The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [48]
That son was very much on Salamander’s mind when he contacted Dallandra again, late that evening when he could be alone to scry her out. First he told her what he’d gleaned about the situation in the dun, including Branna’s tales.
“Well,” Dallandra thought to him. “I’d say that she’s ready to remember, and doubtless Neb is, too, with her there in the same dun, but you can’t force such things upon people. If they’re not ready to ask on their own, their minds will shy away like frightened horses, and then they might never come to the point of asking.”
“Yes, that’s very true. May I drop portentous hints?”
“Knowing you, you probably won’t be able to stop yourself. Just make them hard to understand, will you?”
“Fear not. I shall do just that. Mystery, mazelike and mind-fooling, shall be my mode.”
Dallandra set her lips together and glared at him.
“One thing I wanted to ask you,” Salamander said hurriedly. “Have you seen my Zan recently?”
“No. When the winter camps broke up, he went with your father’s alar. They’ll be at the summer festival, though, and I’ll have news for you then.”
“Good, and thank you. Soon, I hope, I’m going to Cengarn with the tieryn and his men. I’ll take my leave of them there and start traveling around, plying the inhabitants with questions as I go. I have hopes of catching up with Rhodry as well as gleaning information about the Horsekin.”
“Good. Just be very careful, will you? And stay in contact with me. I’ll talk to Dar, but I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t lead the alar north. At some point we can meet up.”
“A most excellent plan, Oh princess of powers perilous! And fear not, I shan’t be silent. Being silent goes against my nature.”
The summer festival took place during the days surrounding the longest day of the year. Prince Dar’s scribe, Meranaldar, told Dallandra that in ancient times, when the great observatory at Rinbaladelan still stood, the festival had begun at noon on the longest day, but out in the grass no one bothered to measure time so precisely. Some alarli rode in early, others late, and no one stayed long before they were forced to ride out to find better pasture for their stock. By custom, however, the prince’s alar always arrived first. By counting days, Meranaldar did his best to keep track of the sun’s position in the sky in order to determine what he called the “real” start of the festival. At times he would thrust a wooden pole into the ground and study its shadow at noon—why, Dallandra didn’t know.
They held the festival at the Lake of the Leaping Trout, the northernmost of the chain that Deverry folk call Peddroloc, the four lakes, all of which lay in steep valleys. To the north of Leaping Trout the land flattened, but rather than grass, trees grew there, an orchard of pines, pruned and planted in straight rows for fuel.
The People cremated their dead. Whenever a person died, his kin took the seasoned wood waiting in one of the stone sheds near the lakeshore. After the cremation ritual, a tree was cut to replace the firewood, and a new tree planted in its stead. Thus the summer festival, held in the shadow of the death ground, tended to be a solemn affair, a time to remember those who had died in recent years, an appropriate sentiment since the longest day marked the turning of the year, when summer itself would begin to fade and die.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering about,” Dallandra said to Meranaldar. “The way the trees are cut and planted. Is that an old custom?”
“Ancient,” the scribe said. “It goes back to the Seven Cities, most certainly. It sprang from a very odd belief, that every person lives multiple lives. Nothing but superstition, of course, but a persistent one.”
“Indeed?” Dallandra managed to suppress her sudden urge to laugh. “I suppose then that the planting of the new tree was symbolic.”
“Yes, of the person’s supposed new life. That’s what the priests of the Star Goddesses taught, at any rate. A number of texts survive. A bad lot, those priests, or so history tells us.