When at last the sun began its inexorable descent toward the horizon, he was glad to make his weary way back to the small, one-roomed táldafan that was his home, built as part of the bigger hall, still underway and not yet completed. Roofed with hide and walled in willow and cob, it would be a far larger dwelling than any of the part-settled Tethiri tribes had built before. 

His mother intercepted him at his door, flung him round by his shoulders, then round again, and slapped the wilted yellow grass-stalks from his coat as if he were a child.

‘Where in the blazes have you been? I’ve been waiting half the day! Your father and I have news for you,’ she said. She wrinkled her nose at him, at the stink of horse and damp, sweaty wool. ‘Is this any way to present yourself, first-son? Wash at once, then come to the hall.’

Sorrel’s stomach sank. He knew why they wanted him there, but asked anyway.

‘We will say something for your ears to hear,’ she replied. Her look was vaguely scornful, and Sorrel cast his eyes down, unable to bear it for more than a moment. ‘Something you didn’t come to hear last night, though I know your sister told you we were speaking. Where did you go, when she thought that you had come to us?’

She paused, then cupped his chin in her hands and lifted his head. He was forced to look at her.

‘Tell me the truth,’ she said. ‘Have you been with Rain?’

‘No! No.’ He swallowed hard. He had not dared to go near Rain again. Not after last time. Besides, Rain had made it clear he no longer wanted anything to do with Sorrel. That had been the case for some time now. Sorrel didn’t blame him. Rain had done nothing to deserve that whipping. Neither of them had.

‘I promised I would not. And I haven’t.’

Besides, whatever he had felt wasn’t there anymore. Only a faint regret that it been there at all.

‘Then where have you been?’

‘On the grasses. Alone.’

She dropped her hand, grudgingly satisfied. ‘Very well. Whatever you think of your own skin, Ellazhán, I know you won’t risk his. Hurry and clean up, then join us.’

Sorrel chewed anxiously at his lip as she walked away, a tiny woman with black hair in a hundred tiny braids, her embroidered coat swishing irritably at her ankles. She never went anywhere but briskly. She’d come from the White Fox caravan and was used to being on the move. She’d taken a while to settle to the more relaxed pace of life of her husband’s tribe and even then, it seemed only a surface concession. Sorrella was a sharp, brisk, irritated woman, and a strict and judgemental mother.

But a fair one, Sorrel reminded himself as he turned to go and do as she’d bid and get cleaned up. She’d never unduly punished any of her children. For a long time, Sorrel had been her only son. There was another now, four summers old and more like Virishnu than Sorrel was.

He won’t be like me. He will marry well and take over as chieftan when our father is gone. I know I won’t.

I will be nothing in their eyes. I don’t belong here.

He felt he ought to feel something. He was surprised to find he did not.

If anything, he felt free.

                                                                        ……………………………………………………………………

It didn’t last long.

Queen Leiryn’s niece. Rurien Hervik’s daughter.

The words cut through the low murmur of voices in the stuffy gloom of the squat Council hall, making Sorrel’s heart beat with an anxious, staccato rhythm.

Sersa Hervik.

He’d been somewhat enjoying the night’s jollity, drinking far more than was sensible, and his head was full of wool. He blinked in the light of the hearth-flame. It flickered evil shadows up the hide walls of the low-ceilinged hall and seemed to mock him with its dancing demons that snatched at his pride and confidence. He banished them with a word, slurred through lips numb from the heat of fermented spice. He was dimly aware of Rain’s presence, a tall figure in the shadows, pointedly not looking at him. At least if he wasn’t looking, he wouldn’t see the utter humiliation on Sorrel’s face. Sorrel tried wiping it off and putting indifference in it place.

Someone thumped his arm and knocked him into the present for a moment before the fog of drunkenness shrouded his brain again.

‘Did you hear, Ellazán? You are to be married to Sersa Hervik of Hviturek. Baron Whiteoak's daughter!'

‘I heard,’ he replied hoarsely. They’d dropped the news on him without warning. Without telling him he would not be going to the College at Gatharian after all. ‘But I don’t – ‘

‘To Prince Ellazhán, and the Hervik girl! May their loins be fruitful!’ The raucous yell came from the other side of the circle of men and a cheer went up in response, followed by ribald laughter and a few crude comments about the Prince’s possible talents – or lack of, given his youth - in the bedchamber. Sorrel swayed slightly on his flat horse-hide cushion, feeling sick. He shook his head to try and clear the fog but it was no use. Every time his vision cleared, it blurred again with alarming determination, and he felt that if he didn’t get out of the claustrophobic, womb-like heat then he would hurl. Or faint. That was probably worse: it would certainly earn him a good kicking from his father, sitting like a toad in his low chair and grinning all over his fat face.

He reflected on this for a moment, and then scrambled unsteadily to his feet.

Another cheer erupted, and another lewd joke at his unsteady stance. Cups of fiery and potent varrtir, a liquor brewed from sheep’s milk and pepper kernels, were raised and then downed with slavering gusto. The bile rose in Sorrel’s throat and the heat of the hall closed in, threatening to suffocate him.

His father, Chief Virishnu of the part-settled Wind Star tribe of North-East Serahaleros, raised his cup again, a smile plastered over his drink-mottled face, though his black eyes glittered with warning.

He thinks I am going to disgrace him, by fainting or protesting or vomiting, it doesn’t matter.

Sorrel felt a wicked temptation to do all three. Dramatically.

‘My son, this news should please you! A great alliance for your tribe, and many, many heirs! A great kingdom to call your own one day! Does that not please you?’

‘Rurien Hervik is not the king, father. How can a kingdom be mine if you don’t marry me to its princess, or its queen? Besides, the girl is a child. You’ve said so three times yourself. Send me to the College for a year, and then she will be of an age to marry.'

‘Do you know nothing of our neighbours, boy? Baron Whiteoak is the most powerful man in Vartjastafel besides the Earl! If the Earl is dead, he will rule the land. The Earl is a sick youth, much reviled, and will not, I wager, live to see many more summers! So, this news should please you! Does it not please you, boy?’

Sorrel shook his head. ‘I still don’t…’

‘I said: does this not please you, Crown-Prince Ellazhán of the Wind Star tribe and heir to many warriors?’ Virishnu thumped his thigh for emphasis. ‘You can recite your line for almost two thousand years, and she only six hundred! So say it, you ungrateful, wastrel cub! Say that it pleases you!’

‘It does, father.’

It didn’t. It showed in the dullness of his reply, in his down-turned mouth, and he knew it. His voice sounded hollow in his own ears, a complete lack of sincerity in his words that he made no effort to hide. He swallowed, cringing a little, half expecting his father’s cup to be launched into the side of his head, as it had on numerous occasions before. The chief had five living children and his temper was legendary.

But he only had one son anywhere near marriageable age. Sorrel decided he’d better use that to his advantage.

Virishnu leaned forward, his fierce black brows snapped together in a scowl. ‘The Lyr Deru queen and her brother do you much honour, boy. You will ensure the honour is repaid! Do not disgrace your mother. Or me.’

Sorrel blinked owlishly around the hall. Each face, high-cheeked and olive-skinned, black eyes creased with sun and wind, looked expectantly, jovially, back at him. They were crammed in, a circle of silk-coated men around a great iron fire-pit on a hearth of clay, dung-fire smoke stinging their eyes and catching in the backs of their throats where it was sucked down to sear their lungs. The stench of drink and sage incense, of horse and sweat and leather, hung heavy in the blue fug.

His stomach churned.

‘I need some air.’ He swayed slightly and put his hand out to steady himself on one of the thick wooden roof-posts of the hide-tented hall. ‘I’ve drunk too much.’

His foot caught the edge of the stack of blades in the entrance to the hall and he stumbled, cursing, as he pushed up the heavy woven blanket that served as a door. He kicked the pile out of the way and emerged into the night. Coarse and unsympathetic laughter filled the hall behind him like a roar of bright thunder.

He swore viciously, several times, in rough language that would have earned him a belting from his mother if she’d heard. He wouldn’t have cared at that moment if she had.

But out here, in the soft wind, he could at least breathe. He drew several breaths, filling his lungs with the scent of sweet grass and the small, bell-like flowers of the wild white pepper thorns, jutting from the shallow gorge that made up the northern boundary-wall of their summer settlement. Legend had it that a river had once flowed there, and down to the sea far in the south. Even now, when the snows melted in the mountains to the North, and the ice-waters came rushing like white horses down from the hills, the gorge filled for a week or two, but mostly with silt and mud. Not a real river. Not anymore. Sorrel thought foggily that a real river was an amazing thing to see, carving sinuously through the silver-gold and copper grasses, blue as the sky, or red as the earth. Bai had told him of the great river in the South. He longed to see it. He wanted to see all of it, North and South, East and West.

His legs finally gave way beneath him and he crumpled onto his backside with a huff. The muffled sounds of merrymaking still came from within the hall, but there was relative peace out here in the turf. A thin line of pale blue and gold still hovered above the horizon, but above his head the night’s first scatter of stars was showing, the spirits of his mother’s ancestors. He flopped backwards to stare at them, just as the door-blanket was shoved aside once more and his father came thumping out.

‘Blazes, boy, get up!’ Virishnu’s voice shattered Sorrel out of his drunken peace. He rolled aside, narrowly escaping a poorly-aimed kick.

‘It’s your bethrothal night! As close as anyway, for now! What do you mean by sulking out here?’

The chief plumped himself down on a turf hillock and belched. Sorrel grimaced and wiped his eyes. He sat up again.

‘I needed a moment to clear my head, is all,’ he replied. ‘Your men stink of varrtir and farts. It clouds the brain.’

A thump caught Sorrel on his back and nearly sent him face-first into the earth.

‘All men stink of varrtir and farts!’ Virishnu guffawed. ‘Or else of birth-blood, or death-sweat, or come! If you want men who smell of honey and flowered perfumes then I can, by all means, see if there is a Carthan brothel who will buy you!’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Sorrel, exasperated and stung. ‘As I said, I just needed air.’

He paused a moment, watching his father chew his words and no doubt trying to think of some other insult.

Or to bring up the subject of Rain. Had they even thought of that, when they’d agreed this betrothal?

Of course they had. Of course, they knew that leaving him to find his own wife meant it would never happen.

‘When do you think I will have to travel?’

‘Mmm, travel, boy? Don’t think over-much of your coming marriage. The Lyr Deru Queen has insisted on one condition – that you remain in Silverheim for a year and a day, as the Earl’s foster-brother. You’re expected there by Midwinter Dark.’

That surprised Sorrel. ‘Why?’

‘Some nonsense about the girl not being blooded yet. As if that should be a consideration! But, she is fourteen; it will not be long before her first bleed. Maybe even by the time you travel, hmm, boy? Certainly not so long as a year. And then you can wed, if they are not over-precious. Get some brats on her, and you can do what you want.’

That was loaded. Sorrel looked at his father, hardly daring to breathe. Had he really meant what he thought he meant?

Virishnu sighed a cloud of liquor-drenched fug into the evening air and wrapped his arms around his knees. ‘It pains me, boy, that this must be a chore for you. But it is necessary. The future will one day be your responsibility and the best way to secure it is to make sure you sire children whose best interests lie in the long-term peace of more than one land.’

‘I know.’ Sorrel swallowed hard. His throat was dry again. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts, flighty and insubstantial as they were. On the one hand, he was getting his wish of seeing the North. On the other hand, he was to stay there, at least for the near few years, and try and get a girl he didn’t know fat with his children.

And miss the chance to study at Gartharian. He'd had his heart set on that. On the other hand, perhaps Silverheim had a well-stocked library. It wouldn't be the same, but it would be better than nothing at all.

A month. One month more of freedom, of long dry grasses and thundering hooves, before being sent overland to Vartjastafel, to a land of cold winds and snow, of mountain, moor and forest. And to a prison of politics and duty and privilege, trussed up in fine silks and gold.

Sorrel crossed his arms over his knees and gazed across the grasslands. His father fell silent behind him, then quietly passed him a cup of varrtir. Sorrel took a sip.

‘My betrothal to your mother was thus,’ said Virishnu. ‘Never set eyes on the girl before. She was from a tribe I had met with only once. Was she tall, fat, ugly? I didn’t know. Didn’t matter.’ He pointed upwards with a hiccup. ‘The stars, boy. All your mother’s ancestors, watching you. Pretty hair, they say, and pretty face. A chief’s son. A mage too! And a man soon to be lord of all North Vartjastafel! Why is his face wet, they ask, his shoulders bent with sorrow?’

Sorrel chewed his lip and kept his eyes downcast as his father hauled himself to his feet, grunting at the stiffness of his joints.

‘Your mother worked hard to gain you this great privilege, son,’ he said. ‘I meant it when I said you will not dishonour her! You will gain not only a powerful father-in-law, but a King for a foster-brother! If he lives.’

That last was muttered, as if Virishnu did not intend his son to hear. He rose, stamped one foot after another, shaking the lethargy from cramped limbs, and repeated his warning not to disgrace the tribe.

Sorrel flung his forearm across his chest in a weary pledge, his fist clenched. ‘I will not. I promise, father, that I will not bring disgrace or dishonour on our people.’

‘Good lad.’ Virishnu belched loudly and Sorrel recoiled from the puff of sour breath. His head was beginning to clear a little, the fresh night air having done its job, but he still felt sick. That, he knew, had more to do with his forthcoming marriage than his excesses of drink.

Still, many men swore by varrtir’s powers to erase all troubles and sorrows, at least for a little while. So he drained the cup his father had passed him, tipping his head back for the last drop, and followed him back into the táld, resigned to his fate.