by P. J. Fox
“And this…you like this?”
“This”—Eir sucked in her breath—”is only the beginning.”
THIRTY-ONE
They paid the toll to pass through the gate, a massive thing that rose well over Isla’s head. The walls were thick, thick enough to house a guardhouse within them, and dark. Like a cave. And then they were outside again and the light was stinging Isla’s eyes as she took in the sights and sounds and smells of her first real city.
Hardland was nothing compared to Eamont, Isla knew that from illustrations. And from listening at table to her father’s guests. But Hardland was still the biggest, most overcrowded place that Isla had ever seen. She honestly wasn’t sure that, without seeing it, she could have imagined it. Hard-packed earth gave way to cobbled streets as she rode forward. Eir, beside her as always, was tense as she studied the overhanging eaves. Looking for what, Isla didn’t know. But her long, skeleton-like hands were never far from her sword. Or her bow. Glass-paned windows stared down at them blankly in return; pigeons nested in the shadows.
Most of the houses seemed to be built in rows, one pressed against the other and the two sharing a side wall. Only the very largest and most imposing structures stood in their own right. Most of the houses, too, Isla saw, appeared to be built as apartments over shops. Some were one or two stories; a few were more. At ground level, clusters of signs competed for prominence. Most of Hardland, like the rest of Morven, must be illiterate: the signs boasted no letters but, rather, pictures of what their proprietors offered.
There were huge, bas relief pill bottles hanging from brackets, the pills inside the bottle picked out in gold leaf to demonstrate the apothecary’s wealth and success—and, presumably, his skill in curing whatever ailed his future customers as well. There were loaves of bread and bunches of grapes; three golden balls representing a pawn broker and, beside that, a single shield of justice representing an attorney. Isla wondered if the two shops were run by the same man.
Attorneys weren’t something that existed in the Highlands, but merchants needed men trained to read contracts. Trained to read at all. And attorneys could figure as well. They were trained by the church, for the most part, and took a hefty cut for that institution as well as their own fee.
Except…there was no church in the North. Worship of Morven’s gods wasn’t prohibited, per se, but Isla got the sense that it was frowned on. Who trained attorneys, and apothecaries, and surgeons in the North? Hardland was sort of an in-between place, a door separating two vastly different worlds. There might be southern-trained men here, along with whatever passed for professionals in the North.
They rode through an enormous marketplace where vendors of all kinds had set up displays: of everything from bolts of cloth to smoked meat. The competing smells of meat pies and body odor wafted through air thick with smoke. Wood smoke, from the hundred portable braziers that the vendors had brought with them, each to help him—or them, some had brought entire families—keep warm at his individual station. And, coming down from overhead, the more acrid and foul-tasting smoke from the mines.
Looking up, past the far end of the town, Isla could just see the mine workers moving around like ants. For all its bustle Hardland just…ended. There were shops and houses and people hawking handpies in any number of questionable flavors and people emptying slop buckets into the streets and then…nothing. No tapering off. The last houses and then…trees. Scrub. The sheer, unforgiving face of the ravine.
The whole place looked, to Isla, like one of the backdrops that the travelling minstrel shows sometimes brought: a few pieces of painted canvas depicting different scenes and, sometimes for good measure, a prop or two. But the illusion, however handily crafted, ended as soon as one turned one’s head.
Leaving the market, they passed a small and strangely timid-looking church. Barely larger than a crofter’s hut, the square building was dwarfed on all sides by larger and better maintained buildings. Buildings that seemed to glare down disapprovingly, somehow. Inanimate objects but…Isla couldn’t say how she knew that the church wasn’t wanted.
A priest, crouching in the recessed door, watched her from the shadows.
Isla turned away, awkwardly, feeling like she’d seen something she shouldn’t.
To cover her discomfiture, she made conversation. “How come there are no—no other houses of worship?” she asked. She realized now that she wasn’t entirely sure what they were called. The places where northerners worshipped. However that worship took place.
“No.” Eir was still scanning the eaves. The rooftops. The doors, and the narrow side alleys. Even as she spoke, her eyes never stopped tracking. “We worship our gods in the home they created for us. Outdoors, under the stars, we feel the night air as the soft caress of the Goddess. The release of death that is Her blessing. And in the beating sun, and the newest shoots breaking through the crust of the earth each spring, we see the hand of the God.”
Renewal and death. The eternal dance, back and forth, that was the God and His Goddess. Isla didn’t think she’d ever heard Eir be so poetic. Or suspected that under her cold exterior, she harbored a secret passion for her faith. That she had a faith at all. But Tristan had turned out to be a being of many depths; why shouldn’t Eir be, also?
“That sounds…nice,” Isla said finally. She hated the endless services of her native church, the droning and the chanting and the constant genuflecting. Try as she might, she couldn’t develop an attention span for what felt half-hearted and repetitive. Neither could she force herself to feel the spirit of which she’d read. The only strong desire she’d ever felt at church was that of needing to pee.
And then they were at the far side of the town.
Hart was waiting for them, by the gate. Along with Callas, whose appearance still sent a shiver down Isla’s spine. Hart had been right; Hardland was busy, but it wasn’t very big. Rather, a tremendous amount of activity had been crammed into a tiny space. Bounded on three sides by walls and on the fourth by mountains, Hardland had no room to expand without applying for a new charter. One that would allow its burghers to rebuild its walls on a newer, larger footprint. And even if such charter were granted, as Isla suspected it would be given the nature of the king’s relations with the North, there was still the issue of money. From what coffers would the fortune come, to undertake such a project?
Isla was more conscious than ever of Hardland as a gate. Looking behind her, she saw hundreds of people—men, women and children—going about their daily life. All under the shadow of the mountains and none, seemingly, aware of it. They protected, with their walls and with their lives, one of the most strategically significant passes in all the kingdom.
There were other ways to access the North, of course, but the so-called Sisters cut across almost the entire kingdom from side to side. Morven was, if the maps could be believed, shaped roughly like a woman’s stocking: longer than it was wide, and with a tremendous heel at the bottom where the capital had been built. The West, Isla supposed, formed a kind of upturned toe. But all of this was on a grand scale; crossing from one side of the kingdom to the other took months. The fastest, and easiest route to the North was right here.
Past the Sisters, the North spread out into a vast and ungovernable continent the likes of which no Morvish cartographers had mapped. No one, except potentially the northerners themselves, knew what was up there in the mountains. What lurked, beyond the snow and ice. There were tales, of course, of lost tribes and even entire lost civilizations. Of fantastical ruins, and mass graves filled with bones.
But those were only tales, of course.
Of course.
Isla swallowed.
THIRTY-TWO
The toll exchanged hands and, with a final word of caution from the toll master, they began their ascent. Hart was still shaking his head, disgust stamped firmly on his features. Callas, beside him, seemed unperturbed as always.
Ignoring him, Isla spoke to her brother. “What was that about?”<
br />
To her chagrin, it was Callas who answered. Damn him, he seemed perfectly reasonable. He was always polite, always correct. He was never obsequious, like Father Justin had been; nor did he bloviate on topics with which he had no experience, like her own father. He was just…wrong. Something about him was wrong.
But he was speaking, so she forced herself to listen. “We’re behind schedule,” he said, ignoring his horse as the beast picked its way along the road. A road that was really more of a path, rock strewn and uneven. Every few minutes it seemed, another small flurry of rocks rolled down. From further up, Isla realized; they were the product of other parties, like her own. She forced herself away from the image of the entire ravine simply disintegrating beneath their feet.
“We’re too close to the end of autumn.” He meant the season, not the month; Autumn Month, when she and Tristan had celebrated Mabon, was long over. Autumn Month, when Father Justin had died. She shuddered. “We’re past Wine Month,” he continued, using the southern names for the months in deference to her, “and almost into Slaughter Month.” Slaughter Month, when all the livestock that wouldn’t overwinter would be slaughtered and put up. Isla, who still had the taste of jerky in her mouth from breakfast, wasn’t enthused for the idea. The winter, apart from all the other and arguably worse privations, meant terrible food.
Winter Month, which came after Slaughter Month, brought the Solstice. If all had happened according to plan, Isla would be married already. They would have travelled this pass already. “Undertaking this journey at such a late date is dangerous,” Callas said frankly. He spoke with no intention of intimidating her, but he did. He was only stating facts in an effort to educate, and she knew that. But she shuddered again, nonetheless.
“Weather in the northern climes is unpredictable in the best of times.” Callas glanced up, his expression uneasy. The storm still hadn’t broken. “This could come down as rain,” he said, “or it could come down as snow. It’s early for snow, yet, but I’ve seen it. Usually the weather turns sometime toward the end of Slaughter Month, but I’ve seen the snow fly as early as Mabon.”
They were forced to ride two abreast, now. The road was narrower, by design as well as arguably necessity. A wide road would only facilitate an enemy’s advance; but under the current program, as Isla was discovering, anyone attempting the Sisters had to do so at a snail’s pace. Giving northern archers plenty of time to pick them off, one by one.
The carts labored on, both ahead of and behind them. Isla didn’t know where her father was, or her sister. Or Apple. She hadn’t seen them since breakfast. Keeping the entire caravan together had been nigh on impossible. Isla didn’t mind, though; in truth, she was relieved.
Part of her hoped they got lost forever and part of her hoped they arrived safely at their destination, if only so they could see her get married. See her leave them, and not need them anymore, and eat their hearts out with envy. She shook her head slightly, as if in an effort to banish the unworthy thought. More and more, she’d found herself having such fantasies—wherein Rowena invariably cried, because her wedding wouldn’t be so glamorous—and they made her feel intensely guilty. She shouldn’t derive pleasure from others’ misfortune, however wretched they were. And however deserving of pain. And loss. And pustulating sores and hot, prickly rashes and of all their hair falling out.
Callas and Hart were talking again. They were directly in front of her. And then Callas reined up, and Hart beside him, as a shout went up. A cart wheel spun down the road, pitching on its side and falling into a ditch. A cry went up about whose fault the accident had been and who was going to retrieve it. They were lucky, Isla thought, that the wheel hadn’t been lost entirely. She had a vision, all too clearly, of the blasted thing bouncing over the edge of the road and dropping into the forest below.
This part of the road ran along something of a natural bridge; on either side of them were treetops. Isla swallowed, fighting the vertigo that threatened her whenever she thought about their growing elevation. Especially, she tried not to look too far ahead. The mountain seemed so steep that the road might almost pitch back on her. Or that she might somehow, in trying to navigate it, lose her hold on the earth and plunge off.
Ridiculous thoughts, she told herself. Ridiculous. She swallowed again.
The cart wheel was retrieved and repairs made. This hadn’t been the first of such repairs and it wouldn’t be the last. She tried to force herself to patience.
To resist the urge to pitch one—or all—of Apple’s trunks over the side, herself.
The others passed the time by making conversation. Which was sensible. “All but the most vital of roads,” Callas was telling Hart, “close after the first true snow and they don’t open again until the thaw—which can be as late as Flowers Month, on your calendar.”
Your calendar. These really were foreigners, despite their common citizenship. She listened, though, interested in spite of herself.
“We’d better start making up time, or we’ll be caught here all winter. And trust me, you don’t want that to happen.” Callas looked around, as though expecting crazed hill people to appear at any moment. And perhaps he did. Even the gateway to the North was still the North. “In fact,” he added, “I’ve half a mind to take you with me and leave your stepmother with her precious gowns.
Finally, someone agreed with her. Why did it have to be Callas? Isla fought the impulse to sigh. To laugh, with the absurdity of it all. Tristan had put a great deal of trust in this man, a man who, although he hadn’t identified himself as such, appeared to be the leader of the northerners.
A gust blew across the road, bringing with it a renewal of the rich, pungent odor of pine.
“His Grace won’t appreciate his bride being left to overwinter in some miner’s hut. But the rest….” He made a dismissive gesture as if to say, oh well. And then he turned slightly in his saddle, meeting Isla’s gaze. “Many villages have no contact with the outside world, or even with each other, all winter. The duke’s rangers do their best to make contact, to see if anyone needs supplies—medicines, things like that.
“Still, sometimes…come spring, and then summer, people go searching for their relatives. Or to trade. Or simply from curiosity. And they find nothing but bones.”
“…Bones?” Isla ventured.
“Cannibalism,” Eir hissed. She seemed to view men eating their own kind as completely different than her feasting on them, as a gnome. Gnomes, she’d told Isla before, were civilized; they did not eat each other. “People are…trapped, forced to share close quarters with little to no fresh air. Disease comes, and that peculiar form of madness called cabin fever. And with disease comes…starvation. And with cabin fever comes…anger. Men look at each other and begin to speculate. When he dies, one thinks, then I can eat. Then my family can eat. Soon, he thinks to eat his next meal a little sooner.”
She meant, soon they started killing each other. For food. Isla’s stomach turned.
“The human instinct to survive is very strong,” Callas told her. She wasn’t sure if he was explaining or apologizing. Or merely stating a fact, as she might state a fact about cheese.
“But that’s….” Inhuman, she wanted to say. Wanted to say, and didn’t. She had, after all, watched her own betrothed eat a woman and for no other reason than that he felt like it. And that he wanted to prove a point. To her. He wasn’t starved. Wasn’t desperate. Food, for him, had been—would continue to be—plentiful.
“The flesh of a man is no different than the flesh of a swine.” Callas spoke, as always, as calmly as if he’d been discussing the weather. Seeing her reaction, he flashed a knowing smile.
Isla was spared from a response because, at that exact moment, the skies finally opened.
THIRTY-THREE
Tristan rode into the glen and reined his destrier to a halt. The trees were almost bare, now, leaves thick on the ground. Fall was truly upon them now, with the coming of Wine Month. He hadn’t seen Isla in over a fortnig
ht, since he’d left her standing there on the flagstones.
She, meanwhile, was just leaving home for the first—and last—time. She had no idea, of course, that he was so close. That he could have, had he so chosen, been with her within the hour. The idea was tempting, he had to admit. More tempting than it should have been. But he’d learned to restrain himself over the decades. And she, he knew, thought him long gone. Undoubtedly relaxing before one of the great fires that heated Caer Addanc, or if not quite home yet than close to. He could have been, had he rode alone.
But he had…certain things to attend to, before his new bride arrived. Within his stronghold and without. And one of those things was within this glen. Specifically, with the person who lived there.
She’d crafted her magic well, he had to admit; the avoidance spell was subtle, but strong. Most would ride around this clearing, without ever knowing why. He doubted that any of them, if forced to describe the experience later, would describe themselves as having been compelled. More that taking a different route had—for some reason, forgotten now but undoubtedly valid nonetheless—seemed like a good idea at the time.
Still in his saddle, his gloved hands loosely on the reins, he surveyed the small cottage. Man and beast remained as motionless as statues, melded together in the shadows. Arion’s breath clouded the air; Tristan’s did not. Some beasts shied away from his touch, their instincts far keener than those of their human masters. But Arion understood him.
There was no sign of life from the cottage, either. The glade could have been a graveyard, and Tristan its only occupant. The cottage was a peaked affair with a sod roof, like something from a fairytale. He imagined that Isla, as a child, had enjoyed such stories. Glass-paned windows belied the general air of poverty in the sagging lines and riotously overgrown honeysuckle. Few merchants could afford such windows. No, this place belonged to a wealthy woman indeed. Although he doubted, on the balance, that her neighbors credited her as such. People saw what they wanted to see.
