Deverry #06 - The Westlands 02 - A Time of Omens

by Katharine Kerr

  “Let’s go for a walk and let your gramma cook in peace. Val, are you going to come with us?”

  Val shook his head no and grabbed both horses with a grin of triumph. Carrying Faren, Rhodry went back to his aimless wandering. In the center of camp, near the ritual fire that burned at the heart of every alardan, he found Calonderiel talking with the king and his young son, who at twenty-six was still a child by elven standards. They looked too much alike to be anything but father and son, with raven-dark hair yet pale gray eyes, slit vertically like a cat’s to reveal a darker lavender, and they were slender even for men of the People. Rhodry was honestly shocked to see how deferentially the two of them treated the banadar, nodding thoughtfully at his remarks, laughing at his little jokes in exactly the same way as the other men did. When Rhodry joined them, both of them greeted him by holding up their hands, shoulder high and palm outward, in a gesture of profound respect; yet all his instincts were making him want to kneel to their royal blood instead.

  “I’ve wanted to meet you,” Aledeldar said. “I have great respect for your father’s poems.”

  “So do I,” Rhodry said. “Not that I understand them very well.”

  Everyone laughed but Faren, who squirmed round in Rhodry’s arms and pointed over his shoulder.

  “Who’s that? She’s strange.”

  “Beautiful, maybe,” Calonderiel remarked. “Wouldn’t say strange.”

  When Rhodry turned to look, he saw what seemed to be an ordinary elven woman, with waist-length hair the color of strained honey, bound back in two severe braids, standing among the tents some twenty feet away. She was wearing an ordinary pair of leather trousers and an ordinary linen tunic, and carrying a basket of greens in one hand while she watched the men, but she stood so still, and her stare was so intense, that she did indeed seem strange in some hard-to-place way. Cut off from the bustle around her, perhaps? Rhodry had the peculiar feeling that she wasn’t really there, that she stood behind some invisible window and looked into the frantic camp. When Calonderiel gave her a friendly wave, she turned and walked fast away, disappearing into the constant scurry of people among the tents.

  “What’s her name?” Rhodry asked.

  “I don’t know,” Calonderiel said. “Del, does she ride with your alar?”

  “No. Never seen her before. Well, there’s a lot of people here. Bound to be a few that we don’t know.”

  Out of curiosity and not much more, Rhodry kept an eye out for the woman all during the rest of that day. Although he described her to a number of friends, no one remembered her or would admit to knowing her, and she should have stood out. Among the People, dark blond hair like hers, with a honey-colored or yellowish tinge, was very rare, enough so that she might have had some human blood in her veins. Once, when he was hauling water for the cooks, he dodged between two tents and saw her, walking away in the opposite direction, but though he called out, she merely glanced over her shoulder and hurried on.

  He didn’t see her again until late that night, long after the feast was over. On the opposite side of the camp from the herds some of the People had cleared a space for dancing by cutting the long grass down to a reasonably even stubble. By torchlight the musicians gathered off to one side, a rank of harpers backed by drummers and a couple of those elven bundled-reed flutes that produce drones. The People danced in long lines, heads up, backs straight, arms up and rigid while their feet leapt and scissored in intricate steps. Sometimes the lines held their position; at others they snaked fast and furiously around the meadow until everyone collapsed laughing on the cool grass. On and on the dancing went, till the older and less energetic began to drop out, Rhodry among them.

  Out of breath and sweating, he flung himself down near a tall standing torch, far enough away from the music to hear himself think, and watched the dance spiral past. A pack of gray gnomes flopped into manifestation around him and lay on their backs, panting in imitation of their elder brothers. When Rhodry laughed, they all sat up and grinned, then began pushing and shoving each other to see who would sit on his lap. All at once one of them drew his lips back from his teeth and pointed at something behind Rhodry; the rest leapt up and snarled; they all disappeared. Rhodry slewed round where he sat to see the honey-haired woman standing behind him. In the torchlight her eyes seemed made of beaten gold.

  “And a good eve to you, my lady.” He rose to his knees. “Won’t you join me?”

  She smiled, then knelt down facing him rather than sitting companionably. For a long moment she studied him in a silence as deep and unreadable as the night sky. He was struck all over again by the sense she gave of distance, as if she were a painted image on a temple wall, looking down upon him from a height. In her presence the camp seemed far, far behind him.

  “Uh, my name is Rhodry, son of Devaberiel. May I have the honor of knowing yours?”

  “You may not, truly.” Much to his shock, she spoke in Deverrian. “My name’s not for the giving, though I’ll trade it for that little ring you have.”

  Reflexively he looked down at his right hand, where he wore on the third finger a silver band, about a third of an inch wide and graved with roses.

  “Well, now, you have my apologies, but I’ll not surrender that, not even to please a lady as beautiful as you.”

  “It’s made of dwarven silver, did you know?”

  “I do. It’s the same metal as this silver dagger I carry.”

  “So it is, and both were made by a dwarf, too, many a long year ago.”

  “I know the man who made the dagger, and dwarven he is, but this ring is elven.”

  “It’s not, for all that it has elven writing inside it. It’s the work of the Mountain Folk, and not a fit thing for an important man of the People like you, Rhodry Maelwaedd.”

  “Here! No one’s called me by that name for years and years.”

  She laughed, revealing teeth that seemed oddly sharp and shiny in the flickering light.

  “I know many a name, I know all your names, truly, Rhodry, Rhodry, Rhodry.” She held out her hand. “Give me that ring.”

  “I will not! And who are you, anyway?”

  “I’ll tell you everything if you give me that ring.” She smiled, her mouth suddenly soft with a thousand promises. “I’ll do more than tell a tale, truly, for that ring you wear. Give me a kiss, Rhodry Maelwaedd, won’t you now?”

  Rhodry stood up.

  “I won’t, my thanks. Many a year ago now a dangerous thing happened to me for being too free with my kisses, and I’ll not make the same mistake twice.”

  In cold fury she crouched, staring up at him while he wondered if he were daft for treating one so beautiful so coldly.

  “Rhodry! Where are you?” It was Calonderiel’s voice, calling out in Elvish with a drunken lilt, coming from a long distance over the music. “Here, harpers! Have you seen Rhodry?”

  She flung her head back and howled like a wolf, then as suddenly as one of the Wildfolk she was gone, simply gone, vanished without so much as a puff of dust or a stirring of the torch flame. From right behind him Rhodry heard Calonderiel swear. He spun round.

  “There you are!” Calonderiel was half laughing, half afraid. “By the Dark Sun, I’ve drunk myself half-blind! I didn’t see you, and here you were so close by that I nearly tripped over youl Must’ve drunk too much, that’s what it is.”

  “I’ve never known you to pass on a skin of mead untasted, no.” Rhodry realized that he was cold-sick and shaking. “Uh, did you see that woman who was here just now?”

  “Woman? No, I didn’t even see you, much less some female. Who was she?”

  “The woman we saw earlier, when we were talking with the king and his son. The one little Faren called strange.”

  “Oh, her.” Calonderiel burped profoundly. “Hope I didn’t interrupt anything, er, important.”

  “Not in the least, my friend, not in the least. Huh, I wonder if Faren has a touch of the second sight or s
uchlike. We should have Aderyn take a look at the lad the next time we meet up with the old man.”

  “I thought the Wise One would be here already, as a matter of fact. Um, why are you talking in Deverrian?”

  “Am I? Well, I’m sorry.” He switched back easily to his adopted tongue. “That woman was speaking it, you see.”

  “What woman?”

  “The one you didn’t see. Don’t worry about it. Let’s get back to camp, shall we?”

  When he went to sleep that night, Rhodry was glad that he shared a tent with a warband. Somehow he would have felt in danger if he’d been off by himself.

  Close to dawn the entire camp woke in a swirl of yelling and cursing from the herd-guards. Rhodry pulled on his trousers and boots, then dashed outside, slipping on his shirt in the chilly night, to find the rest of the warband running for the herd of horses to the east of the encampment. From the snatches of shouted conversation he could figure out that something had panicked the stock.

  By the time they reached the grazing ground, the mounted herders had rounded up most of the runaways. Rhodry found a horse that knew him, swung up bareback, and riding with just a halter joined the hunt for the others. Although he lacked the full night vision of the People, he could see far better than the average human in the dark, and certainly well enough to hunt for horses in moonlight. He found four mares and their half-grown colts, herded them into a little group, and brought them back just as the sky was turning gray in the east with the tardy autumn dawn. Riding out among the assembled herds were three of the women, counting up the stock with a call or a pat for every animal. Rhodry turned his mares into the muling mass, then found Calonderiel, mounted on his golden stallion off to one side, and rode up beside him.

  “What was all this about?”

  “Cursed if I know.” Calonderiel shrugged eloquently. “One of the boys told me that all of a sudden, the herd just went mad: neighing and rearing, kicking out at something. He said he could just barely see shapes moving, doglike shapes, but then they vanished. Some of the Wildfolk, I suppose, up to their rotten infuriating pranks. They know there’s naught we can do to them, blast them, and they probably thought it a fine jest to see us all riding round yelling our heads off.”

  Rhodry saw no reason to disagree, especially since there was no particular harm done. Once the sun was up and the herds all counted, only three horses were still missing, and their tracks, heading off in three separate directions, were perfectly clear. Rhodry got himself some breakfast, then set off after one of the stragglers.

  He tracked the lost horse all that morning, until finally, close to noon, he found the miscreant, a blood-bay gelding with a black mane and tail, peacefully grazing beside a narrow river. Clucking under his breath, holding out a nose bag of oats, Rhodry circled round to approach him from the front. The gelding rolled a wary eye, then spotted the nose bag and trotted over, shoving his nose right in and allowing Rhodry to attach a lead rope to his halter with no trouble at all.

  “Well, at least you decided to wait for me, eh? I think I’ll have a bit of a meal of my own, and then we’ll go home.”

  Rhodry unsaddled the horse he’d brought with him, let him roll, and tethered him out to rest while he ate griddle bread and cheese from his saddlebags and watched the river flow through its grassy banks. He’d just finished eating when he happened to glance upstream and saw something that brought him to his feet with an oath. About a quarter of a mile away stood a thicket of hazels: absolutely nothing unusual in that, no, except that he’d seen no such thing when he first rode up. For a moment he debated the question, but in the end, he was sure as sure that he’d looked that way and seen nothing but the long green swell of grass stretching out to the horizon. Again, he debated; then curiosity got the better of him, and he strode off for a look.

  When he got close, the thicket certainly seemed ordinary enough, a wild tangle of stunted trees and shoots, but someone was sitting among them on what seemed to be a rather anomalous oak stump, and while the day was breezy, the hazels stood unmoving. In the warm sun he felt his blood run cold. Hand on the hilt of his silver dagger, he stopped walking and peered in among the shadows. The seated figure rose and hobbled to meet him, an old, old woman, all bent-backed and dressed in drab browns, leaning on a stick, her white hair escaping in wisps from her black head scarf. She paused a few feet away and looked up at him with rheumy eyes.

  “Good morrow, silver dagger.” She spoke in Deverrian. “You’re a long, long way from the lands of men.”

  “And so are you, good dame.”

  “I’ve come looking for my daughter. They’ve stolen her, you see. I’ve looked and I’ve looked, but I can’t find her anywhere in my own country. They’ve stolen her away, my baby, my only daughter, and now they’re going to bury her alive. Oh, they’re weaving her a winding sheet, they are, and they’ll bury her alive.”

  “What? Who will?”

  She merely looked up at him with a little smile, too calculated, somehow, to be daft. The wind lifted his hair; the hazels never shivered nor swayed. With his heart pounding like a wild thing, Rhodry began to back away.

  “Where are you going, silver dagger?” Her voice was all soft and wheedling. “I’ve got a hire for you.”

  She strode after, suddenly younger, swelling up tall and strong, and now she was wearing a green hunting tunic and a pair of doeskin boots, and her hair was the color of honey, and her eyes like beaten gold. Rhodry yelped, staggering along backward, afraid to turn his back on her to run. Out of sheer warrior’s instinct and nothing more he drew his sword. The moment that the bright steel flashed in the sunlight she howled in rage and disappeared, flickering out like a blown candle.

  Rhodry broke into a cold sweat. For a moment he merely stood beside the river and shook; then he turned and shamelessly ran for the horses. With clumsy shaking hands he saddled his gray, grabbed the lead rope of the bay gelding, then mounted and rode out at a fast trot. All the long way back to camp he wished for a good road and a gallop. And yet, when he saw the camp and, in particular, the other men in the warband, his fear seemed not only shameful but foolish, and he told no one what had happened. In fact, the more he thought about the incident, the more unreal it seemed, until finally he convinced himself that he’d fallen asleep in the warm sun and dreamt the whole thing.

  Two days later, on the last afternoon of the alardan, Oldana died. Rhodry was walking among the tents when he heard Enabrilia start keening. The high-pitched shriek cut through the noise of the camp like a knife and sobbed on and on. One at a time, other voices joked in, wailing and gasping. Rhodry turned and ran for Oldana’s tent, shoved his way through the sobbing mob at the door, and ducked inside. Her hair down and disheveled, Enabrilia was clawing at her own face with her nails while two of her women friends grabbed at her hands to make her stop. Oldana lay on a pile of blankets, her arms thrown wide, her unseeing eyes still open. She had been ill so long that her face seemed, at first, no colder, no paler than before, but her mouth hung slack, her lips flaccid. Huddled in the curve of the tent wall little Faren stood staring and silent, watching his elder brother mourn without truly understanding a thing. Rhodry gathered the pair up and led them out of the tent. In a time of mourning, boys belonged with the men while the women cared for the dead.

  Outside, other women were assembling at the tent while the men hurried through the camp, extinguishing every fire as they went. They gathered near the horse herd, where Oldana’s brother, Wylenteriel, met Rhodry and took his nephews with a murmur of thanks for the banadar’s second in command. Rhodry found Calonderiel swearing under his breath with every foul oath he knew.

  “She was so wretchedly young to die! I don’t understand the gods sometimes, I really don’t!”

  “Who can?” Rhodry said with a shrug. “I’m heartsick, too, but I’m worried about her sons more. Where’s their father?”

  “Up north somewhere with his herds, last anyone saw him. The boys will fare
better with their uncle anyway, if you ask my opinion and not that anyone did.” The banadar looked briefly sour. “With luck we’ll run into their father down at the winter camps. The alardan will break up tonight, and we’ll be heading east.”

  “East?”

  “To the death ground. That’s right, you’ve never been there before, have you? We’re close enough to take her there for the burning, in this cool weather and all.”

  Rhodry felt oddly troubled. The sacred death ground lay right on the Eldidd border, not more than a hundred miles from Aberwyn, where once he’d ruled as gwerbret, not far at all from the place he’d always considered home.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Calonderiel said. “You look pale.”

  “Do I? Ah, well, it’s a sad thing, when one of the People dies so young. We’d best call for the ceremony to end the alardan. The sooner we get moving, the better.”

  The women sprinkled Oldana’s corpse with spices and covered it with dried flowers before they wrapped it round with white linen. They cut a white horse out of the herd to drag the travois that would carry her to the resting place of her ancestors, and when the alar left the rest of the gathering behind for their sad journey east, that horse led the line of march, with Rhodry and Calonderiel riding alongside. The boys, as much confused as grief-struck, traveled far back at the rear with their uncle and grandmother. Out of simple decency the king and the young prince came twith them, and their alar, of course, as well, to dignify the eventual ceremony with their presence.

  It took them two full days and part of a third to reach the Lake of the Leaping Trout. During that time they ate food left from the alardan feasting, and slept cold at night, too, because no one could light a fire until Oldana’s soul was safely on its way to the world beyond. Slowly the grasslands began to rise, until by the third dawn they saw ahead of them rolling grassy downs that were almost hills. Finally, just after a noon gray with the promise of winter, they came to the last crest. Far down the green slope lay the silver lake, a long finger of water caught in a narrow valley pointing southeast to northwest. To the north a thick forest spread along the valley floor, the dark pines standing in such orderly rows that obviously they were no natural growth, but all along the north shore lay an open meadow. Calonderiel turned to Rhodry and gestured at the forest with a wide sweep of his arm.