To Green Angel Tower
“Here, puss, puss. Come now, Grimalkin.”
Rachel was a little embarrassed. She wasn’t quite sure what one said to cats—in the old days, she had expected them to do their job keeping the rat population down, but she had left the petting and pampering of them to her chambermaids. As far as she had been concerned, handing out endearments and sweetmeats was no part of her obligation to any of her charges, two-footed or four. But now she had a need—if admittedly a daft and soft-headed one—and so she was humbling herself.
Thank merciful Usires no human creature is around to see me.
“Puss, puss, puss.” Rachel waved the bit of salt-beef. She slid forward half a cubit, trying to ignore the ache in her back and the rough stone beneath her knees. “I’m trying to feed you, you Rhiap-preserve-us filthy thing.” She scowled and waggled the bit of meat. “Serve you right if I did cook you.”
Even the cat, standing just a short distance out of Rachel’s reach in the middle of the corridor, seemed to know that this was an idle threat. Not because of Rachel’s soft heart—she needed this beast to take food from her, but otherwise would just as happily have smacked it with her broom—but because eating cat flesh was as inconceivable to Rachel as spitting upon a church altar. She could not have said why exactly cat meat was different than the flesh of rabbit or roe deer, but she did not need to. It was not done by decent folk, and that was enough to know.
Still, in the last quarter of an hour, she had more than once or twice toyed with the idea of kicking this recalcitrant creature down the steep staircase and then turning to some idea that did not require the assistance of animals. But the most irritating thing was that even the idea itself was of no practical use.
Rachel looked at her quivering arm and greasy fingers. All of this to help a monster?
You’re slipping, woman. Mad as a mooncalf.
“Puss …”
The gray cat took a few steps closer and paused, surveying Rachel with eyes widened by suspicion as much as the bright lamplight. Rachel silently said the Elysia prayer and tried to move the beef enticingly. The cat approached warily, wrinkled its nostrils, then took a cautious lick. After a moment’s mock-casual washing of whiskers, it seemed to gain courage. It reached out and pulled loose some of the meat, stepping back to swallow it, then came forward once more. Rachel brought up her other hand and let it brush the cat’s back. It started, but when Rachel made no sudden move, the cat took the last piece of beef and gulped it down. She let her fingers trail lightly against its fur as the cat nosed her now-empty hand questioningly. Rachel stroked it behind the ears, gamely resisting the impulse to throttle the particular little beast. At last, when she had worked loose a purr, she clambered heavily to her feet.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “More meat.” She turned and stumped wearily up the corridor toward her hidden room. The cat watched her go, sniffed around on the stone floor for any scraps it might have missed, then lay down and began to groom itself.
Jiriki and Eolair emerged into the light blinking like moles. The count was already regretting his decision to choose this entrance into the underground mines, one that was so far from Hernysadharc. If they had come in through the caverns where the Hernystiri had sheltered, as he and Maegwin had the first time, they could have spent the night in one of the recently-inhabited dens of the cave-city, saving themselves a long ride back.
“You do not look well,” the Sitha commented, which was probably no more than the truth. Eolair’s head had at last stopped ringing, but his muscles still ached mightily.
“I do not feel well.” The count looked around. There was still a little snow on the ground, but the weather had improved greatly in the last few days. It was tempting to consider staying right here and traveling back to the Taig in the morning. He squinted up at the sun. Only mid-afternoon: their time underground had seemed much longer … if this was still the same day. He grinned sourly at the thought. Better a painful ride back to the Taig, he decided, than a night in the still-cold wildlands.
The horses, Eolair’s bay gelding and Jiriki’s white charger, which had feathers and bells braided into its mane, stood cropping the meager grass, stretched to the ends of their long tethers. It was the work of only a few moments to make them ready, then human and Sitha spurred away toward the southeast and Hernysadharc.
“The air seems different,” Eolair called. “Can you feel it?”
“Yes.” Jiriki lifted his head like a hunting beast scenting the breeze. “But I do not know what it might mean.”
“It’s warmer. That’s enough for me.”
By the time they reached the outskirts of Hernysadharc, the sun had finally slipped down behind the Grianspog and the base of the sky was losing its ruddiness. They rode side by side up the Taig Road, threading through the not inconsiderable foot- and cart-traffic. Seeing his people once more out and about their business eased the pain of Eolair’s aches. Things were far from ordinary, and most of the people on the road had the gaunt, staring look of the hungry, but they were traveling freely in their own country again. Many seemed to have come from the market; they clutched their acquisitions jealously, even if they held no more than a handful of onions.
“So what did you learn?” Eolair asked at last.
“From the Shard? Much and little.” Jiriki saw the count’s expression and laughed. “Ah, you look like my mortal friend Seoman Snowlock! It is true, we Dawn Children do not give satisfactory answers.”
“Seoman …?”
“Your kind call him ‘Simon,’ I think.” Jiriki nodded his head, milk-white hair dancing in the wind. “He is a strange cub, but brave and good-natured. He is clever, too, although he hides it well.”
“I met him, I think. He is with Josua Lackhand at the Stone—at Ses … Sesu …” He gestured, trying to summon the name.
“Sesuad’ra. Yes, that is him. Young, but he has been caught up by too many currents for chance alone to be the explanation. He will have a part to play in things.” Jiriki stared into the east, as if looking for the mortal boy there. “Amerasu—our First Grandmother—invited him into her house. That was a great honor indeed.”
Eolair shook his head. “He seemed little more than a tall and somewhat awkward young man when I met him—but I stopped putting trust in appearances long ago.”
Jiriki smiled. “You are one in whom the old Hernystiri blood runs strong, then. Let me consider what I found in the Shard a while longer. Then, if you come with me to see Likimeya, I will share my thoughts with both of you.”
As they made their way up Hern’s Hill, Eolair saw someone walking slowly across the damp grass. He raised his hand.
“A moment, please.” Eolair passed the Sitha his reins, then swung down from his saddle and walked after the figure, which bent every few moments as though plucking flowers from among the grass-stems. A loose scatter of birds hovered behind, swooping down and then starting up again with a flurry of wings.
“Maegwin?” Eolair called. She did not stop, so he hurried his steps to catch up to her. “Maegwin,” he said as he came abreast of her. “Are you well?”
Lluth’s daughter turned to look at him. She was wearing a dark cloak, but beneath it was a dress of bright yellow. Her belt buckle was a sunflower of hammered gold. She looked pretty and at peace. “Count Eolair,” she said calmly, and smiled, then bent at the waist and let another handful of seed corn dribble from her fist.
“What are you doing?”
“Planting flowers. The long battle with winter has withered even Heaven’s blooms.” She stooped and sprinkled more corn. Behind her, the birds fought noisily over the kernels.
“What do you mean, ‘Heaven’s blooms’?”
She looked up at him curiously. “What a strange question. But think, Eolair, of what beautiful flowers will spring from these seeds. Think of how it will look when the gardens of the gods are a-blossom once more.”
Eolair stared at her helplessly for a moment. Maegwin continued to walk forward, sprinkling the corn in l
ittle piles as she went. The birds, stuffed but not yet sated, followed her. “But you are on Hern’s Hill,” he said. “You are in Hernysadharc, the place where you grew up!”
Maegwin paused and pulled her cloak a little tighter. “You do not look well, Eolair. That is not right. Nobody should be ill in a place like this.”
Jiriki was making his way lightly across the grass leading the two horses. He stopped a short distance away, unwilling to intrude.
To Eolair’s surprise, Maegwin turned to the Sitha and dropped into a curtsy. “Welcome, Lord Brynioch,” she called, then rose and lifted her hand to the reddening western horizon. “What a beautiful sky you have made for us today. Thank you, O Bright One.”
Jiriki said nothing, but looked to Eolair with a catlike expression of calm curiosity.
“Do you not know who this is?” the count asked Maegwin. “This is Jiriki of the Sithi. He is no god, but one of those who saved us from Skali.” When she did not reply, but only smiled indulgently, his voice rose. “Maegwin, this is not Brynioch. You are not among the gods. This is Jiriki—immortal, but of flesh and blood just like you and I.”
Maegwin turned her sly smile onto the Sitha. “Good my Lord, Eolair seems fevered. Did you perhaps take him too close to the sun on your journeying today?”
The Count of Nad Mullach stared. Was she truly mad or playing some unfathomable game? He had never seen anything like this. “Maegwin!” he snapped.
Jiriki touched his arm. “Come with me, Count Eolair. We will talk.”
Maegwin curtsied again. “You are kind, Lord Brynioch. I will continue with my task now, if I have your leave. It is little enough to repay your kindness and hospitality.”
Jiriki nodded. Maegwin turned and continued her slow walk across the hillside.
“Gods help me,” Eolair said. “She is mad! It is worse than I had feared.”
“Even one who is not of your kind could see that she is gravely troubled.”
“What can I do?” the count mourned. “What if she does not recover her wits?”
“I have a friend—a cousin, by your terms—who is a healer,” Jiriki offered. “I do not know that this young woman’s problem can be helped by her, but there could be no harm in trying, I think.”
He watched Eolair clamber back into his saddle, then mounted his own horse in a single, fluid movement and led the silent count up the hillside toward the Taig.
When she heard the approaching footfalls, Rachel almost pushed herself farther back into the shadows before she remembered that it would make no difference. Inwardly, she cursed herself for a fool.
The steps were slow, as if the one making them was very weak or was carrying a huge burden.
“Now where are we going?” It was a harsh whisper, deep and rough, a voice that was not used very often. “Going. Where are we going? Very well, then, I’m coming.” There was a thin wheeze of sound that might have been laughing or crying.
Rachel held her breath. The cat appeared first, head up, certain now after nearly a week that what was waiting was dinner rather than danger. The man followed a moment later, trudging forward out of the shadows into the lamplight. His pale, scarred face was covered in a long, gray-shot beard and the parts of him that were not covered by his ragged, filthy clothes were starvation-thin. His eyes were closed.
‘Slow down,” he said raspingly. “I’m weak. Can’t go fast.” He stopped, as though he sensed the lamplight on his face, on the lids of his ruined eyes. “Where are you, cat?” he quavered.
Rachel leaned down to pet the cat, which was butting at her ankle, then slipped it a bit of its expected salt-beef. She straightened up.
“Earl Guthwulf.” Her voice seemed so loud after Guthwulf’s whisper that it even shocked her. The man flinched and fell back, almost toppling over, but instead of turning to run he raised his trembling hands before him.
“Leave me alone, you damnable things!” he cried. “Haunt someone else! Leave me with my misery! Let the sword have me if it wants.”
“Don’t run, Guthwulf!” Rachel said hastily, but at the renewed sound of her voice, the earl turned and begin to stagger back down the corridor.
“There will be food for you here,” she called after him. The tattered apparition did not answer, but vanished into the shadows beyond the lampglow. “I will leave it and then go away. I will do that every day! You do not need to speak to me!”
When the echoes had died, she put down a small helping of jerked meat for the cat, which began to chew hungrily. The bowl full of meat and dried fruit she placed in a dusty alcove on the wall, above the cat’s reach, but where the living scarecrow could not fail to find it when he worked up the nerve to return.
Still not quite sure what her own purpose was, Rachel picked up her lamp and started back toward the stairwell that would lead to the higher, more familiar parts of the castle’s labyrinth. Now she had done it and it was too late to turn back. But why had she done it? She would have to risk the upper castle again, since the stores she had laid in were planned to feed one frugal person only, not two adults and a cat with a bottomless stomach.
“Rhiap, save me from myself,” she grumbled.
Perhaps it was the fact that it was the only charity she could perform in these terrible days—although Rachel had never been obsessed with charity, since so many mendicants were, as far as she could tell, perfectly able-bodied and most likely merely frightened of work. But perhaps it was charity after all. Times had changed, and Rachel had changed, too.
Or perhaps she was just lonely, she reflected. She snorted at herself and hurried up the corridor.
23
The Sounding of the Horn
Several odd things happened in the days after Princess Miriamele and her companions arrived at Sesuad’ra.
The first and least important was the change that came over Lenti, Count Streáwe’s messenger. The beetle-browed Perdruinese man had spent his first days in New Gadrinsett strutting around the small marketplace, annoying the local women and picking fights with the merchants. He had shown several people his knives, with the thinly-veiled implication that he was prone to use them when the mood was upon him.
However, when Duke Isgrimnur arrived with the princess, Lenti immediately retired to the tent he had been given as his billet and did not come out for some time. It took a great deal of coaxing to get him to emerge even to receive Josua’s reply to his master Streáwe, and when Lenti saw that the duke was to be present, the knife-flourishing messenger became weak in the knees and had to be allowed to sit down for Josua’s instructions. Apparently—or so the story was later told in the market—he and Isgrimnur had met before, and Lenti had not found the acquaintanceship a pleasant one. Once given a reply for his master, Lenti left Sesuad’ra hurriedly. Neither he nor anyone else much regretted his departure.
The second and far more astounding event was Duke Isgrimnur’s announcement that the old man he had brought to Sesuad’ra out of the south was in fact Camaris-sá-Vinitta, the greatest hero of the Johannine Age. It was whispered throughout the settlement that when Josua was told this on the evening of the return, he fell to his knees before the old man and kissed his hand—which seemed proof enough that Isrimnur spoke truly. Oddly, however, the nominal Sir Camaris seemed almost entirely unmoved by Josua’s gesture. Conflicting rumors quickly swept through the community of New Gadrinsett—the old man had been wounded in the head, he had gone mad from drink or sorcery or any number of other possible reasons, even that he had taken a vow of silence.
The third and saddest occurrence was the death of old Towser. On the same night that Miriamele and the others returned, the ancient jester died in his sleep. Most agreed that the excitement had been too much for his heart. Those who knew the terrors through which Towser had already passed with the rest of Josua’s company of survivors were not so sure, but he was after all a very old man, and his passing appeared to be natural. Josua spoke kindly of him at the burial two days later, reminding the small party gathered there
of Towser’s long service to King John. It was noted by some, though, that despite the prince’s generous eulogy, the jester was interred near the other casualties of the recent battle rather than beside Deornoth in the garden of Leavetaking House.
The harper Sangfugol made sure that the old man was buried with a lute as well as his tattered motley, in memory of how Towser had taught him his musical art. Together, Sangfugol and Simon also gathered snowflowers, which they scattered atop the dark earth after the grave was filled.
“It’s sad that he should die just when Camaris had returned.” Miriamele was stringing the remaining snowflowers, which Simon had given to her, into a delicate necklace. “One of the few people he knew in the old days, and they never had a chance to talk. Not that Camaris would have said anything, I suppose.”
Simon shook his head. “Towser did speak to Camaris, Princess.” He paused. Her title still felt strange, especially when she sat before him in the flesh, living, breathing. “When Towser saw him—even before Isgrimnur said who it was—Towser went pale. He stood in front of Camaris for a moment, rubbing his hands like this, then whispered, ‘I did not tell anyone, Lord, I swear!’ Then he went off to his tent. Nobody heard him say it but me, I think. I had no idea what it meant—I still don’t.”
Miriamele nodded. “I suppose we never will, now.” She glanced at him, then immediately dropped her gaze back to her flowers.
Simon thought she was prettier than ever. Her golden hair, the dye now worn away, was boyishly short, but he rather liked how it emphasized the firm, sharp line of her chin and her green eyes. Even the slightly more serious expression she now wore just made her all the more appealing. He admired her, that was the word, but there was nothing he could do with his feelings. He longed to protect her from anything and everything, but at the same time he knew very well that she would never allow anyone to treat her as though she were a helpless child.
Simon sensed something else changed in Miriamele as well. She was still kind and courteous, but there was a remoteness to her that he did not remember, an air of restraint. The old balance forged between the two of them seemed to have been altered, but he did not quite understand what had replaced it. Miriamele seemed a little more distant, yet at the same time more aware of him than she had ever been before, almost as though he frightened her in some way.