Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [95]
“Savages? That reminds me of somewhat I wanted to ask you. You keep calling them that, but they know siegecraft, they carry good weapons, and as far as I can tell, they’ve got the best organized army I’ve ever seen.”
“What does that have to do with anything? Savages they are, who will not worship the true gods and who follow the false.”
“Well, you see, among my people, the word savage means a poor sort of person, a brute, truly, someone who lives wild and roughly.”
“Ah. I knew it not. Well, brutes they can be, cruel and loathsome, and given to whoring after strange gods, but poor they are not, exacting tribute everywhere they can, stealing from some, trading with others.”
“And what about their armies?”
“They live for war and study war and have given their hearts to war. Every man watches his nephews from birth to see which are fit for war and which will be gelded for other crafts.”
“Gelded?” Jahdo burst out. “You mean like horses and steers?”
“I do, lad, I mean just that. Savages I called them, and with some reason. And their women share out the best men, that their daughters may be fit to lead by the council fire and their sons to fight on the battlefield.” Meer tossed back his head and keened, a wail that rattled the bronze sconces. “Alas, that the gods have handed over our lives to such as this, to spill them or to enslave them as they will!”
“The war’s not over yet, good bard. So far, we’ve still got our lives, and we’ll win yet.”
“Ah, hold your tongue, mazrak! I know you lie only to spare my grief, but lie you do.”
“About what?”
“I know not our sins, for lo! what man can ever know the telling of his people’s sins, but the gods have deserted us, sure enough.”
“As you wish, then.” Jill got up. “I’d best get down to the great hall and tell the gwerbret about the horses.”
Before she went to bed that night, Jill went up on the roof and renewed the seals again, just as the astral tides were changing from those of Elemental Water to those of Elemental Earth. When she was done, she lingered for a few moments, staring out at the Horsekin camp, dark and silent under the stars. They would have set guards round, of course, but she couldn’t pick out a trace of movement from her distance until she looked east.
At the end of the ridge, a long ways away from the pale shapes of the white tents, she saw a tiny point of light moving, back and forth, forth and back, as if it were a lantern held in someone’s hand as that hypothetical someone paced out of sheer nerves. Jill walked to the edge of the roof and watched the light while she sent her mind out, almost randomly, to see what traces of feeling she might pick up from the lantern-bearer. For a long time, nothing, and then it seemed she felt the touch of another mind on hers, nothing as strong as a greeting or a thought, just an awareness of a human being—and male, at that—as if she were in a room and had sensed someone enter from a door behind her.
The man remained unaware of her. At moments, she lost the feel of his presence; at others it returned with a waft of emotion. He was troubled, disgusted even, by something—what it might be this primitive scrying could never tell her. The disgust, however, mingled itself with regret, a thoroughly human wishing that things were otherwise. Occasionally, the point of light would stop its restless traveling, and at those moments she would clearly perceive that he was looking up at the dun and longing to be inside it. Could he perhaps be a slave? It was unlikely that any slave would be wandering round by himself at night.
Eventually, with one last sending of regret, the man walked away, the lantern swinging beside him. Briefly, a tent glowed as he carried his lantern inside; then he must have blown it out, because there was only darkness. Jill sighed, wondering if she’d ever know who he was. She doubted it.
On a huge heap of cushions, made of purple-dyed leather and strapped together with golden, tasseled cords,