“In the morning,” said Ashley by way of farewell, and he trotted away from them across the cobbles of the Forecourt.
“Always thus,” said Garyll, reflectively. “I must attend to preparing the troops for Ravenscroft, and then shall be on the campaign. You must surely go to your studies. I am certain you shall be one of the finest Lightgifters Eyri has ever been blessed with.”
His compliment softened the wall which had begun to grow between them.
A snatch of song came to Tabitha. “We have but moments in the moonlight, moments to share alone.”
“What?” asked Garyll, looking enchanted and uncertain at the same time. Tabitha had never imagined the King’s Justice could be feeling any of the crazy emotions she was feeling.
“It’s a song, the dreamchaser’s lullaby,” she answered, turning towards Garyll and trying to absorb as much of him as she could, before the inevitable parting.
“Forgive me for asking you on such a day as this, but we are too soon parted. Would you like to dine with me this evening?”
Tabitha knew that her smile was extreme, and that maybe she was being too plain and obvious in her delight, but she wanted nothing to contain the feeling. She felt like a flower beneath the sun of Garyll’s attention, or was he the flower and she the sun? For he grinned at her in much the same way; guilty of happiness. He was truly handsome when he smiled.
* * *
The hours passed so swiftly that Tabitha didn’t have the luxury of feeling nervous. She scarcely had the time to find a room in the Boarding, bath, visit May at the Healers, and find something to wear, before Glavenor was due. Garyll had been adamant that the tavern they would dine at was an informal place, suited to traveller’s clothes and relaxed manners, but whether it was out of a soldier’s natural prudence, or in sympathy for Tabitha’s appearance, she wasn’t sure.
She had visited the cutter’s shop in the merchant’s quarter anyway, and purchased a shirt to replace the soot-stained woollen tunic she wore.
It was a fine, indigo garment with a thin lining of fleece that peeped out of the collar and cuffs. The grey woodsman’s pants would have to do with just a brushing—they were clean enough, or dark enough not to be noticed. As she waited for Glavenor to arrive at the Boarding, she twined a few small flowers into her hair.
Garyll had changed his uniform for a coarse red tunic, but his broad sword remained belted at his hip. He was clean-shaven, and his dark hair was drawn close against his head into its customary short tail. He seemed taller at night—he towered over her as they walked the streets of Stormhaven, filling the evening with order, piercing the shadows with a vigilance that was second nature to him.
The first tavern they passed, the familiar Bee, was so full that the patrons had spilled out into the street, and some of the music and sounds of revelry had flowed out through the open door. Garyll led her past the crowds, keeping them on the opposite side of the street. More than one of the patrons looked nervously to the night sky before pushing back into the crush.
Tabitha’s hand rested only gently on Garyll’s arm, yet she could feel the muscles ripple beneath his skin; he was ready and alert, despite his calm exterior. She wondered if it was deliberate that she was on his left side, so that he kept his sword-arm free.
The Traveller was a tavern tucked up against the looming north wall of Stormhaven, right at the point where the Upper District dropped to the Lower. It overlooked the roofs of the merchant’s quarter from its vantage. A crowd plugged the doorway of the Traveller as well, but Garyll drew her aside before they reached it. They entered via a small door in the adjacent alley.
It seemed that they were expected, for a jolly tavern-keeper welcomed them beyond the door, and ushered them through the warm kitchens to a simply furnished but cosy dining room. A fire played in one corner. A wicker screen formed one wall, separating the room from the hubbub and music beyond, though much of it filtered through. Wooden tables, thick reed mats and cushions were ranged about the floor. Almost all of the low tables were occupied. The patrons ranged from middle-aged to old, from well-weathered to genteel.
Many patrons noticed their entrance, and it seemed to become quieter in the room for a moment. A greying man tipped his hand to his brow in a suggestion of a salute. Garyll raised his hand discreetly and nodded his acknowledgement. The patrons returned to their meals and conversations.
Garyll unbelted his sword, and set it beside the table, before folding his large frame down onto a cushion. The host returned with a basket of steaming bread, and a wide-lipped bottle of light Honeydew wine. Garyll broke the bread and offered it to Tabitha. It burst with goodness; soft on the tongue, moist in the centre, with a crust that crunched.
“Quite silly that we have to hide from our own fame,” he commented, between bites.
“How so?” asked Tabitha. She hadn’t given much thought to their entrance, she had presumed it was Garyll’s usual route into the Traveller.
“There’s no tavern in this city we could use tonight that would offer us privacy through the front door. I’m thankful for the Traveller’s design.”
“You mean you didn’t want to be seen by those in the common room?” she asked, indicating the room behind the screen. She could only see into the larger room in a vague way, but she could see enough to know it was packed with people, many in animated discussion. Much ale was being consumed.
“Trust me, you don’t want to go out there,” said Garyll. “We wouldn’t get a moment to ourselves if they knew we were here.”
“Why?”
“Listen,” he instructed, tilting her glass as he poured to prevent the Honeydew from gurgling. “Life is becoming legend.”
Tabitha ranged out. She knew the Ring was probably working to augment her senses, yet the volume of noise still surprised her. She tried to isolate just one or two voices in the cacophony of revellers.
“- seen the corpse hoisted in the breeze above the City Gates? It’s a Morgloth, no doubt –” offered someone with a deep, hoarse voice.
“Dead as a doorknob. ‘s the Swordmaster what killed it,” slurred someone else.
“-‘scuse me.”
“Aye, here’s to his shiny spike!” proposed a youthful card. There was laughter, and cheering. “Glavenor!” was the toast. “His shiny spike,” said a few of the more inebriated voices.
“I heard it was the girl. She sang to the beast, and put it to sleep.”
“For sure,” said a mocking baritone. “And she sneezed, and blew the Shadowcaster from the bridge.”
“More a woman than a girl,” someone corrected.
“—‘scuse me.”
“Old Steve says she’s been working in the tavern in First Light.”
“Working, or working?” There was a suggestive inflection to the end of his question.
“You be thinking of her like that, and she’ll scream at you, ‘n break something!”
“—was a scream what stopped the beast, is what I heard.”
“Nay, she’s a singer, all right. Seen her with a lyre in town.”
“—‘scuse me, you’re standing on my foot.”
“She’s a Gifter, you fools! I saw her with the Swordmaster, so you best be careful with your tongue, if you want to keep it.”
The conversation turned quickly from the speculation about Tabitha.
“—Morgloth,” someone whispered. Suddenly everyone had a loud theory.
“—rips through Swords like they was children with sticks –”
“—hungers for blood –”
“—stands ten feet high –”
“—Shadowcasters keep them as pets, feed them from birth –”
“—spawn of Krakus himself –”
“—feast on the life of men –”
“How many more gloth are there?” asked a wiseacre.
“—Morgloth,” someone whispered again.
Tabitha discovered that she could see through the wicker screen if she leant close to it. Ale was vanishing
into gullets like water into drain-pipes. Empty tankards lined the bar faster than the serving man could count the coins for their refilling. Tabitha suspected it was the barman who muttered ‘Morgloth’ under his breath, for he had smiled broadly every time she heard it said, as the crowds downed their drinks and ordered anew. Tabitha wondered how many of the crowd would awake the next morning beside their tankards. The tavern-keeper was exploiting the hysteria for every coin it was worth.
“Here’s to a woman worth saving from peril,” said Garyll, his deep voice bringing her back to the dining room. He watched her intently, and tilted his glass toward her.
The room was suddenly warm against her face. She took her own glass, and clinked the rim against Garyll’s.
“To a man who is leading me into it,” she teased, smiling broadly.
The Traveller, for all its informality, had a kitchen that excelled itself. Bowls of soup were soon placed beside the bread on the table—a thick, spiced butternut flavour lingered on her tongue like the delicate traces of cream on the sides of their bowls. They talked of this and that, small things of Eyri, things she did not remember afterwards, only that the conversation had been easy, for the most part, yet silent at times, when she thought that Garyll held back from asking something, as if mindful of the mood. She didn’t probe, the evening was too wonderful. She used the silences to alternately watch his face, or his strong, tanned hands. His eyes were altogether too deep and dangerous.
The carafe of Honeydew retained little of its contents. By the time they had reached the end of a sticky, meaty platter of ribs, her cheeks were aching from smiling too much. The shared indulgence in the lusty feast with Glavenor made him more Garyll and less the Swordmaster. Tabitha found herself smiling at him again.
I hope we’re going to become friends.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Garyll told her, “about the note my blade makes, and about other legacies of the ancient time.”
There was some basting sauce on his upper lip, at the corner of his mouth, where his cheek dented when he spoke. She wanted to kiss it off.
“Felltang was awarded to the first Swordmaster in a time of war. He used Felltang well, and led the Swords to slay all the Morgloth and to drive every threat from the borders of Eyri.”
She daren’t kiss him where he sat, with all the patrons in the dining room watching.
“Yet it seems strange to me that nothing has come upon Eyri since that time. There have been no battles against invaders since the formative years. Nothing has come into Eyri to threaten the Kings’ rule.”
She reached over the table, and with her finger, made to wipe his lip. He pulled back reflexively, but then held still and watched her with amusement. The electric rush of contact tingled through Tabitha’s finger. She cleaned with a touch, then withdrew her hand.
“Doesn’t that seem strange to you? A realm the size of Eyri, and no invaders have ever chanced to come here, from—Outside. Not even a traveller or two? In over four hundred years?”
She licked her finger absently, then blushed when she realised what she had just done.
“Strange? Er, ah, yes?”
“So I checked the records of House of Ways as well. There has never been a journeyman who has left Eyri, to return with news of the lands beyond. No routes through the mountains or the Great Forest. It seems Eyri is impenetrable, from inside or out. I’ve never thought about it before, I’ve never needed to think about it. But if this is true, then why the wars in the formative years? How did our ancestors ever come to this place?”
Tabitha was in danger of appearing slow-witted. She carefully set her wine glass on the table, resolving to drink no more.
Where did all the Honeydew go?
She found a point to challenge Garyll on.
“What about Fynn? Didn’t he explore the Zunskar, and the South Highlands?”
“And found nothing. He said of the Zunskar ‘the mountains became ever more severe, and the snow more blinding, until it seemed the earth itself turned me back to the gentle arms of Eyri’. He became thirst-blighted and delirious in the Highlands, and doubled back on his own trail without realising it. And we both know what happened to him in the end.”
She had sung the song often enough—Fynn Fell Down. He had climbed the Tooth above First Light to see beyond Eyri, and came down with the avalanche as a snowball.
“So no one ever heard his final tale,” Garyll finished.
“You’re saying nobody can escape Eyri?” Tabitha asked.
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” answered Garyll, swilling his wine speculatively. “But after twice meeting a Morgloth, and the purposeful note of Felltang, I’m reluctant to discard anything of the legends.”
“You believe in the Seven Wizards, then?” she teased. She was enjoying Garyll’s speculative mood, so at odds with his usual precise manner. It was exciting to find another man under the armour of the Swordmaster.
“What else did those who created stonewood do?” he mused. “What changed when the crown was placed on the first King’s head, that the invasions ended?”
Tabitha took up the fanciful thread. “What if the Seven Wizards cast a spell, to keep everyone out?” she suggested.
He laughed, realising his own folly. “It is a bit daft. They would have died long ago, and how could anyone have the power to keep out an invasion along an entire border?”
Something in his words sparked a memory. She had read something in the Stormhaven library, in the legends of the Forming.
“That’s what they did in the beginning!” she exclaimed. “The test to earn Felltang was a circle of the Seven, a circle which no one could breach. The test for the Kingsrim was the same.”
Garyll was observing her with a wary expression, as if he was uncertain whether she was serious, tipsy, or having him on.
She grabbed hold of his hands to show her sincerity. His hands were warm, and strong.
“What if they extended that barrier to the edges of Eyri, so that no outsiders could ever penetrate the borders?”
The entire border of Eyri? Who could possibly have that much power?
It was an interesting theory, but it was otherwise flawed. There were outsiders in Eyri.
“What about the Shadowcasters?” she said, deflated. “What about Ravenscroft? They’re all invaders, aren’t they?”
Garyll considered her for a moment, then shook his head. “Ravenscroft is within Eyri, or at least the borders defined by the Kingsrim. It is within the horizon you see from Stormhaven. I believe their vale is peopled by Eyrians, folk somewhat akin to Lightgifters gone bad. They are not true Outsiders, the invaders of the legends. The Shadowcasters may well be the ones who disappeared from the eastern villages over the years. There have been rumours about creatures from the Broken Lands, taking children at night. The fuel for that rumour may well have been the Darkmaster, abducting new apprentices to his cause.”
“Including Prince Bevn?”
Tabitha regretted the observation the moment she gave it voice. Garyll’s expression hardened, his hand formed a fist; the martial poise of the Swordmaster returned.
“That is a fearsome thought,” he said. “And probably true. I should hasten my campaign to clear the decay from Eyri.”
“If I can help you in any way –” Tabitha began, her voice trailing off as she considered the unlikelihood of the statement. This was the Swordmaster she was talking to.
Garyll shook his head. “You have suffered enough at the hands of the Shadowcaster. You are too precious. It shall be my mission to ensure you are kept safe, far from any involvement with the Dark, far from the perils of any future battles.”
“Not too far from you, I hope,” she said, hoping to draw him back with her smile to the intimate world they had shared until a moment ago.
“You don’t want to be near me,” he rebutted, his eyes distant. “Not with what I face. Not until we have claimed victory.”
He had been right to keep convers
ation light, before. Thoughts of the impending confrontation had raised Garyll’s armour faster than a poke in the ribs with a sharp stick. He did reach out a hand and brush her face gently, but then he rose from the table. He belted his sword to his side. Their special time at the Traveller was over.
When Garyll approached the tavern-keeper to settle the account for their meal, the host waved his coin aside. “Not tonight, Swordmaster, not tonight. You may have been seeking to hide from the crowds, but your deeds deserve credit nonetheless. It is the least I can do, to lay a meal for the hero of Stormhaven and his lovely companion.”
Garyll considered the host for a moment, then shook his hand, and paid compliment to his fine cooking. When Garyll ushered Tabitha into the street, a glimmer of a smile played across his lips.
“Now I have to invite you again some time, to have properly taken you out to dinner.”
She took his arm.
The walk through the streets to the Boarding was cold, which allowed Tabitha to nestle closer to Garyll. Even though he set a slow pace, it was over too soon; a brief passage between the dark buildings, beneath the channel of crisp stars. She tried to hold onto him for a moment longer, but she knew that they must part.
They halted at the base of the stairs. She looked up into Garyll’s face, but he watched the eaves of the Boarding high above. His body stiffened.
She placed her hands about his neck, and rose on tiptoe.
A scuffling sound high above made her pause. Garyll did not drop his gaze to her, though she knew he must feel how her body was positioned, close against his. She glanced up.
A dark object the size of a roof-tile fell. It came whistling down at them from the eaves.
“Watch out!” shouted Garyll. He pushed the palm of his hand against her chest. She was thrown backwards, away from the Swordmaster, her feet scrabbling for purchase on the cobbles. She tripped, and sat down heavily. She expected the roof-tile to shatter on the street between them, but the piece of falling masonry spread its wings, and swooped low overhead. A hoarse croak mocked them. The raven flapped away, down the street, and was lost between the dark buildings.
The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong) Page 40
