The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) (33 page)

He stopped chewing. ‘How do you know?’

‘Colban finds everything out, one way or another. The kitchen is always full of talk. There are Hearthwares preparing for the journey even now.’

‘It was supposed to be a secret.’

She sat down. ‘Keeping a secret in the Manse is like hiding a fire under straw. You are travelling to the Greshorns.’

Riven said nothing.

‘Are you going back to your own world, to the Isle?’

He liked the steadiness of those eyes, the earnestness of the face; but they confused him. ‘I don’t know.’

Her hand darted out to his across the table. ‘Take me with you.’

‘What?’

‘Let me go back with you. Let me stay with you.’

He pulled away his hand with a jerk. ‘You’re kidding!’

‘You’re alone back there. Ratagan told me, and Bicker says that the Isle of Mists is an empty place, full of mountains and deserted coasts. I cook well. I can work hard. I am not afraid. Please take me with you. I—’

‘Shut up!’ He knew what she was about to say; something he had never thought to have heard said to him again. The tears jumped into her eyes and she bent her head, hugging her arms to her breasts. A hurt child.

But she terrified him, because he wanted her and he liked having that grave face near him, and she was willing to have him even with the ghosts crowding at his shoulder.

He stood up at the same time as she did, and caught her as she made for the door. A brief struggle and she was still, her face set, but tears on her cheeks. He wiped them away, held her in his arms and buried his face in her hair. Bastard.

Her voice was muffled by his shoulder. ‘I thought you wanted me. I thought—’ And she pressed harder into his embrace. But she was seeking comfort, nothing else. Then she raised her head and looked at him, hair caught in her mouth. He could not keep her gaze. She left him and went to the table.

‘You’ve hardly eaten anything.’ She laughed through her tears. ‘That is my fault, keeping you from your food.’ She took up the basin, spilling muddy water on the floor. ‘Colban will be wondering where I have got to.’ Then she left.

He unsheathed his sword and grimaced at the blue steel. He swung it in a glittering arc, and it sliced through the table as though it were butter, carving its way through the heavy wood and jarring his arm, striking sparks off the stone floor.

Isay peered in. ‘I heard a noise.’ He saw the great slice that had been hacked out of the table. Riven met his eyes with a wild glare.

‘Just practising,’ he said, and the door was closed again.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
found him on the practice fields as soon as the sun was up, battering his post as though it were a mortal enemy. The Myrcans looked on with what he could have sworn was approval. Old Luib, the chief instructor, took his arms and adjusted the swing.

‘Put all your weight behind it, but move on the ball of your foot, ready to recover if the swing does not strike home.’ The white stripe on his face glistened in the early light.

Riven halted, panting, as the other trainees trotted over. He nodded to them and asked Luib, partly because he was interested, partly because he needed to get his breath back: ‘How many of them will make Hearthwares?’

Luib shrugged fractionally. He studied his charges as the other instructors put them through their paces.

‘Five; maybe six.’

Riven whistled softly. ‘What about the rest?’

‘They are to remain in the Circle under arms and defend the Rorim, so that the Hearthwares can be freed for duties beyond the wall.’

‘And what about the Myrcans? Where do you get your new recruits from?’

Luib met his eyes with a slight frown. ‘Myrcans are born. They travel from their home Dale in the north, and take service with whoever needs them.’

Riven’s interest quickened. ‘Whereabouts in the north?’

‘West of Drinan.’

There was a pause, Riven trying to remember Minginish’s geography, but a few moments later Luib put him back to work. With every crack of the wood he was seeing Madra’s face, and the tears springing into it.

He would have stayed there until dark again, but Ratagan and Bicker came out to find him. By the time he noticed them, they had been watching for some minutes. Luib took the practice sword from him with a nod, and he joined them at the edge of the field. There was a wind blowing, clearing the sky of cloud wrack, and a pale moon was already inching its way above the brows of the hills. It would be another clear night.

‘If you are not careful, someone will mistake you for a Hearthware,’ said Ratagan, handing him his sword belt.

Riven pulled it on. ‘It passes the time.’ He slapped the scabbard. ‘And, besides, if I am going to wear it, I may as well be able to use it.’

‘You use it none so badly,’ the big man retorted.

They moved off, toward the walls of the Rorim. Bicker seemed deep in thought, and he splashed through puddles without seeing them.

‘What is it?’ Riven asked.

‘Oh, things. Too many little things are happening at the one time. There is something in the air.’

‘Is the council over yet?’

‘It finished this afternoon. Bragad was affable enough at the end—said that all things came to pass in good time, if they were meant to. Even Marsco seemed resigned to the fact that the Rorims will not combine.’

‘But you are worried.’

Bicker nodded. ‘He gave in too easily, at the last; too graciously after the time and prestige he has wasted here. And there is more. The Lady Jinneth went out riding alone this afternoon, and she has not yet come back. And her husband is not worried; he says she will return in her own time.’

‘That she will,’ Ratagan snorted.

Bicker shook his head. ‘Too many people are wandering the Dales—important people. Lionan and Mullach, for instance. No one has heard from them for days. And both Rim-Suardal and Rim-Drynoch are well-nigh deserted—or so Ord says. He went round there yesterday on his patrol.’

‘Bragad has the strength of two Rorims behind him now, plus maybe the men of three of your own lords,’ Riven said quietly. ‘Do you think he would attack Ralarth?’

Bicker was startled. ‘Attack Ralarth? But he himself is inside the Rorim.’

‘Ever heard of the Trojan horse, Bicker?’

‘Tell me.’

‘If Bragad wanted to take Ralarth Rorim, what better way to begin than to get some of his men inside beforehand?’

‘There are twelve of his ’Wares billeted in the Circle,’ Ratagan rumbled thoughtfully.

‘Lionan and Mullach, and Jinneth, could be out there somewhere now, waiting for a signal to attack—or Jinneth could have brought the signal herself. Or the men in the longhouses could be tasked with sending it.’

‘That is surmise,’ Bicker said sharply.

‘Better safe than sorry.’

The dark man fell silent. They walked through the barbican of the Rorim into the cobbled courtyard beyond. There was a smell of hay and horse urine from the stables, and a pair of serving maids, wrapped against the cold, were winding water up from the well.

‘The household knows about the journey north,’ Riven said.

Bicker nodded, and sighed. ‘Young Hearthwares. They tell their lady friends, and then all secrecy is lost. Your reputation as a wizard is secured, my friend. Why else would you be seeking to travel to the Greshorns in such times?’ He spat, and rubbed it into the cobbles with his boot. The three stood silent a moment, receiving stares from the girls at the well and a pair of passing Hearthwares.

Bicker swore suddenly. ‘All right. You have a suspicious mind, Michael Riven, but my own goes along with it. I will try to set up a few... safeguards, in case our fears are proved true.’

‘The captains will be at the feasting tonight,’ Ratagan pointed out. ‘If it is defenders we need, who will lead until we can join them?’

‘There’s Dunan,’ Riven offered.

‘And Luib,’ Bicker added. ‘He can lead the trainees. We will divide our people—some to the Rorim and the Circle, and some to the outer wall to give us advance warning.’

‘The Warbutt will have to be told,’ Ratagan said gently.

‘Aye,’ Bicker said. ‘My task, I believe. He will take some convincing, but it will be done.’ He looked up at the clearing sky, darkening now into dusk. ‘This is Bragad’s last night in the Rorim. If we are right, then it will be tonight. Whatever he has planned will be tonight. Some night for a feast.’

‘I’m not going,’ Riven said. He was thinking of Madra pouring beer for him at the last one.

‘An extra man on the ramparts is no bad thing,’ Bicker said absently. He turned and stared at the Manse. ‘I must go, then. I have things to do...’ And he walked off slowly with none of his usual sprightliness.

Ratagan followed him with his eyes. ‘This is not Bicker’s province,’ he said. ‘More Murtach’s. Bicker was never one to be tied down with intrigue and politics.’

‘Hence his wanderings in the mountains,’ Riven noted.

‘Aye.’ Ratagan hesitated. ‘You really believe Bragad is going to try and take our Rorim?’

‘Yes.’

Ratagan thought. ‘That would mean killing. ’Wares against ’Wares. Perhaps even—’ He stopped. ‘No, he’d never get Myrcan to fight Myrcan.’ He frowned. ‘Is this sort of thing common in your world?’

‘Where I come from, there is always a war going on somewhere or other. That is why I was able to be a soldier; we keep armies at the ready all the time.’

Ratagan shook his head. ‘Sounds like somewhere the Myrcans would love.’

Riven stared up at the Manse with its flapping pennants. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think they would. I think they would hate it.’

The big man gripped his shoulder. ‘I had best put in an appearance at the feast. I am expected to be present where there is beer flowing.’ He bit his bottom lip for a moment. ‘Riven?’

‘What?’

‘Madra is... young. I know I am not such a blameless one as should be saying it, but try and find it in your heart to be good to her, for she is lovely.’

Then he turned away.

J
INNETH HAD STILL
not returned when the feast began. Riven walked the ramparts, watching the Dale under the young moon. He heard the sounds of merriment from the Manse, and he knew that Madra would be in there, pouring wine for Bragad and suffering the leers of drunk men.

And he watched the high hills to the west, and knew that out there, also, there were other women whose faces he knew. He continued his pacing, caught in contradictions. Better to turn over in his mind the arrangements he and Bicker had organised, to search for loose ends, gaps in the plan.

Steps behind him; light, not like those of the Hearthware sentries. They stopped at his side. He could faintly smell her sweat, and also the lavender of the garland she wore in her hair. She tugged it off and played with it in her hands as she watched the Dale with him, leaning on the stone of the wall.

You don’t give up, do you? He smiled weakly.

There was torchlight in the longhouse where Bragad’s men were billeted. They were making merry also. He wondered if the whole Rorim were drunk tonight. At least the Myrcans would be sober.

A wind stirred his hair, fanned Madra’s out behind her. It looked black in the starlight.

‘What is it you do in your world?’ she asked him.

The question caught him by surprise. He realised that there were things he had done; but now, he did nothing.

‘I was once a soldier, and then a storyteller.’

‘You loved someone.’

He grimaced. ‘She died.’

‘But you still love her.’

‘Yes.’

She squeezed his hand, and he looked at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know before.’

‘Did Ratagan tell you?’

‘Yes.’

It was cold in the clear night, with the wind running through the Dale. Her face seemed ageless in the dim light, and she was stifling shivers. He brought her inside his cloak, and wrapped it around the both of them. Her hands were chill, and she slipped them inside his shirt to warm them. He could feel them at the small of his back, feel the scratch of the lavender garland which she still held.

‘How old are you?’

Her face turned up to him. ‘I have seen sixteen summers.’

Sixteen. Jesus Christ.

‘How old are you?’ she asked.

‘Old as the hills.’

‘I do not believe you. You are not even as old as Bicker, and he has no grey in his hair.’

He laughed and hugged her closer, unthinkingly. He was responding to her presence. Warning bells sounded in his head.

I’m supposed to keep my wits about me, and an eye on those longhouses.

But he did not push her away. It was warm under the cloak. Her palms were no longer cold against the skin of his back. She rested her head on his chest.

‘You are leaving after Bragad’s visit, aren’t you?’