XV: Spring 773
The Outer Hall of the Thane's Keep at Hvanar was a long room of stone, taller than it was wide, with every so often a short stone step. It was decorated in the fashion common to the Clanish Thanes: that is, not lavishly, but with stone faces grinning and frowning from the corners, and carven animals cavorting along the tops of the short walls at either end. One entering the keep would find oneself at the lower end of this hall, facing a great tapestry that covered the top two thirds of the wall at the upper end, with the door to the inner rooms beneath it. The doorway, like the rooms within it, was carven from the mountain. The magnificent if time-dimmed web showed the valiant and handsome Thane Rodano and his knights defeating the barbarians that had once lived here, a rabble of fat, bearded louts that were throwing down their spears even as their Clanish enemies, flying the white imperial banner, slaughtered them. The tapestry was practically cemented into the wall, and besides had a considerable seniority here, but new, smaller tapestries had been attached to its midsection, portraying the barbarians in a different light. Brighter, in fewer colors, these blocked and ignored the massacre that was now behind them: a greying-blond warrior queen, a proud young red-haired man with a great beard and a sword longer than he was tall, and, in the middle, a warrior woman fighting to the death (imminent) against a gang led by a villainous Thane Rodano, who stood back while others gave and took the deadly blows of battle.
The hall now echoed with battle of a different kind, though the participants were the descendants of those shown in the tapestries. This was a battle of voices, and not a sword was drawn nor a blow delivered, but again the barbarians seemed outnumbered, doomed unless by some magic their gallant leader could overcome great odds. Amid the conflict she stood, tall and proud and unyielding, as the axe of her voice rose and fell. A dozen Clanish opponents vied with her, their individual voices no match for hers; she was backed by five more blond- and red-haired women, who themselves vied with more of the Siretish lords. Her back was covered by a dark-haired woman of middle age, a sort of squire who said nothing but passed weapons of paper to her chief when she needed them.
"I have your deed right here," Sigrith shouted at a pimply man of thirty or so. "Here is your deed. Kersten, fetch me that torch!"
"You can't do that!" Hugh fitz-Mathess, the grey-haired former steward, yelled back, grabbing at the scroll. "You have no right to void the charters agreed by your predecessors!"
"I have the right if I want the right!" she replied, shaking the scroll at him. He grabbed it from her; Anne Atwood handed Sigrith another scroll, which she held high. "Ah, I was mistaken, this is the deed!" A cry of indignation burst from the assembled Clanishmen. She shook a finger at the great tapestry behind her. "And all your lands were once seized, most illegally, from our ancestors, in case you have forgotten!"
"You cannot mean to void all our inheritances!" shouted Hugh fitz-Mathess.
"Why should I not?"
"My lady Sigrith," said the handsome, grey-haired Sir Toby de Hvanar, behind her, "you do not in fact mean to do that, do you?"
"Of course not," said Sigrith behind her hand, "but is it not amusing what it does to these gentlemen when they think so?" Sir Toby responded with a worried look. Sigrith went back to remonstrating with her landholders. "Listen, you lords, if we are not to bring the Countess back over the mountains, then it is my judgement you must abide by. And I think she will like it not, in her present condition, that some who did not fight on her side at Nikolad ask her to take the mountain trail to judge against others who gave their blood for her cause."
"Then," said Hugh fitz-Mathess, "it will have to be decided who the foe is, a few Clanish lords and knights or an army of barbarians from over the mountains!"
Sigrith's captain, a fierce blonde named Kersten, reached for her sword, but Sigrith stopped her. "I could say, what of barbarians from the sea, but I will not. We all find ourselves here, and we must stand together here. I am the Thane, now--mayhaps some are not accustomed to that yet. But here I am, and here are my friends and my daughters, and here will my new daughter be born." She patted her stomach, which stuck out visibly among her furs. "Nay, fear not, your lands are not generally in danger. But this fief of Marlibarn as you call it--"
"Marillibaryn," said the pimply gentleman, who would have said more if he'd been allowed.
"This Marilbairn," said Sigrith, "stands at the point where Clear Stream comes down out of its gorge. That is Skelhom, that place is sacred to the ancestors."
"So you're just taking it?"
"I cannot take that which is mine already by right."
"Chieftain," said Kersten, "what of the other? Across the stream? Those meadows are rich fodder for horses and kine, and should be joined with this land."
"No," said Sigrith, "I think we'll leave that. This poor fellow needs somewhere to put his new house."
"New house!" cried the pimply gentleman; "But it's not his, it's ours," Kersten pointed out.
"It's his now," said Sigrith. "Look at him. He needs more to eat or he'll waste away. He'll never be a hired hand. He's not suited for aught but lord of manor."
"But my house!" replied the pimply man, oblivious to insult.
"The Rukh will help you build a new one. You can quarry the stone from the gorge at Skelhom. Kersten, see to it."
"But Chieftain, would you have us, the warriors of the Rukh, carting rock for this" and here she inserted a severe Rukh obscenity, which Sigrith cut off.
"You will, Kersten, and you will not complain, and you will not drag your feet, and you will not beat him up again as it's clear you have done. And," she said, stopping to silence Kersten with a look, "you will call me Thane, not Chieftain, for that is what I am."
"Truly," muttered the warrior, "I am ruled by a Chieftain, not a Thane."
"You are ruled by me!" shouted Sigrith, deep enough to make the warrior quail. "All of you are ruled by me! Accustom yourselves!"
"But Chieftain," said one of the other woman warriors, "Thane I mean, why do we mire ourselves in such petty squabbles, when there is an enemy unvanquished? What of Torak? Sigfrinda says he has come before Heldvarn."
"Its proper name is Hildiwern," Hugh fitz-Mathess pointed out.
"This is nothing new," said Sigrith. "He is before Heldvarn, and he will presently come to Hvanar. The mighty Torak told me so in the winter moot, where I was far from popular this year."
"It was because you took up with these Clanish," Kersten opined.
"It was. Do you expect me to retreat in fear? Or to give in to him and break my oath to the Countess? We have defeated Torak before, have we not, my sister?"
"But his clan is numerous," said Kersten, "and he's sure to draw strength from the clans of Egon and Faulk. He may have many thousands."
"Then we will slay many thousands." Still, concern entered the warrior thane's face. "My daughter can hold Heldvarn, do you not think?"
"She has a thousand there. She will fight to the last drop, and when they pass there will be many of them that stay behind, joining her in the caravan of the dead."
"This is not well," said Sigrith. "I ordered her back if she were outnumbered by more than double. I will send Ingdal to Heldvarn to remind my daughter of her orders: they will fall back to Hvanar if Torak's force is too strong. We need them more than we need Heldvarn."
"But my chieftain," said Kersten.
"Thane," Sigrith corrected menacingly.
"My thane," said Kersten, "you would deny Sigfrinda an honorable battle against your enemies? When you surely have the--"
"The hammers and anvils to make more," said Sigrith, smiling and patting her belly again. The Clanish men rolled their eyes: their eye-rolling muscles had gotten plenty of exercise lately. "No, Kersten, death in battle is not the goal here. Heldvarn is not worth such a loss. It is a gathering of stone huts in the middle of a field. This place, though--this place is easy to defend." She turned on the Clanish gentlemen. "My lords," she said, "if you did not hear before, your thane may soon call on you again to join her in fighting off this enemy."
"Why should we fight in your clan battles?" demanded Hugh fitz-Mathess. "It is none of our concern, I say. Come, Clanishmen, let us stand out of the way of a fight among our foes!"
"Foes!" cried Sigrith, advancing on the former steward. It entered his head that, even five months pregnant, Sigrith could still swing a heavy fist. Sir Toby stood between them.
"Hugh," he said, "that is unworthy. This is our fight too, or do you want five thousand and more of Torak's men to come down on Hvanar without our Rukh allies to fight with us?"
"I see no allies here," said Hugh. "Even you, Toby--tell me, men, does not his hair seem a bit reddened of late? I think he has lain long with these ape-women."
"I will spit you now, swine," said Kersten, pulling her sword halfway out.
"No, let me," said Sir Toby, laying a hand on his sword. "Sigrith is my thane, as Vivian is my countess."
"I owe Vivian, but not this outlander," said another of the Clanishmen; another said, "Would that Ellimer had not been driven to his death." From that point the conversation devolved into near-battle. On one side were Hugh fitz-Mathess and others who despised the Rukh intruders, and on the other were Kersten and several more who did not like the (to their minds) over-civilized customs of the County. In the middle were Thane Sigrith and Sir Toby and Anne Atgate, and all but Anne seemed to be screaming at the top of their lungs.
Vivian's headache deepened. She pulled herself back from Hvanar and let her eye rest on the muddy fields under the stars and on the snowy mountains glowing in the evening as if still releasing the sunlight absorbed in the day, and her calm returned. She was not in the mood for more bodiless snooping. With a deep breath she fell back into herself and opened her physical eyes. After a moment she put out the candles and went about cleaning up after herself. When everything was put away, she lifted the dozing Susan from her basket. The girl opened her eyes and gazed, still half-dreaming, into her mother's eyes. She cried a little, then slipped back into sleep. Vivian carried the child to bed, paused to kiss the sleeping Willd, and then went downstairs and plopped herself down at the dining room table. Jen brought her a glass of milk.
"Is there no ale to be had?"
"My lady," said Jen, "you drink that milk and I'll get you ale. You are with child."
"Oh, I was in no danger of forgetting," said Vivian. "All right. You know, many nobles would not put up with such treatment by their servants."
"But you are wise, my lady. And as your servant, should I not also give you good advice?"
"You should," said Vivian. "And you should get my other advisors. I have need of their counsel in other matters than my diet."
Jen went out, passing Sir Rogier on the way in. "Did I hear someone ask for counsel?" he asked. "Could it be the Countess Vivian wants to know what I think?"
"I named you not, but here you are anyway. And I never said I would do as you advised."
"Again I will tell you that you are just like your father. I do not criticize, my lady: in fact, I praise. How is Susan this night?"
"She walks, she talks, and right now, thank the Sun, she sleeps. Soon I hope she will master the intricacies of the toilet. Next after that, I teach her how to handle smart-mouthed ministers."
"That is not a skill but a talent, born in or not at all; I say so since you had it from your father and showed it from our first dealings. I expect that she will inherit that as well as other useful traits of yours. In any case, what is the news, that you need our advice?"
"Oh, no news," lied Vivian. "But I am aware that my new Thane of Siret has not yet found the balance between her warrior life and her role as governor."
Sir Rogier sighed. "Well, my lady, that was another matter on which you did not ask my advice. But I can see why you did as you did."
"You wouldn't have thought of it, I venture to say. Well, there we were, in Hvanar, and everyone seemed happy with her then. I hadn't thought about who would replace Ellimer, though I admit I was resolved that he would cease to be Thane, one way or another. Now it seems that many of them have changed their minds. I have at least a dozen petitions of grievance against her."
"I've heard a few complaints myself," said Sir Rogier. "The nobles seem to think me a sympathetic ear. But not all are unhappy: most of those who came with her to Nikolad last fall are still on her side."
"Did you know Sigrith is with child?"
"I have heard so. What is it with you women these days? It seems everyone's with child."
"Someone has to have the children. We wish you men would give birth to at least some of them, but no. As for Sigrith, she lost a daughter in battle, and I think she's just replacing her."
"How sensible," said Sir Rogier. "Do you know the father?"
"I doubt even if she knows. I can rule out Willd anyway. And Weaver, I think. I understand she's due in August or so--and she's been in Siret since October, so I suppose she must have got that way there. I guess that rules you out as well."
"My lady, I hope you found that thought amusing. How is yours coming?"
Vivian heaved a sigh. "I don't know what made me think this was a good idea. How could I forget? It should be over by June. Next time I get this idea, remind me how unpleasant it is."
"I'll do that," said Sir Rogier. "June, eh? Two months."
"Less." She sighed again, then raised her mug of milk. "To childbirth. Where would we be without it?" She drained it in a long draft.
"To mothers, where would we be without them, and without the fact that they soon forget why it's called labor?"
"Mmm. Now I need my mug of ale to toast that with. Jen!"
"Here, my lady," said Jen, returning. "Your other chief advisors are a few steps behind me."
"I've finished my milk, can I have some beer?"
"Of course, my lady. Would you like something to eat?"
"How about some of that apple bread?" said Ellean, coming in with Angeline, who was as big with child as the Countess. A respectful three paces behind them came Willd, still blinking from sleep, and Weaver.
"My darling," said Vivian, "come sit next to me." Jen returned with a tray, eight mugs, two loaves of bread and a dish of butter, followed by Miranda mac Conahay hefting a two-gallon cask of ale. "Ah, good," said Vivian, "I'm quite hungry."
"Her ladyship," said Sir Rogier, "is concerned about events in Hvanar."
"Well she may be," said Weaver. "Thane Hugo's latest report says that Torak has moved a sizeable force out of the Tarnhold area, and is headed westward toward Hildiwern. We expect he's intent on revenge for what he must consider her treachery."
"How sizeable?" asked the Countess.
"Oh, four or five thousand. That's most of his own clan's warriors, those that remain after the battle here last fall. He'll pick up help from the other clans."
"Only four or five thousand, eh? Only twice or more what we have altogether. Only twice or so what Sigrith has, for that matter. If she can retain control of the men of Siret as well as her own warriors."
"Why shouldn't she?" asked Ellean.
"Her style, for one thing," said Sir Rogier. "You know what I mean. But if she were to, ah, mellow at all, her own warriors might not follow her."
"They would abandon her?" asked Angeline.
"They're nomads of the mountains, they didn't sign up to become landholders of Clane."
"Yes," said Vivian, "and the landholders of Clane aren't too happy about it either. Well, maybe Torak's the best thing that could happen to them all. If it weren't for him, they might just be slaughtering each other. Still, I think Siret needs putting in order."
"You're right," said Sir Rogier. "I'll--wait a minute, you don't--"
"I certainly do. Someone has to deal with this before there's an explosion. No one else has the leverage I do. Besides, I'm the Countess. I'm the mom in this big unruly family. We leave tomorrow as early as may be. Now who's coming with?"
"Me," shouted Ellean, Willd, Weaver and Sir Rogier.
"My lady," said Jen, "you really shouldn't."
"Notice that Rogier doesn't even try to talk me out of it. No, Jen, you of course will stay and take care of Susan." Jen rolled her eyes. "Oh, she's not that bad."
"She is that bad," said Ellean. "She's much worse than Jen will admit. Why do you think I'm going with you?"
"You are, of course you are," said Vivian. "And Willd. Weaver, you go back to Tarnhold and take that wife of yours with you. Like I said to Sir Everard once, we can't take all the brilliant military minds with us. We'll take Sallier and some of his riders, and maybe the Archer Girls."
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "I'd be neglecting my duty if I failed to point out that this is unwise."
"All right, you've done your duty. But what choice is there? I've got a pile of complaints from the old steward fitz-Mathess and his friends, and I know Sigrith's own warriors aren't happy. Torak's on the march: even the slightest weakness in the foundations of Siret could topple the whole pillar. And the County of Clane doesn't have all that many pillars left. And I ask you again, who could possibly have any effect on them but me? Positive effect, that is."
"I grant, my dear Countess, that there's conflict up there, and I grant your personal magnetism, but aren't you the least bit worried about the threat from Torak?"
"Look. We're not, not, not going to Hvanar to fight Torak. Sigrith will have to deal with him on her own--we have no help to give. One more pregnant woman isn't going to make the defense any stronger. We're just going to get Siret straightened out, so it can defend itself if necessary."
"Promise?"
"Promise. No fighting. We go, make them play nicely together, then come back. Two weeks we'll be gone, if that. All right?"
"All...right," he conceded warily.
It had been an interesting winter in Nikolad, to say the least. Vivian and Angeline became obviously pregnant, while their eldest children increasingly terrorized the servants and animals-- only Simone was left alone, and that only after judicious use of claws on small hands. The Duchess Zinyda ceased to be pregnant: on the second day of December of 772, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, named Othus after Zinyda's late father. It was quite an easy birth, as Vivian and Angeline never tired of telling the Duchess.
Prince Frenerac doted on his Duchess, and she seemed, to Vivian's surprise, to love him back. The elder Othus, brother of the former Duke, had been killed fighting the Farlainers, and all Zinyda's family was dead because of the invasion, and of course the marriage itself had been forced upon both of them. She said little, but the expressions on her beautiful face spoke eloquently. In the final months of Zinyda's pregnancy, Frenerac waited on her hand and foot.
During the blizzards of February, Mirabel, Lady Holder of Nikolad, announced her intention to marry on Midsummer Day. The man in the picture was Captain Edwy Sallier, and the impetus was again pregnancy. Vivian began to wonder if there was something in the water.
Vivian's full moon meetings on the Other Side continued, always with Susan in her lap. In the realm of the fountain, she now encountered, along with the lady and the little girl, both New Women--one with sandy hair, the other blond. On 27 March 773, the lady took them all for a walk, and Vivian felt a certain apprehension when she saw that they were headed for the balustrade above the city. But the Lady of the Fountain would not go down. Instead the four women stood along the parapet, while the little girl played on the ground behind them. There seemed to be something important here, some detail about this city in the night that the lady wanted Vivian to catch: she studied its slopes and shores from above, the twisted grid of its streets, the hill with the dome, the great malls perhaps of a university, the bazaar meandering through the nearer streets. They turned away and came again to the Arch, and there Vivian and Susan, hand in hand, fell back into the world.
Two weeks later, on the tenth of April, the night of the new moon, Vivian sat on the floor of the little library and watched with her bodiless eye as Sigrith and her allies and enemies did battle with words. And so it was that on the eleventh of April, the Countess set off on the mountain trail, and in her company rode Sir Rogier de Clatu, Sir William Willd, Lady Ellean Rain and Lady Valerie de Nikolad along with an escort of twenty horsebows. Edwy Sallier had been commandeered by Lady Mirabel, and her cousin Valerie was his replacement.
They had three gorgeous days in the mountains, and Vivian did not feel too awful from riding while seven-plus months pregnant. On the evening of 13 April, the company camped along a brook. There had been a brief shower during the day, the only weather of the trip that was the least bit unfavorable. Now Vivian bundled up against the cold with the softly snoring Willd. She remembered the Clanish soldiers' superstitions from her first campaign as Countess, that meteorological fortunes were inverse to strategic fortunes. Maybe it'll snow when we get there, she thought. And maybe there won't be a battle.
The next morning she awoke to the pound of rain on the tent roof and the drip of condensation from the canvass over her head.
That afternoon the company came out of the mountains and out from under the rain, and made their way down the Snow River. The castle town of Hvanar glowed in the sunset as they rode up. All seemed tranquil.
An hour later, the Countess seated herself in the Outer Hall. Hers was the only chair, placed directly under the great tapestry with its recent amendments. Ellean and Willd stood against the wall behind her, Sir Rogier at her right side. Several of her burlier soldiers stood around her glaring at the crowd. The room was filled with the noise of grumble and complaint.
"People of Siret!" cried Sir Rogier. Silence did not immediately ensue. Vivian picked up an earthenware mug and threw it against the floor.
"People," said Countess Vivian, "the noise from Siret has become so loud that it can be heard in Nikolad." She looked around. Sigrith, who was standing about twenty feet in front of Vivian and to the right, had an unusually thoughtful look. Everyone else seemed to have their mouths open, waiting for words to come out. "Someone tell me: what's the problem?"
The noise surged out of them. Vivian held up her hand, then pointed to the former steward, Hugh fitz-Mathess.
"My lady," said Hugh, "this Sigrith is unworthy of the Thaneship. She--"
"Wait," said Vivian. "What do you think makes a good Thane, in time of war?"
"Well, I, uh, a good Thane listens to his people. And respects their property rights. A good Thane defends his people, rather than attacking them."
"I never attacked you, dog!"
"Please," said the Countess, getting her skinny voice in between their shouts. "Did she not listen to you?"
"I could not help but listen to him, Countess," said Sigrith. "His mouth is flapping all the time. It is impossible to avoid listening to him."
"You heard," said Hugh, "but you never once listened."
"Well," said Vivian, "as for property rights."
"She seized any number of manors and holdings from their rightful owners."
"Any number, you say? What number?"
"Uh, well, five at the least, my lady. Well, she expropriated Lord Tenill from Marillibaryn, where his family has lived these past two centuries. It's no better than what the Farlainers did to you." Most of the others in the hall shouted their agreement. Vivian raised her hand.
"I wouldn't compare the two if I were you," she said. "Anyway, didn't she order her warriors to build him a new house?"
"They won't ever do it. They hate us."
"Sigrith?"
"We will build it," replied the Thane. "I have sworn so. Kersten has been specifically ordered to do it. We can't go building stone houses while Torak hangs over us, can we?"
"But it isn't her land anyway," Hugh fitz-Mathess put in. "It's just like what the Duke of--"
"Please! I don't want to hear any more comparisons. If you're trying to get on my good side, bringing up Dukes of Farlain isn't helpful."
"Besides," said Kersten, waving her arms and almost knocking over Sir Toby, "it was our land. It's still our land." She gestured at the mess of tapestries behind Vivian's seat. "Those pig-demons took it from us two centuries back, and it's no more theirs now than then. If you and your daughters and granddaughters for seven generations had to live at Nikolad, would it make Vonnis any less yours?"
"I don't know," said Vivian with a sigh, "and I don't plan to find out. Will you be fighting for me when I go back?"
Kersten grumbled. Sigrith took the opportunity to silence her second-in-command with a full-strength glare. "My Countess," said Sigrith, "I and Kersten and my daughters and all of our clan will march into Vonnis with you, when the day comes for the people of the blue horse to meet their doom."
"Thank you," said Vivian. "That's the kind of talk I like to hear. Now Kersten, will you be building Lord Tenill a new house?"
Kersten stood in the full light of the Countess's attention, and did not like it. Vivian looked her up and down: about Angeline's age, as tall as Sigrith, naked but for a swordbelt with a cloth hanging down in front. Her strength of limb was palpable, her beauty was arresting, but now she was a little girl trying to make excuses to the headmistress. "I guess," she said at last.
"You guess what?"
"We'll build his house, Countess."
"That's better. Lord Tenill?" Vivian called. Lord Tenill, the pimply gentleman, remained hidden among his supporters, who tried to look as if they had no idea where he was. "Well," said Vivian after a minute of this charade, "if he's not going to present himself before his Countess, then I'm afraid he may forfeit his claim to any of his manors."
"Here, my lady."
"Ah, Lord Tenill, I'm so glad to see you. It's my judgement that the Rukh were indeed unjustly forced from their land. Now we have to make accommodations: and I am told that the house where you live is on one of their sacred sites." A swell of noise threatened. "And!" They all shut up. "And they have very kindly offered to build you a new house." More noise threatened. One side disbelieved, and the other side disowned this compromise. She plunged on in her loudest and lowest voice. "Now, tell me, Lord Tenill, if a thief steals a man's gold, and years later the son of the man asks the son of the thief for only half of it, should not the son of the thief share, in what neither of them really earned?" There was complete silence while everyone tried to work this all out. "Because," Vivian went on, "none of us has earned any of this beautiful land, any of this life that the Sun has blessed us with, until we have fought to keep it. Even I, the rightful Countess of Clane, have not earned the right to live in Vonnis, not until I have fought my way back, but if anyone here thinks that I am not going to do it, just try and stand in my way!" She had half risen out of her chair, and now she sat down with a thump. She looked around. "Now. Any other questions?"
That evening Vivian had dinner in the Thane's intimate dining room, joined by Sigrith, her third and fourth daughters Sigern and Siglind, Ellean Rain, Sir Rogier, Sir William Willd and Sir Toby de Hvanar.
"We haven't used this room since I got here," said Sigrith. "My people had to cart all manner of box and pile out to make room. We always eat in the Inner Hall with the long tables."
"Maybe tomorrow night," said the Countess. "After this afternoon's meeting, I'd like to confer in private. All that yelling gave me a headache."
"We might hear the yelling all the way up here, my countess, without you and me there to knock heads together. But I must praise you for the way you knocked heads with mere words--they surely felt the blows, Kersten into the lot. I lose no pride in saying that I have much to learn from watching you. Kersten thinks otherwise."
"And fitz-Mathess thinks you will never learn," said Sir Toby.
"You have learned much from me, Toby, or remembered what others had forgotten. But this is hard, this ruling. It's hard enough when it's just choosing a foe and then splitting the spoils. But there are no spoils to split. Kersten's heart beats not faster for thought of a sack of grain or a barrel of ale."
"She does not appreciate ale," said Vivian. "Nor does Torak, I guess."
"He's a butcher," said Sigrith. "I kill soldiers. Torak just kills whatever's there."
"But you, have you changed your mind about farmers, since the slaughter of my peasants around Hildiwern?"
"My countess, I never did like such slaughter, although I did not love those who raised the grain and tended the herds. Yet I changed my mind indeed, when I saw them making the bread and the beer--when I saw that they were not cowards or weaklings, that they worked each day of their hard lives. Then meseemed it was easiest to plunder and ride off, and the most courage was needed to stand and fight for a patch of ground and a hovel."
The food was hearty, and the beer was all right. After one more pint, and an exchange of childbirth lore, the Thane of Siret and the Countess parted for the night with a hug.
Vivian snooped around and managed to find a closet high up in the keep, with room enough on the floor for herself, a card, a book and two candles. Soon she was in middle-strength trance. She let her sense spread out into the night, away from Hvanar with its unresolved squabbles, on past the scattered camps of Sigrith's Rukh, until she found another castle, sitting in a snowy meadow by a joining of rivers. It was Hildiwern, or Heldvarn, and within were dreams of war and glory, and also of daughters growing strong in the sun. One dream voice was familiar: it had the accents of Sigrith herself, for her eldest daughter Sigfrinda lay stretched out naked in slumber in a big bed with another warrior woman of the Rukh and a Clanishman between them. Bedroom morals were not the only change in the town, where not four years ago Vivian had slept, but there were still Clanish dreams of the old type: for all the slaughter of the years between, still hundreds of her folk tried to live ordinary lives here.
Near at hand were more Rukh: men mostly, dreaming of glory and slaughter but also of pursuit and threat. In many ways were many men dreaming of a hard battle nearly won, of a hunt nearly finished, when a snarl from the trees or a bolt from the blue stopped their triumph. The pursuer became the pursued, and Vivian realized that she was in one way or another the pursued who became the pursuer.
Then she found a great and powerful mind that had finally put away enough dark wine to descend into slumber. She brushed its edge and peeked in, and there written as if in reminder to itself she read something like, "I am Torak the Glorious, at my name men slay themselves and women swoon." From inside she heard only loud mental snoring, so she took a look around, not expecting to like what she found. It was clear enough that he loved not the Countess of Clane, whom he envisioned as a frail old woman and a witch. As for Sigrith, he spat upon her in the winter moot, and he refought the battle on Mount Nikolad again and again, changing not his tactics but only the outcome. He thought her trapped at Hvanar and certainly meant to destroy her this time. There were no plans lying out in the open, no outlines of military campaigns, but plentiful tales of the wars already won by his clan.
Here Vivian saw a sword fight against four foes at once, there a terrible wound survived in the winning of a great victory, then a triumphal march into a conquered city. These images were as if painted in heavy new paint over older ones set in stone. Torak's great mind was also simple. Beneath the paint she found: Torak fighting off a skinny Selacan boy while his warriors took on Robert de Radun's best fighters; a cut on the arm from a desperate angry serving girl, avenged with a knife in the stomach; and the lawless looting of the capital of Selac. Old men and women prayed him to spare them, and he laughed. A wounded Thane Robert and his last warriors stood in the square, challenging him to honorable combat, and he had them cut down with long spears. Women were carried off, raped, slain, wounded soldiers tortured for sport, children branded as slaves, their tongues cut out. She saw the face of a girl of eleven--but then no more, for someone else was there.
A figure in shadow, a hood concealing its face, could be seen through doors in a far chamber. It looked up in surprise to see Vivian: what was she doing here? She stared at it for only a moment before fleeing and dropping from sight. She came awake in the chamber, the right candle still lit, the Priestess turned face down. She rose and gathered her things, and in a few minutes was clinging to her Willd's warm body, and listening to his happy dreams of riding.
The next morning Vivian sent Willd and Ellean off scouting before most locals were up. Meanwhile she toured the province, relaxed, inspected the defenses, talked with officers and peasants and waited for the strength to make the return journey. The combatants from the meeting in the Outer Hall were all on their best behavior: they hoped (she could tell even without their easily-read thoughts) that she would soon leave them to resume their battles. What, besides strength, she was waiting for was not apparent to anyone, but Sir Rogier noted the absence of Vivian's right- and left-hand people.
"Where'd you send them?" he asked in a low voice over breakfast the next day.
"You should find out today," she replied.
"Fact-finding?"
"Good guess. Facts seem to be in short supply around here."
"For instance, facts about the Torak situation?"
"Again, good guess. But no more, all right? We'll soon see."
It was starting to get dark when the riders returned. There were three of them now--Ellean and Willd had been joined by Siglind, as Vivian found out when the three came to her chamber high in the keep. She and Sir Rogier were having a pot of tea and chewing their nails.
"We're back," said Ellean.
"I notice you added personnel. How'd that happen?"
Siglind just smiled. Ellean explained, "She saw us ride out and came after us. I don't think her mother knows. Siglind doesn't talk much."
"I like that in a scout, though I don't always get it. Now what's the news?"
"Um, would you believe eight thousand besiege Hildiwern?"
"Well, yes," said Vivian with a sigh. "Did you get inside?"
"She did," said Ellean, pointing a thumb at the big blond teenager.
"Well? You're my scout too, Siglind, though you signed up without being asked."
"My countess," said the girl, "my sister Sigfrinda will not surrender, that is sure. She has enough warriors, though she worries about supplies. She has enough for spring and summer."
"That'll be plenty of time," said Vivian. "He's not interested in Hildiwern. He's coming here."
"Why do you say that?" asked Sir Rogier.
"Because he likes glory better than a fight," she replied. "We're the bigger prize, by far, and to him we may seem as easy as Hildiwern. What do you think, Siglind?"
"It's true that he looks not like to challenge the walls of Hilda--of Hilida--of Heldvarn, excuse me, Countess."
"Call it that if you want, call it what you've always called it. But say on."
"Well, he has not caused his freight to be unpacked, if you see what I mean, Countess. All his carts are still loaded, his men camped as though to move on."
"They're moving on, all right," said Ellean, "and sooner rather than later. We left there this morning as soon as Siglind got back from inside. They were breaking camp too, only not as efficiently as we were."
"I should think not," Vivian replied. "But even for them it's barely a full day's march to the Hvanar bridge."
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "our business here is done. May I remind you of something you said? It involved the word 'not'. I think it was, 'We are not, not, not going to Hvanar to fight Torak.' I believe there were three 'not's, but it might have been more."
"You're suggesting I slip back over the mountains at a time like this?"
"My lady," he replied patiently, "I merely point out that--"
"But Rogier, do you really think it wise for a woman in my state to undertake such a dangerous journey, four days over the rugged mountain trail? Really! At least give me several weeks to rest and recover my stamina. Perhaps you haven't noticed that I am heavy with child."
Sir Rogier and Willd exchanged resigned looks. The minister of state shrugged. "You're the Countess," he said, "and at least we have an heir just in case."
"Yes," said Vivian, "I didn't go through all that, and make Jen change all those diapers, for nothing. I've been thinking of sending you back, however. Countess Susan would need your guidance at least as much as I did."
"My lady, you jest."
"Not necessarily. Don't you think it'd be wise?"
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, gathering up all his drama, "how can you suggest that a poor weakened old man like myself be subjected to the rigors and dangers of the mountain trail so soon? At least give me several weeks to rest and recover my stamina."
"All right, all right, enough. I suppose I'll have need of you. Willd hates to give me advice, and Ellean thinks too much like me to be a useful counselor." Countess and minister exchanged looks full of knowledge of one another. "Besides, Susan still has Jen and Thane Horst to guide her." She thought for a moment, then looked at Willd. "My love, it occurs to me that reinforcements might be worth looking into: if Torak has drained his available resources for this campaign, then Weaver will again be able to help out, or at least harry supply lines."
"Torak has supply lines?" Sir Rogier put in.
"Oh, certainly," said Vivian. "Until he gets to Hvanar and starts robbing the farms. Willd, my love, how long would it take you to get to Tarnhold?"
"Two days to Nikolad, three more from there, my lady."
"I could do it in four all told," said Ellean.
"Really? How?"
"I'll tell you when I get back. Do I get the job?"
"Well, I'd rather sleep with Willd and send you than the other way around, no offense."
"None taken," said Ellean. "You coming, Siglind?"
"Um, if my mother says it's all right."
"I can't imagine she'd refuse," said Vivian, "since this time you're asking her."
It may have been only a long day's march, but Torak took more than a week making it. Meanwhile Sigrith and Vivian quietly crossed their fingers as their scouts sped to Tarnhold over the rulerless hills; meanwhile, they used the time to make sure that the local farms had nothing left to steal. By 22 April everyone at Hvanar could agree that Torak was coming, and the estimate of his strength rose to nine thousand. Vivian called a council meeting in the outer hall. She was starting to like the idea of being the only one seated.
"My lady," said Hugh fitz-Mathess as soon as Hvanar's priestess had finished her invocation, "one last time I plead with you, let the Rugians fight this out amongst themselves, it need not be our business."
"One last time?" said Sigrith. "I will hold you to your word."
"Fitz-Mathess," said the Countess, "even if I felt as you do, Thane Sigrith has sworn oaths to me, and that binds me to her as well. And we have fought together. You were not at Nikolad, I note, nor were many of your party. I think perhaps you do not have sufficient respect for oaths."
"Test me, then, my lady. I swear I will serve you, even if you command me to fight on the side of the, the, the Thane."
"Well, do you now know Ellimer for a traitor? Do you know that he committed treason by refusing to send me aid?"
"I know it, my lady. I did not counsel him so, although I grant that I was swayed by him."
"You were weak," said the Countess, "to be swayed by one so weak, but strength may come to one who lacked it. I will put you to the test. Part of the test is to believe that I know what I'm doing, even when you cannot see my reasons. I tell you now that Torak is our enemy, not just Sigrith's. It is Clane he wants, and not just the head of the Thane of Siret."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Sigrith.
"I am. And so I call on all of you to decide now: will you stand and fight for the Countess of Clane? Some of you I do not doubt: Sigrith, and my own soldiers, and Sir Toby, and all those soldiers of Siret who came to Nikolad. Hugh, I have heard you swear. What of your allies?"
"They will do as I do," said Hugh fitz-Mathess, "not because I lead them, but because we think alike. None of us will break our oaths to you, my lady."
"I thought so. I thought that when it came down to it, your valor would emerge from behind your disputatious pride." She turned her eyes on Kersten, who found herself in the heat also of Sigrith's blue glare.
"I will fight for you," said Kersten stumblingly.
"And the rest?"
"All the bands that follow me will follow you, Countess," said Sigrith. "We are sixteen hundreds here, and a thousand at Heldvarn. Of the Clanish folk of Siret, four hundred at Heldvarn and here, at least a thousand, counting militia."
"Counting women," said Sir Toby, "but not children and the old."
"And not counting the Countess," said Sir Rogier.
"I can't see why not," said Vivian. "Sigrith's surely going to wield her sword. Oh, well. Let's see. That's over two and a half thousands here in Hvanar. If we count what Sigfrinda has, it's the largest army I've ever fielded. It's just too bad that the enemy happens have the largest army I've ever faced."
"It is the last army of the Rukh that will stand against you," said Sigrith. "It is Torak's last throw of the dice."
"It could be mine as well. One of us will not trouble the other one again. Well." She looked around, and the Clanish men and the warriors of the Rukh all wore the same glum, determined expression. "Well, I don't like our odds especially, but if I were Torak I would be scared to death. He does not know me, if he thinks he can destroy me. He does not know Clane."
"He knows me," said Sigrith, "but he is fool enough to think he can take me anyway. My countess, we will teach him some respect for those who bear the children. Let the ale be brought!"
"Wine, for the Countess," said Sir Toby. "Ellimer's barrel from 768--that was your first year, was it not, my lady?"
"It was," said Vivian.
"An excellent year," said Sigrith.
The wine was brought, and the Countess and her Thane were toasted, and presently Sir Toby turned to Sir Rogier and said, waving his cup at the two pregnant women, "This preparing for battle is just not as it once was."
"I have thought that these five years," said Sir Rogier.
Over the next two days, with a peculiar fitfulness that almost amounted to caution, the invading army took up its position around Hvanar, mostly across the Snow River. Torak's own clan made up a slim majority of the force--so Sigrith told the Countess as they stood looking out from the high parapet of the keep. "Those with the red tents, and those with red and black, those are Torak's."
Vivian looked out with her spy glass. "They all look the same to me."
"Well, my countess, you know the shields and flags of your old King, Emperor I mean, and your Dukes and Counts, and we know the tents and blazons of our clans. Those camped on the road to Heldvarn--they're Egon's men. Faulk's are back there--and back there." She pointed to the east and south.
"Torak's are in the forefront."
"Yes. Egon I think had as lief be elsewhere. Faulk I think is not trusted to fight well, but mayhaps Egon is not trusted to fight at all."
"Maybe we can strike a deal with this Egon."
"Maybe, but not until we have destroyed Torak."
They stood side by side for some time. Presently Kersten came up and stood with them. Her edginess was obvious; finally she said, "Why do we wait behind these walls? Why do we skulk here rather than fight?"
Sigrith smiled indulgently. "You think as Torak wants me to think, my sister. He hopes we wish songs to be sung of how we fell here in glory."
Kersten frowned, then smiled. "Do we not?" she said.
"Kersten, my sister, who gets to make the songs if we lose?"
"Hmph. If we win, we will surely make no songs of him."
"And your daughters, my sister? What of your daughters?"
"Chieftain, my Thane, I have none yet."
"Then skulk with me behind these walls," said the Countess. "Torak must attack us, or his power will wither. If he does not take Hvanar, he is lost. And if he does attack, we will assure that he is lost as well. Then you can have all the daughters you want, and sons too."
"Speak not so!" laughed Sigrith. "I myself have been blessed with four girls, and my dreams tell of another to come, Sigliess to make up for my lost Sigmar. I would not wish it otherwise for Kersten."
"Many daughters, many songs," said Kersten, shaking her head. "Let us skulk, my countess, a little while. When he has broken his strength upon these rocks, then we will come forth with our thirsty swords and slay!"
"I think," said Vivian, "that you have a tiny speck of Clanish in you, my proud Kersten, and I mean that as a compliment."
There was a full moon on 24 April, and the massed army besetting the town took it as a signal to attack. As soon as the sun was well down and the moon up over the craggy horizon, they surged forward, raising their shields over their heads against what was sent down on them from above. Vivian watched it all from the parapet high atop the keep, and she had to work especially hard to remind herself that it was real. At age two, Susan was already building and demolishing cities of blocks, and that seemed to be what was happening this night.
In a textbook castle assault, the defenders might have taken pains not to use too much of their ammunition all at once, for who could know how long the siege would last? This time no one seemed to think it could go on for long, and the buckets of hot tarry oil and the loads of rocks and the spears and arrows and bolts poured down from the walls onto Torak's clansmen, who endured, for the most part, as they brought forth battering rams and tossed up poles notched as ladders and ropes with hooks and weights on their ends. The bridge was held briefly by Clanish archers and Rukh wielding axes, but given up after the first clash. Then the focus of the fight shifted to the main and secondary gates, while assaults on the walls served to distract the defenders. The thud of the rams on the main gate set the rhythm for the awful music of battle. Still the moon rose.
Vivian slipped away. It was the night of the full moon, and, attack or no, she would keep her appointment. She wasted only a moment reflecting on her practiced ease in shutting off even the most vigorous distractions. The treated wine, the candles, the card: this time it showed a tower struck by lightning. It was far from ironic to Vivian. The tower might be Hvanar or Clane; on the other hand, it might be inhabited by Torak or his master. Only passing night would tell.
She fell through the wisps of bane and landed on her feet in the Arch. The new New Woman was with her. Before her, only a few strides away, stood a shadow figure. Vivian's eyes blazed, and as she advanced, her hand on the gem upon her breast, it fell back hissing.
The Lady waited by the fountain. The little girl with the bows in her hair stood near, but she was intent upon something in the water. Vivian looked down: far away, tiny as if seen from the moon, there was a town beset by foes. Turning from the sight, Vivian sat on a stone bench. The Lady had much to tell her and her daughter, and not a great deal of time.
When she was done, Vivian could not tell what questions had been answered or what the answers were, but she knew that Vonnis was at the center of the discussion. Something was there, and then not there. The Lady led Vivian and her daughter back to the Arch, and the shadow figure was nowhere to be seen. Then they stood, the three of them, smiling on one another. Vivian looked again at her daughter to come. She felt a name emerging from somewhere far down. She waited, while the other two watched her face, while, somewhere far away, hundreds slew and were slain and fires rose in the night with the cries of the wounded. She heard no sound, but suddenly she beheld a beautiful woman, lying in a coffin, and Count Edmund, grey and broken, holding her dead hand. Vivian looked upon her daughter and said, "Anne."
Hand in hand, the two stepped through the arch and then Vivian fell alone back into the world. She could see, as she plummeted toward Hvanar, fires in the town square and fighting inside the gate. Then she opened her eyes, and she was sitting in the closet, the candles burning before her. She immediately started to get up, and only then remembered her burden. On the second try, she hoisted herself to her feet.
Hurrying up the stairs as best she could, Vivian found herself surrounded by sounds both loud and distant. The throbbing of the ram on the gate was replaced by the crackling sound of fire and the arrhythmic crash of boulders; the shouts and cries and moans were as before, but closer; and there was a sound not unlike hard rain on a roof, the combining of many clashes of weapon on weapon, on shield, on armor. She panted to the top of the steps and burst out onto the keep roof. A young man stood at the parapet overlooking the gate and the square. She joined him, and it was a moment before he noticed her.
"My lady!" he cried. "You have been sought here on the roof."
"I bet," she said, looking down into the well of the square. "What's going on?"
"They crashed the gate half an hour ago, my lady," the sentry replied. "There was fierce battle there. Now they have the lower town, but we still have the walls and towers all around."
"Good," said Vivian smiling, "very good." He looked at her strangely, but she just smiled back. "Go find the Thane, will you? Or Sir Rogier. Whichever can come."
He bowed militarily and ran to the stair door. Several minutes later, both Sigrith and Sir Rogier came up. "My lady," said the minister of state, "we were looking for you."
"I've been up here for a while. And I had to use the commode. Sigrith will understand."
"I understand this much," said Sigrith smiling, "that Torak has done as we both expected him to. He finds a hole and he sticks his arm in it up to the elbow, reckless of bees and snakes."
"I was thinking of something else he might stick in," said Vivian, "but the arm is good."
"So this was all a plan of yours?" Sir Rogier accused them.
"Sort of," said Vivian. "It suggested itself. How many did we lose?"
"A couple of hundred, I think," said Sir Rogier. "Mostly in the square. Lord Tenill was one. They gave as good as they got, and now Torak's men have to put up with a nasty spot of rain. I only hope we don't run out of arrows."
"Torak's burning what he can," said Sigrith, "to make smoke to hide his men. Luckily this is a town of stone."
"He'll pull his arm out of the hole by daylight," said Vivian, "or he may try to shelter in the houses along the wall. How about his reinforcements?"
"They attack the wall now and again, but can't make a dent."
"Still, they're out there, and to them this must look like victory. We'll have to show them otherwise."
"Another plan?" asked Sir Rogier.
"No," said Vivian, "not yet. Give me time. And get me a chair, my feet are killing me."
The fighting died down well before dawn. Torak indeed pulled his arm out of the hole, under cover of smoke, and reformed across the bridge. Many hundreds of his men lay dead outside. Within, mostly in the square, lay four hundred defenders and seven hundred invaders. "I don't like that exchange," said Sir Rogier, as the leaders of the defense surveyed the scene.
"I don't like to see my soldiers die," said the Countess, "but those were Torak's best, and they'll never fight again."
"What if he settles down for a siege?" asked Sir Toby.
"We don't want that," was all she would say. The question remained on her mind all morning. She took a nap, and when she woke, in the twilight of a drizzly afternoon, she was thinking already of stratagem. It was only after washing her face and ordering tea that she recalled the last image of the dream from which she had just awoken: the face of the girl she had glimpsed in Torak's mind.
Meanwhile the defenders of Hvanar replaced the broken gate as well as they could, nursed their wounds and gathered and prayed over their dead. In the late afternoon, the sun priest of Hvanar performed the ritual of the flower petals for the Countess and the Thane and their captains, and the Rukh, far from thinking it strange, seemed to understand the ceremony better than they understood many things about the Clanish folk.
Then Vivian returned to her chosen closet, lit the righthand candle, set down a card bearing a chariot, sipped dark wine from her father's goblet. The lefthand candle bloomed to light. She reached out beyond the walls of the castle, and had no trouble finding the dreaming mind of the barbarian chieftain, who was catching a nap before nightfall and the resumption of hostilities. He was fighting many foes, winning the hearts and bodies of buxom girls, crushing the upstart Sigrith, defeating the witchcraft of the Countess. Then he started: for there she was indeed. You will never take me, she said, laughing at him in his dream. You weakling. He broke off his battle and charged after her, but, heavy with child though she was, she escaped him. The last things he heard before waking were her laughter--and hoofbeats from the north.
Vivian heard them too, just as she returned to herself. One more reason for him to throw everything at us, she thought, as she laboriously rose to her feet.
The second night of the assault began as the first night had. The makeshift gate gave way more easily than the original equipment, and the defenders fell back into the upper town and the walls and towers without even the most perfunctory fight in the square. Torak ordered the gate wall taken, and a vicious battle ensued. While Vivian watched from the keep roof, the battering rams reduced large parts of the wall to rubble, among which the opposing bands of Rukh fought bitterly. Meanwhile the Clanish archers used up half their remaining store of arrows, pouring down missile fire upon the square and the lower town. For three hours it went on with increasing intensity, until Torak had used the rams, and his usual subtlety, to make the square inside the gate part of the outside. Vivian began to wonder whether she had not made him angrier than was wise.
Before midnight, however, his reinforcements began to waver. Torak's battle leaders could be heard yelling orders again and again at those outside. The defenders too began looking around, as though they all smelled a shift in the breeze. That wasn't it: the drizzly night went on with hardly a breath of wind. Then, in the small hours, like a misplaced cock-crow they heard, clear and far off, the sound of horns.
"What is it? What is it?" Vivian asked the man next to her.
"That's Weaver's horn-call," Willd answered. "And that one is Sigfrinda's."
"What's Torak going to do? He's not going to attack them, is he?"
"I don't know, my lady. Shall I go ask him?"
"No, that's all right. Willd, have you been with me so long that you, even you, have picked up sarcasm? No, you stay right here by me. I may need you to tell Sigrith to let loose the attack. Angeline would never forgive me if anything happened to Francis."
They stood there on the keep roof and watched as Torak's men slowly got the message. They fought on, but their hearts weren't in it, and within an hour their own horns sounded the retreat. When day came, it found the Rukh camped again across the Snow River. Messengers from the new force came to the Countess and her servants, sitting around in the inner hall of the keep.
"We've got twelve hundred," said Ellean. "Weaver brought five hundred, and when we came to Hildiwern and found it unchallenged, Sigfrinda joined us with seven hundred more."
"And you, Siglind," said Sigrith, "how did you fare in this ride? Are you turning into an errand-rider?" Siglind blushed.
"She is," said Ellean. "What's wrong with that? It's at least as dangerous as fighting Torak."
"You breed them bold for their size," said Sigrith to Vivian with a grin.
"I didn't have anything to do with breeding this one," Vivian replied. "Now tell us, errand-rider, what is the disposition of their forces?"
"Confused," said Ellean. "One bunch is blocking the road in front of Weaver and Sigfrinda, but they're packing up. The rest seem pretty dissolute."
"My lady," said Willd, "if I may."
"Please."
"That would be Egon's force blocking the road. They are two thousands, and have not fought at all these past two nights. The rest, Torak's and Faulk's, amount to perhaps four thousands as of this morning, not counting wounded."
"Well, you've been busy," said Ellean. "Weren't there eight or nine thousand?"
"Nine," said Vivian. "You missed all the fun, gallivanting off to Tarnhold to avoid a fight."
Ellean was about to retort when a captain of the Rukh came in, another big blonde clad in chainmail. "My chieftain," she said, then, glancing at Vivian, "my countess."
"I'm not your chieftain, I'm the fucking Thane," said Sigrith. "What is it?"
"My thane, Pig Torak challenges you to single combat."
"Whaaat?" said Vivian.
Sigrith smiled. "Does he? I'm happy to. Tell him, noon, on the bridge. That is not a haggling point, it is how it will be, and if he likes it not, he can go elsewhere looking for a fight."
"Yes, my thane," said the warrior, who turned and left with a smirk.
"Are you sure this is wise?" asked Vivian. "He can't win militarily, so we offer him a chance to kill you sword to sword?"
"Countess, he has no more chance of killing me sword to sword than he would spitting at me from a hundred paces."
"But then he has a trick up his sleeve."
"That's sure, and the knowing is enough to forestall the doing." Sigrith met the Countess's blue eyes with her own. "It were inglorious to hold back from fighting him. How can I yield to him the glory that he has always lacked?"
"But he's manipulating your adherence to the code of honor."
"Countess, do you wish a Clanish reason? As you have said, Torak cannot win now, and cannot leave without winning. If I do not fight him and kill him, he will kill himself by throwing his men at us this night one last time. Or he may seek to cut his way out through your marshal and my daughter. Either way, many of my clan and many of yours would fall."
"All right," said Vivian, "it's clear I've met my match in the field of lame rationalization. Just don't get yourself killed."
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "you now know what it's like to be me."
At noon on the twenty-sixth day of April of 773, a gathering appeared on the bridge of Hvanar like none Vivian had ever seen. Rukh of various badges stood at either end of the bridge, joined on the town side by Clanish soldiers, lords and townsfolk. Standing before the wreckage of the gate and its wall, Sigrith was half-circled by her three surviving daughters, the Countess, Willd, Sir Toby, Kersten, Hugh fitz-Mathess, Anne Atgate, Ellean Rain, Valerie de Nikolad, Sir Rogier, Sir Francis Weaver and several warrior-women wearing only ferocious expressions and broadswords slung on belts over their shoulders. At the other end of the bridge stood Torak's captains, and in their midst were three aging warlords. Vivian casually examined them: she had been feeling stronger lately, and Torak's mind was beginning to seem like her home turf.
She had never until now beheld Torak in the living world. He was tall, of course, but not more so than Sigrith. He had probably fifty pounds that she lacked, although some of that was in his belly, and he was not with child. He had strong shoulders and legs, and he bore the scars of many fights, and as he looked down the bridge at them he laughed. The other two were not laughing. Vivian, glancing across their minds, found them doubtful and full of schemes of self-preservation.
Then Torak cast off his cloak and advanced, hefting his broadsword in one hand, then the other. Sigrith looked to her daughter Sigfrinda, who took up her hand and kissed it before putting the hilt of a broadsword in it. Vivian was concentrating on Torak: surely he had a scheme. The merest glance into his heart revealed it. He was thinking of the knife at his belt. She grabbed Sigrith's free hand and pulled her back.
"The knife," said Vivian. "It's poisoned."
"Of course it's poisoned. It wouldn't be Torak's knife if it weren't poisoned."
"You'll be careful?"
"My countess, he won't get close enough to use it." She clasped Vivian's hand, then turned away and walked, with her slow swinging gait, down the bridge. It was almost comical, a woman with child wielding a broadsword against a man similarly burdened with belly, but no one so much as smiled.
When they stood within the length of two swords, the two warriors began their ritual taunting in the most poetic form of their language. Torak went first, perhaps because he was the elder. Vivian was always fascinated by words in another tongue, by the magic of phrases full of hidden meaning and poetry, but this time she had the impression that blows were being struck. She thought it likely that Sigrith was coming out ahead, but it seemed sure to go on for some time.
Restlessly Vivian reached out and leafed through Torak's mind. She could not quite see what was being said there, but he certainly was full of emotion. She saw the wall of Hvanar fall, and then heard again and again Francis Weaver's horn blowing. She saw once more the fight in the square at Radun, where Thane Robert was cut down. As before, she first saw Torak's version, where he fought heroically against the odds, and then the truth that Torak hid from himself. Then once again she saw the face of the girl, tormented, looking up as from deep beneath waters.
Torak flinched, stumbled over words. Sigrith laughed in his face, added another insult before he could finish his own taunt. He growled, glanced reflexively toward Vivian. She could not change her look quickly, and she saw the color of his fear as he beheld black doom in her face. You shall die in this land: the words to the shadow figure rose up in her mind, not meant for Torak, but he heard that incantation echoing in the halls of his heart.
Sigrith, circling, let Faulk and Egon know just what she thought of Torak. Meanwhile Torak strove to regain his balance. Vivian saw again the face of the girl, and then the rest of her. The girl's story rose unbidden from the dungeons of Torak's diseased heart. She was Selacan, eleven years old. Radun had fallen, and Thane Robert and his sons were dismembered and rotting in the square. The girl was alive yet, but bound, and Torak was taking his pleasure. She cried out in torment, and he clobbered her with his clenched fist. When she lay like a broken doll, he picked her up by the neck, and, staring into that face, he strangled her.
You! Vivian shouted in his mind as if she were shouting into his ear. He stood straight up and stared at her. She held him by the base of the skull. He stared helpless, clueless. What are you? she called to him silently. Is this what you do? She held up the girl's face before him, and he quailed, for some part of him liked not what he had done, but she would not let him turn away.
All about was silent: Sigrith waited, grinning, while the others looked back and forth between the great warlord and the tiny, frail, pregnant Countess. What battle did they fight, twenty paces separated? Who was the stronger?
There was no contest. It was not a battle, but a mouse caught by a mama cat. Vivian shook him until blood seeped from his eyes. He pleaded. She showed him again the face from the deeps of his memory. He struggled one last time. Pity did not rise in her heart. With a rush of anger and a quick snap, she broke him.
Vivian almost swooned, but Willd and Sigfrinda held her up. Before them, in the middle of the bridge, stood Sigrith laughing in the turned face of her foe. He seemed to shrug, and his eyes half shut, and then he collapsed like a great ugly mountain undermined by rains, crumpled with irresistible momentum to the ground.
"Lord Tenill's house will be rebuilt for his heir," said the Countess. "It was pledged before me, and it shall be done."
"Yes, Countess," said Kersten. All the Rukh had been walking on eggshells around Vivian these past few days.
"Hugh fitz-Mathess, you will see that a monument is erected to the fallen. All the fallen."
"Yes, my lady."
"And the gate? We should not need it this year, but you never know with these savages, right, Sigrith?"
"Oh, right," said the Thane. "Egon and Faulk want no more of me or you, that's sure. But just in case, the gate and wall will be restored by midsummer."
"Scribe Atgate, what is the final toll?"
"We counted seven hundred and ninety-three dead of our side, my lady. The attackers lost at least four thousand one hundred and sixty."
"Their dead should be recognized on the monument as well." Hugh fitz-Mathess nodded, as Vivian went on. "Their chieftains were evil fools, and Torak the most foolish and evil of the lot, but the warriors fought without question, and nearly half of them fell. Like most war, it was pointless, without glory or honor, but these were denied even the consolation of dying to defend their homes and children. May the Sun warm their unnamed ashes."
"May the Sun shine on them," several of the Clanish muttered reflexively.
Vivian sighed. "I return tomorrow over the mountain trail. If I have praised you all insufficiently, I make up for it now. Had I led you foolishly, most of you would have followed me anyway. When the crunch came, you forgot your squabbles and joined together for Clane and for your children and your homes." She sighed again. "May the Sun light our way, on our shadowed road, and may Its Light guide me, that I not miss the path as Torak did. And may I and my heirs always find such strong hands and hearts as yours to strive with our enemies."
"It's our honor to serve you and your line," said Sir Toby de Hvanar.
"Let me," said Kersten rising, her goblet in her hand. "To the Countess!"
All raised their cups, but Vivian only raised her hand. "No, I cannot toast myself," she said. "To Clane!"
"To Clane!" shouted Kersten lustily, and they laughed as they drained their mugs, though not a few tears were smudged from the corners of eyes when each thought the others did not see.
On the first of May, the Countess and her company departed from Hvanar over the mountain roads. She came to Nikolad napping under its mountain and a crystalline sky on the afternoon of the fourth. The planting was in full swing, the baby Prince Othus laughed and grabbed, Lady Sue patrolled the halls in search of victims, and Jack fled at rumor of her, for he and his mother were back from Tarnhold.
Through sunny afternoons and rainy ones, Vivian and Angeline and the somewhat less pregnant Mirabel sat on the balcony over the square and chatted. The story of Torak's sudden death changed in Vivian's telling until he was dying of fright at the thought of fighting Sigrith. "And perhaps the shame of things he had done came back to him at last," she would add. The other women nodded. That was probably it, they would say.
On the last day of May, Angeline went into labor. Vivian was at her side, holding the hand not in Francis's keeping. When at last Angeline held her newborn son, she smiled through her exhaustion and said, "That wasn't so bad. I think I'll have a bunch of them."
"Fine," said Vivian. "You can have mine as well."
On the morning of the second day of June, Vivian awoke from dreams of pursuit and knew this was the day. "Willd," she said, "get Miranda."
All day she fought, all day the child struggled to find her way through the narrow passage of her mother's hips, and as the sun set it seemed that no herb or drug would speed the delivery or obscure the pain. Vivian clutched at Willd's hand, cursed all and sundry and finally blacked out.
There waiting in the darkness for her was a shadow figure. It had been waiting all along for this moment of weakness. She could not move, as it strove to approach her, its outstretched hands clutching toward her powerless soul. Yet it knew something of her strength it had not known before, and it was wary. Beside her stood the Lady of the Fountain, and it seemed they strove over Vivian's motionless form, strove like equal armies locked together on an open and bloody plain. The grown-up Susan was there, and even Willd was there, and still the shadow thing reached toward Vivian's heart.
Then a ghost interposed itself, a spirit given form in Vivian's mind. It was the girl from Radun, the victim of Torak and the last thing his thought had beheld. Now this girl stood before a vast mysterious foe, and it retreated before her sacrifice and her courage. Hissing, it fell back into a shadow and vanished. The girl from Radun turned her dark hollow eyes upon Vivian, and suddenly smiled. "Thank you, my Countess," she said.
The vision blurred as a great shock of pain shot through Vivian. She cried out, contorted her face and body, and then opened her eyes on a world filled with noise. Angeline smiled down on her. Willd seemed distracted by something going on at the foot of the bed.
"It's a daughter," said Miranda, handing Vivian the wailing thing.