by Angus Wells
“Just show me,” Cullyn grunted. He felt excited at the prospect of buying a horse, but also disappointed by Elvira’s rejection. He wanted to get out of Lyth as quickly as possible. Save that staying might catch him another sight of Abra—for whatever that was worth.
Andrias shrugged. “Come look at it, then. I’ll let Jordia tell you about it.”
They went down through the narrow streets of Lyth to the stable, where a gray-haired woman greeted them and looked Cullyn up and down before she looked at Andrias and said, “He might be able to handle the bastard.”
Andrias said, “If anyone can. He’d not listen to me.”
Cullyn wondered what was wrong with the horse.
“Well, let’s see.” Jordia grinned at him. “Perhaps he can manage the beast. And at least it’s cheap.”
Her face was as nut-brown as Lofantyl’s, and massively lined, but she walked with a fine stride, skirts swinging over wide hips with a vigor that belied her obvious age. Her arms were muscled from handling the horses.
She took them to a stall at the end of the stable, where a tall, black horse stood, stamping its feet. It rolled its eyes when it saw them, and bared its teeth.
“Why should he be cheap?” Cullyn asked. “He’s superb.”
“He killed his last owner,” Jordia said. “Stamped him to death. I was going to sell him for meat until Andrias spoke to me.”
Cullyn stared at the horse. It was big as any hunter out of the keep, and sleekly black as midnight. It flashed its teeth as he watched, and rose up to paw its fore hooves at the watchers.
Andrias said, “You’d be better to wait for the Horse Fair.”
And Jordia added, “He’s a killer.”
Cullyn stared at the splendid beast and said, “How much?”
Jordia quoted a price and Cullyn shook her hand.
“That,” Andrias said, “includes the tack, no?”
“And well rid of it,” said Jordia. “It’s bloodstained from the last owner.”
Without further ado, Cullyn swung up onto the stable’s gate and dropped into the stall. He ducked as the stallion snapped its teeth, avoiding the vicious bite, and then again as hooves swung toward his skull. He turned aside as the hind legs kicked at him, and jumped to grab an ear, and bit it and hung on as the horse struggled. He held his teeth firm in the ear as he settled one hand under the snapping jaw and the other in the mane and struggled to force the beast down. It snorted and bucked, but then fell over so that he could hold it, lying across its neck as he whispered to it.
“I’m your friend,” he murmured. “I’ll take you out of here to places you can run free. Believe me, eh?”
After a while the horse calmed, and Cullyn let it loose to rise, and when it did, it looked at him and ducked its head, and let him stroke its neck.
“I never thought to see that,” Jordia said, amazement in her voice. “Has he fey blood?”
“He’s an odd fellow,” Andrias replied, grinning. “But he’s got a way with him.”
“For sure.” Jordia brought a saddle and bridle from her tack room. “You know how to ride?”
Cullyn said, “I’ll learn.”
THEY LED THE BIG BLACK STALLION back to the stables of the Golden Goat, where Cullyn fed him oats and saw him watered and settled. Andrias watched in amazement as the horse ate from Cullyn’s hand.
“He killed his last owner,” the landlord said. “Aren’t you afraid of him?”
“No.” Cullyn shook his head. “I think his last owner didn’t understand him.”
“Even so.”
“You brought me to him.”
“You were anxious for a horse.”
Cullyn said, “Aye, and now I’ve got one. Even better than the keep’s.”
“If he doesn’t kill you.”
Cullyn laughed, rubbing the horse’s nose. “He’ll not—trust me.”
“What shall you call him?”
Cullyn thought a moment, then said, “Fey.”
“Fey?” Andrias stared at him. “What kind of name is that?”
“The one I want to give him,” Cullyn said.
“Perhaps it is like they say.” Andrias shook his head. “You are crazy.”
“Perhaps.” Cullyn stroked the sleek neck and Fey nuzzled his face. “Who cares?”
“Folk in Lyth,” Andrias said. “They wonder about you.”
“Let them wonder.” Cullyn was altogether too happy with his horse to worry about mankind’s concerns. “Do they not like it, let them come tell me.”
“Someday,” Andrias warned, “they might.”
Cullyn shrugged. “So be it, and do they find me, I’ll answer them. But now …” He stroked his magnificent new horse again. “Let’s celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” Andrias frowned. “Have you so much coin left?”
Cullyn shook his head. “No, but I thought you might …”
“Another deer,” Andrias said.
And Cullyn said, “A deal.”
They went back into the tavern, where Martia met them with a worried expression. “You didn’t … He didn’t …”
Andrias shrugged. “He did—he liked the beast.”
Martia frowned, angry with her husband, and turned to Cullyn. “He’s a killer. Why don’t you wait for the Horse Fair?”
“I like him,” Cullyn said. “And I think he likes me. Anyway, he’s mine now.”
Martia sighed, clutching a moment at his shoulder. “I just pray he doesn’t kill you.” Then an ominous glance at her husband. “And if he does, someone else shall suffer.”
“So be it,” Andrias declared. “But I’ll tell you that if anyone can handle that beast, it’s our Cullyn. Now, let’s celebrate his purchase.”
They drank well, and ate better, and as the inn closed Cullyn felt wrapped in the comfort of good friends, and—as before—more than a little merry. Indeed, when he rose, he watched the room revolve slowly around him, and had to clutch at a chair to stay on his feet. He looked for Elvira, anticipating, but she was nowhere in sight. And when he asked, Martia said, “She’s gone with a friend,” and Andrias clapped him on the shoulder and said, “I doubt you’d be up to her this night. Best find your bed and sleep, eh?”
Cullyn felt disappointed and relieved at the same time. He swayed a while until Andrias set a hand on his shoulder and helped him to his chamber, where he collapsed onto the bed and fell instantly into troubled sleep.
He dreamed of Elvira, and of Fey, and Lofantyl, and Abra, and they were all mixed up together in confusions that had him tossing and turning, so that he wrapped the sheets around himself and thought he was entrapped. And at some point in the long night he vomited into the chamber pot, and then slept more peacefully until dawn and the stirring of the inn woke him.
His head ached then, and the sun coming in through the windows hurt his eyes; his mouth was parched, but he’d drunk all the water in the room, which now stank of his vomit. So he struggled into his clothes and went, embarrassed, to the yard, where he ducked his head under the well pump and swallowed copious mouthfuls of fresh water.
The sun was not long up, but at this time of year it already filled the sky with light, and birds chorused a welcome that sent splintery shards of sound through Cullyn’s head. The clanging of the kitchen pots did him no good, and it was worse when he saw Elvira emerge from the kitchen.
Her hair was tousled, and she smiled when she saw him.
“You slept well?”
He shook his head—and wished he’d not. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish …”
“You lost your chance,” she told him.
“But … perhaps … I hoped …”
She looked him in the eyes. “I’d have been with you, had you not been more interested in that horse.”
“I need a horse,” he said.
“And I need a husband, or someone to protect me. Do you think I want to live here all my life? Serving tables, and … well, the rest?”
Cullyn shook his head. �
��You could live with me.”
“In the forest?” She shook her head in turn. “No.”
It was what Martia and Andrias had told him, so he looked at her and gave up all his wonderings, and said, “Goodbye.”
Elvira nodded and bussed his cheek. “Goodbye,” she answered, and went back inside the tavern.
Cullyn went to the stables, where Fey met him with an anxious stare. The horse rolled its eyes as he approached its stall. The stallion’s ears flattened and its lips came back off big teeth. Cullyn leaned against the bars, murmuring softly, and after a while the horse calmed and stretched out its head so that he might stroke it. He breathed into the velvet nostrils, and rubbed at the muscled neck. He felt a kinship with this wild horse.
He saw the grain basket filled and went into the inn, where Martia served him breakfast, and Andrias asked when he might deliver the promised deer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Another month? Perhaps sooner.”
He could see Elvira serving a merchant, who smiled at her and touched her in a familiar way, and wondered if he felt jealous.
“When you can,” Andrias said.
“The sooner the better.” He did not like the way Elvira served the merchant. He knew he had no right to resent it, but even so, he could not help it. So he finished his breakfast quickly and said, “I’ll be gone now. And bring you back that deer.”
He went out to the stables and found his cart. He loaded the tack he’d bought and brought his new horse out of the stall. Fey came willingly enough until Cullyn set the saddle on his back and hiked up the traps of the cart.
Then Fey began to buck, and in moments the cart was reduced to splinters.
Andrias emerged from the inn. “I doubt he’s a carthorse.”
Cullyn eased his hold on the lunging horse’s reins and shrugged. “No,” he allowed, facing the inevitable.
“More a rider’s horse,” Andrias suggested.
Cullyn extricated the cart’s traps from the saddle and calmed the big, black horse. “One deer?”
“And do you need a healer, I’ll pay.”
“Thank you, but I’ll not.” Cullyn set a foot in the stirrup and swung astride the stallion.
Then he had no time to answer whatever it was Andrias shouted, because he was sitting astride a bucking monster that was intent on throwing him from the saddle and likely—he now remembered the warnings—stamping him dead.
He felt the world spin around—it was as bad as his hangover—saw the courtyard revolve, and felt the saddle smash against his buttocks, sending pain up through his spine into his still-aching head. He clung to the reins and wrapped his legs about the horse’s ribs firmly as he’d swung them around Elvira’s.
Then Fey calmed. He was unsure whether it was because he had beaten the horse, or because Fey accepted him. He only knew that the big stallion settled as Andrias opened the gate, and charged out.
The cart was left splintered and forgotten as Cullyn thundered down the road, heady with the excitement of this wild ride. He felt the big black horse pounding toward the forest and savored the whistle of the wind in his hair. He charged through the village, and onto the fields beyond. He had a horse—and such a horse as could run, and he exulted in the sensation.
Then, after he’d reached the forest’s edge, he was spilled from the saddle.
He was unsure why—perhaps a low branch, or only his ineptitude—but Fey came back to nuzzle his face, as if in apology, and he climbed to his feet and mounted the horse again, and knew that he loved the animal.
He rode home and put Fey into the fenced area behind his cottage. He set out water and grain, and watched the pigs squeal around this newcomer.
And then he prepared a meal as the sun went down, and thought of Elvira and Abra and Lofantyl.
The one was lost to him, and he felt no great regret for that; the other was beyond his reach—a keep lord’s daughter with an orphaned forester? But Lofantyl intrigued him. He picked up the knife the Durrym had gifted him and turned it about in the light of the setting sun. It glistened as no metal did; it was more like wood or stone, picking up the dying rays as if it embraced them and took them into itself. He thought on what Lofantyl had said about living with the forest, and how Kash’ma Hall was built of wood. He thought that he’d like to see that place.
FOUR
ABRA WOKE to the sound of birdsong, and sunlight on her face. Dawn’s brightness came in through her bedroom windows and the chorus of the avians seemed to accompany her troubled thoughts as she lay contemplating what she’d heard the night before. For a while she rested, then determination overcame her and she arose, washing quickly and dressing faster. It was her father’s habit to rise early—far sooner than his wife—and take his breakfast with his men.
Abra went to join him.
She found him in the dining hall, a plate piled with bacon and eggs before him, a loaf of fresh-baked bread at one elbow, and a mug of mulled ale at the other. He smiled as he saw her, and drew a hand through his beard, scraping off crumbs that fell onto the table.
“You’re up early, child.”
“I was thinking,” she said.
“About Wyllym? Don’t worry—you’ll wed by your choice. Say nay and I’ll support you.”
“It wasn’t that.” Abra took the mug of tea a servant offered, and helped herself to a measure of eggs. “I heard what you said after …”
She wondered if Bartram might be angry, but he only chuckled and said, “I wondered. The chimneys, eh?”
She nodded, and he laughed aloud. “When I was a child,” he said, “and my father was lord of this keep, I used to listen all the time to the chimneys and the vents. There’s much information you can learn from holes in the stone.”
“And not all welcome,” Abra said.
“No.” Her father shook his head, and his expression become solemn.
“Invasion of the fey lands?” Abra asked
“I think,” her father replied, “that that’s a dream concocted by Khoros and the Church. As I told Fendur—and you doubtless heard—I don’t think we can cross the Alagordar; and I see no reason why we should. Leave the fey folk to their country and we to ours is my belief. Why fight another war?”
“So what shall happen?”
Bartram shrugged and shoveled a fresh mouthful of eggs into his mouth. “I don’t know for sure. Were it my decision, I’d find land in Kandar for our burgeoning population. But it seems that Khoros is intent on crossing the Alagordar and taking over the fey folk’s land.”
“Is that possible?” Abra asked.
“I don’t think so,” her father answered. “I think they command some greater magic than the Church can raise, or blades defeat. But Per Fendur says the Church has new magic. He says they’ve ways to circumvent the Barrier. Did you not hear as you spied on us?”
He smiled benignly and Abra giggled as she shook her head. “Not that part. The wind was too strong.”
Bartram lifted bacon to his mouth and chewed a while before he spoke again. “Per claims that the Church has learned somewhat of the Durrym magic. It comes from the land, he claims, and is far stronger across the river—but still works here. He says that the Church absorbs it and has learned how to use it against the Durrym to cross the Barrier. That’s why he was sent here: to investigate that power.”
“Do you believe him?”
Her father shrugged again. “Perhaps; but if he does, I’ve not yet seen it. I wonder if it’s not just wild hope.” He chuckled, spilling breadcrumbs and fragments of bacon over the table, brushing more from his ample stomach. “I’d as soon leave things as they are. Better than another war, eh?”
“But if he can?” Abra asked. “If the Church can defeat the Barrier—shall you go with them?”
“I’m sworn to defend Kandar,” Bartram answered. “Does Khoros ask it, I must obey.”
“Even though …”Abra left the question hanging in the air between them.
“Even though,” her father repl
ied.
Just then Vanysse entered the hall. She looked sleepy, but her hair was dressed and her gown fresh-pressed, and she smelled of perfume. She bussed her husband on the cheek and took the chair beside him, favoring Abra with a casual smile.
“Look at you.” She drew long-nailed fingers through Bartram’s beard. “What have you been eating?”
“My breakfast, darling.”
Abra winced as Vanysse simpered and said, “You eat too much.”
“I was hungry.” He scooped up the last of his break fast, and beamed at her. Abra felt forgotten. “Shall we hunt today?”
Vanysse shook her head. “I’d sooner rest.”
“As you wish,” Abra heard her father agree, and saw Amadis enter the hall; Vanysse smiled at his entry.
Abra felt a moment’s anger—with her father and Vanysse and Amadis, as much as with herself. And decided that she wanted to go somewhere clean and honest. At least, somewhere away from her stepmother.
So she excused herself and went out to the stables, and found her horse, and ordered the stable boy to saddle the gelding.
And was halted by Laurens, who asked: “Where are you going?”
She stared at him, angered by his blunt inquisition. “I’d take a ride.”
“Not alone.”
“By whose order?”
“The keep’s,” he said. “Your father’s.” And grinned, “I suspect you’ve heard what’s afoot.”
Abra nodded.
“So you understand?”
She nodded again.
“Then I’ll come with you. I could use a ride.”
“If you can keep up.” Abra swung astride the gray gelding, and stared irritably at Laurens as he mounted a bay mare.
He shouted at the stable hands that he’d accompany the lord’s daughter on a morning ride, and smiled at her.
“I think I can match your pace,” he said. Then, over his shoulder as they rode out, “Tell Amadis where I go.”
The gods knew that he was old and grizzled, but he still matched her pace as they went out through the gates and cantered through the village to the fields beyond.