Part 39 (1/2)

'Naught. I just wondered why you asked.'

'Now that be a thing I may never answer.'

She threw her arms round his neck and pulled him down, guiding his hand to her breast. He found it easy to forget memories and questions both.

On the morrow morning Enj came home. Rhodry was walking down by the lake when he heard, far away and to the north, the sound of a gong, echoing like a call over the water. In a few minutes he heard the boatmen shouting back and forth up at the manse. He ran round the sh.o.r.e and arrived at the boathouse in time to see them untying the beast-headed boat from the jetty. With a grin, the helmsman gestured him aboard.

'Gong?' he said.

Rhodry laughed and swung himself on board, working his way to the bow and the gong. The anchorman waited there, too, but instead of his flower of hooks, he carried a simple hawser. When they pushed off, rowing in long smooth pulls, Rhodry began striking two-handed in a regular rhythm while the helmsman and anchorman both screamed and yelled and made every unG.o.dly noise they could think of to drive the beasts away. Between strokes he watched the dark hills on the northern sh.o.r.e come closer and the waterfall resolve itself from a silver line into a roar and plunge of river. As the boat veered off from the white water, the mists caught the sun and turned into a veil of rainbows.

With the helmsman barking orders they headed into a tiny cove and a rickety wood jetty. Waiting for them, his pack sitting beside him on the bleached and gaping boards, stood a young man of the Mountain People, though he was tall for one of them at a good five and a half feet.

'Enj?' Rhodry said.

The anchorman nodded yes, judging distance with narrow eyes as the oarsmen manoeuvred the boat nearer and nearer the end of the jetty. They swung her round, backing water frantically, and let the currents and tides bob her closer and closer Enj called something out in Dwarvish, slung his pack on board, and jumped down after it before the anchorman could throw him the rope. When the boat shuddered, the anchorman rolled his eyes Rhodry's way, as if inviting him to share his scorn for such a show. As the oarsmen moved her out again, Enj came forward, speaking to every one in turn in Dwarvish, then stopped cold at the sight of Rhodry.

'Good morrow,' Rhodry said. 'My name's Rori.'

”And I be Enj. A Deverry man, are you? I do apologize for my surprise, but we don't see many guests here. Do let me relieve you of that gong work.'

'My thanks.'

As the boat turned into open water, Rhodry got out of the way on the other side of the bow. Where Avain had taken after her mother, En] must have favoured his father, Rhodry supposed. He had the high dwarven cheekbones and flat nose, and his hair was a brown close to black, as was his close-cropped beard. Even though his eyes were green like his sister's, they were narrow, shadowed under heavy dwarven brows. As they rowed back across, Rhodry was wondering just how the son was going to react to the news that a stranger was bedding his mother. It was a complication that, he supposed, he might have thought of earlier.

On the landing the entire household waited to greet them. Enj waved to them from the boat, but as soon as he was ash.o.r.e he hurried to his mother, threw one arm round her, and kissed her on the forehead.

Talking urgently together they headed off toward the tower, no doubt to let Avain see him home and safe. Garin and Rhodry walked back up to the manse together and some ways behind everyone else.

'So that's Enj, is it?' Rhodry said. 'He doesn't look in the least daft, not to me, anyway.'

Garin seemed to be biting his tongue.

'Imph,' he said at last. 'I'm cursed glad to sec him, I don't mind telling you. I'll spend the day negotiating with him to take up Otho's clan debt and making arrangements for the provisioning and all, and then I've got to be heading back to Lin Scrr. I hope you understand, Rori. If things were different, I'd go with you, just to keep Otho civil if naught else, but as it is, with the siege and all -'

'Of course I understand. And with Mic along, the old man will behave himself somewhat.'

'So we can hope.'

Since it was several hours before Angmar and Knj returned to the great hall, Rhodry had a good long wonder what mother and son might be discussing. Round noon, when they walked into the great hall, servants appeared as well, to lay a meal. For a few moments everyone exchanged strained pleasantries in Dwarvish while Angmar took her usual place at the head of the table and Enj hovered near her chair.

Rhodry waited near the hearth to let him have the family seat at his mother's right hand if he chose. The hall fell silent; everyone, servants and all, turned to watch the pair of them.

Enj glanced round and pointed to another chair that was standing against the wall, half-round and heavily carved. When he snapped out an order to a servant, everyone in the room who knew Dwarvish gasped in surprise. The servant picked it up and put it at the end of the table opposite Angmar. Once it was settled, Enj sat down on the bench by his mother's right hand, leaving only one place for Rhodry to sit, and glanced his way with a brief smile.

'My thanks,' Rhodry said.

As he sat down in the chair that had once belonged to her husband, Angmar looked down the length of the table between them with eyes that showed no feeling at all. She remembers that I'm leaving, he thought. For a moment he nearly howled aloud in rage at the Wyrd that kept tearing his life into pieces and then shredding what few sc.r.a.ps of happiness he redeemed from the ruin. He wanted to jump up and run outside, screaming like a madman. Instead he picked up his tankard and had a long swallow of ale.

At the signal the servants came forward and began serving food.

With the meal Garin broached the job ahead to Enj, and once everyone had finished eating, the negotiations began in earnest. Even though for courtesy's sake Garin kept the talk in Deverrian, Rhodry said little. As long as he was eventually satisfied with the settlement, the details were none of his affair, not under either of their systems of laws. Angmar, however, listened closely, murmuring a word of advice to her son every now and again - shrewd advice, too, from the way it made Otho wince. He needed it, too, since everyone there could see that he'd have gone off tracking a dragon for no repayment at all.

As the afternoon heat dragged on through this mire of haggling, Rhodry muttered a few excuses and fled.

Down by the lake sh.o.r.e the wind growled through the rocks and whined in the trees. Rhodry found himself a spot under a bent and twisted pine where he could sit in the cool. For a long time he stared out across the lake at the silver riband of water falling over the cliffs on the far sh.o.r.e. He was tired, he supposed, merely tired to the bone of all his wandering, tired of fighting in one battle after another, whether he fought with a sword or with dweomcr that he didn't even really understand. Why else would he be hating the idea of leaving Haen Marn?

'Rori?' Angmar's voice, coming toward him. 'Rori, be you there?'

His eyes filled with tears. lie wiped them away on the back of his hand.

'I am,' he called out. 'Do they need me in the great hall?'

'They do. To agree to the settling of the debt.'

When Rhodry picked his way through the rocks and joined her, she smiled at him, but so blandly that he knew she wished nothing of any import said aloud. He caught her hand and squeezed it.

'We'd best go back then, my lady.'

'So we should, my lord.'

Hand in hand openly they returned to the great hall, where a smiling Garin was standing by the hearth while Otho, Mic, and Enj sat drinking at the table. From the way Otho was belting the ale back, Rhodry a.s.sumed that the settlement had turned out high. With one last clasp of his hand, Angmar left him and went to her usual chair.

'Well, envoy,' Rhodry said. 'And does the settlement strike you as fair?'

'It does, though Otho may have other feelings.' Garin paused for a grin. 'There's the quittance fee, of course, for the a.s.sumption of clan debt by the heir of Haeu Marn, and then the indemnity we pay his mother, in case some evil thing befalls him, and the replenishment of Haen Marn's stores for the provisioning of this expedition. All in all, it'll amount to a nice pair of matched gemstones for the lady of Haen Marn to tuck away safe-like. However, since Enj here insists that it's best if you and he go alone, then Otho's free of the indemnity for young Mic, so he'll save a fair bit there.'

When Rhodry glanced at Mic, he found the lad on the edge of tears, 'Ah now, here, Mic, if you go and 'prentice yourself to Garin, there'll be more excitements coming your way.'

'So the envoy and Uncle Otho say,'

'It truly be for the best,' Enj broke in. 'Where we'll be going, Rori, it's too long a road to carry even half of what we'll be needing upon it. Otho did tell me that you've got a good hand with a bow, and I've one with the fis.h.i.+ng, but if the game be scant, feeding four or even three -* He shrugged to show the uncertainty of it.

Mic got up and stomped out of the hall.

'Lin Serr owes Gwerbret Cadmar a contingent of axemen,' Garin said and very softly. 'I think me our Mic's going to have more excitement than he'll like, and soon.'

'No doubt we all will.' Rhodry felt suddenly profoundly weary. 'Well, Otho, on the contingency that these fees be paid over promptly to Haen Marn, I hereby release you from your life's debt to me in front of these witnesses.'

'Done then.' With a sigh Otho stood up to shake hands. 'And I agree. When we return with the provisions, and that'll be as fast as we can walk back and walk here again, the lady shall have her pick of the best gems I own.'

'And I'll make sure he brings the best, too,' Garin remarked to Angmar. 'I can't return myself, but a man I trust will.'

'I do have faith in that, envoy, for always have you dealt fairly with me and mine.' She glanced at Enj.

'You've done well.'

After the evening meal, while Angmar tended her daughter and the envoy and his party gathered provisions for their trek home, Rhodry and Enj walked by the lake. The last light, glancing between hills, sent shades of pale gold and faint colour onto the quiet water of the shallows, while across by the farther sh.o.r.e, the mists were rising and gathering in the coves.

'One thing worries me,' Rhodry said. 'Your mother's safety while we're gone. I've got enemies who might track me here, and if they do, they're dangerous. Does Haen Marn have va.s.sals or allies round here that might owe you men?'