by Tad Williams
“You said you go east, Josua. Why?”
The prince looked at him curiously. “There are many reasons, some of which I cannot discuss. But mostly it is because I must find a place to make a stand against my brother and the evil that he has done.”
Hotvig nodded his head with exaggerated seriousness. “It seems that you have kinsmen who feel as you do.”
Josua’s expression turned to puzzlement. “What do you mean?”
“There are others of your kind—other stone-dwellers-who have begun to settle east of here. That is why Fikolmij brought us so far north of our usual grazing areas for this season, to make sure that the newcomers were not crossing onto our lands.” A grin crossed Hotvig’s scarred face. “There were other reasons for our clan coming here, too. The March-thane of the Meadow Thrithings tried to steal away some of our randwarders at the last Gathering of Clans, so Fikolmij wanted his people far away from the Meadow Thrithings. Fikolmij is feared, but not well-loved. Many wagons have already left the Stallion Clan....”
Josua waved impatiently. The bickering between the Thrithings clans was legendary. “What about the stone-dwellers you spoke of? Who are they?”
Hotvig shrugged and fingered his braided beard. “Who can say? They came from the west—whole families, some traveling in carts as our people do, some on foot—but they were not our people, not Thrithings-men. We heard of them from our outriders when we were at the second-to-last Gathering, but they passed through the north of the High Thrithings and were gone.”
“How many?”
Again the Thrithings-man shrugged. “Stories say as many as in two or three of our small clans.”
“So, perhaps a hundred or two.” The prince seemed to momentarily escape his pain, for his face brightened as he pondered this news.
“But that is not all, Prince Josua,” Hotvig said earnestly. “That was one group. Other companies have trickled past since then. I have myself seen two hand’s worth or so all counted. They are poor, though, and they have no horses, so we let them pass out of our lands.”
“You did not let my folk pass and we had not a pony between us.” Josua’s smile was sardonic.
“That is because Fikolmij knew it was you. The randwarders had watched your people for several days.”
Deornoth approached, the grumbling horsekeeper in tow. “I have chosen, Highness. Let me show you.” He pointed to a long-legged bay. “Since you have picked red Vinyafod for your own, Prince Josua, I have selected this one for myself. Vildalix is his name—Wild-shine.”
“He is splendid,” Josua said, laughing. “You see, Deornoth, I remembered what you said about Thrithings horses. Now you have some, just as you asked.”
Deornoth looked at Josua’s bandages. “The price was too high, sire.” His eyes were sorrowful.
“Show me the rest of our new herd,” said Josua.
Vorzheva came out to meet the prince as he and the others returned from the paddock. Hotvig took one look at her face and slipped away.
“You are foolish to be up walking!” The thane’s daughter turned to Deornoth. “How could you keep him out so long? He is very unwell!”
Deornoth said nothing, but only bowed. Josua smiled. “Peace, Lady,” the prince said. “The fault is not Sir Deornoth’s. I wanted to see the horses, since I am most assuredly going to ride and not walk from here.” He chuckled ruefully. “Not that I could walk more than a furlong these days in any case, even if my life were in the balance. But I will get stronger. ”
“Not if you stand in the cold.” Vorzheva leveled her sharp-eyed glance at Deornoth as if daring him to argue. She took Josua’s arm, adjusting her pace to his halting strides, and together all three went back toward the camp.
The prince’s company was still housed in the bull run. Fikolmij had snarled that just because he had lost a wager was no reason that he must treat miserable stone-dwellers like clansmen, but several of the more high-minded Thrithings-folk had brought blankets and ropes and tent stakes. Fikolmij was not a king: while the people lending assistance to the former prisoners gave the March-thane’s camp a wide berth, neither were they ashamed or afraid to go against his wishes.
Led by practical Duchess Gutrun, Josua’s people had quickly made of these contributions a secure shelter, closed on three sides and double-roofed with blankets of heavy wool. This served to keep out the worst of the cold rains, which seemed to increase in strength daily.
Above the Thrithings the gray-black sky hung threateningly close, as though the very grasslands had been lifted up by giant hands. This spell of bad weather, which had lasted nearly a week straight and off and on for over a month, would have been unusual even in early spring. It was now high summer, however, and the people of the Stallion Clan were openly worried.
“Come, my lady,” Josua said as they reached the enclosure. “Let you and I walk a little while longer.”
“You should not walk more!” Vorzheva said indignantly. “Not with your wounds! You must sit and have some hot wine.”
“Nevertheless,” Josua said firmly, “let us walk. I will look forward to the wine. Deornoth, if you would pardon us... ?”
Deornoth nodded and bowed, turning at the gate in the bull run fence. He watched the prince’s laborious progress for a moment before he went inside.
Josua’s victory over Utvart had brought certain amenities. Like his lady, the prince had exchanged his rags for newer garb, and now wore the soft leather breeches, boots, and baggy-sleeved wool shirt of a randwarder, a bright scarf knotted across his brow in place of his princely diadem. Vorzheva wore a voluminous gray dress, rolled and belted at the hips in the Thrithings manner to lift the hem above the wet grass, leaving visible her thick woolen leggings and low boots. She had discarded her white bride-band.
“Why do you take me away from the others to talk?” Vorzheva demanded. Her defiant tone was belied by apprehensive eyes. “What do you say that must be hidden?”
“Not hidden,” Josua said, twining his arm around hers. “I only wished to speak where we would not be interrupted. ”
“My people do not hide things,” she said. “We cannot, since we live so close. ”
Josua nodded his head. “I only wished to say that I am sorry, Lady, very sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“Yes. I have treated you badly, as I admitted in your father’s wagon. I have not given you the respect you deserve.”
Vorzheva’s face twisted, somewhere between joy and anguish. “Ah, still you do not understand me, Prince Josua of Erkynland. I do not care for respect, not if that is all you give me. I want your attention. I want your heart! If you give me that, then you can give to me all the ... the not-respect ...”
Quietly: “Disrespect.”
“... All the disrespect you want. Do not treat me like you do the farmers who come to you for justice. I do not want your careful thinking, your measuring, your talking, talking, talking ...” An angry tear was quickly wiped away. “Just give your heart, you damned stone-dweller!”
They stopped, standing in wind-rippled grass to their knees. “I try,” he said.
“No, you do not,” she hissed bitterly. “You have that other woman’s face in your heart, your brother’s wife. Men! You are all little boys, you keep old loves in your heart like polished stones you have found. How can I fight a dead woman!? I cannot grab her, I cannot slap her, I cannot drive her away or follow you when you go to her!” She stood breathing heavily, her legs wide-set as though braced for battle. Her hands dropped to her stomach and her look changed. “But you did not give her a child. You gave one to me.”
Josua looked helplessly at her pale face, at the rosy flush of her cheeks and her cloud of black hair. A movement caught his eye: a rabbit, emerging from a thatch of tall grass, stopped for a moment and rose on its hindquarters to look around. Its dark, round eye touched his. A moment later it sprang forward and was gone, a thin gray shadow skimming the meadow.
“You have done nothing wrong, Lady,” he sa
id. “Nothing but attach yourself to a brooding ghost of a man.” He smiled sadly, then laughed. “But in a way, I suppose, I have been reborn. I have been allowed to live when surely I ought to have died, so I must take that as an omen and see my life differently. You will bear our child, and we will be married when we reach the Stone of Farewell.”
A touch of indignation returned to Vorzheva’s dark eyes. “We will be married here, before my people,” she said firmly. “We are betrothed: now they will see and stop speaking behind their hands.”
“But Lady,” he began, “we have need of haste ...”
“Have you no honor?” she demanded. “What if you are killed before we reach this place? The child in me will be a bastard ... and I will not even be a widow.”
Josua began to speak, but instead broke into laughter once more. He reached his arm around her and pulled her close, unmindful of his injuries. She resisted for a moment, then allowed herself to be embraced, but retained her frown. “Lady, you are right,” the prince said, smiling. “It shall not be put off. Father Strangyeard will marry us and I will be a good husband to you and keep you safe. And if I die before we reach our destination, you will be the finest widow on the grasslands.” He kissed her. For a while they stood in the rain, faces pressed close together.
“You are trembling,” Vorzheva said at last, but her own voice seemed the unsteady thing. She pulled free of Josua’s embrace. “You have stood and walked too long. If you die before we marry, it will spoil everything.” Her look was softer, but still some trace of apprehension remained, an edge of fear that would not go away. Josua took her hand and lifted it to his lips. They turned and walked slowly back toward the encampment, as carefully as if they were both very, very old.
“I must leave,” Geloë announced that evening. Josua’s people huddled around the fire as fierce winds strummed at the walls of their makeshift shelter.
“I hope you do not mean that,” Josua said. “We have need of your wisdom.”
Deornoth felt himself both glad and sorry at the thought of the witch woman leaving.
“We will all meet again, and soon,” she said. “But I must go ahead to the Stone of Farewell. Now that you are safe, there are things I must do there before you come.”
“What things?” Deornoth heard the edge of suspicion in his own voice and was embarrassed by his lack of charity, but no one else seemed to notice.
“There will be ...” Geloë searched for words, “... shadows there. And sounds. And faint traces like the ripples left behind when a pebble drops into a stream. It is vital that I try to read these before people come tramping around.”
“And what will these things tell you?” Josua asked.
Geloë shook her graying head. “I do not know. Perhaps nothing. But the Stone stands in a special and powerful place; it may be that there are things I can learn. We face an immortal enemy; perhaps we can find some clue toward his defeat among the vestiges of his immortal people.” She turned to Duchess Gutrun, who cradled sleeping Leleth in her lap. “Will you keep the child until you see me again?”
Gutrun nodded. “Of course.”
“Why do you not take her with you?” Deornoth asked. “You said she helped to ... to center your skills in some way.”
Firelight glinted in Geloe’s great eyes. “True. But she cannot travel in the way I must travel.” The witch woman stood, tucking her breeches into her heavy boots. “And I will do best traveling by night.”
“But you will miss our marriage!” Vorzheva exclaimed. “Father Strangyeard is to marry Josua and me at morning-time.”
Those who had not yet heard offered congratulations; Josua received all as calmly and graciously as if he stood again in his throne room at Naglimund. Vorzheva’s smiles at last dissolved into what were surely happy tears, which she cried on Gutrun’s accommodating shoulder. Leleth, who had awakened and rolled out of the duchess’ lap to stare silently at the ruckus, was quickly scooped up into the thin arms of Father Strangyeard.
“This is good news Vorzheva, Prince Josua, but I cannot stay,” Geloë said. “I do not think you will miss me. I am not much for entertainments or merrymaking and I am feeling particularly pressed. I had wished to leave yesterday, but stayed to see that you actually claimed your horses.” She gestured out toward the darkness beyond the shelter, where the prince’s new steeds shifted and snorted in their own enclosure. “Now I can wait no longer.”
After brief private conversations with Josua and Strangyeard and a few words whispered into Leleth’s ear—words which the little girl received as impassively as if listening to the ocean’s voice echoing in a sea shell—Geloe said her brisk farewells and strode out into the night, threadbare cloak snapping in the brisk wind.
Deornoth, who sat closest to the edge of the shelter, leaned his head out a short time later. He had heard a mournful echo sweeping down from the wind-raked sky, but when he looked up he caught only a momentary glimpse of some shadowy, winged thing passing before the gelid moon.
Deornoth was standing his watch—they had not become so trusting of the Thrithings-men that they had lost their sense—when Josua limped out to join him.
“The stars have barely swung around,” Deornoth whispered. “Look, there is the Lamp, scarcely moved.” He pointed to a dim flare in the cloudy night sky. “It is not your turn for hours, Highness. Go back to bed. ”
“I cannot sleep.”
Deornoth was sure his smile was invisible in the darkness. “It is not uncommon to have worries and doubts on the night before a wedding, sire. ”
“It’s not that, Deornoth. My worries and my self-doubts, as once you so correctly pointed out, are trivial. There are larger matters to think of.”
Deornoth wrapped the collar of his cloak tighter around his neck during the moment of silence. The night had grown very chill.
“I am happy to be alive,” Josua said at last, “but I do feel a bit like a mouse that the cat has allowed to run into the corner. Alive, yes, but for how long? Far worse than even my brother’s evil, now the Hand of the North is reaching out.” He sighed. “Once I nurtured a hope that Jarnauga’s tale was untrue, despite all the evidence, but the moment I saw those white faces staring up at me from before the walls of Naglimund, something within me died. No, do not worry, good Deornoth,” the prince said hastily, “I am not about to run maundering, as I know you secretly dread. I have taken your admonitions to heart.” He laughed sourly. “But at the same time, I tell only the truth. There are hatreds that run through this world like blood, hot and lively. All my studies of evil with the Usirean brothers, all their learned considerations of the Devil and his work, never made that so clear as one instant staring into those black eyes. The world has a dark underbelly, Deornoth. I wonder if maybe it is better not to seek after knowledge.”
“But surely God put such things on the earth to test our faith, Prince Josua,” Deornoth ventured at last. “If no one ever saw evil, who would fear Hell?”
“Who indeed?” The prince’s tone changed. “But this is not why I came out to speak to you. Leave it to Josua to turn any conversation into a dour and doomful one.” He laughed again; this time it seemed more cheerful. “Actually, I came to ask you to stand for me when Vorzheva and I are married in the morning.”
“Prince Josua, I am honored. Gladly—I will do it gladly.”
“You have been the most loyal of friends, Deornoth.”
“You are the best lord a man could have.”
“I did not say ‘liege man’ or ‘knight,’ Deornoth.” Josua spoke firmly, but with a hint of good humor in his voice. “I said ‘friend’—but do not think that standing for me is an honor bereft of responsibility. It is not.” He became serious. “I have not had a splendid history of caring for those dear to me, Deornoth my friend. You may protest, but it is a simple fact. Thus, if something happens to me, I want your word that you will look after Vorzheva and our child.”
“Of course, my prince.”
“Say it.” Then, mo
re gently: “Swear it to me.”
“I swear by the honor of Blessed Elysia that I will protect the welfare of Lady Vorzheva and the child she carries as if they were my own family. I will lay down my life without hesitation, if need be.”
Josua clasped the knight’s wrist and held it for a moment. “Good. Many thanks. The Lord bless you, Deornoth.”
“May He bless you, too, Prince Josua.”
The prince sighed. “And all the rest as well. Did you know, Deornoth, that tomorrow is the first day of Anitul? That means tomorrow is Hlafmansa. There are many absent friends to whom our blessings should go this night—many who no doubt are far closer to the fearful face of darkness than we are.”
Deornoth saw the shadow beside him move abruptly as the prince made the sign of the Tree. They shared a long moment of silence before Josua spoke again. “May God bless us all and deliver us from evil.”
The men were up with the darkling dawn, saddling the horses and packing the supplies gained when Josua had traded two of his new steeds for a quantity of food and clothing. Since Leleth would ride with Duchess Gutrun, and Towser and Sangfugol would share a horse, four horses remained to carry goods.
When the mounts had been readied, the men returned to the bull run. They found it surrounded by more than a few curious Thrithings-folk.
“What, have you made some announcement?” Josua demanded crossly. Vorzheva eyed him unblinkingly. She had donned the white bride-band once more.
“Do you think my people would not notice you loading the horses?” she snapped. “Besides, what is the use of being married if it is done like thieves stealing by night?” She strutted away, the wide skirt of her wedding dress swirling. A moment later she returned, leading the wide-eyed young girl who had been waiting on Fikolmij when Josua’s folk had first come as prisoners to the wagon camp. “This is Hyara, my youngest sister,” Vorzheva explained. “She will be married someday, so I want her to see that it is not always frightful.”