The captain joined me. ‘I think it’s over—’
‘Keep watching!’ I snapped. I didn’t appreciate his surly, independent expression; it was defiant, almost a sneer.
‘It’s your responsibility to keep us safe . . . my lord,’ he said quietly.
‘Of course I will. But only if you follow orders!’
‘Because the villagers don’t feel safe, and after this I reckon they’ll mutter to me even more.’
Was he daring to threaten me? With a feeling of sinking hopelessness I realised this raid would be the settlers’ major concern. I gritted my teeth. I don’t
want
any more setbacks. I don’t
want
any more wasted time. I swore I would be seated on the throne this time next week - but the Rhydanne flit in like hail on the wind and disturb the people toiling to build my force.
The captain waited. ‘What are my orders?’
‘Shoot every one of those degenerate creatures that sets a foot outside the forest! I want watchers up here all day and night. I want you to move every villager into the bailey - there should be cabins enough for them there, but if not they can sleep in the hall until they build more. There’s no need for them to be outside the walls in winter. Send archers to accompany every hunting party to leave the gates and guard the prospectors in the woods . . .’
‘My lord?’ he said with curiosity because my voice had trailed off. A black dot crossing in front of Capercaillie’s rock face had turned and was careening towards us at extraordinary speed. Jant’s here. All my foreboding crystallised at once: where the bloody hell has he been?
‘Snipe? Snipe!’
‘My lord?’
‘Our unwanted guest.’ I nodded at the dot, which was rapidly increasing in size. ‘Ready yourself.’
Jant suddenly folded his wings in and dropped like a stone out of sight behind the parapet. I rushed to it, looked over and saw him fall below the level of the treetops. He opened his wings at the last minute, jolted with the drag, swished out in a forward arc and sped low over the ground. He flared his great wings like fans, landed neatly next to the Rhydanne’s corpse and knelt beside it. The arrows in its back projected like spines. I was surprised to see him carefully turn the body onto its side.
‘What’s he doing?’ asked Snipe.
‘I don’t know. Come on.’ Together we descended the staircase, went through the undercroft, out of the gate and strode through the shin-deep snow, the wind flapping our coats behind us. We passed the dead dog, its head twisted at a revolting angle, and as we approached, Jant looked up.
I had never been subject to such a baleful glare in all my life. The wind blew his hair in tangled fronds across his face and his eyes were red-rimmed. He was paler even than usual and his real age lay like vicious ice below the surface. He looked distraught, then realised we had observed it and his expression tightened into fury. Snipe slowed to a dawdle behind me. We were close enough now to tell the body was that of a female.
He had snapped the arrows from the woman’s shoulders and laid her on her back with her arms by her sides. He had closed her eyes and pushed her wet, bright scarf and necklaces away from her mouth and pointed chin. The splintered ends of the arrow shafts projected from her shoulders, sunk over half their length in her body. Orange flights also surrounded us, growing at the same steep angle from the snow like crocus buds.
Jant spoke haltingly, ‘This is Miagail. At first, I thought it was
her
- I mean, it could have been Dellin.’
‘She was one of the raiders.’
‘I saw that. I saw everything!’
He had arranged her as if for burial, which piqued me. Uncivilised Rhydanne don’t bury their dead. They don’t even respect the bodies of loved ones but simply heave them over the nearest precipice.
‘You murdered her . . .’ he said with a dry tongue, swallowed and began again: ‘You tried to shoot the others.’
‘They were robbing us! See what we’ve lost?’ I pointed to the goat tracks, the dead dog and belongings in the snow. ‘My people demand safety.’
‘They weren’t in danger! Yes, the hunters took food, but no lives. They could have chased down those silly trappers a hundred times over.’
‘Up here those animals are our lives! Are we to grow crops in ice? Trade with the roads buried under snow? They will starve us!’
‘You had no right to kill Miagail!’
‘Miagail?’ I looked at the body but felt nothing other than disinterest.
‘She was called Miagail! A solitary huntress! She had a name, you know!’ He stroked back the locks blowing across her face.
‘I’m surprised the death of one savage affects you so much, Comet. Haven’t you witnessed the deaths of thousands of mortals? Did you know her?’
‘No.’
‘And another thing I find odd. You went to the Hound to tell the Rhydanne not to attack us, but this is the worst yet! We’ve never been assaulted by more than a pair before.’
‘They’re driven by hunger.’
‘So you keep saying. You could have stopped it. I expected you at breakfast.’
‘I lost Dellin,’ he said, with a most uncharacteristic flutter in his voice. ‘She was gone when I woke up.’
‘Well, she’s probably joined them.’
He hesitated. ‘She isn’t in her cave. I told her not to come here.’
Yes, it is to be expected, I thought; they don’t have the staying power. She will have melted away like the others, and we’ll next see her appear on one of these random raids.
Jant glanced at the furthest cabin, where some guards were standing on the threshold, giving the surprised occupant notice to move. An excellent chance, I thought, to get him and the Castle off my back. If I take Rachiswater swiftly and neatly - and I must, to have a chance of winning against my brother - the Castle will fall in behind me to preserve the peace and I will be incontestably king. In the meantime I must free myself to proceed with my plans.
‘All right,’ I conceded. ‘I’ll try to restrain my people and allow the Rhydanne to roam unharmed. You see I’m moving the villagers and livestock within the walls and I’ll also put out meat.’
‘They’ll take that as an insult. Rhydanne want to hunt.’
‘It’s a start. But only if they cease these raids.’
He nodded and stood up swiftly. ‘I’ll return to the Hound and inform them. But first I’m going to visit your archers and order them, from the Emperor, not to shoot at Rhydanne again.’ With a whisk, he took off, and landed a few seconds later by the patrol.
‘Much good may it do you,’ I said loudly. I began the uncomfortable trudge back to the gatehouse. A bristle-backed avalanche hound had set upon the dead sheepdog and was noisily tearing flesh from the wound on its neck. As Snipe and I walked past I kicked the hound away, grasped the dead dog’s raised hind paw and its stiff pads crunched together in my palm. I began to drag it after us.
‘My lord, why did you say you’d “restrain” us?’ Snipe demanded.
‘To put Jant off the scent.’
‘And those terms! After the ’danne did this, are you really going to feed them?’
I waved my arm so the dog’s carcass inscribed an S-shaped track. ‘Scraps, Snipe. Scraps.’
JANT
That night I sat in the Hound, infuriated by a day of reasoning with Raven. I couldn’t tell him I had stolen the letter. Not yet, anyway. I picked at a bowl of Ouzel’s stew and hardly touched a mug of beer. I was trying to overhear Dellin in the back room. A group of ten or twelve Rhydanne had gathered around her and more were dropping in every minute. The last, a willowy huntress who couldn’t have been more than ten years old, had brought the news of the death of Miagail. Dellin’s shocked response convinced me she had nothing to do with the raid. She stood with her spear pointing downwards, twisting its point and boring a neat hole in the rug as she urged them to listen.
She was impatient and, thinking my negotiations overly slow, had grown disdainful. When I tried to join them she took the other Rhydanne into their cubby holes or out into the snow, leaving me standing alone. When I retired to my table, their huddle reformed. I hesitated to interrupt again, in case I drove them away to continue their powwow in the deepest part of the forest. Dellin had asked the Castle’s help but now she was bloody well intent on proceeding without me.
I rested my head in my hands and stared down at my congealing plate without seeing it. I was listening hard, trying to catch a few stray words. Nothing in all my years as an Eszai had prepared me for a situation where my title and all the authority of the Castle was simply irrelevant. The Rhydanne gave nothing to the Empire and took nothing from it. I had no hold on them. I peered at Dellin through my fingers. Truly she made all other women look lumpen and clumsy. She runs on instinct, trusts her senses, but her mind and will were as strong as a governor’s. Her voice waxed and waned as she paced up and down. Her bangles jangled and her tooth necklaces clacked together. She hopped her bottom up onto one of the ledges, jumped down, constantly moving. She stirred her spear eloquently with one long hand, as if it was part of her. Her eyes flashed when she turned to talk to Feocullan. I became alert. Feocullan was an accomplished hunter and I couldn’t tell if she liked him or not. He raised his hand to signify agreement and leaned back into the shadows. I began watching her again.
‘ . . .can’t even find rats,’ one of them said.
‘Yes, we are hungry,’ said Dellin, ‘But if we all attack separately we fail. Look what happened to Miagail. We must all attack together, as if the featherbacks are a herd of deer.’
As far as I could tell, the Rhydanne were listening more seriously than last night. Miagail’s death had brought the danger home to them. How was I to stop them getting killed? Dellin had no idea of the Awians’ power, pride and hunger for profits even after today.
Ouzel approached with her hand wound in a tea towel, holding the lug of a heavy pan. ‘You haven’t touched your stew at all.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
Nevertheless she heaped more dumplings on top of the already-cold remains, set the pan down, drew out the chair next to me, threw herself onto it and crossed one leg over the other. Her trousers rode up, showing her mountaineering shins. ‘The guards are coming,’ she said.
‘What . . .?’ I was watching Dellin’s hair. She has such long hair, but when hunting she binds her ponytail with an ochre-dyed scarf and pins the sides back with combs. The combs are carved from bone—
‘Jant,’ said Ouzel. ‘You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.’
‘Sorry.’
‘The guards are coming. Can’t you hear them?’
A distant noise I had, in fact, heard in the background without really registering it was growing in volume and resolved into male voices reciting in marching rhythm. It struck a familiar chord in this unfamiliar place; it was one of the ‘one, two, sound-off’ rhymes fyrdsmen invent when on the march. They often describe Eszai or captains in altogether uncomplimentary terms, but these men’s voices, louder now, had a triumphant ring. Their footsteps crunched an accompaniment as they climbed the icy steps:
The foot folk
put the ’danne to the poke
by way
never heard I say
of readier boys
to get the joke
and make some noise
damn the ’danne all
may they rot where they fall
hey, boys!
This is the last thing I need, I thought. Ouzel looked at me questioningly but at that moment the door barged open and six archers, heavily bundled up in hats, greatcoats and gaiters, spilled into the room. They stood by the door, laughing and chaffing each other, unslinging their bow bags, unbuttoning their coats, unwinding their scarves, stamping their feet and leaving little geometrical blocks of impacted snow from their boot treads on the damp rug. The first unwound the tail of his indigo liripipe hat from his head till it turned from a turban to a woolly tube, lifted it off, leaving his blond hair standing up in sweaty spikes, and I saw it was Snipe. He beckoned to the others, ‘Come in, come in.’ They flocked in with a clatter of scabbards and a flap of coat skirts and occupied the table next to mine, where they peeled off their mittens and regarded me speculatively.