Suldrun's Garden

Chapter 23

THE MAIN HALL AT CASTLE SANK extended from a formal parlor at the western end to a retiring room for visiting ladies at the east.

Along the way tall narrow portals opened into various halls and chambers, including the Repository, in which were collected curios, clan honors, trophies of battle and engagements at sea, sacred objects. On shelves stood books bound in leather, or sheets of beechwood. One wide wall displayed ancestral portraits, burned into panels of bleached birch by the strokes of a red-hot needle.

The technique had never altered; the face of a post-glacial chieftain showed lineaments as keen as the portrait of Duke Luhalcx, limned five years before.

In niches beside the entrance stood a pair of sphinxes carved from blocks of black diorite: the Tronen, or fetishes of the house.

Once each week Aillas washed the Tronen, using warm water, mixed with milkweed sap.

Midway through the morning Aillas washed the Tronen and wiped them dry with a soft cloth. Looking along the hall, he saw approaching the Lady Tatzel, slender as a wand in a dark green gown. Black hair bounced beside her intent pale face. She passed Aillas unheeding, leaving in her wake a breath of vaguely floral scent, suggesting the damp herbs of primeval Norway.

A few moments later she returned from her errand. Passing Aillas she halted, then came back, stopped and studied him, detail by detail.

Aillas looked up briefly, scowled and continued with his work.

Tatzel satisfied her curiosity and turned to go her way. First she spoke in the most limpid of voices: "With your brown hair I would take you for a Celt. Still, you look somewhat less coarse."

Again Aillas glanced at her. "I am Troice."

Tatzel hesitated on her going. "Troice, Celt, whatever you may be: have done with wildness: intractable slaves are gelded." Aillas stopped his work, limp with outrage. Slowly he rose to his feet, and drawing a deep breath managed to speak in a controlled voice.

"I am no slave. I am a nobleman of Troicinet held captive by a tribe of bandits."

Tatzel's mouth drooped and she turned as if to leave. But she paused. "The world has taught us fury; otherwise we would yet be in Norway. If you were Ska, you too would take all others either for enemy or slave; there is no one else. So it must be, and so you must submit."

"Look at me," said Aillas. "Do you take me for one to submit?"

"Already you have Submitted."

"I submit now so that later I may bring a Troice army to take down Castle Sank stone by stone, and then you will think with a different logic."

Tatzel laughed, tossed her head and proceeded down the hall. In a storage chamber. Aillas encountered Yane. "Castle Sank is becoming oppressive," said Aillas. "I will be gelded unless I mend my ways."

"Alvicx is already selecting a knife."

"In that case, it is time to leave."

Yane looked over his shoulder; they were alone. "Any time is a good time, were it not for the dogs."

"The dogs can be fooled. The problem is how to evade Cyprian long enough to reach the river."

"The dogs won't be fooled by the river."

"If I can escape the castle, I can escape the dogs."

Yane pulled at his chin. "Let me consider the problem."

Over their supper Yane said: "There is a way to leave the castle.

But we must take another man with us."

"Who is that?"

"His name is Cargus. He works as undercook in the kitchen."

"Can he be trusted?"

"No more and no less than you or I. What about the dogs?"

"We will need half an hour in the carpenter's shed."

"The shed is empty at noon. Here is Cyprian. Nose to the soup."

Cargus stood only an inch taller than Yane but where Yane was built half-askew from sinew and twisted bone, Cargus bulked thick with muscle. The girth of his neck exceeded that of his massive arms. His black hair was cropped short; small black eyes glittered under heavy black brows. In the kitchen-yard he told Yane and Aillas: "I have gathered a quart measure of the fungus known as wolf-bane; it poisons but seldom kills. Tonight it goes into the soup, and spices the pot-pies for the great table. Guts will gurgle tonight everywhere in Castle Sank. Tainted meat will be blamed."

Yane grumbled. "If you could poison dogs as well, we'd walk away at our ease."

"A nice thought, but I have no access to the kennels."

For their supper Yane and Aillas ate only bread and cabbage, and watched with gratification as Cyprian consumed two bowls of soup.

In the morning, as Cargus had predicted, the entire population of the castle suffered cramps of the stomach, together with chills, nausea, fever, hallucinations and a ringing of the ears.

Cargus went to where Cyprian crouched head down over the commissary table, shivering uncontrollably. Cargus cried out in a harsh voice: "You must take action! The scullions refuse to stir and my bins overflow with garbage!"

"Empty them yourself," groaned Cyprian. "I cannot put my mind to such trifles. Doom is upon me!"

"I am cook, not scullion. Here, you two!" He called out to Yane and Aillas. "You can at least walk! Empty my bins and be quick about it!"

"Never!" growled Yane. "Do it yourself."

Cargus turned on Cyprian. "My bins must be cleared! Give orders or I will make a complaint to startle Imboden off his chamber-pot!"

Cyprian waved a feeble hand to Yane and Aillas. "Go, you two, empty this devil his bins, even if you must crawl."

Aillas, Yane and Cargus carried bags of garbage to the rubbish heap and took up the parcels which they had left previously. They set off at a trot across the countryside, keeping to the cover of underbrush and trees.

A half-mile east of the castle they passed over the brow of a hill and thereafter without fear of visual detection, made good speed to the southeast, giving a wide berth to the lumber mill. They ran until winded, then walked, then ran again, and within the hour arrived at the river Malkish.

At this point the water flowed broad and shallow, though above it roared down from the mountain through steep ravines, and downstream raced in sullen fury through a set of narrow gorges where many runaway Skalings had been battered and broken on the rocks. Without hesitation Aillas, Yane and Cargus plunged into the stream and waded across, through water often as deep as their chests, with parcels held above their heads. As they neared the opposite bank they halted to inspect the shore. Nothing immediately suited their purpose, and they waded upstream until they came upon a small beach covered with packed gravel, with a low slope grown over with grass at the back. From their parcels they took the articles which Aillas and Yane had built in the carpenter's shed: stilts, with straw pads tied securely over the ends.

Still in the water, they mounted the stilts and the three waded ashore, disturbing the beach as little as possible. Up the slope they stepped and the padded stilt-ends left neither marks nor odor to excite the hounds.

For an hour the three walked on the stilts. At a rivulet, they waded into the steam and dismounted to rest. Then once more they took to the stilts, lest their pursuers, failing to pick up a spoor at the river, might cast about in concentric sweeps of ever greater radius.

Another hour they stalked on the stilts, up a gradual slope through a sparse forest of stunted pines where the thin red soil lay in pockets. The land had no utility for cultivation; the few peasants who at one time had collected resin for turpentine, or grazed pigs, had fled the Ska; the fugitives traveled an uninhabited wasteland, which suited them well.

At another stream they dismounted from the stilts and sat to rest on a ledge of rock. They drank water and ate bread and cheese from their packs. Listening, they heard no far-off belling of the hounds, but they had come a good distance and expected to hear nothing; probably their absence had not yet been noticed. The three congratulated themselves that they had possibly a full day's headstart over any pursuit.

They discarded the stilts and waded upstream in an easterly direction, and presently entered an upland of curious aspect, where ancient pinnacles and crags of decaying black rock rose above valleys once tilled but now deserted. For-a space they followed an old road which led at last to the ruins of an ancient fort.

A few miles beyond the land once again became wild and rose to a region of rolling moors. Rejoicing in the freedom of the high skies, the three set off into the hazy east.

They were not alone on the moor. Up from a swale a half-mile south, under four flapping black flags, rode a troop of Ska warriors. Galloping forward, they surrounded the fugitives.

The leader, a stern-faced baron in black armor, spared them only a single glance and no words whatever. Ropes were attached to the iron collars; the three Skalings were led away to the north.

Late in the day the troop met a wagon-train loaded with victual of various sorts. At the rear marched forty men linked neck to neck by ropes. To this column were joined Aillas, Yane and Cargus, and so, willy-nilly, forced to follow the wagon train north. In due course they entered the kingdom of Dahaut and arrived at Poelitetz, that immense fortress guarding the central buttress of the Teach tac Teach and overlooking the Plain of Shadows.