Mortal Envy, Sharper Teeth
Alaessia returned to her brother’s city with her tall, somber son, and the High-helm welcomed both. Yet hard upon their heels her silent husband tracked; perhaps ’twas even a form of love which drove him, granting skill enough to find the hidden door. For Gethsael the Quiet held a wild strain, and in it cherishing was wound with possession, tight as strangling vines…
—Fragment, The Annals of the Long Vigil, attributed to Varaecil the Daggerwise
The palace of Taeron was a world all its own, like Fryja’s land of plenty or Odynn’s halls where warriors and shieldmaids, found worthy after their last mortal battle, feast with the valkyra. I thought then it might bear some resemblance to the fabled land of the West, that bright myth-drenched place the Elder were then barred from.
Quiet halls with pillared sides looking onto gardens with bright spangled fountains, small round rooms holding cushioned benches or deep soft chairs for easy conversation with a companion, one’s own thoughts, or even a painting upon the wall. There were rooms full of curiosities in well-designed wooden or metallic cabinets, strange treasures or interesting bones, stones, and other items. Even the stables were a joy—airy, well-kept, more fit for a riverlord’s domicile than beast-shelter. There were meeting halls and feast rooms, strange follies like the chamber with its walls sheathed entirely in some curious nacreous substance carved from the teeth of great slow creatures with columnar legs—or so Naciel explained once, showing me finely wrought illustrations upon a yellowing page—and on, and on.
I could sing for a long, long while without exhausting the wonders shown to a daughter of Dun Rithell in that place.
Nothing could outdo what was revealed the first day Arn and I left our quarters, though. Floringaeld and Aeredh both insisted to my shieldmaid that we were free to wander where we chose, save into private homes—not that we would have ever done such a thing, being raised well by my mother Gwendelint. But I suppose the Elder suspect all Secondborn lacking in even such basic courtesy, or perhaps the inhabitants of the Hidden City believed us akin to granary cats, who walk where they will.
In any case, upon a bright crisp morn we sallied forth, and at the end of the hall were greeted with a wide stone staircase spiraling in easy steps to a round space with benches running along either side, pillows scattered about its floor, and a great harp—easily taller than me, though not quite so tall as Arn—upon a small stone pedestal seemingly crafted solely for its rest. And, looking out one of the broad window-casements onto a garden of blue foliage and pale flowers even in this season, was an Elder woman.
She owned a head and a half on Arneior, though much slighter than my shieldmaid, and she wore soft blue cloth of Elder weaving—a dress like a sauna-robe but heavier, and with a longer skirt brushing the floor in her wake. Her wide dark eyes were full of amusement, like my sister’s, and her hair was deep gold as Astrid’s as well. Laughter lurked about her pretty mouth, and her nose was proud as Eol’s. A necklace of silver filaments held a white gem just a little below her collarbones, and delicate silver drops hung from her ears.
“Hail, daughter of the river,” she intoned in the southron tongue, bending one knee in a melting courtesy. Her accent was exceedingly archaic, though every word was softly distinct. “And hail to thee, maiden-of-steel.”
I could not tell how to respond. I recognized her, of course—she had been in the thronehall, a bright bird in a soft nest with a Secondborn man beside her.
“Is that the correct greeting?” She absolved me of any requirement to find an appropriate response by continuing, with barely a pause, as she straightened. “Tjorin could not tell, for he doth ken not much of the south, and Eol’s men of chatter are not overfond. Aeredh said I must avoid fright or insult, and you knoweth our tongue—but ’tis better to greet a guest in their own, my father speaks. Are quarters-of-yours sufficient? Do you thirst? How may we make you welcome?”
Indeed it was slightly difficult to understand her, for she spoke a very old variety of southron, salted with the Old Tongue in the bargain. Arneior cocked her head, her spear dipping slightly as she leaned upon it, and I am certain I looked just as baffled.
I also attempted to copy the Elder’s courtesy, though I suspect I did not do so with any real grace since my legs were still a trifle unsteady. “Hail and well-met, Child of the Star. May the Sun shine upon our meeting.” I made every syllable as precise as possible, accented as the Northerners did. Then, in our own language, I continued with likewise care. “I am Solveig of Dun Rithell, and this is Arneior my shieldmaid, taken by the Black-Wingéd Ones. Your welcome warms us; we would be good guests.”
“Sol-ve-ig.” She nodded thoughtfully. “Ar-ne-ior. You must correct, if badly I speak. Naciel am I, Silverfoot they call me, daughter of Taeron Goldspear.”
“Naciel Silverfoot,” I translated for Arn. “Daughter of the king, and she wishes to learn our dialect.”
“Better than me learning weirding-speech.” Arn tapped her spear’s blunt end thoughtfully against stone floor, punctuating the sentence. “And she is a woman; no doubt she has some sense.”
I could not help smiling. Those taken by the Wingéd Ones have little use for men, save as sparring fodder. “I think it likely.” I addressed the princess again, hoping she was indeed as friendly as she appeared. “We are honored, king’s-daughter; if you will teach me the Old Tongue, I shall teach you ours.”
“Indeed I think you need little instruction.” Naciel’s brow wrinkled for a moment. “Your… shieldmaid, is it? Does she speak the Elder tongue?”
“Arneior prefers our own language, my lady.” Perhaps I should have chosen a different mode of address—but I was volva, and though now doubting myself completely worthy of the name I still wore bands upon both my wrists. One with the seidhr may speak regardless of rank, though never without politeness.
Such a distinction is beyond many in the world, yet exists nonetheless. Besides, I was a daughter of Dun Rithell. Had I a habit of rudeness my teacher would have tweaked my braids thoroughly, and my mother’s quiet disappointment was ever punishment enough to induce any necessary change in her children’s behavior.
“Well enough.” The princess’s manner was all warm welcome, and I could find no hint of ill intent in its depths. She moved from the casement as if dancing, her dress fluttering in several layers. “A wonder would I show ye, guests-of-honor. Tjorin says…” She halted, clearly searching for the right words. “He says ’tis summat interests-would one-who-is-wise.” The last term was the antecedent of seidhr, the older form of describing one who may see beyond the visible, speak with the intangible, and discern the secret patterns of the world.
“We are in your hands then, Princess Naciel.” I halted in near-confusion as she regarded me, a deeper smile blooming upon her lovely face.
I had seen others become tongue-tied when Astrid regarded them thus, and it was a strange experience to feel wonder instead of fond pride in a like situation. It occurred to me then how some mortals could hate the Elder, as some seem to despise volva or others born to the weirding—like the blackrobe priests farther south, with their blasphemous god and their virulent execration of quite natural cunning.
The Children of the Star are simply too beautiful sometimes, and mortal envy has teeth sharper than an orukhar’s sawtooth grin or lich’s cold blade.
The moment passed. My shieldmaid and I followed our hostess, exchanging a single look. Arn’s was puzzled; mine, however, might have held a touch of something darker.
After many a passage and a few short, easy flights of stone stairs, a pair of highly carved doors opened upon whisper-quiet hinges. Arneior glanced through, nodding before I moved to follow the princess.
A vast round room swallowed us, full of such light I almost thought it roofless though the air was still. But there was a great dome with slender-seeming stone ribs, and between them panes of crystal so clear only refractions at their edges told what they consisted of. The tall, narrow windows were crystal as well, instead of scraped horn, and lingered between shelves of stone and polished wood. Like so much else in Elder settlements, the rock and tree-stuff seemed grown or shaped while almost liquid, instead of mortal-carved.
Yet the architecture, while wonderful enough, was not the true treasure of that place. I longed to know how the walls were constructed, how the dome and window were made, but what took my breath away… I can feel the awe and deep reverence even now.
Shelves filled that place, ranks of them radiating from a central space with tables and chairs. Some of the tall structures held ladders for reaching their tops, and others were enclosed by thin folding doors of a fragrant wood which repelled both chewing insect and perhaps time itself.
For every shelf and cabinet held scrolls of birch bark, or of some thin material very like parchment, or flat-bound books with heavy barklike faces and backs. Not a single shelf, nor a small chest holding an entire settlement’s store of knowledge transmitted through runes either carved or linked-and-falling—no, whole cases of them, entire stacks.
“What is…” Arneior took in our surroundings, somewhat mystified before she recognized the treasure. “Scrolls? Ai, I will never pry you from here.” She shook her head; for one who can track all manner of creatures across mountainslope or through fen, she rather oddly regards the deciphering of written footsteps as a slightly sinister act.
Some hold that very common weirding in wonder, even if they may puzzle out a word or line. The wise of Dun Rithell taught the seidhr of reading to all who wished, though many who could practice it disliked writing other than single runes to be blood-fed when the need arose. And of course, being riverfolk, we all knew how to figure sums, debits, tolls, and credit with trade-partners.
But this… so much learning, such a wealth of scrolls all in one place? I forgot my legs’ unsteady protestations as well as the terrors of the journey, and any lingering unease was lost in sheer wonder. “Are they…” I could not find words for a moment, staring at the closest set of shelves. “Are they in southron falling-runes, or…”
“Some are in Secondborn writing, others in Elder script.” A deeper shadow in the valley between two towering shelves was a mortal man in Northern black, but the cut of his cloth as well as its weaving was Elder. He held a thick bark-bound volume, and I recognized him from the throneroom—he had been next to the princess. “Ah, forgive me. I am Tjorin son of Hrasimir, of House Berengar. May the Blessed upon-our-meeting smile.”
His southron was not nearly so archaic as the princess’s, but exceeding formal indeed. I laid my right hand over my heart as I had seen some of the Northerners do, and nodded. “Solveig daughter of Eril, volva of Dun Rithell. This is my shieldmaid Arneior, taken by the Black-Wingéd Ones.”
“Yes.” He glanced at Naciel; though her smile never altered, the warmth in their meeting gazes was very nearly uncomfortable to witness. “The gift of the Blessed, who speaks with their voice. And her protector, a mighty trul-killer.”
“I did not kill it,” Arn immediately objected, for a shieldmaid must not claim valor unearned. “Should I meet another, though—”
“Gods, no.” I could not help but shudder. My skirts swayed, a soft sound unlike the silken whisper of the princess’s dress. “I would not like to see another of those.”
There were dangers at home, of course. Warlords both petty and strong, illnesses rising from the river in hard winters or wet springtime, wolves, bandits, ill-luck, bad weather—to be alive is to worry over such things. Yet ever since setting out with Aeredh and the wolves of Naras, my shieldmaid and I had seen far worse.
Liches, mostly of the lesser type—as if it mattered, for even a mere contagion-bred wight is deadly enough. The many-legged weavers of the Mistwood. Pale orukhar, and the twisted, invisibly burning trul. A snow-hag and a nathlàs, one of the Enemy’s seven great captains.
Even worse than knowing the Black Land, that fabled horror of long ago, was alive and sending forth its servants once more was the thought that somehow those terrors would, sooner or later, descend upon Dun Rithell. And what of the thickly clustered settlements to the south, or the greater lands past the Barrowhills?
“Then wise indeed are you, my lady.” Tjorin set the volume upon its shelf with a great deal of care. The swordhilt set with a gem very like Eol’s, save with a reddish cast instead of water-clear, glittered over his shoulder. “I must practice your tongue; forgive me if I speak not aright.”
“Then we may teach each other, as the princess and I have agreed.” I could barely look at him or at the bright-haired Elder woman, my attention straying repeatedly to the cases and spines. Though I had been taken as weregild and suffered in the snows of the Wild, all that could be counted little enough if I could plumb these depths. The thought that I might even have run hence willingly if I knew this place existed could not be voiced, but I do not deny it crept through my head. “Elder script, you say? Is it like our runes? I would wish to study, if time permits—”
“Those of Naras call you Lady Question, and I see the name well-chosen.” Tjorin’s smile, like Naciel’s, held no hint of arrogance or ill-will. “You will find many an answer within these stacks, and I shall help all I am able.”
“Wonderful,” Arn muttered. “Where am I to practice, if you are here for long hours? There is no room.”
“We shall move a table or two,” I offered sweetly. “As long as we replace them when you are finished. Or you may go elsewhere to find warriors to duel. It is no worse than when I am in the stillroom at home, small one.”
Naciel laughed, a sweet silver trill. “Fortunate this is, indeed. Tjorin may stay with the books as he loves to do, while your maiden-of-steel and I find more active amusements.” And though she salted the words with the Old Tongue her accent was improving, even in such a short while.
Arneior did not demur, though a shieldmaid and her charge are rarely apart save when the former judges there to be no danger in separation. Once she satisfied herself that nothing untoward lurked in the environs, she would find summat else to do, but I could not think upon that. I was too busy marveling.
The princess and Northerner guided me through a fraction of the library that morn while their hands occasionally strayed toward each other’s, fingers tangling and separating shyly. They traded lingering looks as well, perhaps when they thought Arn and I would not notice.
That was how I met Naciel Silverfoot and her husband-to-be, and the memory still makes me smile. Yet all was not well, for though he was an honored guest, Tjorin’s affection for the king’s daughter was not welcomed by Waterstone’s ruler.