Tale of Birle (5 page)

He looked up at her and she realized her mistake. “If, as I think, this line marks the river, because it curves and winds. Does it?” she asked, to distract him.

“Yes, as it happens, it does. Who told you of this port?”

“We're on the borders of the Kingdom,” she explained, her words coming out fast in her hope not to have given her knowledge away. “The caravans for the fairs stop at the Inn. Ours is the first they come to, going to the cities, and the last they leave, traveling south.”

“I wouldn't have expected you to know—”

He didn't finish the thought, but Birle could finish it for him: much of anything beyond your own daily work. She knew what the Lords thought of the people, from serving the Earl's Steward on his twice-yearly taxing visit to the village and Inn, from the conduct of the messengers. These were Lords of the lowest order, these stewards and messengers, so the higher Lords would be even more disdainful. At the fairs, Lords and Ladies acted as if all the world except for themselves were invisible. A man might get justice against a Lord, if he could claim it, at the Hearing Day. But those were the great Lords sitting as judges, not these everyday Lords who sometimes had little more than their birth to keep them fed. Maybe this young Lord was a lackland. Whatever he was, she didn't want him to disdain her.

“My father keeps the Inn, the Falcon's Wing,” she told him. “So we often meet outlanders, and hear many strange things.” She stood up, and brushed the twigs and dirt from the back of her cloak. “I could travel the day with you, to take you farther along, safely on the river.”

“What is so important about this boat?” he asked. He remained seated, so she was looking down on him. His hair shone in the sunlight.

“The Inn is in Sutherland's gift,” she answered. He should know his adversary. “The Earl has a special care over the Inn, which stands at the very edge of the Kingdom, at the border of his lands.”

“You have warned me, and I thank you,” the Lord said. “Although I don't fear the Earl—no more than I fear any other man—he is all the more reason for me to take you safely home, before I go on. And how can we know? It might be that if the Earl knew my need, he'd give me this boat. But you must not tell your people anything about me.” That thought brought him to his feet. “My safety lies in secrecy. I ask your promise.”

She would make that promise, and keep it. “What would you have me say, my Lord?”

“Tell them something they will believe, but not the truth.”

She could not imagine what he could have done to make flight necessary, and in such secrecy. What crimes could the Lords commit? Theft, or murder, she answered herself, a plot against the King. But he didn't have the look of a murderer. She had seen, in her time, two murderers at their hangings. Neither of them was a Lord, but she would stake her life on this man, that he was no murderer. Aye, and she wished she could stake her life on it.

“Tell them—that you went for a nighttime ride and the boat overturned, which in the wind it might well have. The current carried you downstream. You deemed it safer to sleep the night on shore rather than risk the forest at night. Wouldn't you have done that?”

“Nan would have me locked in my room if she thought I was doing such things,” Birle protested. He had said he was not a thief, and she would take his word on anything.

“Then say you went to check the boat, and it was working loose, and you tried to rescue it but it got away from you.”

He didn't have the look of a traitor either. Traitors were greedy, for power or wealth. There was no greed in his eyes.

“Or tell them you don't know what happened. That might be best. Tell them you awoke to find yourself in the forest, in the night. There are some who walk in their sleep and never remember how they came to be where they are when they awake. I've heard of such things.”

She wished she did not have to part from him.

“I'll row you back upriver,” he told her. He picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder.

“I can row,” Birle said. She could not keep her eyes from studying him, to lock all that she could see of him into her memory. “We might meet up with a fisherman,” she warned him.

“Why then I'll push you into the water and he'll be so busy rescuing you I can make my escape,” he answered. A quick man with a lie, and a story, and a plan; he was that, she thought, memorizing that about him too.

“My mother died of a chill she took from the river, in early spring,” Birle said, remembering.

“Ah,” he said. “Then I won't serve you so. We'll hope to meet no one. If hope fails, there will be some other way.”

Why did she have to part from him?

She didn't, Birle thought, the idea entering her mind like an arrow finding its target. There was nobody here to bind her up and carry her back to the Inn, unless the Lord wished to. There was no law to rule her, here beyond the borders of the Kingdom. There was no one ever to know what became of her.

“I could travel with you. I could be your servant.” The Lords needed servants.

“I don't even have enough food for one,” he said. She didn't dare look at him, but she took hope at the laughter in his voice.

“I also know the river, as you don't.”

He didn't say anything.

“I can fish and I could teach you how. I could go with you only as far as where you enter the forest, and then I could bring the boat back. Don't you see?”

If she could just not have to part from him, she didn't care what happened after. Her family would punish her, for their shame, and the way she had shamed Muir; she would never wed, for no man would take the chance of such a girl, so she would spend her days in service at the Inn. Measured against the brightness of the present day, such gray forbodings meant little. A coward might find such threats for the future reason enough; but Birle thought it might be greater cowardice to throw away the bright treasure of the present hour.

The Lord was shaking his head. “Although I wouldn't mind learning what you could teach me, and the truth is, I also wouldn't mind the company. I'm not a man for solitude and silence.”

Birle didn't expect him to desire her presence. If he didn't mind it, that was enough for her, and more than enough.

“Besides,” he reminded her, “you've a husband awaiting you.”

The thought of Muir sent a chill out from Birle's heart and she pulled her cloak closer around her. The thought of Muir as husband froze her tongue. There were songs about girls throwing themselves into the river because a man had spurned them, or had chosen another. She had always thought those girls fools, but now she understood what their choice was.

“Don't you wish to marry?” his voice asked. Birle's eyes were trapped at the toes of her boots and she couldn't see his face. She couldn't speak, as if her voice were trapped also, so she shook her head.

“I thought the people married from free choice,” the Lord said.

If he thought she was being forced to wed, then he might take her with him, for pity. That little hope warmed her and she raised her face to lie to him. But it was the truth she spoke. “So we do. I said yes to him.”

“It looks to me as if you'd be better off to tell him you've changed your mind,” the Lord advised her.

“That's the man's right. A girl who has given her word must keep it. What would the world come to if a promise made wasn't kept?”

At that he laughed. Birle locked the golden sound of his laughter up in her memory. “Who is the fortunate man?” he asked.

“A huntsman who serves the Earl.”

His smile faded. “Didn't they warn you?”

“Aye, my family tried to persuade me against him, because he's older, because a huntsman's wife has to live in the city while he serves his Lord. Because there is no holding to inherit, if there are children.”

“And did they tell you what happens to such wives, living poor and unprotected in the cities? Didn't they tell you how many such women turn to drunkenness, and the protection of men who are not their husbands? The wives of huntsmen and soldiers are a disease of the cities, turned vicious by poverty and hopelessness. Did they not tell you?”

“Is that true?”

He nodded.

“Would Muir have known this? Would he have known, when he asked me to wed, what my life would be?”

The Lord made no response to that.

“Aye, then, what can I do?” Birle didn't expect an answer.

“Not all huntsmen serve their wives so,” the Lord said. “There are good men among the huntsmen, although they are few. Is your Muir such a man?”

“I don't know,” Birle said, her voice a whisper. She should know that before she wed, to put her life into a man's hands. It had been enough for her to know that Muir wished to marry her, and thought her pretty. She had been more stupid than she had known, more stupid even than Nan had guessed.

“It may be that he is,” the Lord said, pity in his eyes and his voice. Now that he pitied her, Birle thought she didn't wish him to.

“Muir is not a bad man,” she said, without confidence.

“It isn't easy for a huntsman to find a bride—and especially a young one. He must have guessed that you were ignorant.”

Birle didn't know what Muir thought.

“If you tell your father what I've told you,” the Lord suggested.

“I've given my word.” That was the unfortunate truth; she had given her word and there was nothing now she could do to ungive it. “Maybe he'll turn his back to me, and say me nay, because I've spent this night who can say where.”

“If he does that, you'll know he's one of the few good ones,” the Lord said. “So I doubt he will.”

Birle, remembering the expression in Muir's eyes when he asked her to wed, doubted it too. She had felt pity for the rough-mannered man, seeing how much he longed for her to say yes.

“So you had better come with me after all,” the Lord said.

Birle, wrapped round in fear and anger, almost didn't understand the words. “With you?”

“Just as far as the path into the forest, but—if we travel slowly the fair will be come and gone, before you return. So the danger will be past, won't it? I can't see any other way, can you?”

Birle couldn't see anything for the sudden gladness rising in her, that she need not part from him, and that she need not marry Muir.

“And I'm not in any particular hurry, now I'm clear of the Kingdom. You aren't either. Are you?”

She would have to find her tongue, she knew, and answer him something. “Aye, my Lord,” she said. “I mean, no, my Lord. I mean—I thank you.”

“It's what I've been bred to do, rescue maidens in distress. From fierce dragons,” he talked on, bending to pick up his bag, “or evil guardians, or wicked witches. I suppose an unwise wedding can be considered such a danger.”

He moved with the grace of a young tree in a high wind, Birle thought, dazed with joy. Aye, and he was straight and strong as a tree, standing there.

“If we're going, let's be on our way,” the Lord said.

T
WO GENTLE DAYS FOLLOWED, DAYS
filled with watery sunshine. Sometimes Birle rowed, but more often she let the oars hang above the water, dripping them in only for a steering stroke to keep the boat to the center of the river, where the current ran most strongly. They traveled at the river's lazy pace. The Lord seemed content with this, and for herself, the longer they took the happier she would be. She didn't think of the journey's end, and the parting. Why should she spoil whatever hours she had by counting up the days and years to come?

They moved past banks that grew steeper as the land rose into hills. The branched trees they floated by were putting out pale green leaves. Frothy patches of wood violets appeared beneath boulders or atop grassy banks, as if the stars departing from the sky had left their scarves behind.

The two days passed slowly. The Lord could sit silent for hours at a time. Birle didn't know what he thought of as he stared into the water or into the forest. She was content to take care that they kept to the center and content to watch the way the water reflected sunlight up onto his face, in little light-filled shadows that moved over his cheeks and forehead.

At the end of each day he shaved his face clean, using the narrow dagger he wore at his belt. His right hand would grasp the hilt, to pull the sharp steel down along his cheek. With the fingers of his left hand he would follow the path the dagger had cleared. He did this not only on his cheeks, but also on his upper lip, with choppy strokes, and around the curve of his chin. Birle watched, and thought she understood why the men of the people wore beards. Let the Lords and Ladies wear their faces and hair like decorations. The people, men in beards and women with their long braids curled around their ears, had no time to spend so.

The differences between the Lords and the people—she kept seeing them, in the supple leather of his boots, in the unmarked smoothness of his hands, in her memory of the Ladies moving through the crowds at spring fairs and fall fairs in brightly colored gowns of blue, yellow, red, their long hair shining down their backs like silken rivers or dressed high as crowns on their heads.

He mastered the fishing spear easily. Perhaps this too was a difference between Lords and people—the people must be cautious lest they lose the little they had, so the people thought and spoke slowly, acted without haste. From the first, this Lord had acted and spoken differently from anyone Birle knew; she could only guess at what he was thinking. Birle thought he was a quick man, quick to learn, quick to laugh, and quick to pride. The first evening, the boat safely tied, the air still warm with sunlight and the speared fish gutted and ready for the fire, she had stood before him wondering how to ask permission to draw aside to bathe in the river. She didn't know if her request would again embarrass him.