Bloodheir (15 page)

They went out into the chill air. Their guards followed behind, out of earshot but close. Orisian thought Lheanor would be cold, but the old man gave no sign of discomfort, as if the state of the world around him could no longer impinge on his thoughts. They set out along one of the garden’s broad paths, curving away around the side of the hillock that supported the Tower.

“You’re going to Highfast, then?” Lheanor said.

“Yes. I’ve seen – and heard – enough to make me think . . . I’m not sure. Perhaps armies are not the only kind of strength we need in this. But I’ll stay there only briefly. I mean to meet Taim Narran at Kolglas. I’m told there’s a good path from Highfast across the Peaks to Hent and then down to the coast.”

“Good? I don’t know. Passable, yes, if you don’t wait too long, and if you’ve no wagons to haul. The Karkyre Peaks can be nasty in the winter.” Lheanor flicked a glance at the sky. “Not quite yet, though, I suppose.”

“What did you make of the word Bannain brought from Highfast? About Aeglyss, the Shared?” Orisian felt like a charlatan, pretending to discuss weighty matters with the Thane of a True Blood. He wondered if he would ever feel as though he belonged at the side of such a man.

Lheanor shrugged. “I worry about grain harvests, about tithes, about the Shadowhand’s games. The worries of
na’kyrim
. . . well, some problems are best left to others. How can the likes of you and I oppose things that cannot be met with a blade, or an emissary, or cold coin? Don’t mistake me, though: Cerys and her people at Highfast, they’re a precious thing. Giving that place to the
na’kyrim
was not the least of Kulkain’s wise deeds, not by a long way.”

“Have you said anything about it – Bannain’s message – to Aewult?”

“Ha! You really think the great warriors of Haig would care what a few
na’kyrim
think? Aewult would not listen to any counsel drawn from such a well. It would only feed his contempt for us, to learn that we gave it any credence ourselves. We have a few slender threads of tolerance left for the children of two races, your Blood and mine. But Haig? No. Even if they believed it . . . oh, there are old hatreds that could easily be stirred back into life. If people start to think there are
na’kyrim
mixed up in this war, how safe do you suppose any of them, anywhere, would be?”

“They took a risk, in sending Bannain to you,” Orisian murmured.

“I like to think they trust me, as they have trusted my ancestors. Unfortunately, I fear they do not really understand how much power has leaked away from the Tower of Thrones.”

Crows that had been strutting across the neat lawns in serried ranks flew off, cawing in irritation, as the two Thanes approached.

“They believe it’s their garden more than mine,” Lheanor said as he watched them go. “You’re taking your Kyrinin with you, are you?”

“I am. They expect to be killing White Owls soon, and that . . . pleases them.” He remembered well the smile that had burst from Ess’yr’s flawless face at the news: a rare prize.

“I can’t say I’ll be sorry to see the back of them. I know they helped you, and that makes them friends of my Blood as much as yours, but word gets out, no matter how much care it’s guarded with. There’d be a mob at the door demanding their deaths before too much longer.”

“I know. I’ve brought more problems with me than I would have wished.”

“Not you. Horin-Gyre. Haig. They’re the ones who’ve crafted our troubles. And a foolish father, too ready to grant his son’s desire for battle.”

There was such a weight of sadness in Lheanor’s voice that Orisian could almost feel its tug himself. He looked at the Thane of the Kilkry Blood and saw not a mighty leader but an old man, bowed by loss, beset by guilt.

“I wake up every day,” Orisian said, “and . . . every morning I have to learn to believe it all over again: that they really are gone. A dozen times a day – no, more – I think of something I want to say to one of them, or ask. My father, my uncle, Inurian. My mother, even, and Fariel.”

“There are a great many things I wish I could say to my son.”

“You still have a son. Perhaps you should say them to him.”

The Kilkry-Haig Thane glanced at him, and Orisian wondered if he should tread more carefully. But he did know something of this; in the matter of dead sons, of grieving fathers, he could claim some knowledge.

“I don’t know you well, sire,” he went on, “so you must tell me if I speak out of turn. My father lost a son, and I lost him because of that. Grief took him away from me before the Inkallim did.”

“I walked here sometimes with Croesan, you know,” Lheanor murmured. “And your father and mother once, perhaps more than once, years ago. We talked about . . . what?” A frown crumpled the old man’s face, and then passed. “I’m not sure. Nothings, probably. For ones such as us, Thane, there are too few people in whose company we can be . . . idle. You come to treasure those you do have, and therefore are wounded by their passing.”

Lheanor paused, looking down at the path on which they walked. One of the flat stones had lifted a little, disturbing the smooth surface.

“Look,” Lheanor muttered. “The frost’s got under that.”

He made an irritated noise at the back of his throat and waved one of his shieldmen over. He pointed the stone out to the warrior.

“Find one of the gardeners and get them to relay that.”

The man trotted off to carry out the command. Lheanor led Orisian on around the Tower of Thrones.

They walked in a great, slow circle while overhead the clouds flowed in from the west.

“A man never speaks out of turn when he offers well-meant advice,” Lheanor said. “My loss – my loss I find to be unbearable. Yet it is less than yours, and you remain unbowed by it. Unbroken. Thus it seems you are made of better stuff than me.”

“No, that’s not—” Orisian began, but Lheanor stilled him with an upraised hand.

“I envy you your youth. It’s an armour against many things, youth. You refuse to play games with Aewult and the Shadowhand. I allow them to set fences about me, my Blood, my army. You do not. Whether what you intend is wise or not, I do not know; but I do know that I envy you the will to make the attempt.”

The old Thane bent to snap a dead twig from a bush by the path. He pointed with it down towards a sweep of grass by the wall.

“I think I want to plant trees down there. Something that flowers in the spring, with white blossom, perhaps. My wife likes white blossom. That’s one thing that does not change, isn’t it? Whoever dies –

even if we die ourselves – there is always another year to come. Every winter ends eventually.”

He laid a hand on Orisian’s shoulder.

“You do as you see fit, Thane. If you do not wish to follow at Haig’s heels like some lady’s tame dog, so be it. You will hear no complaint from the Kilkry Blood so long as I live, and none when Roaric is Thane after me, I think.”

“There’s one other thing I would ask of you,” Orisian said.

“Ask it. If it’s within my power, I’ll grant it.”

“Watch over Anyara for me. She’s angry that I want her to stay behind, but I won’t take her with me. I want her to be safe. I’d feel more sure of that knowing you – your family – are watching over her.”

Lheanor smiled then, though the smile carried more regret than pleasure. “That is something I would willingly do even if you did not ask it of me. We will guard her as jealously as we would a daughter of our own. But do this for me in exchange, Orisian: do not give up your own life too easily. You go into danger, of one sort or another, and there are already too few good people left. Come and see, in years to come, whether the trees I plant have bloomed.”

Jaen Narran was upset. She hid it, but the multitude of subtle signs did not escape Taim. Her lips were pressed tight together; she doled out the oatmeal gruel from the pot over the fire a little too fast, spilling wet lumps of it; she moved quickly from table to hearth and back again, taking small, sharp steps.

She would never shame him, and herself, by asking him to stay here with her. He would never embarrass them both by seeking to justify his return to the battlefield, so soon after he had come back from what they had both hoped would be his last such absence. She knew as well as he did that this was a battle that had to be fought, a call it would be unthinkable to refuse. And she knew that it would break his heart a little to leave her.

Taim stirred some salt into the grey sludge in his bowl. The quarters they had been given here in Kolkyre’s barracks were good: spacious and warm and dry. They were better than those that the warriors who followed Taim enjoyed, crushed into halls meant for half their number. For the sake of his family, he accepted that he could not share his men’s discomfort, but he could, and did, share their diet.

Jaen sat down on the other side of the rough table.

“I’ll mend what I can tonight, then,” she said. “There’s still a lot of holes and tears I’ve not had time to make right yet. The rocks down south must be sharper than they are here.”

“There’re seamstresses here who can help.”

Gobbets of gruel dripped from her spoon as Jaen held it poised halfway to her mouth. “I’ll do it. I’ve been doing it for better than thirty years. I’ll not stop now.”

“No, I wouldn’t want you to.”

They ate in silence for a little while. The fire crackled. The wind was rising outside, blustering around the squat stone mass of the barracks.

“Where’re the young ones?” Taim asked at length.

“Gone to the harbour. Achlinn’s trying to find work on a fishing boat. Maira went with him, looking for word of friends.”

Taim nodded. He was proud of his daughter, and of her husband too. Their flight with Jaen from Glasbridge had been so rushed that they had been able to bring almost nothing away with them. Most likely, they had no home to return to. In the face of all this, they showed nothing but determination.

Jaen was watching him, the way she did when she was pondering whether to say something. Taim raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“She’d want to tell you herself,” Jaen murmured, “but perhaps the sooner you know, the better. Maira’s with child.”

Taim leaped to his feet so carelessly that his thighs cracked the edge of the table and set his bowl rocking.

“Truly? You’re sure?”

Jaen smiled up at him, joyful and sad in the same moment. “Truly,” she confirmed.

Taim came to her and threw his arms around her. She dropped her spoon.

“I didn’t think it possible,” he murmured in her ear.

“None of us did, did we?” said Jaen as she pushed him away so that she could rise. She cupped his face in her hands. “We thought the Fever’d barrened her, as it did others. But not so. You’re to be a grandfather, Taim Narran.”

The warrior laughed out loud and planted a firm kiss on his wife’s forehead.

“Ha!” he cried to himself. “Ha!”

“So you see,” Jaen said, sinking back into her seat, “you’ll be needed home and safe at the end of all this. There’s to be no doubts about it this time. No excuses, no delays. I want you at my side when our grandchild is born.”

She gazed at him and Taim could feel her love, and his for her, in his chest like a beat, like another heart.

Still so strong; as strong as it had ever been.

“I will be there,” he said. “I will.”

Old Cailla the kitchen maid had sharpened hundreds of knives in her life. No matter the purpose or value of the blade, she never did it with less than her full attention. In all things – choosing shellfish for the Thane’s table, sharpening a knife, seasoning a soup – she was precise, thorough.

The particular knife on which she lavished all her care now was unremarkable, save in one respect: it belonged not to the kitchens of the Tower of Thrones, but to her alone. It had a short, thin blade set in a stubby wooden handle. Someone leaning over her shoulder and examining it might think it a peeling knife, or one for cutting fruit. In truth, it had never been used for any purpose. Aside from the very rare occasions on which she took it out to check its edge, and refresh it if needed, it never left its plain leather sheath.

She was alone in the cramped quarters she shared with three other maids. She sat on the edge of the wooden cot where she slept, working by the light of a single whale-oil lamp. The blade of the knife rasped over the stone that rested on her knees. Her fingers were not as straight and strong as they had once been, nor as dexterous or quick. Still, they were skilled. When she was done, the blade would have as sharp an edge as it could ever hold.

As she hunched over the whetstone, stroking the knife smoothly back and forth, Cailla’s old, soft lips moved. They did so almost soundlessly, but not quite. Far too faint to be heard by any save the God for whom it was meant, she repeated over and over again a few short sentences: “My feet are on the Road. I go without fear. I know not pride.”

Next there is the mighty fortress Marain built amidst the Karkyre Peaks. No other Blood, nor
even the Kingships of the far south, can claim such a stronghold as their own. The perdurable
mountain itself, cut through by tunnels and chambers, is as much a part of the fastness as its walls
and towers. Not Abremor, not the Red Hand of the Snake, not all the armies of Morvain’s Revolt
could breach its defences, though each tried. Whatever use my lord may find for this great place,
it will not fail through want of strength.

What use that may be, I know not. The road this place was built to guard is a ruin, for since the
great war against the Kyrinin none make the journey through the Peaks to Drandar. That way
grew thick with bandits and with Snake raiders in the Storm Years. The cobblestones were torn up
and used to build sheep pens, the drains clogged, the inns and way stations were burned or
abandoned. Thus there is now no fit path beyond Highfast to either east or south, and none to the
north save a mule-driver’s track across the mountains to Hent. There was a village of quarrymen
and drovers close by the castle once, but it is empty now. The airs here are cold and carry wild
rains; the earth is thin, the rock is hard. It is a place fit only for the hardy or forgotten, for
outcasts and exiles.