The Assassin's Edge (Einarinn 5) (37 page)

We were led past people still working in an overpowering stench of fish guts and through the main gate of the keep’s outer wall. Guards in the same leather armour ducked respectful heads to our guide. Elietimm battles must be remarkably simple affairs, I mused, given every enemy was handily identified by his garb. In the chaotic civil wars of Lescar you’d be lucky if all your side carried the same battlefield token or half of them remembered the recognition word. More than one battle had petered out in confusion when both contingents had plucked the same handy flower for their field sign and claimed Saedrin’s grace as their battle cry.

Such idly inconsequential thoughts kept my apprehension at bay as we were taken through a busy courtyard where a waiting throng eyed us with curiosity and suspicion. Our guide ignored them all and led us up a flight of forbidding stairs to double doors of weathered and iron-studded oak. At his nod, another grey-leathered warrior opened one to admit us.

The great hall’s echoing emptiness took up most of the ground floor by my quick estimation. Pale flagstones were swept bare beneath a skilfully vaulted ceiling rising from thick pillars of polished reddish stone sunk into the grey walls. Clouded glass in tall, thin windows muffled the bright sunlight but we all knew panes an Ensaimin peasant would sneer at betokened wealth and status in these indigent islands. Heavy curtains of soft beige wool, bright with geometric patterns in muted green and soft orange, hung around the far end where a shallow wooden floor offered a suggestion of a dais.

“Drink?” ’Gren proffered his goblet with a broad grin. He and Sorgrad sat on backless cross-framed stools at one end of a long table so aged and polished it was all but black. An Elietimm man wearing a well-cut grey mantle over tunic and breeches of fine quality stood beside them, amusement creasing his plump face. He was as blond as Sorgrad, with a wiry curl to his receding hair but his eyes were dark, something I’d noticed more than once among these islanders.

“Those who hid,” barked the old man who’d brought us in, gesturing at the same time as bowing deeply to his overlord.

Sorgrad set his own cup carefully by an array of small platters on the table. “I have explained that we did not wish to trespass on anyone’s hospitality until we had made ourselves known,” he said smoothly. “Master of Rettasekke, I vouch for Ryshad, sworn to one of those mainland lords whom Ilkehan has raided.” He indicated me next with a courteous hand. “Livak will speak for the Forest Folk who suffered at the hands of Eresken last summer while our friend Shivvalan comes from Caladhria. The lowland peoples were very nearly brought to war with the uplands by Eresken’s treachery and that is his concern.”

All of which had the virtue of being true, if not the whole truth, if someone somewhere was murmuring a charm to test Sorgrad’s veracity. He turned to our host.

“This is Olret, who graciously offers us the shelter of his house for the duration of the ancient travel truce.” Sorgrad smiled with a nice balance between humility and self-assertion. “So we see that our two races are not so sundered, despite the generations between us.”

The Mountain travel truce lasted three days and three nights and I wondered if that meant we’d be spared aetheric curiosity for that period. As I was trying to find a way of hinting as much to Sorgrad, a booming blow on the double doors made me jump. I wasn’t the only one and I saw Olret stifle a smile behind a polite hand as this peremptory demand was repeated. He said something to Sorgrad that I didn’t catch.

“Olret has business to attend to,” Sorgrad told us. “He wishes us to stay and observe as his guests.”

Someone somewhere was watching, perhaps behind one of the floor-sweeping curtains, because lackeys instantly appeared from a side door with stools for us all. Maidservants hurried after with more plates of titbits and pottery flasks of pale liquor as well as goblets various goats had sacrificed horns for. One corn-haired lass poured me a generous measure, which I sipped cautiously. The stuff was smooth, light on the back of the throat and innocuously flavoured with caraway. It drawled long, slow lines as I rolled the small goblet casually around in my hand. Too much of this and our host wouldn’t need Artifice; we’d all be confiding our innermost thoughts to our new best friend.

On the other hand, refusing to drink would probably be an insult. I took an anonymous finger-length of meat from a plate. It wasn’t unpleasant with a rich gamey taste beneath the subtle smoke but I couldn’t have said if it were fish, fowl or beast. What it was, it was salty, excellent for provoking thirst.

The great doors were opened and the throng from the courtyard filed in, heads dutifully bowed. Our host moved to a high seat skilfully wrought from dark wood and yellow bone carved with blunt and ancient symbols. Shiv cleared his throat and I looked at him, curious as to whether he might recognise any of these symbols. The mage glanced meaningfully at my goblet as he passed his hand casually over his own. I held my own drink absently to one side as I reached for what I fervently hoped was a morsel of cheese. Shiv’s hand brushed my own as he moved to offer Ryshad a dish of small crimson berries. When I took a sip from my goblet to try and quell the unexpectedly acrid taste of the cheese, I found the intense liquor had been diluted to a more manageable potency.

The man who’d led us into this well-baited pen was back again. He stood at the edge of the wooden floor, carrying a long staff carved from one single, mighty length of bone, some tantalising gems set around the ornately carved head. He struck the wooden planks and the crowd shuffled obediently about until a line of men pushed to the front, each carrying a leather bag.

“Proceed.” Olret looked on impassively as each man stepped up to empty his offering on to the long table.

The haul proved to be birds’ beaks. The nearest tally proved the death of a goodly number of hooded crows along with several ravens. That chilled my Forest blood; my father had always told me killing a raven prompted dreadful luck. I saw the predatory yellow curve of an eagle’s beak as well. Plainly no one worshipped Drianon hereabouts.

The men who’d come forward surveyed the competing piles and those who’d been less assiduous backed away. That left about half looking smug and expectant as the man with the bone staff walked the line and offered a tooled leather pouch to each one. Faces intent, every man pulled out a slip of horn that he held up for the man with the staff to see. He turned to the gathering and I picked enough words out of his declarations to learn three different sorts of rights were being granted.

“Driftwood without tool marks on the Fessands.”

“Worked wood brought ashore on the Arnamlee.”

“Stranded seabeasts from Blackarm to the Mauya Head.”

Olret looked expectantly at Sorgrad as the ritual was concluded.

The Mountain Man bowed politely. “Those that work to defend your territory from predators share in the chance-brought wealth of the seas.”

Olret smiled with satisfaction. “Ilkehan keeps all such bounty for himself.” His words carried and a shudder of fear and disapproval rippled through the gathering.

The bone staff thudded on the floor again and the crowd parted like a flock of goats as Olret’s grey-liveried hounds brought a handful of men before him. Each one wore only a filthy shirt, wrists securely bound in front. However enlightened this Olret might think himself compared to Ilkehan, his prisoners suffered the usual brutalities. One man’s eyes were all but closed with bruises while another’s hair was clotted dirty brown with old blood.

Each prisoner was hauled forward in turn and Olret pronounced sentence, expression unchanging. If there was such a thing as arguing a case at trial hereabouts, it must have happened earlier.

“White.” The man’s face turned hopeless.

“Green.” Someone unseen at the back hastily stifled a sob of relief.

“White.” For some reason, that came as a relief to that man.

“Red.” That provoked some disturbance on the far side of the hall that had the guards wading in to haul a struggling youth outside so fast his feet barely touched the floor.

“White.” The final judgement disappointed someone but they had the sense to shut their mouth after an involuntary exclamation.

The man with the bone staff waved it in unmistakable dismissal and the crowd melted away as fast as it had gathered.

“He works a deal faster than Temar,” I quipped to Ryshad.

The great doors closed to leave us alone in the vast hall with our host. Alone, apart from whoever was keeping watch behind the curtains. Of course, we were all still carrying our weapons and I reminded myself not to condemn the man out of hand for simple prudence. He left his impressive chair and pulled up a stool, helping himself from the spread of food.

“What had those men done?” My command of the Mountain tongue was sufficient for that but Olret ignored me, addressing himself to Sorgrad.

“Do you still administer the three exiles in the lands of the Anyatimm?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.” Sorgrad looked genuinely puzzled.

Olret seemed faintly disappointed. “The red exile is from life itself. That man will be flung from the cliffs. The green exile is from hearth and home but that man may find himself some shelter within the sekke and his friends may save him from death with food and water. The white exile is from the sekke and its people. Those men must leave our land before nightfall and none may offer them the least help.” Olret’s polite smile turned a little forced. “That was the exile the Anyatimm of old imposed on our forefathers. We fled north and east over the ice, little thinking that we would find these lands held fast in the cold seas. Then Misaen melted the path and, as many would have it, left us here for some purpose.”

Shiv and Ryshad were both growing visibly frustrated as I struggled to listen and to translate at the same time. Olret waited for me to finish speaking before surprising us all.

“Forgive me. I only know your tongue from the written word and speak it poorly.” His Tormalin was entirely comprehensible, for all his hesitations and harsh accent.

“You have the advantage of me, my lord.” Ryshad spoke slowly with all the practised politeness he’d learned serving his Sieur. “It is you who must forgive our ignorance.”

“May I ask how you know our language?” Shiv smiled but I could see he was thinking the same as the rest of us. Now we’d have to watch every word we said, even among ourselves.

“I have visited your shores.” Olret could barely conceal his satisfaction at astounding us with this news. “Not often and never for long but we have long traded with the men of the grasslands.”

A frisson ran through me. “The Plains People?” I enquired blandly.

“Just so.” Olret had no trouble recognising the Tormalin term for the last of the three ancient races. “A select few have long made such crossings, defying the sea-roving shades, though ill fates befall the unworthy who risk themselves.”

“I have never heard tell of such visitors.” Ryshad was hiding his scepticism behind a well-trained face.

“We do not linger,” Olret assured him. “The men of the grasslands lay curses on those who outstay their welcome by overwintering, so we permit no such ship to land. Too many return laden only with stinking corpses, carried here by the sea shades.”

Could there still be remnants of the ancient Plains People in the northern vastness? Tormalin history would tell us they’d all been driven out or married into the Old Empire’s high-handed delineation of their provinces of Dalasor and Gidesta. On the other hand, I’d known a fair few cast adrift from the wandering herdsmen of those endless grasslands to skulk like me on the fringes of the law. A lot of them had the sharp features and dark slenderness that legend attributed to the lost race of the Plains. Besides, plenty of those herding clans still passed down ancestral resentment of Tormalin dominance and that could well keep them silent about sporadic visitors bringing something worth trading. I wondered what that something might be.

Olret was talking to Sorgrad again. “Forgive me, but you will not find a welcome if you bring trouble upon my poor people. We’ve suffered a full measure of grief in these last three years.”

“The mountains have been burning?” Sorgrad was all solicitous concern.

Olret nodded grimly. “The Maker first struck sparks from his forge two years since. At first we hoped the Mother’s judgement had finally come upon Ilkehan but every isle was shaken or riven. Fish floated dead from the depths of the seas. Goats choked with the ash or died later, poisoned by their fodder. Whole families smothered as they slept when foul air filled the lowest lying hollows.”

“Then we appreciate your generosity all the more,” Shiv said seriously.

I took another piece of the smoked meat and a sliver of flat bread and avoided Shiv’s eye. It was Planir, Kalion and a couple of other mages who’d set the mountains erupting hereabouts, to give Ilkehan something to think about besides chasing us as we fled his clutches. It looked as if the Archmage had started something reaching a good deal further than he’d intended.

Olret managed a wry smile. “We searched out what favour the Mother showed us. There were turnips cooked in the very earth for the hungry. With so many beasts dead, we had fodder to spare for strewing on the hot ash.” He saw we were all looking puzzled at that and hastened to explain. “It prompts new growth, that we may recover the land as fast as possible.” His face turned sombre again. “But many have died for lack of food these two years past and Ilkehan preys on the weaker isles like a raven following a famished herd. He piles trouble upon trouble on them before claiming the land by force of arms and saying the people will it thus. Then he grants the starving food to keep them alive enough to work but too hungry to spare strength to resist him.”

“Is that what happened to the westernmost isle?” I asked politely.

Ryshad saw Olret was ignoring me again and asked his own question. “Have you no overlord or any union of Ilkehan’s equals to deny such conquest?”

Olret stiffened as if he’d been insulted before forcing a smile and asking Sorgrad, “Do the Anyatimm now submit to some king?”