Year of the Unicorn

3 The Throat of the Hawk

It was cold, and the falling snow thickened as the road wound out of Norsdale, across the uplands, where the fringe forests made black scars against the white. In the spring, in the summer, in autumn, the dale lands were green with richly rooted grass and tree, bush and briar, but in winter they held aloof, alien to those who dwelt in village or upland farm.

Into Harrowdale the road narrowed. Before the long war of the invasion, men had spread out and out to north and west, putting under tillage land uncut by plough before. And then there had been travel on these roads, pack merchants, hill lords and their men, families with their worldly possessions on carts, driving their stock, moving out to fresh new lands. But since the war years communication across the Dales had dwindled, and what had been roads became mountain tracks—narrowed and blurred by the growth of vegetation.

There was little or no talk among our party as we rode, not mounted on such horses as the host kept for raiding and battle, but rather on shaggy coated, short legged beasts, ambling of pace, yet with vast powers of endurance and deep lungs to take the rough up and down going of the back country with uncomplaining and steady gait.

At first, we rode three and four abreast, one or two of the escort with each pair of women. Then we strung out farther as the brush encroached and the road became a lane. I was content to keep silence behind veil and hood. For a space I had ridden stiff of back, tense, lest some call from the Abbey...a rider sent after...would reveal me for what I was. Still did it puzzle me that the Abbess Yulianna had not unmasked me in that farewell moment. Did she have such tenderness for Marimme that she was willing to let the deception stand to save a favourite? Or did she consider me a disturbing factor in her placid community, of whom she would be well rid? Every hour we travelled lessened the chance of any return. And Imgry forced the pace where he could, conferring with the taciturn guide who led our party at least twice during the morning. How far away was our rendezvous? I only knew that it lay upon the edge of the waste at some point of landscape which was so noteworthy as not to be mistaken.

Harrowdale with its isolated farms was gone, and yet the road climbed with us. Save for our own party we might have passed through a deserted countryside. No animal, no bird—and certainly no man—came into sight. When winter wrapped the farms their people kept much indoors, the women busy at their looms, the men at such tasks as they wished.

Now followed the sharper descent into Hockerdale and the murmur of water, for the swift flowing stream there was not yet completely ice roofed. We passed a guard post at the head of that dale, and men turned out to salute our leader and exchange words with him and the guide. It was at that pause another pony edged close to mine and she who rode it leaned a little forward in her saddle.

“Do they mean to never give us any ease?” she asked, perhaps of me, perhaps only of the air, that her words might carry to Lord Imgry.

“It would seem not so.” I made my answer low-voiced, for I did not want to be heard abroad.

She pulled impatiently at her veil and her hood fell back a little. This was that Kildas whom Tolfana had pricked with her spite at the table. There were dark shadows under her green-blue eyes in this wan light, a pinching about her full lipped mouth, as if both harsh dayshine and the cold had aged and withered her for the nonce.

“You are his choice.” she nodded to Lord Imgry. “But you ride mum this morning. What whip of fear did he use to bind you to his purpose? Last eve you swore you would not come—“ There was not any sympathy in her, just curiosity, as if her own discomfort might be eased a little by seeing the sores of another sufferer exposed.

“I had the night for reflection.” I made the best reply I could.

She laughed shortly. “Mighty must have been those reflections to produce so collected a mind this day! Your screams had the halls ringing bravely when they took you forth. Do you now fancy a sorcerer bridegroom?”

“Do you?” I countered. The thought that Marimme had made such a show of her fear and revulsion was a small worry now. I was not Marimme and I could not counterfeit her well. Lord Imgry had been engrossed all morning in his urge for speed. But what would happen when he found he had been befooled? He needed me to make up the tale of the Bargain, and that should protect me from the full force of any wrath that he would feel upon learning of the substitution.

“Do I?” Kildas drew me out of my thoughts. “As all of us, I have no choice. But—should these Weremen share much with those of our own kind, then I do not fear.” She tossed her head, strengthened by her confidence in herself and those weapons chance and nature had given her. “No, I do not fear that I shall be ill received by him who waits my coming!”

“What are they like? Have you ever seen a Rider?” I set myself to explore what she might know. Until this time I had been far more intent upon escape and what lay behind me, than what waited at this ride’s end.

“Seen them?” she answered my last question first. “No. They have not come into the Dales, save on raids against Alizon. And they are said then to travel by night, not day. As to what they are like—they wore man forms when they treated with us, and they have strange powers—” Kildas’ confidence ebbed and again her fingers pulled at the veil about her throat as if she found it hard to breathe and some cord pressed there against her flesh. “If more is known—that has not been told us.” I heard a catch of breath, not far removed from sob to my left. Another had come level with us. Her travel worn robe—she was Solfinna who had shared Kildas’ plate the night before—her poverty put further to shame by the other’s display.

“Weep out your eyes if you wish, Solfinna.” snapped Kildas. “A pool of tears as deep as the sea will not change the future.”

Solfinna started, as if that voice, whip-sharp, was indeed a thong laid about her hunched shoulders. And I think that Kildas then took shame, for she said in a softer voice:

“Thank you—this was a free choice for you. Thus are you the greater than the rest of us. And since you believe in prayer, do you not also believe that right and good come to just rewards, even if there must be a time of waiting?”

“You choose to come?” I asked.

“It—it was a way to help.” Solfinna paused and then spoke more firmly, “You are right, Kildas. To do a thing because it is right, and then to bewail the doing because one fears, throws away all that one must believe in. Yet I would give much to see my lady mother, and my sisters and Wasscot Keep once again. And never shall I.”

“Would that not also be so in regular marriage?” Kildas asked with a gentleness she had not shown before. “If you had been betrothed to lord or Captain of the south Dales, there would have been no returning.”

“So do I remember. To that thought I hold.” Solfinna said quickly. “We are betrothed, in truth. We go to our weddings. It is as it had been for womenkind for untold years. And for my going so, those left behind gain much. Yet the Riders—”

“Look upon this though, also. Test it in your mind.” I said. “These Riders so wanted wives that they set up a war bargain to gain them. And when a man so much wants a thing that he will gamble his life to its gaining, then I think once it is in his hands he will cherish and hold it in no little esteem.”

Solfinna turned to look at me more closely. Her red-rimmed eyes blinked as if she would focus them upon me for keener sight. And I heard a little exclamation from Kildas, who urged her mount even closer.

“Who are you?” she demanded with a force which disputed any denial. “You are not that wailing maid they carried from the hall last night!”

Need I try to play the counterfeit with my fellows in the train? There was no great reason for that. Perhaps we were already past the point where Lord Imgry could make adequate protest.

“You are right. I am not Marimme—”

“Then who?” Kildas continued to press, while Solfinna watched me now with eyes rounded by astonishment.

“I am Gillan, one who dwelt at the Abbey for some years. I have no kin and this is my free choice.”

“If you have no kin to compel you, nor to profit from your free choice.” that was Solfinna her amazement now in her voice, “why do you come?”

“Because, perhaps there are worse things than riding into an unknown future.”

“Worse things?” prompted Kildas.

“Facing a future too well known.”

Solfinna drew back a little. “You have done that which—”

“Which makes this the lesser choice of ill fate?” I laughed. “No, I leave no crimes behind me. But neither do I have any chance of life outside the Abbey-stead, and I am not of a nature to take veil and coif and be content with such a round, one day so like unto another, so that during the years they become just one endless series of hours none differing from its fore or following companion.”

Kildas nodded. “Yes, I think that could be so. But what will chance when he,” she nodded towards Lord Imgry, “discovers the truth? He was set upon Marimme because of some project of his own. And he is not a man to be lightly baulked.”

“That I know. But there is this drive he has shown, a fear of passing time. He will not be able to return to Norstead and he is honour bound to furnish the full toll of brides.”

Again Kildas laughed. “You have a good way of thinking to a purpose, Gillan. I believe that both your weapons against him will serve.”

“You—you do not fear the—the wild men? You chose for yourself alone?” Solfinna asked.

“I do not know about future fears. It is best not to see shadows on mountain crests while you still ride the valleys at their feet.” I replied. Yet I thought that I could not claim unusual courage in this. Perhaps I had turned my back on a lesser trouble to embrace a greater. Still I would not admit that now, even to myself.

“A good philosophy.” Kildas commented, but there was more a note or raillery than approval in that. “May it continue to guide and preserve you, sister-bride. Ah, it appears that we shall be granted a rest within after all—”

For at word from Lord Imgry the men of the escort came forward to help us dismount and lead us into the post. In the guardroom we crowded to the fire, holding out our hands, moving about to drive the stiffness from our legs and backs. As always I kept as far from our leader as I might. Perhaps he would believe that my avoidance of him was only natural, that Marimme’s fear and hatred would keep her from the man solely responsible for her being here. If he believed so, he meant to leave well enough alone, for he did not approach me where I stood with Kildas and Solfinna, sipping now at the mugs of hot stew-soup dipped out of a common kettle.

We were not yet finished with this meal, if meal it might be named, when Lord Imgry spoke out, addressing us as a company:

“The snow has stopped in the heights. Though it is uncomfortable, yet we must press on to the Croffkeep before night. Time grows short and we must be at the Throat of the Hawk in another day’s time.”

There was some under-the-berth complaining at his words, but none of them spoke out loud. He was not a man to be fronted on a matter of comfort alone. Throat of the Hawk—the name meant nothing to me. Perhaps it was our ordained meeting place.

My luck still held. When we reached the Croffkeep, a mountain fort now only a quarter manned, we were given a long room to ourselves, with pallets laid on the floor, reducing us to the “comforts” of those who had fought from this rocky perch in years past

Fatigue pushed me into sleep, deep and dreamless. But I awoke from that suddenly, alert of mind, as if I had been summoned. Almost I could hear the echo of some well known voice—Dame Alousan’s?—calling me to a necessary task. And so strong was that feeling that I blinked at the dim lamp at the far end of the room, found it hard for the moment to recognize the sounds of heavy breathing from the pallets around mine and realize where I lay and for what purpose.

My weariness was gone. Instead I was filled with a restlessness, the kind of anticipatory unease which haunts one before some momentous and life changing event. And also my old talent, which had been stirring in me since I first thought of this, was as awake as I.

There was that reaching out in me which I did not exactly fear, which some inner part below the level of my day-mind knew and welcomed, as one drinking a cordial for the first time might know the refreshment of a herb the body craved but which hitherto had been denied it. It was a brave excitement and it worked in me so that I found it impossible to lie still.

With what stealth I could summon, I put on my outer clothing. The divided skirt of my riding robe was still damp and the chill unpleasant but that did not matter to the thing forcing me into the night and the open, as if I must have freedom in which to breathe.

Kildas stirred in her sleep as I rounded the end of her pallet, next to mine, and murmured—a name perhaps. But she did not wake, and then I laid hand on the door latch. I could hear the tread of a sentry in the corridor. Yet my need for the open drove me on at the end of his beat. I had taken but a step or two.

When I edged open the door he was back towards me without when he began to turn. And in that moment I was possessed by that which I had known only dimly—a will which was as much of the body as it was of the mind. I looked upon that man who in a moment would see me, and I willed, fiercely and with all the force in me, that he would not do so—not for the seconds which would see me gone.

And he did not! Though, as I reached the side corridor, I leaned limply against the cold stone of the wall, spent with the effort of that willing. And the excitement in me was augmented by another emotion—that of wonder and triumph mixed. For a period out of real time I stood so, savouring what I believed I had done—but one cool portion of me doubted, acted as a brake. Then I went up the stairs facing me and out on to a terrace or lookout walk. The snow gave a certain lightness, but the bulk of the dark heights were only slightly silvered by the moon veiled by drifting clouds.

There was a wind, fresh, as if it blew from yet higher peaks—free lands where the dust of the Dales could never linger. Only, now that I had reached this place, that urge which had brought me here was fast dying, and I could find no reason for it. In spite of my cloak I shivered in the wind, drew back to the doorway for protection.

“What do you do here?”

There was no mistaking that voice. Why or how Lord Imgry shared my need for deep night wandering, I did not know. But our meeting I could not escape.

“I wished the fresh air—” My reply was stupid, meaningless. But to seek delays was useless.

As I turned I held my hand to my eyes for he swept me with the dazzling light of a hand lamp. He must first have read the device on Marimme’s borrowed tabard, for his hand flashed out and gripped my shoulder with punishing force, dragging me closer to him.

“Fool! Little fool!” Passion stirred under that adamant tone, not one soft—turned to Marimme, but rather one concerned with his good or ill. And somehow that thought armoured me and I dropped my masking hand to meet him eye to eye.

“You are not Marimme.” He kept grip on my shoulder, swung the lamp still closer to me. “Nor are you any other rightful of this company. Who are you?” And his fingers were five sword points in my flesh, so that I could have cried out under their torment but did not.

“I am of this company, my lord. I am Gillan, out of Norstead—”

“So! They would dare, those mouse-squeak women, to do this—”

“Not so.” I did not strive to throw off his hold, since I knew that I could not, but I stood straight-shouldered under it. And I think my denial of his accusation broke the surface of his anger and made him listen. “This was of my own planning—”

“You? And what have you to do with decisions beyond your making? You shall rue this—”

Passion curbed, but perhaps all the more deadly for that curbing. But to meet his anger I summoned will. Somehow I knew that I could not impress upon this man my desire as I had upon the sentry—if I had—still will gave me a shield to arm-sling for my own protection.

“The time for rue is past—or has not yet come.” I tried to choose my words with care, those best to hold attention and make him think. “Time is not one of your menie this night, my lord. Return me to Norstead and you have lost. Send me back with one of your men, and again you have lost—for at the Throat of the Hawk there must be twelve and one, or honour shall be broke.”

His arm moved and he shook me to and fro, his strength so that in his grasp I was a straw thing. But my will held and I faced him. Then he flung me away so I slipped in the snow and went to my knees, jarring against the parapet of that walk. And I do not believe in that instant he would have cared had I been hurled over it and down.

I pulled to my feet and I was shaking, my bruised shoulder all pain, the fear of what might have been brushing me still. But I could face him head up and still clear of thought, knowing what I must say.

“You were to provide one of the brides, my lord. I am here, nor will I nay-say that I am here through your will, should witness be needed. And still you have Marimme who is of such beauty as to make a fine match. Have you truly lost aught by this?”

I could hear his breathing, heavy as that of a man who had tried to outrace enemy horse and then been cornered in some rock hole. But, though his passions were hot, I had read him aright as one of those men who had full control when that was needed to further his plans. Now he came to me, moving with deliberation, holding up the lamp. However I knew that the moment of greatest danger was past. Imgry might hate me for my deception, but he was greater than some men, able to swallow that which might have been humiliation at being befooled, because it best suited. His mind was already working ahead, chewing upon what I said.

“Gillan.” My name was flat from his lips, sounding harsh and dull. “And you fulfil the condition?”

“I am maid, and I think I am some twenty years of age. I was fosterling to Lord Furlo of Thantop and his wife, having been found as a small child a prisoner of Alizon. Since the Hounds had preserved my life Lord Furlo believed me of some consequence—thus you might deem my birth worthy.”

He was surveying me insolently from head to foot and back again. It was shameful, that raking stare, and he knew it, making it so deliberately. I knew anger and kept it leashed, and I think he understood that also. Though what my inner defiance meant to him I could not tell.

“You are right—time presses. Twelve and one brides they shall have. You may not find this will be as you hope, girl.”

“She who expects neither good nor ill has an equal chance of either.” I replied as sharply as I could.

A faint shadow of expression crossed his face, one I could not read.

“From whence did the Hounds have you?” There was interest in that, in me as a person, not just one of the play-pieces he pushed about his private board.

“I know not. I remember only a ship in a storm, and after that the port where Lord Furlo’s raiders found me.” I gave him the truth.

“The Hounds war also overseas. Estcarp!” He flung that last word at me as if to provoke response, perhaps betrayal.

“Estcarp?” I repeated, for the word meant nothing, though I added a guess as a question. “That is enemy to Alizon?”

Lord Imgry shrugged. “So they say. But it is of no moment to you now. You have made your choice. You shall abide by it.”

“I ask no more than that, my lord.”

He smiled and it was not a good smile. “To make sure—just to make sure—”

Thus he brought me back to the sleeping chamber, pushed me inside. I heard him summon the guard to stand outside that door. Then I came back to my pallet and lay down. That which I dreaded since I had left the Abbey was now behind me. I had overleaped the second of the walls between me and what I sought. And the third—now my mind turned to the third—he who might wait for me at the Throat of the Hawk.

Mankind was known only at the Abbey-stead through speech, and now and then, at long intervals, by the kin of those refugee ladies who made visits. At such times I had been classed among the Dames and had seen such visitors only at a distance. I knew of men, but I did not know man. Though, this too was a custom among those of gentle blood.

Marriage is a far off thing which lies in a maid’s mind but is not early brought to the surface, unless she is among those to whom it is of importance. Perhaps in this way I was far younger than those, or most of those I rode among. For to the Dames marriage had no existence, and they did not discuss it. Now, when I tried to think of what my choice might lead me to, I had little to build upon. Even the fears of my companions were not real to me, since an ordinary man seemed as equally strange as one of the Were Riders with his dark reputation. And I needs must apply my own advice—that which I had so easily given to Solfinna—not to seek trouble until its shadow could not be denied.

There was no mention in the morning between Lord Imgry and me of our night meeting. I used my masking veil prudently, lest others in the company remark that I was not Marimme. But I believe that the closer we drew to the end of our journey, the more each turned inwards, dealing with her own hopes and fears to the best of her ability, and the less attention they spared for those about them. We were very quiet during that day’s riding.

As far as I knew the world about us we had ridden off the map of the Dales. The road was a track along which two might file, ponies shoulder to shoulder, and it brought us down again from the heights to a plain, brown with winter. Dark copses of trees looked smaller than those of the Dales, as if they were stunted in growth. There was little underbush. Sere grass showed in ragged tuffs through snow which lay thinly here.

We crossed a river on a bridge, man-built of timbers rudely cut and set in hardened earth. But there had been no recent travellers on this way, no tracks broke the snow. Again we moved through a deserted world which would lead one to believe that mankind had long passed away.

Once more we began to climb a slope, a little steeper than before. And our way led now to a notch between two tall cliffs. We came out on a level space where stones had been built into a rude half shelter and a pit, lined with rocks, was marked with the black of past fires. There we came to a halt. Lord Imgry joined with one of our guards and the guide before he faced us to say:

“You will rest here.”

No more. He was already riding off with those two. Stiff and tired, we dismounted. Two of the escort built a fire in the hold and then shared out trail provisions, but I do not think that any of us ate much. Kildas touched my arm.

“The Throat of the Hawk—” she motioned towards the cut. “It would seem that the brides are more willing than their grooms. There is no sign of any welcome.”

As she spoke the gathering dusk was broken, deep inside that cut, by light. Not the yellow of lamp shine, nor the richer red of fire, but with a greenish glow strange to me. Outlined blackly against it were the three who had left us—just then—no one else appeared in the pass.

“No,” Kildas repeated, “one can not name them eager.”

“Maybe,” there was hope in Solfinna’s voice, “maybe they have decided—”

“That they do not want us after all, child? Never think it! In a songsmith’s tales such an ending might be granted us—in real life I have found it always goes differently.” As on the day previous her face of a sudden had an aged, pinched look. “Do not hope. You will only be dashed the deeper when you know the truth.”

We stood within the range of the fire where there was warmth, but perhaps all of us shivered within as we looked upon the Throat of the Hawk and that ever-steady green fire within it.