In the Red Lord's Reach Page 2

  He was awakened by the heavy sound of boots tramping across the floor. He opened his eyes to pale dawn twilight and a room filled with babbling people. The cotters were all there, all talking at once, and the lamb was bleating loudly above the melee. Listening silently was a knot of armed men—five of them, in chain-mail shirts and dark leather, hands resting on sheathed swords, heads covered by brass-studded caps.

  "We would have come," Alaric's host was stammering. "We would have come straight after dawn." His wife wailed wordlessly, standing behind her man as behind a shield, clutching the lamb to her bosom. The other man and the boy pressed close.

  The leader of the armed men stared at Alaric, and when he saw that the minstrel was awake, he stretched out one arm and shouted, "You!"

  The cotters fell silent as if their throats were cut, and they all turned to look at Alaric.

  He rose slowly, brushing straw from his clothing and lute. "Good morn," he said.

  "The Red Lord wants you," said the soldier. "We are your escort."

  Alaric smiled slightly. "I thank the Red Lord for his invitation," he said. "I will wait upon him immediately."

  "Give him some bread," said the soldier, and Alaric's erstwhile host scurried to gather a crust and some scraps of cheese, which he thrust into the minstrel's hands. "And a draft of water as well, for the journey." The cotter signaled the boy, who brought a bucket and dipper.

  "Thank you," said Alaric, and he bowed to the family and to his escort before dipping up a long, cold drink. Then he shouldered his knapsack and lute and marched out of the cottage munching his breakfast, surrounded by armed and armored men. Behind him, he heard the goatherd whistling a familiar tune.

  The soldiers set an easy pace, as if they were in no particular hurry. They had not taken his knife or searched his baggage for other weapons, or drawn a blade on him, so he felt safe enough. There was a sword in his knapsack, but he did not think of extracting it for defense; if real danger presented itself, he could always vanish. He understood the Red Lord's interest in newcomers, and belatedly he wondered if he should not have ignored his weariness and extended his journey to the castle instead of stopping the night at the peasant's home. He hoped the Red Lord did not consider his actions discourteous—there was a poor footing for a cordial relationship. He had noticed in his travels that royalty and nobility tended to be intolerant of faults in lesser mortals, whether such faults were real or fancied. He prepared himself to be as humble and charming as possible. He wondered if the Red Lord had a young daughter or wife; that usually helped in awkward situations. Alaric was fully aware of his own physical attractions.

  He smiled at his escort and began to sing along the way, and to strum the lute, a marching tune he had heard once among the young warriors of a castle far to the south. The men fell into step about him, treading to his meter. They passed a few peasants, who turned to stare at the men marching to music, and Alaric smiled at them and nodded. But they never smiled back.

  Has it been such a hard winter? Alaric wondered. Or am I in bad company?

  The castle loomed ahead, pennants fluttering on its battlements, pikes visible on the shoulders of pacing guards at the top of the wall. The portcullis was up; Alaric and his escort marched past it, and it did not lower behind them.

  Peacetime, he thought, seeing men-at-arms lolling at their ease in the courtyard, some half out of their armor, few practicing their skills against the wooden dummies that waited for mock attack. Peacetime, but the peasants do not look kindly upon their protectors. High taxes, perhaps? A small valley and many soldiers to support…

  The keep was a massive tower, dark with age and pitted by weather. They entered. The Red Lord awaited them in the high-ceilinged central room, amid tapestries ancient and faded, amid fine furniture rubbed smooth with the touch of many bodies, upon a flagstone floor grooved by the tread of many feet. They followed that worn path to his chair.

  The Red Lord was tall and gaunt and no longer young. His flowing hair and beard were blond—the blond that comes when red hair fades and silver mingles with the darker strands. His eyes were gray and cold like the winter sky, his skin as pale as ice. From throat to ankle he wore crimson cloth—tunic, cloak, and hose—and his shoes were of red leather. Upon his right hand, a massive ruby-tinted gemstone shone like the eye of a serpent.

  The soldiers knelt before him, and Alaric instantly followed suit. The leader of the escort took his master's hand and kissed the ring. "This is the man, Lord," he said.

  Alaric peered up cautiously as the Red Lord turned to him. A scar, paler even than the white skin, showed above the man's collar—lucky he was, Alaric thought, to be alive after such a wound.

  "Your name," said the Red Lord, his voice deep and booming as a drum, carrying throughout the room. Alaric felt his skin prickle. There were other people in the room, men in addition to those who had entered with him, and their utter silence was a sign of respect beyond any he had ever seen. No seneschal needed call for quiet in that chamber, neither before nor after the master spoke.

  "My lord, I am Alaric the minstrel."

  "Your home," said the Red Lord.

  "I have none, Highness. I travel the wide world, seeking food and shelter where I may, trading my songs for bread."

  "Why have you come here?"

  Alaric bowed his head. "I wander, Lord. I have no reason for going anywhere, merely fancy. The mountains were there, and I wished to know if I could cross them. I did hear tales of a great Northern Sea beyond them, and I thought it might be an interesting sight. I had no pressing obligations calling me elsewhere."

  The Red Lord glanced at his soldiers. "We found no other strangers," said their leader.

  "I had no companions, Highness," said Alaric.

  The Red Lord extended his right hand toward Alaric's face. "You may kiss my ring."

  Alaric touched his lips to the cool gemstone, smelled a faint, sweet perfume on the hand that bore it. The white skin was dry and taut against the bones, an old man's head, but steady.

  The Red Lord nodded. "I will hear your songs at dinner." To his soldiers, he said, "See to his comfort." He waved a dismissal.

  As a body, they rose, and Alaric also scrambled to his feet. The master of the castle had already turned away to speak to someone else. Relieved, Alaric followed his escort out to the courtyard, where spring sunshine dispelled the chill that had settled on his heart in the chamber. The Red Lord was a forbidding man, a fit match for the mountains that ringed his realm, and Alaric could not relish the thought of trying to entertain him.

  The soldiers led him to their own barracks, a stone and a wooden shelter built against the castle wall. Within, straw pallets made two long rows on either side, each pallet separated narrowly from its neighbor by a naked strip of hard-packed earth. Above the straw hung weapons and armor and bits and pieces of clothing—every man's possessions exposed for all his comrades to see. Upon every bed was a pillow of sorts, either a wooden box or a lumpy bundle, and Alaric guessed that these hid whatever other fancies the soldiers might own. How they kept their valuables secret, he knew not, unless they wore them on their persons at all times. Or else, he thought, they have none.

  The minstrel was assigned a bare spot far from the door, and his escort tramped up and down the rows, collecting a handful of straw from each pallet until they had enough for an extra one. They left Alaric to shape it himself.

  "You'll be called when you're needed," the leader told him.

  Alaric nodded and dropped his knapsack where a pillow should have been. Although his own escort marched out of the barracks, he was not left alone; several men sat about, polishing or honing their weapons, mending clothes, or merely lying still upon their straw. Alaric was certain that they all watched him out of the corners of their eyes—he expected no less. When his bed was settled, he sat upon it, his back to the cold stone wall, and let the lute lie across his lap. He plucked idly at the strings. He sang a pair of songs about summer, and presently the sun rose abo
ve the castle walls, and a narrow, mote-laden beam lanced through the doorway of the room. The soldiers seemed to listen, though they said nothing. When Alaric went outside to the courtyard, one of them followed him, to sit in the sunlight and sew a fresh seam in his jerkin.

  Dust had risen with the sun. The courtyard was dry, barren ground except where some horses splashed water from their trough. Alaric joined a group of men there drinking from a bucket. They eyed him incuriously and made no attempt to converse, though he greeted them affably enough. Unlike most folk he had encountered in his travels, they seemed to have no interest at all in the world beyond the mountains. For a time he watched their idleness, their occasional leisurely combat, their gambling with knucklebones, and then he returned to the barracks. Upon his pallet, the lute and knapsack still lay close together, but Alaric noted that the sack had shifted a trifle—they had searched it in his absence, as he had presumed they would. Now they knew that he carried a sword, but his unobtrusively probing fingers told him they had not taken it. Why should they? He was outnumbered a thousand to one.

  He was not a warrior. He had never drawn blood with that sword. He doubted that he was skilled enough to do so. Sometimes he wondered if he ought not to rid himself of the sword—it would sell for a goodly price in any market—and thus avoid the chance of being put to the test. Yet when his fingers touched it, memory flooded through them to his heart… memory of two good friends and of his first love, left far, far behind. And he could not cast himself loose of this last reminder of the past.

  He would not wear it into the Red Lord's presence. That would be bad manners for a stranger with peaceful intentions. Nor would it look well with his travel-stained clothing and worn boots, an imposing sword with fine, tooled scabbard. It was not a sword for a poor minstrel. Some would say he was a coward—and perhaps they had, behind his back—but he preferred to think of himself as cautious. He had never worn it.

  He had washed at the trough, dusted his boots and cloak and tunic, run wet fingers through his hair. Now he waited. It was full afternoon before he was called to the keep, and he had begun to feel hungry.

  The Red Lord's chair had been moved back and a table placed before it, and other chairs added all around. He was seated already, as were three more men, and an additional four were crossing the room to join him as Alaric approached. An armed companion guided Alaric to a high stool set some distance from the table.

  "When do I eat?" Alaric asked of him in a low voice.

  "Afterward," he replied.

  Alaric sighed. If he stayed with the Red Lord long, he would have to change that. A growling stomach disturbed his pitch. A light snack before—a slice of beef, a chunk of cheese—and then a fuller repast later were, to his mind, the proper form of payment. Too many patrons treated their dogs better than their minstrels, and here was another: several large dogs circled the table and were tossed meaty scraps by the dining men, including the Red Lord himself. Alaric tried to ignore the aroma of warm, fresh-baked bread and juicy roast, and he sang of the wild wind that blew upon the mountains. He began softly, and when no one bade him shut his mouth, he increased his volume till the rich tones of his voice and his lute rose above the clatter of dishes and goblets. The Red Lord looked at him several times during the meal, but he said nothing, only chewed with slow precision and drank deep from a cup that was filled and refilled by hurrying stewards.

  There were no young people in the room. Alaric himself was the youngest by thirty years or more: the diners were of an age with the Lord himself, and the servitors were much the same. Another nobleman might have a young cupbearer or a lively, bright-eyed wench to carry the bread, or he might have his children ranged about the board, listening and learning for the time when they would bear his burdens. Well, the customs of another land, Alaric thought, and he wondered if later he would be called to entertain a Red Lady and her children. Or, judging from the Red Lord's apparent age, her grandchildren.

  He was fed in the kitchen after the diners left their table, fed with the scraps of a sumptuous meal, and it was more than enough to stay the grumble of his belly. The cooks watched him eat as they scrubbed their pots and polished their cutlery, and they seemed to pass unspoken messages to one another—a lifted eyebrow, a nodding head, a shrug of the shoulders. Alaric tried to engage them in conversation twice or thrice, but they would not speak to him; they pretended to be too busy with their own concerns to hear his banter.

  A soldier beckoned for him to return to the hall, and he went back to his stool, now standing in a wide-open space twenty paces from the Red Lord's chair—the table and the other seats having been removed while he was gone. He climbed atop it, his feet resting comfortably on a brace at knee height above the floor, and he sang for the Red Lord, who sprawled at ease in his seat. Deep into the afternoon he sang, with none to interrupt him. The silence in the room was like a blanket of snow; even when men passed through, their steps were light though the floor was hard stone, as if unnecessary sound would call forth some harsh penalty.

  Evening came, and as the light from high, slitted windows failed, torches were lit all round the room, and flickering shadows brought a semblance of great activity to the chamber. The master of the castle lifted one arm in peremptory gesture, and a bent-backed servitor scuttled forward with wine. The Red Lord took a cup, then pointed at Alaric; the servant bobbed across the intervening space and offered a drink to the minstrel, who took it gratefully and saluted his host with the upraised cup before draining it dry.

  "You may go," said the Red Lord.

  Alaric slipped off the stool, bowed low, and headed for the kitchen. A light supper was being prepared there, and he snatched a share of it before it was carried out to the hall. The cooks ignored him, but a pair of soldiers hung about the door, clearly waiting for him, and after he had satisfied his craving for supper, he let them escort him back to their barracks.

  In the north, the spring twilight seemed to last half the night. Before the sky had darkened completely, Alaric was lying upon his straw pallet, dozing, his lute clutched safely beneath his arm. Beyond the nearest window, he could see a small sliver of the pale western sky, and the evening star shining brightly in the wake of the setting sun. Few of the soldiers had retired yet; he could hear many men walking about in the courtyard. He fell asleep to those son, scuffing sounds, his belly full and his heart at ease. His last drowsy thought was that they were a dour and silent lot, these northerners, but at least the Red Lord himself had an appreciation of good music.

  He woke to the sound of a woman's scream. At first he thought himself dreaming, for the sky was dark, and all about him sleeping men breathed softly. Then the scream came again, a high-pitched, wild shriek, wordless, distant, yet clear. He sat up. Beyond the window, a single torch on the opposite side of the courtyard glittered like a yellow star. Alaric picked his way among the sleepers and stepped out the open door. One pace past the threshold, a guard stopped him.

  "Go back to bed, minstrel," said the man. He held a pike against his body, leaning upon the straight shaft as upon a staff.

  "A call of nature," said Alaric, and he gestured toward the shelter that all the men used in common. The guard let him go, and he relieved himself, and then he heard the scream again. It drifted to him from above, as if blown to his ears by the wind. Tilting his head, he traced the sound to the upper reaches of the keep, where a dim light showed through half-open shutters. Like a tangible thing, then, the scream tumbled from the gap.

  He returned to the barracks still looking up, over his shoulder. "What is it?" he asked the guard at the door.

  "Nothing," said the man.

  Alaric shook his head. "That's not nothing."

  "A girl, then. What business is it of yours?"

  Alaric looked at the man's grim face and said, "None. None at all." And he went inside.

  The next day was much like the first, except that Alaric managed to snatch some food before he was required to sing for the master of the castle. An esc
ort followed him wherever he went—not always the same escort, nor always a formal guard, but still he was carefully watched. His stool awaited him in the hall, and the same silence greeted his songs; he wrung neither tear nor chuckle from any in his audience, though he tried mightily. He received wine from his host and the same curt dismissal afterward; there were no compliments for him and no criticism. He felt as though he were singing to the forest, to the mute trees and the uncaring stones. The food was excellent, but he knew that he could not endure much more of this valley. He had yet to see a single pair of smiling lips. Sorrow hemmed him in at every side; though no one spoke of it, it was nonetheless real, bleak on every face and heavy in every step. For all the green buds and new blooms in the meadows, winter had not left the Red Lord's domain.

  That night again, the screams, and as he listened closely, lying on his warm straw bed, he thought he could hear weeping after them, though it was soft and far away. And all around him, strong men slept through someone else's misery. He wondered if perhaps she were a madwoman—perhaps the Red Lord's own wife or daughter—locked in the tower and screaming into the night for some reason known only to her sick brain. A thousand fantasies drifted through his thoughts; there was a song here, if only he could persuade someone to tell the tale.'

  In the morning he attempted to befriend the soldier whose bed was nearest his own. He was a man of middle years, though possibly a few seasons younger than most of his mates. He wore a beard and mustache, blond as his comrades, but above them his cheeks were unlined and his eyes only a trifle crinkled at their corners. Sitting on his straw, he mended a shirt, but Alaric thought his real reason for staying indoors was to guard the stranger. Alaric leaned against the wall and plucked aimlessly at his lute.

  "Have you been a soldier for many years?" he asked the man.

  "All my life," was the reply.

  "I suppose bandits come down from the mountains in the summer."

  "Not often."

  "They must fear you greatly."