Elizabeth Lynn - Chronicles of Tornor 3 - The Northern Girl

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Chronicles Of Tornor 03 - The Northern Girl

by Elizabeth A. Lynn

Fantasy

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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or

distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a

violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.

---------------------------------

Other works by Elizabeth A. Lynn also availabe in e-reads editions

Watchtower

The Dancers of Arun

The Sardonyx Net

The author would like to thank the following people, without whose patient assistance this book would

never have been finished: Jerry Jacks, Debbie Notkin, Charles N. Brown, Marta Randall, David

Hartwell, Vonda N. McIntyre, and John Silbersack.

For Sonni

Chapter One

I hate you, Sorren thought at the ocean.

The summer air, heavy with salt, made her tired. The money bracelet which Arre had given her for

shopping had left a red line on her arm. Behind her on the dock, the stink of fish steamed upward like

smoke. Sails bobbed in the bay. An empty cart bounced by her, pulled by a weary gray mule. Flounder,

she reminded herself. Flounder in four days.

She walked through the market, past vendors and shops and stalls, to the familiar slope of the hill. The

ocean winked at her back, brassy as a plate. Shop banners hung limply in the windless morning. The

cobbled streets were hot, but Sorren barely felt it through the tough calluses on her feet. By the time she

reached the hilltop, she was plodding, and her cotton shirt stuck to her back and breasts.

She paused before the Med gate to gaze over the city. The red dome of the Tanjo shone at its heart.

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South the ocean seethed and glittered, speckled with the fishing fleet's yellow sails. East and west of the

city lay the cotton fields. She could not see the pickers with their great sacks over their shoulders, but

she knew they were there. North were the vineyards, out of which she had come seven years back. She

had only gone back twice to visit, the first time to show off her new clothes, the second time for her

mother's burial. She arrived too late, and said her farewells by the grave, trying to recall clearly what her

mother had looked like. That had been four years ago. Now when she tried to, she could not even

remember the outline of her mother's face.

The big blue building to the east, beside the river bank, was the hall of the Blue Clan. Blue banners

waved before it, and from shops and stalls and carts small blue flags declared their owners to be

members of the Guild in good standing. The carts that carried wine barrels from the Med vineyards to

the city had blue streamers on them. Beyond the vineyards lay the Galbareth Fields, where the grain

grew; beyond the grain lay the steppe -- and the mountains. Sorren closed her eyes a moment, and they

loomed in her mind, hard and gray and incorruptible, the way they sometimes loomed in her dreams.

But there were no mountains near Kendra-on-the-Delta. Sorren opened her eyes. The stone from which

the Tanjo was built had come from the Red Hills, through Shanan and the Asech country, a long

journey, days and days away.

She turned to the gate. The gate guard was watching her from his post near the shade of the kava fruit

tree.

"Good day," she said.

He grunted. His dark red shirt was damp with sweat. He had laid his spear down on the stone. She

wondered what Paxe would say if she came suddenly from the Yard, and saw her guard without his

spear.

"Hot," she said.

"Yes," said the guard.

The green peel of a kava fruit lay in the gutter like a piece of green cloth. All the guards ate the kava

fruit when they were on gate duty, but this guard -- he was young, with a small sandy mustache -- had

not yet learned to kick the peel out of sight. He was not going to open the gate for her, either. She

reached to do it herself. He changed his mind and reached, too, and their fingers touched. His were

sticky.

She walked through the iron gate. "Thank you," she said.

He grunted again. The guards were never sure how to treat her. She was a bondservant, but half the time

Arre treated her as if she were her daughter ... and there was Paxe.

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The gate closed. She strolled across the courtyard. Flowers grew along the sides of the path, drooping in

the heat. As always, the pattern of the courtyard tile intrigued her. She paced along one edge of the

figure. The blue triangle on the red field was uneven. She wondered if the artist who had designed the

courtyard had made it so deliberately.

As she got to the front door, it opened, and a man strode out. They bounced off each other. More for

balance than for courtesy, Sorren went down on one knee.

His perfume was familiar. She squinted. It was indeed Isak. It was harvest month; why was he not at the

vineyards, overseeing the picking? "I'm sorry, my lord," she said.

He smiled at her. "Sorren." His soft voice always reminded her of a cat's purr. He wasn't angry, of

course. Isak never grew angry. "Be more careful, child. You would not wish to topple one of our august

Council members, would you?"

"No," she said.

"Of course not." Brushing his ringed hand over her head, he strolled across the courtyard to the gate.

Sorren rose. Her left knee hurt, and she rubbed it. Isak spoke a moment with the gate guard; the sunlight

glistened on his blue silk tunic. She wondered if he was telling the man to pick up his spear.

His muscles had felt hard as tile under the shirt. Now Arre would be in a bad mood; she was always

cranky after she talked to Isak.

She went into the house. It took a moment for her eyes to grow used to the darkness. The long, cool hall

smelled of lilies. A lacquered vase of them stood on a little table beneath the statue of the Guardian. This

statue was new; it had been made by the sculptor Ramath, the same sculptor who had directed the

making of the big image in the Tanjo. Sorren bowed toward the image. Stone lips smiled at her. Stone

eyes gleamed.

She wondered what had happened to the old statue. Surely, she thought, you could not break it, as you

might break an old unwanted pot. That would be disrespectful to the _chea_. She listened for the sound

of Arre's voice from the workroom. This morning Arre had planned to meet with her surveyors, to

discuss their blueprints for enlarging some streets. But she heard nothing. She peered into the large

parlor. Elith was there, dusting, mumbling to herself as she passed the cloth over the wall screens.

Elith was old, fat as a feather mattress, and deaf, but she had been Arre Med's mother's personal maid,

and Arre kept her on. Sorren raised her voice. "Elith! Do you know where _she_ is?"

The old woman turned slowly. "Kitchen."

Sorren went to the kitchen. All the windows and doors were open, with nets across them to keep out

flies, but the big room was hot, hotter than the market. Arre was there, talking to the cook. She turned as

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Sorren entered. "Well? What did the fishmonger say?"

Sweat jumped on Sorren's upper lip; she rubbed it. "The fishmonger said that he could not get you perch,

but he could get flounder."

"Flounder will do."

"That's what I told him."

"How do you want it fixed?" said the cook.

"I don't care. Not too spicy, that's all. Marti can't eat spiced meat."

Marti Hok was one of the Councillors. The flounder was for the Council meeting. The cook nodded and

started calling to the apprentices. Sorren recalled her own time in the kitchen. She had hated it. Once she

fainted, to everyone's disgust. The other scullions teased her for weeks for being afraid of blood, but it

had not been the blood that had made her faint, but the heat. It was worse than the heat in the

grapefields. Maybe it had been the heat and the smells combined. She was sensitive to smells, and there

were always too many of them in the kitchen.... No wonder cooks threw things.

Arre was wearing white. It made her skin look darker than it was. The heat furled her hair into small

curls. Her hair was almost as short as Paxe's, but the texture was different, and her curls were striped

with gray. She jerked her head at Sorren. "Come," she said, and marched out of the tiled kitchen. In the

cooler corridor they both leaned on the wall.

Arre said, "I think it gets hotter every summer." She squared her shoulders. Her eyes glinted upward.

"I'm glad it's you doing the shopping, and not me."

Sorren grinned at the thought of Arre Med, Councillor of Kendra-on-the-Delta, head of the Med family,

buying flounder on the docks.

"What are you smiling at?" said Arre irritably.

"I was thinking how surprised the fishmonger would be."

"Wipe your face," said Arre. She started down the hall. "And don't laugh at me."

She _was_ cranky. Sorren wiped her sleeve across her lip. Arre went into the small parlor. It was her

workroom and sitting room. It faced south; by day its walls were bright, sundrenched. Its inner walls,

like those of the large parlor, were made of screens. The outside wooden wall was hung with a woolen

tapestry, all reds and blues. The dyes for the wool came from the Asech country; no other dyes made

such brilliant and durable colors. The floor was wooden and unmatted. Sunlight fell in bright streaks

across it. The lines of the grain gleamed. Arre sat in her cushioned chair. Sorren stood by the door. The

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older woman glanced at her. "Sit down," she said, pointing to the footstool. "I need to talk." Obediently

Sorren sat. A lacquer table stood at the right side of the chair, its red and black surface shining in the

sun. Against the wall, a glass-faced case held a rack of scrolls: the Med accounts. Once a month, a scribe

came from the Black Clan -- not a Scholar, they did not do such mundane work -- and went over them

for error, under Arre's watchful eyes. Arre had no steward; it seemed unnecessary in a household which

consisted of herself and her servants. She did the bookkeeping.

"Did you see Isak?" she asked.

Sorren nodded. "We met at the gate." Arre's face was taut, as it always was when she talked about her

brother. Silver bracelets, two on each arm, clinked as she folded her hands in her lap. The largest

bracelet had a blue jewel in it. "What did he want?"

Arre grimaced. "Whatever he can get."

"But it's harvest. He should be at the fields."

"Nonsense. Myra manages the vineyards better than he ever could, or cares to." Myra was Isak's wife.

"He asked to dance for the Councillors."

"Did you say yes?"

Arre's hands flew apart. They were big on her small frame, ungraceful, not pretty hands. Isak had pretty

hands. "He's the finest dancer in the city -- how could I refuse?"

Even Arre admitted that Isak could dance. It was his gift, his art, as administration was hers, and perhaps

his passion, or one of them. He had been trained to it by Meredith of Shanan, who had been trained by

Berenth of Shanan, who learned it from his mother Jenezia of Shanan, and she, every city child knew,

had danced with Kel of Elath. It was his right to wear the _shariza_, the red scarf of the _cheari_, but,

with greater delicacy than he usually showed, he chose not to. Sorren had asked him about it once. "The

old chearis were trained in arms and in the warrior arts," he said. "I am not."

"Why not?" she asked.

"War is uncivilized; you know that," he had answered. "It's a crudity better left to soldiers. Besides, the

wearing of blades is forbidden in Kendra-on-the-Delta."

But he danced the role of the warrior well enough. Sorren pattered her hands on her knees. "Does he

want me to play for him?"

"Yes."

"We haven't had time to practice."

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"It won't matter. Do something you both know. Anything."

Sorren had drummed for Isak for four years, the first year only at small parties, but the next year at the

Festivals: Harvest Feast, Spring Feast, the Feast of the Founding of the City. "I guess...."

"It won't matter. He won't care what he does, as long as he can get near the meeting."

Isak's political ambitions and Arre's contempt for them were no secret in her household. But, Sorren

thought, that isn't fair. Isak does care about his dancing. She had watched him practice for hours, while

sweat poured from him and his lungs heaved for breath, till anyone with less discipline would have

stopped, rested, poured water on his head, something. His muscles were like Paxe's, smooth and

stretched, and he moved with the same kind of economy, but with more grace.

"What are you thinking about?" Arre demanded.

Sorren blushed. She did not want to say, of Paxe; it seemed crass. "Being graceful," she said.

Arre Med laughed. "Never mind it," she said. She was a small woman, built like Isak. Though the stool

Sorren sat on was lower than Arre's chair, when Sorren straightened their eyes met on the level. "You

don't need to be graceful. People notice you anyway."

Sorren said, "That's because I'm tall, and pale." She frowned at her light skin. In the hottest sun, it

refused to brown; instead, it turned an ugly and uncomfortable red. She touched her hair, which was

long, and the color of wheat. "I would rather be dark, like Paxe."

"Dark is the fashion now," said Arre. "But never regret your height. We small folk find other ways to

make people notice us. Like Isak."

People always noticed Isak. If they didn't, he made them. He could turn heads in a crowd faster than

anyone. But people noticed Arre, too.

"Will you need something new to wear?" Arre said.

"What?"

"When you play for Isak, at the Council meeting." Arre tapped the chair arm. "Pay attention, child."

"I'm sorry," Sorren said. Reminded, she slipped the money bracelet from her arm and held it out. Arre

took it, her fingers automatically counting the remaining shell pieces. "No, I have enough clothes."

"If you want something, just ask." Arre grinned like an urchin in a street fight. "Isak will pay for it."

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A light tapping on the screen made her look around. Lalith stood in the doorway. She was thirteen, lithe

and little and brown-skinned. Arre had picked her from the vineyards in the same way she had picked

Sorren, and brought her to live and work in the house. "The cook sent me to bring you this," she said.

She held out a bowl.

"Well," Arre said, "bring it here! What is it?" Lalith gave it to her. It was a dish of berries with sweet

cream poured over them. Arre had a notorious sweet tooth. "Thank you, child."

"And this came." Lalith extended a letter. The wax seal had a crest on it.

Arre ripped it open. She scanned the writing and her dark eyes frowned. "When did this come?" she said.

"Just now. A servant brought it." Lalith shifted from one foot to the other.

"Bah." Arre put the letter down on the lacquered table top. "From Boras Sul," she said. "To inform me

that he is ill and cannot come to the Council meeting, he regrets, thank you, my dear Arre." She waved

at Lalith to leave, and picked up the bowl of fruit. "He will send his son, who is even more of an idiot

than he is. Bah."

Sorren said, "Maybe he _is_ ill?"

"Maybe he eats too much," Arre said contemptuously. Boras Sul was very fat.

Sorren ran a thumb along the smooth lacquer. "I can find out."

"The servants' mail?" said Arre. Sorren nodded. "Don't bother. Save it for something important. Tell the

cook that Boras will not be at the Council dinner. Go on. I don't need you."

The letter had brought back her ill temper. Sorren left her alone to work it out. She went to the kitchen to

tell the cook. He was playing the pebble game across the cutting board with Kaleb, the night watch

captain, Paxe's second-in-command. She watched the design form on the grid.

She told him about Boras Sul, and he shrugged. "Thought it was bad news," he commented. "That's why

I fixed the berries."

"I don't think it helped," Sorren said.

"Too bad," said the cook. Kaleb moved a pebble three spaces, and he scowled. "Don't lean on the

board," he said to Sorren.

She had not been leaning on the board. She wondered if Paxe had seen Isak arrive. She glanced at Kaleb.

Like her, he was from outside the city; he was Asech, brown and high-cheekboned, with stones set in his

ears. "Is the Yardmaster in the Yard?" she asked.

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Without lifting his eyes from the board, he nodded.

* * * *

Outside the house, the heat fell on her again. She went swiftly through the rear courtyard. The tile here

was a different pattern than in front of the house. The paths were lined with sour apple trees. She

marched under the spreading, blossom-laden branches. There were petals scattered over the tiles. At the

end of the row of trees, she balanced on one leg and picked the petals first off one, then off the other

foot. Lalith swept the petaled tiles every morning, and three hours later they were pink again. She

continued toward the Yard. The gate to it was on the other side, but she was not going in; she couldn't,

not being a soldier. When she came to the high red wooden fence she pulled herself up and sat on the top.

From this vantage point she could see the whole Yard, from the gate to the weapons shed. There were

perhaps twenty people in the Yard. They stood in a circle around a small moving human knot. The

center of the knot was Paxe. Six guards ranged around her. They dived at her, and she dodged and

waved and turned, throwing them easily, keeping two paces ahead of their steps, lunging at them to toss

them when their tired steps slowed.

Paxe saw Sorren perched on the fence, and grinned, white teeth flashing, but she continued the

demonstration without breaking stride. Finally she halted it with a shout. "_Yai!_" The watching guards

drew close to listen. Her hands moved as she talked. She wore -- they all wore -- training clothes, the

cotton shirt and drawstringed pants that reminded Sorren of Isak's practice uniform. She had said so once

to him, and he explained that the old chearis had dressed like that, and the city guards continued the

tradition without knowing where it came from.

"Are there any real chearis left?" she asked him.

A different man might have been insulted at the suggestion that he was not a _real_ cheari. But Isak

never got angry, and besides, he had said as much himself.

"Maybe," he answered. "In the north, somewhere. Legend says that a scion of the line of Van of Vanima

still lives in the Red Hills."

Sorren tingled. She remembered that her mother had told her stories about the magical valley, called

Vanima, where no one was ever sick or cold or hungry, where it was always summer. "Is there such a

place?" she asked Isak.

He had smiled that sardonic smile. "Legend says there is."

"But you don't believe it."

He shook his head. "No."

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Sorren knew the story of the Red Clan. It had been told to her around the pickers' campfires. Once the

city Yards had been public places, where children went to learn the arts of fighting. The strongest,

surest, most graceful of these children went on to learn to dance. Those who could both fight and dance

were called chearis, and the best of these bound themselves into companies, joined by love and respect

and skill. Each company was called a _chearas_. They traveled from village to town to city, from steppe

to sea, dancing, teaching the weapons' arts, and drawing the hearts of all who watched them, across the

land of Arun, into harmony.

But as more people crowded into Kendra-on-the-Delta, the Council grew nervous; it banned the bearing

of edged weapons and then the teaching of edged weapons within the city gates. Shanan Council of

Houses followed suit. Finally even Tezera Council passed a Ban. The chearis, appalled at the

abandonment of tradition, took their complaint to the Tanjo. The Council of Witches deliberated, and

finally its chief, the _L'hel_, spoke. All things change, she had said. The chea manifests itself in peace.

A ban on edged weapons will make the cities peaceful. Therefore, let the soldiers fight, and let the

chearis dance. There is no more need for cityfolk, except those called to the guard, to learn fighting or

weaponry.

Some chearis, like Meredith of Shanan, laid aside their knives, left the Yard, and taught the dance, as the

witches commanded. Some joined the city guard, and taught the arts of spear and cudgel and empty-

handed combat. These skills were permitted by the Councils to the guards, but to no others.

But most chearis, disbelieving, angry, and unwilling to change, left the cities.

"Where did they go?" Sorren asked first Isak, and then Paxe. The old history intrigued and enchanted her.

Isak said, "They went west, and north, looking, I suppose, for Vanima, where the Red Clan began."

Paxe said, "They went west."

"Then is there still a Red Clan?"

Paxe said, "Ask Isak Med. He could wear the shariza, if he wished."

And Isak said, "Ask Yardmaster Paxe."

But you could not push Paxe to talk when she would not. Sorren did not ask a second time. Instead, she

assumed the answer: No. The Red Clan was no more. The thought made her sad. Though it was true, the

city was peaceful. The guard troops kept order. Perhaps there were a few old chearis left, somewhere in

Arun. But it seemed doubtful that they ever came within the city's borders.

Sorren gazed down into the Yard. Head cocked to one side, hands on her hips, Paxe was watching the

practice. She was tall, broad-shouldered as any of her guards, a stern and striking figure. She wore her

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tight-curled hair very short against her head. Sorren shifted on her perch. The Yardmaster looked at her,

smiled, and jerked her head in the direction of the cottage. Sorren grinned. Swinging her legs around,

she jumped from the fence. The cottage -- Paxe's cottage, where she lived with her son, Ricard -- was

around the east side of the Yard.

The cottage door was open. Ricard was there. Officially he lived there, but in fact he rarely slept in the

cottage, preferring the homes and haunts of his friends. He was curled in the sunlight on the mats. He

opened his eyes as Sorren blocked the light. Slowly he sat up. "What are you doing here?" he said.

She wanted to laugh at him and tell him not to be a fool, but he was only fourteen, and hated being

laughed at. She went around him. Where Paxe had muscles, he had fat. He was always morose; had she

been such a sullen child three years ago, Arre would probably have sent her back to the grapefields in

disgust. She went into the kitchen. Paxe's gray cat was sleeping on the tile top of the stove. It opened one

eye -- it only had the one, the other had been clawed blind in a fight a year back -- and made a

chirruping sound of inquiry and welcome.

She stroked its thick soft fur. It was sleek and as well-exercised as Paxe herself. It purred in soft

growling chirps. There was a peach lying nearby on a flowered plate; she picked it up. The smell made

her mouth water. She bit it, feeling fuzz on her tongue. It was perfect, ripe and sweet.

Ricard had followed her. "That wasn't for you," he said, grumpily but not seriously.

"Want some?" She held it out to him.

"Naw." He scratched his chin, which was beginning to sprout with beard. His skin was lighter than his

mother's. "Listen, I want to tell you something."

"Tell." She stroked the cat, ate the peach, and listened. He told her a long, complicated story which

seemed to be about a friend of his and a girl. She wondered if she was supposed to believe in the friend.

There was a sand-glass on the windowsill. She turned it over to watch the sand trickle from one

compartment to the other. Ricard leaned over her. He was as tall as she, which meant he was almost as

tall as Paxe. His voice stumbled. She glanced at him.

His lips were parted. He was looking down the open neck of her shirt.

They both lost the thread of his story at the same time. Ricard muttered something which Sorren couldn't

catch.

Before she could swear at him, he backed away, whirled, and went into the front room. She heard Paxe's

step.

"Where are you going?"

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Elizabeth Lynn - Chronicles of Tornor 3 - The Northern Girl

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