The Riddle - Alison Croggon [148]
At this time, she also realized that Dharin’s sled traveled with them. It was being driven by one of the other men. She wondered what had become of the bodies of Claw and Dharin; no doubt they had been left, unhonored and unburied, in the snow. The thought was agonizing. And where was her pack? Her lyre? They must be in the sled. . . . But she was still too tired to think properly, and her thoughts slid into a confused maze.
She was bewitched by some spell she did not recognize, in a way that paralyzed and sickened her. The enchantment came from the sorcerer, and she began to push against it. She felt his will resisting her, and she was sure that she was a stronger Dhillarearën than he was, but no matter how she tried, she could not unlock the spell. It held her fast.
Sometimes Maerad thought she could see pale shadows running at a distance, parallel to the sleds. They looked like wolves, but if she tried to stare straight at the movement, she could see nothing but bare snow. No one else seemed to notice them, and she dismissed them as hallucinations.
At night, she dreamed of wolves.
The days passed, each one identical to the next. Maerad tried, with little success, to work out how long she had lain insensible; time then had ceased to exist. She made little scratches on the wooden rail of the sled. If she had been delirious for seven days, she had been their captive for two weeks now.
She began to be able to tell her five captors apart. The Jussack in charge of her was clearly the youngest and the lowliest in rank; he seemed to be about Dharin’s age. The others were all grown men, who looked to be between thirty and forty. Maerad thought them brutal thugs: they reminded her of the men in Gilman’s Cot, among whom she had been raised. The recognition called within her a deep contempt, which fed her hatred. The sorcerer, who was called Amusk, was the chief among them, and all the others deferred to him with varying degrees of fear.
Despite herself, she began to feel some sympathy for the man in charge of her. Although he tried to give no sign of it, Maerad thought that he disliked the sorcerer Amusk as much as she did. The youth’s sled was usually the leading one, and after a while Maerad realized a gift similar to Dharin’s, an infallible sense for knowing where he was. It explained, Maerad thought, why so young a man had been taken on a mission with the older men.
And she began to understand that these men considered it to be demeaning to look after a woman, and that the youngest Jussack’s task was a humiliation for which he was often teased by the other men. Their comments made him angry, and once she saw him draw a knife on one of his tormentors, who backed away, shaking his head, his arms spread wide, clearly not wanting to fight. Despite this, the Jussack looked after her diligently. She noticed that he attempted to speak to her only when no one else could overhear, and when the other men were nearby, would sometimes speak harshly to her, as if to conceal any empathy he felt.
After the sorcerer’s visit, Maerad did not ignore the young man the next time he tried to tell her his name. He put his hand on his chest and said: “Nim.” Then, plainly asking, he pointed to Maerad.
“Maerad,” she said. “I’m Maerad.”
For the first time, she saw him smile. It transformed his face, and she realized for the first time just how young he was. He might even be as young as I am, she thought. “Nim. Maerad,” he said, pointing from one to the other. Maerad nodded.
He disappeared out of the tent and returned with a warm meat stew. Maerad was now able to feed herself, although when she was not on the sled, her feet were tied to prevent her attacking anyone or escaping. Nim handed her a steaming