The Chalk Giants (33 page)

His companion, a strapping young Captain of the Royal Guard, stared round him dubiously. Certainly the chamber in which they were lodged, and in which for a week they had waited the pleasure of King Odann of the Plain, seemed little calculated to promote cheerfulness. Apart from the two narrow beds it was empty of furniture, and its gloomy walls were unrelieved by paint or drapery. A single arrowslit, unshuttered, admitted grey light and the piercing wind of the Plain. The door was massive, studded with iron and barred, ominously, from the outside. From beyond it now came the tramp of feet, a shouted order. The wind rose again, with a sigh and rumble; and the Captain grinned, turning back to his companion.

No finery, certainly, could have constricted the seneschal’s ample person to the dimensions of which he complained; but if the thought crossed the other’s mind he forbore comment. Instead he shrugged. ‘By the Gods, Thoma,’ he said, ‘but when Jokemen control Kings, the world is upside down. Or we should all wear motley, and make our fortunes presently. But what was this other tale you spoke of, that the King met with a Fairy woman who promised him great riches?’

Thoma scowled, and made a sign with his fingers. ‘As for that,’ he said, ‘I’d as lief be ruled by our lord Usk. His scrawny neck I could at least take between my hands.’ He shuddered, and readdressed himself to the flagon. ‘If it was true,’ he said, ‘and our lord not touched in his wits with riding in sea mists, then there was power there; more than Usk and all his marshalled ancestors might command. But witchcrafts are for priests, Briand, not for us. Talk no more of it.’

The other frowned in turn, rubbing at his lip. ‘But did he say aught else?’ he persisted. ‘What were these prophecies she made him?’

‘Aught else,’ groaned Thoma. ‘What did he not say ...’ He shook his head, running blunt fingers through his thatch; then it seemed the desire for confidence overcame his instinct for caution. ‘All night I sat with him,’ he said, ‘and on into the dawn. The half of what he spoke, I own, has gone out of my head; for much of the time I dozed. Something there was of Gods most certainly, and a Great One reborn as a carter’s child; but the manner of that is past the telling. In this much the Jokeman spoke truth; that fuddling with old books, and older stories, waters a man’s brains, an he hold to it enough. For my part I could wish us home again, out of this stinking place. And this whole business ended, or not begun.’

But the other rose and punched him cheerfully. ‘For shame, Thoma,’ he said. ‘What, a courtier of thy proved mettle to leave the game half played? Thou hast worked mightily for our Lord in this matter, and will ere yet bring him handsome winnings. Though I must own, if Goddesses are in question he has perhaps sent thee to shop in the wrong market...’

Almost certainly he would have said more; but the sudden sideways glint of Thoma’s eye warned him to silence.

An hour passed, draggingly. Thoma had emptied the flagon, and begun once more to complain, when the doorbolts were withdrawn with heavy creaks. Both men rose, hands to their sword hilts. The door swung inward; and a cowled priest faced them in the gloom. ‘My Lord Odann bids me tell you his decision is reached,’ he muttered. ‘He requests you to attend him.’

They followed the other’s flapping gown down ill-lit steps. The Great Hall was as dank and gloomy as the rest of the place.

The windowslits, deep-set between massive timbers, were muffled with smoke-stained cloth. Lamps burned here and there in niches, crude wicks floating in saucers of stinking oil. At the end of the high chamber, on a dais flanked by torch-bearers, sat Odann King. In one hand he held the great staff of his house, with its snarling wolf’s head; his other was hidden amid the dark folds of his robe, but it seemed he gripped himself as if to ease a pain. Round him clustered priests and nobles. Bronzed skin was much in evidence, and hooked noses, black-browed eyes; for the Horseman blood was strong here on the Plain.,

To the King’s right stood a cloaked and hooded woman. Little could be seen of her face save the dark eyes, the finely arched brows; but her figure was slender and desirably formed. Behind her and a little to one side stood Dendra, brother to the King. His feet were set apart on the rushes, his thumbs hooked in his belt; and he scowled at the ambassadors with little favour. Round him lounged some dozen heavily armed men. They made no move to salute the newcomers, but stared like their leader in silence.

Thoma sensed well enough the tension in the Hall. He stepped forward, sweating slightly, grounded his staff and began to speak. ‘Greetings,’ he said, ‘to Odann of the Plain and to his House, from his brother Marck of the Gate, Keeper of the Southguard, Lord of the Seaward Hills.’

The raised hand of the King cut short the formal speech. A spasm crossed his face. He arched his back, pressing with his elbows against the arms of the throne. The moment passed; and he turned to stare at the girl beside him. A wait; then she put the hood back, with a quick movement. Her hair was black, they saw, her skin clear and brown, her arms and shoulders gracefully made.

‘This,’ said Odann, ‘is my daughter, much beloved. What does the Gate King give, for such a prize?’

Thoma’s eyes moved round the company, finding little comfort. He cleared his throat, and smiled. ‘My master is a simple man,’ he said. ‘Yet his coffers are rich, and for this blessing he has opened them. He offers thirty horses, each strong-backed and trained for war. Also a chest of gold, such as two strong men might carry; three of silks and yet another of spice. A waggon of fine wine from the Midsea lands, both yellow and red ...’

Dendra swore, loudly. Odann once more raised his hand; but the other went on unchecked.

‘Silks,’ he said. ‘And spices. The Gate insults us, brother.’ Then to Thoma, ‘We have no use, here on the Plain, for women’s toys. Go home, chalkdweller, while yet thy legs can bear thee.’

A burst of laughter from the soldiery; and Thoma stepped forward, neck reddening. The glances that passed between Dendra and his brother, and between Odann and the girl, were lost on him; for the Plainsman had spoken in the Old Tongue, in which ‘chalkdweller’ and ‘barbarian’ are one. He would have drawn, regardless of his mission; but Odann had risen, stood racked and swaying. His daughter clung to him; but he put her gently aside. ‘You will forgive my brother’s words,’ he said wearily. ‘When he sits here on this throne he will speak as he chooses; then if you wish, you may answer him.’ He turned back to the girl, staring a great time; then he raised his voice. ‘Hear me,’ he said. ‘All you within this Hall. The gold we will take, and the spices. Also fifty horses, sound in wind and limb, with their saddles and all trappings of war. This, and nothing less; I do not barter, Hill Men, for what is without price. Will you answer for your King?’

Thoma, dry-mouthed, gifted his master’s stable. The girl turned on him a blazing white face; then drew the hood about her and hurried from the Hall. The King stepped from the dais, taking the arm of a priest; and Dendra turned with a final glare and stalked from the place, his followers at his heels. Servingmen scurried with the trestles for a feast; and Thoma, slowly relaxing, grimly caught the Captain’s eye.

From a chamber high in the Tower the girl stared down. Beyond the outworks of the place, the baileys and barbican with its steps and gantries, clustered the banners of the Crab. The stamp of horses carried to her and a bawled order from Thoma, bulky in a cape of fur. The little column formed itself, turned and trotted away, vague in the early light; became a darker smudge that receded against the vast blurred greyness of the Plain.

She turned, her face pale and set, and gripped the wrap tighter round her shoulders. She said in a small voice, ‘I will not go to him.’

Beside the royal bed a flask of wine stood on an inlaid table. Odann reached clumsily and poured, held the cup to his lips. He drank, and sighed. ‘Miri,’ he said, ‘sit with me. Come here.’ She did as she was bidden, silently. His fingers touched her hair, where it lay coiled against her shoulder; then he pulled his hand away. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘and hear me well. Soon, Dendra will sit in my chair. There is no place for you here.’

She had turned, lips parted; and he took her hand. His sight blurred; and a part of him was nearly glad of the pain that made her increasingly remote. ‘Miri,’ he said gently, ‘try to understand. This man, this Marck, will use you honourably. Once, many years ago, I knew him well; and he you. A child, at your mother’s knee ...’ He drew his breath, sharply; grimaced, and went on. ‘There is no place for you,’ he said again. ‘The Southguard lands are richer than our own; his Tower is well-founded, and he stands high with Atha King. In one month, you will go. You must take the chests of cloth, and the things that were your mother’s ...’

She threw herself down abruptly, hiding her face. She began to sob; and his hand once more found her hair. ‘My child,’ he said, ‘do this for me. Do not make my pain the worse.’

She said in a muffled voice, ‘I will never serve him.’

The King lay awhile watching up at the ceiling, his face drawn and grey. ‘Do as you will,’ he said finally. ‘If you cannot honour him as a husband, perhaps you will learn to love him as ... a father.’

She raised her head then slowly, staring at him with her great dark eyes.

Throughout the day, Thoma refused to slacken pace. The party muttered, Briand complained more loudly; but the seneschal pressed on grimly, his face to the south. At last, toward nightfall, the desolation of the Great Plain was left behind; and a village showed ahead, a well-found place with high watch-towers and a stockade on which torches burned at intervals. Only then did the leader rein, to stare back narroweyed at the heights still visible in the growing dark. The Captain, his spirits rising at the prospect of warmth and food, ranged up beside him. ‘Well, my Lord,’ he said, ‘in spite of thy complaints, thou hast discharged thy duty fairly. And gained for the King a most comely bride.’

But Thoma was not to be soothed. ‘A devil, from a place of devils,’ he said. He touched heels to his exhausted horse. ‘Worse is to come of this,’ he growled. ‘Mark me, my friend.’

Yet later to the King he said, ‘She is a pretty brown child.’

Then began a house-cleaning such as the folk of the Gate had never known; for Marck, the most industrious of clerks, had ever been the most indulgent of rulers, Now, all was changed; and men stared to see their liege lord resplendent in scarlet and gold, stepping briskly about his affairs. Small whirlwinds swept the kitchens of the Tower; and its pantries and buttery, its stables, dormitories and mews. In their wake they left stone flags gleaming, cooking vessels scoured and bright. Cartload after cartload of rushes, scraped from the floors, made their way down the Mound, to be dumped in heaps on the banks of the little brook; in their place, floors were strewn with precious hay. It became a commonplace to see Marck perched dangerously on a tottering stool, personally supervising the removal of some high cobweb that had offended the royal eye; for the King brought to his new preoccupation the same meticulousness that had earned him fame as a scholar, and many a night the household got to its rest with groans and aching backs. Nor was this all; for craftsmen were summoned, some from as far off as Great Grange, to beautify the chambers and Hall. The walls of the Tower dazzled white in the sun before they were through, while the Great Hall acquired a ceiling of vivid green, pricked all over with golden stars. It was in fact, as Thoma heavily remarked, no longer a fit place to drink in; he took refuge in the farthest and meanest of the kitchens, only to be evicted in turn by a small army of limewash-wielding workmen.

Meanwhile the formal business of the marriage must be attended to. Clerks drew up the contract, working under the direction of the sorely-baffled seneschal; for Marck, in a state of high alarm, refused to bring his scholarly wits to bear on the matter in any way. A messenger despatched to Atha’s court returned not merely with the royal assent but with a rich gift, a furlined robe and necklet of gold, fit wearing for a Queen. The following day an armed contingent of Plainsmen presented itself at Marck’s gate; when the warriors left it was with twenty-five mares and stud animals, and a massive chest of plate. After which the tailors reappeared, to fit the housefolk with fresh livery. Everyone, from the meanest turnspit to the most dignified Serjeant, became resplendent in yellow and green; such expense was unheard-of, hitherto unimagined. Usk, it seemed, profited from the changed circumstances most of all; so that plump Maia, coming upon him one day in the inner courtyard of the Tower, stood and stared. The Jokeman had discarded the motley of his calling; his jerkin gleamed with thread of gold, while his shanks were clad in richly coloured silk.

‘Now Scatha take all misbelievers,’ said Maia. ‘For if as I hear the King sees wonders, no less do we all. Is this some new jest, Jokeman? For Usk turned courtier is the greatest wonder yet’

But the Jokeman merely regarded her disdainfully. ‘The King has put away his books,’ he said, ‘I my foolishness, and thou thy greasy cap. But an ill grace, it seems, is not so ready hid.’ He brushed past, his head held high, and left the woman staring.

Messengers rode again; for the lands of the Crab were wide, extending east to the Black Rock villages, west to the borders of the wild lands where the Sea Kings have their halls, paying no taxes and owing allegiance to none. Marck’s summons was handsomely couched; and headmen and priests from all the vassalage, together with their families, began to converge on the Tower by the Gate. All brought gifts; oxen and sheep, beer by the barrel and the tun, horses to make good the bridefee. Though none existed in all the Southguard to match the animals that had been lost. Or so at least claimed the stable-master, who added hard words on the bargain struck by Thoma for his lord. But the stablemaster was a simple soul, whose fat wife boiled his broth and clothed his children, and who looked for nothing more.

At last all things were in readiness; and a great day came when outriders, who had scoured the Heath since dawn, flew back to Marck’s Tower with news of a procession that wound its cautious way among the green bogs of the coastland. A fine procession it was too that finally drew in sight of the Gate. First came priests and spaewives, blowing on gold-bound horns and waving green branches of peace; then a troupe of acrobats and jugglers, dressed in the motley Usk so recently disdained; then a cart drawn by lumbering oxen with the going-gifts of Miri, Princess of the Plain, her silks and dresses, the draperies and Sealand tapestry that had been her mother’s pride. Lastly came soldiers from the household of Odann, footmen and helmeted cavalry, their breastplates winking back the morning sun; and a closed carriage drawn by further oxen, its sides wreathed with sprays of flowers and leaves. Its appearance threw Marck, if possible, into greater confusion than before. His hair and beard, once carefully combed, he had scrabbled to disarray; he danced on the roof of the Tower, staring beneath his hand, before turning to shout for his aides.