K Parker - Pattern

'Oh.' Poldarn froze, unable to think of anything intelligent to suggest. 'I suppose we'd better go back to the house-the old house, I mean-and see if we can dig up some bread and cheese.'

'Bread and cheese,' Elja repeated. 'Yes, all right. You go back, I'd better go inside and see what sort of a state the place is in.'

'Fine,' Poldarn snapped. 'I'll be as quick as I can.'

He didn't run, because his head was still hurting and every step he took sent a shooting pain through his temples, but he walked briskly. It was just starting to get dark, and he missed his footing, stumbled and twisted his ankle. Bloody wonderful wedding day, he muttered to himself.

They were surprised to see him, back at the middle house. 'What are you doing here?' Rannwey asked, in a way that suggested that she wasn't at all happy at this latest display of eccentricity. 'Where's Elja?'

'Back at the house.'

'What, you left her there on her own, on your wedding night?'

'She wanted something to eat.'

Rannwey frowned at him. 'But there's plenty of food up there, I took it up myself this morning. Rye bread and cold smoked lamb and honeycakes and goat's cheese and some hard-boiled eggs in butter, and a quart of the new beer.'

'Oh,' Poldarn said. 'Oh, well, that's all right, then.'

So he trudged back, limping rather self-consciously on his pinked ankle, even though there was nobody to see him. When he reached the house, he could see a blade of yellow light showing under the door. He knocked before pushing it open.

'There you are,' Elja said with her mouth full, as she opened the door to him. 'You needn't have bothered, there's plenty of food.'

'I know,' Poldarn replied. 'They told me. Smoked lamb and eggs in butter.'

She nodded. 'Well, smoked lamb, anyway,' she said, 'I've eaten the eggs. Very good they were, too. And all the furniture's in, all nice and tidy, though I think I'll get you to move the linen chest out of the bedroom, you could bang your shin on it coming through the door. I've lit a fire, so it's nice and warm.'

Poldarn was already nice and warm, or at least warm, from toiling backwards and forwards up the river bank. 'Great,' he said. 'Thanks. I'll come in, then, shall I?'

'You do what you like.'

The house seemed very big with nobody in it but the two of them. It smelled rather disgusting-he hadn't been there when they laid the floor-two parts of potters' clay to one part of cowshit, the same mix as they used for lining furnaces; kept the heat in and the wet out-and the air was still full of sawdust and the clammy damp of newly cut green timber, drawn out by the large fire blazing in the hearth. Poldarn looked at it with disapproval; he'd seen enough fire for one day, and the sweat inside his shirt made him squirm. Mostly, he realised, he felt very tired, probably because of the headache and the day's melodrama.

'You sit down,' Elja said. 'I'll get you some food.'

Well, he thought, as he lowered his aching back into the big carved oak chair that Halder had always sat in, this is a bit more like it. Food on the table, his own fireside, his wife, domesticity. A man could get to feel his age in surroundings like this. That thought made him frown involuntarily, because ever since he'd woken up in the bloody mud beside the Bohec he hadn't felt any particular age; seventeen going on ninety, with an option on eternal youth and imminent certain death. According to Halder, he'd been born forty-two years ago, when the timbers that made up this fine house of his were little twiggy saplings, but he'd accepted that information as he'd accepted everything else Halder had told him about himself: a fact whose truth he had no reason to doubt, but clearly relating to somebody else. Now at least he had something to measure himself against; the timbers of the house, the house itself. By those criteria he was exactly the right age for the purpose in hand, and everything was working out the way it had been intended to.

'Elja,' he called out-she was at the other end of the hall-'how old are you?'

'What?'

'I asked, how old are you?'

She didn't actually count on her fingers, but she paused before answering. 'Twenty-four,' she said. 'Why?'

'Just wondering, that's all. I didn't know'

'Well, now you do. How about you?'

He didn't understand the question. 'Sorry, what do you mean?'

'How old are you, since it's so important.'

'Forty-two, according to my grandfather.'

'Well, he should know. You don't look it.'

He smiled inside. 'In a good way or a bad way?'

'Both,' she replied, slicing bread. 'From the chin down, you could pass for thirty.'

The inner smile faded. 'Fine,' he said. 'And from the chin up?'

'No idea,' she replied. 'Actually, you remind me of those stories where a young man visits the secret kingdom of the fairies; and next day he leaves, and he finds that it's a hundred years later and everybody he used to know's been dead for ages.'

'Thank you so much.'

'Oh, I didn't mean it in a nasty way,' she replied, hacking at the smoked lamb. 'Actually, it's rather-' She paused, wiping the knife. 'Interesting,' she said. 'Which is no bad thing, because when I'm all fat and wrinkly and old, you'll probably still look exactly the same.'

Poldarn nodded. 'Well, that'll be something to look forward to. Can I give you a hand with that?'

'No, you stay there, I don't want you under my feet. I saved you the last honeycake.'

She brought the plate and a mug of beer over to him, then went back to the other end of the hall and started clearing away. 'Start as you mean to go on,' she said, by way of explanation. 'If things aren't put away as soon as you've finished with them, next thing you know there's a big tangle of clutter, and it's much harder to get everything straight again.'

'That's very sensible,' Poldarn sighed. 'I don't know about you,' he added, 'but I'm tired out.'

'Really? You go on to bed, then. I'll be through as soon as I've finished in here.'

That sounded like a good idea; so he got up-his back was aching and his ankle hurt like hell-and tottered down the hall and through the partition door, which had learned to stick a little since he and Raffen had hung it, only a few days ago. He carried on into the bedroom.

There was a bed in it, presumably; it was hard to tell, because where the bed should have been there was a bed-shape, but completely buried under sheaves of green leaves, flowers and lengths of glossy creeper. All symbolic, he guessed, but a bloody nuisance; was he allowed to shovel the mess onto the floor, or was he supposed to lie on top of it, with the twigs and stems digging into the small of his back? Knowing his luck, there'd be beetles and earwigs as well; not really conducive to the occasion. He wanted to ask what he should do, but he didn't feel that he could, somehow. He compromised by shuffling enough of the foliage across onto the other side of the bed to allow him enough space to lie down on. There was a pillow; beautifully crisp linen, and stuffed with clover if the scent was anything to go by. It felt wonderful, soft enough to soothe his aching head with its support, and for the first time that day he felt his muscles unclench. I'll close my eyes, he thought, just for a second or two.

When he opened them again, there was sunlight in his eyes. He was lying uncomfortably on his right arm, which was numb from the elbow, on a mat of crushed fern and creeper; the rest of the bed was defoliated, and had been slept in. Bloody hell, he thought.

A head appeared round the door. 'If I were you, I'd get up now,' Elja said. 'Sun's up, they'll all be here any minute, and there's a lot of work to get through.'

Poldarn groaned. His head was still hurting, and when he tried to move his right arm, the pins and needles started with a vengeance. 'Yes, all right,' he said sadly. 'Is there any of that bread left?'