A Princess of the Chameln (12 page)

“What can I give you and your companions?” she said to Akaranok. “We owe you more than we can ever repay. You know our possessions. Will you have gold? Will you have cloth?”

The four Tulgai divided up Ric Loeke's smaller cooking vessels, his folding canteen of cutlery, two more scarves from Sabeth, a “housewife” with needles and thread that Lady Maren had packed for Aidris. Aidris and Sabeth rode onto the bridge and crossed, not looking down. Aidris turned back and waved and thought she heard a last bird call, but saw nothing, only the fir trees.

They rode down into the meadow, and it was even wider and more beautiful than it had appeared from across the river. They got down and let the horses, still saddled and laden, crop the green grass. There was a smoking chimney at the log house. They strolled closer, and a figure ran around the corner of the building: a young man in the brown homespun robe of the Brothers. He came on, running up the path, and stopped short a few yards from them, in a curious attitude, as if he might take flight. His robe was kilted up into a leather vest, showing his bare, bony legs. His neck, his wrists, protruding from the brown robe, were all bird thin; his face was hollow-cheeked, the eyes sunken in bony sockets—the skull visible beneath the skin.

“Stop!” he called. “Stop! Where is your guide?”

“I am the guide,” said Aidris. “May we visit your hospice, Brother?”

“No!” he shouted. “No—keep off! Lead your horses!”

Aidris walked on; the young man stood still, trembling, then backed a few steps, then forced himself to stand still again. When she was about two yards distant, Aidris said, “What is the matter? May we use the bathhouse? We have come a long way; this lady is faint and weary.”

The young man would not raise his eyes.

“No guide . . .” he mumbled.

“We can pay,” said Sabeth, smiling winningly. “We can make an offering, dear Brother.”

The young man lifted his head and stared at her with an expression of fear and loathing.

“You should not call me brother,” he said in a nervous croak. “I am Dirk, one of the callants, the learners.”

“Can we go to the bathhouse?” asked Aidris.

“It's ready,” he said. “No one is there.”

“Will you attend to our horses?” she asked.

He nodded. She had a piece of silver ready, but when she held it out to the callant, he backed away. She ran and took the reins of the horses, gorging themselves on the lush grass, and brought them to the path with some difficulty. Sabeth came to help; they removed their saddlebags. The young man stood with his eyes cast down. Before Aidris could hand over the horses, she was relieved to see a second “brown man,” middle-aged and bearded, walking smartly down the path towards them.

“Well, Dirk?” he said. “Are you punished enough?”

The callant cringed and began to weep, wringing his thin hands.

“Good Brother,” said Aidris, “can our horses be stabled?”

The Brother's gaze flicked coldly over herself and Sabeth and the two restless horses.

“What do they tell you, Dirk?” he asked.

“The b-breeched one is guide,” whispered Dirk. “They wanted to go to the bathhouse. They offered m-money.”

“Very good,” said the Brother. “You may go and purify yourself.”

The callant knelt down and kissed the brother's dusty clogs, then ran off, his legs flying out. The brother watched him with a faint, tender smile, then turned at last to Aidris and Sabeth.

“Now,” he said, “where's the money? Silver? Very good. I'll take the horses—are they both mares? Ugh—it can't be helped. Get along then, the pair of you, we're expecting a large party, and the bathhouse will have to be purified. When you've washed, come to the north end of the hospice.”

“Brother,” asked Sabeth, “why are you so rude? What was the matter with that young man, the callant?”

“Ah,” said the brother. “Rude? Yes. We don't deal willingly with brooders and breeders, with the half-made. The callant has come out of reclusion. He has been away from the world. You don't understand me, I know. Go wash yourselves.”

“I understand,” said Aidris, “but I'm not sure that your mothers would!”

“A proper creature of your sort
lacks
understanding!” snapped the Brother.

“How can the brothers be healers if they do not deal with women?” asked Aidris.

“Oh, some do,” he replied cheerfully. “They have a gift for humility—they wallow in the world's filth. The north end, remember?”

He turned towards the hospice; another callant came to help with the horses. Aidris and Sabeth trailed across the grass towards the bathhouse.

“As bad as the Balufir beaks,” grumbled Sabeth. “Don't deal with women . . .”

Aidris laughed.

“Don't you start talking in riddles. Balufir beaks?”

“The city magistrates,” said Sabeth. “Oh, everyone knows it. The laws are hard on women.”

“We are still in the Chameln lands,” said Aidris. “There are no such laws here, and I think there are none in Athron.”

She thought with dull anger of the followers of Inokoi. She had hoped always that they might redeem themselves when she met them face to face; they might be innocent and good. She had had a picture in her mind of kind, bustling, pleasant men, male counterparts of the Moon Sisters, with here and there a Shaman, thin and wise, like the holy men of the northern tribes. These others, woman-haters, might do anything: they might strike down a pregnant woman and kill her child in the womb.

While Sabeth bathed, Aidris stood guard; she remembered the brother's words about a large party approaching. Must not these be men, soldiers perhaps, if he took them so calmly? The nearness of the pass was no comfort; to come so far only to be captured would be unbearable. She fretted, propped against the wall of the bathhouse in the spring sunshine, then slid down the wall until she was sitting on the grass. She dozed a little, and then Sabeth was back again, dressed in one of the three gowns she had brought along. They took up so much of her care and interest that they peopled her saddlebag like old friends.

“That is your best blue!” said Aidris.

“Only the surcoat,” said Sabeth. “I will keep the petticoat and chemise until I arrive in Athron. Quickly . . . go in while the water is hot. I built up the fire. Remember to wash your linen first and hang it to dry on their hot racks.”

Aidris went in and took her fine hot bath with more enthusiasm. The Brothers ran an excellent bathhouse. She washed her underclothes and regretted all over again that they
were
linen, stitched by the virgins of the northern tribes. Sabeth wore cotton-lawn from the plantations of Mel'Nir, and it washed and dried better and more quickly than the finest linen. It was considered a common cheap cloth, unfit for a princess of the Chameln.

She dressed in her second best tunic of grey doeskin panelled with wine-red velvet of Lien. Her breeches were of a heavier leather, her best boots were of oxhide from the High Plateau of Mel'Nir. She dressed dutifully, remembering how Lady Maren had instructed her on the tying of points, the set of a collar, the use of jewelry, according to protocol. She repacked her saddlebag and found, far down, the package Nazran had given her, the New Year's gift. She felt a thrill of surprise and delight. I will open it when I come into Athron, she thought.

“Dear Goddess, aren't we fine!” said Sabeth. “The colors suit you. That velvet alone must have cost the earth. Do Chameln women always wear trousers?”

“No,” said Aidris. “Older women, and men too, may choose to wear a loose robe.”

They lingered by the bathhouse in the sunshine, then took up their baggage again and went to the north end of the hospice. Breakfast smells assailed them; they found an open door and a brother sweeping a small room. They could look through a busy kitchen into a much larger room with trestle tables. The brother, a round-faced dark man, did not speak at all, but his manners were gentle. He bowed, ushered them to an eating place in the small room, fetched a tray of food. He waved away an offer of payment.

Aidris heard farmyard noises from beside the hospice; Sabeth was picking eagerly at the splendid breakfast. They began to eat hot bread, honey, boiled eggs, fruit-porridge, fried ham, apple curd; there was milk to drink, and rosehip tea.

“It is like a farm holiday,” said Sabeth, wiping her fingers daintily. “I remember once the sisters took us to a farm in Hodd for the summer.”

“It tastes of Athron,” said Aidris. “The bread is different and the ham.”

She saw that there were other diners in the large room, a family party; presently two women in mourning hoods of black and dark green came into their small room and were given breakfast.

“This is the place for women travelling alone, I think,” she said to Sabeth.

She heaved up her saddlebag, left Sabeth sipping tea, and went to the stableyard. She stepped round the corner of a barn, and the world turned over. The yard was alive with troopers of Mel'Nir, stabling their horses. She stepped back instantly, then peered out and found that their two mares, Telavel and Imba, were stabled at the end of the long row of loose boxes, so close that she could see into their stalls. A stableboy, possibly a callant, was just then feeding Telavel some tidbit.

The world turned over again and wavered. An officer, marked out by crossed sashes, strolled up and began examining the two mares. Another man of middle height walked beside him. They seemed to be of equal rank; the second man was not a soldier; he wore some kind of blue hunting dress, with a short cloak, wide breeches and smart high-heeled boots. He had a sharp-featured, smiling face and a fine, shaped red beard. She saw him run a hand over Telavel's muzzle, then give her a friendly pat. He conferred with the tall officer, who had laid hold of the stableboy to question him. They started off towards her, she was right in their path, but the stableboy and a brother, feeding hens over a wall, came after them and redirected them. To the south end.

Then they were out of sight and the yard almost empty of troopers. She darted to the stall and set about saddling Telavel. The stableboy came out of the shadows to goggle at her.

“Help me!” she said.

He
was
a callant, she saw it now, a tow-haired young man in a robe. He began to saddle Imba, turning to stare at Aidris all the while.

He began to speak, “They will search. The red one is called Hurne. They spoke of a bounty. They talked of . . . two women, ladies. . . . Highness, they will find . . .”

He knew her; he was the last to know her, the last servant of the Firn in the Chameln lands.

“Please,” said Aidris, “say no names. Help me. Go at once to the smaller dining room and fetch my companion in the blue dress. Come through the barn if you need to.”

She knew he might be breaking his rules to do this. He sketched a bow and ran off. She finished saddling both horses and looked at all the ways out of the yard, then mounted up, took Imba's rein and stepped out with Telavel straight across the yard, the way she had come. The brother, busy at the fowl yard, gave a shout, but she went on along the wall of the barn. She met Sabeth and the stableboy running, dragging her saddlebag. Sabeth, pale and frightened, scrambled up with the callant's help. Aidris threw the boy a gold piece.

“Till I come again!” she said. “Your name, friend?”

“Tibbit!” he said, bobbing. “Go well, ladies. Inokoi guide you and bring you to safety.”

They turned the horses almost at the door of the smaller dining room and rode smartly down the grassy strip between the lake and the farmyard of the hospice. Cowshed, orchard, they were at a canter now, and they came into the shadow of the trees. They had been seen: there was shouting, and the pursuit was being mounted. There came a sound that had haunted her dreams: the long sweet blast of the silver hunting horn.

They rode on blindly: the forest, so open at first, with many ways leading to the road or to the Wulfental, closed in like a maze. They went up and down and found paths that ended in an impassable thicket or a deep ditch.

Sabeth cried out, “Oh, Goddess help us—that red devil! What is he doing in the Chameln land?”

Aidris reined in, panting.

“The red-bearded man? The one they call Hurne?”

“I have heard him called harsher things,” said Sabeth. “He comes from Balufir. He is one of the city's Harriers, one of the worst of them.”

“A Harrier? A kind of hunter?”

“They are a special troop of the city watch. They go about in secret. Not many know their names or their faces.”

“But
you
know him . . .”

“Mother Lorse had a friend . . . a gentleman . . . who had some trouble.”

The path they were on was very steep and it ran, so Aidris hoped, towards the road. They came through places where the trees thinned out until they were riding across the bare mountainside. There was the crash of a distant pursuit; they came out on to the roadside above the hospice. They could hear riders coming from below on the road and one rider following through the wood. But Aidris saw that for this moment their luck held good, the road was clear . . . it wound around a bluff going upward.

“Cross!” she said.

They whisked across and went into the trees on the other side, forcing their way in. There was a thunder of hooves, and four mounted troopers went by on the road. Aidris went in deeper still; she got down and led Telavel over the snow-roughened rocky ground, through felled timber, finding a way where Imba, the brown mare, could follow. They descended at last onto a broad path cut into the mountainside, that she knew must cross the road below the hospice.

She mounted up again, and they went on at a better pace; it filled her with despair to move away from the pass. They picked their way around the base of a fresh stone-slide. Above them loomed a grey bluff with a clump of hard yellow snow packed on its northern side. Beside the path, through a brake of stunted beech trees, was another mountain meadow, a stony round of green, with a little rushing stream.