Free The Lady of Han-Gilen by Judith Tarr Page A

No
more of that!”
    It was less a blow than a cuff, but it half stunned her. She
sagged in his grip. He slung her over his shoulder and strode forth, with his
companion following.
    Belatedly, and numbly, she realized that they had been
speaking the language of Ianon.
    oOo
    With no more transition than a thinning of trees and a
leveling of the hillside, the forest ended. Elian had come by then to herself,
but she rode quiescent on the broad shoulder, only lifting her head to see what
she might see.
    She marked the opening of land and sky, and the changing of
the ground from leafmold to long grass and stones; and she heard and scented
and felt the camp on the field. Here were the voices of men and beasts; the
pungency of a cookfire; an ingathering of folk to inspect the arrivals, with
much curiosity and some amusement. “Hoi, Cuthan!” they called. “What luck in
the hunt?”
    “Better than I looked for,” her bearer called back.
    In the center of the gathering he halted and set Elian down.
Tall though she was for a Gileni woman, as tall as many men, he stood head and
shoulders above her. Yet she faced him bristling, eyes snapping, hands fisted
at her sides.
    He grinned. “See,” he said, “a wildcat.”
    There were not, after all, so very many people about. A
dozen, maybe. Despite their amusement, they had watchful eyes; their fire was
well shielded, with little scent and no smoke, their seneldi tethered near the
trees. Binding each cloak or glinting on the collar of each coat was a brooch
of gold in the shape of a rayed sun.
    Although no one held her, she was surrounded. Several of the
men held bows, loose in their hands but strung, with arrows ready to fit to the
string.
    “Well, little redhead,” said the man called Cuthan, “suppose
you tell us who you are.”
    “You are Mirain’s men,” she said. Few of them were
northerners. She marked trousered southerners, red and brown, and one Asanian
clad incongruously in northern finery. “Where is he, then? Is he close by? For
if he is, he trespasses. This land belongs to Ashan’s prince.”
    “Does it now?” Cuthan gestured, no more than a flicker of
the eyes. The scouts began with seeming casualness to disperse, but several
stayed close by. He laid a hand on Elian’s shoulder, guiding her toward the
fire, seating her there.
    His knife glittered as he drew it. She tensed. He barely
glanced at her, cutting a collop from the haunch that roasted over the flames,
bringing it to her.
    He did not lend her the knife to cut it. She held it
gingerly, for it was searing hot, and nibbled with care.
    Cuthan waited, patient. When the meat was gone, he held out
a cup. She sniffed it. Water. Gratefully she drank.
    A second man sat on his heels beside Cuthan: the Asanian. In
that company he seemed almost a dwarf, a smooth sleek ageless man with bitter
eyes. They took in Elian with neither favor nor trust. “Gileni,” he said in
thickly accented Ianyn. “Born liar.”
    “Maybe not,” said Cuthan.
    “Maybe so,” the Asanian said. “Test it. He spoke clearly
enough. This is Ashan; its prince is no more a fool than our king. He would
have engaged spies.”
    “Redheaded Gileni spies?”
    “Why not? Red mane, witch-power, they say in the south.”
    Cuthan frowned. “I’ll question him. That’s fair enough. But
I’m not sure—”
    “If I were spying,” said Elian, “you would never have caught
me. I was looking for your army. I want to fight for your king.”
    “Why?”
    “Why not?”
    Elian bit her tongue. Cuthan was amused, but not entirely.
She met his eyes. “Your . . . friend sees this much of the
truth. I am from Han-Gilen. I heard of the Sunborn. I wanted to be free. I
wanted to fight. I thought that if I joined with him I would have both. I ran
away from home.”
    Cuthan’s grin came back. He believed that.
    She found an answering grin. “My mother would never have let
me go. At night I ran away.”
    “You came alone? Unarmed? Afoot?”
    “Alone,