Firethorn (35 page)

If I used dwale I'd likely kill the concubine. Yet she'd starve if I couldn't rouse her.

There, by the cot, I opened the bag of finger bones. I would ask the Dame to tarry for me, though I had no claim on her of kinship or obligation. When she was alive she'd told me what she knew of dwale, and it was little enough. But they say shades grow wiser on their journey and see farther. Perhaps she could help me now, as she'd helped the night she showed her palm to me.

I pulled out the drawstring and flattened the pouch and there was the compass of gods Az had embroidered on the leather, smaller than the one she'd drawn in the dirt. It would do for the purpose. I smeared charcoal on my eyelids, as Az had done, to help me see. I blew on the two tiny bones to warm them, and I threw them down on the circle, asking the Dame and Na to bless me with their counsel if ever they were fond of me.

I left the concubine in Sunup's hands. Mai's daughter was thin enough herself to need a good feeding, and she was shy and hid behind her hair, but she was also gentle. She began with a grave air to coax Consort Vulpeja to suckle the warm goat's milk and honey. She patted the woman's arm and hair as if she were a child; I'd seen her do the same with Tobe, her little brother.

Galan was standing in the doorway of the tent when I came out from behind the curtain that concealed Consort Vulpeja's sickbed. I told him I'd take Spiller and Rowney to look north of camp for the remedy she needed, and that I'd return as soon as I could but I wasn't sure how far we'd have to go to find it. We couldn't afford to waste another day.

I sounded more sure than I felt. The bones had spoken; I'd understood only a little of what they'd said. I'd been given a direction and a sense of urgency. By that I knew I must chance the dwale or lose her.

Galan nodded and stood away from the door so I could get by. His looks were unforgiving, when he looked at me at all. Often, as now, he looked anywhere else. Sire Rodela watched us from the corner. He was lying huddled on his side with his cloak about his ears, too miserable, for once, to enjoy another's misery.

Galan's silence wounded me. He was such a miser he wouldn't grant me one word, not even fare-thee-well. I wanted to answer his silence with a scream; a harridan's shriek was pent up in my throat, and it was for Consort Vulpeja as well as myself. I swallowed it down and ducked my head and stepped past him.

The afternoon was gone. The air was chill but not so damp as it had been of late. The year was on the wane and bit by bit night battened on the day. I could see the Sun already heading seaward behind the high clouds. If we hurried, I might find what I sought before dark.

I guessed Spiller and Rowney would be dicing behind the tents with some other jacks, as they often did when they had an idle moment, so I set out across the compound to look for them. Sire Pava saw me and called me over. He was sitting in front of his tent on a folding chair of leather and wood. His legs were outstretched before him and crossed at the ankles and he appeared to be admiring the toes of his boots. I went, thinking it was gossip he wanted; not that I'd oblige him, but it was unwise for a drudge to ignore a cataphract completely, and too late to pretend I hadn't heard him.

When I didn't come near enough to suit, he beckoned me closer. He turned his gaze from his boots to my face and smiled. “It seems I misjudged you,” he said. “Surely you must be … charming … after all, for Sire Galan to take so long to tire of you.”

I felt my blood heating and cursed my thin skin for showing a flush so readily.

He sat up and leaned toward me. I took a step backward. He said, “No need to be skittish. I just want you to know that if you find yourself without a bed, I can give you one.” He opened his mouth and laughed until I could see down his gullet.

The whole camp knew Galan had turned on me, and thought I'd be looking for a new blade to sheathe. What else would they think after Galan took a concubine? No matter that she was near a skeleton. Probably by tomorrow there'd be a song about how she was dying of desire until she got a bit of his cure-all. He'd charm his way out of this too if she lived.

I'd have liked to stuff my fist down Sire Pava's gullet. But I did nothing and said nothing. I hurried away with his laughter coming after me.

Spiller and Rowney got the rough side of my tongue when they complained about leaving the camp so late. By the time we had the horses saddled and I'd kicked Thole into a trot-while Spiller muttered that a woman who brays like a mule should be beaten like one-the light was yellowing and the shadows were long.

I'd followed the east-of-north road before, hunting for herbs with Noggin. Past the tourney field and the scattered crofts of shepherds, the road came to the battered face of a long escarpment running roughly east to west. There Noggin and I had always turned back, but the road went on, climbing up among the rocks to reach a plateau people thereabouts called the Hardscrabble. I hoped to find dwale up there in the heights.

Thole was ready to run and I let her. At least Galan had spared some of his horses from the sacrifice, and we were free to ride though he was not. We made good speed once out of the Marchfield, past the befouled air and the crowds. I'd been mewed up in camp since Galan was wounded, at first because I didn't want to leave his side, and then because-though he wouldn't speak to me-he also wouldn't let me go beyond the clan's tents while the feud threatened. His care had prisoned me for days; his anger made that prison comfortless.

Even beyond the Marchfield I did not feel free of it. I carried the taint with me, the stink of my own thoughts. I couldn't bear Galan's silence. Or to be cast out and prey to the likes of Sire Pava again. Or to nurse Consort Vulpeja back to health so she could take Galan from me. Or if she died and I was at fault and I lost all for nothing. I rode in a daze until Thole stumbled and I caught her mane between my hands, and I looked around to find we were already climbing the escarpment.

Thole and I were in the lead. I saw how sweat darkened her coat and how she thrust her way up among the rocks with her neck outstretched and her head bobbing, breathing hard. She was a drudge and bore what had to be borne. As I would, having no other choice.

Switchbacks took us across the face of the escarpment, and as we climbed, more of the sea came into view, burnished gold by the setting Sun. The Marchfield was a blotch of color below us, with banners of smoke rising from the cook fires. Close at hand I saw jillybells and goat's ears and gallwort and other herbs growing among the boulders and rock shelves of the slope, but passed them by. There was no time.

When we reached the top of the plateau, we paused to let the horses breathe. The highlands before us were bleaker than the lands around the Marchfield, and I'd thought those barren: here there were no hedges or fields or pastures, nothing to keep even a shepherd alive. Pale rocks lay everywhere, boulders the size of houses, stones round as loaves of bread, drifts of gravel and grit. The bedrock broke through the soil, like backbones, along the low ridges. Everything that grew was stunted. A mat of low creepers, sedges, and mosses grew underfoot, and here and there a shrub had managed to take root in the shelter of a boulder, the branches reaching eastward, shaped by the hard winds from the sea.

Spiller took one look about him and pointed west to the Sun, which was red and half drowned in the water. “We'd better turn around right now. I don't know what you think to find up here, but it's an ill-favored place and I don't wish to take that road down in the dark, do you?”

It wasn't that I disagreed with him, but I'd had enough of his grousing, all the way up the hill, about greased-stoat chases and high-handed women. “So, are you afraid to be out after dark?”

Rowney eyed us both but stayed out of it.

Spiller scowled. “It's witless to go down that hill without even a moon to see by.

“There's plenty of light yet. We'll make torches if need be.

“Sire Galan won't be pleased if you break your neck.

“I'm not so sure of that,” I said.

Spiller snorted. “Kill yourself if you like, but leave me out of it.” He yanked the reins and turned his horse away.

I called after him, “Sire Galan knows I'm only doing what is needful.

Spiller twisted around with his hand on the cantle of his saddle and looked at Rowney. “Are you coming or not?”

“You go,” I said to both of them, “if you' re so frightened. Stay at the foot of the scarp and wait for me. If I don't find what I seek by last light, I'll turn back.”

Rowney spoke up at last. “I'll stay with you,” he said, and Spiller glared at him and hunched up his shoulders and kicked his horse back down the hill.

I met Rowney's eyes, feeling sheepish at my show of temper. “I'll try to be quick, but I don't know this country or if what I need can be found here.”

“Let's be going, then,” he said, shrugging. He looked unconcerned, though while Spiller and I had argued, the Sun had gone under the sea, leaving a red pool in her wake.

In the twilight we trotted along the road, which was wide and deeply rutted. From time to time I'd turn Thole toward a bush or a pile of rocks that harbored green life in the crannies, and lean from the saddle to examine a plant more closely. Nothing came of it save scratches from the thorns of a spiny dog rose and some rose hips I took in payment for the scratches. I gave a few to Rowney. They were a tart but welcome refreshment. In summer this land would bloom. Now it offered scant hope.

We'd ridden perhaps another full league before Rowney said quietly, “Do you think we should light some torches?” and I saw that night had fallen. I hadn't noticed before, because the road was wide and paler than the lands it crossed and the crescent Moon gave a soft glow to the clouds, and to me everything was as clear as daylight. But Rowney did not have my eyes. He ' d stayed close as the darkness grew, riding knee to knee with me, without a word until now.

I reined in Thole and turned to look at him. Rowney's face was pale and I could see a tightness about the jaw that belied his calm voice. I was stubborn to go on in the dark. But I couldn't give up yet, and he wouldn't ask me.

“Very well,” I said, getting down from the mare. My legs shook. I hadn't ridden so far in many days. I gave Thole's reins to Rowney and told him to wait. In a short while I had the makings of two torches: bundles of gorse branches wrapped in bindwort, tipped with clumps of moss and grasses. I lit one with the coal I carried in the copper fire flask on my belt, praying to Ardor under my breath. The torch was crude and made more smoke than light. It wouldn't last long.

“We'll ride till this burns out,” I told Rowney. “Then we'll turn back.”

I couldn't see as far with the torch. The light moved with us, past boulders like great sleeping animals, and the road moved under us. We went down one long hill and up another, and on the other side of that hill the road came abruptly to the edge of a great pit and turned to go around the rim.

I dismounted and walked to the very edge, and Rowney gave a yelp, saying, “Have a care!” I looked back to tell him not to worry and a few pebbles went over the brink and splashed far below.

I leaned forward to see where they'd gone. “It's an old quarry, I think.”

Rowney said, “The torch is almost finished. Shall we turn back now?

“No. If I'm to find what I'm looking for, I'll find it here.” I told him to lead the horses away from the ledge and let them graze, and that I'd be back before the second torch burned out.

He offered it to me, saying he could make another, but I shook my head. “I'm better off without it,” I said. He stared and said nothing.

I trudged along the road as it followed the rim and turned downward, becoming a wide ramp cut into the quarry wall. I ran my hands along this wall, which was white and smooth, made of a much denser rock than the porous chalk of the sea cliffs. The white gleamed in the dark. I could see the stone had been cut into great steps and ledges, some still perfect and others broken and fissured. Soil had collected there, away from the brunt of the winds, and rain had filled the bottom of the quarry like a cistern. Trees had taken root all around this pool and in the cracks in the walls. Somehow their seeds had winged their way to the Hardscrabble, where no forests grew or ever had grown as far as I could tell. And I went down into the murmuring of those trees and the shadows streaming from the bare branches, marveling to myself as I laid my hand in greeting upon their trunks, here the smooth hide of a beech and there the rough bark of an elm, here a quick beam and there a silver birch. None of the trees had attained great size, but I felt nevertheless that they were of a great age.

And there, in a jumble of massive blocks chiseled from the wall by ice, or perhaps cut by man and discarded for imperfections, I found dwale: two bushy plants, one nearly my height and the other smaller, with sturdy stalks and the leaves all dry and stiff in this late season. I recognized it, even in the dark, by its own particular darkness. Under the leaves I found some of the black berries, and then I was sure of it.

It was well the Dame had lessoned me in remembrance, for we'd spoken of dwale just that once, and never had another occasion. She was impatient of repetition, and rarely had to tell me twice when it came to plants, though I never could keep in mind how to weave the summer-and-winter pattern or the loveknot, no matter how often my knuckles were rapped with the shuttle.