As they rode into the wind-billowed city of tents, a lone figure came toward them. Eolair reined up, prepared for anything, but was astonished to find that the one who came forward to greet them was Craobhan, the royal family’s most elderly but also most loyal advisor. The old man seemed almost thunderstruck to see them; he stared at Eolair for a long time without speaking, but at last tears came to his eyes and he opened his arms wide.
“Count Eolair! Mircha’s wet blessing upon us, it’s good to see you.”
The count scrambled down from his horse and embraced the counselor. “And you, Craobhan, and you. What has happened here?”
“Ha! More than I can tell you standing in the wind.” The old man chuckled strangely. He seemed genuinely befuddled, a state in which Eolair had never thought to find him. “By all the gods, more than I can tell you. Come to the Taig. Come in and have something—food, drink.”
“Where is Maegwin? Is she well?”
Craobhan looked up, his watery gaze suddenly intent. “She is alive and happy,” he said. “But come. Come see … well, as I said, more than I can tell you now.” The old man took his elbow and tugged.
Eolair turned and waved to the others. “Isorn, Ule, come!” He patted Craobhan’s shoulder. “Can our men have something to eat?”
Beyond worrying, Craobhan waved his bony hand. “Somewhere. Some of the people from the town have probably hoarded a few things. There’s much to do, though, Eolair, much to do. Hardly know where to start.”
“But what’s happened? Did the Sithi drive off Skali?”
Craobhan pulled at his arm, leading him toward the great hall.
The Count of Nad Mullach got scarcely more than a glance at the score or so of Sithi who were on the hilltop. Those he saw seemed absorbed in the task of building their camp, and did not even look up as Eolair and the others walked by, but even from a distance he could see the strangeness of them, their odd but graceful motions, their quiet serenity. Although in some places more than a few Sithi were working together, men and women both, they uttered no words that he could hear, going about their tasks with a smooth uniformity of purpose that was somehow as unsettling as their alien faces and movements.
As they drew closer to the Taig, it was easy to see the marks of Skali’s occupation. The carefully cultivated gardens had been dug up, the stone pathways torn apart. Eolair cursed Sharp-nose and his barbarians, then wondered again what had happened to the occupiers.
Inside the Taig’s great doors things were no different. The walls had been denuded of tapestries, relics had been stolen from their niches, and the floors were scarred with the ruts of countless booted feet. The Hall of Carvings, where King Lluth had held court, was in better condition—Eolair guessed it had been Thane Skali’s seat—but still there were signs that the northern reavers had not been overly reverent. Many scores of arrows bristled in the high-arched ceilings, where the hanging wooden carvings had proven tempting targets for Kaldskryke’s winter-bound soldiers.
Craobhan, who seemed to wish to avoid talking, seated them in the hall and went to find something to drink.
“What do you suppose has happened, Eolair?” Isorn shook his head. “It makes me feel ashamed to be a Rimmersmen when I see what Skali and his cutthroats have done to the Taig.” Beside him, Ule was peering suspiciously into the corners of the hall, as though Kaldskrykemen might be hiding there.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” said Eolair. “They did not do this because they were Rimmersmen, but because they were in someone else’s country in a bad time. Hernystiri or Nabbanai or Erkynlanders might do the same.”
Isorn was not mollified. “It is wrong. When my father has his dukedom back, we will see that the damage is repaired.”
The count smiled. “If we all survive and this is the worst we have to deal with, then I will gladly sell my own home at Nad Mullach stone by stone to make it right again. No, this will be mild, I’m afraid.”
“I fear you are right, Eolair.” Isorn frowned. “God knows what has happened in Elvritshalla since we were driven out. And after the terrible winter, too.”
They were interrupted by Craobhan, who tottered back in with a young Hernystiri woman who carried four large hammered silver tankards decorated with the leaping stag of the royal house.
“Might as well use the best,” Craobhan said with a crooked smile. “Who’s to say no in these strange days?”
“Where is Maegwin?” Eolair’s apprehension had grown when she had not appeared to greet them.
“Sleeping.” Again Craobhan made a dismissive gesture. “I’ll take you when you’ve finished. Drink up.”
Eolair stood. “Forgive me, old friend, but I’d like to see her now. I’ll be better able to enjoy my beer.”
The old man shrugged. “In her old room. There’s a woman seeing to her.” He seemed more interested in his tankard than in the fate of the king’s only living child.
The count looked at him for a moment. What had happened to the Craobhan he knew? The old man seemed muddle-headed, as though he’d been struck with a club.
There were far too many other things that needed worrying over. Eolair walked out of the hall, leaving the others to drink and stare up at the shattered carvings.
Maegwin was indeed sleeping. The wild-haired woman who sat beside the bed looked slightly familiar, but Eolair gave her scarcely more than a glance before he kneeled down and took Maegwin’s hand. A wet cloth lay across her forehead.
“Has she been wounded?” There seemed to be something Craobhan was keeping from him—perhaps she was badly hurt.
“Yes,” the woman said. “But it was a glancing blow only, and she has already recovered.” The woman lifted the cloth to show Eolair the bruise on Maegwin’s pale brow. “She is merely resting now. It has been a great day.”
Eolair turned sharply at the sound of her voice. She looked as distracted as Craobhan, her eyes wide and fey, her mouth twitching.
Has everyone here gone mad? he wondered.
Maegwin stirred at the sound of his voice. As he turned back, her eyes fluttered open, closed again, then opened once more and stayed that way.
“‘Eolair …?” Her voice was groggy with sleep. She smiled like a young child, with no trace of the fretfulness he had seen the last time they had spoken. “Is that you, truly? Or just another dream. …”
“It is me, Lady.” He squeezed her hand again. She looked little different at that moment than when she had been a girl and he had first felt his heart stirring with interest. How could he have ever been angry with her, no matter what she had said or done?
Maegwin tried to sit up. Her sorrel hair was disarranged, her eyes still heavy-lidded. She seemed to have been put to bed fully dressed; only her feet, which protruded from beneath the blanket, were bare. “Did … did you see them?”
“Did I see who …?” he asked gently, although he felt sure he knew. Her answer, though, surprised him.
“The gods, silly man. Did you see the gods? They were so beautiful. …”
“The … gods?”
“I made them come,” she said, and smiled sleepily. “They came for me. …” She let her head fall back into the pillow and closed her eyes. “For me,” she murmured.
“She needs sleep, Count Eolair,” the woman said from behind him. There was something peremptory in her voice that lifted Eolair’s hackles.
“What is she talking about, the gods?” he demanded. “Does she mean the Sithi?”
The woman smiled, a smugly knowing smile. “She means what she says.”
Eolair stood, holding back his anger. There was much to discover here. He would bide his time. “Take good care of Princess Maegwin,” he said as he moved toward the door. It was more of an order than a request. The woman nodded.
Musing, Eolair had just reentered the Hall of Carvings when there was a clatter of boots at the front doors behind him. He stopped and turned, his hand reflexively dropping to his sword hilt. A few paces away, Isorn and husky Ule also ro
se, alarm plain on their faces.
The figure that appeared in the door of the hall was tall but not overly so, dressed in blue armor that, strangely, had the look of painted wood—but the armor, an intricate collection of plates held together by shiny red cords, was not the strangest thing about him. His hair was white as a snow-drift; bound in a blue scarf, it fell past his shoulders. He was slender as a young birch tree, and despite the color of his hair, looked to be scarcely into his manhood, insofar as Eolair could read a face so angular, so different from a human face. The stranger’s upturned eyes were golden, bright as noon sun reflected in a forest pond.
Surprised into immobility, Eolair stared. It was as though some creature out of elder days stood before him, one of his grandmother’s stories appearing in flesh and bone. He had expected to meet the Sithi, but he was no more prepared than someone told about a deep canyon could be when they suddenly discovered they were standing on its rim.
When the count had stood frozen for some seconds, the newcomer took a step backward. “Forgive me.” The stranger made an oddly articulated bow, sweeping his long-fingered hand past his knees, but although there was something light in his movements, there was no mockery. “I forget my manners in the heat of this memorable day. May I enter here?”
“Who … who are you?” Eolair asked, startled out of his normal courtesy. “Yes, come in.”
The stranger did not seem offended. “I am Jiriki i-Sa’onserei. At this moment I speak for the Zida’ya. We have come to repay our debt to Prince Sinnach of Hernystir.” After this formal speech, he suddenly flashed a cheerfully feral grin. “And who are you?”
Eolair hastily introduced himself and his companions. Isorn was staring, fascinated, and Ule was pale and unsettled. Old Craobhan wore an odd, mocking smile.
“Good,” Jiriki said when he had finished. “This is very good. I have heard your name mentioned today, Count Eolair. We have much to talk about. But first, who is the master here? I understand that the king is dead.”
Eolair looked dazedly to Craobhan. “Inahwen?”
“The king’s wife is still up in the caves in the Grianspog.” Craobhan wheezed with what might have been laughter. “Wouldn’t come down with the rest of us. I thought she was being sensible at the time. Then again, perhaps she was.”
“And Maegwin, the king’s daughter, is asleep.” Eolair shrugged. “I suppose then I am the one with whom you must speak, at least for the present.”
“Would you be kind enough to come with me to our camp? Or would you rather we came here to talk?”
Eolair was not sure exactly who “we” might be, but he knew he would never forgive himself if he did not experience this moment to its fullest. Maegwin, in any case, obviously needed her rest, which would not be best accomplished with the Taig full of men and Sithi.
“We will be pleased to accompany you, Jiriki i-Sa’onserei,” the count said.
“Jiriki, if it is acceptable.” The Sitha stood waiting.
Eolair and his companions walked with him out the Taig’s front doors. The tents billowed before them like a field of oversized wildflowers. “Do you mind my asking,” Eolair ventured, “what happened to the wall Skali built around the city?”
Jiriki seemed to ponder for a moment. “Ah. That,” he said at last, and smiled. “I think you probably are speaking of the handiwork of my mother, Likimeya. We were in a hurry. The wall was in our way.”
“Then I hope I am never in her way,” Isorn said earnestly.
“As long as you do not come between my mother and the honor of Year-Dancing House,” said Jiriki, “you need not worry.”
They continued across the wet grass. “You mentioned the bargain with Sinnach,” the count said. “If you can defeat Skali in a day … well, forgive me, Jiriki, but how was the battle at Ach Samrath ever lost?”
“First, we have not quite defeated this Skali. He and many of his men have fled into the hills and out onto the Frostmarch, so there is work still to be done. But your question is a good one.” The Sitha’s eyes narrowed as he considered. “I think we are, in some ways, a different people from what we were five centuries gone. Many of us were not born then, and we children of the Exile are not as cautious as our elders. Also, we feared iron in those days, before we learned how to protect ourselves from it.” He smiled, that same fierce cat-grin, but then his face grew somber. He brushed a strand of his pale hair from his eyes. “And these men, Count Eolair, these Rimmersmen here, they were not prepared for us. Surprise was on our side. But in the battles ahead—and there will be many, I think—no one will be so unprepared. Then it will be like Ereb Irigú all over again—what you men call ‘the Knock.’ There will be much killing, I fear … and my people can afford it even less than yours.”
As he spoke, the wind that rippled the tents changed direction, swinging around until it blew from the North. It was suddenly much colder on Hern’s Hill.
Elias, High King of all Osten Ard, staggered like a drunkard. As he made his way across the Inner Bailey courtyard he lurched from one shadowy spot to another as though the direct light of the sun made him ill, even though it was a gray, cold day and the sun itself, even at noon, was invisible behind a choke of clouds. The Hayholt’s chapel dome loomed behind him, strangely asymmetrical; a mass of dirty snow, long uncleared, had dimpled several of the leaded panes inward so that the great dome looked like an old, rumpled felt hat.
Those few shivering peasants who were compelled to live within the Hayholt’s walls and tend the castle’s crumbling facilities seldom left their quarters unless forced by duty, which usually appeared in the form of a Thrithings-man overseer, whose commands were upheld by the possibility of sudden and violent retribution. Even the remainder of the king’s army now barracked itself in the fields outside Erchester. The story given out was that the king was unwell and wished his peace, but it was commonly whispered that the king was mad, that his castle was haunted. As a result, only a handful of people were creeping about the Inner Bailey this gray, murky afternoon, and of those few—a soldier bearing a message for the Lord Constable, a pair of fearful rustics carting a wagon full of barrels away from Pryrates’ chambers—not a one watched Elias’ uneven passage for more than a moment before looking away. Not only would it be dangerous, possibly even fatal, to be caught staring at the king in his infirmity, but there was something so dreadfully wrong in his stiff-legged gait, some quality so terrifyingly unnatural, that those who saw him felt compelled to turn aside and furtively make the sign of the Tree before their breasts.
Hjeldin’s Tower was gray and squat. With the red windows in its upper story gleaming dully, it might have been some ruby-eyed pagan god of the Nascadu wastes. Elias came to a stop before the heavy oak doors, which were three ells high and painted an unglossy black, studded with bronze hinges going splotchily green. On either side of the entrance stood a figure hooded and robed in a black even darker and flatter than the door. Each bore a lance of strange, filigreed design, a fantastic weave of curlicues and whorls, sharp as a barber’s razor.
The king swayed in place, staring at the twin apparitions. It was clear that the Norns filled him with unease. He moved another step closer to the door. Although neither of the sentries moved, and their faces were invisible in the depths of their hoods, they seemed to become suddenly more intent, like spiders feeling the first trembling steps of a fly on the outskirts of a web.
“Well?” Elias said at last, his voice surprisingly loud. “Are you going to open the damned door for me?”
The Norns did not reply. They did not move.
“Blast you to hell, what ails you?!” he growled. “Don’t you know me, you miserable creatures? I’m the king! Now open the door!” He took a sudden step forward. One of the Norns allowed his lance to sag a handspan into the doorway. Elias stopped and leaned back as though the point had been waved in his face.
“So this is the game, is it?” His pale face had begun to take on a gleam of madness. “This is the game? In my own house,
eh?” He began to rock back and forth on his heels as though preparing to fling himself toward the door. One of his hands slithered down to clutch at the double-guarded sword which hung at his belt.
The sentry turned slowly and thumped twice on the heavy doors with the butt of his lance. After a moment’s pause, he banged three more times before resuming his settled stance.
As Elias stood staring, a raven screeched on one of the tower’s parapets. After what seemed like only a few heartbeats, the door grated open and Pryrates stood in the gap, blinking.
“Elias!” he said. “Your Majesty! You honor me!”
The king’s lip curled. His hand was still tightening and loosening on Sorrow’s hilt. “I don’t honor you at all, priest. I came to talk to you—and I am dishonored.”
“Dishonored? How?” Pryrates’ face was full of shocked concern, but there was an unmistakable trace of mirth as well, as though he played mocking games with a child. “Tell me what has happened and what I can do to make it up to you, my king.”
“These … things wouldn’t open the door.” Elias jerked his hand toward the silent warders. “When I tried to do it myself, one of them blocked my path.”
Pryrates shook his head, then turned and conversed with the Norns in their own musical speech, which he seemed to speak well if somewhat haltingly. He faced the king again. “Please do not blame them, Highness, or even me. You see, some of the things I do here in the pursuit of knowledge can be hazardous. As I told you before, I fear that someone coming in suddenly might find himself endangered. You, my king, are the most important man in the world. Therefore I have asked that no one be allowed to walk in until I am here to escort them.” Pryrates smiled, an unmodified baring of teeth that would have seemed appropriate on the face of an eel. “Please understand that it was for your safety, King Elias.”