership of the independence movement, the FMP, have suddenly gone underground. We were about to pull them all in yesterday for questioning, nothing severe, just a way of cooling them down, when they vanished. Razimir’s a big place, but using the local police we have it well covered and so far there’s not a trace. We don’t….”
“Yesterday, colonel?” Shkosta interrupted with quiet intensity. It was time to have this out. “No trace so far? And how does this excellent network of spies report to you so quickly?”
Colonel Theyn gave not the least flicker of unease at the question, but she was trained in ways of reading people beyond anything that he knew. It had struck deep and she was closing in on the secret this man guarded so cleverly. It had been a long patient task to pick up the tiny mistakes and piece them together. It was for this she had encouraged
him to talk, praised his knowledge, complimented him profusely on the efficiency of his network of agents. True, over the past year he had been an invaluable source of information, more than he realised, but this she could have gathered more slowly elsewhere. What she really wanted from him was what she had sensed from the start, the invisible source of his confidence and his power.
Her grandfather’s body was well down the road to dissolution, although his brain was not, whatever the underground gossip at court might imply. If he died before she was ready, the Six Houses would push forward every male contender for the throne they could find. The groundwork for her task was taking too long, she had to find a way to accelerate everything. She got up and moved with casual grace to stand by the window.
“I use pigeons, my lady, like everyone else. Special Forces pigeons are the biggest and the best.” He spread his hands to show their size, smiling at his own childlike boast.
“Don’t piss me about, Colonel.” He grew still. Shkosta’s face was in shadow, but the command in her voice was as unmistakable as the gutter expression. “No bird has come from Razimir for two days. Yes, I have my sources inside your headquarters and don’t go looking: that would annoy me.”
The colonel sat stunned. He was accustomed to her quick brain and her penetrating questions, even to the gentle use of her authority as the Imperial heir. This was new. There was naked assurance and command in her voice, and the irony of her spying on him registered even as the revelation itself robbed him of speech.
“So, news from Razimir. News from the Mederro front. News fromTarkus, even from Graxi. It’s an amazing network, Colonel, so much information; you must have hundreds of spies at work. I can believe that. But it’s too fast. You may deceive my father or the relics on the War Council, but you’ve betrayed yourself to me too often. You’ve even mentioned things to me on the day they occurred: not openly, but I keep a diary on you, Colonel, and I know. And now I will have the truth of it. So what’s it to be? A secret shared between friends or the rack? Or perhaps a visit to the Stone would make you more amenable?”
The Tears of Sisme Page 12
