The Wanderer

by Wilder, Cherry;

  Below them in the pass, they could see those on camel detail struggling with the contrary beasts. Camels were nothing like horses; it was almost impossible to love them. Even Ali was not very close to these animals that spat and balked and looked down their noses at the world. There was a Danasken trooper, Leshnar of the Eastmark, (Kerry-Red, Leshnar, Maddoc, Rawl), who had a way with these wretched creatures. She was the only one who rode them well besides Ali, but they all took turns riding.

  The Gulch of Souls was a dreadful place, cold as the grave by night and so hot by day they could hardly breathe. At the end of the winding pass, the ring found a vein of gold in the rock, and it was named Ali’s Goldmine, for only the camel boy would come this way again. At Rakhir, when they thought the way would never end, the desert tribes made a feast for them with music and dancing. Gael Maddoc looked at herself in a mirror of polished brass and she saw a woman of the desert, pale eyes staring from a thin, brown face.

  So they plodded on behind the swaying camels and the youngest kedran, Rawl, ran on ahead to a patch of thorn on the crest of a dune. She began to call and dance about, but a stiff breeze took away her voice. They rushed up to her, knee-deep in the hot sand, and some stayed kneeling to thank the Goddess. From the crest of the dune, they beheld the sea.

  II

  Gael Maddoc walked upon the walls of Seph-al-Ara and looked back the way they had come. She tried to feel a moment of triumph: she would lead them home, every last one: Rawl, Rivo, Trulach, Zarr. Ali, the richest camel boy in town since he received his share of the spoils, saw her sorrowful look.

  “Mistress,” he said, “you must accept your fate.”

  “What fate is that?”

  She swung her wrist to hear the chink of the six golden coins on their new thong, purchased in the Seph-al-Ara marketplace. She had kept this piece of treasure for herself. Once, she had intended to pass it on to her master, Blayn, but that chance was gone now, the treasure must be hers. There was magic in the coins, she was sure of it, and it did not come from the Swordmaker of Aghiras.

  “You are a Wanderer,” said Ali. “Your life lord has left you. He broke the chain, but you survived. Now you are alone to make your own judgments. Mistress, your journeying has just begun.” Ali was young, but Gael Maddoc could not help but feel that his words had hold of a certain truth. The innocence of her loyalty was gone.

  Next day they took ship with a trader and were brought swiftly over the tideless sea and up the river Elnor to Pfolben, in the Southland of Mel’Nir. It was summer, the golden grain was being harvested; they had come home to Pfolben fields. There were kedran whose families lived south of the capital, but they remained aboard ship, unwilling to break the bonds of comradeship. They spoke of all the trials they had passed; they missed the desert; it had stolen a part of their souls.

  As they drew near the city, they saw that the wharves on either side of the lazy stream were decorated with flowers and banners. They saw a chain of dancers on Orange Flower Street; they exclaimed at the sight of kerns and kedran in their dress livery, the Kingfisher Company in their blues. They looked down at their own clean but faded uniforms, bleached by the sun, and the Zebbeck boots they wore. Music came to them on the wind; Trooper Hadrik said:

  “Could the word have got out?”

  “Gruach,” said Gael Maddoc, “what day is it?”

  Gruach had notched the days on the lid of a little cedarwood box, a souvenir from the bazaar of Aghiras.

  “Captain, by our reckoning it is the ninth day of the eighth month, the Maplemoon.”

  “We have lost three days to the sands,” said Gael. “It is the twelfth day of the Maplemoon, Lord Maurik’s birthday.”

  They had been absent from the Southland for one hundred and twelve days; they had spent sixty days crossing the desert.

  “Captain,” said Rawl timidly, “will they be giving the lord his gifts in Moon Crescent?”

  They came off the trader and were caught up in the press of folk coming from the wharves, all making for the Crescent. None of the townspeople recognized them. The golden trumpets of the Lord of Pfolben called the hour of the gift giving when they were a short distance away.

  The Crescent was a beautiful curved courtyard from the time of the Princes of the Burnt Lands, all tiled in blue, at the eastern door of the palace. A colored barrier had been set up and there were the lord’s subjects with his gifts: a fine bay horse, a giant pumpkin on a cart, a hogshead of wine from the vintners, a silken tapestry from the women of a village. These good folk had been chosen to stand at the barrier with their presents, and a kedran troop patrolled to keep the crowd back.

  Already Lord Maurik and his lady had begun receiving the offerings at one end of the yard, and a herald went along to cry out the gifts. So they waited, muffled up in their cloaks, although the day was warm, and before the last gift was called, they pressed forward. Gael Maddoc reached up and tugged the bridle of a brown horse. The kedran officer looked down angrily.

  “Get back!”

  It was Captain Witt. She stared as Gael lowered her cloak, for she saw a ghost

  “Maddoc?”

  “Bid the herald call another offering, Captain,” said Gael.

  The kedran on duty almost lost control of their horses. The crowd drew back, wondering, and the herald roared out the words he had been given:

  “A gift from the Burnt Lands!”

  So they marched proudly up to the very center of the barrier, and the Lord of the Southland turned from thanking the women for their tapestry to survey his final gift. There they stood, weather-beaten and weary, thirteen kedran and two men of the palace guard.

  Lord Maurik came and stood before them with his lady, fair Annhad, as fine boned and slender as he was massive.

  “But these …” he blustered. “Godfire! These are my Kingfishers! My guardsmen! … and the captain …”

  Annhad of Pfolben prompted him quietly:

  “Maddoc,” she said. “That is Captain Maddoc of the Kestrels.”

  The good lord spread his arms wide as if he would embrace them all and called upon the Goddess and the Gods of the Farfaring, giving thanks for this great gift.

  “Blayn!” he cried. “Blayn … see who has come home!”

  The Lord Blayn came down the steps of the palace: a lightly built young man with hair of pure gold and a face perfectly handsome. Gael Maddoc still thought when she saw him of the Shee, the fairy race. She thought of the great devotion she had had for this lord, how she had sworn to serve him. Her whole life had been ordered by this bond. She had received benefits from the house of Pfolben and she had repaid what she had been given, but now she knew her service was done.

  Hem Blayn came strutting to his father’s side, trailed, of course, by a tall kedran, his latest bodyguard.

  “Godfire!” he said boldly, “have they come again? That wily magician of the Dhey lied to me! He swore that these poor souls would never return to Aghiras … after the sandstorm.”

  “No more we did, lord,” said Gael Maddoc, meeting his eye. “We came to Seph-al-Ara, the town of the Zebbecks.”

  The Lady Annhad understood at once. Who knew how much of the truth she had been told by her servant, Elim? She took Gael Maddoc by the hand and said softly:

  “You were many days in the desert. I must rejoice that Blayn was not with you. How would it have been if he had taken this harsh journey?”

  “Lady, I do not know,” said Gael Maddoc, just as low. “Perhaps it would have made a man of him.”

  Lady Annhad flushed deeply at these words, but she reached and put her hand on Gael Maddoc’s own, covering the ring that had been her gift to her son’s protector. Her white fingers looked very slender over Gael’s great weathered paw. Gael felt the lady’s disappointment; there was nothing she could do. “This was destiny,” Lady Annhad mouthed, so quiet only Gael could hear her. “I had such hopes, my son’s path lay so open …”

  Blayn saw the two women looking at him. He cried angrily:

/>   “Mother, do not believe that kedran wench!”

  But his words were drowned by the chorus of the thanksgiving song. Lady Annhad released the captain’s hand, Lord Maurik led the homecomers into the Crescent and there they were greeted by all the kerns and kedran of the household. It was a near riot. They were embraced and made much of and carried shoulder high all the way to the barracks. It was not every day that fifteen companions in arms returned from the dead.

  Late at night, while the city still celebrated the lord’s birthday, Gael Maddoc sat on a balcony with her true companions, Amarah and Mev Arun. They had heard all that she had to tell, from the first to the last.

  “Ah, this Jazeel,” said Amarah, with a hint of jealousy, “was he so dear to you?”

  “He was a nice fellow,” said Gael. “I am glad he came safe home.”

  “There were rumors,” said Mev Arun. “Hem Blayn was no longer an honored guest of the Dhey. There was no more question of his being a suitor for the Princess Farzia.”

  “Life is uncertain in the Burnt Lands,” said Gael, “but the bond between a ruler and his lifeguards is sacred.”

  “This Swordmaker rid the princess of an unworthy suitor,” said Mev Arun.

  “Gael, if you end your duty here, where will you go?” asked Amarah.

  “Wherever my quest will lead me,” said Gael Maddoc.

  “Will we meet again?” asked Amarah.

  “Surely!”

  “Questing?” said Mev Arun. “Is that anything for a kedran?”

  “Do you suppose I can buy out my good horse, Ebony?” asked Gael. “Who rides him now?”

  Her two friends laughed.

  “No one,” said Mev Arun, “if they can help it!”

  “He pines for you,” said Amarah. “No one else can manage him.”

  “Then I will ride back to Coombe,” said Gael Maddoc, “and so on into the world!”

  BOOK II

  CHAPTER V

  COOMBE

  She came home toward evening. The road was unfamiliar almost until she reached the croft’s boundary wall and looked up at the stony hillside. From there she urged Ebony a little further and then stood behind an apple tree, watching the cottage. The tree was very old, almost dead; it bore a few hard, deformed fruit.

  Gael Maddoc saw that the cottage was larger. A third and a fourth room had been built on, in the fashion of the district. The Maddocs had “come to a house,” as the saying went. There was a fine stone chimney where the old wood box had been. From a new lean-to, there came the unmistakable honk of a donkey. In four long years, the Maddocs had done very well, had grown richer.

  Beside the doorstep, in a patch of sunlight, slept a plump brown cat. The door of the cottage opened as she watched and out came a short, dark, bustling woman with an apron over her skirt, wool stockings, pattens against the muck of the yard, and a plaid against the autumn chill. It was her mother, dressed up like the reeve’s wife of a Freeday. As she watched her mother draw water from the well, Gael wondered how much of the change was brought about by the soldier’s pay she had sent home. It could hardly be accounted for by seven silver coins every third month.

  She rode along the wall and came to the gateway. Her mother set down the new water bucket and stared. With a dreadful feeling of strangeness, Gael Maddoc got down to open the gate.

  “Maddoc …” said her mother softly, then on a rising note, “Maddoc! Come out here! See this!”

  So Maddoc came out of his house, moving as if his joints ached, and the pair of them, two short, dark Chyrian folk, stared at the tall kedran captain and her fine horse. They had had no word of her for a long time. If she had not come home from the Burnt Lands when she did, there would have been a message sent from Lowestell Fortress, brought by the same quartermaster sergeant who came by with her pay contributions. She would have been posted as missing, then later as dead. As it was, she felt very much like a ghost or a visitor from a far distant country.

  “Eh, Goddess!” exclaimed Maddoc heartily. “Will that beauty fit into our lean-to?”

  Gael stepped up, laughing and crying, and embraced her father and mother. Even Kenit the cat purred round her legs and seemed to remember her.

  “Oh heaven and earth,” said her mother, “this will surely please the boy. He is over to Coombe working on Rhodd’s land. How often have I promised that you would come home and bring … good fortune!”

  They went about in the yard and settled Ebony comfortably enough into the lean-to beside the little donkey mare. Soon Gael was sitting beside the fire with her laden saddlebags in a heap at her feet. Her mother brewed herb tea and laced their mugs with applejack from Maddoc’s leather bottle. They talked first of all about Coombe, who had married, who had died—Fion Allrada was frail but hanging on, though she came to fewer rituals at the Holywell. Old Murrin was doing well: they saw to her needs, and she asked often after Gael and her kedran service.

  Yes, all the young men and Jehane were at the Plantation now, full-fledged members of the Westlings. Bretlow Smith was an ensign and yes, by the Goddess, there was a whisper that he and his company had taken part in some skirmish in the west.

  Jehane was in training to ride as a Sword Lily. Yes, Druda Strawn had come home after a long retreat in old Tuana and they had told him how Gael had gone to the Southland with the prince of Pfolben.

  “So you have come to a house, Da,” said Gael.

  Maddoc nodded proudly. They had been granted three good harvests, thank the Goddess. They had all gone kelp cutting, then digging stone as day laborers. The boy worked part of each week in Coombe. Her mother had six sheep now, and not one of the Coombe wives could spin and weave better than she did.

  Gael was relieved to hear all this. If her contributions had played such a small part in the family fortune, they would not be missed. She felt better about breaking the news to them, one day—not today—that she would not return to Pfolben. She felt better about her own gold that remained after buying out her horse.

  She opened her saddlebag and began to give out presents. She recalled the good Winter Feast when she was last by the fireside and wondered if the things she brought were too simple now that the Maddocs had become so comfortable. Her mother felt her bolt of green cloth with pleasure. Maddoc said, “What’s this?” to his new boots.

  “I wore your boots when I went to the Southland,” she said, and grinned.

  “So! These are a replacement!”

  He was pleased; he tried the boots and they fitted well. Both her parents were pleased with the bag of oranges: yes, surely, they had tasted them on feast days in Coombe. She brought out the knife in its sheath for Bress, his baldric and belt, his gloves, his ivory flute. She had remembered he liked to play on whistles. These presents for her brother pleased her parents best of all. Her father asked if the flute were made of bone.

  “A kind of bone called ivory,” she said. “It is from the Burnt Lands.”

  “From the Burnt Lands?” echoed Maddoc. “Over the Southern sea?”

  “I have been there,” she said. “On service.”

  They stared at her with an expression that was to become familiar: a kind of unbelief. Her mother turned from the fire, where she was putting more bacon and more barley into the hotpot.

  “It is a very strange country,” Gael continued. “All sand in places, with white cities and palms growing beside the wells. The traders use camels, strange beasts that can go for days without water. They have humped backs and great padded feet for walking on the desert sand.”

  Her mother laughed.

  “Hush!” she said. “You are beginning to sound like Old Murrin.”

  Emeris Murrin had gone about in the world when she was young.

  “Goddess,” chuckled Maddoc, “Murrin’s tall tales. The great grey beast with a castle on its back and a long nose …”

  Gael laughed herself, looking queasily at the ivory flute.

  “But there are such beasts …”

  They did not hear her
words. The door was flung open, and Bress came in. He had grown into a man, not so tall as Gael but broadly built. Their bright-faced lad had gone forever and Gael was sorry for it.

  “Well, d’ye know who this is?” cried her mother.

  “I know,” he said.

  They stared at each other, and Gael smiled to cover her first thought.

  “If she is home to stay,” said Bress, “then I can go for a soldier at last!”

  “Hush!” said Shivorn, taking his boots and giving him her place by the fire. “See what your sister has brought you!”

  Gael watched him with his knife, his belt, his gloves. For a time he would not meet her eye; he was sullen. Then at table he became more cheerful. His friend, Shim Rhodd, the innkeeper’s son, would join the Westlings, and the two young men talked a lot about army life. How such and such a lad did well, came home with a golden shoulder knot, having made ensign.

  “Will you try for an officer, Gael?” he asked. “Ensign Maddoc! Hear that!”

  “Do you read this star, brother?” she said. “It is Captain Maddoc, since half a year.”

  There was a silence at table; they all stared at her. Bress, well muscled, curly haired, a picture of the village colt that maidens loved and elders feared, swore an oath under his breath.

  “You have no need to lie, sister,” he said. “You are under our own roof.”

  “I have no need to lie, brother!” she said, feeling the timbre of her voice change. Her mother said:

  “Hush, let her be a captain then! Who can tell in Coombe village how things are ordered in the Southland?”

  Then Shivorn Maddoc began the tale of a certain Widow Raillie, from beyond Coombe, who had one son. He had found a magic stone on their poor croft near Tuana and now they had riches to spare and had taken the Long Burn Farm. Gael could not find much point in the tale. She saw that her family accepted magic but could hardly stretch their belief to include an elephant.