He saw two men approach the circle, and climb to the fighting area. Both were large, but his eyes were drawn to a powerful black-haired figure with a large, flat face and huge hands. Mulgrave recognized him. He was Chain Shada, a former soldier who had become wealthy through his fist-fighting skills. It surprised Mulgrave that a professional like Shada should have been interested in such a small event. He had once earned two hundred pounds fighting in Capital Park before a crowd of forty thousand. It was said he owned several properties in the capital, and two racing stables near Baracum. What would such a man be doing, travelling hundreds of miles for a thirty-chailling purse?
Intrigued, Mulgrave waited until the two fighters had examined the circle and climbed down to the ground. 'Good day to you, Master Shada,' he said then. 'It is an honour to have you visit our town.'
'I'm sure it is,' said Chain Shada, without hint of humour. He was several inches over six feet tall, wide-shouldered and bull-necked. His face, though showing the marks of more than one hundred fights - scarred eyebrows, a broad flattened nose - was still savagely handsome. His eyes were dark, and wide set, his voice deep. 'Who are you?'
'Captain Mulgrave. I will be in charge of security.'
'Will the Moidart be watching me in the final?'
'Sadly, no.'
'Pity. He'll miss a fine exhibition. I expect it will be against Gorain here,' he added, slapping the shoulder of the powerful man standing alongside him. 'He's good. In a few years he'll be even better. Luckily I will have retired by then.'
'I saw you fight the champion from Goriasa,' said Mulgrave. 'It was at Werwick Castle four or five years ago. You broke his jaw in the first period, but he fought on for nigh on an hour.'
'Aye, he was tough, that one,' said Shada. 'Had a good left right combination, and knew how to use his head. Split my nose with a good butt in the eleventh period. Thought I'd gone blind. Are you a fight follower?'
'No. I was on duty that day also. But I recall your footwork was exquisite. Always in balance - even when in trouble.'
'It's all in the legs, Mulgrave. Every punch comes from the toes, and every blow received is absorbed and lessened by correct footwork. Tell me, are there any highland men who should merit concern?'
'Fist fighting is not a sport here, Master Shada. It is not even considered a craft. In the highlands a fight involves two men throwing punches until one falls down. But there will be some big lads facing you, and you'll take a few whacks before the final.'
'Not so,' replied Chain Shada. 'I am only here to fight the final. The bishop offered me fifty pounds. He is a fight follower and my greatest supporter - or so he tells me.'
Mulgrave fell silent for a moment. 'That is hardly sporting, sir.
The man you face will have fought maybe five ... six opponents before he steps into the circle with you.'
'I shall go easy on him. As I said, it is more of an exhibition, and will give Gorain an opportunity to test himself. I'm hardly likely to want to batter my own apprentice.'
'Indeed. I can see that. However, there is always the possibility that you will not be facing Gorain.'
'You think some highland lout can beat me?' Gorain sneered. 'Nonsense!'
Mulgrave looked at him. Like Chain Shada's his face was broad, the cheekbones and brows rounded, and therefore less likely to suffer cuts. There was a brooding power in the man, but Mulgrave took an instant dislike to him. There was something in his eyes that spoke of cruelty and malice.
'A lucky blow, sir,' said Mulgrave, 'a slip, a rush of blood to the head. It could happen.'
'In a pig's eye!' snapped Gorain. 'I am unbeaten in seventeen fights. No stinking sheep-shagger will beat me. You can wager your fortune on that, captain.'
'I don't gamble, sir.'
'It wouldn't be a gamble,' said Chain Shada. 'Gorain has the talent to be the best I have ever seen. I intend to make twice the fortune from his career that I have made from my own. Next month he will be fighting in Baracum, in the King's Tourney. There he will make a name for himself. And now we must be going. The bishop has promised us steak and uisge. It is said there is no finer steak than that found in the highlands.'
'The same can be said of the uisge,' Mulgrave told him.
'I may try it - but only after the tourney,' said Chain Shada. 'A fighter needs a clear head.'
'An old fighter maybe,' said Gorain.
Mulgrave saw a momentary flash of irritation cross Chain Shada's features. 'It was good to meet you, captain,' he said. 'Perhaps we can meet for a dram of uisge later tonight.'
'I shall look forward to it, sir.'
The Wyrd was close to exhaustion. She had travelled far, and her work had barely begun. It was cold now, deep within the Wishing Tree wood, and she shivered and drew her tattered cloak more firmly around her shoulders. Resting her back against the bole of a twisted oak she tried to rest her mind.
There was so little magic left now in Wishing Tree that all her efforts amounted to little more than adding a drop of perfume to a stagnant pond. The analogy annoyed her, for it made her life's work seem futile. I will not become defeatist, she told herself. I will persevere.
The Seidh were long gone, the land becoming increasingly barren without them. Yet the Seidh alone did not create the magic that once flowered across the land. They merely harnessed it. It lived within the hearts of all living things, but it radiated most from man. Acts of love and unselfishness, heroism and duty, all added to the magic, feeding the earth and the trees, flowing across the mighty mountains, carried in the rivers and streams. A mother singing to her child, a farmer giving thanks for his crops, two lovers, arm in arm by a river bank, a hero standing alone on a wooden bridge, defying the enemy. Thus was the land enhanced.
Sadly the opposite was also true. Acts of selfishness and vengeance, thoughts of greed and avarice, dark deeds of savagery and murder, robbed the land, draining it of harmony. The Varlish were not inherently evil, but their arrogance and their lust for power blinded them to the majesty of their surroundings. The mountains were merely lumps of rock, yielding coal and gold and silver, the forests sources of timber for their ships and buildings. Their furnaces polluted the sky with black smoke, their cities of stone became breeding grounds for disease, and their endless rapacious need for war and conquest brought with it oceans of despair, sorrow and hatred. Like a plague of locusts descending on a cornfield the Varlish ate into the magic of the world, corrupting its soul.
The Wyrd felt anger touch her, and quelled it swiftly. She could not allow their malice to find a place within her own soul. 'They do not know what they do,' she whispered. Much like a child running around and stamping on the ants beneath his feet. They have no sense of what they are destroying.
A water rat emerged from a stream close by, and scampered across the clearing, pausing to look at the Wyrd before vanishing beneath a bush. The Wyrd closed her eyes, seeking calm. She rested there for an hour, dozing and dreaming of her youth, and remembering the first day she had met the spirit of Riamfada. She was a seven-year-old gathering herbs for her mother on the edge of the Wishing Tree wood. He had stepped from the trees and spoken to her. He seemed to be just a young clansman, fair-haired and sweet of face. 'Walk with me,' he said.
'We should not enter the woods,' she told him. 'It is forbidden.'
'Not for you and me, Caretha.'
'Doom will fall upon any mortal who ventures into the wood. Everyone knows that.'
'Not every mortal. Connavar walked here. Bane walked here. Trust me. Come.'
Looping her herb sack over her shoulder Caretha had taken his hand and walked into the woods. It still surprised her that she had done so. Her mother had warned her of strangers and their dark ways.
Riamfada brought her to a little clearing. A fire was burning, and upon it was a copper pot, hanging from a tripod. Steam was rising from the pot. It filled the clearing with a sweet smell, a perfume she had never forgotten. Riamfada sat by the fire, and plucked a small blue flower from the ground
close by. He held it up for her to see. The flower was almost dead, its petals fading and brown at the edges. He closed his hand around it and reached out. The child leaned forward. His hand opened. What he held was no longer dying, but vibrant with colour; the blue of a summer sky at sunset, its centre white as new snow. His fingers curled over it once more. This time when they opened the flower had gone, replaced by a small, silver brooch in the shape of the bloom.
'That is a clever trick,' she said. 'Can I touch it?'
'You may touch it, and you may keep it, Caretha.'
The child pinned it to her dress. 'It is very beautiful,' she said.
'Only you will be able to see it.'
'Why?'
'Because it is magic, and it is yours alone.'
'Does it work spells?'
'Not yet. But it will.'
'When?'
'When I have taught you all you need to know.'
She touched the brooch. It was warm and made her fingers tingle. 'Do you live near here?' she asked him.
'No. I died near here,' he replied.
Back in the present the Wyrd smiled, recalling that the child had not been at all surprised at such a statement. Her memories of Riamfada were fond ones and she felt refreshed. Glancing down she touched the tiny brooch on her faded green dress. It tingled still.
Rising, she returned to her work. Unwrapping the crystal from its covering of black velvet she held it in her hands and began again the chant Riamfada had taught her so many years before. Freeing her mind of all stresses and burdens, she focused on all that was clean and clear, the freshness of the air, the birdsong in the trees, the rustling of the leaves above and around her. She pictured the energy flowing from the sun, golden and invigorating, from the waters of the stream, white as a saint's conscience, from the trees, healing and green.
'I am a vessel, empty and pure,' she chanted, feeling the power begin to fill her. The crystal in her hands became warmer and warmer. Slowly the colour changed, from white to grey and then to black. Threads of gold grew within it like blades of yellow grass. These thickened and swelled until the crystal itself had ceased to be, replaced by a block of what appeared to be solid gold.
The Wyrd let out a weary sigh. Rising to her feet she carried the golden block to the centre of the clearing and laid it on the sun-dried, yellowing grass. Kneeling beside it she spoke the seven words of power.
The crystal began to glow. Around it the grass thickened, becoming emerald green. The Wyrd closed her eyes. Blue flowers sprang to life as the magic rippled out from it, flowing across the clearing until it touched the ancient oaks.
When she opened her eyes the clearing was verdant, the grass rich and velvet, the trees swelling with new life. The air tasted as sweet as honey, and the sunlight sparkled on the waters of the stream. She lay down on the grass and fell into a deep sleep.
In it she saw Riamfada. He was walking in the shadow of mountains she had never seen. It was a land of exquisite beauty, and filled to overflowing with magic. Vast lakes, swarming with birds, huge plains, rich with grass and wildlife.
'Where is this place?' she asked him. 'Home,' he told her.
It had taken Chain Shada no more than a few minutes to realize that he disliked the Bishop of Eldacre. Within the hour he had come to loathe him. The Source alone knew what he would have felt if he had to spend a day in the man's company.
He and Gorain had dined with the bishop at his fabulously appointed mansion behind Eldacre Cathedral. Built of limestone, faced with marble, the mansion boasted Eastern rugs of silk, curtains of lace, furniture covered with the softest leather. Red-liveried servants were everywhere, polishing and cleaning, fetching and carrying. The bishop was at the centre of it all, like a vast, bloated red spider. To' be honest, Chain realized, he had begun to loathe the man on sight. As a fighting man and an athlete he despised gluttons, and the bishop was so fat it seemed his skin would burst. Chain could not take his eyes from the golden rings the man wore on every finger.
The meal he had promised them turned out to be a feast, three roasted geese, a suckling pig, several roast chickens, and platters of steamed vegetables, coated in butter. There were cakes and pastries, wines, ales, and spirits, and the twenty guests tore into the meal as if they hadn't eaten in a month. Chain ordered a steak with gravy and some fried bread. He drank no wine or ale, and was irritated that Gorain did not abstain from the golden uisge.
'You are fighting in less than two hours,' he warned him. Gorain grinned.
'I fight better on a full stomach.'
No-one fights better on a full stomach, thought Chain, but he did not argue. This was, after all, more a pleasure excursion than a real tourney.
The bishop sat Chain beside him on his right, and began by telling him how privileged he was to have the legendary Chain Shada at his table. 'I have seen almost all of your bouts. Remarkable. I was a fighter in my youth, you know.' He made a podgy fist. 'I had quite a mighty punch.'
And now you have a mighty paunch, thought Chain. A serving maid refilled the bishop's golden goblet with rich, red wine. The fat man grinned at her, then reached out, patting her behind. Chain looked away. He had noted that no words of thanks had been offered to the Source for the food, and now he had seen the bishop was a lecher as well as a glutton. It was dispiriting, to say the least.
He listened politely to the bishop's conversation, the story of his vastly successful life, the seemingly endless anecdotes illustrating his wisdom, intellect, and the huge respect he enjoyed throughout the empire. '. . . the king complimented me on it. He said he had rarely met a man with so much . . .'
Wind, thought Chain.
'Why did you invite me to take part in your tourney?' he asked, more to change the subject than to hear the answer.
'These highlanders need keeping in their place,' the bishop told him. 'They are a troublesome, rebellious people. Only recently they tried to kill our Moidart. It will be good for them to see the superiority of the Varlish fighting man.'
'And they shall,' said Gorain, leaning in to the bishop. 'I shall break their bones, their hopes and their hearts.' He drained his own goblet, and raised it towards the serving girl.
'You have drunk enough uisge,' said Chain.
'What are you, my mother?' asked Gorain, with a laugh.
Something inside Chain Shada snapped. He looked at Gorain, and for the first time allowed himself to see beyond the man's talent. Yes, he had the potential to be great, but not the discipline. Chain took a deep breath.
'No, I am not your mother,' he said. 'I am the man who thought you were the heir to my crown. I was wrong. Do as you please, Gorain. You are my protege no longer.' Chain rose from his seat and bowed to the bishop. 'My thanks for the meal, sir. And now I must prepare.'
'Wait, Chain,' Gorain called out. 'There's no need for this. I'm sorry, all right?'
Chain ignored him and walked away.
Gorain's face darkened. 'I don't need you,' he called out. 'I'll fight my way to the top without you.'
Chain was angry with himself as he left the mansion. He turned away the offer of a carriage to return him to his lodgings and strolled out through the gates and down the wide avenue that led to the cathedral. It was an imposing building, twin-spired, and shaped like a vast, white crown. The doors were open and he walked inside, enjoying the cool, calm atmosphere. Statues of the saints lined the walkways, and the rows of pews were scattered with red velvet cushions. A young priest was placing sheets of paper on the seats.
'Good day, brother,' he said. 'May the Source bless you.'
'Mostly he has,' said Chain. Many of the statues were decked with golden laurels, and there were paintings on the wall in gilded frames. 'This is a rich church, I see.'
'Indeed, brother. Our congregation numbers the finest citizens of Eldacre, rich and powerful men who see to our every need.'
'In my experience the rich are seldom the finest,' Chain told him. 'But I am just a poor fighting man, born in a hovel. What would I
know?'
The priest gave him an uncertain smile, then carried on laying prayer sheets upon the pews.
Chain walked around the cathedral for a while, then returned to the sunlight. Be honest with yourself, he thought. You always knew Gorain was undisciplined and uncouth. So why end it now? He still has more talent than any fighter you've seen in ten years. He could still make you a fortune.
You are thirty-six years old, he reminded himself. Soon you'll have to retire - or endure the indignity of some young, strong challenger beating you to your knees.
Why now? The question came back at him. It was seeing Gorain in the company of the fat lecher, and realizing that Gorain himself was little better. He was a braggart and - like most braggarts -filled with fear. Some men fought because they loved winning. Others because they feared losing. Gorain was in the latter group. He would never be champion.
I'll fight on for a while, Chain told himself. And when some young bastard sinks me he'll at least know he beat the best.
CHAPTER FIVE
TAYBARD JAEKEL DID NOT ENJOY FEAST DAYS, THOUGH HE PRETENDED to. Sometimes he could almost convince himself. Today was not one of those days. Dressed in his best shirt and breeches and an old coat of his father's, he joined with others from Old Hills on the two-hour walk to Eldacre. The threadbare white wig had belonged to his grandfather, and he could feel the sweat prickling his scalp as he walked.
The day was fine, but there were rain clouds in the distance, and the air was still chill with the memory of winter. Some way ahead he could see Kaelin Ring, walking with Chara Ward. She looked beautiful in a simple dress of corn yellow, and a pale blue shawl. Taybard watched her closely. Every now and again she would reach out and touch Kaelin's arm as she chatted to him, or lean in to whisper something, allowing her shoulder to brush against his. Taybard tried not to stare. He transferred his gaze to Kaelin's aunt Maev. She was strolling beside the huge, one-eyed clansman Jaim Grymauch. Everyone said he was little more than an outlaw, destined for the rope, but Taybard had a sneaking admiration for the man. Last summer he had fought three tough men in a tavern brawl, emerging victorious. Behind them came Banny and his mother, Shula. Taybard liked Banny. There was no malice in the boy, and Taybard had stopped Luss Campion and Kammel Bard from tormenting him. For some reason Luss hated Banny, though when pressed could not explain why.
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