Exile to the Stars (The Alarai Chronicles) (15 page)

Jeff
was so distracted that he stubbed his boot when he tried to sit down in the
chair, and nearly fell. The girl and boy returned promptly with large tankards.
Jeff cocked a hopeful eye at the foam spilling from the tankard handed him. It
looked like it might be beer, but…. Taking a cautious sip, his taste buds were
greeted by a smooth ale that could have come from a microbrewery in Seattle.
Warmth began to spread from his belly outward after a few swallows.

The
tankard was hardly tapped when an old man hobbled into the building, grumbling
and muttering as he came. He planted himself and fixed Jeff with a piercing
look that contained more intelligence than he had seen since last talking with
Professor Hildebrand. This is my man, Jeff decided.

He
was assembling a thought when a powerful probe blew into his mind. Jerking
upright in his chair, Jeff thrust the probe back to a mental arm’s length. All
right, he thought excitedly, it isn’t only wolves that are capable of
telepathy. First thing I have to find out what the deal is with this word,
alarai. My hair may be different, but it isn’t worth this much excitement. Are
they referring to me?

“Greetings,
Elder, my name is Jeffrey Friedrick. How may I address you?”

The
old man let out a startled exclamation.
“I am called Gurthwin, and long has
it been since I have spoken mind to mind.”

“I
am recently come to these parts from a distant land, and have heard little of
the Alarai in the time of my absence. It would please me to be informed of
their doings, and of your people.”

Favoring
Jeff with a piercing gaze, Gurthwin was silent for some moments.
“We will
talk later. Now it is time to share meat.”

The
chief directed a group of villagers to set up rough-planked trestle tables.
Shortly they were covered with steaming platters of meat, rough loaves of dark
bread, and baskets of tubers. Torches were placed in iron wall sconces, and
logs piled into the fireplace to add more light to the windowless building.
Villagers streamed in throughout the process.

Calling
to their friends, shouting jests and roughhousing, many villagers crowded close
to get a good look at Jeff. Songs were raised in competing melodies;
conversations were loud and enthusiastic. The sense of community that Jeff
experienced reminded him of Sunday socials after church service. He moved
closer to Gurthwin with a self-conscious smile. It definitely was similar to a
church social, and he felt like a kid again.

The
chief, whose name Jeff had learned was Halric, raised his arms. The room was
immediately filled with a thundering chorus of enthusiastic voices raised in
common song. After a few measures a number of men and women broke free to sing
in parts. Jeff was walking to the head table with Gurthwin when a countertenor
set his voice to soar overall.

Stopping
to listen, Jeff let the chorus’ measured cadence and sweet harmonies fling his
imagination to some onion-domed cathedral in Russia. Jeff was so captivated
that he hardly noticed when Gurthwin tugged him back into motion.

He
had no sooner taken the indicated seat than buckets of beer were placed on the
table and a general attack on the food began. Singing quickly gave way to a
torrent of loud conversations and banging of wooden utensils. Taking his cue
from the crowd, Jeff sliced off a piece of venison from a smoking haunch and
refilled his tankard from the nearest bucket.

As
the meal progressed and beer buckets were emptied, the noise level continued to
rise. Reflexively jerking his head aside as a piece of venison flew by his ear,
Jeff thought, What a rowdy bunch! I could get used to this!

The
survival knife excited nearly as much interest as had the saber and made its
way around the room. Everyone had to try its edge on what remained of the
venison. Jeff winced each time it was flourished. Any minute, he expected an
errant finger to be lopped off. The knife eventually wound up in Gurthwin’s
hands.

Speculatively,
he turned the knife over in his hands. Gurthwin noticed the compass embedded in
the hilt and watched it rotate as he moved the knife. Turning an enigmatic
stare on Jeff, he handed the knife back to him.

“Thank
providence the Colt is tucked away under my shirt,” Jeff murmured. “This guy is
sharp.”

He
was re-sheathing the knife when Halric stood and called for silence with a
casual but immediately effective gesture. He waved toward Jeff and spoke in a
serious tone of voice filled with consonant rumblings. Although Gurthwin
broadly interpreted the speech as one of welcome, Jeff wasn’t convinced it was
as simple as that. After only a few words Halric switched to a different
cadence, his voice rising and falling in such a steady fashion that it was
hypnotic.

Shifting
uneasily in his seat, Jeff suspected the recitation was a saga or an oral
history sparked by his presence. He really needed to learn the language, and
fast.

Jeff’s
concern increased rapidly when villagers began darting quick looks in his
direction. He queried Gurthwin, who was as deeply involved in the story as
anyone.

“Now
is not the time to speak of this.”

The
audience expelled a collective sigh at the story’s conclusion, stirring on
their benches as they came back to the here and now. In only a short time, the
hall was once again filled with roaring conversation.

Three
men unlimbered leather-covered drums and an instrument that looked like a cross
between a fife and shepherd’s flute. The drummers played back and forth until
they decided where they were going, at which point the fifer entered with a
breathy melody.

Stacking
tables against the wall until the central portion of the hall was empty,
villagers hurried to form a ring around the musicians. Arms around each other’s
waists, they skipped forward and back while stepping right and left in a
complicated pattern.

Gurthwin
nudged Jeff.
“Your strange instrument has charmed us all. I am quite sure
Halric will call on you to play before this evening is concluded.”

Villagers
who had not been part of the meal streamed into the hall. The hall was packed
wall to wall and many more villagers could be seen dancing outside when Halric
beckoned. Jeff eyed the crowd nervously as he wormed his way to the center of
the hall. Nearly every person he dodged around was a head taller, men and women
alike.

“I
can’t get over how big they are,” Jeff muttered, ducking an elbow that nearly
caught him on the ear. “Six feet tall, and I haven’t felt this short since I
was a kid. I don’t think half of them even know I’m down here.”

He
made it as far as the ring of dancers but couldn’t find a way through linked
hands and arms. The dancers shuffled right, left, then right again for a full
revolution, skipping in time to the music. Before he knew it, Jeff’s foot was
tapping the floor. That guy on the fife isn’t bad, he thought. I wonder....

Putting
recorder to lips, Jeff waited until he had a solid grip on the tempo and horned
in with a quick arpeggio. Crowd noise rapidly diminished, and heads turned to
look down. Many seemed surprised to find him standing there. The ring stopped
long enough to let him through, then skipped back into action.

The
musicians wavered, but Jeff shook his head. Never letting go of the beat, he
segued into a spirited folk tune from the Balkans. The drummers liked it and
came along, the fifer following suit but frowning at being upstaged. Within
minutes he was having so much fun with the style that Jeff let him run with it
and was content to take the lead every so often when he faltered.

The
music was new, meant for dancing, and concentric circles of dancers soon filled
the hall. Clockwise and counterclockwise, stamping out the beat until the
earthen floor shook, the dancers faded to a collage of impressions as the
quartet moved from tune to tune. Jeff was really getting down when he was
jerked off his feet and flipped toward the ceiling beams like a Frisbee.
Thunderous shouts of approval sounded each time he was flung into the air. When
they finally put him down, Jeff’s head was spinning and his stomach was about
to object in the strongest fashion. The fifer nodded at the drummers, and the
three of them took off on a Balkan reprise.

Before
he could rejoin the musicians, Jeff was pulled into the dancing. The rings
gradually broke up into smaller groupings that reminded him of square dancing.
Head swimming from the beer, Jeff was spun from partner to partner. The crowd
grew rowdier as time passed, forcing the dancers to weave around fistfights and
wrestlers.

The
hall became hot from all the sweating bodies, and outer garments went sailing
into various corners leaving leather shirts and halters to serve modesty. Some
of the women were so tall that Jeff’s eyes were nearly at chest level. After a
period he began to wonder if there was a small-breasted woman in the house.
Somewhere along the way Jeff found himself dancing with a woman who appeared to
be in her late teens. She wasn’t much taller than he was, which was a great
relief.

He
was tired of being thrown around, and she appeared to feel the same way. Jeff
discovered her name was Rena about the time the music began to falter and slow.
She was intrigued by his clothing and let a hand fall to test the texture of
his jeans. Suddenly Rena pulled him out of the dancing. Frowning, she ran a
finger up and down the zipper in his jeans.

Before
he could react Rena found the tab and pulled it down. Jeff did not know what to
do so he opted out and did nothing. Rena paused long enough to smile at his
expression and pulled the tab back up. Jeff glanced around in embarrassment. No
one was paying attention.

Just
relax, man, he thought. This isn’t Earth. She’s simply curious about the
zipper. That proved to be the case, but the zipper was flying up and down so
fast that he pulled back to avoid the possibility of a painful incident.

The
word did get around later. In defense of modesty and his jeans, Jeff unpacked
the windbreaker to demonstrate zipper action. While doing so he had to laugh at
himself. Having men work the zipper on his jeans as enthusiastically as the
women had proven to be a bit too much.

Beer
buckets were constantly replenished and slowly thinned the dancers’ ranks as
one after the other staggered out the door. When the hall was nearly empty,
Jeff gave Rena a goodnight kiss. That called for more kissing, and it was some
time before she left with her family and he could wobble out of the hall in
Gurthwin’s company.

The
night was clear with a nip in the air, serving to steady his feet. They wended
a circuitous path through the village, their way lighted by a moonless sky so
full of stars that shadows stood out in bold relief. Breathing deeply, Jeff
felt a degree of contentment that surpassed anything he had experienced for
years.

Jeff
rapped his forehead against a handy beam to distract himself from a pounding
headache.

“Enough
for the moment. Please!”

He
felt stupid with fatigue and his brain was on strike. Gurthwin had goaded him
awake early in the morning and was perched in his mind holding what amounted to
a list of vocabulary. Not long into their language lesson, the list took on the
aspect of a quiver of lightning bolts as word after word was thrown at him.

 
Handing Jeff a mug of herbal tea, Gurthwin
threw another brain-twister. The headache relented and Jeff plied him with
questions about the Alarai, but Gurthwin was feeling crotchety and not to be
diverted. Over the course of the session Jeff did pick up a good deal of
general background.

The
village was called Valholm, which meant Village by the Water, and had existed
on the same spot for over fifty years. Periodic moves to escape exhausted soil,
Jeff learned, were no longer necessary. Now where did they get the concept of
crop rotation this far north? he wondered. It doesn’t fit. Outside
intervention?

The
population consisted of around 500 people, the majority of whom were related in
one way or another. That’s enough population to keep inbreeding down to a dull
roar, Jeff mused, but not over a long period.

Gurthwin
picked up on the thought. He had a surprising grasp of every genealogical line
in the village and traced one of them. As he did so, it became clear that
youngsters were encouraged to seek mates from nearby tribes. Gurthwin’s role
comprised a mixture of responsibilities including village historian, counselor
to Halric, and spiritual leader.

By
the afternoon of the second day Jeff was tired of language lessons. He pressed
Gurthwin for clarification of his being identified with the Alarai. Seated on a
pile of hides, Gurthwin settled himself more comfortably and frowned in
concentration.

“I
was a mere child when stories of the Alarai were given into my keeping by the
last old one to have personal knowledge of them. They were a long-lived people
by all accounts and had been with us for many seasons. We were all children
when compared to the knowledge they possessed and freely shared.”