The Birthgrave (13 page)

The chief said: “Such a woman would bring honor to us. One day, if it was her will, she might bear sons and make our tribe great. I will answer for my son Asutoo. He is a brave warrior, and has killed many of our enemies. One morning he will wake to be chief of the Star.”

Darak wheeled his horse then. He rode back to me, and snatched the rein out of my hands.

“We are honored by your words, chief. But our laws are different ones. This woman is mine.”

Asutoo's face whitened. His hands clenched.

I wanted only to break away, to say, “No, Darak, I am not anything of yours,” and go to the white-faced boy. But I could not do it.

Darak did not glance at me. His arm went up to salute the tribes and their chieftains, and then he spun us around, his free hand still on my reins even before he had regained his. I had no free will left, he had stolen it, yet I had given it, too. It was so terrible to be in his power, doubly terrible because it delighted me. Anger and joy to have him drag me with him away from all safety and hope of freedom, and to have no say in it.

“Darak,” I called, “let go of him, you will cut his mouth.”

“Don't tell me, you damned bitch,” he shouted back. The sky rushed in our faces. “I've handled horses for three years or more before you broke your egg.”

But he was laughing. Both of us were laughing. I had forgotten Asutoo already, and the ruins of any hopes he might have had, and his shame.

1

W
E DID NOT
return to the road, but moved parallel to it on a newer track. A little beyond Kee-ool it seemed the paving had broken up, and it was no longer fit to ride. An ignominious end for the master-built Way of Kings.

It seemed to be the finish of my troubles. No more dreams and no more strange happenings. Not even any longings beyond what I had. Only the dull hot ride, the jokes, the sense of comradeship, however absurd. And Darak. That was a good time for him too, I think. I do not know if he loved me or not, or how he could, but there was something between us then. I do not forget.

And then we reached Ankurum, the Red-Haired, her feet on the footstool of high rock hills, her back against the low mountains, and beyond her altogether, the sky-touching shapes of the Mountain Ring, faint and far off, their caps already creamed with snow. There is an old legend about Ankurum that the scarlet vine which grows all over her, and will never grow in another place, brings her prosperity.

For a day or so, before we even sighted her, we went through villages and towns that grew in size as we got nearer. A complex straggle of houses, inns, and markets wound up the rock hills to her gates. It should have been an inhospitable region, and barren as the plain, but somehow there were orchards and woods, and fields cut through by little streams. Perhaps they were right to worship the goddess of the vine.

* * *

Beyond the walls, the city rose up in banks and terraces, and twisting alleys, carved out of the hillside. The buildings were almost entirely of stone, a warm yellowish stone like the ramparts. Apart from the color of the vine, which ran wild everywhere, pictures had been painted on house and garden walls, and all over the fronts of inns and drinking houses. Signs swung, crimson, green, and yellow, the symbols of hammers and flagons and loaves. It was midday, everything wrapped in a brass stormlight.

“Impressed by all this opulence?” Darak asked.

I was looking around me, fascinated despite myself at this first contact with the massed bundle of humanity which is called a town. The pattern of it intrigued me, all of it winding upward to the great fortress-house of its warden, who held it in turn from his warden, the overlord of this region. There were laws in this place, and taxes taken regularly in money, not occasionally in sheep and goats. In most streets braziers stood, waiting to light up the dark, but in parts houses grew together overhead and shut out the sky. I noticed horse troughs, and drains to let rainwater away, and I noticed bad smells, too, and side alleys packed with hovels. Not all opulence, it seemed, but I let Darak tease me.

Not that he had been in Ankurum himself before, but he had been in other similar towns along the foot of the Ring. No doubt it was rare for him to visit the same town twice. They would always finally discover they had bought their goods from a thief.

I realized how dangerous this game was that he played when I found his name had abruptly changed from Darak to Darros a few moments after we were in the town. As Maggur told me later, Darak the bandit was too well-known. Darros, the merchant's son, however, was another proposition entirely. He was an impressive if eccentric figure, daring to bring his caravan through the hills and plains with their cordon of dangers; one who had the favor of his gods. True, merchants here would think him wild and crazy, jealous of his achievement. And then his men would turn out to be such unruly scoundrels, drinking and whoring from one bordello to another throughout their stay. Nevertheless, the cargo was the important thing. Yes, despite his youth and failings, they would find a place in their greedy hearts for Darros of Sigko.

There were not many people about, for this hour they kept sacred to their stomachs. Half the gaudy shops were closed, but the taverns were bursting, spilling raucous gobblers out among trestles at the roadside.

We found a hostelry with some trouble. The caravan was a large one and looked very imposing now, particularly with its black, skull-masked outriders, a fearful product of the trader towns in the north.

At first there was always some man with a hot face saying, “No room. Ankurum's packed for the Games. Try farther up.”

“What games are these?” someone called the first time.

“Are you barbarians or what? We've always had our Games. And now that the new stadium's built, men have come for miles. Are you barbarians, you northerners?”

A fight might have broken out over this, but Darak, Ellak, and Maggur got the others quiet, and we rode off without any blood or brains spilled to mark our passage.

We soon had it through our heads, in any case, that Ankurum was full, and why. In the wider streets there were even posters hammered up on doors or walls, mostly in pictures or symbols—garish wrestlers, shown blue and orange, and chariots carried along by mauve horses. It had clouded over by now and was raining, and their colors were running all down the gutters. It seemed late in the year for games to be held. Probably they had delayed for their new stadium,
The Gigantic and Unrivaled Sirkunix of Ankurum,
as their dripping artistry called it.

At last we found a place large enough, and nasty enough that it still had room to hold us. The big stone rooms thrummed with neglect and cold. The beds had not been aired in a million years. They lit fires for us, and brought out moth-eaten sheets, and began a meal. There were only five or six others there, and I imagine they were residents, not guests. They were old and timid, and crept out of our way like small frightened animals. Whenever I met one—on the stairs or in the dining hall—they slid aside in abject terror; from Darak or the others, they fled squealing down side passages, and all night long their doors might be heard nervously opening and banging shut, as they attempted to scurry to and from the latrines, without seeing any of us. I think they were my initial lesson in pity, but I laughed at them, too.

Those first three days were dismal, black and full of rain. Darak would go out early with Ellak, Gleer, and three or four others, plus about ten men dressed as skull-guards, and pack animals carrying examples of his goods. I was not allowed with him, for apparently the sight of a woman in a merchant's place of business was an unheard-of thing in the towns. I gathered they were dull times; endless bargaining and signing of papers. The plains' cloth went easily, but the weapons were harder. At night, when I saw him, Darak would growl angrily at the underhand dealing and cheating by which his agents tried to trick and trap him—they were robbers. It was amusing to listen to his arrogant and righteous fury, he, who had stolen the goods in the first place. But then, he was Darros now. Except once when he rode bareback a mad horse in the marketplace three streets away.

So I spent my days, locked in the dreary hostelry hall, crouched around the fire with the others as they played their endless dice games, or alone if they were at a brothel. The women they had brought with them sulked and ordered endless food, which put too much weight on them. They were as unused to this life of sitting as any of the men. There were a few of us about on the morning of the third day, and, as the hall was virtually ours, Maggur hung up a painted wooden target, and he and I and another man began to shoot against each other with our bows. My bow had taken the damp, and did not do well until I had waxed and resined it. By then there were more in the game, and they had split into teams. Maggur's team had called themselves the Rams, partly, I think, because three or four of them had just come in from a brothel. The other side retaliated with Dragons, and were a man short.

“Come and shoot for us, Imma,” one of them called. “These bastards have an unfair advantage.”

While the women lazily watched, plucking eyebrows because it was the fashion in Ankurum, and mouthing lumps of candied fruits and sugar-sweets, the Rams and Dragons did battle, occasionally degenerating into fights and wrestling matches on the floor. Maggur was the best of his side, and I the best of mine. In the end, I beat him.

“Dark was the day I taught
you,”
he said to me. “You're quicker even than Kel.”

He looked around for Kel's grin when he said it, then checked as he remembered Kel was dead. There was an awkward silence between us which Darak luckily broke up, coming in early with a lot of noise and an incomprehensible group of people.

He strode at once to me and got my arm.

“Put that stuff away, and come upstairs.”

A man near us laughed at his urgency, and Darak clouted him a casual blow across the back that sent him staggering.

He marched me out of the hall, and up to our long and icy room. I was surprised to find the people he had brought with him had scuttled after us.

“Wait,” he said, and shut the door on them. He threw wood on the dying fire and straightened. He looked irritated and amused at once.

“A sale?” I asked.

“Not yet. Ankurum is worse than a tribal krarl for etiquette. The agent I've been dealing with is having what he's pleased to call a supper tonight. He wants me there, and I gather this is where I'll meet my customers. It means a few hours' tedium, weak wine and nibbly tidbits on eggshell plates. I want you with me.”

“Why? I thought the merchants of Ankurum swooned at the sight of a woman.”

“Only in their weapon shops, it seems. There'll be expensive ladies present, and I haven't the time to get tangled with them if I'm to fish my merchants out of the pool. You're my shield against it.”

I did not want to go, but I saw the logic of what he said. Coolly I asked him, “I am to go like this?”

“Outside: three dressmakers and a woman for your hair. At least you won't have to paint your face.”

“You think the shireen will not excite comment?”

“Quite an amount, I hope. A beautiful tribal mistress is enough to daunt the most ardent whore. It should be interesting. Besides, you've the exquisite manners they adore, though where you got them—”

He opened the door again suddenly, and the women jumped. I could see he had been bullying them.

“In,” he said, “and hurry. Do as I told you and she tells you. She has the last word on it. I want it done by sunset at the latest.”

He strode out, and I saw the male equivalent of the female victims start frantically after him down the corridor to Ellak's room.

* * *

They had brought materials with them, Darak's choosing, and at first I had thought his gaudy bandit's tastes would have doomed me to freakishness. But he was a cunning man. He knew at least what not to wear in a merchant's circle, even if his soul cried out in deprivation. I could see he had even been afraid of his own judgment when he had picked out this stuff. Each cloth shown me was of a plain and muted color, and thereby he had erred the other way. But I found the beauty of the pile at last, a heavy silk, the luminous white of alabaster. There was measuring then, and a lot of fuss. Thankfully, what was elegant in Ankurum was also simple, a sleeveless dress dipped low at front and back, fitted to a little beneath the breasts, then falling in free folds to the feet. There were sandals for these, bleached leather with gold studs, and already one of the women was stitching at something, a new shireen, this time of black silk.

Between measurings, I bathed, sharing my bath with the numerous swimming beetles that lived in the sides of the tub.

By late afternoon I was dressed. They had been most industrious, and clever also, as the mirror they had brought showed me. The hairdresser, who had been preparing her perfumes and combs and heating her tongs intermittently in the fire for hours, flew at me in terror of Darak's ultimatum. She rubbed my hair through with a sweet scented oil, combed and brushed it down, then tonged every strand into corkscrew curls. Most of these she piled on my head in loops and coils. What was left, hanging free down my back, twisted like contorted serpents. Most women, she informed me, would use false hair in such a style, but knowing she had no match for the milk-whiteness of mine, she had contrived it without. This was due probably to the thickness of my hair, but no doubt she had earned a little extra for her quickness.

Darak came in without a knock, and the women jumped up in a flurry. He inspected me, then grinned, and paid them rather generously and shoved them out. He shut the door and leaned on it, looking at me. He had acquired a tunic during the afternoon, black, ribbed with black velvet, again, very discreet, but he looked well in it. There were agate buckles on his new boots.

“You're beautiful,” he said. He came and sniffed at my hair. “Beautiful,” he said again. His hand slid across the skin of my neck and arm. “White on white. You were clever to choose that. Your smooth skin—it never browns or reddens. Or scars,” he added. His fingers moved again. He remembered even now where Shullatt had stabbed me, though all trace was gone. Suddenly he stood back, his face a little stiff.

“I brought you this.”

I took the piece of silk, opened it. I stared down into a cool green deep; eight oval eyes stared back at me. All of me reached toward it, but I wished, in that time of blindness, that he had not bought me jade to make me see.
They
had favored jade, and I had not worn what I took from Shullatt since we left Kee-ool.

“Don't you like it?” He was vulnerable with the giving.

“Yes,” I said, “more than anything.”

“I've heard you talk of jade in your sleep.” He came close to me, and fastened it around my throat. So cool it was, eight eyes of water set in shores of gold.

“Darak,” I said softly.

“Darros,” he corrected me, “and don't forget.” He kissed my throat. “Put on a ring or two, the gold ones, perhaps that gold bracelet Maggur stole for you from his woman in the wood camp.”

I did as he said. It was not gaudy, but added a certain richness to the plain white of the dress. I put on too the black shireen, as beyond the narrow window the sun sank red on the roofs of Ankurum.