Free Horn Crown (Witch World: High Hallack Series) by Andre Norton Page A

breeches, slide my feet into the softer trail boots and was picking up my linen undershirt (which had been fresh washed and carefully folded over my other clothing) when the Wise Woman returned.
    She straightway crossed the small room to stand before me, frowning.
    “What would you do?”
    I pulled the shirt down over my head, tensed against the wince which came in answer to even such slight a touch on the bandage about my head. “Lady,” I could not dare to bow, but I gave her courtesy of address, “I would be out of your house with what speed I can. I am kin-less—” I got no further when she made an abrupt gesture to silence me before she asked a question of her own:
    “Do you know what ill tie lies between Tugness and Garn?”
    “Not between them.” She surprised the answer out of me. “It is an old feud between the Houses.”
    “Yes. Old indeed. . . . Why do foolish men cling to such matters?” Her tone was one of impatience. She made another abrupt motion with one hand as if she so swept away what she had deemed foolishness. “It was started long before Garn's father came from the womb—being marriage by capture.”
    I sat very still, making no more move to press the shirt under the belt of my breeches. Though my head still buzzed, I was not so lacking in wit that I could not guess what she meant.
    “Tugness's son?”
    That Iynne's. disappearance might be a simple—or simpler—matter of human contriving had not crossed my mind until that moment. Now it was far easier for me to accept that my cousin had vanished because of some stealthy act on the part of our old enemies than that she had been rift away through forces loosed in a forgotten shrine. But, this being so, how much more was I the guilty one! To achieve such an act Thorg must have spied long—lain in wait for the coming of Iynne—watched her movements until he could make sure of her. While I, who had been sent to patrol the heights, had not even suspected that we were under his eyes. I had been foolish, stupidly too interested in the strangeness of this land to take thought of old trouble.
    The idea she planted in my mind grew fast. Out of it was born strength so that I was on my feet now. I might not have been able to face with success a battle with the unknown (though that would not have kept me from trying), but I could bring down Thorg. Give me only steel in hand to do so!
    Now I said with authority that I might not have used moments earlier:
    “Your handmaiden spoke of the force of the Moon Shrine; now you push my mind toward Thorg and old struggles. Which is the right?”
    Her frown grew darker and I saw that she had caught her lower lip a little between her teeth as if to hold back some impatient or betraying words. Then she said:
    “Thorg has volunteered many times through these days to go hunting. He has passed by on his way to the heights, but it would seem that his skill fails at times, for two days out of three he returns with empty hands. Also, he is not trothed to any maid. There were none who would accept Tugness's offer on his behalf. I have had to give him warning when I found him looking too often after Gathea. He is one who is hot now for a woman. It is a quarrelsome family and few can say good of their house for three generations or more. Also, there was Kam-puhr—”
    “Kampuhr?” I could readily accept all that she said save that last allusion which held no meaning at all for me.
    She shrugged. “It is of no matter, save that it lies in the past. But it was enough to make men wonder where Lord Tugness truly stood on a certain concern that was of importance in its day—which is now past!”
    Her eyes caught and held mine as if by her very will she would now impress upon me that this was to be forgotten, that she had made a slip she regretted—or had she? Somehow I believed that Zabina was not given to such errors, that perhaps she had uttered that name as a test for me—though I could not understand why.
    “And