In the Red Lord's Reach Read online

  At that, a woman peeped out from behind a clump of rocks halfway up the slope. Then she scrambled toward him, and he could see the small head that bobbed just beneath hers—her baby in a sling upon her bosom.

  "Are you Malgis?" he asked.

  She nodded and, laying hands on the venison forequarter, ripped a bloody chunk of meat away and crammed it into her mouth.

  Alaric felt faintly disgusted at the sight. "It would taste better cooked," he said.

  She cast him a wild glance but said nothing, just kept chewing. She was a sun- and wind-burned woman of middling years, so thin that her skin seemed to cling to bone alone, with no fat or sinew to soften the lines. Her hair was fair, though stringy with grease and dirt. Once, Alaric thought, she had been pretty.

  The other exiles trickled out of their hiding places to converge on the meat, and they pushed and clawed at each other in their eagerness to reach it.

  "There is more," Alaric said. "Not far from campsite. I couldn't carry it all this far. If three or four of you will come along with me, I'll take you to it."

  "Where did you find this?" asked his captor.

  Alaric shook his head. "That will have to be my secret, friend."

  The man gripped Alaric's arm hard. "Where?"

  "There is some game in these mountains," said Alaric, "but one must know where to seek it and how to hunt it." He stared down at the man's hand, then up into his face, and the man let go abruptly. "You have been here a long time. What have you lived on?"

  "Roots and berries," muttered Malgis, eating more slowly now, and picking slivers of the raw meat from her teeth with broken, dirty fingernails.

  "We have caught a few of the wild goats," said Alaric's captor, "but that isn't easy."

  "And we have stolen from the valley," said one of the other men. "That isn't easy either."

  Alaric looked around at them, his first clear view of the whole ragtag group. There were eleven in all. Smeared with blood from the raw venison, their clothing in tatters, their feet roughened and scarred from climbing along the crags, they hardly looked as if they had ever lived in comfortable huts and drunk summer wine. "You have been here," he said, "how long?"

  "Since I was young and pretty," said Malgis.

  "Different times for each of us," said Alaric's captor. "Some of us have lost track of the number of seasons."

  They had done eating by now, and three of the men and one woman had volunteered to accompany Alaric to retrieve the rest of the meat. On the way, they did not talk much, but they did give Alaric their names when he asked for them—the men were Daugas, Vitat, and Jogil, the woman Gedimina. And his captor, he learned, was called Berown. He had been in the mountains the longest of the group and had been their leader since an older man died of the cold the previous winter.

  They divided the remaining meat among them, each man slinging a haunch over his shoulder and the woman carrying the deerskin—which they had brought back with them—full of the edible internal organs. Alaric took the head. When they returned to the others, the minstrel was relieved of his small burden by Berown, and the whole troop of exiles went off together, the empty-handed ones forming a tight knot about the meat bearers, like cows protecting their calves from marauding wolves. Only Daugas was left behind with Alaric, to keep him from following the others and discovering one of their secret places. In his hand, Daugas held a piece of deer liver that would serve as the minstrel's meal.

  "You still don't trust me," Alaric remarked, "even now that I've filled your bellies." He shook his head. "Well, I hope you'll cook the venison next time—it tastes much better that way. I intend to cook mine."

  "You have no fire," said Daugas.

  "There's wood aplenty here. And I have flint and steel in my pack. I suppose it's still up there." He indicated the slope and the cave with a wave of his hand.

  Daugas nodded.

  Sighing, Alaric began to climb. He was not as fresh as he had been in the morning, and Daugas had to help him. They found the pack and the lute in the cave, but—as Alaric had suspected—the sword was not there.

  He built his fire in a sheltered spot, sliced the liver thin, and speared it on pointed sticks to sizzle over the flames. The rising aroma made him acutely aware that he had not eaten all day, and he pulled the first slice away from the heat when it was still rare. Daugas's eyes were so wide and so intent on the cooking meat that Alaric split the first slice with him.

  "I thought you ate already," said the minstrel.

  "It is better cooked," said Daugas.

  Alaric looked at him thoughtfully. "You do have fire up here in the mountains, don't you?"

  Daugas nodded. "Back at our camp, we keep a fire burning all the time. And Berown has flint and steel, in case it goes out." He licked his fingers. "I have never tasted anything so good."

  "You've never had venison before?"

  "No. There are some deer in the valley, but they belong to the Red Lord."

  "Ah," said Alaric. "I can imagine what must happen to poachers."

  Daugas looked down at the scrap of meat remaining in his hand. "Is this the Red Lord's deer?"

  Alaric shrugged. "I didn't ask before I took it."

  "Some of them are loose in the mountains, then." He shook his head slowly. "But they are swift creatures. How does a person hunt them?" He gazed expectantly at Alaric.

  "One relies on surprise," said Alaric. "And considerable patience."

  "The same way one hunts the goats," Daugas said glumly. "We are farmers, not hunters."

  "Can you not farm in the mountains?"

  Daugas sighed. "We raised a little barley last year—stunted stuff, though it fed us for a time. The soil is poor up here, not like the valley, and it is so very rocky." He kicked at some loose pebbles with his bare foot.

  "I'm surprised you have stayed here so long," said Alaric.

  "We can't go back." Daugas looked into the flames with weary eyes. "I have wanted to, many times since I came here. I have wanted to go back to my father and mother. I've been to the valley, to steal grain. I've passed the house where I was born. But I didn't dare go in. I think they would hide me, but that would only mean their doom as well as mine. The Red Lord would find us out."

  "Why not go the other way, then?"

  "Other way?"

  "Away from the valley. Away from the Red Lord forever."

  "Away? But where?"

  "South, to warmer climes. Or east or west. There is a wide world out there. You need not starve here."

  Daugas shook his head. "The mountains are harsh traveling."

  Alaric had to laugh. "You are hardy folk—hardier than I am, and I made the journey. And I have heard that merchants make it as well, whole caravans that pass through the valley on their way to the north. Surely if soft merchants from the south can manage the journey, so can you."

  "And bandits," said Daugas.

  "If there are bandits," said Alaric, "then the merchants manage to drive them off."

  "Perhaps only the best-armed caravans get through, minstrel."

  "I saw no bandits in my journey."

  "They are there. We are ringed by them, like a great wall around the valley, nine or ten days' journey outward. They are afraid of the Red Lord, so they rarely venture closer. Before his reign, though, they raided us often—I remember my grandfather speaking of those days. Everyone had to hide in the castle when the bandits came, and when they finally went away, they took everything they could carry and burned the rest. The people had to rebuild their homes, replant their fields, and raise new livestock from whatever animals they had taken into the castle with them."

  "In your grandfather's day."

  "Yes. When the Red Lord became our ruler, things changed. When the bandits attacked, he and his men drove them off; they killed many and brought others back for torture. Now the bandits stay away, but still the Red Lord takes his men up into the mountains after them sometimes."

  Alaric was puzzled. "How is it that the Red Lord could drive t
he bandits away, and his predecessor could not?"

  "His father kept only a small guard," said Daugas, "and ill trained, so my grandfather said—no match for the bandits. But the Red Lord called in enough farmer's sons to make his army strong, and he trained them well. He is a great commander, minstrel. Ask Berown of that if you wish; he was one of the Red Lord's men, until he fell asleep on watch."

  "The Red Lord tells his people there are bandits in the mountains," said Alaric. "Have you seen these bandits in recent years?"

  Daugas shook his head. "I was no soldier; I never hunted them."

  "And Berown—does he say he has seen such bandits?"

  "He helped bring them back to the castle for torture."

  "But he has been here for many years, has he not?"

  "Yes, many."

  "Then… perhaps there are no bandits anymore. Perhaps they have all been hunted down. Or have given up and run away from the Red Lord's wrath."

  Daugas frowned. "Do we dare believe that?"

  Alaric shrugged. "You folk have told me that the mountains make an inhospitable dwelling place. Without the valley to raid for food—as you do yourselves—how could bandits survive?"

  Daugas appeared to turn that over in his mind. "I don't know," he said at last.

  "Berown told me, though I think he meant it as a joke, that you were the bandits."

  "We?"

  "You have taken their place, have you not? You steal from the valley. You live in the mountains. And… the Red Lord hunts you?"

  "He does."

  "Then how can you be afraid of yourselves?"

  Daugas stood up. "I don't know what to think now, minstrel. You argue smoothly—too smoothly, perhaps. We still don't know who you are."

  "I am no more than I appear to be," said Alaric. Finished with the liver now, he wiped his fingers on a corner of his cloak and drew the lute out of its wrappings. "Shall I sing you a song, Daugas?"

  "I don't care."

  "Sit down. Take your ease. Or are you impatient to do something?"

  "No."

  "Not… impatient to kill me?"

  Daugas frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "Oh, I thought you might have been left behind to get rid of the stranger."

  "No."

  "I'm glad I'm wrong, then. We're a near match, you and I. But you would not be able to kill me, Daugas. I hope you will remember that." He strummed a chord on the lute and then began a soft melody about a lost goat and the goatherd that hunted it in the high mountains. The child braved a snowstorm to search for the animal, only to find it slain by a wolf. The song ended with the goatherd facing the wolf with only an icy branch for a weapon, and the wolf's red eyes staring at him through the swirling snow.

  "You sing very nicely," said Daugas, "but that is a strange ending to the story. It is no ending at all. What happens to the child?"

  "What do you think happens," asked Alaric.

  "The wolf kills him?"

  "Perhaps. What would you think of your own chances in the same situation?"

  "I don't know. It was a foolish thing for him to do, go out in the storm alone, ill armed."

  "Yes, it was."

  "What is the meaning of that song, minstrel?"

  Alaric smiled. "It's just a song. Must it have a meaning?"

  Daugas thought a moment. "We are the goatherd, and the Red Lord is the wolf."

  "You have a lively imagination," said Alaric. "What is the goat, then?"

  "The goat is a goat. Food. Life. We chance the Red Lord's retribution by stealing food from his valley. So far he has not caught us. Is that what the song says, minstrel?"

  "If you wish it to say that." He strummed another chord. "Every song has many meanings."

  Daugas half turned away, gazing at Alaric from the corner of his eye. "This day, my belly is full. It has not been so in a long time. Can you hunt again as you did today?"

  "I think so."

  "Then I hope you will stay with us."

  "I don't intend to stay here forever, Daugas. And after I leave, you'll be hungry again."

  Daugas shifted from one foot to the other, but he said nothing.

  "And some winter," Alaric continued, "there will not be enough roots and berries, nor enough game of any kind, nor an opportunity to steal from the valley, and then you will be forced… to eat each other?" He looked up sharply. "Or have you done that already?"

  Daugas glanced away from him.

  Alaric plucked a series of high, sweet notes from his lute, a melancholy air that never failed to make him think of weeping women. "I wonder," he murmured, "how do you choose the victim? Do you draw lots? Or is it the weakest? The oldest? Perhaps one who—"

  "Enough!" shouted Daugas. He faced Alaric, his hands closing into fists at his sides. "We live on the edge of death, and we do what we must to stay alive!"

  "You must stay in these mountains and prey upon each other when there is no other prey?"

  "We have no choice."

  Alaric shrugged. "I don't agree. But you certainly have no courage."

  "You are so sure of yourself, minstrel!"

  "I intend to leave these mountains alive. I think you can do the same."

  Daugas squatted and picked up a stick to stir the fire, which was burning low. "You have been very lucky, minstrel. I don't know if we could divide that luck among twelve people and have anything left of it."

  Alaric made no reply to that, only strummed his lute and thought about his own journey to the valley of the Red Lord. He had used his power to travel faster and more comfortably than other men, and earlier in the season than most would dare. But he had seen no bottomless chasms, no unclimbable passes on his route. The land had been unstable with the thaw, and he had narrowly escaped several shifting masses of earth and rock, but with every additional day, summer came nearer, and the land dried and hardened. Already the runoff from melting snow had dwindled, as the lesser peaks showed bare to the sky. These folk, he thought, were surely mountaineers enough to manage a crossing.

  "Do you plan to stay here with me all night?" asked Alaric.

  Daugas nodded.

  "And in the morning… what?"

  "Berown said he would be back in the morning. He said they would all be back."

  "To decide my fate, yes?"

  "I'm sure they're talking about you."

  "If I chose to stand up at this moment and walk away from you, Daugas, what would you do?"

  "I'd try to stop you. But I don't want either of us to be hurt, minstrel, so please don't try to leave."

  Alaric smiled. "I'm in no hurry, my friend. I was just… curious." And then he sang another song, and another, and so he amused himself for the rest of the afternoon, and Daugas listened.

  Some time after sunset, Alaric laid his lute down, wrapped himself in his cloak, and pretended to fall asleep. He watched through slitted eyes as Daugas pushed the embers of the fire aside and curled up on the spot they had warmed. Daugas appeared to sleep almost immediately, but Alaric lay still until soft snores began to escape his guard's half-open mouth. Then, he edged away, pulling his lute along gently, his fingers flat on the strings, muffling them from even an accidental note. When he had melted into the shadows that surrounded the campsite, he vanished. He preferred to spend the night elsewhere, not because he feared Daugas, but because he did not know how early in the morning the others would return. He had no desire to be caught sleeping by people who might have made their decision to kill him. He knew a bower in the dense forest where men seldom hunted. He tore down some springy branches for his bed, and he rested well far from the hard and stony ground of the mountains.

  'He woke shortly after dawn and traveled back, lute slung over his shoulder, cloak rolled under his arm. He appeared some distance from the campsite and walked to it. Berown and the other exiles had already arrived, and they were all shouting at Daugas for letting Alaric get away. The first person to see the minstrel approach had to punch his neighbors to make them leave off their abuse a
nd look behind them.

  Alaric smiled. "Good morn to you all, friends. I hope you slept as well as I did."

  Berown turned a tight-mouthed gaze on the minstrel. He wore the sword and the fine-tooled scabbard on a length of rawhide tied about his waist. "Where did you go?" he asked.

  Alaric waved in the direction from which he had walked. "The wind was too brisk here last night, so I moved to a better spot. But Daugas was sleeping so soundly that I hadn't the heart to disturb him. He must have been very tired."

  Berown glanced back at Daugas. "We could all be dead because of your tiredness."

  "I hardly think so," said Alaric. "I'm really a harmless fellow."

  "I watched him till he fell asleep." said Daugas. "I didn't think he could get very far in the middle of the night."

  "You watched him till you fell asleep," said Berown. He stared at Daugas for a long moment, and then he slapped him in the face. "That's to remind you that he could have killed you."

  Daugas rubbed at the red mark on his cheek with one hand. "I don't think he wants to kill any of us. I think he wants to help us."

  "I told you to stay awake!"

  Alaric said, "You can't expect soldiers' discipline from starving people."

  Berown looked at Alaric once more. "You are a most unusual person, minstrel. You have shown that you can move about these mountains better than we can, that you can hunt where there is no game and pass through bandit country without being touched. You could have left last night, and I'm sure that none of us could have followed you, but you chose to stay. Why?"

  "I do want to help you."

  "Why?"

  "Because I pity you."

  Berown laughed, a short, hard laugh with no humor in it.

  "Need there be another reason?" asked Alaric.

  "And what can you do for us with your pity, minstrel? Hunt again? Stay and hunt for us forever? Would you do that, minstrel?"

  "No," said Alaric. He looked around the group. "I suppose no one thought to bring Daugas and me a bit of breakfast?"

  Berown motioned peremptorily, and one of the other men stepped forward to hand the minstrel a chunk of venison. Alaric thanked him, then set it atop a nearby rock as he knelt on the ground beside the ashes of the fire—they were still warm, but there was no live coal among them for a fresh blaze. Taking flint and steel and tinder from his knapsack, Alaric struck a new fire, feeding it scraps from the pile of wood he had gathered the day before until it burned brightly. Then he sliced the meat, as he had done the liver, and set it on pointed sticks to broil. He gestured for Daugas to squat beside him.