The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) (52 page)

T
HE QUARTERS THEY
had been given turned out to be a pair of spacious rooms hewn out of solid rock, complete with stone fireplaces. Wood was burning in both of them, making Bicker ponder aloud on the difficulty of transporting it this high. Or this low, Ratagan reminded him, grinning. They had no way of knowing how deep inside the mountains they were, but the journey from the cave of their fire had not been short and the four Dwarves who had discovered them had hastened them the whole way.

The rooms were furnished with low tables and benches that seemed to be carved out of marble, though there were couches by the walls piled high with furs. Earthenware vessels clustered thickly on the tables, some giving off tendrils of steam and smells that brought the water into their mouths. They had forgotten the last time they had had a proper hot meal.

Their two guides, Hyval and Thiof, set the tables for the company, dragging the heavy benches around as though they were made of plywood. They poured beer into deep cups and carved haunches of what looked like deer expertly. Then they bowed to the company and left without another word, closing the stone door behind them.

The first thing Bicker did was to try and open it. He strained at the stone until the sweat rolled off his face, but even after Isay and Ratagan went to his aid, the door remained stubbornly shut.

‘So we are prisoners,’ Ratagan said, wiping his brow and eyeing the dark beer with interest. He did not seem unduly worried by the thought.

‘In a sense,’ the dark man said. ‘Dwarves are secretive folk. Perhaps they did not like the thought of us running about their mansions and peering into corners.’

Ratagan was swallowing his drink with a look of ecstasy on his face. ‘By all that’s holy!’ he exclaimed. ‘Any folk who make ale as good as this cannot be all bad. They can keep me here as long as they will, if they continue to top up my cup with this stuff. It makes Colban’s ale taste like riverwater, and he is no mean brewer.’

Bicker laughed. ‘Little pleases the innocent,’ he said, but his face changed as he, too, tasted the dwarven ale.

For a while there was little talk as the company helped themselves to food and drink, occasionally commenting aloud on the amazing selection. There were apples and pears, fresh cheese, bread warm from the oven, pickles, onions, tomatoes, honey on the comb, hot broth and prime cuts of pork and venison with the skin on them crackling and the meat pink inside. And, of course, there was the beer: a huge jug of it, dark and cold with a head on it like cream. Jinneth had two cupfuls of the stuff, throwing it back as though she were dying of thirst: Then she tore herself a chunk of bread and cheese and nursed it by the fire, turning her back on them.

Riven looked at Bicker, and the dark man shrugged. Ratagan, Isay, Bicker and Riven retired to the next room to leave her in peace, dragging stone settles over to the hearth and lounging on them shoulder to shoulder. Tiredness was bearing down on them like a dark cloud. Even Isay looked half-asleep.

Ratagan chuckled suddenly and Riven looked at him. ‘What?’

‘Our hosts’ faces when you told them the name of this place. I’ll wager there are not many in this world who have seen a council of Dwarves at a loss.’

‘It was a well-told story,’ Bicker said, ‘even for a Teller.’

Isay shook himself out of his doze. ‘In the stories, all Dwarves love to argue and discuss, and they love problems to unravel. They hate to fight. It is said that is one of the reasons they helped create the Myrcans, to defend Minginish for them. Some have called my people the Hammer of the Stone-folk, and some have said there is dwarven blood in us, hence our hardiness and our long lives. I know I feel at home here as if I were in Dun Merkadal itself. I believe they will aid us.’ He took another swallow of the potent beer.

Ratagan nudged him. ‘Dwarven ale is strong stuff, indeed. Isay, I think that is the longest speech I have ever heard you make.’

Sleep claimed them soon after. They laid themselves down on the fur-piled couches around the walls and were unconscious almost at once. Only Riven remained awake, debating within himself. At last, cursing silently, he made his way to the firelit gloom of the other room and saw Jinneth slumped by the dying flames with her empty cup lying by her side.

He knelt on the hearthstone and stared. Her mouth was open slightly in sleep, dark lashes shut, her cheeks flushed with warmth. The flames danced a troop of shadows over her face and in the recesses of her raven hair.

‘Jenny,’ he said in a whisper, tucking the hair back from her face. He would have sold his soul to see her wake up and be the woman he had once known. But as Guillamon had once said, death was final—even in the land of dreams and stories.

And he had come to accept that at last. Madra’s doing. Admitting to himself that he loved his frowning young nurse had been like casting aside a final, irrational hope. His wife was dead and this sleeping woman was not her, had never been her. But he was human, nonetheless, and he could not stop himself gazing at this face he had once loved, as if he were trying to get its contours right in his mind, make it imperishable.

He kissed Jinneth on the forehead with infinite gentleness, and then gathered her up in his arms and laid her on one of the fur-laden couches. He covered her, and then returned to his own sleeping space without a backward glance.

I
T WAS TALK
that woke him, the murmur of voices in the room, along with the clink of cups. He dragged himself out of a deep, dark womb of oblivion and knuckled his eyes until they could open without squinting. The fire had been built up, and there were thick candles burning on the table. Riven sat up. The dwarf, Thormod, was seated by the hearth smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe and engaged in conversation with Ratagan and Bicker. Isay stood to one side, listening. It seemed Jinneth was still asleep. A beer jug was propped against the leg of the settle and they all held cups in their hands.

The Dwarf noticed him. ‘Good morning, my friend, for it is such outside. I hope your first night in the Jhaar was a pleasant one.’

Riven mumbled something incomprehensible. The beer of the night before had left him feeling thick-headed and dull. He did not feel ready for conversation.

The Dwarf smiled and continued smoking his pipe in silence whilst Ratagan and Bicker threw back their beer.

There was a jug of water and a towel by Riven’s couch. He splashed himself vigorously, the coldness smarting his skin. But he felt more awake afterwards, and joined the others at the fire. The room was brighter now in the candlelight. He wondered how Thormod knew whether it was morning or night down here.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked as he creaked over to the table and selected an apple from the bowl there. Ratagan gave him a cup of beer.

Thormod took the pipe out of his mouth and inspected it for a moment, a gesture so like Calum that Riven stared.

‘This morning, the council meets to wrangle out a few details of the story we are going to tell you later on in the day,’ Thormod said. ‘Our Teller is burnishing his skills and mining old lore from the eldest among us, so that he may present you with a polished tale the like of which you have never heard before.’

‘A tale!’ Riven exclaimed. ‘You mean he’s going to tell us stories?’

‘A story,’ Thormod corrected him.

‘A story.’ Exasperation crept into Riven’s voice and Bicker shot him a warning glance, which he ignored. ‘We haven’t time to sit here telling stories. I need answers, so we can decide where to go next, what to do.’

Thormod puffed out blue smoke that writhed snakelike in the candlelight. His voice was mild, but the red light of his eyes had brightened.

‘This story will give you your answers,’ he said, his voice a bass register that Riven half-fancied he could feel vibrating in his bones. He subsided. Stories and magic. He knew the Dwarf was right. Stories and magic were at the heart of Minginish, and at the core of its connection with his own life. And the mountain, also. Sgurr Dearg had a role yet to play, of that he was sure.

Jinneth came into the room and helped herself to a cup of the ale. Thormod regarded her from under his eyebrows. Calum watching his daughter. Riven shook his head and bit into cold bread.

‘Why do you stare?’ Jinneth asked the Dwarf defiantly. ‘Have I a flaw which interests you?’

Thormod took the pipe out of his mouth and tamped down the bowl with one thick thumb. ‘Exactly,’ he said, taking her aback. ‘A flaw. I couldn’t have put it better myself.’ His eyes were like candlelit rubies shining above his beard.

‘Explain!’ Jinneth demanded, and her voice shook. Riven took a seat beside Ratagan.

‘You are flawed. There is something wrong with you,’ Thormod said. ‘The Teller here’—he gestured towards Riven—‘has something wrong with him also, but with him it is in the nature of a surfeit. He has too much in him, whereas you—you lack something. There is a hollowness in you I cannot plumb. Were it not for the suspicion within me that you are needed in this thing, I would have considered having you and your band of bravos slain as soon as you entered these mountains, but Orquil, one of the oldest of the council, said we should let you be, confirming my own instincts. You are a murderess, but not, I think, entirely evil.’

Ratagan and Riven exchanged glances.

‘And the Teller here would not allow us to harm you, I believe, even if it meant harm to himself.’

Isay opened his mouth as if to speak and then shut it again, frowning.

‘There you have it. You are here, and living, because others would have it so, not through any merit of your own. So hold your tongue, if you cannot keep it civil.’

Thormod had spoken in the same mild tone throughout, but Jinneth looked as though he had struck her. Her fingers fumbled at her cup and sent it tumbling to be broken on the floor, making them all start. Riven could not look at her, and lost his gaze in the creamy head of his beer.

‘What do you want of me?’ Jinneth whispered.

‘We do not yet know,’ Thormod told her, ‘but we will find out.’ His face was as stark as stone, his eyes lava-filled holes in his head. And yet it was still Calum’s face. Calum angry was something Riven had rarely seen, but never forgotten. And he had never seen him lose his temper with his daughter. He was strangely ashamed at being a spectator to this.

‘Was it you and your kind who made me come here?’ Jinneth asked. Her face was flushed, her hair awry from sleep. She was like a child who had just been chastised.

Thormod cocked an eyebrow. ‘Made you come here? No one forced you to take this road you have set yourself upon. You chose it yourself.’

She shook her head, and there were tears trickling down her cheeks, brilliant in the candlelight. Her bare feet were in a puddle of spilled beer, but she did not seem to notice or care.

‘No,’ she said brokenly. ‘Something made me come here. Something has drawn me to him since the first time I saw him.’ She stared at Riven, but he could not meet her gaze.

Bicker’s eyes were filled with anger. ‘You have a queer way of showing your attraction, if that is the case.’

‘Attraction!’ And now the hardness was in her voice and she drew herself up as though she were a queen addressing a peasant. ‘Attraction! Is that the only word you can dredge up for yourself? You have no idea about what you speak, so close your mouth.’

Surprisingly, Bicker did so. Ratagan rubbed a hand over his beard in an effort to hide his smile.

Riven’s heart was thudding in his chest. So she had been drawn to him. Was there then something of Jenny in her, after all?

He downed his beer, cursing silently. ‘When are we going to hear this story of yours?’ he asked Thormod.

The Dwarf shrugged with a twitch of his massive shoulders. ‘We had thought to let you rest for a while. Your company looked as though it needed it.’ Unexpectedly, he grinned, white teeth flashing in his beard. ‘I have a feeling that if we leave you to rest much longer you will be fighting amongst yourselves.’

‘The woman is not of our company,’ Isay snapped.

‘I think you err, brother Myrcan. Whether it seems good to you or not, she is needed.’ Thormod paused. ‘I will ask my kindred to assemble for you once again, as soon as may be, though as I have said our Teller will need time to put together his story from the scraps he will garner from our eldest counsellors.’

‘Must be quite a tale,’ Ratagan said.

‘Perhaps. I know this. It begins where all good tales should: at the beginning.’

‘I have a question,’ Bicker said abruptly. ‘Our tales say that the Hidden Folk who fled the clearances made their way into the heights of the mountains and were taken in by the Dwarves. Is this truly the way of it, or is it a mere legend?’

Thormod took a few puffs to revive his flagging pipe before replying. ‘Some came,’ he conceded at last. ‘Most went into the Eastern Mountains, and some crossed them and made the trek across the desert to Nalbeni—so it is said. Few came to the Greshorns. They are too high, too bleak. Nothing can live in these mountains except the beasts and the Dwarves, yet some came seeking us. For a while they stayed and we made them welcome, but my own people were under pressure at that time also. They abandoned their mansions and mines in the lower foothills and the marts and fairs they had once held in concert with the folk of Drinan and Talisker, Idrigill and Ullinish; they ceased, and the Folk of Stone slowly withdrew. They were no longer welcome in the affairs of men.