Carol Berg - The Bridge of D'Arnath 01 - Son of Avonar

SON OF AVONAR

Book One of The Bridge of D’Arnath

CAROL BERG

Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New

York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250

Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn

Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads,

Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London

WC2R ORL, England

First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc

First Printing, February 2004

Cover art by Matt Stawicki

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

Printed in the United States of America

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means

(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of

both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors

imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE

PRODUCTS OR SERVICES FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM

MARKETING DIVISION. PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC.. 375 HUDSON STREET. NEW

YORK. NEW YORK 10014.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was

reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received

any payment for this “stripped book ”

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the

permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic

editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support

of the author’s rights is appreciated.

For teachers, the overlooked heroes and heroines who illuminate and nurture young minds, who

inculcate our values and teach self-discipline, who shore up our freedoms, remind us of the lessons

of history, and ensure the future of the arts. For a few in particular—Elizabeth Paar and Carol

Roehl, Jane Conway, Marcia Stefan, Sister Francesco, Sister Anselma, Robert Patten, David

Minter, Katherine Brown—and many others at OLV and Nolan and Rice, who inspired, who

shared their devotion to art and literature, or who just flat expected their students to do the

difficult, the boring, and the necessary in the name of learning.

CHAPTER 1

Midsummer’s Day—Year 14 in the reign of King Evard

The dawn wind teased at my old red shawl as I scrambled up the last steep pitch of the crescent-shaped

headland the villagers called Rif Paltarre—(Poacher’s Ridge. A brisk walk to the eastern edge and I

seated myself on a throne of rock as if I were a Leiran duchess attending a midsummer fete. But whereas

my girlhood friends might celebrate the longest day of the year by watching jugglers, fire-eaters, and

tittering ladies stepping through the spiritless mimicry they called “rustic dances,” I beheld color and

shape being born from a vast and silent wilderness of gray.

Stretching west for two hundred leagues, stood the snowcapped peaks of the Dorian Wall, their brilliant

rose brightening to eye-searing white. To the north swelled the ocean of dark green forest. To the east

the ground fell away gently in a stone-bordered patchwork of meadows and farmland to the bronze

ripples of the Dun River and the haze-shrouded village of Dunfarrie squatting on its banks. It was a

splendid desolation.

As the light grew, I stuffed my water flask into the cloth bag hanging from my belt, snugged the rags I’d

wrapped about my hands, and took up the true business of the day— hunting dye plants to barter in the

village. The first lesson I’d learned on coming to Dunfarrie, when I had scarcely known that food grew in

the ground, much less that it must be coddled and coaxed and worried over, was that those whose bellies

are pinched by hunger know nothing of holidays.

In early afternoon, back aching, hands dirty and sore despite the rags, I abandoned the glare and

blustering wind of the heights for a shady clearing of pine trees and oak scrub. I ate a few dried figs, hard

and half turned to sugar, and refilled my water flask at the stream that mumbled through the weedy

clearing, trying to decide whether to return to the ridge top to dig another bundle of scabwort roots or

head down to the cottage and the uncountable tasks that needed doing before sunset.

A spider skittered across the scuffed leather of my boot. A jay screeched. Beyond the stream, something

large rustled the bracken—one of Evard’s deer, no doubt. No predators, human or beast, frequented the

wooded hills behind Jonah’s cottage. Nor did enemy soldiers. Leire’s current battles were being waged

in faraway Iskeran. Nor did sorcerous enchantments lurk in the wild forest, threatening to corrupt the

soul. As the priests and people of the Four Realms had demanded for four hundred and fifty years, the

dark arts and those who practiced them had been exterminated.

I lifted my head. The rustling came louder, closer, and now accompanied by a muted, rhythmic pounding.

Running footsteps… human… that halted somewhere in the trees to my right. “Who’s there?” I called

out, scrambling to my feet.

As if from nowhere and everywhere sounded the blast of a horn, the clamor of a hunt sweeping through

the forest on three sides: racing hoofbeats, jangling harness, a shouted command not ten paces from

where I stood. The runner was closer than that.

“Stay away from me,” I said softly, trying to look everywhere at once, “or I’ll scream and let them know

you’re here.”

A branch snapped. I whirled about, but saw nothing. Backing slowly away from the hunt toward the

downhill side of the clearing, my hand moved slowly toward my slit pocket where I could reach the knife

sheath hidden under my skirt. But whatever I thought to do with my pitiful weapon was left undone. A

muscular arm reached from behind and wrapped itself about my neck, while another grabbed my waist,

crushing my elbow into my ribs. I fought to keep my footing as my assailant dragged me downstream

through the water and into a dense tangle of cedar, pine, and juniper. Twigs and sharp, dry

underbranches caught in my hair, slapped and stung my face.

My captor’s arm was fiercely sunburned, the skin scratched and abraded. The heart pressed so close to

my back was thudding ferociously, and his sweat soaked the back of my tunic. He stank of unwashed

terror.

I slammed my unrestrained elbow into his belly, tore at his arms, stomped my boot somewhere in the

region of his foot, and flailed at his flank—discovering to my surprise that he seemed to be entirely

unclothed. When I reached over my head to claw at his eyes, he used my own right arm to bat away my

left and tightened his hold on my throat.

The pursuit careened through the woodland, the riders so close, I could almost smell the leather harness

and feel the cool steel of their blades. Yet even if I could have mustered a shout or a scream, I wouldn’t

have done so. I had no illusions that those giving chase were more benevolent than my captor. Such was

the state of the vile world. I just wanted to get loose, to get out from between pursuers and pursued. A

bizarre struggle… both of us wordless, desperate.

My chest hurt. Feebly, I tried jamming my fingers between my windpipe and his arm, but he trapped both

my wrists in one broad hand and pinned them to my breast. But just as the black spots before my eyes

started swirling together, he shifted backward a few wobbling steps, jolting to a stop as if he’d backed

into a tree. My knees buckled and left me sagging against his arm, and either the change of position or

some release on his part allowed me to gulp a bucketful of air.

The day fell unnaturally quiet. The noisy pursuit had passed us by, but the more ordinary sounds—the

bawling of crows, the rustle of rabbits scrabbling through dead leaves—had not yet resumed. Only the

faint mumble of the stream accompanied my captor’s breathing. While his chest heaved with harsh,

shuddering gasps, painfully muffled, I dangled from his grip like a scrawny chicken waiting to have its

neck wrung. Filthy bastard. I knew how desperate men were likely to release pent-up fear and anger

when a vulnerable woman was within their reach, and I was having none of that. The slight quiver beneath

his flesh hinted at weakness, and the sweaty hand that held my two wrists was trembling. One chance,

perhaps…

I wrenched my hands from his grasp, clawed at his arm, and tried to duck my head under it. But

weakness is a relative thing. With devastating speed, and strength that came near cracking my spine, the

man growled and spun me about, grabbed my wrists again, and slammed my back against the bole of an

oak, his other hand clamped about my throat.

He was big—tall and broad in the chest and shoulder. His face was a blur of white, red, and brown: fair

hair, blood, sun, dirt, terror… no… fury, not terror… I assumed I was going to die before I could see

him with any clarity. But all at once, as if wrenched by an unseen hand, he snatched his hands away and

staggered backward.

I took a full, satisfying, sight-clearing breath, and willed bone back into my knees. The naked young

man—indeed he wore not a stitch—stood motionless. His limbs and torso were powerfully muscled and

threaded with bloody scratches, his pale hair unkempt, and his eyes a startling blue, the deep, rich color

of lapis, fixed on my face as if he had never seen a human person before.

Trying to hold his eyes engaged, I slid sideways a finger’s breadth. My skirt snagged briefly on the tree.

Another step. Then I felt nothing behind me. I spun on my heel and bolted.

Damn and blast! Two steps and I was sprawled on the forest floor, my mouth full of dirt and pine

needles, my chin stinging. I scrabbled forward, trying to get my treacherous feet under me, half turning

backward, expecting to see his hands reaching for me again. But the man had not moved a step. Instead

he had extended his hands palms up, as if dedicating a sword at the temple of Annadis. Ripping my skirt

loose from the brambles, I lurched to my feet and backed away, then turned and darted a bit more

carefully down the hill. One last glance over my shoulder showed him take a single step in my direction,

sway drunkenly, and crumple earthward. I didn’t stay to watch him hit.

* * *

By the time I reached the lower boundary of the forested hills, neither feet nor pulse were racing any

longer, but my thoughts lingered back on the ridge. Those unbelievably blue eyes might have been the

single spot of color in a painting rendered entirely in shades of gray. He hadn’t the look of any poacher

I’d seen locked in the Dunfarrie pillory. Desperate, but without the ravenous derangement of a starving

peasant. Skilled at violence, but lacking the reckless competence of the professional thief. He hadn’t

broken my neck.

The stream pooled in a weed-choked depression at the edge of the trees before meandering sluggishly

across the dry meadow. Shooing away a cloud of gnats, I dropped to my knees by the pool and doused

my face and neck, wincing as the cool water stung my scraped chin and the skin left raw and bruised by

his wide hands. I didn’t care what else he was. He was a brute. I’d wager that all of them were

brutes—villain and hunters together.

Mumbling oaths like a common soldier, I straightened my skirt and yanked at my shift, which had gotten

uncomfortably twisted beneath my shapeless tunic. As if my clothes weren’t threadbare enough, I’d have

to pull out my cursed needle to repair the rips. Drying my hands on my skirt, I set out across the meadow

toward the squat, sod-roofed shack that was my home and the weedy garden that kept me living.

After a few hot hours of work, the immediate annoyances of turnip beetles and wire-like threadweed had

pushed the incident to the back of my mind. The threats of persistent drought and harsh Leiran winters

hung over my head like a heavy-handed schoolmaster, requiring me to work as hard as I could manage

from dawn to dusk every day of the year. The work occupied only back, shoulders, and hands, though;

my intellect was as dull as the flat, unvarying landscape east of the river. As I yanked at the stringy weeds

choking my tender plants, I kept a wary eye on the ring of trees that bounded the meadow, but the

morning’s misadventure soon took on the quality of an uncomfortable dream… until the hunting party

arrived.

In late afternoon, five horsemen came galloping across the meadow from the direction of the village path.

I kept at my work. No use in running. No use in wishing for a weapon more serious than my scratched

dagger, still solidly and discreetly fixed to my thigh under my skirt. I didn’t even look up when the dust of

their arrival settled on the turnip leaves, and the massive presence of five snorting, overheated horses

surrounded me. We take small victories where we can.

“I don’t get many visitors,” I said, yanking a snarl of threadweed from the dry soil.

“Isolation does not suit you, my lady.”

My eyes shot upward to the trim, dark-haired man who urged his mount into the middle of the garden

and halted right in front of me. “Darzid!” I searched deep for the proper expressions of contempt, of

wounding, of hatred, furious that words of sufficient pith and clarity would not come at my beck. Captain

Darzid—my brother’s right hand, his chief aide, his lieutenant in all things despicable.

He jerked his head at the cottage. “After all these years, my first visit to your charming little refuge, and,

sadly, I’ve no time to dally.” As ever, amusement glinted in eyes as cold and sharp as black diamonds;

the smile that creased his tanned, trim-bearded face held no more warmth. “I’ll have to return for a tour

another day.”

“Are you here to exhibit your wit, Captain? Or perhaps to demonstrate your skill at confronting

dangerous women? I’m sorry no infants are available to slaughter, or you could display your inimitable

courage. But then, you didn’t bring Tomas to show you how it’s done, did you?”

Darzid’s smile only broadened as he waved his companions toward the cottage and the solitary copse of

willows and alders clustered about a muddy spring two hundred paces away. Two soldiers dismounted

and entered the house; two rode for the copse. “Your brother is otherwise occupied today. He’ll be as

surprised as I to learn that this hunt has led me past your doorstep.” His long thin hands— the grotesque

scarring on the palms the result of some long-ago battle, he’d once told me—stroked the neck of his

restless stallion. “Ah, lady, when will you realize that your battles are lost and your grievances long

forgotten? These men don’t even know who you are. Our search has nothing to do with you.”

Returning my attention to my work, I shifted down the row and yanked on a spike-leafed thistle as if it

were Darzid’s honeyed tongue. “So who is it you seek? Has some peasant failed to tithe his full measure

to our king?”

“Only a horse thief, the ungrateful servant of a friend of Duke Tomas. Your brother owes the lord a favor

and has sent me to chase down the rascal. He seems to have vanished hereabouts. You’ve not seen

him—a tall man, so I understand, young, fair-haired, a bit unsteady of temper?” Darzid’s words were

cool, unruffled, mocking, revealing nothing of his true purpose, but then, I would have expected flames to

shoot from his mouth before I would have expected truth. Yet, in the pause as he awaited my response, I

felt something more—a pressure, an intensity I had never noted in all the eighteen years I had known this

meticulous soldier who hovered in detached deviltry about the bastions of power. I glanced up. He was

leaning toward me from the saddle, all smiles vanished for that moment, his very posture trying to squeeze

an answer from me. Darzid cared about this matter. It could be no simple thief he was hunting.

“I’ve seen no thieves today save you, Captain. And as soon as you leave, I’ll drink fish oil to rinse the

taint from my mouth and burn dung to cover the stench.” Childish taunting, not worthy of my training in

scholarly debate. But words helped diffuse the pressure of his scrutiny.

As I turned back to my work, the four soldiers returned with negative reports. Three more riders

remained half hidden under the eaves of the forest. They hadn’t expected much trouble from me, I

supposed. I shuddered when I noticed the three—an inexplicable reaction, for the day was warm and

soldiers had no power to frighten me.

Darzid nudged his mount to the edge of the garden and paused, speaking to my back. “So, a wasted

venture. Good day, Lady Seriana. Behave yourself. Have you a message for your brother?”

I plucked off three beetles that had left the soft green leaves looking like ragged lacework, squashed

them between finger and thumb, and flicked them into the dry grass beyond the garden.

Darzid snorted and spoke a clipped command. The five men spurred their horses, rejoined their fellows

waiting at the edge of the trees, and disappeared down the forest path toward Dunfarrie.

For an hour I worked. Dug weeds. Hauled buckets of water from the pool to dribble on the beans and

turnips. Salvaged what vines and plants I could from the horses’ trampling and threw the ruined ones

onto the waste heap. Refused to think of anything beyond the task of the moment.

The sun sagged westward. I stared at the ax waiting beside a pile of logs I had dragged from the forest

on a wooden sledge roped to my shoulders. Then I ripped the grimy, blood-streaked rags from my

hands, threw them on the ground, and strode back across the meadow, past the pool, and up the hill into

the wood.

CHAPTER 2

The long body sprawled face down across the muddy stream bank. I sat on a stump just inside the

circular clearing and watched him for a while. A squirrel screeched and nagged at me from an oak limb.

Finches and sparrows rose in a twittering cloud beyond the stream, then settled back down on the very

branches they had just deserted. High in the forest roof, the leaves shifted in a breeze that could not

penetrate the stillness below. No sounds of horses or hunters intruded.

What was I thinking? Mysteries and desperate men were no concern of mine. I had reaped the bitter

harvest of my fascination with mystery long ago. And this ruffian had come near strangling me. I should

leave him to his own reward.

Yet I had never been accustomed to taking good advice, even my own, and so instead of retracing my

path to the valley, I stepped warily across the stream and nudged the body with my boot, rolling him onto

his back. His only injuries seemed to be the wicked sunburn, the network of angry scratches, and one

slightly deeper gash on his chest. He was dirty. Fair-haired. A strong face, the square jaw unshaven,

rather than bearded. He could be little more than twenty, and his big frame was well proportioned—

exceptionally well—with nothing to be ashamed of if he ran about unclothed very often. How had he

come to be in such a state? Nothing simple, I guessed. Nothing safe. Darzid was hunting him.

I scooped a handful of water from the stream and dribbled it on his cracked lips. They moved ever so

slightly. “Thirsty, are you?” I gave him a little more, then pulled the red shawl from my shoulders and

covered him. Some country-bred men thought you had to marry them if you saw them naked—another

of the uncountable stupidities abroad in the world. I stepped out of arm’s reach, watching. Waiting.

Maybe he would sit up, say “Sorry, damnable mistake,” and run away.

Every passing moment set my teeth more on edge. Pursuers who chased a man out of his clothes were

unlikely to leave off. Two times I started down the path. Two times I came back, railing at myself for

stupidity. Shadows stretched well across the glade. I detected no untoward sound or movement, but felt

a creeping sensation up my back. The air smelled of something that was not hot pine needles or dry

forest earth, something as out of place in this woodland as perfume, but far less pleasant: the odor of hot

wind across old stone, bearing the unhearable residue of screams and the tainted smokes of unholy

fires…

I shook off my foolish imaginings. Though tall for a woman and stronger than I’d ever been in my five and

thirty years, I was not strong enough to carry a well-grown man down to the cottage. I crouched over

him, and this time, instead of dribbling the chilly water on his lips, I threw it in his face. Gasping and

spluttering, he opened his startling eyes—the deep, clear hue of midsummer evening.

“Who are you?” I said.

He squinted and blinked his sun-scalded eyes, fixing them on my face as he had earlier.

“What does Darzid want with you?”

He edged backward, struggling to sit up without coming any closer. As he moved, he seemed to notice

his condition of undress and the now-ineffective red shawl. Though he quickly yanked the shawl onto his

lap, he did not seem embarrassed. Nor even as he shook off his stupor did he offer any apology. Rather

he raised his chin and continued to stare. Still without a word.

“I just want to know what’s happened to you,” I said. “I don’t care what you’ve done or what you did to

me. I understand that kind of fear.” Fear of the things men do to each other out of greed and ignorance

and jealousy. Fear that cripples your life and makes you lash out, not just at strangers, but at those you

love. I had once killed a man out of fear.

Keeping the shawl well in place and one eye on me, the young man bent over the stream, cupped his

hand, and drank long and deeply. Well, at least he wasn’t an idiot.

When he sat up again, wiping his mouth on his scratched arm, I tried again. “You’re a long way from

anywhere. Where did you come from?”

He shook his head slightly, but the cock of his head and the blank look of his eyes told me that it was not

a negative answer, but only that he didn’t understand the question.

“Are you not from Leire, then? Valleor, perhaps?” I dredged up what I could of the language of the fair

northern race, but either my pronunciation was too rusty or my guess was wrong. “Kerotea?” I had been

no expert linguist all those years ago, but not incompetent either. Yet neither my Kerotean nor my

smattering of Avatoir, the language of Iskeran, elicited anything but a negative shrug,

“Well, you say something, then. That’s all I remember.” I pointed to my lips and to him, inviting him to

put out a bit of effort to join the conversation.

He tried. He closed his eyes, concentrated, and worked his lips. Soon his fists were clenched and his

whole body straining, until he clasped his hands to his head as if it might burst with the effort. But he

produced only guttural growls and croaks. In the end, roaring and red-faced, he snatched a rock from

the stream and hurled it into the trees, then another and another until, flushed and shaking, he sank back

onto his heels and wrapped his arms tightly about his head.

I wanted to leave him there. People made their own choices, and in the ordinary event, I would let them

reap their own consequences as I had done. But I would abandon no one to the mercy of Evard or

Darzid or Tomas, whichever of the bastards wanted him. No one. Ever.

Calling myself an incomparable fool, I invited him to follow me, using gestures to augment my words.

“I’ve food in the valley. We’ll find you some clothes, and you can sleep for a while.” His only response

was to grope awkwardly for the shawl, trying to hold it about himself, looking furious and utterly

humiliated.

“Then you may rot in your own prideful stink.” I didn’t look back after starting down the path, having

every confidence that he would follow just because I would so much rather he wouldn’t. He followed.

I didn’t particularly want a stranger inside the cottage, certainly not one who had already left bruises on

my skin. So I was well content when the young man sat on the splintered pine bench outside my door,

leaned his head against the wall, and closed his eyes as if he had no better destination. I kept my attention

on the forest boundary, and my ears open, halfway expecting Darzid and his riders to burst into view at

any moment. But no one came, and the young man himself seemed little concerned about whatever had

driven him to his sorry state.

I had no man’s clothes that might fit him, but went inside, rummaged through Anne’s trunk, and came up

with a sheet, yellowed and many times mended. I cut a hole in the middle and trimmed a piece of hempen

rope to the right length, then took it out to him and showed him what I planned. He picked at the sheet

for a moment, then threw it on the ground, his lip curled in disgust, as if I’d offered him dung for

breakfast.

“I’ve nothing finer, my Lord Particular,” I said. Then I threw the wadded sheet back at him. “But you’ll

not ruin Anne’s shawl either. Go naked if you will.” I yanked the red shawl from his lap and went back

inside, slamming the door behind me.

Before I could decide what to do next, he kicked the door open and stepped inside. A formidable

presence in the single cramped room. He was not wearing the sheet. Shoving the chairs out of his way,

he rumpled the blankets on my bed, examined the dishes and stores I kept on the open shelves by the

hearth, and picked through the box of spoons on the table, tossing them onto the floor in disgust when he

failed to find whatever he was hunting.

He knelt beside the chest I’d pulled out from the wall and rummaged through it, strewing the meager

contents on the floor: the blue dress Anne had put on when the old couple took their vegetables to

market, my winter cloak, salvaged from a barge wreck on the river, three spare blankets, the finely sewn

collars Anne had embroidered in youthful dreams of meeting a gentleman, but had never worn. Instead of

a gentleman, she had married a sweet-spoken Vallorean lad stubborn enough to think he could grow his

sustenance on this rocky meadow and avoid the humiliation of binding his body, soul, and future to the

land of a Leiran noble. As if his suspicions were confirmed, the young man held up Jonah’s slouched

wool cap and gestured about the room, clearly asking where was its owner.

“Dead,” I said, trying to show him with my hands. “Both of them dead long ago. They were old and they

died.” I stood by the door and pointed outside, meeting his hard gaze so he could not mistake my

meaning. “How dare you touch their things… my things? Get out.”

He surveyed the mess he’d made, then tossed the cap on the floor and walked out. I sagged against the

cottage wall. Stupid to bring him here. No matter who was chasing him, no matter how much hate was in

me, bringing him to the cottage was stupid.

I had just closed the chest again with everything refolded, when a shadow darkened the still open

doorway. My guest stood just outside looking resentful, but draped in a halfway respectable tunic, his

long legs sticking out from underneath the sheet’s frayed hem. I stepped to the door and looked him up

and down. In truth, the garment looked ridiculous, but it would do as long as the wind was not too high.

“It’s a good thing it’s summer,” I said. He cocked his head and frowned. I fanned myself, pointed to my

own light clothing and his skimpy outfit, and raised my eyebrows. That he understood, and just for a

moment there blossomed on his face a smile of such unrestrained good humor and unexpected sweetness

that it almost took my breath. Earth and sky… he could charm a penny from a beggar with such a smile.

Unfortunately his fair humor disappeared as quickly as it had come. He scowled and rubbed his belly

with unmistakable meaning.

From a basket hanging in the corner I extricated a hunk of dry bread, the last of a loaf I’d bought from

the village baker. Pulling off the cloth wrapping, I stuffed the bread in the man’s hand and waved toward

the meadow. “All right. You won’t starve. Now go.”

He glared at me sourly from the doorway as I set out a leek and a turnip)—the rest of my food ration for

the day— and filled a pot from my water jug. Before I could hang the pot over the fire, he had thrown

the hunk of bread on the floor and was striding across the meadow.

For one moment I leaned heavily on my table, vowing never again to yield to rebellious impulse. When I

began peeling the fibrous outer leaves from the leek, my hands were trembling.

But my hopes that my brutish visitor had decided to seek food and fortune elsewhere were quashed

when, after crouching at the edge of the trees for something near half an hour, he headed back toward

the house. He walked through my door as if it were his own. Onto the table in front of me he threw a

rabbit, neck broken, already gutted and skinned, evidently by the bloody shard of rock in his hand.

Though sorely disappointed at his return, I acknowledged the offering with a nod. I threw another leek

and another turnip into the pot, along with the rabbit. I was not averse to fresh meat.

While the savory steam rose from the pot, he stood at the doorway watching everything I did. Retrieving

a bone needle and a sad-looking length of cotton from a rolled canvas packet, I set about repairing the

rip in my skirt, an immensely practical garment that Anne had helped me make years before—fashioned

like a lady’s riding togs with the modest, unremarkable appearance of an ordinary skirt, but split

discreetly down the middle like wide-legged trousers. After a while he retreated a few steps, sitting

cross-legged on the trampled grass where he could still see inside my door. I resisted the temptation to

close the door, remembering the force he’d used earlier to kick it open.

His incessant stare, my sore fingers, and the crude stitches down the side of my one decent garment did

nothing for my temper. When the meat had cooked long enough, I shoved a filled bowl into his hand and

indicated he should remain outside to eat. His disdain did not extend to my ever-mediocre cooking. His

bowl was empty in moments, and he gestured for more. I set the pot outside the door and went back to

my own dinner. Before I could finish my first serving, soaking up the broth with the bread he had

discarded, my visitor had emptied the pot.

He lay back on his elbows, watching as I cleaned up the mess, carried in wood to refill the woodbox,

and mixed dough to make hearthbread for the next day. As the evening cooled he wrapped his arms

tightly about his bare legs, and whenever his eyelids drooped, he would jerk his head upright.

When my work was finished, I washed my face and hands in the last of the hot water. Then, as was my

habit, I wrapped a blanket about my shoulders and sat on the bench outside my door to watch the day

come to its end. Pious Leirans believed that twilight was a sacred time, when Annadis the Swordsman,

the god of fire and earth and sunlight, handed off his watch to his twin brother Jerrat the Navigator, the

god of sea and storm, moon and stars. Many years had passed since I had had any use for pious Leirans

or their warrior gods, yet I still observed the ritual, using the time to keep the days from blurring one into

the other. On this evening a good-sized oak limb lay on the bench beside me.

When my visitor unfolded his long legs and looked about as if to decide what to do with himself, I waved

him away from the cottage. “Don’t think you’re going to sleep anywhere close.”

He eyed my blanket, my crude cudgel, and the cottage door, which I had deliberately shut when I came

out. But I didn’t flinch. As he stood up and walked slowly toward the alder copse, I muttered a good

riddance. After a few steps, though, he turned and gave me a half-bow, little more than a nod of the

head, but graceful and well meant… and immensely revealing. The man was no peasant poacher. No

poverty-dulled laborer. No thieving servant.

As he turned his back again, I called after him. “Your name. I need to have something to call you.” I

pointed to myself and said, “Sen.” Then I pointed to him and shook my head in question.

He nodded seriously and worried at it for a few moments. Then he faced away from the cottage into the

lingering dusk, pointing into the deep blue sky above the ridge. Slowly he waved his finger back and forth

as if searching for something, until the quiet evening was pierced by the harsh cry of an aeren—a gray

falcon. The young man gestured and nodded so there was no mistake.

“Aeren?” I said. He didn’t agree or disagree, but only shrugged his shoulders tiredly and trudged across

the grass to the copse. He lay down on the thick turf under the alders and was still.

A breeze rustled the dry grass. The plaintive whistle of a meadowlark echoed off the ridge. The stream

burbled softly. But as the light faded across the meadow, my gaze moved from the unmoving form under

the alders to the hoofprints left by Darzid’s men, and my blood stayed cold. Karon had believed that

enough beauty gathered in the soul might bury the knowledge of the evils of the world. I had never

accepted his premise. Evil was too strong, too pervasive, too seductive.

Why had I asked the stranger’s name? I didn’t want to know anything about him. And when the longest

day of the year was done, I went inside to bed, thinking that if there was any luck to be had, I would

wake in the morning to find him gone.

CHAPTER 3

I dreamed of the fire again that night. After ten years, one would think such pain might fade into the

dismal landscape of my life. Yet once more I saw Evard’s banners whipped by the cold wind, bright red

against the steel-blue sky. I heard again the jeering of the wild-eyed crowds that surged against the line of

guards surrounding the pyre, and the stake, and the one bound there, maintaining as he could the last

shreds of dignity and reason.

Where was justice? Time blurs so much of worth, so much of learning unused, so many of the daily

pleasures that shape a life, too small to make grand memories. Why would it not erase the image of

Karon’s mutilated face: the ragged sockets where they had burned out his eyes, the battered mouth

where they had cut out the tongue that had whispered words of love and healing? Should not mercy dim

his last avowal of joy and life, given just before he withdrew from what relief and comfort I could give

him? After ten years I should not hear, again and again, his agonized cry as the flames consumed his

sweet body. Dead was dead.

But as much as I tried, I could not silence that cry. In the day, yes, as I worked at the business of

survival, but I had never learned to command my dreams. I had vowed on the shields of my ancestors

never to weep again. Yet was it any wonder that weakness threatened to betray my resolve upon waking

from such a dream?

I had permitted no tears on that day or for many days after. The dream forced me to relive that, too—the

two months they kept me confined in the palace with no companion save the mute serving sister, Maddy,

and the doomed babe that grew within me. Even Tomas did not come to me in that time. My brother did

not want my shaven head or bulging belly to stand witness against him for what he had done or what he

planned to do. They could not kill Karon’s child before it was born. The spirit might seek a new host,

they said. They wanted to be sure.

Only Darzid had ever shown his face at my door, but it was not for me he came. Always he sat by the

brazier, clad simply and impeccably in black and red, propping one boot on the iron hood. “Tell me of

sorcerers, Seri. Who was your husband? What did he tell you of his people?” Always probing, always

questioning, his unrelenting curiosity picking at my pain as the horror of what had happened settled into

grim history, and the horror of what was to come took appalling shape in my ever-naive head.

Carol Berg - The Bridge of D'Arnath 01 - Son of Avonar

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: