Elder Isles 2: The Green Pearl (32 page)

Tatzel opened her eyes, and studied his face. “I have seen you before. … I cannot remember where.”

Aillas thought: Already she had forgotten her fear; perhaps he was too transparent. Indeed, she seemed to be demonstrating that ineffable Ska certainty of place, which, had it been less innocent, might be considered arrogant. In such case, the game became more interesting.

Tatzel said: “Your voice is not Ulfish. Who are you, then?”

“I am a gentleman of Troicinet.”

Tatzel grimaced, either from pain or from unpleasant recollection. “One time at Sank we had a servant from Troicinet. He escaped.”

“I escaped from Sank.”

Tatzel looked at him with dispassionate curiosity. “At the time everyone spoke harshly of you, because you poisoned us. Your name is ‘Halis’ or ‘Ailish’: something of the sort.”

“Ordinarily I call myself ‘Aillas.’ “

Tatzel seemed to make no connection between Aillas the house-servant and Aillas, King of Dascinet, Troicinet and South Ulfland, even had she known the latter’s name.

Tatzel spoke without accent. “You are foolish to haunt these parts. When you are captured, you may well be gelded.”

“I hope, in that case, I shall not be captured.”

“Were you in company with the bandits who attacked us?”

“They were not bandits; they were soldiers in the service of the King of South Ulfland.”

“It is all the same.” Tatzel closed her eyes and lay quiet. After a moment of thought, Aillas rose to his feet and considered the surroundings. Shelter for the night was important, but even more so, security and concealment. The trail along the riverbank gave evidence of at least some small traffic, and would seem to connect the High Windy Way with settlements and Ska depots along the lower moors.

Some small distance up the valley Aillas noticed a dilapidated hut which might even now afford refuge to herders and wanderers of the hills. The sun was falling behind the mountains; soon the valley would be in shadow. He looked down. “Tatzel.”

She opened her eyes.

“There is a hut yonder, where we can shelter for the night. I will help you to stand. Put your arms around my neck… . Up you come.”

Aillas found that his heart was beating much faster than was normal. The warm pressure of Tatzel’s body against his own, her arms clasping him, her clean fragrance commingled of pine-needles and lemon verbena and crushed geranium: they were intensely stimulating. Aillas did not want to release her. “Put your arm around me and I will support you… . Take a step.”

FOR AN INSTANT, after Aillas had raised Tatzel to her feet, they stood immobile, her arms around his neck, face only inches from his own, and across Aillas’ mind flashed recollections of dreary days at Castle Sank. He heaved a deep sigh and turned away.

Step by step, the two moved along the trail, Tatzel hopping and Aillas supporting her weight. At last they reached the hut which was all that survived of an old farmstead. The site was pleasant, on a rise beside a small stream coursing down from a wooded ravine at the back. Rude stone walls supported cedar poles for rafters and tiles of mica schist for the roof. A door of old gray wood sagged in the doorway; within, on one side was a table and a bench; on the other a hearth and a makeshift chimney to carry away the smoke.

Aillas lowered Tatzel to the bench and eased her leg. He looked into her face; “Do you feel pain?”

Tatzel replied only with a single short nod and a quick glance of wonder for so foolish a question.

“Rest as well as you can; I will be back in a moment.”

Aillas gathered fresh willow shoots with thick bark from the riverbank. He noticed crayfish in the shallow pools and a noble trout lazing in the shadows. He took the willow back to Tatzel and peeled away the bark. “Chew this. I will bring you water.”

At the side of the hut the stream had been deepened and dammed to form a small pool, in which Aillas discovered a wooden bucket, submerged that it should not dry out and crack. Aillas gratefully brought up the bucket and carried water into the hut. He gathered grass, sedge and shrubbery, and piled it on the floor to make a bed. By the river’s edge he found drifts of dry wood, which he carried into the hut. Then, striking a spark, he blew up a fire.

Tatzel, sitting at the table, seemed absorbed in her own thoughts and watched him without interest.

Dusk had come to the valley. Aillas once more left the hut. On this occasion he was gone almost half an hour. He returned with several pieces of fresh red meat wrapped in reeds and also a branch loaded with elderberries, which he placed beside Tatzel. Kneeling at the hearth he laid the meat on a flat stone and cut off thin strips which he threaded upon twigs and set to toast over the fire.

When the meat was cooked to his satisfaction he brought it to the table. Tatzel had been eating elderberries; now she ate the meat, slowly and without great appetite. She drank from the pail, then, pouring water on a kerchief from her wallet, she cleaned and rinsed her fingers.

Aillas chose his words carefully: “It might be difficult for you to relieve yourself comfortably. Whenever you wish I will help you as best I can.”

“I need none of your help,” said Tatzel shortly.

“As you like. When you are ready to sleep I will make up your bed.”

Tatzel gave her head a fretful toss, to indicate that she would much prefer to sleep elsewhere, such as her own bed at Castle Sank, then sat staring stonily into the flames. Presently she turned to inspect Aillas, as if now, for the first time, she were ready to recognize his presence in the hut. “You stated that soldiers and not bandits attacked my party?”

“So I did, and such is the case.”

“What will they do with my mother?”

“They are under orders to spare life whenever possible. I expect that your mother will be captured and sent into South Ulfland as a slave.”

“A slave? My mother?” Tatzel wrestled with the idea, then put it aside, as something too grotesque to be considered. She looked sidelong at Aillas, thinking: What an odd person! At times as grim and careful as an old man, and the next moment he appears little more than a boy. Amazing what turns up among one’s slaves! The episode is most puzzling! Why did he pursue me so remorselessly? Does he hope to collect ransom? She asked: “What of you? Are you a soldier? Or a bandit?”

Aillas reflected a moment, then said: “I am more nearly a soldier than a bandit. But I am neither.”

“What are you then?”

“As I told you before, I am a gentleman of Troicinet.”

“I know nothing of Troicinet. Why did you wander so far from safety? Even in South Ulfland you were secure.”

“I came partly to punish the Ska for their looting and slave-taking, and also, if the truth be known …” Aillas stopped short. Looking into the flames, he decided to say no more.

Tatzel prompted him. ” ‘And if the truth be known’?”

Aillas shrugged. “At Castle Sank I was forced into servitude. Often I watched you as you went here and there, and I came to admire you. I promised myself that someday I would return and we would meet on somewhat different terms. That is one of the reasons I am here.”

Tatzel mused a moment. “You are most pertinacious. Very few slaves have escaped Castle Sank.”

“I was recaptured and sent to Poelitetz,” said Aillas. “I escaped from there as well.”

“All this is confused and complex,” said Tatzel crossly. “It is beyond both my comprehension and my interest. All I know is that you have caused me pain and inconvenience. Your slavish yearnings seem disgusting and truly insolent, and you show a gracelessness in bruiting them about.”

Aillas laughed again. “Quite right! My hopes and daydreams now seem nothing less than callow when I put them into words. Still, I have only answered your question, and with candor. In the process I have clarified my own thinking. Or, better to say, I have been forced to admit certain things to myself.”

Tatzel sighed. “Again you speak in riddles. I care nothing for their solving.”

“It is simple enough. When the daydreams and romances of two persons run alike, they become friends, or, as it may be, lovers. When this is not the case, they find no pleasure in each other’s company. It is an easy concept, though but few take the trouble to understand it.”

Tatzel looked into the fire. “Personally, I care not a fig for your mournings and vagaries. Explain them to persons whom you think they may fascinate.”

“For the present I will keep them to myself,” said Aillas.

After a few moments Tatzel stated: “I am surprised that your band dared venture so far from South Ulfland.”

“The explanation again is simple. Since we came to attack Castle Sank, it was necessary to come at least so far.”

Tatzel at last showed startlement. “And you were repelled?”

“To the contrary. We left the citadel intact only because we had brought no siege engines. We destroyed everything in sight, then rode off to do battle elsewhere.”

Tatzel stared at him in wonder. “That is a cruel deed!”

“It is no more than long-delayed justice, and it is only a start.”

Tatzel looked glumly into the flames. “And what do you propose to do with me?”

“I have impressed you into servitude after the Ska style. You are now my slave. Henceforth, conduct yourself accordingly.”

“That is not possible!” cried Tatzel furiously. “I am Ska and of noble birth!”

“You must adjust yourself to the idea. It is a pity that you have broken your leg and so cannot obey my commands.”

Tatzel, leaning on the table with chin on her two fists, scowled into the fire. Aillas rose to his feet and spread her cloak across the bed of grass. “Chew some of the willow bark, that you may sleep without pain.”

“I want no more bark.”

Aillas bent over her. “Put your arms around my neck and I will carry you to the bed.”

After a moment’s hesitation Tatzel obeyed, and Aillas transferred her to the bed of grass. He unlaced the thongs of her boots and drew them from her feet. “Are you comfortable?”

Tatzel looked up at him blank-faced as if she had not heard the question. Aillas turned away, and went outside to listen to the night.

The air was still. He heard the murmur of water in the river but otherwise silence. He returned into the hut. Tilting up the table, he placed it across the doorway, and wedged it in place with the bench. He banked the fire and after removing his own boots, lay down beside Tatzel and covered them over with his cloak. He looked toward the pale blotch of Tatzel’s face. “Have you ever slept with a man before?”

“No.”

Aillas gave a noncommittal grunt. “Thanks to the broken leg your virginity is secure. It would be too much distraction to hear you yelping in pain because your leg was hurting… . I suppose that I am a man of too many niceties.”

Tatzel made a scornful sound but otherwise had nothing to say. She twisted about so that her back was toward Aillas, and presently he heard her regular breathing.

In the morning the sun rose into a cloudless day. Aillas brought hardtack and cheese from his wallet for their breakfast. Immediately after he took Tatzel to a secluded little glen fifty yards up the ravine behind the hut. Tatzel protested and grumbled but Aillas was firm. “These hills are not unknown to true bandits who are little more than wild animals. I lack bow and arrow and if there were more than two I could not protect you. If more than two Ska found us, I could not protect myself. So you must hide during the day until we leave this place.”

“When will that be?” demanded Tatzel, somewhat peevishly.

“As soon as possible. Do not stir from here until I come for you. Unless several days go by; then you will know that I am dead.”

Aillas returned to the valley. From a crook of driftwood and a pole cut from a birch sapling he contrived a crutch. He cut a strong willow branch, scraped and shaved it and produced a bow of no great quality, since willow lacked the strong resilience of ash or yew. Hickory and oak were too brittle; alder was too weak; horse-chestnut served tolerably well, but none grew to hand. He cut willow shoots for arrows and fletched them with ribbons of trailing cloth. Finally he contrived a fishing-spear by splitting one end of a birch pole into four prongs, sharpening each, wedging the prongs apart with a pebble, and lashing a foot from the end to prevent the pole from splitting along its whole length.

The time was now an hour into the afternoon. Aillas took his fishing spear to the river, and after an hour of the most patient and crafty effort, managed to spear a fine brown trout of three or four pounds. As he cleaned the fish by the water’s edge he heard the sounds of approaching horses and instantly took to cover.

Up the road came two mounted men, followed by a wagon drawn by a pair of shaggy farm-horses. A tow-headed peasant boy of fourteen drove the wagon. The riders were of a different, more sinister sort. They wore makeshift vests of chain and leather helmets with neck-and earflaps. Heavy long-swords slanted back from their belts; bows and arrows hung at their saddlebows, along with short-handled battle-axes. The larger of the two was somewhat older than Aillas, dark, burly, with small mean eyes, a coarse beard and a fleshy beak of a nose. The other, older by perhaps fifteen years, rode crouched in the saddle, as lean, sinewy and tough as the leather on which he sat. His face was pale and disturbing; strangely wide cheekbones with round gray eyes and a small thin-lipped mouth gave him an almost ophidian semblance.

Aillas instantly knew the two for outlaws, and he congratulated himself on his foresight in hiding Tatzel up the gully, inasmuch as the riders had taken note of the dead horse, and were somewhat puzzled as to its significance.

Arriving at the hut the horsemen halted and muttered together, then bent to examine tracks in the sand. Warily dismounting, they tied their horses to the wagon and started to approach the hut, then stopped short in surprise.

Aillas went cold and stiff with shock. Tatzel had also heard the approach of the horsemen. She came hobbling around the side of the hut and, facing the two, spoke in a voice of confident authority, though Aillas could not hear her words. She gestured toward the wagon; Aillas assumed that she had given instructions that she wished to be transported to the nearest Ska castle or administrative depot.