The Chalk Giants (24 page)

He led the way to a hut taller and longer than the rest, set a little apart on a mound overlooking the shallow stream that supplied the place with water. ‘Here you will rest,’ he said. ‘Food will be brought you, and drink; but we use no skill in healing. I will speak of your friend to the Fleet One; after that, if he dies it is the God’s own will.’

Soup of a sort was brought, and jugs of flat, stale-smelling beer. Elgro, sitting moodily at the doorway of the hut, took a mouthful and spat it at the grass. ‘Well, my King,’ he said, ‘I hope your penance has so far brought you joy. It would seem to have cost us a ship and half a company, and very nearly our lives into the bargain; and I think others of us will not see Crab Gut again. For my part, I would trade heartsearching for one mouthful of Sealand mead, drunk at ease in our own Hall, with folk we can trust at our backs and within sound of the sea.’

Rand made no answer; just jabbed at the turf with a pointed stick, and frowned.

Later that night they sought out Magro in his hut. The little chief sat swigging beer in front of a smoky fire, surrounded by his women. He scowled as the Sealanders entered, greeting them with a belch; but Rand squatted beside him in the ashes humbly enough. ‘Here is gold,’ he said, "for my people are grateful. Also a great treasure; a magic stone, by which we cross the sea. It points always to our homeland, wishing to fly back across the water.’

The chief took the needle on its slender thread, glanced at it incuriously and tossed it aside. ‘The gold we will keep,’ he said, ‘Magic stones are of no particular use. We are an old people, too wise to trouble with toys. It can hang from the neck of one of our babies, or a woman.’

At Rand’s side, Elgro hissed like a snake. The Prince laid a hand on his arm. ‘First I will tell you how we were shipwrecked,’ he said. ‘We sailed from Sealand with peace-cloths on our sides; for I had heard there are many Gods in this country. I am a King in my own land; this is my Dancing Man, a friend of ghosts. We came for counsel.’

‘Then you are fools,’ said the little man frankly. ‘As befits Sealanders, and pirates. There are such Gods, as I know very well; but their land lies to the south, many days’ journey away. You will not live to reach it; if you do, it will be the worse for you.’ He shouted, harshly; and more beer was brought. ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘We are kindly people, returning good for evil; whatever you may or may not have heard.’

Later he condescended to discuss the subject of Gods.

‘Once there were many Gods, and ghosts too,’ he said. -’Some lived in rocks, some in trees and streams, some in hollows in the ground. Then we were one people throughout the islands; living in peace, harming no man, remembering the wisdom of the Giants.’ He cleared his nose, coarsely. ‘Then the Horse Warriors came,’ he said. ‘From where, nobody can tell. They took the North Land; our cities, which were wonderful, were destroyed. Then they came here. Our cities were destroyed. Some of us fled, to where the pasture is thin and the ground bad for the plough. With us we brought one God, the oldest and strongest of all.’ He held up the figurine that hung round his neck, and burst into a singsong chant. ‘The Hare fights no man, being fleet and wise,’ he said. ‘The Hare strikes down his enemies, being cunning in the night. The Hare is Lord of the hills, and the high pastures by the sea.’

He reapplied himself to the beer. ‘Now the Sealanders come in their turn,’ he said. ‘They fight the Horse Warriors on land, and harry their ships. Like them, they burn and kill. You, who are Sealanders, we have no cause to love. Yet we have taken you in, and sheltered you. Here you will remain. In one week, it is the festival of our God. You will worship him.’

Rand frowned, drawing with a finger in the ashes. ‘Chief,’ he said, ‘how will this be?’

But Magro merely belched again, and shrugged. ‘In your own way,’ he said, ‘you will worship him.’

Later Elgro spoke bitterly, in the darkness of the communal hut. ‘With regard to wisdom,’ he said, ‘I should have taken that sawn-off little viper’s neck between my fingers, to teach him if nothing else the wisdom of civility,’

Rand lay wide-eyed, staring into the blackness. ‘I came for peace, not killing, Elgro,’ he said. ‘For peace.’

Elgro snorted. ‘Your desire for peace, I have no doubt, will be fulfilled,’ he said. ‘For it will end in the deaths of us all.’

Rand turned, crackling the bracken bed. He lay a long time, hearing the steady breathing of the rowers, the whimpering of the wounded man. Toward dawn, the sounds ceased. In the morning light they saw the Hare had made his answer; Cultrinn was dead.

In the days that followed, they learned the ways of Magro’s folk and their God. His shrines abounded, dotted everywhere about the surrounding hills. From hollowed trees, from caves, from the little huts, the tiny mask winked and glinted at the light. He was fleet, and weak, and watchful; and he owned the land.

On the fourth morning people from the surrounding countryside began flocking into the little moss-grown town. There was a great coming and going, a clattering and splashing by the brook. Dogs barked, women chattered, children yelled. Tents sprang up by the score, rough affairs of hides slung over bending willow poles. Stacks of fuel were cut and transported; and a vast fire built, on the outskirts of the village. Elgro viewed the proceedings with growing distrust. ‘As to this business of worship,’ he said, ‘it seems to me we have enough Gods already. Also the way of the thing has not been made clear enough for my taste. Some modes of adoration can be less than comfortable; as you, my Lord, are very well aware.’

But Rand shook his head. ‘These are hospitable folk,’ he said. ‘Their manners are not all that could be desired, but they have offered us no harm. We should be churlish to leave now, or refuse to see their God-rites. Besides’ - he smiled, gently - ‘a Dancing Man of Sealand has little to fear, surely, from a Hare.’

Elgro scowled, and shrugged; but for the remainder of the day, and the day that followed, he went conspicuously well armed.

By the fifth morning, the tents sprawled to the valley rim; and by nightfall a strange procession had begun. Everywhere, the hare images were gathered from their niches. More arrived and more, each propped in a litter of cloth and willow poles, in charge of a chanting group of men with torches and flutes. The fire was lit; round it clustered a growing congregation, a sea of alert ears, unblinking yellow eyes. Drums set up a pounding; beer jugs were passed more and more freely, and the dancing began. Priests, naked save for furred headdresses, whirled and shrieked; chanting girls, the hare-symbol swinging between their breasts, wound in and out among the seated people, scattering drops of blood and honey.

The noise redoubled. Heat from the fire beat back; and Rand felt his own head begin to throb. The ram was swinging again; he grabbed for beer, gulping eagerly, anxious for oblivion. Sweat burst out on his body; the dancers swayed, surging forward and back, hair flying, faces orange-lit by the flames. Then it seemed the whole world spun. He rose with a cry; plunged headlong, barely felt the hands that dragged him to the hut. He sprawled across the bed, shaking and groaning, the noise still in his ears like a distant sea. In time the sounds receded. The dance went on all night, till earliest dawn; but he was far away.

They crowned him King, in the great Hall of the Crab, setting him on the painted wooden throne. A day and night he sat, his father’s sword across his knees, while round him the drinking and feasting went on. The greatships creaked and tossed, clustering in the harbour and along the wharves of Crab Gut; on the hill the Tower blazed with light, where Rand the Solitary held open house for all the world. To him came messengers from every court of Sealand; from Seal Hold to the Blue Fen, Orm Rock to the scattered Lakes of the Bear. Each swore friendship in the ancient way, with blood and salt; he received them smiling, giving a golden ring to every man. But as the night wore on his eyes turned more and more to the windows set beneath the high roof-eaves. Vat after vat was broached, and jar after jar of Midsea wine; and still the voice he wanted most to hear was silent.

They came with the dawn; a dozen grim-faced men, stamping up from the harbour to pound at the stockade gates. Beer was sent for and meat, the King’s advisers summoned or shaken rudely from their snoring. He received the messengers in state, seated with Elgro and Ranna the High Priest. They strode in haughtily enough, armour jangling, glancing to neither left nor right; and the Staff of the Wolf was planted in Cedda’s Hall.

For a further day and night the King withdrew himself, ordering the strangers cared for with all courtesy. He sat in his high chamber, watching the sun patterns move on the rug-hung walls, hearing the clank of milkpails from the sheds, the shouts of children at play. At length his decision was reached, and the Council reconvened.

The messengers chose to hear him fully armed, each with a red war-lanyard on his belt. Hubbub rose, in the Hall; the King stilled it, holding up his hands. ‘Let us be patient,’ he said. ‘Wrong has been done; blood will not wash out blood. Now, let our friends approach.’

He stared at each man thoughtfully before he went on. ‘Hear me well,’ he said, ‘and take back careful word to your master. Fenrick put shame on my father, Cedda King, claiming certain grazing lands, and rights of chase in others owned by the Crab. For this we went to war, and Fenrick’s Tower was breached. With Engor we made no quarrel; nor do we seek one now. Yet a blood price was incurred, which the Wolf has every right to claim.’

Muttering rose again; once more, he stilled it. ‘The Tower of Fenrick we keep, by right of conquest,’ he said. ‘This by all Sealand laws is just. Also those of his lands adjoining ours, from the Tower to Steffa’s Rock. Let a line be drawn between these points, and clearly marked with posts. The lands beyond, to his own borders, we give to our brother Engor. Let his people possess them in peace. The cattle taken I cannot return, for they are spoils of war. But for my part...’

Uproar, in the hall. He rose; and by degrees it stilled.

‘For my own part,’ he said, ‘I give my father’s spoil. The cloth from the Yellow Lands, the Midsea wine; the chest of spices, and eight bars of gold. Also the weapons from the armoury, both axes and swords; and the greatship
Seasnake,
with her shields and fittings of war. This I will put in writing for your King. The lesser things you may take with you when you go; we will prepare
Seasnake
for her voyage, and provision her for one week at sea. If your master will send a crew to man her, it will be honourably received.’ He smiled down at the messengers. He said, ‘Will this be pleasing to King Engor?’

They looked at each other in stunned silence, and shrugged.

Later, from the rampart walk, the Dancing Man watched the last of the waggons jolt down toward the harbour. Then he turned, showing his teeth. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘remember what I say. This day’s work will be paid for many times, in blood.’

Rand shook his head, frowning. ‘Elgro,’ he said, ‘can we not live in peace? The sun is free for all; and the mountains, the green things in the spring, fish in the sea. I have put my hand out, which no King before me did. Let us enjoy these things, while we can. The days are short enough, for all of us; and darken with shadows, whether we will or no.’

Elgro shrugged and turned away, muttering.

For Rand’s people, they were troubled times; for word of the giftmaking spread, from the southern marshes to the bleakest northern Tower, where the aurora flickers and the Ice Folk come to trade. Everywhere men shook their heads, and solemnly agreed the King of the Crab was mad. But mad folk who are rich make useful friends; and delegation after delegation presented itself at the Tower, armed with demands for this and that. Sometimes Rand chided them and sent them packing; but usually, he gave. He sent tapestries to the Prince of White Bear Lake, gold to Ulm of the Fishgard, a dancing woman to the Lord of the Nine Isles. Meanwhile, the boundary stakes were planted. Engor occupied the ceded lands, with a conspicuous show of force. Two days later news was brought that the fence was down, the standard of the Wolf advanced to the very edge of Rand’s territory. He frowned, but made no move against his neighbour.

Warboats took to sailing Crab Gut in broad daylight, robbing the fishermen of their catch, adding insults to the injury of theft. Rand soothed his people’s indignation, from his own pocket. Armed strangers appeared on the pastures of the Crab, frightening the field-thralls from their work, stealing cattle, trampling the standing grain. To their Kings, Rand sent remonstrances couched in the mildest terms; and more gifts, to ensure the peace he craved. In this way the uneasy summer passed. Autumn gales lashed the coasts of Sealand; and for a time, the Kingdoms were quiet.

Spring brought the disaster Elgro had foretold. For days, while the sun grew slowly in strength, news came in of raids and pillagings, the murder of peasants, burning of outlying huts. Engor, parading Rand’s boundaries with all his strength, made no secret of a boast that before another winter he himself would sit in the Hall of the Crab. Rand spent a night in noisy council. Ranna spoke bitterly and at length; Elgro chided; Egril stamped the floor of the Hall, swearing before he stomached further insult he would sell his services to a foreign lord. Through it all, Rand remained immoveable. Wolfhold held all he found dear; for Deandi’s sake, he would make no war with Engor.

The people muttered, darkly. There was talk of defiance, of rebellion; even, at the end, of the raising of a new King. Then one morning matters came to a head. A band of refugees presented itself at Rand’s gate; women and some men, bloodied and in fear of their lives. The tale they told, of torture and killing and rape, sent Rand stumbling grey-faced to his room, calling for Elgro and a scribe. An ultimatum was sent out by the hand of a Midsea trader, a swarthy little man who it seemed valued gold more than he feared his life. The village by Crab Gut settled uneasily to wait its answer.

It wasn’t long in coming; for Engor had camped a bare dozen miles from the fortress of his enemy. A shout was raised that very night; and a grim-faced Elgro summoned the King from his room. Rand rose without a word, and followed; down the winding wooden steps, across the Hall to the stockade.