They followed his track, made manifest by a litter of filthy shreds of tabard and tunic and leggings, things that had once been clothing but now were only foul rags. He had dropped the sword and the gold torque by the water’s edge. The current still bore sticks and grass and, once, a bloodied glove quickly carried along the far bank, but where a bend in the stream and a fallen tree made somewhat of a pool he had gone headlong into the water.
When they reached him, he was methodically tearing off every last piece of clothing that still hung on him, some of it adhered to his skin. The three Eika dogs had thrashed out after him and now ferociously worried at the odorous remains, such as they could grab in their jaws before it swirled downstream.
“My lord prince!” The captain strode forward, and at his exclamation the dogs howled and made for shore.
Sanglant barked at them. There was no other word for it; it was not a spoken command. They obeyed nonetheless and contented themselves with sitting half in and half out of water on a bank more pebble than sand, growling at any who came too near while the prince took handfuls of sand and scoured his skin and then his hair as if he meant to scrape himself raw.
“Lady bless us,” murmured one of the soldiers as if for all of them, “he’s so thin.”
But as if in the coarse river sand lay the property of truth, something emerged from the scouring, something recognizable: the man she remembered, although he was clothed only in water and that only up to his waist.
“I will never love any man but him.”
Said so long ago, spoken so recklessly, what had she bound herself to when she made that declaration before Wolfhere?
He turned. If he saw her among those who waited for him, he gave no sign of it. He extended a hand. “A knife.”
But the captain stripped off his own armor and his own tunic, and with tunic and knife he advanced cautiously. The dogs nipped at him, but Sanglant waded out of the deeper water and called them away.
Liath could not help but look. Now that he was somewhat clean she could see that although his hair was long and tangled, he still had no beard even after a year without any means to shave it clean. He had no hair on his chest, either, but lower down he resembled his human kinsmen in every respect. She looked away quickly, for this was not like the work she and Fell’s soldiers had done at the river’s mouth, all of them equals in labor and none of them having the leisure to be shy about what needed to be done. He was not a curiosity to be stared at, or at least ought not to be.
When she looked up again he had the tunic on, a plain garment of good, strong weave and stained with sweat along the neck and under the arms, but compared to what he had worn before it looked fitting for a prince. It hung loosely around his frame, though it was a little short: He stood half a head taller than the robust captain, and despite his thinness he was still a big man. Now, taking the knife, he began to hack at his hair.
“I beg you, my lord prince,” said the captain. He had a kind of weeping plaint to his voice as if he were about to burst into tears out of pity. “Let me cut it for you.”
Sanglant paused. “No,” he said. Then, and finally, as if only when he had scrubbed himself clean of the breath of his captivity dared he acknowledge her, he looked up to where she stood half hidden among the rest. He had known she was there all along. “Liath.”
How could she not come forward? The knife had a good sharp edge and she had trimmed Da’s hair many a time, although this was utterly different.
He knelt suddenly and with a sharp sigh. A tang of the old smell, the reek of his imprisonment, still clung to him and no doubt would for some time, but standing this close was no punishment. Ai, Lady, his hair was coarse and too matted to be truly clean yet, but when sometimes she had to shift him to get a better angle for cutting, she touched his skin and would bite her lip to stop herself from trembling, and go on.
“What is this?” She scraped the back of her hand on the rough iron collar that ringed his neck. Under it, the skin had been rubbed raw countless times and even now began to leak blood.
“Leave it.”
She left it. No one dared go forward to pick up sword and torque, not with the dogs guarding these treasures.
The long rays of the sun splintered into glitters on the rippling current of the stream. Black mats of hair littered the ground as she cut. Made cautious by the noise and the thrashing in the water, the birds had fallen silent, all but a warbler among the reeds who sang vigorously to complain about the disturbance. Far away, a horn lifted its voice and fell silent. Horses shifted and snorted. A man whispered. Another peed, though she could only hear him, not see, for he had faced into the trees to do his business.