Keisyl thumped his fist into the wood of the door. “I couldn’t imagine how this situation could get any worse. Now I know better and that’s all my fault as well.”
“The sooner everyone stops blaming themselves for the lad’s death, the sooner this soke will start healing,” said Fithian unexpectedly. He shoved the hearthstone back with a grunt, raising a cloud of fine ash that hung in the air in a mockery of smoke. “Teiro was the best part grown and knew his own mind. He made his choices and he lived and died by them. We all do that, boy, it’s the way of things. You take this route or that and only Maewelin knows if you’re choosing to step into the path of an avalanche. Two men walk on a frozen lake and Misaen rolls the runes. One man freezes to death when he falls through the ice while another catches the fish that’s the meal to save his life. Teiro could have died in a rock fall and he’d be just as dead, just as young.”
Ismenia nodded in mute agreement, eyes dark with remembered sorrows.
“This is nothing like the same!” Keisyl shook his head obstinately. “This is all Jeirran’s doing. He’s the one stirring up the trouble with all his fine words and promises. He’s the one making war on the lowlanders!”
“Not on his own, he isn’t.” Ismenia looked up from her thoughts. “Look out of the door and see just how many he has following him.”
Keisyl moved instead to one of the narrow windows on one side and peered out at the compound. Knots of men, threes and fives, were staring up at the closed door, heads close in discreet speculation. “He wouldn’t set them on us, would he?” he asked despairingly.
Ismenia came to stand with him, raising herself on her toes to see out. “I’d believe that fool capable of anything,” she said grimly.
Both of them turned at a sudden sound but it was only Fithian unlocking his private chest. He took out a flask and glasses and wordlessly brought each a drink of fine, straw-colored spirit.
Keisyl laid a hand on the heavy latch of the door. “Where are the keys, Mother?”
“Here.” She lifted a bunch hanging from a chain at her waist. “For all the good it would do us.”
Keisyl caught his breath as sudden movement down by the gate turned heads all around the courtyard. Jeirran strode forward, head held high, arms swinging confidently. He marched to the steps of the rekin and looked up at the closed door for a long moment. Even though he knew the darkness within hid him, Keisyl felt as if the man’s eyes were locked on his own. Jeirran turned on his heel, boot nails scraping the stone.
“You all know what has happened,” began Jeirran. He did not shout but spoke with a calm authority that rapidly silenced the speculation all around. “This rekin mourns,” he lifted a hand to the blank stone face, “the soke mourns and so do thrice three more, as Sheltya return their dead sons. We are not unused to grief; Misaen made us a hard land and Maewelin is unforgiving in her trials. But this is more than a fate we must bear as our due. This is not life claimed and paid in return for the gifts of wood and mountain. These lives were stolen. Our parley was dishonored. The bodies of those that offered up their good faith were left discarded like so much rubbish.”
Angry murmurs swelled for a moment and Jeirran fell silent until the noise subsided. The air was ripe with expectation.
“Are we to suffer this insult? Is this to be yet one more abuse of our land and our people that goes unchallenged? Are the lowlanders and their Forest allies going to bar us from roads and trade now that we’ve been bold enough to mark our boundaries?” His voice was unexpectedly calm. “Isn’t it time to tell them enough is enough? Mustn’t they learn we will not stand to be so disparaged and denied?” He shook his head. “I’ve been breaking my heart and testing your patience with questions long enough. You must decide what to do. All I know is I have a murder to avenge. I will not cross my wife’s threshold until I have claimed a life to repay the soke for its loss. I will not take food from her hearth until I have lit a pyre to break the bones of that murderer to splinters. I will not return until I can swear to my sons and daughters yet unborn that I have defended their birthright. Misaen and Maewelin both may judge me if I do not spend every last drop of blood in my veins before I abandon this pledge.”
Jeirran did not look back as he walked away from the rekin. He strode forward but eager men shouting their support, reaching forward to shake his hand or slap his shoulder, soon blocked his path. Those who could not get close raised clenched fists in noisy approval, more soon raising weapons in their hands. The crowd moved awkwardly toward the gate, shifting and seething until it emptied through the narrow stone tunnel. Men in twos and threes ran hastily between the workshops and storehouses of the compound, emerging with sacks, bundles, swords and quivers. They halted for a moment as a great cheer boiled up outside the walls, the sound echoing from the cliffs all around, startling birds from their roosts.
“Do you suppose Eirys heard all that?” asked Keisyl despairingly. “She’ll be opening her arms to him soon enough if she did.”
“I don’t care if she was listening,” said Ismenia grimly. “That’s an oath that won’t go unheard where it matters.”
“You don’t believe he means what he’s saying?” Keisyl demanded. “That’s just his way of excusing himself to his rabble, avoiding explanations when they see this door is barred to him.”
“Whether or not he means it doesn’t matter,” said Ismenia with cold satisfaction.
“Misaen and Maewelin will answer when their names are invoked, even in vain,” nodded Fithian.
“He just realized that there were no fancy words he could use to get men to force their way into the rekin.” Keisyl sighed. “When he has them eating out of his hand by boasting he’s their champion for ancient rights, he’s hardly going to risk all by asking them to break down the door and defile custom along with the threshold.”
“None of them would go that far,” nodded Fithian slowly.
“Jeirran’s not got the wit for that,” said Ismenia scornfully. “It’ll be that harlot he’s reclaimed as sister.”
“Aritane may be many things and some of them foolish, but harlot she is not.”
The unexpected voice was rough with emotion and male.
Ismenia whirled around, hugging her arms to her, face ashen. Fithian reversed his grip on his flask and raised it menacingly. Keisyl stepped in front of his mother, fists clenched and scowling. “Theilyn! What do you think you are doing?”
The girl stepped down from the stairwell door and the gray-cloaked figure behind her put down his hood. “I went to find Bryn,” Theilyn said in a shaking voice. “Even if you’ll never forgive me, I wanted to make some amends to Teiro.” She glanced at the corpse and bit her lip but she had shed all her tears for now.
Bryn twisted his large hands around each other. “She has good cause to be concerned,” he began apologetically. “In this season, even salting the body—there is very real danger of corruption.”
“I’ll have no Sheltya dancing to Aritane’s tune saying the rites for my son,” Ismenia told him with simple truth. “I’ll risk the stain on his bones and answer for it if need be.”
“We could argue the rights and wrongs of what Aritane is doing from Solstice to Equinox but that will be of no use to Teiriol. I cannot leave matters like this.” Bryn colored and shifted uncomfortably. “It looks as if we will be leaving within the day. Once we are gone, I can ensure some Sheltya unconnected with all this will come to you, if you wish it. But I would need to have your word that you will not speak of Jeirran’s army or of any Sheltya presence here.”
Keisyl couldn’t ever recall hearing fear in a Sheltya voice before.
“I would not lie to Sheltya, even if I could.” Ismenia shook her head, more puzzled than defiant.
“Do not say how Teiriol died,” pleaded Bryn. “Or rather, just say that he was attacked in the lowlands, not that he was part of a parley or anything to do with Jeirran’s ambitions. Sheltya will respect your grief, you know that.”