Three in Succession
Rarely do the gods send only one warning; often none at all is granted. Perhaps it amuses them to watch the results.
—Idra the Farsighted of Dun Rithell
By then I knew at least three routes to the garden my shieldmaid liked to practice in while I visited the library’s wonders; I used neither the shortest nor the longest but the most pleasing, for it passed along a gallery open all along one side, its pillars wound with rustling vines from a greenery-clad wall below. The leaves were glossy and tapered to points often dewed with crystalline drops; the Elder named the plant weeping-bright for its glitter upon sunny spring mornings.
There was not much to dislike about Waterstone, and almost my every waking breath was drawn in Arn’s company. Still, that nooning I felt the urge for a few snatched moments of solitude, so I walked slowly, my head down and hands clasped in pale-blue skirts. Naciel had made me a present of several Elder-style dresses, finer than even my green festival gown last worn at the winter solstice—the night I lit the bonfire upon the great stone at Dun Rithell and held it steady until dawn, unconscious of approaching danger.
The first night I saw Aeredh, and Eol as well.
My head was full of strange thoughts, and I did not like that I could not dream. I paused halfway down the gallery, turning away from the open air to study a statue of white stone set in a niche. The carving at its base said it was of a woman named Alaessia, and the face was serene, beautiful as the Elder always are yet with sadness lurking around a mouth full-lipped as Arn’s. The material was slightly altered where her dress was carved, not discolored but simply a few shades darker, eggshell instead of snow.
Something in the statue’s lines called to me, so I waited to see if it would speak—not physically, though I would not have put that past the art of Taeron’s folk. Instead, the tongueless voice of seidhr whispered, but no omen could I discern.
I had not the time.
“Ah, a happy chance.” A soft, courteous male voice broke my reverie; he shifted to the southron tongue. “Solveig, is it?”
I turned sharply, and found Maedroth the Watchful. Fortunately I remembered his name, though Naciel never mentioned him unprompted. The king’s nephew wore unrelieved black velvet instead of mail; still, his garb was very much like a Northern mortal’s, for all he seemed to disdain Tjorin’s and my kind.
I had not heard his approach. His accent no longer chopped my name into unpleasant portions, and at the moment there was no hint of scorn in his tone.
Still, a prickle spilled down my back. “My lord Maedroth.”
“No need to be so formal, Secondborn. You make my gentle cousin happy, and for that I am disposed to be your friend.” He smiled kindly enough, I suppose, but the gleam in his dark eyes was sharp indeed. I had heard Aeredh speak and sing of the princess whose glance was like a knife, a lovely saga-saying—had not the heir of Naras used the same phrase in Nithraen?
Proverb or not, Maedroth had such a look. At least he did not try to pry into my heart with seidhr, but there is a way of observing the merely visible which treads close to such a feat, requiring only attention and intelligence in equal measure.
The statue glowed, catching light from the gallery’s open side, but he was in the shadow of a column, his boots just at the dividing line between sun and shade. “This is of my mother,” he continued, indicating Alaessia’s likeness. “She wandered far from home, into my father’s lands.”
“Ah.” I searched for an appropriate politeness; a guest must always be mannerly, as the saying goes, and all I knew of Taeron’s sister was that she no longer lived. “Naciel tells me she loved to sing, and eased her brother’s mind many a time with music.”
“She sang to me oft indeed. My sire was of a quiet temper by comparison, preferring to let his works communicate instead.” Maedroth paused; often, the Elder do so in conversation. Since all of time is theirs, they do not often hurry in speech. “I am glad to see you, my lady Solveig. I was not… kind to you near Taeron’s Tower, for which I crave your pardon. I thought you in league with the Crownless, instead of his victim.”
Victimwas a strange word, carrying overtones of physical attack in the particular form he chose. “It is difficult to be in league with one who will not share his plans,” I said, carefully.
“Just so, just so.” He nodded and turned his chin slightly, gazing up at the likeness of his mother.
I could close my eyes and call up my own dam’s face, but I could not imagine seeing it replicated in stone any more than I could compass losing that inner vision—or hearing of her passing. Certainly anyone knows tragedy may befall a loved one, and yet… who does not think one’s parents eternal?
If I were trapped in this strange and lovely city for long enough, would I remember Gwendelint of Dun Rithell’s features clearly? Or my father’s, or Bjorn’s, or Astrid’s? If I could not even dream of them, I might forget small details. Then larger ones, for memory even when trained can be unreliable.
The thought unsettled me to a surprising degree; my heart hurt, a swift glancing pain. Aeredh and Naciel both said Maedroth’s father was dead as well, and though Eril the Battle-Mad held his weirdling daughter in caution—especially as I had grown to adulthood—I still could not imagine a world in which he was not the lord of Dun Rithell, striding about with his big boots, loud laugh, and fell axe, protecting us all.
I wondered if this parentless Elder had come here to commune with a statue, which made me an intruder upon something deeply private. “I shall leave you to your thoughts, my lord.” I moved as if to perform another courtesy, but the Watchful gestured with sharp grace.
“Please, do not flee my presence.” His tone held a hint of almost-sadness. “Many do, for I am not easy to like as Naciel is. I was wrong, and will admit it. Will you not stay a moment, and let me invite you to my workshop again?”
He was polite enough, and he was undoubtedly correct—the silent sense of sneering pride lingering behind much of his speech was not easy to like at all. Some Elder prefer to wear their arrogance like a shield slung upon a warrior’s back; I had even traveled with a few from Nithraen. Daerith the harpist, for one, and Yedras the spearman who called me Secondborn witch.
“The House of the Maker.” In the Old Tongue, it had a pleasing ring. “Such is your home, is it not?”
“You know our language, and speak it well enough.” Maedroth’s smile broke free as the wind ruffled weeping-bright; the vine-leaves glittered as they moved. “I will not lie, I am a crafter and there are some items I would have an alkuine look upon. Faevril was mighty among those of us inclined to that pursuit, and you are of his kind.”
It was a high, heady compliment, and the lure of seeing an Elder create something, anything, was not to be discarded lightly. Yet I hesitated. The same sure inner sense which led me through negotiations between scornful, axe-ready warriors, each with a grudge and his honor to uphold, gave a muted, warning twinge. “You do me great honor, likening me to one of your own. Especially one so renowned.”
“And cursed in the same breath.” He spread his hands; a heavy silver ring glittered upon his left second finger, bright yet undecorated. Its very restraint drew the eye more than ornamentation would, and perhaps that was why he dressed as he did amid the rest of Waterstone’s easy luxury. “But you are Secondborn, of the Allmother’s favored ones. Some say that with your kind she corrected the errors in our making.”
I should have taken the shorter route to the garden.I was glad my hands were clasped before me, for a nervous movement seemed inadvisable. “I have not yet met an Elder who thinks so, my lord Watchful.”
“There are some even in Laeliquaende; I could introduce you to them.” He studied me for a long moment, the little difference between pupil and iris perhaps responsible for the eerie quality of his gaze. “But you are reluctant, I see.”
“It would be another great honor to view your work.” I could not deny I was tempted indeed. “Yet I am not sure where I am given leave to tread, my lord. This place is not my home, and I am barely even a guest.”
Maedroth’s smile made light of that difficulty. “Anyone in the city will direct you to my hall. It is well known that my doors are open, even to those who have slighted me. It was not always so, I admit, but—”
“A fine invitation.”For the second time that morning, a man’s voice interrupted; this time in the Old Tongue, with a thread of growl under the consonants. “Tell me, watchful one, would I be greeted kindly in your hall?”
Maedroth half-turned. Eol of Naras strode through the gallery’s repeating patterns of sun and darkness, his swordhilt’s colorless jewel glittering balefully over his shoulder. A restless twitching flicker under his skin was the wolf sharing his form; the sigil upon his blackened armor, its mouth open in a silent howl, looked sidelong at me. Next to an Elder’s elegance his Northern garb was stark and somewhat graceless, though functional enough, and his blueblack hair was as unkempt as ever I had seen it.
“Ah, it is the son of Tharos. I thought you with your companions today, roaming the fields.” Maedroth’s politeness was not quite icy, but certainly much less warm than that aimed in my direction. “This one knows where the Hall of the Maker is, my lady Solveig. Should he accompany you, he will also find my hospitality blameless.”
With that, the Watchful turned and left. He passed close enough to Eol that their shoulders almost touched, but neither man changed course by even a fraction. No flicker of expression crossed the heir of Naras’s face, either, and he halted a mannerly distance from me, his back to the retreating Elder.
Perhaps this passageway saw too much use for me to find it pleasing in the future. But then, it had been deserted every other time I traversed it, with or without Arneior.
Who would be looking for me soon, no doubt. “I am bound for the garden below.” Why did I feel as if I had been caught doing something… untoward? I was no longer this lord’s weregild, bound by those stringent, unforgiving rules.
Yet I had rarely been alone with any man not my kin; now I had been near three in succession this morning, though Tjorin did not give me the slightly unsteady feeling the other two did. Besides, even though a volva may do as she pleases I was also a lord’s daughter, and expected to act accordingly.
“Then I will accompany you.” Eol did not move further, simply regarded me. Half of him was dipped in golden afternoon winterlight; the edge of a column’s shadow fell diagonally across his face. The wolf in him had retreated but the vitality of one who possessed a second skin burned throughout, a different blaze than an Elder’s blue flame. “Unless you do not wish it.”
“We are allies, are we not?” My fingers ached. I realized my fingers were twisted together, snarled as scrap-yarn a granary kitten steals to play with. “And you seem in good health.”
“Better than I would have been. But forgive me, I…” A slight shake of his dark head as he shifted to southron; the blue highlights ran in his dark hair and for the first time, the captain of Naras wore a rueful expression showing how he must have looked as a youngling. “’Tis difficult to remember you speak our language.”
I did not wince—at least, not outwardly. “I was weregild among strange men, my lord Eol. Surely you do not begrudge my silence.”
“Of course not.” His right hand flicked, brushing away the question with all the imperiousness of a lord. “But I would ask, did you learn it before leaving your home, or by listening to us speak? Both are difficult endeavors.”
“It is the language of seidhr. My teacher spoke it, and taught it unto me.” I longed to be free of this conversation, and heartily wished I had chosen a different route for returning to my shieldmaid. “My mother’s people are traditional, so she speaks it too—though she might have sought to avoid insult by mispronouncing, for she does not use it oft.”
“I see.” He nodded slightly, as if I had told him something of great import. “So you simply… kept quiet?”
Did he think a woman incapable of such a feat? Men may make sagas, certainly, but speech itself is woman’s seidhr, for who else teaches children how to use it? Still, no weapon needs constant use. “Underestimation is sometimes the only defense a woman has.”
For some reason, the heir of Naras smiled rather broadly, in a manner I had never witnessed before. It was a strange expression, half-pained, and yet his eyes lit with something close to warmth. “Blessed grant I never underestimate you.” The tension had left him; perhaps he simply did not esteem the Watchful overmuch.
“Ah, I see. You did think me defenseless.” Yet I have Arneior, and my bands. Abruptly, some confidence returned. I had been all but ineffectual upon the journey here, I could not have drawn the nathlàs splinter free of his flesh without Aeredh’s help, and I was trapped in this Elder city, yes.
Yet I had held my own in conversation with Maedroth, I thought, and though Eol was strange and grim he was also Secondborn. Mortal, for all he shared his skin with a wolf. Those with such a gift are held to be strong, quick, and well-nigh unkillable, but he was of my kind and not so deeply foreign as the Children of the Star.
“My lady Solveig, so long as I draw breath you are never so.” Fine lines fanning from the corners of his dark eyes deepened, the smile receding and its aftereffects not quite reaching his mouth, tight even in repose. “But I sense you wish to be free of my company. Shall I withdraw?”
“My ally leaving the field, so soon?”I aimed for Naciel’s light, laughing tone, and do not think I did too badly.
At least, Eol’s smile broadened once more. But I do not know what reply he would have made, for there were voices at the far end of the corridor.
Arneior and Naciel had found us.