Tale of Birle (33 page)

On the ninth day of their journey, with the sun hovering overhead and a cold wind blowing down from the mountains, they came to a castle that had been built on a mound rising up from the broad plain. A narrow river wound beside them. The castle, with its city spread around it like a lady's skirts, was the stronghold of the Earls of Sutherland.

Orien led her along the packed dirt streets of the city, then through the broad gateway into the castle yard, where a guard said only “You're late, best hurry,” and to a building as long as three stables laid end-to-end. He tied the horse among the other horses at a railing there, leaving the sack on her back. Birle followed him through the doorway.

The high-ceilinged room was crowded with people. Orien stepped along the back wall, with Birle beside him. “Hearing Day,” Orien whispered, “was started in my great-grandfather's time.”

The hall had a platform built at one end of it, taking up a quarter of the room. On the platform, lined up on benches, sat many Lords. On a carved chair at the front, a dark young man leaned forward. His clean-shaven face marked him as a Lord, his place marked him as the Earl. Below, with all of the Earl's attention on him, stood a sturdy man of full years.

“That's the Advocate, who speaks for the people. He presents the cases. Have you been to Hearing Days?”

“The Inn is too far away, the village had no quarrels we couldn't settle among ourselves rather than make the journey to the Earl's castle.” But even as she explained this to Orien, the Falcon's Wing seemed to Birle to be something she barely remembered, something she had heard about once in a story.

Orien spoke to an old man who sat on the benches set against the wall for those too weak to stand for the long day. “A farmer asked a girl to wed, and then at the fair he said he would not have her,” he told Birle. “Her father brought the case, claiming that the farmer has found a bride with a larger dowry. They're waiting for the decision.”

The whole room waited, with quiet conversations. The Earl, in his green shirt with a wide-winged gold falcon sewn on it, at last stood up before his chair. “The man,” he said, “must give this girl five gold pieces, for her shame, and he must also wed her—if she will have him. For she might not wish to put her life into the hands of a man who would shame her so. Furthermore,” he went on, in a cold voice that carried to all the ends of the great hall, “the man must also give his second betrothed five gold pieces, for he has dishonored her as much as the first. Her he may wed, be he free, if she will have a man capable of such deceit.”

This was a heavy sentence. Even the wealthiest of farmers took years to amass ten gold pieces, after he had paid his taxes to the Earl. It seemed to Birle that if neither girl would have him now, this man might never marry, and she wondered if the Earl too had thought of that.

The Earl sat down again. “Next case,” the Advocate called. This was a plea brought by a weaver, who said he had paid his seven silver coins for taxes to the Steward, but the Steward had come back after only three days to say he'd only paid five of them, and to demand the other two. The Steward was not at the Hearing Day, but his Lord was. The Lord said that five was the number written down as paid, in the long book. The Advocate reported that the man's wife, and three neighbors who were after him in line, all swore that he had paid seven. Because they couldn't read, they couldn't say what the Steward had written down, but they could count from one to seven, and seven were the coins that had been placed by the Steward's hands on the table.

“Sir,” the Lord spoke, “in the long books several such short-payings have been noted, but never more than one in any village.”

“Aye, then he writes down falsely,” an angry voice called, and the Advocate turned quickly, to catch the speaker.

The Earl ignored the interruption. “Send to the villages, to hear what these others say. There might well be one error, in all the work of collecting taxes. There might even be two. But more than that will identify a guilty party, if there be such a one. If there be such a one, the law will deal with him. Does that satisfy you, Advocate?”

“It satisfies me, my Lord,” the Advocate replied, without hesitation. “Last case,” he announced.

“Hearing Day used to go on, late into the night and sometimes into the next day.” Orien sounded surprised.

“Is something wrong, then?” she asked.

“Or it's been made right,” he answered.

The last case involved two farmers, who were also neighbors. The one had sold the other a sow, thinking she was a gilt. But she had been pregnant, and now he claimed to own the piglets—arguing that while he had sold the sow he hadn't sold her piglets, not at that price. Two men, both as round-bellied as pigs themselves, shoved to the front of the crowd behind the Advocate, and punctuated his summary with their own claims, and their anger at each other. “Greedy pig,” and “Swindler,” they called each other. “A pigman without the wits to know a gilt from a pregnant sow,” one said, and the other answered that that was a mistake he'd rather make with his pig than his wife.

The Lords raised gloved hands to rub at cheeks and noses, concealing smiles. The crowd laughed openly. Even the Advocate was ashamed of the case. Every sentence he spoke to the Earl had an apologetic “my Lord” tacked on to its beginning or end.

The Earl rose, interrupting the Advocate, silencing the farmers. “This is no case to bring to Hearing Day,” he announced. “The Lords have nothing to do with these quarrels.” At the sound of his voice, all smiles fled all faces. Even the Lords sat up straighter.

“You two.” The Earl pointed a finger at first one farmer, then the other. The two tried to shrink back into the crowd, but nobody would give them room to hide. “You two will settle this between yourselves. In three weeks' time my Steward will come to find out your settlement. He will know if it satisfies the Earl's justice.”

The young Earl looked out over the crowd, as clapping hands approved of his judgment. At Birle's side, Orien smiled. “That's my brother,” he said to Birle, and she heard pride in his voice, and laughter too. His smile, sent over the heads of the crowd like a beam of sunlight, caught the Earl's eye.

The Earl stiffened, stared.

There was something here Birle didn't understand. Then she could understand it: Unfinished between these two was the matter of a father's death. More than that: This Earl could not be the Earl, once Orien had returned. Birle stood at Orien's side. She had a knife at her boot.

“Hearing Day is completed,” the Earl announced. “Let the hall be cleared,” he said. Behind him, the Lords stirred and rose. Before him, the people turned, to crowd out of the door. “You, man,” he said, not needing to point for Birle to know to whom he spoke, “wait where you are.”

“Aye, my Lord,” Orien called back in answer.

The room was quickly emptied. Some of the people cast curious glances at Orien, where he leaned at ease against the wall, but most hurried away, back to their own labors and their own lives. Birle stayed beside Orien, who ignored her. Even when the hall was emptied, he didn't move or speak.

It was the Earl who jumped down from the platform, to cross the empty floor. He was a darker man than his brother, with black hair and eyebrows, but his eyes were a much paler blue. He approached slowly, with no expression on his face. A few feet away, he stood to stare.

“Orien?” he asked.

“Aye, my Lord,” Orien answered. He didn't move.

At that response, the Earl laughed aloud and his whole face lit up, as if he had shed solemnity like a cloak. “Aye my Lord indeed, Brother.” He held out both of his hands, to take the one Orien held out to him now. “I give you greeting, my Lord,” he said, and his voice was stiff now. His eyes shone cold, perhaps angry or perhaps afraid. Before Birle could decide, he spoke again. “Brother indeed,” the Earl said. “And you're back, you've come back.”

He was glad of that. He hadn't even noticed Birle, so glad was he to have his brother in his sight. Orien was in no danger here. This dark man was no guilty murderer, whatever else he might be.

“A little travel-stained,” Orien said.

“A little—” The Earl laughed again. “Yes, you might say that and I won't gainsay you. You look—” He reached out and turned Orien's head a little to the side. “What's that mark? As if you've been—” Quick as flames in dry branches, anger took the place of gladness on his face.

“I'll tell you the story sometime, Gladaegal. For now, it's enough to say that no beast in my house will ever again be branded. No, Brother, the men who did it are well beyond your reach, and I count it enough to be alive. Brother,” Orien said, to distract the Earl, “you sit well in judgment.”

“Yes, I think so,” his brother answered, all pride. “Yes, I know I do. It's the second time I've had the Hearing Day and already fewer bring their quarrels. Orien, you must see Grandfather.”

Birle looked at Orien's brother. Then this was not the Earl, if the old Earl still lived. Orien must have known it all along, but she didn't know how he would have. For just a minute, selfishly, she wished they were once again beyond the Kingdom, just the two of them, equal in the forest solitudes.

“I owe him an apology,” Orien said.

“Him and the rest of us too.”

Orien held up a hand. “You don't need to say it. I've learned—” Without saying what it was he had learned, he turned to Birle, and took her arm. “This is my Lady,” Orien said.

“Your Lady?” Gladaegal echoed.

“My Lord,” Birle said to Orien, “can't it wait, shouldn't you go to your grandfather if he's alive to greet you?” She thought she might slip away, take the horse, and be out of the city before he had time to notice she was gone. She thought he hadn't known what would happen here, when he had returned to his rightful place; she knew she hadn't thought of it.

“Birle,” Orien said, “let me present my brother.”

“I give you greeting,” Gladaegal said. But he paid no more attention to her than Orien did.

Birle took the arm Gladaegal offered, although she was well able to walk without it. She was in a world she knew nothing of. If, in this world, a woman took a man's arm for support when she walked, then Birle must do as the others.

They went along a long corridor, where the only light came from candles set in the walls. They entered a hall where fires burned in fireplaces large enough for three men to stand abreast, and great woven hangings covered the walls. Men sat or stood near the fires, and all turned to see them enter. “Orien?” one asked, and all came forward.

Gladaegal summoned a maidservant. “Take this lady up to my wife,” he told the girl. “You'll join us at table, won't you, Lady?”

He was only interested in his brother, and Birle thought that was right. She too had her eyes on Orien, but he was occupied with the Lords who closed around him.

“I give you greeting, my Lord,” they said, one after the other, kneeling in turn.

The servant led Birle up a broad stone staircase and down a long hallway. They were bid enter a room where a tall Lady rose to meet her. “I give you greeting,” she said. “You are welcome to this house.” Then she spoke only to the servant, to give orders. Birle didn't take offense at being slighted. She didn't know that—had it been asked of her—she could have spoken her own name.

Birle followed the servant into another room, where beds stood against the wall, each one surrounded by heavy hangings, and a fire burned. Behind the privacy of screens, Birle was unclothed, and then bathed in a metal tub set before the fire. She didn't know what she was supposed to do, or say, so she did as she was told and said nothing.

They dried her hair before the fire, combing it free. They dressed her in a fine shift, then lowered over her head a red dress that fitted close up under her breasts and fell in folds down to the floor. Birle ran her hands down over it, admiring the way the long sleeves hung down from her wrists. She had seen such dresses, on Ladies at the fairs. They put soft leather shoes on her feet; the shoes were too long but they stuffed the toes with pieces of cloth to make them fit.

When she was ready, Birle was led down the hallway and down the stairs, back to the great hall, where long tables were set out. The Ladies sat along one side, the Lords along the other, and at the high table were only three—Orien and his brother and Gladaegal's wife. Birle was given a seat among the women.

Servants moved up and down the room, carrying platters of fowl and fish and flesh, baskets of breads and pastries, jugs of wine. They put food onto the metal plate before Birle, and she tried to eat it, but had no appetite. It was enough trouble to keep the long sleeves out of her food. They poured wine into the metal goblet, and she raised it to her mouth, but could not swallow. None of the others at the table had any desire to speak with her. Their talk was all of Orien, and his return, the scar on his face—which they had heard he earned in battle, or maybe in a fight to free himself from pirates—and the mystery of his disappearance.

When she dared, Birle raised her eyes from her plate, to look at him. Orien too had been bathed and clothed. His beard had been shaved off. As he ate and drank, as he spoke laughing with his brother, while his brother's wife sat unnoticed between them, Birle recognized him for what he was, the Earl that would be.

She didn't want to sit gawping at him, so she turned her eyes back to her plate. It was as well that no one asked, for she didn't know what explanation to give of herself. The meal went on, and on.

Birle's plate was taken away and replaced with another. Servants came by with wooden platters of cheese, and baskets of apples, and bowls of sweetmeats. They put food onto her plate. She lifted her goblet and drank as much as she could. Then there was a movement of chairs from the high table and from across the room. Birle looked up.