I returned to the cubicle and pulled the arras over the doorway. The floor was very old, very worn. At one side I had long ago managed to loosen the ancient planks and make a hole into the empty storage room below my chamber. From there one could slip behind the supporting wall of the stone stair, a route known only to rats and small boys. The planks slid easily back into position.
I could still negotiate the old way, but when I was safely beneath the stair, I found I was trembling and dizzy. I sat on cold stone, hearing rodents chittering about me, and listened to heavy steps ascending the stair.
Not Regnard; he was silent, as a good assassin must be. No, these steps held the arrogance of authority. The Regent, I thought, had come to see that Frederick’s requirements were met.
Feeling almost gleeful, I listened intently. Above there came a pounding on the door; “Goliard! Goliard! Open this door, I command you!”
I giggled softly, and the rats seemed to giggle with me. Regent Lefevre intended to remain powerful after Frederick was crowned. He would kill me himself, if necessary.
Now I heard a crash, as they attacked my door with axes. That took it down quickly; then there was quiet for a long while. They were searching for me, though there was no place to hide. They would be looking out of the windows, sending others to check the roof, but they would not find me. I had drawn the planking securely behind me, and most men do not consider escaping through the floor.
I slept then for what seemed a long time. When I woke, the house was quiet. At last I crept from the understair into the narrow hallway leading to the sculleries. I followed old routes to my childhood exit, a scuttle hole through which refuse was dropped onto the midden below.
Regents and rulers did not think of such openings into a great House, I knew. If I should ever return with armed men at my back, I might well use them.
The night was cool. Even reeking of the midden as I did, I felt grateful to be free of that house. The stables were on the other side of the kitchen garden, and I crept through the rows carefully, not to disturb the young plants.
Old Josip, the keeper of horses, rested above the stable, but he was deaf and slept like the dead. I managed to accouter Pelly, my gelding, in darkness, tying my pack behind the saddle pad. Leading him around to the back, I found the spot where the wall had fallen before I was born.
I managed to get the horse over the stones, and then we were in the edge of the forest. There I mounted and rode slowly toward its farther edge, where a shallow river flowed into the vale below. Moving into the edge of the water to conceal any track, I left the home of my boyhood.
Before dawn I was trotting over the pasturelands into the hills beyond the vale. When the sun rose higher, I dismounted and led Pelly into the cover of a thicket, where spring grass abounded. A trickle of water ran from beneath a stone, and we quenched our thirst. Then I slept while the gelding munched.
Distant sounds of shouts and pounding hooves along the road came to my ears, but again the habits of adulthood protected me. No knight or noble would think of leaving the traveled way, unless to engage in battle. No track or pile of horse dung would draw any after me. I had chosen my route with care and checked behind us to remove traces of our passing.
Now I was entirely alone. There had always been people about me, some attending, some actively spying on me.
I slept for hours, there in the shade, with the murmur of water in my ears. When I woke the sun was going down beyond the hills, and the sound of birds was all I could hear. Time to move on, I thought.
But where? My people were isolated, and I had never known anyone who lived beyond the hills. To the north were fens and the sea, chance travelers had said. Westward lay long stretches of moor country, sparsely inhabited and dry.
To the south, beyond dangerous forests and rivers, was Kendria, the principal city of our realm, where the King ruled over nobles governing small fiefdoms. My father was one of the High Dukes, kings in their own countries, who were allied to the great King. My brother now held that place. I would not go southward.
No one traveled east from Garenda. I knew nothing of what might lie there. I would go east.
I unrolled my pack and laid out my belongings. There were hose and tunic and smallclothes, in case I got wet, the boots, the sword that had been Father’s. I had saved the small bag of gold since I was small, every birthday gold piece as well as gifts from kin, as if I had known I would need money to escape. I knew I could purchase what I needed, exchanging the gold for copper or silver when possible. Gold attracted robbers as honey drew flies, Father Janvier told me.
I rolled everything together again. Father Janvier’s sister was heir to an outlying farm. He told me her husband left her well provided for. Maybe she might change some of my gold, if I could find her remote steading.
I gazed through a screen of shrubbery, looking out over the vale. No one moved on the road, so late in the evening. The distant village was only a blur, but I could see no activity there. Father Janvier had said his sister’s farm was not far from the South Road to Kendria, served by a wagon track. There would be a moon in time. I would see if I could find Dame Lallia.
Leading Pelly, I set out through the twilight.
Had it not been for the Dame’s donkey, I might never have found her house, which was the color of fungus, almost invisible. But the donkey, hearing Pelly snuffle, brayed loudly, giving me a direction to follow. Feeling our way carefully through the trees, I came at last to the wall around her garden; beyond it I could see the sky, filled with stars and moonlight.
The scent of growing things filled my nostrils, hints of sage and rosemary. She was a healer, I recalled. I raised my voice cautiously. “Dame Lallia! It is Goliard, your brother’s pupil. Will you open your door to me?”
A faint line of light appeared beyond the shutters. Then the door opened, spilling lamplight down the flagged path. “If you are not Goliard,” said a quiet voice that was filled with iron, “then you will regret pretending to be.”
I moved up the path, leaving Pelly to graze outside the wall. Staring up at the figure silhouetted against the doorway, I let her examine my features at length. When she sighed, I knew she recognized her brother’s description.
“Come inside, Prince Goliard,” she said. “Let us close the door.”
The room into which I stepped was not large. Dame Lallia set me at her table and put before me cold vegetables and rabbit, together with a cup of goat’s milk. I was ravenous; until the food was gone I said nothing.
Then I sighed. “Lady, I am grateful. Your brother’s training saved me from death this morning, and your food has done it again tonight. Today Frederick sent his assassin to end me. I escaped, and I hope no one noted my passing. I hoped you might change my gold for copper or silver.”
She nodded. “That I will do. Janvier told me the time would come when you must go or die. He left a gift for you, as well as some advice. ‘No one travels to the east,’ he said. ‘For that reason, no one will search there.’ I think he is correct.”
How strange! I thought. I looked into her dark eyes and tried to smile. “I had come to that conclusion for myself. But I know nothing of what lies there. Is there any tale you have heard that might help me understand what I might find?”
She leaned forward, her nightcap frills framing her narrow face. “We came across the eastern land, when we were little more than children,” she told me. “Our homeland suffered a plague, and all who could escape fled. My family came west, but all died except for me and my brother, and we were almost grown by the time we reached Garenda.
“Janvier left me here, newly married, and continued to roam. When he returned, he had become very wise. I remember the eastern country, though I was very young when we crossed it.”
She stared into my eyes as if determining the depth of my courage. Then she nodded, as if satisfied. “You will need to carry supplies, for
it is an unforgiving place. The land rises into mountains that are cut with ravines and tangled with forest never touched by the axe. Not until you pass into the plain beyond will you find human habitation. There was a manor house set back from the track we followed. An old woman welcomed and fed us and let us rest with her until we were ready to go on. She will be long dead, of course, but perhaps some kin of hers still dwell there. The house has a roof of red tiles. But remember, there are dire influences to the east, dangerous to all.”
Somehow I had felt that to be true. A chill gripped my heart, but I nodded. Wherever I went, I would be pursued. Better by a new enemy than those sent by my brother!
She spread me a pallet before the fireplace; I slept deeply all the night through and well into the next day. To venture out before dark would be foolish, we agreed, so I rested, while she led Pelly into her own stable, fed him grain and hay, and groomed him with her strong old hands.
When I objected to her doing that, she said, “Garenda offered me a home and a life, a husband who was kind and true, and a heritage that will see me through my life. It has given my brother useful work and an interest that keeps him young. I owe much to your house, Prince Goliard. Allow me to pay my debt.”
So she tended both my horse and me, and when I set out before moonrise she led out her donkey, laden with supplies she insisted I must have to survive. Filled with gratitude, I kissed her lined cheek and mounted Pelly. As quietly as possible, I rode away into the forest, keeping before me, when I could see the sky, the bright constellation we call the Sickle.
For a long while we moved through familiar forest land, but before the sun rose we reached a deep canyon. At its bottom a thread of water moved among boulders, but its banks were steep and treacherous. I searched the edge for a possible path. At last I found a spot where a landslip had tumbled rock and soil to the bottom, making a rough but passable route. I led Pelly down to the water, where he bent his neck to drink. Rolling his eyes after the first draught, he snorted, choked. I tied him to an outcrop of rock and dipped a finger into the stream. It tasted terrible, like sulfur and metal, and I knew Lallia had been correct. Finding good water here would be difficult.
* * * *
We found the mountains just as she had described them, difficult to traverse, frustrating in the thick growth of trees and bushes. When at last we came down the other side, the plain lying before us looked no more cheerful. Gray and tan, it rolled toward the horizon, with never a field or a house or even a wild beast to break the monotony.
We had found a few fresh springs as we came through the mountains, refilling Lallia’s water skin each time. Now I realized we might not have enough, even with that, to cross this waste. We camped, the last night, beside the last of the good springs on the mountainside, drinking our fill. When night fell, I searched the plain for some hint of light, but not a glimmer could be seen.
We traveled for three days, following the only track. It wound among small thickets of thorny scrub, over hummocks that reminded me of great tombs, worn away by wind and weather. We camped on the third night under the shelter of a ruined wall, the first trace of the work of human hands.
Pelly seemed nervous, grazing very close to my small fire of brushwood, and more than once I felt as if eyes watched my back. I covered the coals with dirt and prepared to unroll my blanket, but I looked once more along the way ahead. And there, very distant but quite clear, there was a reddish glow. The house Lallia had mentioned? I could only go forward and find out.
I slept fitfully, waked by every breeze rustling the new leaves of the bushes. When dawn touched the sky, Pelly nosed me, as if to say that he, too, wanted to leave. I was only too glad to go, without rekindling my fire or eating a bit of the bread Lallia had packed for me.
We had been weeks on our journey, and spring had progressed to early summer. The track, which showed prints of strange animals and birds, was dusty, and from time to time tiny whirlwinds would twist the dust into spirals and dash it into our faces. So it was that when we came to the house we had sought, I was blinded at first by the last attack of a dust devil.
When my eyes cleared, I saw a red tiled roof. Pelly hurried his steps, and I leaned forward, trying to see any sign of the one who dwelled there. The drive, overgrown with shrubbery, was closed by a rusted gate, whose grillwork was marked with an A, surrounded by leaves and vines. When I pushed at the latch, the entire gate fell to fragments at my feet.
Pelly backed his ears when I tried to lead him forward. I loosed his reins so he could graze and left him behind, feeling very much alone as I trudged between hedges of flowering vigelia and cantropus. Rounding a curve, I found myself at the front entrance, which had been imposing before most of the granite columns fell. Now there was only a narrow slot through which I could approach the front door.
That was ajar, and I called, “Is anyone here? A traveler, weary and in need of water, would like to speak with you.”
An echo repeated my words, distorted beyond understanding, down the long hallway I entered. No answer came, but a door at the end of the corridor creaked open. Taking that as an invitation, I strode forward, my steps setting up an army of echoes as I went. The open door revealed a long room with a fire on an open hearth at the farther end. Broad windows let in light, greened by leafy vines that almost covered them.
For a moment I thought the room was empty. Then a voice croaked, “Come in. Come in, Prince Goliard. I have been waiting for you.”
Taken aback, I moved forward and stared about. A sofa, empty. A deep armchair, also empty. A wing chair, in which I could see a tenuous shape, gray clad, gray of skin and hair, almost invisible against gray velvet. Could this be that woman, old when Lallia was young, whom she and her brother had met here, all those years ago?
Reading my thought, she chuckled softly. “Indeed, young Goliard, things are not all the same in all places. Here time goes very slowly, and things change little. Here came young Janvier, when he had his sister settled, to study with me. We learned much together, and now we are engaged in an interesting task.” She waved a wispy hand, and I perched uneasily on a dusty chair, facing her.
“You have work to do,” she said. “The land you left behind in unworthy hands must be reclaimed, else your people will suffer even more than they have done under the rule of your Regent. Frederick, Janvier tells me, is cruel and capricious. When he ordered you killed, that was the signal to set our plans in motion.”
I stared, confused. “But I have been weeks on the road,” I said. “No one has passed me to bring word to you.”
“No need, no need,” she muttered. “We have our ways, Janvier and I. You will learn. We are going to arm you for a strange kind of battle, and send you back to reclaim your country from despotism. Frederick was always unfit to rule, and Janvier so informed his father and the Regent, though neither wanted to believe. Now all who live beneath his control are learning, to their cost, the truth of his words.”
She shook herself, and dust rose about her. Then she reached a skinny hand, and I took it and helped her rise. How long has she sat there without moving? I wondered, feeling the flutter of her fingers in mine, the lightness of her frail body.
“There is much to do, to learn,” she said. “Come!”
She led me into the corridor and through another door. There I found a sort of study, filled with equipment I could not name. There was no dust to be seen, as if it were used every day.
She noted my bewilderment and laughed. “I no longer have to handle these tools with my body, though you must begin so. Sit in that chair. Face the mirror. Then focus your mind upon Janvier.”
I obeyed. The mirror was framed in iron and polished until it seemed more real than the room it reflected. My own face stared back at me, pale eyes wide with wonder, pale skin now browned with travel. And as I stared, I found my features dissolving, to be replaced by those of my tutor.
“Father Janvie
r!” I gasped. “Are you truly here?”
His deep laugh boomed. “No, Goliard, I am in my own chamber in Garenda. But my mind and my spirit are there, as they are here, for your guidance. Listen closely, for this communication is draining on the old, and both Arlese and I are very old. I can come only once more, and that only if there is great need.” He waited for my reply, and I nodded.
“This is what you must do....”
He had trained me well, forcing me to memorize intricate mathematical formulae and long and demanding verses. As he spoke, I allowed his words to soak into my mind, and when he was done I knew there were stranger matters in my world than I had ever dreamed.
He stopped, and I said, “I understand, Father Janvier, what I must do. It will take time. Will my people suffer much while I prepare myself to return?”
His sigh was clear, even at so great a distance. “They will, my son. But suffering that has an end is far better than that which might go on for Frederick’s lifetime. Work hard, work quickly. Call me only at need. Arlese knows the way of it. Now I must sleep.” His face was pale, his dark eyes circled; I knew this had drained him badly. Then he was gone, and my own face looked back at me.
* * * *
For a year I lived with the lady Arlese, who seldom moved from her chair, but who instructed me at every step. I learned rituals whose meanings were lost in the depths of the past. I manipulated substances whose effects astonished me to my soul.
When we were done with my education, we had achieved a cartload of long, thin staffs, beautifully decorated, which seemed totally harmless. Yet by using them correctly, I knew I could establish just rule for my people.
In the stable of the ancient house we found a cart, shabby and dusty, yet stout enough. Pelly, understandably, refused to draw it, but the donkey, being of a less arrogant breed, seemed willing enough. A year from the day when I had fled my home, I set out again, westward along that dim track, leading the donkey, which in turn pulled my cart.
The Second Ardath Mayhar Page 17