On the long ride to the inn they passed an increasing number of farmsteads and small villages, but thankfully all appeared unharmed by darkburns. The stonemen had not marched through this land, and when the Riders stopped to speak to farmers working in the fields, their questions about a red-clad army were met with incredulity. On Maeneb’s trying to explain the nature of the army, the incredulity grew greater.
“If the stonemen do come here, these people will be totally unprepared,” she told the others in dismay.
“We’ll just have to hope the stonemen won’t decide to come this way.”
“But whichever way they go, the people will be unprepared!”
“Then the best thing we can do is send a messenger,” said Rothir, “to prepare them. Even if one of us were to go on alone, our horses are too tired now.” The three horses had taken it in turns to carry Arguril; when it was Maeneb’s turn, she simply swapped horses with Parthenal and let him and Arguril go up on Shoda. So all the steeds were weary, no less than their riders.
They coaxed them on, alternately cantering and plodding through a rolling countryside that was tamer than any they had passed through for a while. This was the eastern edge of Outer Kelvha and, it might be said by some – not Rothir – the start of civilisation.
It was not simply that he preferred the wilderness or the semi-populated landscapes further east. He did not particularly care for Kelvha, although the demands of the last twelve years had often called him there.
But Rothir had always liked the rambling, friendly Wyedown Inn on the border. It was well over a year – more like two – since he had last been there, and he feared the Wyedown might be full. It was a popular place, because it lay so close to the great road that led west to Inner Kelvha, and usually held an ever-changing crowd of travellers and traders. He thought that if it turned out to be full he would sleep in a barn if necessary; just so long as he could sleep. Both mind and body ached for rest.
As they drew closer to the inn, however, it was clear that although they had arrived quite late in the day there would be no need to seek a barn. On crossing the wide Kelvha Road they saw no other travellers in either direction. Only a couple of farmers’ carts stood in the Wyedown’s yard; and when they went round to the stables, their horses more than doubled the number of inmates there. The sprawling inn itself, which had always been a cheerful, bustling place, looked more run-down than Rothir remembered.
While they were in the privacy of the stables, Maeneb retrieved her money from an inner pocket. They all carried coins secreted in various pockets in their gear and clothing, but Maeneb had been handed most of Tiburé’s share before they parted. This she now gave to Parthenal.
“Go and find us a horse. You’ll be the best at picking one out,” she said.
Parthenal gave a resigned sigh. “All right. Order me some food, and a decent ale,” he told them as he took the coins. “I shouldn’t be too long.”
In the end he took well over an hour. He walked into the taproom when Rothir was already half-way through a somewhat disappointing mutton stew, and on his second mug of an ale that was just about half-decent. There were less than a dozen people in the place all told, and the landlord was not his usual chatty self. The Riders’ voices seemed to echo amidst the empty shadows cast by the lamplight.
“It used to be better than this here,” said Rothir, as he signalled for food and another tankard to be brought to Parthenal. “Did you manage to find a horse with four legs?”
“Eventually. I had quite a search. All the good horses have recently been sold to Kelvha.”
“But that’s where they will have come from in the first place, surely?”
“And now Kelvha’s buying them back. But not at full price. They’re driving some hard bargains, and the local people are having to accept because they need the money. Things have been tough here, apparently. Failed crops, and traders not appearing as they should.”
“That’s what old Bell the landlord told me too, when I asked him to find me a messenger,” said Rothir. “He said there’d be no shortage of candidates if the money was right. So what did you pay for your horse?”
“Sixteen. The best one I could find – she’s a bit long in the tooth, but she looks like a tough old nag. She’ll carry Arguril home all right.”
“She sounds enticing. Maybe you should ride her home yourself, and I’ll have Alda,” offered Arguril, who was on his third mug of ale and was now relaxing nicely, Rothir was glad to see. Maeneb had declined to eat with them but had taken her meal away with her to her room. As he spoke, Parthenal’s meal was carried over to their table.
“Rothir!” exclaimed the serving-woman as she put it down. “How are you? It’s been a long time since we’ve seen you in the Wyedown.”
“Nearly two years,” said Rothir, pulling himself to his feet. “Hallo, Gwenna. I hoped I’d find you here.” In fact he had half-hoped. He knew he ought to hope. But he was so tired. “Gwenna is the landlady’s sister,” he explained to the other two. He introduced them and then watched her exchanging pleasantries. He could see Parthenal already charming her, as he could so ably do when in the mood.
And although Gwenna too looked tired, to his eyes, she was as lively as ever, with the easy friendliness that had first attracted him to her. Or had it been she who had approached him? It seemed to him that that had been the case, on looking back to his first visit six or seven years ago. His visits since had been infrequent; but Gwenna had always greeted him with the same openness and pleasure. It made things very easy.
This evening was no exception. Soon she was telling the Riders all about the cancelled autumn fair, the strange travellers on the road, the troop of twenty Kelvhans in full war-gear who had treated the serving staff like dirt and left mud all over the floor.
“But that’s Kelvhans for you,” she said. “And that old wizard that you used to know, Rothir – he came in here last week and hardly spent a shilling. I thought a wizard would be rolling in it. Though how old is he, really? I can’t tell.”
“Wizard? You mean Leor?” Parthenal said sharply. “What was he doing here?”
“I thought he was called Liol. I didn’t talk to him myself. He told Bell he was heading north and east: goodness knows why. That’s a long trip to nowhere.”
“But we’ve just–” Arguril began to say, until Rothir quelled him with a look.
“He wouldn’t even do any magic for the crowd,” Gwenna went on, “though it wouldn’t have cost him anything. Not that there really was a crowd – there never is, these days. A magic trick or two might have helped to pull a few more people in.”
Then her voice softened as she turned to Rothir and asked him for his news. Which of course he could not tell her, since she had no idea who he really was. As far as she was concerned he was an itinerant farrier – a job he had actually done for a year or two in Kelvha, back in the days when the Vonn were still trying to find a way of living after their exile. The Vonn had become somewhat more established since that time, but that was simply the more reason not to tell her the truth.
So he murmured banalities about family business before he carefully ventured on the subject of the stonemen. Gwenna looked bewildered.
“Men with stones around their heads? You mean like on a crown? I’ve not seen anyone like that.”
“Nor heard of them?”
“No.”
“You will,” said Arguril, draining his tankard. Rothir frowned at him again. But the words reminded him that the landlord had still not let him know whether a messenger had been found to leave first thing next morning. He’d been assured that no-one would be prepared to travel overnight.
So now he got up – his muscles all complaining – and walked over to the bar to discuss it with old Bell, the message ready in his pocket.
“Well, I’ve got you an errand boy,” said the landlord, a shrewd, stout man. “He’s got a good fast horse. Where do you want him to go?”
That was not so easy to work out. Bell chalked a map on his bar and eventually they agreed a destination – Moreva in Outer Kelvha – and a price: a thin young man was summoned from the back room to do the riding. Rothir looked him over, questioned him, and nodded.
“All right. He’ll do. Make sure he leaves at first light tomorrow. Half the money now, half when he returns.” The price was high but he knew that Bell would take his cut.
And then once the young man had departed he asked Bell about the wizard Leor, as casually as he could: had Leor said anything about his purpose? The landlord looked at him stonily and shook his head. Bell must, he thought, be a friend of Leor’s. Or perhaps the wizard had left a little spell of silence over him. Would Leor have done that? Rothir had heard a report that the wizard had vowed to abandon all his magic, but that seemed such an unlikely prospect that he was doubtful of its truth.
Leor was also a friend of the Vonn – supposedly. Yet Rothir, who had met him on several occasions through the years, would still call him an acquaintance rather than a friend. Well-meaning, he judged, if you could judge a wizard in the same way as ordinary mortals; polite enough, but mysterious. Nobody ever seemed to know what Leor was about.
So now Leor is heading north and east, thought Rothir – only a few days ahead of the stoneman army which had captured Arguril. Why? What had Leor known? What was he up to, going in that direction, towards the cold wastes of the northlands? While they were not empty of life or interest, humans were certainly thin on the ground up there.
Although Rothir racked his brains, he couldn’t imagine any reason for Leor’s journey. But he couldn’t think straight now. Too tired. And nothing to be done about it anyway.
Nothing to be done about any of it. He stared into the shadows flickering around the fire. Somewhere out there in the dark, the stoneman army rested and the darkburns smouldered: some poor unsuspecting village slept before the storm of fire and blood broke on them, and he hated his inability to act, his failure to ride out and save them.
Try to forget it for a few hours. Time to rest.
As he was gathering the energy to leave the bar Gwenna slipped over to him and took his hand.
“You remember where my room is, Rothir?”
“Do I?”
“Up the stairs, third on the right. I’m nearly finished here.” She smiled, leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “That’s if you want to?”
“How could I refuse?” he said gallantly. As he walked towards the stairs he told himself he ought to be more glad to take this chance. It was what he had half-hoped for, after all. Almost two years since he had been with a woman – and it had been Gwenna that time too. It might be two more years before the chance came round again.
Oh, the romantic life of a Rider of the Vonn, he thought as he entered her little room and sat down wearily on the bed. It was a life that didn’t leave much space for love. There were women riders of the Vonn, certainly, but he was related in some way to many of them and in any case they were his comrades in arms. Love was the last thing he wished to think about when he was on a mission; he needed all his focus for his task.
In any case love in real life was difficult. Rothir thought fleetingly of his mother and how she had left his father, so abruptly, when he was sixteen. Olbeth thirteen. Things must have been going on that he had never known about. Still didn’t know. Forget her. She forgot us, after all.
He removed his thoughts from her and let them rest more gently on the woman of his dreams: the one as dark and lovely as a rose, smiling as she leaned down to him from that imagined balcony in a reclaimed Caervonn. Silken hair the colour of a blackbird. A voice as sweet as any blackbird’s too. Skin soft as a peach. But that ivied balcony was a long, long way from here... As he gazed around the snug, untidy room he acknowledged just how far those dreams were from reality.
Not that reality lacked comfort. The patchwork quilt upon the bed looked so inviting that he felt inclined to lie down on it and go straight to sleep. If I really were a farrier, he thought, working in this everyday little place, with no other responsibilities, I might well have sought to marry Gwenna. Nice girl, practical. And kind. That’s important. I could have done much worse. She might even have married me. But she wouldn’t marry a homeless Rider of the Vonn.
Oh but I would like some tenderness, he thought. To lie wrapped in someone’s arms, to feel her gently stroke me, even just to talk in murmured voices, to rest next to her warm body. That would be so good.
Gwenna came in now. In the lamplight she looked older than he remembered; the happy smile lines around her eyes had acquired a careworn aspect. But he probably looked aged and careworn too; and she greeted him cheerfully.
It seemed that she didn’t want to talk too much. What she did want was soon obvious. She was as innocently brisk as last time about stripping off her clothes.
Rothir, by contrast, felt himself creaking. All his over-worked muscles complained at the effort as he pulled off his shirt and breeches. He really wanted to lie down and sleep with his arms around her. Wake to her body. But he was a gentleman.
“Do I need to take precautions?”
“No. We can still get Callaret. But thanks for asking.”
He was a little disturbed that she took the herb: so who else was she sleeping with? Sternly he reminded himself that lots of women took it to control their periods, and that anyway it was none of his business. He had no rights over Gwenna, and should not expect her to keep herself for him. He lay down on the quilt and kissed her, although she didn’t seem to want preliminaries. She seemed quite happy to get down to it, so he tried to tell himself that he was happy too.
But when they did get down to it, he was too tired to enjoy it. His legs and back were aching relentlessly. He wanted it to be over, but that wasn’t fair on Gwenna and in any case there was no sign that it would be over soon. Gwenna must have sensed this, for after a while she said,
“Is this not working for you?”
“It’s fine,” Rothir assured her. “I just want to make sure that it’s good for you.” Shifting his position, he caressed her in the way he knew she liked, touching her with the tenderness that he himself desired although he could not think how his hard roughened fingers could give her any pleasure.
Evidently they did, however, which was something, because once he reapplied himself to his task he found that he was still getting exactly nowhere. It felt like more a labour of duty than of love, and all that would come into his head were screaming men and smoking carts which were of no help in the slightest.
Think of something else. Some success. It’s not all failure. He conjured up Arguril, successfully rescued and galloping away with him on Narba across the fields, miraculously unhurt. Eled, saved, and up on Narba: poor old Narba, allowed no rest, so weary, and so slow…
“Are you still all right?”
“I’m just enjoying it,” he said, and thought of Yaret, found and brought back from the swirling river of death, sat before him on the horse, head lolling as she leaned against him, only held there by his arm around her…
Good grief. Stop thinking about these things. Put it in a box.
Something must have done the trick, however, because now he was back on course, he had got into his rhythm, the end was thankfully in sight, and he was there at last, even if he did feel like a tired old racehorse galloping to the finish and then collapsing on the line, exhausted.
He fell on top of Gwenna on the bed. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. It was for me, anyway.” She snuggled herself against him. That was pleasant. He wondered if he could stay here and sleep instead of going back to the cramped, expensive room he had to share with Parthenal and Arguril. It would be so much easier than moving now. And there might be another chance for him in the morning, before they began the long trudge home to Thield.
But now Gwenna wanted to talk. With her hand laid on his chest, she began in a low voice to tell him how things were.
It seemed that they were even worse than she had said before. Trade was so poor. Bell was so worried. Everyone was worried, because if things didn’t pick up, the inn might have to close and she would have to go back to her mother in Selba, and she didn’t know how she would manage, she didn’t even have the money to get there, everything cost so much these days…
Listening and murmuring occasional tired sympathy, Rothir understood the nature of the act they had just undertaken. It hadn’t been like this before. He felt saddened, both for her and for himself.
At last he kissed her tenderly, for old times’ sake, got up and dressed himself. Reaching inside his boot he found a silver coin secreted in a pocket there, and placed it on the corner of the table. Then he left her room and made his way back down the narrow stairs and through the inn’s dank rambling passages.
“Good time, dwarf?” That was Parthenal, who was folding up his clothes. Arguril was already in the bunk above him, alert and interested and even admiring. Much he knew.
“Fine,” said Rothir somewhat grumpily. “And you? No luck? No willing waiter or gracious groom?”
“Sadly not on this occasion.”
“That’s not like you.” He was conscious that he sounded sour. Parthenal raised an eyebrow.
“You were quick off the mark yourself tonight.”
“I’ve known Gwenna for a long time,” Rothir said. But he knew that that would be his last time in her bed.