by Dave Luckett
"It might stop us from becoming dead ourselves," he answered. He was scraping out the pot with sand. She looked disapproving. "Besides - " he undid the frog of his scabbard and offered the sheathed sword to her "- it has sta." He didn't know why he said that.
She frowned, but touched the hilt, gingerly. She blinked, then nodded. She withdrew her hand.
And her objection, apparently. She turned to the gathalodha again. The star-patterns. The sun had just moved into the gathalodha of Ierus, the Watcher by the Gate, as always in the third month of summer. This was the proper season for spells of ripening and increase. Therefore, children begotten under Ierus were lucky.
"They are... they would be born near the end of the spring after," said Gerd, after a moment. Nela's words had given him pause, and a sudden sharp pang. "With a season of good food to strengthen their mothers, and another summer before the winter comes again. Perhaps that is lucky, too."
Nela shrugged. "All is one," she said.
She made him name the stars and the seasons, and trace the path the sun took through the sky. Then she wrapped herself in her coarse frieze cloak and went to sleep.
Gerd made up the fire. He sat for a while, aware of her quiet breathing. He looked up at the stars, coolly distant. It took him some time to find his way into sleep.
On the third day after that, he caught Nela slipping Jane a particularly fine bunch of sweetgrass. A little freshet flowed just beside the road there, and the herb grew by its bank. Jane accepted the offering with proper gravity, wiggling her ears. Very carefully, Gerd did not smile.
"She enjoys it," said Nela. She cleared her throat. "This is selan. It also has virtue. Dried, the tips may be used as a tea. Selan-kai is a febrifuge, and is said to cleanse the skin."
Gerd nodded, a student taking the words of his teacher and carefully storing them away. Jane finished the mouthful she had and reached out for more. Nela gave it to her, and brushed her hands.
"Besides that," she added, "donkeys like it." She said that in the solemn tones of one who has made an important observation, a manifestation of the craft, but Gerd caught the dart of her eyes under her brows. Again, very carefully, he did not smile.
The weather held for two more days. The ninth morning's sun rose red among sheeting cloud. Gerd eyed it, pursing his lips.
Nela, behind him, was packing up. She could read weather-signs as well as he. Better. He considered the land around them, trying to guess the most likely direction to find shelter.
The country was getting rough, but the true foothills were still ahead of them, and beyond them, the mountains. The road had become a rough track, less trodden. A cloudburst would turn it into a river of mud. They'd camped off it, in woods, but the forest was being worked. It was open, even by the watercourses, and that meant that the trees had been thinned. Stretches of rough grass in glades showed signs of grazing; there were occasional cut stumps - larger trees, these - but no wholesale clearing. The steeper the slope, the more the trees.
"How far are we from a house?" he asked.
"It's only rain," Nela remarked. Gerd said nothing. Jane was already loaded and ready.
Gerd cast one more glance at the gathering cloud. "How far?" he asked again.
Nela shrugged into her pack. "There's a village, perhaps an hour away. The road goes there."
They moved out, Gerd leaning into the slopes, leading Jane. Nela walked ahead, making sudden little darts to one side or the other to point out various herbs. Gerd nodded and repeated the names, but he kept casting glances behind him. Tall castles of cloud, creamy-white at their tops but descending through greys to violet at their bases, were building in the air over the plains, and the breeze had set in from the east.
They saw the village as the first grumbles of thunder sounded. The wind was picking up and gusting, lifting fronds of the thatch on the houses. Gerd assessed the place as they came around the bend in the slope. It was in a valley between hills, and grouped around a stream.
There was only enough plough-land to feed the village itself. The rest was sheep-country on the hills around. The village's houses were wattle and daub, and there wasn't much to them, but a more substantial dwelling stood above them on the hill, behind a bank and ditch. So there was a local squire, but Gerd could see no house with a sign or a green bush outside. No inn, then, or at least not a regular one.
"There is a mage here," said Nela, unexpectedly. "He has a house."
"Oh?" Gerd had been wondering if he could act the gentleman well enough to claim shelter at the hall. After all, he had a family sword, even armour. He could present Nela as a lady he was escorting... or even as his wife.
He shied away from the thought. No need. Nela knew someone.
They picked up the pace without discussing it, Jane not complaining. The road became a little more beaten. They crossed a stream. The single plank bridge kept their feet dry, but from the way the rain was coming on, they wouldn't stay that way unless they found a roof.
The first heavy drops were already falling when Nela turned in at a door. It was the third one where she had inspected the doorpost, but passed on. Gerd, alerted, checked this one. A sign of sorts had been gouged in the wood of the doorpost - an eye. But it was old. The cuts had faded and weathered back to the same colour as the unpainted wood.
Nela had been looking for it, and hadn't seen it on the first house she looked. So she hadn't known which house it was. Interesting. Gerd stood back while she knocked.
He was expecting a mage in a long robe, white-bearded, or perhaps an old woman, piercing-eyed, as intense as Nela was. But the woman who came to the door was dumpy, with a broad red-brown face and heavy forearms, dressed in robe and wimple like any countrywoman. A dirty-faced child, no more than a toddler, peeped around her skirts, staring at the travellers with wide eyes.
She gave Nela one glance up and down, frowned and folded her arms. "He's not in," she said.
Gerd felt his eyebrows lift. The words had been unwelcoming, the gesture even more so. He looked up. Rain was beginning to spatter down. He drew his hood over his head. The woman stood in her doorway, and clearly wasn't going to shift.
Nela seemed nonplussed. She simply stared. Gerd, standing behind, cleared his throat. "We wondered if we might..." he began, but got no further.
"Aye, no doubt you did. Taram's up at the hall. You can see him there, if you want."
Gerd nodded. "Is there a place we can shelter from the storm?"
She simply stared at him. "Try up at the hall," she said again. Then she stepped back and closed the door.
The rain increased. Thunder rolled again. Nela turned and brushed past, and Gerd could see tears in her eyes and outrage on her face. He contemplated the door for a moment, and thought how much he wanted to kick it in and provide the woman with a lesson in manners. Then he turned with a sigh, clucked to Jane, and followed Nela up the muddy street in the rain.
The hall became a little more imposing as they approached it. It was broad and long, half-timber, with a shingle roof and three gables. There was an old bank and ditch around it, and a fragment of a stone wall. Gerd could see stones of similar size laid in courses to make the foundations for the house. They'd scavenged an older fort to build it, then.
The gate was open. Beyond stood outhouses at the sides of a yard. One was a byre, with a hayshed attached. He led Jane in at the open side of the byre, to find cows and a goat. Rain was coming down hard now, a subdued drumming on the thatch.
A man entered from the rear, a leathery yokel in frock and baggy breeches. He wore a sack tied with twine to cover his head and the back of his neck. It sparkled with raindrops. He stopped short when he saw them.
Gerd got in first. "Just trying to get out of the rain, friend. I'll buy grass hay for the donkey, if you'll sell." He had to think for a moment to remember the common words. Thunder crashed, and a second or two later lightning made the shadows leap like wolves.
"Not mine to sell. Can't take your coin anyhow." The man star
ed out at the driving rain for a moment before dropping a forkful of hay into the crib in front of the milch-cow. "You better go on up to the house and ask for Master Taram. He's the clerk." He glanced up again, as thunder rolled. "Wait for a smooth," he allowed, grudging, and turning his back stumped out into the hayshed again.
"Taram?" asked Nela. "Clerk? But...?" She stopped short.
Gerd said nothing. They needed food, and he would not be averse to a night under a roof. Possibly Taram would be prepared to sell, even if it seemed unlikely that he would give.
But matters turned out simpler. The storm had not yet passed. Gerd off-packed Jane, gave her a drink and put her feedbag on. He turned towards the house again, to see a short balding man approaching at a trot, jagged-paced to avoid puddles.
The man ducked his head under the dripping thatch to enter, and there was something furtive in his glance back towards the house. "I saw you come in," he said without preamble.
Rain and sweat had combined to paste what was left of his hair to his shiny scalp, and he passed a hand self-consciously over it. Clearly he was missing his hat; he must have come out in a hurry.
"Majis Taram?" asked Nela. The title was the usual one in the Mages' Tongue.
The man shook his head violently, and shot a quick glance over his shoulder. "No, no. Just Master Taram, if you please." He spoke the common. "You're welcome to shelter from the storm, of course, but I'm afraid..."
He made a gesture, and the gesture said it all. I can't offer you lodging, it said. I can't offer you anything at all, in fact.
Gerd nodded. "Is there anywhere we can buy supplies? For the back country?"
Calculation replaced embarrassment on the other's face. A glance at Jane, contentedly cropping from her nosebag, gave an estimation of the worth of her tack and equipment. Gerd had kept his cloak closed, but it was a decent wool cloak, and his boots were good.
"Ah, well. We can let you have food - bread and sausage and cheese. There's greenstuff and to spare. And wood-right, in Lord Abelt's lands - that's as far as the Lerra headwaters, and there's only mountains beyond that. Shall we say, three pennies?"
Nela's inhalation was almost a gasp. Gerd overrode it. "That sounds fair, if you'll throw in grazing and pannage as well," he said. "And a scrip to say as much, of course, in case the Reeve should happen by."
The clerk - he was a clerk, and there was no doubt of that - pursed his lips. Perhaps he might have refrained from further bargaining on consideration that this was a fellow mage. Perhaps not. "Done," he said, after a moment. "Come up to the house, and I'll give you the writing."
Rain was still pattering down. "You go," said Nela. She spoke the Mages' Tongue. "I'll stay with Jane." Gerd kept his face expressionless. He picked up the panniers and slung them across his shoulders.
Master Taram might have looked a little shamefaced, but he gave fair trade. Gerd paid over the money, filled his panniers at the buttery and the smokehouse, and followed the clerk into the counting house. Master Taram sharpened a quill and wrote his scrip carefully, signing and stamping it with the house seal. He handed it over.
"There. This is good until the dark of the moon after next."
Gerd nodded, looking down at it. It was written in the common, of course. The hand was neat, clerkly. "Nice estate," he said, consideringly, looking up. "Village looks prosperous. Wool trade doing well?"
"Quite well." Master Taram rose. He ushered Gerd towards the door, but Gerd moved slowly.
"Obviously well-run. The lord looks after the place, I'd say."
"Yes." Then, unable to ignore the look of polite enquiry on Gerd's face, "This is only the third of Lord Abelt's estates. He's not in residence at the moment, of course, but..." The words ran down into inaudibility. Gerd heard "hunting lodge" and "in season". He nodded and smiled.
They reached the door. Rain still pounded down. "A well-run estate needs a clerk, of course," said Gerd. "Someone has to keep the books. And it's a great deal less chancy, as a living, I would think." He spoke in a considering, reflecting tone, calming, soothing.
"A very great deal less chancy, these days. I have ..." Taram gestured, and the gesture took in the village, and his house, wife, family and responsibilities, and all the rest, a quite overwhelming world. Gerd nodded, but Taram wasn't quite finished. "I can't go haring off on campaign just because some of us think the world's gone wrong. Maybe it has gone wrong, but it's the world, and it'll change no matter what, and..." He trailed off, looking uncomfortable.
"Of course," said Gerd. He shook hands, hefted his burden, and walked down the steps, leaving the clerk of Lord Abelt's third and least estate standing at the door of the manor house in the pouring rain.
He knew better than to speak to Nela before they had got out of sight of the house, at least. She strode stiff-backed, not looking to right or left. The road became a trail, then recrossed the stream at a shallows. From the hoof-prints around it, it was a washing-place where sheep were driven before shearing. They crossed and struck on upslope, following the droveway into the hills.
The rain cleared, but that evening was cooler than any so far. The land was higher, and the season was advancing. Gerd found fairly dry wood off the ground, taking only dead timber from fallen branches. He'd been a peasant before he was a soldier, long before he became a mage's apprentice and part-time almost-gentleman. He knew not to damage a tree in the lord's woodlands. This was his hunting-range. People lost their ears for doing that.
He wondered if he should return to Loriso. There had been an island Council running things there. With the Captain sitting on it, mind, and he had been part-way towards turning himself into a lord, like the rulers here - or at home. Still, though soldiering in a free company had its shortcomings, Gerd had rather gotten used to not having a master. Oh, yes, he'd still had to take orders, but having a master was different. Having a master was having to account to for every morsel he ate. It was giving his labour away for free, and only being allowed to keep part of what it earned.
He swung the hatchet harder. The only reason why he didn't have to do that now was the heavy little bag on the string around his neck. When that was gone, it was back to hand-to-mouth, or bind himself to a master's service. Or...
Or win a trade for himself, one where he could be his own master. Well, that was what he was trying to do.
He glanced at Nela. She had said hardly a word all day, and now sat on the trunk of the fallen tree that Gerd was stripping, staring into the fire.
The only trouble was, magery didn't seem to be a trade that paid a living. Nela had been starving. Taram, who had been a mage, had become a lord's clerk. Well, maybe he hadn't been much of a mage.
Gerd gathered up the armful of fuel that he had cut and he dumped it by the fire. He'd already brushed Jane down and cleaned out her hoofs, and she was tethered close by. The fallen tree had allowed a small glade to grow grass, and there was enough fodder and to spare for her here for a day or two.
"Teka," said Nela, suddenly. She glanced upwards. The moon would not rise until after midnight, and it was only two days short of the new. "This is not quite the best time, but I judge that it is acceptable." She spoke in the Mages' Tongue, slowly. "Your studies go well, so far. But now, they really start. You know that magic is made of words, and that some words have more sta. Old words have the most. Oh, some hedge-wizards, ignorant of the sources of their power, use even the words of the common to some effect, but a real mage must know something of the Old Language..."
Later, he asked: "Where did you learn the Old Language?"
Nela smiled gently. "My father, Laurentian, knew more of it than any in Walse, or the whole Isle, perhaps. It was as well for me that he did, and that he taught me, for I must use the best words, the most powerful words possible. I have no great sta myself. Every now and then, it skips a generation. Unfortunately for me, it was mine."
Gerd stared at her, and her smile became regretful, with a shake of the head. "Did you not understand that? I thought you
would have seen it for yourself, with the willow twig. It was supposed to align itself to point at the greatest sta in the room. I felt a moment's envy when it swung around to you without so much as a twitch, but then it leapt at you. I have never seen that. At that moment, I knew I must teach you. You could have come to power for yourself, but that is always a perilous business. So much can go wrong." She shook her head. "Here is the first of the fire spells, in the Old Language."
When he had learned to make a flame by the flicking of his fingers and the saying of the words, she nodded. "Practice tomorrow," she said, and with no further word rolled herself in her cloak by the fire he had made with flint and steel, and went to sleep.
It took Gerd somewhat longer.
Morning stole grey into a gently-weeping sky, that morning and the next. The storm had been the outrider of a few days' intermittent rain. Gerd worried about his mail. He'd oiled it, but this would start rust eating into it. His sword was safer, close in its oiled scabbard under his cloak.