He stood in a large square, lined about with huckster's stalls and the
booths of wine-sellers. Beyond were buildings, streets, a city. Stark
got a blurred impression of a grand and brooding darkness, bulking huge
against the mountains, as bleak and proud as they, and quite as ancient,
with many ruins and deserted quarters.
He was not sure how he had come there, but he was standing on his own
feet, and someone was pouring sour wine into his mouth. He drank it
greedily. There were people around him, jostling, chattering, demanding
answers to their questions. A girl's voice said sharply, "Let him be!
Can't you see he's hurt?"
Stark looked down. She was slim and ragged, with black hair and large
eyes yellow as a cat's. She held a leather bottle in her hands. She
smiled at him and said, "I'm Thanis. Will you drink more wine?"
"I will," said Stark, and did, and then said, "Thank you, Thanis." He
put his hand on her shoulder, to steady himself. It was a supple
shoulder, surprisingly strong. He liked the feel of it.
The crowd was still churning around him, growing larger, and now he
heard the tramp of military feet. A small detachment of men in light
armor pushed their way through.
A very young officer whose breastplate hurt the eye with brightness
demanded to be told at once who Stark was and why he had come there.
"No one crosses the moors in winter," he said, as though that in itself
were a sign of evil intent.
"The clans of Mekh are crossing them," Stark answered. "An army, to take
Kushat--one, two days behind me."
The crowd picked that up. Excited voices tossed it back and forth, and
clamored for more news. Stark spoke to the officer.
"I will see your captain, and at once."
"You'll see the inside of a prison, more likely!" snapped the young man.
"What's this nonsense about the clans of Mekh?"
Stark regarded him. He looked so long and so curiously that the crowd
began to snicker and the officer's beardless face flushed pink to the
ears.
"I have fought in many wars," said Stark gently. "And long ago I learned
to listen, when someone came to warn me of attack."
"Better take him to the captain, Lugh," cried Thanis. "It's our skins
too, you know, if there is war."
The crowd began to shout. They were all poor folk, wrapped in threadbare
cloaks or tattered leather. They had no love for the guards. And whether
there was war or not, their winter had been long and dull, and they were
going to make the most of this excitement.
"Take him, Lugh! Let him warn the nobles. Let them think how they'll
defend Kushat and the Gates of Death, now that the talisman is gone!"
"That is a lie!" Lugh shouted. "And you know the penalty for telling it.
Hold your tongues, or I'll have you all whipped." He gestured angrily at
Stark. "See if he is armed."
One of the soldiers stepped forward, but Stark was quicker. He slipped
the thong and let the cloak fall, baring his upper body.
"The clansmen have already taken everything I owned," he said. "But they
gave me something, in return."
The crowd stared at the half healed stripes that scarred him, and there
was a drawing in of breath.
The soldier picked up the cloak and laid it over the Earthman's
shoulders. And Lugh said sullenly, "Come, then."
Stark's fingers tightened on Thanis' shoulder. "Come with me, little
one," he whispered. "Otherwise, I must crawl."
She smiled at him and came. The crowd followed.
The captain of the guards was a fleshy man with a smell of wine about
him and a face already crumbling apart though his hair was not yet grey.
He sat in a squat tower above the square, and he observed Stark with no
particular interest.
"You had something to tell," said Lugh. "Tell it."
* * * * *
Stark told them, leaving out all mention of Camar and the talisman. This
was neither the time nor the man to hear that story. The captain
listened to all he had to say about the gathering of the clans of Mekh,
and then sat studying him with a bleary shrewdness.
"You have proof of all this?"
"These stripes. Their leader Ciaran ordered them laid on himself."
The captain sighed, and leaned back.
"Any wandering band of hunters could have scourged you," he said. "A
nameless vagabond from the gods know where, and a lawless one at that,
if I'm any judge of men--you probably deserved it."
He reached for wine, and smiled. "Look you, stranger. In the Norlands,
no one makes war in the winter. And no one ever heard of Ciaran. If you
hoped for a reward from the city, you overshot badly."
"The Lord Ciaran," said Stark, grimly controlling his anger, "will be
battering at your gates within two days. And you will hear of him then."
"Perhaps. You can wait for him--in a cell. And you can leave Kushat with
the first caravan after the thaw. We have enough rabble here without
taking in more."
Thanis caught Stark by the cloak and held him back.
"_Sir_," she said, as though it were an unclean word. "I will vouch for
the stranger."