Darkover: First Contact (31 page)

She dabbed at it, preoccupied, laughed. “No doubt; some of the women are stuffing comforters for the winter to come, and making cushions and pillows; I rule over the feathers, while my mother’s women are salting and pickling the bird’s flesh for the winter.” She looked at the bits of feather fluff clinging to her fingers. “Do you remember, foster brother, the year that you and I and Beltran got into the feather vats and feathers flew all over the sewing rooms? I felt so guilty, for you and Beltran were beaten, and I was only sent to my room without dinner!”

Bard laughed. “Then we had the best of it, for I would rather be beaten any day than go fasting, and I have no doubt Beltran feels much the same! And for all these years I have felt you had the worst of it!”

“But the prank was mine; you and Beltran, and Geremy too, were always being beaten for mischief that I thought up,” she said. “We had merry times, did we not, foster brother?”

“We did indeed,” Bard said, and took her hands in his. “But I would not call you foster sister now, Carlina
mea
. And I came to bear you great news!”

She smiled up at him. “What is it, my promised husband?” she asked, using the words shyly.

“The king your father has given me command of troops,” he burst out exultantly. “I am to go with three dozen picked men and capture a caravan of clingfire. . . . Beltran is nominally in command, but you know, and I too, that the command is truly mine. . . and I am to pick my own men, and to have
leroni
with us. . . .”

“Oh, Bard, how wonderful,” she said, warming against her will as he poured out his good news. “I am so glad for you! Surely this means, as you have hoped, I know, that from banner bearer you will rise to one of his captains, and perhaps one day to lead all his armies!”

Bard said, trying not to show too much pride, “Surely that day will be many years from now. But it does show that your father continues to think well of me; and I have thought, Carlina
mea
, that if this mission comes off well, then perhaps he will put forward our wedding by half a year and we can be married at midsummer—”

Carlina tried to control her involuntary flinching. She and Bard must be married; it was her father’s will, which was law in the land of Asturias. She genuinely wished Bard well; there was no reason they should be unfriends. There was not, after all, so much difference between midwinter and midsummer. Yet, however she tried to tell herself this, she was still, helplessly, reluctant.

But Bard’s delight in the thought was so great that she could not bear to quench it. She temporized. “That must be as my father and my lord wills it, Bard.”

Bard saw only a proper maidenly shyness in the words. He tightened his fingers on her hands and said, “Will you kiss me in farewell, my promised wife?”

How could she deny him so much? She let him draw her close, felt his lips, hard and insistent, over hers, stifling her breath. He had never kissed her before except for the brotherly and respectful kiss they had exchanged, before witnesses, at their handfasting. This was different, and somehow frightening, as she felt him trying to open her lips with his mouth; she did not struggle, submitting, scared and passive, to the touch, and somehow this was more exciting to Bard than the most violent passion could have been.

As they moved apart he said in a low voice, half afraid of his own emotion, “I love you, Carlina.”

At the shaking of his voice she was moved, again, with reluctant tenderness. She touched his cheek with her fingertips and said gently, “I know, my promised husband.”

When he had left her again, she stood staring after the closed door, her emotions in turmoil. Her whole heart yearned after the silence and peace of the Isle of Silence; yet it seemed that it was never to be, that she must go, will she nill she, to be the wife of her cousin, her foster brother, her promised husband, Bard di Asturien. Perhaps, she told herself, perhaps it will not be so bad, when we were little children we loved one another well.

“Ah, Carlina,” called one of the women, “what am I to do with this bolt of material; the threads are all drawn at the edge and there is a big piece spoilt here—”

Carlina came and bent over the material. She said, “You will have to straighten it as best you can; and if it is not wide enough after for a sheet, then you must save this end for cushion covers, which can be worked over in wool, with colored designs embroidered here to hide the crooked weave. . . .”

“Why, lady,” mocked one of the girls, “how can you give thought to such things, when you have had a visit here from your lover. . . .”

She had used the inflection that changed the word subtly from
promised husband
to
paramour,
and Carlina flushed, feeling the heat flooding into her cheeks. But all she said, schooling her voice to calm and uninvolvement, “Why, Catriona, I thought you had been sent here to learn weaving and embroidery and all manner of womanly arts among the queen’s women, but I see you need schooling in
casta
too, to say
promised husband
with the proper courtesy; if you say it like that among the queen’s other women, they will mock at you for being countrified.”

Bard rode forth before dawn the next morning. The hour was so early that the easternmost sky had not yet begun to flush with the red dawn; all four of the moons were in the sky, though only one near the full; three small crescents, and the pale disk of Mormallor, floating over the distant hills behind them. Bard’s mind was filled with the memory of Carlina’s shy kiss; perhaps a day would come when she would kiss him of her own free will, when she would be glad and proud of being married to the king’s banner bearer, the king’s champion, perhaps the general of all his armies. . . . His thoughts were pleasant enough as he rode at the head of his first command, small though it was.

On the other hand, Beltran, somberly dressed and wrapped in a great cape, was sullen and morose; Bard sensed that he was angered and wondered why.

Beltran growled, “You seem content enough, and perhaps for
you
this command is welcome, but I would rather ride north to Hammerfell at my father’s side, where he could see whether I do well or ill; and here I am sent to capture a caravan, sent off like the leader of a bandit gang!”

Bard tried to tell his foster brother how important it might be, to make sure that the clingfire from Dalereuth never reached Serrais, to be used against the fields and villages and forests of Asturias; but Beltran could only see that he had not been given the privilege of riding at his father’s right hand, in sight of his armies. “My only comfort is that you will not take my rightful place there,” he grumbled. “
That
post he gave to Geremy. . . damn him, damn all the Hasturs!”

Here Bard shared Beltran’s displeasure and thought it politic to let him know it.

“Right; he promised me I should have Geremy at the head of the sorcerers riding with us, and at the last moment he tells me he cannot spare Geremy to me, and has given me three strangers,” he added his grumbling to Beltran’s. He looked ahead to where they rode, a little apart from the picked combat men he had chosen; a tall
laranzu
, graying, his red moustaches hiding half his lower face, and two women, one overplump for riding, ambling on a donkey, and one thin, childish girl, so deeply shrouded in her gray sorcerer’s cloak that Bard could not make out whether she was fair or plain. He knew nothing of these three, nothing of their competence, and he wondered nervously if they would be willing to accept him as leader of this expedition. The
laranzu
in particular; although, like all of his kind, he rode unarmed except for a dagger at his side, a small knife such as a woman might wear, he looked as if he had been riding on campaigns such as this since long before Bard was born.

He wondered if this was Beltran’s apprehension, too, but he soon found that the prince’s displeasure was from quite another cause.

“Geremy and I pledged one another we would ride together to battle this year, and now he has chosen to remain at the king’s side—”

“Foster brother,” Bard said seriously, “a soldier hears only the voice of his commander, and his own wishes must be subordinate to that.”

Prince Beltran’s voice was petulant. “I am sure, if he had told my father of this, Father would have honored our promise and given Geremy to this expedition. After all, it is only a stupid matter of chasing down caravans, not much more important than riding out to capture bandit raiders on the border,” he added; and Bard, frowning, knew suddenly why the king had said firmly to him that he, and not Prince Beltran, was really in command of this expedition; quite obviously, the prince had no notion of the strategic importance of the clingfire caravans!

He tried to make Prince Beltran see something of the importance of his mission, but Beltran was sulking, and at last said, “I can see that you want it to be important, Bard, because it makes
you
feel more important.” And Bard shrugged and let it go.

By midafternoon they were near to the southern border of Asturias; and during the midafternoon rest to breathe the horses, Bard rode toward the sorcerers, who had stopped a little apart from the rest. This was customary; most fighting men (and Bard was no exception) were wary of
leroni.

He thought King Ardrin must have regarded this mission as important, else he would hardly have sent a man long seasoned in campaign, but would have given them the young and inexperienced Geremy, if only to please his son and his foster son. Still, Bard found himself echoing the wish of the prince, that Geremy, whom he knew so well, had been with them, rather than this stranger. He did not know how to talk to a
laranzu.
Geremy, from the time they were all twelve years old, had had lessons apart, not in swordplay and unarmed combat and dagger fighting like the rest of the king’s fosterlings, but in the occult mastery of the starstones, the blue wizard’s crystals which gave the
leroni
their powers. Geremy had shared their lessons in military tactics and strategy, in riding and hunting, and had gone with them on fire watch and ridden with them against bandits, but it was clear even then that he was not intended for a soldier, and when he had given up wearing a sword, exchanging it for the dagger of a sorcerer, and saying he needed no weapon but the starstone about his neck, a great gulf had opened between them.

And now, as he faced the
laranzu
the king had sent with them, he felt something of the same gulf. Yet the man looked hardened to campaigns, rode like a soldier, and even had a soldierly way of handling his home. He had thin, hawklike features and keen, colorless eyes, the gray hardness of tempered steel.

“I am Bard di Asturien,” he said. “I do not know your name, sir.”

“Gareth MacAran, a ves ordras, vai dom. . .”
said the man, saluting briefly.

“What have you been told about this expedition, Master Gareth?”

“Only that I was at
your
orders, sir.” Bard had just enough
laran
to catch the very faint, almost undetectable emphasis put on
your.
Inwardly he felt a definite satisfaction. So he was not the only one to believe Beltran was completely hopeless in military matters.

He said, “Have you a sentry bird?”

Master Gareth pointed. He said, gently, but in definite reproof, “I was riding on campaign before you were begotten, sir. If you will tell me what information is needed. . . .”

Bard felt the sting of the reproof. He said stiffly, “I am young, sir, but not untried in campaign. I have spent most of my time with the sword, and am not accustomed to the proper courtesy in dealing with wizardry. I need to know where the clingfire caravan rides to the south, so that we can take them by surprise, and before they have a chance to destroy what they have.”

Master Gareth set his mouth. He said, “Clingfire, is it? I’d be glad to see all that stuff dumped into the sea. At least it will not be used to set siege to Asturias this year, then. Melora!” he called, and the older
leronis
came toward him. He had thought her, from her thick body, to be an older woman; now he saw that she was young, but heavy-bodied, her face round and moon-shaped, with pale, vague eyes. Her hair, brilliantly fire red, was twisted into an untidy bun.

“Bring the bird to me. . . .”

Bard watched with amazement—an amazement not new to him, but one that never failed—as the woman deftly unhooded the great bird riding on a block on her saddle. He had had occasion to handle sentry birds; by comparison, even the fiercest of hunting hawks were gentle as a child’s cage-bird. The long snakelike neck writhed around and the bird screamed at Bard, a high snarling cry, but when Melora stroked its feathers it quieted, giving a chirp which seemed almost plaintive, eager for caresses. Gareth took the bird, while Bard cringed inwardly at the proximity of those fierce, unclipped talons near his eyes; but Master Gareth handled it as Carlina would have held one of her tiny singing birds.

“There, my beauty . . .” he said, stroking the bird lovingly. “Go and see what they are doing. . . .”

He flung the bird into the air; it winged away on long, strong pinions, wheeling overhead and disappearing into the clouds. Melora slumped in her saddle, her vague eyes closed, and Gareth said in an undertone, “There is no need for you to stay here, sir. I’ll stay in rapport with her and see all she sees through the eyes of the bird. I’ll come and make my report to you when we ride on again.”

“How long will it take?”

“How should I know, sir?”