“My lord,” said Captain Tammus reluctantly, dropping his gaze while his hands clenched on the reins.
Sorrow growled, low in her throat, but Alain let the captain and these foremost wagons pass as well and came up behind the supply wagons with their barrels of ale and sacks of grain or flour and small woven sapling cages filled with squawking chickens and a furious goose. A trio of steers paced at the end of ropes. Two dozen sheep followed, pursued by a pair of shepherds and their clever dog. Behind the last wagon walked a half dozen men, each one pushing a flat-bedded cart on which lay the trussed carcass of a deer.
“Where have these come from?” he asked one of the stewards.
The woman rode a stocky pony and was young and weary, hair covered by a pale yellow scarf. She wore a glove on her right hand and her left bare, revealing a rash prickling across her three middle fingers.
“You know the way of it, my lord,” she said cautiously, recognizing him, as any good steward must recognize by sight every noble who rode with the lady. “Three our hunters brought down yesterday and the day before. We hung them all night, though they’ll still be tough. The others came from the manor. Folk are hunting deer in numbers early this year. The sheep we took as part of the tithe, together with the grain. Out in the forest we’ll not find much provender, for few folk live in the wilderness. We must feed all with what we gain here.”
He nodded, and to her evident relief he fell back to ride alongside the rear guard. Farther behind might be found the rear scouts, but he held his position the rest of that day. The land changed its character, and they entered a region of precipitous hills, rugged rocky outcrops, and low spines of rock protruding from otherwise unexceptionable earth. Streamlets flowed in plenty, and there was no sign of human habitation. Folk whispered that they were nearing the lair of the guivre, who hid within a maze of stony dikes. Even the animals grew nervous. A faint odor of rotting carcasses laced the breeze at intervals, but faded as quickly as he caught its touch.
9
KANSI’S voice came sooner than she expected, echoing out of the darkness. “What creature stalked our land? What was it?”
“Set me free, and I’ll tell you,” said Liath, hoarse from weeping and exhausted with rage.
“Tell me!”
Although Kansi-a-lari cursed her and commanded her, Liath did not speak.
After that came silence for a long while during which she slept, drank, ate, and slept again. Although she had taken no physical harm, she felt battered and she felt bruised, and the right side of her face where the galla had swept closest was as tender as if she had scraped it against rock. Strangely, the wound in her thigh did not hurt as much.
When the exhaustion passed, the rage remained, but now she knew better than to curse impotently at Kansi-a-lari, who had her own schemes and hopes but who had not, after all, called the galla. She hoarded her strength, and made her plans.
“Li’at’dano!”
It hurt to hear her name spoken in the antique manner, but although she wanted to scream in fury for everything she was guilty of and quite a bit she was not, she answered in as calm a voice as she could muster.
“Here I am. What do you want?”
“The answer to my question. That creature murdered a child, four adults, and many precious goats in its passage through our land. Flensed them to the bone. Is this your way of doing battle against us?”
“Lower down more food and drink. Then I’ll tell you.”
“I know how much you have. There is enough, if it’s rationed.”
“I want more. And a knife.”
She laughed. “No knife. Knives you will have enough of, if I decide to give you to the priests.”
After that came silence, but later, listening, Liath heard a faint scraping and a fainter thump.
Out of the darkness, Kansi spoke. “Answer my question. I have done as you asked.”
She is above me.
“I will,” said Liath, “once I am sure I have what I want.”
Since Kansi-a-lari was speaking from above, surely the provisions should have hit the floor in the same place she had found them the first time. Since it had not, there must therefore be other openings, hidden to her salamander eyes. Kansi-a-lari could not be speaking from a place where daylight gleamed, or Liath would have discerned any least particle of light’s being. A cave above a cave? Rock sheltered Kansi. Liath could get no sense of her position, her scent, or even her presence except for her voice.
She walked the circuit of the wall, sweeping her feet and finding her leg aching, but sturdy. After 435 footfalls she struck riches: a dozen bulbous fruits; a dozen flat circles of bread; three big leather pouches swollen with a sweet-tasting nectar; a cheese that tasted better than it smelled; eggs cushioned in greasy uncombed wool.