In the Red Lord's Reach Read online

  Simir stood, tall and impassive, his thick arms crossed over his broad chest, waiting till the murmuring of the crowd should cease. His closest companions surrounded his sons, penning them in, returning their black looks with cool ones. Simir himself ignored them. At last he spoke, and the few whispers that remained died away at his first word.

  "You know my sons," he said, not shouting, but with a carrying voice. "My sons Gilo, Marak, and Terevli. Last night they tried to kill me. As you see, they failed."

  There was some muttering in the crowd, but not much. The word had spread quickly with the sunrise, and few were surprised to hear it spoken now.

  "They were proper sons once," Simir said. "Though they have not pleased me much in recent years, I have tried to be lenient with them, because they are my flesh and blood. Now there must be an end to leniency. If any of them would speak his mind before I pass judgment on them, let him do so."

  "Father, you misunderstand completely!" said Marak. "It was the stranger attacked you, the minstrel." With a thrust of his chin, he signed toward Alaric, who stood near the front of the crowd, beside Zavia. "We were only trying to beat him off!"

  Simir did not even glance at him. "Marak is always ready with a lie," he said. "He thinks I didn't notice that his blows were aimed at me. And poor Terevli—surely he will blame everything on Gilo; he always does." He looked at the boy, the youngest of the three, but Terevli's sullen face was downcast. "Perhaps only Gilo will have the courage to admit his crime. Gilo, whom his mother loved better than the others. It is well that she did not live to see this day. She would be ashamed of him."

  Gilo stared up at his father, his back very straight in spite of the ropes that bound him. His battered face would have been pitiable had the eyes not been so defiant.

  "Gilo?" said Simir.

  Gilo's mouth twisted. "Do what you will with me, Father. You have found another to take my place."

  Simir gazed down on him for a long moment. Then he said, "You are the ringleader. Yours must be the greater punishment."

  "Will you kill me yourself, Father?"

  Slowly, Simir shook his head. "No, Gilo, someone else shall have that pleasure."

  Zavia's hand tightened on Alaric's. He glanced at her and saw that little smile of triumph on her lips; he felt a shiver climb his back. No, he thought, he wouldn't do that.

  Simir went on. "You have told us many times how you yearn to meet the Red Lord. Now you shall have your wish. You shall be taken to his valley and left there naked and weaponless, bound fast to a tree. You shall see what the Red Lord considers proper treatment of a stranger." He turned to the other boys. "And you two shall leave Simir's band, and if any of us ever sees you again, on the plain or at the calving grounds, I will count your lives forfeit. From this moment, you are no longer my sons."

  The crowd exhaled a collective breath, and Alaric wondered if they had expected to see an execution or three that day. Beside him, Zavia was clearly disappointed, her shoulders slumping.

  "But I will have another son," Simir said, "if he wishes it." He turned to face Alaric, and he stretched out his hand. "I owe my life to the minstrel, to his courage and his quickness. I would have him as my son."

  Alaric saw all eyes look to him. The nomads murmured. Zavia turned to him, smiling, and then she threw her arms about him and hugged him tight.

  "Me?" His shoulder throbbed, and he felt very tired; he had hardly slept at all that night. He tried to shrink back into the crowd, but people behind him pushed him forward. Simir's hand was beckoning. "I am not worthy to be your son, Simir."

  "Worthier than these," Simir replied, indicating the boys with the merest tilt of his head. "Stay with us, Alaric. Make your home with us. We will be your family."

  Alaric's mouth was suddenly very dry. "This is a kind offer, Simir," he said. "But you would be disappointed in me as a son. I am only a minstrel. Nothing more."

  "You have a special strength, Alaric. I owe it my life. We may have more need of it someday."

  Alaric looked up into his face. Does he know? Did he see, last night? No, I was a shadow among shadows. What could he possibly have seen ?

  He had not noticed Kata glide up, but there she was, at his elbow, holding a shallow bronze cup in her two hands.

  "Alaric," said Simir, taking the cup, "this is the Elixir of Life. We of the north drink it when we enter the adult life of the band. I drank it when they took me in, so many years ago. Now you shall drink, and become our brother."

  Alaric glanced from Kata to Simir. Has she told him ? The liquid in the cup was dark and oily and gave off a pungent smell, though not unpleasant.

  "I have never had a home," he said.

  "We welcome you," said Simir.

  "We welcome you," said Kata.

  He looked over his shoulder, at Zavia, who stood in the crowd and smiled; so proud she was of him, so proud. He looked to the three bound youths, who stared back with hatred in their eyes. He looked at Simir and saw… pleading. He was a man who had lost so much he held dear. Would this have happened if I hadn't come? Alaric had no answer for that, or none that eased his conscience. He closed his eyes and thought of a forest glen in the south. He could be there in an instant. Or he could walk away, out of their lives, and never be seen in the north again. What do I care for him, after all? I could say good-bye and wander on. As I always have. He opened his eyes and looked at the cup, at the oily dark liquid. Or I could stay, for him, for Zavia. He looked at Simir again, and remembered all his kindness, his friendship. Perhaps he did know. And still he offered welcome. And Kata… Kata, whose magic lay in herbal distillations and in her compelling eyes—Kata stood beside him in the bright day, and without her smoke and her fire and her potions she was not so terrible, save in his memory; she was, instead, a creature of the natural world just as he was, just as a bear or a snake was, and no more or less frightening than either of those; and he knew, glancing at her, that he could run from her now, that nothing would hold him back. He could run. If he wanted to.

  Alaric's shoulder throbbed, and he was very tired, in his body, in his mind—tired of saying good-bye, tired of wandering alone, tired of having no one and nothing. Not for them, he thought at last. For me.

  Gravely, he took the cup and drank. The taste was pungent as cloves and faintly sweet. It seemed to flood through him, filling him up, stomach, heart, head, to the very tips of his fingers. The throbbing in his shoulder faded away. And the weariness seemed to go with it. He stood a little straighter, breathed a little deeper. As if he had never noticed it before, he suddenly felt the sunlight on his face, spring sunlight, fresh and warm. He felt as if he had drunk it along with the Elixir. A new day, a new spring, a new life.

  "I have been raised from the dead," he whispered.

  Kata took the cup. "You will heal quickly now."

  Simir smiled at Alaric and said, "And you have healed me already."

  Then Zavia was beside him, kissing his cheek, and all the rest of the band pressed forward with congratulations and good wishes for their new member. And everyone seemed to have forgotten completely the three boys who waited sullenly for their fates.

  Part Five

  The Arctic Waste

  "I MUST DO this myself," said Simir. "It would be wrong to leave it to another." He was lashing a small pack to the back of his riding deer, no more than the bare necessities of life. The men who would ride south with him were waiting, men with sternly set faces and bleak eyes, a hard and unforgiving escort for the three youths who sat trussed and silent in their midst.

  "But you are the high chief," Alaric said. "The people need you."

  Simir shook his head. "They know the way north without me. And Kata will be here, if some dispute needs settling."

  "But it's dangerous." He gripped Simir's thick arm, as if to hold him back. "What if something happens to you? What will we do?"

  The high chief clapped Alaric's hand with his own and then slid away from it, mounting the deer with the grace of a man
half his size. From his new height, he gave Alaric a grim smile. "We," he said, and he reached down to tousle the minstrel's dark hair. "It's good to hear you say that. My son." He looked over the camp, the tents, the fires, the people all gathered to watch him and his companions. "If I have not returned by the time the snows come, you shall choose a new leader." Then he turned his face to Alaric once more. "But I don't doubt that I shall be back long before that. I have not reached this age without learning to deal with danger."

  "Simir," said Alaric. He could not bring himself to call the man father; adoption felt too strange to him yet. "Let me go with you. I'll beguile your evenings with song. The journey won't seem so long that way."

  The high chief shook his head. "We ride hard and fast, lad. We'll have no time for music. Besides, how do you think Zavia would feel if I took you away from her?"

  Alaric glanced over his shoulder; she was some distance off, standing with a few other women at the nearest fire, but watching him, and smiling. The thought of leaving her made his heart ache, but the thought of letting Simir enter the Red Lord's valley with only these few followers made it race with foreboding. No outsider was safe in that valley, not unless he had a witch's power to slip from the very clutches of the enemy. Or a witch to help him do it. Simir was tall and broad, with the strength of two ordinary men. But in the Red Lord's valley, how much would strength tell against numbers?

  "I could be useful…"he began.

  Simir silenced him with a raised hand. "If you would please me, go north with my people. Beguile their evenings with song."

  "Simir—"

  "And there's an end to the matter."

  Alaric sighed. Does he know? he wondered, for the dozenth time. Events had moved so fast, the judgment, the adoption, the readying for the journey—there had been no moment to take him aside and discover, by indirection, if he knew Alaric's secret. And no moment to ask Kata, either, if she had revealed it. Shall I follow, in case he needs me?

  "Don't worry so hard, lad," Simir said. "We know what we're about." And with that, he turned his mount toward the south and led his little caravan out of camp.

  Alaric walked half a hundred paces after them, past the last cluster of tents, the last picketed animals. Hard and fast they rode indeed, and none of them looked back… none but Gilo. Bound up tight, stiff and straight on his deer, he turned his head to cast a final glance at the stranger who was his downfall. A hate-filled and defiant glare it was, and it made Alaric flinch but did not make him look away. Rather, he found his gaze held fast by that receding figure, trussed and helpless and doomed, and yet so far from any sign of repentance. Before long, men and deer were like bobbing dolls in the distance; soon, very soon, they would vanish into the flat immensity of the plain.

  "Don't go."

  The voice at Alaric's elbow made him start, half ready to vanish in his own way, but he stifled the impulse. It was Kata.

  "You must not help him, minstrel," she said. "You, of all people, must let him do this in his own fashion."

  It came home to Alaric that she was speaking of the high chief. He looked after the dwindling figures again. "This is my fault," he said. "I owe him help."

  "You don't understand, my Alaric. This has been coming for a long time. You were merely the excuse. The boys were spoiled and insolent. Simir thought they would gain wisdom and steadiness with age, but I think not. The people did not trust them. Gilo would never have been high chief, nor the others, not unless time changed them out of all recognition. But time rarely does such things; we are what we are, from an early age." She caught hold of Alaric's chin with one hand and forced him to look at her. "You, for example, my Alaric—you are a coward. You will never be more, no matter that you sprang to Simir's aid last night, no matter that you want to go with him now. Your first thought always is to run. You even fight by running, by dodging, never by standing your ground to face the enemy. You should throw your sword away, my Alaric, or put it to use cutting your meat."

  Alaric met her cold gaze steadily. "I won't deny I'm a coward, lady. But we are what we are, as you say, and we must all make the best of it."

  "You will never be high chief."

  Startled, he stepped back, pulling away from her. "I? High chief?"

  "He wants it. Don't you know, minstrel? He sees wisdom in your songs."

  "Not my wisdom. Not most of it."

  "He sees… you in twenty years, ready to take his place."

  "Oh, surely one of your own people would be the proper choice…"

  "He was not of our people, once."

  Alaric looked toward the southern horizon. The riders were mere dots now, against the pale green of the plain. "Is that why he adopted me? For this dream of a son as high chief?"

  "That was part of it."

  Alaric shook his head. "He is blinded by grief now, lady. But he'll see me clearly when a little time has passed." He turned back to her. "And you'll be here to tell him the truth."

  "Always."

  He studied her face, so expressionless yet so knowing, as if all the world were transparent to her. How many of the nomads, he wondered, had yielded their hidden depths—their desires, their fears, their shames—to her? As he had. "Have you told him about me?"

  She looked toward the horizon then. "He knows."

  They stood together for some small time after that, silent, each gazing southward, till there was nothing left to see but the rolling plain and a few clouds in the morning sky. At last she said, "You will not follow, will you?"

  Alaric sighed. "No."

  "I did not think you would."

  He doesn't want me along, Alaric thought. But he could not help wondering, in some small corner of his mind, if his real reason was not that, with time to think about the venture, fear had begun to creep upon him. In the valley of the Red Lord, even a man with a witch's power could die.

  Behind him, he could hear the nomads striking their tents. It was time to resume the long trek north.

  ****

  WITH SIMIR GONE, Kata took a more active part in the life of the band. Instead of shutting herself away in her tent as soon as camp was made, she sat by the fire on Simir's own rugs for much of the afternoon, speaking quietly to his old companions, and sometimes asking for songs from Alaric. She was like some pale reflection of the high chief, carrying out his role, but without his joy and spirit. No one complained, but everyone seemed subdued, and even Alaric's most amusing songs could not provoke the laughter that Simir would have offered them.

  And with Simir gone, people found fewer excuses to visit his fire, and spent less time there when they did come. Instead, they moved about a good deal, from fire to fire, from task to task. A restlessness pervaded the camp, a feeling of tension and unnecessary busyness. The children played harder, the hunters ranged farther, the herders used their switches of woven grass more often. Yet in all this disquiet there were few disputes, as if Simir's people would not allow themselves to quarrel while he was not there to judge.

  Some of the nomads' restlessness was channeled into archery and swordplay. Alaric had seen the men pair off for competition before, and coach their sons as well, but never so assiduously. Now they sent their arrows at man-shaped targets and clashed their blades one against another as if preparing for some invasion, though everyone he asked assured him that there was no enemy on the plains, and none expected. But it was good, they said with equal certainty, to keep one's skills honed. And after saying so, they would look to the south, where only grass was visible to the horizon.

  After observing for some days, Alaric asked if he might join their sport, just as a novice. For a small space, then, each afternoon, he set his lute aside and gave himself over to the interplay of steel and steel, with a borrowed shield of wood and hard-cured leather on his left arm, with sweat prickling his body under borrowed leather armor. Though he was not without grace, from practice long ago, he found himself a novice indeed compared to nomad youths of his age, and rarely did any onlooker cheer a stroke from
his arm. But that didn't matter to him. He hadn't joined in to pretend to be something he was not, but to make his days fly faster. For he, too, was restless, and all his songs, and all of Zavia's sweet distraction, could not prevent him from turning to the south half a dozen times a day.

  At last, one morning when the nomad camp lay silent in sleep, and dawn twilight had yet to give way before the rising disk of the sun, Alaric's restlessness overcame him. He could guess how far each day's hard ride would take Simir's company, and he thought they must be in the mountains by now, they must be near that terrible valley. Softly, he crept from Zavia's tent and stole away through the tall grass. When he was a hundred paces from the camp, he dropped to the ground and vanished.

  He appeared on a slope high above the valley. He did not know what route Simir had planned through the mountains, but he was sure the high chief's goal must be a place visible to the goatherds that visited these heights. He made a sweep of the likeliest-looking approaches, flitting from tree to boulder to tree, but he saw and heard no token of man or deer.

  He returned, lying on his belly, to a spot nearly a mile from camp, and he walked the rest of the way in, as an ordinary person would. The nomads were waking by then; Zavia was waking, and he told her that he had been answering a call of nature.

  The next morning he made another fruitless search, and the next. On the fourth trip, he found what he was seeking.

  He saw nothing of Simir and his bleak-eyed men; he supposed they had arrived by night and gone away as soon as their work was done. They were probably well to the north already, and safe. But true to Simir's word, they had left Gilo tied fast to a tree, in full view of the valley.

  It was a lightning-blasted stump, thick and gray and broken off jaggedly two man-heights above the ground, like a clutching fist half-buried in the earth. Gilo stood against it like a statue, his head back, his eyes staring, a fingerlike root separating his knees. On his face, hatred mingled with fear in an expression that was at once ugly and pathetic. The brightening twilight showed dark smears of blood around the rawhide binding his arms, signs of the struggle he had given over.