‘Hu’ao, my own child, fleeing into the north with the nuns from Lakland. Where is she now? Does she remember me? Oh, I would give much to hold her again….
‘And I am so tired, so tired while you sit there watching me with your red eyes, your ugly tongue hanging out of your mouth. Dog king, you will regret this stealing of me. Much will you regret….’
The dog king flicked his ears in her direction, waited for her to go on, but she could not. She was slumped on the stones, too weary to say another word. He began his litany of lechery once more, his whining tale of what he would do, and do. It ended abruptly, the dog king thrust against a stone, breath driven from his body, his eyes rolling madly toward the huge shadow which loomed over him and thundered in Thewson’s voice.
‘What is it you will do, dog? What is it you will desire, dog? What is it you will say before you die, dog?’
Then Jasmine was swept up in Thewson’s arms, the thongs stripped from her legs, to weep luxuriously on his shoulder. Daingol was there, tying the dog king with the same fetters which had bound her. Barstable Gumsuch was there, standing aloof in the shifting firelight to which he had led the bigger people with eyes sharpened by decades of tracking peddler’s animals. His eyes had been close enough to the ground to see tracks long after Thewson and Daingol had given up in the darkness. Dhariat was there with Jasmine’s boots in her hand and Jasmine’s cloak draped over one shoulder. Doh-ti and Mum-lil were there.
And of all of them, it was Mum-lil, in the high, treble voice of a child, who called Thewson out of his anger.
‘Do not kill him, warrior,’ she cried. ‘We may find a use for him. By the Powers, I cry stay to your hand, warrior.’
And Thewson, scarcely knowing what he did, let his spear rest on the dog king’s narrow chest but did not drive it home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE ABYSS OF SOULS
Days 1-15
Month of Wings Returning
It took them half a day to recover the distance they had lost in two days of tracking. By noon, they had come to the mound to pick up the baggage and the others of the company. By night they had forded the River Nils and turned northwest toward the distant city of Seathe at the edge of the northlands beside the mysterious depths of the Abyss of Souls. The dog king ran behind Thewson’s horse, tethered to it by the same thongs which had bound Jasmine. He ran silently, drawing as little attention to himself as possible, for Thewson had taught him not to whine or bark or speak by judicious application of a whip. Jasmine wondered if he were bored. She thought not, somehow. ‘It will be a new thing for him,’ she told herself. ‘What he wanted. Something new.’ When they stopped for the night, the dog king was lashed between stakes driven deep into the sod by Dhariat and Daingol. They did not bother to go out of his hearing before talking of his fate.
Until that moment Thewson had spoken hardly at all. Now he took Jasmine by the shoulders. ‘Did he … force you?’
Jasmine shook her head. ‘He began. He wanted an heir, Thewson. I told him I am already pregnant. Carrying your child, Thewson.’
At that, Thewson fell silent, mouth slack, an expression of awed discomfiture on his face. Dhariat gave him an amused glance.
‘He was talking great lewdness. We thought …’
‘No, Dhariat. He talked it, yes, but I do not think he felt any such. He was like some weary old men of Lakland I have known. They talk such lechery, as though they lust greatly, but it is only talk, to stir themselves up. In their eyes is only boredom and weariness and a waiting for death. It is only to tell themselves they are still alive. It is meaningless. If he had truly lusted for me, he would not have let me talk and talk. I could sorrow for him if he did not sicken me so.’
Mum-lil spoke. ‘It is as I thought. In Pau-bee were some such. One hears it in the voices, the boredom and pain that all their lecherous talk is only a curtain over. Still, that one does not look old, not in body.’
‘Not in body, no.’ Daingol pushed a charred branch into the flames. ‘In mind, yes. Too old, too long confined among the stones of Tinok Ochor.’
Mum-lil went on. ‘Not old in body, then, and clever, and quick on his feet, and a sly sneak or he could not have taken Jasmine from the midst of us. I wonder if he could be made to be useful to us.’
‘To do what?’ snarled Thewson. ‘To make dirty talk? There is no one weary of life here who needs dirty talk!’
‘To find Jasmine’s girl child,’ said Mum-lil.
Jasmine’s heart surged, making an ocean sound in her ears, then thudded miserably as she thought of Hu’ao in the dog king’s hands. ‘No, not with him …’ she murmured.
‘Tsh. Did you not say the little one was with nuns of your homeplace? If he found one, he would find the others, to bring them all to a place we may meet.’ Mum-lil stroked her belly. ‘It is not good to lose a child and wonder always where and how and if. Not good.’
‘What oath would bind that one?’ asked Po-Bee. ‘It would sicken Peroval.’
‘No,’ said Sowsie. ‘There is an oath which would bind even that one. A singer’s oath, one known well to members of the Choir of Gerenhodh. The oath of Obon.’
‘But you can’t sing,’ objected Dhariat.
