‘Most likely they used a captive Misfit to do their dirty work,’ Linnet said.
I was too preoccupied with the approaching riders to pay much heed to what they were saying. ‘If this does come to a fight, there must be no killing. Our position in the Land is not so secure, even now, that killing unTalents will be a small matter, even if they are soldierguards and renegade rebels. Besides, they will be more useful to us alive if they do have a stash of black powder or demon bands, for we can use them to recover it.’
‘I dinna think ye need to worry yerself over the sensitivities of ordinary Landfolk. They are as afeared of these gangs as our people,’ Ceirwan said. ‘Ye mun rather ask yerself why a gang of ruffians would come here afore ye worry about their welfare. Th’ answer is that Obernewtyn would make the perfect stronghold for a band of robbers and renegades.’
I stared at him, startled by the idea that the riders might have come to stage a coup.
‘Do not fear,’ Linnet said grimly. ‘If it transpires that they did come with Beforetime weapons capable of doing substantial harm, I have instructed two of my knights to get you away up to the wintergarden. I have assigned similar escorts to the other guildmasters. It will not be a pleasant journey in this weather but if it must be done, it will be done.’
I wanted to object, but the escape plan had been devised by guildmerge and approved by Rushton, on the assumption that the master of Obernewtyn and the guild heads would be of more use plotting in exile than being held captive.
‘Ye gods this rain!’ said Gevan, towelling his hair vigorously as he strode into the entrance hall and came to join us. ‘Do not look so worried, Guildmistress. I think we can route twenty or so brigands, even if Radost is leading them.’
‘Radost?’ I echoed, astonished. ‘How should he be leading them when he and his son were killed escaping from the Councilfarm?’
Linnet shot me a startled look. ‘Guildmistress, do you not know that the body thought to be Radost’s was later discovered to be that of another escapee? They could not find Moss’s body either. It is now thought that the escape was only a decoy which Radost set up to ensure the armsmen on duty had their hands full while he and Moss made their escape.’
‘I thought I had told ye that,’ Ceirwan murmured, frowning. ‘Though now that I think on it, the news came up after ye left for Sutrium wi’ Dragon an’ th’ others.’
I thought of Analivia, Radost’s yellow-haired daughter. I had spoken to her of the deaths of her brother and father the previous spring, and she had said enigmatically that hate did not die so easily. Had she guessed her brother and father had not been killed trying to escape their Councilfarm sentence? Or was it more than a guess? There were plenty with a touch of Talent who did not acknowledge it and Analivia possessed an uncanny ability to hide herself from Talent, which had always struck me as being suspiciously like another sort of Talent. Of course I had not mentioned it, for even in this time, one would not readily and openly suggest someone was a Misfit if they had not acknowledged it.
Analivia must know that her father and brother had not been killed trying to escape the Councilfarm and she could not help but know that Radost was a vengeful, violent man, and that her brother, Moss, was like him as two peas in a pod. She would surely anticipate their wanting to punish her and Bergold for accepting Dardelan as their overlord. Indeed, this might explain why she would have spoken of them coming to live at Obernewtyn. But what if the riders now approaching were led by her father and they had already stopped at Bergold’s farm? Suddenly I felt sick.
‘Elspeth?’ Ceirwan said, touching my arm. ‘Edric is tryin’ to reach ye.’
I opened my mind to the coercer, who explained that he had come down from the roof to farseek me. ‘The riders have just reached the gate, Guildmistress,’ he told me. ‘Some of them are wearing cloaks in Dardelan’s colours, though we can’t see any faces yet. Will you tell my master so he can stand the others down? They will have to be told aloud because of the rain.’ Like many with both coercive and farseeking Talents, Edric had discovered it was less draining and painful to communicate by farseeking rather than with coercion but Gevan was at best a very weak farseeker, so his own guild had got into the habit of using any nearby farseeker as a messenger for their master.
I felt a rush of relief at the news that the riders were not rebels and ruffians set on taking over Obernewtyn, and then a surge of excitement at the possibility that Rushton might have ridden up early with an escort of Dardelan’s armsmen. Then another thought occurred to me. ‘Did you see a wagon among the riders?’ I farsent to Edric.
I was thinking of Dameon, for although the blind empath had recently insisted upon learning to ride, he would never be such a fool as to insist on coming by horse at such speed on such a night.
‘No wagon that I could see,’ the coercer sent. ‘But Declyn was higher and he reckoned there was a smaller group of riders lagging behind the rest. There might be a wagon in their midst.’
I thanked him, and relayed all he had told me to Gevan and the others. The Coercer guildmaster said gruffly, ‘It is good news if these riders are from Dardelan, but a wolf can wear a sheep’s fleece, and other riders behind the first lot means we are looking at over thirty if it comes to a battle. We had best remain ready to fight until we are sure we need not.’ He unclipped the short, metal-shod poles he carried at his belt, and all about me other coercers took their cue from him and readied their weapons.
There was a loud rap at the door and then it burst open and a saturated Leander appeared, beaming. ‘It’s all right!’ he shouted. ‘It’s the Black Dog and a host of the high chieftain’s armsmen!’
Instantly, all of the wariness and fierce purposefulness evaporated and there was a ragged cheer as people replaced their weapons, for Brydda Llewellyn, known to many as the Black Dog, was a great favourite at Obernewtyn. A moment later the big man strode up the steps and into the entrance hall where he shook himself like a huge shaggy dog, showering all of us with water.
‘What sort of weather is this?’ he demanded as armsmen wearing Dardelan’s colours came pushing in around him, all of them streaming wet and pinch-faced with cold. In a short time the entrance hall was full to bursting and the noise was so loud that it drowned out the rain. Despite the open door, the hall began to warm up from the press of bodies.
I was about to go over to greet the big rebel when I noticed that some of those entering wore Norse colours and sported the distinctive side plaits of Norselanders. No doubt they were Gwynedd’s armsmen, for many of his followers affected the Norse style in honour of their high chieftain, who was also king of the Norselands. But why were they here?
Brydda bellowed my name in delight, and I turned to find him elbowing his way through the throng towards me. He opened his huge arms but I fended him off, telling him tartly that I would just as soon forgo a midnight bath if it were all the same to him.
‘Huh, I am a trifle wet,’ he said, glancing down at the spreading puddle under his boots. Indeed, the floor was awash with the slick gruel of mud and rainwater traipsed in by the riders.
Before I could ask what had brought them riding up the muddy road to Obernewtyn in such reckless haste, Gevan came up behind the big rebel and thumped him enthusiastically on the back. As the two men greeted one another, a group of coercers and farseekers and armsmen surrounded them, all talking and asking questions over the top of one another. I drew back from the melée, resigned to waiting a little to learn the reason for the visit. It seemed unlikely to be anything serious given the banter and merriment.
I farsought Ceirwan and bade him begin ushering our visitors in batches to the kitchens where they could warm up and get some hot food. He responded by saying that he had arranged for water and towels to be brought to a chamber nearby so the newcomers could change first. It would take hours to heat water enough for baths, he said, but some pots of boiled water would enable them to wash off the mud of their journey rather than tracking it through the halls and into
the kitchen.
‘I’d best rouse th’ futuretellers, too, an’ have them prepare bedchambers in case someone wants to sleep a few hours before the sun rises. If it rises,’ Ceirwan added.
‘No doubt the futuretellers have already made preparations for our unexpected visitors,’ I muttered sourly, and broke off to look for the beastguilder Lina. Seeing no sign of her, I asked Linnet aloud to go out and explain to the horses that Jaygar was on his way and would escort them to the farms. She nodded in her terse way and strode out, letting in another gust of chill, damp air, and the loud hiss of falling rain before the door slammed behind her. The coercer had no beastspeaking ability but she did have a good command of signal speech.
The front hall was half emptied out before she returned to say that Lina was already with the horses and that all was well. I thanked her and gestured to her now sodden clothes. ‘You’d best change out of those because after all the greetings are over, we will need to take the Black Dog aside and find out what brings him and the others to Obernewtyn in the middle of the night.’
‘Maybe they just came up for the moon fair,’ Linnet said.
‘In such weather when it is still days away? And with several of Gwynedd’s men? As far as I can tell, they came up in one day.’
She shrugged. ‘Perhaps they meant to stop and camp, only the rain didn’t let up so they just kept on.’
‘Perhaps,’ I murmured, unconvinced.
‘Shall I join you in your chamber in twenty minutes, then?’ Linnet asked.
I glanced at Brydda who was throwing back his head to laugh at something Gevan had said. ‘Better make it the kitchens in an hour.’
She had just gone when I thought I heard the faint sound of more horses. I was closer to the door than anyone else and, remembering the second, smaller group of riders, I opened the door a crack, setting one foot against it to stop the wind forcing it open all the way, and squinted out into the rain. It was too dark to see anything except a flurry of movement, then three young men were mounting the steps carrying square, heavy-looking bundles wrapped in oilcloth. I opened the door to let them through, noting that they wore the white wool cloaks favoured by Norselanders, though their hair was too short to be drawn into side plaits.
Another white-cloaked lad ran up the steps in their wake carrying more bundles. His hair was long but unbraided and I was trying to puzzle out what that meant when he lifted his head. Only then did I see that he was a girl, and one of the teknoguilders Garth had sent to Herder Isle.
‘Greetings, Guildmistress,’ Olinden said, recognising me and dropping an awkward curtsey.
‘It is good to see you. Set your burden down by the wall and go on to the kitchen to warm up. Javo is preparing food, though I can’t say what it will be at this hour. Tell the others to set their burdens down with yours.’
‘We need to stow them somewhere safe,’ the teknoguilder said through chattering teeth. ‘They’re books and the Teknoguildmaster will have my hide if they are damaged. I just hope the rain has not got to them.’
I suggested the books be put into the chamber that Ceirwan had designated as a makeshift change room for the visitors. ‘Someone can collect them and shift them to the Teknoguild caves when the rain stops.’
‘There are more to come,’ Olinden warned, before going across to her companions and leading them off down the hall. Watching them with their precious bundles, I smiled at the thought of Garth’s anguish when he learned he would have to wait until he came to Obernewtyn for the moon fair to see the books. So bad was the rain that the steady trickle of traders arriving to set up their stalls and wares for the moon fair had ceased and if the weather did not ease it was likely that I would get my wish for a moon fair by Misfits and largely for Misfits, as usual.
A gust of rainy wind cut straight through the door I was still holding open but I could not close it because another white-cloaked man was hurrying up the steps carrying yet another bundle of books. Again I pulled the door wider to let him in, and as he pushed past me, I saw a slight young woman with very short silver-blonde hair coming up the steps behind him.
‘Are you the last?’ I asked her.
She lifted her head and my mouth fell open in astonishment.
‘Cinda!’ I cried, hardly able to believe this delicate, sodden beauty was the battered, shaven-headed starveling I had last seen on the beach on Herder Isle, when Ari-noor had come to carry me from the island to the mainland.
Cinda’s eyes were luminous with delight as she held out her hands. I took her cold fingers in mine and entered her mind to evoke images of us as I had done on Herder Isle. She could not speak aloud because Ariel had cut out her tongue, and although I did not need to create a visual image of myself to farseek her, I knew that she liked it for it enabled her to speak aloud. I stifled renewed outrage at what had been done to her and to the other slavewomen called shadows, as Cinda used her imagination to alter the image of me until I looked as she had last seen me: filthy, bedraggled, bruised and battered, wet to the skin even as she was now. Her mind reshaped the image again, until I was a tall striking-looking woman clad in a full-length moss-coloured robe with trailing sleeves caught up in my belt and dark shining hair hanging in long tresses about my shoulders.
I laughed. ‘You flatter me, Cinda. But how do you come to be here? I scribed a letter to you …’
‘I … I hope you will forgive me but I did not know how to scribe back to you. You seemed so … well I wanted to come to … to show myself that you are real,’ said her image.
‘You thought I was not real?’
She offered me a mental picture of myself being towed away from the rain-swept shore by a shining grey ship fish, the sky dark and brooding above us save for a seam of light along the horizon. ‘I thought you must be one of the three goddesses of the Norselanders,’ she told me, laughing a little.
Ceirwan came to my side to say aloud that we ought to go to the kitchens where we could talk in the warm. His eyes rested on Cinda with curiosity, and letting go of one hand, I introduced them. He took the freed hand she offered with reverence, greeting her warmly. ‘I ken yer th’ shadow that got th’ rest to rise against th’ priests. Elspeth has told us much about ye, lass, but I nivver imagined ye were little more than a brave and bonny bairn.’
Cinda shook her head, cheeks flushing delicately, and looked at me helplessly. Inside my mind her image protested. ‘You must tell him it was not me. It was all of us, together, because of you.’
‘You were the beginning of it, long before I came to Herder Isle,’ I told her aloud. ‘You and Elkar were the first to have the courage to fight.’
Her face became eager and she released my hands and went to touch the shoulder of the Norselander who had come in just before her. When he turned I saw that it was Elkar, the Herder novice who had worked in secret to help the shadows because of the love he bore Cinda. Like her, his head was no longer shaven, but unlike her he had grown! He was taller than when I had last seen him, and his shoulders and chest had broadened. It seemed impossible that he should have grown so much in the months since I had seen him last, and yet maybe it was the certainty and authority that radiated from him that made him seem so much older and taller, as much as physical growth. Beside him, Cinda looked tiny, but when he reached out his spare arm and drew her close, the tenderness in the motion showed me that his devotion to her was unchanged.
‘Forgive me, I did not recognise you as we came in, Lady Elspeth,’ he said. ‘You look so …’
‘Clean,’ I said drily, and he laughed and let go of Cinda to reach out and take my free hand.
‘I am glad to see you again, Lady Elspeth,’ he said formally but sincerely. ‘I bring you greetings from Sabatien and Mouse, and an invitation to visit us and see what we have done with the freedom you gave us.’
Ceirwan interrupted to insist that we go along to the kitchens, for Cinda was shivering. Elkar smiled at her. ‘She may look as delicate as a flower, but she is stronger than anyone can e
ver guess.’
She smiled up at him in a way that brought tears to my eyes. I blinked them away and said, ‘Nevertheless she does not need to prove her bravery by freezing. Ceir is right. We should go to the kitchens. But before we go, he will show you where you can leave your books and dry off a bit.’
As the guilden ushered them away, I farsent to tell him to chivvy the teknoguilders away from the books if they were still there fussing over them. When they returned, I bade him herd Brydda and Gevan and their chattering coterie of coercers and armsmen along too, for they were all still standing and talking animatedly.
‘I cannot tell you how often my mind goes back to my time on Herder Isle,’ I said, setting off with Elkar and Cinda along the passages to the kitchens.
‘You would not recognise it now,’ Elkar said.
I smiled and asked, ‘Why did Brydda bring you up here at such an hour and in such foul weather?’
‘We gave him no choice,’ Elkar said. ‘We wanted badly to see you.’
I suppressed a sigh, reflecting that I would have to speak to Brydda himself to discover the reason for this visit. But I said, ‘How long can you stay? We have a three-day moon fair coming up and Chieftain Dardelan will be riding from Sutrium with an entourage for it, as Obernewtyn is officially to be made a settlement.’
‘I wish we might stay for it,’ Elkar said regretfully, ‘but the Stormdancer has to return to Herder Isle to make final preparations for the journey to the Red Land. When it next comes to Sutrium, it will be to rendezvous with the other ships, so if we do not go now, we will be stranded on the mainland until next spring, when it is safe for smaller vessels to cross the strait. But have no fear, we will come back to Obernewtyn another time.’
I nodded, unable to say that I would not be here then, but I had forgotten that my probe was still bedded in Cinda’s mind, giving her access to any unguarded thoughts.
‘You mean to go with the ships? But why do you think you will not return with them?’ her image asked soberly.
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