Northern Stars Page 12

  Was that also part of being a man?

  Blinking, he glanced up to see if Fromto had heard the news, but he was still snapping orders as the men fought their way to him through the crowd—sending out patrols and setting guards, ensuring that no band of hotheads took off after the envoy on some crazy mission of misplaced honour.

  Jauro kissed his daughter’s forehead. “I congratulate you, my dearest Thorta. I am sorry that such good tidings are marred by coming at so evil a time.” How cold that sounded, how dismally inadequate! “But it is not only your welfare I have in mind. Were I to obey the king’s command and go with his messengers, then my life would not be worth a pail of chicken droppings.”

  She gasped. “But why? What have you done to deserve the king’s frown?”

  What indeed? “Nothing at all! Others have lied about me. Once I have prepared my case, I can go to His Majesty and clear my name.” He smiled gently—if a bearded face ever could smile gently. Thorta seemed unconvinced, and he knew there were sharp wits in that little head. “To clear the honour of our house!” he insisted. “I shall not bequeath you a blemished scutcheon. But now I must speak with your father. Stay with Lallia.”

  With a sharp stare that tore at his heart, Thorta stepped back, biting her knuckles. Feeling again that he had betrayed her, Jauro rose and slapped a hand on Fromto’s shoulder. “Come!” he said, and headed for the doorway that led to the private apartments. Lallia moved forward to speak, but he strode by her without a glance. He feared what bitter gloating he might read in his wife’s face.

  He marched down the black corridor and memory guided him to the heavy plank door of his chamber, which creaked on its rusty hinges as it always did. The room was dark, and felt dank yet stuffy, the familiar sour odor of the furs on the bed magnified by the winter dampness. It faced west, and the window was a blurred red glow of sunset shining through the panes of cowgut, although other specks of brightness showed white, where rain had washed the chinking from the logs.

  Outside the cattle were bellowing at the lateness of their milking, and distant shouts and whinnyings told of the patrols saddling up. A muddy job that would be …

  For a moment Jauro stared uneasily at the bloody glow of the casement—was it perhaps an omen, a warning from the gods? Rain drummed on it when the wind moved, and the wind itself breathed softly through the gaps. He had made such windowpanes himself, when he was young and his fingers more suited to a needle than a sword. He remembered his mother thanking him and praising his workmanship, and he had been proud-to-bursting of that praise. Hagthra, his mother … And Hagthro was barely three years in his grave now, and already the earldom as good as lost, if the king wanted it lost. Three years of blood and battle.

  He jumped at a sound behind him. Fromto had entered unheard and was striking a flint. A tiny flame flickered on tinder, seeming impossibly bright. Then a rush blazed up with a hiss, and the cramped cell was filled with golden light, making shadows leap on plank and log, on the bed high-piled with marten pelts, on hanging shields, on pikes and swords leaning in a corner, on an iron-bound chest.

  There was gray in Fromto’s beard, and worry had creased his face like a rutted track. He kicked backward, and the door creaked and slammed.

  For a moment the two gazed at each other, then the older man hung the rushlight on a sconce and struck his favorite pose, with left hand on sword hilt and the other on his hip. “Trouble comes with three moons, they say.”

  “And I should have been born under another,” Jauro said sadly. “Why? What has provoked this?”

  Fromto regarded him steadily for a moment. “For counsel you must speak to the elders. I am a warrior yet, My Lord.”

  Silver in his beard, grizzled locks fringing a barren scalp, and yet he was undoubtedly a warrior: big-shouldered, solid. He was still taller and broader than Jauro. And he was deeply troubled if he did not trust himself to use a more affectionate form of address—but more likely it was Jauro’s self-control he distrusted.

  “You are still the best warrior I have, but you are also my best advisor. We both know what the elders will say. I can feel the iron in my heart already—or do you think he will chop off my head?”

  “Reggalo hates making decisions. He may just throw you in jail to rot.”

  “He has made this one fast enough.” Jauro thought sourly of the latest battle—three score men lost, many more wounded. The toll could easily have been much greater, but good fortune had saved his earldom yet again, and now it was to be stolen from him by the overlord in whose name he had fought.

  Fromto was shaking his big head. “The plan may have been made long since. Had you lost, he would have moved against the rebels. Since you won, he moves against you. He may not even have heard the outcome himself yet. The orders could have been drawn a middle-month ago, or more.”

  “But why?” Jauro demanded again, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Why should he doubt my loyalty? Is he afraid I will raise arms against him? That’s crazy! I can’t field one man to his ten.”

  The old swordsman turned and sat on the bed, making the thongs creak, and he slumped there in silence, as though weary of battles. Remembering that there could always be ears at knotholes, Jauro settled at Fromto’s side, and the bed swayed alarmingly. “Well?” he said quietly.

  “You are the victim of your own success, My Lord. You have astonished them all. When Hagthro died and a woman inherited, it seemed inevitable that the ravens would take Rathmuir. And now Rathmuir stands triumphant, and the ravens are scattered. A wild border upland is become a safe and loyal province. And the king has three daughters and four sons he acknowledges.”

  “Little has been my doing. It was you who made Rathmuir a land fit for a prince.”

  Fromto glanced around with something like his usual wiry humor. “If I did, then I served you ill, my dearest lord. But you are too modest. It was always for you we fought, and now it is your cunning that lets our little band rout hordes so great. Had the men not trusted you at the bridge…”

  Was it a sign of age that Fromto liked to fight old battles, or a sign of youth that Jauro had no patience for them? There had been too many battles in the past three years. Hagthro had been barely cold before the earl of Lawnshor and the sheriff of Highcastle had decided to divide his fief between them. It had been Fromto who had raised the fyrd, who had out-marched, and out-maneuvered, and in the final reckoning out-fought the aggressors. Today that hairy ox of an envoy had brazenly accused Jauro of personal atrocities, but Jauro had been home with the women the whole time.

  No sooner had Lawnshor and Highcastle been settled, than Earl Sando of Sandmuir had tried to gather up the pieces. That time Jauro had been there to watch his churls die for him, tending horses, aiding the wounded.

  And when the Trinians had come over the border, he had been a full combatant. He had served his own cause as a pikeman in his own fyrd through that whole long, brutal summer. He had scars to prove it.

  But he had taken his rightful place in the campaign against the rebels; he had commanded. He had become a man. Or had he? He felt desperately unsure of himself now. Would any true man have stood silent under that brutal tirade from the envoy? It was easy enough to wave a sword and lead a charge when bloodlust ran hot in the veins and three hundred men roared along behind. Any man or woman or child could do that, any fool. What man—real man—would have submitted to what he had endured this evening? He had stood there tongue-tied like a craven woman.

  “I should have listened to the elders,” he said harshly.

  The elders had advised him to join the rebels, not fight them.

  Fromto chuckled. “The old forget honour and courage as they forget so many other important things. You were loyal to your liege, and that is no small jewel in your coronet.”

  “A shame that my liege were not more loyal to me,” Jauro said bitterly.

  Muscle tensed in the big man’s sword arm, flexing the puckered lines of old scars. “Truly! But had you marched with th
e rebels, you would have died with them. The cause is hopeless while Reggalo holds the south. Here or farther down the road … they would never have reached the plains.”

  Possibly, but the rebels had made many mistakes, which Jauro had been able to exploit, mistakes they would not have made had he been at their head. The campaign had revealed that he had a talent for tactics—but evidently no skill in politics, for his loyalty had been repaid in treachery. The elders had been correct.

  There was no more resistance left, no one to trouble Rathmuir, so the royal spider hoped to gift it to his ogre daughter. A marriage of Thorta to Uncoato would wrap Jauro’s earldom in a legal shroud that the other nobles could see buried without much scruple.

  What man would submit to such injustice?

  He sat in glum silence, not even objecting when Fromto put his arm around him. Indeed, that felt seductively good, a memory of times past. The rushlight hissed and sparked; rain drummed against the casement, but the fading bellows of the cattle reminded him of the slow move of summer sun on dairy walls, and the warm smell of cows. Milking and sewing and rearing babies … they seemed very pleasant occupations in retrospect.

  “Remind me,” he said. “I wanted this, didn’t I?”

  Fromto chuckled. “I did warn you. You were only thirty-two—”

  “Thirty-three! Well, almost.”

  “And you are still not yet thirty-five! Few complete menopause by then. Many do not even start until they are forty. And your change was swift.”

  “Completed?” Jauro blurted the word, then added in a whisper, “I do not feel very complete. I feel stuck halfway.”

  “You do not behave so! Shall I go back to calling you ‘Jaura’? Or even ‘Jauri’? What would you do if I did?”

  “I would start by cutting out your lights and throttling you with them.”

  “You see? But I can still be a friend. Friends give comfort, and you have just been dealt a sorry blow, a most foul blow. Oh, love! Did you think men never had doubts, or fears, or regrets?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “And surely Lallia has now no cause to—No, do not rage, man! I am merely teasing.”

  The earl forced himself to relax again. A real man should be able to stand teasing, if it were kindly meant, as this was. He no longer had the option of feminine tears. But he was too tense tonight for humor, and he wondered why Fromto was wandering so far from the point.

  Then a hard jab of shame brought understanding. “The men are calling me ‘Jaura,’ you think? After what I did tonight … what I didn’t do?”

  Fromto laughed. “No! No! They may have been puzzled, for they are simple souls, but they trust you—there is not a man in the fyrd who would not trade his backbone for yours, love. Few men anywhere could have resisted the urge to draw under such abuse.” The hug tightened. “I was proud of you! Strife is not always the path of true manhood, but new men rarely know that; it needs be learned. The road is hard, but we all must travel it. I have helped all I can, my love.”

  Jauro smiled, hiding his uneasiness. Was the big man being so unusually sentimental because he was feeling vulnerable himself? “I could have done nothing without you, husband! I need you still, and never more than now. Counsel me! Why does the king bring these false charges?” Again he tasted injustice like gall in his mouth.

  But his query failed to call back the man of action, the decisive Fromto of tiltyard and battlefield. The old warrior sighed. “If one of your thralls had a nubile daughter and you wanted to have pleasure of her … I know you don’t, but suppose in this case you were determined to do so. What would happen?”

  Jauro squirmed. He had been tempted many times in the last two years. Since the flames of manhood had blazed up within him, he could hardly see a tallish child without secretly wondering how close it was to menarche and womanhood. Women’s desire was slower and deeper and more purposeful. Man’s lust was fire and instant madness, and some earls had no scruples in the matter. The odd one would even claim the maidenhead of every adolescent in his fief.

  “Then I would have my pleasure of her, I suppose.”

  “Exactly. No one could stop the earl, or would dare try. Why do you think your people love you? Your mother was the same—he did not steal the virgins either. But Reggalo has decided to steal your fief, and no one can stop the king. We are too remote for you to have friends at court, and your neighbors were your foes. Their neighbors are now frightened of you, or jealous. No one will take your part, no one who matters.”

  Then the great shoulders straightened at last, the comforting arm was withdrawn, and the voice hardened in purpose. “Had you drawn against the envoy, then the lords must have all condemned you. This way a few may yet waver, and blunt the edge of the enemy’s purpose. And certainly your forbearance has won us time to restore our arms, My Lord! Even if they dare a winter advance, they will need at least a great-month to assemble the fyrd—”

  Jauro sighed. Was this the man who had taught him strategy? He had aged visibly during the last campaign, but he should not be so blind as this. “We do not resist!”

  “What?”

  “Even if we wanted to, there is no time. You said yourself that Reggalo’s plans were made several least-months ago. He would have brought up his fyrd to … to the Azburn valley, probably. Or closer. We stopped the rebels, but he was ready had we failed. The envoy will be there by dawn. And by dawn I must be gone.”

  “My Lord!” The wrinkles in Fromto’s shadowed face seemed to writhe in dismay. He was still shocked. “Rathmuir will stand by you! After so much blood, we shall never—”

  “Too much blood!” This time, strangely, it was Jauro who put his arm around Fromto. “The fyrd has bled too often to uphold my house! This time is different. The others came to loot and drive off, so the men of Rathmuir fought for their own livings as well as mine. But the king wants the fief intact. I am the only obstacle. I must go.”

  He watched the outward signs of struggle in the warrior’s face. Finally Fromto said coldly, “Whither can you flee?”

  Good question! The Trinians would be happy to use Earl Jauro for archery practice. West lay the sea. “To Andlain, I suppose.”

  “Cross the ranges in winter?”

  “Why not? Others have.” He was strong, and young for a man; in the last campaign he had endured hardship as well as any.

  Fromto shook his head sadly. “You do not know what storms can do in the passes. Even large parties may vanish. And what of Thorti?”

  What indeed? Jauro had forgotten the danger to his child.

  His daughter!

  “Thorta!” he said, smiling at his former husband.

  A gasp. “No! When?”

  “It just … She just told me, before we came here. Yesterday, she said.” Jauro smiled at the astonishment on the older man’s face. “Our child is become a woman. Now you have a son, and I a daughter.”

  The old warrior blinked eyes that had become suddenly shiny in the wavering torchlight. “You must … or I, I suppose … must counsel her. Yet she is fourteen, so it was due! She will find a woman to counsel her…”

  Jauro’s sense of loss came stabbing back. “You think I have forgotten so soon?”

  “Of course not, love! I doubt if any man or woman has ever forgotten the terrors of menarche. I just meant that talk about such things comes better from women, somehow.” After a moment, he added, “It was not your fault, you know! Our bodies do these things without asking our permission.”

  Jauro made a vague chuckling noise to dismiss the subject and ease the pain. “You will miss her, I know, but she must come with me, and you must stay. Enjoy your well-earned retirement!” Feeling his eyelids prickle, he forced a smile and gently tweaked the grey-streaked beard. “And you must take a new wife now, Fromto, my husband. You have waited too long.”

  He had lost this argument before, and hated it because of the absurd jealousy it always aroused in him, but this would be the last time. And this sad severance was also a pa
rt of his entry to manhood, a step that Fromto had delayed far too long. “I command you, as your earl! It is your duty. We have many widows who will rejoice to marry so great a warrior, so fine a man. I will happily testify to your skills.”

  Fromto did not respond to the joking, and Jauro was astonished to see tears flood those weary eyes. He had seen them burn with the joy of battle; he had seen them wild with passion, but he could not recall ever seeing tears in them before. Not even when the twins died.

  “Husband?”

  Fromto hesitated, then blurted out: “Jauro, do you love me no more?”

  “How can you ask? After all we were to each other … how could I not?” He thought of the nervous virgin he had been, so awed when the virile Fromto had proposed to her. He thought of seventeen years of marriage, of passion and suffering shared, of the gentle strength and comfort so freely given. He thought that all in all he had been a good wife, but Fromto had been the sort of husband every child dreamed of winning. “Of course I … I love you, husband, and always will. But—”

  The old man clapped a hand on his knee. “Sweet words come hard to men’s lips, do they not? But if you love me, then why will you have me put to death? Do you think I have no enemies? Do you think Prince Uncoato will ask me to lead his fyrd for him?”

  “By the gods and moons!” How could Jauro have overlooked that? A king who would so betray a loyal vassal would be capable of taking vengeance on his relatives and underlings. “Of course you will have to come with us!” His heart skipped with joy as he realized that he would not be parted from Fromto. He could have found no more stalwart companion for the trek—nor for the lonely future beyond.