In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  “What are you doing here?” asked Clovermead. “I didn’t have time to ask you questions in the rush last night, and then you were sleeping and eating, and I didn’t want to interrupt you, but I’d like to know how you happened to find us in the middle of the wilderness. I’m very grateful, you understand, but I’d still like to know what brought you after us.”

  “That is a long story,” said Sorrel. “I do not know quite where to start.”

  “Snuff said he was hunting you,” said Clovermead. Sorrel paused a second with his fingers in his mouth, then continued to clean them. “When he found us at Ladyrest. He said you were working for Chandlefort. I think that must be true. I heard you send Brown Barley there. What are you doing for them?”

  Sorrel gave her a level, cautious look. “I chase prophecies,” he said after a bit. “A dubious task, yes? You never can tell which foretelling will come true the day after tomorrow, and which will take a thousand years. And even if you know it is about the day after tomorrow, they are most inscrutable. ‘A great empire will fall,’ you are told before a mighty battle, but which great empire will fall is not elucidated. ‘The man who has married his mother must be driven from the Horde and made blind,’ the seers command, the Horde Chief assents, and then, hoopla, it is himself who by strange coincidence is the mother marrier. It is all tragic, fated, ironic, unhelpful. And as we say in the Steppes, no seer ever made the future come more quickly. Miss Clovermead, do you know exactly why that bear-priest Snuff was chasing you and Mr. Wickward?”

  “Father wouldn’t tell me,” Clovermead said. “He did something to make Mr. Snuff angry a long time ago, back in Linstock. That was why he fled to Timothy Vale. When Mr. Snuff found us again, chasing you, he wanted to get revenge on Father. We were able to chase him away”—she interrupted her story long enough to tell the details of the fight, with due emphasis given to her heroic feats of swordsmanship and to Goody Weft’s adroit use of a frying pan—”but we had to run from the Vale before Snuff came back with reinforcements from Low Branding. We were still running when you and Mr. Snuff found us, but I guess we didn’t run fast enough.” Clovermead’s brooch seemed very heavy against her neck. Her bear tooth was cool. She fancied it approved of her closemouthed suspicion of Sorrel.

  “Is that so?” asked Sorrel softly. His eyes bored in on hers—and he blinked, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. “Well and all, Miss Clovermead, I am sorry to have brought the ferocious Mr. Snuff upon your father’s hideaway. Snuff’s reputation in Chandlefort is very bad, very deadly. He is not a good man to have for an enemy. I wonder how your father got on his bad side?” Clovermead shrugged her shoulders just as the Tansyard had. He laughed. “You have grown a shell around your tongue, Miss Clovermead. Well, I am still talkative, and I will reward your silence with tales of derring-do. Chandlefort is indeed my employer since—for three years. I am a messenger boy for occasional and extraordinary purposes. Sometimes I am wanted to ride with words or papers or parcels, very swift, very inconspicuous. They also have Yellowjackets to do these things, but they are fight-fight boys, heavy and slow. I am Tansyard and we are the wind’s children.” Sorrel smiled ingenuously. “Besides, there may be spies among the Yellowjackets. So I am sent to carry most secret things. What I carry, what I do, I do not always know. That way is safer, yes?”

  “Safer but frustrating,” said Clovermead. “I’d peek at any letters I was carrying.”

  “Well and so, I will not recommend you to succeed me at my position,” said Sorrel. “Curiosity killed the cattle, as we say in the Steppes. As Our Lady ordains matters, I cannot read. I think that is one reason I have my job. Anyway, Miss Clovermead, my latest assignment is to ride to Snowchapel. A rush-rush prophecy comes from the nuns in Queensmart, uncalled for and dumbfounding. What exactly it says, I do not know, but they whisper around Chandlefort that a long-lost stolen something was not destroyed after all and can be found again. What is stolen? Who has stolen it? In Chandlefort everyone is strangely pursy-lipped. My curiosity is frustrated. I wonder, has your father perhaps told you something of this subject?”

  Clovermead blinked her eyes most innocently. “Father was very uncommunicative. I blame him profoundly for my unconscionable ignorance.”

  “He most assuredly should be censured,” Sorrel agreed solemnly. “Well-a-day, this prophecy flummoxes and perplexes. If this missing something still exists, where is it? How can it be found? The nuns of Queensmart say they cannot help us, they have done quite enough already. They advise Lady Cindertallow to seek out others of Our Lady’s Vision Meres. So messengers are sent out, quiet as can be. Snowchapel is the farthest of the Meres from Chandlefort, but its reputation is the best. It is a great compliment to his horsemanship that Sorrel the Tansyard is told to fly on the Snowchapel route—but carefully, so as not to attract attention.

  “I go north. It is an unsettling journey. Bears follow me and I begin to suspect that Low Branding knows something of our news. I become fearful of being eaten one fine night. I ride Brown Barley very hard so as to escape my four-footed followers—and it is with great relief that I take a few days’ rest to teach a little girl sword fighting on a hillside pleasantly free of any animals larger than a sheep. It is a lovely interlude, attention avoiding, and a respite I need after a month on the road. Or so I tell myself. Perhaps I am a little irresponsible. My superiors have accused me of this flaw before.” Sorrel’s face turned pink.

  “I don’t see that I’d be a worse messenger than you,” said Clovermead. “At least I’d get things to where they were supposed to go on time. Better to have your mail read than not delivered, I say.”

  “You saw what passed with Sister Rowan,” Sorrel continued hastily. “I go most briskly on to Snowchapel and deliver my message. I expect to be given papers to take back to Chandlefort, but the Abbess comes back to me with a cry when she has looked in the Pool. She tells me, ‘The Innkeeper at Ladyrest is pursued by a bear-priest from Low Branding. You must hurry, Sorrel, to try to rescue him and his daughter—they have fled south. You must bring them back to Chandlefort.’”

  Sorrel coughed and looked straight into Clovermead’s eyes. “The Abbess says, ‘If you must choose between father and daughter, save the daughter. Ask her and she will show you the reason.’ So off I rush and spend many long days—I will pass quickly over a tedious story of a miserably cold Tansyard struggling through endless blizzards. I finally find your trail north of the Tansy Pike, and then at the crossroads I see horsemen’s tracks coming north from Low Branding. I shiver with fear, I see you and they have loop-the-looped toward High Branding and back, and I follow you all most carefully on the Chandlefort road. The ambushers do not expect any lone, crazy-bold Tansyard to follow them, so I am soon in sight of the Low Branding brigands and lurk unseen quite close to them. Then at last they approach the sleeping Wickwards, I make my hasty skiing plans, and I throw most wonderfully accurately daggers and stones when their attack begins. I try to save both of you, but it cannot be done. So, you are rescued and your father is not. Miss Clovermead, why should the Abbess say to rescue you first? I do not think you have been forthright with me.” Now there was a trace of anger in his face. “There is something you should reveal.”

  “I hate prophecy,” said Clovermead. “Father told me not to say anything. He had something that came from Chandlefort, and he gave it to me for safekeeping.” She reached under her sweater, untied the leather cord, and held the brooch out toward Sorrel. She hid the tooth in her hand. “I suppose the Abbess meant I should show you this.” Now it will come out, she told herself. Sorrel must know about the Cindertallow Ruby. He’ll look at this brooch and he’ll know Father stole both the brooch and the Ruby from the Treasure Room.

  Sorrel reached out trembling fingers. He stroked the bee, the flames, the sword. He looked at Clovermead with astonishment. “Lady Above,” he said in wonder. “I think I begin to understand. No, no, it cannot be. I am wrong. I must be wrong.” He slapped his forehead. “That would be just like a
prophecy—circuitous and unlikely.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Clovermead.

  “I do not think I should tell you,” said Sorrel after a long minute.

  Of course you don’t, Clovermead thought sourly to herself. No one will ever tell me just what is going on! No one, she repeated bleakly.

  “I may be wrong,” Sorrel continued slowly. “Others should decide. You and that brooch must go to Chandlefort.”

  “Must?” Clovermead lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t want to go. Father said I should avoid both Low Branding and Chandlefort. He said Chandlefort was better than Low Branding, but he didn’t make either place sound appealing.”

  “Ah and so,” said Sorrel. He blinked rapidly, and his dagger was in his hand. “I am somewhat larger than you, Miss Clovermead, and I did not teach to you all I know of sword fighting.”

  Clovermead wished her father and Goody Weft were there to defend her. She was afraid of Sorrel, she was angry, and the tooth spoke to her. I know how to deal with that jackanapes, it said. Let me speak in you.

  It will all turn out for the best, an old white bear reassured her, but Clovermead would not listen to her foolish counsel. Speak away, said Clovermead inwardly to the tooth. She smiled as blood-thoughts entered into her and her fear drained away. The Tansyard is presumptuous, isn’t he? Trying to frighten me. Show me how to be powerful, tooth.

  Clovermead roared. The sound boomed through the empty mill. Sorrel turned white and his hand shook till the dagger fell to the floor. When he had picked it up again, the tooth lay revealed in Clovermead’s hand.

  “I have this,” said Clovermead. “You saw what I did with it last night?”

  “I thought you had dropped it. I think it would be better if you had. Bear-priest gear is vile, Miss Clovermead. It fouls you to use it.” Sorrel looked at her mouth and her grinning teeth and Clovermead saw that he was afraid now. “Miss Clovermead, did you have fangs a second ago?”

  “Perhaps.” Clovermead spread her lips savagely wide and bared her teeth. “If you’re in a rush to return to Chandlefort, I won’t detain you. But I prefer not to accompany you, Sorrel.”

  Sorrel scratched his head and rose slowly to his feet. He showed his open palms to Clovermead and paced backward and forward a few times in the small room, carefully distant from Clovermead and her waiting, hungry tooth.

  He is a lovely morsel, said the tooth. A nice plump prey, full of blood.

  “And yet,” Sorrel said thoughtfully to Clovermead, “I do not think Lady Cindertallow will be happy when I confess to her that I have muffed up prophetic commands. She will think worse of all Tansyards if I fail, speak slightingly of their abilities, never hire any further steppe lads down on their luck, suggest to every lordling in the land that Tansyards are an idle, shiftless lot. I owe it to my people to bring you to the Rose Walls.”

  “Go away,” said Clovermead.

  “That is a harder command to enforce,” Sorrel said. “Unless you want to kill me.”

  “You ran from a bear in the mountains near Snowchapel.”

  “So I did,” said Sorrel. “I had stopped in a cave to rest, and a bear woke from its sleep and came out. Most naturally, I ran. How do you know?”

  “I saw you in a dream at Ladyrest. Through the bear’s eyes. You ran like a rabbit.” Clovermead laughed.

  “I was the usual coward,” said Sorrel. “Still, I will not go. I repeat, to make me go you must kill me.”

  You would be safer with him dead, said the tooth. He looks delicious.

  Clovermead sweated and trembled. “The tooth wants me to kill you. I don’t want to. I like you, Sorrel, when you aren’t pulling a knife on me and scaring me half to death. I just don’t want to go to Chandlefort. Please, go away before the tooth bites you.”

  Sorrel made the crescent sign. His eyes were wide. “The tooth wants to kill me? Miss Clovermead, I entreat you in Our Lady’s name to rid yourself of that thing.” Clovermead shook her head and the tooth howled its joy. Sorrel retreated a step from her, then stood his ground, his eyes fixed on the tooth. “I do not think your bear-magic is all powerful, Miss Clovermead. It occurs to me, you cannot use it while you sleep. I am thinking of the possibility of sneaking up one fine dark hour and—thunk!—rendering you unconscious. Then I would truss you up and bury that tooth. The possibility seems most attractive.”

  “I can ski faster than you,” said Clovermead. “You’d never catch up to me.”

  “I learn most swiftly,” Sorrel replied. “Besides, you would not run that fast. Life is full of unfortunate coincidences, and as you speedily fled doubtless you would come across Mr. Snuff again. Then where would you be?” He wiped sweat from his forehead, but more sprang up. “Miss Clovermead, a compromise occurs to me. I could accompany you awhile southward and swear to Our Lady that while we traveled, I would not harm you or hinder you or make any effort to take you captive to Chandlefort.”

  “Or I could kill you now,” said Clovermead. She could. She could. All she had to do was call on the tooth.

  Do it, the tooth urged. Do it now.

  “Then, kill me,” said Sorrel. “I will not run from you.” He stood and waited.

  Hungrily Clovermead ran her tongue across her teeth. Her bear tooth throbbed in her hand. For a moment the world was red. She saw Sorrel bleeding before her, saw herself lean in to bite and crunch—

  Dear Lady, no! Clovermead made a convulsive crescent over her sweater and prayed for the Light. She gasped out her thanks as the dark, murderous desires slowly receded from her. She put the cord around her neck again and thrust the tooth back into her shirt. Her heart was hammering. “Swear what you said earlier. Come along with me till we’re two days south of Chandlefort. Then you leave me free to go and you head back to Chandlefort. Is that a deal?”

  “To this I swear,” said Sorrel. “It is not a very good deal, but I think it is better than none. We are travel companions?”

  “We are,” said Clovermead. She stood up and firmly shook his hand.

  He is so plump and full of blood, said her tooth.

  Chapter Ten

  Horse Thievery

  Clovermead wrapped the roasted fish in burlap bags Sorrel found in a corner of the mill, and slipped the bags over her shoulder. Sorrel put his backpack on, crept furtively out of the water mill, and hailed Clovermead outside. They were alone in an austere, snow-draped land. Their tracks had been erased by the night’s snow. Endless matchstick-slender trees pierced the rolling white hills, save along the meandering curve of the stream. The sky was pale blue, cloudless, and crystal clear.

  They skied south through the remainder of the short day, skimming away from the stream. Swathes of frozen grass poking through the snow became more common and trees more infrequent. Where wind had blown away the snow, a half-parched, sandy soil was revealed. What snowmelt there was ran over the rejecting earth toward the steep ravines and etched them deeper still. Glaring sunlight reflected from the snow.

  “Look at the sky and trees, Sorrel,” said Clovermead. “Don’t look at the snow.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll go snow-blind if you look at sunlit snow too long. All that whiteness is hard on the eyes. You won’t be able to see for hours. Maybe not for days.”

  “You possess the wisdom of the northlands,” said Sorrel. “In the Cyan Cross Horde we spent our winters in the south Steppe. There it was cool, but there was no snow. Now I know the wisdom of my ancestors, who ordained that the hordes always avoid this terrible season. Why did Our Lady make snow?”

  “Winter is part of the natural balance,” said Clovermead. “The earth rests beneath a blanket of snow. Barns feel useful when they can keep snow away from horses and sheep and chickens.” She knelt and scooped up a snowball while Sorrel watched her uncomprehendingly. Her eyes were alight with mischief as she hurled the snowball at Sorrel. The snow splattered over his chest and under his tatterdemalion shirt, and he yelped with cold and shock. “Also, it’s fun. Catch me if
you can!” Giggling, she fled as the satisfyingly outraged Tansyard chased after her, pitching snowballs as he went. He had learned to ski quite well, and he surprised Clovermead by staying even with her. They ran for half a mile before Sorrel was able to paste her back with a well-thrown snowball.

  Clovermead slewed around and raised her hands. “I surrender! You have won the combat of the snow! Please don’t hurt me! I’m a small and weak child.” She batted her eyes at the Tansyard.

  “I have never heard such nonsense in my life,” Sorrel grumbled, but he let the snowball in his hand drop to the ground. Then he grinned. “You really have played this way? It must be most delightful.”

  “It is very most delightful,” Clovermead assured him. While they skied on, she regaled him with the epic saga of the snow fort she had built two winters before and how she had single-handedly defeated the Merrin boys in snow warfare. The story was almost true, if you didn’t count the fact that Sweetroot had been in the fort with her or that Card Merrin had turned traitor at the last minute and started lobbing snowballs at his brothers. She had rewarded him with a kiss, which was a mistake because he had started to be soft on her afterward.

  Then they continued in silence. The few farmhouses they passed were clustered along the occasional streams through the plateau. The farms were ramshackle affairs, half sod and half timber, with small, feebly irrigated stream-valley gardens. What wealth these farmers had was in the shaggy ponies and gaunt cattle that paced moodily in their split-rail corrals.

  Cowherds armed with spears stood sentry at the corners of their farms. Clovermead and Sorrel kept out of their sight as they wended south. Clovermead had the impression that if soldiers should attack these farms, the inhabitants would hide with their precious animals in some nearby ravine and let their flimsy houses burn.