“The time for rue is past—or has not yet come.” I tried to choose my words with care, those best to hold attention and make him think. “Time is not one of your menie this night, my lord. Return me to Norstead and you have lost. Send me back with one of your men, and again you have lost—for at the Throat of the Hawk there must be twelve and one, or honour shall be broke.”
His arm moved and he shook me to and fro, his strength so that in his grasp I was a straw thing. But my will held and I faced him. Then he flung me away so I slipped in the snow and went to my knees, jarring against the parapet of that walk. And I do not believe in that instant he would have cared had I been hurled over it and down.
I pulled to my feet and I was shaking, my bruised shoulder all pain, the fear of what might have been brushing me still. But I could face him head up and still clear of thought, knowing what I must say.
“You were to provide one of the brides, my lord. I am here, nor will I nay-say that I am here through your will, should witness be needed. And still you have Marimme who is of such beauty as to make a fine match. Have you truly lost aught by this?”
I could hear his breathing, heavy as that of a man who had tried to outrace enemy horse and then been cornered in some rock hole. But, though his passions were hot, I had read him aright as one of those men who had full control when that was needed to further his plans. Now he came to me, moving with deliberation, holding up the lamp. However I knew that the moment of greatest danger was past. Imgry might hate me for my deception, but he was greater than some men, able to swallow that which might have been humiliation at being befooled, because it best suited. His mind was already working ahead, chewing upon what I said.
“Gillan.” My name was flat from his lips, sounding harsh and dull. “And you fulfil the condition?”
“I am maid, and I think I am some twenty years of age. I was fosterling to Lord Furlo of Thantop and his wife, having been found as a small child a prisoner of Alizon. Since the Hounds had preserved my life Lord Furlo believed me of some consequence—thus you might deem my birth worthy.”
He was surveying me insolently from head to foot and back again. It was shameful, that raking stare, and he knew it, making it so deliberately. I knew anger and kept it leashed, and I think he understood that also. Though what my inner defiance meant to him I could not tell.
“You are right—time presses. Twelve and one brides they shall have. You may not find this will be as you hope, girl.”
“She who expects neither good nor ill has an equal chance of either.” I replied as sharply as I could.
A faint shadow of expression crossed his face, one I could not read.
“From whence did the Hounds have you?” There was interest in that, in me as a person, not just one of the play-pieces he pushed about his private board.
“I know not. I remember only a ship in a storm, and after that the port where Lord Furlo’s raiders found me.” I gave him the truth.
“The Hounds war also overseas. Estcarp!” He flung that last word at me as if to provoke response, perhaps betrayal.
“Estcarp?” I repeated, for the word meant nothing, though I added a guess as a question. “That is enemy to Alizon?”
Lord Imgry shrugged. “So they say. But it is of no moment to you now. You have made your choice. You shall abide by it.”
“I ask no more than that, my lord.”
He smiled and it was not a good smile. “To make sure—just to make sure—”
Thus he brought me back to the sleeping chamber, pushed me inside. I heard him summon the guard to stand outside that door. Then I came back to my pallet and lay down. That which I dreaded since I had left the Abbey was now behind me. I had overleaped the second of the walls between me and what I sought. And the third—now my mind turned to the third—he who might wait for me at the Throat of the Hawk.
Mankind was known only at the Abbey-stead through speech, and now and then, at long intervals, by the kin of those refugee ladies who made visits. At such times I had been classed among the Dames and had seen such visitors only at a distance. I knew of men, but I did not know man. Though, this too was a custom among those of gentle blood.
Marriage is a far off thing which lies in a maid’s mind but is not early brought to the surface, unless she is among those to whom it is of importance. Perhaps in this way I was far younger than those, or most of those I rode among. For to the Dames marriage had no existence, and they did not discuss it. Now, when I tried to think of what my choice might lead me to, I had little to build upon. Even the fears of my companions were not real to me, since an ordinary man seemed as equally strange as one of the Were Riders with his dark reputation. And I needs must apply my own advice—that which I had so easily given to Solfinna—not to seek trouble until its shadow could not be denied.
There was no mention in the morning between Lord Imgry and me of our night meeting. I used my masking veil prudently, lest others in the company remark that I was not Marimme. But I believe that the closer we drew to the end of our journey, the more each turned inwards, dealing with her own hopes and fears to the best of her ability, and the less attention they spared for those about them. We were very quiet during that day’s riding.
As far as I knew the world about us we had ridden off the map of the Dales. The road was a track along which two might file, ponies shoulder to shoulder, and it brought us down again from the heights to a plain, brown with winter. Dark copses of trees looked smaller than those of the Dales, as if they were stunted in growth. There was little underbush. Sere grass showed in ragged tuffs through snow which lay thinly here.
We crossed a river on a bridge, man-built of timbers rudely cut and set in hardened earth. But there had been no recent travellers on this way, no tracks broke the snow. Again we moved through a deserted world which would lead one to believe that mankind had long passed away.
Once more we began to climb a slope, a little steeper than before. And our way led now to a notch between two tall cliffs. We came out on a level space where stones had been built into a rude half shelter and a pit, lined with rocks, was marked with the black of past fires. There we came to a halt. Lord Imgry joined with one of our guards and the guide before he faced us to say:
“You will rest here.”
No more. He was already riding off with those two. Stiff and tired, we dismounted. Two of the escort built a fire in the hold and then shared out trail provisions, but I do not think that any of us ate much. Kildas touched my arm.
“The Throat of the Hawk—” she motioned towards the cut. “It would seem that the brides are more willing than their grooms. There is no sign of any welcome.”
As she spoke the gathering dusk was broken, deep inside that cut, by light. Not the yellow of lamp shine, nor the richer red of fire, but with a greenish glow strange to me. Outlined blackly against it were the three who had left us—just then—no one else appeared in the pass.
“No,” Kildas repeated, “one can not name them eager.”
“Maybe,” there was hope in Solfinna’s voice, “maybe they have decided—”
“That they do not want us after all, child? Never think it! In a songsmith’s tales such an ending might be granted us—in real life I have found it always goes differently.” As on the day previous her face of a sudden had an aged, pinched look. “Do not hope. You will only be dashed the deeper when you know the truth.”
We stood within the range of the fire where there was warmth, but perhaps all of us shivered within as we looked upon the Throat of the Hawk and that ever-steady green fire within it.
4
Unicorn Morn
“Know you what night this is?” She who tossed back her veil and loosed her hood so that fair hair strayed limply from beneath its edge was Aldeeth who had lain to my left the night before. From the southlands she had come, and her blazon of salamander curled among leaping flames was one I did not know.