A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [98]
Outside, other women were assembling at the tent while the men hurried through the camp, extinguishing every fire as they went. They gathered near the horse herd, where Oldana’s brother, Wylenteriel, met Rhodry and took his nephews with a murmur of thanks for the banadar’s second in command. Rhodry found Calonderiel swearing under his breath with every foul oath he knew.
“She was so wretchedly young to die! I don’t understand the gods sometimes, I really don’t!”
“Who can?” Rhodry said with a shrug. “I’m heartsick, too, but I’m worried about her sons more. Where’s their father?”
“Up north somewhere with his herds, last anyone saw him. The boys will fare better with their uncle anyway, if you ask my opinion and not that anyone did.” The banadar looked briefly sour. “With luck we’ll run into their father down at the winter camps. The alardan will break up tonight, and we’ll be heading east.”
“East?”
“To the death ground. That’s right, you’ve never been there before, have you? We’re close enough to take her there for the burning, in this cool weather and all.”
Rhodry felt oddly troubled. The sacred death ground lay right on the Eldidd border, not more than a hundred miles from Aberwyn, where once he’d ruled as gwerbret, not far at all from the place he’d always considered home.
“What’s wrong with you?” Calonderiel said. “You look pale.”
“Do I? Ah, well, it’s a sad thing, when one of the People dies so young. We’d best call for the ceremony to end the alardan. The sooner we get moving, the better.”
The women sprinkled Oldana’s corpse with spices and covered it with dried flowers before they wrapped it round with white linen. They cut a white horse out of the herd to drag the travois that would carry her to the resting place of her ancestors, and when the alar left the rest of the gathering behind for their sad journey east, that horse led the line of march, with Rhodry and Calonderiel riding alongside. The boys, as much confused as grief-struck, traveled far back at the rear with their uncle and grandmother. Out of simple decency the king and the young prince came with them, and their alar, of course, as well, to dignify the eventual ceremony with their presence.
It took them two full days and part of a third to reach the Lake of the Leaping Trout. During that time they ate food left from the alardan feasting, and slept cold at night, too, because no one could light a fire until Oldana’s soul was safely on its way to the world beyond. Slowly the grasslands began to rise, until by the third dawn they saw ahead of them rolling grassy downs that were almost hills. Finally, just after a noon gray with the promise of winter, they came to the last crest. Far down the green slope lay the silver lake, a long finger of water caught in a narrow valley pointing southeast to northwest. To the north a thick forest spread along the valley floor, the dark pines standing in such orderly rows that obviously they were no natural growth, but all along the north shore lay an open meadow. Calonderiel turned to Rhodry and gestured at the forest with a wide sweep of his arm.
“Well, there it is. The death ground of my ancestors, and of yours as well. Your father’s father was set free and his ashes scattered among those trees, though I think your grandmother died too far out on the grass to be brought here.”
When they rode down to the lake, Rhodry realized