We seemed to understand one another. I saw that she was really prepared to give herself as a wife. Perhaps the feelings of friendship, admiration, suitability, mutual benefit, were the usual reasons for marriage. I felt love and longing for a different woman, and she, Annhad, still loved a perfect knight who had died at the Adderneck under a hail of Chameln arrows.
These things need not have hindered us. I had outgrown the rift, that was true reason for my going. I kissed the hand of fair Annhad and wished her a happy life when her time of mourning was ended. I sent my captains the order to pack. I thought with despair of the Owlwife, but knew she would find out wherever I might be. I sent a rider westward to Krail with a message to Knaar of Val’Nur.
We rode out westward down the valley among cheering crowds. We stopped at Nordlin, and Old Arlies kissed my cheek.
“The best for you,” she said shrewdly. “You are too large for this place, friend Yorath!”
So we rode out, the Free Company of the Wolf, fifty troopers and forty servants and camp followers. The word had no disreputable meaning in Mel’Nir; some of the wives of my veterans had come over the plateau to find their husbands; I had performed marriage ceremonies between my men and girls from the rift. We might have enlisted many young men in our company, but we would not do so. Chandor, the hostage, came along, still quiet, still unransomed. His family in the east sent pleading letters; they said they had no money. He stayed by me; I used him as my standard-bearer.
We rode on unsleeping under the stars, camped three times by the wayside and saw the descent into the Westmark before us. Our scouts reported a small body of men approaching through the meadows as we came down off the plateau the next evening. I rode out with Gorrie and Chandor and men with torches.
The leader of the party had dismounted, and I cried out, “Knaar! Here is your wolf-pack!”
“Knaar is not here!” came the deep reply.
More torches were lit, and I saw the leader in their golden light, which made his armor give off a ruddy glow so that he was clothed all in gold. I had thought of all fathers as old men, but Valko Firehammer was in the prime of life, massive and handsome, with fire-gold hair and a noble beard, a sign of privilege, marking him out from the soldiery. There was power in his face, a look of concentration, of searching wit, that compelled my spirit. I knew why he had come. I dismounted, my standard was dipped. I walked into the circle of light before the lord of Val’Nur, knelt down, and made submission to him, offering my sheathed sword.
“Yorath, called the Wolf,” I said, “offering his sword in your service, lord, and the swords of this free company.”
“I accept your service,” said Valko of Val’Nur.
He had a deep voice and a look that was half smiling. He waved a welcoming hand to my men, and I gave a call; they cheered for Val’Nur. We mounted up together; his steed was cream colored, simply caparisoned. The light and the dark horses rode on towards the lights of the city. We were approaching the east bank of the river Demmis, which ran down from the plateau further north. Before we came to the citadel, Valko had put many questions, even toned, in the half darkness as we rode along. I had told him the state of the rift, the news from the Eastmark, the exact capacity of my troop and details of the stores we carried.
When we entered the courtyard, there was little ceremony but all was firmly ordered. The lord went his way through a certain door, a marshall sorted the men to their stabling and quarters. Dinner was being sounded in the lower hall within the hour; we would all lodge in the citadel overnight.
Ibrim and myself were plucked from the crowd by a houseman and led in through another door and up a carpeted stair. Valko dined in one hour in the Old Armory. My bath steamed before the fire in a rich, shadowy tower room. Boots, murmured the houseman, were not worn on the upper floors of the citadel unless they were soft-soled. Purselings or twales, the fashionable slippers, were even more suitable.
We laughed aloud when the fellow had gone; clearly we had come to a palace. The air of my room was not only perfumed but full of curious drafts and currents, lifting the thick hangings that were embroidered with scenes of the four seasons. I could hardly picture Knaar creeping about in purselings through carpeted halls. As I voiced something of this, Ibrim held a finger to his lips.
“Speaking vents,” he whispered. “We can be overheard, Master!
I curbed an urge to send him looking behind all the hangings. I dressed in my second best robe, glanced into a long glass, which cut me off at the neck, drew on a pair of good soft boots sewn by the ladies of Cloudhill and went to dinner feeling like a courtier. A page, knee-high, in yellow livery and tasselled twales, waited to guide me to the Old Armory.
We had come to so fine a household that I was anxious about my troop even though they were moderate in their habits.
“Take word to Gorrie,” I told Ibrim. “Any man unseemly drunk will be fined!”
The page trotted ahead, and I followed through spacious corridors. The wooden floors and plain hangings of Cannford Old House, even the arrangments of the Palace Fortress that I had seen, were eclipsed by the citadel. It was a place smoothed and made comfortable so that traces of the original fortress were almost gone. It was light and soft and decorated, with winding stairs leading off, small bowers where music played, even an open court with flowering plants and a fountain all in the midst of the keep.
Liveried servants, waiting women, a few guards were to be seen. Two pretty girls fled away, giggling, then turned back to stare, and I gave them a wink.
I heard them speaking, and in a few paces I realised that one had said, “No one can be so tall . . . he is a conjuring . . .”
And the other had replied, “My dear, they are all giants!”
The accents of Lien. The garments of Lien, elaborate, lowcut, the most restricting but some would say the most enhancing for a pretty woman. But Lien? What had Lien to do with the city of Krail and Valko of Val’Nur, Lord of the Westmark? I was forewarned a little as we came to the door of the Old Armory.
I have never in my life been able to slip unnoticed into a room. Sidling and lurking were never my strong points. I came in, the music faltered, a hearty laugh broke off, dogs began to bark. There were nine or ten people in a room that is still to me the most beautiful room that I was ever in. There were fire-baskets in a long white marble fireplace and overhead golden candleracks. Two wide balconies swung out over that courtyard where I had seen the fires lit at New Year and the beggars dancing. The vista of Krail, the lighted city, across the river, and the river itself with its traffic of ships gave the Old Armory a watery dimension. In that room we were in another world, suspended above the water, which rippled and reflected upon the softly painted walls and made the river-spirits and fishes painted upon the ceiling swim gently.
The musician at his lute blinked dark eyes at me and went on playing; a young girl sat near him tuning another instrument. Valko lorded it before the fire, deep in conversation with an older fellow in a black velvet scholar’s gown and fluted white Lienish collar. Knaar sat playing Battle with a lady in a golden gown; his look in my direction was fierce and irritable. Duro, his elder brother, Valko’s image, lounged in a deep padded settle and played with the dogs, two setters and a wolfhound.
My eye was drawn to the man who had been laughing. He sat with his lady who was beautiful as a rose, delicately flushed in a spreading layered gown of crimson and white, her nutbrown hair held with a net of pearls and rubies. He was darkly handsome, with hair brown-black and a trimmed beard; his arched brows and the proud arch of his nose were features of Lien.
The lady in the gold dress rose up and swam towards me through the luminous chamber. She was younger than her lord by twenty years, tall, oval-faced, with dark hair caught in a heavy knot at the nape of a slender neck and fathomless blue eyes. She was Nimoné, Valko’s second wife, stepmother of his two sons, the only member of his family for whom Knaar had a good word.
“Yorath!” she said for all the world
to hear. “Dear Yorath, welcome to Krail! We owe you Knaar’s safety, if not his life!”
She led me forward and presented the noble visitors from Lien: Lord Alldene and his lady. I bowed low. The lady looked at me over a fan of pink feathers and the lord smiled, showing his teeth.
Valko said to his scholarly companion, “Hem Yorath is one of our newest commanders.”
I caught the odd half-squinting look of this man, Master Rosay, also of Lien, then met Duro, who grinned and gave me his hand. I stroked the dogs and received a curtsey from the pleasant-faced young girl with the lute, the Lady Merilla. Then I was able to return to the table with its gilded set of battle pieces on their board and sink down next to Knaar.
“Goddess . . .” said Knaar under his breath. “What a circus! How fares the rift?”
“You have visitors . . .” I murmured.
“Folk from Lien,” he said. “The wife is pretty. Who knows what they want from our noble house?”
I had a first inkling of what it was to be the friend of Knaar and the vassal of his father Valko. Knaar really did not know who these people were; his father had not seen fit to tell him. I knew them well enough by sight, though Hagnild had complained that his scrying stones were imperfect instruments. I had seen “Lord and Lady Alldene” seated in their throne room at Balufir, among banks of roses. I had seen “Master Rosay” at their side, very decent, belying a reputation for magic and intrigue. I could even guess at the identity of the young girl, Lady Merilla. I wondered if the party had come by land or by sea. Nimoné, seated beside the visitors, answered the question.
“And you were none of you seasick?” she asked, smiling. “You were proof against the ocean?”
“Master . . . Rosay provided cordials,” said the Lord Alldene.
I basked in the golden ambience of the room and took in the royal guests: Kelen, Markgraf of Lien, Zaramund, his lovely consort, the Lady Merilla Am Zor, his niece, sister of the King of Chameln, and above all, Rosmer, the old fox of a vizier. Hagnild had his own vanity; he pretended that other magicians hardly existed. His own brother was the exception. Certainly he despised the statecraft of Rosmer and the markgraf and deplored their cruelty. But I knew that he was aware of Rosmer’s workings in the art.
“What is the matter?” demanded Knaar. “Is my father up to his tricks again? Who are these people?”
I sighed.
“Find out who they are,” I said. “I am sure your mother knows.”
“She is a jewel,” he said, “but a bad player of Battle. See if you can win with black from her position.”
“I cannot concentrate. Your citadel and your family and your guests are too much for me.”
Servants came bearing the sweet wine of Krail in crystal goblets. No table was set, so I thought we must be dining in another chamber. Then, as the talk grew merrier, Valko and Nimoné walked to a certain place before the windows accompanied by servants. Knaar gave me a grimace. Nimoné clapped her hands, once, twice, and there was a faint rumbling beneath the floor of the Old Armory. A long trapdoor opened in the flooring and slowly a table rose into view, laden with golden dishes and steaming, fragrant food. The servants steadied the table and its heaped platters, locked it into place and drew up settles. Everyone cried out with pleasure and applauded this wonder.
“It is like magic!” cried fair Zaramund.
“Hush, my lady,” said Duro as we took our places. “My brother helped design this table, and he cannot hear the word magic.”
“Well, there is none in my table,” said Knaar, rising to the bait. “It is a matter of honest winches and pulleys, not the so-called dark art.”
“Who would say that magic is not honest?” asked the markgraf softly.
I was close enough to Knaar, seated as we were at the foot of the unmagical board, to give him a warning kick. He became aware that the visitors were observing him with amused interest and that his brother had somehow begun to make a fool of him.
“Not I!” I put in heartily. “A magician might be listening! Don’t you agree, Master Rosay?”
The young girl, Lady Merilla, laughed aloud, and everyone joined in her laughter. Knaar glowered a little but held his peace. When Rosay or Rosmer answered me, I noticed the timbre of his voice, not deep but resonant. He leaned out a little and stared at me, holding up a single round eyepiece of colored glass or gemstone.
“To be honest with you, Hem Yorath,” he said, “I believe magicians are always listening. Yet honest men have little to fear from them.”
Renewed laughter. We ate and drank at the golden table in the golden room. Knaar said to me aside, “So that’s it. I know who they are, and I know why they are here. The Lady Merilla, poor wretch, is being shown off to my vile brother.”
I wondered that Knaar, who had had as much military training as myself, thought of such a peaceful explanation for the markgraf’s visit. I saw Lady Merilla’s possible marriage with Duro of Val’Nur as no more than a pretext. I believed Kelen and Rosmer would encourage Valko to make war with the Great King.
I felt a growing uneasiness all through the evening. My head throbbed, my skin burned; under my robe I felt a sharp pain now and then as if my silver medallion with the swan of Lien had become red-hot for an instant. Before we rose up from the table, the sky outside had darkened. A mighty thunderstorm broke over Krail; rain washed away our view of the city and the river; a thunderbolt crashed directly above our heads. Rosmer stood with Valko observing the storm. He turned again and looked at the company with his seeing glass raised. I felt his gaze directed upon me again, and I was afraid.
The evening that had begun so well was a discomfort. I escaped as soon as I could, when the first of the guests took themselves off. Knaar teased me for “going to bed with the women,” but Valko approved of my going and named the seventh hour of morning as muster time for the troop. The small yellow-clad page was called again to lead me to my chamber. He trotted along sleepily, but at the door of my tower room he gave me a broad grin. The storm still howled over our heads.
“Your servant says, lord . . .”
“What then?”
“It is a night for witches!”
He grinned again as I took coins from my pocket and gave them to him, then ran off into the maze of dark and light corridors.
Ibrim sat before the fire in my chamber mulling a crock of wine.
“Witches?” I said. “What we have here is a magician. Perhaps the Eilif lords of the High Plateau are reaching out towards Rosmer of Lien.”
Ibrim had a secret smile.
“I waited only to mull your wine,” he said. “This is a night for witches!”
“You may sleep by the fire, man,” I said impatiently. “No need to go down to quarters.
Still unsettled I turned to the tall bed and drew the curtains a little. There, deep in the featherbeds of Val’Nur, her only covering, the Owlwife slept. I watched her enchanted, certain that the stormy night was all her doing, that my uneasiness was merely a summoning to this great good fortune. I called her name softly, and she woke, smiling, and held out her white arms to me. When I turned my head, Ibrim had already slipped away.
I had gone early to bed. Between times we drank wine.
“Master Hagnild did not approve of your messenger,” said Gundril, “but he trusted me with a reply.”
I broke the seal of the letter and was disappointed to see that it was so short . . . a few lines of that cryptic scholarly hand.
“Serve your new liege of Val’Nur faithfully,” wrote Hagnild, “and all may yet be well. Believe me I have taken your letter to heart and my loyalties are as divided as your own, but I must go on a little. You did right to send the Dolt and his lady to the Southland. When the world ends here, as it will do, sooner than you think, I will go to my old home where the waters meet.”
There was a postscript:
“Beauty can be a sweet mistress, but beware of those with pretensions to magic. Your friends in Nightwood wish you well.”
/> I showed the letter to the Owlwife. She smiled a little.
“He is the finest of men,” she said, “but there is a sadness in him. He guards a secret.”
“You can tell me no more than that?”
“I cannot look into his mind,” she said. “I am only a changeling.”
“You are flesh and blood!” I said. “You are no fairy woman of the Shee!”
“No, I am not,” she said, “but I was raised by them. They are my people. I am a changeling to them. I was given into their care as a babe in arms. My magic is of their kind and has little to do with the things of this world of men and battles and kings and the sons of kings.”
“Lady,” I said, “I have seen you in the service of two mortal men . . . Thilon of Val’Nur and Huarik of Barkdon.”
“I must go about in the world of men,” she said seriously. “Sometimes I have an errand from the Eilif lords, sometimes, as with Huarik, I must earn my bread.”
“What was the story with poor Hem Thilon?”
“He searched for a cure for his sickness,” she replied, “and came upon a cache of jewels, ancient treasures of the Shee. I entered his service to get them back again. I tried to cure his sickness with all my art, but he was marked for death.”
“Now what is your errand?”
“I am your leman, your lover,” she said. “And I will be employed as your kedran messenger and scribe. But there is light magic at work, too. Perhaps I am meant to guide you.”
We spoke of Rosmer, that dark magician, under the same roof, and of the Eilif lord whom I had met on the Green Fort, near the rift. So much talk of magic made me perplexed and uneasy. The Owlwife soothed my brow and wound me in her arms again; she was my perfect lover.
I woke in the stormy grey light of morning, and Gundril Chawn was dressed to go down to the quarters of our troop. There was still time for me to sleep. In these last morning hours, I had one of my strange dreams. I dreamed that I woke in my bed in the tower room at the citadel and the storm still raged overhead. I saw the hooded figure that haunted such dreams, and I heard my name called. Then, for the first time the caller came closer. I saw that it was a woman, an older woman with jewels glinting under her hood. I lay with a featherbed drawn up to cover my nakedness and the strange woman looked at me with a wry smile.
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