‘Please, do not concern yourself! You must do what you need to do in order to get your past back.’ She meant it, though she also felt a twinge of disappointment that he would not be with her for all of star-season, and another of guilt, for she hoped that his recovered past would not turn out to include a wife.
‘Thanks. After that, I’m probably going to ask Einon if I can carry on to the City with him. Is that what you’ll be doing too? Because,’ and he laughed, in that self-mocking way of his, ‘though I get on pretty well with Damaru, considering, I don’t much fancy travelling with Fychan and Einon without you along as well.’
Kerin smiled. ‘I would like nothing more.’
‘That’s settled then.’
Not that the decision was theirs to make. Kerin could do nothing to influence Einon, but she did her best to make friends with Fychan. She avoided antagonising him or making him look foolish, as she had over the bogwood root. One night she suggested a game of gem. Fychan looked surprised, then agreed. They soon reached a point where she could win at a stroke. She wondered why he had not seen it. Her hand hesitated over her black; then she moved a brown instead. The game ended in a draw.
The weather stayed dry and warm for the final days leading up to star-season, though mist cloaked the land in the mornings and the afternoon sky was often filled with racing grey-tinged clouds. Every clear night she would catch sight of the silver streaks of falling stars. Occasionally a larger flaming trail would hang overhead before fading.
Their track became a stone-paved road running through rolling chalk downs. Trees overhung the road, green with new leaves and sprinkled with pungent off-white flowers. Their route was busy and smaller parties often had to move aside to make way for the drove.
One day they passed a cart accompanied by men in smart blue coats carrying small, intricate-looking tools that Huw said were weapons - the men were monitors, the church’s warrior-guards, and the strong-box on their cart likely contained money: tithes for the church.
The whole land was cultivated now, either given over to fields of crops, or grazed by large brown cattle. (‘They give good milk,’ said Huw with a herdsman’s eye, ‘but their meat is tasteless and fatty.’) Kerin marvelled at seeing nature so thoroughly tamed.
The drove usually arrived before star-season, but the delays meant the Sul service marking the start of the festival had to be held outside Plas Aethnen. The next day an air of anxious anticipation hung over the drovers: they had had a long, hard journey, and had lost friends to reivers and the falling fire. Now they wanted the reward at journey’s end.
They reached Plas Aethnen late that afternoon, the first day of star-season itself. The great manor house looked out over a sprawl of buildings extending down to a meandering river. Kerin tried counting the buildings, then gave up. The stone-built houses had two storeys and high-peaked roofs of red tiles; even the lowliest dwelling in Plas Aethnen looked to be as large as the moot-hall back in Dangwern. Now she understood the lowlanders’ contempt for uplanders who lived in huts of brushwood and mud - and yet she could not help being born in the mountains, and it had not made her less able to think, or learn, or be useful.
On this side of the river, a massive tree-edged meadow enclosed on three sides by one of the river’s loops was covered in tents and awnings and animal pens: the star-season fair, a temporary village devoted to trade and pleasure. Kerin was torn: part of her was eager to sample the new experiences; the other part felt unsure, worried that the combination of the lawlessness of star-season and her own ignorance might get her into trouble.
While the drove leaders went in to find the stockmen to take charge of the beasts the carts were unloaded and people reclaimed their trade goods. Kerin had decided to keep back her favourite skirt to wear for the fair and in the City; she suspected she might get a better price for it in the City afterwards. She added the left-over scraps from Sais’s shirt to her woven items.
Sais came up as she sat next to her pile of possessions. ‘I’m going with Einon now,’ he said.
‘Aye,’ she said, more curtly than she had intended.
‘We’re here for six days, so I should be free to join you in a couple of days, depending on how things go with Einon.’
‘As you wish.’
‘You make sure you have fun, all right?’
‘I am sure I will. Good luck.’ She made herself look away from his departing back.
With the sun long-set and fires and lanterns springing up around the meadow, word came that animal pens and camping space had been allocated. As the last to arrive they were relegated to the marshy ground near the river. The men were eager to finish pitching camp so they could get down to the serious business of partying, and Damaru caught their restless mood. She sat with him, talking to distract him from the hectic anticipation of the camp - and to distract herself. Before they left this place, she felt sure decisions would be taken that would set the course of the rest of her life.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As he walked through the crowded streets of Plas Aethnen - the first place he’d seen deserving of the name ‘town’ - Sais couldn’t help feeling he was abandoning Kerin. Not that she couldn’t look after herself, of course - he was amazed at how well-balanced she was, given all the crap she’d been through. Still, she was his best friend; he felt like he’d known her all his life.
In some ways, he had. And that was the problem.
Though he was getting better at interacting with the world - or at least better at faking it well enough not to upset people - he still had no idea who he was, or where he’d come from, or how he’d ended up here. His decision to carry on to Dinas Emrys was mostly down to the nagging sense of familiarity about Einon’s lantern, which came from the City of Light; it gave him hope that he might find some answers there.
When they reached the Reeve’s manor Einon became almost embarrassingly solicitous, requesting rooms for ‘my guest’, and offering to lend Sais money. ‘You will not need anything while we are under the Reeve’s roof,’ he said, ‘but on the road to the City of Light we shall be staying at inns. You can pay me back later.’
Sais had been wondering about money, as presumably not everyone lived by trading cows and skirts. He had no choice but to accept Einon’s offer of a loan, though it put him further in the priest’s power - as would attempting the Cof Hlesmair technique again. The priestly ability to spot lies made him uncomfortable. He had an idea that kind of thing wasn’t normal where he came from. And that belief was one more indication that his home was nothing like this place. Even the sky was wrong here. And as for the Skymothers . . . how would a priest react to finding that the gods he worshipped meant nothing to Sais? He might be able to choose his words carefully when they chatted together, but would he be able to edit his responses when he was in a trance?
He was introduced to the Reeve, the cleanest, fattest person he’d seen so far, then shown to a room containing the sort of soft furnishings he’d been fantasising about for the last few weeks. Before worrying about anything else, he would just spend a day or two enjoying being dry and well-fed and
clean
.
He rang for a servant and asked for a bath and hot water to be sent up. While he waited, he took off his socks for the first time in weeks. His blisters had hardened to black calluses, making his feet look unfamiliar. He felt giddy. What made these ugly, rough appendages his? What made the memories that assaulted him his? What made him the person he was, other than a desire to re-learn who he had once been?
A goblet of wine and a long soak in a wooden tub of warm, scented water put things into perspective. He got out of the bath to find clothes laid out on the cushion-covered bed. The tight-fitting russet-brown leggings and sleeveless top were a little small, unlike the voluminous cream shirt, which needed constant tucking and adjusting. But the clothes were clean and smart enough that he didn’t look too out of place amongst the Reeve’s other guests.
The price for the Reeve’s hospitality was to add interest to the festivities. While Einon kept largely to his rooms, Sais was expected to attend all of the long formal meals and associated entertainments, and to mingle with the other guests, all over-fed, overdressed and over-full of their own importance. His initial concern about making mistakes proved unfounded: word of his situation had got around and they treated him as a novelty, laughing at his odd accent, and asking him - repeatedly - if he really could remember
nothing at all
before he woke up in what one jowly gent described as
that nameless little cluster of mud huts
. Though he did his best to be polite, he missed the earthy honesty of the drovers. Despite the material comforts of the manor, he was tempted to head back down into the market.
But then he’d be running away from a chance to get his past back. Though he was always on the look-out for clues, he was also in denial; most of the time he didn’t let himself think about the terrifying possibility that he might never recover his memory. Einon’s offer was risky, both because of the likelihood of stirring up his nightmares, and for the chance he might inadvertently tell Einon something the priest would find unacceptable. But the alternative was to spend the rest of his life in a world he knew he didn’t belong in, reliant on others’ charity.
Civilisation at last. Even more than the prospect of getting clean, eating properly and sleeping in a decent bed, the chance to resume his studies lifted Einon’s heart. Walking past the cattle pens on his way to the manor, he saw the loops of tally ropes and felt a tingle of anticipation. The hollow circles, meaning nothing and everything, recalled the entrancing possibilities for counting and calculation opened up by his discoveries.
His rooms were well-appointed and the Reeve, honoured at having a Tyr priest staying at his manor, was happy to supply him with parchment and ink.
Only one thing was missing. Einon had expected to find a letter from his Escori waiting at Plas Aethnen, instructing him, he hoped, to return to Dinas Emrys now he had brought the drove safely in. Though it mattered less now - the skyfool gave him reason enough to travel to the City of Light - Einon was desperate to know what was going on in the Tyr, and how it might affect him and his Escori. That Urien had failed to send word implied the situation - whatever it was - had worsened.
Two other matters further distracted him from his work. One was Sais. The man was a puzzle he felt compelled to solve, but he sensed a deep reticence in him. The other problem reared its head when, after dinner on the first night, Einon watched Sais politely but firmly refuse an invitation to dance a galliard with a painted maiden. Sais seemed to hold a particular appeal for the women at the Reeve’s court, something he appeared largely oblivious of. As he watched the girl sway her way off to find a more receptive partner, Einon felt the unexpected warmth of bodily desire. Such base distractions were an annoyance, easily solved in the Tyr by a visit to the
Putain Glan.
Here they were a complication he did not have time for.
He had his chance to address one of his problems the next day. A knock at the door made him jump and smudge his workings. The continued lack of any message from Urien was telling on his nerves.
‘Who is it?’ he called.
‘It’s me, Sais.’
Einon got up and went through to the reception room. He opened the door. ‘What can I do for you?’ He would happily put his work aside for a while if the amnesiac had finally decided to accept the offer of another Cof Hlesmair session.
‘I was wondering about the arrangements for travelling on to the City of Light,’ said Sais.
‘As I said, we will, ah, be staying in inns.’ Why was Sais asking him this now?
‘All of us? Kerin too?’
‘Kerin?’
‘I’d assumed she would come with us. To look after Damaru.’
Einon had assumed no such thing. ‘Fychan is the boy’s appointed guardian.’
‘Of course. It’s just Damaru is so much calmer when she’s around. And,’ Sais smiled, ‘I feel a lot more relaxed when I’ve got her to look after me.’
The woman showed an alarming lack of respect, but the men she travelled with appeared to value her company. In truth Einon had given very little thought to her fate once the skyfool’s party left the drove behind. ‘I suppose she
could
come with us,’ he said grudgingly. ‘She will, ah, have to make her own arrangements, of course.’
‘I’m sure she’s expecting to.’
When Sais did not immediately turn to go, Einon said, ‘Was there something else, Chilwar?’
Sais considered for a moment, then said, ‘I was thinking I might be ready to give your trance technique another go.’
‘Excellent! Come through and sit down.’
They sat as they had before, though this time far more comfortably. Sais’s eyes had already begun to close by the time Einon reached a count of four. He paused after reaching ten, praying silently that Sais’s eyes would remain shut. They did.
Einon said, ‘The door is opening before you, and you are going inside.’ He saw Sais’s eyelids flicker: a result! He had achieved the state of Cof Hlesmair.
‘You are somewhere safe now,’ he said gently, ‘somewhere you know well. It is the first place you remember feeling comfortable and at home. Have a good look around. This place is known to you; you merely need to re-acquaint yourself with it.’ He could see by Sais’s face that it was working; that he was walking through old, perhaps lost, memories. He wondered what Sais saw. He carried on talking in a low, calm voice, telling him to touch things, pick them up, examine them in his mind’s eye. He would have liked to expand the memory, maybe move it on, but he could feel the damage in Sais’s mind; they must take it slowly.
He counted down to bring Sais back and waited while he reoriented himself. Finally his impatience overcame him and he asked, ‘So, what do you recall?’