“I felt my belt, Oliver,” he said. “I did feel my belt.”
“Noll,” said Oliver. “You are Giles. And speak Nestorian.”
When Oliver remembered to think of it, he worried of what would happen if they were come upon by Gets. But he had strength only to plod the road.
“Noll,” said Haldane, and he did speak Nestorian. “Give me my knife back from your bag. I’ll wear it now. My hands will know where to find it when I have need of it.”
That was why Oliver continued to carry the bag, even though he plodded.
“We cannot give your hands the chance. We cannot afford to kill. We are safest as simple peasants. Besides, you could not forget yourself long enough to fix the knife in place.”
“Safest. Safest,” mocked Haldane in Nestorian. “That’s all you can think of. What do I do when I need to unbuckle my pants?”
“If you wait until your need is great enough, you will find it no problem. Now, by my map there is a bridge over the next hill. Let us rest there.”
“We cannot rest there,” said Haldane.
“Why not?”
“There is no bridge on the other side of the hill,” Haldane said. And laughed as though he had made a great joke.
“By my map, there is a bridge,” said Oliver, “and I believe my map.” Even though it of occasion embarrassed him.
When they reached the top of the hill above New Bridge on Rock Run, Haldane said, “As I told you. There is no bridge. It fell down.”
“That is bridge enough for me,” said Oliver, “My map was right.”
“Then you walk across your bridge and keep your feet dry,” said Haldane. “I will wade the ford.”
But Oliver wet his feet too. He waded past the broken pilings standing surprised in riffling water. The two peasants threw themselves down in the sun on the farther bank to dry and rest. Oliver dropped their bag on the ground and panted and coughed. The spell had struck deep. He should not have been abroad wetting his feet.
Wild onion grew profusely around them in little clumps of green. Haldane plucked a spray. He rolled one narrow tube between thumb and forefinger until it broke, and savored the odor. He tasted it and found it good. Then he chose out shoots that pleased him best, discarded the rest, and rolled those he kept in a slice of dried beef.
Oliver was content to watch as he ate, and more content to nod.
The riders were on them almost before they knew. Oliver was struck to the heart. They were Gets. No one else in Nestor rode. The three did not pause at the hilltop as Haldane and Oliver had done.
Haldane leaped to his feet as soon as he saw them. He crammed the last of his meat and onion into his mouth. It was all that his mouth could hold. Oliver feared what he might do, but lacked the force and quickness to prevent the boy.
“Haldane!” he said, forgetting his own injunctions. “Do nothing rash!”
And then had to become more circumspect. There was no place to run or to hide. They must face these Gets. Oliver tried to become Noll in his mind.
Haldane, desperately chewing and trying not to choke on what he chewed, took no notice of the Gets. He stepped down into the water, leaving Oliver on the bank to wonder at him. What did Haldane intend?
Haldane stooped and began to grum among the rocks, fingering the stream bottom. He paid the riders no attention as they splashed by him. He forced the last of the meat and onion down his throat and came up smiling like a simpleton with a dripping bemired shell.
Was the boy being cunning like Wisolf? Oliver could scarce believe it.
The riders reined over them. It was Aella of Long Barrow and two carls. Oliver was glad Haldane lacked his knife. He was sure the boy would have dragged Aella from his horse and dealt with him as Aella had dealt with Svein. But Haldane touched his forehead with respectful muddy fingers. Oliver tremblingly touched his forehead too.
“What do you do here?” Aella asked. He spoke to them in Nestorian, their language. His tone was preemptory, as though he were an important man. Oliver knew him for an errand runner. Anyone who knew Aella knew him for an errand runner.
“We gather clams to make a meal, your lordship. My grandsire and I,” Haldane volunteered. He held out his shell. He was the perfect guileless boy. “It is yours if you like, noble sir. All that we have gathered is yours.”
Aella made a disgusted noise, “Faa!” He waved it away with a flicking of his right hand. “We seek three on foot. A young girl dressed in white and blue. A Western girl. She is the one we want most. Morca’s wizard, Oliver by name, a Western man in red robes. He is a funny little man with a round face and a white beard. And Haldane, the son of Black Morca. Have you seen any of these?”
Haldane said, “Do they travel together?”
“We know not. Have you seen them together?”
Oliver spoke hurriedly then in Nestorian so that Haldane would have no need to speak again. “No, lord. We have seen no one today. You are the first strangers we have seen.”
“How long have you been here?”
“All the afternoon, lord. See, our bag is nigh to full,” Oliver said, hefting his bag as though it contained clams.
“At last a straight answer from one of these cattle,” Aella said in Gettish to his men. “They have been here the afternoon and they say they have seen no one. We had best return to the dun. It is no use to seek farther along this road. They could not have come so far by noon.”
One of the carls spit in the water beside Haldane and did not take note of the Gettish glower in the Nestorian boy’s face. “Unless these lie,” he said. “I never saw a Nestorian that would talk straight when it could lie.”
“Lie to us? You jest. They would not dare,” Aella said, making a rooster of himself. “And they have no love for Morca or his cub. They would not lie for him.”
“If they walked all night without stopping, they might have passed in the morning,” said the other carl.
“Na,” said Aella. “We’ll find them when we set the pigs to sniffing them out. The wizard is no countryman. We’ll find him under a bush. And the boy is a stubborn ass. Him we will find waving a sword in the shadow of the dun.”
“Just as well,” said the first carl. “If we are to find one of the three, let it be the girl. There is more reward.”
They clapped their heels to their horses and splashed back across the ford. Haldane remained in the water looking after them, burned by their words.
In a rage, he called after them, “When will you raise our bridge again?”
The second carl looked back at them. Haldane bent immediately to the stream and pretended he had said nothing. He paddled in the water until they were gone, and then he straightened again, shaking his hands. He looked at Oliver, uncertain of what the wizard would say of his rashness, but proud of himself too.
He said, “He called me an ass.”
Oliver looked at him for a long moment. All the words that Haldane had spoken to the Gets, including his last call, had been in Gettish. Oliver thought the power of the spell to mislead had been strongly taxed.
He sighed. He said, “You have mud on your forehead.”
Chapter 10
THE WOODCUTTER’S HUT STOOD IN A CLEARING not far from the road, close enough to be seen by tired and hungry eyes. It was Oliver who spied the thatch near about sunset when their feet were so weary they would scarce carry them from one rest to the next. Haldane saw nothing until Oliver pointed. It was Haldane who carried their sack now and Oliver who led the way.
“Ah,” red-haired Noll said with relief. “We’ll seek our shelter there.” He coughed too deeply and spat to clear his throat. He had been coughing steadily since they crossed the ford, even after he had given over the bag. “Another night in the open will be the finish of me. Be Giles now, and let me speak for us. If you must speak, speak Nestorian.”
Haldane made no answer. His head ached fiercely and his mind wambled. He was very tired.
He could not read this man’s face as he could read Oliv
er’s. He did know this Noll did not have Oliver’s sharpness of wit and tongue. He would answer questions only if they were repeated. He ventured nothing. It was as though the spell had struck deeper than appearance. There were moments when Haldane could doubt that it was Oliver at all who walked beside him and wonder why he kept company with this strange peasant man.
It made Haldane mull over the changes that might have been wrought in him that he could not see. He kept testing himself to see if he was really Haldane. He thought he was. But how could he be sure? His hands were not Haldane’s. He might be a peasant dreaming he was a Get.
He followed Oliver as he led the way into the clearing, content to trail behind and watch Oliver do things that the Oliver he knew would not do. Stacks of seasoning wood made short walls everywhere. A small boy peeped abruptly from behind one like an archer behind a palisade, then ducked away.
The hut they had seen from the road stood in the center of the clearing. It was clinker-built, the lapping shakes brown under the hanging thatch, weathered to silver where they lacked protection. Over the door of the simple house was its one touch of color, the many-armed wheel of Silvan in red and yellow. A simple god for simple folk. The colors disturbed Haldane. They made him agitated and he did not know why. They matched the colors of Lothor’s traveling carriage, but he could not quite remember that.
Silvan’s beast, a little white nanny goat, was tethered to a stake beyond the house under the trees. Scrawny chickens scratched for their lives in the dirt before the door and around the woodpiles, too busy to notice them approaching. A lean shaggy dog lying in a heap did take note. It leaped up, lowered its ears, and advanced growling. It was no little yapper like Lothor’s toy. It showed yellow teeth and barked as though it meant them harm.
Haldane stayed safely behind red-haired Noll. He could not cope with growling dogs tonight.
A ragged untrimmed girling appeared in the doorway then and piped of their coming to those within. She was set aside by a man who filled the door. He stepped into the yard followed by a boy who resembled him nearly. The boy was older than Haldane appeared, but younger than Haldane’s true age.
The failing sun lit the thatch with evening red. Gentle smoke lifted lazily from the chimney and Haldane thought he could smell dinner simmering over a fire. His head buzzed with hunger and weariness. He ached within and without. At the best of times he was not used to walk like this.
He wanted to stop walking. He wanted food and sleep. He wanted to mend.
He wanted to cry.
The man lifted a hand. His words were courteous, but he was an unyielding wall after his many walls of logs. He said, “Well met. What do you seek, strangers?”
In his other hand he carried an axe and he did not look friendly. Haldane wondered how you could order such a man if you were not a Get. He could lie to one like Aella, but he did not know what to say to a peasant with an axe.
“Well met,” Oliver said. “My grandson and I are lost sailors out of Pellardy making our way home overland.”
“Lost you are,” the man said. “I have never seen a sailor here before.”
The dog continued to growl and glower.
“We are not used to walking and we have come far today,” Oliver said. He coughed his racking hacking cough. “My name is Noll. My grandson Giles. We seek shelter and food.”
“What are sailors doing so far from the sea?”
The strange man who pretended to be Oliver pretending to be a sailor said, “Put away your dog and I will tell you the tale.”
The woodcutter called the dog away. It ran behind the peasants barking proudly of its courage.
“I’ll hear your story.”
“Is it worth dinner to you?”
“Would you bargain with me, then?”
“Would you turn away a sick old man?” And Oliver coughed again. “My own tale is rich but it is nothing to the other stories I know. I can tell you of the secret beasts of the sea and how they play. I can tell you of strange lands and their treasures.”
The woodcutter scratched his head as though in argument with himself. Then he said, “Oh, aye, stay for the meal. Come away into the house. Cob, run inside and say that there are two more to eat with us.”
“There’s little enough for us as it is,” said the son. “You know what Mother said.”
“Have you not heard that manners are better than meat? There will just be a little less for everyone,” the woodcutter said. “I want to hear about the sea and these secret beasts.”
Oliver was not content to have won him. He must shake his red head and say, “Ah, where is the old hospitality? Is Pellardy the only duchy that still keeps the true Nestor?”
“Pellardy is the only duchy not ruled by the Gets,” the woodcutter said. “They leave us little in Bary to spend in hospitality. These are not the old days of Nestor.”
He led the way toward the house. They were trailed by the little boy who had spied them first from behind the woodpile. He stayed a safe distance behind in company with the dog, burying his face in the dog’s fur when Haldane looked at him.
Haldane said in a whisper to Oliver, “Is a story all?” A story seemed too small a reason for the peasant to share his food. Noll didn’t answer but only gave his head so small a shake that Haldane could not be sure if he had shaken his head at all.
Oliver spoke loudly then. “It is my brother who did this to us. We own a boat in common but since he is older he thinks it is his. We quarreled in Eduna. He sent us ashore on an errand and while we were gone, he sailed off to Grelland. He left us with only a single small coin, and that is long spent.” He coughed again until he caught himself against the doorway and leaned there rattling for breath.
“That is a hard tale,” the woodcutter said. “It is a long walk from Vilicea. You must be weary.”
“We did not make it in a day,” said Sailor Noll. “A longer walk to Pellardy before us too. But every step I think of my brother’s face when he sees us waiting on the quay.”
He told what he would do to his brother when he found him and winked his shy eye. The peasant nodded and laughed with him, happy that sailor and woodcutter could think so much alike.
“Aye, hear that,” the peasant said, turning of a sudden to the small boy with the dog. “Did you hear? Mark what it is to be quarreling with your brother. Take a lesson from that.” To Oliver he said, “It is all I can do to keep them from fighting long enough to eat and sleep.”
“My brother and me exactly,” said Oliver. “Listen to what your father tells you.”
Haldane did not know from what source of strength this changed Oliver drew his strange lies. Haldane wanted nothing more than to set his bag down and put his face against it.
The hut was dimmer than the evening shadows of the forest and warmer than the evening cool. It seemed like a sanctuary to Haldane, a place to stop at last. Cob stood beside a shapeless peasant woman stirring her kettle over the fire. There were besides a gammer snoozing in the corner with a cat on her lap, and a girl suckling a baby at her breast. She seemed no older than Marthe, the Princess of Chastain who was sought by the treacher Gets. Children that Haldane was too tired to count were in and out the doorway.
The woman turned from the kettle, spoon in hand. “And who is this you’ve brought to eat my children’s food?”
“This is Noll, a sailor, and his grandson Giles,” said the woodcutter. “Noll is going to tell us stories of the sea.”
“I care nothing for that,” she said and swung her spoon at them. “There are too many of you in here. You are in my way. Take your stories of the sea back outside.”
The woodcutter did not try to argue. “Call on us when dinner is ready.”
The woodcutter picked up a stool from beside the table and grasped Oliver’s arm, turning him about. “Hey, come all ye who wish to hear tales.”
Tales from a sailing stranger were a treat, and everybody but the dozing grandmother and the cat in her lap leaped to follow the two men outsid
e. A small boy, near a twin for the one with the dog but a touch smaller, gave Haldane a wary look and then scuttled past him out the door. Haldane didn’t follow. He had no wish to hear Oliver’s grandfather stories. He just wanted to stay here in this warm dimness and smell the rich simmer. He cuddled the bag, put his back against the near wall, and slowly sagged to the floor.
Young Cob took the girl with the baby by the hand. Was he a man with a wife of his own? The woman at the kettle reached out with her spoon and rapped him on the shoulder before he could get out the door.
“Bring me my wood in before you settle down, Cob.”
“You have wood,” Cob said. “You don’t need any more. The woodbox is full.”
“That’s rainy day wood. Bring me in wood now, and no argument.” The ragged girling who had first called their arrival almost slipped out the door, but the peasant woman stopped her with a look and a wave of her spoon. “And where are you off to, Magga?”
“I want to hear the stories too,” the girl wailed, anticipating that she couldn’t.
“I need you to stir the pot.”
“You always say that.”
“It’s stir the pot or milk Nanny.”
“Why is it always me?”
Haldane paid the squabble no mind, even when the girl burst into hot burning tears. He put his cheek against the cool canvas of the bag, yawning, yawning. He was so tired and his head ached like a beaten drum. He felt wonderful and wretched as he tried to snatch sleep.
He felt the warmth of pleasure at the memory of his cleverness in fooling Aella of Long Barrow at the ford. He had taken the simple stupidity of the peasants he had met mucking in the water that day at New Bridge and made of it a polished shield to catch the sun and blind the eyes of traitor Gets. And who else but he would ever have thought of that? But he felt the warmth of embarrassment at the thought of mud on his hands, even to fool one like Aella.
Earth Magic Page 9