by Andre Norton
The horses grazed while Alysen washed herself in the fall. We ate from our dwindling provisions, careful not to take too much, and we filled our bottles with water, drinking as much as we could before refilling them to bursting, then dressing and getting on the horses.
“Have we again come into favor?” Alysen asked.
“Perhaps.” I wondered if I would ever feel good again. My body was so tired and full of aches, my mind weary. I had slept well, but it would take several nights of such deep sleep to thoroughly recover—physically and emotionally. So much had happened in such a short time, like a sword falling and slitting reality.
By the Green Ones, why had all this come to pass?
And now we were faced with a journey from a land we’d not been in before, without even a suggestion of a map. I’d watched where Grazti had led us, but there were so many twists and turns to the creature’s course, as if it had deliberately kept the path confusing.
“I’m sorry about your father, Eri.”
I was taken aback by Alysen’s words. She’d not expressed compassion for me before.
“And I’m sorry I looked in on him and saw him die. Maybe I looked in because I envied you, having a father and all.”
“It is time to get matters straight, Alysen.” I kneed Crust into moving. When the clip-clop of his hooves was echoed by the fell pony’s, I continued. “Each of us has a truth to add to the whole. I am Yulen t’Kyros. My father was of the old blood and born with the talent. His was the power of taste—as mine is. In the Year of the Leopard my father was taken to the great southern city to serve as taster and cupbearer for the Empress and Emperor. My brother became a squire, and I never saw him again. After the Law of Wyse Right, my mother and I were taken to Galleen Holding, where my mother died two years later, having been stung by veesor ants while helping to bring in the harvest.”
I told no bard’s tale of heroics, and might well have been repeating something Alysen already knew. Too, she might not have been interested in the details of my life, only that I had an earthly father. Had.
“I was left alone after my mother’s death, Alysen, stripped of kin and too young to make my own way in the world. No family volunteered to take me in at Galleen Holding. Lady Ewaren of the Village Nar had been known to take in young people with talents, and so they sent word to her. She agreed and gave me my own room. Bastien of the Moonsons was newly arrived at the Village Nar and lessoned me in arms. And he tried to teach me a bit about the wyse, as he had what he called a trivial talent. Nanoo Gafna helped, teaching me to center my wyse skills. Now a handful of days ago I come home from a hunt to discover Lady Ewaren of the Village Nar dead, those of her household slain, news that my father has also suffered his end, and with him, the Emperor. Lady Ewaren was tortured, no doubt in their effort to discover where I was. But she didn’t know.”
I paused, reached for my saddle bottle, and drank deep, though I was not thirsty. Alysen’s tongue appeared between her lips and swept across them. I handed her the bottle and she drank in turn. She swallowed and took another mouthful, swallowed again, and gave me the bottle back.
“I am Alysen of the House of Geer. My clan has since before the War of the Underlings had ties with the Green Ones, as well as with some families strong in the wyse. When my mother began showing, after a Green One…” She stroked her chin, searching for the words and not finding ones to her liking. “There were those who saw themselves belittled as a clan to have a woman pregnant with no earthly husband. So they arranged my mother’s marriage to an Arms Lord who hated magic. I had an unfortunate childhood; I was strong in the wyse and unable to use it lest I risk punishment from my … father. About a year ago, I could not stand it any longer, and out of sympathy—and out of trying to protect me in a dwindling Geer line—my mother sent me to Lady Ewaren.” The breath hissed out between her teeth, and she shook her head.
After a few moments of silence, I spoke again. “I have no home beyond the Village Nar, either. I cannot go back to Kyros. The floods destroyed it years past.”
Alysen rubbed a bruise on her hand. “Geer is closed to me. There are people in the settlement who would be the first to deliver me to some lord to be used as a kitchen girl.” She stretched forward to scratch at a spot between Spring Mist’s ears. “So the deep, deep woods of the Nanoo, Mardel’s Fen, is where we’ll find our refuge, Eri. We’ll be safe from Lord Purvis and his men, from fose-bears. Safe, and free to use the wyse. Nothing to menace us.”
I didn’t let her see my frown. She would be safe with all of the Nanoo to watch over her. But I had a bloodoath to fulfill. My own safety was of no concern.
16
The sun and the stars guided us. Bastien had taught me to read them well. But we were not able to travel straight in any one direction for long because of the hills and gullies. The valley that we’d traveled through to reach the place of the Fire Stones was even more treacherous as we retraced our steps. The fierce rains had washed away much of the scant earth that had covered the steep sides, leaving great patches of slate and granite, tipped at awkward angles that threatened to injure Spring Mist and Crust. So we took an easier route and could not accurately backtrack.
I took us the length of the treacherous valley, finding more gently sloping ground at the far western edge of it. Under the umbrella of an old, half-dead elm, we camped. We didn’t speak much, both of us finding the silence to our liking, and we made our way up the rise the following morning. Our rations were gone, and I would have to hunt this day to feed us. It would not be an easy thing, as I could not leave Alysen, and her presence would make hunting more difficult. I prayed to the Green Ones that we could find spring berries along our path.
“South?”
“Yes, Alysen, we’re traveling south.”
“Beyond that, do you know where we’re going, Eri? Are we still near-lost?”
I allowed myself a faint chuckle. I’d not laughed since several days before the Village Nar slaughter. The sound of my laughter made me uncomfortable. I should not be finding happiness at this juncture. “Alysen, I’ve not been in this territory that I can recall. Though if hunting had gotten much worse, I daresay I would have discovered this place.”
I stopped, cocking my head and listening. All I could hear were the small animal sounds—birds and ground squirrels. No snapping of wood to indicate boars or curl-horns or other large beasts. Perhaps I could find us a rabbit.
“What’s that?” My gaze followed Alysen’s extended finger. And to the west, through a gap in a clump of birch trees, I spied a cottage.
“Let’s find out. Perhaps someone there will offer us something to eat in exchange for chores.” I was tired of riding, and investigating the cottage was as good an excuse as any to get off Crust and stretch my legs. Within moments, we were at the clump of birches, then beyond them.
“No one lives in that home. Not anymore, Eri.”
“That looks to be so.” I slid off Crust and passed the reins to Alysen. “Please stay here. Please.”
I knew it was a gamble that she’d heed my words.
There was a gate around the cottage, like one might find in a village. But there was no village in sight—though I did spy what looked like the remainder of other homes. The gate was open and the cottage stood alone, run-down, with weeds growing high out front in what once was an herb and flower garden. The front door was halfway open, hanging at an odd angle because one of the hinges had pulled loose. There’d been no fire in the fireplace for a good while, and I knew the place had been abandoned—but after a moment of sniffing, I knew it was not unoccupied. I freed the double-hooked chain from my belt, twirling the loose, heavier end.
I heard Alysen suck in a deep breath, and I cringed, fearing she would talk or make some other noise and give our presence away. With an exaggerated shake of my head, hoping that might keep her silent, I crept toward the front door, breathing shallowly and picking my steps carefully so I would not break a twig or rustle the weeds.
I sto
pped myself from calling on my wyse-sense. Alysen claimed I used weapons when I should use my mind. But I regarded the magic of the earth too highly to call upon it without thought. I did not need my wyse-sense to tell me what waited inside the cottage. My eyes and nose had picked up enough signs to know.
A few feet from the cottage door, I gave up on stealth and rushed forward, raising my leg and slamming my heel against the wood, splintering it and leaping inside. A squeal cut through the air, then another, this second one long and painful to my ears, as it was a squeal of pain. I slammed my chain against the pig, drawing the hooked end across its throat to kill it quickly. I respected all life, and I didn’t want to cause the beast to suffer more than necessary.
“What is it?” Alysen pushed what was left of the door all the way open. “What … oh my!”
I knelt on the floor of the one-room cottage, remnants of crude furniture around me, slain wild pig in front of me. “Hungry?” I asked her.
Though she looked in horror at the blood and the dead animal, she nodded yes. “Very, Eri. I am very, very hungry.”
I butchered the pig behind the cottage, Alysen collecting pieces of the broken furniture to burn in the fireplace. She wanted no part of watching me with the pig. As she finished her task earlier than I, I called to her to search through the overgrown garden in the front to see if there might be something there to supplement the meat. I suspected she knew nothing about gardening, as I’d never seen her work in the gardens in the Village Nar. But she surprised me and discovered early coriander, caraway, costmary, clary sage, and spring savory. Perhaps indeed she knew gardening. As she said, I was often hunting and rarely around.
Though there was much of the day left, we stayed in the old cottage, as it took hours to cook the wild pig. We contentedly stuffed ourselves with the meat, tearing what we didn’t eat into strips that we wrapped with the herbs and packed for the next few days. The horses grazed on wildflowers and the herbs Alysen hadn’t picked, and they drank from a rain barrel that miraculously stood intact to the side of the cottage. The room was smoky, the fireplace thick with the char of long-ago fires and begging to be cleaned, but we didn’t mind the smell as we sat in front of the flames and enjoyed this scrap of civilization.
We swept up a space where we could lay out our bedrolls with an old broom we had found. It was not near so comfortable as our rooms at Lady Ewaren’s house, but it was far better than our accommodations of the previous few nights.
Shortly before midnight another storm erupted, and I brought the horses inside to crowd us. I wondered if the sky was sending me a message—that the remainder of my life would be plagued by storms of a human nature.
I left a few pieces of wood in the fireplace to give us some light and stirred the embers, as again the thick clouds blotted out the stars. Normally I slept better in darkness, but tonight I thought the glow would make both of us rest easier.
The storm was thankfully short-lived, and well before the sky started to lighten the air filled with the chorus of insects and the cries of night birds. My fingers played with the moss-agate tears of my necklace, and I thought of Bastien. If it hadn’t been for his teachings, I would lack woodland skills and Alysen and I would be in a far worse situation.
We left the cottage early the following morning, and three long, soggy days passed before we reached the part of the woods that felt familiar to me. Another day, the sun high overhead, and we returned to the marshy ground where the thorny wall and the grasping vines had entwined us with Grazti. The wall was gone, no trace of it but in our memories, nor was there any sign of the depression where the bird-creature had been caught.
“Are you sure this is it?”
“Yes, Alysen, through this way we’ll come to the heart of the fen. Had the woods not railed against that … damn bird-beast, we would have been through here well more than a week ago.”
She smiled, but it was a nervous one. I could guess from her expression what she was thinking. She would be safe here with Nanoo Gafna, but it would not be the sort of life she wanted. She’d admitted to me she yearned for the fancy life of the great southern city. This would not even be as “fancy” as the Village Nar.
“Everything will be fine, Alysen.” I wanted to make her feel better … perhaps so I would feel better about leaving her with the Nanoo. There would be no place for her at my side as I carried out my bloodoath.
My mouth was dry as I slipped from the back of Crust and led her between the trunks of twin black oaks. I’d been this way before, spying artfully curved branches and almost invisible scratches in the bark of old rock elms. Bastien had taught me that trees do not grow haphazardly. The differences in soil and rainfall, coupled with temperature, dictate what varieties grow where. Yet in this fen there was a mix that did not follow nature’s rules. Longleaf pines stretched up more than a hundred feet, dropping their long needles on the ground to create a spongy carpet over the sodden earth. Piñon pines, with their tasty nuts, grew alongside them … a tree that should be found far, far to the west of here. Bald cypress, which craved the wet of this place, stood next to paper birch and big-tooth aspen, trees that should have been in the colder climes of the distant south. Too, there was a scattering of pin oaks, which Bastien told me favored high, dry places.
It was the Nanoo who’d grown these woods, aesthetically pleasing, scenting the air and providing nuts and a carpet and wood to build homes. They’d arranged Mardel’s Fen much in the same way a lord and lady would arrange the furniture in their manor house. I was in great awe of the Nanoo; to have such power to sculpt nature was a gods-given gift.
Perhaps when I’d completed my bloodoath, I would return here and make a life for myself. I knew enough of the Nanoo’s ways to be accepted. Besides, where else would I go? I had no one, and my home was a village of the dead.
I pressed on through the woods, a stern look to Alysen keeping her behind me. She knew not to run off this time—the previous episode of that had gifted us with the vile Grazti.
Gnats danced across my face, but I didn’t bother raising a hand to brush them away. They were insignificant compared with everything else I’d encountered. I saw webs, and they only served to remind me of our House Lady weaver. I walked by them quickly.
Then we passed beneath a tall willow birch, and I felt the weeping leaves brush my shoulders.
Few people are welcomed into the heart of the fen, and I know I am blessed to be one of them. I continued to draw the precious, damp air into my lungs and thank the wood spirits with each step. I looked over once at Alysen, as we neared a dead black willow, its thin branches dangling down and looking like a nest of giant spiders. Her lips were moving, and I hoped it wasn’t in the conjuration of some spell.
No matter, I would have her in Nanoo Gafna’s hands within minutes, and then I would be about my bloodoath.
The Nanoo are a reclusive folk, eccentric and peculiar and secretive. Not many of them venture from the fen, choosing to live out their long lives on this stretch of soggy ground. Nanoo Gafna, however, had spent two days of every other week in the Village Nar for at least the past ten years. On occasion she stayed for longer. Bastien said it was because of Lady Ewaren, that their families were entwined a generation or two in the past, and that they were “faint relatives” who enjoyed each other’s company. However, Lady Ewaren said Gafna came because she was overly fond of milk, and that the Village Nar was the closest source of cow’s milk to the fen. I knew Gafna would not be visiting the Village Nar again.
The dead branches of the willow rustled as we walked beneath them, some playing along Crust’s back and withers. The cob nickered appreciatively. Then we were beyond the big tree and walking through a row of feathery fescue that grew in water that reached above our ankles.
A moment more and we were in the heart of the fen.
I offered a silent prayer of thanks to the Green Ones that we’d finally reached our destination. Ancient, thick, twisted trees ringed an egg-shaped clearing filled with reeds and
standing water. The gnarled branches looked like serpents artfully intertwined.
I looked from one tree to the next, then I told my mind not to believe my eyes. In that instant, I saw the Nanoo community. The base of each tree was actually a cottage, with hollows forming doors and windows. Smaller cottages grew farther up, and squirrels and jays flitted from home to home, telling the Nanoo of visitors. I knew the animal messengers were unnecessary—the trees had announced our presence the moment we neared the Nanoo’s standing stones.
Wisteria eria eria eria. It was the breeze calling my name. I dropped Crust’s reins and approached the largest of the trees, an impossibly thick walnut, kneeling in the water and feeling the mud take hold of my knees, the toes of my boots, and my leggings. Alysen came behind me, holding her skirt up to keep it dry. She did not kneel.
Eria eria eria eria. The breeze persisted, soft and melodic and curling around my head. I bowed until my forehead brushed the fescue.
Eria eria.
“Wisteria of Nar, you are welcome here, friend of the Nanoo and friend of the fen.”
I raised my head and let my gaze drift over the speaker.
She faced me, nearly six feet tall, though her shoulders were rounded with age. Her skin was tanned and so deeply lined it looked like the bark of the walnut tree she’d emerged from. Her arms were long and the fingers that dangled below the sleeves of her earth brown gown were thin and curved, like the talons of a bird. Much about her was birdlike. Her neck was thrust forward, head lowered, long nose leading. She took quick steps, head bobbing like a bird’s. Her hair was a thick, coarse tangle that dropped to her shoulders, appearing like the nest of a hawk.
“Wisteria, what brings you here?” Her voice was thin and musical, also like a bird’s, and it reminded me in particular of the song of a thrush.