The Gambler's Fortune (Einarinn 3) (39 page)

“I wasn’t that sad to leave, truth be told,” he said after a while. “Me and ’Gren were already talking about heading into Gidesta, where the Easterlings are more tolerant of marrying out and working with the lowlanders. As middle sons, our patrimony would have been thin enough, and anyway neither of us particularly relished marrying girls we’d known all our lives. I’d rather have left of my own choice but lowland life has suited us well enough, you know that.”

“So why go back, why now?” I pressed him.

“Why not now? This landed in front of me and I thought I’d play the runes as they fell.” We walked on a little farther. “It’s your man who’ll be doing the asking, after all, and he has magic of his own if they decide to take offense. I’d like to know what powers Sheltya hold, beyond the weight of fear and custom,” he admitted. “I’d like to know why some trick of birth brought their hatred down on me. When I was a youth, I just accepted that it was so. Now I’ll see some justification, if they can offer it.”

“Curiosity got Amit hanged,” I reminded him.

“Not in that song book,” he countered with a mischievous smile. “I’ll take the risk.”

I felt uncomfortably responsible now that the stakes were so much higher. “Whatever deal I make with D’Olbriot, getting Draximal to call off his hounds will be non-negotiable. Fair recompense?”

’Gren was getting bored, casting off to either side of the path, looking for entertainment. He scrambled down a rocky crag in front of us. “I saw bear tracks up there,” he announced, bright-eyed.

“Let’s have a look.” Sorgrad climbed after his brother and I picked up my pace to join Usara.

A dew of sweat beaded the wizard’s forehead, sticking the sparse tendrils of his hair to his sun-reddened scalp. “You need to be wearing a hat,” I said.

He hoisted his pack higher in a vain attempt to ease the burden. “Life in a lofty tower doesn’t really fit you for expeditions like this.”

So he and Sorgrad could agree on something. “No one expects scholars to have much stamina.” I passed him my water flask.

“So I’m hoping to study these sagas?” puffed Usara. The wizard groaned as we saw the path coil away downward to a ford at the bottom of the valley hiding the fess. “These people can have a good laugh at the idiot academician carrying such a weight, and then they can have the pick of what I don’t need. That should earn us some good will?”

Sorgrad and Sorgren arrived as we started down the hillside. “There is a bear,” said ’Gren eagerly. “We can kill it if it attacks us, that’s not poaching.”

“Is that likely?” I asked Sorgrad.

“Only if ’Gren pokes a stick up its arse to rile it.” He shook his head. “No, they’re fat and happy eating in the summer seasons.”

We walked down to the ford without further diversion and picked our way over the slippery stones. The shadows were lengthening as I looked up the valley. Close to the stream, a sparse crop of grain whispered in the breeze, green but already yellowing at the tips. Goats were being driven into sturdy stone-built pens while a handful of mules on long tethers still grazed. I studied the fess. The massive perimeter wall was pierced only by a double gate to the front and a water gate to the off side where the little stream had been taken under the protection of the walls, regaining its freedom through close-worked metal bars.

“There’s a sally-gate on the far side?” I queried ’Gren.

“Even a rabbit knows a one-entry burrow is a death-trap,” he confirmed.

I looked up at the central keep; the rekin, I reminded myself. Foursquare and forbidding, built of solid gray stone, at least one sentry was keeping an efficient vigil from its watchful windows. The main gates opened as we made our way up the valley and a handful of men moved between us and the goats, another taking an uncompromising stance on the path.

“Good day to you and yours.” Sorgrad stopped some paces from the man. I found it strange to hear him speaking his mother tongue like this.

The man said something in a thickly clotted Mountain accent but he smiled and his hand stayed away from the sword at his belt. He was about the same height as ’Gren, white hair fringing a bald pate and deeply wrinkled face. His face was pitted with tiny scars and an ugly wound, long healed, marred one cheek. Age was tightening his hands with joint evil but hadn’t yet wasted impressive muscles.

“Hachalfess are pleased to offer you shelter in your journey,” he said to me and Usara, his Tormalin nigh on impenetrable.

I smiled warmly. “We are honored by your hospitality.”

The man nodded but I had the distinct impression he hadn’t understood a word. I turned the friendly smile on the lad tending the mules and two younger boys who had driven their goats almost to the gate in their eagerness to see who had fetched up. Their huge brindled dog, thick coat ruffed around its neck, came closer, sharp face questing for our scent and ears pricked with curiosity. The men who had backed up the speaker shooed the lads away, helping pen the goats and leading the valuable mules inside the protection of the walls for the night. The dog barked loudly, answered by more hounds giving tongue from within the fess.

“I don’t see us troubled by too many curious questions here.” Usara was nodding and grinning like a marionette.

“How do we find anything out if we can’t talk to them?” My own face was starting to ache.

We went through the lofty gate and I dropped the smirk. We emerged from a virtual tunnel made by the thickness of the wall into a broad open yard. The regular rasp of grinding spoke of grain milled by the stream and hammering rang from a smithy close by the gate, someone laying into stubborn iron with a heavy hammer. A man at a bench beside an open hearth was working sparkling gold with fine tools while another was intent on white metals, a young lad at his elbow studying the techniques.

The rekin dominated the compound, tall, square and adamant. The windows at ground level were little more than arrow slits and the ones above scarcely wider. The main entrance was a door that looked built to withstand a battering ram and now that we were within the walls I could see a second entrance on one side, where a wooden stair ran up to a door on the first of the upper levels. I looked a question at Sorgrad.

“So you can retreat to the higher floors and then cut away the steps,” he supplied. “Then attackers have to take the main door while you’re dropping things on their heads from above. Once they’re inside, they can still only come at you one at a time up the inner stairs.”

“I thought you said these Sheltya kept quarrels from ending up in fights?” I frowned.

Sorgrad shrugged. “We’ve always built that way. After all, you never know, do you?”

The air was heavy with sweet fermentation and a woman emerged from a door opening on the wide tuns of a brew-house. A younger woman came out of the rekin, wiping her hands on a stained apron, and consulted briefly with the brewer. Both wore round-necked linen blouses belted over undyed woolen skirts reaching to mid-shin, boots laced to the knee beneath. They were unmistakably mother and daughter, pale hair braided close and gleaming in the sunshine.

The old man led the way. “His name is Taegan,” Sorgrad told us. “His eldest daughter’s husband is away in the hills at the moment, so Taegan holds his authority in trust.”

“That’s the daughter?” I queried.

“Damans,” confirmed Sorgrad, “and the mother is Leusia.”

’Gren and Sorgrad both swept low bows and Usara managed a creditable attempt. I wasn’t about to try curtseying in breeches so hoped another smile would suffice.

“You are welcome to our home,” the daughter said. Her Tormalin, while heavily accented, was fluent enough to suggest we might actually be able to hold a conversation. Her mother continued smiling, a sideways glance of pride at her daughter.

“Thank you for taking us in,” I said, for want of anything more inspired.

There was an awkward pause and then the younger woman, Damaris, ushered us all inside. The central hearth of the large room was hemmed in with firedogs, iron tripods for cook pots and a complicated arrangement of arms and hooks where several small kettles and a griddle hung. Two women of about my own age were busy cooking while a bevy of children sat around a long table where lamps cast a golden glow on their painstaking efforts. The unmistakable scritch of slate pencils set my teeth on edge. All the youngsters looked up until the old woman at the head of the table recalled them to their lessons with a few soft words.

An old man chuckled to himself. He could have been Taegan’s older brother, age spotting a head bald as an egg and the backs of his withered hands. He was deftly working bone with knife, file and fine chisels to make a comb patterned with diamond panels. As I watched, he fitted copper studs to hold the teeth secure.

“This is my aunt’s husband, Garven,” Damaris introduced him with a wave of her hand. I noticed that half of the room was subtly divided with stools and low chairs, clutter on the shelved wall behind separated with regular spaces. Sorgrad and ’Gren stepped forward and greeted the old man, who replied eagerly. Usara stood a pace behind them, looking a little uncertain.

Damaris laid a gentle hand on my arm. “You will sit with us, on the women’s side.” Two middle-aged women on the far side of the hearth looked up with bright curiosity, distaffs laid aside, baskets of brown wool at their feet. I hoped I wasn’t expected to join in their work; I’ve no more idea of how to spin than fly. I took a seat on a high-backed bench, a blanket of fleecy weave softening the whole, expertly embroidered cushions resting on top. These women must learn needlework in their cradles.

One of the spinners said something and Damans turned to me. “These are my aunts, Kethrain and Doratie.” I fixed the names in my mind; Kethrain had a wider forehead and little gold drops hanging from her ears while Doratie was missing a tooth in her lower jaw. “Kethrain says you have pretty hair.”

“There are women in the lowlands would walk barefoot over hot coals to be as golden-fair as you ladies.” Flattery is always easier when it’s the truth.

Damans translated and all three laughed. I folded my hands in my lap and hoped no one thought it friendly to offer me needle or thread. These women might admire my hair but they’d be appalled at my sewing. I felt my smile becoming a little fixed, so I looked around again.

A tow-headed little girl peeped around her shoulder at me, unruly curls falling over her eyes. I winked at her and she whipped her head back around, hunching over her work and whispering to her neighbor. The old dame supervising was about to speak when Damaris clapped her hands together. My two new friends immediately stowed their work away while the children hastened to clear the table of slate pencils and counting frames. One fetched a cloth to wipe it down while others began setting places with polished pewter plates, cups and jugs.

The old craftsman, Garven, made his way slowly to the door, his back twisted with more than age. He pulled on a bell rope to send light brazen clangor ringing out across the valley. Approaching voices grew louder and soon the room was full of sturdy men and women in creamy linen, tan leather and brown wool, all with a similar cast to their features. There seemed to be no fixed seating pattern at the table; one girl swapped places with another and two little boys were forcibly separated by Damaris when they began messing about with their spoons. The only exception was a high-backed chair with solid arms set at one end of the table. A few moments behind everyone else the whitesmith and his lad appeared carrying the gold-worker, whose legs were wasted and useless. He was set on his seat, cushions wedged around him without fuss.

I hurried to sit between Sorgrad and Usara. “Accident or disease?”

“Cave-in down a mine,” Sorgrad replied. “Garven said he was lucky to survive it.”

I wouldn’t have called it luck myself but at least a cripple here looked better placed than a lowlander begging in the gutters. A couple of girls were ferrying plates to the women at the hearth. “I’d like chicken,” I told Sorgrad, seeing some go past.

“You are welcome,” one girl said in passable Tormalin, taking my plate.

“We teach them the lowland tongues since last year,” one of Damaris’ sisters said across the table. “Else the boys cannot trade and the girls not deal with travelers. More come every year, even to the uplands.”

One of the older men, flour dusting his shirt, spoke patent disapproval. Doratie rebuked him and I looked at Sorgrad. “It’s an old complaint,” he told me, “that lowlanders always expect us to speak their tongue but never learn ours.”

“You’d better give me some lessons,” I said ruefully.

Everyone was eating heartily and conversation swelled around us. One of the half-grown girls was casting longing eyes at the whitesmith’s lad and he was preening himself with that realization as he talked to the goldsmith. Two of the old men were having a heated discussion about something or other, punctuated every so often with a pointed interjection from Kethrain. I applied myself to an excellent meal of pot-cooked fowl.

Usara reached past me for some black bread. “You and I stand out like poppies in a cornfield here, don’t we?”

“Yes, but we knew that would be the case, didn’t we?” A girl appeared at my elbow with a foaming jug and I held up a bright pewter tankard. I felt easier to be an outsider here than being taken for kin in the Forest by folk superficially similar yet so strange. I sipped at the curious brew. Darker than any ale I’d come across, it had a resinous taste and an odd, oily quality. I realized I was being watched with amusement from all sides.

“What am I drinking?” I murmured to Sorgrad, the rim of the vessel hiding my lips.

“Fir beer.” He drained his own measure. “But there’s malted barley brew, if you prefer.”

I finished my drink, deciding that much was a point of honor, but laid a hand over my tankard when the lass went to refill it. “I think I’ll stick to what I’m used to.”

Damaris’ sister passed a jug giving off a reassuring scent of hops. “I’m Merial,” she introduced herself.

“I’m Livak, and this is Sorgrad,” I turned to my near hand, “and Usara.” ’Gren was some way down the table between two children with others all craning to see him rolling a coin down the back of one hand. He made it disappear, only to pluck it from behind the ear of a wide-eyed toddler sitting on his knee. “And that is Sorgren.”