Icevein: Chapter 34
One year after the Battle of Tonkil’s Rock. Fifty years since the founding of Glint.
Rightauger did not sit at the high table where his father and mother would preside over the feast with his younger siblings beside them. Instead, he sat at one of the lower tables with his friend Tinsnips, son of Thrushbeard. He was confident there would be no offense given. Though he still dwelt in his family’s hold, he was his own dwarf.
It was a venerable feast; all the living Owners of Glint were present, or would be: his father and mother, his Uncles Greal, Khlif, and Sledgefist, Shineboot and Hobblefoot, and Warmcoat. The feast hall of Glint was warm with the burning of braziers and the haze of hill-smoke. Rows of burnished lamps burned brightly, the light reflected on mirrors of polished bronze that directed the glare toward the high table and the rear inner passage. The lamplight shone on the ceramics of the tableware, the brooches and pins, the braided and oiled hair, casting all in strange solidity in the brightness. It was rare to see so much light beneath the stone, even in a feast hall.
It was the rhundal of his sister Peridot. It had been over three years since his ownrhundal, butit felt like much longer. In truth, everything before the Battle of Tonkil’s Rock felt almost like another life. Even as he sat there, he remembered his behavior before the battle, and he cringed.
“Are you well?” Tinsnipsasked.
“Ay, yes,” Rightauger said, forcing a smile. They were both more than two mugs into the mead, and they had mixed it with some distilled spirits, it being a feast.
Tinsnipsleaned forward, his face already bright with the flush of his cups.
“Tell me truly,” he whispered. “Does she intend to marry?”
“Hmm?” Rightauger asked.
“Your sister. Does she intend to marry?”
“Um.” Rightauger turned and looked toward the rear passage. It was still empty. At some point, his parents would appear, leading his sister Peridot into the hall. He had assumed she would marry—it was no secret that she did not love the wirework, skilled though she be—but he had not asked. Peridot had been busy with some project or other for years, but he had no part in it. It involved wire and gold, he knew, but was it some attempt at a becoming a wif-of-craft?
“I do not know for sure,” he said.
Tinsnips frowned.
“What?” Rightauger asked.
“Do you know if one of the Owners’ sons wish for her? Maybe Greasegear or Shimbiter?”
“Not that I have heard, but. . .” He thought about it. They wouldn’t be terrible matches.
“But what?” Tinsnips asked.
“But I don’t know.”
Tinsnips looked over Rightauger’s shoulder, and Rightauger realized he was looking at the rear passage, waiting. His expression betrayed some anxiety. The realization dawned on Rightauger at once.
“Are you? Do you want to marry my sister?” he asked.
“Shh,” Tinsnips said, looking around to see if anyone had heard. They were sitting at a table full of other unwed dwarves notable enough to receive an invitation but without any kin beneath the mountain. “My father is the rinlen of the Ridge Wardens. We are not the meanest hold in the mountain. I know no yothe-weight would be enough to dazzle your parents, butif she is to wed, she must choose someone.”
Rightauger thought about it. It was no surprise, really, that Tinsnipshad not spoken of his sister before. Until this feast, Peridot was a gilna, a child in the eyes of their folk. It would have been impertinent at best for any to show formal interest. Rightauger knew that many dwarves in Glint, East Spire, and even Deep Cut would have marked the day of Peridot’s rhundal with anticipation. He could only imagine the slew of offers his parents would receive. Peridot had not spoken that she wished to be a glüsht-na-fen. Even the poorest dwarf-maid would have offers aplenty, what with the scarcity of maids compared to dwarves—a scarcity even starker in the Red Ridges, where most of the folk were dwarves come to seek their fortunes.
“I was hoping you’d consider speaking on my behalf,” Tinsnips went on. He stared into his mug and swished the mead nervously. “Maybe a word from you would help.”
Rightauger doubted his opinion would matter to Peridot, but he couldn’t deny that Tinsnipswas a worthy dwarf. Beyond that, they were old friends. Tinsnipswas the son of Thrushbeard, one of Chargrim’s most trusted rinlen, and Tinsnips had fought with his father in the siege of Glint and the sally against the ürsi that broke the host in the valleys while Rightauger, Chargrim, and Sledgefist had fought the brutal battle of Tonkil’s Rock.
Tinsnips had always shown himself a stalwart and bold dwarf. What objection could there be?
Rightauger took a long drink.
“I will speak to her, if you wish,” he said. “I would be pleased to have you as my kin. But the offer must come from Thrushbeard before ever I say a word.”
Tinsnips’s expression broke into a smile, and he raised a mug.
“To the rhundal,” he said. Rightauger smiled and joined the toast, draining the rest of his cup.
“Of course,” Rightauger added, his expression darkening. “My father will hardly consult me on the matter. She sees his face far more than I.”
Tinsnips cocked his head and squinted at Rightauger.
“Come now, friend. Is it he who doesn’t speak, or you who will not ask?”
“Why should I be the one to ask?” Rightauger snapped.
“Your father praised your conduct at Tonkil’s Rock. He gave you freedom to choose any trade, even the Wardens, and gifted you a new shield. My father and Sledgefist both offered you places as rinlen, but you have accepted neither. What more do you want, an Ownership?”
Rightauger frowned. He didn’t actually know the answer to that question. He wanted something, but he hadn’t figured out exactly what, yet. Before the siege and the battle, he’d thought he knew; he had wanted to join the Ridge Wardens. He had fought beside them at Tonkil’s Rock, but when they had returned to Glint with the injured and dead, he had not joined the wardens or his uncle’s Hammers, despite the offers to replace fallen rinlen. He continued to train with both the Ridge Wardens and Sledgefist’s Hammers, but he had not committed himself as kulhan. Something held him back, and he couldn’t put it into words. It was not cowardice. At least, he didn’t think so. In part to prove it to himself, he had gone with the Hammers and the Wardens to hunt the bands of ürsi who had trespassed in the north of the ridges the previous fall and winter.
The wardens had liked Rightauger before, but after the battle their treatment of him had changed. They spoke to him with less brotherly affection and more respect, and sometimes even reverence. All the survivors of the battle were held in high honor, but Rightauger found it unsettling, though it was what he had dreamt of before. Sledgefist and Chargrim had ensured that every dwarf who had survived Tonkil’s Rock was wealthy enough for a bride price, and any close kin of those slain were paid a blood price. Few survivors had remained among the wardens.
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It was neither cowardice nor honor that bothered him, or at least not alone. The spirits and mead of his sister’s rhundal hardly helped focus his mind. The claim was already established. Indeed, the colony was established. The lodes were being worked. The mine might one day be his by rights, at least in part, but it would never be his in spirit. There was nothing here that wasn’t his father’s. There was a whole world beyond Glint. It was a brutal world, but it was the only one there for him.
Rightauger grabbed his friend’s empty mug along with his own and stood to go refill them from the casks. The smell of salt-roasted meat and vegetables was strong, making his stomach rumble. The food would not be served until his sister was presented. Other dwarves lingered near the casks, and Rightauger dodged around them toward the end of the row, turning the tap to fill up one and then the other mug. They had drunk plenty of mead already, and now he drew maple beer.
Rightauger wasn’t sure how he felt about his friend hoping for marriage. Certainly, Tinsnipscould marry. He was the son of the rinlen of the Ridge Wardens. He wore a gold torc on his bicep made of eight twisted wires and terminals of boars’ heads. The Irik-Rhûl did not withold wealth from the rinlen of Glint, and Thrushbeard would no doubt secure a maid for his son. Tinsnips had already distinguished himself among the Ridge Wardens. His path was set and settled, though he was little older than Rightauger.
But Rightauger’s path was far from settled. As the son of the Irik-Rhûl, a bride price was of no concern, but he had not asked his father. Just like he had not chosen to become kulhan to any, or to take up a craft.
As he walked back to the table, a full mug in each hand, silence fell over the hall. Rightauger looked toward the rear passage and stopped in his tracks. He hardly knew what he was looking at.
Standing in the door of the passage was. . . he struggled to understand the vision.
It was a dwarf-maid, but. . . it was as if the jewels and gold of the mountain had come to life and taken the form of a dwarf-maid, flashing and shimmering with a thousand facets. From head to toe, she was clad in the masterwork of the mountain. A long gown of cloth-of-gold embroidered with red and blue, encrusted with garnets, amethysts, and citrines. Atop the gown was a long narrow tabard, open at the sides and belted in the middle with layered gold mesh. Enameled blue panels faceted the tabard in geometric fancies. On her breast, she wore a breastplate of curving silver traced with gold and enameled with sapphire and garnet. Gown and tabard and breastplate were cut low, but the upper reaches of her bosom were entirely hidden by a great plastron of gold mesh set with hundreds of garnets that flashed in the lamplight.
A full veil of cloth-of-gold covered her head, face, and neck, hem-lined with garnets, draping down to the plastron. Atop her head rested a circlet of gold inlayed with a panoply of stones. Her sleeves were of like make with the gown, extending down to vambraces of silver, again set with garnet. Every stitch, every facet, every wire, enameled surface, and etching was the work of a master—many masters, no doubt. No part of the maid was unadorned with masterwork of cloth, jewel, and gold, save only the curve of her collar bones and the arc of her shoulders, left bare as if to finish the bedazzlement with the unparalleled beauty of skin. But even her skin appeared unnaturally lustrous, as if it had been glazed with fine quartz.
Rightauger had never heard of such a glory of apparel, let alone seen it. His dazzled eyes could not receive it all at once, and his mind could not fathom. The maid stood alone, surveying the hall like an apparition of some lost glory of the Kara-Indal, as if the spirit of the lost wif of the Crippled King himself had come back from the halls of the forebeards. He understood it must be his sister, but this was no traditional rhundal introduction; his mother and father did not walk ahead to present her. She stood alone.
How long Rightauger stared at her, he did not know, but at some point he became aware that everyone in the hall had risen to their feet. He shook himself free of the trance and looked around. He saw tears in the eyes of wifs, and many dwarves whose mouths hung slack, eyes wide. The little gilna and gilke stared from behind their parents, clinging to shirts and robes as if afraid of the glory before them. It was as if the maid herself had been crafted by the hand of a master, as if she was the walking, breathing heart-jewel of the mountain.
After he knew not how long, he saw movement behind the maid. His mother and father entered the passage, and they walked side by side until they came to stand behind her. Their clothes were unremarkable—except they were finely made with embroidery and gold thread, such that at any other time would be considered rich. Yet next to her, they looked plain and poor, unremarkable in her light. The rows of lamps and burning braziers found every luster and every facet to illumine her. Even in his stupor, Rightauger realized that the polished bronze mirrors concentrated the light directly where the maid stood, so that she shone like a gilded apparition in the haze of hill-smoke.
“I, Chargrim of Glint, and my wif, Onyx, present to the folk our daughter, Peridot, on the day of her rhundal.”
Peridot held out a hand to each side, and Chargrim and Onyx stepped forward to take them. The three walked to the high table. Chargrim pulled Onyx and Peridot’s chairs free and seated them both in turn. “Let the feast begin!” he shouted, and sat.
No one moved. Not even the yowgan who were there to serve the guests. They all stared in silence. “Begin!” Chargrim said again, and this time at least the yowgan began to move, still distracted, but at least lifting skewers of meat from above the warming braziers, heaping them upon the serving platters.
Rightauger still stood halfway between the casks and his table. Tinsnip’s mouth was open. Rightauger stirred himself into motion and sat back down next to him, setting Tinsnip’s mug in front of him. It went unnoticed. One of the yowgan set a platter before them, laden with aromatic skewers of spiced lamb-cubes resting on a bed of baked radish. Neither Rightauger or Tinsnips reached for it. Everyone in the hall stared at his sister. No one was eating, no one was drinking, and no one was talking. Rightauger couldn’t make sense of it; for her whole life, Peridot had never sought attention. She always dressed plainly, even more than their parents, and she was soft-spoken. She pried sometimes, which had always irritated him, but he never would have guessed she would do something like this—or that something like this could even be done.
“Eat!” Chargrim called to the hall. “Drink! Do us the honor.”
The call to duty roused the more self-possessed in the hall, including Rightauger, and he lifted a skewer and slid a chunk of lamb free. It was char-sealed on the outside but juicy and red within—lamb, not mutton, and coated in a crust of rosemary, salt, and other spices that Rightauger did not know. It was a sumptuous feast. Even the drinking vessels were of fine ceramic, the platters silver, the food as rich as anything in the Red Ridges, or in Deep Cut for that matter. But what should have been a noisy feast was strangely quiet.
“Did you know?” Tinsnips asked. Rightauger was still staring at his sister. She sat still at the high table and neither ate, drank, nor lifted her veil.
“Know what?”
“This,” Tinsnips said, nodding toward Peridot. “You could have warned me.”
“No one warned me,” Rightauger said, shaking his head. “I didn’t know.” How that was possible, he wasn’t sure, but then, it had been years since he’d paid close attention to the doings of his sisters. Tinsnips was quiet for a time.
“I will wait for Sledgefist’s daughter,” he said. “She will reach rhundal in two years.”
“What?” Rightauger asked. “Did you not just ask me to speak on your behalf?”
Tinsnips looked at Rightauger as if he had just suggested leaping from a cliff.
“How could any dwarf marry her?” he said, his voice quiet.
Rightauger didn’t know how to answer his friend. The sound of flutes and bronze-stringed harps struck up in the corner of the hall, filling in some of the quiet. Slowly the sound of conversation grew, but it was far from the jovial celebration typical of a rhundal feast.
Rightauger and Tinsnips ate, hardly trading a dozen more words between them, and Tinsnips had taken his turn to fill the mugs by the time Onyx rose at the high table and the hall fell silent again. Everyone turned, leaned, or stood to see the high table, for the blessing of the mother to the daughter was one of the chief moments in a maid’s rhundal, for in that blessing was it made clear what path the maid intended to follow—wif-of-craft or wif-of-dwarf. It was not binding, and maids sometimes began upon a craft only to turn and marry, but offers of marriage would be impertinent if the maid sought to be a wif-of-craft.
Onyx lifted her mug with both hands and turned to Peridot.
“My daughter, a maid this day,
Jewel of the mountain, just and masterful,
Thrice blessed word-thorn,
Lie-slayer law-shining,
Hoard of the hold,
Hearth-fire of the folk,
Gem of the halls of Glint.”
With that, Onyx drank deeply of her mug and sat back down. So stunned were the folk that few drank with Onyx, not out of disrespect, but for sheer bewilderment. This was not a blessing for a wif-of-craftnor for a wif-of-dwarf. There was no blessings of hand and hoard or womb and hold. It was unlike anything Rightauger had heard in all the rhundal feasts he had attended, or any other occasion. He was clearly not alone in struggling to understand its meaning, for many in the hall whispered together, leaning over their tables.
Standing at the casks with two full mugs, Tinsnips looked despondent and confused, and Rightauger couldn’t blame him for the latter. Tinsnips walked back toward the table, but Rightauger rose and passed him, heading to the far end of the trestle that held the casks. There small bronze-bound oak staves held distilled spirits. He picked up two new mugs from a stack and filled them entirely with apple brandy. Returning to the table, he set one in front of Tinsnips. His friend looked down at the cup as the scent of the brandy reached his nostrils. Rightauger held out his own mug. Tinsnips picked his up and the two friends silently hailed each other before before drinking deep.