3. Cold Rain #2
He continued through the gate glanced to the right, then turned left toward the open door.
The walls of the hall stood as tall as two men, covered in wood and heavy golden thatch both.
Smoke rose into the warm air. He'd heard stories that the men of the south had built with roofs of stone, just as they'd built the wall of stone.
Tuathal harbored doubts. None had seen such roofs, not since the coming of the mist, and perhaps before then.
Pyder's hall showed more than sufficient wealth and power, the dwelling of a man able to command many men and women to do his work.
Tuathal nodded, then approached the door.
A maidservant met him. She bowed low to him.
"Honored sir, enter if ye will." He followed her into the darkness, pausing until vision returned.
She turned left, leading him to a small chamber where water and a comb and towel awaited him, along with a bite of bread and some cheese. "May I be of guest service, sir?"
She was comely, and clean. He caught himself before his body spoke more than guest right allowed.
"My cloak needs tending." He unstrapped the clarsach's case and his other bag.
She took the bag, then set it on a bench and waited as he removed the cloak.
The brooch he put into its pouch before handing her the heavy wool garment.
She bowed low once more and hurried off into the servants' work chamber.
He removed his vest and loosened his shirt, then washed face and hands.
He combed hair and beard, found the strips of linen in his bag, and braided, then tied back his hair.
The lack of mirror puzzled him. Perhaps Pyder had ordered it moved when the hall was prepared for winter, lest it be misplaced.
His mother's sister had so commanded, so nothing went truly astray in the weeks of disorder and work. Tuathal dried face and hands.
A different maidservant, this a bondswoman, slipped into the small room. "Most honored sir, Pyder sends greetings and asks that you join him and his men at the feast of honor this night." She kept her eyes on the ground, and trembled. "Should you wish a tumble, I am ready."
So blunt were her words and clear her fear that Tuathal's desire died aborning. "My thanks for the generous offer, but I am not in need of such." Too, he needed to rest and sift songs before the feast. Some pleasures were best saved for later, after guest duty had been done.
She staggered—from relief or from exhaustion?
"This way, please, most honored sir." Eyes still downcast, shoulders hunched, she let him into the great hall and a guest bench facing the fire.
A cup of milk awaited, along with warm water.
Other servants moved quickly, setting out benches for arms men and tending to the portion of roast pig seething in the great cauldron on the fire.
Tuathal sat and watched, then tuned the harp and continued watching.
The servants and bondsmen too watched, but not him.
Their glances turned to the doorway, and to the seat of honor.
Many scuttled or scurried, like mice when a cat or hawk loitered nearby.
Why did they fear? Had something gone wrong in the hall that rippled as a stone in water?
Had harvest come late and all dreaded the lack?
But that did not match what he'd seen outside the walls.
He would learn soon. He drank more water and drew a calming melody from the clarsach's strings.
One seemed to be wearing, so he replaced it, coiling the old wire and tucking it into the bottom of his bag.
He had only three spare. Alas that wire wore better than gut, but did not grow in animals as gut did.
Loud voices approached the hall, men shouting and jesting.
He stood, clarsach in arms, as Pyder and his chosen men flowed into the hall.
Pyder glanced around, a deep scowl forming on his fair face, red already coloring his cheeks.
Anger, or mead and wine? The servants scattered to the walls, save for those who tended the feast. Thus warned, Tuathal waited.
"Ah! A bard. Good." Pyder settled himself in the high seat, and servants set a table beside him. "We've no tale spinners or praise singers here."
The arms men took places on the benches, leaving only a servant's seat for Tuathal. The serving woman who had taken his cloak set it there, whispering an apology as she fled. Pyder waved to the seat. "What news, bard?"
Tuathal glanced at the men on the benches, then nodded to his host. "As you desire.
" He sat and stroked the strings, drawing the sound of waves, then a song of harvest as he recounted what he'd learned, seen, or heard since the turning of summer.
As he recited, servants served Pyder and his men with meat and drink.
The choice bits had been given out by the time he finished telling his news.
Where was Pyder's lady? She should at least have entered to receive the honors due her, and to greet a guest.
One of the bondsmen set a cup beside him and scurried off.
Plain apple cider filled the cup. Again Tuathal studied his host, now lounging in the chair, well into his cups as he ate.
Pyder knew the laws of hospitality, and the portion due a master bard.
Still, Tuathal hesitated. Something warned against sharp words just yet.
Several of the arms men watched him with covetous eyes, for all that he did not show his wealth or kinship openly.
Pyder had fallen far from his sire's ways, that much Tuathal could tell already.
And where was the bronze that should have shown, the weapons of the old days that his father had so proudly displayed?
One of the men seated near Pyder called, "A green and blue calf sounds like an honest easterner—a wonder never truly seen." Harsh laughter followed his words.
"As wondrous as the wind that washes the world, a fish that speaks, or a sober warrior," Tuathal replied, smiling lest he face a challenge of arms.
Louder laughter greeted his sally, and the men nudged each other and drank still more.
Tuathal drew loud, fierce notes from the clarsach, "Hear now the tale of the Hunt of the Great Boar of Oidche," he began, and the men listened to the tale of the man-eating boar with golden bristles, and the great warrior Oidche, in the days before the men of the south had come to the land.
When he finished, Pyder declared, "It is said that once boars roamed the land with apples in their mouths and roasted themselves."
Tuathal stroked the sound of the waves from the harp's strings.
"Indeed. And men once walked the lands of Kaeirrishog, called Ynys Teithi Hen, from the court of the snowy hills to the land of Eiru.
Of what befell the land, only four remained to tell the tale, and two were secret keepers.
" The sound of gentle seas shifted, grew stronger, more insistent.
Pyder shifted on his seat of honor and stroked his mustache. The other men quieted, each glancing to his bench brother.
"To walk from even the Island of the Wise to Eiru would be a wonder," Pyder chuckled.
"Indeed, in these times it would be," Tuathal agreed. "Or so cold that even the desire of Dagdah for Morvan might cool to mild interest." He kept his face and tone bland and innocent as the warriors laughed and nudged each other. Even Pyder chuckled.
"What brought the sea into the land, Allav Tuathal?" one of the men asked. "The war of Manawn and Brytha?"
He rocked his head and one hand from side to side, then resumed playing. "Not exactly, although Manawn was not loath to add to his domains."
The sea sound from the harp calmed, like quiet wind below blue-black skies.
He opened himself to the awan, if it pleased to come.
"In the time now past, Kaeirrishog lay below the sun, lush and rich.
The land waxed fat and good years outnumbered lean.
Wells of sweet water fed fish-rich lanes that wound like silvery tresses to the sea
"Sleek steeds raced on the earth's green weaving.
Snowy peaks in the sun gleamed no brighter or rounder than the floods of Kaeirrishog.
Heavy-headed the fields bowed, standing bread and sheaves of beer.
Manawn's own steeds bent their heads with shame before the whiteness of the milk from the cows of Kaeirrishog.
" He caught the eyes of the men and smiled, a smile full of knowing.
"Only the breasts of the maidens gleaned whiter, by sun or by moon. "
Once the nudges and ribald comments finished, the harp's notes darkened, cold and brooding as the rocks of the Isle of Graves or the Tarn of Shadows.
"The men of the land of Kaeirrrishog grew in pride and wealth.
They spoke of the prowess of their fathers but not of their own.
The riches won by strength of arm and edge of blade remained theirs, even as the blades grew a crop of rust.