I can’t say why, but I have this feeling that you’re right to keep him out of the fighting.’
‘Do you now? Then my thanks. I just can’t bring myself to ignore it, and ye gods, his nineteenth summer will start next year anyway. He’s the only son I have.’
The thing that Salamander couldn’t admit to the tieryn was that he’d received an omen of his own. When he was listening to Cadryc describe the prophecy, he felt an icy cold ripple down his back, a warning from the dweomer that, indeed, it had been a true speaking. Too bad that wretched priest died, he thought. He must have had dweomer, and I would have loved to have asked him a few questions.
‘What about those rescued farm women?’ Salamander said. ‘Are any of them still with us?’
‘As far as I know. They were all young women then. Why?’
‘Because I love a good tale. Indeed, my very living depends upon my having a store of good tales. “Lasses captured by Horsekin but saved in the nick of time!” That should extract a few coins from those who lead safe but dull lives.’
‘You could be right about that, indeed. Well, my thanks for listening, gerthddyn, but I’ll ask you not to spread my part of the tale around.’
‘Don’t worry, your grace, I’d never presume. I have a son of my own, you see, and I can sympathize.’
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, maze-like 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 travelling 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 lake shore. 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. Some survived the Great Burning, but they were thrown overboard somewhere on the journey across the Southern Ocean.’
‘They were? By the Dark Sun herself! I never knew that.’
‘You didn’t?’ Meranaldar frowned in thought. ‘Oh, yes, of course. It was Princess Carra whom I told, and I don’t remember you being there at the time. The refugees ran dangerously short of water, you see, and the priests claimed a greater share. They based their reasoning, if one can call it that, on doctrine. Since they’d been born into the religious elite, they claimed, then in a previous life they’d done something to accrue great merit, and thus they deserved more of everything in this life.’
‘What a pernicious idea! I’ll wager there was a corollary, too, that the common people deserved whatever ill luck came their way.’
‘Exactly. The reasoning had ceased to be compelling, with Rinbaladelan in ruins behind them and so many people dead. The soldiers on the ship tossed the priests overboard, where they could have all the water they wanted.’ Meranaldar paused for a smile. ‘That very evening it rained, and the barrels they’d brought along for drinking water were filled to overflowing. The soldiers took this as a sign of the gods’ approval. Thus are new doctrines born.’
They shared a laugh as they walked on. Dallandra had often wondered why the dweomermasters insisted that their belief in multiple lives be kept secret. She was beginning to understand.
They were walking together in the forest, following one of the cool, shaded lanes between the trees. When he’d first come to the Westlands, Meranaldar had been a thin man, hollow-chested and stoop-shouldered, but forty years of riding with the royal alar had strengthened him. Now, no one would ever have confused him with a warrior, not with his slender arms and soft hands, but he stood straight and moved with the graceful ease of someone who knows his own strength.
‘Tomorrow the first alarli should arrive,’ Dallandra
