They swept from the village and into the moorlands. Anlaida burst into song, unable to help herself. The cold air thrilled through her veins.
“Lona, sitting in the dell
(Hey-ho, in the fall-gold dell)
Saw a red boar running well—”
Arran snuggled more deeply into his horsehair cloak and hide robes. Naked trees, tufted with snow, scattered themselves by the road. The runners of the sledge swished with the muffled tramping of the two horses.
Anlaida suddenly broke off. “Do the barbarians sing much?”
“Depends on the person, I suppose. But yes, they sing.”
“Sing something, then. One of their songs.”
Arran flushed. “Anlaida, I—”
“I don’t care how you sound. I’m no minstrel either. Please?”
At the look in her brown eyes, he relented. “Don’t laugh.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” she insisted.
He sighed and began, softly, awkwardly. “Snow gleams coldly on the bluffs, hard in moonlight, face like stone. Hunter finds a dying dog, but he turns and lets alone.”
Anlaida blinked. “Rough-sounding.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t sound so rough in the Tablelands, I suppose. Most of our songs are what your poets would call occasional verse. There are songs for seasons, birth, marriage, death. That was a verse from a winter song.”
“They dislike winter,” she said.
“It can be a hard time.”
“I think I prefer the songs of the Oran.”
He smiled, eyes running to the north. “They are descended from the People, you know.”
She adjusted the reins. “They seem so different.”
“It was a long time ago—thousands of years. But hearts are slow in these northern lands. They still think of themselves as cousins.”
“Orrinshad is more temperate,” Anlaida said. “I would hardly blame them for leaving.”
“It wasn’t climate alone. It’s a long story, though.”
“And we can make this a long ride,” she said. The runners swished through a drift, and snow sprayed into their faces.
Arran swiped the snow off of his chin, suddenly glad that—dead of winter or not—he was here, in the free air, with the pale sun peeking at them. “The year of the Great Cold proved as terrible for the People as for those in Axelarre and Orrinshad. Only during the summer months was hunting even possible. Oran, the Watcher in those days, had seen the star Anaroc’s warning, and the People had stored sufficient food; but, cramped in their dugouts, many grew ill. Those taken by the North Wind that year numbered nearly a fourth of the People.
“Of the elders, over half had died.” Arran looked across the frozen moorland to a mining village huddled against the western hills. “With so many of the People taken, determining which kinship lines were closest became—complicated. The genealogies were not always clear; and about half of the surviving people began arguing that kinships were worthless in their new circumstances.”
Anlaida flicked the reins as Lista stalled. “Get,” she commanded. The mare stepped up beside her companion, nickering a protest.
“Stubborn one,” Arran said.
“Aye.” Anlaida leaned against the seat. “Go on, then.”
The horsehide robe was sliding; he tucked it about his legs again. “The other half violently objected, as you can imagine.”
“I can’t,” said Anlaida. “I don’t know them.”
Arran offered a half-smile. “Well—they violently objected. The genealogies were important to them; you can still see the ancient lists carved into stone all over the Tablelands. The argument went unsettled for three years, with tempers heating like a smith’s tongs. Finally, some of the impatient on the opposing side defaced several of the stone genealogies, and the ancestral faction fairly spat in fury. A time of council was called; but neither side could bring itself to agree with the other. Half held that ancestry was everything; the other half held that it was nothing.”
“Both were mad, then.”
Arran nodded. “Oran was a moderate man. He had no interest in the extremes of either side, though he had family in the ancestral faction. Sitting around the fire with the other men, as their voices grew louder and echoed from the rocks around them, he feared that the two sides would come to blows.
“And did. Two of the leading men began yelling in one another’s faces and one leaped on the other. The council turned into a brawl. By its end, there were enough minor injuries, but one man’s ribs had been kicked in, and the skull of another completely crushed. With one man dead and another barely clinging to life, Oran offered to lead the ancestral faction to another location, perhaps in the south. The People, crushed by the destruction they had brought upon themselves, agreed to his proferred settlement; those of the ancestral faction who refused to accept any other solution followed Oran’s leading out of the Tablelands, out of the North, into the wild regions west of Axelarre.
“But Oran—” Arran’s voice wandered for a moment; he cleared his throat. “He found a good place for them. A village round a high hill, near a small river. Fertile soil, fresh fish. Kinder winters. The stars, though—they were small and distant and cold. Oran had watched the stars all his life, had known them better than himself, and now he saw them white and hard. It killed him a year after he and his arrived in the land. They buried him beneath the highest tree on the highest mountain in the land, and built their homes and families around his grave.”
“Orrinshad,” Anlaida murmured. “Oran’s shade. The old song makes better sense.”
“Oran’s song?” Arran asked.
She nodded. “I had them put one line of it—‘The Sky-lord ever watches’—on your mother’s stone. Nothing else fit—I’m sorry.”
“No,” he muttered. “No, you’ve no need to apologize. I—thank you for caring. It—fits—well enough.”
Snowflakes sprinkled Anlaida’s nose, and she looked up into a sky again pregnant with winter. “I suppose we had best head back. Another storm is starting.”
His eyes wandered to the north again. “Ronag hated storms.”
Silence rose between them. They swept through the village, into the courtyard. Inorr took the sledge; Arran stumped off to return his wrappings to Lohar; but Anlaida slipped inside and upstairs. In the library, she found their little book. “Oran’s song,” she whispered, reading.
“I stand on Fallad’s Mountain
And look toward the sky—
The Sky-lord ever watches
But beneath these heavy branches
I am condemned to die.
“What hurts you, stars of heaven,
That you hold your eyes away?
I live my life in sorrow
Where my sons will live tomorrow
And I long to die today.
“Mor, Eliane, and Rhonan,
Lossyr, Ardall, and Cuirr—
The messengers of heaven
Their guidance long have given
But in this land defer.
“When I lie down and wander
The heart dead in my chest
I’ll find the path of silver
The Sky-lord walks forever—
The road his stars have dressed.”
Anlaida rubbed the book with her thumbs, and thought about supper.
“Lona, sitting in the dell
(Hey-ho, in the fall-gold dell)
Saw a red boar running well—”
Arran snuggled more deeply into his horsehair cloak and hide robes. Naked trees, tufted with snow, scattered themselves by the road. The runners of the sledge swished with the muffled tramping of the two horses.
Anlaida suddenly broke off. “Do the barbarians sing much?”
“Depends on the person, I suppose. But yes, they sing.”
“Sing something, then. One of their songs.”
Arran flushed. “Anlaida, I—”
“I don’t care how you sound. I’m no minstrel either. Please?”
At the look in her brown eyes, he relented. “Don’t laugh.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” she insisted.
He sighed and began, softly, awkwardly. “Snow gleams coldly on the bluffs, hard in moonlight, face like stone. Hunter finds a dying dog, but he turns and lets alone.”
Anlaida blinked. “Rough-sounding.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t sound so rough in the Tablelands, I suppose. Most of our songs are what your poets would call occasional verse. There are songs for seasons, birth, marriage, death. That was a verse from a winter song.”
“They dislike winter,” she said.
“It can be a hard time.”
“I think I prefer the songs of the Oran.”
He smiled, eyes running to the north. “They are descended from the People, you know.”
She adjusted the reins. “They seem so different.”
“It was a long time ago—thousands of years. But hearts are slow in these northern lands. They still think of themselves as cousins.”
“Orrinshad is more temperate,” Anlaida said. “I would hardly blame them for leaving.”
“It wasn’t climate alone. It’s a long story, though.”
“And we can make this a long ride,” she said. The runners swished through a drift, and snow sprayed into their faces.
Arran swiped the snow off of his chin, suddenly glad that—dead of winter or not—he was here, in the free air, with the pale sun peeking at them. “The year of the Great Cold proved as terrible for the People as for those in Axelarre and Orrinshad. Only during the summer months was hunting even possible. Oran, the Watcher in those days, had seen the star Anaroc’s warning, and the People had stored sufficient food; but, cramped in their dugouts, many grew ill. Those taken by the North Wind that year numbered nearly a fourth of the People.
“Of the elders, over half had died.” Arran looked across the frozen moorland to a mining village huddled against the western hills. “With so many of the People taken, determining which kinship lines were closest became—complicated. The genealogies were not always clear; and about half of the surviving people began arguing that kinships were worthless in their new circumstances.”
Anlaida flicked the reins as Lista stalled. “Get,” she commanded. The mare stepped up beside her companion, nickering a protest.
“Stubborn one,” Arran said.
“Aye.” Anlaida leaned against the seat. “Go on, then.”
The horsehide robe was sliding; he tucked it about his legs again. “The other half violently objected, as you can imagine.”
“I can’t,” said Anlaida. “I don’t know them.”
Arran offered a half-smile. “Well—they violently objected. The genealogies were important to them; you can still see the ancient lists carved into stone all over the Tablelands. The argument went unsettled for three years, with tempers heating like a smith’s tongs. Finally, some of the impatient on the opposing side defaced several of the stone genealogies, and the ancestral faction fairly spat in fury. A time of council was called; but neither side could bring itself to agree with the other. Half held that ancestry was everything; the other half held that it was nothing.”
“Both were mad, then.”
Arran nodded. “Oran was a moderate man. He had no interest in the extremes of either side, though he had family in the ancestral faction. Sitting around the fire with the other men, as their voices grew louder and echoed from the rocks around them, he feared that the two sides would come to blows.
“And did. Two of the leading men began yelling in one another’s faces and one leaped on the other. The council turned into a brawl. By its end, there were enough minor injuries, but one man’s ribs had been kicked in, and the skull of another completely crushed. With one man dead and another barely clinging to life, Oran offered to lead the ancestral faction to another location, perhaps in the south. The People, crushed by the destruction they had brought upon themselves, agreed to his proferred settlement; those of the ancestral faction who refused to accept any other solution followed Oran’s leading out of the Tablelands, out of the North, into the wild regions west of Axelarre.
“But Oran—” Arran’s voice wandered for a moment; he cleared his throat. “He found a good place for them. A village round a high hill, near a small river. Fertile soil, fresh fish. Kinder winters. The stars, though—they were small and distant and cold. Oran had watched the stars all his life, had known them better than himself, and now he saw them white and hard. It killed him a year after he and his arrived in the land. They buried him beneath the highest tree on the highest mountain in the land, and built their homes and families around his grave.”
“Orrinshad,” Anlaida murmured. “Oran’s shade. The old song makes better sense.”
“Oran’s song?” Arran asked.
She nodded. “I had them put one line of it—‘The Sky-lord ever watches’—on your mother’s stone. Nothing else fit—I’m sorry.”
“No,” he muttered. “No, you’ve no need to apologize. I—thank you for caring. It—fits—well enough.”
Snowflakes sprinkled Anlaida’s nose, and she looked up into a sky again pregnant with winter. “I suppose we had best head back. Another storm is starting.”
His eyes wandered to the north again. “Ronag hated storms.”
Silence rose between them. They swept through the village, into the courtyard. Inorr took the sledge; Arran stumped off to return his wrappings to Lohar; but Anlaida slipped inside and upstairs. In the library, she found their little book. “Oran’s song,” she whispered, reading.
“I stand on Fallad’s Mountain
And look toward the sky—
The Sky-lord ever watches
But beneath these heavy branches
I am condemned to die.
“What hurts you, stars of heaven,
That you hold your eyes away?
I live my life in sorrow
Where my sons will live tomorrow
And I long to die today.
“Mor, Eliane, and Rhonan,
Lossyr, Ardall, and Cuirr—
The messengers of heaven
Their guidance long have given
But in this land defer.
“When I lie down and wander
The heart dead in my chest
I’ll find the path of silver
The Sky-lord walks forever—
The road his stars have dressed.”
Anlaida rubbed the book with her thumbs, and thought about supper.
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