Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 02 (17 page)

           
It was, fortunately, a large
caravansary, three stories high, with balconies around the first level
providing shelter from the still- teeming rain. Inside, the central room was
bright with torchlight and warm with the heat emanating from the two deep
hearths at either end of the low-ceilinged room. Baths were already heated, and
after that luxury, their cloaks set to drying, they were offered the best
Murren could offer.

           
Seated close to the fire at a long
table decorated with dried flowers and several candelabra that looked to have
been brought out of storage for the occasion, they were feasted royally. A
thick vegetable soup, sufficient for a meal in itself, was followed by river
trout grilled crisp, the sweet flesh succulent, then slabs of venison dressed
with herbs and accompanied by numerous vegetables, finally a pudding confected
of milk and sugar and eggs that led to several of the party loosening their
belts and joking about the burden their hosts set upon the horses. Wines from
the south and sturdier Tamurin vintages were served, and throughout the meal
they were pressed with questions from those who had not taken up the call to
arms and so sought firsthand accounts of the battle. Wynett noticed that
everyone avoided mention of Kedryn’s blindness, though all cast surreptitious
glances at the prince, who was kept busy—and more than a little
embarrassed—retelling the story of his duel with Niloc Yarrum.

           
At last, drowsy from the wines and
the
rethin
—a local speciality, Vashan
explained—that followed, they made their excuses and retired.

           
Kedryn escorted Wynett to her door,
bidding her good-night while Bedyr waited discreetly along the hall before
leading his son to his own quarters. Inside, she found a small, candlelit room
with a fire burning in a stone chimney and shutters drawn against the night. It
was considerably more luxurious than her chambers in High Fort and the softness
of the bed necessitated much turning before she was able to sleep.

           
She woke soon after dawn,
momentarily confused at the absence of rain plopping against wet ground, and
rose to use the basin set beside the bed. Dressed, she threw the shutters open
and was delighted to see sunlight reflected in the puddles dotting the cobbled
yard. The sky was still stormy, but bright to the east, with random shafts of
brilliance lancing the cloud, hailed by the gaily plumed cockerel that strutted
proudly among a gaggle of hens. The promise of dry weather cheered her
enormously and she went down to the hall smiling.

           
Kedryn and the others were already
eating, serving women bringing a seemingly endless supply of steaming
wheatcakes and sweetened porridge, kettles of aromatic tisane in constant
motion from hearth to table. Wynett joined them, her own breakfast interrupted
regularly by warriors requesting remedies for the previous night’s excesses,
which she dispensed from the satchel she had brought with her, thinking that
she would soon need to replenish her supplies.

           
When they quit the inn the sun had
risen, though to the north dark clouds pushed winter south across the Lozins
and Kendar Vashan warned them that he expected to see snow fall before they
crested the
Geffyn
Heights
. Nonetheless it was a cheerful party that
grouped in the town square and rode out through the western gate as the waving
citizens gathered along the walls to see them g°.

           
Almost immediately the road began to
climb, gently at first, but then steeper, as high timber clustered ever closer
on all sides until they moved along an avenue of trees. As the gradient
steepened the trail began to meander, following ridges and hogbacks, traversing
the rising terrain in sweeping curves, the dense woodland denying sight of the
way ahead so that their journeying assumed a timeless quality, confined within
the walls of the forest. Oak and ash and pine rendered the air sweet,
preferable, despite the increasing chill, to the sodden odor of rain-soaked
leather and damp horsehide.

           
“Snow comes,” Dys announced in a
rare burst of eloquence. “Tonight.”

           
“How do you know?” Wynett looked to
the ribbon of sky visible between the treetops and saw only a bluish gray
silvered by the sun.

           
“Smell it,” grunted the driver and
lapsed back into his customary silence.

           
He was right, for when they halted
that night, pulling off the trail into a clearing ringed by looming conifers, a
soft drifting of white began to fall, lending the campsite an ethereal air, and
the fires were banked high, gloves and fur-lined boots appearing from
saddlebags.

           
“You are warm enough?” Kedryn asked
as he sat beside Wynett, carefully spooning the stew that was their evening
meal, courtesy of the hunters who had ranged ahead to bring down a deer and
several flavorsome birds.

           
“Aye,” she told him, smiling. “It is
beautiful.”

           
“Is it?” He set his bowl aside and
held out his hands, palms upward to the flakes.

           
“Yes,” she said, “it is.”

           
“I wish that I could see it,” he
murmured, bringing a hand to his mouth to touch tongue to snow crystal. “It
seems so long since I saw snow fall on Tamur. Tell me what it looks like.”

           
There was such a longing in his
voice that she reached out to grasp the hand, taking it in both of hers, for
the ache she heard touched her, resounding in her soul.

           
“It is not like the snow that falls
on High Fort,” she began. “There the wind blows down the canyon and hurls snow
at us like missiles. Here it falls gently, like powder from the sky. The flakes
swirl above the fire, dancing in the air, and the ground whitens where they
land. The tents are white with it, and the trees are frosted like the icing on
a sweet cake. It dusts your hair, and . .

           
She broke off as she felt his grip
tighten and saw his face turn toward her, a smile breaking on his mouth.

           
“I see it,” he whispered. “Wynett, I
see it! Tepshen stands there, blanketing his horse. My own is already covered.
My father,” he swung his head, looking around the clearing, “speaks with Torim.
And all around us the trees stand like old men, white-haired and silent.”

           
“And I only hold your hand,” she
said in a hushed voice.

           
“Yet still I see!” he answered
fiercely. “You were right—I must hope. And have faith.”

           
“Aye,” she said.

           
“Wynett,” he turned again toward her,
his eyes solemn, and she felt a pang of fear for what he might now tell her,
seeing it in his gaze, “I thank you—for being here; for what you do.”

           
The fear faded a little and she said
as calmly as she was able, “Thank the Lady, Kedryn, for I am merely her
acolyte.”

           
“I know,” He nodded, his gaze
clouding a fraction, then blanking once more as he groaned and said, “It is
gone.”

           
“But it comes more frequently.”

           
“Because you are here.”

           
“And will be long yet.”

           
“Until Estrevan,” he murmured, his
voice forlorn again.

           
“At least until then,” Wynett said
slowly. “And that is far away yet. Do not think so far ahead, Kedryn.”

           
“No.” He squeezed her hand and let
it fall, extending his own toward the fire as he squared his shoulders and
assumed a resolute expression.

           
“We shall be together a long time,”
she promised.

           
“I hope so,” he said quietly, and
then, so softly she barely heard the words, “A lifetime, I hope.”

           
It was impossible for her to bear
the burden of that longing and she turned her face away as though he might see
the tears that filled her eyes, lifting her gaze toward the white-flecked
darkness of the sky so that the droplets on her cheeks merged with the falling
snow and were hidden. Lady be with me, she asked inside herself Be with me and
help me to be strong.

           
“I am sorry,” he murmured, his voice
husky. “I promised . . . I should not have said that.”

           
“No matter.” She made her voice
cheerful, afraid it might sound brusque. “You still make progress.”

           
“Aye,” he nodded. “In one direction,
at least.”

           
In more than one, she thought,
though I must never tell you that.

           
She was thankful that Bedyr came to
join them then, hunkering by the fire with a skin of evshan in his hand.

           
“The night will be cold,” he
promised, “and tomorrow colder still.”

           
Wynett took the skin and allowed
some of the liquor to trickle into her mouth. It warmed her body, but the chill
of fear remained in her mind: this journey was by no means easy.

           
“Thank you,” she said, returning the
skin, “I think I will sleep now. Better for that.”

           
Bedyr nodded, the eyes that studied
her so full of understanding she experienced a flush of embarrassment and rose
quickly to her feet, crossing to where her tent had been erected and crawling
inside as though to hide from that compassionate, knowledgeable gaze. She drew
the flaps shut behind her and laced them tight, thankful for the protection of
the screening canvas, and sat crosslegged as she used her training to impose
calm upon her agitated thoughts.

           
After a while she felt composed
again and shed her cloak, spreading it over the bedroll laid out for her, then
undid her robe and removed her boots to climb, dressed only in her shift,
beneath the covers. The evshan did, indeed, warm her, and made her drowsy so
that sleep descended swift and soft as the snow.

           
She woke to the sounds of muffled
movement and clambered from the bedroll to peek out through the tent flaps at a
scene transformed during the night. The snow still fell and the clearing was a
veiled panorama of white and gray, the pine limbs thick with the fall, the
Tamurin moving knee-deep through the drifts, the Fires hissing and crackling as
they struggled to survive beneath the soundless onslaught. The horses stood
patiently, caped in whiteness, the sun, when she looked for it, a pale memory
in a sky blank as Kedryn’s eyes. She dressed quickly, running fingers through
the tangle of her long, blond hair, and waded to the nearest fire, where
kettles already steamed, the last night’s stew aromatic in the crispness of the
early morning.

           
Their going that day was slower, for
they had first to dig the wagon out and then negotiate a trail heavy-laden with
snow, halting often as riders attached ropes to aid the team through drifts or
up the more vertiginous slopes. Around noon, however, the fall eased off and
the sun poked tentatively through the overcast, then grew stronger, shining
from a sword-blade sky to dance brilliant light over the drifts, the white
becoming an eye-watering silver over which the horsemen moved like inkblots on
an unpenned page.

           
They made camp before sunset under
the lee of a high bluff, the bare stone a dark scar against the uniformity of
the snow-clad scarp of mountainside, and in the morning found that fresh
snowfall hid their tracks and made their ascent harder still. Wynett had
crossed Tamur only twice before, traveling to Estrevan in the spring and to
High Fort in late summer and early autumn. The winters she had known in Andurel
and Estrevan and High Fort had not been like this, for she had passed them warm
beneath roofs, protected by walls, with heated baths readily available and hot
food prepared in hotter kitchens. She had seen the land burgeon green and gold,
seen it fecund beneath the summer sun, and rich with the colors of autumn; but
never like this. It was magnificent and threatening at the same time, the great
spread of the downslope of the Geffyn’s eastern scarp spread out below her
white as some vast, fresh-laundered sheet, the timber noble beneath its burden
of snow; and she saw how easy it would be to die in that vastness, lost in
drifts, frozen. It was little wonder the Tamurin were so hardy a folk, living
in these extremes: it was a hard, proud land.

           
“Is all of Tamur like this?” she
asked Kedryn as they ate breakfast. “So high and rugged?”

           
“Most,” he answered. “To the east—as
you saw—the land is gentle, and to the south it runs down to the Ust-Idre,
where it is very soft. Our best wines come from there, but the heart is up
here. Beyond the Geffyn forest it flattens to the plateau, but then to north
and west it is mostly mountain again.”