Winterbirth (16 page)

He came to the tent of Gryvan oc Haig, and waited while one of the guards sought permission to admit him. As he stood there, stepping from one foot to another in an effort to distract himself from the deepening cold, he sensed eyes upon him. Kale was standing a short distance away, half in and half out of the shadows at the side of the tent, watching him impassively. For a moment their gazes met. It was Taim who looked away.

'Come to beg scraps from the high table?' asked Kale softly.

Taim tensed. The man's words, and their cargo of contempt, ignited anger in his breast. He had thought himself the master of his feelings, but now found them suddenly leaking through the bars of their cage.

'Have a care, Narran,' he heard Kale say, as if the man could read his mind. 'They say you are the best sword in the Glas valley, but you play in a larger game now.'

Another surge of hatred ran through Taim, and he found himself irrationally laying his fingers upon the pommel of his sword. But when he looked up, uncertain of what would happen next or of what he wanted to happen, Kale had gone.

By the time he was brought at last before the High Thane, Taim was surprised to find a great emptiness inside him. He had expected to have to struggle to master his anger, to bite back the words he longed to say to this man. Yet he was only weary, as if the brief confrontation with Kale had drained away his last meagre reserves of passion. In a way, he was thankful for it. He had advised Roaric nan Kilkry-Haig to hide his fury, and knew he had to live up to that advice himself.

Gryvan oc Haig was slouched across a spill of great cushions that had been laid out before his throne.

He was gnawing idly at a leg of mutton, a golden goblet clutched in his other hand, as he watched a semi-clad dancing girl who bobbed and writhed in the centre of the tent. Behind the Thane of Thanes, flanking the empty throne, musicians were playing a sinuous tune upon lyre and pipes. They wore airy shirts of white damask in the style of the entertainers who attended the merchant princes of Tal Dyre.

There were ten or fifteen people scattered around the edge of the carpet upon which the girl danced: captains of the Haig Blood's armies, officials of Gryvan's court, and warriors of Taral-Haig and Ayth-Haig. Each had before him a silver platter of meat, bread and fruit. There was no sign of Roaric.

Neither the Kilkry nor the Lannis Blood had been invited to this gathering.

Gryvan detached his gaze from the dancing girl for a moment, and waved the tattered joint of meat he held in Taim's direction.

'Our Captain of Lannis-Haig,' he called above the sound of the music. 'Join us.'

Taim shook his head. 'No, thank you, sire,' he said, shifting to one side as the dancer came between him and the Thane of Thanes.

Gryvan gestured at the girl. 'Stop that,' he snapped. 'Enough.'

The musicians fell instantly silent. The dancing girl stepped to one side and squatted down. Taim moved forwards without thinking, as if sucked in by the void she had left. The carpet beneath his feet was richly patterned with flowing loops of flowers and foliage. It was a strange, incongruous sight here in the wild mountains of Dargannan-Haig.

"Will you take a drink with us?' asked the High Thane.

'Forgive me, sire, but I only came to speak with you. I did not know you had guests.'

'Ha!' laughed Gryvan, setting down his food and wiping his fingers on one of the cushions. 'Of course I have guests! What else should I be doing on such a night as this?'

'Of course,' said Taim. He was uncomfortable beneath so many attentive gazes. He knew he had no friends here. It had been a mistake to come, but he had been thinking less than clearly since the slaughter at An Caman Fort. The companies of Lannis and Kilkry had battered their way into that fastness eventually, at the cost of two hundred or more lives. What had followed - the methodical massacre of every prisoner taken — had seemed just as wasteful. All the more so since only days later word had come of Igryn's capture.

The once mighty Thane of the Dargannan Blood had been cornered in an abandoned shepherd's hovel, with nothing left of his Shield save a handful of famished, exhausted warriors.

'Well,' said Gryvan, 'if you will not join us, you had best tell me what you came to say.'

'Sire . . .' began Taim. A sharp groan interrupted him. Behind the circle of feasting captains and courtiers, curled upon a straw mat like a child in frightened sleep, was Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig. His back was to Taim and his knees were clasped up against his chest. Even so, Taim could see that there was a dirty bandage about his head. As he looked, the defeated Thane's shoulders shook, and a shiver ran through his great body.

Gryvan glanced at his prisoner.

'Ah yes,' he said lightly. 'You see, even our disobedient friend Igryn has joined us this evening.'

'He seems unwell,' murmured Taim. He knew what he was looking at. They had called it the Mercy of Kings long ago: the fate of lords who reached for the throne and fell short.

'Sadly, yes,' said Gryvan. 'He has been parted from his eyes, the better that he might reflect upon his folly. Tell me what you want, Narran.'

The edge in the High Thane's voice drew Taim's attention smartly back. He cleared his throat.

'I would like to take my men away, sire. In the morning.'

Gryvan raised his eyebrows. 'We march in two days' time. You know that. Just today I have sent riders to Vaymouth, to prepare a triumphal reception for us all.'

An utter silence had come over the room. The High Thane's guests watched in rapt attention. Taim felt a heat rising in his face.

'My men long for their homes, sire. They have wives to return to. So do I. Winterbirth has come, and it is a month's journey back; longer with the wounded and sick we must carry with us. The weather in Kilkry and Lannis will be worse each day we delay.'

'But what of the celebrations here?' asked Gryvan with apparent concern. 'Do your men not deserve the chance to rest, and to mark the victory they have shared in?'

The words pricked Taim, and he felt, at last, a faint stirring of that anger that Kale had woken.

'Neither they nor I have the heart for it,' he said.

The High Thane regarded him for a few seconds. He seemed on the point of saying something. Instead, abruptly, he relaxed back into his voluminous cushion.

'Ah, what matters it now? Go, if you must. Take your men off. I will not prevent it.'

Taim found himself exhaling with a relief that he struggled to conceal. He bowed to the Thane of Thanes and stepped backwards.

'Thank you, my lord. We will be gone before dawn.'

He turned to lift the flap of the tent.

'Narran,' said the High Thane quietly behind him.

Taim paused, partway out into the night and the cleansing grip of its cold air, and looked back. Gryvan was staring at him with narrowed eyes.

'How many men will return with you to Anduran?'

'Eight hundred, if you count those who may yet die,' said Taim in a flat voice.

Gryvan nodded thoughtfully without releasing Taim from his glare.

'Tell Croesan I asked, will you?' was all he said.

BY THE TIME the boat ground its keel up against rocks and lurched to a halt, Orisian could not rise.

His shirt was plastered to his skin by blood. His head was pounding, as if his heartbeat was seated there rather than in his chest, and he could not draw breath without sending shards of pain darting through his body. He coughed agonisingly and felt thick liquid bubbling inside him. He heard Rothe springing from the boat, boots crunching on a stony beach.

'We must get away from the shore,' Rothe said.

Orisian tried to say that he could not move. Only a vague mumbling came from his lips. They felt dry and ready to split. He ran his tongue over them but found that too was desiccated. Then Rothe had him around the waist and was lifting him out of the boat. Orisian cried out in pain.

'Forgive me,' he heard Rothe whisper.

Orisian could see nothing now save blurred patches that ebbed and flowed at the edge of his vision in time with his heartbeat.

'I can't see,' he croaked into the darkness.

Rothe did not reply. They were moving, but Orisian could not tell anything beyond that. His flank was hot and wet, yet there was a cold numbness stealing into his hands.

'Stay with me,' he heard someone say desperately, very far away. 'Stay with me, Orisian.'

Then he was lying upon some soft, yielding surface. For a moment his vision cleared. Trees were arching over him, bending down out of the night as if to lay their outstretched twigs on his face. He would have turned away had there been any strength left in him. There was a strange, harsh sound, which after a moment or two he remembered as the bark of a fox.

'A fox,' he murmured, wanting to laugh.

A shape loomed up. It was Rothe, leaning close.

'What?' said the man.

Then Rothe sprang away. Orisian heard a gasp, a sighing sound as if a wind had run through long grass, and felt the jarring impact of something heavy hitting the ground. Figures leapt over him where he lay: pale shapes that seemed detached from the earth. Ghosts, he thought.

The last thing he felt before he fainted was many hands upon him, lifting him up.

* * *

The Fever had left dark corners in Anyara's mind. Now, five years on, the memory of the hallucinatory dreams of her sickbed was not quite so strong as it had been in the first weeks of her recovery. Still she was sometimes seized in the late evening by a sudden fear of falling asleep: a fear that she might not wake, might be lost forever in that fierce borderland of death where all dreams were nightmares. It had never occurred to her that the stuff of fevered delirium might pursue her out from that territory into the waking world. On the night of Winterbirth the air was thick with it.

She fell when Kylane thrust her through the open door of the keep. She regained her feet in time to see him set himself between Orisian and the Inkallim, and in time to see him beheaded. A strangled cry died in her throat as she was hauled back from the door by a burly merchant. He slammed the door shut and barred it. Cries and the clash of weapons bled in through the wood.

'Hide! We must hide!' shouted the merchant.

A small group of terrified townsfolk - those lucky enough to have been standing within reach of the doorway - were huddled at the foot of the stairs. The merchant turned upon them, waving his arms as if he was herding sheep.

'Upstairs,' he cried.

They scrambled up the stone stairway. The merchant grabbed at Anyara, seeking to drag her with him.

She saw something in his eyes that lay between terror and fury, and was afraid of it. Instinctively, she slipped from his grasp and darted into the feasting hall.

It was deserted. When the fighting started the servants had scattered to the kitchens or whatever other place they thought might offer some sanctuary. The fire still burned. Food littered the tables: half-eaten joints of meat, scattered hunks of bread, here and there a tankard turned over in the rush to get outside and see the show.

She stumbled to a halt, held by the incongruity of this scene of interrupted celebration and the violent tumult she could hear outside. A pounding at the door of the keep startled her. For a moment she thought it was someone else seeking refuge, and she started back. Then she heard a harsh voice shouting in an accent she barely understood, and a shiver of fear ran tingling through her back.

The barred door was strong, she told herself. It would hold for a time. She should find a dark corner to hide in until it was safe to come out. She snuffed out the faint inner voice that asked what would happen if it was never safe to come out. And yet she could not hide like a child. The need to see, to know what was happening, gnawed at her. Her father was out there, and Orisian. Out amongst the shouts and the ringing clatter of sword against sword.

She looked at the tall windows of the hall. They were raised up high, but if she put a bench beneath them, if she stood upon it and stretched up, she might be able to see out on to the courtyard. Frowning with concentration, she seized the end of the nearest bench and made to drag it across.

The window exploded inwards as if struck by a great stone. Shards of glass spun across the room, forming a glittering cloud that wreathed the dark figure flying through the air. Anyara jumped backwards.

The bench fell from her hands. The Inkallim landed on one of the great dining tables, sending platters and cups skittering away to the floor. He crouched like an animal, balanced on the balls of his feet as he looked around. There was blood across his naked forearms. Splinters of glass glinted in his flesh. He fixed his eyes upon Anyara. She tensed to flee.

A second massive shape was silhouetted in the window, appearing in an instant and leaping into the hall.

The first warrior sprang the moment Anyara's attention was distracted. She spun on her heel and made for the doorway. Before she had gone more than a couple of strides a great blow on her back flung her forwards. Her feet left the ground and she flew towards a brazier that stood by the door. The impact ran through her, jarring her shoulders. Dazed, she felt a fierce heat enveloping her as the brazier crashed to the ground. She rolled away, scattering hot embers from her back. Her vision was spinning, but she sensed the looming shape of the Inkallim rising above her. There was a shaft of yellow light that must be the flames reflected in the blade of his sword. She kicked out at his legs. He danced back, avoiding the blow with ease. Before she could move again she felt a swordpoint pressing upon her chest and a strong hand grasped her hair, straining it against its roots. Her head was lifted and then smacked once, sharply, down into the stone floor. She felt a wet burst of blood on the back of her scalp.

'Be still,' hissed the Inkallim.

'Let me go,' she shouted.

Then she was being lifted, her arms locked behind her. Her nostrils were filled with the scents of burning, of blood, of sweat. The second Inkallim came up in front of her and grasped her face between thumb and fingers. He turned her head from side to side, examining her. He grunted and said something that Anyara did not catch. Her captor might have been made of stone for all the impression her struggles made. The two men exchanged a few more, almost whispered, words then wrestled her towards the door of the keep. They checked the stairway. The shadows were still. The second warrior lifted the bar on the door, and Inkallim poured into the building. They darted up the stairs, bearing slaughter with them in their grim eyes and already bloodied blades.