A Time of Exile

by Kerr, Katharine

  “Your men called me a peddler, but I’m nothing of the sort. I’m a herbman, traveling in your country, and one who knows the laws of the gods. Do you care to question me further?”

  “I do. I don’t give a pig’s fart whether you’re a learned man or not, and anyway, for all I know, you lie.”

  “Then let me give you a sample of my learning. Enslaving free men to work your land is an impious thing. The gods have decreed that only criminals and debtors shall be bondsmen. That law held for a thousand years, back in the Homeland, and it held for hundreds here, until greedy men like you chose to break it.”

  When his men began muttering, shamefaced among themselves at the truth of the herbman’s words, the lord’s face turned purple with rage. He drew his sword, the steel glittering in the sun.

  “Hold your ugly lying tongue and give me back that bondsman! Be on your way or die right here, you scholarly swine!”

  With a gentle smile, Aderyn raised his hand and called upon the spirits of fire. They came, bursting into manifestation with a roar and crackle of bright flame on the sword blade. Howling, Degedd struggled to hold on to the hilt, then cursed and flung the flesh-branding metal to the ground. Aderyn turned the flames to illusions and swung around, scattering bright but harmless blue fire into the warband. Yelling, shoving each other, they fell back and ran away to let their lord face Aderyn alone.

  “Now then, I’ll give you two copper pieces for him. That’s a generous price, my lord.”

  His face dead white, Degedd tried to speak, failed, then simply nodded his agreement. Aderyn untied his coin pouch and counted the coppers into the lord’s broad but shaking left hand, as the right seemed to pain him.

  “Your chamberlain will doubtless think you’ve made a fine bargain. And, of course, if you and your men return straight to your lands, there’s no need for anyone to ever hear this tale.”

  Degedd forced out a tight sour smile. Doubtless he didn’t care to be mocked in every tavern in Eldidd by the story of how one herbman had bested him on the road, especially since no one would believe that the herbman had done it with magic. With a cheery wave, Aderyn mounted his horse and rode away, with Ibretin and the mule hurrying after. About a mile on, they looked back to see Lord Degedd and his warband trotting fast—away back south. Aderyn tested the dweomer warnings and felt that indeed, all danger was over. At that he laughed aloud.

  “If nothing else,” he told Ibretin, “that was the best jest I’ve had in a long time.”

  Ibretin tried to smile but burst into tears instead. He wept all the way back.

  That night there was as much of a celebration in the camp as their meager provisions would allow. Aderyn sat at the biggest fire with Wargal and his wife while the rest of the villagers squatted close by and stared at him as if he were a god.

  “We have to let the goats rest a day or they’ll stop giving milk,” Wargal said. “Is that safe, Wise One?”

  “Oh, I think so. But you’d best travel a long ways north before you find a place to settle down.”

  “We intend to. We were hoping you’d come with us.”

  “I will for a while, but my destiny lies in the west, and I have to go where my magic tells me.”

  After three more days of slow, straggling marching, the luck of Wargal’s tribe turned for the better. One afternoon they crested a high hill to see huts of their own kind spread out along a stream, prosperous fields, and pastures full of goats. When they came up to the village, the folk ran to meet them. There were only seven huts in the village, but land enough for many families. After a hasty tribal council, their headman, Ufel, told Wargal that he and his folk were welcome to settle there if they chose.

  “The more of us, the better,” Ufel said. “Our young men are learning a thing or two from the cursed Blue-eyes. Someday we’ll fight and keep our lands.”

  Wargal tossed back his head and howled a war cry.

  Their journey over, the refugees camped that night along the streambank. The villagers brought food and settled in for talks to get to know their new neighbors. At Ufel the headman’s fire, Wargal and Aderyn drank thin beer from wooden cups.

  “I take it your folk have lived here for some time,” Aderyn said. “May you always live in peace.”

  “So I hope. We have a powerful god in our valley, and so far he’s protected us. If you’d like, I’ll show you his tree on the morrow.”

  “My thanks, I would.” Aderyn had a cautious sip of the beer and found it suitably weak. “I don’t suppose any of the Blue-eyes live near you?”

  “They don’t. And I pray that our god will always keep them away. Very few folk of any kind come through here—one of the People every now and then, that’s all.”

  “The who?”

  “The People. The Blue-eyes call them the Westfolk, but their own name for themselves is the People. We don’t see many of them anymore. When I was a little child, they brought their horses through every now and then, but not recently. Probably the demon-spawn Blue-eyes have tried to enslave them, too, but I’m willing to bet that they found it a very hard job.”

  “From what I’ve heard, the Eldidd men have some kind of trade with them—iron goods for horses.”

  “Iron goods? The idiot Blue-eyes give the People iron?” Ufel rose and paced a few steps away from the fire. “Trouble and twice trouble over that, then!”

  “What? I don’t understand. The Westfolk seem to want the iron and …”

  “I can’t explain. For a Blue-eye you’re a good man, but telling you would be breaking geis.”

  “Never would I ask you to do such a thing. I’ll say no more about it.”

  On the morrow, Aderyn rose before dawn and slipped away before the village was truly awake to spare everyone a sad farewell. He followed an ancient trail that wound through the barren pine-stubbled mountains without seeing a soul, either good or bad, until he rejoined the road. Even though the fields were plowed and ready for the fall planting, and orchards stood along the road, the houses were few and far between, and villages rare, unlike in Deverry. As he came closer to the river El, the real spine of the country, the houses grew thicker, clustering in proper villages. Finally, after six days on the road, he reached Elrydd, a proper town where he found an inn, not a cheap place, but it was clean, with fresh straw on the tavern-room floor.

  Aderyn paid over a few of his precious coins for the lodging, then stowed his gear in a wedge-shaped chamber on the upper story. The innkeep, Wenlyn, served a generous dinner of thick beef stew and fresh bread, topped off with apple slices in honey. He also knew of the Westfolk.

  “A strange tongue they speak. Break your jaw, it would. A jolly sort of folk, good with a jest, but when they come through here, they don’t stay at my inn. Don’t trust ’em, I don’t. They steal, I’m cursed sure of it, and lie all the time. Can’t trust people who won’t stay put in proper villages. Why are they always riding on if they don’t have somewhat to hide, eh?” Wenlyn paused to refill Aderyn’s tankard. “And they’ve got no honor around women. Why, there’s a lass in our very own town who’s got a bastard by one of them.”

  “Now here, plenty of Eldidd men sire bastards, too. Don’t judge the whole herd by one horse.”

  “Easy enough to say, good sir, and doubtless wise. But there’s just somewhat about these lads. The lasses go for them like cats do for catmint, I swear it. Makes a man nervous, it does, wondering what the lasses see in a bunch of foreigners. Huh. Women have got no sense, and that’s all there is to that.”

  Aderyn smiled in bare politeness while Wenlyn sucked his teeth and sighed for the folly of lasses.

  “Tell me, good sir,” Aderyn said at last. “If I ride straight west on the king’s road, will I eventually meet up with some of these folk?”

  “Oh, no doubt, but what do you want to do that for? If you do, be cursed careful of your mule and horse. They might take a fancy to them, like. But as to where, let’s think—never been there myself—but Cernmeton, that region, that’s where
our merchants go to trade.”

  “My thanks. I’ll be leaving on the morrow, then. I’ve just got a fancy to take a look at these folk.”

  Wenlyn stared at him as if he were daft, then left Aderyn to finish his meal in peace. As he sopped up the last of his stew with a bit of bread, Aderyn was wondering at himself. He felt something calling him west, and he knew he’d better hurry.

  Out on the grasslands the seasons change more slowly than they do in the mountains. At about the time when Aderyn was seeing omens of autumn up in the Eldidd hills, far to the west the golden sunlight still lay hazy on the endless-seeming expanse of green. When the alar rode past a small copse of alders clustered around a spring, the trees stood motionless and dusty in the windless heat, as if summer would linger there forever. Dallandra turned in her saddle and looked at Nananna, riding beside her on a golden gelding with a white mane and tail. The elder elven woman seemed exhausted, her face as pale as parchment under her crown of white braids, her wrinkled lids drooping over her violet eyes.

  “Do you want to rest at the spring, Wise One?”

  “No need, child. I can wait till we reach the stream.”

  “If you’re sure—”

  “Now don’t fuss over me! I may be old, but I still have the wit to tell you if I need to rest.”

  Riding straight in the saddle for all her five hundred years, Nananna slapped her horse with the reins and pulled a little ahead. With her second sight, Dallandra could see the energy pouring around her, great silver streams and pulses in her aura, almost too much power for her frail body to bear. Soon Nananna would have to die. Every day Dallandra’s heart ached at the thought of losing her mistress in the craft of magic, but there was no denying the truth.

  Their companions followed automatically as they rode on. Earlier that morning, their alar had hurried ahead with the flocks and herds and left them a small escort of others who needed to move slowly. Enabrilia came first, leading the packhorse that dragged the heavy wooden travois with the tents. Her husband, Wylenteriel, their baby in a leather pack on his back, rode some distance behind and kept the brood mares with their young colts moving at a slow but steady pace. His brother, Talbrennon, rode point off to one side. In the middle of the afternoon Nananna finally admitted that she was tired, and they made camp near a scattering of willow trees. Normally, since they were only stopping for one night, they wouldn’t have bothered to unpack the tents, but Dallandra wanted to raise one for Nananna.

  “No need,” Nananna said.

  “Now here, Wise One,” Wylenteriel said. “Me and Tal can have it up in no time at all.”

  “Oh, children, children, it’s not time for me to leave you yet, and when it’s time, you can fuss all you like, but it won’t give me one extra hour.”

  “I know that’s true,” Dallandra said. “But—”

  “No buts, child. If you know it, act on it.”

  Wylenteriel, however, insisted on a compromise: he and Tal set up a small lean-to to keep the night damp off and unpacked cushions from the travois to lay on the canvas ground cloth. Dallandra helped Nananna settle herself, then knelt and pulled off the old woman’s boots. Nananna watched with a faint smile, her thin, gnarled hands resting on her frail knees.

  “I’ll admit I could use a bit of a nap before dinner.”

  Dallandra covered her with a light blanket, then went to help set up the camp. The men were already watering the horses at the stream; Enabrilia was sitting on the ground by a pile of dumped gear and nursing Farendar, who whimpered and fussed at her breast. He was only a year old, still practically a newborn by elven standards. Dallandra wandered downstream, driven by a sudden stab of omens. Even in the bright sunlight she felt cold, knowing that warnings were trying to reach her like slivers of ice piercing the edge of her mind, an image of winter, when something would tear her life in half and change her irrevocably. Nananna’s death, probably. With a shudder she ran back to the safe company of friends.

  That night, while the others sat around a small campfire, Dallandra went to the lean-to. Nananna made a large ball of golden light and hung it on the ridgepole, then rummaged through her saddlebags for the small silver casket that guarded her scrying stones. There were five of these jewels, each set in a small silver disk graved with symbols: ruby for fire, topaz for air, sapphire for water, emerald for earth, and finally, the largest of them all, an amethyst for aethyr. Nananna laid the disks on a cushion and frowned at them for a moment.

  “I had a dream while I was napping, and I need to see a bit more. Hum, the amethyst will do.”

  Carefully Nananna wrapped the other jewels up in bits of fine silk cloth, then laid the amethyst disk in the palm of her right hand. Dallandra knelt beside her and looked into the stone, where a small beam of light gleamed in the dead center, then swelled to a smoky void—or so it seemed to Dallandra. Nananna, however, watched intently, nodding her head every now and then at some detail. Finally she spoke the ritual word that cleared the stone of vision.

  “Now that’s interesting,” Nananna said. “What do you think of it?”

  “Nothing. I couldn’t see.”

  “A man of magic is coming to us from the east. His destiny lies here, and I’m to take him in.”

  “Not one of those smelly Round-ears?”

  “Any man who serves the Light is welcome in my tent.”

  “Of course, Wise One, but I didn’t think a Round-ear would have the wits for magic.”

  “Now, now! Harsh words and prejudice don’t suit a student of the Light.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t like the Round-ears much either, mind. But I’m trying. Do your best to try, too.”

  In the middle of the next afternoon, they rode into the alardan, the great camp where the People meet at the end of the summer after a long season’s wandering with their flocks and herds. That year the banadars of the scattered tribes had chosen the Lake of the Leaping Trout, the most southerly of a chain of lakes along a wide river which the Eldidd men, with a characteristic lack of imagination, called simply Aver Peddroloc, the four-lake river. To the south stood a vast oak forest, tangled and primeval, that was a burying ground held sacred by the People for a thousand years. From the north shore spread an open meadow, where now hundreds of brightly painted tents rose like flowers in the grass. Out beyond were flocks of sheep and herds of horses, watched over by a ring of horsemen.

  As their little group rode up, Talbrennon peeled off to drive their stock into the communal herds. Dallandra led the others down to the lakeshore and found an open spot to set up camp. As they dismounted, ten men came running to do the heavy work for the Wise One and her apprentice. Dallandra led Nananna away from the bustle and helped her sit down in the grass, where Enabrilia and the baby joined them. Farendar was awake, looking up at his mother with a wide toothless grin.

  “Look, sweetie, look at the camp. Isn’t it nice? There’ll be music tonight, and you can listen.”

  Farendar gurgled, a pretty baby, with big violet eyes, a soft crown of blond hair, and delicate ears, long and tightly furled, as all babies’ ears were. They would begin to loosen when he was three or so.

  “Give your aunt Dalla a kiss.” Enabrilia held him up. “Malamala’s sweetest love.”

  Obligingly Dallandra kissed a soft pink cheek. There was a definite odor about the child.

  “He’s dirty again.”

  “Oh, naughty one!”

  Enabrilia knelt down in the grass and pulled up his little tunic to unlace the leather diaper and pull it off. The diaper was stuffed with long grass, definitely well used; Enabrilia shook it out and began to pull clean. All the while she kept up a running stream of sweet chatter that vaguely turned Dallandra’s stomach. Her friend gushed over the baby no matter what he did, whether soiling his diapers or blowing his snotty little nose. At times it was hard for Dallandra to believe that this was the same girl who used to train for an archer and race her horse ahead of the alar across the grasslands, who used to ca
mp alone in the forest with Dallandra, just the two of them. Every child, of course, was more precious than gold and twice as rare among the People; every elf knew that, and Dallandra reminded herself of it often. When Enabrilia started to put the grass-filled diaper back on, Farendar proceeded to urinate all over himself and her hand, but his mother just laughed as if he’d done something clever.

  “I think I’ll walk back to the camp,” Dallandra said. “See if the tent is ready.”

  The tents were indeed standing, and Halaberiel the banadar was waiting in front of Nananna’s with four members of his warband. Louts, Dallandra considered the young men, with their long Eldidd swords at their sides and their swaggering walk. Halaberiel himself, however, was a different matter, a farseeing man and a skilled judge for the alarli under his jurisdiction. When Dallandra held up her hands palm outward, he acknowledged the gesture of respect with a small firm nod.

  “I’m glad to see you, Wise One. I trust Nananna is well.”

  “A bit tired. She’s down by the lakeshore.”

  “I’ll go speak with her.” Halaberiel glanced at his escort. “You all stay here.”

  The four of them obligingly sat down in front of the tent. The worst four, Dallandra thought. Calonderiel, Jezryaladar, Elbannodanter, and Albaral—they were all staring, hungry-eyed and smiling. She felt like kicking dirt in their faces. As she followed the banadar, Calonderiel got up and ran after, catching her arm and bobbing his head to her.

  “Please, Dalla, won’t you take a little stroll with me? Oh, by the gods who live in the moon, I’ve dreamt about you every night for weeks.”

  “Have you?” Dallandra shook her arm free. “Then maybe you’ve been drinking too much Eldidd mead before you go to bed. Try taking a herbal purgative.”

  “How can one so lovely be so cruel? I’d die for you. I’ll do anything you say, fight a thousand Round-ears or ride alone to hunt down the fiercest boar! Please, won’t you give me some quest? Something dangerous, and I’ll do it or die all for your sake.”