The Harp and the Blade (23 page)

“Only a couple of hours.” She smiled and held out her hands. “Help me up.”

I grew more contrite, seeing how stiffly she rose. “Hell, I’m sorry! You should have roused me.” I was touched by her consideration and kept hold of her hands.

“Oh, I remember a time when you did something for me,” she replied. “And you’ve earned a little coddling today.” Her smile changed to a grin. “You took to it like a kitten.” She was feeling very friendly and wondering if I was going to kiss her.

“I enjoyed it,” I assured her; and then I resolved her doubts. She had a warm, generous mouth.

One good kiss deserved another as far as I was concerned, but she shook her head. “It’s only recently that as something to kiss you’ve ranked above spiders. I’ve got to get used to the idea.”

“Well, if we can’t make love let’s at least be comfortable,” I accepted her attitude. “Let’s go out in the sun and bake the chill out of us.”

People hailed me as we walked across the court in amiable silence, but all were too busy to do more than proffer a word of congratulation. As a matter of course, we sought the low place in the wall where we had sat a couple of nights before. It was warm but not hot, and the slight breeze was fresh from a washed world.

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” she said after a moment or so.

“So did I,” I chuckled, “but with a couple of dozen sword swingers herding me I forgot to be choosy about places. As a matter of fact, I forgot I had intended to go anywhere else until this morning.”

“I suppose we should be grateful for your absent-mindedness.”

“Why not?” I asked. “I am myself. I like being with everybody here.” I looked at her. “How about you? Are you going to get along all right?”

“All right,” she echoed the words flatly. “I like the people, too, and Ann’s been most kind. She says she’s glad of my company.” Marie set her lips. “She’d better be. I don’t see how she’s ever going to get rid of me.”

An orphaned and landless girl has a tough row to hoe; and I was particularly concerned to think anybody was depressed on this day when I was feeling so triumphantly pleased with life. Noticing my look of commiseration, she instantly smiled and took my arm.

“I’m sorry, Finnian. You’re worrying about me, and I shouldn’t have said anything to make you do so today. You’ve earned carefreedom and rest; and the rest, at least, you’ll certainly need. There’s going to be high feasting tonight, and everybody will want you to drink with them.”

“I’ll try to accommodate them,” I said mildly.

“I bet you will. And once you have been so obliging what will you do?”

“I don’t know any more.” I laughed ruefully. “Sometimes I think I’ll never get out of this country. Certainly no plans I make to that end come to any account.” I was more serious than I seemed, for I was thinking once more of the Pictish priest and wondering if I was doomed to remain there while my life lasted. And suppose I was?

I mulled that over, and my mind, always apt to go rabbit chasing when not disciplined to bear on a specific problem, hunted out the possibilities of such a situation. There could be far worse dooms than living where I was, providing Chilbert didn’t win the anticipated war. I would be among friends, with a record of service to ensure my welcome. More than that, I’d be the chosen peer of the man in power, and as such a recognized leader. Therefore, if Conan won I could have holdings and followers of my own.

The vision grew, awing me. Since schooldays I had had no companion for long, and I had accepted that as inevitable. I had never owned more than I could carry with me, though often considerably less. Now the odds were one in two that chieftainship would be all but thrust upon me. And one of the responsibilities of a chief as well as the ordained procedure for a man with a hall of his own was to get married.

I thought that out and shook my head dazedly. If the logic of events was as implacable as it seemed, I would marry the girl beside me. As a woman she was looking for a place of her own with a man she could like. With my newly won land I would need or ask no dowry, and Conan and Ann would give their approval. So much for her side of the bargain. As for me, I admired and trusted her, having seen her bearing in hard circumstances. She was a girl, too, that a man could make love to with conviction.

My glance, which had been wandering, returned to give her a veiled scrutiny. “Still drowsy?” she asked.

I came out of it. “No, just mooning,” I confessed. Aware that all the foregoing had been built on the shadowy base of hypothesis, I felt silly. But the train of thought had left its mark. I closed one eye slowly. Suppose the hypothesis became reality. And after the logic of events had married a man off, did it stay around to help him out in the pinches?

Conan had been inspecting the walls with Ann, and now they were drawing near the part where we were sitting. “How do things look?” I called, knowing almost as well as he did but eager to start a conversation that might free me from further disturbing speculation.

They picked their way across the unevenness of the uncompleted stretch to join us. “Apparently nobody was loafing while I was Gregory’s guest. If it wasn’t for the harvest it’d be finished now.” He patted a stone as he and his wife seated themselves. “In a few weeks I’m going to have a place Ann can hold without looking up from her sewing. Then if certain polecates stay alive it won’t be because nobody tried to kill them.”

“Gregory wouldn’t happen to be the first by any chance?”

He sighed. “Gregory would happen to be a polecat, but not one that I’ll kill. I led three men into that trap of his, and to pay their way out I’ll guarantee not to follow the matter up.” He chuckled. “After all we fined him pretty heavily what with one thing and another. I think he wished God had made him a good boy before the night was over.”

“How are you going to negotiate with him?” Ann asked. “Sending a man or a few men would just give him additional hostages.”

“Right as usual, girl,” he nodded. “No, I’m going to visit the Abbot in a couple of days to offer a personal thanks for the help he gave. I’ll ask him then to act as go-between, and I have no doubt he’ll be willing to send a man on this simpler, less dangerous mission.”

“There’s excitement by the gate,” Marie remarked. “Maybe Gregory decided to make his offer beforehand.”

We looked up with interest to see a horseman enter and dismount, to be hidden from us in a swiftly growing group. At about the point where impatience was driving us to call out to them we saw Fulke hurrying toward us. “It’s a stranger, Conan,” he announced. “He claims he’s just come from the other side of the Loire, he isn’t sure whether or not he knows anybody here, and he wasn’t sent by anybody.”

“Well, feed him and keep an eye on him,” my friend directed.

“Yes, but he says he must speak to you personally, and that doesn’t jibe with the rest of his talk. I think he’s a spy.”

“A lot of men are these days,” Conan said. “Make sure he hasn’t got any knives hidden on him and bring him over.”

The young man Fulke and Rainault escorted between them looked tired and not too well. His features were handsome for all their drawn appearance, and he carried his compact, slender figure as if he knew he was a man. He halted to look up at us, gazing inquiringly first at Conan and then at me. As our eyes met his face lit up with genuine pleasure. “Hello, Finnian!” he said enthusiastically. “I told you I’d remember.” Everybody was staring at me expectantly, but nothing registered in that first astonished searching of my past. “Maybe you remember, but it’s obvious that Finnian doesn’t,” Conan remarked. “Where did you meet him?”

“You’re Conan, I take it?”

“Yes. I was told you wanted to speak to me. But let’s get this point straightened out first.”

“Surely.” The newcomer turned his eyes to me again. “You fished me out of the river and made the monks look after me.”

I knew who he was then, of course. Still, considering that I had never seen him erect and in full control of his faculties before, it wasn’t strange that I hadn’t recognized him. “That’s right. Glad to see you up and about. The Danes put an arrow in him,” I explained to the others.

“You certainly get around and meet the people, brother. Can you vouch for him, now that you place him?”

“Yes, I think so,” I said. “He comes from too far west to know Chilbert.”

“The name is Raymond, in case anyone’s interested,” the fellow said.

“There remains to be explained,” I pointed out, “how it happens that you elected to come here.”

“Well, I had to go somewhere. The monks had their hands full of trouble without an unwanted guest, and I was able to walk by the time the Dane scare was over. The scum turned back when they saw what strength Chilbert had against them.”

Having warned Thorgrim that such would probably be the case, I nodded. “Well?”

He gestured with both hands. “My chief and my people were killed and the hall burnt. I had no wish to go back and see the charred carrion, so I decided to look for a place in the vicinity. From what I could gather there was no leader worth tying to on the south side of the Loire, but I learned that across the river there were men who were doing things. I didn’t like what I heard about Chilbert, and I’m not a priest.”

He had looked at Conan while making the last remark, but now he turned to me again. “The Danes had left some horses without owners. I wasn’t up to it, but Gaimar caught one and got it across the river for me. He told me to tell you he was sorry for being a louse.”

“He’s one no longer.” Though puzzled, I was pleased, for I hate to think sourly of a man with whom I’d shared pleasant times. “But see here. What the devil made Gaimar think you’d meet me in these parts?”

His eyes gleamed. “It seems that Gaimar had a lot of non-monastic acquaintances.”

“He did,” I chuckled.

“It seems, too, that although you never said where you came from he’d heard a story of a bard who’d stood by Conan in a walloping good fight. He couldn’t figure out what you were doing at the abbey, but he always thought you were the one.”

“I owe him something for keeping his mouth shut,” I said. “Well,” he concluded, “that decided me that the trip up here would be worth it. I knew if you were for Conan he must be all right.”

My helpless glance brought a grin from Conan who, I could see, had already made his judgement. “I’ll take him on if you say so, brother. How do you want him counted?”

It was not only because I was partly responsible for his presence or because of a man’s obscure urge to continue being helpful to anyone he has once assisted that I was moved to say what I did. I had been favorably impressed by his directness and his general air of competence as he told his story. “Until he’s well, as my guest. Thanks, Conan.”

Raymond’s face lighted, then composed itself as he voiced his appreciation. My words had granted him the most favorable position he could have wished for. Under other circumstances he might have had a long pull proving his right to membership in the inner circle of the household. And once accepted there he could not well be relegated to the outer reaches.

“Glad to have you,” Conan said and turned to Marie. “Would you see to it that Finnian’s friend has the meal I think he could do with?”

She jumped to the ground and smiled up at me. “As one of your waifs and strays I’ll be glad to help another.”

We looked after them briefly as they walked from us. “Nice-looking pair of youngsters,” Conan commented, yawning.

“S
PEAKING
of Marie,” my friend went on after a moment, “Ann informs me of another piece of business you’ve done for us. Who was the chief you snatched her from?”

He didn’t know Thorgrim, but having done viking work himself, he could see exactly what I had been up against. He whistled as I started to sketch the scene, but I didn’t have to take the matter seriously now. I proceeded to fabricate a grotesque picture of my own fright, the manner in which Thorgrim had been carried away by his sense of drama, as well as his later realization of having been sold, and Marie’s valiant struggles to keep from being rescued. Conan roared at the comedy of it, but Ann laughed only a little.

“It seems that everyone here is in your debt, Finnian. I wish there was something we could do for you.”

“We could give him a drink,” her husband said hopefully. Ann gave up. This was our day, with our big celebration imminent, and from now on nobody could make either of us serious about anything. “And I suppose,” she smiled, “that at least one of us could give himself a drink, too. I’m going in now to see about the final preparations for the banquet. I’ll have the wine sent out. “

When we saw the decanter we sauntered over to the table and seated ourselves with the deliberation of men who approach a great task with full respect for what has to be accomplished. We sat slowly, backs leaned against the hall, legs stretched out to the exact and carefully found point of comfort, and brooded, solemn-eyed, on the cups my friend was gently filling. Then we eyed one another, seeking inspiration for the toast.

“Wine and whisky for our friends,” he intoned.

“Amen,” I said. “Whey and water for our enemies!”

“Mixed!” he said.

We held it on the palate, swallowed and sighed. It was from the bottom of the cellar. I closed my eyes, then opened one. “There are only two people I can think of right now who deserve a wine like that.”

He nodded. “This is one of the times when I’m profoundly impressed by the exquisite rightness of things.”

The feast began early, for Conan wanted the men to get their celebrating over with in time to rest up for a full day’s labor the next day, a necessity in view of the pressing tasks on hand. Nevertheless, when we were called to eat we had a craftsmanlike foundation, neither so large that food might make us feel sodden nor so small that food might make us feel sober.

By design we entered last and paused with genial self-consciousness to hear the shouts of greetings. Hell, it was our party. “Shall we give it to ‘em now?” Conan asked.

“I was never one to keep a good song from anybody,” I assented, and we promptly boomed out some lines hatched between us by the aid of the uncritical heat of wine.