The Ages of Chaos

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Possibly, when they undressed for bed, she might somehow contrive to hide his boots and his leather breeches, so that he could not at once follow her; barefoot and unbreeched, would even he manage to chase her, afoot - for she would also cut loose his riding-chervine and drive it into the woods. By the time he found boots and breeches, and rounded up his chervine, she and her horse would be well on the way to Nevarsin.

  But she would have to submit to him first....

  And then she thought; when we are undressed for bed, a well-placed knee in the groin would cripple him long enough to evade pursuit, certainly. Only she must have the courage

  to kick hard; and hit her target at the first touch; otherwise, he would certainly half kill her when he caught her, and would never trust her again. She remembered what her own mother had taught her when she and Ruyven were very small, that she must never hit or kick him there even in play, because a relatively light blow to that area would cause serious and possibly permanent damage; if the parts were ruptured, even death. And that made her stop and think.

  Was she prepared to kill, if she must, to prevent him from taking her?

  After all, he had first tried to kill her; if she had truly been a boy, or if her tunic had not torn, revealing her as a woman, he would have cut her throat for her horse and her cloak. Yes, he had been kind to her after his own fashion when he discovered she was a woman, but that was because he thought that rather than a corpse, he would prefer to have a slave . . . for surely that was what her life with him would be, drudging daylong at heavy work and waiting on the whims of the old woman; he could get more from her, that way, and have horse and fine cloak too. No, she would not scruple.

  In early afternoon, Rory came in where she was listlessly kneading bread, and dumped the carcass of a rabbithorn on the table.

  "I have it cleaned and skinned," he said. "Roast a haunch of it for dinner tonight - I have not tasted meat this ten-day - and tomorrow we will salt the rest; for tonight, hang it in the stables, well out of reach of vermin."

  "As you wish, Rory," she said, and inwardly she gloated. The meat, frozen as it would certainly be, would keep her for some time if she could manage to take it with her on her way out. She would be careful to hang it near to her own saddle.

  The roast meat soon began to fill the hut with a good smell; Romilly was hungry, but even after she had fed the old woman, wiped her chin and settled her for the night, she found that she could not chew and swallow without choking.

  I must be ready. I must be ready. It is tonight or never. She lingered at the table, sipping nervously at a hot cup of bark-tea, until Rory came and wound his arms around her from behind.

  "I have built a fire on the hearth in the inner room, so we will not be cold, come, Calinda." She supposed the old woman had told him her assumed name. Certainly she had not. Well, it was upon her; she could delay no longer. Her knees felt weak and wobbly, and for a minute she wondered if she could ever have the courage to carry out her resolve.

  She let him lead her into the inner room and close the door and fasten it with a hook from inside. Not good. If she was to make her escape at all, she must have a clear way outside. "Must you lock the door?" she asked. "Certainly Gran-Dame Mhari cannot enter our room at any awkward time, for she cannot walk at all."

  "I thought we would be more private this way," he said, smirking again, and she said "But suppose-suppose-" she fumbled a moment, then said, "But suppose Dame Mhari has need of me in the night, and I do not hear her? Leave the door part way open so she can call me if she has a pain or wants me to shift her to her other side."

  "You have a good heart, girl," Rory said, and pushed the door open a crack, then sat heavily on the edge of the bed and began to draw off his boots.

  "Here, let me help you," she said, and came to draw them off, then deliberately wrinkled her nose.

  "Faugh, how they stink, you must have stepped in the manure pile! Give them to me, my husband," she used the word deliberately, "and I will clean them before you rise in the morning. You might as well give me your leather breeches too." and she stopped, had she gone too far? But Rory suspected nothing.

  "Aye, and I will have a clean shirt for the morning if you have one cleaned and dried," he said, and piled his clothes into her arms. "Take them out to the washpot to wait for morning, if they smell of manure they will be better there than in our bridal chamber."

  Better and better! But he could still be after her in a flash if he suspected; lingering by the wash pot, half ready to make a dash for freedom then-naked, he could not chase her very far - she heard his suspicious call. "Calinda! I am waiting for you! Get in here!" "I am coming," she called, raising her voice, and went back to him. Fate had decided it for her, then. She went back into the bedroom and drew off her own shoes and stockings, her outer tunic and breeches.

  He turned back the covers of the bed and got into it. He reached for her as she came and sat on the edge of the bed, and his hand closed on her breast in what was meant, she supposed, for a caress, but his hand was so heavy that she cried out in pain. He twisted his mouth down over hers and wrestled her own on the bed.

  "You like to fight, do you? Well, if that's what you want, girl, I'll give it to you that way-" he panted, covering her with his naked body; his breath was hot and sour.

  Romilly's qualms were gone. She managed to draw away just a little, then shot out her foot in the hardest kick she had ever given. It landed directly on target, and Rory, with a howl of pain, rolled off the bed, shrieking with fury and outrage, his hands clutched spasmodically between his legs.

  "Augh! Augh! Hellcat, tiger, bitch! Augh!"

  She heard Dame Mhari's voice anxiously crying out in question; but Romilly scrambled from the bed, clutching her cloak about her, pulling on her tunic with hasty fingers as she fled. She shoved the door open and was in the kitchen, snatching up the remnants of the loaf and the roast meat, grabbing Rory's boots and breeches and her own in an untidy armful, hastily fumbling at the lock of the byre. Behind her Rory was still howling, wordless screams of agony and wrath; they beat out at her, almost immobilizing her, but she fought for breath, thrusting her way into the byre. With her dagger she slashed through the knots which tied Rory's riding-chervine and slapped the animal hard on the rump, driving it with a yell into the courtyard; slashed at her horse's reins and fumbled to thrust on the bridle. Rory's howls and Dame Mhari's voice raised in querulous complaint - she did not know what had happened and Rory was not yet able to be articulate - blended in a terrifying duet, it seemed that Rory's agony throbbed painfully in her own body, but that was laran, she thought dimly that it was a small price to pay for that avenging blow.

  He would have killed me, he - would have ravished me - I need feel no guilt for him!

  She was about to fling his boots and breeches out in the snow; she fastened her tunic carefully against the cold, bent to pick up Rory's boots, then had a better thought. She flung open the door of the small outhouse and thrust them, with a savage movement, down into the privy, thrust the breeches down on top of them. Now let him find them and clean them before he can follow me, she thought, flung herself on her horse, snatched up the hastily bundled provisions, and dug her heels, with a yell, into her horse's side. The horse plunged away into the woods and she took the steep path downward, giving her horse his head in her haste to get away. She had to cling to the horse's neck, so steep was the road, but there was no horse alive to whose back she could not stick if she must, and she knew she would not fall. She remembered Dame Mhari's words, you should have taken the left-hand fork at the bottom of the mountain. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly hear the sharp clatter of her horse on the path under her feet.

  She was free, and for a little time at least, Rory could not pursue her. No matter that she was abroad on a dark night, with rain falling underfoot, and with scant provision and no money except for the few coins in a cloth between her breasts; she was at least out of the hands of Rory and the old woman.

/>   Now I am free. Now I must decide what to do with my freedom. She pondered, briefly, returning to Falconsward - but that would be taken, by her father, as a sign of abject surrender. Dom Garris might give her a slavery more comfortable that she would find with Rory in the woods; but she had not used all her ingenuity to get free of them, to go back to imprisonment.

  No; she would seek the Tower, and training of her laran. She told herself, all the old tales of heroism and quests always begin with the hero having to overcome many trials. Now I am the hero - why is a hero always a man? - of my own quest, and I have passed the first trial.

  And she shivered at the thought that this might be, not a road to freedom, but only the first of the main trials on her quest.

  Chapter Two

  Romilly did not slacken her speed till the moon had set; riding in the dark, letting her horse have his head, she finally eased off the reins and let him slow to a walk. She was not sure herself quite where she was; she knew she had not taken the left-hand fork she should have taken at the bottom of the hill, to set her on the way to Nevarsin - it would have been all too easy for Rory to trace her that way. And now she knew that she was lost; she would not even be sure what direction she was riding until the sun should rise and she could get her bearings.

  She found an overhanging clump of trees, unsaddled her horse and tied him at the foot of one tree, then wrapped herself in the cloak and the rough blanket she had caught up in her flight, digging into a little hollow at the foot of the tree. She was cold and cramped, but she slept, even though she kept starting out of sleep with nightmares in which a faceless man who was both Rory and Dom Garris - no, but he had a look of her father too - came down at her with inexorable slowness, while she could not move hand or foot. It was certain that if Rory ever set eyes on her again, she had better have her dagger ready. But someone had thrown her dagger down into the privy pit, and she could not look for it because her only clothing was one of her blood-stained rags, and somehow or other they were holding the Festival dance in the meadow where her father had his horse-fair. . . . She was wakened by the horse, restlessly snorting and nuzzling; the sun was up and the ice melting from the trees.

  She had been lucky, in her breakneck flight last night, in the dark, that her horse had not broken a leg on the frosty road. Now, soberly, she took stock.

  Among the things she had snatched up last night were a frozen quarter of rabbithorn meat, which she could cook and smoke - she had no salt for it, but in this weather it was not likely to spoil. At worst she could slice thin slivers away from the frozen haunch and eat them raw, though she had little liking for raw meat. She had lost flint and steel for firemaking . . . no, what a fool she was, she had her dagger and could search for a flint when the ice was thawed off the road. She had Rory's coarse cloak instead of her own fur-lined one, but that was all to the good; it would keep her warm without exciting the same greed as her finely woven and embroidered one, lined with rich fur. She had boots and heavy leather breeches, her dagger, a few small hoarded coins in their hiding-place between her breasts - she had abandoned the pocket with its few bits; perhaps that and the good cloak would satisfy Rory's greed and he would not pursue her. But she would take no chances, and press on. In her saddle-pack she had still a few pieces of the dog-bread on which she could feed her horse; she got out one of them, and gave it to the horse, letting him chew on the coarse grain while she arranged her clothing properly - she had fled the cottage half-dressed and all put together anyhow - and combed her short, ragged hair with her fingers. Certainly she must look disreputable enough to be a runaway hawkmaster's apprentice! Now the sun was high; it would be a fine day, for already the trees were casting off their snow-pods and beginning to bud again. She shaved a few thin slices of frozen rabbithorn and chewed on them; the meat was tough and unsavory, but she had been taught that anything a bird could eat, a human could digest, and since the hawks were fed on such fare it would certainly not harm her, even if she really preferred cooked food.

  She got her bearings by the climbing sun, and set off again toward the north. Sooner or later she must meet with someone who would give her the right road for Nevarsin City, and from there she could inquire the way to Tramontana Tower.

  She rode all that day without setting eyes on a single person or a single dwelling. She was not afraid, for she could find food in this country and while the weather kept fine, she would be safe and well. But before there was another storm, she must find shelter. Perhaps she could sell the horse in Nevarsin, bartering him for a stag-pony and enough in ready money to provide herself with food and a few items of clothing she should have in this weather. She had thrust her feet into her boots in such haste, she had left her warm stockings.

  She sighed, put her knife away, and swallowed the last of the tough meat. A few withered winter apples clung to a bush; she pocketed them. They were small and sour, but the horse would like them. High above in the sky she heard the cry of a hawk; as she watched it, circling, she thought of Preciosa. It seemed to her for a moment - but surely it was only memory or imagination? - that she could feel that faint tenuous touch she had felt with Preciosa, as if the world lay spread below her, she saw herself and her horse as tiny specks . . . Oh, Preciosa, you were mine and I loved you, but now you are free and I too am seeking freedom.

  She slept that night in a long-abandoned travel-shelter, which had not been kept up since the Aldarans declared their independence of the Six Domains of the lowlands; there was not much coming and going across the Kadarin between Thendara and Nevarsin these days. But it kept the rain off, and was better than sleeping under a tree. She managed to make a fire, too, so she slept warm, and roasted some of the rabbithorn. She hoped she would find some nuts - she was tired of meat - but while she was fed, however coarsely, she could not complain. Even the dog-bread she could eat, if she must, but the horse would get more good of it than she would.

  So she travelled alone for three more days. By now, she supposed, they must have abandoned the search for her at home. She wondered if her father grieved, if he thought her dead.

  When I come to Nevarsin, I will leave a message for him, I will get word to him somehow that I am safe. But no doubt it will be with me as it was with Ruyven, he will cast me off and say I am not his daughter. She felt a tightness in her throat, but she could not cry. She had cried too much already, and had gained nothing from her tears except an aching head and aching eyes, till she left off crying and acted to help herself.

  Women think tears will help them. I think men have the right idea when they say tears are womanish; yes, women cry and so they are helpless, but men act on their anger and so they are never without power, not wasting time or anger in tears....

  She finished the last of the rabbithorn, and was not sorry - toward the end, she supposed even a dog would have to be fiercely hungry to eat it, and certainly any hawk would have turned up its beak at the stuff. On the fifth night she had only some nuts, found on an abandoned tree, and some woody mushrooms, for her supper. Perhaps tomorrow she could snare some birds, or she would meet with someone who could tell her if she was again on the road to Nevarsin - but she thought not, for this road grew ever poorer and worse-kept, and if she were nearing the biggest city in these hills, she would certainly have come to some travelled roads and inhabited parts before this!

  The dog-bread was gone too, and so she stopped several hours before sunset, to let her horse graze for a while. Fortunately the weather kept fine, and she could sleep in the open. She was very tired of travelling, but reflected that she could not now return to her home even if she wished - she had no idea of the road to Falconsward. Well, so much the better; now she could cut all ties with her home.

  She slept poorly, hungry and cold, and waked early. The road was so poor . . . perhaps she should retrace her steps for a distance and see if she could come to more travelled parts? She tore some rags and bound her feet with them to ease the chafing of her boots . . . heels and toe were raw and sore. High in th
e sky, a single hawk circled - why was there never more than one in sight at a single time? Did they keep territories like some other animals for their hunting? And again that strange flash, as if she saw through the hawk's eyes - was it her laran again? - and thought of Preciosa. Preciosa, gone, free, lost. It is strange, I miss her more than father or brothers or home....

  The time for fruiting was past, but she found a few small fruits still clinging to a bush, and ate them, wishing there were more. There was a tree which she knew she could strip the outer bark and eat the soft inner part, but she was not that hungry, not yet. She saddled her horse, weary in spite of her long sleep. Slowly it was beginning to come over her that she could lose herself and even die in these lonely and utterly uninhabited forests. But perhaps today she would meet with someone and begin to find her way to Nevarsin, or some to some little village where she could buy food.

  After an hour of riding she came to a fork in the road, and paused there, indecisive, aching with hunger, exhausted. Well, she would let her horse graze for a bit while she climbed to the top of a little knoll nearby and looked about, to see if she could spy out any human habitation, the smoke of a woodcutter's fire, a herder's hut even. She had never felt so alone in her life. Of course not. I have never been so alone in all my life, she thought, with wry humor, and clambered up the knoll, her knees aching.

  I have not eaten well for days. I must somehow find food and fire this night, whatever comes of it. She was almost wishing she had stayed with Rory and his abominable old grandmother; at least there she had been warm and fed . . . would it really have been so bad, to marry that oaf?

  I would rather die in the wilderness, she told herself fiercely, but she was frightened and hungry, and from the top of the knoll she could see only what looked like a wilderness of trees. Far away, at the furthest edge of her sight, a high mountain loomed, to the Northwest, and pale shadows around it which she knew to be snowcapped peaks . . . there lay the Hellers themselves, to which these foothills were only little lumps in the land, and beyond them, the Wall Around the World, which was, as far as she knew from traveller's tales, impassable; at least no one she had ever known had gone beyond it, and on every map she had ever seen, it delimited the very edge of known country. Once she had asked her governess what lay beyond it.