Chapter 47
“In three days’ time,” said Parthenal, “we reach Kelvha City. So tonight we get drunk.”
“I don’t want to get drunk,” said Rothir.
“Yes, you do. This is our last chance before we enter Inner Kelvha and have to be sober and discreet. There’s a friendly looking inn just down the road.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting drunk,” said Arguril, rather too eagerly.
Parthenal glanced at him. “Only two mugs for you, child. I’m not carrying you home.”
“A drink would be nice,” said Sashel more wistfully. “As long as it’s decent ale.”
“It will be decent, here.” Parthenal was glad that Sashel was showing some interest in normal life at last. Although his wound had healed, the normally voluble young man remained withdrawn and apathetic since his agonised rush onto the battlefield. Still, it was only two weeks since his brother’s death. A week since they had begun the long march down the underused green road from western Kelvha.
They were now more than halfway to their destination. The Kelvhan troops had accompanied them thus far, as had a handful of determined men from Melmet and Ioben, notably Veron’s hunters.
But soon this army would split up. Most of the Riders would disperse to various points in Outer Kelvha, where they had friends and connections. Others would return to Thield. So here, in a small town on the Inner Kelvhan border, they had paused for a last evening together. For those progressing on to Kelvha City, it was a chance to load provisions and apply some spit-and-polish to their gear. Huldarion had insisted on their looking smart.
And he had also told them the names of the six who would be accompanying him to the inner sanctum of the castle. Parthenal was delighted to hear that he was in; and somewhat dismayed to learn that Rothir wasn’t. But Rothir did not appear to be dismayed. He seemed to have expected it. Neither he nor Huldarion made any comment on the omission. None the less, Parthenal knew that Rothir would be hurting over the matter of the darkburn and Huldarion’s exasperated response.
While Parthenal would be savouring the delights of Kelvha Castle, Rothir would have to stay with fifty other Riders in barracks outside the castle walls; about twenty female Riders were to have separate lodgings. Huldarion had refused to keep them shut out of the City.
“Women are an integral part of the Vonn,” he said, addressing Delgeb and the others. “You have fought with us and for us and I will not have you hidden away.”
“You’d just have us stay quiet and insignificant,” said Delgeb, with that sardonic curl of her lip. “You want us to wear dresses as well?”
“Do you have any?”
“Not to hand.”
“Wear whatever you like,” Huldarion told her. “The Kelvhans will just have to get used to it.” Delgeb had bowed. It was hard to imagine her curtseying.
But their arrival at the castle was still a few days in the future. Right now Parthenal was looking forward to an evening’s rest and recreation. He considered that Rothir needed cheering up. And he himself… A Kelvhan soldier had been giving him the eye: a silent, lean, hard-limbed man, not too young. It was promising. They had exchanged a word or two. This would be the last opportunity for that particular form of recreation for a while, until Huldarion’s business in Kelvha Castle was complete.
“What do you say?” he asked, looking around at the women. “Last chance to enter a tavern for you ladies. Make the most of it.”
Maeneb grimaced. “Not for me.”
“I’ll join you, Parthenal,” said Delgeb, who had been known to drink like a fish on occasion without appearing in the slightest bit intoxicated. And three of her friends immediately agreed.
“M… m…” said Durba.
Yaret looked at her. “Maybe?” she suggested.
Durba nodded. Yaret seemed to have taken charge of the young woman; sometimes she was the only one who understood what Durba was trying to say. Nobody else knew quite what to do with her. Durba’s stammering had not abated. Parthenal had witnessed battle-shock before, without really believing in it – since he himself appeared to be immune – but had never seen anyone affected in this specific way. The trembling came and went.
It was hard to know how to treat Durba when she could not talk. All they could agree on was that it would be best for her to stay amongst the other Riders, rather than lodging with strange people in a strange land. So she would accompany them into Inner Kelvha.
And so would Yaret, who had been invited to board with the female Riders rather than the remaining Melmet soldiers – who would stay outside the city walls – or with the hunters, wherever they might be. Veron seemed to have plans for his men, but Parthenal did not know what they were. Veron and his aims were a mystery to him for the most part, and he had long learnt that there was no point asking, for Veron would simply smile and turn the subject. This evening, Veron said, he planned to spend time with his troop – probably exchanging hunting tales in some other, darker and more secret inn, thought Parthenal.
But Rothir and Sashel both needed to get drunk, in his opinion. He just required enough takers for them to be carried along on the wave. In the end about sixteen Riders – and Yaret, and a friend of hers called Zan – crowded into the tavern, taking over one of the small low-ceilinged rooms and ordering enough food to make the landlord very happy. He lit the lamps and tried to stir the fire into some semblance of a blaze.
Parthenal hoped Zan wouldn’t put a damper on proceedings. A solemn man who rode with the Ioben hunters, he was not himself Ioben, but from an unknown village which had been wiped out by darkburns. On first seeing him, Arguril had greeted him like a long-lost brother, explaining how they had spent several days shackled together before Rothir had ridden to their rescue; and Zan consequently treated Rothir like some kind of nobility. Quite undeserved, thought Parthenal, amused at seeing Zan bow reverently to Rothir on entering the tavern. Well, almost undeserved.
Rothir looked vaguely embarrassed by the reverence. But he let Zan buy him a drink, which was a good start.
Leor sat in a corner, stroking the beard which he had allowed to grow long over the last few weeks. It made him look more wizardly despite its strangely striped appearance. The white streaks were just as marked in the red beard as in his hair.
“Do us a trick, Leor,” Parthenal called over to him. “Speed up the food if you can.” Leor shook his head and smiled.
“Fill my tankard,” suggested Arguril.
“Get that fire going properly,” said Nerobe. “That’s an order.”
“We could use the darkburn for that,” said Shelvor.
“Somebody fetch it. It could probably do with a beer too. Where is it?”
“They had to leave it west of the camp, well away from the trees,” said Yaret.
“Any change there?”
“It just sits,” she said. “Or stands. Whatever they do.”
“Sits, and stinks, and hates, and burns,” said Arguril.
“I think it might be pining,” Yaret said.
“Pining? What for?” Delgeb was incredulous.
“Human flesh,” said Landel.
“Other darkburns,” suggested Nerobe.
“Heaven help us. They might breed.”
“I don’t think so,” said Yaret seriously, and everybody laughed. She still misunderstood some things that were said in Vonnish, although her accent was improving. Parthenal noted that she did not translate these remarks to Zan, as she did other bits of conversation.
“You’re keeping an eye on that darkburn, then,” he said to her.
“Well, somebody has to, Parthenal. The Kelvhans are altogether too casual about it.”
“I trust that everyone still has their stones to hand?” said Rothir. He too was serious.
General nods and mutters of assent. Several patted their pockets.
“Let’s not talk about darkburns,” Parthenal said. “Here’s to Kelvha and the fine time awaiting us there: and after that, and more importantly, Caervonn.”
“I’ll drink to Caervonn,” Delgeb said.
So they all did, and then the conversation turned to what might await them, and particularly Huldarion, inside Kelvha Castle. There was curiosity, and some obvious envy, which entertained Parthenal. But then he had never been tempted by any line-up of aristocratic virgins.
“A bride, untouched, young and fair,” said Arguril wistfully. “Lucky man.”
“He’d be better off with someone who’s been touched,” said Delgeb.
“And done a bit of touching,” Birané added.
“The Kelvhan women are out of bounds,” said Rothir soberly. “Men too.”
“Spoilsport!”
“We can still look,” said Arguril. “I hear they’re very beautiful.”
“They dye their hair,” said Nerobe. “The men as well, unless they’re naturally fair. It’s meant to be as yellow as spun gold – that’s the ideal; not that strange orange colour that some of them end up with.”
“What, all their hair?”
More laughing speculation about the ladies – and the men – of Kelvha. None of them, Parthenal noted, touched on what Huldarion himself might make of the arrangements for his marriage. Speculation about Huldarion’s love life was out of bounds. Maybe Parthenal himself was the only one who privately mused about it. Who had touched that scarred body since that woman long ago in Caervonn? What had they done, and how?
Pointless, he told himself, pointless. Stop it. Food arrived and was a welcome distraction. But now he wanted more than food.
“You could find yourself a bride in Kelvha, Leor,” Arguril said with his mouth full. “You’re not Vonn; no ban on you.”
“And you’ve got a fine head of red hair,” Birané pointed out, “even if it’s not quite gold enough to attract the highest rank.”
“So no princess for you. Still, I’m sure there’ll be some chambermaid who’ll have you,” Delgeb said.
Leor smiled and shook his head. “I shall never marry.”
“But you’ve had time to marry a dozen wives and more,” Shelvor objected.
“That’s why I’ve never married one.”
“Ah! You’ve just not met the right one yet.”
“In five hundred years? You must be picky,” said Nerobe.
“I’m too old now for such things.”
“You’re never too old! You just need to meet a nice three hundred year old lady. Though she’d be a little young for you, admittedly.”
“I’ll leave the marriage-making to you Vonn,” said Leor, still smiling, although with some aloofness now. Parthenal wondered if it were possible that he could be hurt.
“And we Vonn will leave it till we reach Caervonn,” said Rothir.
“Is that an order?” Delgeb asked.
“When we reach Caervonn,” said Sashel softly, and everyone immediately stilled to hear him, “the women there are more beautiful than any here in Kelvha. Isn’t that right, Rothir? That’s what you once told me.”
Rothir shrugged.
“Caervonn it is, then,” said Shelvor. “We can wait.”
“But the whole city’s beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Birané. Not many of those present were old enough to have much memory of Caervonn, Parthenal realised. The youngest – Durba – would only have been about seven or eight when she left. And the city had already greatly changed by then in any case, its stones wounded by war no less than its people.
“It is beautiful,” he said, and thought of the young Huldarion, unscarred, untroubled, laughing as he climbed up onto the stone horse in the splendour of the Tiled Courtyard. Both he and the horse had been decorated with bands of feathers: it was the Festival of Birds.
“Especially in the evenings,” said Theol. “The light turns it golden.”
“Beneath the lamps, on the long terraces,” said Rothir a little dreamily, “when the swifts have gone to bed and the nightingales start to sing in the tangles of the rose bushes and the bats flit from the trees, that is the best time in Caervonn.”
“Are there trees inside the city, then?” asked Yaret.
Theol smiled at her. “There are many little greens and planted squares – or rather, hexagons – and trees aplenty.”
“Especially fruit trees,” said Rothir. “Small groves of plum and peach and cherry, in the open spaces. There used to be, at least.”
“We can replant them,” Delgeb said.
“Underneath an apple tree, I saw my love and he saw me,” recited Birané.
“Maybe that’s where you’ll find your love, Leor,” said Nerobe. “Underneath an apple tree in Caervonn. You too, Sashel.”
“Nonsense,” said Sashel, but Parthenal was pleased to see he wore a smile. The ale was working.
It was working on Rothir too. Although not drunk, he was more relaxed than Parthenal had seen him for a while.
“You, Theol, you left a lady languishing for you in Caervonn all those years ago,” he said. “Possibly more than one. About five, I believe.”
“Theol! And you a married man.”
“There were only two,” said Theol, grinning. “Both married now themselves in any case, the last I heard.”
“You didn’t leave anyone behind, Rothir?” That was Arguril.
“No.”
“Ah! So it’s the apple tree for you too.”
“When we enter Caervonn,” said Rothir, stretching out his legs in front of him, his empty tankard on his knee, “when we ride in through the gates in victory, with the people cheering from the balconies, and throwing handfuls of petals down on us, I shall look up and see a women waiting at a window there as soft and velvety and lovely as a rose.” Parthenal understood at once that this was a vision that had carried Rothir over many a wearisome mile.
“Is that a real woman?” asked Arguril.
“Who knows?” said Rothir. “I can always hope.”
“Velvety?” said Delgeb. “Are you sure this is a woman, and not a vole?”
“Roses aren’t all that soft,” said Nerobe.
“Their blossoms are.”
“An orange rose,” said Parthenal, “or just a lilac one?” General laughter.
“Any colour. I’m not fussy.” Rothir inspected his tankard and reached for the jug. “Actually, as long as she has two arms and two legs and a kind smile, she’ll do for me.”
“Well, I’m sure we can find someone in Caervonn to fit that bill,” said Theol, and he got up to call the landlord and request more ale. Arguril put his own demand in for more food and was shouted down.
“I think we’ll go,” said Yaret to Parthenal under the clamour. “I’ll take Durba back to our quarters. She’s getting tired.”
Durba nodded and put her hands under her cheek in token that she wanted sleep.
“All right,” said Parthenal. He thought that Yaret looked weary too. Something struck him. “That about two arms and two legs,” he said. “It’s only a figure of speech.”
“Yes, I know. Good night, Parthenal.”
He wanted to say, And you have the kind smile; but he didn’t say it, because he didn’t know how things lay between Rothir and Yaret. Although Rothir had been so desperately anxious to find her after her long fall – and then after the battle had found her a second time, to bring her to the hearthside – all that might be no more than his sense of responsibility. Over-developed, in Parthenal’s opinion.
As for Yaret, she wasn’t smiling now, but that might not be because of Rothir. It could be concern for Durba. It could be that the conviviality made her miss her home.
Zan put out a hand to her and asked something with concern, and she did find a smile for him as she replied. Nobody else noticed when she and Durba left. The ale was doing its work on everyone – Zan included – and a general chatter filled the room, sometimes becoming raucous. Even Leor was telling jokes, at which everybody groaned, more loudly with each joke. Some of them were very old indeed.
“Did Yaret go already?” Rothir asked Parthenal when he went over for the third jug of ale.
“You drove her away, you lummock. All she needs is two arms and two legs?”
“What?” Rothir stared at him. It seemed to take a moment to sink in. “Oh. That? But I didn’t even think of it like that. It’s just a – and in any case, it’s not as if – I mean, she wouldn’t be interested anyway.”
“In being your velvety rose? I have no idea. But two arms and two legs has probably given her the idea she’ll never be anybody’s velvety rose. She certainly looked disheartened just now.”
“But… she’s with Durba.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“She has her arm around her half the time.”
“She’s looking after Durba, dimwit. Even if Durba is that way inclined, I don’t think Yaret is. She’s just being sympathetic.”
“Well, anyway,” said Rothir, somewhat grumpily, “that hunter in the corner, Zan, he’s set his sights on Yaret. Arguril reckons that he’s keen, and that she might be too. So there you are.”
“Not Durba after all? You can’t have it both ways.”
“Parthenal, the whole thing is irrelevant.” Rothir sat up, irritated. “Yaret is far too sensible to be affected by any stupid remarks I might make over a mug of ale. She would know I’m talking rubbish.”
“So your hopes and dreams are rubbish, are they?”
“It was tavern talk. I’m not even thinking about anything like that until we reach Caervonn.”
“Ah, so you’re determined to be celibate until you meet your velvety rose?”
“Oh, go away, Parthenal.”
“I’m going,” he said. “I’ve got a prior appointment. I’ll see you later, Rothir. Have fun carrying Arguril home.” And then he left.