Spellbreakers (28 page)

She observed his body in the pale grey, misty light.
She knew that body now, but she had hardly
seen
him the night before in
the hazy fire glow. She thought that a male body had nothing of the silky,
shapely elegance of a woman’s. It was all odd angles and rough textures. And
yet he had an almost unbearable feral beauty, the lanky, bristly majesty of a wolfhound.
 
He was a rangy creature, all bone and muscle,
and
scars
. Leal studied with a frown the ugly marks on his chest, just
under the left collarbone. She might have sworn that two arrows had been
planted there, probably a long time ago.

She caressed his cheek lovingly, and he was
immediately awake, with a startled intake of breath and then a sleepy smile.

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Hey.” She kissed his lips softly.
 
“I’ll lay out breakfast. We’ve got to go,”
she said with a pang of regret. Part of her wanted nothing more than to stay in
this place forever, loving him and Daria forever.

But it was
one
night of freedom she had
bargained for with herself, and she had been careless enough as it was. She
hoped she’d not end up regretting it too bitterly. If ever she went back to
Escarra and the court in Castel Argell, she might easily explain away a lack of
virginal blood if need be, but a pregnancy was a different matter. She wondered
if humans and elvers could interbreed. She hoped not.

In any case the night was over now. Dawn was on her,
and her quest was calling her.

Chapter Fourteen

It was night when they reached Elverhjem, and both
Leal and Daria were nodding with sleep. They took turns riding the mare, and
finally just led her along, she being as tired as they were. They expected to
meet a major throughway in the forest, walled gardens and maybe some
fortifications, but the forest went on and on. They gave up on reaching the
town for that day, and wished Ljung would just stop and let them camp.

But finally, they began to see lights among the trees,
yellow, orange, blue, green, so many lights that it could only be a large
settlement. Yet they didn’t come across any walls nor guards, and the forest
went on and on, even when the lights became close enough to be obviously
windows and doorways, and here and there an open fire under the stars. There
were few people around, but all greeted Ljung, and welcomed the strangers
courteously, although with some perplexed, questioning looks.

Finally they came across a group of elvers who were
clearly walking out to meet them. They all talked quickly among themselves and
to Ljung in their own
tongue,
and Daria soon realized
where Ljung’s curious accent came from. Every sentence in the elvren tongue
ended in a single long, lilting syllable.
A long vowel, a
sort of sigh, and then a slight breathless stop.
It was peculiar and
sort of funny, but once one got used to it, it was also beautiful and weirdly
musical.

“Welcome back, Ljung Leuksen. And welcome to you, our
guests,” said a beautiful white-clad, black-haired elver-woman, in a slow,
deliberate lingua franca. She bowed to Daria and Leal. “My name is Ingri
Ingerdottir. I feared you might have decided to camp in the forest for the
night after all. It would have vexed my heart, so it would. It is not often
that we have guests from so far away, and we would be sorry not to offer you
every comfort. We knew you were coming. Scouts saw you, and I made everything
ready for you in one of the hunters’ homes. You must be tired and hungry. Come,
this way.” She turned and beckoned them to follow her.

Ingri led them quickly among the trees, past lit
windows and doors, to a small low house with a bright doorway open into the
night. There were several elvers around. One of them took away their drooping
mare, promising she would be close and well cared for. Others took their packs
and others again brought ewers of hot water. More brought trays of food and
jugs of apple cider, mead, and dark ale.

They were coming and going too fast for Daria to catch
their long names or observe them much. They all shared some of Ljung’s light
footed graceful way of moving, although few, if any, had the same feral poise.
They also had the same high cheek-bones and deep-set eyes, but none of them had
sharp incisors like Ljung. Daria wondered if Ljung’s teeth had always been like
that or if they had been filed sharp on purpose. He looked like a creature of
the same kind yet slightly wilder than the others, like a wolf in a pack of
quick, strong hounds.

The little house had three rooms, all of them round.
They were interconnected by long, curiously irregular corridors, as if they had
been added as afterthoughts and the passages had had to negotiate an uneven
terrain. There were beautifully carved and painted narrow doors at each end of
the corridors. There was a large comfortable room with a wide, round stone
fireplace in the middle, sunk in the floor and surrounded by two wide stone
steps. There were pillows, furs and carpets, soft low seats, carved chests and
small tables arranged round the earth. There was a smaller room with beds, and
the smallest was obviously a steam bath, with a brazier and hot stones, water
basins and buckets, little bars of soap with herbs and flowers, brushes and
sponges.

The elvers put the hot food and water close to the
fires, arranged the other things on the tables, and then they retired with
friendly words of goodnight.

Ingri remained a minute longer to talk to Leal and
Daria.

“You must crave for food and rest after such a long
journey, so I will not keep you, although I wish I could ask you so many
questions about your country and your travels.
But not now.
Make yourself comfortable. You will meet the Elders of Elverhjem tomorrow at
noon. Ljung Leuksen will bring you. Rest now, and be at peace in this friendly
home.” She bowed in a way that made it clear that the last phrase was a
ceremony of sorts, and they felt strangely rustic and uncouth not knowing the
correct answer to such a courteous welcome.

When they had all departed, leaving Leal and Daria
rather breathless with thank-yous and goodnights, Daria took a minute to
observe the room. The walls were mostly bare, but beautifully painted in pale
green shades. Here and there a painting or a piece of intricate embroidery
relieved the simplicity without spoiling the harmonious lines of the beams and
pillars which framed the walls and ceiling.

“What is this house? Why hunters’ home? Is it a guest
house of sorts?
A hunting lodge?”

Ljung shook his head. “It is a place where hunters can
stay when they wish to rest in the city for a while, or during very cold
winters, or when they are sick or hurt. Most hunters live rough in the forest
and have no houses of their own unless they marry. The hunters’ homes belong to
all. The town’s folk take care of the houses and their gardens when they are
empty, and the hunters provide game and protection for the whole community.”

“It sounds so sensible that it’s almost suspicious,”
said Daria, reaching for a ewer of hot water. “Now, if you don’t mind, you can
stand here discussing the customs of Elverhjem until you go blue in the face, but
I have a date with a piece of soap, and after that with those trays of food.
Call me greedy, but it smells delicious from here.
Unlike me.
I may add.”

There was no denying this, so they all filed out to
the bathroom to scrub themselves clean. There were some simple robes folded for
them on a low wooden shelf and a capacious basket for their travel-stained
clothes.

Their meal was indeed delicious. There was a spicy
pork stew with green peppers and sweet fruit, a chicken stew with sweeter
savors, peanuts and leeks, and many different dishes of vegetables and roots
with bowls of sauces and dips to dress them. Finally there was a surprising
sweet made of whipped snow and cream drowned in fruit juices. All three ate
mostly in silence for a good while, too hungry to waste time speaking.
 
Leal and Daria were constantly exclaiming,
without articulating, about the strange new flavors and spices. They had tasted
the cuisine of three different nations since the beginning of their trip, and
yet they had never experienced such an essential change in the way flavors were
combined and food prepared. Ljung only commented that of all the excellent
cooks in Elverhjem they had been served by the most blessed.

The bed in the small room at the back of the house was
the largest, and Leal and Daria, naked, slid with sighs of contentment in its
soft clean depths. It smelled of herbs and well aired linen. Ljung said he
would go and talk to someone before sleeping and wished them good night. They
curled up under the blankets without comment. Leal was asleep in a minute.
Daria tossed and turned for a while. She wished Ljung had stayed with them. She
was too tired to do anything, but she would die to have his long body along
hers under the blankets.

****

They had reached Elverhjem so late at night that they
had seen next to nothing of it, except for the lights. As they walked out of
the hunters’ house the next morning, they wondered if even the lights had been
a dream. It was not immediately obvious that they were in a populous town.

What surrounded the house
was
mostly trees.
 
It was not as thick as the
thick of the forest. There was no dead wood, to begin with, and the trees were
shapelier and were spaced more widely, so that there was not so much shadow
under them, but rather a suffused, changing, green-gold light. There was little
undergrowth, aside from soft feathery grasses, and vegetables and herb gardens
fenced with wattles. The terrain was irregular, a gentle south facing slope
with many steps and crags and large boulders dotting the landscape, some of
them subtly sculpted. And there were small knolls and mounds among the
unevenness of the soil, the trees and the gardens, and only a second glance
revealed that these were round houses, made partly of stone, partly of timber,
and even of earth and mud plastered reeds, as if they had been built with what
was at hand, rather than according to one leading principle. Even so, they were
beautifully made, often adorned with carved doors and beams, odd painted walls
half hidden in the greenery, a living tree integrated in a corner, soft wind
chimes and curious charms dangling from beams and branches. The thatched roofs
were often green with grass and creepers, so that the houses were nearly
invisible among the trees and gardens, until one learnt to see them. They were
living parts of the landscape rather than buildings. Round or roundish was the
most common shape, but there were larger houses made of several round ones
connected together, and even a few long low buildings which might have been
banqueting halls. All had many windows, often in odd shapes, glazed with blue,
green, yellow, and orange stained glass.

There were porches, harbors and pergolas, many of them
occupied, on this fine morning, by craftsmen and women intent at they work, basket
weaving or glass making, throwing pottery on wheels, sewing, carving, fletching
arrows, smiting, painting, sometimes with a musician close by playing softly on
strange unknown instruments. Here and there a newly thatched roof shone yellow
in the dappled sunlight, but the city of Elverhjem was for the most part green,
grey, and brown, as the clothes of its people, so that both the city and its
inhabitants very much blended in the surrounding forest. Leal wondered what the
city would look like in winter, covered with snow.

She expected to be brought to a great formal hall in
one of the low long buildings, like the hall where her father received honored
guests and foreign dignitaries and where he delivered justice to his own people
when necessary. But the Elders of Elverhjem did not go for pomp.

Leal and Daria followed Ljung among houses and lush
gardens, and down a winding path among murmuring birch trees until they came to
a narrow south facing dell. A winding stair of stone steps went down the side
of the dell. There was a low stone seat at each turn of the stair, surrounded
by fragrant herbs. Now and then the path crossed and re-crossed a limpid brook
that fell and tumbled along the hill-side. When both path and stream reached
the bottom of the valley, they wound together southward for perhaps a hundred
yards before they came to a round gateway in a beautiful fence made of
intricately woven reeds. The gateway itself was made of long living hazel
shoots bent and bound together into a perfect circle. There was no gate. Inside
the fence was not a palace, or a great hall, but a circular herb garden, and in
the middle of the garden was a round pavilion, roofed with wooden slats, but
open on all sides, with beautiful carved archways between the wooden pillars. Under
the roof was a circular stone bench. At the very center, was a round clear
pool, fed by the stream that tumbled and sang along the
path.

“Welcome to the Elders’ Ring,” said a soft voiced lady
as they entered the building. She was sitting on the bench, but she got up and
walked to meet them. There were two more people, both men. It was most
difficult to guess their age; they certainly did not look particularly elderly,
except perhaps for the diaphanous transparency of their pale complexion. They
almost
glowed
white, with thread-like lilac veins
marbling their smooth skins. Their deep-set eyes appeared even darker and
deeper in the paleness, but their hair was still thick and lustrous, auburn the
lady, silvery and blond the two men. All three Elders were dressed in practical
clothes, not much unlike Ljung’s hunting gear, albeit lighter and more smartly
patterned. You could see that the patchwork style had been adopted out of
principle, not necessity. All the fabrics they wore were rich and shiny with
embroidery. On top of these they wore flowing robes, green and grey, with here
and there a shimmer of silvery silk, a trim of autumn-colored velvet, a shining
golden braid. It looked like the long rich robes had been put on to stress the
occasion, rather than being the usual everyday wear of the Elders.