The Wanderer

by Wilder, Cherry;

  When Gael went out to take a last look at Ebony in his new stabling, Bress followed her and sat with Kenit, the brown mouser, on the cope of the well.

  “Take care, sister,” he said, “the Voimar will get you!”

  They had scared each other as children in the dark yard, talking of the Voimar. When she laughed, Bress said:

  “Don’t laugh! Shim Rhodd says the Voimar have come again. They were seen on the moor and on the high ground.”

  The Voimar were demons, half man, half beast. She thought of the Afreet, a monstrous blue shape, towering above the caravan.

  “I have seen some sights,” she answered. “The Voimar might not frighten me so much.”

  They all went to bed when the oil lamp burned low. Bress slept by the banked fire; the father and mother had one of the new rooms. Gael had a bed made up in the little old room where the winter fodder and vegetables had once been stored and now her mother’s wool. It was her favorite room in the cottage; as a child she had often pretended it was hers alone. The door was left ajar so that Kenit could go on mouse patrol; there was a sound in the darkness and it was Bress picking out a tune on his ivory flute. She fell asleep at once and dreamed of the desert.

  Next morning Gael woke as at a bugle call. It was still dark, but the men had gone; Shivorn sat by the fire drinking her bowl of goat’s milk and eating her piece of bread. She made room for her daughter on the long settle and they broke their fast comfortably together.

  “I will ride to Coombe when the sun is well up,” said Gael, “and visit Druda Strawn.”

  Her mother urged her to go a little further on an errand. She should take a gift of oranges to the Widow Raillie at the Long Burn Farm, the same whose son had found the magic stone.

  “We’re beholden to them,” she said. “We broke stone in their field and were well paid in kind.”

  “What, in grain?” asked Gael.

  “We came to a house,” said her mother. “They gave us cut stone and joists, and the son, Culain, sent a pair of their men to lend a hand.”

  Shivorn Maddoc was silent for a moment, then she said:

  “The widow woman is my friend. We’ve often spoken together at our spinning.”

  II

  Coombe, on an autumn morning, was quiet as the hills and the heather. The road led down from the croft then gently up again, and the village was on the crest of the rise. It had only three buildings of any size: the reeve’s house, the smithy, and the Fowlers’ Yard.

  There was no guild of fowlers and trappers any longer, the woods were not so full of game. The solid building of wood and stone, with its cobbled yard, now served as a meeting hall, an alehouse, and a market. Rhodd, who owned the yard, had moved with the times. The Fowlers’ Yard had become an inn. A newly painted sign showed a red-haired warrior, a giant, with tiny figures clustered about his knees. In one hand he held a club, in the other a spear. The inn was called the General Yorath.

  Gael turned out of the broad road, smiling, for she knew Druda Strawn had a hand in this. She thought of his tales of Yorath Duaring during the summer training, of the words of the bard they had heard in Silverlode. Not many persons had brought lasting help to this neglected region of the great land of Mel’Nir. General Yorath belonged with the White Lady of Nair’s Hill, who drove out the wolves, and Pigger Pingally, who first used his swine to hunt for truffles.

  She took her way down the lane past the smithy and saw that it was burning low, with no horses being shod, only the prentice lads working metal. She came to the holy tree and the priest’s house: the two-roomed cottage nestled under the mighty oak. Druda Strawn had no need to come to a house; he lived out of doors even more than the crofters.

  In the depths of winter he could be seen riding the drifts on upturned basket shoes of his own invention. In spring he was the first to ride out on his old nag, and in summer he slept in the woods or on the heather. Now, in autumn, he sat on his doorstep among the falling oak leaves and carved at his bowls and platters. He culled the woods and accepted a portion of any tree felled round about. He gave the wooden vessels that he carved to those who had need of them: the crofters who lived on the edge of things, those who were too poor to take much part in village life. The Maddocs had received their share.

  He laid his work aside and sprang up from the doorstep. His old horse whinnied from its stall. He stared long and hard at horse and rider; Gael knew he saw what there was to be seen. She had gone for a kedran and done him credit.

  Before they talked together, the Druda gave his blessing and uttered a prayer. Then she took her place on the thick oaken block that was the visitor’s seat. All manner of men and women came and sat before the house and told their troubles to this Guardian Priest. The Druda was always a reserved man, though he inspired trust. He barely smiled when Gael gave him his first present, a knife, but he smiled indeed when she brought out the second, a book, its leather binding prettily embossed with red scrollwork.

  “Child,” he said, “I have a book already!”

  It was a joke; they both laughed, and Gael’s laughter rang a little sadly. This was exactly what Bress had said when she showed her family the priest’s gift, four winters past, following that golden summer as a Green Rider.

  “This is a fine book,” said Druda Strawn, unwrapping the cloth package. “A printed book!”

  “It is a paper Lienbook,” she said, “like the one called Tales of the Sea and Land that you sent me for the Winter Feast.”

  The book had been made in Pfolben and it was called Readings from the Scrolls of Mel’Nir. It was a collection of tales and legends from the chronicles, simply written. Each tale was marked for its origin: “re-told from the Dathsa,” “taken from the Scroll of Vil,” or “a version from the Book of the Farfarers.”

  “Oh very fine!” said Druda Strawn. “Have you read these tales?”

  “About half of the stories,” she admitted, “but if I am still here in summer and you are at home …”

  Druda Strawn laid aside the book and stared at her very keenly.

  “You will alter your service?” he asked.

  “I no longer serve the Lord of Pfolben or his son,” she said.

  “To have come so far … you are a captain …”

  “My rank counts everywhere,” she said, “if I take another posting.”

  “Speak!” ordered the priest. “What ails you, Gael Maddoc?”

  So she told him of her years of service and her journey to the Burnt Lands. At last she drew out the six heavy gold coins threaded on a thong that she had found in the desert, in the ruined temple.

  “I believe I have a calling,” she said. “By rights, these would have gone to Hem Blayn. As his kedran, all my loyalty was to him, all that I found of value should have passed at once into his hands. Instead … he deserted us. These tokens fell to my trust. I have learned I must go on a quest of some kind. There is … magic in these coins … perhaps they have to do with my questing.”

  The Druda frowned and took the coins into his deep palm. As the soft metal touched his flesh, his expression changed. He looked at each one and murmured and pressed his lips in a gesture of reverence. Then, loosening the knot on the thong, he set the gold pieces one by one on an oaken platter, between them on the leafy ground.

  “Behold the Cup,” he said, his voice an incantation, speaking a holy litany. “Behold the Stone, the Lamp, the Crown, the Lance, and last the blessed Fleece.”

  Not all the objects upon the coins were easily recognized. Cup and Crown were clear enough and the Lamp, once it was named, but the Stone and the Fleece were vague solid shapes and the Lance a mere cross-stroke on the gold surface.

  “You have no idea what they are?” asked the Druda.

  Gael shook her head.

  “Have you heard of Taran’s Kelch?”

  “Of course,” she said, “Taran is a Nymph of the Goddess, and her Kelch is a bowl of plenty for all the Chyrian lands. It is shown in the stars. Is it the Cup? Druda, what are t
hese things?”

  The Druda sighed.

  “It is a mystery. What we have here upon the gold coins are the Hallows of Hylor. Sometimes they are called the Lost Hallows, though not all are lost …”

  “Where are they?” she asked.

  “The Stone is in the south wall of Achamar in the Chameln Lands,” reeled off Druda Strawn, “and the Lamp, formerly of Cayl, is whispered to be in the Sanctuary at Larkdel, in Lien. The Crown is in Eildon in the Priest King’s holy retreat, and some say the Cup, Taran’s Kelch, is in Eildon too, stolen from the Chyrian Lands. The Lance—” He looked at her seriously. “I know I have spoken to you of the Lance. Well, it is lost and it belonged to Mel’Nir. As for the Fleece …” He shook his head, as if deeply thinking.

  “Perhaps I am called to find these lost things,” Gael prompted him, half hopeful.

  “That would be a difficult task,” said Druda Strawn.

  He sat back on his step with deep creases between his thick eyebrows.

  “Let me think on these things for a short while,” he said. “You have another errand today?”

  “Yes. I must bring the rest of the oranges to the Widow Raillie at the Long Burn Farm.”

  He smiled a little.

  “Let this also be a quest for you, Gael Maddoc,” he said, “you with your magic ring and all.”

  “What shall I do?”

  “Look well at these folk who have come to the Long Burn Farm. Tell me how you find them.”

  She was not too pleased with her task, but she knew he would ask nothing in jest.

  “Druda,” she said, remembering the rumor, “what was this skirmish in the west where Bretlow Smith saw some action?”

  Druda Strawn shook his head.

  “Ask at the smithy—there is some mystery about the tale!”

  On the way to the newcomers she crossed over the Long Burn twice, once when it flowed under a bridge in the road and once at the entrance to the farm. The countryside was not so fair as the Southland, but the low rough hills, red-brown for autumn, pleased her eye. On a small piece of flatland, downriver from the first bridge, there was a ring of standing stones called the Maidens. Upriver there was the mill, behind leafless trees. The Maddocs had never used the mill; they had ground their own miserable harvest of grain in their own yard.

  There was a new wooden bridge before the Long Burn Farm. It was a goodly way through carefully cleared and leveled fields to the substantial house. She saw the tall figure of a man, still as a stone beside a grey boundary wall on the western skyline. It was midday, cold for the time of year, and the sun just struggling through a layer of cloud. No workers were in the fields. As she came up to the yard, hounds bayed; there was a man in a blue cloak raking by the barn. A young lad ran to take her bridle and cried out:

  “What d’ye seek, kedran?”

  “I will see Mistress Raillie,” she said. “I have a gift from Maddoc’s croft, by the Holywell.”

  It was as if a shadow had lifted. Perhaps she had given them a scare, riding in on her tall black horse. The lad grinned, the man laid aside his rake and quieted the dogs. Out of the kitchen came a maidservant and a quick smiling woman in dark green. Gael Maddoc’s first thought was that the Widow Raillie looked like her mother. They were of an age, she guessed, and of the same height, thin and olive skinned, with dark hair drawn back. There the likeness ended. The Widow Raillie had clear, unlined skin, sparkling eyes, good teeth, an upright, youthful carriage. Her mother was still quick, but she was lined, her hair was streaked with grey … she was a crofter’s wife.

  “Ah, my dear!” cried the widow heartily. “Please to step down! Welcome to our house! See, it is the Maddocs’ daughter! How your mother must have wept to see her child come home!”

  Gael was impressed. Her family had earned respect, fine friends. She made the gift of oranges and the widow thanked her warmly. Ebony became skittish at first, but Gael helped the lad bring him to a stall, then followed the widow into the house.

  They passed through a warm kitchen that was roughly the size of the Maddocs’ old cottage. There was a reek of food, a second maid stirred at the fireplace, shadowy flitches of bacon and strings of vegetables crowded the rafters. The widow swept on into a second room with a brazier, sheepskin rugs on the wooden floor and on the settles. By the standards of Coombe, the Raillies were rich. This could have been a room in the reeve’s house, where Gael Maddoc had gone with her father once, to ask permission to work off their tax.

  The widow made her visitor comfortable, sent the maid, Bethne, for mulled wine and applecake. She laid a small soft hand on Gael’s cold cheek and sat beside her with a rustle of silken petticoats. Somehow, despite the warmth of the greeting, this sound was like a whisper of unease. Gael saw that the widow wore two gold rings, that there was a costly glass mirror upon the wall.

  “Culain!” cried the widow. “See who is here! Maddoc’s daughter from the Holywell!”

  Culain Raillie had come in quietly. He was older than Gael and tall as a man of Mel’Nir. Yet his black hair and blue eyes marked him out as a type of long-boned Chyrian: Gael thought of Egon Baran of the Summer Riders. Culain, like Jehane’s sweetheart, had the same fine straight features, but there was a weathering of suffering, perhaps, or guarded concern, in his countenance. When he gave his hand to the visitor and smiled, his long face did not light up.

  “Well grown,” he said in the common speech. “Tall enough for a Sword Lily …”

  “I served in the Southland,” said Gael.

  “Why not in Krail?” asked Culain. “The Lord Knaar is always seeking tall kedran for his famed troop, the Sword Lilies.”

  “Come lad,” said the widow. “You talk like a recruiting officer. We should be pleased that Gael Maddoc has come home!”

  “I owe you thanks,” said Gael, “for you have helped my family come to a house.”

  “We must share our good fortune,” said Culain, raising his blue eyes to her own.

  “I hear you have been blessed by the Goddess,” said Gael, not sure why he spoke so, as if to challenge her, but also not ready to stand down before him. “You have a magic stone.”

  Culain continued to stare at her with a sharp, appraising look.

  “Come,” he said abruptly. “I am sure you will want to see our treasure.”

  He led the way into a smaller room with hangings of woven stuff and several chests and coffers. An altar to the Goddess had been set up, with a silver candlestick and a wreath of evergreen. In the midst of the altar was an oval polished stone, set upright like a miniature menhir. It was about a foot high, darkest green in color, and veined in red.

  “A beautiful stone,” she said. “May I touch it?”

  “Most people do,” said Culain. “They ask a blessing.”

  She laid her hands upon the smooth stone for a moment, then stepped back.

  “You have a handsome ring,” said Culain, again abruptly. “Is it a lover’s gift?”

  Gael Maddoc laughed.

  “It is a ring from the Burnt Lands,” she said. “I traveled there in the service of the house of Pfolben.”

  She walked to a small glazed window and looked out over the bare fields and the brown heath. Pale sunlight came in and lit up the green jewel of Lady Annhad’s ring.

  “You would need to protect a magic stone,” she said, “against thieves and sorcerers.”

  “Say rather the stone protects our house and our goods!” Culain Raillie answered, coming to her side.

  He patted the lid of the tall iron strongbox under the window, where her hands had come to rest. He had come uncomfortably close to her.

  “Your mother and mine sit at their spinning together,” he said. “They make plans like two chattering magpies …”

  She understood suddenly that he was nervous with her, and for the first time Gael Maddoc had an inkling of what object those motherly plans might have come to. She stepped away from the window and looked Culain Raillie in the eye.

  “Master Raill
ie,” she said, “I have seen a little of the world and do not think I can bide long in Coombe village.”

  He made her a small bow. His smile was polite but mirthless.

  “We will speak further,” he said. “My greetings to your family.”

  He strode out of the room and out of the house without even a word to his mother. Gael came back to the widow, who was as bright and talkative as ever.

  “What has brought you and your son to Coombe, Mistress Raillie?” asked Gael.

  “A farm such as the Long Burn is harder to come by than you think,” chattered the widow, so precisely fitting her son’s image that Gael, despite her reservations about these people, found herself cracking a private grin. “Most folks hold their land by ancient deed and heritage, as your father holds Holywell Croft. There were no heirs to the Long Burn, and the deed was sold us by Reeve Oghal, who had it in his keeping.”

  Presently Gael took her leave and galloped back to Coombe ahead of a shower of rain; the stormy winds of autumn had already begun to strip the leaves from the trees. She took a back lane to come to the Druda’s house again and sat with him indoors without a fire.

  “The Raillies are strange folk indeed,” she said.

  “Go on …” nodded the priest.

  “They are not farmers,” said Gael, “and the son has never gone for a soldier though he is well grown. His hands are soft as his mother’s. I would guess he has been a trader of some kind. They are rich, richer even than they seem to be. There is a hint of magic about the pair of them.”

  “Were you shown the magic stone?” asked Druda Strawn.

  “The pretty stone on the household altar is no more than a polished ornament. But in a chest by the window there is some powerful magical source and much treasure. Druda, what do these folk want, coming here to Coombe?”

  “Child,” said the priest, “I do not know. We live too quiet in this part of the world; perhaps we are too distrustful of newcomers.”

  He drew out her gold coins again and fastened them upon her wrist.

  “Gael Maddoc,” he said, “I do not doubt that you have a calling. You must take these medals of the lost hallows up to the High Plateau and beg the Shee for guidance.”