The Barrow (46 page)

“This is meet,” said Sir Ulbraece with a nod, and started to wheel his horse about. “We will take our leave of you, then. Receive the blessings of the Queen and the King both, Black-Heart of the line of Morfane.” He paused, and smiled again. “Will you be visiting our beloved lands again this summer, then?”

“Only the Fates know that for sure, Sir Ulbraece,” said Stjepan, his face a blank. The knight nodded, and the three men of Manon turned south and started over the hill. Stjepan and Erim watched them go until they had disappeared over the next rise.

“
Fuuuuck
,” Erim said quietly. She felt like she'd been holding her breath, and her shoulders suddenly slumped and relaxed after the knights disappeared; she hadn't realized how tightly she'd been coiled. “What he said about the Nameless, is that because of us?”

“Could be,” said Stjepan, his gaze troubled. “We raided one of their temples and took something that had been hidden there. Someone was bound to be unhappy about that, and come looking to reclaim it.”

Erim shook herself in her seat, still trying to relax. “All things considered, that seemed pretty civil,” she said. “When I first saw them I thought for sure I was dead.”

Stjepan shrugged, wheeling his horse about. “Most people like to talk, if you give them the chance,” he said, signaling to Sirs Helgi and Theodras with a wave that everything was okay. They started down the hill back toward the creek and the waiting knights. “But it also helps that we were outside their domain, if we'd been further into the Mole they'd have demanded a toll at the least, or if things had been hot like last summer then they'd have sought our deaths as invaders and interlopers. Luckily, this is the Plain of Stones, and the Manon knights are sticklers for what belongs to whom. So as an Athairi, I have more of a claim to these lands than they do. That's why they left first, rather than waiting for us to go.”

“I thought all the bandit knights were descended of the Wyvern King and his lords, and hated the Athairi,” said Erim, thinking about the old bards' tales she would hear in the taverns or the docks.

“Most do, even after all these centuries, and the feeling is often mutual,” Stjepan said. “But Gawer and Gable were a brother and sister from the Maelite city of Mageva, who served the Wyvern King as knight and magician, and then turned against him. So his ancestors rejected the Wyvern King and helped the Spring Queen Ymaire to capture and bind him.”

“Over a thousand years have passed and that still matters?” Erim asked, thinking about what he'd said to them. “You actually think you owe him for that?”

“To some it might as well have been yesterday,” Stjepan said with a shrug.

They rejoined the waiting knights and made their way down the creek back to the rest of the caravan, where the other knights and squires were ringed in a formation around the coach. Gilgwyr and Leigh were barely visible, hunched down in the rumble seats. The waiting knights relaxed when the foursome appeared around the bend, and Arduin cried out to them. “Who was it?”

“Bandit knights from the hills,” said Sir Helgi as he came abreast of Arduin. “But Master Stjepan spoke with them and they rode off.”

“What did they want?” said Arduin with a frown as his knights murmured.

“They're hunting one of the Nameless,” said Stjepan. “They destroyed a party of them heading to the west, but one escaped. We should be careful of anyone we meet along the trail, and keep our swords sharp.” Gilgwyr shot a glance at Erim and Stjepan then, and Erim guessed at his meaning:
something to do with us?

“I thought most of the bandit knights were themselves amongst the cursed Nameless,” said Sir Clodin. “Eating human flesh, and fornicating their own mothers.”

“Some might be, but most are simply of the Old Religion and its many gods and goddesses,” said Stjepan.

“Same thing,” said Sir Clodin with a nasty grin.

“As you say, sir knight,” said Stjepan quietly. But it was Sir Clodin who turned away from the look in Stjepan's eyes.

They traveled the rest of the day through the foothills of the Manon Mole with little incident, through rolling hills dotted with the broad, flat stones of the Plain of Stones; but also with little conversation. Erim's hackles still raised, depending on which way the wind shifted, and from what she could see the Aurian knights and squires were even more spooked than she was. She took a long lead to run point, trying to put as much distance between her and the others as possible, and perhaps it was but a trick of the mind, but she felt better when she wasn't near the rest of the group. It was as though the land itself didn't mind her so much as it did the Aurians she traveled with. Stjepan seemed his usual self, if perhaps a bit sadder and grimmer, if that were possible; he was riding wide arcs around the coach and its escorts, scouring the ground for signs of a single man on foot.

Erim heard the encampment ahead of her before she saw it, the sounds of a drum marking out a beat, and
liras
and perhaps an
oud
and a
mandore.
At first she thought she must be imagining things, or hearing some
fae
accompaniment drifting in from the Otherworld to greet the Dusk Maiden, who was visible now in the western sky to accompany the setting sun; but then the encampment came into sight and she brought her horse to a halt. She could see large reddish-brown box wagons, a horse picket line, and people mingling about several campfires.

Arduin and Sir Helgi rode up behind her and joined her in staring at the camp. They looked at her quizzically, and she shrugged.

Stjepan rode up and passed them, drawing in a bit further ahead to call over his shoulder. “It's an Athairi camp,” Stjepan shouted back to them. “My people. With any luck, they'll share bread and wine with us.”

He gave a whistle, and Cúlain-mal surged ahead.

The Athairi, at least, did not seem to mind visitors, even if their unexpected guests were armed and armored men with no livery, though Erim suspected that it was Stjepan that paved the way for their smooth reception. Arduin's knights and squires set up their tents at one end of the Athairi encampment, including a large pavilion for Annwyn and Malia; it was the only pavilion-style tent that she and Gilgwyr had been able to find on the market in Vesslos, with a single mast and guy ropes to hold up the canvas walls. Having finished their work the Aurians were now, albeit a bit warily, mingling with Athairi singers and dancers by the campfires.

Erim had seen copper-skinned Athairi in the streets of Therapoli before, and of course she'd known Stjepan for a couple of years now, but she realized that the Athairi she had seen had perhaps chosen their clothes quite deliberately to blend in a bit with the more conservative mode of dress in the capital. Fifty or so men and women made up this caravan, spread out amongst four finely-wrought box wagons and several dozen riding horses. They all seemed to favor dark colors: dark earthy reds and browns, deep indigos and blacks, with the occasional shimmer of embroidered cloth-of-gold. For the most part the men wore calf boots and loose, billowing pants that cinched tight around the waist, though a few of the younger men wore tight breeches like Stjepan's. Some wore long-sleeved shirts under vests or waist jackets, but the younger and more muscular men weren't wearing shirts under their vests and jackets. Erim could see the occasional flash of metal at nipples, ears, and noses amongst the men, and most wore metal or leather bracelets, arm bracers, or torques around the upper arm or the neck. Some of them wore neck scarves, or had their scarves wound up over their heads or hair, while others wore broad-brimmed hats whose brims curled up on the side, like Stjepan's, but with silver broaches and black feathers. Most of the men were clean-shaven, or had thick moustaches, but none wore beards; their dark hair tended to be long, swept back from the face and falling to the neck or tied back into a ponytail. Most wore leather belts chased in bronze or silver buckles, and every one of them bore at least one dagger. Swords and long curved sabers in their sheaths were scattered about the camp in easy reach of most of the men, along with unstrung bows and quivers of black-feathered arrows.

The Athairi women wore clothes that in Therapoli would have been quite risqué. Long brocade skirts or pantaloons cinched at knee or ankle that hung very, very low on the hips seemed universal. For tops they tended either toward a bolero jacket worn over a short bodice, or to a short vest or a short bodice alone, leaving at a minimum a long stretch of the midriff and belly and hips exposed. Some of the women went barefoot, while others wore dark leather sandals and a few wore calf boots similar to those worn by the men. Layers of copper, bronze, and silver jewelry were abundant: bracelets piled around wrists; torques around elbows, upper arms, and necks; shimmering waist belts made of interlinked coins and broaches; anklets, toe rings, finger rings, earrings, nose rings; necklaces and bejeweled collars made of leather. Long dark hair either flowed down backs almost to their rears, or was piled up on the head in complex braids or woven into headdresses made of coins and metal links and beads. The women favored heavily lined eyes and many had tattoos on their arms or bellies or lower backs.

Erim had not seen that much publicly exposed skin since the insides of the Sleight of Hand, and she guessed that the knights in Arduin's household had likely never seen the like outside a brothel (or in their marriage beds, but perhaps not even there). A half dozen of the Athairi men were set up around one of the campfires drumming, seemingly nonstop, in a kind of semi-improvised fashion, with a trio of female
lira
fiddlers jumping in every now and then to provide a melody. As she'd guessed on first hearing the camp, there were two
oud
players, and a
mandore
player as well, all three of them men, and they would step forward every now and then to perform a specific song at someone's shouted request, or to accompany a singer who started up. The rest of the camp went about its business, with most either preparing the evening meal or already drinking and dancing, and Arduin's knights and squires soon found themselves wandering through the light evening revelry in bemused shock, staring at women's belly buttons.

As did Erim. She wandered about the camp, noting the small delights of the traveling troupe, and finally found Stjepan speaking with several of the wagon masters. “. . . you have not seen a man alone, traveling through these parts? Perhaps has someone joined the caravan in the last day or two?” Stjepan was asking.

“No,
Serpente Linga
,” said a handsome older man with salt-and-pepper hair that Stjepan had introduced to Erim as Elfyr, son of Dyrk and Gallas, of the lineage of Terwaine. Elfyr shook his head. “You are the first men we have seen in several days. There are few Kingsmen who walk the old paths of the Sleeping Wood, they stay on the King's Road, and the last we saw were of the Folk.”

“True enough that a man alone in the Plain of Stones is a rare thing,” said Stjepan. “But this man is a Nameless, fleeing the huntsmen knights of Therin More in the Manon Mole.” The Athairi men stirred at that, looking darkly at each other.

“This is ill news, scion of Morfane,” said Bragas, a strapping youth with a muscular chest that Erim found quite delightful. “We shall set the watch-wards tonight, and be vigilant in our travels in the coming days. If one of the Nameless comes upon us, he will find our doors closed to him, though normally they be open to all.”

“All save the Nameless,” said several of the men quietly in unison, and they spat to the side and made signs against the Evil Eye.

“He will be greeted with sword and light,” said Elfyr with quiet pride. “
Yhera Anath, Yhera Invictus, la benedicia della deas Yhera sura tou'nou.
”

“Sword and light,” all of the men said in unison, including Stjepan.

“By Yhera Anath and Yhera Invictus, let the damned be brought before Seedré for their judgment, so that Hathhalla may consume them in the Underworld,” Stjepan finished firmly. Elfyr gave a slight approving bow at that. The small group broke up then, and the Athairi men spread throughout the camp to bring warnings to their fellows. Erim noticed Stjepan watching them with narrowed eyes.