“They wanted to—train Ram.”
Dlos’s hand came up from her lap as if of its own accord, to touch Ram’s cheek. She said nothing. Then at last she raised her questioning eyes to Tayba. “So Theel is your brother. Does he know you have a child? A Seeing child? Does Theel know there is Seer’s blood as his family’s legacy?” She smiled crookedly. “He has never acted as if he knew such a thing.”
“No one—there is no Seer’s blood in my father’s house,” she said quickly. “That’s not possible. We would have known, my sisters and I. A Seeing child. . . .” Why was her pulse pounding so? “A Seeing child would have brought a fortune. No! It’s his father’s blood. EnDwyl’s. I have always known that.
“But my brother Theel—I have not seen him for eleven years; he can’t know I have a child. How could he?”
“Yes. Perhaps. And do you and Theel have the same mother?”
“No, but—there is no Seer’s blood in our family. None!”
“I didn’t mean to anger you, young woman,” Dlos said quietly. “So strange,” she mused. ‘To have many wives in a household. I come from the Isles of Sangur where a man weds only one woman.”
“What—what made you come here, to this place?” Tayba tried to calm herself, sat clutching Ram too tightly.
“I came with my husband. He followed Venniver and a wild dream into this land.” The old woman paused to look out at the morning. “Then he died some years back.”
Tayba looked hard at her, and impulsively put her hand over the square brown one. She could smell meat boiling from the doorway that must lead to the sculler and hear the voices of old women there. Suddenly Dlos shook herself as if she had come to some decision, and she looked over toward the far corner of the storeroom. Tayba followed her gaze and saw, crouched in the shadows, a thin little girl hardly visible among the clutter of tools.
“That is Skeelie.” Dlos beckoned, and the child rose and came to her, pressing against her. “Skeelie goes quietly and becomes a part of the stone and the rubble, and that is the way we want it.” She hugged the child close. “If Venniver forgets about her, forgets he sent her to me, then all is well with us.”
Skeelie looked at Tayba without much expression, then turned her gaze on Ram. And at once her face softened, changed utterly. Tayba offered Ram, and Skeelie sat down beside her and took him in her lap. He was nearly as big as she, but she held him as if she were quite used to the shape of him in her arms.
“Skeelie has nursed him, too,” Dlos said. Skeelie cuddled Ram close, and when she looked up at last, her eyes were full of such pleasure—and full, too, of a strange, unsettling knowledge. When she spoke, Tayba was shocked at the intensity of her reedy voice. “He sees something.” Skeelie touched Ram’s bruised forehead and wiped a smudge of gruel from his mouth. “He sees something that came here with you. He sees a darkness.”
Some time later she whispered, as if she could not put it aside, “He sees an evil. There is an evil come here with you.”
In the days that followed, the child Skeelie became as necessary to Tayba as Dlos was. The wiry little girl moved quickly and silently to care for Ram, who still had uttered no word since he woke, and to care for Tayba, bringing food, bringing hot water in jugs to fill a bathing tub, then lugging out the dirty water, finding clean cloth for Tayba’s bandages and laving on the salve Dlos provided. Tayba’s wound was painful and slow healing. And Ram remained in that somnolent state between sleeping and waking that tore at Tayba. Sometimes she did not know whether he would live or die. She wanted to pull life from the world around her and force it into him. Only Skeelie seemed to understand the thing that possessed him. The child was sure and strong with him, seemed to know his needs despite the boy’s silence. Tayba woke one morning to see her standing by the window with Ram seated on the sill and heard Ram speak for the first time. His voice was small and still, cold as winter.
“There is something here with us. Something—can’t you feel it, Skeelie?”
“What kind of something?”
“Something dark that wants to speak inside me, to be inside me. I don’t want it there! I don’t want it!”
Tayba rose and came to stand beside them, to stare mutely at Ram. She wanted to hold him, but Ram did not reach for her. He clung to Skeelie. She turned away at last, feeling useless and afraid.
Gredillon had taught her nothing to deal with such as this. Was it only the blow on the head that made Ram like this? Or had the power of the bell turned on him? Had the wolves loosed some evil against him because he had called them? Some revenge that Ram did not understand and had no power against?
She had looked for the wolf bell among their washed and mended clothes. Their swords were there, the scabbards, a small knife Ram had always carried. The bell was not. The old woman had not found it.
Well, she was glad, she didn’t want it found. Unless—had EnDwyl taken the wolf bell while Ram lay unconscious? She could not remember, shook her head in confusion; could remember the blood and the great shaggy wolves all around her, but could not bring the rest of the scene clear in her mind.
And even if EnDwyl had the bell, he could command nothing of it. Or so Gredillon had believed.
She turned back to the window to stare uncertainly out at the mountains. Somewhere up among those peaks did the wolves wait, against their wills, for Ram to call them? They had terrified her. They had looked at Ram as if. . . . She shuddered. They might have saved Ram once, but surely they rebelled at being controlled by a human power. Wouldn’t they yearn to destroy that power, to free themselves from it? Surely the jackals of Scar Mountain had rebelled as Ram held them. She stared hard at the mountain. The bell is gone! She thought angrily. Ram can’t use it against you! Leave him alone! If you have laid a curse on him, leave him alone! He can’t touch you now!
The rising sun caught the edges of the low eastern hills, then the mountain. She knelt, pressing her forehead against the windowsill. Maybe the gods would hear her prayer, even if the wolves didn’t.
Then she rose and turned away from Skeelie, feeling embarrassed. But Skeelie put her hand out and drew her back to the window. “The slaves are coming,” she said softly. “The women will stop here to work the gardens.”
The line of slaves was marching single file, flanked by guards. The five young women were all handsome in spite of the rags they wore. They went bare-legged in the bitter cold. A guard separated them from the men, handed out hoes, and they began to weed the gardens that lay in a row behind the Hall. The men were marched away. Skeelie hung out the window, watching. “The tall one, the one with the knotted hair,” she said, “he is my brother Jerthon.” Tayba saw the tall young man clearly for a moment before the line turned the corner at the upper end of the Hall. His long red hair was knotted at his neck, his profile like Skeelie’s, clean and perfect. He walked too proudly, as if he did the guards a favor to obey them. There was a look of cold defiance about him, of anger—and of fine-drawn patience tautly held.
So Venniver kept Seers as slaves. There had been several red-headed men in the line, and one of the girls had red hair. A woman Seer, Tayba thought amazed. And how many more were Seers, without the red hair to give it away? And how, she wondered, did her brother Theel feel about keeping slaves? Well, she supposed it was all right with Theel as long as they were Seers. He had always rankled at being ruled by the Zandourian Seers, though they weren’t nearly as strong, or as cruel, as the Seers of Pelli—simply sated in the luxuries the Zandourian people provided in ritual offerings.
When would Theel acknowledge that she was in Burgdeeth? When would he come to her or summon her? Dlos had told him, she knew. Everyone in town must know there were strangers here, carried in nearly dead. Would Theel welcome them? He was a stern, unloving man; he had grown up and left home while she was still a child. And what would the leader Venniver have to say? Well, she thought, that would be up to Theel, Theel was his lieutenant; surely he would speak for her.
It took some days for Theel
to acknowledge her. She grew nervous and irritable, waiting, would look up tensely when anyone entered the storeroom, convinced herself at last that he did not want her there. She had decided to find out, to seek Theel out herself—she had not been out of the storeroom into the Hall or the town yet—when at last Dlos came to say that Theel had summoned her. She stood staring at Dlos, feeling suddenly terrified. Would Theel turn them out? All at once she was very afraid that he would—and afraid of Theel himself.
She followed Dlos through the sculler then along the back corridors of the Hall, catching her first glimpse of kitchen, then dining hall, where some old women were laying the tables amidst loud clanging of cutlery. The dining hall smelled of ale. There seemed to be none but old women in this place—except for the young slave girls. They turned right into the bedroom wing. Where doors stood ajar, she could see small bare rooms. Dlos left her at Theel’s door as if she did not care to enter.
Theel’s room was sparsely furnished. Bare stone floors, bare stone walls. A narrow bed, a rough chest A sectbow hanging by the door. So chill she shivered.
Theel was even thinner than she remembered. A sour, unsmiling man, his face lined with bitterness where before it had been only cold and without laughter. He did not touch her, made no motion of warmth toward her. He sat on the chest and let her stand, waited for her to speak. When she could not find her voice, he said irritably, “Why did you come here?” He looked at her with distaste. “I heard once from a trader that my youngest sister was pregnant in sin and made worthless to our father. I suppose that is the child you brought with you, the bastard fruit of your dallying.”
“I brought my child. His name is Ramad.”
“I heard the child’s father took himself off and left you on your own. I’ll not ask how you have lived for nine years. I do not want to know. Why do you come to Burgdeeth?” he repeated.
She stared at him, her fury mounting.
“Answer me, girl! Why did you come to Burgdeeth? One does not cross that plain for the pleasure of the ride!”
“I am here because I want a new land,” she lied. “Because I was tired of the rule of Seers, of living under Seers! And I left our father before that because I was tired of being groomed like a prize ewe to increase his hoards of gold!” Theel’s eyes narrowed, studying her. She looked directly back at him. A lie mixed with truth, Gredillon had taught her, was the lie that would best be believed. “I wanted to bring my child to a place of freedom where he would not live under Seers! I want to be a part of something new, of a new land. I will be no bother to you. I will not even claim to know you if you like.”
“That is not necessary, or possible. However, you must make your own way here. No woman has ever come to Burgdeeth without a man.” He smiled dryly. “There are no unattached women here—except the slave women. And Venniver takes those as it pleases him. The guards—the guards get lonely sometimes.” He looked her up and down appraisingly. “I’m sure the guards will find you more palatable than slaves, my sister—if only because you are cleaner.”
She stared at Theel with fury and wondered why she had ever thought he would help her.
“There is only one set of rules in Burgdeeth. Venniver’s rules. If you are to stay here, you will mark those rules well.”
“I will mark them well,” she said stiffly, her whole being rebelling.
Her meeting with Theel left her distraught and unnerved. She guessed she had counted on his support more than she realized. Well, maybe Theel would change his superior attitude. All by Venniver’s rules, was it? And as for the guards, if they thought she was fair game, they had better think again. She wasn’t wasting her time on guards.
She did not go back to the storeroom, but went boldly out the front door of the Hall into the street and, holding her head high in spite of her bloodstained, mended tunic, walked the length of it, past guards, past slaves working at a stone wall. She surveyed the half-finished buildings coolly, as if no one at all turned to stare at her. There was not another woman in sight. It was strange that so many buildings were incomplete, their roofs still open to the sky, so few occupied by craftsmen and their families. She saw no children. She walked to the end of the cobbled street, to the open place that Dlos had said would one day be the town square. Now it was only a morass of mud and piles of timbers and stone. The long earthen mound behind it seemed to mark the end of Burgdeeth, for beyond that the plain began, broken only by the grove of trees to the left of the mound, where she could see a guard tower rising. She knew there was a pit on the other side of the mound where a bronze statue was being cast by slaves—by Skeelie’s brother Jerthon, Skeelie had told her with pride. A bronze statue that would be as tall as six men would stand one day in the center of the square. Venniver didn’t do things by half. She wanted suddenly to see it, but too many guards were watching her. She could not bring herself to walk that long way around the mound in the mud to where slaves were working and perhaps risk the guards’ challenge. She turned instead back toward the Hall.
As she turned, she saw Venniver himself come out of a side street with half a dozen guards and start in her direction. She felt exposed; her jaunty assurance left her, and she hurried along to an alley that joined the square and up between the buildings. She thought that Venniver watched her. He was a big man, who dwarfed the guards. Wide of shoulder, with curling black hair and beard and a strange litheness of step. His image burned in her mind long after she turned away. She thought of Theel’s arrogance, and smiled. Maybe she would show Theel a thing or two about how to gain acceptance in Burgdeeth.
She found her way back to the storeroom and went directly through to Dlos’s room, where she borrowed a small mirror from the old woman, and some perrisax soap. She studied Dlos appraisingly. “Dlos, I can’t wear this tunic, it—the bloodstains wouldn’t come out. It’s so patched from the sword tear, it . . . Do you have something that I could make into a dress?”
Dlos surveyed her in silence. At last she said, “I suppose I do. What sort of thing? Coarsespun, I imagine. Very plain. You’ll be working in the sculler, maybe serving in the Hall.” She opened a chest at the foot of her bed, removed several worn garments, and lifted out a faded coarsespun dress. “If you take this in a little, I think. . .
Tayba held it up. It was very ordinary, not at all what she had in mind. “This—this will be. . . .” She lifted her eyes to Dlos, waiting.
Dlos sighed. “All right. All right.” She rooted again and handed out a length of amber wool as soft as down. Tayba unfolded it and it ran like water through her hands.
She hugged Dlos quickly and fled before Dlos could change her mind.
Dlos bent to close the chest grumbling at Tayba’s departing figure, “You had best be careful, my girl.” But Tayba did not hear, nor would have heeded, her.
She found the scissors Skeelie kept in the storeroom and began to measure and lay out the fine wool. And late that night she sat peacefully sewing, as she watched Ram’s quiet sleep. He had grown much better. She rose several times to touch his cheek and cover Skeelie, who slept flung out every which way across her cot.
Much later she heard the wolves howl on the mountain. Ram stirred and muttered, rolled to face the window and reach out. She wanted to pull his hand back, tuck it under the covers out of harm’s way. But instead she drew the shutters closed, shivering. The wolves were not good for Ram. Why did he yearn for them so, even in sleep? She wished he had never heard of the wolf bell. Recalling the slinking jackals on Scar Mountain, Tayba saw their faces superimposed over the wolves’ faces and felt fear for Ram. Gredillon had been wrong—very wrong—to train him to the use of the bell and its dark powers. She was glad the bell was lost.
“You’d think,” she said to Skeelie the next day as they peeled vegetables in the sculler, “you’d think that Venniver—that he would just let us know we can stay. . . .”
“Why should he?” Skeelie countered, dumping peelings into a bucket for the chidrack. “The longer he waits, the more—you w
ill be afraid of him and obedient to him when he does decide to speak to you.”
She stared at Skeelie.
“Oh, he’ll let you know, you needn’t worry. In his own good time.”
“How do you—how do you know what he’ll do?”
Skeelie looked at her oddly. The thin child was strung tight with intensity. “I know—because I hate him. My brother is Venniver’s slave. My people. . . . Ever since I was four, I’ve watched Jerthon slave for him, seen Jerthon beaten, felt Jerthon’s hate for him. I know Venniver very well.” Skeelie looked older than her twelve years; spoke with a hatred that was mature and cold. It made Tayba hesitate in what she planned—and yet, the slaves’ problems were not her problems.
And the slaves were strong, healthy people. Were Seers. Couldn’t they have found some way, in all these years, to escape Venniver if they had really tried? She looked at Skeelie and saw her face go closed suddenly, her eyes expressionless.
“How—how is it that he lets you go free, Skeelie?”
“I keep out of his way. He—he doesn’t see much of me.” She was peeling the roots so violently, Tayba was afraid she would cut herself. “When Venniver captured us, Dlos told him I was too little to be locked in the slave cell all day with no one to take care of me.”
“And he listened to her? But I would have thought—”
“He listened because once she saved his life. He—he had gone up into the mountains. He didn’t return. Dlos—knew where to look. She led three guards there. They found—found him trapped where a boulder had rolled across a cave. It took all three men to move it”
“But how did she . . .”
“No one . . . she said she had been up the plain picking herbs and heard the rumbling, that she—she thought she knew where it was. The guards said—I heard them talking once—that it must have been an earthquake. And that there were wolf tracks around the boulder—as if the wolves had come down tracking him. . . .”
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