The Rose of the World

by Jude Fisher

  Erno waited. For perhaps ten seconds. Then he began to barge his way forward along the edge of the crowd, causing many to turn in anger at his rough treatment; but when they saw his size, and the strange eyepatch he wore, most of them stepped aside. In a tiny gap thus generated he suddenly glimpsed what held them so rapt. On a raised dais at the front of the square stood a group of guardsmen in castle uniforms, several figures in all-encompassing black robes, and five near-naked women with their hands and feet chained. Katla Aransen was the third in line.

  Her hair flamed in the sunshine and Erno’s heart felt as if it, too, had ignited.

  Now the Eyran began to shove in earnest, ploughing a course through even the most resistant; until he tried to push aside a big man in a roughspun tunic, a man almost as wide as he was tall; when he turned, he stood eye to eye with the northerner.‘Sod off!’ the man roared.‘You get here late, you stand at the back, and tough luck to you!’

  Erno took one look at that bellicose face and realised that no manner of polite negotiation was going to persuade the man to step aside. With all the reckless power of the truly desperate, he drew one fist back then exploded it into the other’s gut. For a moment, it looked perilously as if his obstacle had been unmoved by this experience, then the man clutched his midriff, staggered, twisted and collapsed like a felled tree. Erno was past him and pressing quickly forward as people turned to stare in amazement and dawning horror as the big man’s fall brought down one after another in his vicinity. As those closest tried to avoid being crushed, they collided with others, and suddenly one onlooker after another was stumbling and falling against their neighbours. Shockwaves spread out from this epicentre until a great swathe of the audience had gone down in a flail of limbs. Erno sidestepped a tumbling man and abruptly found himself in clear space with an unimpeded view of the dais. Suddenly, instead of ogling the women, everyone seemed to be looking at him – those still standing in the crowd, the guards, the slavemaster, the auctioneer; the Rockfallers. With a shiver, he felt Katla’s keen eyes upon him, watched as they narrowed and her kestrel-wing brows drew together in a frown.

  He mustered his best Istrian and yelled into the momentary silence, ‘A hundred cantari for the redhead!’

  Katla looked thunderstruck, then appalled, but whether this was at the ignominy of being bid for at all, or whether it was because the bidder looked so disreputable, who could say?

  For a few seconds Erno’s brave (nay, foolhardy, since all he bore with him was about ten cantari) offer fell into an eye of calm; then the storm broke all around him. ‘A hundred and ten!’ yelled a man in a rich crimson surcoat to his right.

  ‘Twenty!’ This from a dark-skinned merchant.

  ‘Twenty-five!’

  ‘A hundred and twenty-eight!’

  ‘One hundred and thirty!’ The man in crimson again.

  ‘One hundred and fifty!’ cried Erno.

  There was a lull. People looked from one to another in disbelief. One hundred cantari was a fortune, the cost of a townhouse on the outskirts of Forent City, or a pair of trading ships; but one hundred and fifty was surely madness for one woman, however unusual her colouring.

  ‘She’s not even pretty,’ said a man just behind Erno’s left shoulder.

  ‘Too skinny for my taste,’ replied his neighbour. ‘Besides, I came to bid for a body-slave, not sign my entire fortune away! Fifty cantari was my limit, and that was pushing it.’

  ‘Er, one hundred and fifty,’ called the auctioneer, trying to recover his equanimity. He stared at Erno with suspicion. ‘I have a bid of one hundred and fifty cantari for the girl with the hair of fire from the gentleman with the eyepatch—’

  There was a small commotion on the other side of the crowd, some raised voices.

  ‘Any advance on one hundred and fifty?’ This came out as more of a plea than a brisk summation of business, but no one responded. The auctioneer stared wildly around. He knew his traders: he knew what a man with one hundred and fifty cantari to squander would look like, and the tall man in the slouch hat and eyepatch was not it. There was something awry here, for the last one he had sold had also had red hair, albeit streaked with some grey, and she had gone to a man he knew well, a seneschal from Cantara, for the sensible sum of thirty-eight cantari.

  ‘One hundred and fifty-five,’ came a sharp voice. It was the man in crimson again.

  ‘One hundred and sixty!’ returned Erno immediately.

  ‘One hundred and fifty-five, I have one hundred and fifty-five,’ called the auctioneer, avoiding the dubious bidder’s eye.

  ‘One hundred and sixty!’ bellowed Erno.

  ‘For one hundred and fifty-five cantari to the gentleman in red,’ declared the auctioneer, and the slavemaster helped the successful bidder onto the dais. He was a man of middling age and girth, richly turned out, but otherwise nondescript of appearance, who barely gave his purchase a second look as he passed her to make his payment to the clerk.

  ‘That’s outrageous!’Erno screamed.‘You heard me outbid him!’ He turned to those around him. ‘You all heard me!’

  But they would not look at him. He did not fit in here and they felt uncomfortable, with his appearance, with his sudden disruption to what had been a very pleasantly forbidden experience – the chance to look upon some foreign women in the flesh, to remark upon their oddly pale skin and hair, the turn of their limbs and the suggestive curves of their breasts – by some strange alchemy his expensive bid had made them all feel cheap.

  Where was the greatsword when he needed it? Erno cursed his stupidity in leaving it behind; cursed Mam for refusing him a weapon of any sort. He gathered himself to make a final surge for the dais, but a familiar and furious voice sounded in his ear. ‘Stop making an exhibition of yourself, Erno Hamson. There is nothing more you can do. Turn away now and walk back to the doorway where I told you to wait and we will work out how we may retrieve the situation.’

  Erno looked around, quite willing to take out his frustration on the assassin, but Joz Bearhand was already thirty feet away, winding a sinuous course through the crowd. He turned and stared once more at the dais; but if in that one sharp look Katla Aransen had recognised him, she would not acknowledge him now. Instead she was observing her mother being draped in a midnight-blue sabatka and led away by two men in livery. Her face looked drawn and pale, as if all the fight had gone out of her. When the guard came with the keys to unlock her shackles she waited quietly with her wrists held out, then meekly allowed them to throw one of the enveloping robes over her.

  Erno watched in disbelief. The Katla he had known – the bubbling, fizzing kettle-girl – would have hurled herself recklessly into the crowd rather than suffer such humiliation, would have stolen a dagger from an onlooker and fought her way to freedom.

  He opened his mouth to call out to her, to reassure her of imminent rescue, but as he did so he found that his throat had developed a hard, choking lump, and a moment later tears were welling behind the tight eyepatch and then cascading down his cheek.

  With his head held low, he turned and made his way back through the crowd, which parted, relieved to see him go so that they might return their attention to the fascinating sights on the dais.

  Twenty

  Adrift

  The Master rubbed his hands and muttered plaintively, but it was no good: the little boat was becalmed. The continuous use of the magic required to propel the vessel all the way from Sanctuary through icy seas and heavy weather had left him exhausted and out of sorts. He needed to rest, to build his reserves. But how could he trust his passenger not to tip him overboard if he slept?

  He glanced at Aran Aranson now and the Rockfaller glared back, beetle-browed, suspicious even through the miasma of the holding spell.

  To make matters worse, after the sun had gone down it had become ferociously cold; and he had no idea where they were. Not knowing this had been all very well while his magic held true, for by sorcerous instruction the ship had known where it was going,
but now that the spell had faded it was dead in the water. As would be both its occupants unless he managed some kind of miracle.

  Relaxing the holding spell on his prisoner was his only choice: it would enable him to gather enough strength to warm himself and the man could at least row them some of the distance and that would keep him warm. Slowly and carefully he lifted a corner of the spell and with his mind felt the man’s consciousness stir, like a cat beneath the hand.

  Row us onward to Halbo, he commanded, using the Voice.

  Aran Aranson blinked.

  Halbo, the Master reiterated. Pick up the oars.

  The Rockfaller twitched, then like a man in a dream he took an oar in each hand and slid them into place. Seeing the neat fit of handle through rowlock, Rahe could not help but congratulate himself both on his powers of observation and his magecraft. He leaned forward and tapped Aran on the knee almost fondly. ‘I was the world’s greatest sorcerer once, you know,’ he said proudly, but the man was not even looking at him, let alone responding with suitable awe, but had begun to scull with a slow sure pace. Rahe lifted the holding spell a little more and watched the man’s expression change, become less befuddled, more his own. He began again. ‘What is your name?’ he asked, to make sure Aran was listening.

  ‘Aran Aranson,’ Aran replied expressionlessly.

  ‘Good, good. Well, Aran Aranson, you are in the midst of the Northern Ocean with the man who was once the most powerful mage in all of Elda. I still am, though time has taken its toll, as it does upon us all. And when I had her with me, well: she was the most immense resource. You cannot imagine. Taking magic from her was like dipping your cup into an endless well of sweet water in the middle of a desert. It was extraordinary, enchanting. And she was so innocent. She knew so little, you see. And of course I made sure she knew less and less as time passed: she had such power, such power. It could have been most dangerous, to all of us.’

  ‘She?’ Aran echoed dully.

  ‘The Goddess, my friend, the Rose of the World, the Rosa Eldi. The heart and soul of this mournful, multitudinous world. The wellspring of magic and love; and who knows what else? Too much power is a perilous thing: and women are unpredictable creatures. I deemed it better for the world that I keep her in a safe place.’ He smiled smugly.

  A crease appeared in Aran’s forehead as if he was remembering something difficult, then his eyebrows drew themselves into a single forbidding line, and on he rowed without cease. With each stroke of the oar a mantra began to sound in his head: Rockfall, Bera, Katla. Rockfall, Bera, Katla.

  The Master settled himself into the bow of the vessel and drew his fur robe closer. It was good to tell someone after so many years. How many had it been since he had sundered the Rose from her roots and brought her to his secret place? Two hundred? Three hundred? He had, in truth, lost count. And all that time there had been no one to tell, no one to boast to. No one but the boy. And he could hardly have told him the tale . . .

  On he talked, on and on; and on Aran rowed, though the wind was cruel on his skin and there was ice in the air.

  Aran let the words wash over him: meaningless, mad words which touched him not. Instead he read the stars, the sea, the path of the moon.

  Rockfall, Bera, Katla. Rockfall, Bera, Katla.

  As if the vessel responded to the power of this silent chant which flowed through the rowing man, it veered subtly westwards and after a while caught a little wind. The boat picked up its pace. The slack sails filled and bellied and they sailed on, the oars soon merely a useful adjunct to the power of the night air. If Rahe noticed the change of speed or direction, he made no mention of either, but continued to talk on and on. Individual sounds fell into Aran’s mind, becoming jumbled with his own internal word-scheme, so that now as he rowed the rhythm extended itself into something far more surreal:

  Rockfall, white legs, Bera, Red Peak, Katla, earth-power . . .

  Rockfall, pale skin, Bera, gold cave, Katla, the cat . . .

  Rockfall, hot cunt, Bera, reborn, Katla, Dark One . . .

  When the old man finally fell silent and dozed, Aran watched him and wondered whether that sliver of light below the eyelids meant the old man was still capable of observing him: for who knew how a wizard slept, or if he slept at all?

  Rockfall, Bera, Katla.

  An idea was skimming towards him through the fog in his mind. Like a ghostly tattered vessel, it parted the mists and sailed into clear view. He sat up straighter.

  Rockfall, Bera, Katla.

  Might he not tip the old man over the gunwale and have done with him? He could manage the craft alone, alone would probably make better speed. He shipped the oars and inched forward on his seat, and still the old man did not move. But when he tried to stand he found an invisible barrier between them. Down he sat once more. He stared out to sea, gathering his scattered thoughts, trying to recall how he had come to be here. He sat like that for an hour or more as the good wind pushed the vessel before it, salvaging odd fragments of memory – a sail whipping wildly in storm winds; a cloud of buzzing flies; white bones against silvered wood; a ship going down in the black water between plates of white ice; angry men’s faces; a snowbear with blood around its maw – and he shivered.

  He had a sense that momentous things had happened, and that he was in some way responsible for them; but what they were, or why they had come about remained elusive. He set his jaw. All that mattered now was the future.

  After a while a small island came into view. Aran stared at it, his memory jarred. The Navigator’s Star was at his back; the Leopard was rising to his right and the Dragon to his left: it was Whale Holm. He took up the oars again and carried on rowing: one more day at such speed would bring them not to Halbo, but to his home, his wife and his daughter.

  It was late morning before the mage roused from his stupor. He came awake not like a man refreshed by a good night’s sleep, but more like a man surfacing from deep water, slowly and painfully, his eyes blinking against the light.

  A gull skimmed overhead, its wail mournful. Aran smiled: he was in home waters now. In the small hours of the night he had navigated the vessel between Sundey and the Cullin Sey: it would not be long before he saw the stacks and cliffs of the Westman Isles. He could feel the draw of the land in his bones.

  ‘What makes you so happy?’ the Master asked suspiciously. He looked around at the ice-free water, the dancing, foam-topped waves. Then he closed his eyes and laid a palm against the vessel’s bare strakes. A moment later, his eyes snapped open. ‘You have altered our course!’ he accused. He leapt to his feet, too quickly, surely, for a man aged more than three centuries?

  Aran gave him a straight look. In another world, his temper had been known to make men quail; but the old man was another matter. ‘I have,’ he admitted. He indicated a shadow on the far western horizon. ‘That is Rockfall, my home. We should reach it before sundown.’

  The Master glared at him. How could he admit that the holding spell had failed? Offering weakness to such a one as sat opposite him was tantamount to handing him a weapon. Even though he was the most powerful mage in the world (which was probably not claiming much, given his current state) and the other a mere treasure-hunter, in truth they were just two men alone on an ocean in a small, unstable craft. It would not take a great deal for the other to unship him; besides, would it be such a disaster if the man was to see what was left of his home? Rahe had seen the devastation through the crystals in his viewing chamber. The shock of that discovery would likely break this obstinate man’s will, make him more malleable and less taxing to deal with. After all, he must reserve his powers for a time of real need. Which would surely come anon. He could not imagine that the King of the Northern Isles would give up his prize without a fight. At last he gave Aran Aranson a sly smile. ‘Well, then, we shall make a brief visit to your home, and see what hospitality awaits us there.’

  Rockfall did not look ready to offer them much of a welcome, it seemed to Aran Aranson as their
small craft rounded the Hound’s Tooth. There were no fishing boats bobbing at their moorings, no folk going about their business in the harbour, no smoke rising from the home fires which were usually kept burning all through the winter in these remote isles. He frowned, shaded his eyes.

  Behind him, Rahe gave a secret smile. He reckoned they could be gone from here within an hour or two; at the very most by daybreak. He could picture the scene: he, magnanimous in his sympathy, would lead an unresisting Aran Aranson by the arm down the hill from his ruined steading. The erstwhile Master of Rockfall would be pale, nerveless, numb in body and spirit. To an onlooker it would seem an odd reversal: a frail old man guiding a powerful, virile man as tenderly as he might a lost child. He imagined this so clearly, it brought a tear to his eye.

  Aran could no longer bear the tension. He grabbed up unnecessary oars, even though the craft was gliding with magic-filled sails, and started to row with frantic haste.

  ‘Calm yourself, dear boy,’ the mage urged gently. ‘Save your strength.’

  But now a figure came into view; two. For a moment it was hard to make much sense of them, but as the vessel came in sight of the harbour wall they resolved into a tall old woman leading a goat on a string.

  ‘Old Ma,’ Aran breathed. A smile wreathed his face, sudden light breaking through thundercloud. All was well: if an elderly creature like Ma Hallasen could survive a hard winter with the men gone, someone must have looked after her and her beasts.

  He shipped the oars, stood up and waved his arms. The craft rocked perilously. ‘Tell my wife I have returned!’ he cried as soon as they were within hailing range.

  Even as he voiced the words, he knew something to be amiss. Something about Bera, about the way they had parted. Probably an argument. He dismissed this hazy anxiety. He and Bera were always exchanging hard words about something or other: she was that sort of woman, never satisfied to do what she was told, to see his point of view. Her contrariness had always attracted him: it was one of the things he most loved about her, even as it infuriated him to the point of madness. And their daughter was the same, if not worse. His smile broadened. His beloved Katla, most headstrong of daughters. Soon they would be trading words again and she would show him the latest artefact she had forged, a new pattern-weld, a refinement of a classic design.