Elder Isles 2: The Green Pearl (34 page)

“Most peculiar! Suddenly you respect my rank!”

“Wrong.”

“Because of the bandit, then.” Tatzel blinked, and Aillas thought he saw tears glistening in her eyes. “What could I gain by fighting? I am in the power of Otherlings: escaped slaves and bandits; now I am apathetic. Do as you like with me.”

Aillas made a scornful sound. “Save your dramatics. I told you last night and again tonight: I would never force myself upon you.”

Tatzel looked at him sidelong. “Then what are your plans? I am mystified by your conduct.”

“It is quite simple. I was enslaved and compelled to serve you at Castle Sank, to my abiding fury. I swore that some day there would be an accounting. Now you are the slave and you must serve me according to my whims. What could be simpler? There is even a kind of beauty in the symmetry of events. Try to enjoy this artful beauty as much as I do!”

Tatzel merely compressed her lips, “I am not a slave! I am the Lady Tatzel of Castle Sank!”

“Those bandits, were they impressed with your rank?”

“They were Otherlings, but partly of Ska blood.”

“What is the relevance of that? They were both depraved. I killed them with pleasure.”

“With arrows and ambushes,” sneered Tatzel. “You dare not confront the Ska otherwise.”

Aillas made a wry face. “In a certain sense, that is true. So far as I am concerned, war is neither a game nor an occasion for gallantry, but rather an unpleasant event to be settled with the least possible hurt for one’s self. … Do you know of a Ska named Torqual?”

At first Tatzel seemed disinclined to answer. Then she said: “I know of Torqual. He is a third cousin to me. But I have seen him only once. He is no longer considered Ska, and now he is gone to another land.”

“He has returned, and his den is up yonder, under Noc. Tonight we have drunk his wine and consumed his onions. The trout was my own.”

Tatzel looked off down the gully where a nocturnal beast had caused a rustling among the leaves. She looked back to Aillas. “Torqual is said to keep close reckonings. I suspect that you will pay a dear price for your feast.”

“I much prefer to enjoy Torqual’s bounty free of charge,” said Aillas. “Still, no one knows how the future will go. It is a dark and awful country, this North Ulfland.”

“I have never found it so,” said Tatzel in a reasonable voice.

“You have never been a slave until now… .Come. It is time we were asleep. The wagon-boy will talk everywhere of the noble Ska lady, and the valley will swarm with Ska soldiers. I want to make an early start.”

“Sleep, then,” said Tatzel indifferently. “I will sit up for yet a little while.”

“Then I must tie you with rope lest you wander off during the night. In these places odd creatures move about in the dark; would you want to be dragged down into a cave?”

With poor grace Tatzel limped over to the bed. “We still must use the rope for the sake of security. I sleep soundly, and I might never awake if during the night a rock fell upon my head.” He passed the rope around Tatzel’s waist, made it fast in a tight-bowline which she could not untie, and secured the ends to his own waist, thus constraining her close beside him.

Tatzel lay down and Aillas covered her with her cloak. The moon, three-quarters full, shone through a rift in the leaves and played full upon her face, softening her features and causing her to seem entrancingly pretty. For a moment Aillas looked down at her, wondering as to the quality of the half-sleepy half-scornful smile which momentarily twitched at her mouth. … He turned away, before images could form in his mind and, lying down beside her, covered himself with his own cloak… . Had he overlooked anything? Weapons? All secure. Rope? The knots were out of her reach. He relaxed and presently fell asleep.

AILLAS AROSE AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN. There had been no rain and he discovered a live coal among the ashes. He covered it with dry grass and blew up a fire. Yawning and shivering, Tatzel crept from her bed and huddled before the blaze, warming her hands. Aillas brought out bacon and the sack of meal, which Tatzel pretended not to notice. Aillas spoke a few terse words; after scowling and darting a glance at his back, Tatzel set herself to frying bacon and baking griddlecakes. Aillas saddled the horses and made them ready for the trail.

In the dewy pre-dawn stillness Aillas and Tatzel ate their breakfast, and neither chose to speak.

Aillas loaded the packhorse, helped Tatzel into the saddle and they departed the ravine. Coming to the trail Aillas stopped to look and listen, but discovered no evidence of traffic, and once again the two set off up the valley, and all the while Aillas kept a close watch down the valley behind them.

They rode through perilous territory. Aillas pushed the horses to their best speed, that they might pass by the fork to Castle Ang as early in the day as possible.

As the miles passed by, the landscape became ever more grand. At the sides of the valley cliffs reared high, sometimes lofting above tumbles of boulders, sometimes rising from stands of massive pines and firs.

The sun appeared above the eastern ridge and shone upon three pines standing tall beside the trail, with a ram’s skull nailed to the trunk of each. At this place the road forked, one way leading off to the right. With alacrity and a lightening of the spirit Aillas rode past the ominous fork and put it out of sight behind them.

The horses began to labor, both for the pace Aillas had set and for the gradient of the trail. Up, up, and up, traversing and twisting, back and forth under hanging ledges and bulging boulders, across an occasional mountain meadow: so went the trail, thence once again up on a new slant.

An hour after passing the fork to Ang, Aillas led the way to a secluded nook at the back of a forest of pines. He dismounted, and helped Tatzel to the ground. Here they would rest during the middle of the day, and so lessen the chances of meeting other riders, who, in these regions, could only be sources of danger. Tatzel seemed to feel that prudence of this sort was both furtive and ludicrous. “You are as timid as a rabbit,” she told Aillas. “Do you live your life in fear, always peeking and peering, and jerking about wide-eyed at a whisper?”

“You have found me out,” said Aillas. “I cringe to a thousand fears. It must be the ultimate abasement when a man is considered a coward by his own slaves.”

Tatzel uttered a jeering laugh and stretched herself out on a sunny patch of sand.

Aillas leaned back against a tree and looked around the skyline. Despite all, Tatzel’s comments had irked him. Could she truly think him timid, merely for exercising ordinary caution? More than likely so. In her own experience, men travelled the countryside without dreading unpleasant events. “Before long the Ska will be peeking and peering too,” Aillas told her. “They are no longer chivvying a few poor peasants from pillar to post; now they have the Troice to contend with and this is a far different matter.”

“If all Troice are as prudent as you, we are in little difficulty.”

“So it may be,” said Aillas. Again he searched the skyline, but discovered only rock and air. Ragged clouds racing along the wind, passed from time to time in front of the sun, with their swift shadows following up the valley.

Tatzel, lying with her head on her arms watched him. “What are you looking for?”

“Someone keeping watch from the ridge… . Rest while you can. From now on we ride by night.”

Tatzel closed her eyes and presently seemed to sleep.

At noon they ate ham and cheese and cold griddlecakes. The sun passed across the zenith. Clouds came in greater numbers, and soon the sun was lost behind an overcast. Tatzel, huddling in her cloak, grumbled at the chilly gusts of wind, and recommended that Aillas erect the tent.

Aillas shook his head. “This is coward’s weather! Scouts and sentinels are blinded by the mist, and bandits rob only when the weather is fine. Come! We ride!”

He bundled away the ham and cheese and once more they set off up the trail.

The afternoon passed slowly and without comfort. An hour before sunset the winds decreased to puffs and gusts, while the overcast cracked and broke. A dozen beams spurted down at the wild landscape, bringing clots of color to the otherwise drab scenery.

Aillas halted to rest the horses. As he looked back the way they had come, the full scope of the valley opened before him, and now, only a mile ahead, the edge of the plateau cut across the sky.

Aillas led the way up the trail, though once again he felt exposed to the observation of any who might be guarding the valley.

The trail arrived at the final steep slope; Aillas dismounted to spare his horse. Back and forth he trudged: step after slow step, until he too became winded and paused to catch his breath, the horses, bobbing their heads and snorting softly, gradually recovered from their exertions. Deep shade surrounded the group, with beams from the low sun breaking through rifts to illuminate banks and reefs of cloud to the east.

Aillas once more started up the trail: back, forth, back, forth, and with a last surge, came up and out upon the plateau. To the south stood the Cloudcutters; to the east rose the final ridge of the Teach tac Teach, now burning in the sunset light; to the north the plateau became lost in fog and low clouds.

A hundred feet away a tall man in a black cape brooded over the landscape. He stood as if in deep thought, hands resting on the pommel of his sword, with the tip of the scabbard resting on the ground before him. His horse stood tied to a nearby shrub. He glanced aside at Aillas and Tatzel, then seemed to ignore them, which suited Aillas well enough.

Aillas set off along the trail, passing the man by as if he were not there.

The man turned slowly to face them, so that the sunset light modeled his features in dark gold and black. He spoke a single word: “Hold!”

Aillas politely reined up his horse, and the man came slowly forward. Black hair hung close beside a low forehead with saturnine eyebrows and luminous hazel eyes below. Harsh cheekbones, a mouth wide and shapely, if somewhat heavy, above a short heavy chin, along with a flickering muscle of the left cheek, gave an impression of passionate strength dominated, if only barely, by a sardonic intelligence. He spoke again, in a voice at once harsh and melodious: “Where do you go?”

“We travel along the Windy Way and down into South Ulfland,” said Aillas. “Who, sir, are you?”

“My name is Torqual.” His eyes became fixed upon Tatzel. He murmured: “And who is this lady?”

“She is in my service, at the moment.”

“Lady, are you not Ska?”

“I am Ska.”

Torqual moved somewhat closer. He was a strong man, thought Aillas: broad of shoulder, deep of chest, narrow in the flanks. Here was a man, he thought, whom Tatzel would think neither furtive nor timid, nor even prudent.

Torqual spoke in lilting melodious tones: “Young man, I claim your life. You trespass upon a territory which I consider my own. Dismount and kneel before me, that I may strike off your head with fullest ease. You shall die in this tragic golden light of sunset.” He drew sword from his scabbard with a whine of steel on steel.

Aillas said courteously: “Sir, I prefer not to die, and certainly not upon my knees. I will ask your permission to cross this land which you claim, with my goods and my company put to no peril.”

“The permission is denied, though indeed you speak with a good and easy voice. Still, it is all one.”

Aillas dismounted and drew his own sword, which was slim and light, and which suited the style of sword-play he had learned in Troicinet. His knife? Where was his knife, upon which he relied? He had cut cheese for their noonday meal, and had packed the knife away with the cheese.

Aillas said: “Sir, before we continue with this matter, may I offer you a bite of cheese?”

“I care for no cheese, though it is an amusing concept.”

“In that case, allow me a moment while I cut a morsel or two for myself, as I hunger.”

“I have no time to spare while you eat cheese; prepare instead for death.” With this, Torqual advanced a step and slashed out with his sword. Aillas jumped aside and the stroke went for naught. Torqual swung again but the stroke slid off Aillas’ blade.

Aillas feinted a lunge, but Torqual’s heavy blade darted up and Aillas would have been spitted had he attempted more, and he understood that Torqual was a swordsman of skill as well as strength.

Torqual again attacked, driving Aillas back, and Aillas fended off a series of blows any of which might have cut him in two, apparently each time by a hair’s-breadth. On the last stroke Aillas counterthrust savagely, touching Torqual’s shoulder, and Torqual was forced to jerk back with an effort in order to recover. Aillas now took note that Torqual carried a knife at his belt.

Torqual’s mouth drooped in concentration; he had not expected quite so much exercise. Again he struck, and Aillas lunged hard, throwing up his left arm in an awkward manner which exposed his left side. Torqual attempted a tricky backhanded blow, which Aillas effortlessly slid aside, and lunging again threw up his left arm in the the same awkward fashion.

Torqual lunged; Aillas countered and thrust home, drawing blood from the side of Torqual’s chest, missing his heart only by inches. Torqual’s mouth drooped and his eyes widened; otherwise he ignored the wound. Aillas noticed now that his hand had gone to his knife.

Torqual again made play and again Aillas fended away his blows, and Torqual seemed to allow an opening for a lunge. Aillas stepped foward, thrust his left arm high, exposing his left side; instantly Torqual struck out with the knife, except that Aillas stabbed out his sword and plunged the blade through the inner side of Torqual’s elbow, so that the point emerged beyond and the knife dropped from the suddenly nerveless hand.

Aillas pounced upon the knife and caught it up almost before it struck the ground. He grinned at Torqual, and now began to press the fight: thrusting, lunging, the tip of his sword moving beyond Torqual’s ability to fend it off. “Kneel, Torqual,” said Aillas, “so that I may kill you with less effort.” Aillas swung the tip of his sword in a circle, dodged, feinted, thrust, and Torqual was forced back, step by step.