Read Online Viriconium by Michael John Harrison - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael John Harrison
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swords disengaged; he licked them absently, staring at the corpse. A steel medallion showed at its throat. He felt a touch on his shoulder.
“That last was a pretty filthy trick,” said Grif, smiling a queer, strained smile. “You must teach me sometime.”
“You’re too heavy on your feet. And I’d rather teach you to sing. Look at this—”
He poked with the tip of his sword at the scavenger’s medallion. It glinted in the bright light. It was a coin, but not of Viriconium; in high relief, it bore the arms of Canna Moidart: wolf’s head beneath three towers.
“Already she prepares to rule,” said Cromis. “These were Northerners. We must leave at first light. I fear we shall arrive too late.”
As he spoke, shouting and commotion broke out again behind them.
In the fireplace, Theomeris Glyn of Soubridge, the old campaigner, was struggling with the serving girl. Her blue bodice had come awry, but she had placed four neat welts on his left cheek. Her small grubby fists hammered at him.
“A man who may not survive his queen’s wars needs a little affection!” he cried petulantly. “Oh, drat !”
Behind him stood the landlord, wringing greasy hands over the wreckage and demanding payment of his bony, oblivious shoulders.
Birkin Grif wheezed and chuckled. Cromis could raise only a thin, weary smile: he had been much disturbed by his discovery.
“Go and pull the old fool off her, Grif, and we’ll take him with us. At least he’ll see action again, for what it’s worth.”
Later, as they passed the gates of Duirinish, old Glyn dawdling drunkenly behind them, Grif said:
“She prepares her way to rule, as you say. Her confidence is immense. What can half a hundred brigands, a poet, and an ancient lecher do to flex a will such as that?”
4
Next morning, in the thin light of dawn, Grif’s company wound past the dark, watchful walls of the Stony City and into the North. River mist rose, fading up toward the sun in slender spires and pillars. Duirinish was silent but for the tramping of guards on the high battlements. A heron perched on a rotting log to watch as the tiny force forded the northern meander of the Minfolin. If it found them curious, it gave no sign, but flapped heavily away as the white spray flew from cantering hooves.
They had abandoned their ragged, weather-stained finery for makeshift war gear. Here and there, mail rings winked, and some of them wore odd bits of plate armour, but for the most part, it was steel-studded leather stuff. They were a grim, rough-handed crew, with wind-burnt faces and hard, hooded eyes; their speech was harsh, their laughter dangerous, but their weapons were bright and well-kept, and the coats of their mounts gleamed with health over hard muscle.
Birkin Grif rode with wry pride at their head.
His massive frame was clad in mail lacquered cobalt blue, and he wore over that a silk tabard of the same acid yellow as his mare’s caparisons. He had relinquished his rustic hat, and his mane of blond hair blew back in the light wind. At his side was a great broadsword with a silver-bound hilt; in a scabbard hanging from his saddlebow rested his long-axe, to hand in case he should be unhorsed. The roan mare arched her powerful neck, shook her big, beautiful head. Her bridle was of soft red leather with a subtle copper filigree inlaid.
To Cromis, riding beside him hunched against the chill on a sombre black gelding, wrapped in his dark cloak like a raven in its feathers, it seemed that Grif and his horse threw back the hesitant morning light like a challenge: for a moment, they were heraldic and invincible, the doom to which they travelled something beautiful and unguessed. But the emotion was brief and passed, and his moroseness returned.
At Birkin Grif’s left, his seat insecure on a scruffy packhorse, Theomeris Glyn, his only armour a steel-stressed leather cap, grumbled at the cold and the earliness of the hour, and cursed the flint hearts of city
“That last was a pretty filthy trick,” said Grif, smiling a queer, strained smile. “You must teach me sometime.”
“You’re too heavy on your feet. And I’d rather teach you to sing. Look at this—”
He poked with the tip of his sword at the scavenger’s medallion. It glinted in the bright light. It was a coin, but not of Viriconium; in high relief, it bore the arms of Canna Moidart: wolf’s head beneath three towers.
“Already she prepares to rule,” said Cromis. “These were Northerners. We must leave at first light. I fear we shall arrive too late.”
As he spoke, shouting and commotion broke out again behind them.
In the fireplace, Theomeris Glyn of Soubridge, the old campaigner, was struggling with the serving girl. Her blue bodice had come awry, but she had placed four neat welts on his left cheek. Her small grubby fists hammered at him.
“A man who may not survive his queen’s wars needs a little affection!” he cried petulantly. “Oh, drat !”
Behind him stood the landlord, wringing greasy hands over the wreckage and demanding payment of his bony, oblivious shoulders.
Birkin Grif wheezed and chuckled. Cromis could raise only a thin, weary smile: he had been much disturbed by his discovery.
“Go and pull the old fool off her, Grif, and we’ll take him with us. At least he’ll see action again, for what it’s worth.”
Later, as they passed the gates of Duirinish, old Glyn dawdling drunkenly behind them, Grif said:
“She prepares her way to rule, as you say. Her confidence is immense. What can half a hundred brigands, a poet, and an ancient lecher do to flex a will such as that?”
4
Next morning, in the thin light of dawn, Grif’s company wound past the dark, watchful walls of the Stony City and into the North. River mist rose, fading up toward the sun in slender spires and pillars. Duirinish was silent but for the tramping of guards on the high battlements. A heron perched on a rotting log to watch as the tiny force forded the northern meander of the Minfolin. If it found them curious, it gave no sign, but flapped heavily away as the white spray flew from cantering hooves.
They had abandoned their ragged, weather-stained finery for makeshift war gear. Here and there, mail rings winked, and some of them wore odd bits of plate armour, but for the most part, it was steel-studded leather stuff. They were a grim, rough-handed crew, with wind-burnt faces and hard, hooded eyes; their speech was harsh, their laughter dangerous, but their weapons were bright and well-kept, and the coats of their mounts gleamed with health over hard muscle.
Birkin Grif rode with wry pride at their head.
His massive frame was clad in mail lacquered cobalt blue, and he wore over that a silk tabard of the same acid yellow as his mare’s caparisons. He had relinquished his rustic hat, and his mane of blond hair blew back in the light wind. At his side was a great broadsword with a silver-bound hilt; in a scabbard hanging from his saddlebow rested his long-axe, to hand in case he should be unhorsed. The roan mare arched her powerful neck, shook her big, beautiful head. Her bridle was of soft red leather with a subtle copper filigree inlaid.
To Cromis, riding beside him hunched against the chill on a sombre black gelding, wrapped in his dark cloak like a raven in its feathers, it seemed that Grif and his horse threw back the hesitant morning light like a challenge: for a moment, they were heraldic and invincible, the doom to which they travelled something beautiful and unguessed. But the emotion was brief and passed, and his moroseness returned.
At Birkin Grif’s left, his seat insecure on a scruffy packhorse, Theomeris Glyn, his only armour a steel-stressed leather cap, grumbled at the cold and the earliness of the hour, and cursed the flint hearts of city
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