The Swords of Night and Day (5 page)

“Why should I? It is not my fight. Anyway, the man is defending his wife’s honor. That’s as it should be.”

“You
know
what will happen if Arin wins,” said Charis.

Harad said nothing, returning his attention to the fight. The High Valley man was called Lathar. He and his two brothers were known troublemakers. Tough men and brutal, they were constantly involved in scuffles and fights. Harad knew what Charis meant. If Arin was to beat Lathar, then his brothers would pitch in. No one would stop them. And Arin would take a severe beating.

“It is not my problem,” said Harad. “Why do you seek to make it so?”

“Why do you set yourself apart?” she countered.

Harad felt his anger rising. “You are an irritating woman.”

“I’m glad you’ve noticed I’m a woman.”

“What does that mean? Of course I know you’re a woman.” Harad was growing increasingly uncomfortable. A great cheer went up as Arin landed a powerful right cross into Lathar’s chin. The High Valley man stumbled back. Arin surged in after him. One of Lathar’s brothers, a stocky bearded man named Garik, thrust out a foot. Arin tripped over it and tumbled to the ground. It gave Lathar a few more moments to recover.

“See!” said Charis. “It is beginning.”

Harad turned toward her, looking into her deep blue eyes. He felt the breath catch in his throat. Hastily he looked away. “Why do you care?” he asked. “Arin is not your husband.”

“Why do you not?”

“Can you never answer a damned question? Always you have one of your own. Why
should
I care? Arin is not my friend. None of them is.”

“Of course,” she said. “Harad the Loner. Harad the Bone Breaker. Harad the Bitter.”

“I am not bitter. I just . . . prefer my own company.”

“Why is that?”

Harad surged to his feet. “When will you stop these questions?” he thundered. At that moment Lathar was knocked from his feet. He struggled to rise as Arin stood over him. Another brother, a tall pockmarked lout named Vaska, ran in from behind, punching Arin in the neck. The burly Garik joined in, kicking Arin in the hip. The young logger, surprised by the sudden assault, fell heavily.

Harad stalked across the clearing. “Back off!” he roared.

Vaska and Garik turned away from the fallen Arin. Lathar himself was back on his feet. Harad moved in close, pushing past them. Arin was sitting on the ground, looking groggy. Just as Harad reached out to lift Arin to his feet, he heard movement from behind. Harad turned. Garik rushed at him, his fist drawn back. Harad stood still. He could have avoided the blow. Instead he merely thrust out his chin. The High Valley man’s fist hammered against Harad’s face. Harad stared hard at the man who had struck him, noting with some satisfaction the sudden fear in Garik’s eyes. “Not the best idea you’ve ever had, pig-face,” he said. His right hand flashed out, grabbing the attacker’s tunic. With one swift tug he pulled him into a head butt that smashed the man’s nose. Holding him upright, Harad tapped him with a straight left. Garik hurtled back into the crowd, then slumped unconscious to the ground. Vaska charged in. Harad stopped him in his tracks with a straight left, then delivered a right cross that spun Vaska from his feet. He tried to pull his punches, but even so Vaska lay on the ground unmoving. Harad transferred his gaze to Lathar. The big logger was already bloody from his fight with Arin. His right eye was swollen and closed. Harad ignored him and turned to the fallen logger Arin, who was now sitting up. The man was still groggy. Reaching out, Harad hauled Arin to his feet. “Go and drink some water,” he advised. “It will help clear your head.” Arin’s wife, the blond Kerena, ran in, taking her husband’s arm and leading him away. As Harad turned he saw Lathar stumble forward, fists raised. Stepping in, he blocked a weak blow and grabbed Lathar’s arms.

“Wait until you feel better,” he advised. “Then I’ll be glad to break your bones for you.”

Leaving the surprised logger standing there, Harad walked away, returning to the log and his food. Charis joined him. Closing his eyes briefly, he sighed. “What do you want now?” he said.

“Don’t you feel better for helping Arin?”

“No. I just want to eat in peace.”

“Are you coming to the Feast?”

“No.”

“Why not? There’ll be food, and dancing, and music. You might enjoy yourself.”

“I don’t like noise. I don’t like people.”

She smiled. “Come anyway. I might dance with you.”

“I don’t dance.”

“I’ll teach you.”

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes again. When he opened them he saw her walking away down the hillside with the other women who had brought the midday food. Some of the men had already begun taking up ax and saw, ready to begin work. Lathar’s brothers, still unconscious, had been pulled away from the work area. Lathar was kneeling alongside them. The work overseer, a tall thin man named Balish, was talking to Lathar.

Harad finished his meal. As he rose to take up his ax he saw young Arin walking toward him. The boy’s right eye was swollen almost shut, and his face was heavily bruised.

“My thanks to you, Harad,” he said.

Harad wanted to tell him that he had fought well. He wanted to say something in a friendly fashion. But he didn’t know how. He merely nodded and moved away.

Balish the Overseer approached him. “You best watch your back, Harad,” he said. “They are vengeful men.”

“They’ll do nothing,” said Harad. “Now let me work.”

Raising his ax, Harad swung it smoothly, the blade slicing deeply into the tree trunk.

3

A
s the seventeen village women made their way down the hillside, the plump Kerena moved alongside Charis. “Thank you for getting the brute involved,” she said. “They would have hurt my Arin.”

Charis felt a stab of annoyance. She liked Kerena, but the girl was like so many of the others, judgmental. “Why do you have to call him that?” she asked, struggling unsuccessfully to keep the irritation from her voice.

“What? What did I say?”

“You called Harad
the brute.”

“Oh, it was just a manner of speaking,” answered Kerena, brightly. “It’s what everyone calls him. That and
Bone Breaker.”

“I
know
that. What I don’t know is why.”

Kerena was surprised. “How can you not know? Last summer he broke a man’s back in the high country.”

“His jaw,” corrected Charis.

“No, I definitely heard it was someone’s back. Arin’s sister’s husband told me. Anyway, even if it was a jaw that’s not the point. Harad is always getting into fights.”

“Like today?” countered Charis. “I expect it will only increase his reputation as a brute. I wish I had not asked him to get involved.”

Kerena reddened, her expression hardening. “Oh, you really are
too
argumentative today, Charis. I was only trying to be pleasant, and to thank you for your help.” With that she moved away and began chatting brightly to one of the other women. As Charis walked on she saw both women glance back at her. She guessed what they were talking about.

Charis and the brute.

It seemed to Charis to be manifestly unfair. Anyone who took the time to study Harad would know that he was not the monster they feared. But they could not see. When they looked into his blue-gray eyes they saw them as cold and forbidding. Charis recognized the loneliness there. They observed his immense strength and feared he would break their bones. She saw a man uncomfortable with that strength, and too shy to express his fears to them.

At the foot of the hill the wives moved off to their various homes and Charis wandered back to the palace with the other servants. They would return to the woods at dusk with more food for the itinerant workers. The timbermen would be working here until the day of the Feast in ten days’ time, and they needed feeding. They would receive wages, and many of them would carry their coin into town and spend it on a night of revelry. Then, broke and happy, they would wander off seeking other work to keep them fed during the coming winter. Harad would not spend his money in such a way. He would hoard it, then buy supplies and carry them up to his mountain cabin. He would stay away from the settlements for as long as possible.

Charis sighed.

For the rest of the afternoon she worked with four other women in the palace kitchens, preparing the food for the evening meal. At one point she heard the rumble of a wagon outside and moved to the rear window. It was the wolf catcher, Rabil. In his caged wagon four timber wolves prowled behind the bars. Charis watched the wagon draw up at the gated entrance to the lower levels. She shuddered and touched her brow in the sign of the Blessed Priestess, Ustarte.

“Charis!”

She turned to see the elderly head servant, Ensinar. Charis smiled. Ensinar was a sweet-natured old man, kind and accommodating. He had one vanity, which made the other servants smile. Though utterly bald on the crown of his head he had grown his gray hair long above the ears. The strands were then swept up and over the crown. Ensinar obviously thought this gave him the appearance of a man whose hair was merely thinning. The effect, however, was comical. Especially if he was outside and a sudden gust of wind caused his hair to flap wildly. The old man approached Charis and gave a shy smile. “Have you served the lord’s guest yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Take him some food and a fresh jug of water. There is a side of honey-cured ham in the pantry. It is very fine. Cut some thick slices from that. Some fresh bread, too. Today’s loaves are a little underbaked, I feel. Still . . . it should suffice.” With a second shy smile Ensinar moved away.

Charis was nervous. All the servants knew about the stranger with the sapphire-blue eyes. Mira and Calasia had both been seduced by him, and Charis had scolded them both for boasting of their exploits. “It is unseemly to speak of such things in public,” she said. The girls both laughed at her.

“You won’t be laughing if Ensinar finds out. You’ll be dismissed.”

“Nonsense,” snapped Mira, a slim, dark-haired girl. “We were told to make him happy. And he certainly made me happy,” she concluded, with a laugh. The other girls gathered around, begging for more detail. Charis had walked away disgusted.

She had only seen the stranger from a distance, a handsome man, dark haired, with a spider drawing upon his arm. One of the other female servants said she had gone to his room and found him standing naked on the balcony, his limbs contorted, one leg around the other, his arms raised above his head and similarly twisted. She said there was a painting on the man’s back, a large eagle with wings outspread.

“Why would anyone have a painting on their back?” the girl had asked Charis. “They could never see it, could they?”

Charis had no definitive answer. All she said was: “My brother tells me there are many strange customs Outside. He says there are people who paint their hair different colors, and others have ink marks stained into the skins of their faces, some blue, some red. Outsiders are not like us.”

“Then I hope they don’t come here,” said the girl. Charis agreed. Everything her brother told her about the Outside left her feeling uneasy. People lived in stockaded towns, and there were battles everywhere between Jiamad armies. The latest Temple Wars had been raging now for eighteen years. They had begun the year before she was born. Charis had no understanding of the reasons for the fighting—nor did she wish to acquire such knowledge.

Putting such thoughts from her mind, she prepared a tray of food as Ensinar had instructed, with ham and bread, adding a dish of sugar-dried fruit. Placing a flagon of fresh water on the tray, she carried it out of the kitchens and up the two flights of stairs to the upper quarters. She hoped the mysterious stranger would be standing on the balcony as the girl had described. She was curious to see the painting on his back. In this she was disappointed. He was indeed on the balcony, but dressed in a loose-fitting shirt of pale blue satin and leggings of tanned beige leather. He turned as she entered, and she saw the brilliant blue of his eyes. A deeper shade than Harad’s, and even less welcoming. His expression warmed as he looked at her. This annoyed Charis. Always men reacted in the same fashion. It was as if they were admiring a fine horse or a cow. The good-looking ones were the worst. They seemed to think that merely being handsome was enough to woo a girl. Charis found them all insubstantial—especially when set against Harad.

This stranger was by far the most handsome man she had ever seen, and this only fueled her irritation. She curtseyed and placed the tray on a nearby table.

“What is your name?” he asked. His accent was strange, the words carefully enunciated.

“I am just a servant,” she replied. If he tried to seduce her, he would find that not all the women in the palace were of easy virtue.

“Does that mean you have no name?”

She stared at him, looking for signs of sarcasm. There were none. “My name is Charis, Lord.”

“I am not a lord. Thank you, Charis.” He smiled, then turned away from her. This was unexpected, and her interest was piqued.

“It is said you have a painting on your back,” she said.

He gave a soft laugh and swung back to face her. “It is a tattoo.”

“Is that a kind of bird?”

“No. It is . . . a description of the method used to make the stain on the skin permanent.”

“Why is it done?”

He shrugged. “A custom among my people. Ornamentation. Fashion. I do not know how it began.”

“There are many strange customs Outside,” she told him.

“I notice that the people here wear no jewelry of any kind, no earrings or bracelets or pendants.”

“What is an earring?”

“A small circle of gold or silver that is pushed through a pierced hole in the earlobe.”

“A hole? You mean they make a hole in the ear for this . . . this ring?”

“Yes.”

She laughed. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No.”

“Why would anyone want a hole in their ear?”

“To hang an earring from,” he answered.

“What purpose does it serve?”

“It looks attractive, I suppose. I have never really considered it before. It is also an indication of wealth. The more expensive the jewelry, the richer the wearer. The rich always have more status than the poor. So a woman who wears sapphires in her ears will command more respect than one who does not.” Suddenly he laughed aloud, the sound rich and almost musical. “How odd and stupid it all sounds now. Have you worked in the palace for long?”

“A little more than a full year. They offered me a serving role after my father died. He was one of the town’s bakers. He made wonderful bread. They can’t make it now. He did not write down his recipes. That’s a shame, isn’t it, when something good just goes away?”

“Are you speaking of your father or the bread?”

“The bread,” she admitted. “Does that make me seem shallow?”

“I do not know. Perhaps your father was an unpleasant man.”

“No, he wasn’t. He was kind and gentle. But his illness went on for so long that it was a blessing when he passed away. I still find tears in my eyes when I pass a bakery and smell fresh-baked bread. It reminds me of him.”

“I do not think you are shallow, Charis,” he said, his voice gentle. Her eyes narrowed and she stared hard at him. He saw the change in her. “Did I say something to offend you?” he asked. “I thought it to be a compliment.”

“I know why you compliment women,” she said, stiffly. “You seek to take them to your bed.”

“There is some truth in that observation,” he replied. “Though it is not always the case. Sometimes a compliment is merely a compliment. However, I am keeping you from your work.”

With that he returned to the balcony. Charis stood for a moment, feeling foolish. Then she left the room, angry with herself.

He was not what she had been expecting. He did not leer, or make suggestive comments. He had not tried to seduce her.
How different am I from Kerena and the others?
she thought.
I judged the man on what others had said, just as they judged Harad on hearsay.

And now he thought her witless and foolish.

It doesn’t matter what he thinks,
she told herself, sternly.
Why should I care about the opinion of a man with a painted back?

M
ost of the itinerant loggers had brought tents in which they slept at night. Others sat outside under the starlight alongside cook fires, and some merely found a dry spot beneath the trees and slept rough, under thin blankets. Harad always found a place away from the main groups, settling himself down alone. He liked the night, and the awesome quiet. It calmed him.

Harad had always preferred to be alone.

Well, not always, he admitted to himself, as he sat with his back resting against the trunk of a huge oak. He could remember, as a child, wanting to play with the other children of the mountain village. The problem was always his strength. In play fights and scraps he would try not to hurt them. Yet always some child would run away crying and in pain. “I only patted him,” Harad would say. One day, when he grabbed another boy, the child had screamed. His arm was broken. After that no one wanted to play with Harad.

His mother, Alanis, a shy, reserved woman, had tried to comfort him. His father, Borak, a brooding logger, had said nothing. But then Borak rarely spoke to Harad, unless to scold. Harad never understood why his father disliked him, nor indeed why Borak would always leave when Landis Khan visited. The lord would sit with the boy, asking him questions—mostly about whether he dreamed. No one else seemed interested in his dreams. He would always ask the same question. “Do you dream of long-ago days, Harad?”

It was an odd question, and Harad didn’t know what it meant. He would tell the lord that he dreamed of mountains, of woods. Landis Khan was disappointed.

Borak was killed in a freak accident when Harad was nine. A felled tree crashed to the ground, and a dead branch snapped upon impact. A shard of sharp wood flew through the air, piercing Borak’s eye, embedding itself in his brain. He did not die swiftly. Paralyzed, he was carried down to the palace, where Landis Khan himself fought to save him. Harad still remembered when the lord rode up to the cabin with the news that Borak had died. Strangely his mother shed no tears.

Alanis herself had died three years ago when Harad was seventeen. There was no drama. She said good night and went to her bed. In the morning Harad tried to wake her. He brought her a tisane of sweet mint and placed it by her bedside. Then he had touched her shoulder. As he looked into her face he knew she had gone. There was no movement, no flicker of life.

That was the first moment Harad felt truly alone.

He had run his hand through his mother’s dark, graying hair, wanting to say something by way of farewell. There were no words. Their relationship had never been tactile, but each night she would kiss his brow, and say: “May the Blessed Priestess watch over you as you sleep, my son.” Harad cherished these moments. Once she had stroked his cheek as he lay abed, his body battling a fever. This was the single greatest moment of his childhood.

So on that last day, he stroked his mother’s cheek. “May the Blessed Priestess watch over you as you sleep, Mother,” he said.

Then he walked down to the village and reported her death.

After that he lived alone. His strength, and an awesome stamina, made him a highly valuable asset as a logger. Yet that same strength still caused him problems. Other men would feel compelled to test that strength against their own. Like young bulls vying for supremacy. Harad traveled throughout the timberlands. Everywhere it was the same. At some point someone would engineer a disagreement, no matter how hard he tried to avoid confrontation.