At last, at last, the kitten collapsed against her and slept, crying small piteous cries in its restless sleep.
Ama did not sleep. She lay along the fire, pressed the kitten to her heart, and made promises all the night long: promises to the kitten, to the kitten’s lost mother, to the hard, hot anger in her own breast.
By morning, she managed to tuck away the anger, as the kitten seemed to tuck away its grief. The kitten drank the fresh water Emory brought up from the stream and ate Ama’s breakfast of dried meat.
Emory had gutted and skinned the lynx the night before, but Ama would not eat a bite of it. She refused too the hot brew Emory offered her with sunup, saying that her stomach felt unsettled, and drinking only water.
Emory packed the saddlebags a final time, flung the lynx’s skin across Reynard’s back, and offered Ama a hand into the saddle.
She shook her head, tucked the kitten more firmly into her shirtfront, and said, “I shall walk, if it pleases you. My legs are restless from yesterday’s long ride.”
“It does not please me,” Emory said. “With no food in you last night or this day, and weak still from your fever? You should ride.”
Ama said nothing.
Emory sighed. Perhaps he understood that Ama would not ride with the kitten upon his mount, with the lynx’s fur as well.
“As you say,” he said, but he would not ride either, so they walked off together, Reynard pleased to bear only the weight of the saddlebags and the pelt, Emory with the reins in his hand, and Ama with the kitten in her shirt.
“What shall you call it?” Emory asked.
“Sorrow,” Ama answered, which she had named the kitten, deep in the night, when Emory and Reynard had slept. It was a word she had not known until she thought it. And she wished there were another, sweeter thing to call the kitten, but better honesty than lies.
“That’s an awful name for a pet,” Emory said bluntly.
“Yes,” said Ama. “Reynard is a much more agreeable name. But her name is Sorrow, just the same.”
And so it was that Emory of Harding returned home, a dragon slayer and a king, with a lynx skin to give his mother, a damsel to take as his bride, and Sorrow, who would remain his bride’s companion as long as she remained at his side.
Three
Harding’s Wall
The sun was setting when Emory and Ama arrived at the wall of Harding.
From the distant hill where Emory told Reynard “whoa,” and the horse stopped and stomped his foot, Ama took in her first view of the place that she was to henceforth call home. Below them, in a valley and beyond, lay the expanse of Harding. Ama could see the smart configuration of buildings, which had been built in a labyrinthine pattern around a central castle—Emory’s castle.
The castle was by far the largest structure, and the city circled it like an iris around a pupil. It was a miracle of turrets and garrets, of pinnacles and parapets. And the whole of it was built of some stone of lustrous black, so it gleamed like an iris, as well.
The lesser buildings were constructed of lesser stones—dull shades of brown and gray and mud. And surrounding all of it was the wall of Harding.
The wall stretched, almond-shaped, around the city. And it seemed to catch and reflect the last of the day’s sun, a million points of light sparkling from its surface.
“Home at last,” Emory sighed contentedly. He turned and smiled at Ama, and the brilliant wide happiness reflected there lifted Ama’s heart, in turn, and she felt a surge of hope, and she felt her own mouth smile in return.
Reynard knew where they were, and what that meant—a return to his comfortable stable, oats instead of grass, a bedful of wood shavings, fresh fruit. He snorted happily and tossed his head, and, but for Emory’s hand on his reins, would have finished the journey at a gallop.
But, still on foot beside his mount, Emory controlled him, and side by side, Emory, Reynard, and Ama approached the wall, with Sorrow still tucked to her breast.
Down the hill they went, and across the last flatness of plain, and then there they were, at the foot of the wall, which cast them deep into shadow.
The wall was full of eyes—unblinking, steadfast, watching eyes. It was the eyes that had caught the light and glinted it up at her; they were everywhere, mortared into the wall’s surface—eyes of every shade of blue and gray and green and brown.
Everywhere, everywhere, eyes.
“It’s a sight, isn’t it?” Emory said, seemingly unaware of his wordplay. “Harding is known throughout the world for its wall.”
“But,” said Ama, clutching the sleeping lynx tighter, “whose eyes are those?”
“Those are the Eyes of Harding,” Emory said. “They are made by our glassblower—the finest in the world, I might add. He alone crafts the Eyes for our wall. His gaze is our gaze, and the Eyes never blink, never rest, as they guard our border. Those who live behind the wall know we are safer for their watchful protection.”
Ama reached out a hand and stroked the wall—the rough stones, the sandy mortar, the cool, smooth glass Eyes, one after another after another, all unblinking.
Now, close up, she saw that here and there, an Eye was missing—not many, but a few distinct pits where Eyes had been and were no more.
She ran her fingers inside one such groove, felt the absence there.
“They are considered prizes beyond measure,” Emory said. “The Eyes of Harding are said to bestow fortune upon he who possesses them. Only the glassblower can form them. He crafts other pieces, as well; his intricate and beautiful creations can be found in the finest estates all across this wide world, fetching any price he chooses to set, so well known and respected he is, but the Eyes are a different matter. The glassblower makes them only for the wall of Harding. And, of course, it should go without saying that no one may take an Eye from the wall. Still,” Emory conceded, “it happens from time to time. A desperate soul, out of hope, out of options—perhaps a man whose wife is dying, or someone who has lost all his wealth in a bad bet—occasionally such a bereft creature will venture to the wall and scoop an Eye from it.”
“Does it work?” Ama asked. “Will an Eye give its bearer luck?”
“Some say it does,” said Emory. “But always, the thief is caught.”
“What then?”
“We are not a cruel people, Ama,” Emory said. “But we are fair. The law of Harding dictates: An eye for an Eye.”
Ama shivered. The sun was gone now; the Eyes did not shine; the lynx kit mewled for her supper.
A great wooden door was set into the wall, a third the height of the wall itself. Dark ironwork slashed across it, reinforcing it against intruders. At its center was an enormous golden knocker, shaped into the head of a dragon.
Emory reached up and grabbed the ring that hung from the dragon’s jaws and clanged it, hard, against the brass plate beneath it.
A moment passed, and Ama heard the turning of a lock before a small window opened just beneath the dragon knocker. A face—sharp-featured, white-skinned, scarred—peered out.