Ember and Ash Page 4

  Members of the council milled around a little, talking in low voices. Bren came up to Nyr and pulled a sympathetic face.

  “He’ll let you go,” Sami said. “He knows it’s his duty, but he won’t like it.”

  Nyr sighed.

  “We need this,” he said. “It’s the first time ever we have a surplus of skins and tusks. We could lay the foundation for a decade’s prosperity.”

  “What will you ask in return?” There was a gleam in Bren’s eye that Nyr knew.

  “Whatever the council directs,” Nyr replied promptly, too old to be caught out. Bren laughed and patted him on the arm.

  “Right answer,” he said. “But make sure it includes some of those new bows they’re making. The mountain valley archers are getting amazing range with them.”

  Nyr made a face.

  “You think they’d trade us weapons? I doubt it. Not the first time, anyway.”

  “Then try to get a look at the bows, at least. We know that they’re not using one single piece of wood, as we do. Figure out how they bind the pieces together. That’s the secret.”

  Bren could talk about bows all day. Nyr nodded before he could get properly started on his favorite subject and slid away to the curtained arch which led to the main hall.

  The hall was full of women and children, as usual, and the old people sitting by the big central fire. No need for a chimney here—the hall had been chosen a thousand years ago because it had a natural chimney, a high crack of rock which sucked all the smoke—and the warm air, too—out the top. It was always chilly in the hall, but never cold, and there was always the sensation of air moving across your face, which was the most reassuring feeling in the world to a cave dweller. It meant the passageways were open; there had been no rockfalls.

  The hall was full of smells, too, as it always was: sweat and newly tanned leather, a faint smell of stale urine from the sleeping old ones by the fire, the rich scent of roasting meat, babies and baby vomit turned a little sour, and underneath, always, the smell of rock, the rock of home.

  On a scaffold made of lashed bones, high up on the eastern wall, Urno was still painting the new scene he’d started at the beginning of winter. The lower walls were all covered with scenes painted by earlier artists—ancestral treasures, his father called them. Urno’s work was of the highest strata, and Nyr could trace the slow development of pigment and technique merely by running his eyes up one column of paintings. The long tradition had changed mostly in small steps, but Urno’s work—bold splashes of color, strong lines, distant perspectives—broke sharply with that tradition. He liked to hold forth about how the detailed, intricate drawings of the past were based on the carvings ancient peoples had done on narwhal tusks, and how paint did not have to follow the restrictions of line and cross-shading.

  He had lost that argument a hundred times before his master, Grilsen, had died and left him in undisputed possession of the craft. So now he was painting a vibrant, swirling scene of the butterfly migration, great curls and curves of wings against a summer blue sky.

  “Say what you like,” his mother’s voice came from behind him, “it cheers the place up.”

  Nyr grinned and turned to kiss her thin cheek. Halda, his mother, was always wistful in winter. She was a creature of the open air, and by the end of the dark season she had fretted herself to skin and bone. The first clear day saw her tramping off into the wilderness, desperate for solitude. As a child, Nyr had thought she was trying to get away from him because he had been naughty (in winter, it seemed he was always being naughty, even when he didn’t mean to be). Now he knew that she had the spirit of a wild bird, and should have been able to migrate with the flocks of geese and ducks which flew overhead each spring and autumn.

  He wondered, often, what had brought his loud, belligerent father and his subtle mother together. There was no doubt they loved each other, even if his mother was more reticent about showing that in public. His father, of course, bellowed how wonderful she was, and threw his arms around her on the slightest excuse. Half his grief for Andur had been the knowledge of her deep, distracted sorrow. But she was better now.

  As if to prove it, she said, “Dalle has been talking to me.”

  Dalle was the mother of Larra, a slender girl who’d been making eyes at Nyr since she was four years old. He’d have been more impressed if it hadn’t started the day someone explained to her that he was the king’s son. Even at four, Larra had liked the idea of being a princess. She still did, especially since Andur’s death meant that Nyr was likely to be elected king after his father’s death. He had cousins who would be eligible for the election, but they weren’t likely to oppose him. He made a face at his mother.

  “I hope you told her I’d taken a vow of celibacy.”

  Halda laughed. “As if she’d believe that!” He was known to have dallied more than once—but only with girls who would never be accepted as a wife; the daughters of craftsmen or hunters. Girls who would understand it was just for fun.

  “You should think about a wife,” Halda said. “Your father has no heirs but you. Even if one of your strawbacks had a son, he’d be out of the election.”

  “I know,” he said soberly. “But—who?”

  “One of the chief’s daughters from a tribute tribe, as I was,” his mother said firmly. “The Hot Pool People, or maybe the Wolf Fold. It would be good to bind them more closely to us.”

  He made a face and she slapped his arm lightly.

  “You’ve got your other girls for pleasure,” she said. “Marriage is about duty.”

  “Was it for you?” he asked, genuinely curious.

  A shadow painted her face with darkness for a moment.

  “I hated your father,” she whispered. “Until Andur was born. When I saw how much he loved his son… I began to know him.”

  The idea made him profoundly uncomfortable. Halda put her hand on his arm, her hazel eyes serious.

  “Before you go on this trading trip, talk it over with your father. Start negotiations. Trust him to choose you a good girl, someone you’ll be comfortable with.”

  Nyr sighed. He’d always known it would happen, sooner or later.

  “All right,” he said. “If the Hárugur King approves the trip, I will agree to a marriage.”

  Halda smiled. “Did you think he wouldn’t?”

  “He’s gone to ask counsel of the king,” Nyr said, reluctantly, knowing it would frighten her.

  Shivering, Halda rubbed her hands along her arms under her sleeves, and looked back up to where Urno’s butterflies cavorted across the high wall, as if seeking hope in their pictured freedom.

  “Father will be back soon,” he comforted her.

  “If it pleases Him,” she said. “And then, you’ll be gone. Who knows if you’ll ever come back?”

  “I’ll be back, Ma,” he said, hugging her. “Like a hungry wolverine after a food cache. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  But her face stayed troubled as she moved away to help prepare the evening meal. Nyr wondered what the king would say to his father. That was something he was not looking forward to doing when he became Hárugur King. Asking counsel of the Ice King was always risky, and sometimes, in winter when he was at his most vicious, it was deadly. The end of winter was worst… Nyr waited for his father to return, more troubled than he wanted to admit. What if his father was struck down by the Ice King for suggesting something which went against tradition? It would be his fault.

  Palisade Fort, the Last Domain

  Holly, the senior sergeant, supervised as the full squad of twenty guards assembled, sword hilts gleaming in the afternoon sun, their horses restless with the excitement of setting out. Each guard, man or woman, had darkish hair or eyes, except for one—Tern, a youngling as blond as Osfrid himself had been. Ember blinked back the tears that thought brought and said goodbye to Merroc.

  “My lord,” she said, bowing formally, as she had been taught by the southern-born wife of one of her father�
��s officers. She had demanded it, in the face of her mother’s objections. Etiquette school, an hour a day for the past six months, to make sure her manners would be up to the rigorous level expected of a southern warlord’s lady. Things were more relaxed in the north, and she had had nightmares of being laughed at by the sophisticated southerners. “I bid you farewell, and send my regards to the Lady Sigurd, with great respect.”

  Merroc scowled, but not at her. His eyes were as red as his hair, and she thought he had to scowl, to stop himself crying.

  “Good luck, lass,” he said.

  She bowed again and turned to her parents. Martine was stony-faced out here in the yard. This was the part of being a warlord’s lady she hated most: the public scrutiny, the right of every inhabitant to inspect her and her doings. She was not someone who showed what she felt easily; in front of strangers she retreated even further. Just once, Ember thought, I’d like her to hug me, or kiss me, even if people are watching. There were plenty of hugs in private, but somehow that wasn’t enough… Arvid looked both angry and upset, but she couldn’t comfort him.

  “I bid you farewell, father,” she said to Arvid, and hugged him. He held her hard.

  “Be careful,” he said softly.

  “Mam,” Ember said, turning to Martine. Astonishingly, her mother’s lips trembled and Martine stepped forward and embraced her, holding her tightly. Ember clung to her for a long moment, and then stepped back, still holding her hands.

  “I’ll be all right,” she said. Her mother tried to smile.

  “Do you have the bone?”

  Ember slid her hand into her pocket and brought out a length of cow thighbone plugged with clay. The Prowman had told them the story of Mim the Firestealer, who had gone up to the Fire Mountain and stolen fire for her people. And carried it home in a bone holder. Her mother nodded approval.

  “Wind at your back,” she said. The Travelers’ goodbye. A kind of blessing.

  Next to them, Elva was saying her own goodbyes to Ash and Cedar, and Martine went to join her.

  Curlew, Holly’s offsider, brought her mare, Merry, up and Ember mounted. Ash had been given Thatch, one of her father’s favorite geldings, and Cedar was on Snail, a chestnut who was the fastest of them all. Their elkhounds, Grip and Holdfast, snuffled around the horses’ hooves, delighting in the excitement.

  She couldn’t look back. Riding out the gate was hard, but it would have broken her heart if Martine had been crying. Behind them, another muster was happening, as the messengers who were being dispatched to the outlying villages gathered for Arvid’s instructions. Her other cousins, Poppy and Saffron, were in those parties. The fort would be almost empty, she thought, and somehow that image, of emptiness without fire, reminded her of the stories of the cold hells.

  Osfrid, she thought bleakly. Go on swiftly to rebirth. Then she realized—if he does, we will not meet in our next life. Unless I die soon, too.

  “Wind at your back,” Grammer Martine said to the assembled women, and they and their accompanying guards turned their horses toward the fort gates.

  “Wind at your back,” Poppy’s younger sister Saffron parroted happily, as she urged her horse to take the southern road. She twisted easily in the saddle to wave Poppy goodbye. As she in turn guided her chestnut through the gates, Poppy breathed a prayer to the local gods for all their safety, if safety could be found in these extraordinary times.

  The chestnut, Starling, was a good horse, with easy paces. Lord Arvid had chosen him specially for her, because he knew she was not entirely comfortable with horses.

  Learning to ride had been horrible, Poppy remembered. She had been six, small for her age, and the pony had seemed huge. Had felt huge, too, when her little legs had been stretched across its back. It had danced a little, from sheer mischief. She had cried; begged her father to be lifted off. Saffron had laughed at her, but then Saffron had their mother’s knack with animals and had gaily leaped upon the pony and ridden off.

  Ash had lifted her down and then persuaded her to ride in front of him on his big bay, Sun. The big horse, so much gentler and calmer than the pony, ambled down the track to the gods’ field and back again so smoothly that she demanded to be taught on him. And Ash did, even though it took him away from his friends for hours that spring. He was such a good brother.

  Poppy blinked back tears and concentrated on controlling the far more energetic gelding Starling. It was no good worrying about Ash and Cedar. The gods had told them to go with Ember, and that was that. She and Saffron had a job to do, and she would do it. She was half-glad that her older sister, Clary, was at home in Hidden Valley, heavily pregnant and in an acid mood thanks to the extended morning sickness which had prevented her coming to Ember’s wedding. Clary had a habit of assuming that her younger sisters were useless at everything, and that would be trying, right now. She was competent. Grammer Martine believed that. Competent and capable.

  But as they approached the narrow track which led through the edge of the Great Forest to the more northerly towns, she was very glad that Arvid had also sent a guard messenger with her. Or the other way around.

  “You’ll have to send Traveler women with your messengers,” her grandmother Martine had told the warlord.

  He had been surprised.

  “Why?”

  “You have Travelers everywhere in this domain. If a man shows up talking about Fire there’ll be trouble. Some of the older women are very… serious… about their worship. The punishments for sacrilege are extreme, and they’ll carry them out, I promise you.”

  Arvid had scowled. He hadn’t liked finding out about secret Traveler worship, and he liked this even less.

  Poppy shivered, thinking about the last Spring Equinox—her mother, her sisters and a couple of Traveler women who had come to Hidden Valley in the Resettlement had gone to the altar, struck fire from new flint, and as usual the fire had flared and seared them with desire. It always felt so good… better than Vannar’s lovemaking in the water meadow later that spring.

  It was hard to imagine Fire’s intimate, warm touch as evil. Yet she had seen Osfrid burn. Vanish into ash that floated away on the wind. Not even bones left behind.

  And then the fires had gone out.

  “How far to Salmonton?” she asked her guard, a young woman named Larch.

  “Only an hour,” Larch said shyly. She was a tall, broad-shouldered girl who wore her yellow hair almost as short as a man, but she was buxom, too, so if she were trying to look like a boy she had failed completely. A few years older than herself, Poppy thought, but a country girl, not used to talking to strangers.

  So that made two of them.

  “Let’s get there as fast as we can,” Poppy said, and Larch nodded agreement and kicked her piebald mare into a canter.

  The track skirted the edge of the Great Forest, for which Poppy was grateful. They had enough to deal with already. But it was fun to ride along on this beautiful spring day, on a good horse, with another girl. She felt a little guilty about enjoying it, when everyone was in so much trouble.

  She should plan exactly what to say when they got to Salmonton. And practice saying it.

  “You worry too much,” her mother had told her, time and again, but someone had to look after things, or anything could go wrong.

  Salmonton was a smallish town on the River Brash, a place of wooden houses and steep roofs, with boardwalks across the spring mud, and big vegetable gardens around each house. There were very few flowers growing here, except the ones which could be eaten, like marigolds and dandelions.

  “Salmonton went through some difficult times in the early days,” Arvid had told her before she set out. “They’re a very, um, practical people up there.”

  She had nodded. Good, she’d thought. I like practical people.

  The open space in the center of town was filled with people and a huge pile of kindling and logs. A bonfire without a fire. Her heart sank. So Martine had been right, and He had taken all the fires away, every
where. The people were staring at a man who was kneeling by the pile, trying uselessly to strike a spark from a flintstone.

  “That won’t work,” she called out.

  As one, everyone there spun to look at her, and she flushed. She wasn’t comfortable with being the center of attention. Not like Saffron. Perhaps she should pretend she was Saffron, and do what Saffron would do.

  No. No, that was cowardice.

  She dismounted and Larch took her reins so she could walk over to the people, who moved back to let her through to the man. The Voice, she thought, Cloud. He matched Arvid’s description: tall, sandy hair, a scar along one cheek where a bear had almost killed him.

  “I am Poppy, granddaughter of Lady Martine. I come from Lord Arvid with an explanation,” she said.

  “Spit it out, girl,” Cloud said.

  Now was the time for her rehearsed words. But almost every head there was crowned with blond or red or sandy hair, and she was suddenly conscious of her own darker brown. Would they think she was a Traveler, and blame her for His actions?

  “This morning,” she said carefully, pitching her voice as loud as she could without shouting, so the people in the back could hear, “at the wedding of Ember and Osfrid, the Great Power Fire appeared to everyone.”

  Perhaps there were more Travelers than she’d thought—several women let out exclamations and began to edge forward, to come closer to her. She swallowed a lump in her throat and went on, “He killed Osfrid, son of Merroc.”

  That caused a buzz and more exclamations. Cloud stared at her as if she were mad.

  “What shagging Great Power Fire?” he demanded.

  She knew this bit. Grammer Martine had been very clear about what to say.

  “The local gods are local,” she said. “But there are other Powers, five we know of, which govern this land at a deeper level. Fire, Water, Air, Earth and the Great Forest.”