The Tale of Oriel (32 page)

Griff's cheeks were bright and snow hung off his head and beard. “I could wish to do that again,” he said.

“Not to walk up, though,” Oriel pointed out. Griff turned and saw how the snowfield they had ridden sloped up, and up, and still upwards, before it turned into a steep shoulder. From where they stood the waterfall was only visible if you knew what you were looking for among the rocks and snows. The pass had disappeared back into the mountains.

“Not to walk up,” Griff agreed. “Not if I had any hope to live. But still . . .”

“We need to get the boards back on our feet,” Oriel said, bending to untie the thongs and separate them again. “We need to keep moving.” The excitement of the ride had strengthened him, as much as warm food might have. “We need to be sure we're on the streambed. And wrap our feet again.”

The frozen stream lay almost directly at their feet, as if its bed had been the path they had ridden down the mountainside. The snow lay deep here, but not so deep as on the mountains. The air was cold, but not so cold. They followed the stream, and whenever the view ahead cleared, Oriel stood with the middle peak at his back and the five hills ahead to sight their direction.

The stream seemed to be widening under their feet as they glided along, but darkness also seemed to be overtaking them from behind. Oriel wasn't sure, and he couldn't tell from the usual clues of light or hunger, if they had traveled a full day, or if the days were pitilessly short on this side of the mountain. All he knew was that the energy of the wild ride down the mountain had long since left him when flakes of snow started to flutter in the air, like moths, and then like a cloud of white moths.

There was no need to talk of it. Griff moved along steadily at his side. They were among hills, and trees; they had a wide stream for roadway; if the snow came down thick before they found shelter, then they probably couldn't survive another night. If night fell upon them out in the open, they wouldn't see a dawn, Oriel thought.

They moved slowly, and ever more slowly. The snow fell thickly and they moved through it, as good as blind. He was more relieved than surprised when they rounded a broad curve of the stream, where it ran between two sloping hills, and saw the dark shape of a house. Smoke rose out of its stone chimney.

They had no strength to be glad. They barely had the strength to leave the windblown surface of the frozen stream and make their way, leaning upon one another, up to the doorway of the house.

Snow rose almost to the windows but the stoop had been brushed clear. Griff leaned against Oriel, as if they were once again Wolfguards; and Oriel leaned against Griff to keep his balance, while he raised his hand to pound on the wooden door.

The door was pulled open, just enough so one eye could see out. There was someone, but he couldn't see clearly. There was no way to speak it, except the bold truth. “Please, help us.”

The door opened and the boards on their feet caught on the lintel so they fell, wrapped in furs, onto the floor. Oriel crawled towards the fire. Sleep fell down on him, like an avalanche.

HE STRUGGLED TO SWALLOW, STRUGGLED
upwards: He lay on furs by a warm fire, and she raised his head so she could spoon something into his mouth—

Her eyes were blue, dark blue, like the sea on a cool clear summer morning. Her hair was the color of leaves in autumn, as much brown as red, a jumble of curls. “Drink this,” she said.

“How long—?” Oriel couldn't remember his question.

“Not long.” She spoke softly, as if he might be easily alarmed. “The drink will fight fever and ease sleep. And your friend also, I've given him tisane also.” She tilted the bowl and he drank it down. Warm liquid filled his stomach, gently, and spread out from his belly to his chest and loins, sending warmth from the inside to meet the fire's warmth that comforted his naked skin. He felt her hand on his forehead, and along the side of his face, as if her palm and fingers sought to know the bones underneath his beard, before he slipped back into the warmth of sleep.

IN HIS DREAM, HIS ONLY
hope was to fight his way through the storm. He moved blind and bent into the white winds. But there was a warmth that wished to pull him back, pull him down, wrap around him. He knew that to give way to the warmth would be his death, but he longed to turn around and be gathered into her arms; so that every step he forced himself to take, with naked shoulders in the snow, and he couldn't see Griff—

Oriel sat up.

He was in a small room. A fire burned in the stone fireplace. He was on a low pallet on a straw mattress. Two simultaneous thoughts alarmed him. But Griff lay on a similar pallet. And Oriel wore the trousers where the beryl was still safely sewn in place, at the middle of his back.

Those things known, Oriel thought he might lie back down, to sleep again, but he had no will for sleep. He looked about him. The room had rough wooden walls, and shuttered windows. Griff slept on his back, his chest rising and falling, and he had been shaved, the scar on his cheek a white crescent. Oriel's hand went to his own face and he, too, had been shaved. Oriel thought to wake Griff, and then thought to let him sleep on, and then his belly thought of food. He got off the bed and went on bare silent feet to the window. When he opened it, he saw only fields of white, and tall firs covered with white, and falling snow that filled the air with a windless silence. The cold air bit at his chest. A door, when he cracked it open, revealed a large room, where a table and stools were set out in front of a broad stone fireplace, and another table rested against the opposite wall and a girl sat there. She turned the heavy pages of a book. Beside her, a cupboard went from floor to ceiling. Its doors were open to show rows of dolls. A pot hung over the fire, and there was a food smell in the air.

She turned around. Her eyes were as darkly blue as the sea under a clear summer morning, her hair wild curls. “It's you,” Oriel said. “You gave me drink. How long have I slept?”

“Just the afternoon and night and into the morning,” she told him. “I'll show you the privy, then you'll want to eat. Aye, and drink, too, I'd guess.”

“Yes, please, thank you,” Oriel said. The top of her head came about to the level of his eyes, and she wore a red shirt and blue skirt, with heavy black stockings on her feet. She led him through a storeroom behind the fireplace and opened a door to show him a farmyard, and the privy across it. When Oriel returned to the light and warmth, the girl looked up, red-cheeked, from the soup pot. “You've no shirt nor boots, not even stockings. I should have—”

“No matter, lady. No harm, as you see. I'm accustomed.”

“I'm not a lady,” she laughed. Oriel would have made some response but by then the bowl had been set before him, and a spoon put into his hand, and he was spooning thick meaty soup into his mouth, and he could not think to do anything but eat. Griff entered the room, barely awake, and the girl gave him stockings and a shirt, then showed him the privy, and served his bowl. She cut chunks of bread from a long loaf and dipped mugs of water from a bucket. She brought a green shirt for Oriel, and thick knitted stockings.

Oriel pulled the shirt on over his head. “It's been a year, nearly, since last we wore shirts,” he said, moving his shoulders under the cloth to become accustomed to the feeling.

“Do you feel as if you want to vomit?” she asked. “Eat slowly,” she advised Griff—who halted his spoon halfway up to his mouth, and looked dazed as he stared up into her face. “How long has it been that you've gone without?” Griff returned to his food, and it was Oriel who told her that it was perhaps two or three days since they'd last eaten, or not much longer.

“You'll find plenty to eat here,” she promised.

“But you know nothing of—” Oriel said. “But we—”

“We'll have plenty of time to tell our tales,” she said, and smiled at them. “Or did you not see the snow falling? So eat now—although, be careful not to overfill yourselves, or you will be ill. I promise you.”

“Do many starving folk wander here from the mountains that you know this so surely?” Oriel asked.

“You're the first,” she said.

Two candles burned on her table, and two more on the shelf above the fireplace. Their light, and the light from the fire, moved all over the room, revealing shelves filled with bowls and mugs, cheeses and bread. The dolls in the cupboard were brightly clothed people of all ages and conditions. Griff wore a blue shirt. The rafters overhead were brown wood, with dark shadows behind them. The firestones were grey, with black stains on them. The wood floor was scrubbed to a pale sandy color. Until he saw all the colors, Oriel didn't realize how he had become accustomed to a colorless world, a white world. And cold, where this room was warm, welcoming. He would have thought they were long-awaited visitors by the welcome the room gave them.

He rose to see what book she read. The page had drawings of plants, with the words beside the drawings. He read slowly, for some of the letters were strangely formed.
Peppermint, to soothe the belly, and chamomile to give ease in sleep.

“That's what it was,” he said.

She looked up at him. But why should she decide
now
to fear him? “What do you mean?” She closed the book.

“It was chamomile, in the drink you gave me, when you woke me. I remember. I recognized the aroma, that's all.”

“You read letters?”

“Aye, as you must also.”

“Are you a lord?” she asked, wary.

“Lady, I don't know what I am.”

His confusion didn't concern her. “Reading is dangerous knowledge, for those who are neither lords nor priests.”

He'd forgotten danger, in this house. But then it must be dangerous knowledge also for her; and for him to have of her, and for her to have of him, that, too. They would have to trust one another, then. The thought, he noted, didn't alarm him.

“I thank you for the warning. As for all else you've given us, without our asking. Oriel, that's my name,” he introduced himself, “and he's Griff. We've come from over the mountains,” he told her.

She didn't doubt him. “It was a long journey, by your beards. And not an easy one, by the marks on your backs. And the crescent on his cheek,” she said. “Griff.”

Griff lifted his head and smiled at her. “Not an easy way at all. Best forgotten, now that we've arrived safely,” Griff said.

So Griff also felt welcomed in this room.

“Won our way, too,” Oriel reminded Griff. “Griff also reads,” he told the girl, “and we know numbers, but we've been in danger before—all of our lives, haven't we, Griff? When you think of it.” Oriel's spirits were rising within him, like a bird moving into flight. “Where are we, lady? And what are these dolls? And what is your name? Are we in the Kingdom?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Where else should you arrive, when you cross the mountains?”

“The world is so large,” Oriel explained, laughing, “that I might be anywhere at all, lady, once I cross the mountains.”

She rose from her stool and brushed her hands down over her apron with dignity. Her cheeks were still pink. “I ask you, don't call me lady, for I'm none. What you call dolls are puppets, most of which my grandfather made. Have you never seen puppets?”

They hadn't. Now it was her turn to laugh at ignorance, but she kept it to a mischievous smile. “My grandfather came from the lands south of the Kingdom, and he brought the puppets with him. Here, Oriel, sit with Griff and I'll—It's better to show than to explain. Besides, the snow has us trapped, or, it has
you
trapped—Do you wish to travel on, have you some destination?”

She brought out a three-paneled screen, with a window cut into the central panel. Over this window, a curtain fell. Then she fetched two of the dolls from the cupboard, and Oriel saw that strings tied to the dolls led up to wooden crosspieces. She disappeared behind the screen and he heard only clatterings.