Disciple, Part I: For Want of a Piglet

by L. Blankenship

  “I believe he is,” I answered. Kiefan’s eyes were open, under my hands, I realized. My thumbs were still on the roots of the two horn ridges that broke his scalp. I wiped away drops of melted snow, there.

  “That’s where they start,” he murmured up at me.

  “Did I get all the pain?” I asked. “You were full of knots.”

  Kiefan’s smile was tired and thin. “That was amazing. How’d you use my kir? I’m not charm-handed.”

  Only charm-hands could donate their kir, unless one were Elect. “It wanted to help,” I said. “Let Ulf and Ilya break the path today, for a change.”

  Anders took the chance to interrupt. “If you’re not going to cuddle afterwards, we should keep going.”

  That got him two glares, which he laughed off. Ilya passed us the kir-water. The skin was light in my hands; I only took a sip and gave it back.

  For once, we woke to the same weather we’d slept with. That alone brightened the day. Before we struck camp, I spent my kir on Anders’ re-growing congestion and then took Ilya’s through his charm-hand. That I spent on Boristan, and he perked up considerably after a lung-clearing — though he did complain that my hands were cold when I put one on his chest.

  It was only more snow to look forward to, but we went in good spirits. The shoulder path lowered toward the snow that filled the valley. We met with rockslides from seasons past and picked our way through the rubble where we could. It took a little digging, at one point, and a heating charm to melt the ice that held the mass of gravel together.

  But the happiest moment, by far, came in the afternoon as we forged through the calf-deep snow at what seemed to be the bottom of the valley. The shelf we’d followed through the pass had given out for good, but the snow had been knee deep up there. From up ahead, we all heard Ulf shout, “M’lord! Come see!”

  He’d been scouting ahead now that the snow was shallowing. We followed his trail at a trot through a jumble of hillocks of rock and snow, finding him at last on the edge of a flat sheet as big around as my father’s cottage. And we all heard it. Running water.

  A frozen pool, that flat sheet, and a creek burbled out from underneath to run downhill. Its ice-crusted path led us, cautiously, down a ragged stone slope and around one last berm of avalanche rubble. There we stopped, stunned by the view.

  The rock ran level for a hundred feet or so, more or less flat, and simply ended. We crept toward the edge, leaving the ponies behind, and sat within a few feet of the cliff. It fell away, as did the suicidal stream, far enough to make me dizzy when I peeked over. Ice glittered on the granite face below.

  It was the view of Caercoed that held us there. Pine-forested piedmont gave way to a forest aflame in full autumn glory. Gold, orange, and red hills rolled north and east, interrupted by lakes here and there. On the shore of the near lake, a dark smudge of a village had pushed back the forest. From the center of the village rose a single, scarlet-cloaked tree in a gentle spiral, arms thrown wide as if in a dance.

  “Tree’s three hundred feet if it’s an inch,” Ilya said.

  Ulf pointed into the distance. “There’s another one, another village. I can make out three or four more, in the distance. The forest gives way to prairie, it looks like, but the trees still mark villages.”

  I could just make out a taller red head in the sea of gold and orange. The rest hazed into the distance, unless you had hawk’s eyes.

  “And there’s the start of your grass, Anders.” Ulf pointed closer. “Tomorrow afternoon, if we can find a way around this cliff.”

  When we turned, the ponies were already licking the lichen off the nearest rocks. We set camp behind the rocks and Kiefan assigned watches for the night again. I was glad just to wash my face in liquid water, even if it was ice cold.

  The third day after we found the cliff, I clung to Puck’s back as Anders led him down a slender trail. My fever had been high enough, that morning, and I’d coughed out enough phlegm, that Kiefan had picked me up and put me on the pony. I hadn’t fought it much. Puck’s saddle wasn’t meant for riding, but I wobbled along with two handfuls of the blanket and saddlebags on either side to fall against. Anders kept a close eye; he’d wanted to tie me down.

  Addled as I was, I felt Puck stop, take a few more steps to come alongside Acorn, and stop again. The men clustered in front of the ponies, muttering and looking ahead. I craned my neck enough to see a small pond and a clearing, through the thick screen of gold and orange leaves.

  “Archers in the trees, I’m sure of it,” Ulf said. “Well camouflaged. They’ve waited all day, I’d bet.”

  “They saw our campfires these past nights.” Kiefan looked toward the clearing. “And since we stopped short of their ambush, they must know we suspect.” A pause. “We didn’t come to start a fight.”

  “Why are they in the trees, if not to kill us?” Ulf asked.

  “Armed strangers wandering your forest? What would Baron Eismann do?” Anders asked.

  “Saint Woden told me they knew we’re coming,” Kiefan said.

  Boristan put a hand on our prince’s shoulder. “Let me go in first, m’lord. Maybe they’ll talk.”

  Kiefan grimaced, but nodded and stepped aside. Ther Boristan walked into the clearing, hood down, cloak behind his shoulders, and hands open. Stopping to cough up phlegm and spit a couple times, he followed the path to the well-worn patch at the pond’s edge. He nearly got there before an arrow hissed into the ground beside his foot.

  “Stay where you are!”

  The accent was strange, but it was Arceal. Boristan stopped.

  “Where ’tis you travel from?”

  Ther answered in kind. “We came through the Eispitzen, by Starknadel’s pass, from Wodenberg. Our saints charged us with finding the land of Caercoed. Have we found it?”

  There was a pause. “Your leader must present and disarm.”

  Boristan looked back. Kiefan shifted his cloak over his shoulders and strode into the clearing, unbuckling his sword belt as he went. Sheathed blade in hand, he spread his arms wide. He’d started wearing the boiled leather breastplate again after the cliff, but aside from that he looked the part of a traveler.

  “Name yourself.”

  “Kiefan Weissberg, Blessed knight of the Trinity, prince and heir to the kingdom of Wodenberg. I seek an alliance with the High Crowns of Caercoed against our mutual foe, the empire of Arcea.”

  A single word, and an arrow hissed. I saw only a flash of steel and a broken arrow tumbling to the grass. Kiefan spun his sword over his hand and pointed up into the trees. Where the shot had come from, I assumed. “Does Caercoed fire on the unarmed, then?” he asked.

  “Legends must be put to test, must they not?”

  Kiefan returned his sword to the sheath and spread his arms again. “So how should I test the legend of the amazons across the mountains?”

  I didn’t see the huntress until she stepped into the sun; her mottled cloak matched the shadows, her leather jerkin the tree trunks. A glimpse of short golden skirt had stood in for autumn leaves, over dark hose. She carried a bow, but un-nocked the arrow and returned it to her quiver.

  The other half dozen archers who emerged did not, though.

  “Peace-bond your weapons and we shall take you to —” and she used a long, bumpy word I didn’t know. “Be welcome in Tadhlon of Caercoed.”

  ‘Tay-lon,’ it sounded like to my ear. I leaned toward Anders to ask, “Who are we being taken to?”

  “It’s a noble rank, something like a margrave,” he answered. “The Margraves Gwatcyn.”

  “Captain Mohra Fionmaen.” She introduced herself to Kiefan with a bow. “Is your companion well enough to ride? We’ve horses.” The captain indicated me with a nod.

  “She can ride double. How far is it?”

  “Come noon tomorrow, we reach Faen, where soft beds and mulled cider await the weary.”

  I dissolved into the hot bath. Fire crackled on the washroom’s hearth, heating another kettle of wa
ter if I wanted it, and noontime sun slanted through the gap in the curtained window. The clay tub was long and deep enough for me to lie in, if I folded up my knees, and I let myself slide to the bottom with my hair fanning out around me.

  Near two weeks’ sweat had crusted in places I didn’t want to dwell on. We hadn’t tried to wash on the Saint-day in the mountain pass, or even stopped for a disciple’s dance. Now I picked at pimples and scrubbed with the coarse brush the maid had left me. The soap was lovely and smelled of rosewater.

  When my maid, Anwyl, returned, I had gotten a layer of skin off and felt far more human. She wrapped me in a towel and squeezed out my hair into the tub, then pulled its plug and let it drain. Though she didn’t speak any Arceal, she pointed me toward the fresh clothes I’d brought to the washroom and wanted me to dress.

  After far too long dressing as a man, I was glad to slide into my light woolen shift and pull the drawstring neck close before tying it. While far warmer than the pass, it was still an autumn day here. My yellow dress, fitted more loosely and its neckline a broad, flat-hemmed scoop, went over my shift. Simply feeling skirts around my ankles again was a relief, despite that my dress was nothing like what the Caer ladies wore.

  They wore straight-seamed, billowing tunics and tied them with a sash just under the breasts. The hem might be near their ankles, it might be at their knees, or just to their thighs, and worn over knit hose. Anwyl’s tunic was knee long, and she wore hose as well. Her brown hair was twisted up in a simple bun and pinned.

  Once my wet hair was wrapped in a small towel, she ushered me out of the washroom. Then I saw why; there was a line for the bath. As the washroom was just off the kitchen and its massive fireplace, so Kiefan and Anders and Ther Boristan waited on a bench next to one of the tables, watching the margrave’s household chop and knead and roast. The girls who ought to be working were snapped at every few minutes for being distracted by the three strangers in the room, and every maid who hurried through stole an appraising glance.

  The master of the kitchen, Aed, who was the margraves’ husband, was not amused.

  Anders said, “Hold on, I thought Kate was in the bath? Who’s this, then?”

  I know I blushed, and they chuckled, and Anwyl shooed me along back to my room upstairs. There, on the bed, she gestured for me to keep toweling my hair while she brought a small tea tray to my bedside table. When she lifted the lid to check the tea, it smelled wonderful and just like the blend Master Parselev preferred. All tea came from Arcea, so it might well be the same.

  Anwyl picked up the comb and I untangled the towel from my hair, letting it fall down my back. When she only stood there, I glanced up, asking, “Is something wrong?”

  Her eyes were fixed on my head, on my Blessing. She started to reach out with the comb, but hesitated and withdrew.

  Nobody in Caercoed had a Blessing, from what I’d seen. As strange as it was for us to see women here, women there, only a scattering of men, we had to be far stranger to them.

  I tried to look reassuring when I smiled. “Don’t worry,” I said, though she couldn’t understand. “It only looks strange. You can touch it, don’t be afraid.” I took her empty hand and brought her fingers to one of the nubs, let her feel the cuticle where the ridge jutted up out of my scalp. “You have goats in Caercoed, don’t you? Sheep? See how it feels like a lamb’s horn nub?”

  It took a moment, but Anwyl gently pressed. Maybe she’d been afraid the comb would tear the skin, as if it were a wound. Then she ran her fingers along the bumps, feeling how smooth and solid they were. Nothing to fear. I smiled with her as she said something, looking relieved, and then she sat down behind me to comb my hair.

  I sipped a cup of tea, glad for its soothing warmth. A healer had visited me last night, after I’d been carried up to bed on arrival, and my fever and congestion had ebbed. The tea scalded some lingering phlegm from my throat. And though my hair was nearly long enough to sit on, Anwyl made short work of combing it out — far faster than my little sister, who couldn’t stop chatting when she combed my hair. Anwyl began plaiting it without asking, some sort of braid far more complicated than I ever did, but I let her finish and tie the tail with a bit of cord.

  There was a well not far inside the manor’s gatehouse, with troughs for animals to drink and rough-hewn, sturdy benches. From my window, I watched water carriers line up buckets on the bench and one girl drew the water while the others took the filled ones, moved empties up the line, and hauled away when they had a matching pair.

  Most importantly, the benches were in the sun whereas my room was a little dim for reading.

  I tried to explain to Anwyl, but in the end she followed me and didn’t entirely understand until I sat down and opened my book. Then she gestured to ask me to stay there. “Yes,” I said, one of a few words of Caer I had picked out. I indicated my book and then the sun overhead.

  That satisfied her and she went to see to other duties.

  The manor’s gate was ironbound wood, and the gatehouse a square tower on either side connected by a walk. Granite walls swept off in either direction, broadly encircling the tall manor and its outbuildings. The squad of guards at the gate noted all who passed through, but that was not too much excitement, it seemed. I caught them watching me a few times.

  Kiefan sat down beside me, smelling of rose soap. Freshly clean-shaven, as well, he’d slicked his golden knight’s crest flat between his Blessing ridges to his collar. He wore a black surcote embroidered with the royal sigil, a full Shepherd moon silhouetting Mount Woden, in snowy white.

  He looked at me as long as I looked at him. “I must apologize. It had slipped my mind that you likely wear dresses most of the time.”

  “I’m glad to be out of cotes and hose. You men can keep them.”

  He smiled, watching the bustle of the gate-yard. “It’s not so different from Baron Eismann’s manor.”

  Chickens scattered as a wagon rumbled through, laden with firewood. Swirling dust picked out rays of afternoon sun. “Even with so few men?” I asked. “And those few in the kitchen?”

  “It’s strange,” he allowed. “I’d heard the stories, but thinking of knights is one thing. I squired with Captain Aleks, after all, and she’s been captain of the King’s Guard for years. No man would dare question her strength or courage. One doesn’t think that a land of amazons would be a land of carpenter women as well.”

  He gestured at the scene across the way, where a wagon minus one wheel was parked on blocks next to an open-sided hut. There, the carpenter carved new spokes for the broken wheel. She worked one stave with a draw-knife while shouting instructions to her apprentice, who cut more from a maple log.

  “Why wouldn’t there be carpenter women?” I asked. Bolder, “Why must men do everything? Women work as hard, speak as well, learn as quickly.”

  Some would laugh at that, but Kiefan only shrugged. Looking at my book, he said, “They do learn as quickly. I thought it ambitious of the Elect to give you such a book, but you soon proved otherwise.”

  I echoed the smile that crept out as he told me that. “I did?”

  And for a moment, I almost thought he turned a bit shy when he looked away. “You’re quite unexpected, Da — Kate.” He corrected himself. “You asked to be Kate, so as you wish.”

  “I also wish you to tell me, next time, about your headache before your kir gets so tightly knotted.” When he shrugged that off, I told him, “Master Parselev warned me about men like you.”

  Kiefan tried to appear wounded by that.

  “Men who won’t admit to pain,” I said, “until they drop like a sack of potatoes on a snowy mountain pass. A few minutes could’ve put them right earlier, but no, they must press on.”

  He looked down at his hands, cracking his knuckles. “I’m the best heir Father has,” he murmured. “I must be ready. My sister married Duke Seagrace and there are those who think my nephews unfit to stand in line to the crown. Will and Gerhardt are only boys, as well. And cousin A
dalrich’s crippled now…” His voice fell off further as he fidgeted.

  “I regret that.”

  Kiefan frowned. “You? How — you were in the surgery.” I nodded. “Adalrich said he owed an apology to the Elect for his language. You were out of pain charms?”

  “So late in the day, none had the focus left for even a spark charm. Sir Adalrich needed three to hold him down, so it fell to me to amputate.”

  A nervous laugh. “You cut his foot off.”

  I nodded. “I’m sure it was only the pain that made him say such things.”

  “He hardly ever raises his voice.”

  “And had to be tied to his pallet to keep him from trying to walk, the next morning. That was when Master Parselev gave me the warning.” I paused to check the memory. “He did say that all the king’s kin were prone to it.”

  Kiefan turned serious again. “Leaders must pay their dues.”

  “You push yourself too hard.” He started to brush that off too, and I said, “I know, it’s better too hard than too little. But you’re no use to anybody dead, either. I’m not going to tell anybody you get headaches. Saint Qadeem’s rule honor-binds me.”

  Kiefan relented a little. “Next time, then. Shall we begin the second dialogue?” He pointed to my book, still open but barely read. We spent the rest of the sunlight sitting by the well, but only got through a few paragraphs. Our conversation wandered far and wide, and my thoughts slipped away every time his hand brushed mine.

  Chapter 8

  Mohra, the captain who had brought us to the margraves, collected us in a sitting room off the main hall as she’d told us she would. We six were clean and presentable, by then. She wore a uniform much like what the gate guards wore, a short version of the Caer tunic in beige, bound with a red leather belt at her waist rather than a sash under her breasts. The belt was for her sword. Her hair, it turned out, was short as a boy’s.

  “The Gwatcyns wish a dinner with you,” she said, “ere the Crowns’ Elect arrives. Likely, ’twill be on the morrow. They wish to welcome you as guests ere you are emissaries of your kingdom. There shall be no state questions, they wish me to tell you, merely curiosity. Bear in mind the family speaks Arceal passably well, even the boys — m’ladies do not believe in ignorance. Should you need a difficult translation, I will be at hand.”