‘Indeed he would not. He is not an agreeable man. It pleases me that he will be irritated when he learns of my new post.’
‘Why should he be irritated?’
‘I am to be the fencing instructor at the Academy of Martial Thought, and therefore one of your new teachers. Are you aware that you will be obliged to call me sir?’
CHAPTER TEN
AS KAELIN RING SWIFTLY DISCOVERED, THE WORLD WAS VERY DIFFERENT two hundred miles north-west of Eldacre. In these high, forbidding, snow-capped mountains highlanders massively outnumbered the Varlish and a mere two hundred beetlebacks and musketeers patrolled an area of almost eighteen hundred square miles. The towns were small, the Varlish businesses almost totally reliant on the custom of clansmen. Kaelin found people less friendly than in Old Hills, viewing him with a degree of suspicion. In some ways it was amusing. For most of his life Kaelin had thought of southerners with contempt, for they were almost all Varlish. To the townspeople of Black Mountain Kaelin himself was a southerner, and Varlish-tainted.
Maev’s farm was two miles from the town of Black Mountain, nestling in the mighty shadows of a range of towering mountains. It was cooler here than in Old Hills, and Jaim explained that they were now many thousands of feet above sea level. The air was thinner, which was why Kaelin had, at first, felt breathless when joining with Jaim and the other five workers in felling trees for winter fuel.
The farm boasted two herds, each numbering some six hundred short-horned, shaggy animals. The first herd was kept in the high pastures to the west, the second in a series of fields between the farm and Black Mountain. There were also thirty milk cows, pastured within a half mile of the main house.
The numerous farm buildings were old and much repaired over the years. The main house was more than two hundred years old, two-storeyed, built of grey stone and roofed with timber and black slate. It was a cold house, grim and unwelcoming. Fifty paces to the west was a long, low building housing the cookhouse and a living area for the workers, and beyond that the churning hall, where women from Black Mountain made butter, clotted cream and cheese. A little way from this was the high barn, a shambling structure containing an old wagon, two swaybacked ponies, ten abandoned stalls for riding horses, and a loft for storing hay. A little further on was a rough-built stone abattoir and a salt storehouse.
Kaelin missed Old Hills and his friend Banny. He felt out of place here among strangers. Jaim had only stayed a month, and in that time they had re-established – at least in part – their easy-going relationship. Kaelin loved the fighter, but it was hard to overcome his disappointment at the man’s softness when dealing with Huntsekker and his crew. Had they killed the man Kaelin would not now be labouring in a foreign land where men treated him with cold courtesy.
Just the other morning he and Finbarr Ustal and his brothers Jabe and Killon had been out in the high pasture repairing a dry-stone wall. The brothers, all red-headed and pale-skinned, had been chatting in a language Kaelin did not know. He had asked Finbarr about it. Conversation ceased immediately. Finbarr scratched at his thin red beard. ‘It is Keltoi, Kaelin. The language of the clansman. Does no-one speak it in the conquered lands?’
‘No.’
‘A shame, that is, to be sure,’ said Finbarr, swinging back to his brothers and beginning the conversation again.
Kaelin could make no inroads with these men, nor with Bally Koin and Senlic Carpenter, the two senior herdsmen. Senlic was the friendliest – if friendly could be used to describe the fact that he would at least acknowledge Kaelin’s presence with a nod, or a wave. Yet Jaim had no difficulty with them. With him they would chuckle and swap jokes, engaging in easy familiarity. Kaelin continued to work patiently alongside them, believing that, in time, their suspicions of him would fade, and that they would accept him as a clansman. Then came the visit of Call Jace.
Kaelin was strolling back from the abattoir, where he had sold two steers to one of the Black Mountain butchers. He saw the grey-haired Senlic Carpenter and Finbarr Ustal standing with two tall, kilted highlanders and what he took, at first, to be a boy. What was surprising was that all three highlanders wore swords, and they had pistols tucked into their belts. Kaelin walked towards the group. He saw Senlic speaking swiftly to the leader, a tall man, near as big as Grymauch. The man wore a bonnet cap adorned with an eagle feather, and a cloak of pale green and blue intersected with red horizontal and vertical lines. As he came closer he realized the third Highlander was not a boy, but a young, red-haired girl dressed in buckskin leggings and a bright green woollen overshirt. She also sported a bonnet cap, but without a feather. Her face was pretty, her eyes deep green, her mouth divine. Kaelin could not take his eyes off her. She was, without doubt, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.