A few of the sages looked at her rather than each other, but none seemed to think her mad. Perhaps they had creatures of that description? If so, she was quite sorry for them, as they seemed a very great terror.
“There are those that resemble that description, but they keep to the mountains to the east,” Henrik cut in, nodding to the man beside him, whether seeking approval for speaking to her once more or for verification of agreement, she did not know. “We do not have them here.’
“That is hardly proof of our innocence,” The man to his right interjected. “We could have captured a few and brought them down with us to train.”
Henrik gave him a sharp look. “And how exactly did we send the trained beasts across the wall? By catapult?” Penryn did not recognise that word, but she was not going to ask for an explanation, not when Henrik’s tone already dripped with animosity.
The sage that had questioned him looked briefly annoyed, but smoothed his expression at a quick glance at Penryn. “A fair point,” he conceded, the group growing quiet as they retreated to their own thoughts.
“Defectors,” one cut in at last, offering another suggestion. “Timed between patrols.” He gave a sheepish smile in Penryn’s direction. “It is a very long Wall,” he added, almost as an apology. “Could they have climbed over and grown angry when they found the wilds not to their liking?”
Penryn gave him a dubious look. “So in answer they chose to attack the Lightkeep?”
The man shrugged. “Merely posing a possibility. The point is that the attack, nor their presence there, was sanctioned.”
Penryn’s voice was low. “The treaty is clear,” she reminded him. “That it is the responsibility of both parties to keep their kind from trespassing. Sanctioned or not.”
She had questioned that, at times, claiming that such treatment was unfair. To punish an entire people for the foolish actions of a few, but the sages had been firm. There must be necessity in keeping the boundaries secured, and consequences for that failure.
Even if they seemed harsh to a young mind filled with thoughts of justice and perhaps, a little too much leniency.
“The rider,” another entreated. “What of him?”
“He wore no shirt,” she recalled. Grimult had no need to disrobe him when studying his cooling body, to see the smooth lines of his back proving his race. “Paint decorated his skin, here,” she mimicked the lines she had seen on her forearms, “And here,” fingers smoothing down her cheekbones before rising to place three dots along her forehead. “His skin held a golden hue, as if he had spent much time in the sun. But his hair was shaved, so I could not tell you the colour.”
She paused, waiting for any to interject, but continued when none yet could give an answer. “His breeches were fashioned from some kind of skin, but tanned and prepared. Not something I would imagine was accomplished alone, although I suppose it could have been so.”
She wished she had studied him more carefully, could relate some mark or feature that could identify him to the men at the table, but she could not. Her attention had been consumed with Grimult, with the devastation at being kept so fully uninformed of their purpose.
Of the realisation that their kind were not the only in the world.
“Explain how he came to be there,” she entreated. “Was it truly that you have grown lax in your patrol? In your explanation to your people what should happen to them if they attempt to cross?”
Henrik shook his head, his mouth a tight line. “I assure you, we have not taken our duties lightly.”
She wanted to call for a reprieve, for time to pass between them so they could reflect on her words and offer a solution, but the more she related the story, the more she began to question certain details that suddenly seemed confusion in nature. If the sages spoke truly, the rider’s mount was a wild creature. It would have to be tamed enough to even be a mount, which suggested a great deal of time.
So if it was a defector as had been suggested, the act was done long before. Years, at the most recent possibility.
“There was only one?” another sage enquired, and she nodded. “But your impression was that there were more like him?”
Another nod, the dread even now settling in her belly. “Yes.” Of that she was certain, although she could give no claim as to why she could be so.
They fell silent for a long while, lost in their own thoughts, and she was beginning to despair at ever receiving an explanation when the elder spoke out, his voice calm even as it wavered. “When the first accord was put into place, the boundaries were the first matter to be discussed.” He did not look to the others for confirmation, and none argued with him. There were few texts from Penryn’s home about those times, as the responsibility had been the land-dwellers to fashion the divide with their technologies. It troubled her that she could not readily confirm the sage’s words with her own context, but she leaned forward, hopeful.
“A great enough portion devoted to your kind,” he gave a nod to Penryn. “But not so much that too many of our own people would be displaced.”
He quieted, allowing all to think on his words, and Penryn was the first to give answer. “Suggesting that some were?” she queried, her head tilting as she tried to understand.
The sage gave a slow nod of assent.
