Recognizing that, he reduced the pressure of their march. The Holdlady was carrying trouble enough without their adding to her difficulties put of mere spleen.
The Falconer company had not remained long in even nominally settled territory, and for the better part of their trek they found themselves forcing their way through a wilderness such as might never have known the tread of human feet before their coming.
Even for men of their experience and training, the way was rugged at its lightest, often so much so that they were compelled to dismount and lead their animals, and the progress they made, though constant enough, was slow and hard-won.
Scouts they sent out, as would any military column, but chiefly they relied on the sharp eyes of their falcons to bring them news. Always the report was the same—no sign of other parties, friendly or otherwise, and no change in the country ahead save that its difficulty inexorably increased with every passing mile.
Through it all, Una of Seakeep held her own with the mercenaries, neither delaying them nor asking their aid while on the trail, nor did she ever seek additional comfort or finer fare at night. At times, her face was drawn and pinched with weariness, her body ached with strain and the effects of the constant damp and mountain cold, but her eyes ever remained bright and her smile ready to greet any of her usually taciturn companions who chanced to approach her.
For the most part, that did not happen often. The Falconers did not fail in the courtesy required of blank shields toward the one hiring their swords, but in accordance with their established custom, it was their captain who handled all intercourse between his company, and their employer she soon came to know him well although he neither entrusted her with his name nor appeared unmasked before her. There were other ways to recognize and partially judge a man than the study of his face. His walk and stance, his speech, the set of his mouth, the sharp, ever-shadowed eyes all told a great deal. Above all, there was his falcon. Storm Challenger was a true lord among creatures, high even amid his own noble kind, and was a powerful testimonial to the worth of the man he had chosen for his particular comrade.
The mercenary commander often rode beside Una, for he wished to learn as much as he could about the territory his people would occupy for the next twelve months and over which they might be forced to fight.
He had expected little from such an informant, when he began questioning her, but he quickly came to realize that he could not have wished or willed for better. Una's knowledge of her Dale and those around it was astonishingly detailed, almost minute in its precision, more in keeping with what he might look to find in the reports of a trained scout or ranger than anything he would anticipate hearing from the ruler of any holding.
Her love for Seakeep glimmered in her every description, a love so deep and of such strength as to be well-nigh palpable, but it was realistic for all its power. The Holdlady recognized and accepted her Dale's lackings and weaknesses even as she did its strengths and beauty. She knew and admitted its limitations and was content to live within the bounds set by its lack of major resources.
If more of her kind were of like mind, he thought rather grimly, there would be less of a call for his profession, less of the darkness and destruction which had torn this basically peaceful land for so long. The Dales and their lords had not been responsible even in small part for instigating any of that.
The Falconer supposed that such contentment had to come as an outrider to life in a backwater holding like Seakeepdale, but he had known something of Una's late lord and imagined it might be hard.to achieve for a man with Ferrick's abilities, although his acceptance of both the relative solitude and the genuine hard work of running an economically marginal hold was readily understandable.
Even the most insignificant Dale was infinitely preferable to ruling none. A marriage such as Ferrick had made was the dream, the well-nigh unattainable dream, of every blank shield, of every wellborn but landless younger son venturing forth to win his way in a world where power lay with land and the ownership of land was concentrated in the hands of hereditary lords who carefully guarded their patrimonies, neither diminishing nor dividing them and delivering them over only into the hands of a single heir at the time of their own death. Only by bedding wisely and very well could any man not directly in line to inherit normally break into their carefully closed circle, and even in these days, with many Dales still in chaos and rightful lords dead, it was no simple matter to lay claim—and maintain it—on any holding.
Perhaps Ferrick had originated in the area. The quiet of the place would seem natural then and would not be as likely to chafe on him. Then, top, he had been no youth when he had come to power, not old, certainly, but well into his middle years.
Familiarity with him or at least his kin would have probably gone far in moving the old Holdlord to listen to and accept his suit for the hand of his only child and heir.
The heiress herself? Tarlach glanced at the woman riding beside him. Una of Seakeep would have been a maid scarcely out of girlhood when she had been wed… .
She had made no mention of her lord's people, but if the possibility of an alliance with, them existed or if less, formal help might be expected, he wanted to know about it. That could work greatly to their advantage in any confrontation with an overgreedy neighbor.
“Lord Ferrick, he was a native of your region or distant kin?” he asked abruptly.
Una looked at him in surprise. The Falconer had never questioned her about any personal matter before. She realized what he was about then and shook her head.
“He was a friend to my father, nigh unto a brother although Ferrick might have been the son of his youth as I was the daughter of his age. They had ridden together as blank shields for many years before my father came to Seakeep.”
He looked at her sharply.
“Lord Harvard also bound his sword?”
The Daleswoman frowned, nettled by the completeness of his surprise.
“You Falconers may justly be counted the best of the mercenaries, but you are not alone in that calling,” she responded testily, “nor do you alone excel in its arts. Father fought so well and had gained such wealth by his endeavors, and managed it so wisely, that he was able to woo and win my mother's hand, Holdheir though she was.”
He stared at her, taking aback by her vehemence.
“I meant no insult to your sire, Lady.”
Her temper cooled even as it had risen.
“I know. My weariness must stand as my admittedly poor excuse.”
She reached out across the space separating them, then flushed and hurriedly withdrew her hand again as he stiffened under her touch.
“Your pardon, Captain!” She bit down on her lip. “I did not mean to break courtesy with you.”
Her distress was so apparent that Tarlach cursed himself for having schooled himself so poorly.
“The breach of courtesy is mine, Lady. You have shown us by now that you wish to use us honorably.”
“So do I intend, and so will it be with all my folk,” she told him miserably, “but few of us are accustomed to associating with peoples other than our own kind or to accommodating ourselves to ways strange to us. There may be other violations of your custom, slight, perhaps, but offensive to your warriors.”
He smiled, one of the few times she had seen him do so.
“Give us some credit for sense, Lady. Mercenaries cannot afford to be too thin-skinned.—We shall manage well enough unless I badly misjudge the worth of .your word.”
Time passed and more time. The company struggled along a difficult but obviously planned and maintained trail winding its way up one of the steepest slopes they had yet encountered. Had its grade been only a very little sharper, it would have been a cliff, a barrier impossible for their mounts to negotiate at all.
The crest topping it, in contrast, was surprisingly, gentie, and there the Falconers drew rein.
Tarlach gazed out over the world which lay beneath, and his breath stopped a moment at t
he almost incomprehensible beauty of it.
He was looking down upon a long, rather broad valley which sloped gently into a miniature bay. Behind and to either side, mountains rose, tall, green-clad giants ever gazing seaward.
The ocean was a vast, brilliantly blue realm, her foam-speckled surface tossing and glinting in the golden sunlight. She seemed to quieten as she entered the bay. Here, her waves came dancing playfully over the pale sand, but beyond this single favored site, they rushed the land with awesome fury, roaring and breaking against the cliffs with eternal, implacable rage.
Their anger seemed most pronounced and, through that magic ever exerted by the great ocean, fairest at those points to north and south where mountain and water met in the long, low, narrow spurs which cradled and protected the tiny harbor. In these places, the sea was marbled with White even on this mild day, for a myriad of rocks and islets scarcely more than rocks themselves rose up to break its flow.
Above all stretched a sky high and blue, the perfection of its expanse enhanced rather than disturbed by a scattering of white clouds and by the flight of waterbirds.
To his weary eyes, this might almost be a vision out of the Halls of the Valiant were it not for the marks of human life and industry which were so much a part of the placid scene. The little bay was dotted with vessels, and cottages nestled on the green slopes above it where the fury of the waves did not reach. Cultivated fields and pastures stretched, out around these to fill the whole of the valley, and; overlooking all, slender and stately and formidable upon a high and yet sheltered pinnacle, soared a tall round tower.
Una had described this stronghold closely, but still the man stared at the actual sight of it. Never had he beheld anything of its like before, arid he had seen much since the day he had first girded on a warrior's blade.
“What witchery is this?” he whispered.
The Holdlady heard that.
“None! It is old, aye, as I “told you. It was old when my people first came to this place, but no working of Power keeps it sound, just the strength of the stone comprising it and the skill of the vanished folk who raised it.”
Una's eyes caressed the tower lovingly.
“Save for that good rock, all the rest is of our working. Everything which had been there of wood or metal or materials more perishable still had crumbled to dust long before our arrival in High Hallack. We had to replace all that and have kept it in repair since.”
“You mentioned another ancient place.”
She nodded.
“The Square Keep. My forebears lived there before the decision was made to remove and settle closer to the greater bounty of the sea and land here. It had been put into repair then but is now a complete ruin again, all but the original shell. That is well inland and cannot be glimpsed from the valley, but you will doubtless visit it as you travel the Dale.”
The woman fell quiet. She raised eyes that were somber and hopeful both.
“Well, Bird Warrior, now that you see it, how do you judge Seakeep?”
Tarlach said nothing for a moment. How could he tell her that his heart ached at the sight of it, that its beauty and the rightness and balance of the life revealed in even this first glimpse, the open peace and harmony of the place, drove through his inner being with the force of a spear after the violence and ruin he had witnessed all these last years?
“It appears to be a holding worthy of its ruler's care,” he replied.
The Falconer's eyes narrowed as he scanned the mountains fringing the valley, gaging the peril they presented and their value as a defense. He knew that Seakeepdale consisted of all this now visible to him and twice again as much land, but only this one vale was arable to any large extent or permanently inhabited. His first task must be to secure this place, Seakeep's heart. After that, he would have to see what could be done to safeguard the rest.
That might not be an impossible goal despite the Dale's size and the relatively small force at his disposal. This was rough country, among the roughest he had encountered. The mountains presented an impressive barrier to anyone seeking to force entrance here, particularly to anyone attempting to lead a large company into it. Their own passage had of a certainty been anything but easy, and they had at least traversed a way which did some service as an informal road.
“Are there many other entrances like this to the valley?” he asked without taking his eyes off the distant peaks.
“No other except the sea. That is part of the reason my ancestors chose to settle here, as a guard against an invader's most probable route of attack. We had no idea what this land might hold then, you see, and there were signs in plenty to prove that it was inhabited, or had been at one time.”
“What about this Square Keep? It has been my experience that men do not raise strongholds, most particularly strongholds fashioned out of great blocks of stone, unless there is either something to guard or guard against. You claim only this valley is fit for farming or pasture on a significant scale and that there are no major ore deposits in the region at all, so I doubt it was any quality of the land which drew the Old Ones to the place.”
Una nodded slowly.
“Well said, Bird Warrior. I had temporarily forgotten it. There is a passage, but it gives entry only to the Dale, not to this valley, which truly can be approached only from here or by water, and it would be very easily defended.”
“That would serve us little with no guard on hand to do it.—Any door to your domain must be viewed and treated with respect, Lady. Determined men can accomplish near sorcery with a supposedly insignificant breach.”
Her finger whitened on the reins.
“You are right. My carelessness might have cost Seakeep dearly.”
She felt the grey eyes on her. For once, they were not cold but were filled with such sympathy that the control her responsibilities forced on her trembled, and she had to fight herself for a moment to maintain it.
“You must despise me utterly,” she whispered.
“No!—Fate has laid a burden oh you that you were never trained to carry. You had the wisdom to realize you needed the help of such as we and to seek it out.” He smiled. “I presume you are as interested in our experience as in our physical abilities.”
“More interested, Bird Warrior.”
The gratitude she felt to him was enormous. This hard man had neither condemned nor patronized her with that response. He had acknowledged her position as it was and had acknowledged his own role with respect to it.
Tarlach's expression tightened as his attention returned to the valley and its strangely formed keep.
This was another matter. As he had already stated, Una herself was riot to be blamed for die shortcomings of her Dale's defenses, but had she no advisors? There had to be some men down there who knew the ways of war.
“Whatever about the Square Keep, a guard must be set on this route at once. Had we been invaders, our swords would now be red with your people's blood.”
The Holdlady smiled.
“Perhaps, but were I not with you and patently at my ease—and expected to be returning in such company—you would hot be viewing any so charming a scene. If you failed to meet our challenges satisfactorily, it would be far fewer of you who would still be able to see anything at all, fair or ill.”
The Falconer stiffened.
“Watchers?”
“Of course. Did you believe us to be complete fools? I thought you realized we were tinder observation for the last several miles.” She saw him glance at Storm Challenger, who was perched on the mount fastened to Tarlach's saddle for his use. “The winged ones are not to. blame. With strength in so short supply, we have had to fall back on care and stealth. Our youth know how to conceal themselves, and one does not sit on the top of a tree in mountain country where an enemy standing in a still-higher place might possibly spot his post. Even your comrades’ sharp eyes are not likely to detect single, widely spaced sentries under such circumstances, particularly when they are not even radiati
ng hatred or other strong feeling to alert their inner senses, which I believe to be more acute than ours.”
The captain's jaw tightened. That failure had been a bad one. It could have been deadly, and he was mortified to have been caught in it almost at the instant of his arrival in the Dale he had been hired to defend.
He resisted the instinctive impulse to snarl at the woman. That would change nothing and would only serve to magnify his unit's blindness during their approach.
“Your people are to be complimented,” he admitted rather, sourly,
Una nodded to acknowledge the praise but did not press the subject. The incident could have opened a serious breach between them at the very outset of the mercenaries’ service with her. That it had not was due solely to their leader's control, and she was not about to put that to any further test.
“Let us go down now. My folk should have readied barracks for you, but even so, it will take time to get you all settled, and the day is already old.”
Una took the lead on the narrow, steep road which was the only approach to the round tower's single gate.
At first, only a squad of youthful sentries stood at attention to greet her, but then Rufon appeared at the entrance. She saw his jaw drop and then close with a snap, and she fought hard to repress a laugh. Apparently, those informing him of her approach had neglected to tell him the company in which she rode.
That gave her a moment of concern. She knew he had delayed to order food prepared, fire laid, and otherwise ready her chambers and the mercenaries’ quarters for imminent occupancy. She had no doubt that he had prepared the barracks, whatever his private feelings about her chances for success, but would his arrangements be acceptable? Would anything provided by a Dale run primarily by women be satisfactory to house these men long-term?
There was no sign of that worry in the smile which she bent on her liegeman as she gave him greeting and accepted the hand he raised to steady her as she dismounted.