Authors: Andre Norton
“You see girl,” he continued, “how far this story has spread. I do not think Ulric is altogether wise in not better ordering his household. But each man is lord in his own keep and needs must face his own shadows there. But know this—your wedded lord is such a man as you will be proud to hand-fast when the time comes—as it will soon now. Take no heed of these rumors, knowing their source and purpose.”
“For which knowing I give thanks,” I replied.
When Dame Math and I left his company together, she drew me apart into her own chamber and looked at me searchingly, as if by that steady gaze alone she could hunt out every unspoken thought within my mind.
“How chanced Toross to speak to you on this matter? He must have had some reason—one does not so easily break custom. You are a wedded lady, Joisan, not an unspoken-for maid who allows her eyes to stray this way or that.”
So I told her of my plan. To my surprise she did not object nor seem to think what I was doing was beneath the dignity of my station. Instead she nodded briskly.
“What you do is fitting, Joisan. Perhaps we should have arranged such an exchange ourselves long ago. That would have broken such rumors. Had you had a picture of Kerovan in your belt-purse when Yngilda spoke to you, it would have answered well. So Toross was angered at what you did? It was past time when that youth should have returned to those who sent him to make trouble!” She was angry again, but not with me. Only what moved her now she did not explain.
So I finished the picture case, and Dame Math approved its making as an excellent example of my best needlecraft. Making all ready, I laid it away in my coffer against the arrival of the party from Ulmsdale.
They were several days late, and the party itself was different from the earlier ones, for the armsmen were older, and several of them bore old, healed wounds which would keep them from active field service. Their leader was crooked of back and walked with a lurch and a dip.
Besides a casket that he delivered with ceremony to me, he bore a message tube sealed with Ulric's symbol for my uncle and was straightway taken into private conversation with him, as if this were a matter of great import. I wondered if my summons to Ulmsdale had come at last. But the nature of the bearer was such that I could not accept that. My lord would have come himself as was right, and with a retinue to do me honor through those lands we must cross to his home.
Within the casket was a necklet of northern amber and gold beads, with a girdle to match. Truly a gift to show me prized. Yet I wished it had been just such a picture as I had ready to return to him. I knew that Dame Math would make opportunity to let me speak alone with this Jago who commanded the Ulmsdale force, that I might entrust him with my gift. But it appeared he had so much to say to my
uncle there was little time for that, for he did not come out of the inner chamber until the hour for the evening meal.
I was glad he was seated beside me, for it gave me a chance to say that I would see him privately, that I had something to entrust to him. But he had a speech in return.
“Lady, you have had Ulmsdale's gift, but I have another for you from the hand of Lord Kerovan himself which he said to give to you privately—”
Within me I knew then a rise of excitement, for I could conceive of nothing save that we had been of one mind, and what Jago had for me was also a picture.
But it was not so. When Dame Math saw that we came together in a nook between the high seat and the wall, what he laid in my eager hand was not a flat packet, but a small, round one. Quickly I pulled away the covering of soft wool to find that I held a crystal globe and within it a gryphon—even as I had seen it at the House of Dames! I nearly dropped it. For to have something of the Power touch into one's life so was a thing to hold in awe and fear. Set in its surface just above the gryphon's head was a ring of gold, and there was strung a chain so one could wear it as a pendant.
“A wondrous thing!” Somehow I found my tongue and hoped that I had not betrayed my first fear. For to no one could I explain the momentary panic I had felt. The more I studied it now, the clearer became its beauty, and I thought that it was truly a treasure, finer than any that had ever been sent to me in any casket of ceremony.
“Yes. My lord begs you accept of this, and perhaps wear it sometimes, that you may know his concern for you.” That sounded like some set speech which he had memorized. And I decided swiftly to ask no questions of this man. Perhaps he was not too close to my lord after all.
“Tell my lord I take great joy in his gift.” I found the formal words easier than I would have done a moment
earlier. “It shall abide with me night and day that I may look upon it, not only for my pleasure in its beauty, but also because of his concern for me. In return,” I hurriedly brought forth my own gift, “do you place this in my lord's hand. Ask of him, if he wills, to send its like to me when he may.”
“Be sure that your wish is my command, Lady.” Jago slipped it into his belt-purse. Before he could say more, if there was more to be said between us, there came one of my uncle's men to summon him again to that inner room, and I did not see him further that night.
Nor did we have more than formal speech together during the two remaining days that he was at Ithkrypt. I gave him ceremonious farewell when he rode forth, but by then all within the keep knew of the news that had come with the men from Ulmsdale.
By birth and inclination dalesmen are not sea-rovers. We have ports for trading set up along the coast, and there are villages of fisherfolk to be found there. But deep-sea ships do not sail under the flag of any dales lord. And those who trade from overseas, such as the Sulcarmen, are not of our blood and kin.
News from overseas is long old before it reaches us. But we had heard many times that the eastern lands were locked in a struggle for power between nation and nation. Now and then there was mention of a country, a city, or even some warlord or leader whose deeds reached us in such garbled form they were already well on the way to becoming a tale more fancy than fact.
Of late, however, there had been new ships nosing along our shores. The Sulcarmen had suffered some grievous defeat of their own two years since in the eastern waters. And so we had not the usual number of their traders coming for our woolen cloth, our wonder-metal from the Waste, our freshwater pearls. But these others had put in
to haggle, driving hard bargains, and they seemed over-interested in our land. Often when they had discharged a cargo, before taking on another, they would lie in harbor, and their crews would ride north and south as if exploring.
Our thoughts of war never encompassed more than the feuds between dale and dale, which could be dark and bloody at times, but which seldom involved more than a few score of men on either side. We had no king or overlord, which was our pride, but also in a manner our weakness, as was to be proven to us. Sometimes several lords would combine their forces to make a counter-raid on Waste outlaws or the like. But such alliances were always temporary. And, while there were several lords of greater following than others (mainly because they held richer and more populous dales), none could send out any rallying call all others would come to.
This must have been clear to those who spied and went—that we were feeble opponents, easy to overrun. However, they misread the temper of the dales, for a dalesman will fight fiercely for his freedom. And a dalesman's loyalty to his lord, who is like the head of his own family, is seldom shaken.
Since Ulmsport lay at the mouth of that dale, it had recently been visited by two ships of these newcomers. They called themselves men of Alizon and spoke arrogantly of the size and might of their overseas land. One of their men had been injured inland. His companion from the ship had been killed. The wounded man had been nursed by a Wisewoman. By her craft she could tell true from false. And, while he wandered in a fever, talking much, she listened. Later, after the coming of his comrades to bear him away, she had gone to Lord Ulric. He had listened carefully, knowing that she knew of what she spoke.
Lord Ulric was prudent and wise enough to see that
there was that to it which might come to overshadow our whole land, as it did. Speedily he sent accounts of what had been learned to all the neighboring dales, as well as to Ithkrypt.
It seemed from the babbling of the wounded man that he was indeed a spy, the scout of an army soon to be landed on us. We realized that those of Alizon had decided that our rule was so feeble and weak in its nature they could overrun us at their pleasure, and this they moved to do.
Thus was the beginning of the great shadow on our world. But I nursed the crystal ball in my hand, uninterested in Alizon and its spies, sure that somehow the Lord Kerovan would do as I willed, and I would look upon the picture of a man who was no monster.
5
Kerovan
To my great surprise I discovered Jago had returned before Riwal and I came out of the Waste. His anger with me was such that, had I been younger, I think he would have cut a switch from the nearest willow and used it for my discipline. I saw that that anger was fed, not wholly from my supposedly ill-advised foray into the dubious territory, but also from something he had learned at Ulmskeep. Having spoken his mind hotly, he ordered me to listen, with such serious mien that I lost the defiance his berating had aroused.
On two occasions in the past I had been to Ulmskeep, both times when my mother was away visiting her kin. So it, and the lower part of the dale, was not unknown to me. Also on those times when my father had come to me, he had taken patience to make me aware of the spread of our lands, the needs of our people, those things that it was necessary for me to know when the day came for me to take his place.
But the news Jago brought I had not heard before. For
the first time I learned of the invaders (though they were not termed so then, being outwardly visitors on leave from their ships at Ulmsport).
With what contempt they regarded us we quickly learned, for we are far from stupid—at least in that way. Dalesmen may insist too much upon their freedom, having a strong disliking for combining forces, save in time of immediate and pressing need. But we can sniff danger like wild things when it treads our land.
They had first come nosing into our ports, up river mouths, a year or so earlier. Then they had been very wary, circumspect, playing the roles of traders. Since the stuffs they had to offer in return for our native wool, metal, and pearls were new and caught the eye, they found a welcome. But they kept much to themselves, though they came ashore in twos and threes, never alone. Once ashore they did not linger in port, but journeyed inland on the pretext of seeking trade.
As strangers they were suspect, especially in those districts lying near the Waste, even though it was known that their origin was overseas. Men met them courteously and with guest right, but as they looked and listened, asked a question here, another there with discretion, so did others watch and listen. Soon my father, gathering reports, could see a pattern in their journeying which was not that of traders, but rather, to his mind, the action of scouts within new territory.
He sent privately to our near neighbors: Uppsdale, Fyndale (which they had visited under the pretext of the great fair held there), Flathingdale, and even to Vastdale, which also had its port of Jorby. With all these lords he was on good terms, for we had no feuds to separate us. And the lords were ready to listen and then set their own people to watching also.
What grew out of all this was the now-strong belief that
my father had judged the situation rightly, and these overseas strangers were prowling our country for some purpose of their own, one meaning no good to the dales. It was soon to be decided whether or not the lords would make common cause and forbid hew landings to any ship from Alizon.
However, to get the lords to make common cause on any matter was a task to which only a man with infinite patience might set himself. No lord would openly admit that he accepted the will of another. We had no leader who could draw the lords under one banner or to one mind in action. And this was to be our bane.
Now there were to assemble at Ulmskeep five of the northern lords to exchange their views upon the idea. They needed some excuse for such a gathering, however, for it must be a festival of a kind to keep people talking in such a way that the strangers might hear a false excuse. My father had found a cause in the first arming of his heir, bringing me now into the company of my peers as was only natural at my age.
So far I followed Jago. But at his flat statement that I was to be the apparent center for this gathering, I was startled. For so long had I accepted my lot apart from the keep and from the company of my kin, that this way of life seemed the only proper one to me.
“But—” I began in protest.
Jago drummed with fingertips upon the table. “No, he is right, Lord Ulric is. Too long have you been put aside from what is rightly yours. He needs must do this, not only to give cover to his speech with the lords, but for your own sake. He has learned the folly of the course he has followed these past years.”
“The folly of—?” I was astounded that Jago spoke so of my father, since he was so stoutly a liegeman of Ulric's
as to think of him with the awe one approached an Old One.
“Yes, I say it—folly!” The word exploded a second time from his lips, as might a bolt from a crossbow. “There are those in his own household who would change matters.” He hesitated, and I knew without words what he hinted at: that my mother favored my sister and her betrothed for the succession in Ulmsdale. I had never closed my ears to any rumor brought to the foresters’ settlement, deeming I must know the worst.
“Look at you!” Jago was angry once more. “You are no monster! Yet the story spreads that Lord Ulric needs must keep you pent here in chains, so ill-looking a thing, so mind-damaged, that you are less than a man, even an animal!”
His heat struck a spark from me. So this was what was whispered of me in my own keep!
“You must show yourself as you are; be claimed before those whose borders march with Ulmsdale as the proper heir. Then none may rise to misname you later. This Lord Ulric now knows—for he has heard some whispering, even challenged those whisperers to their faces. And one or two were bold enough to tell him what they had heard.”
I got up from the table which stood between us and went to Jago's great war-shield where it hung upon the wall. He spent long hours keeping it well-burnished so that it was like a mirror, even though the shape distorted my reflection.
“As long as I keep on my boots,” I said then, “perhaps I will pass as humankind.”
Those boots were cunningly made, being carefully shaped so my cloven hoofs appeared normal feet. When I went shod, no man might be aware of the truth. The boots had been devised by Jago himself and made from special leather my father sent.
Jago nodded. “Yes, you will go, and you will keep
your boots on, youngling, so you can prove to every whisperer in the dales that your father sired a true heir, well able to take lord's oath. With weapons you are as good, perhaps even better, than those who are keep armsmen. And your wit is keen enough to make you careful.”
Which was more praise than he had ever given me in our years together.
Thus mailed and armed (and most well-booted) I rode with Jago out of the exile which had been laid upon me and came at last to take up life in my father's keep. I did so with inner misgivings, having, as Jago pointed out, some store of wit, and well-surmising that I was far from welcome by some members of that household.
I had little chance to speak again with Riwal before I went—though I longed for him to offer to go with me, knowing at the same time that he never would. In our last meeting he looked at me in such a way that I felt he could somehow see into my mind and know all my uncertainties and fears.
“You have a long road to ride, Kerovan,” he said.
“Only two days,” I corrected him. “We but go to Ulmskeep.”
Riwal shook his head. “You go farther, gryphon bearer, and into danger. Death stalks at your shoulder. You shall give, and, in giving, you shall get. The giving and the getting will be stained with blood and fire—”
I realized then that he was farseeing, and I longed to cover my ears, for it seemed to me that his very words would draw down upon me the grim future he saw.
“Death stalks at the heels of every man born,” I summoned my courage to make answer. “If you can farsee, tell me what shield I can raise to defend myself.”
“How can I?” he returned. “All future is fan-shaped, spreading out in many roads from this moment. If you make one choice, there is that road to follow; if you make
another yet a second path, a third, a fourth—But no man can outstride or outfight the given pattern in the end. Yours lies before you. Walk with a forester's caution, Kerovan. And know this—you have that deep within you, if you learn to use it, that shall be greater than any shield or sword wrought by the most cunning of smiths.”
“Tell me—” I began.
“No!” He half-turned from me. “So much may I say, but no more. I cannot farsee your choices, and no word of mine must influence you in their making. Go with the Peace.” Then he raised his hand, and, between us in the air, he traced a sign. I half-started back, for his moving finger left a faint glimmering which was gone almost as quickly as I marked it. And I realized then that in some of his seeking Riwal must have been successful, for his sign was of the Power.
“Until we meet again then, comrade.” I spoke friend-farewell.
He did not face me squarely, but stood, his hand still a little raised to me. I know now that he understood this was our last meeting and perhaps regretted it. But I was not cursed with that sight which can hurt far more than it shields. What man wishes to see into the future in truth when there are so many ills lying there in wait for us?
As we traveled to Ulmskeep, Jago talked steadily, and that this was of purpose, I shortly understood. He so made known to me the members of my father's household, giving each his character as he himself saw it, with unspoken shadings which allowed me to perceive that this one might be well-disposed, that one not. I think he saw me as a child fated to make some error that would bring about disaster and was doing what he could to give me some manner of protection against any outspoken folly.
My elder half-brother, who had come to Ulmskeep as a very young child, had, when he reached the age suitable
for instruction in arms, been sent to our mother's kin. But within the past year he had returned, riding comrade-in-arms to our kinsman Rogear who was my sister's betrothed. I could well guess that he was to me an unfriend and with him I must be wary.
My mother had her followers among others at the keep, and Jago, with what delicacy he could summon, named those to me, giving short descriptions of each and of the positions they held. On the other hand my father's forces were in the greater number, and among those were the major officers—the Master of Armsmen, the marshal, and others.
It was a divided household, and such are full of pitfalls. Yet on the surface all seemed smooth. I listened carefully, asking some questions. Perhaps these explanations were Jago's idea; perhaps my father had suggested that I be so cautioned before I came to face friend and unfriend, that I might tell one from the other.
We rode into the keep at sunset, Jago having blown a signal with his approach horn so that we found the door guard drawn up to do us honor. I had marked the residence banners of Uppsdale and Flathingdale below our gryphon on the tower, and knew that two of those my father had summoned were already here. Thus, from the beginning, I would be under the eyes of the curious as well as those of the covertly hostile.
I must play my role well, seemingly unaware of any cross-current; bear myself modestly as became a candidate for arms, yet be far from a fool. Was I able to do this? I did not know.
The guards clanged swords together as we dismounted. My father, wearing a loose robe of ceremony over his jerkin and breeches, came forth from the deep shadow of the main portal to the hall. I fell to one knee, holding out
my sword by the point that he could lay fingers lightly on its hilt in acknowledgment.
Then he drew me to my feet in a half-embrace, and, with his hand still on my arm, brought me out of the open into the main hall where a feasting board had already been set up, and serving men and maids were busied spreading it across with strips of fair linen and setting out the plates and drinking horns.
There were two other men of early middle age, robes of ceremony about their shoulders. My father made me known to Lord Savron of Uppsdale and Wintof of Flathingdale. That they regarded me keenly I was well aware. But I was strengthened in my role by the knowledge that I made, in my mail and leather over-jerkin, no different appearance than their own sons might display. At this moment no man might raise the cry of monster. They accepted my proper deference as if this were an ordinary meeting and I had been absent from Ulmskeep for perhaps only an hour or two, not for all my life.
Since I was still considered but a boy and, by custom, of little importance, 1 was able speedily to withdraw from the company of my elders and go to that section of the barracks where the unmarried men of the household were quartered. In deference to my heirship, I was given a small room to myself—a very bare room in which there was a bed, narrow and hard, two stools, and a small table, far less comfortable than my room in die forester's holding.
A serving lad brought in my saddle bags. I noted that he watched me with open curiosity when he thought I did not mark him, lingering to suggest that he bring me hot water for washing. When I agreed, I thought that he was determined to make the most of his chance to view the “monster” at close quarters and perhaps report his discoveries to his fellows.
I had laid aside my jerkin and mail by the time he
returned, standing in my padded undercoat, sorting through my clothing for my best tabard with its gryphon symbol. He sidled in with a ewer from which steam arose, watching me as he placed it and a basin on the table, and twitched off a towel he had borne over one shoulder to lay beside it.
“If you need service, Lord Kerovan—”
I smoothed out the tabard. Now I deliberately unhooked my undercoat, letting it slide from my body, which was thus bared to the waist. Let him see I was not misshapen. As Jago said, if I clung to my boots, no man could miscall me.
“You may look me out a shirt—” I gestured toward my bags and then saw he was staring at me. What had he expected? Some horribly twisted body? I glanced down and saw what had become so much a part of me I had forgotten I still wore it—the crystal gryphon. Lifting its chain over my head, I laid it on the table as I washed and saw him eyeing it. Well enough, let him believe that I wore a talisman. Men did so. And one in the form of the symbol of my House was proper.