of the stable there had been water rushing around her, a wind in her ears . . .
“The night that Lord Marnoch returned,” she told the Leopard, “the goddess Catairanach drew me into a waking dream and gave me a message to carry. I seemed to be at her spring below the dinaz walls. The boughs of the mountain ash over me were heavy with creamy blossom, and the bees . . .”
“Leave out the bard’s embroidery. I know the place. What did Catairanach have to say for herself?”
“She said that the Marakanders dreamed of drowning, and darkness, and storms off the hills in the night, and that their hearts were heavy, but that the Lady was stronger and overwhelmed her.”
She stands in water to her waist, though the deepest part of the pool is no more than knee-high, and the current buffets, threatening to sweep her away. The eyes of Catairanach are golden-brown like water-covered pebbles in the sunlight, but her hair, satin-brown like the bark of young twigs, is wild and twisting and flows into the water, wrapping Deyandara’s legs, hobbled and heavy in a formal gown of blue and white, and the weight of the cloth threatens to pull her under. “I will have no child of another land rule my folk,” Catairanach says. “No tool of Andara of the Gayl Andara, no high king’s puppet, bastard blood of my blood or not. I will have revenge on the ruler of the city who murdered my Cattiga, my sweet Gilru. I see my way and you will be my messenger, child. You have come lying to this hall, claiming a bard’s rights. Fulfil now a bard’s duties . . .”
“She charged me to say—” Catairanach had said more than she remembered at the time, Deyandara found, when she began. Words came she had not known she had heard. “She told me to travel to Sand Cove on the western coast of the bay to find Ahjvar the Leopard, to carry this message. She said, ‘As the Voice of the Lady of Marakand is a mortal woman chosen to carry out her goddess’s will in the world, so will I also choose a champion. And now Ahjvar the Leopard is all that is left to me. Let him go, because this was murder and foul treachery and a war without justice. And tell him, that as a king’s champion should, he is to be justice and judgement and the sword in the open court, and as he has chosen to walk in the darkness and be the knife in the night—’”
The man made some noise of protest.
“‘—I also name him to be my blade in the darkness, for there are shadows in the deep well of Marakand that I cannot see, and he may find that the time for a trial of champions in the open court is past.’”
“Long past, by the sound of it,” Ahjvar muttered.
“She says, ‘By day or by darkness, in open battle or in secret death, make an end to this Voice who has taken from me the last of my royal children born to my land. Leave the Lady bereft as I am bereft. Kill her Voice, and the priests who planned this, and the lords of Marakand who sanctioned it, so many as you can. But the Voice first of all, because she will be the nearest and dearest to the Lady, her chosen one, and her death, most of all, I demand in payment for my queen and her son.’”
And what else she had said, before Deyandara, in a dream, a trance, hardly knowing what she did, saddled Cricket, taking bread and a skin of water from some scout’s untended pony to ride unchallenged out the gate in the fog that had crept up the hill from the spring and the narrow brook it fed, was entirely between Deyandara and the goddess.
Come back to me when your errand is done, and we shall see then if you are worthy of the duina you would claim .
“Selfish,” Ahjvar said. “She doesn’t mention the sufferings of her folk, I note.”
Deyandara frowned. Had there been more? “She says, say to the Leopard, ‘You will not do this for me. But you will do it for the Duina Catairna. You will do it for the drovers and the shepherds of the hills, and you will do it for your own honour, lest the Duina Catairna
“The night that Lord Marnoch returned,” she told the Leopard, “the goddess Catairanach drew me into a waking dream and gave me a message to carry. I seemed to be at her spring below the dinaz walls. The boughs of the mountain ash over me were heavy with creamy blossom, and the bees . . .”
“Leave out the bard’s embroidery. I know the place. What did Catairanach have to say for herself?”
“She said that the Marakanders dreamed of drowning, and darkness, and storms off the hills in the night, and that their hearts were heavy, but that the Lady was stronger and overwhelmed her.”
She stands in water to her waist, though the deepest part of the pool is no more than knee-high, and the current buffets, threatening to sweep her away. The eyes of Catairanach are golden-brown like water-covered pebbles in the sunlight, but her hair, satin-brown like the bark of young twigs, is wild and twisting and flows into the water, wrapping Deyandara’s legs, hobbled and heavy in a formal gown of blue and white, and the weight of the cloth threatens to pull her under. “I will have no child of another land rule my folk,” Catairanach says. “No tool of Andara of the Gayl Andara, no high king’s puppet, bastard blood of my blood or not. I will have revenge on the ruler of the city who murdered my Cattiga, my sweet Gilru. I see my way and you will be my messenger, child. You have come lying to this hall, claiming a bard’s rights. Fulfil now a bard’s duties . . .”
“She charged me to say—” Catairanach had said more than she remembered at the time, Deyandara found, when she began. Words came she had not known she had heard. “She told me to travel to Sand Cove on the western coast of the bay to find Ahjvar the Leopard, to carry this message. She said, ‘As the Voice of the Lady of Marakand is a mortal woman chosen to carry out her goddess’s will in the world, so will I also choose a champion. And now Ahjvar the Leopard is all that is left to me. Let him go, because this was murder and foul treachery and a war without justice. And tell him, that as a king’s champion should, he is to be justice and judgement and the sword in the open court, and as he has chosen to walk in the darkness and be the knife in the night—’”
The man made some noise of protest.
“‘—I also name him to be my blade in the darkness, for there are shadows in the deep well of Marakand that I cannot see, and he may find that the time for a trial of champions in the open court is past.’”
“Long past, by the sound of it,” Ahjvar muttered.
“She says, ‘By day or by darkness, in open battle or in secret death, make an end to this Voice who has taken from me the last of my royal children born to my land. Leave the Lady bereft as I am bereft. Kill her Voice, and the priests who planned this, and the lords of Marakand who sanctioned it, so many as you can. But the Voice first of all, because she will be the nearest and dearest to the Lady, her chosen one, and her death, most of all, I demand in payment for my queen and her son.’”
And what else she had said, before Deyandara, in a dream, a trance, hardly knowing what she did, saddled Cricket, taking bread and a skin of water from some scout’s untended pony to ride unchallenged out the gate in the fog that had crept up the hill from the spring and the narrow brook it fed, was entirely between Deyandara and the goddess.
Come back to me when your errand is done, and we shall see then if you are worthy of the duina you would claim .
“Selfish,” Ahjvar said. “She doesn’t mention the sufferings of her folk, I note.”
Deyandara frowned. Had there been more? “She says, say to the Leopard, ‘You will not do this for me. But you will do it for the Duina Catairna. You will do it for the drovers and the shepherds of the hills, and you will do it for your own honour, lest the Duina Catairna
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