The boy leaned close to Remo's ear and whispered: "Because he's going blind."
Remo straightened up. "Are you serious?" .
"It's my fault. Last year, during the Midsummer Eve Feast, I climbed up a tree and couldn't get down. I was scared, you see. I'm a weak one, really, not like the other boys. I was showing off, to prove to my da . . ." His voice trailed off in shame.
"Hey," Remo said, hoisting the boy onto his lap. "Everybody gets scared. You wouldn't be normal if you didn't."
The boy stared hard at the ground, his cheeks red. "So my da came after me," he continued softly. "I was stuck on a high branch, and it was a long way down. It wasn't so strong. When my da climbed up on it to get hold of me, the branch give way. While we was falling, he put me on top of him so's I wouldn't hit ground. His head struck a great rock. He was like as dead for a fortnight or more. I prayed to all the gods there are to make him well, and he come out of it, but his eyes ain't never been the same again. And lately they been getting worse. You see, it's my fault."
"Griffith-"
" 'Tis! And now, if he fights you, he'll die sure. Don't you see, it'll be like me killing him myself. The gods are pointing at me for being a coward that day in the tree. They're going to take my da from me, like they took my ma, and then . . . And then ..."
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"Shh," Remo said, rubbing the boy's head.
"That's why it's me that's got to fight you. If you kill me, I'll deserve it. But not my da."
"Nobody's going to kill anybody, okay? There's not going to be any fight. I gave you my promise, didn't I?"
Griffith took Remo's finger and examined it. "Your sacred promise. Witnessed in blood."
"The most sacred. Now how about taking me to your dad so we can talk things over."
Griffith eyed him worriedly, "T'was your most sacred-"
"I get it, okay?"
The boy smiled. "I'll get you a horse in the morning. They're wild in these parts, and they're better than cars. I can tame them quick."
"I'd appreciate that," Remo said.
Chapter Fifteen
The boy took Remo into a green valley in the deepest part of the forest. There, tucked beneath a cluster of massive trees, stood a cottage with a newly thatched roof. Remo had to stoop to enter through the low arched doorway.
A man was inside, sharpening a knife on an oilstone. Even though he was sitting down and his back was to the door, he was a giant of a man.
"Da?" the boy said.
Emrys turned, smiling. "Well, I thought those goblins you're always talking to had ate you right this time." His smile disappeared when he saw Remo. In the dim light of the cottage, Remo could see that the man's eyes were clouded and mottled.
"Da, it's-"
"I know who it is," he said, rising. He nodded curtly to Remo. "There's but one who'd be coming to the valley now."
"He's not a true Chinee," Griffith said hopefully. "Y'see, Remo here has promised-"
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"I suppose you'll want to be starting," Emrys said, ignoring his son.
"No," Remo said quickly. "As a matter of fact-"
"You're not welcome to the hospitality of my home."
"Da, let him talk. Please."
"You hold your tongue, Griffith." He strode over to the door with large, thundering steps and threw it open. "We'll talk outside. You stay in and mind your silence." He locked the door behind him.
"Da . . ."
"I've chosen a place. You can see if it suits you," he told Remo as they walked toward a clearing in the glen.
Remo could hear the boy's voice calling frantically from inside the cottage. "You promised, Remo! Don't forget your promise. T'was made in blood!".
The big man removed the sheepskin vest he wore and draped it neatly over a rock. From inside the hollow of an oak he took a piece of bark covered with strange words. "A message for my son," he said, laying the scrap of wood on top of the vest. From his trousers pocket, he extracted the carved jade stone Chiun had given him and threw it at Remo's feet. "There's the rock. It's begun now."
Remo breathed deeply. "Emrys, I'm not going to fight you."
The man's mouth turned down into a bitter scowl. "What's Griffith been telling you?"
"That you have no more reason to go through with this farce than I do," Remo said. "Tradition or not, I've seen enough of the Master's Trial to know it's a crock. Let's end it here and now. For everybody's sake." He extended his hand.
Emrys shoved past him. "I won't have it," he growled. "If you don't have the guts to fight me in the Master's Trial, then fight me as a man."
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"What difference would that make?"
Emrys stared at him, his nostrils distended. "I might let you live," he said menacingly.
"Forget it. I've promised not to fight you."
"A promise to a babe."
"Who's got more sense than his father."
"Fight, damn you!"
"You'd lose, can't you see that?" Remo shouted. "You'd lose to a man half your size, let alone me. How far gone are your eyes? Just a little blurriness around the edges, or are shapes all you can make out?"
"Make your move, you spineless coward!"
"No. I said I wouldn't fight."
Emrys's face was contorted into a mask of rage and shame. "Then you'll die. I'll not be pitied by you."
He lunged for Remo and swung wildly, missing him by a foot. The missed blow sent him sprawling on the ground.
"Now look here," Remo said, going over to him and touching his shoulder. Just as he was about to speak, Emrys took him by surprise with a powerful roundhouse right to the jaw. Remo felt as if all his teeth had jarred loose at once.
"Who's blurry around the edges now, chopstick pecker?" He laughed, a big, hearty guffaw filled with pride.
Remo rubbed his jaw. "Very funny."
"Where'd you learn to fight, anyway, some Chinee opium den?"
Remo rolled his eyes. "My training comes from Sinanju. That's in Korea, peabrain. Not China."
He attacked. Remo ducked. "Son of a yellow whore."
"Oh, come off it."
"So that's how you fight over in Sin and Goo. With your mouth," Emrys taunted. "It's a big one, too. To make up for your lack of balls, I'll wager." He came at
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Remo in a flying tackle, clutching Remo's legs with a viselike grip.
"Hey-"
Emrys flipped him over and jabbed two knuckles at his eyeballs. Before they struck, Remo took hold of the big man's arms and threw him.
"That's more like it, dogmeat," Emrys said, grinning. He leaped at Remo. Remo caught him, and the two of them wrestled, unyielding, until they were both slathered in sweat.
Remo's wrists were aching. They'd been grappling, stuck to each other like Siamese twins, for twenty minutes or more. He should have known better than to underestimate Emrys, he realized. His opponent's eyes might be failing, but he was strong as a bull.
"I know . . . how you got here," Emrys grunted.
"Ng," Remo said.
"Your . . . friend . . . Chiun ..."
"Yeah?" He shook a bead of sweat off his nose. "What about him?"
"He shits white boys like you for turds."
Remo laughed. "You've got to be the grossest-"
Emrys used the opportunity to slam Remo in the belly, shooting him across the glen into a tree trunk.
Feeling his lungs collapse, Remo rolled out of the way of Emrys's oncoming body.
"Sorry, Griffith, but all bets are off," he mumbled, striking out with a left hook. It sliced the Welshman across the shoulder. With a howl, Emrys came at him again, throwing him into the center of the clearing like a sack of bricks.
Remo closed his eyes as he landed, grateful that Chiun wasn't around to see him fighting like a barroom brawler with a half-blind lunatic. And losing.
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"This is it," Remo said, stumbling to his feet. "I'm beginning to lose patience with you."
"Arggh," Emrys gurgled, staggering forward, his fists weaving in front of him. Remo stepped out of the way. Emrys tripped on a rock and fell face down with a thud.
"You're the one who wanted to fight," Remo said, trying to focus.
"So I do." The Welshman charged.
Remo charged.
And they both fell down.
"What was that?" Remo said, cranking himself upward into a sitting position.
Emrys brushed some dust off his bare chest. "I na ken it. Summat struck me fierce upon the head. And just when I was about to finish you off, too."
"Finish me off?" Remo objected. "That's a-wait a second." He crawled a few feet and retrieved a long slender pole tipped by an iron arrow wound around the stick by a strip of leather. "It's a spear. I think."
Emrys searched himself for wounds. "Am I hit?"
"No. Neither am I. But it knocked both of us off our feet."
"Oh, na," Emrys moaned, his voice quavering. "We done something wrong."
"Like what?" Remo said irritably. "What are you talking about?"
Emrys pointed. "A great white form yonder. 'Tis the gods, come to seek vengeance."
Remo looked in the direction where Emrys was pointing. Through the foliage of the forest, he could make out the shape of a white horse.
"I should have listened to Griffith," Emrys said, his voice filled with doom and wonder. "He talks to the wood spirits. I never believed they was for true, but the boy knew. Now it's too late."
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"It's only a horse, for crying out loud: Get yourself a pair of glasses."
"A horse that throws spears?"
Remo fingered the iron-tipped pole uncertainly "Somebody's standing behind the horse."
"You great Chinee lummox. You're blinder'n I am."
The horse galloped into the clearing, then slowed to a halt some fifty yards from the two men. The rider was a woman. She dismounted, the flowing robes she wore billowing gracefully. When she was on her feet, she gave the animal a sharp slap on the rump and sent him galloping into the wood. Then she walked forward purposefully toward the two men.
Remo looked, shook his head, looked again. "It can't be," he said slowly.
"Oh, gar," Emrys lamented.
She was the same woman Remo had spent the night with in London, but radically different. She was dressed in a loose gown of sea green, fastened at her shoulders by two large gold medallions. In her belt were a small ax and a knife. Her golden hair hung to below her waist and moved like water with each step she took. As she drew nearer, the sun caught the thin gold circlet around her forehead, making her look like a barbarian princess. Her eyes, green and gray and blue, regarded him somberly. She did not speak.
"It's you," Remo said.
She picked up the spear. Without a word, she hurled it into the forest and followed it.
"Is she real?" Emrys whispered, afraid to turn his head.
"Yeah," Remo said, then thought better of it. "Maybe."
She returned with the still warm carcass of a rabbit, a red wound where its eye had been. Silently she offered it to Emrys.
The Welshman accepted it, swallowing hard. "Well, I
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suppose we could all do with a little dinner," he same lamely. He cleared his throat.
She turned to Remo, her head held high.
"Sam." He said it so softly it was almost a sigh.
"I am Jilda of Lakluun," the woman said. "Here for the Master's Trial." Then, slowly, the strange eyes twinkling, she inclined her head to Remo in a formal bow.
Chapter Sixteen
"I prayed," Griffith said, staring into the hearth. The cottage was filled with the warm, smoky aroma of the rabbit cooking over the open fire.
Roasting meat was not one of Remo's favorite smells, but he'd learned through the years to hold his tongue in a world full of carnivores. He stayed neaf the window and tried to breathe shallowly.
"I asked Mryddin and all the ancient gods and the spirits to bring you both back safe, and they did. The Lady of the Lake herself brought you home. And a good fat hare, too."
"Uh," Remo said, feeling nauseated. He leaned out the window. Outside, Jilda was stalking the forest, spear in hand. "The High Executioner of the animal kingdom, you mean."
Griffith gasped. "Remo, take it back, quick. What you said was a sacrilege."
"Don't be bossing our guest, boy," Emrys said. To Remo's dismay, he was nailing the rabbit skin up to dry on the cottage wall. "Jilda's no spirit. She's a friend of Remo's."
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"But she is! 'Tis the Lady of the Lake."
"Griffith!"
The boy crouched. "Yes, Da."
"Leave us now." Griffith slinked outside. "He holds to the old religion more than most," Emrys explained. "Sometimes I worry about him. Too much like his ma, all air and dreams. I don't know how I'll get him ready."
"For what?" Remo said.
Emrys put down his hammer and stepped back to admire the bloody pelt on the wall. "Why, for his turn at the Master's Trial, don't you know."
"What? I thought that was all over."
Emrys looked surprised. "Between us? How could it be over? 1 like you, Remo. Don't get me wrong now. But both of us are still alive. That's against the rules."
"Nei skynugur," Jiida muttered, bursting into the room with another rabbit hanging limply between her fingers.
"What's that you say, missy?"
"It is a Norse expression describing what I feel about the precious Master's Trial. Translated, it means 'bull-dookey.' "
She cleaned the rabbit expertly, tossing the intestines out the window, inches from Remo's face.
"Do you mind?" he said testily.
"Mind what?" Jilda asked.
Remo prepared himself for an explanation of the social unacceptability of slapping one's associates with animal organs, then waved the idea away. Even the most rudimentary forms of etiquette would be wasted on Jilda. He winced as she pulled off the rabbit's skin with a jerk and tossed it to Emrys, who nailed it happily to the wall.
"The Trial was originally begun so that our people would not make war on one another," she said. "1 believe that was because someone thought that one day we might all need to band together.''
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"Live with a bunch of bloodthirsty Vikings?" Emrys said, genuinely surprised.
Jilda's dagger was out of her belt in a flash.
"Whoa," Remo said. "No murders till after dinner, okay?"
Jilda replaced the knife scornfully. "Anyway, I was saying we ought to be friends."
"Great start you've made," Remo said.
"But abolishing the Trial," Emrys protested.
Jilda thrust the rabbit onto the spit over the fire. "It's a stupid tradition. Maybe it served a purpose a thousand years ago, but it's time we ended it. I have given this thought, and I, for one, will not kill strangers who have done me and my people no harm."
"Bingo," Remo said. "I've reached the same decision."
"But my father was killed by the great Chinee," Emrys said.
Jilda cut him off. "So was mine. That doesn't change anything."
"Well, I don't know. I'll not be called a coward."
"Don't you see?" Jilda said, waving Griffith inside. "If all three of us refuse to fight, it won't be a question of cowardice. And your boy will be spared from having to do battle."
Emrys jutted out his chin. "You talk like you think Griffith would lose."
Griffith walked in, laughing lightly. His hands were cupped. He opened them to reveal a tiny green tree frog, which bounded out the window to the boy's cries of joy.
"Well, look at him," Jilda said, obviously annoyed. "He's a kind and clever boy, but even you can't think he'd make a decent warrior."
"I'll not have you speaking that way in my house, missy."
"That's all right," Griffith said gently. "She's right."
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"You keep your peace."
"But I'm not a good f
ighter. I'll never be. I'm small, and my hands aren't fast."
Emrys threw down his hammer with a crash. "By Mryddin, I never thought I'd live to see a member of my family call himself a coward."
"Hey," Remo objected. "He's not a coward. He was willing to take • me on himself to keep me from fighting you. That might be what you call a coward, but I'd rather have one guy like him on my side, alive, than a hundred terrific fighters who've gone to their reward during this asinine Master's Trial."
Emrys deliberated, his glance shifting from Jilda and Remo to the boy. Finally he said, "Well, I suppose you're right. Seeing as how we're about to share a meal together, there's not much reason to fight."
"Oh, Da," the boy said, hugging him.
Jilda nodded. "Then it's settled," she said. "Now we eat."
Remo sat a little apart from the others, contenting himself with a bowl of roots and wild grasses from the forest while they stabbed hungrily at the roast rabbits.
"Will you not have any?" Griffith asked.
Remo shook his head.
"Is that part of being a Chinee, eating no meat?"
"Sort of."
Jilda laughed, her eyes changing from blue to bright green. "Don't ask the Chinese to claim our Remo. He's an American. But his soul belongs with us."
Remo spoke to the dancing green eyes. "I feel as if I do belong with you . . . all," he added, flustered.
"We know," Emrys said.
Remo felt sleepy. The warm cabin, the safety of the woods ... It all seemed so homey, and yet in the same room with him were a man who could hold him in a
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hammerlock for half an hour and a woman who could drop two men with the broadside of a spear.
He smiled lazily as he watched Jilda eat. The sight of her tearing off the pale meat with her fingers filled him with strange passion. She was at the same time a lady and a wild animal, beautiful and free. And he wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman.
"You look content, my friend," Emrys said. "Although how a man can be satisfied with birds' food I'll never know."
Remo set down his bowl, making an effort to tear his gaze away from Jilda. "I am," he said. "It's funny. I feel like I'm with my own kind. I always thought Chiun and I were the only ones like us."
"And so you are," Emrys said. "What the three of us have in common is that none of us belong to the world." He took in at once the unspoken intimacy between Remo and Jilda. "But we can never be part of one another's lives without giving up our own ways. That would be worse than death. For me, at least."
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