The Blue Sword d-1

by Robin McKinley

  Corlath knew, dispassionately, that Thurra's empire would not last; his son, or at most his son's son, would fail, and the Northerners break up and return to their smaller, nastier internecine quarrels. Corlath's father, and then Corlath, had watched Thurra's rise through their spies, and Corlath knew or could guess something of the cost of the power he chose to wield, and so knew that Thurra would not himself live much longer than an ordinary man. Since the Hill-kings lived long, it might be within Corlath's own lifetime that, even if the Northerners won the coming war, he would be able to lead his people in a successful rebellion; but by then there might not be enough of the country left to rebel, or to live off of after the rebellion was finished. Not much more than five hundred years ago—in Aerin's day—the desert his tent was pitched on had been meadow and forest. The last level arable land his people had left to them was the plain before the great gap in the mountains where the Northern army would come.

  Sir Charles might beg off now while the Northerners had not yet attacked any Outlander-held lands. But once they had cut through the Hillfolk they would certainly try to seize what more they could. The entire Darian continent might fall into the mad eager hands of Thurra and his mob, many of them less human than he; and then the Outlanders would know more than they wished of wizardry.

  And if the Outlanders won? Corlath did not know how many troops the Outlanders had to throw into the battle, once the battle was engaged; they would learn, terribly, of kelar at Thurra's hands. But even kelar was limited at last; and the Outlanders were stubborn, and, in their stubbornness, courageous; often they were stupid, oftener ineffectual, and they believed nothing they could not see with their eyes. But they did try hard, by their lights, and they were often kind. If the Outlanders won, they would send doctors and farmers and seeds and plows and bricklayers, and within a generation his people would be as faceless as the rest of the Outlander Darians. And the Outlanders were very able administrators, by sheer brute persistence. What they once got their hands on, they held. There would be no rebellion that Corlath would ever see.

  It was not pleasant to hope for a Northern victory.

  His Riders knew most of this, even if they did not see it with the dire clarity Corlath was forced to; and it provided a background to Corlath's orders now. King's Riders were not given to arguing with their king; but Corlath was an informal man, except occasionally when he was in the grip of his Gift and couldn't listen very well to anything else, and usually encouraged conversation. But this afternoon the Riders were a silent group, and Corlath, when he came to the end of what he had to say, simply stopped speaking.

  Corlath's surprise was no less than that of his men as he heard himself say: "One last thing. I'm going back to the Outlander town. The girl—the girl with the yellow hair. She comes with us."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  She stared out of her bedroom window at the moonlit desert. Shadows drifted across the pale sand, from one shaded hollow to the next clump of dry brush. Almost she could pretend the shadows had direction, intention. It was a game she often played. She ought to be in bed; she heard two o'clock strike. The location and acoustics of the big clock that stood in the front hall were such that it could be heard throughout the large house it presided over—probably even in the servants' quarters, although she had never had occasion to find out and didn't quite dare ask. She had often wondered if it was perversity or accident—and for whatever reason, why wasn't it changed?—that the clock should so be located as to force the knowledge of the passing of time upon everyone in the Residency, every hour of every day. Who would want to know the time when one couldn't sleep?

  She had had insomnia badly when she was fresh from Home. It had never occurred to her that she would not be able to sleep without the sound of the wind through the oak trees outside her bedroom at Home; she had slept admirably aboard the ship, when apprehensions about her future should have been thickest. But the sound of the ceaseless desert air kept her awake night after night. There was something about it too like speech, and not at all like the comfortable murmur of oak leaves.

  But most of that had worn off in the first few weeks here. She had had only occasional bad nights since then. Bad? she thought. Why bad? I rarely feel much the worse the next day, except for a sort of moral irritability that seems to go with the feeling that I ought to have spent all those silent hours asleep.

  But this last week had been quite as bad—as sleepless—as any she had known. The last two nights she had spent curled up in the window-seat of her bedroom; she had come to the point where she couldn't bear even to look at her bed. Yesterday Annie, when she had come to waken her, had found her still at the window, where she had dozed off near dawn; and, like the placid sensible maid that she was, had been scandalized. Apparently she had then had the ill grace to mention the matter to Lady Amelia, who, in spite of all the alarums and excursions of the week past, had still found time to stop at Harry's room just at bedtime, and cluck over her, and abjure her to drink some nice warm milk (Milk! thought Harry with revulsion, who had given it up forever at the age of twelve, with her first grown-up cup of tea), and make her promise to try to sleep—as if that ever had anything to do with it—and ask her if she was sure she was feeling quite well.

  "Very well, ma'am," Harry replied.

  Lady Amelia looked at her with concern. "You aren't fidgeting yourself about, mmm, last week, are you?"

  Harry shook her head, and smiled a little. "No, truly, I am in excellent health." She thought of the end of a conversation she had heard, two days past, as Dedham and Peterson left Sir Charles' study without noticing her presence in the hall behind them. " … don't like it one bit," Peterson was saying.

  Dedham ran his hand over the top of his close-cropped head and remarked, half-humorously, "You know, though, if in a month or a year from now, one of those Hillfolk comes galloping in on a lathered horse and yells, 'The pass! We are overwhelmed!' I'm going to close up the fort and go see about it with as many men as I can find, and worry about reporting it later." The front door had closed behind the two of them, and Harry proceeded thoughtfully on her way.

  "I hope you are not sickening for anything, child," said Lady Amelia; "your eyes seem overbright." She paused, and then said in a tone of voice that suggested she was not sure this bit of reassurance was wise, as perhaps it would aggravate a nervous condition instead of soothing it: "You must understand, my dear, that if there is any real danger, you and I will be sent away in time."

  Harry looked at her, startled. Lady Amelia misread her look, and patted her hand. "You mustn't distress yourself. Sir Charles and Colonel Dedham will take care of us."

  Yesterday Harry had managed to corner Jack when he came again to closet himself with Sir Charles for long mysterious hours. Harry had lurked in the breakfast room till Jack emerged, looking tired. His look lightened when he saw her, and he greeted her, "Good morning, my dear. I see a gleam in your eye; what bit of arcane Damarian lore do you wish to wrest from me today?"

  "What was it exactly that you said to Corlath that morning, just as he left?" replied Harry promptly.

  Jack laughed. "You don't pull your punches, do you?" He sobered, looking at her quizzically. "I don't know that I should tell you—"

  "But—"

  "But I will. In the days of Damar's civil wars, a man pledged himself so, to his king, or to the particular claimant he wished to support. It was a particularly dangerous and unsettled time, and so the ritual swearing to one's leader meant rather a lot—more, for example, than our Queen's officers taking an oath to her, as we all must do. The phrase still carries weight in Hill tradition … but you see, my giving it to Corlath was a trifle, hmm, unprofessional of me, as Homelander protecting the Homelander Border from Corlath. A calculated risk on my part … " He shrugged. "I hoped to indicate that not all Homelanders are … unsympathetic to the Free Hillfolk, whatever the official attitude is."

  Harry lay down in her detestable bed after Lady Amelia left her, and dozed, after a fashi
on, till midnight; but then the darkness and peacefulness wakened her, and she came again to her window-seat to watch the night pass.

  Two-thirty. How black the sky was around the stars; nearer the horizon were longer flatter glints in the darkness, unsuitable for stars, and these were the mountains; and the desert was shades of grey. Without realizing it, she drifted into sleep.

  There was the Residency, stolid and black in the moonlight. Faran and Innath would stay here, with the horses; it was not safe to take them any nearer. He would go the rest of the way on foot. Safe! He grinned sourly behind the safety of the grey hood pulled over his face, and slid into the shadows. The adventure was upon them, for good or ill.

  "Sola, not an Outlander," Faran had begged, almost tearfully; and Corlath had flushed under his sun-darkened skin. There had been certain romantic interludes in the past that had included galloping across the desert at night; but he had never abducted any woman whose enthusiastic support for such a plan had not been secured well in advance. Corlath's father had been a notorious lover of women; unsuspected half-brothers and half-sisters of the present king still turned up occasionally, which kept the subject in everyone's mind. Corlath sometimes thought that his own policy of discretion in such matters only made his people nervous because they didn't know what was going on—or if anything was. For some time now there hadn't been, but by the gods, did his own Riders really expect him to break out by making an ass of himself over an Outlander—and now of all times?

  But, on the other hand, he could not well explain his reasons—even to himself—although his determination was fixed, as he had unhappily realized the moment the words were out of his mouth. But he hated to see his people unhappy—because he was a good king, not because he was a nervous one—and so, while he could rightfully have told Faran to let it be, he had given as much of an answer as he could.

  "This is an affair of state," he said slowly, because he could not quite bring himself to say that his kelar was concerning itself with an Outlander, even to his Riders, who were his dearest friends as well as his most trusted subjects. "The girl will be a prisoner of honor, treated with all honor, by me as well as by you."

  No one had understood, but they were a little soothed; and they avoided thinking about the unwritten law of their land that said that a kidnapped woman has been ravished of her honor, whether she has been actually ravished of anything beyond a few uncomfortable hours across somebody's saddlebow or not. It was generally accounted an honor for a Hillman or woman to be seduced by a member of the royal family—which was why kelar, originally a royal Gift, continued to turn up in odd places—if a somewhat uncomfortable honor, for who could be entirely at ease with a lover who must never quite meet one's eyes? And Outlanders were peculiar, as everyone knew, so who did know how they might react?

  "Sola," Faran quavered, and Corlath paused and turned a little toward the man to indicate that he would listen. "Sola, what will happen when the Outlanders find her gone?"

  "What of it?"

  "They will come after her."

  "Not if they do not know where she has gone."

  "But—how could they not know?"

  Corlath smiled grimly. "Because we shall not tell them." Faran, by his own choice, had not been one of those who accompanied his king to the council with the Outlanders; Forloy and Innath and the others who had gone were wearing smiles to match the king's. The Outlanders could not see what happened under their very noses. "You shall leave here at once, and travel, slowly, toward the mountains; and set up camp again where the Leik spring touches the surface. There you will wait for me. I will return the way we came, in secret, in three days' time, so that the girl will not disappear too soon after the Hillfolk were seen in the Outlander station. Then I shall take the girl from her bed as she sleeps in the big house, and ride back to you."

  There was a meditative silence; at last Faran said: "I would go with you, Sola. My horse is fast." His voice was still unhappy, but the quaver was gone; and as he looked at the faces of the six Riders who had been with Corlath when he spoke with the Outlander commissioner, he began to feel curious. He had never seen an Outlander, even from a distance; never looked upon an Outlander town.

  After three restless days at the deserted campsite, Corlath, Faran, and Innath rode swiftly back toward the Outlander town. Corlath thought: They can't see us even in broad daylight when we gallop toward them with cloaks flapping and horses whinnying. We creep like burglars to an empty house, pretending that it has an owner because we can't quite believe it is this easy.

  Faran and Innath knelt down where they were and did not look as their king left them, for they knew they would see no more than he wished them to. The horses waited as silently as the men, but the king's bay stallion watched him go. The only sound was the wind whispering through the low brush and the horses' long manes.

  Corlath reached the house without difficulty; he had expected none. Watchdogs ignored him, or mysteriously counted him a friend. There were several black-and-brown furry shapes lying about sullenly snoring in the Residency garden. Outlander dogs did not like the northeast Border of Daria; and Hill dogs, who would have awakened at once and watched him silently, did not get on well with Outlanders. He passed the stables, but the grooms slept as heavily as the dogs. He couldn't see in the dark, but even in the places where the moonlight was no help he knew where things were.

  He reached the wall of the house and laid a hand on it. Depending on what sort of a mood the kelar was in, he could occasionally walk through walls, without knocking them down first, or at least see through them. And then again, sometimes he couldn't. It would be tiresome if he had to break in like the common burglar he felt, and wander from room to room looking at faces on pillows. There was even the remote chance he could get caught at it.

  No. This wasn't going to be one of those times: the kelar was with him—since it had gotten him into this dilemma, he thought, at least it was going to help to get him out of it—and he knew almost at once where she was. His only bad moment was when that damned clock in the front hall tolled like a call for the dead, and seemed to reach up the stairs after him like cold pale hands. She was curled up, drooping and asleep on a cushioned shelf built out from a curved window; and for a moment pity struck him and he hesitated. What good will pity do me? he thought almost angrily; I'm not here by choice. But he wrapped the cloak around her with unnecessary tenderness as he breathed a few words over her head to make sure she would sleep.

  Harry struggled out of some of the oddest dreams she'd ever had into a dim and foggy reality full of bumps and jolts. Was she ill? She couldn't seem to make out what was happening to her, save that it was very uncomfortable, and it was not like her to have difficulty waking up.

  She opened her eyes blearily and saw something that looked like dawn behind something that looked like hills, although she was a long way from them … Where she was, she then realized, was slung sideways across a horse's withers with her feet sliding across his shoulder with every stride—no more comfortable for him than me—and she was held sitting upright by an arm round her middle that clamped her arms to her sides, and her head appeared to be bouncing against a human shoulder.

  Her only clear notion, and it wasn't very, was that she was perfectly capable of riding a horse herself, and resented being treated like a bundle or a baby: so she struggled. She raised her head with a gasp and shook her face free of the deep hood pulled over it; tried to sit up a bit farther and turn a bit more to the front.

  This caused the rider to rein his horse in abruptly; except she realized there were no reins. The rider seized her a little more firmly and then there were two other men on horseback beside her, and they dismounted and came toward her at once. They were dressed like Hillfolk, with hoods pulled low over their faces; and quite suddenly, still not understanding what had happened to her, she was afraid. The rider who held her handed her down to the men beneath; and she noticed that the shoulder her heels were knocking was bright bay, and the mane l
ong and black. Then as the two men caught her by the arms, her feet touched the ground, and she fainted again.

  She woke once again in twilight, but this time the red glow came from the opposite direction. This time she awoke feeling more like herself; or she thought she did, but her surroundings were so unlikely she wasn't sure. She sat up and discovered she could; she was lying on a blanket, still wrapped in a dark hooded cloak that wasn't hers; and underneath she discovered she was still wearing her nightgown, and the dressing-gown over it. She was barefoot; she spent a light-headed minute or two trying to remember if her slippers had disappeared or if she'd never put them on—last night, or whenever it was—caught herself here, and looked around.

  She was in a bit of a hollow, with a scrub-covered dune behind her. Over her was a sort of tent roof, pegged out in a square, but with only one side let down. The other three offered her a view of the dune; the sunset, if that was what it was; and three men crouching over a tiny smokeless fire, built against the opposite arm of the same dune. Around its edge she could see the black hills fading in the last light, and three horses. Three lumps that might be saddles lay near them, but the horses—a grey, a chestnut, and a blood bay—were not tethered in any way.

  She had only just looked at these things with a first quick glance, and had not yet begun to puzzle over them, when one of the men stood up from the fire and walked over to her. The other two appeared to pay no attention, remaining bent over their knees and staring into the small red heart of the fire. The third man knelt down near her and offered a cup with something in it that steamed, and she took it at once without thinking, for the man's gesture had been a command. Then she held it and looked at it. Whatever it was, it was brown, and it smelled delicious; her stomach woke up at once, and complained.