It had come upon them suddenly and unexpectedly, at least to outlying, virtually isolated Dales like those of this region, although the lords of the major holds to the south had indeed anticipated and tried to prepare against it. Even Harvard, that wily soldier who was her father, had not been concerned in that final year of peace about more than the happy fact that the lady who was his wife was at last with child. He had concealed his disappointment well when the infant proved to be female, rejoicing instead that his lady, whom he loved greatly, had survived the difficult birth. A scant two months after the child's formal owning and naming, Alizon had unleashed its hounds and strange weapons against the Dales.
Then had begun years of horror and loss. For the first time in their long history, the fiercely independent lords of. High Hallack had united in common cause, for they had very .quickly learned that if they did not, the individual Dales would be swept away one at a time until all had been devoured.
Even after their alliance, for a long time after it, the issue had remained at question, and hope was more a low, stubborn light that somehow refused to die than any sending of reason. Then the tide finally turned. The Dalesmen, in company with their mysterious, terrible allies, the Were Riders from out of the Waste, stopped and finally threw back the invaders, utterly defeating them and ruthlessly hunting down the last remnants of their once-invincible forces.
That work done, the army of High Hallack had disbanded, and its various units returned home. All too many had found little or nothing to greet them, for Alizon's forces had ravaged far and for a long time before they had been broken, and they had spared nothing, human or human structure, falling under their ruthless power. For many, the work of rebuilding, lives and Dales alike, proved as hard a war as that from which they had just been released, a war demanding an equal measure of courage and strength.
Seakeepdale and its neighbors had been spared all that. Remote and isolated, no armies had ranged and ravened in this region, and want had not battened upon the populace. The loss of luxury goods did not greatly affect holdings too poor to afford much in that line in the best of times. As for necessities, all the Dales in this locality were basically self-sufficient and traded for what they required or wanted chiefly among themselves, rarely venturing even as far as Linna either to acquire or dispose of goods. They had lost, aye, as had all High Hallack, but they had managed.
Una's chin lifted. Seakeep had managed better than any. With Only a handful of old or incapacitated men to lend their limited strength and valuable experience to aid her women and young boys, her mother, frail and gentle as she was, had been able to keep her hold running and productive. Under her leadership, her people had maintained the various structures, had set and harvested their crops, seen to the more demanding working of the sea and the never-ending care of equipment and animals. They had succeeded so well that Seakeepdale had not only met its own needs but had been able to send some small relief to the Dales’ hard-pressed army and set stores aside for emergency use besides:
Her head lowered, pride in her mother's accomplishment fading as other memories rose to replace those which had fired it. When the tragically few survivors had returned home, Lord Harvard had been with them, but he had ridden a litter rather than a horse. After all the fighting, all the plotting and maneuvering—the Dales’ leaders had come to appreciate both his courage and his counsel, although he had not been a member of their inner circle—he had been felled, a spear through his back, in very nearly the final engagement of the long war.
For months, his lady and his people had tended him, despairing of his life. His will and heart were both strong, and he had lived, but never again would he use either his _legs or his right arm.
Harvard had not broken in mind or spirit as many another would have done but had bent himself to the task of running and restoring his much reduced Dale. His own broken body would no longer serve his needs, and with the humility of a great heart, of one who could place responsibility above pride, he continued to rely upon his lady's proven abilities and ever increasingly upon the young, eager daughter who became the active agent of both.
The Holdlord trained Una well in duties not normally falling to a woman. No son would now be born to him, and it was both his wish and his lady's that the rule of the Dale not pass completely from the family which had held it since the first settling of High Hallack.
Una of Seakeep had proven an apt pupil, showing all the Holdlady's abilities but. coupled with her sire's energy and a love of the land and its ways that was all her own.
Harvard, however, grew ever more heavy of heart as the years progressed. He could not blind himself to the potential for conflict and wasteful quarrelling should his only child and heir be left unwed when he at last went forth from .this life and world. His lady's death after a brief illness at last painfully emphasized his own mortality, and he moved to secure Una's future and Seakeep's by giving her to the Lord Ferrick, an old and trusted comrade of his, a strong fighter whose mind was as sharp as his sword, a man well fitted to rule the holding that would one day come to him by reason of his union with its heir.
Arranged matches were the norm among the ruling families in the Dales, and Una of Seakeep had accepted her father's decision willingly, acknowledging its necessity and the wisdom of his choice. The marriage had been performed, and she, along with the rest of her people, had breathed a sigh of relief that one more threat had been brought to an end.
Only a few short weeks later, fate had struck High Hallack yet another vicious blow. Man's greed was not its instrument this time, but a foe even crueller, a sickness which had swept over all the continent with breathless speed and varying effect. To some Dales and some people, it brought but a few days of more or less mild illness. To others, it was devastating.
Nearly all this region's Dales had been badly hit, Seakeepdale among the hardest. The old, the very little ones, and those already weakened were all stricken hard, as was usually the case with any such epidemic, but this time the young and basically hale were cut down as well. They burned with fever, coughed, and in all top many cases developed a deadly lung fever from which very few recovered. With almost malignant precision, the disease had chosen the young men who had only then begun replacing the rents left in the population mix by the war and made them the targets for its most virulent attacks. Only a relative handful remained after the visitation had passed.
Una herself had gone to the brink of death. She had fought her way back, but when she awakened and some strength returned to her, she discovered she was bereft of both sire and lord.
Her grief for Harvard was naturally deep and sharp, but so, too, was the sense of loss which she felt for Ferrick. Una mourned him in heart, for herself and for Seakeep. He had. been more of an age to have sired than to bed her and had been no more sensitive to a young girl's needs than any other man of his type, but he had used her gently according to his lights and even tenderly. As her father's close, though younger, friend, he had known her since her birth and had borne real feeling for her. That was, more than many a Holddaughter could hope to find in the husband to whose chamber she was brought.
The woman's eyes flashed green fire. A good man had died. That was a heavy enough evil. It was doubly wrong that his loss should result in further danger failing upon those he had striven to defend.
Una of Seakeep did not rail against the fact that she had been forced to officially assume the reins of control over the Dale in which she had been bred. She was capable of that and, in truth, enjoyed exercising the abilities she had more than proven she possessed. For several years, all went well. She ruled her Dale and worked with her people, and her efforts, their efforts, were rewarded so that Seakeep prospered and hope and the joy of life were once more fully alive in them all. Now, however, her widowhood was placing all she loved, all who looked to her and owned her authority, in jeopardy. To avert it, she would have to act decisively, knowing that she might well fail in her aim and that, should she succeed or only partl
y succeed, the potion she brought in for a cure might too readily prove a worse curse than the ailment it was meant to counter.
There was no help for it. She squared her shoulders and left her sleeping quarters for the slightly larger chamber adjoining it where she was wont to conduct the Dale's business and to meet with those who assisted her in running it.
A small boy was sitting at the broad writing table, frowning over the heavy book she had set him to studying to occupy his time and mind while waiting on her will. A fleeting smile touched her lips. Like her parents before her, Una believed that a holding was the stronger for having the bulk of its populace lettered, and this lad, despite his preference for more active pursuits, had proven quick and eager to learn.
“Bring Rufon to me now, Tomer.”
“Aye, my Lady.—He will be right glad to hear it, too. He is full to the neck of those Ravenfield … people.”
The woman nodded. It was easy to share her page's sympathy with the warrior and also his dislike for their arrogant neighbors. And his underlying fear. That lay as a pall over all Seakeep.
She gave no other indication of her feelings, “Run for him, then,” she said, mildly and composed herself for the meeting as soon as Tomer quit her, on the fun as she had suggested.
It was not long in the coming. Rufon had heen waiting impatiently for his liege's summons and was quick to respond to her call. He was a rather short, stocky man with rugged, not unpleasant features marred by a small, old scar on the chin. Only emptiness remained where the right arm should be.
The Dalesman drew himself up before her but waited for her to speak, as was seemly.
She gave him greeting, then turned at once to the business troubling them all.
“Our guests are still abed?” she asked him.
“Aye, but they will be up plaguing us for an answer soon enough. —You will have to give them one, my Lady,” he added with a rough gentleness. He feared greatly that there was little real choice before the woman, that she would have to capitulate, to the ruin of them all,
She read that belief, and anger rippled behind the veil of her composure.
“I shall not deliver Seakeepdale to Ogin of Ravenfield. By the Amber Lady, do not even imagine that I could so betray my trust as to give that tyrant power over us.”
“You will have to choose another lord, then, my lady, and quickly, or he will take that power unto, himself despite your will.”
“Choose whom?” she asked wearily. “Ravenfielddale is the strongest here. Ogin's father kept his forces well-nigh intact by the simple expedient of staying home when his neighbors marched to war. He could spare more men to the fever than the rest of us, and Ravenfield was granted a light visitation on top of that. He has a full garrison, while the other Dales have scarcely enough fighting men to maintain ourselves and prevent brigands from gaining a foothold in the region. Given that situation, which of our neighbors would risk, could risk, setting himself against Ravenfield by joining with me either himself or through marriage with a son? It is pretty well guessed that Ogin might be only too willing to find an excuse for adding a better Dale than ours to his territory.”
Her eyes flickered to the walls as if to peer through them to the world beyond.
“Seakeep is large in terms of space, but no man will grow rich on its produce. It would take a rank fool to put a Dale already in hand at hazard for it, at least until conditions become more nearly normal once more.”
There was always the holdlady herself, the man thought. Una of Seakeep was fairer than any other woman he had yet seen, maid or matron, surpassing even her own mother in beauty, and that last was no small accomplishment.
She was tall for a woman of her race, slender of build and so delicately formed as to give the appearance of fragility. Her hands were small as a child's; one of them laid at its full length would not have spanned the breadth of his palm.
Her features, in keeping with her slight bone structure, were very finely chiseled, exquisite rather than mirroring the slightly heavier ideal worshiped by the most of their kind.
Her hair was a rich dark chestnut. Even bound as it was in that single thick braid, it reached to the small of her back.
The eyes were the crown of her many beauties. They were very large and widely set and were fringed all around by long, dark lashes. Their color was a most astonishing jade green, doubly striking against a pale, subtly life-warm complexion.
His eyes wavered. Lady Una was right, of course. Lords wed for land and the power the ownership of land endowed, or else for a weighty dowry when no holding was to be had. Beauty in a wife sweetened the pot, but it counted for nothing when the marriage bargain was made, no more than did the worth of the woman herself. A pity, too, in this case, for there were few finer than Una of Seakeep, or more able either, though it went somewhat against his sense of propriety to admit that last.
“There are still many lords in the Dales left without lands or place,” he observed, “And many more men, proven fighters and leaders, who would not scorn a holding such as ours.”
She shook her head emphatically.
“A stranger? I might only bring a second Ogin down on us. Besides, I need an army, not a single man, to secure my choice.”
“What can you do, then, my Lady? You will have to give them some answer soon… .”
Una smiled.
“No, old friend. That is your part. Ogin sent emissaries to do his wooing for him. Seakeep's emissary, not its lady, shall make them reply.”
Her eyes met and held his. She was grave now, but there was no hesitation on her, and it was apparent to him that she had some possible solution in mind, one she was prepared to act upon.
A quietness of bearing and manner had ever marked her, and now that her decision was made, that aura of stillness seemed to radiate from her, to rest on her like a mantle. Even her voice was soft when she spoke, gentle despite its firmness.
“You will inform Ogin's envoys that I am most displeased by their mission since I only last Yuletide specifically told him that my duties to my Dale and to my dead lord will require my full attention for a long time to come. Furthenfaore, one who seeks Seakeep's lady would do well to come to her himself.”
That last statement gave Rufon a start, but a grin of appreciation spread across his broad face almost in the same moment. That peevishness was precisely what a man like Ogin of Ravenfield would expect of a woman. It would leave him satisfied despite Una's curt dismissal of his velvet-sheathed demand and would stand as partial explanation for a fairly lengthy delay in her willingness to entertain a renewed suit from him, a suit for whose final outcome he would feel absolutely no concern.
“You have bought us more time at any rate, my Lady.”
“Time enough to secure ourselves if fortune smiles on my plans.—I must make haste now. I have already given orders to have the Cormorant put under sail, and I would be gone before our unwelcome guests awake.”
The man frowned.
“Gone? Where …”
“Ostensibly to Linna to pay my respects to my lord's sister, although I would have our people keep the fact of my departure quiet for as long as possible. If I am overlong in returning, let it be made known that I chose to remain a little while with my kinswoman in the peace of the Abbey. That will be accepted if you also mention that I am trying to see if there might not be a market for some of our horses again.”
He nodded. No one who knew her could imagine this one slinking away to cloistered halls in a foredoomed attempt to hide from a threat which must inevitably confront her, but Seakeepdale's superb horses had been prized throughout the region prior, to Alizon's invasion. The herd, that nucleus of it which had not been sent off with the Dale's warriors, had been kept small during the years since out of necessity, but it was only reasonable that the Lady Una would now try to increase her stock and reopen trade for them.
Reasonable or nay, that was patently not her reason for going forth now.
“Where will you be in r
eality?” he asked.
“I shall see the Abbess Adicia in truth. There is love between us, and I do owe her the courtesy of a visit. After that"—she gave a shrug, as if submitting herself to fate—"Linna town itself and then home overland, with the help of the Horned Lord, or else south until I find what I seek.’’ Una did not think it strange or amiss to call upon a being most commonly besought by soldiers and hunters since that was the work before her.
“What do you seek?” he asked, curiously and with a little concern.
“Mercenaries, a goodly company of them. Men enough to stand our cause until we can build up our own strength once more by one means of another,”
“Lady! By all …—Do you recognize the risk you take? And how do you propose to pay such a host, even assuming you could find men willing to hire themselves to your banner?”
The woman sighed.
“There is peril, aye, but I know what I want. A company whose deportment shows that their pride and discipline are yet intact are likely to remain true to their oath. As for payment, that may not be as difficult to arrange as would have been the case a few years past. Life is still harsh and very uncertain, but open, large-scale warring is no longer the rule throughout High Hallack. With both lodgings and sea passage dear, escort or guard duty should not be too unwelcome an alternative for a party at loose ends while its leaders consider where next to locate.
“We must prepare to receive blank shields whether I do, in fact, succeed in binding any to me or nay. Let the lower chambers of the tower be made ready for their use, all save the great hall and the servants’ places and their work rooms. That way, our people will not have to endure strangers being quartered upon them. We have too many manless families for that now, and there is room in plenty here.”