Part 18 (1/2)

He remembered learning how to use a sword, and the endless drills. If she were right, his life depended on this practice more than it ever had on his skill with a blade. As he worked, vibrating each part of the name, he felt that he grew in height, towering up, yet made of nothing more substantial than the clouds round them, weightless, floating up from the stone, trembling yet charged with power stronger than the lightning. Finally, just the night was growing so dark that he could barely see her face, she p.r.o.nounced him good enough - for the time being.

'We'll have to do this again and again,' she said. 'But I don't want you going hoa.r.s.e on me. Try the whole name, Rhodry. All of it together in one long breath.'

He gathered as much air as he could and growled it out.

'Ar Zo Sah Soth Ee Lor Ez O Haz.'

For the briefest of moments he felt answered. It wasn't a word, nothing so concrete, more of a touch of mind on mind, a living presence, a soul, hearing his call, turning his way. The feeling vanished, leaving him spent. He felt as if he were falling, shrinking as he fell, tumbling and swooping through clouds and a long way down to hit hard ground, 'Rhodry, ye G.o.ds! I'm sorry!'

In the gathering night Jill's pale face swam before him. He realized that he was kneeling on the roof with her beside him. She flung one arm round his shoulders, or he would have fallen onto his face.

'I'm truly sorry,' she repeated. 'I forgot that you've never done this before.'

He nodded, panting for breath.

'It's rather like some townsman who's never ridden a horse,' she went on. 'And then ends up spending a day in the saddle. You'll feel this on the morrow.'

'No doubt.' He managed to smile. 'But will I pa.s.s muster?'

'You will. Oh, that you will! I said you had a streak of music in your soul, didn't I? Now let's get you down to the great hall, where it's warm. The rain's stopped, but it's a bit damp up here. You need to eat, too. Food's the best thing at a time like this.'

Sure enough, after a plate of bread and cold meat, washed down with a couple of tankards of ale in the company of other men in the great hall, Rhodry felt his usual self. Screaming the name into the -rain seemed like an odd dream he'd had and nothing more, even though he knew that knowledge was his now forever. As he mulled it over in memory, the entire day turned strange and dreamlike, yet menacing at the same time. Jill and her wretched questions, he thought, A lot of horses.h.i.+t, thinking that a man might live more lives than one! Couldn't be possible. And what if it was? Just what if? I could have asked her.

She would have answered. When he found himself remembering the white mountains, the height at the edge of his view, his mind skipped and s.h.i.+ed.

'Somewhat wrong?' Yraen snapped. 'You look like you've seen some evil spirit.'

'Mayhap I have. Nah, nan, nah, I was just thinking of a shameful thing.'

'Sonic wench, is it?'

'I only wish, but I was thinking of the only time in my life that I've been a coward.'

Yraen turned on the bench to consider him, narrow-eyed and puzzled. Rhodry had a long swallow of ale.

'And when was that?' Yraen said at last.

'Today, as a matter of fact. This very day.' Rhodry slammed the tankard down on the table. 'Say one word more about it, and I'll kill you.'

'You're drunk.'

'So I am.' Somewhat unsteadily, Rhodry rose, swinging himself clear of the bench. 'I'm going to bed.'

But once he was lying in his bunk, the sound of rain kept him awake. He kept remembering Jill, sitting in the sunlight and laughing at him, as merry as a la.s.s over forbidden secrets of the soul.

The rain stopped just after dawn. The sudden silence woke Jahdo, and he lay in bed for a moment with his eyes shut tight, praying that when he opened them, he'd be home. Yet of course, once he succ.u.mbed and looked, he saw only the wedge-shaped chamber in the gwerbret's broch, all grey and swimmy with shadows. He sat up, yawning, and realized that Meer's bed was empty. All at once he was wide awake.

Why hadn't the bard woken him, if he'd needed to get to the privy or suchlike? The stairs outside would be slippery with damp. He grabbed his trousers, pulled them on, and ran barefoot out of the room.

The dun was beginning to come alive. Yawning servants ambled down the halls or stood stretching and gossiping in the great hall. Jahdo saw old Darro at the main hearth, lifting sods from the coals underneath.

'Have you seen Meer?'

The old man sat back on his heels and considered.

'Just a bit ago, lad, see him I did. Heading for the door, there.'

'He shouldn't have gone out without me along.'

'Here, here, one of Lord Matyc's riders was with him, talking all urgent like, so he'll be safe enough.'

Jahdo hesitated, then decided that he simply had to go see for himself. He dashed out of the great hall, stood looking around the muddy ward for a moment, then heard a smothered giggle from just behind him.

He spun round, but not fast enough. A wet and smelly burlap sack flopped over his head, and boys burst out laughing.

'Let rne go!' jahdo yelled. 'It's needful that I find Meer.'

Although he flailed about him with his hands and screamed in rage, they kept laughing and spinning him round. Later he would realize that with his voice m.u.f.fled by the sack, they couldn't even make out what he was saying. He could hear them, though, laughing as they began shoving him toward the kitchen hut as far as he could tell. All at once he was falling, hitting dirt hard. A slam and a clang sounded above him.

He tore the sack off to find himself in the root cellar, sprawled among baskets of turnips. Above him the barred door, framed by cracks of light, hung close. He leapt and shoved, but the big iron bar on the outside refused to give way.

'Let me out!'

He jumped again, sc.r.a.ped his hands, and screamed wordlessly, over and over for a good long while.

No one seemed to hear. His tormentors, he supposed, were far away by now. He crouched for another spring, then caught himself. Shoving the door like an angry bull was going to do him no good at all. He was going to have to be clever like a ferret instead.

In the light from the cracks round the door he could see reasonably well. He began inching his way along the wooden walls, shoving baskets and sacks out of his way as he went, feeling for weaknesses and cracks, that might open into another part of the dun cellars. Finally, in the darkest corner of the back wall, he found a long slit of a hole, probably where two walls came together on the other side. By falling onto his knees he could work his shoulders through. He shoved and squeezed, wiggled and swore, caught his s.h.i.+rt on a nail, swore louder - and heard an answering voice.

'Who's that?' It was Cook. 'Who's scrabbling in there like a rat?'

'Me, Jahdo. Please, Cook, the other boys did shut me in the root cellar, and it's needful that I do get out. Meer's walking somewhere without a guide.'

'Ye G.o.ds! They'll get a smack for that, they will.' Ma.s.sive hands came through the crack and pried, splitting old boards. 'It's a cursed good thing that I was down here, isn't it now? Try this.'

Jahdo squeezed through and found himself in the little cellar of the kitchen hut proper. With a bowl in one hand Cook stood beside an open barrel of salt; across from her a ladder led up to the light. Shouting thanks Jahdo ran, climbed, raced past startled serving la.s.ses in the kitchen and rushed, out of breath but too frightened to stop, across the ward. Panting and gasping, he headed for the dangerous wall behind the main broch, where Meer could easily take the wrong set of stairs and end up on the ramparts.

'Here, where's your hurry?'

Rhodry was strolling toward him. Jahdo dodged him and kept running.

'Trouble,' he gasped out.

Sure enough, as he rounded the corner of a shed, he saw Meer way up above him on the main wall of the dun and standing next to a broken rail on a catwalk. Behind him stood Lord Matyc. For the briefest of moments Jahdo could have sworn that the lord had his hands raised to shove the bard over.

'Meer!' he screamed with the last of his breath. 'Ware!'

The lord suddenly grabbed Meer's s.h.i.+rt just as the bard stepped back.

'Careful!' Matyc sang out. 'Ye G.o.ds, man, you nearly fell.'