A Gathering of Gargoyles

Chapter 9 The Suzerain

The heron led them through close woods, down dry ravines and along shadowed paths.
Aeriel heard still the vampyre's screams, the yelping of two gargoyles in the distance behind, and bit her lip in fear for them - the icarus seemed able to bat them aside at a blow.
All at once, after they had been running what seemed a very long time, a great angry shriek rose behind them. The vampyre burst into the air above the hills, circling. His white garments blazed amid the nothing-darkness of his wings. Aeriel listened hard, straining her ears, but she heard no sound of the gargoyles now.
Above the trees, the icarus scanned, eyes sweeping the hills. Aeriel and the girl shrank deeper into the crack along which they fled. Presently, with a chirrup of rage, the witch's son swooped away -  toward town, and the majis' house.
They followed the heron till the veiled girl was staggering. Aeriel came to a halt in a thick brake of trees. "Heron," she cried. "We must rest."
The white bird curved around in a low arc, alighted. "Mortal creatures," she murmured. "I had forgot."
Aeriel leaned wearily against a tree. The painted girl crumpled at her feet, trembling, her breaths shallow and pained. Aeriel sipped from her water flask, then offered it to the girl, but she turned her head away. The blood on her wrists was dark and dry. Aeriel used a bit of water from the flask to wash them. The girl clenched her teeth, made strangled little cries.
"I am sorry this hurts," said Aeriel, "but I have a balm that will help."
The painted girl dried her wrists upon her veil, shaking her head. "My feet," she managed after a moment.
She shifted gingerly. Aeriel did not at first know what she meant. She took one of the girl's dark-painted feet upon her lap and brushed the dust from it. She saw gashes and blood upon the sole.
"How did this happen?" she cried. "I felt nothing sharp underfoot."
The girl shook her head. "Before you came. The majis cut my feet so that even if I escaped his chain, I could not run."
Aeriel started, stared. As gently as she might, she washed the feet of the painted girl, using the hem of her desert shift for a cloth. The veiled girl's breath grew ragged suddenly. Aeriel was not sure whether with laughter or sobs.
" 'I love your dark beauty,' " she spat. " 'I love your dark love.'"
She was weeping, the swirls across her cheeks growing muddy with tears. Aeriel did not understand what she had said. The other unfastened the veil from her face, and Aeriel realized then, with a start, it was not paint that made the girl's skin dark. The dots and whorls upon her cheeks were not pale, unpainted places, but white paint daubed upon dark skin.
"It was what he used to say to me," the girl went on. " 'My dark beauty, my dark love, I'll give my own child to the Bird before you.' "
She turned her head away again. Aeriel said nothing for a little. Irrylath, Irrylath - she could not get the thought of him out of her mind suddenly, and did not know why. She gazed at the painted girl's skin, black as the boy she had seen upon the Sea.
"I did not realize you were so dark," she murmured at last. "I thought the paint..."
The girl put one hand to her cheek. "This?" The stuff came away on her fingertips. "Bride paint - they thought he must want something other than a meal this time."
She scrubbed at it, suddenly fierce, and at the backs of her white-daubed hands. It smeared. Aeriel caught her breath in then. The thought welled up all at once, without her bidding. I, too, have been a darkangel's bride. False lover. False love.
Aeriel washed the painted girl's cheeks, her hands. She took ambergris from her pack and crumbled it, rubbed the waxy green granules into the soles of her feet, her wrists. Very carefully she bound them up, using the dark girl's veil. Aeriel touched her feet again.
"Do they pain you still?" The other shook her head. Her hair was parted in little squares, braided close to the skull. "Then why do you weep?"
The dark girl sat limply against the tree, her breathing quieted. She spoke dully.
"When I was in the majis' house, the rose-skinned ones used to say, 'When I am free, I will go to Rani,' and the blue-skinned ones, 'To Bern. When I am free. Where my kith are. Where I was born.' But where are my kith? Where was I born?"
She shrugged, shivering, chafing her arms.
"My first mistress bought me from a Bernean trader who would not say where he had got me. I have never heard of any land where the people are like me."
She looked at Aeriel.
"The majis used to let me leave the house and walk abroad when I would. He knew I could not run away. 'You will never leave me, my black chick,' he said. 'You have nowhere to go.' "
Aeriel knelt, putting her hand on the dark girl's hand, and strangely, for the first time since the heron had brought her her staff, she was not afraid of Orm.
"Come with me awhile," she said. "I was once a slave, bought as a babe. I have no kith and no home - I go where I like. But I do know where you are from. I passed it, crossing the Sea-of-Dust: a boy stood fishing on a reef, his skin like shadow. I am going to Terrain, but after, I must cross the Mare again. I'll take you, if you'll come."
The dark girl looked at her.
"What is your name?"
"Erin," the other said. Her tears had stopped.
"I am Aeriel." She offered the girl their last water, and this time Erin drank. "Why did you call me 'spirit' in the grove?"
The other handed back the flask. "I did not see you come. You seemed to appear out of the air. Your skin was so white, the sun shone clear through you. I took you for the orchard sprite."
Aeriel laughed. The girl stood up, leaning against the tree. Aeriel made to help her, but the other shook her off.
"I can walk. The cuts are not deep. He is too much a coward to cut me deep. But he rubbed salt in the cuts to make them burn. What you put on them..."
"Ambergris."
"It has taken the burning away."
They continued on through Zambul, following no road, only the heron's flight. The hills had grown more wooded here. Not long into their second march, the two gargoyles overtook them. Aeriel embraced them, laughing with relief. Tongues lolling from running, they fawned on her. They looked bartered and disarrayed, but otherwise unharmed. Aeriel stroked the winged one.
It rubbed its head against her hand, made in its throat a thrumming sound like beetles'
wings. She fed it the second of the apricoks from her pack, saving the seed, and watched some of its gauntness leave it.
"Catwing," she murmured, stroking its scabby chin.
The air grew cooler as the fortnight rolled on. When Erin and she slept, Aeriel put the traveling cloak over them both. They had no water now, and access to none, for they kept wide of cottages and towns, but Erin showed Aeriel where to find succulent nightfruit, or winesheath in flower, and how to cook the fresh-laid eggs of lizards and birds on red ovenrock, that held the heat of Solstar long into the night. Aeriel sang Erin tales when they camped.
The ground they traveled seemed to be rising, the vegetation growing lusher. Fruit on the trees became more plentiful; the hollow reedgrasses they sucked for moisture were fatter now with juice. The fortnight was nearly done when Aeriel heard a gentle lapping sound.
"What is that?" she said softly, halting.
Erin, playing with the dustshrimp, looked up. "I hear nothing."
Aeriel took a few steps through the trees. The noise was faint, familiar - she could not think what it was. Erin put the dustshrimp back on AeriePs sleeve. The white heron was nowhere to be seen. Both gargoyles had lifted their muzzles, testing the air. Aeriel, too, now could smell it:
"Water," she murmured. "Running water."
The gargoyles bounded away through the underbrush. Aeriel pushed forward through the foliage. She heard splashing ahead, stumbled into a clearing. A tiny pool lay before them, feeding a stream that spilled away among the trees. The gargoyles had flung themselves into the water. The heron alighted beside the channel.
The gargoyles wrestled and nipped each other. Aeriel and Erin had to duck their spray.
The dustshrimp hid from the wet in a fold of her garment. Aeriel laid her things at wood's edge, slipped from her traveling cloak and shift. She waded into the pool.
The water was warm, steaming in the cool night air. The gargoyles subsided. The heron speared a fish. Erin pulled off her travel-stained garb, knelt at the pool's edge and cupped her hands.
Aeriel leaned back, let the water support her. Its taste was very slightly sweet. Earthshine fell blue, the starlight pale grey, but their light in the pool wavered yellow and white.
Erin came into the pool, and Aeriel noticed for the first time that though she was very slender, her breast was not quite so flat as a boy's, her hips not quite so lean. They bathed in the still, bright, steaming water, and drank.
Aeriel looked up suddenly. The gargoyles had long since clambered back onto the bank, shaken off and now lay sprawled there, one dozing, the other nibbling its matted fur.
Above the lapping and soft plashing, Aeriel heard a sound.
Erin, lying back upon the water, opened her eyes. "What is it?"
The noise had been so faint - distant, dying. It did not come again. Aeriel shook her head.
"Nothing. It must have been wind among the trees."
There was no wind. The night was still. Erin closed her eyes again, but Aeriel stood a few moments, listening. Nothing stirred. She came out of the pool, letting the cool air dry her.
Then she dressed and sat toying with her bandolyn.
Presently there came another sound, louder, nearer than the first: a belling and bawling like wounded kine. Then, nothing. And suddenly, much nearer, the breaking of brush.
Greyling and Catwing bolted to their feet. The heron looked up. Even Erin lying upon the water had heard it. She stood.
A grey beast came out of the trees across the pool. Its rib cage heaved; its snorted breath curled, white upon the air. Its body had the shape of a skeletal calf, its knobby limbs hoofed. A nest of horns tangled its brow.
It did not seem to see them at first. Staggering, it pitched to its knees beside the pool and sucked at the water, straining against the brass collar encircling its throat. Aeriel recognized it then.
"Mooncalf," she cried: the last of the six gargoyles she had tamed, the one that, even tame, had been so skittish. It was starving now, gaunt as bone. "Mooncalf," she whispered.
The grey beast started up, snorting, staring. Erin in the pool shrank back from it. It stood at wood's edge, head up, seemed on the verge of bolting. The greyling yipped. Catwing gave a throaty cry, and the grey beast's glazed eyes seemed to clear.
Aeriel reached into her pack, held out an apri-cok. The rich, pungent scent hung in the air. The mooncalf's nostrils flared. It forded the pool, swam past Erin without a sideward glance, folded its limbs before Aeriel and lay down, let her take its thorny-crowned head in her arms.
It ate the apricok, and seemed to sleep. Its grey eyes closed; its panting eased. The gauntness of its sides grew less. Aeriel put up the seed and stroked the mooncalf's nose.
Erin came out of the water, staring at the new beast, and at Aeriel - but the dark girl said nothing as she dried and dressed.
Then of a sudden came another sound: a questing cry like the calling of horns. The mooncalf sprang to its feet, and fled away through the trees. Without a sound, Greyling and Catwing followed.
A party of horsemen came out of the trees. Their skin was pale amber; their horses were black. Footmen held leashes of lithe, dappled hounds. Aeriel stared. She had never seen horses that had no wings.
One rider, the foremost, rode forward a few paces, raising one hand to keep the others back, made the footmen still the yelping and baying of their dogs. He wore a turban upon his head like the women of Isternes.
"Ho, what's this?" he said, gazing at Aeriel. "We have been hunting the Grey Neat this long fortnight, but it is other quarry we have found.
Maid, you are a brave one to be abroad in these parts all alone."
His words puzzled her. "Why do you call me alone?" she asked.
Erin knelt in the grass half behind Aeriel. The horseman glanced at her. He smiled. "One unarmed boy would do you little good against brigands, maid."
Erin said nothing. Aeriel said, "Is Zambul a country of brigands, like Bern? If so, you are the first that I have met."
The horsemen behind him glanced at one another, but their leader merely threw back his head with a laugh. "Zambul?" he said. "Do you take this for Zambul - that waterless bone?"
"Have we come into Terrain, then?" said Aeriel, startled - though the woods were like nothing she had ever seen in Terrain.
The rider smiled. "Terrain lies west of here. You have come too far north if you meant to cross over from Zambul. This is Pirs." The horseman reined his champing horse. Again he was laughing at her. "And as for brigands, maid, I spoke in jest. There are none such on my land."
Aeriel rose. "Can you point me the road to Terrain, then? And we will trouble you no more."
The huntsman did not answer her at first, leaned forward in the saddle, eyeing her. "My villa lies upon that road," he said. "It is not far. Surely you must be weary of travel, maid.
Stop a little and honor my house."
Aeriel fingered her staff. Sometime between the coming of the mooncalf and the huntsmen's arrival, the heron had settled again, faded back into the wood. Erin stood beside her, utterly silent, refusing to speak. Aeriel studied the man on horseback before her, but could not read him.
"We will go with you," she said carefully, "if you will show us the road to Terrain. I must go on to Orm as soon as may be." She lifted her pack. "I am Aeriel."
"Welcome, Aeriel," the horseman cried, offering her his hand. "You will ride with me.
Nightwalker can easily bear double."
Before she could speak, he had pulled her up beside him on the horse's back, sideways, as though it were a couch. The horse moved a step, and Aeriel gripped the saddle's back to keep from falling.
"Put your arms about me," the huntsman said.
Instead, Aeriel doubled one leg across the horse's back till she was astraddle and could grip with her knees. The rider glanced over his shoulder at her, then laughed.
"As you will." He motioned his riders, clucked to his horse, but Aeriel touched his arm, looking at Erin. The huntsman reined, shrugged impatiently. "Your boy can come after, with the dogs."
Aeriel made to get down from the steed. "Erin will come with me."
The horseman caught her about the waist, his tone hurriedly gentler. "Hold, maid. No need." He called sharply to one of his riders, who caught Erin's arm and hauled her up behind.
"I have told you our names," Aeriel said, glad when the rider released her to gather the reins. "Will you not give us yours?"
"Mine?" the huntsman said, spurring. The other riders fell in behind. Aeriel clung to her staff and the saddle's back. The turbaned man laughed. "I am suzerain here," he answered her. "The suzerain of Pirs."
Aeriel endured the journey, clamped her teeth at the sudden jolts and drops through the constantly downsloping land. At last they came in sight of the suzerain's palace. It was fashioned all of cream-colored stone that glowed in the cool Oceanuslight. Aeriel saw gardens. Among the greenery, fountains played.
They passed under the arch of a gate into a yard. As soon as the suzerain had made his mount stand still, Aeriel sprang down and stood off. Only then did she see that he had turned in the saddle to offer her his hand.
The suzerain dismounted then, and though he smiled still, Aeriel could see a hard edge had come into his smile. So be it then, she thought, for she did not much like being handed up and down the backs of horses as though she were a pack.
Erin, too, had slipped down from behind the guard. The suzerain nodded his companions away across the yard. He was tall, Aeriel realized now that she saw him standing. Erin, who had come up silently beside her, stood eyeing the turbaned man as well.
Servants appeared, bearing cups and trays. Aeriel realized how famished she was. A warm, steaming flask was pressed into her hand. The suzerain tossed his off in a draught; Aeriel sipped. The sweet, salt broth warmed her wonderfully. She took a tidbit from a tray, but noticed when servants offered Erin cup and tray, the dark girl turned away.
After only a moment, the suzerain clapped his hands and the servants departed. AeriePs hunger had only been whetted, and she gazed longingly after the disappearing trays. Her finished cup was taken gently by the boy who had given it to her. The suzerain said:
"Come, my guest. I know you are weary, but let us walk awhile in the garden, and when we are done, I promise you a feast worthy of your welcome."
The suzerain strolled through the grounds of his palace. After a time, Aeriel realized with unease she had become separated from Erin. But however slowly she paced her step, a bevy of courtiers seemed always to intervene.
Nor did the suzerain allow her to fall back or wait. He led her along winding footpaths, told her what land this frond was from, what suzeranee had constructed that aquifer until Aeriel's head was fairly spinning and she wondered if they would ever pause.
Then the suzerain was leading her out of the garden, up steps onto a broad, stone-railed terrace. Cushions and white ground cloths lay spread before them. Braziers and lampstands blazed. Servants were kneeling, just setting the last dishes in place.
There were platters piled high with roasted gamechicks, bowls of nutmeats, tureens of thick broth. There were loaves of bread no bigger than a fist, candied fruits stuffed with nuts, and baked fish bedded on cress.
Aeriel caught a whiff of it all, and felt giddy with hunger. Her knees nearly gave. She scarcely noticed when the suzerain laid his hand upon her arm. She knelt and reached for whatever came closest to hand.
Erin was not among the others, she noticed suddenly, and her uneasiness returned.
Glancing back toward the steps, she caught a glimpse of a figure slipping into shadow, moving quietly away among the trees. Aeriel frowned. Was that Erin -  what was she up to? No one else seemed to have noticed the dark girl's departure.
They feasted in silence for a little time. Only when Aeriel began to feel satisfied did she realize she had not had anything to drink since their arrival. Looking up from her plate, she saw all the courtiers had cups. She glanced at the suzerain. He, too, had a goblet from which he drank. Aeriel's throat felt thick and dry.
The suzerain noticed her glance and seemed to start. "Wine," he called, then muttered,
"dawdling servants." Louder, "Where is the wine I ordered for my guest?"
A steward came forward, bent to murmur in his sovereign's ear.
"Well, see to it, can't you?" the suzerain said. The steward hurried away. The lord of the villa turned back to Aeriel, all smiles. "Some delay in the kitchen, I suppose."
Aeriel said nothing, wondering why the suzerain did not simply take one of the empty cups and fill it from any of the wine pitchers before them. But the wait was brief. The steward returned, half dragging, half shoving another servant before him.
"Have a care with that," the suzerain snapped as the steward nearly caused the serving man to spill the pitcher he carried.
Aeriel loosened the laces at the throat of her traveling cloak. She had fastened them against the chill night wind during the ride and had kept them fastened since. But she was warm now, with food and the heat from the braziers. She turned her head a little, to avoid the suzerain's eyes. They seemed ever to be searching her.
"Utmost apologies, my lord," the steward was mumbling, signing the servant to fill the cup he held in his other hand. "The herbalists said they had difficulty..." He stopped himself suddenly, at the suzerain's glare, then stammered on. "With... with the proper spices, my lord."
The servant poured from the pitcher into the cup. "How is that?" Aeriel inquired. "Is my wine different somehow from the rest?"
The suzerain shrugged, irritably. "Oh, how should I know," he muttered, "everything my servants do? Perhaps they sought to honor you with some special wine. Give her the cup, can't you?"
A gleam of sweat had formed on the suzerain's brow. She wondered at it, for the night around them was pleasantly cool. The suzerain was suddenly staring at her.
"Your eyes," he said.
She looked at him.
"They are green."
Aeriel nodded, shifting uneasily beneath the directness of his gaze. "Yes," she said.
The serving man held out the cup.
"I had not realized before the color of your eyes."
"I cannot help their color," she answered. It was a strange color for eyes, she knew. "They have always been so."
Aeriel reached for the cup. The suzerain's hand caught the serving man's suddenly, twisted the goblet from him. A sup spilled across Aeriel's outstretched ringers.
"Fool," the suzerain growled. "That is not the wine I bade you bring."
"My lord, it is exactly...," the steward cried.
"Then I have changed my mind," said his lord with a savage glance. "I will not have such young trash served at my board. Never dare bring it before me again."
He dashed the contents of the cup across the far tiles of the terrace. The pitcher followed with a clang. Dark liquid ran from the vessel's neck into the squares of earth where fronds and lilies grew along the balcony's stone rail. With a brusque gesture, the suzerain sent his steward and the servant away. He wiped his brow with a linen lapscarf.
"Here, you must have wine," he said, a little breathless, and poured from his own pitcher into her cup. Aeriel made to protest, but he would not have it. She saw his hand tremble ever so slightly as he set the pitcher down. "Take mine; take mine. I am done and they will be all fortnight fetching something fit."
He lifted the cup.
"You see? This is old wine, excellent." He took a sip, and Aeriel was not sure whether he drank to steady himself, or to show her that the wine was good. "Here, take it."
He pressed the cup to her hands, nearly forced it to her lips. Aeriel did drink then, and deeply, though she had never drunk wine before, save half a year ago, when she had shared a wedding cup with Irrylath.
The suzerain's wine was hot and sweet. It brought back her weariness to her. She noticed Erin then, just coming up the terrace steps, slipping silently into place upon an empty cushion. Aeriel felt relief at her companion's return, hardly noticing the dark girl's face was strangely drawn. She stared at the suzerain, then at Aeriel.
Shortly thereafter, the suzerain ended the meal and had them escorted to their rooms.
Aeriel noticed Erin stayed beside her the whole way. She would not be parted from her when they reached the chamber that was to be Aeriel's.
"But my lord has ordered other quarters for your boy," the chamberlain said.
"We will share this one," Aeriel replied.
The old man seemed perturbed. "But lady, there is but one couch."
"I am not a lady," said Aeriel, "and it makes no matter. Erin will stay with me."
The chamberlain looked at Aeriel, and she back at him. Erin beside her glanced beyond him down the hall. In a moment, the wizened man cast down his eyes and muttered, "As you wish."
When the suzerain's chamberlain had departed, Erin rose quietly from where she sat and drew the door shut. The cool draft of air from the windows ceased. Aeriel stood her walking stick in one corner. "Why did you do that?"
Erin came back and sat down near the broad, high window that opened onto the balcony.
"So that I may speak with you," she said.
"We may speak with the door open, surely?" Aeriel said, fanning herself with her hand.
"There is no one about."
"The suzerain has posted four guards on you. Did you not see?" Aeriel shook her head; it felt heavy. "They are just down the hall."
Aeriel started toward the door, then thought better of it. "When did he do that?"
"After the feast."
Aeriel sat down, took off her traveling cloak. The wine had made her flushed and hot.
"Why did you eat nothing?" she asked. "Why did you slip away?"
Erin looked off. "I do not like him."
"We will not be here long," Aeriel said. "Your feet..."
"My feet are well," Erin snapped.
Aeriel rubbed her neck. "You have eaten nothing," she began.
"I found fruit in the garden," the dark girl answered, "and clear water. I found another thing in the garden, too."
Aeriel looked up. "Go on," she said. Her eyelids felt heavy. Erin was watching her.
"A boy, a youth about your age, very finely garbed. Some courtier. He was knocking down plums from a tree with a stick. He gave me some."
Aeriel sighed. She felt stifled. Her limbs seemed loose.
"He said I would do well to watch my fare at the suzerain's board," the dark girl said.
Aeriel shook her head. Her senses were swimming. "Why was that?"
"When I pressed him, he drew from his breast a little withered wort he had seen one of the herbalists gathering among the kitchen herbs."
"It was a spice, then," sighed Aeriel, leaning heavily upon one hand.
Erin shook her head. "He said the leaves were used to make blue dye, but that the root held a juice to kill you in two breaths."
Aeriel lay down upon the couch, for she was weary. The suzerain's wine was making her head ache. Erin was speaking, but Aeriel could hardly follow.
"When he said that, I ran back toward the feast - though the young man cried out in surprise, 'Boy, what do you care if your master drinks my uncle's draught? It will set you free.'
"He thought you a youth, I think, from that distance, and me a boy. He did not follow me.
When I reached the terrace steps, too out of breath to cry warning, I saw your cup still dry, the suzerain's servant pouring wine - when suddenly his lord dashed the cup from your hand."
"He said the vintage was bad," muttered Aeriel. She could not keep her eyes open. She was not used to wine - it made her thoughts sluggish. She did not understand what Erin was trying to say, nor did she care.
"He said he had changed his mind!" Erin cried angrily, but Aeriel scarcely heard. The suzerain's wine was numbing her limbs. Already she was drifting into sleep.