Firethorn Page 5

  A little before the UpsideDown Days that mark the autumn Equinox, a company of men came to the manor on the way to the king’s new war. I was in Az’s croft pulling turnips from the kitchen garden when I saw the banners over the wall and heard the boys yelling. I ran with the other drudges to see the warriors, and stood at the back of the crowd to watch them enter the manor gates.

  We were dazzled by the sight, for the Sun, which had hidden behind massy clouds all week, chose that moment to send her rays to gild the metal of armor and weapons. Each rider bore, on a pole strapped to his back, pennants of cloth-of-gold for the king and grass green for the clan of Crux, that streamed and fluttered in the wind; the men held the reins tight to make a better show, and their horses pulled at the bits and stamped and neighed as they jostled before the gate. Far down the valley road we could see, still in the shadow of the clouds, a convoy of foot soldiers, a train of oxcarts and baggage mules and spare mounts, and a pack of war dogs with their handlers. Two boys, pushing between legs to get a better view, slipped into the ditch beside the road and had to be pulled from the muddy water and then roundly cursed for their folly.

  I mistook this troop of the Crux clan for an entire army. I couldn’t count them all, for they moved about, but I guessed there were near a hundred horsemen and about the same number of men afoot. But as the Blood count, there were only sixteen in the company—so I learned later—for that was the number of cataphracts, and Sire Pava was to be the seventeenth. Seventeen is a strong number, not easily divided. Each of the cataphracts had an armiger, also of the Blood, to carry arms and fight on his shield side. These men were warriors who’d fight for the glory of it—some of the glory being the plunder they’d bring home. Then there were the soldiers, mud-men who went to war at their masters’ bidding: every cataphract had seven or eight armed varlets, several mounted, the rest on foot. But the Blood don’t bother to number mudmen in a troop, neither alive nor among the dead on a battlefield.

  The cataphracts were at the front, but we’d have known them anyway by their warhorses, which stood a good hand taller than the other mounts, and by their bright breastplates. Their helms were strapped to their servants’ saddles. We could see their faces as they greeted Sire Pava and Dame Lyra at the outer gate. The eldest had a grizzled beard, though his hair was brown. His face was weathered, with a puckered scar running across his brow and down over the corner of his left eye. He dismounted first, moving as easily as a young man. He said, “Sire Pava, I bring you greetings from your father.”

  Sire Pava and Dame Lyra were kneeling right in the road before him—though they had a drudge lay a piece of cloth on the ground first. Sire Pava had donned his new armor for the occasion. “We are honored by your visit, Sire Adhara dam Pictor by Falco, First of Crux,” he said. “My manor is but a hovel, not worthy to shelter you, but you’re welcome inside. I wish we had a better feast to set before you, but the food we have here is more fit for swine than people.” Dame Lyra said something I couldn’t hear for the noise. She looked fatter than when I’d last seen her; her complexion was pasty.

  We onlookers could read the meaning of this pageant, for it’s the custom to mouth such humble-tasting words to our betters. But it wasn’t all false courtesy. This man was titled the Crux, the First of his clan, and he was the living representative of the god Crux among the god’s descendants. He led the clan’s Council of Houses, and when the need was dire, he was the Intercessor who summoned the Council of the Dead. His prayers reached the god when others failed. Furthermore, as little as we knew of the court, we knew this, for Sire Pava boasted of it often: Sire Adhara dam Pictor by Falco, First of Crux, had the king’s ear.

  I stared at him, this man who stood so near a god and a king. We all stared and were not beaten for it. Sire Pava likewise descended from Crux, who long ago visited the mudfolk in the avatar of the Sun. She mated with mortal men and bore sons, the forefathers of the houses of the clan. God’s Blood ran in Sire Pava’s veins, sure enough, but I’d never seen a spark of radiance in him before. Yet that day the Sun parted the clouds and shone on the Crux with such brightness that I had to shield my eyes, and I was in awe of him and all his company, even Sire Pava. No matter that she shone on us onlookers too: we were dull and did not partake of her glory, as they did in their armor.

  The First of Crux bade Sire Pava rise and gave him the kiss of peace. We lingered, after they went inside, to watch the rest of the company straggle in: foot soldiers and oxen and mules and horses and dogs. At last a manor drudge came out with a broom and barrow to collect the dung from the road. She was too proud to share a crumb of news with the likes of us. I could imagine the feast and the bustle in the manor in every detail, but I was outside now, looking in with the rest of the village folk. I went home in a bad temper.

  I found an excuse to go to the back gate of the manor, though I’d stayed away before; I took tart striveberries and purse nuts to Cook and asked her what tidings had come with the newcomers.

  “I can’t stand here nattering,” she said. “Come keep me company.”

  I stepped just inside the back gate and leaned against the wall by the kitchen garden. “Well, what news?” I said.

  “Will you look!” she said. “The worms are at the coleworts again.” She knelt and began plucking greenworms from the leaves and crushing them under stones. She said the king meant to cross the Inward Sea and make war on Incus, and it was his sister, Queenmother Caelum, who begged him to do it, and in winter too. Who ever heard of warring in winter?

  In my lifetime King Thyrse had campaigned to the north against surly, sheep-stealing clansmen, and strewn the stones of their keeps over their stony lands. To the south he’d conquered a tribe of little men who rode small, quick horses; they used bows and arrows, and for this profanation of killing at a distance the king had slaughtered them without mercy when he could catch them, man, woman, and child. To the east he’d won and lost and won again a fertile river valley. Never had he gone west to war against Incus, and I said so.

  “Ah, but he did,” Cook said. “Maybe it was before you came along. It was a matter of the border, I think, or some island or other. Afterward he married his sister to the king of Incus to keep the peace. When the king died she ruled as queen regent until her son, Prince Corvus, came into his age. They say he married a serpent woman and she has him tight in her coils (and her forked tongue tickling his ear besides), and since she couldn’t abide Queenmother Caelum, he turned against his mother and locked her up in a northern keep. I heard the Crux say at table that the queenmother led her garrison all the way around the north shore of the Inward Sea and south to Ramus, and she lay on the ground before King Thyrse and rubbed dust in her hair, and begged him to restore her due. How could he deny his sister?”

  “I don’t see the sense in it. She’d go to war with her own son?”

  “She says he’s bewitched, and unfit to rule. But I don’t know. The Crux’s cook told me she’s more clabber than cream, however sweet she seems, and he wouldn’t blame the prince for hoping she’d catch her death of cold and damp up there in the north country.”

  Cook moved to the next row of coleworts. I followed her a few steps farther into the courtyard and asked about the troop staying at the manor, for that interested me more than this talk of a far-off kingdom. She said the Crux had been granted the right to take five hinds and a stag from the Kingswood, and as many fallow deer as he could drive; it showed how high he stood in the king’s favor. He’d promised them to Sire Pava for the UpsideDown Days and the Equinox feast, and Pava was wagging his tail fit to break his back for pride at the honor.

  And one of the younger cataphracts was said to be a by-blow of the king, fathered on a Crux woman to strengthen the clan. He stood to gain a fief if he did well in battle. Iza had been coupling with his jack, and Dame Lyra caught her and gave her a beating, said she should at least have picked an armiger if she was going to make a fool of herself.

  I laughed so hard at this—Iza was nearly
thirty and too old to be chasing men—that my headcloth came undone. As I tucked my hair back under it, I saw Sire Pava come out of the stables with some of the visitors. I hugged Cook hastily and turned to go.

  “Luck, bring me some spicewort and jenny-o’-the-fields, if you can find any,” she called out. She could not get used to my new name. “And come to see me in the kitchen sometimes so I can fatten you up.”

  I shook my head. I had not yet set foot inside the manor. I was waiting for the UpsideDown Days.

  In the hand of days each year called the UpsideDown Days, five days belonging to no month or tennight, anything can happen. Low is high and high is low, and people seize chances they’ve been waiting for all year, or are seized by chances unlooked for. Many children are born nine months later, and are counted fortunate, though perhaps they get more than their share of beatings from the father in the house.

  On the third of the Days, Sire Pava was hooked to a plow and driven with a switch by the oldest drudge. He plowed half a furrow and swore he’d do no more. One mudman called out, “Your furrow is short. I hope you don’t flag so quick when you plow your wife,” and another said, “Oh, he likes to plow well enough. It’s the sowing he shirks.” Sire Pava made some light answer, but he was displeased. Everyone knew he’d scattered his seed all over and had but two bastards to show for it. Dame Lyra squatted down and watered the field, holding her dress up so it should not get dirty. There were other rude japes for her, and I was glad to see how they chafed.

  The third night was given to the god Carnal. Women wore their hair uncovered, all maids again, no shame in it. Men roamed from village to village, and any woman who didn’t want a pricking stayed home and barred her door. We danced our way to the center of the spiral fields along the plowed strips, to make them ready for the winter sowing, and back out again, round and round until we were dizzy. We called the god, and the god came among us in the avatar of Desire. The Sun went down; we lit the pitchpine torches, and the torches drifted farther apart, dipping and swaying and going out, as the dancers chose partners for a different dance.

  A man with a torch came running up behind me and threw my shadow flickering ahead over the furrows. He seized my shoulder, turned me around, and kissed me. Not having much time to think about it, I bit him and pushed him away.

  He laughed. There was a drop of blood on his lip. “I was hoping I’d find you,” he said in the High, a language I’d not used for more than a year. “Red hair is lucky.”

  “Might not be lucky for you,” I answered back. My heart was pounding hard enough to shake me. I held myself still, thinking: if I run, he’ll catch me anyway, and believe I am playing coy. And thinking: maybe I don’t wish to run.

  He was one of the Blood. He’d shaved his beard, the better to show off his clan tattoo. Such was the fashion in Ramus—or so we’d heard when Sire Pava had shaved too, and revealed his weak chin. This man had no such fault. He was breathing fast, and I saw the pulse jump in his neck. His long, curling hair was damp from dancing. He wore no surcoat, only a shirt and leggings, but those well made: his hose cut to the shape of his leg and gartered above the knee with jeweled ribands, and a shirt of linen so fine it was nearly transparent. A cataphract, then. An armiger was unlikely to dress so well.

  He said, “Well, seen enough?” He held the torch high in one hand. With the other he caught my skirts and pulled me closer. He laughed to see me considering his question so seriously.

  I liked his looks and his laugh that came so easily. I put my arms around his waist, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. The taste was salty. “I’m not too skinny for you?”

  He laughed again and replied with another kiss. He took my hand and we ran, far from the other lights. Behind a hawthorn hedge he drove the butt of the torch into the ground.

  I asked, “Why don’t you put it out?”

  “Because I want to see you,” he said.

  We lay on earth turned and softened by the plow. He pushed up my dress, unlaced his hose, and I took the weight of a man willingly for the first time. There was not much pain, or pleasure either. I don’t know why he wanted the torch. He kept his eyes shut most of the time.

  When he was done he rolled off and lay on his side with his head propped on his hand, looking at me. The torch wavered and smoked as it burned low, casting shadows under his brow and cheekbones.

  He asked my name.

  “I’m called Firethorn.”

  He smiled and rubbed his lip where I’d bitten him. “I daresay you earned your name by being prickly,” he said.

  “It seems to me you have the prick,” I retorted. He lay on his back and laughed. He had heavy eyelids, drooping at the outer edges. I began to like the shadow left by his shaven beard. I pushed my dress down around my legs and turned to look at him.

  “What is your name, Sire?”

  “Galan.”

  “And your mother’s house?”

  “Capella.”

  “Gods! Are you Sire Pava’s kinsman, then?”

  “Our mothers are sisters.” He looked at me under his lids.

  “Give me the rest, then—your father’s house?”

  “Falco.” This time he laughed at me, because my jaw hung open. He took a lock of hair that had fallen over my face and tucked it behind my ear.

  “The First’s son?”

  “No, his nephew. Aren’t you pleased? They’ll make much of you in the village.”

  “Why should they? You’ll be gone soon enough. Besides, what’s done on the UpsideDown Days must not be mentioned.” Now this Sire Galan dam Capella by Falco of Crux put me too much in mind of Sire Pava. The Blood think we should be honored by their touch, as they were honored when the gods mated with their ancestors. They don’t imagine we might disagree.

  The torch guttered out. I could see the bright road across the sky and the twelve godsigns in the stars. In the sky each sign writes a god’s name. But arranged one after another, in dots of ink on sized linen, with marks above, right, or below to indicate the avatars, the signs can be made to mean almost anything. So the Dame had taught me, when she’d taught me to read.

  I didn’t need to wonder what she’d say if she saw me lying with a man in a field. Perhaps she did see me.

  “Look, there’s Crux,” I said, pointing. I was glad of the dark, for blood had risen to my face.

  “I’m surprised you know the stars,” he murmured.

  I bit back a short reply.

  He said, “I saw you at the gate the other day. When your red hair got loose it was hard to miss. And I thought to myself: that one’s mine, come Carnal Night.” He put his hand between my thighs and I felt a pulse start under his touch. “I see you’re red here too.” His voice was not as sleepy.

  There was balm in this. I was glad to be sought after. Better that than to think I was all he could catch. I pulled my dress over my head and persuaded his shirt to come off, and then his hose. I wanted the heat of his skin on my whole body.

  The second time, I touched him wherever I pleased, wherever he pleased, and I marveled that we each had ceded to the other the right to wander freely in so much new territory. I found him embellished with scars: a long, thin line under his jawbone; a weal on his shin; a crescent-shaped ridge on his back; nicks and scratches everywhere. They were pale against his skin in the dark, and they gave my fingers something rough over which to linger. I said, this one? and he said a horse had kicked him. And this? He didn’t remember, or had other games in mind.

  We lay in the field all night. In the morning I was sore and covered with goose bumps. Under the Sun my tongue was tied. He said he’d find me again, but I didn’t believe him. We parted on the hill where one footpath leads to the manor’s front gate and the other to the crofts in the village. He flashed a grin at me and said farewell.

  UpsideDown Days are fickle days. I’d found a man who pleased me well for a night beside a hedge. It was Carnal Night, and no wonder Desire’s lamp had burned for us. I hoped to remember the hollow of his
throat and the taste of his sweat, the feel of muscles shifting under his skin, his fingers digging into my haunches, for such are gifts of the festival.

  For the rest, I meant to put Sire Galan out of my mind easily, and most of all the way he looked before the torch burned out, when I was first under him. He’d raised himself above me with his weight on his palms, and reared back his head and closed his eyes and plowed me deeper into the furrow. I could have been anyone, or no one, the earth itself, like the clods that crumbled under my hands.

  But I was a fool to think Ardor was done with me. Surely a spark of Ardor Wildfire had kindled Desire’s lamp, and showed me the unexpected path at my feet.

  That evening Sire Galan found his way to Az’s door and asked for me. I was surprised to see him, and glad in a way that worried me. He lifted me up for a kiss. It was the UpsideDown Days, so Az shrugged and shut the door, leaving us out in the yard.

  “Come back to the manor, where there’s a bed,” Sire Galan said.

  “I can’t. I’ll be seen.”

  “What does it matter? We’ll have a whole bed to ourselves. Sire Alcoba and I have been sharing one of the cabinets, but I offered to let him ride my black courser for the hunt tomorrow if he’d go elsewhere for two nights. He would do anything to ride Semental—and besides, he’ll have no trouble finding a soft maid or two to pillow him.”

  I hadn’t planned to go back to the manor that way. I was going to wait for the feast at the end of the UpsideDown Days, so I could see Sire Pava and Dame Lyra bend their proud necks to serve us mudfolk sitting at table. But this had a good savor to it: cabinet beds were for guests, not drudges. I’d never slept in one in my life. I ducked into the hut for my shawl. Az made a face and waved me out.

  The hall of the manor was dim and smoky and smaller than I remembered it. There were men everywhere, some sleeping, some pricking women in the corners, and others dicing and drinking and gnawing bones. The place stank like a fox den. The Dame would not have allowed it, not even during the UpsideDown Days. She would not have used torches, either, for they cast sparks and blackened the tapestries. She never stinted on candles when the occasion called for it, thrifty as she was.