Across the Face of the World (5 page)

How were they coping with the Icewind?

Then he forgot all about Stella as he saw a corner-post bend slowly, fractionally inwards.

Such was the roar from the wind that none of the others seemed to have noticed.

With a loud report it broke in two.

The wind roared in like a wall of water and snuffed out the candle, throwing everything into confusion. The noise was over¬powering. A voice shouted 'Out!' in his ear, a strong hand grabbed him by the shoulder and propelled him towards the bedroom door. In a moment they were all in the bedroom with the door bolted. The same hand then pushed Leith down into a sitting position with his back to the door, and someone sat down heavily beside him.

Somehow, probably by the smell of tilled earth, Leith knew it was the farmer.

The door buffeted his back with every gust. It felt like a living being, a beast of prey, communicating fear through the wood and into the muscles in his back and shoulders. Leith began to feel the insane desire of the wind to break through the door and get at them; it seemed that a malevolent force had launched an irra¬tional assault on the house and its occupants. Maybe the Fenni, the mountain gods of the northern wastes, were real after all.

Stick people, the Fenni were supposed to be, nine feet tall with claws for hands; a hateful, violent race, slaying intruders who dared venture into the mountainous heartland of Firanes, a race of gods who used lightning bolts to kill and who wielded the weather as a weapon. As freezing gusts whipped under the door and snaked around his legs, sending a chill climbing up his spine, the stories telling of the Fenni seemed believable. The pressing darkness settled close about him, while all around the howling, creaking, groaning, whistling of the wind battered his ears and his brain. And in the noise and the darkness a cocoon of weariness enveloped Leith, and everything else save the warmth at his shoulder receded into the distance.

Some time near morning the old farmer shook him awake.

'Move your legs, boy!' he rasped. 'You don't move your legs, you won't walk for days.'

Leith stretched his legs and felt pain in his knees. After rubbing them for a moment, he pulled them up to his chin and clasped his arms around them. He wondered how his mother and Hal were feeling, only a few feet away in the darkness, and hoped they had managed to find sleep in this cauldron of noise and violence. He thought about the village caught in the storm and tried to imagine what it was like outside, with trees bending and breaking, snow piling up in drifts and people inside, clenched up against the wind and the cold. He hoped no one was caught outdoors in the storm. In his mind he pictured himself high in the Common Tree, looking down on the houses, seeing through the thatched roofs and watching people moving about; then, craning his neck to see Stella's house, he watched her sitting by the fire. Secure and warm, needing nothing. Unbidden, a lone figure leading a horse came striding through his imaginary snowdrifts. Leith recognised the broad back and the set of the shoulders, and angrily tried to blank the picture out of his mind. Slowly it faded until all that could be seen was swirling snow, specks of white on a black, empty background.

Finally he could bear the inner silence no longer. He turned to where he knew the old farmer to be sitting, and asked in a brittle voice: 'Do you know where my father is?'

He felt the man beside him turn and imagined the farmer's old, hard face staring into his.

'Nobody knows, boy, nobody knows for sure. He's been gone too long; he should have been back by now. One of the best men in the North March, Mahnum was. Never should have taken two years over a journey to the east.'

'What's he been doing?'

'Following the King's supposed orders, that's what. Hasn't your mother told you anything of this?'

'No,' said Leith. Of what?

The old man grunted. 'No, well, she wouldn't. The fools at the Firanes Court are afraid of him; they know he's every bit the son of his own father, Modahl your grandfather. She knows all about the Firanes Court, your mother does. Something's up in Rammr, we don't know what, and I'll wager the King doesn't know either. Someone at the Court wanted your father out of the way.'

Leith felt confused. It seemed as if the farmer was talking about someone else. The Court of the Firanes King? What threat could a northern woodsman be to the King? Then he remembered the knights and the horses and the regalia and the swords shining in the sun. He remembered his father's anger, and his hasty depart¬ure. But the farmer was still talking, and Leith had to concentrate to prevent the wind snatching the words away.

'He came to see me before he left. Seems that rumours had come to the ears of the King's Court in Rammr, saying that Bhrudwo, the ancient enemy of Firanes, of all Faltha, had grown strong again, and that a new invasion was planned. That rumours of war were being whispered around the Courts of the Sixteen Kingdoms of Faltha, from the cities of Kauma to Inmennost, and that even Firanes was within reach of Bhrudwo's new power. They're even reviving the old tales of the Destroyer. Heard of him, boy? Mahnum said the King was worried about what was happening in the Sixteen Kingdoms. He spoke of treason, of betrayal, of violent death in the Courts of the West. The King was frightened by these tales, and so wanted someone to travel east to gain news. To Instruere first, then to Bhrudwo itself if necessary. Well, the great Modahl is no more, so naturally the King turned to your father, forgetting that whatever he was in his youth, Mahnum retired to the north some years ago.

Lost his nerve, some said. The King's men were nervous, your father told me. Men with swords, nervous. Talk of the Destroyer makes anyone nervous. It makes me nervous. Do you know what I mean, boy?'

Leith nodded, then felt foolish as he realised the old farmer could not see him.

The ancient tales of the invasion of the Bhrudwan hordes were well known to Leith. A thousand years ago a hungry army from the east, led by a cruel lord they called the Destroyer, overran the unprepared people of Faltha. Even Firanes, the westernmost and therefore most isolated kingdom, had not escaped. The stories told of the long sieges, of cities taken by treachery from within, of Falthans reduced to eating their dead, of people promised mercy but given lingering deaths. They told how the Destroyer had ridden through the gates of Instruere, the Falthan seat of power, astride a death-pale horse, come to set up his throne and demand tithes and worship from all of Faltha. And they told how the common people had risen against their harsh ruler, causing the armies of Bhrudwo to hate the land they had coveted, and how the Bhrudwans were eventually driven out through the courage and boldness of Conal Greatheart and his band of followers, the Knights of Fealty.

Nowadays everyone knew that the story had been romanticised. The numberless Bhrudwan hordes of legend had undoubtedly been invented to cover Falthan shame at having been conquered so easily. The Destroyer, the legendary one-handed Undying Man, had more likely been a group of commanders than a single person. The Haufuth had taught Leith and the other village children that the Bhrudwan army had been defeated, not by resistance, but by intermarriage. That saddened Leith, who found the tales of Conal and his knights exciting, and often imagined his rude quarterstaff, designed to keep off the few wild animals that ventured into Loulea Vale, was a sharp sword with a name and a history, and that the bushes were Bhrudwan warriors. He knew the Lay of Fealty by heart, but the magic in its verses had somehow evaporated in the face of the Haufuth's logic. It was true that many southerners had mixed blood, and were much darker than northerners, so perhaps they had intermarried with Bhrudwans. And it was also true that the Undying Man had never existed. Still, Leith could imagine Conal bravely facing the Bhrudwan Lord, just as the Lay of Fealty said.

The old farmer was still talking. 'The Watchers have heard tales of a great king rising in the east, of the revival of soldierly arts, of the massing of warriors. But such stories have always been whis¬pered, and only an insecure Court would have heeded them. None other of the Sixteen Kingdoms has reacted to these tales with anything but contempt. However, the command was given and Mahnum had to obey. Your father is a real Trader, boy, and he sbould have been back by now.'

Leith waited, but the old man said nothing more. So he asked, 'Why my father?'

The old man was silent a while, and Leith could hear the sounds of the wind outside, softer now. Then he spoke. 'A real Trader, boy, has access anywhere. People are the same wherever you go. Kven Bhrudwo. They all want what they don't have. That's what a Trader offers them.

A Trader travels anywhere, paying bribes, wearing disguises, running and riding and selling his way to a profit. It's a good way to find things out. That's what your grandfather did - and Mahnum too, for a few years. It's the oldest cover in the business. Probably more spies than honest Traders around, though most of them mix patriotism and profit. The art's been lost in Firanes, and that's why they said they wanted your father. Poor fool. When he met your mother he gave up the Trader's life. Hadn't been out of the district since. A real Trader needs to prac¬tise his craft continually. He probably never got to Bhrudwo.'

Sadness seemed to flow like a river out of the darkness towards Leith. The old man's talk had made his father seem real again for a moment, but Leith knew that nothing was real save the old ache. His father was gone. But for a while, just hearing his name from the lips of a stranger, he had seemed close by.

The old farmer thought pityingly of the boy beside him. What sort of apathy had brought them all so low? For a moment his own heart misgave him. Was there really something happening in Bhrudwo? Where was Mahnum? He sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

The soft light of a silent dawn found a tousle-headed boy resting on a gnarled man's shoulder, together in sleep.

MIDWINTER'S DAY

'WELL, I THINK IT was inconsiderate of him!' Herza said.

'Do you?' replied Indrett wearily.

'Yes, I do. Fancy him promising to cull out his best hogget and mutton, and us planning the feast and all, thinking that he was going to supply the meat just as he always does!' The thin, waspish woman manoeuvred her foot inside the door and a defeated Indrett waved her towards a seat.

'Well, he never turns up to the feasts himself, you know. Oh, no! Too high and mighty for the common folk, he is. There's no excuse for behaviour like that, not even for a foreigner.' She laced the word with scorn, perhaps forgetting that Indrett herself was from the far south of Firanes. 'That's what he is, though no one seems to remember. And Tinei, the poor dear, is kept locked up at home, never allowed to see anyone. It's only right that a man like that should have to provide the food for Midwinter's Feast. Never does anything else for the good of the Vale. And now what does he go and do?'

Indrett waited. She wouldn't make the expected response.

But Herza didn't need it. 'Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Can't stand other folks having a good time, so he tells the Haufuth that there'll be no meat this year.'

Indrett raised her eyebrows.

'Well, what do you think? Am I right? Isn't the feast going to be an absolute disaster?'

From his seat by the fire, Leith watched his mother smile wanly at the older woman. Stella's mother had always intimidated him with her sharp tongue and mean spirit. The talk in the village was that Herza was the reason Pell, her husband, kept up an active interest in the Village Council, keeping the meetings going long after everyone else wanted to go home. The woman was like autumn drizzle: once she set in, she was there for the day. Leith shook his head and went back to his whittling.

Indrett was now having it carefully explained to her why all the men of the village should get together and go out to Kurr's farm. 'He'll never change his mind after listening to the Haufuth.

He's got that fat fool wrapped around his little finger, you know. Mark me, Indrett, we won't get even a single tough old ewe from that man unless we go out there and take it!'

Indrett raised her tired eyes to meet those of her guest, and spoke quietly. 'Herza, he's not the only farmer in the Vale. We could get our meat from any one of them, if one of them would offer.'

'But why should they? It's Kurr's job!'

'Now, Herza—'

'Don't you "now Herza" me, young lady!' the woman stormed. 'I've had enough of that sort of talk from the others. If any of you cared a whit for the feast, if anyone had an ounce of compassion for me while I'm trying to organise this celebration—'

'The Haufuth and his wife are organising it, Herza,' Indrett said quietly, but the other woman did not appear to have heard.

'—then I wouldn't be worked up into an absolute state like I am! Really, dear, feasts don't just magically appear. Everyone needs to help if we're to enjoy a good Midwinter! But there are folks who leave it all to others. Come to think of it,' she said point¬edly, 'we haven't seen you out and about much of late, Indrett. I do hope that you're feeling better by now; really, it's been so long!'

She didn't seem to expect an answer, and Indrett didn't offer her one.

Hal came hobbling in on a stick, neatly balancing two cups of tea in his good hand. 'Tea, Herza? Chamomile today, with a hint of something else thrown in. See if you can guess what it is.' He turned and winked at his mother.

After tea and bread the two women began talking again; or, more accurately, one began talking and the other made what she hoped were polite noises at seemingly appropriate places.

After a while Indrett grew careless, and had to ask Herza to repeat herself occasionally at first, then more and more often, a task that even that indefatigable woman began to find onerous.

Finally she threw her arms into the air and shouted, 'You're not listening to a word I'm saying!'

Leith started, dropping the carving he had been working on. Hal came in from the kitchen with more tea. Indrett's face reddened, but she said nothing.

'Poor dear,' Herza said softly. 'How rude of me to prattle on about silly little things, what with you and all your worries. Why, just last night Pell and I were talking about Mahnum and where his poor body might be and whether we should maybe organise a memorial service or help look after your children, but then Pell told me about Stella and that splendid boy Druin and I forgot every-thing else.' She paused, took a short breath, then continued, 'Have you heard? You have heard, haven't you? They say he might be the next Haufuth! And what if they were to announce their engage¬ment? Wouldn't I be so fortunate to have such a boy for a son?'