Lord of the Isles (13 page)

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Authors: David Drake

BOOK: Lord of the Isles
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O
n the stone stoop of the mill Ilna's shuttle clattered back and forth across the loom with the regularity of water dripping from a hole. She depressed a pedal or pedals, threw the shuttle, and threw it back. Every six threads she lifted the bar to beat the woof firm again.
The border was of gray and white diamonds, surrounding a black field on which she'd picked out in white the constellations as seen from Barca's Hamlet. The moon, gibbous so that shadow detail emphasized its crater walls, was nearly complete; all that remained was the lower border.
The threads were the natural color of the wool. The available dyes were either muted by contrast to the brilliance of
nature—birds, flowers, even the rich tones of sunset and sunrise—or they didn't hold their color through sunlight and cleaning. Ilna scorned artificial hues and worked in vivid permanence with the varied fleece of Haft sheep.
The pattern grew with such precision in the afternoon sun that anyone watching would assume that Ilna's whole attention was directed on it. In reality, weaving was a task for Ilna's limbs and the animal part of her brain. Her conscious mind danced over life and her surroundings, so as a result she was the first person in Barca's Hamlet to see the strangers coming down the Carcosa Road.
Four tough-looking men on foot led the party. They wore swords and breastplates of multilayered linen, stiffened with glue and metal-studded for additional protection. Two of the men led pack mules.
The man following was mounted on a fine bay mare. His doublet was purple velvet over black silk tights, and his light sword was clearly for show in contrast to the serviceable weapons of his guards. He was plump, not fat, and probably in his early forties; Ilna found it hard to judge the age of folk with wealth enough to fend away the strains of time.
Behind him rode a woman—a girl—whose cream gelding looked bigger beneath her than the tall bay did under the man. She wore a brown satin jumper that she probably considered traveling garb; Ilna knew there was nothing of equal quality in the whole borough save the robe in which Tenoctris was found.
From the girl's broad-brimmed hat depended a veil so thin that it accentuated her features rather than concealing them. Her hair was the black of a raven's wing, and she was the most beautiful woman Ilna had ever seen.
Two more guards walked at the rear of the procession. One or the other was always looking back over his shoulder, as alert as stags feeding in a forest glen.
Ilna tapped into place the threads she'd just woven and stood up. The strangers were headed for the inn. Dogs began to bark and the bay whinnied, alerting everyone in hearing to
the unusual event. Ilna strode across to the inn's back door and entered calling, “Reise! You have wealthy guests coming.”
Lora came out of the kitchen, her eyes still red from crying. Weeping for her own hurt pride, not her daughter; though she'd doted on Sharina and slighted Garric as far back as Ilna could remember. That in itself was reason enough for Ilna to scorn the woman, even without her airs and her shrill carping complaints about everything around her save her daughter.
The count and countess's daughter. That made Lora's attitude more in keeping with the rest of her personality, and made Ilna despise her even more.
“The ship's returned?” Lora asked.
“No,” Ilna said curtly as she stepped out the front door. Reise set down the bucket he'd just drawn from the well, and the strangers entered the courtyard.
The male rider was in the lead now that the party had safely reached the hamlet. “May I help you, sir?” Reise said. “I'm Reise or-Laver, and I keep this inn.”
“I'm Benlo or-Willet,” the man said. His voice was melodious but its touch of burr proved he wasn't born on Haft. “I'll need private accommodations for myself and my daughter Liane, and quarters for my six attendants.”
“Certainly, sir,” Reise said. “Do you know how long you'll be staying so that I can arrange supplies of food?”
Benlo dismounted, wincing as his feet touched the ground. There was a scum of dust and sweat around the horses' tack. The guards looked worn, though they were all tough men in top condition. The girl's face was too well bred to give anything away, but the tightness around her lips and eyes hinted at considerable strain. Ilna wondered how many miles they'd come since their last halt.
“That I can't tell you, sir,” Benlo said easily. “Several days, I'd judge, but it depends on how quickly I can do my business. I'm a drover with a ship in Carcosa Harbor that I'm loading with Haft sheep.”
A guard had taken Benlo's bridle; another guard was handing
Liane down from her saddle, though she looked perfectly capable of dismounting herself. Two of the men were detaching the mules' wicker packsaddles. Garric had come in from the street and was leading the horses to the stable.
Most of the hamlet's men were in the fields; some of the women as well, but those who were home spinning or cooking wandered toward the inn to view the strangers. There was less excitement and chatter than there would have been a week past, however. The ship's departure this morning had thrown the arrival of a drover out of season completely in the shade.
“It's not the time we sell sheep here, sir,” said Katchin, hurrying into the courtyard. He'd put on a fresh tunic with a satin border, but his feet were flour-stained and he was trying without success to mate his dress belt's complex buckle. “I'm Katchin or-Keldan, the count's bailiff. I'll oversee any dealings you have, to insure the long-term good of the borough.”
Benlo turned. With a patronizing gentleness that was more crushing than a snub he said, “Thank you, bailiff. I'm confident there'll be no conflict between your duties and my desires. I've a customer on Sandrakkan who wants to improve his flock by crossing it with Haft bloodlines. He wants the easy part of the year to condition the sheep to their new pastures, so I'm here in spring rather than at the slaughtering time in fall.”
He looked around the courtyard, now crowded with spectators. Garric had returned from the stable and was taking the leads of the mules now that they'd been unloaded. The drover's eyes locked momentarily on him in appraisal; Ilna felt her own face tighten in protective hostility, though Benlo's glance was there and gone in an instant. Normal enough; Garric was a youth whose build and carriage attracted attention.
“Also I'll be hiring a local lad to badger the flock to Carcosa for me,” Benlo added as if in afterthought. “But for now, Reise, put some chickens on the hearth and heat water for myself and Liane to freshen up with.”
He slapped his buttocks, emphasizing the strain of the journey. “And after that, your bailiff and I will arrange business.”
Benlo and his daughter entered the inn, following Reise with the bucket he'd just drawn. “Lora, we need a brace of chickens!” he shouted.
“I'll take care of that, Reise,” Ilna called. The inn was shorthanded with Sharina gone; there was money to be earned from Reise, a benefit to both parties.
Liane had given the villagers a single long glance, then dismissed them as unworthy of further consideration.. She walked inside without looking around or showing anything on her face.
Ilna had seen statues of the Lady with more human empathy ; but she'd never seen even a statue as beautiful as this cold woman who had come to Barca's Hamlet.
T
he island didn't have a name. At high tide it could have passed for a stretch of rough water to Sharina's untrained eye, even after Nonnus pointed it out to her. The recent storm had stripped it of most vegetation, though tufts of coarse grass grew on the lee side of hillocks and the trunk of a coconut palm lay uprooted on the shore. The crew had started to chop it up for firewood.
The beach was sand. On the eastern horizon were coral heads worn to mushroom shapes by the currents that deposited their scourings here to form the shore on which the trireme rested.
“I've never been this long off land,” Sharina said, digging her toes into the sand in sensuous pleasure at footing that didn't sway beneath her. She pirouetted, holding her arms
straight out from her shoulders. “And to have so much room again!”
Nonnus smiled. “A Pewle woodskin holds your hips so tightly that you can rotate over and up again without falling out,” he said. “That ship is like sailing in a temple.”
“Sharina!” Meder called. A team of sailors had reerected the deckhouse on shore, using piles of sand to brace the sides in place of the turnbuckles that normally clamped it to the deck. Asera and the wizard watched, and a sailor holding a pair of live chickens stood nearby. “Come over with us. I'm going to summon a fair wind for the morrow. You can help me.”
Sharina glanced at Nonnus. The hermit gave a minuscule shrug, too slight for anyone at a distance to notice. “I'm coming,” Sharina said, and walked toward the nobles.
The Blood Eagles had disembarked with their bedrolls, a motley collection of quilts and blankets purchased in Barca's Landing at prices the villagers would be talking about for years. Wainer was organizing a camp near the deckhouse. Most of the troops looked pleased to be on dry land, though a few of the older men seemed as blase about nautical life as the sailors.
“We'll carry out the rite inside,” Meder said with the crisp enthusiasm that filled him when he talked about his wizardry. “It's better that uninitiated yokels not watch, since there's always the risk that one of them will attempt the incantation and actually get something to happen. Not much risk, of course.”
“What do you want me to do?” Sharina asked. She wasn't comfortable with Meder; Asera's eyes, assessing her like a farmer deciding which animals to cull before the hungry times of winter, were bad enough. But Sharina had been raised to help and to do. If the wizard had a task for her, she would dive in just as she scrubbed pots and waited table at the inn.
“We'll cut the throat of one of these birds now and I'll draw the circle with its blood,” Meder explained. “Then—”
“Must this be in the shelter?” Asera said tartly. “I planned to sleep in it tonight.”
“We'll have the men move the walls when we're done,” Meder retorted. “The blood will be on the sand. Do you want some buffoon to call down lightning by accident?”
Asera grimaced but shrugged agreement.
“Now, Sharina,” Meder resumed, “when I tell you I want you to cut the throat of the—”
“No,” Sharina said.
“—other bir …” The wizard paused. “What did you say?” he asked.
“No,” she repeated, “I won't do that. Get someone else to help you.”
“Surely you've killed a chicken before, girl?” Asera said in amazement. Shadows from the setting sun deepened the furrows of her frown.
“I've killed hundreds,” Sharina said flatly. “More than that, I suppose. To eat. I don't like magic and I'm not going to be part of it.”
She turned and walked away, her body shaking. “I don't understand,” Meder called after her.
Sharina didn't understand either. She'd lived too close to chickens to have any affection for them. They were quarrelsome, stupid, and demanding; the best thing about a chicken was the way it tasted fried. She'd often snapped the necks of a pair like those the sailor held, gutted them with a paring knife, and had them ready to scald the feathers for plucking in less than a minute.
But the thought of cutting the birds' throats just to pour their blood out made her skin crawl and her stomach turn. She didn't even like the idea of reboarding the ship in the morning and knowing where the wind that drove it came from.
Her eyes focused. She'd walked into the midst of the Blood Eagles. Ningir put out a hand toward her, but Wainer waved him back silently.
Nonnus was alert, but he watched Sharina only peripherally.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw Asera and the wizard going, into the shelter while the sailor with the chickens waited to follow. The hermit relaxed slightly.
Sharina felt sudden hot anger. Was she completely a child who had to be protected from a spindly boy she could have broken over her knee?
She knew the reaction was unjustified, a displacement of her formless disgust at Meder's blood magic, but she felt it nonetheless. She glared at Nonnus, then turned to the Blood Eagles' officer and said in a clear voice, “Your name is Wainer, I believe? I have some questions to ask you in private.”
A soldier snickered, then swallowed his reaction in a cough as Wainer glared at him. Wainer's expression cleared to neutrality and he said, “If you like, mistress. I think if we go downwind, we can speak and stay in plain sight so nobody misunderstands.”
Sharina nodded and strode briskly beyond the limits of the scattered encampment. She glanced over her shoulder. Nonnus watched without expression, but he didn't follow.
“This should do, mistress,” Wainer said. He turned so that they both stood in profile to the camp, then stepped a pace inshore. Unlike Sharina, the soldier wore boots that he didn't want soaked in the murmuring surf. “What is it you want of me?”
“You mentioned the Stone Wall,” she said. The anger was gone now and doubt at what she was doing was starting to replace it. “I know that was the battle where King Valence defeated the Earl of Sandrakkan twenty years ago, but that isn't what you meant when you asked Nonnus about it. What
did
you mean?”
“Um,” Wainer said. “Have you asked him, mistress?”
“I'm asking you,” Sharina snapped. “If you want the procurator to order you to tell me, that can be arranged.”
Wainer looked straight at the hermit fifty feet away. Nonnus nodded. He was as emotionless as the coral out in the darkening sea.
“All right, mistress,” Wainer said slowly, “because I
guess you've got a right to know. But I want to say that the only reason I'm alive to talk to you—that King Valence is on the throne and not a Sandrakkan usurper—is what the Pewle mercenaries did that day.”
He took off his leather cap and wiped his forehead with a kerchief, though the evening wasn't warm. “The thing is,” he went on, squinting at the swells of the Inner Sea, “the earl had cavalry. We couldn't bring many horses two hundred miles across the sea, and besides Ornifal isn't horse country. Too hilly. Sandrakkan infantry isn't much, but they had good horsemen and we had to come to them to put the rebellion down.”
Something jumped and splashed out beyond the shoals; a fish, perhaps, or even a seal. Seals were rare in these warm waters, but they swam and bred in their tens of thousands around the rocky islands in the Outer Sea north of the main archipelago.
“So Valence …” Wainer continued. “His generals, I mean; he was a boy then, just crowned. His generals hired a band of Pewle mercenaries to hold the right flank against the Sandrakkan cavalry. They didn't wear armor, so they could hop around like rabbits with their javelins and those big knives. The idea was they'd get inside a cavalry charge and hamstring the horses, throw everything into confusion. Pretty much a suicide job, we thought, but the Pewlemen didn't seem to think it was much riskier than paddling after seals in a winter storm.”
Wainer hawked and spat into the sea. Sharina looked at the hermit's squat form with new awareness. It would be frightening to watch an armored horseman charge down on you … but if you had the quickness and courage to duck under the rider's awkward blow, then lop through the mount's pastern with a knife that Sharina had seen used to split logs—
If you could do those things, then no horsemen would get through you. A hundred men like Nonnus could turn the finest cavalry regiment into a bloody shambles.
“I see,” Sharina said; and she did.
“But that's not how it happened,” Wainer continued. “The rebels had a big camp, twice the size of ours though the army wasn't any bigger. They were at home, remember, and the troops had brought their servants along. And wives, a lot of them, and plenty of them had their whole family. All that takes room. They put a palisade around it, just like we did ours; only the earl had brought wizards, too. When both sides had lined up facing each other on the plain between, those wizards stood up on the wall sacrificing just like the young fellow's doing in there right now—”
Wainer's thumb hooked quickly in the direction of the deckhouse, but he didn't look around.
“—and raised an earthquake. The militia on our right wing broke, the Sandrakkan horse charged us in the center around the king, and nobody paid any attention to a few hundred seal hunters standing off by themselves.”
“The Pewlemen attacked the cavalry from behind?” Sharina guessed. She'd read the epics; she could talk of flanks and ambushes even if she'd never seen a real soldier till the Blood Eagles arrived in Barca's Hamlet.
Wainer shook his head. “Wouldn't have helped,” he said. “There weren't enough Pewlemen to cut their way through. It's not the same as breaking up a charge, you see. No, what they did was scamper over the walls of the rebel camp like they were goats on a hillside. The Sandrakkan servants were supposed to defend the walls, but they were no more use than tits on a boar when they saw Pewle knives flashing toward them.”
“They killed the wizards,” Sharina said.
Wainer shrugged. His face was a grim death mask. “I guess they did,” he said, “but that wouldn't have helped either. They'd done their damage already, the wizards had. No, mistress, what the Pewlemen did was drag women and children up on the walls where the wizards had been. And they cut their throats there and tossed the bodies down on top of the sheep and chickens from the sacrificing.”
“Oh,” said Sharina. “I see.” She looked at the water; not
at the soldier and especially not at Nonnus until she'd had time to settle her face.
“Well, the rebels broke, then,” Wainer said. “They went running back to the camp to save their families. And we were right with them, cutting them down from behind. It wasn't a battle anymore, it was a slaughterhouse and we killed till our arms ached.”
“Thank you,” Sharina said, “for telling me.”
“They had to do it, mistress,” Wainer said, knuckling his eyes as if to rub away the memory of what he'd seen twenty years before. “We'd have all died if it wasn't for those Pewlemen, and King Valence would've died with us. We stood, but they won the battle.”
The old soldier shook his head in frustration; his mouth was tight. “There's one thing I can't forget,” he said in a husky whisper. “And I've prayed to the Lady but it's still there every time I see blond hair like yours. There was a kid, she can't have been three. Blond as blond could be. A Pewleman lifted her by the hair and he cut her throat clear through with that big knife of his. There was blood in the air, mistress, and he waved that head laughing as the little body fell on the pile below. I just can't forget the laughter.”
“I don't think he's laughing now,” Sharina said. She turned and walked back toward Nonnus, her protector.

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