"No," Mara replied, and the captain's eyes narrowed.
"Well… if you intended to bear arms in our gentle village, then to what purpose?"
"I… I…" Mara began, but she knew that Duir had trapped her.
"I see no choice," the captain said slowly, as Oron walked toward her, his big hand extended, "but to prepare your quarters as well in the roundhouse. The freedom of Dun Ringhill was a privilege gladly granted by herself, but you have shown to be more Solamnic than Kagonesti."
They escorted her by the smithy. Weyland filled the doorway, blocking the light of the forge behind him. He watched them take her back toward the green, toward the roundhouse and the cell beside that of the captured Solamnic.
Weyland shook his head, his thoughts opaque and distant. Then he turned to the forge, closing the door behind him, but not before he picked up the long blade lying on his bench, shining silver and red by the light of the fire.
Had he not been working the bellows, he might have heard yet another party pass as the night turned and the village folk retired to their circular huts and beds of straw. For outside the smithy, something scurried by, stepping lightly and carefully through a nearby alley, whirring softly like a cricket. Yet somewhere within its strange, inhuman language lay human words and human fears and mourning.
Chapter 15
For three days, Sturm sat alone in his vaulted cell.
The cubicle in which they placed him was little more than a windowless stall. Its side walls were flush with the ceiling, which sloped to the back of the room, where an old straw mattress lay. The front wall was a dozen feet high, over which he could see only ceiling and the gaping hole above the building's central fire. By night, an occasional star shone through the opening, and very early one morning, Sturm thought he saw the silver edge of Solinari at its border. For the most part, the opening was featureless, though, like the walls that surrounded him, gated and guarded by a pair of burly militiamen.
The soldiers spoke only Lemish and regarded their Solamnic captive with suspicion. Twice daily one of them would stick his head in the door, shove a dirty clay bowl at Sturm, then shut the door rapidly, leaving him alone with his porridge and his thoughts.
The whole Jack Derry business troubled him no end. It seemed passing strange that none of the village folk, from the druidess herself down to the cell guards, knew aught of the gardener.
More urgent than this was the question of Mara. Sturm assumed she was safe, but at night, once or twice, he thought he heard her voice from somewhere nearby. On the second night, he could have sworn he heard a thin, plaintive flute song rising from the room adjoining his.
On the third night of his captivity, he heard once more the sound of the flute. Then, as once before on the plains, he heard the old elven hymn, and clearly and mournfully the words filled the air of the lodge, riding the smoke out into the spangled night.
"The wind dives through the days.
By season, by moon, great kingdoms arise.
The breath of firefly, or bird, of trees, of mankind, fades in a word.
Now Sleep, our oldest friend, lulls in the trees and calls us in.
The Age, the thousand lives of men and their stories, go to their graves.
But we, the people long in poem and glory, fade from the song."
Sturm closed his eyes and listened deeply, his thoughts and senses free from all distraction. Mara had spoken of the song concealed in the silences, of the magic wrought by the white mode hidden from most ears. Could some message lie beneath the words she was singing?
He listened long and hard to the sounds and the silences and to the rests between verses. But he could uncover nothing in the quiet. "Nothing," he murmured, and he turned on his mattress of straw. "Only wishful thinking and elven poetry."
As the night progressed, the melody slipped to the back of his thoughts. A third time, in the small hours of the morning when he hovered in that strange, expectant state between sleep and waking, he heard Mara begin the song again.
And on the third time, he heard something: wishful thinking, perhaps, or poetry, but something nonetheless that crept into the last verses of the song.
"The Age, no fear no fear the thousand lives of men and their stories go to their graves. I am here past the edge of despair.
But we, hear o hear the people long in poem and glory fade from the song.
The magic is free in the air."
In the music of those silences was sweetness and safety and an assuring sense that the dark was not bottomless.
Sturm's eyes filled with tears, and the melodies, both heard and unheard, died into the smoky night air. He sat upright on the bed. In the real silence that followed the end of the song, he strained to hear words, to gather direction or advice or encouragement. But nothing was there except the snoring of a distant guard and the crackle of the central fire.
Intent and wide awake now, he settled back on the mattress and willed himself to sleep, but it was hours before he closed his eyes. When he did, he slipped suddenly from waking to slumber as though he had fallen atop a steep and sheer battlement.
On the fourth morning, the door opened as usual. Sturm sat up, a little hungrier than usual after a restless night, hoping that the porridge might somehow taste better this morning. It wasn't breakfast that greeted him, though, but the Druidess Ragnell.
The old woman walked through the door, escorted by Guardsman Oron. With a swift wave of her hand, she dismissed the big man, who looked after her reluctantly as he closed the door behind her.
"You realize that you will be here for a long time," she said.
Sturm did not speak. How could he address his father's murderess? Angrily he lay back on the mattress, turning his face to the back wall.
Behind him, he heard the druidess shuffle and cough. It was hard to imagine her at the head of an army.
"And this is your greeting?" she asked. 'This is that fabled Solamnic politeness?"
Sturm rolled over, regarding her from across the room with a withering stare of hatred.
"I thank you, m'lady," he replied, his politeness wintry, "but I would prefer my porridge to your presence."
The druidess smiled, and with a creaking of her ancient bones, she seated herself in front of him. From the folds of her robe, she drew a branch-of willow, perhaps, though Sturm's botany was weak, and he could scarcely tell. With a practiced, assured gesture, she traced a circle in the dirt on the floor.
"Your trespass is a deep one, child," she observed. "A deep one and dire."
"Trespass? To be brought into your presence under armed guard?"
The druidess ignored him, her eyes on the swirl of dust in the circle she had drawn. Soon, in spite of himself, Sturm found his eyes following the rapid, switching movements of the stick in her hand.
"It is trespass," she explained, "because the people of Lemish fear the Solamnic legions, their bright swords and their horses and their righteous eyes."
"Perhaps their fear is their own doing, Lady Ragnell!" Sturm shot back. "Perhaps some crime of Lemish cries out for justice! Perhaps there are abandoned castles north of here that can attest-"
"Attest to what?" the druidess interrupted, her voice calm and unwavering. Deep in her eyes, Sturm saw a flicker. Rage? Amusement? He could not tell.
"Perhaps there is one reason, Sturm Brightblade," soothed the Lady Ragnell. "Young people say so, which is why we ask them to take up the sword."