Andre Norton - Horn Crown

“Do you know what ill tie lies between Tugness and Garn?”

“Not between them.” She surprised the answer out of me. “It is an old feud between the Houses.”

“Yes. Old indeed. . . . Why do foolish men cling to such matters?” Her tone was one of impatience. She made another abrupt motion with one hand as if she so swept away what she had deemed foolishness. “It was started long before Garn’s father came from the womb—being marriage by capture.”

I sat very still, making no more move to press the shirt under the belt of my breeches. Though my head still buzzed, I was not so lacking in wit that I could not guess what she meant.

“Tugness’s son?”

That Iynne’s. disappearance might be a simple—or simpler—matter of human contriving had not crossed my mind until that moment. Now it was far easier for me to accept that my cousin had vanished because of some stealthy act on the part of our old enemies than that she had been rift away through forces loosed in a forgotten shrine. But, this being so, how much more was I the guilty one! To achieve such an act Thorg must have spied long—lain in wait for the coming of Iynne—watched her movements until he could make sure of her. While I, who had been sent to patrol the heights, had not even suspected that we were under his eyes. I had been foolish, stupidly too interested in the strangeness of this land to take thought of old trouble.

The idea she planted in my mind grew fast. Out of it was born strength so that I was on my feet now. I might not have been able to face with success a battle with the unknown (though that would not have kept me from trying), but I could bring down Thorg. Give me only steel in hand to do so!

Now I said with authority that I might not have used moments earlier:

“Your handmaiden spoke of the force of the Moon Shrine; now you push my mind toward Thorg and old struggles. Which is the right?”

Her frown grew darker and I saw that she had caught her lower lip a little between her teeth as if to hold back some impatient or betraying words. Then she said:

“Thorg has volunteered many times through these days to go hunting. He has passed by on his way to the heights, but it would seem that his skill fails at times, for two days out of three he returns with empty hands. Also, he is not trothed to any maid. There were none who would accept Tugness’s offer on his behalf. I have had to give him warning when I found him looking too often after Gathea. He is one who is hot now for a woman. It is a quarrelsome family and few can say good of their house for three generations or more. Also, there was Kam-puhr—”

“Kampuhr?” I could readily accept all that she said save that last allusion which held no meaning at all for me.

She shrugged. “It is of no matter, save that it lies in the past. But it was enough to make men wonder where Lord Tugness truly stood on a certain concern that was of importance in its day—which is now past!”

Her eyes caught and held mine as if by her very will she would now impress upon me that this was to be forgotten, that she had made a slip she regretted—or had she? Somehow I believed that Zabina was not given to such errors, that perhaps she had uttered that name as a test for me—though I could not understand why.

“And Thorg?” I was willing to let the matter of her reasons be. It was far more important to think of the present than to delve into the past at this moment. “He now shelters in the Keep House?”

She shook her head. “He went forth with yesterday’s first sun; he has not returned. Before that he was gone for a full day also.”

So he had had a good chance to do even as the Wise Woman suggested, either meet with Iynne and in some way win her favor, or else make sure that he knew her ways, lie in wait, and carry her into some hiding place of which there were far too many in this untracked land. Yes, that was all far easier to believe than that Garn’s daughter had been spirited away by the unseen.

Thorg was a man and, in spite of any hunter’s cunning he might possess, I believed that I could match him. Though I knew nothing of his skills and had seen him only a few times during our trek north, still he was human only and therefore human wits could bring him down.

What he had done was once the custom among our people and many were the feuds which grew out of it. So many, that, years past, before my own birth, there had been a solemn covenant made that the youths and maidens of the Keep-kin be early betrothed. Then any man seeking to break such a bond was at once kinless.

Had Thorg believed that because we were in a new land and there were few maids (also Farkon’s son being far away) he might do this thing without penalty? I knew very little of him but that could well be so. It would take days of riding for any of Lord Farkon’s host to come, and Garn had only a handful of men, none of them knowing much of the broken lands to the west. Lord Tugness might make a show of joining with them just in order to set up subtle delays, insuring thus his son achieved his purpose. For, once Thorg lay with Iynne, then she was his by bed-right, though her kin would be considered sworn to Lord Farkon and he might levy on them any bride price he desired.

I could see two dales—perhaps three—locked in a bloody battle, and because of me. Had I not made it possible for Iynne to seek out that shrine, had I not gone blind myself while our enemy slunk and spied—then this would never have come to pass. Right indeed had been Garn’s judgment of me.

There was nothing for me now but to seek out Thorg’s trail as best I could. He would not yet be aware I was kinless. Thus if I challenged he must answer. I could—I must—kill, washing out with his blood this insult to our—no, Garn’s House.

“Lord Tugness knew?” I had settled my shirt in place. Now I picked up the quilted under-jerkin which cushioned my shoulders against the weight of mail.

She shrugged, saying: “You are kinless—”

“Thorg does not know that,” I answered, schooling myself to accept my disgrace. “If I can reach him first—”

The Wise Woman smiled but there was nothing pleasant in that strength of lips. I owed her much—the tending of my wounds, my return perhaps to health, weak though I felt. Still I did not believe she tended me because of a liking for a stranger. No, it was because of her craft, to which she was pledged, as all men knew. The sooner, perhaps, I was out from under her roof the better she would like it.

“Your head needs fresh dressing—” She turned away to her many shelves, taking up a pot of salve here, some powdered stuff which lay within a box there. These she set on the lowest and widest shelf, and set to working the powder into a generous ladling of the salve, mixing them with her fingers before spreading the result across a strip of cloth in a thick smear.

“You were lucky,” she commented as she came back, holding the bandage from which arose a scent of herbs, fresh and clean. “Your skull was cracked—Garn must have a heady fist indeed. But there is no damage within or you would not be sitting here.”

“That knock was not my lord’s doing—it came when I fell. This was of his hand.” I touched my swollen cheek with a cautious fingertip. I remembered my helm left back in the meadowland of Garn’s dale. It was my only gain that he had not stripped my sword from me then, as he had every right to do. Perhaps his anger had made him forget the final degradation due me.

She said nothing, unwinding the old bandage from my aching head to put on the fresh. Then without warning she caught my chin with a firm hand and held me, searching into my eyes.

“Do you see double?” she demanded.

“Not now.”

“Well enough then. But I warn you—go upon the trail before you are fit and you will end a dead man, accomplishing nothing.”