Above the Snowline by Steph Swainston Page B

crossed the packhorse bridge and jogged up a walled lane out of Bromedale onto Marram Moor. Granite outcrops cresting the hills had sloughed massive blocks of stone down their slopes like dice. Behind every tilted escarpment a fragile netting of black drystone walls draped over the hillside, penning a few lean, bedraggled sheep. As we passed they looked up suspiciously, still chewing, and the ones in the distance bleated to each other. Flies hazed around them. Their thick wool was matted and splodged with red dye. Their arses were caked with dung.
     
    By midday we had left them and the moor far behind and were onto the wild lower slopes of Darkling. The hills became more craggy still, broken with the rock beneath bursting through, but between the outcrops the grass was as smooth as moleskin. Tussocks the colour of rabbit fur grew in marshy patches, in the saddles between each summit. But in front, and always in sight above us, were the naked granite peaks - jagged mountains topped with permanent snowfields, with higher summits behind them and a still more imposing third cordillera just visible, forming the horizon. Dellin stretched and smiled, replenished now she could feel their chill.
     
    She trotted on ahead, murmuring to herself. Mutter, mutter, mutter, in pace with her jogging, like one of the short proverbs Rhydanne sometimes tell. I caught up with her, so the spear tied to the upright of her rucksack was bumping along beside me. She was reciting Awian words. ‘Oven . . . bucket . . . table . . . feet . . .’ she said. ‘Feet . . . legs . . . tits . . . bums.’
     
    ‘Good grief,’ I said. ‘Did you learn your Awian in a whorehouse? Oh, I see . . . You did.’
     
    She skipped round and, walking backwards, looked at me accusingly. ‘You left me with a house of slow runners. Zoysia and Woodcock taught me some words.’
     
    ‘ Woodcock ?’
     
    ‘Are the words correct?’
     
    ‘Yes, yes. The words are fine.’
     
    ‘They taught me more than you did. Why did you leave me there?’
     
    ‘What do you expect? You appeared from nowhere and dragged me away from a very eventful social life. I’ve been missing it. I like the Castle’s gossip. I like doing the rounds of manors and coaching inns, keeping up with the news. It’s what I do best. You stopped me enjoying myself, so I thought I’d talk to people along the way.’
     
    ‘You could talk to me.’
     
    ‘Yes, but . . .’ I stared at her. ‘It really isn’t the same thing.’
     
    ‘You’ve been sulking. You haven’t said a word in hours.’
     
    ‘I thought Rhydanne never said a word in days ! We could have ridden by coach but you insist on climbing. What is there to say?’
     
    ‘You could teach me some more Awian,’ she suggested brightly.
     
    ‘Why? Oh, OK. Seeing as there’s no one else to talk to . . . Um, “sky”, that’s Awian for athar . “Blue sky”, athar guirme .’
     
    She jogged on, this time allowing me to keep pace beside her. Our steps crunched on the gritty erosion patches, swished over the short grass, splashed through the marshes in the dips. My visual field was full of the thin grass and soil, the worn bedrock, for hours and hours on end until I thought I’d see it in my sleep. We crossed no prints of sheep nor men, heard nothing but our own voices and the shush of the wind.
     
    She said, ‘I’ve learnt the words for sky, clouds, sun and blue. I don’t think they will help me talk to Raven.’
     
    ‘The weather is a major topic in Awia, actually.’
     
    ‘It isn’t what I want to know. Tell me about Raven himself. Reeve Marram used the word “nobility”. Tell me what it means.’
     
     
    She was heading all the time straight towards the backdrop of ice-clad peaks. A small, wooded gorge cut through the last of the foothills and up to a pine forest on their slopes, and towards this she naturally made her way. She was wrong - I wasn’t prepared to travel so far at altitude and there weren’t any