Son of Avonar

by Carol Berg

  Jacopo stopped his work and pulled out his pipe. His fingers were shaking as he worked to fill it, spilling the fragrant tobacco all over the floor until he threw pipe and bag down in annoyance, and sank onto one of his wooden stools, his back to me. “No. I won’t say aught to him. I’ve been thinking you’re right. It’s not such a good idea to bring in Graeme. He’s still got to take you to Montevial in the autumn, and I don’t know he could lie to the king.”

  Though he had finally yielded to my opinion, I was astounded. Jacopo had been after me for ten years to trust Graeme Rowan. He must be truly afraid. I laid a hand on his hunched shoulder, but he didn’t turn around. Perhaps he was weeping or embarrassed to show his fear. “Autumn is months away, Jaco. You mustn’t worry so much. This mystery has got my blood running again. That can’t be a bad thing, no matter what comes of it.”

  “Give up this sorcery business, girl. It’s vile. Wicked.” His plea was a plaintive chant such as a child might use to ward off evil spirits. “Send this prince away. He’ll be the death of you.”

  “I detest D’Natheil,” I said to Jacopo’s back. “He’s a bully and a brute, and I can’t get rid of him soon enough. But I won’t give him over to Evard or Darzid or the sheriffs of Leire. And that means I have to go with him. He and Baglos would be lost or arrested within a day, and Ferrante won’t trust messages—not in this matter.” And now for the awkward part. “I do need your help, Jaco. I’ve got to have two of Emil Gasso’s horses.”

  “The horses”—Jacopo scratched his head slowly with his wide fingers—“yes, I’ll get you the horses. A loan, mind! But you’ll have to wait a day, as I can’t deal with Gasso until tomorrow. Too much to do here; boat due within the hour.” He glanced toward me, and then stood up and went to work again, sticking his head deep in a barrel of rusty tools and tossing one after another onto the floor. “I’ll bring you the horses tomorrow midday. It’ll do you good to rest up before traveling so far.”

  To wait another day was a dreadful risk, but I couldn’t press Jacopo’s generosity any further. “You’re a good friend, Jaco. We’ll meet you tomorrow at the spring on the ridge. We can’t be at the cottage when Rowan returns.” I waited for him to answer, but he only grunted and dropped an old pump handle on the floor. “Tomorrow then.”

  I had to pass Emil Gasso’s stable on the way out of town, and on a whim decided to stop in. Gasso was a small-time horse breeder who had been hit hard by the constant levies for the Isker war. When I told him that Jaco would buy his horses and tack for a reasonable price, he was so delighted that he said I could take the horses with me. He would trust Jacopo for the money. I couldn’t believe my good luck.

  One of the horses was a huge chestnut with powerful legs and fire in its eye. The other was a smaller roan who nuzzled my hands and my pockets. “I think we’ll let D’Natheil ride your friend, and you’ll stay with me,” I said to the roan. I considered going back to tell Jacopo about Gasso’s generosity, but the morning was escaping. So I started up the trail to the cottage, riding the sweet-tempered roan and leading the chestnut.

  CHAPTER 16

  Less than an hour after my return from the village, I led D’Natheil and Baglos onto an obscure track that led over the ridge and down into the deep forest. D’Natheil rode as I knew he would, as if he’d been born in the saddle, a primitive exuberance in the man matching that of the fire-eyed chestnut. As for me, what I had told Jacopo was the truth. My blood raced as it had not in ten years, and I spent a great deal of the day marveling at what a short time it had been since Midsummer’s Day, when I’d believed I would never feel anything again.

  By early afternoon we came to the crossroads at Fensbridge. At Fensbridge market Baglos traded an unmarked coin of silver for boots and sword for D’Natheil, the latter old-fashioned and dull, but decently made. The young man hefted the weapon and grunted in satisfaction, if not pleasure.

  From Fensbridge you could cross the river and travel the main road south back to Dunfarrie and Grenatte or ride north to Montevial, as Rowan and I did every fall, or you could take one of several roads west into the foothills of the Dorian Wall. Straight west would lead to the high, rugged country at the base of the mountains. Our northwest route would take us through the forested, rolling border-lands all the way to the Valleor highroad, a well-traveled way across the border. Those who wished to avoid border checkpoints could leave the highroad and find innumerable secondary paths into Valleor. Karon had often used them on his private journeys, and such was my intent.

  By nightfall the morning’s excitement had long dissipated. I was saddle-weary, and a day’s contemplation had convinced me that my plan had more holes than a moth-eaten cloak. I had no assurance that Ferrante was even alive, much less residing in the same ivy-covered country house where Martin had first met Karon. And I had only the most faint supposition, entirely unsupported, that Ferrante knew whether there had been more than one J’Ettanni survivor of the slaughter at Avonar. And yet, the history professor had been a close friend of Karon’s father, the one person outside of Avonar that any of the sorcerers would go to for help. I hoped he would tell me what I needed to know without my having to recount Baglos’s fragmented stories of Heirs and enchanted bridges.

  We camped for the night in dense forest. The air was humid and still, smelling of old leaves and moldy earth. We would see rain before morning. D’Natheil worked at sharpening and polishing the battered sword. After some rapid speech and hand gestures from Baglos, the Prince began to run two fingers over the weapon slowly, touching every part of the dully glowing surface. I believed enchantment flowed from his touch.

  Watching the Prince intently, the Dulcé retreated to the log where I sat by the fire. I leaned toward him and whispered, “What’s he doing?”

  Baglos jumped, as if he had forgotten I was there. “Oh, I told him—It’s just—to keep its edge and strengthen it . . . to enable it to serve him, a Dar’Nethi warrior can give a weapon his blessing. He has lived his whole life with swords,” he said softly, “and wielded them as a man when he was scarce taller than the weapon. But never before has he managed to do this. It was said that he would try too hard, get angry, and stop before he could get the rhythm of it. Now . . . I’m not sure he understands what he does.” After a while, Baglos sighed and set about cleaning up the supper things and laying out D’Natheil’s blanket.

  The night passed undisturbed for the most part. In the middling hours of the night, I woke from dreams of suffocation to an unsettling scent of cold ash. But after an hour of anxious watching, I was convinced that it was only the result of our own fire being doused by the onset of the rain. We were well away from Dunfarrie and safe under the trees.

  Over the next few days we traveled into the cooler hill country that bordered Valleor. As we rode through thick forests of dripping pines and birches, and between rocks covered with thick green moss, a constant drizzle seeped through the collars of our cloaks and the seams of our boots, leaving us as wet and miserable as if we’d been caught in a deluge. Baglos pestered me with questions: about the Four Realms, about the forest, about politics and trade, clothing and geography, weather and cooking and growing vegetables. Everything was which and where and how and why, why, why. Half a day of this and I was ready to scream. When I asked, “Could we not speak of something less trivial?” he began asking me about Karon and the life of the J’Ettanne. For example, was not it a sore trial for a Dar’Nethi to be wed to a mundane?

  “My husband and my life are my private business, Baglos. Do you understand the word private?” I had given Baglos and D’Natheil my sustenance, my peace, such as it was, and my safety. They would get no more from me.

  In deference to my ill humor, Baglos shifted his attention to D’Natheil and spent the afternoon speaking exclusively in his own language. I rode behind them, pronouncing my relief at being left alone. But two hours of unintelligible monologue did nothing to improve my irritation. When I asked the Dulcé what he was telling D’Natheil, he said t
hat he was describing royal Avonar, its people, and things he knew of D’Natheil’s childhood, hoping to prod his young master’s memory. I hinted that I could use such information as well. But the Dulcé found the constant translation too awkward to keep up, so I was abandoned once again to my own thoughts. Annoying. As seemed to be my experience of late, what I asked for was not necessarily what I wanted.

  On the next day, when the whole sequence repeated itself, I asked Baglos if he would teach me something of the Dar’Nethi tongue. To my satisfaction I picked up a few words quite readily. As I demonstrated the first results of my lessons, D’Natheil seemed pleased and motioned insistently to Baglos to teach me more.

  When we camped that night, D’Natheil went through his martial exercises again, but this time with his sword. I had grown up surrounded by soldiers, but never had I seen anyone move with such grace or such ferocious intensity. He would make even Tomas look like a newly vested squire.

  Near midday on the fifth day of our journey we came to a good-sized town called Glyenna. It was market day, a drab, colorless affair, where the animals were sickly and the wares of the poorest and most utilitarian kind. The sour-faced crowds milled about the poor display as if they had been sentenced to attend as punishment for the sin of cheerfulness. We planned to stay only long enough to fill waterskins and buy food, though Baglos had shown himself an incessant conversationalist at every stop and seemed to enjoy nothing more than coaxing information about anything and everything from anyone he could get to speak to him. But as I paid a peasant woman for our supplies, I caught a glimpse of a sandy-haired horseman in vehement discourse with a man wearing the colorful badge of a local constable. Rowan! The still, heavy morning suddenly closed in. I backed away, turned, and ran.

  D’Natheil had stopped to gawk at a cockfight, and when I touched his sleeve, he growled and slapped my hand away, craning his neck to see better. As always, Baglos was gabbling with the raucous onlookers about why and how they watched such things and what kinds of fowl were best to use and all manner of useless information. Despite my whispered warning, I had to drag the reluctant pair away from the bloody, vulgar spectacle, watching for the sheriff as I led them through the crowd.

  We were almost to the edge of the marketplace when a disturbance broke out just behind me. I looked over my shoulder, and, to my dismay, D’Natheil was sitting atop a filthy, ragged man. He had the man’s head dragged backward into an impossible angle and his dagger poised at the man’s bared throat. Two burly townsmen hung on to D’Natheil’s arm, a temporary reprieve for the squirming, whimpering victim. Baglos was babbling at the Prince and trying to pull him away.

  “It’s just Hekko, the beggar,” shouted an old woman. “Meant no harm. Didn’t take nothing.”

  A tradesman in a leather apron bawled for someone to bring the constable, as Hekko had been trying to steal the stranger’s silver dagger. More townspeople were gathering by the moment.

  With a ferocious bellow, a powerful wrench of his shoulders, and a backhand sweep, D’Natheil dislodged his restraints, sending the two men and Baglos sprawling. His knife flashed toward the beggar’s throat.

  “No!” I yelled, lunging toward him and grabbing his knife arm with both of my hands. “By the stars, you must not.” Though I had not the least faith that he could hear my angry remonstrance over the uproar, and my physical strength was surely no more threat than that of a child, the mad fire in D’Natheil’s eyes faded instantly into bewilderment. He loosened his grip on the moaning beggar and allowed Baglos and me to drag him away.

  “He’s been to the war,” I said to the grumbling men pressing close as I shoved the Prince toward our horses. “It’s left him high-strung . . . touchy . . . you understand.” I jerked my head at Baglos, who pulled out a copper and tossed it to the bruised and shaken beggar. While the old woman continued her screeching, and two ragged boys inexpertly tried to pick my pockets, the rest of the onlookers nodded and shrugged and murmured about the war. By the time we were mounted, the crowd had begun to disperse.

  “Wait! Stop those three!” Over my shoulder I glimpsed Graeme Rowan struggling to get to us through the milling throng.

  “Go!” I screamed, and we kicked our horses to life, leaving the bewildered citizens gaping.

  We raced westward along the heavily wooded road, not slowing until the night was so dark we dared not risk the horses. We had left Glyenna a considerable distance behind, but I insisted that we walk another half a league into the thick trees before stopping. What a spectacle we had made of ourselves! My fury at D’Natheil’s folly had not cooled by the time we made camp.

  “You will tell him exactly what I say,” I commanded Baglos as we unsaddled our horses in a high, rocky grotto. “Some things other than sorcery are frowned upon in Leire, at least among people of rational mind. To attack a beggar is the act of a coward, and to call attention to yourself in such a way is utterly stupid. Our lives are at risk because of your childishness. You will control yourself if you want any more help from me. Do you understand?”

  D’Natheil, his face blazing, turned his back on me.

  Baglos tried to smooth it over. “Madam, you must understand that D’Natheil has been trained as a warrior since he could walk. He is considered to be one of the finest—”

  “That’s no excuse.” Annoying little twit. I wanted to strangle him and his master both. “It’s quite possible to control one’s reactions, no matter how finely honed. Warriors should be somewhat larger of mind than animals. Tell him that, too. Exactly as I said it.”

  Baglos paled, but did as I asked, speaking softly to his master’s rigid back. The silence was long and awkward as we made our camp. D’Natheil threw his pack to the ground and kicked away the rocks that lay where he planned to make his bed. He kept to himself for the rest of the night.

  With Rowan so close on our trail, I made sure we were on the road early and took extra care that we were not observed by any other travelers. Whenever I sought information about roads, I asked about Vanesta or Prydina, relying on my own geography skills to set us right and hoping that the sheriff would follow the wrong path. I considered taking the wrong direction for a while, and then looping around in hopes of throwing off pursuit, but I dared not delay. If Rowan was in company with the sorcerer Zhid, they might be able to follow us anywhere.

  The journey would have been dismal even without the close pursuit and the rainy weather. The border villages had suffered the most in the years of the Vallorean War, and in few of the rotting settlements that were still occupied were there any men at all between the ages of thirty and sixty. Strangers, especially sturdy young men of military age, were regarded with scarcely controlled hostility, and only grudgingly were we allowed to avail ourselves of food supplies.

  As stiffness and saddle sores took their toll alongside the discomforts of constant rain, cold food, and sleeping on hard ground, I thought regretfully of my childhood when Papa would take Tomas and me on three-day riding excursions to see the site of his grandfather’s victory over Vallorean raiders or the hill where legend said that Annadis spent his vigil night before being named Arot’s successor. Twelve hours a day in the saddle had seemed life’s ultimate delight. My brother and I would sleep with the horses and dogs while Papa’s soldiers cooked, told stories, and stood watch for wolves. Rain just made our treks more adventurous. What dreary tricks fate can play on us.

  After Glyenna, D’Natheil refused to engage in any conversation. He rode, he ate, and he brooded, and when we stopped at night, he practiced his swordwork and took his share of the watch. The Dulcé was anxious to pursue his teaching further but had learned not to press. His master’s anger was quick and heavy, though, in truth, D’Natheil’s withdrawal seemed to restrain his intemperate hand along with everything else. After a few days, Baglos might have welcomed a blow just as evidence D’Natheil was listening to him at all.

  “Was D’Natheil always so changeable?” I asked Baglos one night when the Prince had disappeared yet agai
n as soon as he had eaten his share of the night’s meager fare. “On one day I’m sure he’s going to put a knife in me as I sleep. The next, I could be the muck on his horse’s shoe for all he cares. And then . . . well, before I yelled at him . . . he would surprise me with one of those smiles, and I’d think he was going to ask me to dance.”

  Baglos was scraping the last of the boiled turnip from the bottom of our cooking pot. “In addition to physical strength, intelligence, and extraordinary power, the family of D’Arnath has always been blessed with those amiable qualities which allow men to lead others in difficult times. In the matter of aggressive temper”—he glanced over his shoulder at the empty clearing—“they have been variously gifted . . . or afflicted as one might view it. As you see, D’Natheil was born with a full measure. When he was eleven, D’Natheil had a swordmaster who was quite serious about his task and rigorous in his discipline. D’Natheil scorned him, complaining that his skills were inferior, and grew increasingly impatient that no better master was brought in. One day the master was found dead in the sparring arena from a sword wound in his belly. D’Natheil claimed it was an accident in their practice, simple proof of his contention that the man was unfit to be his tutor. No one witnessed the incident, and nothing more was said. But I’ve heard the man was hamstrung.”

  On the afternoon of the seventh day we dropped down into the high plains of eastern Valleor. Southward, to our left, soared the peaks of the Dorian Wall, needle-sharp spires piercing the heavy clouds. To the far west a lesser range called the Vallorean Spine split Valleor down the middle, and before us and stretching far to our right lay the valley of the Uker River, endless vistas of gentle hills and lakes, dotted with the darker green of patchy forests, eventually rising into craggy highlands many leagues to the north. It was beautiful country, the fertile heart of gentle Valleor, on that day pooled with fogs and mists.