They struggled now to find their places, shifting about in a search to discover the proper distance between them. Or perhaps the struggle was his alone. He could not be sure, and in that he saw the proof of how things had changed. Once, running at her side, he had known her well. Now, he wondered if he knew her at all.
In her room, only a short time ago, he’d spoken of the games now played between them. Not like the games of old, for these were not, strictly speaking, shared. Instead, these new ones held to personal, private rules, solitary in their gauging, and nothing was won but an abeyance of unease. And yet to this she had professed ignorance. No, ignorance was the wrong word. The word was innocence.
Should he believe her?
In truth, Cryl felt lost. Enesdia had outgrown him in every way, and at times he felt like a puppy at her heels, eager for play, but that sort of playing was behind her now. She thought him a fool. She mocked him at every turn, and a dozen times each day he silently vowed that he was done with it, all of it, only to once more find himself answering her summons — which seemed to be uttered ever more imperiously — and finding himself, yet again, the arrow-butt to her barbs.
It was clear to him, at last, that there were other meanings to the word ‘hostage’, ones not codified into the laws of tradition, and they bound him in chains, heavy and cruelly biting, and he spent his days, and nights, in tormented stricture.
But this was his twentieth year of life. He was only months away from being released, sent back to his own blood, where he would sit discomfited at the family table, trapped in his own strangeness in the midst of a family that had grown around the wound of his prolonged absence. All of this — Enesdia and her proud father, Enesdia and her frighteningly obsessed but brilliant brother, Enesdia and the man who would soon be her husband — all of it would be past, a thing of his history day by day losing its force, its power over him and his life.
And so, too sharply felt for irony, Cryl now longed for his freedom.
Striding into the Great Hall, he was brought up short at seeing Lord Jaen standing near the hearth. The old man’s eyes were on the massive slab of stone laid into the tiled floor, marking the threshold of the hearth and bearing ancient words carved into its granite mien. The Tiste language struggled with notions of filial duty — or so Kadaspala’s friend, the court poet Gallan, was fond of saying — as if hinting at some fundamental flaw in spirit, and so, as was often the case, the words were Azathanai. So many Azathanai gifts to the Tiste seemed to fill the dusty niches and gaps left gaping by flaws in Tiste character, and not one of those gifts was without symbolic meaning.
As a hostage, Cryl was forbidden from learning those arcane Azathanai words, given so long ago to the bloodline of Enes. It was odd, he now reflected as he bowed before Jaen, this Tiste prohibition against learning the masons’ script.
Jaen could well have been reading his mind, for he nodded and said, ‘Gallan claims he can read Azathanai, granting him the blasphemous privilege of knowing the sacred words of each noble family. I admit,’ he added, his thin, lined face twisting slightly, ‘I find the notion displeasing.’
‘Yet the poet asserts that such knowledge is for him alone, Lord.’
‘Poets, young Cryl, cannot be trusted.’
The hostage considered that statement, and found he had no reasonable reply to it. ‘Lord, I request permission to saddle a horse and ride on this day. It was my thought to seek sign of eckalla in the west hills.’
‘Eckalla? None have been seen in years, Cryl. I fear your search will be wasted.’
‘The ride will do me good, Lord, none the less.’
Jaen nodded, and it seemed he well understood the swirl of hidden emotions lying beneath Cryl’s bland words. His gaze returned to the hearthstone. ‘This year,’ he said, ‘I must give up a daughter. And,’ he glanced back at Cryl, ‘a most beloved hostage.’
‘And I, in turn, feel as if I am about to be cast out from the only family I truly belong to. Lord, doors are closing behind us.’
‘But not, I trust, for ever sealed?’
‘Indeed not,’ Cryl replied, although in his mind he saw a massive lock grinding tight. Some doors, once shut, were proof against every desire.
Jaen’s gaze faltered slightly and he turned away. ‘Even standing still, the world moves on around us. I well remember you when first you arrived, scrawny and wild-eyed — the Abyss knows you Duravs are a feral lot — and there you were, wild as a cat, yet barely tall enough to saddle a horse. At least it seems we fed you well.’
Cryl smiled. ‘Lord, the Duravs are said to be slow to grow-’
‘Slow in many things, Cryl. Slow to assume the trappings of civil comportment, in which I admit I find considerable charm. You have held to that despite our efforts, and so remain refreshing to our eyes. Yes,’ he continued, ‘slow in many things. Slow in judgement, slow to anger…’ Jaen slowly swung round and fixed Cryl with a searching regard. ‘Are you angry yet, Cryl Durav?’
The question shocked him, almost made him step back. ‘Lord? I–I have no cause to be angry. I am saddened to leave this house, but there will be rejoicing this year. Your daughter is about to be wed.’
‘Indeed.’ He studied Cryl for a moment longer, and then, as if yielding some argument, he broke his gaze and faced the hearthstone, gesturing. ‘And she will kneel before one such as this, in the great house that her betrothed even now builds for her.’
‘Andarist is a fine man,’ Cryl said, as evenly as he could manage. ‘Honourable and loyal. This binding by marriage is a sure one, Lord, by every measure.’
‘Does she love him, though?’
Such questions left him reeling. ‘Lord? I am certain that she does.’
Jaen grunted, and then sighed. ‘You see her truly, don’t you — the years together, the friendship you have both held for each other. She loves him, then? I am pleased. Yes, most pleased to hear you say that.’
Cryl would leave here, soon, and when he did, he knew that he would not look back, not once. Nor, for all that he loved this old man, would he ever return. In his chest, he felt nothing but cold, a scattering of dead cinders, the grating promise of choking ashes should he draw too deep a breath.
She would have a hearthstone. She — and her new husband — would have words that only they would know; the first words of the private language that must ever exist between husband and wife. Azathanai gifts were not simple, were never simple. ‘Lord, may I ride this day?’
‘Of course, Cryl. Seek out the eckalla, and should you find one, bring it down and we shall feast well. As in the old days when the beasts were plentiful, yes?’
‘I shall do my best, Lord.’
Bowing, Cryl strode from the Great Hall. He was looking forward to this expedition, away from this place, out into the hills. He would take his hunting spear but, in truth, he did not expect to sight such a noble creature as an eckalla. In the other times when he had ridden the west hills, all he had ever found was bones, from past hunts, past scenes of butchering.
The eckalla were gone, the last one slain decades ago.
And beneath him while he rode, if he so chose, Cryl could listen to the thunder of his horse’s hoofs, and imagine each report as the slamming of another door. They seemed to go on without end, didn’t they?