Deep Water (46 page)

She wondered about him. He had let Acton make his speech at the Moot. He had made Acton lord of war. But now, as Acton stepped
forward to bend one knee in front of him, she sensed no affection in him; no softness. Whatever he had done for Acton, he
had done for reasons of policy.

“Acton,” Oddi said, his voice clear but not loud. “You have served this council well as our lord of war. You have avenged
the deaths of our people and secured this territory for our people.”

Agreement rose in chorus. “Well done,” “Aye, that’s so,” “A great lord of war!” Bramble realized that the shadows held a big
group of men. Chieftains? she wondered. The same men who were meeting in Asgarn’s hall when Baluch saw Hawk’s attack?

“We are in your debt,” Oddi went on. “To pay this debt, we are minded to grant you this steading for your own, to hold as
chieftain in your own right.”

Astonishingly, Acton was shaking his head. He sprang to his feet and moved back a space so he could look down at Oddi. “I
thank the council, but this is not my desire.”

A murmur of surprise went around the room.

Oddi frowned, but didn’t seem entirely surprised. “You reject this gift?”

“I mean no disrespect, but the steading cannot be mine. There is someone who has a better right.”

Oddi spread his hands. “Swef is dead, and you were his heir. Surely his steading falls to you, by both right of inheritance
and right of conquest?”

Acton shook his head. “There is still one alive who should have precedence. Wili.”

A buzz rose from the men, half-angry, half-astonished. “A
woman
?”

“Swef’s niece. If he had not adopted me, she would have inherited his steading. Has she not the right to keep it? And if we
speak of the rights of conquest, the lord of this steading died by her hand, not mine. Has she not earned it?”

There was silence, as Oddi calculated. He exchanged glances with Asgarn, who looked thoughtful. They nodded at each other,
pleased in some obscure way Bramble couldn’t fathom.

“Is there dissent?” Oddi asked. Although the men shifted uncomfortably, no one spoke.

“Very well,” he concluded. “If Wili was Swef’s heir, he would have found her a husband to run the steading for her. This council
will do as much. We will consider who best might be chosen.” Again he exchanged glances with Asgarn. Hah! Bramble thought.
They’d better ask Wili first. She’s been through too much to put up with being parceled off like a prize heifer.

As though catching the thought, Acton spoke. “I think, hon-ored counselors, that you had best consult Wili about that. She
is no untried girl, to do as she is told just because a man tells her to.”

A stir went through the room as the men realized what he meant. What Wili had suffered.

“True,” Asgarn said. “She has earned the right to choose her husband.”

You’re sure she’ll pick you, aren’t you, you arrogant bastard? Bramble thought. But only if she doesn’t have Acton around
to compare you to.

Oddi looked at the two of them, now standing side-by-side, both tall, both blond, both strong. He pursed his lips, as though
wondering which of them Wili might choose.

“There is still the matter of our debt to you,” he said to Acton. “Is there something you desire?”

Acton nodded, for once intense and serious. “There is.”

“Tell us.”

“The river outside this steading leads to the sea. To the only port in this land. T’vit, they call it. Along the coast there
are only cliffs. T’vit is the one harbor.”

“And so?”

“In the bright days, before the Ice King came, we were a prosperous people. Our prosperity came from the sea. From trading.”
There were noises of agreement from the men listening. “If we are to be prosperous again, we need a port. If you wish to reward
me, give me T’vit.”

Oddi sat back in his chair, astonished — and surprised at being astonished. That emotion Bramble could read clearly. Oddi
was rarely surprised; he was used to being several steps ahead of anyone else. “T’vit . . .” he said softly.

“Two boats of men,” Acton said eagerly. “Give me boat builders and two crews and next summer I will take them down the river
and secure us the port. Then our boats can take the dragon’s road as they used to. To the Wind Cities and further.”

The audience of chieftains liked that idea. “Bold thinking!” one said approvingly. “Trust Acton to see the way clear!”

Oddi looked at Asgarn. Asgarn was smiling, and so was Oddi. What were they scheming? Try as Bramble might, she could not read
Oddi’s thoughts. Acton, the big idiot, didn’t even notice. She could have hit him.

“It is a good request, and a fitting reward. But if you are to take this port for our people, Acton, you must take it as our
lord of war.”

Acton nodded, although Asgarn shot Oddi a look of astonishment and chagrin. Oddi smiled sourly at him. So, Bramble thought,
Asgarn isn’t entirely in his confidence.

“Thus you will act with our authority, and what you annex will be ours to administer,” Oddi added.

Light dawned on Asgarn’s face, and he began to smile. He turned it into a smile of congratulations for Acton, but Bramble
was not fooled. Nor was Acton.

“But I will be given T’vit, if I take it? That will be my reward?” he insisted.

Oddi looked around the room, checking with the other chieftains. The dark figures nodded, one by one. “T’vit itself will be
yours. This is our oath.”

Acton smiled widely. “I will take it for you. That is mine.”

This time the sea came to reclaim Bramble; she even smelt its saltiness and heard the slap of waves on a beach, before the
waves rolled her away into deeper water.

Her hands were busy, cutting up onions. She could smell the sharp tang and her eyes were stinging. The hands belonged to a
woman, and they were familiar. Wili. Bramble relaxed a little. Wili’s was a good mind to be in.

“They want to marry me off to Asgarn,” Wili said, and glanced over her shoulder to where Acton was perched on a stool, honing
his dagger on a small whetstone.

“Oddi?” he asked. Wili nodded. “What have you said to him?”

“That I am not ready for marriage.”

He grinned, his blue eyes shining. “How did he take that?”

“He grumbled. But he can’t actually
force
me.” She paused, looking at the knife. “Can he?” Bramble could feel the fear rise up in her, scalding.

Acton shook his head. “Not while I’m around,” he said comfortably.

She relaxed immediately, as though his word was solid rock to lean on. “How are the boats coming along?” she asked.

Acton’s face lit up. “They’ll be finished by spring, I think. We’re having some trouble getting pitch, but Baluch has heard
there’s a natural source by a lake somewhere to the east. He’s leaving tomorrow to see if we can trade for it with the lake
people. Once we have that, we will be ready.”

“More people will die,” she said, not looking at him as she said it, then glancing over.

“Those who die in battle go to feast with Swith the Strong,” he said. “I feel no sorrow for them. We all die. To give a good
death to another warrior is a boon.”

He looked up and met her eyes and Bramble could see that he meant it.

“What about the ones who aren’t warriors? What about the women? The children?”

“I will try, Wili,” he said softly. “I will try to protect them.”

“Hmph. Try hard,” she said.

Bramble wanted to hear his response, but the waters were a solid slap in the face, knocking her backward into darkness.

The waters were rushing over her, around her — no, under her filling her with the sound. Water splashed in her face and she
shook it out of her eyes and held on tight to… to what?

“Yeayyyy!” the man whooped as the floor fell out from under him and he crashed down, then pulled himself upright again by
the prow of a boat. They were in a boat, and she was with Baluch, unmistakable from the blare of horns in his head, the beating
of drums that rose every time the boat shifted. He clung to the high, carved prow and peered ahead, one arm above his head.
He moved his arm as he saw rocks approaching and the boat turned to avoid them. Bramble realized he must be signaling to the
steersman.

It was a frantic race through white water, boulders rising up out of the fast-flowing river like demons, ready to rip out
the bottom of the wooden boat. Bramble couldn’t help thinking that the reed boats of the Lake People would be much better
suited to this river, riding high on the water as they did. This boat dragged too much; had too much of its keel under the
surface, where rocks could, and did, grab at it.

On either side of the river, forest crowded the banks, a lush summer green, with ferns and wild roses and blackberries spilling
over the banks to dip leaves in the stream. They poured down the river as fast as the current itself. Plummeting down small
cascades, swinging the boat wildly around to avoid being smashed to pieces, scraping along ambushing rocks, wind in Baluch’s
face, water splashing in his eyes, bouncing and rocking and jumping over the lip of the rapids like a runaway horse. It was
wonderful — the best thing that had happened so far.

Baluch laughed and whooped as they went, and behind him she could hear Acton doing the same. Baluch cast one quick look back
and they exchanged glances, eyes bright with shared laughter and a kind of joy. Risk, Bramble thought. They love it; and so
do I.

It was over too soon. The boat tilted over the lip of the last of the rocks and swung wide into a shingled pool formed by
a beaver dam. The stumps of the narrow birches they had felled to make the dam surrounded the pool, and further back there
was real forest; birch and beech and oak and alder, rowan and one large, dark holly tree on the very edge.

Acton called out, “Beach her here, boys,” and the men, about twenty of them, four to a bench, dipped their oars in the water
and rowed the boat to shore, driving it up onto the shingle with one last huge thrust. They scrambled out with some relief.
One man, a tall red-head with a slight squint in one eye, grumbled all the way.

“No life for a warrior,” he said to a shorter blond man with very broad shoulders. “I want to die with a sword in my hand,
not an oar.”

The man clapped him on the back and the red-head smiled at him involuntarily, as one smiles at a very old and beloved friend.

“There’ll be swords enough even for you soon, Red,” Acton called across to him and grinned. “They won’t give up the port without
a fight.”

Red smiled sourly and pointedly took off his jerkin and squeezed a stream of water out of it into the pool. The men laughed.

A moment later a second boat arrived, a little more slowly. Asgarn stood at the prow. He raised a hand in greeting and the
boat came to land next to Acton’s.

His men dragged the boat up the shingle and Asgarn leapt off. He didn’t look like he’d enjoyed the trip much. “We can rest
here, then. Good,” he said.

Baluch left them to unpack food and wandered upstream, to a point above the beaver dam where the forest met the stream. He
stayed, looking into the shadowed green, his mind making music with flute and pipe, a wistful, calling music that brought
an ache up under his breastbone.

Acton joined him and sat on a rock at the edge of the stream, jutting out over the rushing water. “I still can’t get used
to it,” he said, looking at the dense forest. “So many trees!”

Baluch nodded. “It’s a rich land. The forest stretches all the way to the Lake.”

“You’ll have to take me there, one day,” Acton said comfortably.

Baluch bit his lip. “Once you have T’vit, I’ll be going again,” he said.

“Going where?”

“Back to the Lake.”

Acton stood up and faced him. “Something happened there, didn’t it?” His face lit with a teasing smile. “Did you fall in love
with one of the Lake girls?”

Baluch ducked his head. Bramble thought he was embarrassed, but his heart was beating in its normal pattern. There were memories
moving in his mind, just under thought, but she couldn’t catch them.

“Not with one of the girls.” He paused, as though searching for the right words. “Something… calls me. Even now, I can
hear it. Like music, or a whisper in the night. The Lake calls me. I have to go back.”

Acton frowned. “Not by yourself,” he said. “Come on the first trip to the Wind Cities with me, and when I get back I’ll go
with you.” Baluch made a face, and Acton punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You can’t trust strange women who whisper to
you in the night, lad. You need your uncle Acton to look after you and protect you from hussies and enchantresses.”

Baluch smiled at that. “You just want some for yourself!” he said. They laughed.

“Come with me to the Wind Cities, Bal,” Acton said, almost wheedling. “Then I’ll go with you to your lake.”

Baluch sighed. Bramble could hear the music in his head grow fainter, as though he had turned his thoughts away from it, but
it didn’t entirely fade. “All right,” he said. “I suppose someone has to look after you, too.”

They went back to the others and ate smoked trout and pickled onions and brown bread. Two of the men had a belching contest.
The red-head’s friend, whose named turned out to be Geb, won.

“Should have bet on me, Red,” he said, laughing, as the red-head handed coins over to one of the others.

Red grinned and nodded. “Should have known you were full of hot air, you mean,” he retorted.

The men laughed and joked as they packed their supplies away and launched the boats again. Acton and Baluch watched them from
the bank, chuckling, as Red tried to duck Geb in the river. Geb pushed him away, mock-scowling. Red hoisted himself into the
boat and held a hand out to Geb.

“Oh, no!” Geb said, standing alone in the stream, thigh-deep, half-laughing. “You’ll let me get halfway up, then you’ll let
go.”

Red shook his head. “No, I won’t. Truly.”

“Get moving,” Asgarn called impatiently from the other boat.

Geb took Red’s hand and began to pull himself up. Sure enough, halfway up he fell back into the water. The others laughed,
but Red shouted, “Geb!” and grabbed for him, pulling on his shoulders. Then Geb started screaming — a high, disbelieving scream
like a child in a nightmare.