The Cry of the Marwing Read online

  Tierken went to his boyhood room not long after, expecting not to sleep, but the fighting had left him with a deep weariness and the sun was well up before he woke. He hurried to the cooking place but only Eris was there, busy at her grinding.

  ‘Kira still sleeps?’

  ‘Kira sleeps less than you,’ said Eris. ‘She gathers for me and will be back soon. Sit and have your breakfast.’

  Tierken fidgeted around the cooking place, straining for the sound of her return.

  ‘Sit,’ ordered Eris.

  Tierken sat. His neck crawled and he tried to distract himself by watching steam from the maizen mash make patterns in the air. Finally the outer door opened and closed and footsteps approached. Then the cooking place door opened and she was there. Her hair was longer and fairer than he recalled, and it fell over her face as she bent to extricate herself from the herbal sling. He’d stood, though he had no recollection of doing so, and as she straightened her face filled with wonder.

  Then she was in his arms, the feel of her both strange and familiar, simultaneously making him whole and conscious of loss. Kira clung to him, skin and bones, eyes the colour he’d only ever seen at her most upset.

  ‘I want you now, before this dream finishes, before I wake,’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s no dream, I’m here with you, in Eris’s house, in Kessom.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Ah, that proves it’s not a dream,’ said Tierken. ‘In a dream I’m sure you’d believe me, but in waking life you never did.’

  ‘Not never!’

  ‘Not often then,’ corrected Tierken, maintaining his bantering tone despite being shocked by her dark eyes and thinness.

  Eris had disappeared, so Tierken spooned out the mash while Kira picked up the herbs that had spilled from her sling. She stared at him and he watched her, so that neither made a good job of their task.

  Kira ate little but Tierken stopped himself from scolding her. Her hand rested on the table, and he covered it with his.

  ‘You wear Kasheron’s ring,’ she said.

  ‘The ring of both our peoples.’

  ‘Why did you accept the kin-link?’

  ‘Caledon and Farid added more knowing to what you’d told me,’ said Tierken, not wanting to rake over old quarrels.

  ‘Is the fighting finished?’

  ‘Yes. The Shargh won’t be turning their murderous eyes north again, or south. Your people are safe.’

  Kira dropped her head and there was a long silence. ‘No more wounds, no more dying, no more death,’ she murmured at last. ‘Have you spoken with Laryia about Tresen?’

  ‘Yes. I know all about Laryia’s love for your clanmate, and his for her. She tells me Tresen’s happy to marry her, so . . .’

  Kira’s hand clenched under his and Tierken stopped; there would be time later to return to the subject of marriage. He smiled and smoothed the hair from her face.

  ‘On the morrow I’d like to take you into the mountains, to the Kristlin and the Foaling Fields, and to all the beautiful places I roamed in my growing,’ said Tierken. ‘Would you like that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kira. ‘I would.’

  *

  They set off early the next day, Tierken shouldering a heavy pack filled with food, Kira carrying only warm clothing, a sleeping-sheet and a Healer’s kit in hers. The first part of the journey was through the lands where she’d gathered, but they gradually climbed higher, the mountains soaring in front of them and Kessom dropping away below. The allogrenia groves thickened and small mountain streams tinkled over stones, crystal clear and shockingly cold.

  Tierken kept the pace easy, and regularly called rest breaks, when they would perch on boulders and eat maizen bread and dried fruit. He named the snowy birds that pecked insects from the stones, and showed her the burrows of mead-mice, mountain hares and whitejacks. Smaller paths ran off here and there, mossy from small use, and dwinhir glided overhead.

  ‘Still dancing,’ he told her with a smile.

  Kira said little, struggling with the bleakness that had driven her from Sarnia, and which continued to cloud her thoughts. But she didn’t try to claw her way out of it, her Healer-self knowing that time and rest would send cure. All that mattered was that Tierken was safe and that they were together.

  Kira watched him as they went. He was leaner and more muscled, his movements more abrupt, and he scanned their surrounds continually as he walked. But when he looked at her and smiled, he was the same, his tenderness like a shaft of sunlight, making her heart sing.

  They took their midday meal high above Kessom. Eris’s house was hidden by alwaysgreens but Tierken pointed out Thalli’s house, the Keshall and the stables.

  ‘Have you named your mare yet?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘She’s been left nameless far too long,’ he chided. ‘We can think of names as we journey. I’ll start by nominating Beautiful, after you.’

  ‘Your men name their horses after the weather or the mountains,’ said Kira, dullness blunting her pleasure in his compliment.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not necessary. Laryia called her mare Chime, and I called Kalos after an old Kessomi word for strength. Is there something in Allogrenia you might name her after?’

  ‘There’s the mira kiraon, but I can’t name her after myself. The other owls are the hanawey and the frostking. Then there are springleslips and tippets and honeysprites – which are birds – or lissium, which is a plant with a sweet white flower. There are moon moths and silver moths and flutterwings . . .’

  Tears slid down her face, and Kira wiped them away. She’d rarely cried in Allogrenia, or in the terrible times since, but was annoyed that she’d wept most days since being in Kessom. Eris had told her it was exhaustion and would pass.

  Tierken drew her into his arms, but still Kira felt foolish and weak, like a child who had no control over her feelings.

  It was early evening before Tierken led her off the track and through a stand of slender, white-trunked trees to a single-roomed building. It had a shingled roof and its timber walls were silvered with age. A shelter-hut, Tierken told her, built by the early Kessomis; similar huts were scattered all through the Silvercades to aid the traveller. The window was shuttered, making it dark and chill inside, but Tierken soon had a fire burning, nuts roasting and water heating for cotzee.

  The smell of roasting nuts reminded Kira of the Bough, of Miken’s longhouse, of her early days with Tierken’s patrol, and some of the cloudiness in her head dissipated. She became aware of the firelight sliding over Tierken’s hair and reached out to touch it. She’d forgotten how soft it was, and he turned his head and smiled. It was Kandor’s smile but also his own.

  ‘I want you,’ she whispered.

  Tierken lifted the pan of nuts from the fire and turned to her. ‘We’ll do things properly this time, Kira, like Laryia and Tresen have.’

  Kira stared at him in confusion, trying to recall how Laryia and Tresen had behaved, but that time was lost in a fog of dying and death. All she could remember was Laryia sitting beside Tresen’s pallet in the Haelen, and then, once Tresen had been moved to the Domain, Laryia reporting how he fared.

  Kira half shook her head, knowing only that she wanted Tierken’s love. She reached for him again, but he held her hands in his.

  ‘Laryia and Tresen have had the benefit of more time together than we have,’ he said. ‘Tresen loves Laryia and will show his love by following Terak customs and marrying her. Laryia might go to your lands, but whether she goes or stays in Sarnia, the honour and respect rightfully accorded her can only be maintained if she’s Tresen’s wife, not his “woman”.

  ‘There’s been no time for you to come to trust that I would never give you cause to regret marrying me in the Terak way. We have that time now, Kira, and I have my mother’s pledge-bracelet here with me. I’ve already asked you to marry me twice, and I won’t ask you to marry me a third time this night, for I know it’s too soon for you
, but I will ask you before we return to Sarnia. Until then, we’ll court as my sister and your clanmate have.’

  Kira understood little of what he’d said, other than he was to deny her his love. She pulled her hands free from his. ‘You don’t want me,’ she said.

  ‘I want you more than anything in the world – but as my wife. Until we’re pledged, I want us to enjoy being together, speaking of all the things we need to know and share about each other to be happy in our marriage to come.’

  Abruptly, anger did what the kindness of Laryia, Farid and Eris had failed to – it sliced through the shroud of dullness enclosing her. And what she saw, sparkling with the clarity of the mountain streams, was the choice Tierken offered her. To have his love – the sweet feel of his skin next to hers, the ecstasy of him within her – she must wear metal and promise to stay in Sarnia forever. That was the trade he offered, no matter how nicely he dressed it up. If there was to be love, it was to be on his terms.

  Tierken handed her a bowl of nuts and a cup of cotzee and Kira nodded her thanks. When she’d finished, she pulled her sleeping-sheet out and lay down next to the fire.

  ‘The bed’s softer,’ said Tierken, gesturing to the raised wooden platform behind them, a grass mattress already in place.

  Kira said nothing. She was very tired, and despite her racing thoughts, it was only a short time before she was asleep.

  19

  Kira woke with stiff, sore muscles from the previous day’s trek, and it was late morning before they eased. She’d taken very little exercise in Sarnia, even before the fighting had confined her to the Haelen. In Allogrenia she had roamed far and wide, regularly setting her sleeping-sling in the treetops when her journeying took her more than a day from the Bough. But in Sarnia, she could only journey within the walls, and after a time, she was loath to even do that, for she was never alone.

  The presence of the Guard meant she must consider her every action and word, even down to refraining from cursing if she stubbed her toe. And if she somehow managed to forget their presence, eyes slid sideways from those she passed or peered at her from behind shutters. It was scarcely better in Kessom, as Storsil and the other Guard, Farsrin, insisted on accompanying her as she gathered.

  And even here, where sunny meads stretched away, dotted with white and yellow flowers, Tierken sought to confine her with metal and marriage. He spoke of the Foaling Fields they’d reach later that day, of how the bloodline of the stallion Ralis – brought from beyond the Oskinas in seasons long past – ran truest in the horses there, and of how horses of his line were sought after in all the northern, western and eastern lands. It was a bloodline never traded from his family, he said, and Kalos, Chime and Kira’s own mare were all Ralis’s direct kin.

  His words fed Kira’s anger from the previous night, for Tierken had obviously gifted her the mare on the expectation of her joining his family through marriage. So Kira’s ownership of the mare was dependent on Tierken’s ownership of her. There seemed little point in naming the mare then, for Kira had no intention of becoming Tierken’s property.

  As the day wore on, her anger enlarged to include Tresen as well, for his speedy acquiescence to Terak ways had simply strengthened Tierken’s belief that Kira’s objections to marriage were unreasonable and could be overcome.

  The constant churn of thoughts robbed her of any enjoyment in their travel, and Kira bit her lip, struggling to impose order on her weary brain. Perhaps her objections were unreasonable. Perhaps the whole notion of marriage had become entangled with everything else she’d had to fight Tierken for: recognition of the kin-link and aid for the Tremen; the creation of the Haelen and her right to gather, heal and take pain; and freedom to come and go without begging his permission.

  But she had offered to bond with him, and that meant staying in Sarnia and having to accommodate nearly every other Terak custom. But it hadn’t been enough. And now Tierken punished her by withholding himself.

  They reached the second shelter-hut in the mid-afternoon, and Tierken set the pack inside. Then taking Kira’s hand, he led her to where the trees gave way to a solid wall of boulders. He slipped between them and Kira gasped as she saw that the land fell away in a dizzying drop. And far away at its base, sheltered by the sides, she could see horses.

  ‘The smaller dark ones you can see are the first of this season’s foals. All silver horses are born dark, but lighten over their first three seasons. Your mare’s reached the colour she’ll remain. Have you thought of a name for her yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I still favour Beautiful,’ said Tierken with a smile, his fingers tilting her face to his.

  Kira stepped back. ‘We can’t kiss, remember.’

  ‘I never said that. I just want us to take things more slowly, to spend more time getting to know each other, so you learn to trust –’

  ‘You didn’t ask me what I wanted,’ interrupted Kira.

  ‘I thought you loved me,’ said Tierken quietly.

  ‘I do! But you won’t have me! You want this other thing, where I’m with you but not with you!’ Kira struggled to steady her temper and failed, her fury feeding off the long moons of frustrated longing for him.

  ‘You think that by holding yourself apart, I’ll marry you. But I won’t marry you or Caledon or any man! The Tremen don’t marry!’

  Tierken’s face was suddenly very cold. ‘Tresen’s pledged to marry Laryia. Are you saying he’s lied to my sister, and to me?’

  ‘He’s only doing it to please her!’

  ‘And you’re not willing to please me?’

  Kira pushed a shaking hand through her hair. ‘I offered to trade Allogrenia to please you, to never see Miken and Tenerini and Kest again to please you – but I can’t change into a Terak to please you. I’ll always be a Tremen Healer.’

  ‘Without marriage you won’t be a Tremen Healer – you’ll be akin to a Caru woman!’

  ‘I don’t care what’s said about me on the streets of Sarnia,’ said Kira. ‘I don’t even care if Rosham spits at me again. All I care is that you give me your love!’

  Tierken’s hand flashed to his sword. ‘Rosham spat at you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Kira, regretting her slip. ‘As long as you’re with me, nothing matters!’

  ‘You don’t understand anything about Sarnia if you believe that!’ he said, already striding back towards the hut. ‘I regret that our sightseeing in the Silvercades must be cut short. I’m returning to Sarnia. You will remain in Kessom till the end of spring when you’ll be collected for Laryia’s wedding.’

  He was walking so fast that Kira had to run to keep up. ‘I don’t care about Rosham, Tierken; it’s not important.’

  Tierken reclaimed his pack from the hut and slammed the door shut. ‘Terak ways aren’t Tremen ways. To insult the kin of the Feailner is to insult the Feailner himself!’ he said, setting off.

  ‘The insult was aimed at me, Tierken. For my sake, let it be,’ she begged.

  ‘This started before your time, and I’m going back to finish it.’

  ‘But I want you here with me!’

  He stopped and looked at her. ‘If that were true, Kira, you’d marry me.’

  For the rest of the day, Kira had to use all her strength just to keep Tierken in sight, and by the time they reached the next shelter-hut, she was so weary that she simply crawled into her sleeping-sheet.

  Tierken built the fire, then heated water and roasted nuts. ‘Don’t go to sleep before you eat,’ he ordered, but Kira was already drifting, slipping almost immediately into the nightmare of Kandor’s death.

  The blade’s flash as it slashed Kandor’s throat made her wake with a scream, and she lay panting in fright. Her shirt was drenched with sweat, and Tierken crouched over her.

  ‘Tell me what you dream, Kira.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I want you to share these things with me, to trust me,’ he said.

  She turned on him furiously. ‘How can I trus
t you when every time I don’t bow to your will you take back your love? When I have to pretend to be other than I am to gain your approval? When you say you want me, but walk away when I displease you? Caledon was right when he said you’d never accept me!’

  ‘Caledon! You seem to believe that he’s immune from error and the desire to arrange things to his own liking.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ said Kira.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because he helped save Allogrenia, and Tresen, and he helped me in the Azurcades. I want to see him again, to speak with him, to thank him. Has he gone back to Talliel?’

  ‘He journeys to Maraschin, but will be invited to Laryia’s wedding. Then I presume he’ll return to Talliel, for there’s nothing to keep him here.’

  Kira sat up and pushed the hair from her eyes, thinking of the thumbelin’s sweet music and of how Caledon had sheltered her on Shardos. ‘I’ll miss him,’ she said in a small voice.

  Tierken said nothing, the crack of burning wood filling the silence, then she felt his fingers on her face. He caressed her cheek, then slowly turned her face to his. His lips were soft on her mouth, his kisses gentle, and she shut her eyes as her need of him woke. His kisses grew harder and deeper, until she clung to him, overwhelmed by her want of him, but then he pulled back, leaving her hungry.

  ‘Is Tremen Leader Feailner Kiraon of Kashclan still willing to bond with the Terak Feailner?’

  She stared at him in confusion. ‘I’m willing,’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘Then explain to me how it’s done.’

  ‘The . . . the couple who are to bond come before the Tremen Leader at Turning – that’s a celebration to mark spring turning to summer. There’s a time during the celebration – usually near the end – when those who are to bond step forward and recite their pledge.’

  ‘That’s all? There’s no exchange of tokens and nothing’s written down?’

  ‘No. The Clanleaders and others who attend take the news back to their longhouses and it’s known quickly throughout Allogrenia who has bonded.’