Dayn armallah

9. Signs of Spring

We had all been simultaneously fearing and hoping for the end of winter and the beginning of spring. The days were growing longer, the weather more capricious. It felt so strange, after the relatively steady security of the City, to understand that spring didn't necessarily mean only hope, revival, new life. It could also mean lingering death. Our stocks were running low, but it would still take a long time before they could be replenished – and soon we'd be needing energy to start working the soil again, to make it grow more food. Light and hope didn't feed a hungry stomach, they weren't enough to make sure that arms would still have enough strength to use a shovel or rake.

Longer days brought with themselves more sun, and unlike the bleak days of late autumn, the sun was actually warming the ground. The topmost layer of the snow melted during the day and froze again at night, forming an iron-hard crust underneath which it was as loose and rough and powdery as ever. Thus the snow became hard enough to carry smaller animals – birds, lynx, foxes – but anything much heavier sank inexorably through it at every step. The crust was so dense, its edges so biting, that the deer had trouble moving through it. They stuck to their paths, fearful of venturing out of them into the thick snow where the skin on their legs would be scraped raw and the tendons cut in two, and this was what the wolves capitalized on. More than once we saw tracks of their hunting expeditions: How a panicking deer had been chased away from the rest and forced into the untouched, treachery expanses. How its tracks became more and more frequent as its strength had been sapped, bloody spots marking the places where its legs had been wounded on the rough edges of snow, and finally, a bloody mess to indicate the spot where it had met its end. Occasionally we even saw ravens picking up edible pieces from the last discarded bones that they dug up from the trampled snow. They would croak to us, resenting the disturbance, and we would hurry onwards, away from the spot. It never held anything for us, anyway.

We had trouble moving there, too, but the prince knew of a way. From somewhere in the storage hut he produced two pairs of snowshoes, strange contraptions made of willow and leather. My first attempts at walking after he'd bound them to my feet, heedless of my doubtful protests, made him laugh aloud, and then it was already my turn to laugh at him when he showed me how to use them and ended up face down in the snow. A loose strap, he said in a rare good humor, and brushed coarse snow off of his beard. But they were useful, and it was important that I learn how to walk with them.

Of course I did learn. And when we for the first time climbed out of the path to cross a pristine field of snow, the feeling of freedom put tears in my eyes. We walked with a steady step, feeling the snow underneath each foot before putting our full weight on in, leaving behind only a series of imprints instead of a deep trough. I looked at the prince beside me and saw a genuine smile play on his lips. He noticed my glance and stopped, his breath hanging in a cloud in front of his face.

"I wish I could die on a day like this," he said.

My throat went tight. "Why do you say so?" I whispered.

"Because then I could say that I died happy," he replied dreamily, then squinted his eyes and looked at me. "But don't you worry, Tarisha. I don't intend to die today."

He looked sharply towards the forest surrounding the little patch of unbroken snow – probably a little stretch of marsh – in the middle of which we were standing, and added: "I can't vouch for some hares, though."

He strode on and I followed, once again trying hard to understand what went on inside his head. It was so unfair that the man with whom I spent all my days and nights should still be such an enigma to me. In a way it would have been easier if I could have hated him. But I didn't. His silence, his restless energy, his resigned moodiness, I knew and accepted them.

Ever since I had first come to live with him, a thought had been growing in my mind, and by now I was sure of it: even though he hated the Foresters with all his heart, resented them for the destruction of Dayn Armallah, they had actually done him a service. I had been mulling over it for days and nights, trying to fit together what I knew of him now and what I had been privileged enough to glimpse briefly before. Alaish had offered me little flashes of the life inside the Temple, and the more I heard, the surer I was that my conclusion was correct.

It all fit together – the way the prince had been back then, the way he was now. A man destined from birth to the unceasing leisure and eternally repeating routine of the King's life, of ceremonies and services, siring children to the priestesses, studying the Scriptures, living according to the holy calendar until the end of his days. The unhappy darkness in his eyes, and the way he had shunned from all company back then. The way he had nearly lost his temper when Alaish had expressed a wish to see the world beyond City walls. The compulsive need to drive himself until his legs wouldn't carry him any more, to revenge the City to the Foresters. Was it really just the anger of a man who has lost everything – or was it tinged with guilt? Was he actually feeling a hint of gratitude to the people who had set him free of his golden cage, and guilt because of the terrible price so many people had paid for it? There was a word that I had heard from him more than just once: duty. There was just duty for him. Duty back then, and duty now, his duty to protect the people around him, the duty to revenge for them. No desire, only duty.

But at least he could find some enjoyment in it too, I thought as I looked at him, walking purposefully through the frosty forest. And in all truth, I felt it too, in the crisp air that stung my throat and made my fingers numb as I reset the snares and tied our catch to my belt. Yet another hare to end its earthly wanderings as an ingredient in a stew.

The sun just grew warmer, the days longer. The snow sank lower and lower, until brooks broke their way through it and green patches began to emerge in and around the village. The spring arrived, people came out of their huts and cabins and began to work in the open once more. The wolves followed the deer deeper into the forest that was filled with a cacophony of new sounds: rustling, crackling, and the voices of birds replaced the oppressive silence of winter and filled our ears. And then, one day, a most bizarre coincidence brought a strange addition to our village.

It was a day like any other. We were out once more, following a route we took roughly every week, when the wind turned and carried to our ears the unpleasantly familiar thumping sound of hooves. The prince looked around and gestured towards a thick spruce to our left, its lower branches hanging almost to the ground. We dashed to it and crouched in their shadow, holding our breath in anticipation.

I peered from behind the prince's shoulder and nearly jumped out of my skin at the first glimpse of the horse. It was of a very unusual color, the body nearly white but scattered with hand-size brown blotches. Its head and legs were of nearly the same brown but more mottled, the thick tail began as dark brown only to fade into nearly white towards the tip. It was an unusually large animal, obviously well-tended and well-fed, strong and healthy. Except that right now it looked positively exhausted. And I definitely knew the beast. But before I managed to say anything the man next to me gave a quiet but clearly annoyed snort.

"Accursed Forester," the prince muttered. "What's he doing around here?"

My gaze shifted to the figure mounted on the horse – not really riding it, that I could see at once. He merely sat hunched in the saddle, hands listlessly gripping the horse's tangled mane. The reins hung free and the horse seemed to be numbly padding forward with no idea where it was headed. I could not make out anything of the rider or his equipment, but I did not need my eyes.

"Golden Deer," I whispered. The prince turned to look at me suspiciously.

"Do you know him?"

"Yes," I replied under my breath. "He's from the village where I lived, before you killed the man whose slave I was. His name – " I nodded towards the man and horse trudging wearily onwards, "means 'Golden Deer'. He's rich and proud man, a great warrior and hunter. That horse cost him a fortune that he could well afford to pay. But something is definitely very, very wrong..."

The prince's eyes wandered back to the silent rider. After a few moments he nodded to himself, slowly lowered the drawn bow and loosened his grip on the string, then pushed the black killer arrow back into the quiver.

"Come. Let's see what is going on."

He walked into the open and made a low, soothing sound to the horse that simply stopped and turned its head to look at him. The rider swayed a little but did not react in any way as the prince cautiously went closer and took a hold of the reins, all the while murmuring reassuringly. I quickly followed him and peered up to the hunched form of the man in the saddle. A soiled cascade of hair completely hid his face, I reached out tentatively to touch his hand – and immediately jerked back as my fingers met icy coldness. Surely he wasn't dead? Surely a dead body could not sit so upright on a moving horse?

My frenzied thoughts were interrupted when the tall man seemed to collapse above me and began to fall down. My yelp brought the prince next to me just in time to catch the heavy form in his arms, he grunted with effort and lowered his burden gingerly on the ground. I helped him turn the man on his back and could not bite back a gasp at the sight of his face. Yes, this definitely was Golden Deer, and very definitely he looked like a ready corpse, cheeks hollow and glazed eyes bloodshot under heavy lids. Even though his eyes were slitted, he was totally oblivious to our presence. The prince felt his sweaty neck.

"He's blazing hot," he said. "I think he's been wounded... yes, at least to the side."

The dark, dried and hardened crust that starched the once luxuriously soft leather jacket into a crumpled mess looked ominous enough. I cringed, thinking what would be found under it. Only a muscle wound, obviously, or the man would have never lived long enough to develop such a raging fever. But a festering muscle wound could be equally fatal, just taking a much longer and infinitely more painful time to kill its victim. My hands began to tremble.

"What are you going to do to him, my Lord?" I asked, suddenly and inexplicably terrified at the most obvious reply. I knew well enough his hatred for the Foresters, the looting, ransacking, destroying barbarians. It was a feeling we both shared. But now, for some reason, I felt reluctant to let him put this man to the same fate that had befallen so many of his kin. There had been something about Golden Deer that set him apart. His prowess in battle and hunting, his looks, his pride, I did not know what it was but I knew that I definitely did not want to see him die by the prince's hand.

The prince looked at me closely, then he stared for a moment at the Forester at our feet. We were sure to waste our time and energy on him, he was so ill and weak with his untended wounds that he would probably die on us within a couple of days, if indeed he lasted that long. The prince knew it. I knew it. I swallowed.

"Help me," he said. "He's too heavy to carry, and I cannot get him on that horse alone. Let's hope it still has stamina enough to survive as far as the village."

Somehow we managed between ourselves to hoist the heavy man back on his horse. The journey was hard enough, but it was even harder to get the unconscious hulk of a man inside and on the prince's bed. I went to look after the weary horse and left the women to do what they did better than me: tending a sick man. By the time I returned to the house he had been stripped of his clothes and washed, his wounds cleaned and dressed, and he was covered with several layers of blankets. With his face less grimy he looked even more like a corpse in his feverish slumber, and I felt a lump in my throat.

The prince sat by his side, eyes never turning from the darkly tanned yet horribly pale face. He had assisted the women in getting the man undressed, held his arms out of the way when the hands poking the injuries had caused enough pain to penetrate through the haze clouding his brain and prompted him to try and push away the hurting touch. While the women had been carefully wrapping bandages over raw-looking gashes on the man's body, I had managed to coax the prince into removing his soiled clothes and washing himself – on the condition that I bring him water into the house for that. He would not leave the Forester.

"Tell me about Golden Deer," the prince said quietly. "You wanted to save him, even though I know how much you hate his people. I would like to know why. What has he done to redeem himself in your eyes?"

I sat down next to him, too tired to collapse, and tried to sort out my thoughts. "Nothing... that is, nothing to me directly," I began tentatively, trying to recall every scrap of memory that I had from the village. "He's just somehow – different. The men used to sneer at him behind his back, but nobody ever dared say anything to his face." I chuckled as I remembered the furtive glances of the other Forester men whenever they had been slandering Golden Deer, afraid of being caught by the man himself. "I think it was his vanity they were mocking. Everything he had always had to be the best there was. His weapons, his clothes, his horse, all his things... and he looked after them, too. I think they sometimes said he was 'like a woman', but they never said without making sure he was nowhere near."

"Like a woman?" the prince repeated, frowning.

"Yes. That much I understood," I said. "I mean, look at this hair!"

I touched reverently the thick mass that pooled around his head and shoulders, and carefully combed my fingers through it. Matted and unkempt as it was, still my fingers didn't get immediately stuck in a hopeless tangle. "All right, it's dirty and obviously hasn't been combed for quite a while. But normally he would comb it every day, and wash it so that it gleamed in the sun. Did you notice it's down to his waist? Or the way he dressed... and he's the one and only Forester whom I've ever seen to shave! But no, you don't go openly sneering at a man who is definitely the most skilled and deadly warrior, and the best hunter in the village, and who definitely knows it himself!"

The prince nodded, then reached down to wipe cold sweat from Golden Deer's face with a moistened cloth. I looked in astonishment at his gentle movements – that he should undertake something like this himself. To command that the ailing man be carried straight to his house, to his own bed. To stay there, watching over him, even nursing him. Obviously the man, albeit one of the Foresters he hated with a deep and relentless passion, had somehow aroused enough interest in the prince to be spared. Just like he had done with me, I remembered, and smiled to myself. Whether it was what I could tell him or something else, I didn't know, but I was happy for it. I had been curious about Golden Deer before – maybe I would learn more about him now? Provided that he lived, that was.

Until late at night the prince stayed beside the tall man, patiently listened to his incoherent muttering, bent every now and then to brush stray hairs from his sweaty face or to touch his cracking lips with a wet rag. He took enough of a break to eat most of the very late dinner I brought him and then resumed his vigil again. When I finally returned to the house after putting the cooking fire out for the night, I looked at his impassive face in the sparse light of a candle and felt curiosity and fear gnaw inside me. I hoped the man wouldn't die, not after all the trouble we had gone into just to get him safely to the village. But if he lived, then what? What did the prince think? What did he plan?

It was very late. The prince sighed and stripped himself enough to stretch on the makeshift bed that had been prepared on the floor, next to his own that was occupied by the tall Forester. I crept under the blankets beside him, close to his lanky body, and snuggled my face on his chest. He was so warm.

"Faithful Tarisha," he sighed. I could hear him smiling. "If he recovers, I'll need you to talk to him."

I listened to the man's ragged breathing. "I'll try to remember everything I learned, my Lord. It's not much though... nobody ever really taught me."

A bearded cheek pressed against my hair. "At least you know something. Me, not a single word. But, one day, I want to speak with him."

Despite exhaustion my interest was piqued. I lifted my head and squinted, trying to force my eyes to see his face in the dark.

"Why, my Lord?"

"Because..." His voice trailed off and he paused to think. "Because I want to know why. Why it all had to happen."

I nodded sleepily and burrowed deeper into the comforting embrace. Of course that was the reason.