Free C. Dale Brittain by Voima Page B

‘valuable’ for anyone else,” she said bitterly.   “I climbed here because I hoped you could tell me where Roric is.   I know I have nothing to offer you, but I could bring you a bracelet or rings tomorrow—”   She paused, not liking to think of climbing up here again.   “Or we could meet somewhere else …”
    “Do you think me a Weaver or a Seer,” the other asked, sounding amused, “that you must offer me a bracelet as a gift?   Think what you put in the flames when you burn an offering:   some hairs, a scrap of wool or parchment, a bite of flesh or some grains of wheat—   Are these not gifts that symbolize the yearning spirit more than iron and gold?”
    Then he really is a Wanderer, she thought, even if he does not shoot flame from his fingers.
    “You are a princess, Karin Kardan’s daughter.   Why is Roric No-man’s son important to you?”
    “I love him,” she said defiantly.   “He and I are sworn together.”
    She trembled now as she spoke, weak with exhaustion and fear for Roric.   But at least with this strange figure, on this bald hill in the dusk, she did not feel any need to hide and control her feelings and her words.
    “You have, I recall, long been a hostage in a foreign court,” said the shadowed figure thoughtfully.   “It is not surprising that you would swear yourself to someone else out of desperation—it cannot be easy being an outcast.”
    “I did not choose Roric out of desperation,” she said heatedly.   “I chose him because I love him.   Now, are you going to tell me where he is?”
    “Not unless I know myself,” he said with a low chuckle.   “But you yourself have possibilities …   Tell me, what did you think to do next?”
    “Get off this hilltop, because the only thing I’ve found here is someone who claims to be a Wanderer but doesn’t know anything!”
    “I make no ‘claim’ to be anyone,” said the other, quietly and good-naturedly.   He rose, stepped behind a large rock, and disappeared.
    Karin jumped up and ran around the rock, knocking her toes again in the shadows.   There was no one there; she had not really expected that there would be.
    She walked over to the edge and looked down.   Though there was still a little light off to the west, the rocks below her disappeared into blackness.   The bottom of the hill was completely hidden.   There was no way she could descend that rock face in the dark and still live till morning.   She listened, hearing nothing but the distant sound of the rushing river.
    Valmar would be worried.   She put her hands on either side of her mouth and shouted.   “I shall pass the night up here!   I’ll see you tomorrow!”
    Again she listened but heard no reply.   Maybe he had already gone.   But she could not climb down in the dark.   This looked, she thought uneasily, like a good place for a troll, and not even the semi-domesticated one who lived under Hadros’s bridge, whom Roric at least had dared face.
    She settled herself stiffly against a rock so that her back was protected, then realized how cold it was growing.   On the hilltop the wind blew steadily, with a bite as though it reached her fresh from distant ice fields.   If she fell asleep up here she might not wake.   She pushed herself to her feet and groped until she found a fairly broad expanse of smooth granite on which to spend the night pacing.

 
     
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    Long, long ago, before your grandfather’s time or great-grandfather’s time or even his great-grandfather’s time, there was no glory or honor on the earth.   The earth was ruled by women, and their only thought was for their children and for their children’s safety, even when those children were grown, even when those children had become men and yearned for adventure and far places.   The men were at most allowed to travel to market, to hunt bears who had threatened the flocks, to fish on the deep and dangerous sea, but never to go to war.
    And