Ширли Мерфи - The Shattered Stone [calibre]

There was a fair young man in Zandour then, an unlanded drifter from Pelli lounging in the ale houses and gaming places. The servants said he was clever at bones and brittles and that he must be wealthy indeed, the way he used silver to satisfy his wants. Tayba managed many a trip to the marketplace, to the herb woman and the prayer fountain in preparation for her marriage. The young man began to watch her. He was sun-browned with pale gold hair, his eyes so compelling she found it hard to look away. When first he spoke to her, she looked down, letting her lashes brush her cheeks. She could feel his interest like a tide. She turned away, smiling a little. Soon they were meeting in the public places, then later in places where prying eyes would not follow. In Tayba’s father’s farthest sheepfold shelter, in the ogre’s wood where few from Zandour ventured. Then at last in the blackened caves of Scar Mountain that rose between Zandour and Aybil.

He made love to her greedily. But when she tried to ease him into promises, EnDwyl did not commit himself. He let her imagine what she might. He watched her passion for him grow and was satisfied.

Soon Tayba was with child. The illness of it made her pale and so queasy she could not sit at table, but the wives put it down to nerves. She stayed to herself in her room until the early sickness was past. Her tall, lithe frame carried the secret well. After the first weeks of sickness she felt strong again and continued to slip away to EnDwyl. The gowns she chose were flowing, they showed nothing.

She was growing heavy the evening she put on a smooth, revealing gown at last and stood before her father’s table to stare at him in cold defiance, the evidence of her betrayal mocking him. All up and down the length of the room there was silence, then a faint gasp from the wives who would be blamed for this: five days before the wedding and Tayba pregnant as a prize ewe.

Her father stared at her, the blood draining from his face. He rose, white as loess dust, and stepped toward her. “Is it Blerdlo’s?”

She gave him a cold smile and shook her head. His hand went to his skinning knife, and someone muffled a cry. She did not back away.

“You cursed . . . you worthless. . . . You’ve squandered a fortune with your willful ways! You’d have been bred soon enough to Blerdlo, but you couldn’t wait. You—”

Her eyes flashed. “You sold me to that pig, to the ugliest, the smelliest among them! Well he’ll never have me, and I’m as worthless to you now as a rotting sheep’s carcass. You could get a better price from a servant’s whelp!” Her smile was ruthless with the success of her revenge.

“Get out! Go with your unlanded lover and see how well he keeps you! You’re no longer welcome in this house!” He slammed out of the room, and she looked after him with triumph, stared slowly around the table then, keeping her face hard, and went away with the cold looks of the household at her back.

She snatched up a few clothes, took a handful of silver from her father’s stores before he thought to lock them, and ran barefoot through the night to the house where EnDwyl hired a sleeping room. She was drunk with her own freedom, giddy with her revenge. They would go to Pelli now, they would . . . But EnDwyl was gone, his room quite empty of anything that had ever belonged to him.

She stood staring at the bare room, sick with shock. All his clothes, his boots, everything. When she went to rouse the innsman to find out where, he stood in his doorway swearing. “I know he’s gone! And taken his horse and two roast ducks and a cask of ale as well and left nothing for the rent he owes!” He eyed Tayba speculatively, seeing her silk gown, the fur lining of her cloak.

She turned and left in haste, losing herself in shadow. The man wouldn’t get EnDwyl’s rent out of her.

She stood for a long while in the night-shuttered marketplace, near the fountain, swept by rage—and by a sudden cold fear. Her time was not far off. She had no desire to drop the babe on the open hills like a dumb ewe. She had counted on EnDwyl to take her to Pelli to bear his child. He had said he would. Well, at least he had said—what had he said? In the heat of temper she could not exactly remember. Tears of self-pity came, she did not try to quench them, stood tasting the salt on her lips in terrible rage, then bent, shaken with a hard bout of sobs that seemed to ease the anger.

When she looked up from crying at last, she saw an old woman standing in the starlit square near the fountain, watching her. A short, dumpy figure, a woman such as was seen rummaging in the gutters of Zandour. The woman’s voice was hollow as the night She said cruelly, “EnDwyl has ridden toward Pelli, wanting to be free of you.”

Tayba looked her over. “How would you know such a thing?”

“It is my business to know. And I have a message for you. You must go to the bell woman on Scar Mountain. She will help you. She says to bring honey and sow’s milk. You take the fourth path at the turning by the water cave and keep on until the sun has set.”

“The sun has not even risen,” Tayba said irritably. “And why should I go to Scar Mountain?”

‘To bear your child in safety. He was conceived on Scar Mountain, and on Scar Mountain he will be born.” The old woman turned away, then cast back softly, “It will be light soon. You’d better hurry. And don’t forget the sow’s milk and honey.” She was lost at once in the city’s depths. Tayba stared after her outraged. She wished she’d been born a man; she looked down at her swollen belly and wished she were lithe enough to ride hard and strong enough to kill EnDwyl. She wished for the first, but not the last, time that this creature she carried was gone, even wished the baby dead and herself free of the whole matter.

The morning dawned foggy and cold. Shivering, she pulled her cloak around her and stared up at the craggy mountain. She did not know where else to go or what to do. She left town at last, angry at everything, at EnDwyl, the old woman, the gods—and very hungry. She purchased sow’s milk and honey from a hillside farm wondering why she bothered, and some dry mawzee cakes to eat as she made her way up the rough path that cleaved around Scar Mountain.

The way up the mountain had been exciting when she rode behind EnDwyl. Now it was hostile and rough and seemed a good deal longer. When at last the morning mist blew away, the day became hot, the air heavy, and the path very steep indeed. She hadn’t remembered how steep. She put on sandals, but the thin soles were little help against the sharp rocks. Her bundles grew heavier, and the sow’s milk began to smell. She thought of her last ride here with EnDwyl, and she hoped a warring Herebian tribe would chop him into buzzard bait.

But when she passed the cave where they had lain, she mourned EnDwyl’s golden hair and knowing ways. Why had the gods let this happen? Why had they let him leave her? She stared up at the sky. If she had seen gods then, flying on the wind, she would have cursed them roundly.

How had that old woman in the square known about her and EnDwyl? And how had this bell woman known? She had never even heard of a bell woman— bells? What did she do with bells? And what made her think the baby would be a boy? I don’t want a boy! I don’t want any baby! What am I to do with a baby!

When the sun had set she stood before a house made of stone slabs set against the side of the mountain. The afternoon had grown chill. She could see firelight through the cracks around the shuttered window. The door stood ajar. Tayba entered.

The stone ceiling rose high. The house was large inside, carven deep into the mountain itself; and the pale stone walls were sculptured into shelves on which stood bells, hundreds and hundred of bells catching the firelight, bells of amethyst and brass and painted clay, of jasper and of precious glass stained in deep tones. A thin white-haired woman sat folded onto a stool before the hearth. She watched Tayba silently. It was impossible to tell her age. Her eyes were too wise, too full of knowledge. She didn’t need to speak to make Tayba feel so uncomfortable she turned away to stare with confusion around the stone room. Why had she come here? Why in Urdd had she come?