Above the Snowline (8 page)
‘Very easy. They are fat and slow.’
‘That’s because they’re farm animals! I’m surprised the owners didn’t set their dogs on you.’
‘Some did. The dogs were not as tasty.’
I sighed, thinking of newspaper headlines proclaiming packs of wild women ransacking the plains. Dellin turned to look speculatively at the bottles on the mantelpiece. I had been trying to cultivate a knowledge of wine, as the connoisseurship of certain older Eszai impressed me, but Dellin had limbered up on gin and was dying to attack the vintages I had carefully purloined from the Castle’s cellars.
‘I can’t believe you drank a whole waterskin of gin.’
‘Two waterskins, Jant. This is the second.’
‘The second? When did you drink the first?’
‘Before talking to the silver man.’
‘Mmm. I don’t blame you.’
‘I am not drunk,’ she said suspiciously, just as there was a knock on the door.
She started and grabbed her spear, but I called ‘Enter!’ and the door creaked wide. Three servants nudged their way in, carrying platters piled high with bread and meat, fruit and salad, and another boy behind them staggering under the weight of a majolica jug of wine.
‘Ah, excellent. Put them down there . . .’ I indicated the middle of the floor. ‘Just there. And you can take the old plates back. Don’t mind the Rhydanne. That was an excellent cake, by the way. And those glasses. Wonderful. Thank you. Much obliged. Bye!’
I passed her the jug. She lifted it with both hands and started guzzling wine. She stuck her talon into an apple, inspected it impaled on her fingernail and threw it away. Then she turned to the meat - with Tornado’s appetite and the manners of a wolf. She snatched a slice of fillet steak and it vanished. Two more, one in each hand, and both disappeared. She chewed with her mouth full to bursting and all the time pulled the platters closer to her knees.
She snatched a roast chicken, done the Awian way with garlic and capers, and deftly twisted it apart. She dug out the buttery-juicy meat with her fingernails and fed her maw with both hands. It turned my stomach and, worse, it brought back memories I would rather not explore.
‘Steady, steady!’
‘I’m hungry!’
‘Take your time. No one will steal it. We have food and drink enough.’
The meat went into her mouth as a child would eat sweets. She chomped on a leg, gristle, skin and sinew, all together, then placed the clean bones down neatly as if she had a use for them too. For all her gobbling she didn’t waste a single crumb or drop of wine; she thought it much too valuable.
She finished the chicken, then batted the tray aside and pulled another, of ham arranged in a spiral, towards her. I tried to slow her but she glared, her eyes sparking and her hair wild. I could almost see her putting on weight.
‘You must be ravenous?’ I asked, amused.
‘I haven’t eaten since last night. When I saw the spire I started running.’
‘Tell you what, I’ll eat the salad.’
She paused in the act of screwing ham rind into a little ball so she could fit it into her already full mouth. ‘Who were those men in pale blue?’
‘Only servants.’
‘They must be excellent hunters,’ she said, in a tone indicating that perhaps she should be talking to them rather than me.
‘No, we Eszai do the hunting.
I
am a hunter; they just cook the food.’
I
am a hunter; they just cook the food.’
‘How do you stop them stealing it, then?’
‘I know it’s hard to believe, but there’s enough to spare.’
‘Then you must have a lot of time on your hands.’ She nodded towards my silk shirt. ‘No wonder you have such good clothes.’
‘I don’t make my own clothes either.’
‘Ha! I knew there was something wrong with you.’
‘Dellin! For god’s sake! Try to understand. I’m not ill, or disabled, or childish, or slow. I’m
rich
! Well, I’m far from being rich, but the Castle is. Extremely wealthy, and I live here because I’m the Emperor’s Messenger, called Comet, the fastest man in the world.’
rich
! Well, I’m far from being rich, but the Castle is. Extremely wealthy, and I live here because I’m the Emperor’s Messenger, called Comet, the fastest man in the world.’
I explained my position, which took a very long time because Scree doesn’t have the words. I told her that the Emperor makes the Circle’s warriors immortal, and maintains our immortality through the Circle, for each who is the best in the world at his speciality. I said there were fifty of us, but each could be replaced if someone beats them in a fair and open competition. Tornado was the strongest man in the world and Lightning the best archer, and they prove it every time they are Challenged.
It was even more difficult to relate my childhood in Darkling, because she thought being a goatherd was lowly, and I kept shrinking from the images that came to mind of that terrible time. To admit my past was to recognise memories that were more like unfocused patches of pain than clear recollections. I skirted round them with care.
‘So you see,’ I finished. ‘The Castle buys more meat every day than in all the cliff-fall hunts you’ve ever seen put together.’
‘The silver man is powerful.’ She smiled.
‘He stops time from ageing us. What greater power can there be? For example, I am ninety-five - or thereabouts - because I don’t know the exact year I was born.’
She just gave me an incredulous look: the number was too large. It was several Rhydanne lifetimes and completely at odds with my appearance.
‘Ninety-five melt seasons, ninety-five freeze seasons.’
Her gaze wandered over me steadily, noting the lack of bangles and beads and, worse still, the clothes of a soft flatlander and the scent of aftershave redolent of male Awians. She turned her attention pointedly back to a tray of succulent pink venison. ‘So many flavours,’ she murmured, scooped the meat up and tipped it into her rucksack.
‘You don’t have to do that!’
In went the rest of the venison and a whole bowl of granary rolls. She was dropping them into a sort of leather pouch in the main sack.
‘Stop! It’s disgusting!’
She picked up a tray of songbirds wrapped in vine leaves and stowed a handful carefully behind the cushion on my divan. I tried to take the platter, but she wouldn’t let me.
‘You don’t have to cache it! We can order more any time!’
‘You can’t have my food! Go find your own food!’ She escaped with the platter and jumped the double step to my bedroom. She piled stuffed quails on the sill behind the shutter, checked they were hidden from view, and cached all the chicken bones under the bed. Then, satisfied her food was safe, she wiped her hands on the curtain, seated herself under my desk and washed down her meal with mouthful after mouthful of wine. She may have been calm but I was infuriated, more because she was paying no attention to me than because of the foul mess. I have learnt, from attending governors and the king, how much appearances matter. Now to impress Dellin, did I have to act like a savage as well as reverting to her lingo?
I unclipped my sword and sat down on the divan with the scabbard between my knees. ‘Look, I may not be wearing any trinkets but I am a good hunter. See how much metal?’ I pulled the hilt up and bared a little of the blade.
Dellin immediately held her hand out for it. I shook my head and offered her my gold ring, but she pointed to one of a pair of brass candlesticks on the side table. ‘I like that better. It’s bigger.’
‘But it’s just brass. It’s cheap.’
‘Great. You could own a lot of them and then you’d be really important.’
I passed her a candlestick. ‘Here.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and just pointed to the other of the pair.
‘Here.’
‘Yes.’ She tucked them under her rucksack straps and pointed at my ring. So she would just take whatever I gave her and think me a damn fool for parting with it. I put my ring back on. As no more riches were forthcoming, Dellin simply lay down on the fur. She curled into a remarkably small space, with her hands together in front of her face, and immediately went to sleep.
‘Thank you very much,’ I said, and regarded her frankly. ‘You smell. I’ll have to ask Ata to give you a shower. If this morning has been a culture shock wait till you discover the delights of a flushing toilet.’
I left her, locked the door for the first time in months, pocketed the key and descended again. I visited all the women I could find, female Eszai and male Eszai’s wives. Many immortals were away, training or pursuing business, interests, pleasures and rivalries from their other residences, but I found several servants whom I knew well, doctors in Rayne’s hospital, librarians in Lisade and accountants in Carillon. I borrowed jewellery from them all. They thought it was hilarious and I faced a blizzard of questions about Dellin. I joked with them as they laughed at me trying on their beads, but after an hour I had an arm full of plain bangles fit for the best hunter in Darkling.
I ran to the stables and ordered a coach, then back to my room, rather enjoying the dissonance of silver, opened my door - and Dellin had gone. Her parka was rucked up and the shutters swung wide.
Damn her. I ran to the window and leant out. Far below, the grassy slope of the glacis led down to the moat, which rippled black and white like damask steel in the afternoon sunlight. Nobody was down there; she could be kilometres away by now.
‘Hey!’ A shout from directly above. I twisted round and looked straight up the wall. Giddyingly, Dellin’s worn moccasin soles dangled from a notch between two of the crenellations. They bounced against the stone and arced out as she swung her feet.
‘What are you doing up there,
sguniach
?’
sguniach
?’
Her face appeared, looking over, ‘Come up!’
Swearing, I stomped back to the landing and up a ladder to a trapdoor in the ceiling. I slipped back the bolt and shoved up the trapdoor. It swung over and crashed flat against the roof above, showering grit into my eyes.
Swearing even more loudly, I climbed out into the bright air, the trapdoor frame smearing tar down my trousers. Dellin was perched between the merlons, her legs hanging over the edge. She craned round to see me and blinked, surprised at my bangles.
‘I have more but I cached them,’ I said. I walked around the low cone of the lead roof and sat down next to her. She was still eating but obviously forcing it down. Close to, the suede rounded over her skinny thighs was scratched and pockmarked with the bites and scars the leopard had received when it was alive. The thick seams shone with bone grease rubbed in to waterproof them. Her long ponytail down her back was surprisingly clean.
In addition to her small size, she was probably younger than she looked, because Rhydanne grow and mature faster than humans or Awians. I guessed her to be twenty, which would be the equivalent of early thirties for us. Crow’s-feet clasped the corners of her eyes, and over hard muscles, her skin had a wind-burnt shine. There is no such thing as an elderly Rhydanne. Their bodies take the brunt of their harsh existence and they live and run at full speed until they drop dead at around age forty.
Above us my flag, the Waterwheel emblem black on white, fissled and rustled. This tower was my haunt, my eyrie, my silent kingdom, and the serrated peaks of Darkling lurked out of sight below the horizon. I did not want to go back there; I had been away too long. Like climbers who have attained the summit and gained a sudden peace, we looked out across the meadows to the frothy tops of oak trees at the start of the Eske woods. Beyond the wide strip of the moat, the river glittered into a series of locks. Two channels ran from it, into the second moat and the fishponds. The banks of the ponds were dotted with people fishing, and a nodding carthorse was towing a barge on a return journey from the kitchen’s postern gate to the river.
Dellin looked left to the edge of the earthworks, right to the bridge of the Skein Gate. ‘This is better! Inside, I feel trapped. The walls are too close. It’s too small and dark.’
‘Even the Throne Room?’
‘Even the Throne Room. So many people! It must be a sight.’
‘What must?’
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