Whisper of Leaves Read online

  Dugeda, Irsulalin’s join-wife, sat outside, busy fashioning a carrier from horiweed. She brought her palm to her forehead on seeing Erboran and he acknowledged her. Irsulalin’s sorcha was low on the spur but he and his blood-ties were loyal to the first-born chiefs. Ermashin’s sorcha was next, but it was deserted, as was Orshenkon’s. It was possible the two were north of the Shunawah, hunting wolf or fanchon in the Cashgars, or wood-gathering in the burrel and stone-trees, though he doubted it. He grimaced, exposing a set of perfect teeth, knowing that Urgundin and his blood-ties would be absent too.

  He veered across the spur’s back and down its eastern slope, where the lowest sorchas were set, mirroring their owners’ status and lack of Voice, noting without surprise the absence of Urpalin, Orthaken and Irdodun, although Urpalin’s join-wife Morsuka and his elder son were there, and acknowledged him respectfully. Doubtless they would mention his visit to Urpalin.

  Ignoring them, he loped back up the slope, his legs carrying him forward while his mind roved over the blood-ties of his people.

  Blood-ties could work for or against him, and for or against his dear brother Arkendrin. All Shargh palmed their foreheads to him, as they must, but who would be loyal to Ordorin’s line of first-borns, and who would hover like marwings over grahen nests, waiting for an opportunity to break their way, was yet to be tested. There were certainly those who were attracted by Arkendrin’s wild talk of reuniting the Shargh and taking back the northern lands; those who chattered like chipbirds with memories as short as summer storms.

  Erboran pounded past Urgundin’s empty sorcha and up to his brother’s, empty too. He continued to the highest sorcha, his own. The Chief of the Shargh lived above the Shargh, both figuratively and literally.

  It was dim inside, for the vent was shut, and he let his eyes adjust before peeling off his shirt and tossing it on the bed. It was saturated, the sweat adding to the odours of smoked meat, cheese, slitweed and air too long confined. Taking a drinking bowl from the shelf beside the firepit, he drew a draught of sherat and gulped it down as his gaze flicked around the room to make sure all was as it should be.

  His spears stood next to the bed, the leather circlet of chiefship with its metal horns lay on the table, his spare daggers and flatswords were propped next to the door. Under the table, cured meat and last season’s cheeses lay tumbled together in broken baskets, while his cape and other spare clothes were tangled on the floor. Tarkenda was right; it did lack a woman’s touch, and his thoughts drifted to Palansa, daughter of Ordaten, son of Orkandon, son of Ermamandin, son of Arpapan the One-Arm. Her mother was sister to Irsulalin’s join-wife, but it was not the long loyalty of the line that attracted him. He’d watched Palansa for several moons now. As well as her beauty, there was a containment about her and a pride in her bearing that hinted at thoughts beyond the chatter of many of the young women on the spur. He’d told his mother that he had no intention of taking a join-wife yet, despite her insistence that it was time he fathered an heir, for why tether his ankle to a single woman, when the whole spur was his to be had? But now as he thought of Palansa, he wondered if he’d spoken truthfully.

  He sucked the dregs from the bowl, feeling the liquid warm and loosen his muscles, and drawing a second draught, wandered back into the cooling air outside. The setting sun was painting the pasture gold and staining the sky the colour of blood. The springer-bugs were beginning their evening chitter.

  He sipped the sherat slowly, staring down the slope to where several women had gathered, his eyes searching out Palansa. His heart quickened as he caught sight of her holding a basket on her hip while she talked to the other women.

  Something flickered on the edge of his vision and his gaze jerked west. Shargh warriors on the run. Even as he watched, they split into two groups, one turning at the Thanawah and following it down, the other fording it and heading straight towards the spur. His brother ran in front. Judging by the sudden sundering of the group, he had no wish to be seen with his company. Erboran swirled the sherat in his mouth, his hand drifting to the cool metal of his flatsword. His younger brother’s greed for the chiefship was mostly a small irritation, like the blackflies of summer, but if Arkendrin had coerced the likes of Urgundin and his blood-ties into following him, then . . .

  Erboran watched them with eyes as hard as ebis horn. He was the first-born son of Chief Ergardrin, the last in a line of first-borns that stretched back to Ordorin, the Mouth of the last of the Shargh Tellers. Ordorin had been a man of strong memory but stronger hands and Erboran had inherited both traits, as had Arkendrin, although Arkendrin had also inherited Ordorin’s faithlessness and lust for power.

  Dismissing thoughts of his brother with a shrug, he turned his attention back to the gathered women, watching Palansa moving down the slope towards the Thanawah, her hair swinging in rhythm with her hips. Draining the sherat, he tossed the bowl back towards his sorcha and sauntered down the slope. Palansa was of an age where she could have had several lovers, yet she hadn’t come before him in a Joining Ceremony, and he knew from his mother, Tarkenda, that she hadn’t slipped away to lie in the targasso stands either. Tarkenda was privy to all the doings on the Grounds, most little more than gossip, but Erboran had learned early in his chiefship that it was useful to know the small private acts and moments of unguarded speech of those he ruled.

  Palansa disappeared over the lip of the spur but Erboran continued his leisurely pace, enjoying the prospect of his coming meeting with her. He glanced about as he went, the sherat coupled with the pleasant ache in his muscles from the long run home making him unusually content. Smoke spiralled from the cooking fires he passed, carrying with it the smell of roasting meat, and his people lounged in front of their sorchas exchanging news of the day’s doings.

  In the great arc of darkening sky, Wistrin suddenly winked into being. Erboran watched it as he walked, for it was the eye of the Sky Chiefs, who commanded birth and death and the fortunes of every Shargh warrior in the long day in between. No one knew when they might be summoned to leave the earth and join the Sky Chiefs in the cloudlands above. His own father had been scarcely older than he was now, when he’d been called home. Erboran came to an abrupt stop. What if the Sky Chiefs were to call him home now, without sons? All this would be Arkendrin’s.

  His contentment dissipated like spit on firestone. No secondborn would break Ordorin’s line! No secondborn would have what was his! His gaze flashed over the sorchas, seeing nothing. His blood already flowed in sons owning others as fathers, but that was all for naught if none carried his name. The next Chief must be indisputably his, the firstborn of a firstborn, growing in the belly of a join-wife who’d lain with no other. His face relaxed and he smiled.

  *

  Palansa lay curled in her bower of slitweed, her head propped on her hand, listening to the distant lowing of ebis and watching the follow-star Nastril burn in the sky. Wistrin, Maghin and Sonagh glittered nearby, firing as the sky darkened to purple. After a while she rolled onto her back, absently stripping the seeds from a stem of slitweed. What other peoples were being silvered by the stars now lighting her? Soushargh, Weshargh, Ashmiri, perhaps even the savages in the north. The Sky Chiefs were mighty and their children many, and she had long harboured a yearning to tread Grounds strange to her.

  She sat up, hugging her knees. The Thanawah muttered softly as it flowed away, but what lay at its end? She’d heard tell of vast forests in the south-west, trees so thick they swallowed the sun. Did they also swallow the Thanawah? Her father had joked with her when she was small that if she wandered too far the trees would eat her as well, but her mother had assured her it wasn’t so. Still, the idea of the world beyond the Grounds was intriguing. Perhaps she’d send a message. Using slitweed, she fashioned a little boat, tucking the stalks under carefully and setting it gently on the water. For a moment it wobbled, tangled in the detritus at the river’s edge, then the current took it and spun it out of sight.

  ‘Where have you gone,
little boat?’ she murmured.

  The slitweed crunched with the unmistakable sound of footsteps and she scrambled upright, staring around wildly. Surely Arkendrin hadn’t returned? Semika had told her he’d gone off with the warriors, or else she’d never have risked coming here alone. Many welcomed Arkendrin’s attentions, anticipating improving their fortunes by rising up the slope. Palansa wasn’t one of them and so far she’d managed to turn his attentions aside without insulting him. But what tale could she spin him now? It was almost as if she’d chosen this place to tryst.

  The reeds were thrust apart and she gasped. It was Erboran! She dropped her head and brought her hand to her forehead, her heart thrashing in her throat.

  ‘Who’s your lover?’ he demanded, his eyes boring into hers.

  ‘I don’t have a lover, Chief Erboran,’ she replied, flattening her wet palms against her skirt.

  ‘You were speaking to someone,’ he said.

  ‘I was speaking to myself. I came here to watch the stars and listen to the river, that’s all.’

  Erboran’s expression eased a little. ‘So you’re not waiting here for your lover?’ he said softly.

  Palansa’s mind began to work. The possibility of her having a lover had clearly angered him. Surely he wasn’t jealous? Maybe he knew that Arkendrin sought her and wanted to spite his brother by taking her first. The last thing she wanted was to be his temporary prize, cast aside as soon as his goading was complete.

  ‘I have no lover,’ she replied, keeping her eyes down, ‘but often now I am followed . . .’

  ‘By Irpurlin?’ asked Erboran, naming one of the younger Shargh whose preening has earned him the ironic title of chipbird.

  ‘By someone . . . higher on the spur.’

  ‘Is it Arkendrin?’ he asked.

  Palansa hesitated and the slitweed crunched as he came nearer. He was more handsome than Arkendrin, taller and leaner, his skin smooth, his lips finely shaped.

  ‘And has my brother been satisfied?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll go to no man’s bed unless as his join-wife,’ she said.

  ‘And of course, Arkendrin has offered only his flesh,’ murmured Erboran.

  He was so close to her now that she could smell the sweat on his skin and the sherat on his breath, but there was more to him than just the odour of a long day. Power clothed him like a wolf-cape, and there was a sinuous grace in the curve of his shoulder, in the muscles under his skin and in the tendrils of hair curling on his neck.

  ‘So, the beautiful Palansa has her pride,’ he said, bringing his hand to her face. His rough fingers caressed her cheek, turning her face to his, then his mouth fastened on hers. His lips were salty, his kisses hardening as his hand slid to her neck, finding the opening of her shirt. Palansa felt the heat flare in her own body as his hand moved over her breast, gently flicking her nipple till it stiffened. Her breath scoured her throat and she had to stop herself clinging to him.

  ‘Would you come to the Chief’s bed?’ he asked.

  Palansa swallowed. ‘The honour is great, but I must think of my sons.’

  ‘As my join-wife?’

  His join-wife? The blood pounded in her head. To be the Chief’s join-wife and mother of the next Chief was second only to being the Chief himself. The thought was wild, intoxicating. But was Erboran merely toying with her? There was desire in his face but no mockery. She nodded.

  ‘It’s done then,’ said Erboran, his hand lingering on her breast. ‘I’ll announce it at the morrow’s Speak.’

  Erboran strolled back up the slope, well pleased with his evening’s work. The urge to take Palansa there and then had been strong, but the sons she’d bear must be unquestionably his, and so his pleasure must be postponed until the morrow’s night. His blood quickened again in anticipation. Palansa’s full mouth hinted at a passionate nature, and her flesh had responded to his quickly, nor was she dull-witted like some of the women who’d come to his bed. Her answers to his questions had been respectful, but clever.

  There was also the delicious irony of announcing their joining at a Speak his brother had called. He smiled, then threw back his head and laughed.

  4

  The highest sorcha on the spur was stifling, despite the sun having slid beyond the sweep of grasslands some time ago. Heat lay trapped by the skin walls, heavy with the sweat of the assembled Shargh. Despite an oppressiveness hinting at summer storms, there were no purple-black clouds boiling above the Braghans; there’d been none for many moons.

  Tarkenda sat quietly, her shirt sticking to her skin, her eyes on her sons at the front of the gathering. In the dim light they looked similar, but the shadows were deceiving. Despite being younger, Arkendrin was broader in the shoulder, carrying his father’s heavier brows and straighter hair. He also shared his father’s impatience with the delay thinking imposed on action. Erboran, by contrast, was both taller and more lightly built, and content to wait until things were more thoroughly known.

  Tarkenda pushed the damp hair from her brow, silently thanking the Sky Chiefs she’d birthed Erboran first. There had been many Chiefs like Arkendrin before the loss of the northern pastures, their recklessness having fuelled the Shargh’s defeat. Arkendrin’s fieriness still attracted many of the warriors who hadn’t experienced the long seasons of privation following the fighting, with the hunters and the herders dead, the ebis scattered and the wolves ravening. Only old women like herself remembered such tales.

  Her face remained impassive, despite her thoughts, as she gazed around the sorcha. Arkendrin had ensured many of his cronies were present, even those low on the spur. Urgundin was there, his eyes sliding everywhere, along with his Voiceless blood-ties, Irdodun among them, puffed up with their own importance. Also in attendance were those loyal to Erboran: Erdosin; Irsulalin, with his level head and willingness to question; Ormadon and his son Erlken; and Irmakin and his blood-ties, some of whom linked to Irsulalin.

  There was a clear division in the warriors gathered under the hide roof, a rift seeded by Arkendrin’s jealousy and fed by the privations of the rain-starved earth. While the final schism might not come this night, its arrival was as certain as an ebi’s birthing after ten moons. Tarkenda reminded herself that whatever came was the Sky Chiefs’ will and not hers to question. There’d been a time, though, when her acceptance hadn’t been so freely given.

  Erboran had still been at her breast when her belly had grown large again, and she’d offered sweet shillyflower and cakes of honey and squaziseed to the Sky Chiefs, entreating them for a daughter. But they’d decided otherwise.

  Worse was to come, for scarcely had Arkendrin joined Erboran at her breast, than the Sky Chiefs had called Ergardrin home. For twelve long seasons she’d acted as the Shargh Chief, waiting for Erboran to grow, until finally he’d taken his father’s circlet from her hand and placed it on his own head. In that time Arkendrin had grown too, as had his envy of his brother and his hatred of their birth order.

  Erboran sat on the hide of chiefship facing the gathering, the metal horns on the circlet of chiefship winking in the firelight, his flatsword and spears lying crossed in front of him, the blades pointing outward. Though Arkendrin was speaking, Erboran’s eyes were fixed on Urgundin, seated before him, who fidgeted under his gaze, dribbles of sweat migrating slowly down his neck. Erboran watched their progress with a slight smile, before finally transferring his attention to his brother.

  ‘. . . and so we come to you, our Chief, as is our right, to share our voices with you and to seek your wisdom,’ said Arkendrin, finishing the traditional Speak of Greeting and bowing his head to just the required depth.

  Erboran regarded him in silence, extending the moment Arkendrin must remain bowed, before beginning the Response.

  ‘I, Erboran, Chief of the Shargh, first-born son of Ergardrin . . .’

  Tarkenda watched, heavy-hearted. Each Speak had to begin with this exchange. How many times had Arkendrin gathered a Speak to badger his brother about this or the
other, and then been forced to endure the public reminder of his lesser position? If only Arkendrin could accept the reality of his birth order, thought Tarkenda, he could garner the glory he craved by supporting Erboran in his tasks. Instead, they were like blackflies stuck in a web, with the struggles of each threatening to bring the sucking-spider scuttling to destroy them both.

  Erboran’s response drew to an end. ‘. . . first-born son of Ordesron, first-born son of Ordorin, Mouth of the Last Teller of the Shargh, will hear you.’

  With the ceremonial part of the meeting dispensed with, Arkendrin straightened his back, all semblance of humility gone.

  ‘I bring to this Speak that which the Shargh have long dreaded,’ he began, then paused theatrically, his gaze sweeping the gathering. ‘In seasons long past, the last of the Shargh Tellers predicted our ruin. It is fitting that I, Arkendrin, who carries the blood of the great Ordorin, the first Mouth of the Last Teller, should be the bearer of bitter tidings.’

  Fixing his eyes on Erboran, he announced, ‘The first part of the Telling has come to pass; a gold-eyed Healer haunts the forests to the south-west. If we do nothing now, the rest of the Telling will unfold and doom will overtake us.’

  Arkendrin’s followers had clearly known what he was going to say, but Erboran’s hadn’t, and a storm of speech erupted among them. Irsulalin and Ormadon looked to Tarkenda as if seeking guidance, but her face remained impassive, a skill she’d acquired during her time as Chief to help her survive the sneering opportunism of those who preferred a broken bloodline to a woman’s rule, however temporary.

  After a while, the noise ebbed and attention focused on Erboran’s response.

  ‘The Telling does not speak of a gold-eyed Healer,’ he said pleasantly, ignoring the import of his brother’s announcement.

  Arkendrin’s expression remained unchanged, obviously expecting this objection. ‘The Telling speaks of a Healer. This woman is of the people who live in the forests. They keep no animals but spend their time gathering things no man can eat: bark, seeds and leaves. They can have no other use for them but healing. The Telling speaks of gold, Chief Erboran, and she has golden eyes. No one has golden eyes. Even the cursed goatmen and horsemen of the north, with their hair of dry grass, don’t wear the sun in their faces. No, this woman is the creature of the Telling.’