The Plains of Kallanash Read online

  “She’s the only mother left here now,” Jonnor said sombrely. “She feels responsible for all the motherless little ones. But you’ll be a mother one day.” He reached across the table and took her hand, looking into her eyes. “It will happen, you know that, don’t you? I – I’ve needed a little time, but… soon, I promise.”

  Warmth flooded her whole body, and she smiled widely at him. “I… I’ll leave for the village today, then.”

  ~~~

  Mia was not a fast rider like her sister, but she was competent on horseback, as every Karningholder had to be, since few villages were conveniently situated beside a paved road. Her horse was a placid mare, capable of long journeys at a steady amble, as Mia preferred.

  It was unfortunate that every step of the journey south reminded her of Tella, and that dreadful day. She had been found to the north of the Karninghold, so what had happened? Had she changed her mind, or had she never intended to go to the village at all? Why did she write that odd letter the day before? Impossible to know. And then there were the figures Mia had seen in the funeral tower… She shook herself out of her reverie. It was no good brooding. She and Hurst had talked all round the problems many times, without resolution.

  It was well into the afternoon before the group reached the village, where Mia spent at least two hours walking around the worst of the bogs, and hopping nimbly from one dry hummock to the next. The whole Karningplain was prone to such swamps, which appeared and disappeared from one season to the next, it seemed at random. A village could be perfectly dry for a generation, and then be swallowed whole within two or three years.

  She left her advisors considering options, and rode with her guards and junior Companion, Marna, into the village itself. Like most such places, it was a sprawl of tyholds, their hedge-defined fields tended by a single family group, together with larger communal lands for grain. Dotted about were ramshackle patched wooden cottages and barns, set in a criss-crossing web of muddy dung-spattered lanes. Chickens, sheep and children skittered aside as the group passed by. In a cluster to one side were the stone buildings of stables, smithy, mill, water house and alehouse, and, a little apart, the Slave’s house. The guards went off to the alehouse for the evening, but Mia and Marna were to stay with the Slave.

  As a child, Mia had always been terrified of the Karninghold Slave, a very elderly man with a dried-up face. When she read stories of ancient peoples who left their dead out to shrivel in the sun, she had no struggle imagining the result. The swirling robes, the shaven tattooed head, the incense and chanting had given her nightmares. It was only after she began spending half of each year with the scholars at the Ring at the age of ten and understood the ways of the Gods a little better that she began to take comfort from the ritual.

  But Mia knew this village Slave well, and found her a much less formidable matter. She only shaved part of her head, for one thing, rarely wore the traditional hooded robes and was much more pragmatic. She had to be, living amongst the relative poverty of the villagers. She was both leader and friend, dispensing advice and instruction, comfort and punishment in equal measure. The Slave was the only literate person in the village, the only one able to summon help from the Karninghold, the only one with any knowledge of history and politics and science and the law, the only one with healing skills. Like all Slaves, she was not allowed to have children or marry, but lovers were tolerated.

  Mia had met this particular Slave several times before, and she was the first who had ever explained to her why she had chosen that path, forsaking even her name in submission to the Gods. It was not, she said with her throaty laugh, from any virtue or an excess of devotion. But she had grown up in a village herself, and decided that anything was better than grubbing in the earth for turnips all year round, surrounded by a whining cloud of children.

  “Don’t you like children?” Mia had asked, rather shocked.

  “I love them," the Slave had replied, "so long as they belong to someone else.”

  At supper, they sat cross-legged on the earth floor, Mia, Marna, the Slave and the two acolytes, who, like all such, were not named, but identified by village and number. They were quiet young men, one tall, one short, both skinny, passing around bowls and spoons and tankards in silence. They all shared a solid stew, mostly vegetables with a little meat, and the dark unleavened bread eaten in most villages. There was no wine, just thick foamy ale which Mia rather liked, although Marna pulled a face.

  After the meal Marna went off to the alehouse to be with the guards, and the acolytes disappeared. The Slave watched Mia in silence, her head tilted to one side. She was perhaps in her mid-forties, a well-rounded woman, gentle and sociable, whose ample flesh wobbled when she laughed, which was often.

  “You are very quiet, Most High," the Slave said. "Do you want to talk about it? Whatever it is.”

  “Do you want to listen, Most Humble?”

  “Always, my friend,” she replied, spreading her hands wide in invitation.

  “Well then,” Mia began, shifting so she could lean against the wall, “I will tell you what I saw at the funeral tower after my sister died, and you can tell me that I imagined it.” And so, in simple terms, she described the five figures silhouetted at the windows against the blue glow of the lamps, and although the Slave’s eyebrows rose, she listened without interruption.

  Rather to Mia’s surprise, she then said, “And who else have you told about this?”

  “Only Hurst. He told me it was impossible, just the light playing tricks on my tired eyes.”

  The Slave closed her eyes for a moment, as if considering. “When the dead – and their Companions – are left at the funeral tower, the doors are locked.” She opened her eyes again, looking straight at Mia. “There is no way for anyone to get in from the outside. There is no way for those inside to get back out. That is what the Silent Guards are there for, to prevent it.”

  “You think I imagined it, then?”

  “I think you saw what you saw, Mia. I just don’t know what that might be. And I’m not sure it is very – helpful, whatever it was.”

  Mia laughed. “No, you’re right about that. But it bothers me.”

  “Mia…” The Slave watched her intently. “I would never presume to advise a Karningholder, but if I were to do so…” Again she eyed Mia, then sighed. “No, it’s not my place.”

  “You may speak freely, my friend.”

  “Well then, I will. I think you should forget about this. There is nothing to be gained by worrying over such matters. Life holds many mysteries, and it’s not… not always useful to pursue them. Set it down as a secret of the Gods, and think no more about it.”

  The Slave was unusually serious, so Mia nodded. “But this isn’t what you expected me to want to talk about, is it?”

  “Not really. After all, there have been some changes at the Karninghold, haven’t there?”

  Mia bowed her head a little in acknowledgement, but she was not sure quite what she could say about it. She could hardly tell a village Slave that her husband couldn’t quite bring himself to share her bed. It was too humiliating. Eventually, she said, “Well, things are still… a bit unsettled.” Then she fell into silence.

  In the end, it was the Slave who spoke. “There is a lot of chatter in the village about blue arrows. I have told them the Karningholders are too sensible to try that, but the oldest villagers remember the last time Karningholders settled things that way. One of the wives died in childbirth, and within a few weeks the arrows were flying. But there is always a lot of chatter about the Karningholders. I don’t regard it much. The villagers need something to talk about, after all.”

  “I have no idea whether it will come to that,” Mia said. She tried to keep her tone light, but she couldn't help shivering. “I hope not, but – who knows? It’s for the men to decide.”

  “It is a strange business,” the Slave said, eyeing Mia. “Karninghold marriages are a mystery to me. Why don’t they send another wife to make up the numbe
rs?”

  “It’s not allowed, it has to be pairs, and a new pair has to be earned by promotion to a Karning that needs it.”

  “Yes, but why isn’t it allowed?”

  Mia chuckled. “One of the scholars once told me that it’s because a woman is not necessary to the marriage, except to have children. If one wife dies, there is still another.”

  “Yet having only one wife is regarded as so intolerable that the husbands are allowed to try to kill each other!”

  “Well, it isn’t quite like that!” Mia said, with a half-smile. “And you can’t actually kill anyone with a blue arrow – or so I’ve read. You mark them with it, and then the Gods decide.”

  “As they decide everything under the sun,” the Slave said piously, touching her forehead in the ritual prayer movement.

  Mia bowed her head, and made the same gesture. “Let us hope they have no plans to take Jonnor or Hurst just yet.”

  6: Skirmishes (Hurst)

  Hurst’s horse shifted under him, sensing his excitement. He stroked her neck absently. “Easy, girl. We’ll be moving soon enough.”

  Alongside him, Gantor murmured, “Almost time.”

  They formed part of a ring of mounted Skirmishers defending their flag hill, rather a grandiose name for such a scuffed and weatherbeaten mound of earth, the summit not much higher than Hurst’s head. In front of them was the skirmish field, a quarter-mile of churned mud. Beyond that a line of battered wooden poles marked the boundary between their own Karning and their northern neighbour, with its matching skirmish field and flag hill. In the distance, Hurst could just make out the coloured tabard of Kelmannor, his opposite number, to one side of his hill.

  Gantor’s role was to keep his eyes fixed on a third hill some distance away, positioned directly on the boundary line. It boasted a small wooden hut for the observers, and the clock pole for the flags which marked the hours and sixths. “The last small flag is going up… now. It’s time.”

  “Begin,” Hurst said.

  Gantor scratched his nose. Further off, a Skirmisher closed his visor with a snap. Hurst dared not turn his head to watch in case it alerted Kelmannor, but he knew his eccentric signals were being conveyed from one group of men to the next. Eventually the message would reach a cluster of riders milling about on the edge of a copse some distance away.

  Hurst felt the familiar flutter of excitement. Too late now to wonder whether his strategy would work. As always, his mind cleared and he began to focus on these last, crucial few moments before the end of the flag phase of the skirmish. He waited.

  Yes! There he was! A single horseman in Hurst’s colours burst into the open from the copse, his head hunched low over his mount’s neck. He tore across the skirmish field towards the opposition’s flag hill, a brightly coloured flag tied to his saddle. Across the boundary, a group of Kelmannor’s Skirmishers spurred into action, racing to intercept him, but they were sluggish by comparison.

  Hurst watched in silence, rather impressed. The rider was Walst, one of his two younger Companions, a skilled swordsman, but not normally noted for his ability on horseback.

  Gantor laughed. “Look at him go! He’s across the boundary already. Gods, I think he’s actually going to make it!”

  It looked as if Kelmannor’s riders had misjudged Walst’s speed, and sheer momentum would carry him all the way to the flag hill. Hurst heard shouts, and saw arms waved frantically. Then, the moment he’d been waiting for. Kelmannor himself took a group of riders to deal with the intruder. The flag hill was almost undefended, and everyone’s attention was on Walst.

  “Your turn,” Gantor said, grinning at him.

  Hurst lowered his visor and urged his horse into action. She sprang forward enthusiastically. Then there was nothing but the gallop, the roar of the wind rattling his visor, the rhythm of the horse beneath him, the enemy flag hill directly opposite him. He was vaguely aware of horses moving here and there, of shouts and whinnying, a crashing sound. A rider came into view nearby, then fell behind. Hurst stormed onwards. More riders ahead, and a group on foot, swords out. A quick swerve and he was past. Another group, more determined, forced him off course to the left. He smiled under his helmet. All part of the plan.

  Abruptly he was surrounded, his horse rearing, voices yelling, something clanging against his helmet. He held on, his horse dancing to avoid crashing into others, snorting her disgust at the abrupt end to her race. Then a huge weight thumped against his chest and he was falling, curling by instinct into a ball, rolling in the mud, kicked once, twice. He lay still, gasping for breath until it was over.

  Before he dared open his eyes, there was a shriek. “Another one! Over there!” Then pandemonium. The sound of many men mounting up, riding off, frantic cries. He smiled. That would be Trimon, another of his Companions, and the final part of his plan. While Walst and Hurst had been showily distracting Kelmannor to one side of his flag hill, Trimon had been sneaking round the back. Moments later, he heard the horns signalling his success. Trimon had set his flag on the summit of their opponents’ flag hill. Hurst laughed out loud.

  A hand flipped his visor up, and an amused face peered at him. “You all right? Most of the horses missed you, I think.”

  Gingerly, Hurst uncurled himself and the hand hauled him to his feet, making him wince. “Kelmannor?” He pulled his helmet off, and cautiously stretched arms and legs, and wiggled his fingers. “I’m fine. The others? Walst?”

  “Everyone else had the common sense to stay on their horses. Gods, Hurst, how do you always put one over on me? Three last minute flag runners? And next time it will be some other new idea. Can I have Jonnor back, please? He’s much easier to deal with.” The younger man laughed and clapped Hurst on the back, making him wince again. “Thank the Nine this is the last skirmish before the quiet. We’ve got so few flags this time that you’ll wipe us out in the melee.”

  Hurst smiled and said all that was proper. For a while the excitement lifted his spirits, but inside he was empty. He knew as well as Kelmannor that these few small victories came too late to offset the many losses of this year. When the Voices assessed the skirmish results, it would be Kelmannor moving on to the fourth line, and Hurst would be left on the third yet again.

  Still, the skirmishes kept him busy, and that was as close to happiness as he could get at the moment. He’d had so little skirmish time the last two or three years, and he was grateful that Jonnor’s low mood kept him at home. Of course, he was careful to ask Jonnor’s advice on strategy and sometimes he even took it, if it matched his own ideas.

  It was satisfying to be in control again, but in truth, he found the skirmishes a strange and sterile business. On the border the battles against the barbaric Vahsi were infrequent but bloody, and men learned to fight for their lives or else died in the attempt. The skirmishes along the interior boundary lines were artificial, with their protocols and flags and odd truncated encounters, no more effective a training for the reality of the Vahsi than a game of crowns was a recreation of the Petty Kingdom wars of old. At least they enforced the necessary skills and fitness, and encouraged a degree of strategic thinking.

  Autumn was not the best time to be manning the lines, but the grey skies and shortened days suited his mood. He had never been one to direct his men from a distance, and he ended each day as wet and muddy and chilled as anyone. He would tend his horse, just like the rest, rinse his clothes in the same bog, and eat the same half raw, half burned meat. Then he would wrap himself, fully dressed, in cloak and blanket to sleep under a thin skin tent like any other Skirmisher.

  Not that he did sleep. Exhaustion would give him two or three hours of oblivion, and then he would wake and lie half dozing until he heard the first movements of the camp and could stop pretending. And when he did manage to sleep, he dreamt of her. Of Mia. Or rather, he dreamt of Jonnor with her, touching her, inside her, his face livid with hatred or crying because she wasn’t Tella, wasn’t the woman he loved, while she gazed at him with rapture
. And then he would wake, shaking and anguished, only to find even then his mind filled with her beloved image. It was unbearable.

  ~~~

  The skirmishes came to an end, the final prisoners were exchanged, and he had no option but to return to the Karninghold. One glance at Jonnor’s face told him nothing had changed. And there waiting for him were the messages from the Ring; the travel arrangements and appointments for interviews. The winter quiet was upon them and all at once they were out of time. Mia was away, dealing with one village or another, so he determined to resolve matters once and for all.

  Tonight, the roast came up in the lifter from the kitchens below with all the other dishes, and their own oven was cold. Maybe it was his imagination, but the meat from the lower kitchen never tasted as good as it did when Mia cooked it. Today it was stringy and flavourless. Jonnor carved and ate in silence, while Hurst gave him all the details of the last few days on the lines. It always took a while to draw Jonnor out of his abstracted state, but wine and some amusing anecdotes had their effect. Hurst was diplomatic about his skirmish successes, ascribing whatever he could to Jonnor’s advice or the idiocy of the opposition, while minimising his own role as best he could. By the time he had exhausted his stock of tales, Jonnor was relaxed and smiling.

  Collecting the plates, Hurst reached for his most casual tones. “So how are you getting along with Mia?”

  In an instant, Jonnor’s face was wiped of all good humour. “If you are going to offer to help out again, cousin…”

  “No,” Hurst said quietly, hoping he didn’t sound too regretful. “But nothing’s changed, has it? We have to talk about it, brother.”

  While Jonnor scowled, Hurst moved round the table in silence, carrying dishes to the lifter and sending them down to the servants below. Then he went into the pantry and brought out a full decanter of wine and two of the glasses they kept for celebrations. Sitting down opposite Jonnor he filled the glasses, pushed one across the table, and drank a little from his own.