The Seeker

  Erin glanced at me with as much interest as if I were a piece of cheese. Her eyes were hard and bright like pieces of blue glass.

  A woman came out to meet us. Plump and pretty, she introduced herself as Rilla.

  Erin looked bored at this exchange. “This one needs a good scrubbing. I don’t wonder Relward mistook it for a boy. Still, do what you can. Both these gypsies are to come to nightmeal at the Druid’s table tonight.”

  “Your friend is already bathing,” Rilla said when Erin had gone. My stomach growled loudly as if defining its own priorities, and Rilla laughed. “Ye’d nowt be let into th’ kitchen lookin’ like that. But bathe quick and ye can have yer fill before yer tum gives up growlin’ an’ takes to bitin’.”

  The bathhouse was filled with billowing steam. I squinted, making out a number of tin barrels all round the walls with fires burning beneath. In the center of the room were two vats. Kella’s head popped above the rim of one, and Rilla pointed me to the other.

  “There now,” she said kindly, handing me a drying towel.

  I turned to set the towel down and caught sight of myself in the mirror. I gaped. My face was barely visible for filth—I scarcely looked human. My clothes were stiff with dirt, and my long hair was one lank rat tail. I had not bathed since Gahltha’s riding lessons. With a grimace, I stripped off my clothes and slid into the soapy water. I scrubbed thoroughly, massaging gritty dirt from my hair and ears. Kella handed me a thick calico robe like the one she wore as I clambered out.

  “Was it the Druid?” she asked worriedly.

  I nodded. “Did you notice anything else since we came here?”

  Kella sighed. “You too? I hoped your powers would be strong enough not to be affected. What do you think it is?”

  “Some sort of machine, but no one mentioned it. Maybe this is how they test people to find out if they are Misfits. Yet I’m almost certain they believe we’re real gypsies.”

  “Rilla won’t be long. I think she’s been told to keep an eye on us. What are we going to do?” Kella asked urgently.

  “I’m going to try breaking through the barrier as soon as I have a moment alone. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to get to the machine and damage it or switch it off somehow. If only Pavo were here. I wonder why we’ve been separated?”

  “Didn’t they say anything to you about this nightmeal?” Kella asked.

  Puzzled at her tone, I said, “We’re to eat with the Druid. What else should I be told?”

  “We are to eat with the Druid and all unbonded men,” Kella said pointedly. “Have you noticed how few women there are around here? Rilla let it slip. Tonight we are going to be looked over like batches of scones. For bonding.”

  Rilla returned carrying a green dress in one arm and a blue one in the other. “These will match your eyes,” she said. Her own eyes widened. “Well, ye do clean up nice an’ proper.”

  I had never seen such fine clothes before, let alone dreamed of wearing them. But where had such finery come from, if not Sutrium? And how would an exiled Herder priest obtain such luxuries?

  “These will make ye pretty fer tonight,” Rilla said, holding out the dresses.

  “Pretty as lambs to the slaughter,” I murmured sarcastically. I held mine up as if it were a shroud cloth. And well it might be, for I had no intention of being bonded to anyone.

  9

  IT WAS AN odd, strained occasion.

  The Druid and his guests were formally attired, and the courses of food were lavishly presented. It was hard to believe we were in the middle of the White Valley.

  The Druid’s armsmen, as those of Gilbert’s type called themselves, drank heavily, both red and white fements as well as a spicy warmed cordial. The latter could be made anywhere, but the highlands were no place to grow the delicate fement grapes. Like the dresses Kella and I wore, the fements could only have come from the lowlands, probably Arandelft.

  The Druid had the head of the table, and his daughter, Erin, sat by his side, clad in a dazzling blood-red dress. Her long hair was elaborately plaited and beaded around her head.

  Beside her, Gilbert smiled in welcome. “So, gypsy girl, how are you finding our rough-and-ready camp?”

  Laughter met his words. All the Druid’s captives were probably equally astounded at the lavish way the Druids lived. Gilbert was hardly recognizable in a fine white shirt and black velvet jacket, though he was less extravagantly clad than many of the other armsmen. None of the white-robed Druid acolytes were present.

  “What? No words for us, gypsy girl? Have we disarmed you at last? Perhaps the fire was quenched when the dirt was washed off,” Gilbert teased.

  Erin laid a dainty hand on his arm. “Dirt will wash away, Gilbert, but that particular hue of skin will remain the same grubby gypsy color, no matter how hard she scrubs.”

  The table fell silent, but before I could draw breath to respond, Gilbert laughed, smoothly drawing his arm from beneath hers. “I find that dusky tone more pleasing than the fashionable pallor of a fish underbelly,” he said, smiling into my eyes.

  I found myself seated some way down the table and apart from Kella. On either side, the men spoke only a few polite words to me. Their eyes said they shared Erin’s attitude. It was funny, in a way. If they had known I was a Misfit, I would be far more despised.

  A while later, Erin’s voice rose above the buzz of talk. “Father, I am only saying that this desire to bond the armsmen is going too far. Surely you want to maintain some sort of standard. Yet you permit grubby gypsies to dine with us.” I had no doubt she had raised her voice deliberately.

  I stood abruptly. “Lord, my father told me enough to make me admire Henry Druid, but I will not be insulted by a painted doll!” There was a gasp from some of the men, and Erin’s pouting mouth fell open in astonishment.

  There was a long silence. I did not take my eyes from the Druid’s, but I was not to hear his reply since someone had begun to clap.

  “Well done, Lady Erin. I salute you for your wit,” Gilbert said. He raised his mug to Erin. “I feared our gypsy girl had lost her tongue.” He drank deeply, and a few hardy souls around him laughed.

  Erin’s face filled with rage, but the Druid laid a restraining hand on her arm. I wondered at Gilbert’s recklessness. It was clear he had some rank in the camp, but now I wondered exactly what his position was.

  He grinned at me down the length of the table, but I did not smile back. Beside him, Erin’s eyes glittered with malice. Perhaps Gahltha’s cynical comment that poisoned trees bore poisoned fruit was right, for I suspected the Druid shared his daughter’s prejudice.

  I finished my meal, ignored by my companions. I had a fierce longing to be back at Obernewtyn, where people were judged by their actions rather than their ancestry. Rushton would laugh to know how much I hungered to be home. With a painful lurch of my heart, I realized I missed him.

  A young boy and an old man played a merry dance tune on a drum and a small flute. I was not surprised to see people rise to dance. I had never learned how. Orphan homes did not organize such frivolous pursuits. On both sides of me, the seats were empty, my dinner companions having deserted me for less controversial partners. My outburst had made me doubly an outcast despite my finery.

  I looked up to find Gilbert standing beside my seat. “Come, let me see if you dance as well as you talk.”

  I lifted my chin. “I wonder you dare ask a gypsy to dance.”

  Gilbert frowned. “Hatred of gypsies is a foolish, unfounded prejudice that I do not share.”

  “It seems you are alone in that. Who are you, that you can safely voice such unpopular opinions?”

  “I lead the armsmen. The Druid values my expertise. But I am known for my outspoken nature. It has not got me killed so far.”

  I smiled a little despite myself. Another place and time, I would have liked the bold armsman as a friend. But the knowledge that he was the leader of the Druid’s fighting force made me nervous. His kindness might be no more than a
strategy to put me off guard.

  Gilbert slid into the seat beside me. “I am my own fellow. Dance with me,” he invited softly.

  I found I did not want to hurt his feelings with a plain refusal. I lifted the hem of my skirt and showed him my scarred legs and feet. His face tightened at the sight of the scars. “And I made you walk back to camp. Why didn’t you say something?”

  I smiled and shrugged wryly. “You didn’t seem the sort to worry about a prisoner’s feet.”

  “Then we will talk,” he said firmly. “You may direct the course of our words.”

  The opportunity was too good to miss. “Tell me how you came to be here.”

  Gilbert smiled and obliged. It proved an unexpected tale.

  He had been born to a seafaring family in Aborium, but his father had been taken by slavers and his boat sunk. As a child, Gilbert had worked as a harbor laborer to support his mother and sister, until they died of a plague that swept the coast one year. Weary of the sea and lonely, he had gone inland to seek his fortune as a hunter. He had been on his own in the White Valley when the Druid had recruited him. He smiled wryly at the euphemism.

  “At first I was determined to escape, but where would I escape to? I had no home, and I loathe the Council. And, as you see, this is a pleasant enough life for one so skilled and useful as I.”

  “The Druid has a good supply of luxuries,” I said.

  He grinned. “He has a friend in Sutrium.” He stopped abruptly.

  I continued on, pretending not to have noticed his slip. “Are there really such things as slavers?” I asked.

  He nodded. “There are at that, black-hearted souls. They prey on small fishing vessels like those belonging to my father, shanghai the crew, and sell them. I have also heard it said the Council sells seditioners they do not want brought to open trial. Those taken are never heard of again. Who knows where they end up? It is a wide, strange world.”

  “But … what do you mean? There is only this Land and the two islands,” I said. “The rest is Blacklands.”

  Gilbert shook his head. “A myth spawned by the Council, who have a vested interest in ignorance. There are other places on the earth where the white death never reached or where the poisons have faded. My father always said so, and he had seen more of the world than most.”

  I stared. “But how is it no one talks of this?”

  Gilbert smiled, not unpleasantly. “Any seafarer stupid enough to talk of such things disappears, no doubt himself sold to the slavers. After all, the Council do not want their subjects sailing off in search of greener pastures and freer lands.”

  I was fascinated. I had never dreamed of questioning Council teachings on the extent of the holocaust.

  “Why not take to the sea yourself and go where there is no Council?” I wondered.

  Gilbert sighed. “I could have done that, but a harsh lore is better than none. It is said that incredible mutations of plant and beast run riot beyond our horizons. And even lands untouched by the Great White must have suffered in the Age of Chaos that followed. No, better to work here with the Druid to overcome the Council. Besides, unlike my father, I get seasick,” he added.

  I laughed, then sobered quickly. “You think the Druid and his acolytes are any better than the Council?” I hardly expected an answer to such a question, but he had certainly been forthcoming to this point.

  “I don’t know. I hope so. He is hard, but there is always hope of change. At least he has standards and rules to live by. He values order and normalcy.”

  I looked at him sharply. “You said the world is full of mutation. Who has the right to decide what is normal?”

  Gilbert looked taken aback at the change in my tone. “I do not mind mutants; in my experience, those deemed Misfit are harmless. But the Druid was a Herder, after all. He is fanatical on the subject. And most of the others think as he does. Perhaps I’m not fine enough to distinguish between the smells of people as if they were so much spoiled meat.”

  I frowned, deciding whatever the Druid knew or guessed about Talents, Gilbert knew nothing. Perhaps only the Druid’s acolytes knew about the machine blocking my abilities.

  “And what about freedom? He would not let you leave here.”

  The armsman smiled. “No one keeps me where I do not want to be. But freedom is not a matter of that. You are a gypsy, so you think it is only the ability to move from place to place at will. Real freedom is a thing no one can take from you because it is of the spirit. I keep it here.” He tapped his head, then rose. “I have promised a dance, but we will talk again.”

  I watched him go, surprised to find myself wishing we could have gone on talking, grateful that he had allowed me to question him without asking me questions in return.

  I shook my head. He was an enemy, yet I liked him. And I was as certain he liked me. It had never occurred to me that I might be found desirable. Yet clothed in the fine dress, I had only been able to gape at my reflection as I’d caught sight of myself in a long mirror on my way to the dining hall. The girl who had looked back at me, with her cloud of dark silky hair and mysterious green eyes, had seemed a dazzling stranger. In that moment, I’d had the curious wish that Rushton might see me so transformed.

  To my relief, the meal ended without talk of bonding. Like all farseekers, I knew bonding for me would mean more than a physical communion. A mindmeld would be far more intimate than any bodily merging. It would be an ultimate kind of nakedness with one of my own kind; to bond with an unTalent would be like bonding to a statue.

  I prepared for bed in a private chamber; Kella had been housed in a separate room. Dismissing all thoughts of the nightmeal from my mind, I concentrated my senses for a final, unrestrained attempt on the barrier of static.

  The block lay like a wet blanket over my senses. I felt suffocated as I tried to farseek. I used more power, but the static seemed to respond, strengthening in direct proportion to the force I used.

  Finally I lay back with a defeated sigh. It was no use. I would have to find the machine.

  10

  “WHAT ARE YE up to, Emmon?” Rilla demanded suspiciously of a slight boy with a lopsided grin who had entered the kitchen.

  He looked exaggeratedly hurt. “Th’ Druid sent me to bring the gypsy called Elspeth,” he said in a wounded voice.

  I had spent the morning with Kella helping to do the encampment chores. I had tried questioning Rilla, but she appeared to know no more than Gilbert about the existence of Talents, much less the blocking static. She also didn’t seem to know where the rest of our friends were. I’d begun to worry.

  Kella had learned that Rilla’s dead bondmate had been one of the Druids slain in the last Teknoguild expedition, and the older girl’s general ignorance of the incident confirmed that the Druid only told his people what he felt they needed to know. “Rilla knows that others were involved but has no idea that they were from Obernewtyn,” Kella had said. “She did say the Druid believes the explosion had been caused deliberately with a Beforetime weapon. That and his interest in Obernewtyn must mean he suspects Rushton of treachery.”

  I wondered now what the Druid wanted of me.

  As we left, Emmon stole a slice of meat and got a hard smack for his troubles. Outside, he rubbed his ear and grinned broadly. “T’was worth it. Come on.” We had not gone far when I realized we were going in the wrong direction.

  “Well, that’s true …,” Emmon admitted. “As a matter of fact, I were nowt told to bring ye at once, so we’ve time to spare. I’d rather walk about than wash dishes or work at spellin’ an’ th’ like. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Won’t we get into trouble?” I asked warily.

  He shook his head. “Ye won’t. If we gan caught, I’ll say ye knew nowt of it.”

  “Will you show me around, then? I haven’t had much chance to see the camp,” I said.

  Emmon nodded enthusiastically. He marched off, at once setting out to describe the variety and uses of the buildings we passed. I tried in vain to
lead him to talk of the Druid, in the hope of getting a clue about the location of any machine. Eventually, I concentrated instead on committing the camp to memory.

  We passed a long series of windowless buildings, which Emmon identified as storehouses.

  “Where do all the Druid’s supplies come from?” I asked.

  Emmon grinned. “From th’ Council’s own stores. Th’ Council dinna know that one of their own trusted agents is oath kin to th’ Druid.”

  Oath kin? That meant someone as close as blood without being related. The Druid was as canny a strategist as I’d ever encountered.

  Emmon pointed out another building. “That’s th’ library.” It seemed his dislike of spelling did not extend to reading. The Druid had obviously instilled his followers with his own love of books.

  “I hear Erin dinna take to ye much,” Emmon said.

  “Who told you that?” I asked sharply.

  Emmon smiled. “I’ll take ye to visit a friend of mine.”

  Before I could question him, he ran off, and I was forced to follow. I found him knocking on the door to a small cottage.

  “Who lives here?” I asked. I heard footsteps inside.

  “Erin’s twin sister lives here,” he whispered. I gave him a furious look, but it was too late. The door opened, and a delicious odor wafted out.

  “Gilaine, it’s me. I’ve brought a visitor,” Emmon announced. He sniffed and sighed, identifying the smell. “Honeyballs.”

  I stared at the girl who had answered the door.

  There was no question whose sister she was. But they were as much alike as the sun and the moon. Where Erin’s hair was spun gold and elaborately dressed, Gilaine wore her long, ashen tresses loose about her shoulders. Erin’s eyes were bright blue, but Gilaine’s were as gray as clouds lit from behind by the sun. The greatest difference, though, lay in their expressions. Erin’s face was ever haughty and querulous, but Gilaine’s was gentle, the smile on her mouth echoing in her eyes. I was immediately drawn to her.