‘It is, but at least she’s here to help with the spinning.’ Branna reflexively rubbed her right wrist with her left hand. ‘The more women the better for that. It’s so tedious.’
While they waited for the gwerbret’s army to ride in, Branna had been spending as much time as she possibly could with her cousin. During their long talks, Adranna occasionally discussed her dead husband and even wept for him, briefly and now and then, but the loss she felt most keenly was nothing so domestic as lord and dun. That evening they left the dinner table early and went up to the women’s hall, where they pulled their chairs over to a window and the cooler air.
‘You don’t know what it’s like, Branni,’ Adranna said. ‘Being part of a clan of believers, I mean. That’s how we thought of ourselves, as kin and clan, Alshandra’s people all, whether we were farmers or noble-born.’
‘I feel that way when we go to the Moon temple on the feast days and suchlike.’
‘Oh, that!’ Adranna tossed her head. ‘That’s just tradition. Alshandra is real. You can feel her presence. Our lady’s different, truly she is.’
‘How can she be? All goddesses are one goddess.’
‘That’s what the priestesses of the Moon say, but why should we believe them?’
Branna decided to ignore the question. ‘Alshandra certainly could be a new aspect of the goddess,’ she went on, ‘but all that talk of Vandar’s spawn and the like – that sounds like the Horsekin men to me, making up a new excuse to start wars and conquer other people’s land.’
‘I have to admit that it sounded that way to me, too, especially the bit about Vandar’s spawn. They do want pasture for their horses, the Horsekin men. The ones that visited us, they practically came right out and said so, but well, I thought maybe Alshandra wants them to live on the grasslands.’
‘Grasslands, perchance, somewhere or other. I wouldn’t wager high on it. Goddesses don’t draw up boundary maps like a village priest, deciding which son gets what when a farmer dies.’
At that Adranna managed to smile.
‘Besides,’ Branna said, ‘why would your goddess want the Westfolk destroyed? She –’
‘Hold a moment!’ Adranna leaned forward in her chair. ‘The Westfolk? I never heard anything against the Westfolk.’
‘But that’s who Vandar’s spawn are, according to the Horsekin leaders. Salamander told me about it. The Westfolk lands are the ones they want for themselves.’
‘That can’t be true!’
‘It is true. Ask Salamander if you don’t believe me.’
‘And why would I believe one word that lying viper says?’
‘Well, why would he make that up? He only lies when he’s got a good reason. He told me that he heard it from the priestess Rocca.’
‘Still –’
‘Besides, Dallandra told me the same thing. Would she lie?’
‘She wouldn’t.’ Adranna whispered, and her hands tightened on the arms of her chair. ‘But that’s a horrible idea.’
‘I rather thought so myself.’
Adranna suddenly noticed, or so it seemed, that she was clutching the wood so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. She let go with a sharp sigh and let her hands rest in her lap. Branna waited for some little while to give her a chance to think things over.
‘From everything I’ve heard,’ Branna went on, ‘I’d say that the Alshandra cult modelled her on Aranrodda. And Aranrodda’s an aspect of the one true goddess, isn’t she?’
‘She is, truly.’
‘Well, then. Wouldn’t that mean Alshandra’s an aspect herself?’
‘Oh. I’d not thought of it that way, but –’
Branna waited. Adranna sighed, leaning back in her chair, her face so uncharacteristically thin and drawn, pale against her dark hair, that Branna nearly wept from looking at her.
‘You’re exhausted, cousin,’ Branna said. ‘There’s no need to go on talking now.’
‘My thanks.’ Adranna managed a faint smile. ‘We’ll have lots of time to talk while the men are gone to war. That’s one good thing to come out of this, I suppose.’
‘So we will, truly.’
‘There’s another good thing,’ Adranna continued. ‘You know, the worst thing about living with Honelg was being terrified. Not of him, so much, though he did have that awful temper, but because of Alshandra. I was always afraid that someone would find us out and tell the priests or the gwerbret. I got so tired of being frightened. Every time someone rode up to the dun, I’d tremble until I found out who it was. I really would, Branni. I couldn’t hold a cup of water steady for the trembling. Now the worst has happened and been done with, and the children are safe. I don’t much care what happens to me any more, but I prayed and prayed that my children would be safe. So, at least the fear’s over now.’
Branna just managed to stop herself from blurting out the truth: the real time of fear had just begun.
Whenever Arzosah wanted to speak with Salamander, she would wait till evening, when the grooms had stabled the horses, safe from the panic her presence would cause. Normally she would fly low over the dun until he noticed, then go land in the meadow just below the motte upon which the dun stood. That particular evening, however, she landed directly on the flat roof of the broch. Salamander, who was up in his top-floor chamber, felt the tower shake as if in a high wind. Out in the ward several maidservants screamed.
‘That must be the dragon,’ he remarked aloud. ‘I’d best go see what she wants.’
He climbed the ladder standing in the corridor outside and shoved open the trap door. In the hot, humid night, the vinegar scent of great wyrm nearly made him choke. He swung himself onto the roof from the ladder’s last rung, then stood up to bow to her. He could see her raise her enormous head in silhouette against the stars.
‘And a good eve to you, oh perfect paragon of dragonhood,’ Salamander said in Elvish.
‘My, you do know how to flatter a lady.’ Arzosah made the rumbling sound that signalled amusement. ‘Even minstrels have their uses, I see.’
‘And such as my poor skills are, they’re at your disposal.’
‘Good. I need to know if the dun will be safe if I leave. I have to search for Rori. He was supposed to meet me here, and he’s never arrived.’
‘That’s true. He hasn’t. I hope no harm’s befallen him.’
‘I doubt that very much, since only another dragon could possibly harm him. No, I’m sure he’s merely being an utter dolt about facing you and Dallandra.’
‘Can’t Dalla summon him?’
‘No, and all because he’s not a true dragon in his soul. When she calls out his true name, he can feel the summons in the dragonish way, but it lacks power over him. He’s been ignoring her.’ Arzosah clacked her massive jaws. ‘He can be infuriating.’
‘You have to understand,’ Salamander said, ‘that it’s a hard thing being caught between two peoples. I’ve spent my whole life that way, and I know.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’ Arzosah considered this for a moment. ‘I can see the difficulties Rori goes through. But the worst of them is that it makes so much trouble for me.’
‘A terrible thing, truly. Well, once you’ve found him, why don’t you join Dallandra out on the grasslands? I doubt if we’re in any danger here, not from armed enemies, at any rate.’
‘Good. I’ll do that.’ She started to spread her wings, then folded them back again. ‘You know, you’d best be off the roof before I fly. I’d hate to knock you off it.’
‘I’d hate it even more. Good hunting, and I’ll see you when we join up with Daralanteriel’s army.’
Salamander climbed partway down the ladder, then shut the trap door. Just as he reached the safety of the corridor below, he heard her fly off in a great rush of wings like drumbeats.
Since his chamber was stifling in the summer heat, Salamander decided to take a turn around the ward in the cooler air before he tried to sleep. When he reached the bottom of the staircase, he discovered that half the dun was doing the same thing, noble-born as well as commoners. Bright points of lantern light danced around the dark ward and glittered here and there up on the catwalks. He could hear men’s cajoling voices, speaking softly, and the giggling of serving lasses in return.
Off to one side Gerran stood talking with Lady Solla. In the light of the lantern he carried, his copper-red hair gleamed like the metal itself. Neb and Branna were strolling along arm-in-arm with Adranna’s two children trailing after. A crowd of Wildfolk danced around them, led by Branna’s skinny grey gnome, and Neb’s fat yellow one. A gaggle of crystalline sprites flew above. When Salamander stopped to greet them, Trenni gave him a pleasant ‘good evening’, but Matto turned his head away and ostentatiously spit on the cobbles. The Wildfolk vanished.
‘Let’s go inside,’ Branna said firmly. ‘Trenni, you too. It’s time for bed.’
She grabbed a child by the arm with each hand and hurried them into the broch. Neb, however, lingered outside with Salamander. They wandered around the back of the broch and stood in a patch of candlelight falling through a window.
‘Do you think that Matto will ever forgive me?’ Salamander said. ‘I’m afraid I had a great deal to do with his father’s death.’
‘I’m not so sure it’s that,’ Neb said. ‘More like, he blames you for losing him his home and making his mother so unhappy. Honelg lost every bit of the lad’s loyalty when he tried to kill him. Trenni outright hated her father, and I think me our Matto’s coming round to her way of thinking.’
‘I see. That’s truly sad in its own way.’
‘It is. It came as a shock to me. And yet, it’s odd, but Matto still feels he should hate you and Gerran, too, for the killing of his father.’ Neb shook his head. ‘I doubt if I’ll ever truly understand the noble-born.
‘Me either. On the other hand, though my own father and I have our difficulties, if someone killed him, I’d feel the need to bring them to the prince’s justice at the very least.’
‘My father and I never had any difficulties. I miss him still, but half the people in our town died from that plague. I can’t consider myself singled out for grief or suchlike.’
‘Truly. A natural affliction knows neither feud nor honour.’
‘Of course, the local priests denied that it was any such thing. They told us that Great Bel was angry. They wanted us to find white horses for sacrifice.’
‘If it happens again, we know where to find white cows – or won’t cattle do?’
‘They won’t. Bel demands horses, but – here, wait!’ Neb held up one hand. ‘I just thought of somewhat. I –’ He hesitated, visibly thinking.
Salamander held his tongue. Neb’s expression of intense concentration had made him seem suddenly older, far stronger. More Nevyn-like, Salamander thought. I wonder if a memory’s trying to rise?
‘That plague,’ Neb said slowly. ‘What if it wasn’t Bel’s doing nor a natural thing? At the time, I didn’t know one cursed thing about the Westfolk and their history. I didn’t know about dark dweomer, either. But I do now, and I wonder if someone brought sickness to town, like. It happened so suddenly, and the weather was warm. There’d been a big market fair in town, and there were a goodly number of strangers come for it.’
‘I wonder, too. How do the Westfolk come into it?’
‘They don’t, exactly, but the ancient plague on the Horsekin does. From what you’ve told me, it gripped their bowels and caused the same kind of bloody flux as –’ Neb paused to swallow heavily, summoning courage, ‘as I saw. Everything about it sounds the same. If some of it still lurked in that Horsekin city you told me about, and if someone had been there and caught it, and then come to Trev Hael for some reason, well?’
‘Indeed! I’m going to tell Dalla about this idea of yours.’
‘Good. Now, the town herbwoman decided that since it produced an excess of the watery humour, the fiery humour must be its natural enemy. So she had everyone roasting their food and boiling their well water. When someone died, we burned their blankets and clothing, too. And you know, it did seem to stop the spread of it.’
‘That’s most interesting. I’ll tell Dalla that, too.’
‘It was a horrible time.’ Neb shuddered and looked away. ‘I’ve not wanted to think about it before this, but truly, it’s important, isn’t it? I’ve got this feeling that I need to remember it. Huh, you know, when Clae and I were orphaned, priests of Bel brought us west. They were going to a temple north of Cengarn, but one of them was willing to take us as far as the Great West Road first. There’s only one temple north of Cengarn that I know of.’
‘Ye gods!’ Salamander’s voice caught. He coughed and spat onto the ground. ‘My apologies, but hearing you say that seems to have clotted my throat right up with omens.’
Salamander hurried up to the privacy of his chamber. He sat on the wide ledge of the unglazed window and looked out at the points of lantern light gleaming in the ward far below. When he thought of Dallandra, her image built up quickly in his mind. She was apparently sitting under a dweomer light of her own making, because a cool silver glow fell across her. With her ash-blonde hair and steel-grey eyes, she seemed made of pure silver like a creature of the moon’s sphere.
While Salamander told her Neb’s insights about the plague, he could feel her concern.
‘I’m glad you told me this right away,’ she said. ‘If it does come from the Horsekin cities, I hope they don’t realize it. They could use it as a weapon against us.’
For a moment Salamander felt as if the solid stone had moved under him. ‘Ye gods,’ he said. ‘Just – oh ye gods!’
‘There’s a good chance it doesn’t, though,’ Dallandra went on. ‘If the plague were still somehow alive there in the northern cities, why haven’t the Gel da’ Thae come down with it? Why didn’t I get it, come to think of it, when I visited Zatcheka and Grallezar in Braemel, all those years ago?’
‘A most soothing and apposite point, oh princess of powers perilous. Deverry towns aren’t known for their cleanliness. Maybe it’s just something that Neb’s birthplace brewed up in its gutters.’
‘That seems more probable.’Yet Dallandra sounded doubtful. ‘Rinbaladelan’s the only one of the ruined cities that’s likely to still have pestilence. The plague began there. I’ve been told that they had underground cisterns for fresh water. Moist, dark places usually do breed one kind of accidental humour or another. It’s the slime that accretes, you see.’
‘If you say so.’ Salamander knew nothing about medicine. The thought of moist, dark slimes made him profoundly glad of it, too. ‘What about that priest who brought Neb to his late and lamented uncle’s farm?’
‘What about him? Don’t priests of Bel travel about the kingdom all the time?’
‘Yes, they do. Somehow I had the odd feeling that he and the pestilence had some connection. Yet no one in the temple near Honelg’s dun was suffering from it.’
‘That’s true, nor any of their farmers, either. And it’s not likely that they’d have been in one of the Horsekin towns, is it?’
‘Most extremely unlikely, indeed. I seem to have got obsessed with this wretched illness, probably because of your friends in Braemel. I had a moment of fearing that they’d bring plague with them to the war.’
‘Well, it’s not likely and doubly so now.’ Dallandra’s worried mood returned in force. ‘Something very odd seems to be happening in Braemel.’
‘Haven’t you heard from Grallezar?’
‘No. I’ve tried to reach her several times now, but I can’t. I can feel her mind, but she seems utterly distracted. I hope things are going well there.’
‘Maybe the Gel da’ Thae simply don’t want to fight against their own kind. They have no love for Deverry men, certainly. What do they call them? Red Reivers?’
‘That’s right, Lijik Ganda in the Horsekin tongue.’
‘Wait – Rocca used a different word for red.’
‘The Gel da’ Thae have a great many words for all the different colours. Gral means red like rust. Ganda means red like fresh meat.’
‘Oh. That says a great deal about the name they chose for Deverry men.’
‘True. Now, Braemel allied itself with us and with the Roundears up in Cerr Cawnen out of fear of the Horsekin, those wild tribes of the north. This spring Grallezar hinted at some sort of trouble in her city, something to do with a coterie of Alshandra worshippers, but she never said what it was. I assumed it was none of my affair. The Gel da’ Thae can be as clannish as we are.’
‘Then we’ll know exactly what she chooses to tell us, and naught a thing more.’
‘That unfortunately is very true. I could definitely feel her fear, though, when we talked mind to mind.’
In his daily scrying sessions, Salamander had seen changes taking place at Zakh Gral. New troops had arrived, hordes of slaves were building new barracks, and always work on the stone walls went forward. He told Dallandra about these developments in detail. For some while more they talked back and forth, letting their minds reach across the hundreds of miles between them. Salamander could feel himself tiring. Far sooner than usual, he had to fight to maintain his concentration. Dallandra became aware of his difficulty the moment he felt it himself.
‘Ebañy, you’re exhausted,’ she said. ‘I know that we need to keep an eye on Zakh Gral, but be very careful that you don’t spend too much time scrying. You had to turn yourself into your bird form to escape the fortress. That was a huge strain. Then I got myself into trouble with that astral gate, and you had to come rescue me – another huge strain. I’m worried about you. Your old madness could reassert itself if you keep getting exhausted.’
‘Worry not, oh princess of powers perilous! I’m quite aware of that. From now on, I’ll scry only twice a day, morning and evening. I promise.’
They broke the link. When Salamander got up from his perch in the window, he felt so dizzy that he lay down on top of his blankets fully dressed. I’ll get up in a moment or two, he told himself. But when he woke, it was morning.
Technically, Neb and Branna were merely betrothed, not married, but with war looming, there was no time for formal ceremonies and no extra food for feasts. Since Branna’s father and uncle had approved their marrying, everyone who knew them assumed quite simply that they were. Upon their return to the dun, Neb had moved the few things he owned into Branna’s chamber from his own, and that was an end to it.
With Branna so busy with her cousin and the children, Neb saw little of her during the day. After breakfast he often lingered at table with Salamander, Gerran, and Mirryn, listening to their talk of the coming war. On this particular morning, after Branna and Galla had gone up to their hall, and Tieryn Cadryc had gone out to consult with the grooms, Maelaber, the Westfolk herald, came over to sit with them, though his escort stayed seated with the warband. Maelaber told them in some detail about the preparations the Westfolk were making for the fighting ahead. Gerran listened with the oddly bored expression on his face that meant he was absorbing every scrap of information. Mirryn merely glowered down at the table, so intensely that at last Maelaber fell silent.
‘And what’s so wrong with you, Mirro?’ Gerran said. ‘Did the porridge turn your stomach sour or suchlike?’
‘You know cursed well what’s wrong,’ Mirryn said.
‘Well, you can’t argue with Cadryc’s orders,’ Gerran said. ‘He’s the tieryn as well as your father.’
Mirryn answered with a string of epithets so foul that Neb, Salamander, and Maelaber all rose at the same moment and left the table. Neb could hear Gerran and Mirryn squabbling as they walked away.
‘Waiting for war’s always hard,’ Salamander muttered.
‘True spoken,’ Maelaber said. ‘When I left the Westfolk camp, everyone there had thorns up their arses, too.’
Maelaber returned to his escort and the warband, but Neb and Salamander went outside to the dun wall. They climbed up to the catwalks, where they could catch the fresh summer breeze and lean onto the dun wall. Between the crenellations they could see the green meadows and streams of the tieryn’s rhan. The sun fell warm on their backs, and Neb yawned.
‘Tired already, are you?’ Salamander said.
‘Being married cuts into a man’s sleep.’
‘Oh get along with you! Braggart!’
Neb grinned and decided to change the subject. ‘Have you heard from Dallandra?’
‘I have,’ Salamander said. ‘She shares our wondering about that pestilence, but she doesn’t think it came from one of the Horsekin cities. No more does she think that those priests who took you to her uncle’s have anything to do with it.’
‘Well and good, then.’ Neb turned around to lounge back against a crenel. ‘Oh by the gods!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Look up!’ With a sweep of his arm, Neb pointed at the sky. ‘He’s back.’
Far above them, a bird with the black silhouette of a raven circled against the pale blue, far too large for any ordinary bird.
‘So he is,’ Salamander said. ‘Our mazrak, home again from wherever his peculiar tunnel led him.’
‘He waited to arrive till Arzosah left us, I see. Huh, the coward!’
‘I wouldn’t call him that. Would you argue with a dragon thirty times your size? Ah, I see by your expression that you wouldn’t.’
Neb slid his hands into his brigga pockets and found the weapons he carried, a leather sling and a round pebble. He brought them out as casually and slowly as he could. ‘I wonder if I can get a stone into the air before he notices.’
The raven floated in a lazy circle over the dun, then allowed himself to drift in closer. Neb could see him tilting his head from side to side as if he was examining everything below him. All at once he swung around and flapped off fast, heading north from the dun, a rapidly disappearing black speck against the clear sky.
‘He must have seen your sling,’ Salamander said.
‘He’s got good eyes then, blast him!’ Neb slapped the leather loop of the sling against a crenel in frustration. ‘You know, Salamander, it’s a cursed strange thing, but I keep feeling like I know that bird – or the person inside it, I mean. It’s as if I can see through his feathers or suchlike. Well, that sounds daft, now that I say it aloud.’
‘Not daft but dweomer,’ Salamander said. ‘Most likely, anyway. You may be mistaken, of course, but somehow I doubt it. I’d say he’s someone you knew in a past life.’
‘Truly? I certainly don’t have any fond feelings for him.’
‘Oh, when you recognize a person like this, it doesn’t necessarily mean they were a friend. An old enemy will call out to you, like, just as loudly.’
Neb paused, thinking, letting his mind dwell upon the image of the raven and the feelings it aroused. ‘An enemy, truly,’ he said at last, ‘but there’s somewhat more as well. It’s like a debt linking us, or more than one debt. I owe him somewhat, but he owes me far more.’
‘Odd, indeed!’ Salamander said. ‘Well, meditate upon it. The answer might be important.’
‘The chains of wyrd always are, aren’t they?’
‘True spoken. Very true spoken indeed.’
Salamander saw the raven mazrak again the very next morning. A little while past sunrise, his regular time to spy on Zakh Gral, he focused through a scatter of high clouds and scried for Rocca. He saw her immediately, standing before the altar in the Outer Shrine. For a moment he gloated over her image. Had she taken care of herself, she would have been beautiful, with her high cheekbones and thick dark hair, but her face looked sunburned and dirt-streaked, framed in messy tendrils of dirty hair. She was wearing a long, sleeveless dress of pale buckskin, painted with Alshandra’s holy symbol of the bow and arrow.
Behind her, on the rough stone surface of the altar, sat the relics of her goddess’s legendary worshipper, the holy witness Raena. Salamander had seen most of them before – the box with the wyvern dagger, the copper tray with the miniature bow and arrows, the bone whistle, and the obsidian pyramid. A new addition to the hoard startled him. They’d sewn the shirt he’d left behind onto a plain cloth banner and attached it to a long spear. It stood behind the altar and snapped in the wind.
