Anna Smith Spark - The Tower of Living and Dying

It was very cold. The wind was picking up, the waves pounding the shingle. Thin, bitter rain. Landra tipped her head back, licked the water from her face. Her head was aching.

There should be a village ahead of her. An hour’s walk, perhaps. Her legs were shaking with hunger so she would go slower. The shingle was hard to walk on, slipping under her feet, after a while she took off her shoes thinking it might be easier, then put them on again when the stones cut her skin. So dark, the sea roaring half invisible beside her. Finally, ahead, the lights that must be the village, the creak and chatter and smell of human life.

Landra sat down on the shingle and began to think.

Lady Landra Relast. Someone would recognize her. Impossible that they would not. Even if they did not recognize her, it would be obvious where she came from, with her fine dress and her burned skin. Impossible to guess how they had taken all that had happened, or what side they might be on.

But there was nowhere else.

The first house was in utter darkness. At the next a light burned, thin lines through the gaps in the shutters. A string of stones hung from the doorpost. Hagstones, wards against the powers of dark. A good omen. Landra knocked. Through the shutters she could hear voices whispering, a clatter of metal and then a silence, and then the door opened a crack. A man stared out. In his hands a long rod of iron, black in the night.

‘I’m unarmed,’ Landra said urgently, showing her white lady’s hands cut and bloodied and burned and rubbed raw. ‘I need … I ask your help. Please. Shelter. Food. I can pay.’

‘Help?’ Pale eyes stared at her fearfully. Saw her burned hair and burned face. The door moved to close.

Not back out into the night. The dark. Her legs almost buckled. So hungry. So thirsty. So tired. Not back out into the night. ‘Please.’ She almost screamed it. ‘Please. I am Landra Relast of Malth Salene, Lord Relast’s daughter. There has been fighting … You will know, I suppose. Please, I beg you. Food and water. Help.’

‘Lord Relast’s dead,’ the man said. ‘They’re all dead. Malth Salene’s smoking ruins. The king’s dead there. There’s a new young king come.’ He studied her doubtfully. ‘Well, you’ve the look of him, the young lord that died in the springtime. Lord Carin, Lord Relast’s son.’ Turned his head back to the warmth of the house, muttered something to someone, then opened the door wide. ‘You’d best come in, then, whoever you are. Not a good night to be outside stone walls.’

The house was tiny, one room for living and sleeping, a beaten earth floor beneath the rushes, the ceiling hung with fishing nets. In the light of the hearth fire Landra saw that the man was young, not yet thirty, fair haired and fair skinned. A woman sat by the fire, also young, darker haired. A cradle stood in the corner, painted with the image of a deer.

The man set the iron rod back beside the hearth. ‘I’ll get you something hot to eat. There’s some stew left, Hana?’

The woman Hana nodded. She got up and helped her husband fetch a cup of water, a bowl of fish stew, a hunk of bread. Landra ate, frowning at the rough salty taste. Her hand shook exhausted on her spoon. The sound of wind and sea came loud through the shutters, over the sound of the fire and the calm soft rhythm of the child’s sleeping breath. The man and woman watched her eat, fear in their eyes.

‘My name’s Ben,’ the man said at last. ‘This is my wife, Hana. My son, Saem. She says she’s Lord Relast’s daughter, Lady Landra.’

Hana stiffened, then nodded. Turned kind eyes on Landra. ‘I’m sorry, then.’

‘You saw it? The battle?’

Ben shook his head. ‘We saw the light in the sky where it was burning. Men up on the moor with swords.’

‘Some men from the village went to look,’ Hana said. ‘Five, there were, went up there. Two came back. Said the other three … the other three weren’t coming back.’ Frightened eyes. Blinked, looked away.

‘We’ll make you a bed up,’ Ben said. ‘Get Alli the Healer to look you over in the morning.’

Grief and guilt and rage. She’d never sleep, worms gnawed at her heart. The bed was heather branches covered with a wool cloth, probably infested with fleas, poking at her, smelling of fish. She fell asleep immediately she lay down.

Woke again with a start. Grey faint dawn, the first traces of light clawing their way through the shutters, the sound of the sea very loud. Disorientating, the room unfamiliar, full of the sound of others’ breathing, the smell of damp. Earth smell from the floor. A great shriek of gulls came up suddenly, wild and angry, filled with pain. Something else behind it. Landra sat up, jerking her head around in fear. A roar like laughter. Silent out beyond the sky. The child whimpered in its sleep, the man and the woman stirred fretfully. Then quiet again. The rhythmic sounds of sea and seabirds and the world waking as the light came. The house waking, Hana making oaten porridge, the child awake singing, spilling its cup of watered milk down its clothes, Ben sitting down with a mug of weak ale to mend his nets. Does it not concern you? Landra kept thinking as she watched them. That the king is dead? My father is dead? That the world is changed?

A little before noon, a man from the village came calling. Ben told Landra to hide herself in the half-loft where they kept their stores while he stayed. The visitor and Ben and Hana spoke in low voices so that Landra could not hear what was said. But when it was safe again they told her, and she saw then that they were concerned. The king was dead indeed, they said. His son was king now in his stead. Marith, whom rumour had had it was dead. He was known on Third, Prince Marith, visited often, a friend of the Relasts, he’d be a king they knew, where Illyn his father had been a stranger. Almost an enemy, indeed, old King Illyn: the Murades, Queen Elayne’s kin, were not loved on Third, being long the sworn enemies of Lord Relast. The fighting was over, for the meantime. That mattered most of all to Ben, that it had not spread beyond Malth Salene to encompass his tiny corner of the world.

Concerned, yes. They looked grave as they spoke of it. Fear in their eyes. But Landra understood with slow puzzlement that for them the world was not changed.

They would not let her stay another night. Too dangerous, Ben said sadly and shamefacedly, looking not at Landra but at his son playing on the shingle throwing stones. If the king’s men came …

‘I’m nothing,’ Landra said, ‘nothing. The Relasts are all dead.’

Ben shrugged. ‘Riders are out on the road already, proclaiming the new king, calling troops. Can’t risk anything.’ He was young and strong enough to be a soldier, Landra realized then, looking at him. Any danger, however remote, however small, any voice mentioning there was a stranger at his house, his name being spoken to anyone, anywhere, must be avoided.

‘We’ll get your wounds looked to,’ said Hana, ‘but then you must go.’ She too looked at the child. Landra heard in her voice both the kindness and the threat.

Alli the Healer was the village wise woman, witch woman, bone charms at her neck, hagstone beads over her breasts, the green of leaf juice ground into her skin. Kind face. Kind, thoughtful eyes. She smeared a greasy ointment on Landra’s burns. It smelled meaty and fishy and bitter, stung her, shimmered on her arms like a slug’s trail. But she had to admit it soothed the pain a little. The raw red wounds looked softer, afterwards. When this was done the woman rubbed a switch of green marsh hazel over Landra’s scalp, muttering prayers and healing words. Toth , that is the cold of water. Ran , that is the peace of evening. Palle , that is smooth sheen of a calm sea. Broke the stick in two, gave one half to Landra. The other half Alli took herself to cast away into the waves. ‘Keep it safe,’ she bade Landra. ‘Keep it safe and it will help your skin heal.’