The Dancers of Arun - Elizabeth A. Lynn, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 2
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======================The Dancers of Arunby Elizabeth A. Lynn======================Copyright (c)1979 by Elizabeth A. Lynne-readswww.ereads.comFantasy---------------------------------NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.---------------------------------Other works by Elizabeth A. Lynn also availabe in e-reads editionsWatchtowerThe Northern GirlThe Sardonyx Net--------_*one*_Kerris woke.He stretched. He was stiff and cold. The pallet under him was thin and prickly; he had slept far from the chimneys, in the place nearest the door. The morning sun came through the high unpaned windows of the barracks, gilding the dirty tapestries into pale color, and the sky, through the narrow slits, was gray, distant, and chilly.Swallowing, he tasted the salt of last night's pork. Beside him an off-watch guard thrashed, caught in an evil dream. Kerris tugged his boots on. The laces flapped. He tied them. The unyielding strings kept slipping from his hand. His fingers were cold.He blew on them to warm them. His stump ached and he rubbed it. A dog barked. Someone shouted in the courtyard. Passing his hand through his tangled hair, Kerris rose and picked his way around huddled sleepers to the Keep kitchen.A leather curtain separated kitchen and barracks, and through it he could hear people talking. He pushed it aside and went in. The room was hot. The oven fires had been lit. An hour-candle burned in a tiled niche. Apprentice cooks, hands covered with grease and flour, hurried past him. An assistant cook wearing a white cloth apron stood over a cutting board, slicing chunks of cold ham onto a silver platter. Paula stood beside the fireplace, holding out her hands to the blaze. Kerris went to her. Bending, he kissed the top of her head. "Good morning."She peered up at him. He was a head taller than she was. She was wearing a thick brown shawl around her shoulders. "Kerris," she said. She turned back to the pot. It held tea, honey, and milk in a great soup mixture. "Have some tea."He looked through rows of tall glasses for a mug. "Cold this morning," he said."Cold every damn morning." She banged the ladle on the rim of the iron pot. "You'd never know it was spring."Leaning by her, Kerris dunked the mug into the pot. He sipped the tea. It was hot and very sweet. "It's nearly summer," he said. "The traders'll be here soon."Her dark eyes glinted. She made a barracks gesture. "Summer," she said, with a southerner's contempt for northern weather. "Those people upstairs awake yet?"She meant the soldiers. She had been a soldier herself once, long ago, on the southern border. Kerris shook his head. "Just me."A fair-haired kitchenmaid in a long linen skirt came from the storeroom. She was carrying a round of cheese. She smiled politely at Paula and with more warmth at the young cook. His hands at the board moved even faster. She did not look at Kerris. He had not expected her to. For all that he was of Tornor's ruling line, he was a scribe, a fit-taker, and a cripple, less important to the Keep than the least of its cooks.Paula scowled. "You want more tea?" she said.He wanted to tell her that it did not matter to him that the woman of the Keep ignored him. He was used to it. He preferred it to the ridicule he might have gotten -- had gotten, more than once. To please her, he dipped his mug again in the amber syrup. An apprentice opened an oven door. The smell of baking bread filled the room.The leather curtain flapped. The chief cook strutted in. He had great hairy arms like a smith, and no hair at all on his skull. The scullions (behind his back) called him the Egg. He was a superb cook and had a temper like a fox-bitch in heat, and he hated intruders in his kitchen. He glared at Kerris. "Out," he said, fingering his square-bladed cleaver. The gesture was for show, but Kerris had no intention of challenging it. He rubbed Paula's shoulder."I'll see you later," he said. He turned to go._There was smoke in his eyes and a knife in his hand. He smelled scorched food and the heavy scent of new wine. He thought_, End it quickly. _He faked a stumble on a stool. His opponent grinned and stepped in for a killing thrust. Catching the thrusting arm, he looped the man's neck with his other arm and drew him helpless to the floor. A knife clattered down. Disdainfully a booted foot kicked it away. A woman screamed softly_._He stared into the man's red and terrified face. "I could break your neck," he said. "Don't you know better than to fight a cheari?"__Ilene said, at his back, "They've burned our breakfast, Kel. Let's leave."_His vision blurred. He smelled bread. He was back. Paula stood in front of him, bristling like a mother cat protecting a kitten. The scullions were all watching. The chief cook was sputtering at the old woman. "I'll have no fits taken in my kitchen!"Kerris said, "I'm all right."Paula turned. Her eyes searched his face. He was sorry she had seen it. "It's nothing," he said. He walked toward the entrance to the hall. The scullions murmured, clumped together like puppies. The Egg swore at them, and they hopped out of his way.The great hall of Tornor was big enough to hold six hundred men without crowding. Kerris rested against a wall of it for a moment. As always after a fit, he felt just slightly disoriented. He leaned on a tapestry. It showed a scene from some old battle. Josen would know which one. Kerris did not.The doors to the hall were open. Men from the barracks, rubbing sleep from their eyes, and men just off watch, bulky in their layers of wool and leather, were coming in. Dogs with sleek fur and pale narrow heads ran about and around them -- wolfhounds, they were, though there were few wolves left on the steppe. A hunting party last fall had brought in one mangy yearling. They had hung the skin from the castle wall and all the small boys from Tornor village had come to stare at it.Someone opened the leather curtain. The smell of fresh bread drifted into the hall. The men elbowed each other. Kerris' appetite had gone. He walked down the lane beside one of the long tables and came face to face with the lord of the Keep.He bowed. "Good morning, uncle," he said.Morven, the nineteenth lord of Tornor Keep, was brisk and stocky, with the bright yellow hair and pale complexion of his line. Kerris had not inherited it. "Good morning, nephew," he said. "Did you wake as the watch changed?" Kerris nodded. Morven did not know (or pretended that he did not know) that Kerris sometimes slept in the barracks. "I wish my soldiers were as dedicated." It was meant to be praise."Thank you." Ousel, the second watch commander, strode up. Immediately Morven turned to speak with him. Kerris, dismissed, went on out of the hall. He thought, At least he has the decency not to laugh in my face.Crossing the inner ward to the stair to the Recorder's Tower, he felt inside his skull for the skill that linked him with his brother. As ever, it eluded him. He could not make it work, any more than he could stop it.In the shadow of the sundial a trio of children played the paper-scissors-rock game. Kerris slowed as he passed them. It was one of the few games he, the one-armed child, had been able to play, and he had gotten so adept at knowing what the others would choose that they had soon refused to play with him. The game dissolved into wrestling, with the biggest child, Morven's daughter Aret, on top. Kerris went on. He had never been very good at wrestling."Hello, Recorder."A girl stood at the foot of the tower stair, her arms filled with laundry. She wore a red gown and a brown overtunic. Her cheeks were pocked with little scars. Her hair fell down her back. Kerris felt the nape of his neck redden. "Hello, Kili," he said.Two years ago she had approached him in the hall, brushing her breasts against him with a smile and a whispered question. "Would you like to ...?" No one had asked him before. He went with her to the laundry, clumsy and eager. They lay between the long wet washtubs, on the dirty sheets from the apartments. He was deeply grateful to her. Only one other person had ever touched him in that way. She had even pretended to be pleased with his efforts. Some weeks afterward he overheard her laughing about it with another girl, equating his lost limb and his sexual ability.She thrust her hip against him. "How come I don't see you anymore?""I have work to do.""That's too bad." She strolled across the ward, hips swaying. The guards on the inner wall yipped appreciatively.Kerris thought of Kel. He wondered where the chearas was, and what had happened to the red-faced man. No doubt the chearis were saddled and gone from the place. He could see them -- tall Arillard, redheaded Riniard the newcomer, Jensie with the tri-colored hair.... He swore under his breath and pushed the thoughts away. They only made him unhappy.He glanced across the courtyard. Kili had gone. The guards had turned back to their vigil. Kerris pictured a caravan bumping along the eastern road, blue flags flying, laden with silks and spices and wood and metal goods. The whole Keep was restless, waiting for the traders. The children played at car...
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