“Why are you here, at the bridge,” Keisyl nodded at Seric’s billhook, “with that?”
The man heaved a sigh. “There’s been trouble.”
“Bad?” Jeirran looked belligerent.
“Bad as it can be,” replied Seric morosely. “Gedres and his boy were coming back from the far woods when he finds all these sheep eating up the hay meadows. This Gap man, he tells Gedres to clear right out, curt as you like, get off his land. Gedres tells him to go tup his own ewes! Well, lowlander tries to fetch him a smack in the mouth so Gedres drops him. They’d been coursing, so he tells the lad to set the hounds on the misbegot and his sheep, see how he likes that. Lowlander whistles up a pack of thieves to help him.” Seric shook his head. “The lad’s none too clear on what happened after that but the long and the short of it, Gedres ends up dead with knife in his back.”
“Oh,” Eirys cried, distressed. “Poor Yevrein! Is there anything I can do—?”
Seric looked up at her, wrinkled face softening. “She’ll be glad to see you, I’ll warrant. Sheltya arrived this morning and they laid him out at noon so it’ll be a hard day for her.”
“How’s the lad?” asked Keisyl.
Seric shook his head. “Taking it hard but no one blames him. How could he take them all on, barely two-thirds grown? Bastards took a whip to him!”
Jeirran and Teiriol burst out with furious exclamations but Keisyl overrode them with a shout. “Enough! We’re doing no good here. Let’s get to the fess and offer what comfort we can.”
They crossed the bridge and made their way up a long valley where the wild beauty of trees and grass had long been turned over to ugly heaps of broken rock, the land scarred with diggings old and new. A few figures were busy damming a stream, diverting the water into a series of channels and sluices, and they stopped to watch the new arrivals. Teiriol’s cheery wave went unacknowledged and the men soon turned back to their work.
Eirys kicked on her pony and was at the gates of the stronghold well before the others. The wall was twice the height of any of the men—massive, irregular rocks fitted together with a precision that defied even a dagger blade to slip between them, a maze of joints and angles baffling the eye. Watchful figures patrolled the crenellated wall walk and one, spear in hand, peered over to hail the girl. Eirys stood in her stirrups to reply, and by the time Jeirran and the others had arrived the mighty gates were opened just sufficiently to admit the file of mules each in turn. Keisyl led his charges through the tapering tunnel made by the thickness of the wall.
“There’s room in the far stables.” The gatekeeper nodded to a youth who barred the heavy wooden doors at once.
“Hold there!” Keisyl braced himself as a mule backed nervously from the gatekeeper’s dog, a brindled animal high as a man’s waist with a questing face and lithe build. The rangy hound’s barks rose to a furious pitch, baying erupting from a distant kennel in answer.
“You’re keeping them hungry then?” shouted Keisyl.
The burly gatekeeper silenced his hound with a yank on the chain he held wrapped around one fist. “Hungry and fit for anything those lowland bastards might try.”
Eirys swung herself down from her saddle and hastily smoothed her skirts. “Where is Yevrein?”
“In the rekin.” The gatekeeper nodded to the square tower set in the center of the compound, narrow windows watchful as they rose above the height of the surrounding wall.
“Look after Dapple.” Eirys abandoned her pony to an indignant Teiriol and hurried for the broad steps leading to a wide double door.
“Take them around and get them settled.” Jeirran dropped his own reins and followed his wife.
The mules looked incuriously at Teiriol. “But—”
“Ask someone to help, Teir. I’ll be around as soon as I can.” Keisyl clapped his brother on the shoulder. “I want to hear the truth of this.”
Leaving Teiriol muttering crossly, Keisyl ran lightly up the steps of the rekin. Pushing the door open slowly, he slid in to stand silently behind Eirys. A single room took up most of the ground floor; sconces for lamps and candles were dark and all furnishings had been pushed back against the walls in disregarded confusion. The household stood in a loose circle, a discouraged sag to their shoulders, children huddling by mothers who held them close. Eirys clutched Jeirran’s hand, tears sliding down her face, eyes fixed on the woman by the broad hearth that dominated the center of the room. Pale and hollow-cheeked, eyes red with weeping, the woman tipped a bucket of ash onto the fire, stifling the bright flames. A chill fell heavily on the darkened room.
Two men stepped forward with metal pry-bars and wedges to move a heavy slab of hot stone from the edge of the plinth. Bending to the hollow revealed, the woman removed a small copper-bound casket of black wood. Selecting a key from the bunch hanging at her girdle, she opened the coffer. The older man beside her held it as she counted out the thick gold and silver coins it held.
“This is your patrimony, Nethin.” Her voice cracked as she turned to a youth a few seasons younger than Teiriol, gaunt with grief and guilt. The second man laid an encouraging hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Use it well to honor the memory of your father. He would have given it himself, when you came of age…” Anguish choked the woman and her voice failed.
A tall man in a gray robe stepped forward, shaven face somber. “That is sufficient.” He closed the lid of the casket and nodded to the older man, who replaced it beneath the hearthstone. The gray-robed man gave the weeping Yevrein into the embrace of caring women and gently led the boy Nethin out of the main door.
“Go on,” Jeirran nodded as Eirys turned to him, a question in her tearful face. She hurried over to join the women in their sorrow.
Keisyl heaved a sigh. “It’s a bad business, Jeir.”
“And a cursed sight too common since our fathers’ day,” spat Jeirran. “Every soke is being straitened and plundered.”
His word caught the attention of a man who turned to them. “Has the Othilsoke suffered like this?”
Keisyl shook his head. “Not thus far, but then we are that much farther from the Gap.”
“It’s just a matter of time,” growled Jeirran.
Keisyl went to help the man drag a sturdy wooden chest back to its customary position. “What do you reckon to do, Alured?”
“We’ve sent word to the upper diggings and the summer pastures but I don’t know what good that’ll do. Bringing the men back is all very well but we’ll lose the best part of the season’s work.” Alured took a stool from another man and set it down, his movement revealing a heavy limp.
“But you’ll drive those vermin out of the soke?” demanded Jeirran, arms folded, aloof from the rest of the men busy setting the room to rights.
“Maybe,” shrugged Alured. “If we can, but you’re right to call them vermin. They’re just like rats; for every one you kill, thrice three more are lurking unseen, just waiting to bleed you dry.”
“But you can’t just let them steal the land,” protested Jeirran.
“Later,” Keisyl scowled at him. “Make yourself useful.”
Jeirran glowered at him but took a hand in moving chairs and furniture. Gradually the room resumed its normal appearance; plainer cabinets and work benches set around with stools to one side, chairs softened with embroidered cushions, work baskets neatly arranged on shelves beside crudely carved animals or clumsily woven strips of colorful wool. Keisyl watched three men carefully laying the body of a new fire on the hearth, remembered grief darkening his eyes.
“See what I told you,” Jeirran began. “How many more—”
He fell silent as the gray-robed man entered the room and clapped his hands. He was not overly tall and showed no muscle built by years of toil, but his piercing blue eyes were dark with experience beyond his years. Everyone turned, expectant.