Yorath the Wolf

by Wilder, Cherry;

  Presently he turned his head, shaded his eyes, and said, “Are you there, then? Come out and have an apple!”

  We came out. I saw that the fisherman was dark, undersized and dressed in worn leather.

  “Two lads,” he said, “and well grown. Eat hearty.”

  We sat beside the apple basket and polished off a couple. I saw that he fished very carelessly and without a good float. The man’s face was leathery and brown as his tunic. Presently he said that his name was Medgor. He asked our names and we gave them, pat answers both: Arn, son of Finn, at the smithy, Yorath Nilson, lives with his grandam in the marsh. By the time he asked how tall we were and guessed our ages, I took fright. I gripped Arn’s wrist. We took two more apples, muttered our thanks and ran off into the forest. But the damage had been done. Medgor was a scout for the longhouse where the soldiers of the Great King were trained; an intake of young lads was due in autumn, in the Hazelmoon. So much Hagnild found out when he heard of our apple-friend.

  The remedy was for Arn and Yorath to be sent away until the recruiting officers had gone through. The people of Nightwood and the marsh were few, and some of them were wanderers like the tinker woman or the brothers who caught birds and taught them to talk. If two boys listed by Medgor were not to be found, time would not be spent searching for them. Arn, son of Finn, would be “apprenticed to a swordmaker in the west”; Yorath and his grandam would have gone away, disappeared into the mist. Arn and I felt a great adventure brewing. Where would we go? I had hardly left the marsh, had been east to the port of Ranke on the Dannermere but west not even as far as Lort. I am sure Hagnild and Caco suffered qualms and wondered how it would continue with the hiding of a great lump of a boy.

  Hagnild thought at first of sending us to his family home at Nesbath, that lovely watery town, built at the confluence of the Bal and the Ringist where both these rivers flow out of the Dannermere and spread out to embrace the fabulous land of Lien. But Hagnild’s parents were long dead, his brother, of whom he seldom spoke, was on his travels. The House of Healing where he had grown up was given over to the care of ancient servants.

  At last it was decided that the two fugitives would go to the west, to the brother of Erda, the smith’s wife, who was indeed a swordmaker and a man of substance in the town of Krail. The Great King’s officers did not go about in Krail: it was capital of the territory of Valko, Lord of Val’Nur, Valko the Thunderer, Valko Firehammer, in short the most powerful war lord in Mel’Nir. The King’s Peace was in effect a truce between Ghanor and Valko; both rulers seemed to be enjoying the respite. The Great King took the opportunity to annex the Chameln lands when the Daindru, the two kings, died untimely. Valko kept his lesser lords to heel and built roads and forts.

  Arn and I set out for the west with Roke the Carrier, another man of the marsh, who trundled reed baskets, fish, salt, rope, mushrooms and truffles through Lort to the west and came back with butter, orchard fruit, wine and mutton. We sat inside his small wagon as we went through Lort, pretending more danger than there was. No one challenged Roke. Through slits in the canvas we saw that Lort was a square, yellowish town, built of stone and brick around the garrison fort and the old walls, built by the ancient masons. The scale of these old walls and the Ox Gate, with its mighty, weathered carvings of two bulls, showed that these builders, gone so long that their names and the names of their kings and cities were forgotten, had indeed built like giants. The men of Mel’Nir built painstaking solid forts and houses that were like forts.

  When the town was passed we came out of hiding and sat beside Roke. In late summer the road was dry but not too dusty. We had come uphill a little and could look back to the Palace Fortress and to Nightwood and the marsh. The endless vistas, the wild beauty of the land of Mel’Nir held us spellbound. This is not the ordered beauty of Lien or of Athron, nor the wildness of forest and lake and plain to be seen in the Chameln lands. Rather Mel’Nir is a land uncultivated, waiting to be smoothed or tilled. To the northwest, beyond the palace, green hills and groves of trees rolled to the skirts of the border forest, in the far blue distance, and to the banks of the Bal, the border with Lien. To our left, as Roke’s old brown warhorse plodded up the hill, we could see the High Plateau, a country full of mist and magic, like our own Nightwood. Over the brow of the hill was the Westland, where we were going.

  When we reached the crest of this hill, Roke turned the cart aside to the banks of a thin stream, unhitched the old horse, and sent us to fetch firewood. We made a fire, and Roke hung a black pot over it with a rich stew of hare, turnips and mushrooms. I had eyes only for the old round tower that stood on the hilltop, again a work from an earlier time. It was a watchtower, now no more than a shell of blackened brick, but I wondered if it could be climbed inside. When we had eaten, Roke settled down in the shade against a wild plum tree with his straw hat shading his eyes and his wooden leg stretched out comfortably. Arn dozed too; he opened one eye and said he would follow by and by. I went through the trees to the road and entered the tower alone.

  Inside it was cool and dark; the tower was still in use as a watchtower: the old curving stair had been mended with yellow stone and had a wooden balustrade. I ran up and stood on the platform at the top, feeling the wind in my face and looking for miles in every direction. Far down the hill to the west, the way that we must travel, there grew a small dust cloud.

  I continued to look about; and when I looked to the west again, the dust cloud was a troop of galloping horsemen. The chargers in their cotton covers pounded along in impressive style, but a lithe black horse drew away more and more from the troop. The black horse came on, swift as a bird; and I saw that there were two riders upon it. What I was witnessing was a pursuit. The two fugitives were now far ahead. I looked down and saw that the black horse had been brought in close to the base of the tower. It swung round the big, drooping cedar tree at the doorway, then on down the hill. I saw it come into view again and take the right hand path at a crossroads, the road to Lort. At the same moment I heard light footsteps climbing the steps of the tower.

  Perhaps it was the lightness of those steps that made me go to meet the newcomer. We faced each other on the stairs in a shaft of light pouring down from above. The fugitive who had slipped from the black horse and entered the tower was a woman—I would have said a lady or more of a lady than I had ever beheld. She was tall and slender and pale-skinned; her hair was black, held with a band; her lips and cheeks were red or reddened; her wide eyes were a striking light brown. She wore riding breeches of green leather with the overskirt swung back like a train. Her impact was one of startling beauty. I felt her looks like a blow in the face. I knew beauty’s power.

  We simply stared at each other as the troop of horses drew near, with a sound like thunder. The lady, the lady in distress—I had read many scrolls from Eildon and from Lien—moistened her lips and said in a low voice that did not tremble, “They will kill me!”

  I believed her at once. I said or croaked, “I will go out . . .”

  We knew what I meant. I would go out and put off her pursuers, lie for her. I came down the stair and had to squeeze past her; I was twelve years old and nearly six feet tall, but I was still childish and undeveloped. Yet this moment was one I recalled as I grew older and reenacted in various ways in my dreams.

  She spoke once more: “What is your name?”

  “Yorath Nilson . . .”

  The riders were outside the tower, and they had checked. Above me she drew in her breath. I ran down the remaining stairs, dashed into the sunlight and cried, pointing down the hill, “They took the road towards Lort!”

  The leader of the troop, a young ensign, waved his hand; three of the riders plunged on down the hill, the other three, including the officer, drew rein. I saw one man on a brown charger who was distressed for want of breath; he was middle-aged and wore a jewelled baldric across his surcoat. The ensign drew in close and supported him in the saddle. The third man was altogether a civilian, riding a red hor
se from the plateau; he was sharp-featured, swarthy and bearded.

  “Shall I fetch water for the lord?” I asked.

  The sick man took two more long gasping breaths and smiled at me.

  “No need, lad. I have some.”

  He drank from his water bottle. The ensign said, “Where did you spring from? The tower?”

  “Yes, Captain.” I upped his rank.

  “Name!”

  If I had been older it would have been “Name and rank!”

  “Yorath Nilson. Travelling to Krail. See, my party was camped yonder by the stream.”

  I saw Arn and Old Roke coming uncertainly up to the road through the trees.

  “Captain,” I asked, “were those bond-breakers that you were chasing? Or thieves?”

  “Both!” said the ensign angrily. “They have committed great crimes against our lord Thilon of Val’Nur and his noble brother.”

  The dark man came up suddenly on his red horse and said, “You, boy, what did you see? You were in the tower!”

  “I saw the chase,” I said, “and heard the black horse go by, then I saw them turn off on the road to Lort.”

  “Something may be foul here, Lord Thilon!” cried the dark man. “We may have lost the one we seek. Is the boy telling the truth?”

  “I think he is,” said the sick man, Thilon, smiling at me again. “You are too harsh, Geshtar. Do you think he has been bewitched?”

  “A moment, I pray you, Lord,” said Geshtar. “Boy, can you describe the riders?”

  “No sir,” I said, hanging my head. “Just two men on a black horse.”

  Hem Thilon and the ensign laughed indulgently; I had outfoxed Geshtar. I sensed another reason why they believed me: we were of one flesh. They were tall, fair men, big-built, with hair of the sun-colors . . . red, tawny . . . and I was one of their kind.

  “Yorath,” said Hem Thilon, “one of those riders was a woman, an accursed witch, Gundril Chawn, the Owlwife. She stole from me . . .”

  He was wracked by a fit of coughing, and he spat phlegm streaked with blood into the grass at the roadside. Geshtar came up and fed his master some draught; I saw that he was a healer. The ensign gave me a smile and a salute.

  “Beware of witches!” he said.

  When Hem Thilon had been treated, they rode on slowly down the hill. Roke and Arn hurried across, questioning eagerly, and I told them all I had told the lord and his men. At last Arn and I went into the tower again. It was quite empty, as I knew it would be. Magic might have been the answer, but the doorway was well screened by the cedar tree, and a bold fugitive could have come out and made off into the bushes that grew at the tower’s base. We climbed up. I went ahead of Arn, and on the topmost step I found two brown feathers arranged so that they made the first letter of my name. I gathered them up and hid them away in my tunic. From that time the Owlwife flew through the forests of my dreams.

  So we travelled on into the west, sleeping in Roke’s wagon, until we came to the town of Krail and the forge of Bülarn, the Swordmaker. There was great excitement when we came into the yard. The master came from the forge, the mistress from the house, the two pretty girl children came out with their nursemaid. The whole family embraced Arn, their nephew and cousin, and carried him off indoors. He looked back and pointed me out, and a glance was cast in my direction. Roke and I waited, and when the master emerged, Roke delivered the sealed letter from Hagnild asking the family to care for me. Bülarn turned the letter over in his hands and sent me off to the apprentices’ barrack, by the forge. He went on his way.

  “Well, there it is, lad,” said Roke. “You are not his kin. Take your bundle. I’ll come by in the spring.”

  There it was indeed. I spent a miserable six months in Bülarn’s yard and learned what it was to have no kin. I hardly knew how ill I was treated, but felt it all like a dumb animal, a dog, hardly able to protest. When Arn, poor fellow, tried to bring me into the kitchen, the cook shooed me away “because I had no place there.” When the apprentices ate, I was served last and grudgingly as an extra mouth to feed. I worked at odd jobs in the yard and watched all that was done at the forge. I was able to walk about in the town and even steal away with Arn to the meadows and do some fishing. We were late back for supper and the master knocked me down for taking Arn away, then drew his dear nephew back into the house. I felt all the time that Bülarn and his family treated me so ill because I was almost invisible to them. They never seemed to know my name or remember me from one day to the next. Arn did what he could, but the treatment he received would have turned the head of any boy, let alone one who had grown up as a ninth child.

  Although I did not like to think of my time in Krail for years afterwards, I did store up some good memories of that time. The town was a fine place, with fruit markets bathed in the golden light of autumn. On the High Bridge over the river Demmis there were shops and booths full of weapons, metalwork, leathergoods, cotton cloth and . . . best of all for me in my loneliness . . . books, scrolls, inks and pens. Here I met the only person who could be called my friend in Krail.

  One afternoon as I wandered away from the baskets in front of the bookshop, a hand plucked at my sleeve. He seemed to be crouching between the leather mantles of an old clothes merchant. His face was dreadfully twisted; on the right side, where his mouth was drawn down, the skin was thickened and fiery red. A pair of large liquid eyes peered out of this face; it was impossible not to think of a mask.

  “Boy. . . .” The voice was soft but penetrating, “You are not straight.”

  I gulped, staring down at him. I could see now that he was a beggar with a single crutch and a begging bowl held to his grotesquely twisted body.

  “No,” I said. “My shoulder is twisted. But it is growing out.”

  “You will help me,” he said. “You have silver. Go to the scribes’ shop again and get me two bunches of wooden pens, dirt cheap, half a groat.”

  When I gasped out a question, he said, “I have no money, and I have a copying work ordered. I am quick enough, but too slow for the shopkeeper. She knows me too well, even gave me tick once or twice. I cannot steal the pens.”

  Of course I did what he asked. I went back and bought the pens and then went down a certain stair off the bridge and sat on a stone coping beside the river. A bent shape, a bundle of rags whisked out of the shadows of the bridge piers and sat beside me.

  “My name is Forbian,” said my new friend. “Some call me Flink. Yes, these will do very well. And on the bridge do not keep your belongings in an outside pocket.”

  He handed me the contents of one of my pockets: a small knife, a filthy kerchief, a particularly fine horse chestnut—a conker, threaded on a thong. We talked, and Forbian the copyist, was a mine of interesting information. We watched the river and the tall, golden citadel rising above the town, the stronghold of Valko Firehammer. I heard all the exploits and attributes of this great lord in the measured, acrid tones of one of the least of his subjects. By and large Forbian approved of Valko. He not only gave generous handouts to the poor and the dispossessed, the beggars or self-styled “veterans,” he gave them a sort of territory of their own: Darktown, a warren of crooked streets and cavernous cellars beneath the Old Bridge, further downstream.

  On one of the days when we sat by the river and shared some food, we saw a troop of cavalry ride by. They were well turned out and mounted on fine wirey horses from the plateau. These were the Sword Lilies, a chosen troop of tall battlemaids in Valko’s service. The kind of coarse remarks passed about such a troop I had already heard in the swordmaker’s yard.

  “Make no mistake,” said Forbian, spitting pips into the river. “Those gals are well-trained and dangerous in battle, like all true kedran. They must do more because they live among men, who are generally taller, with more muscle. They make up their lack of weight with swiftness and ferocity. They are taught to go for the face and the throat. They can whirl about and reform on their horses while the troopers are wondering what hit them
in the first charge.”

  Forbian had a gift for imparting information, and he was just as good at getting it out of others. He had my whole history from me in an hour or so . . . Nightwood, Hagnild, Caco, my supposed parents, my present miserable state at the swordmaker’s.

  “You will go for a soldier,” he said, “like your father, this Nils. I am a good judge of bones. I even know the shape of my own bones and have pledged them long ago to a collector of curiosities. You will top seven feet and thicken in proportion. The shoulder will not grow quite straight, but it will not hinder you. In fact it will make you more terrible and frightening to look upon. No hindrance in a warrior. Have you never wondered, boy, who you might be?”

  I hardly understood the question.

  “Think a bit,” said Forbian. “This master healer, from the king’s court, raises you in Nightwood with the aid of an old Lienish woman. I think, saving your presence, my dear Yorath, that you are the bastard of some noble lord or noble lady. A child of the bower, as they say, borne in shame. You must come to some kin, my lad. Ask your guardian when you are older.”

  The long autumn in Krail came slowly to an end. I was still a child, and in some ways a mollycoddled child; I did not know how to look after myself. By the time the wind blew cold through the swordmaker’s yard and the end of year furlough for the apprentices drew near, I was a sorry sight. I was afraid of the winter, afraid of the time when the forge would be put out, when the four heavy-handed apprentices would go to their homes and I would be left alone in the barracks. When the first snow fell, I shovelled it from the entries of the house. Arn and his two girl cousins went out to skate and ride their sleds. I was allowed at last to come indoors, into the kitchen.

  It was the largest room in the house, in fact the largest room I had ever been in. The big blazing hearth had three fires upon it, with spits and cauldrons. The kitchen was divided into work places; it was shadowy and dim, with piled sacks and barrels; flitches of bacon, plaits of herbs, bunches of onions, hung from blackened hooks in the roof. This was the domain ruled over by the cook, a huge truculent woman called Mistress Trok. She had a maid of all work and two scullions to help her; one servingman and the nursemaid worked above stairs.