by Andre Norton
The nostrils flared wider and I stopped, slowly drawing my arms close. I cast my gaze to the ground and waited. A slight breeze teased the hair on the back of my neck and brought me the dank, fusty odors of this pen and the streets nearby. I didn’t need magic to pick up these scents, or to hear the mare coming closer. She snorted, took a few more steps, and stopped. I resumed the clicking and waited.
I probably could have managed all of this faster, just taking a coil of rope and looping it around one of the horse’s necks, jumping on that horse, and riding away. But that would generate more noise than I wanted. I had time, and the darkness, and enough patience to do this properly.
She nickered and I raised my head at an angle, slowly, my eyes finding hers and then looking quickly away. Bastien said this showed the horse respect and served as an invitation.
It took a few moments, but the vanner accepted that invitation, clopping closer, tossing her head back, opening her eyes wider and tipping her ears up. I reached out a hand and touched her muzzle, then scratched it gently and made a sound as close to a nicker as I could manage.
Moments later, I found a bit and bridle hanging on a pen post. I put this on her and stroked her silky mane, whispered my name to her, and led her out of the gate.
“Stay,” I urged, as I dropped her reins and hurried to where I’d left my satchel. I thrust my fingers inside it, my hand slightly sweaty. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I was nervous. I wanted to be out of Elspeth’s Knot and heading toward Derilynn and Tichal. I wanted to be about the business of completing my bloodoath so I could ease my spirit and bring closure for Lady Ewaren.
My fingers closed on the coin pouch, and I measured out half of the coins.
The coins had been Bastien’s, and I could only guess how many to use to buy the horse. We never used coins in the Village Nar, always bartering for goods instead … even with passing merchants and other villages, we traded. I sat the coins near the stable door, hoping the man would find them in the morning and consider them payment for the horse—and not keep them for himself. I thought it likely the latter would happen, as it would be more coins than he’d probably see in a year or perhaps his lifetime. But I had to try to pay for what I was taking.
In trying, I was assuaging some of the guilt I felt for stealing someone’s mount. I prayed to the Green Ones this mare was not as precious to someone as Dazon had been to me. Perhaps when all of this was over I could return the horse to Elspeth’s Knot. I promised myself that I would at least try.
“Time to leave,” I whispered to the mare. I led her into an alley, then found a serpentlike way to get out of the village.
By the time we reached a path that ran parallel to the river and to the south, the moon was full and silvery, setting the dark water to sparkling and making it easy to find our way. I didn’t get on the mare until I’d passed the southern edge of Elspeth’s Knot, then I grabbed her mane and jumped up, nudging her to a fast trot, and resting my satchel between her neck and me. I was not used to riding without a saddle, but then I told myself I was not used to a lot of things—such as being on my own in pursuit of vengeance.
I could have traveled to the villages of Derilynn and Tichal without a horse. But this would be much faster, and it would be better for my newly healed ankle. I turned the mare east when the river narrowed and I knew it was shallow enough to cross. The mare balked at first, and I finally had to get off and lead her across. On the other side I hoisted myself up again, and urged her to take as fast a pace as the uneven terrain allowed.
I would stop when the moon climbed high into the sky, miles and miles from Elspeth’s Knot. I didn’t know if the Moonsons still searched for Nanoo Gafna and me, and I hoped they had no expert trackers in that village. Nanoo Shellaya’s no-see might have been a powerful magical cloak, but I doubted it was magical enough to hide boot prints.
The miles melted, and my leggings and boots were dry by the time I tugged the mare to a copse of trees at the edge of some farmer’s property. I tied her reins to a thin trunk, not trusting that she’d stay with me. Then I curled on the ground, trying to make a pillow of my satchel and wrapping my cloak tight around me. I couldn’t sleep, though, something hard in the satchel settling uncomfortably against my cheek. I reached inside and retrieved the wooden box my mother had given me, and then I sat with my back against a tree and ran my fingers around the carved wood. I couldn’t see it; everything was too dark. The stars winked down, but they could not touch me where I sat.
It was better not seeing. Practically everything I’d seen lately I wished I could purge from my memory—blood-soaked Nar, Lady Ewaren’s corpse, Grazti’s leering visage, the bruises on Nanoo Gafna’s face.
“Alone.” I breathed the word. I was glad for the solitude. I truly hadn’t been alone since I’d discovered my slaughtered friends. I’d either been with Alysen or Shellaya or Gafna. I’d been responsible for someone, and that had kept me physically and mentally preoccupied. Now I was responsible only for myself, and for the promise I’d sworn.
Truly alone. My home was lost to me, forever. I’d never return to the Village Nar; too many ghosts to haunt me. And try as I might to recall happy times there, my mind pictured only the bodies and the blood and Lady Ewaren’s torn dress.
Trained by Bastien to survive in the woods and to be the equal of any man in a fight, still I felt completely hollow and terribly, terribly frightened.
No home.
I’d told the Nanoos I’d likely come to Mardel’s Fen when I carried out my oath. But now I wasn’t so sure of that plan. Living in the fen would remind me of just why I was there.
Because I had no home.
Perhaps I should consider a new start in a place I’d not been before. There were islands to the east with rich farmland and herds of sheep and goats, and I knew I could find work there. Not past marrying age, I could find a husband if I tried. I’d had no suitor in the Village Nar; the community was small and the young men interested in women who cooked and wove and wore dresses trimmed with ribbons. But I thought I would like to find someone and make a home for myself.
Everyone should have a home.
Lady Ewaren had said those exact words when she’d accepted me into her manor house, and repeated them when Alysen joined us.
I had no home.
By the Green Ones, I was hollow.
I knocked the back of my head against the tree. Again and again in despair and frustration. When the pain registered I stopped and tried to picture Lady Ewaren’s face, like I’d seen it in Nanoo Gafna’s vision … before the storm came to Nar. A beautiful and kind woman, mentor and friend and dead by Lord Purvis because he had looked for me.
“I will find you, or you will find me, demon-of-a-man,” I swore. “And either way you’ll pray to your dark gods for mercy.”
I squeezed my hands tight on the box. The wood was smooth on the edges, like I’d remembered my mother’s face being, and the carving on top was intricate and done with small tools. I rubbed my thumbs against the rounded corners and forced away thoughts of Lord Purvis and my shattered home. My shattered future.
Who’d fashioned the box?
Not my father … his skills hadn’t taken him in that direction. My mother? Perhaps she had made it. Perhaps … something depressed on the lid. I felt a fingertip sink in, then the lid swiveled open.
I nearly dropped the box in my surprise, and I felt my heart beat faster. I held my breath and curled my fingers over the lip, making sure the lid couldn’t somehow slide shut. I opened my mouth and extended my tongue, then sucked it back in and clamped my teeth shut. I’d not use my enhanced senses to discover the contents!
I sat motionless for several minutes, hardly breathing, my mind poised in anticipation. So many years I’d tried to open it, and resisted breaking the box only because of Bastien’s words. I wanted desperately to look inside, and yet not to look. So many years I’d waited and wondered, like a child held back from a birthday box, forced to dream about the con
tents.
I’d shaken it more times than I could count, never hearing anything rattle inside and speculating that nothing at all nested in the box and that the puzzling box itself was my mother’s gift.
I held my breath now and peered inside, seeing nothing because of the darkness. I probed with a finger, feeling silk. A handkerchief? An edging of lace, and some threadwork. I used two fingers now, pulling up the silk and exploring further. A ring, warming to my touch and telling me the metal it was made of was gold or silver, something precious.
The handkerchief had kept the ring from rattling in the box, and had also kept quiet the other tiny keepsakes. My fingertips found an egg-shaped stone, polished smooth and no longer than my thumbnail.
“Three,” I whispered. “I was three years old.”
My mother had walked with me every day when I was very young, often stopping at a creek so I could dangle my toes in the water and watch the small fish swim near to investigate. I’d found the stone then, pearly white and looking like a bird’s egg that had dropped out of a nest and into the water. That’s what I’d thought it was, and I gently scooped it up and asked my mother if I could climb the tree and find the nest and put it back. It took quite a bit of convincing on her part to get me to realize it was just a rock that time and the current had smoothed. So I took it home.
One more home that was lost to me.
My heart had opened when the box had, pouring out old memories and deepening my melancholy. I kept my fingers on the stone for long minutes, feeling its slickness and the tears spilling down my cheeks. I’d cried more in the past many days than I had in the past many years.
I had no one left.
My mother and father gone, Bastien, Lady Ewaren, the pieces of my life taken from me. Would I see them when I died? Did spirits swirl with the Green Ones? I needed to believe that. I needed to believe in something good and something beyond this disappointing world. I wanted a hole to appear in the sky that I could fly through and leave all this ugliness behind. If there was nothing beyond the world … what was any of this for?
I felt the other treasures, a tiny buckle, rough to the touch. Another bit of sadness—it was from the collar of a small dog I’d treasured in my earliest years. My closest companion, he fell sick one winter and died during the night. My father cut the buckle off the collar and saved it for me.
I’d looked for the egg-stone and the buckle before moving to the Village Nar.
The ring? It hadn’t been mine.
Five buttons, my fingers also discovered. I didn’t recall anything special about buttons. These were the size and shape of almonds, and there were “eyes” on the back of each so they could be sewn to a garment. In fact, a few threads still clung to one of the buttons. The buttons, too, warmed to my touch, meaning they were made of stone or metal … metal, I decided after a moment.
The last item I found crumbled almost instantly, coating my fingers with a musty powder I brought to my nose to sniff.
A butterfly wing I’d ruined. I fought a smile. After my dog had died, I’d tried to make a pet of more than a few creatures, telling my mother I didn’t want another dog because it would only remind me of the first. And there’d be no dog better than the first. I wanted something else. The butterfly was one of my shorter-lived companions, beautiful in life with glistening orange and yellow wings. I’d insisted on keeping it when it died.
Now I’d ruined that particular treasure.
I closed the box and replaced it in my pack, wondering if I’d find a way to open it again. Then I brushed away the butterfly dust on my tunic and tried futilely to brush away the memories. I rested my head on the satchel, moving it so the box inside did not bother me.
The buttons? What were they from?
I shook my head to clear my thoughts of the treasures in the puzzle box. Then I touched a hand to my waist, where my weapons belt should have been. I needed a knife, and I vowed to get one tomorrow.
I finally fell asleep. I had intended to allow myself a brief rest, just so I could count myself alert and rested for the coming morning. But I slept a little longer than I’d planned; when I untied the mare and looked to the sky, I saw it lightening, the purple-blue shade looking like watery paint smeared together and telling me dawn was not far away.
I pressed the vanner, promising her feed in Derilynn, as I believed I had enough coins for that and knives and a belt. I could not face Lord Purvis without weapons. My fingers tightened on the reins. Glancing down, I saw that my knuckles looked bloodless.
“You will die by my hand, demon-of-a-man.”
26
Derilynn loomed ahead, a village the size of Nar, but more spread-out and ringing a lake that provided its livelihood. I’d visited this place so long ago—with my mother—that all I could recall was the dark blue water of the lake and the bright white swans that sometimes swam on it. She’d told me what caused the water’s color, something about the minerals on the bottom, but I couldn’t recall for certain. I did recall, however, that my mother had been very smart.
They would have knives here because of the fishing trade, and so I kneed the mare to a faster pace. The Moonsons had said Lord Purvis was either here or at Tichal. I knew after just glancing at this village that I would not find him here.
I’d crested a rise to reach this village, and from the very top of the hillock I could see all of the small community. A pen held two horses, a cow, and several goats and sheep. There were no war horses, so it was obvious Lord Purvis had moved on.
But I could get information about him here, and acquire the knives that were occupying my thoughts. After I found a treat of oats for the vanner, I would scry on the surface of that dazzling dark blue lake and learn the precise location of my quarry. Perhaps I should have scryed upon Lord Purvis earlier, but I remained hesitant to use what Nanoo Shellaya admitted was dangerous magic.
Within moments I stood in the heart of the fishing village. I left the vanner mare with a herder at the pen, giving him a coin to groom the horse and feed her sweet oats.
“I will return soon,” I said. “I’ve some business here, and then I’ll be riding on.”
He grinned warmly at me, twirling the coin between his fingers before thrusting it in a shirt pocket. I suspected coins were as much a rarity here as they’d been in the Village Nar.
I saw no shops, unlike in Elspeth’s Knot, and so I asked people who came out to meet me about a metalworker. To my surprise there was none, but they pointed me to a giant of a man who sold an assortment of goods out of his cottage, things he acquired from merchants in trade for the wool from his sheep. They said he had knives and hatchets.
“I don’t take coins. Never taken a single one. Never will.” He looked me up and down, wrinkling his nose, no doubt at the smell of me and appearance of my clothes.
The women I’d spotted in this village wore long skirts or dresses and had hair that fell at least to their shoulders. I was a peculiarity.
“I trade for wares, just like everyone else around here. Things I can use or trade for something I can.” He continued to eye me, making it clear he disapproved of my appearance, though he spoke to me in a civil tone. “Can’t spend coins here or anywhere else I care to go. Can’t eat them.”
I left his cottage, coming back a few minutes later with the wooden box from my satchel and studying its lid. I couldn’t find the spot that depressed to open it until in frustration I closed my eyes. Perhaps that was the trick to the puzzle—finding something when you weren’t looking for it.
In the light that spilled through his window I saw that the silk handkerchief was a warm shade of ivory, no doubt darkened by the years. The lace was curled and off-white, snagged in two places, and the decorative threads spelled out my mother’s name—Aelaren.
He tapped his foot impatiently as I peeled back the corner of the silk and looked at the egg-shaped stone, the buckle, the dust that had been the butterfly’s wings, the buttons—made of silver and still stirring no memories—and the
ring. It was a thick band, also silver, etched on the outside with an ivy vine. It had been inscribed, but the metal had so worn on the inside that I could not read it.
I pulled out the ring and felt it warm to my fingers. Too big to have been my mother’s, I guessed it had belonged to her father or someone else important to her. I passed it to the man.
He tossed it in his palm, as if judging its weight, and then he turned it over and over. “Old, worn,” he pronounced.
“It’s silver,” I said. “It has value.”
“It’d be like taking coins. Not much good to me.” Still, he didn’t give the ring back. After a moment, he tried it on a finger, finding it a reasonable fit. He held his hand toward the window and studied it. “I’ll give you a long knife for it.” After another moment he added, “And a sheath.”
“Two knives.” I knew how to barter.
He shook his head.
The air whistled out between my teeth, and I plucked the five silver buttons from the puzzle box. Tiny blue gems were set in the centers, and I knew cut stones, even as small as these, were treasures. I handed him two.
“These for the second knife, sheath, and that belt.”
He shook his head again, and I scooped the buttons off his palm. “Just the one knife, then.”
I took the blade and turned to leave.