Frostflower and Windbourne (Frostflower & Thorn)

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “No…no, only to ask you, on his behalf, if you will not open your hall to his brotherly visits again.”

  “Brotherly visits! Rondasu’s word, or his wife’s?”

  “But I—speaking for myself, Eleva, it would complete my happiness if you were to return. Shara is kind to me, but she is…too kind, I think—too constantly polite. We need your leaven, your honest speaking, your—your roughness, sometimes. And I think Invaron misses the other children.”

  “The widowed sister in the older brother’s household!” Eleva drew a deep, shuddering breath. “You would not have me with you long, Intassa. He would find some distant priest for my new husband, so as to have me far away and his claim to my farm settled beyond dispute. And I would accept the new marriage, even as the third wife of some doddering old fool, only to be away from my sibs. No. I will never remarry, and I will never go back to my brother’s farm.”

  Intassa came forward and laid her hand on the other woman’s arm. “Deveron was a wonderful mate. Even Rondasu, to whom I am more, who loves me better, cannot surpass him in coupling, and I knew what he must have been to you, his first wife. But is it not better, Eleva, to have a mate than the rule of a farm?”

  Eleva rose. She was the shorter of the two by half a head, but she felt immeasurably the stronger. “You made your choice. I would have given you a share in ruling this farm; but perhaps, for you, a husband is indeed the better choice. For me, it is the farm. If ever I do take another husband, he will be a commoner.”

  Intassa’s fingers closed tightly around Eleva’s wrist. “A commoner? A common worker or merchant to sit in Deveron’s office?”

  “Of course not! A commoner to warm my bed and leave me my ruling office.” Had Intassa never heard of such marriages, or was she so fully imbued with the idea that the husband must rule that she discounted all tales to the contrary? “Yes, perhaps I’ll marry my smith Rediron! That will stop Rondasu’s schemes to find me a husband and take away my farm.”

  “Your smith?” Intassa recoiled. “Oh, no, Eleva, not that huge, grimy creature to—to sleep where Deveron—”

  “Why not? By the Seven Names, Intassa, sooner than give up this farm, I would marry that sorcerer himself!”

  Intassa shrank from her as from a rotted corpse. “Deveron’s murderer?”

  Eleva regretted her words. When Intassa told Rondasu and Shara that her sister had said such a thing…“I said that only for emphasis.” She tried to laugh. “A priestess marry a sorcerer! See to what foolish statements conversation leads when it is not kept strictly polite.” She extended her palms for the parting gesture. “Return to my Hall whenever you wish, Intassa. Bring Invaron—stay the night if you will. I want neither Rondasu nor Shara within my walls again, but you and your child will ever be welcome.”

  Intassa hesitated, then laid her palms on Eleva’s too lightly and quickly for full contact before she hurried away. Watching her go, Eleva guessed that she would not return.

  CHAPTER 7

  Windbourne had grown milder toward his companions as the days went on, but he seemed also to have grown even more bitter, perhaps because more silent and inbrooding, toward himself and his own supposed guilt. Once, waking before dawn, Thorn had found him squatting beside the remains of their forest campfire, holding an ember to his thigh—he had peeled off a small piece of his own skin and was cauterizing the wound. When they reminded him of Moonscar’s instruction to inflict no grim penances on himself without first seeking their opinion, he protested that he needed to purge himself at once of an evil dream, that he had not wanted to disturb their sleep, and that this was no grim or deadly penance—he appealed to Thorn if it could not be meted out to a warrior and she consider herself fortunate at getting off lightly. Replying that it all depended on the offense, Thorn gave him a warrior’s command to do no such thing again; but after that morning they had considered it wisest to allow him whichever of his self-punishments seemed least likely to injure his health, hoping this would be enough to drain off some of his desire for penance before it built too dangerously inside him. Several times Thorn had yielded so far to his pleas as to whip him with her belt or a thin tree branch. “I never wanted that kind of boggy work before,” she confided to Frostflower, “but he drives me so itchy it’s almost a pleasure.”

  The first clear hint of increasing danger came when they reached String-of-Beads, a small town only a quarter of a day’s walk north of Five Roads Crossing. Windbourne knew of one family here, a widowed potter and her children, who had been friendly to sorceri; but he and Thorn had not contacted them on their way north in the winter, and when Frostflower approached the shop window now, the woman frowned, shook her head slightly, and dropped the shutter.

  Perhaps the widow was simply overcautious. They had better luck with the old innkeeper of the Silver Pear, who sold them the use of the room above her stable with a grin and the cheerful words, “If the warriors come, it’s between you and them. I’ll neither warn you nor deny I’m keeping you, though I won’t help them much, neither—thank the gods, the time’s past when anyone could have pressed my old undermouth into service against a sorcerer…that time’s past and gone, like the best of my eyesight…and as for the stable, you wouldn’t hurt me by blasting it—needs a new upper part anyway, and they say their Reverences are generous enough when it comes to repaying folk for sorcerous damage. Meanwhile, I’ve always found blackrobes’ pay as solid as any and more solid than some. And likely you’ll be safe enough here. Wise of you three to stop in String and not in Five Roads, though. Aye, if you’ll listen to an old innkeeper, you’ll go past Five Roads by the Western Footaround and on through Fourth Road Ends to Epplewhim.”

  “I fear we have an errand in Five Roads,” said Frostflower.

  “Oh, aye? Well, like as not it’s safe enough if you mean no mischief. But I’d sit up above my stable awhile and think about how important my business was. Especially if any of you should happen to be a young sorcerer with buttermilk hair and a cleft in his chin, as might be mistaken for another young sorcerer they caught in Five Roads last winter and let slip loose again.”

  Windbourne was enduring another self-imposed penance that day, a sunrise-to-sunrise fast. He asked to add an hour of kneeling with arms outstretched, and they left him in that posture while they went down to the inn’s mealroom, a little after the townsfolk’s usual suppertime, to eat bread and porridge. A small storm arose while they ate. Frostflower hoped no one would learn of Windbourne’s kneeling and blame the weather on his sorcering rather than the season. Fortunately, the storm was short and mild, and soon settled down into a soft, thunderless rainfall, which Pearkeeper remarked would be welcome on the farmers’ fields.

  It was not so welcome on their robes as they returned from the main inn building to their room above the stable. They found Windbourne already asleep, exhausted from his penances, and Thorn remarked that was just as well, since they had to take off their outer robes before the wetness soaked through to their undergarments. (But Windbourne could not have seen much more than a few blurs of light cloth in the dark room. String-of-Beads, like most other towns, allowed sorceri no fire, at least in the warmer seasons—no lamp, candle, nor brazier, nothing except a few pots of smudge-incense to keep away the insects.) The two women spread their robes on chair and table, then wrapped themselves in fraying blankets for warmth and sat talking a long time, while the full moon, rising higher, infused the thinning clouds with a glow that gradually brightened the chamber. Below them, the stable animals occasionally stamped or snorted. Dowl and Coyclaws alternately napped and roamed about in search of a caressing hand or other entertainment. Eventually the cat curled in Frostflower’s lap, the dog nosed her, and the sorceress tried to stroke both at once.

  “I wouldn’t walk beside you,” Thorn was arguing. “Nobody’d guess we were together, but I’d be where I could look out for you.”

 
“You must not think me quite so incapable of avoiding danger when on my own.” Frostflower left off stroking the animals in order to grope for Thorn’s hand. “And where would we find the clothes for your change of disguise?”

  “Oh, Hellbog!” said Thorn. Coyclaws was twining her paws over the women’s arms, seemingly intent on wrestling Frostflower’s hand back to herself.

  Dowl was thrusting his nose into Thorn’s hand. “Why not just free-travel all the way there and back?” the warrior went on, absently tugging the dog’s ear.

  “Deveron’s death was almost five hatchings ago, Rosethorn. Folk no longer talk of it constantly, even here. How much more seldom will they talk of it in a large and busy town like Five Roads Crossing? Free-traveling, I would have to depend entirely on chance-heard conversation. In the body, I can perhaps ask questions—”

  “Better be pretty damn careful about that!”

  Frostflower smiled. “We live by a vow of prudence, Rosethorn.”

  Apparently Thorn tugged too hard, for Dowl gave a little yelp, ducked his head, and shook it. “Why not send Wedgepopper in alone?” said the warrior, ignoring the dog. “He’ll insist on going in sooner or later anyway. Let him do it now and take the danger.”

  “He has not entirely found the third skill yet. He can sit up halfway out of his body and speak with my entity, but he could not free-travel back here to String-of-Beads from Five Roads Crossing to tell us what he had learned.”

  Thorn grunted. Dowl, as if impatient with both women, trotted across the room to curl on the floor beside the sleeping Windbourne.

  “And you must remain here with him, Rosethorn,” Frostflower continued. “If we leave him alone…”

  Coyclaws jumped down from Frostflower’s lap, bounded across the room, and sprang upon Dowl. After a brief spat—more of surprise than resistance on the dog’s part—Dowl left the place beside Windbourne to Coyclaws and trotted back to the sorceress. Windbourne had not stirred. Possibly he was in trance.

  “All right,” said Thorn. “I don’t like it, but all right. Find out what you can. We’ll see that Wedgepopper waits out for you tomorrow night. I’ll expect you back in the body the night after that, or we come in after you. Will the mongrel go with you or stay with us?”

  “As he chooses.”

  * * * *

  In the morning, Thorn grumbled that Frostflower had won her consent to the “woodbrained plan” by catching her tired and off-guard, but she kept her word and let her friend go on alone. Dowl glanced from one to the other of the humans several times, as if puzzled by this friendly separation here in the midlands; but at last he loped after Frostflower. She was grateful for his companionship. It cost her more than she would admit to leave Thorn now, even for the swordswoman’s own safety.

  It was a relief, however, to be free for a time from Windbourne, who seemed in his very silence to reproach her thoughts, doubts, and actions. Was that, she sometimes wondered, how I seemed to Thorn last summer, before I lost my certitude?

  She had long known that different retreats had different practices and different interpretations of creed and religion; but she had always thought the differences of practice were minor and those of interpretation theoretical. She had had little direct contact until now with the sorceri of any other retreat except Mildrock, the home of her almost-lover Wonderhope and her sister Cloudbird. In some ways, Windbourne’s attitude shook her faith in her own creed almost as much as what had happened to her last summer.

  He had asked her once whether the ballads sung of her were true, and she had told him the tale stripped of its exaggerations and misconceptions. She had vaguely hoped that with his strict faith and stranger’s impartiality he might succeed where even wise Moonscar had failed, and find a satisfactory explanation for how she had retained her power after losing her virginity. He seemed not to have looked for an explanation; he had merely said that, in his opinion, she was wrong to continue practicing her skills. She did not understand how a man of his strict conscience could have dismissed her problem as easily as he seemed to. She suspected he thought of it more than he let her see. She had not gone on to tell him in words that this was the chief reason she now studied the priestly creed, so perhaps she was as shy of thought-sharing as he.

  * * * *

  Five Roads Crossing had ten gates, two for each of the roads of its name (though one “road” was more accurately a wheelpath). The Northwest Gate that Frostflower approached was set in a new section of the wall.

  Long ago, towns, like farms, had been subject to raids by farmer-priests or rival townmasters. The Town Truce of the High Priestly Gathering had stopped this more than two lifetimes ago, and many towns, like String-of-Beads, had let their walls fall into disrepair. Most of the smaller towns built since the Truce had never had walls, and larger towns that still kept their walls in good repair rarely enlarged them. Some of the wealthier families preferred to erect new houses outside the walls, though such houses frequently had their own small walls surrounding the gardens, with a few hired warriors to guard against thieves.

  Five Roads Crossing, however, still took obvious pride in its walls, enlarging them so that only a few of the poorest folk lived outside and a very few of the richest, who built against the town wall so that their private walls bulged out here and there like warts. Nor was this town pride entirely archaic. Thorn said that town walls still served two practical purposes besides showing off prosperity: the keep wildland outlaws shut out in the open where the occasional peace-guarding patrols of spearwomen could skewer them, and to keep town lawbreakers inside where townwarriors could catch them.

  As the sorceress came nearer, she saw two warriors in the open gateway, apparently leaning against the posts. According to Thorn, the swordswoman or axewoman was supposed to stand in the gateway while the spearwoman walked back and forth. Would Thorn frown and call this spearwoman a loafer?

  “Sorceron coming!” the watchgirl whooped down to the warriors in a much less pleasant shout than Elvannon’s watchgirl had used that first time. A brief conversation followed between watchgirl and warriors. Then all three faces turned toward her—one warrior at each side of the gateway and the watchgirl above in the frame of her cupping tower with its pillars and tiled roof. The sorceress was still too far away to read their expressions. Surprisingly, since it was not long past midmorning, no other folk were within sight. She went on towards the gate with head bowed, one hand stroking Dowl, the other in her pocket, closed over Elvannon’s safe-passage token.

  Thorn had made Windbourne bury his token at a distinctive oak between All Roads South and Elderbarren. The coinlike bit of metal bore his name, which might be known. The warrior was not eager to use her own token, for she said that the similarity between “Rosethorn” and “Thorn,” which might slide by well enough when the name was only spoken, would probably look obvious to someone who could read it in engraved letters. It would have seemed strange if not all sorceri of a group had tokens, so the women had carried theirs out of sight, Rosethorn’s with the string broken and Frostflower’s without the string, to show why they were not being worn, if the need to show them should arise. So far, it had not arisen.

  When Frostflower came within five paces of the warriors, she stopped to be hailed and questioned, the customary procedure for commoners and sorceri alike.

  “What are you, sorceron?” said the axewoman.

  “Frostflower, from the northern mountains.”

  “Not who. Hellbog, names are just names. What—an ‘-er’ or an ‘-ess’?”

  Frostflower lifted her hand from Dowl’s head lest she grip his fur too tightly. “I am a woman.”

  “Vuck’s claws!” said the spearwoman. “Better feel it and make sure.”

  The axewoman guffawed. “Feel her yourself, Whistlepoint! “-Er’ or ‘-ess,’ she’s too small to be the one that killed his Reverence,
anyway.”

  “Oh, yes, you can laugh, Splathandle. You don’t stand to lose three kips!”

  “The more fool you, to bet on a sorceron’s sex with Fleaglance—I tell you, the brat never misses.”

  “Come on, Whistlepoint,” the watchgirl shouted down, “either feel her or pay me now!”

  There was a thin, rushing sound, and Frostflower glanced up just in time to see the watchgirl catch the coin Whistlepoint had thrown up to her.”

  “Malice, malice, hang for spite!” chanted the watchgirl. “Tried to catch me offguard, hey? All right, let’s have the other two!”

  The spearwoman threw both coppers at once. The watchgirl gave a cry of outrage. “Stone you, Whistlepoint, one of ‘em fell—”

  “Look for it when you’re off duty!” said Splathandle with a laugh. “You gamblers deserve each other. All right, sorceress, go on in.”

  “There are special restrictions I must know?” said Frostflower.

  “Don’t try to sell anything,” the axewoman replied in a quick monotone. “Don’t buy anything sharp or made of metal, don’t get drunk, don’t come closer than three paces to a fire, lamp, or candle, and if you buy a sleeping room to yourself, no flame or constant-wick allowed—smudge-incense, all right, if somebody else lights it. Don’t stand within four paces of a statue, don’t enter a holy hall.” The monotone broke. “And don’t put wasps in our priests’ bellies.”

  Frostflower nodded and went in. She walked ten paces down the street and paused, struck by the near-desertion of the area. A few pigs, their ears clipped to show they belonged to the townmasters, scavenged the street. A cat who was dozing in a window woke long enough to spit at Dowl as he stopped to sniff her. All the doors were closed and the shop windows shuttered. From the middle floor of one of the houses Frostflower heard someone trying to lull a wailing infant.