"What are you two doing? Do you know where that's to go? Are you paid to carry it?" the Lady of Col demanded.
"The idea was mine," Durand said.
"And how are you, Mother?" Hathcyn said.
"You're drunk," she replied.
Durand raised his eyebrows. "And how are you keeping?"
She peered at the two brothers for a moment, her chin thrust toward them, then relented. "I'm well enough now all that's done." She shook her head. "Durand, it's good to see you back. What did you think of our feast?"
"Good, Mother."
"Well, I hope you managed to get something hot down you, at the least. You looked cold as drowning when you stepped through that door."
"Warm enough now."
At the far end of the table, bulging veins showed Hathcyn's strain.
"That's good," said their mother. "Your father's glad you came up." "That's good, Mother."
"Can't believe how big you've got. Big as your father. Bigger!"
'Taller, anyway," Durand said. Hathcyn looked to the ceiling for assistance.
"Ah, it's good to see you." Her hand touched his wrist for a moment. There were tables to stack and pallets to arrange and arguments to settle. The stream of servants churned around them.
She hesitated. Out of her sight, straining Hathcyn shot a desperate look down the table—it was heavy.
"You'd best get them in order," Durand said.
"Aye, I suppose I'd better," she said and got back to the business of readying the hall for the night.
"God, Durand," Hathcyn gasped. "Let's get this thing put away." And they slipped the long table through the serving men and down the cellar stairs, where Durand could not help but pitch in, stacking and swinging tables and barrels with the rest.
When the worst of it was done, the two brothers climbed back into the hall. Hathcyrj slapped his hands together and smiled up at Durand.
"You must be about done in yourself."
The last few men still working were stacking a heap of straw pallets in preparation for spreading them in the hall. Durand looked into one face, and asked, "May I?" and found his own patch of bare floor.
The two men sat cross-legged, while Durand set to unwrapping the mud-caked laces around his boots. The leather had gone at turns waxy hard and crumbling soft as flour. Other men were bedding down around him: guests and liegemen.
"I talked to Father," Hathcyn confided. "The harvest was good enough; he's got the coin to pay for all the trappings and whatnot. You can get yourself properly knighted. Imagine though: I was knighted out here under the mountains, and you'll be dubbed in Acconel w
ith the duke right there by Sil
vermere of the Thousand Ships."
"It'll be a great show," Durand said, emphasizing his point with the boot in his hand—stiff as a clay pot. "Just me, the duke, and who knows how many other shield-bearers all lined up like nags at the horse-fair."
"And don't forget the thousand ships. The duke will bring them out, won't he?"
"If he can stay awake."
"Ah yes, I suppose he's getting on."
Durand set the boot down and made a thoughtful face. "The Blackroots up there are likely older...."
Hathcyn laughed. "I missed you, you know. Always the sound one, no matter that I was older. I'd drag us off into some mad scheme, and you'd stare down the consequences."
"I meant to talk to you about that," Durand said.
"My earliest memories. You had this stern face. A stalwart thing on bowed legs. And now you'll be back to stay."
"Aye." Now, Durand was smiling. One last ride to Acconel, and he would be back to wait out his inheritance, maybe serving in Osseric's stead, if the king summoned the hosts to the Heithan Marches again.
The servants smothered torches.
Hathcyn glanced up from his haunches. "Well, I had better bid you good-night." He gripped Durand's shoulder. "You know it's good to see you. Do you?" Durand winked.
"Good," said Hathcyn, and was off.
Durand settled down onto one shoulder. His father's grand plan: the knighthood, the fosterage at the duke's hall. Each piece fit the next like a joiner's work, and now it was all coming snug together.
He closed his eyes.
"So you've got a place settled then, Lordship?"
A man squatted on the next pallet: the homely skald; his brown eyes glittered on either side of a saddle-backed nose.
"Aye, friend," Durand said. "More or less."
"I apologize," whispered the skald, mirth folding his face into a gap of missing teeth. "I've a habit of butting my nose in where it's not wanted. It comes with the trade. I'm called Heremund, by the way."
"Yes? I see about the nose."
After watching to see that his point was made, Durand closed his eyes once more, listening to lovemaking, farts, and snarling dogs until, finally, the weight of a long day bore him down into sleep.
He woke in
the dark, surprised he hadn't slept through to Noontide Lauds.
The cold of the night had slipped in through cracks and windows, and he might have been sleeping in the hills except for the snoring liegemen all around him.
A mist of fleas jumped against his face as he shifted; he was dully aware of a dozen angry bites. But he had slept on the floor of one man's hall or another all the days of his life and a pallet swarming with fleas was hardly a new thing.
He wondered what had jerked him out of sleep.
Then a knock echoed through the black feasting hall: something else awake. Durand levered himself up on his elbows but could see no one in the darkness.
Nearby, a ribbon of moonlight glimmered on the wall. On impulse, he reached out, cutting light with his fingers' shadow.
As his fingers spread, he realized that the stone under that ribbon was huge for building work, taller than a man. But it conjured a memory. There had been a ring of standing stones around the well when the Sons of Atthi threw up this fortress. His mother had pointed to this one.
It was odd what a man could remember after years away.
Another knock echoed through the hollow castle, coming from beyond the hall. And another. Durand peered at the source of the light. Between the shutters, a silver thread of light shimmered and twisted as though slipping between some moonlight-spinner's fingers.
He left the blankets and fleas and crossed to the window. As he put his eye to the old boards, the last light of the Gleaning Moon struggled through broken cloud, silvering damp flagstones—and the figure of a man by the well. In his fist was a traveler's staff.
Durand's lips peeled apart.
The light swelled. The staff swung:
tock.
A battered hat turned.
Durand sprang back from the window. He had caught a glimpse of a knotted beard. It was the Traveler's Night. When Durand turned his eye once more to the narrow moonlight, there was only darkness below. Cloud had stolen the Gleaning Moon but, when its narrow sickle wavered back, the stark slate court was empty.
"Host Below," said Durand and resolved to learn what was going on.
Barefoot, he bolted from the hall with a naked blade in his fist, and skidded into the courtyard. Seeing no one among the doorways and arches, he searched the frosted flagstones for some sign, finding nothing but the curls of his own melted footsteps in the frost as he stalked round the well.
A shadow would have left more trace.
His lungs puffed fog into the still air.
The next day
, Durand watched and waited.
While the others prayed Dawn's Thanksgiving and ate dinner over the Noontide Lauds, Durand composed himself as best he could, knowing that he had not left the omens behind when he left the forest. Atthians understood doom.
After noontide, a shape ran past his seat at the shuttered window, streaking off for the baron's chamber.
"Was that the gatekeeper's lad?" said someone close by.
As Durand glanced at the curious faces around him, it struck him that all the knights of his father's court looked as similar as cousins. He had never noticed before.
In a moment, the runner reappeared, this time chased down the hall by a pair of houseboys.
Durand opened the shutters; four horses stood around the well. He recognized Sir Kieren's roan and the jade that carried the knight's baggage. The other two animals were new to him—both saddled for riding. One was a fierce brute. The other looked every day of twenty years old.
Without warning, the skald slid onto the stone bench beside him, peering out. "Has the Fox come? Ah wait. What's this now?"
Doors flew open at both ends of the hall.
Durand's father loomed at the chamber door, while the courtyard stair brimmed with echoes. Finally, a gray head appeared above the stair, wearing a giddy smile: Osseric of Gravenholm. Durand could hardly believe it was the man he knew. Twenty winters of gloom had left his face, leaving a lunatic grin. Two shocks of white hair stood out over his ears.
Durand's mother broke the silence. "Good morning, Sir Osseric!" she called.
"Indeed," agreed the old man. "Yes. Yes, indeed it is! For
...
for look whom I have here." The old man hopped aside.
For a moment, there was only Sir Kieren climbing into view.
But Kieren turned. "Come on up. Your father has them all tied in knots," he said.
A stranger stepped into the hall: blond, tall, and as weathered as a plowman. The blade at his hip hung in a scabbard more worn than Durand's boots. There was something of the old knight's look in this stranger's face.
Durand felt the omen swinging down around him.
"He did not drown."
At his elbow, the skald muttered something about ruining a perfectly good ballad.
"My son's come home!" said Osseric, tottering forward, smiling through his tears.
And, while Durand gaped at the sudden ruin of his dreams, the people of the Col shouted for joy.
Soon every sanctuary bell in the little barony was ringing.
Durand sat through
dinner and prayers, scarcely able to think. He'd had his future a long time. For fourteen years he'd served in other men's halls, as page and shield-bearer. He had known beatings. He'd even broken a bone or two—always knowing that at the end of the road, he would climb back up the mountains to take his place.
At the head of the hall, baron and firstborn sat under the Col coat of arms: two golden stags over a third. Durand caught sight of his brother, face white as lard. The baron met Durand's glance for an instant, then looked away.
When a man is knocked from his saddle he lies still before trying to jump up. When the shock ebbs away, he can spit the dirt from his mouth and take a level
-
headed account of the spot he's in. Durand understood this. Now was the time to learn if this was a stumble or a killing blow. He must think.
At first, his thoughts skittered over impossibilities. He was trained for nothing but Gravenholm, and there was no place in his father's narrow domain without it. Fourteen years were wasted. He took a breath and looked back to the high table.
Osseric and his son sat between the baron and his wife. The old man was beyond happy, and there were endless questions for the blond stranger. Durand noted that scars stitched the man's hands. There was a crease or two in his nut-brown face as well. The man who'd risen from the dead was a soldier.
Durand eyed the squat bearish figure that was his father and tried to think. He must begin to sort things out. He must learn where he stood. He needed a word with his father, but with the press of well-wishers around the high table, he could not get close. He began to feel as though someone had rammed a gag in his teeth.
Stifling this surge of unease, Durand resolved to act. While he couldn't get to the baron, he could reach his brother. In a few moments, he caught Hathcyn by the shoulder. And soon, they stood in the cellar stair, away from the crush.
"King of Heaven, Durand," Hathcyn said, dismayed by the whole thing.
Durand felt a witl
ess surge of anger. "Father tried, I think," Hathcyn said. "Did you see his face when he realized that it was Hearnan who had returned?" "Who's—
?”