by Dave Duncan
"We keep the inmates fed," the King
explained with his mouth full. "Usually a house
thegn brings the rations, but I may come if I have
business, or your uncle, and now Wulfwer.
Weargahlaew isn't secret, but it isn't
widely talked about, either. Grown-ups know
better than to come here. Small boys must not, but
few of them have horses capable of the ride."
Oops! Radgar thought he knew one who
wasn't going to have such a horse much longer and
wasn't going to want to sit on one for quite a while
either. "There's more people live here?" He eyed the
sword, left within reach.
"It varies. Only six at the moment. Some
are witan who just want to be alone to study.
They're hermits by choice and can leave
if they want to. Others are weargas,
banished by royal command--dangerous, crazy people,
or thieves and murderers I chose to exile
instead of enthrall, for one reason or another.
They must stay here or pay the other penalty. There
have been people so ugly that other people cannot tolerate them,
and some with strange diseases the healers can't conjure.
Other earls have their own places of exile,
prison islands."
Radgar swallowed the remains of his fourth egg
and reached for bread and cheese, trying not to get them
wet. Eating in a hot pool was trickier than
he'd expected. He knew of nothing in the world more
fun than going a-foering with Dad, who always
seemed to have new places to show him and new things
to do, and he would be enjoying every second of this
bizarre picnic enormously if he didn't have
his unknown punishment hanging over him.
Good-bye, Cwealm!
"Healfwer isn't the worst," Dad said.
"He's only crazy some of the time, and he never
threatens a strong man like Wulfwer. Children or
vulnerable people seem to enrage him, and yet I know
he's truly sorry afterward. He's the most
brilliantly clever enchanter anywhere. No one
else can conjure elementals the way he does,
all by himself. If I need something special in the
way of enchantment, he can almost always manage it for
me. He can't help being crazy--wouldn't you be
if you were crippled the way he is? He must have a
lot of pain, too."
"What happened to him? Who was he before he
became Half Man?"
Dad chewed for a moment, and the copper stubble on
his jaw glinted in the sunlight. "That's his
business and one day perhaps you can ask him. You're not
going to talk about Healfwer or Weargahlaew at
all, understand? To no one."
"Yes, my lord. I promise!"
"On our best behavior suddenly, are we?"
Dad chuckled and cracked an egg on his elbow.
"Your job, Son, is the same as any other
boy's of your age, and that is to make as many
mistakes as possible while you're young enough to be
either forgiven or walloped. You're ten, and that's the
age the law starts treating you as an adult, so
you're almost out of time. Soon you will be judged
wicked instead of ignorant. What have you learned
recently?"
Here it came. "I knew
Weargahlaew was out of bounds, so I was disobeying
when I came here."
There was a pause, then Dad said, "That's
all?"
"Well, the hlytm that Healfwer--"
"We'll get to that. About Weargahlaew itself."
Radgar thought. "I broke the rules."
"Nothing wrong with breaking rules, provided you
know why the rule is there and what will happen if you
do break it. I've broken lots of rules in
my time. Rules are usually made to protect
either you or other people, and the king's law is there
to punish people who hurt other people by breaking rules.
But if a rule is unfair or wicked, then it
is your duty to break it! I'm really proud of the
way you broke this rule, riding in through the
tunnel, then sending Aylwin back and staying yourself
when you thought there was something wrong."
Radgar released a long sigh of wonder. "You
are? Proud?"
"I'm proud of your courage. Your stupidity
is another matter altogether."
"Oh."
"You didn't know why the rule was there, but you
broke it anyway. I've always told you
to remember the she-wolf, but you didn't even
look for the wolf. That was stupid! Staying inside
the crater was stupid--you could have waited outside
to see who left with the packhorse. What else have
you learned, if anything?"
Radgar decided he was full and didn't
want to eat any more. "The hlytm? Healfwer was
trying to find out what Wulfwer's weird is."
Dad sighed. "Yes. What about it?"
"It doesn't give clear answers."
"Sometimes it does. Did you notice what
point Wulfwer went to?"
"Water."
"That's not a bad one. Some elements can mean so
many things that the hlytm is no real use. It
doesn't help much to be told that chance is your
weird, for instance. And it only works once. If
Wulfwer's weird is water, then Healfwer can
ward him against water. Then he probably won't
drown after all, but he's going to die someday
anyway, just as we all are. He'll meet
another bane and the hlytm can't warn him against that
one. It won't work once he's warded. You can't
be warded against a second element, either."
Then Radgar had to explain how he
had walked out in the open and Wulfwer had maybe
come to him, not the water. Dad did not look
pleased.
"Wulfwer doesn't know that?"
"No, lord. Healfwer signed me to go away
before he let him take off his blindfold. And I
don't see how the hlytm could have summoned me
up to Weargahlaew because they hadn't even started it
when I came in through the tunnel."
"It's time to go. Wash that blood off your
face." Dad stood up and waded over to the
towels. "I can't see it either, but conjury is very
strange at times. If I were Wulfwer I
might make sure of things by running a sword
into you. So the rule about not telling anyone about
Weargahlaew applies doubly to the hlytm,
understand? Please don't mention it to your mother!"
"Yes, lord." Radgar began drying himself.
He was limp as string after the long soak. He
wanted to sleep for a month. "Healfwer said he'd
chant the hlytm for Wulfwer again some other day."
"Good. I may keep you tied to your bed until
he does." Dad smiled to show he didn't mean
that. But what else did he have in mind, apart from
taking away Cwealm?
"Do you suppose he'd chant it for me? After
what I did to his house? Has he ever done it
for you--chanted the hlytm?"
"If you caused him half as much trouble as
you've admitted, young man, I won't let
you
near the old horror until you've grown twice
as big as Wulfwer. The hlytm may not work for
you anyway, because stupidity is not an element,
although it ought to be. There's more pure stupidity in the
world than almost anything else." Dad's grin
disappeared as he pulled his smock over his head.
He emerged frowning. "I expect one day
he'll chant it for you, if I ask him to. And,
yes, I know my weird, and, no, I won't
tell you what it is. I don't tell anyone
that. Gather up that food and I'll take it
to Healfwer as a peace offering."
Radgar was dressed now. He was fed and warm--
and very sleepy. Why was Dad making him wait for the
bad news?
"Bring that," Dad said, taking the other bag and
heading for Wiga. "I'll take you to Cwealm and
see you mounted and into the tunnel. I want you to go
straight to the elementary and ask Conjurer
Plegmund to heal that cut on your face
before your mother sees it. I'll have the money sent
to him."
"And you?"
For a moment Dad didn't answer, being busy
tightening the girths. Then he said, "How badly
did you damage Healfwer's cabin?"
Radgar hung his head. "Dad, I really
smashed it up. It'll have to be rebuilt, I
think, but it was the only thing I could think of to--"
"Good!" said the King. "I've been trying
to get him to move to a better place for years, the
stubborn old loon; and now he'll have to, so
that's what I'll do now. There are some fine,
solid log cabins nobody's living in.
Tell Leofric and your mother that I won't be
back until tomorrow." He swung up into the saddle
and held out a hand. "Up?"
"Tell me!" Radgar yelled. "Please,
please, don't keep me waiting any longer!"
Dad stared down at him in surprise.
"Waiting for what?"
"What are you going to do to me? I don't mind
sore butt, as many whacks as you want, and
I'll muck out stables or cut corn with the
thralls or do anything, anything at all, but
please, please, please don't take Cwealm
away!"
"Oh!" Dad pursed his lips and studied the
cliffs for a moment. "Well, Son, you were very
foolish, weren't you?"
"Yes, lord. I'm sorry, really I am."
"I'm sure you are. I've warned you never
to catch more than you hunt, yes? You went hunting
a little mischief and you almost froze to death, you almost
got murdered. You had to go a whole day without
eating, and you were more frightened than you've ever been.
Yes?"
"Yes, lord."
Dad grinned. "So you punished yourself. See,
grown-ups don't have dads to paddle their butts,
but they do have to pay the penalty, whatever it is. I
can't do anything to you worse than what you did
to yourself and I should never want to. Cwealm's
yours, Son. I won't take him away."
It was absolutely shameful, but as Dad
pulled him up on to Wiga's back, Radgar
began to cry again.
Little more was said, except by Aylwin. He had not
been punished for the Weargahlaew escapade either
--much to his surprise--but he did want to know
what had happened. When Radgar wouldn't tell
him, there was a certain amount of shouting, shoving, and
punching. The coolness passed in a few days, as
it always did, and the friends found new trouble to fall
into together.
It was more than a week later that Dad inquired
whether Radgar would like to go surf fishing, just the two
of them--a very foolish question for a king to ask. So they
sailed over to Blodenclif, and while they were standing
on the rocks with their lines out and the waves foaming
all around making so much noise that it was almost
impossible to hear, Dad suddenly shouted over
to Radgar--
"Healfwer chanted the hlytm for Wulfwer
again."
Radgar had something on his line just then,
probably a fat bass, so he wasn't much
interested in the affairs of his ugly cousin. "And
what?"
"And water was his bane again. So you were just an
accident."
"Good," Radgar said and concentrated on the more
important matter of landing that bass.
The matter came up again very briefly when they
were sailing home that evening. Radgar had the tiller
and the setting sun was painting scarlet ladders on the
ripples of Swi@thaefen. He had caught more
fish than the King of Baelmark and the world was as
perfect as could be.
"I was thinking," the hero remarked, "about the
hlytm. I think the worst weird of all would be
love! That would be terrible--to know that you were going to be
killed by someone you loved!"
After a moment Dad said, "I'm sure you're
right, Son."
When Radgar was eleven, the Chivian King
Taisson died and Crown Prince Ambrose
succeeded. This seemed like a good opportunity to end
a war that had dragged on far too long, but
Grandon sent no overtures for peace
to Waro`edburh. Next spring, therefore,
King Aeled launched the heaviest offensive of the
war, harrying the Chivian coasts and strangling its
trade. Month after month the booty and good news
flooded back to Baelmark, but casualty lists
came, too. Wives need husbands and children fathers.
A land frets when all its young men are absent for
prolonged periods, and by fall the mood of the
country was growing sour.
It was then that Atheling Radgar went on a
royal procession, accompanied by Aylwin and a
few other twelve-year-old boys and girls,
all dressed in court finery of purple and
ermine. Their armed escort was made up of
cnihtas only a couple of years older. They
visited eleven shires, not counting Catterstow, and
in every capital were made welcome by the Earl or
his tanist. The celebrations included a feast, of
course, and other sorts of pomp, such as singing,
horse races, and martial competitions between the
visiting cnihtas and the locals.
This zany performance was the brainchild of Queen
Charlotte, organized by her and the earls' wives.
When the idea was first proposed, Regent
Cynewulf turned it down flat, but he had
never been noted for his sense of humor. Aeled,
appealed to in a letter, wrote back overruling his
tanist, and as usual his judgment was sound. The
sight of children traveling the land unmolested was a
fine contrast to the news from war-savaged Chivial;
the mockery of the ways of royalty exactly
fitted the spirit of the time. The nation laughed
uproariously.
"That atheling looks just like his father," everyone said
admiringly. "Never know what he's going to get
up to next, either."
The jester king and hi
s train sailed home
to Catterstow from Twigeport on the thirtieth day
of Ninthmoon, arriving in a chill, misty
drizzle. Had theirs been a genuine royal
progress, it would have ended with a parade and a
welcome-home feast in Cynehof, but Uncle
Cynewulf had refused to play along. The
juvenile courtiers muttered about the regent's
sourpuss attitude, but in fact they had tired
of the game and were not sorry that the joke was over.
Being polite and gracious for almost a month had
proved to be unbearably wearing. And when
Waro`edburh came in sight, they saw the beach
covered with longships and more than half the population
teeming around them. The campaigning
season was over also. Joyful turmoil acclaimed
the return of the fyrd, and there would be feasting after
all.
Radgar was the first to leap ashore. A shouted question
told him that Dad was safe. He ran all the
way to the palace, which was in an even greater state
of uproar, but the only welcome he received was a
thorough licking from Brindle. He had to ask
several people before he learned that Dad had ridden off
to Hatburna, his favorite home. That was very
strange, because he must have huge amounts of business
to see to. Normally when he returned from a
foering he would just send word and Mom would come
hurrying back to the capital to greet him. It was
only when Radgar asked more questions that someone mentioned
the firedrake in Wambseoc. He yelled for
Cwealm to be saddled up, ordered Brindle
to stay behind, and took off for Hatburna as fast as
he dared push his horse.
He was as well mounted as any man in the
kingdom and weighed less. The rain had softened the
track, but sure-footed Cwealm made record
time and would certainly have caught up with the royal
party had the road been just a little longer. As it
was, the horses were still being walked when he thundered
and splashed into the stable yard. Radgar leaped from the
saddle, thrust the reins into the hands of a ceorl, and
ran into the main house without even taking off his
mud-caked boots, an omission that Queen
Charlotte regarded as a capital offense in
athelings.
Hatburna was a rambling, ramshackle old
place, much extended by successive generations of
Catterings but still far too small to house a ruling
monarch. A king could go nowhere without a train of
thegns, house thegns, ministers, clerks, and