Many of the people in the vo’an sickened and died in the next summer. The flames from the torkyr they carried with them were made unclean by his anger.’
‘You want to kill me because of something that happened hundreds of years ago?’ asked Orisian, striving to keep the tension that was knotting his stomach out of his voice.
‘This man was sent to the willow a thousand and a half years gone,’ In’hynyr corrected him. ‘When the wolfenkind still cast a shadow in the world. When the Fox lived nearer the sun, in kinder lands. But his name is not forgotten. I know the names of the people who died of sickness in the summer that came after. They are not forgotten. We sing for them still. We do not forget. Do you? Do the Huanin forget the past?’
‘No, we don’t forget, but ... I am not the same as that man. His mistake ... his foolishness ... is not mine.’ Orisian felt lost. A decision was being forged out of arguments he did not fully understand. He felt powerless. The thought went through his mind that Fariel would have known what to say, what to do. And Inurian would have. He was uncomfortably hot. The walls of the tent pressed in upon him.
‘We know that there can be good as well as evil in the Huanin,’ In’hynyr said. ‘At the place you call Koldihrve there is peace between Huanin and Kyrinin. There can be good in the people of the valley, too. Two summers gone, a youth from the a’an of Taynan was hunting. He was foolish, and a boar wounded him. A man from the valley found him and cared for him. He made him well, and the youth returned to his a’an. By this we know that there is good in the people of the valley. Do you have this good in you?’
‘I would help someone if they were hurt,’ said Orisian. ‘As Ess’yr has tried to help me. Not all Huanin think ill of the Kyrinin, just as not all Kyrinin think ill of us. I wish the Fox no harm.’
‘You do not wish the Fox any harm,’ said In’hynyr, as if testing the truth of the words by their taste. She paused, and an intense silence descended. Orisian glanced from face to face. Blank eyes met his. There was no connection to be made with these people; they regarded him with the detachment of a slaughterman picking a sheep for the knife.
‘Ess’yr tells us that you are high amongst your people. You are one of the rulers,’ said In’hynyr.
‘No,’ said Orisian, ‘not really. My uncle is the Thane. Inurian is my friend...’
Again, the curt sniff. He wondered if In’hynyr was displeased. He had thought Inurian’s name might buy him some friendship here. It did not appear to work. He cast about for something else that might serve better. It might not be true, he thought, that Fariel would have known what to say. He had not talked to Inurian about the Kyrinin, as Orisian had often done; he had never imagined visiting a Fox camp, would never have even thought such a thing to be possible. He would not have seen any difference between Fox and White Owl.
‘My family is no enemy of the Fox,’ he said. ‘And we are no friends of the White Owls.’
‘The man in the castle in the valley fights the White Owl. That is good. Have you also made war on the enemy in Anlane?’
‘I have not fought them myself, if that is what you mean. Warriors from my home have, when they raided against our people in the forest. Rothe, the man who is with me, he has fought them. He is an enemy of the White Owl.’
Orisian was starting to feel sick again, from the heat, the heady smell inside the tent, the weariness he could feel in his bones.
‘All hands are against the Fox,’ said In’hynyr. ‘We are a small clan. Eighty a’ans. The White Owl, who swarm like bees, are five times as many. Your kind fill the valley like mice in the grass. We are a small clan, but we hold against our enemies. To hold, our sight must be clear like the fox, and our thoughts sharp. Ess’yr felt duty to you, and we allowed her wish to aid you. Our duty is to the vo’an. Is the vo’an safe?’
‘I wish only to return to my own people. I will not tell anyone where the vo’an is. Neither will Rothe, if I tell him not to. We just want to go back.’
He could speak no more. There was a throbbing behind his eyes. Everything he had ever heard about the Kyrinin, every tale of butchery, was milling about in his head demanding attention: children killed in their beds in farmhouses; the torture of warriors captured in forest skirmishes. Yet still he clung to the notion that tales were only tales, and they were not about him, here, now. He could not believe that he had escaped the horrors of Winterbirth only to be condemned to death by this small old woman with red in her silver hair.
‘Drink,’ said In’hynyr. For a moment Orisian looked at her, not understanding, then he recalled the small wooden bowl still resting on his knees. Hesitantly, remembering the drink’s astringent taste, he raised it to his lips and sipped. The liquid had cooled a fraction and though it still tasted harsh it did not burn so fiercely. His head cleared a little. The oppressive heat seemed to lift itself from his face.
‘What is your promise worth?’ In’hynyr asked him.
Orisian paused, searching for some form of words that might make the connection he needed with this woman.
‘It puts a duty on me,’ he said. ‘As you bear a duty to the vo’an, as you say Ess’yr felt some duty to me. My promise is a duty I owe to myself, and to you.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘Go? I...’ He hesitated. Where would he go? His father was gone, perhaps Anyara and Inurian as well. And Kolglas was far away, if Rothe was right about how far they had travelled. ‘I would go to Anduran first,’ he said. ‘To my uncle, the Thane. If what you say is true, my people must make war against the Black Road and the White Owls. I must be a part of that.’
Somewhere within the tent, hidden amidst the shadows, someone had begun to sing. It was a soft, chanted song, so low and deep that it was like a distant murmur. Orisian could not even be sure whether there was a single voice or more. He could hear no words within the song. It had a funereal sound.
‘I mean the Fox no harm,’ he said again. ‘I am not your enemy. If there is war, it will be against other Huanin and against the White Owl. Not the Fox.’ He could think of nothing more to say.
For a long time, no one said anything. There was only the song, flowing around him. He lowered his eyes and stared at the bowl cupped in his lap, and the liquid within. Its heat was fading quickly. A few fragile wisps of steam rose towards his face.
‘Leave us,’ said In’hynyr at last.
Fighting back a surge of relief, Orisian scrambled to his feet. In his eagerness to take his leave he ignored the pain in his side. Only as he made for the opening in the side of the tent did doubt reassert itself.
‘Will we be allowed to leave the vo’an, then?’ he asked.
‘We will think on it,’ was all In’hynyr said.
He sat cross-legged in the tent’s doorway for long hours. They had given him a cloak of marten fur that had a powerful scent as if it was freshly stripped from the animals. He needed it, since each day turned the air a little crisper.
Two weeks, and a lifetime, ago this would have been a dream realised for him, to be in the midst of a camp of the Fox. Even now, despite the gnawing memory of what had brought him here, he was aware of an otherworldly peace and calm in the camp. The Kyrinin moved about with precision and balance, whether adult or child. The oldest of them, shrunken and even a little stooped, retained a natural grace Orisian had never seen in his own kind. The adults were tolerant of the packs of children that darted to and fro amongst the tents. They watched, sometimes joined in with their wrestling and chasing. Orisian never heard any voices raised in anger or excitement.