“The likeliest one you people can put together for me. Anything but those filthy beggar’s rags I wore up here! How’ll you travel, Frost?”
“In my black robe, of course. Why not?”
Thorn laughed and slapped the table. “Then I’ll go as a sorceron, too! That is,” she added, as Ringwood and Silverflake looked doubtful, “if you don’t have any scruples about lending me a robe?”
Moonscar cleared his throat and folded his hands on the table. “Our own ancient custom and the priestly laws—there is argument, Windbourne, as to which came first—say that we are to wear hooded black robes in the midlands. I have never heard of any custom on our side or any law of the priests to forbid anyone else wearing the same kind of hooded black robe.” He smiled and nodded, then grew serious again. “But this further penance I would like to give you, Windbourne: that during your travel, you submit yourself to the judgment of your two companions. Do you accept this?”
The young sorcerer looked slowly from Thorn to Frostflower as if caught in a trap. “I accept, Moonscar. But I accept on condition that Frostflower try to teach me the third skill as we go.”
“I’ve never taught,” said Frostflower. “I have only learned.…But I will try, Windbourne.” She, with her own doubts, to be set as guide over another! She was grateful that Thorn would share the burden. But was not the idea of authority different among farmers’ folk? Yet Moonscar had been born and raised to young manhood among the farmers’ folk, only coming to the sorceri when he had reached the age of firm decision. If he set a warrior to guide a sorcerer, he must think her idea of command would be to Windbourne’s benefit, helping, perhaps, to form again the self-control of prudence, which he seemed to have lost.
* * * *
As she made the descent alone for the last time that season, Frostflower pondered how best to take her leave of Elvannon and his family. Though far from satisfied with her thoughts when she reached the Hall, she asked to speak privately with his Reverence before going to the study alcove. He took her into his office at the front of the building.
“This is the last midday I will spend here, Reverence,” she began. “At least until the autumn. Soon I begin my summer’s traveling.”
His white brows contracted very slightly. “Your warrior friend has already arrived?”
“Yes.”
“Strange that no one saw her pass. We would have welcomed the opportunity to greet her.”
“She wanted to find me again as soon as possible.” Frostflower gazed down at her lap.
“You’ll bring her here for a meal with us on your way to the midlands?”
“I…don’t know.” If her own safety alone were involved, Frostflower would have entrusted it to Elvannon, told him of their need to learn the truth of Deveron’s death, even asked him, perhaps, whether he could tell her if the forbidden scrolls contained such secrets as this. But she could not risk the safety of two friends to a farmer-priest, however much she herself trusted him.
“Our scrollcase may grow dusty if your visits do not start again in the fall. Will you accept a token?”
A priest’s or townmaster’s safe-passage token did not have the same force when carried by a sorceron as when carried by one of the farmers’ folk; it meant only that the sorceron who bore it had never been known to work any mischief in the neighborhood of the one who gave it. But it could turn away suspicion that would otherwise fall heavy on anyone in a black robe. “I would be honored, Reverence.”
“It might be a small, unnecessary thing now. I’ve often regretted not having given you one last summer.”
“You could not give when you were not asked, Reverence.”
He smiled. “Don’t be so aloof up there in your retreat. Whenever any of you plan to travel south, tell me. We can spare metal enough for a few tokens. Is anyone else traveling with you?”
Frostflower nodded. “Two.”
“Your warrior friend and another sorceron?”
Warriors did not carry safe-passage tokens; if they were wounded, their wounds were token enough, and if they were not wounded, they considered that tokens limited their freedom. But it had been decided that Thorn would wear her disguise from the very outset. “There will be three of us in black robes,” Frostflower said carefully. “Windbourne, Rosethorn, and myself.” Rosethorn had been the warrior’s childhood name, and, fortunately, it sounded not too unlike that of a sorceron.
Elvannon calmly printed both names beneath Frostflower’s on his old limestone tablet, darkened by thousands of notes made with his charcoal pencil and rubbed off again when their usefulness was past. “We’ve grown unneighborly indeed,” was his only remark. “I would not have recognized either of these as belonging to Windslope folk.”
“They are both visiting us, Reverence.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Yes, you have your own ways through the mountains from retreat to retreat, have you not? Well, Frostflower, perhaps you have the equivalent of our tokens to tell your people which of us farmer-priests are friends?”
He spoke lightly, but she cringed at the small hint that, for all the closeness they had found, even Elvannon shared the priestly mistrust of her people. “We injure no one, Reverence…not unless driven to it. Those strange symbols found now and then on farm walls are not our work.”
Elvannon drew a box around each of the three names on his tablet to complete the guide for his coinsmith, who must engrave the letters without knowing how to read them. “It would be as well for you, Frostflower, not to make your knowledge of our scrolls and symbols apparent to any midlands priests. How soon will you leave?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“The tokens will be ready. Will you stop here to share our midday meal, even to spend your first night?”
The sorceress shook her head. “For myself, Reverence, you know how gratefully I would accept your offer. But I cannot speak for my friends.”
He enclosed the slate in an old wooden case so that it could be carried to his coinsmith without the charcoal marks smearing. “Well, stop at the gate for your tokens, then. It will be a long enough walk to All Roads South without your spending overmuch time here. And…we here in the edgelands have little influence on midlands ways, Frostflower, but my wife’s brother once journeyed to Center-of-Everywhere to claim his seat in the High Gathering for half a year. I can promise very little, but at a message of need from you, we will do what we can.”
“If I should be in need and fail to send you that message, Reverence, it will be because I had no means nor time.” The sorceress held out her hand and the priest took it, so that they sat for a moment with fingers meshed.
And yet, she thought wistfully, they had only mind-danced together over the outer symbols of doctrine and creed, never exploring—perhaps never daring to explore—the depths where truth might be found. She could read priestly writing, but she lacked the inbred perception that might suffuse those parables and rituals with meaning for the soul as well as for the brain.
She envied Windbourne his undoubting belief. But she did not envy him the…unhappiness?…that drove him to seek deadly penances for what seemed to her very small failings. Windbourne must not die before he had found some surer balance for life and death.
* * * *
Frostflower no longer breast-fed Starwind; she had begun to wean him before her first visit to Elvannon’s Farm. She suspected the weaning had cost her more than it had the infant, who took readily to goat’s milk, cow’s milk, soft curds and vegetables boiled and strained to pulp. She had continued to feed him with spoons and saturated cloth when she was at home in the Retreat—now she must wean herself even from that. She might have had little sleep, that last night she held him in her cottage, if he had not slept with even more ease than usual, so that she soon put him in his cradle and lay down to lull herself with a few slow exercis
es lest her emotion disturb him.
She had actually felt greater personal misgivings the first time she left him in order to journey down to Elvannon’s Farm, though that had been for a single day’s absence. They told her he sometimes seemed to fuss and fret a little for her when she was gone, but on the whole he got along very happily with Puffball, Silverflake, Starsinger, and the others. Now she found herself calculating how much he would have grown by the time of her return in the fall. Would he even remember her after a summer’s absence? Musing on this, she felt the first slight doubt whether she would return…she comforted herself with the reflection that, despite all experience, a season seemed very long at its beginning, its end very far off and unreal. It was natural ignorance of the future, as much as the specific danger awaiting her friends, that caused her sudden fear of not returning to the child. But the season would seem to have been very short, when it was past.
Thorn hugged the baby once just before they left, calling him “Little Smellybottom” and laughing when he reached for her face. But she showed no more regret at leaving him now than she had shown at giving him to the sorceress after his emergence from her body.
For a while it looked as if neither Dowl nor any other animal would choose to join them. But at last, as they reached the double-trunked pine, the dog caught up with them, thrusting his nose into Frostflower’s palm. And when they came to Nearest Curve, the two-year-old white cat Coyclaws sprang from the top of the boulder onto Windbourne’s shoulders and curled there, phssting a little and waving one paw at Dowl, as the sorcerer recovered from his surprise.
Thorn laughed. “One for each of you, none for me! Good, I’ll share your bloody pets—I get to pat ‘em when they’re in a good moon, they’re all yours when they get mean and rowdy.”
Frostflower smiled. “You must be careful with your language, Rosethorn.”
“Don’t worry. Not one ‘bloody demon,’ not even a ‘Hellstink,’ once we’re on level ground. Not if I have to tie up my tongue and go around as a mute myself. Right now, I’m too busy learning how to climb down this blasted trail in this damn robe without breaking my nose.”
“But you cannot pose as a mute,” said Windbourne. “You must do the lying for all of us, Rosethorn.” As if sensing bitterness, Coyclaws sprang from his shoulders and began walking by his side.
* * * *
When they reached Elvannon’s Farm near midday, Thorn and Windbourne waited on the muddy footpath, she to keep up appearances, he to avoid the contamination of a priest’s outer wall. Frostflower felt something like shame on his account as she crossed the weedfield to the gates. Both Dowl and Coyclaws chose to accompany her.
Coarsecut was on guard alone this time; at the busy planting season, Elvannon’s warriors took their turns with the work that fed and clothed the farm folk. The last midlands warrior who had spent the winter recuperating in the edgelands farm had departed some time ago, perhaps to avoid being drawn into what she considered degrading work for one of her class. (The sorceress had learned of this warriors’ prejudice from Thorn, who shared it.)
“Safe traveling, Mixeyes!” The raidleader held out three silver tokens, each dangling by its own string. “Yours is the one with one knot in the string, Rosethorn’s with two knots, Windbourne’s with three. Think you can remember?” Coarsecut winked. Sorceri and most common folk were not supposed to be able to read priestly symbols; they were only for other priests, townmasters, or the rare, eager common-born scholars to decipher. Nor had Elvannon told his people what he was teaching the sorceress on her visits. But the raidleader, it appeared, might suspect that Frostflower did not need the knots to remind her which token was which.
“I will remember,” said Frostflower.
“Why not call your friends over and we’ll make sure they get the right ones? Do they still think we eat sorceri for dinner?”
Frostflower sighed and shook her head. “Some of my people are as strict in their beliefs as are some of the midlands priests.”
“Unh. To bad. We had a table set up for you in the east orchard, but I guess you’ll just have to settle for that flat old rock in the field out here.” The raidleader reached behind the wall and brought out a large slat-box. “Or you can carry it along.”
The box was of cherrywood panels, carefully carved, varnished, and fitted together in such a way that when the container was empty it could be folded into a cube for easier carrying. It would probbly bring a good price in the shops of Three Bridges or Five Roads Crossing. Elvannon was generous where he could afford generosity. “I will persuade my friends there is no danger in eating in the shadow of your walls,” said Frostflower. “We will return this at once when we’ve eaten.”
Despite her promise, she might have had difficulty, even with Thorn’s help, persuading Windbourne to sit in a field beside farm walls and partake of a meal given them by a priest. But Coyclaws had lingered with the raidleader while Frostflower and Dowl turned back to the footpath and, on reaching the others, Frostflower learned from Windbourne, who spoke in a stunned voice, that “Coyclaws—the cat—she’s gone into the farm. She turned her head and stood stiff for a moment, then she streaked away behind the wall.”
“She’s gone after a mouse,” said Thorn. “Or a bird. She’ll be back when she’s had her meal. If you still want a bloody, meat-eating cat climbing on you and sullying your tender skin with the breath of farm air, Wedgepopper.”
The young man, who already seemed more attached to Coyclaws than she to him, agreed to wait and eat in the field in hope she would return by the end of their meal.
Although this season of the year was thin for even farmers’ tables, Elvannon and his family had provided more than three travelers could eat and drink in one meal. There were wine, fermented milk, and minted water, each in a container made of tightly woven cloth, well waxed, rather than of leather. Thin brown wafers, the best bread farmers themselves ate in spring; their well-baked crispness helped mask the age of the flour. Two paste loaves firm enough to slice, one of dried vegetables cooked with new spring herbs, the other of dried fruits sweetened with honey. (When made for farmers’ folk, they included chopped meat and insects.) Nine hard-boiled eggs and two flattened balls which Frostflower recognized, even before removing the beeswax, as cheese.
Thorn, whose teeth must be aching by now for meat, began by peeling an egg and eating it cheerfully in three bites.
But Windbourne grumbled. “Priests’ eggs! The farmer-priests allow as many cocks as they have to run constantly among their hens, do they not? How can we suppose these eggs are not fertilized?”
“You’ve never been inside a farm, Wedgepopper,” said Thorn. “The priests keep their cocks separate, all right. They don’t want to risk a little sunlight spoiling the eggs for their tables.”
“I’ve heard that your priests consider chicks half-grown in the eggshell a great delicacy,” he insisted.
“I’m not going to mention some of the things I used to think your people ate. There’s no more chick in that egg than there is in your eyeball.”
Thorn cut several slices from the vegetable loaf, layered a couple of them between three wafers, and took a large, crackling bite. “Not too bad, even without meat,” she remarked. “Which of those bags has the milk, again?”
“Without meat?” Windbourne picked at a slice of the paste with his thumbnail and frowned. “What are these? Insects—weevils, tiny grubs. God, they’re in the bread, too! The priests do not even sift the creatures from their flour before they bake it!”
“Those are seeds and spices,” Thorn said firmly. “Eat it or go hungry. Don’t pay any attention to him, Frost. I’m surprised he chews at all, for fear of biting his lip and swallowing a shred of his own skin.”
Windbourne was silent for a time, drinking wine and picking every suspicious black seedlike thing from a slice of fruit paste. Frostflower
ate a few layers of paste and wafers, repeating to herself that the specks were indeed merely seeds and spices used for flavoring. Then she peeled one of the cheeses. Here, at least, was safe food, as well as food so delectable, even at this time of year, that she had purposely saved it for last.
“Cheese!” said Windbourne in disgust. “Don’t you know how they make it?”
“They cook milk and let it ripen,” said Thorn.
“They throw in a piece of cow’s stomach!”
“What the Hellstink do you do in that mind of yours?” Thorn exclaimed. “They just squeeze soft curds together and let ‘em age—we ate soft curds up in your retreat, didn’t we?”
“And how do they make the curds meld and toughen and turn yellow?” said the sorcerer. “It’s the juice from the cow’s stomach that does it! Why do you think our people don’t go on and make hard cheese from soft curds?”
“No!” cried Frostflower. “No, it can’t—but some retreats do make cheese!”
“Aye,” said Windbourne, “to their shame. And some sorceri with more laxity than prudence make leather of their dead cows’ skins and white jelly of their hoofs. But you do not suppose the farmer-priests wait for cows to die naturally before cutting up their stomachs?”
If it was true…if this was indeed the secret which enabled farmers’ folk to make cheese…
“I never heard about it,” said Thorn, “and I’ve spent a damn lot more time inside farms than this bogbait has.”
“My parents,” said Windbourne, “left Southcorner Retreat because of the way they use the bodies of their dead animals there. Aye, they make cheese in some retreats. My mother saw it made.”
“Thorn,” whispered the soreress, pushing the cheese toward her, “you must eat it. I…have eaten it all this spring—they would think me ungrateful suddenly to return it now.” A tear was rolling down from her left eye, and she tried to wipe it away furtively, ashamed of feeling such grief for the loss of so shallow a pleasure.
Frostflower and Windbourne (Frostflower & Thorn) Page 7