“Perhaps,” said Bert. “The ‘rob from the rich, give to the poor’ is more of a general overview than a specific thing we have to do every time. It really means making sure those who have too much do some sharing with those who have too little, and it isn’t always just about valuables or money or even basic things like food. It is also about sharing power and opportunities.”
Anya’s forehead wrinkled.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she said uncomfortably.
“Well, you are a princess, and thus uneducated in certain areas,” said Bert. She smiled, which took a little of the sting out of her words. Anya thought of herself as highly educated. She was going to be a sorceress, after all, and had read at least two hundred books.
“We will talk about this some more,” said Bert. “Later. You should come to our camp, for dinner and to sleep tonight. The forest is never really safe, and more assassins might be about. There is also someone I want you to meet.”
“Thank you,” said Anya. She hesitated before adding, “We accept your kind invitation.”
“It’s not exactly an invitation.” Bert gestured at the many green- and russet-clad robbers around them, standing silently by, all of them armed to the teeth with longbows, swords, axes, daggers, and one who even had something that looked like a scythe. “I’m not giving you a choice. We may still decide to rob you after all.”
Ardent growled and the hair all along his back stood up. Anya let her hand fall lightly on his head, and the rumbling in the dog’s deep chest subsided. Even if Bert did take her few silver coins and the snuffbox, right at that moment Anya thought this would be a worthwhile trade for a decent dinner and the prospect of a restful sleep in some sort of bed, rather than curled up with a dog, a frog, and a cold-blooded, poison-skinned newt in a hole under a tree, which had been her likely prospect for the night.
Besides, she was curious about what Bert meant when she talked about sharing things between those who had too much and those who had too little, and how, being a princess, she was uneducated. This was a challenge. Anya couldn’t bear not knowing about something once it was mentioned. If this was something new to learn, then she would learn it.
“Follow me,” said Bert. “Stay close. The path is tricksome. It gets dark under the trees early, and the silver moon is not up for hours.”
* * *
Before too long, it was completely dark, and Anya had to hold the back of Bert’s belt, stumbling along behind the leader of the robbers. Ardent followed at her heels, occasionally offering useful instructions a moment too late, like “watch out for that sticking-up tree root.”
After what felt like at least an hour or even two spent stubbing her toes and shins and getting her face scratched by brambles, Anya couldn’t help herself.
“Will we be there soon?” she asked.
“Very soon,” said Bert. She slowed, so Anya had time to react and not crash into her, then stopped. “We will wait here for a few minutes. It will be easier … and safer for you … to go on when there is some moonglow. Look to your right.”
Anya blinked off into the darkness. At first she couldn’t see anything at all, not even vague shapes. She held her hand up in front of her eyes and couldn’t even see her fingernails.
“I can’t see a thing,” she protested. “It’s too dark.”
“Wait, just a few moments more,” said Bert softly.
Anya kept peering into the darkness. Ardent made an interested wuffling noise by her side, indicating that he saw something. Shrub made a sound too, and even Denholm let out an unexpected and slightly eerie croak.
“What?” asked Anya, irritated that they were all reacting to something she couldn’t sense. “I still can’t see a … ”
Her voice trailed off. There was a shimmer in the sky above her, the delicate hint of light, slowly becoming a pearly glow. As Anya watched, the faint curve of the small moon, the silver moon, rose and split the sky into two halves, of light and darkness, delineating the horizon she couldn’t see before. It continued to rise, the beautiful light beginning to etch out details. Anya saw the outlines of tall trees and tumbled rocks that looked white in the moonlight. They were fallen in a line around the edge of a bare hill, and there was a broad stair of damaged stone leading up to the crest.
“We go up, and then down,” said Bert. “Only a little way now.”
Robbers ranged ahead of them, not all going up the steps, but some taking the harder way up the slope, slipping between clumps of briars and thorny bushes.
Bert went carefully up the cracked and crumbling steps, Anya and her companions following. The silver moon climbed too, for it was the fast moon, crossing the horizon in a matter of hours. The larger and slower blue moon would follow, but it shed little light by comparison with its silver companion, and if it was low in the sky it could often hardly be seen.
At the top of the steps, Anya expected to find the crest of the hill, but instead she found herself on the lip of a great bowl of worked stone, with one half terraced into at least twenty or more levels going down to a large flat area some seventy or eighty feet below. There was a well-shielded fire burning down there, and Ardent was stretching out already, nose quivering at the scent of cooking meat.
“Oh!” Anya exclaimed. “It’s a theater!”
She had seen drawings of the buildings left by the ancients who had preceded the current inhabitants of Yarrow, but she had never seen any firsthand. Whoever the ancients were, they had worked in stone, leaving behind a legacy of ruins dotted about the country. Many of those ruins were of amphitheaters or arenas, always semicircular in shape, with a dozen or more terraces for the audience to sit and watch the stage below.
“Yes,” said Bert. “It is only one of our camps. We sleep where spectators once sat, and it is deep and hidden, so none can see our fire from afar. Come—there will be hot water for washing, and nettle tea, with roast boar and rabbit and wild yams cooked in the ashes, with honey cakes to follow.”
Anya needed no encouragement, and it clearly took all of Ardent’s training to keep him at her heels rather than racing ahead to snatch a piece of roasting boar straight off the spit.
“You know, since I turned into a newt, I only want to eat bugs,” said Shrub conversationally as they climbed down. “I wonder if I’ll still like ’em when I turn back. The shiny black ones are really nice and crunchy. I might go off and hunt some down if that’s all right.”
“Some bugs are good,” said Ardent. “But not as good as roast boar or rabbit.”
“If you could catch some bugs for Denholm too, that would be helpful,” said Anya. “I don’t think he gets enough from ones that go near his cage, and I can’t let him out. The spell will make him run away from me.”
“Don’t leave the theater, Shrub,” instructed Bert. “The sentries will turn you back, but I don’t want them bothered. Or you shot by accident.”
“I’ll behave,” called out Shrub, angling off along one of the terraces, already looking into the darker corners. “I promised Ma, didn’t I?”
Down at the stage level, Bert showed Anya where she could lay down her staff, bundle, and frog cage. The princess offered the wrapped ham as a contribution to the dinner, but Bert refused it. Anya set it down with a firm admonishment to Ardent that he was to leave it alone.
“There is a necessary trench over that side,” said Bert, pointing to the far end of the stage where the stone pavers had broken to reveal bare earth. “Take care you do not fall in, and use the small shovel to throw some dirt after your business. The barrel on the way back, there, has water and soap. It will be warm, or warmish at least. When you are ready, come to the fire for food and drink.”
Anya poured some water from her bottle over Denholm before she went to the toilet herself. Ardent loped ahead to investigate, adding his own contribution. A robber brought over some steaming-hot water in a large pot and topped up the barrel just before Anya washed her face, neck, and hands, so it really was warm, and the soap,
though unscented, was not the harsh, scratchy square she anticipated.
At the fire, she was handed a wooden plate loaded with roast meat, roast yams, and some wild forest greens she didn’t recognize but which tasted pleasantly peppery. Ardent got a plateful too, and ate almost decorously at Anya’s feet as she stood among the robbers, trying not to gulp the food down herself. When she was finished, she joined a line of robbers to wash the plates clean, and to receive a cup of nettle tea, ladled out of one of the several cauldrons that were bubbling over the long fire pit.
As Anya drank that down, one of the robbers, a young man with a mischievous face and a questionable moustache, came to talk to Bert. His hair was red, even in the moonlight, which faded most colors into shades of gray and silver.
“Music tonight, Captain?” he asked.
Bert didn’t answer for a moment before she slowly nodded.
“Let’s have another hand of sentries out first, Will, what with Duke Rikard up to no good with his assassins and the like. And no drums—we’ll keep it a bit quieter.”
Five of the robbers picked up their bows and went up the terraced side of the arena to spread out around the rim of the hill. Anya heard owl calls, and thought for a moment Gotfried might have somehow found her, before she realized they were either wild owls or more likely the robbers signaling to one another.
“Come up and sit by me,” said Bert, taking up her weapons again. She climbed up to the second terrace, where a pile of new-cut ferns made a comfortable long seat upon the stone, and probably a bed later. Anya followed, with Ardent close by. Shrub was still presumably off hunting bugs.
Bert put her bow and quiver down first, before she sat, and made sure her sword was arranged not just comfortably, but so she could draw it as she stood. Anya noted her caution, and turned her own knife so she could pull it out easily even when sitting. Such caution seemed like a good idea not just for a robber, but also a princess stalked by assassins and sorcerous servants.
Down below, on the stage, other robbers were taking out instruments. Three produced lutes from their backpacks. A group of four produced wooden pipes of different lengths, though all had curved ends. Anya recognized them as crumhorn players, and leaned forward. She liked the buzzing sound of crumhorns. They were joined by two robbers on shawms, one of them already playing a soft melody, the plaintive woodwind sound suddenly the loudest noise in the whole theater.
“Music is a great balm,” whispered Bert as the other players slowly joined the first shawm, building on that simple tune, reinforcing it and winding around and about it, making it both more complicated and simpler at the same time. “Another thing evil sorcerers give up. They cannot abide music, for it can conjure all human emotions, most particularly joy and happiness.”
“Did someone tell you I was learning magic?” asked Anya uncomfortably. She felt rather like she was about to be lectured by a stern tutor, though she’d never really had a teacher. Apart from Gotfried, and he never lectured anyone. She had read about stern tutors in stories, though.
“I hear things,” said Bert quietly. She was watching the musicians, not looking at Anya. The robbers below were smiling now, their spirits lifted by their music. The tune had become merrier and faster, like a fire given new fuel, rising higher and brighter.
Will, the robber with the red moustache, began to sing. His voice couldn’t compare with Prince Maggers’s, but it was warmer, more human. He sang softly. Anya couldn’t make out the words, and it wasn’t a tune she knew. But she liked it. She liked it a lot.
“I never want to be an evil sorcerer,” said the princess firmly. She could feel the music inside her, stripping away her weariness and fear. Ardent was leaning against her leg, warm and comforting, his ears pricked up. It was probably lucky there were no trumpets, because Anya knew the dog wouldn’t be able to resist joining in. Some trumpeters didn’t mind, but most didn’t realize Ardent was also making his own music and not protesting the noise. “I could never give up music, or … the things I love.”
“That is a good thing to remind yourself, and to ask yourself whenever you are tempted to use magic,” said Bert. “Now, we need to talk. Like I said, I hear things, but I need to know more. What is your Quest, exactly? And what is your plan?”
“Then you will decide whether to put off robbing me or not?” asked Anya.
“Then I will decide whether to help you or not.” Now Bert did look at Anya, and her rather harsh face was momentarily transformed by a smile. “We shall see.”
Anya took a deep breath, and told Bert everything.
So,” said Bert. “You intend to find these ingredients for your magical lip balm, turn Denholm and Shrub back into humans, and also find allies against Duke Rikard. What then?”
“Well, we’ll fight Duke Rikard,” said Anya. “Defeat him. If I have the lip balm, his greatest sorcery will be no use because I’ll be able to change back anyone he transforms. But I’ll need allies to fight any soldiers he has, because he’ll hire men, and transform animals into fighters, and he might have quite a lot by the time I get back.”
“I meant what do you intend to happen after you defeat Duke Rikard?”
A puzzled frown gathered together across Anya’s forehead.
“Morven will be queen, and I’ll go back to studying in the library.”
Bert nodded slowly. “Will Morven be a good queen?” she asked.
“Um,” said Anya, flustered. “She’s the oldest … ”
Bert’s eyes opened wider, questioningly. “And that makes her fit to rule? Tell me, in your reading, do you study history?”
“Not really,” said Anya. “There isn’t very much in our library. I don’t know why not.”
“It is because the little kings and queens of Yarrow typically don’t like to be reminded that they were once merely nobles, or mayors, or sheriffs,” said Bert, shaking her head and pursing her lips. “And most particularly they do not like to be reminded that once there was a code of laws that limited what they could do to their ‘subjects,’ who were once not subjects, but citizens of the kingdom.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Anya uncomfortably. She didn’t like admitting ignorance.
“Of course you don’t,” said Bert. “Very few children or even adults now know anything about the All-Encompassing Bill of Rights and Wrongs in the High Kingdom of Yarrow. But once, it laid down the rights and obligations of the ruler of the kingdom to their people, and the ordinary folk did not have to fear such as Duke Rikard or your sister. Or even yourself.”
“Fear me?” asked Anya, astonished. “Why would they fear me?”
“If you were queen of Trallonia you could have anyone there imprisoned or executed—or you could tax them everything they own, could you not?”
“I suppose so,” said Anya. “Only I wouldn’t.”
“What about your sister, Morven?” asked Bert. “I have heard she likes pretty things. What if she heard of a dress made from cloth of gold and trimmed with emeralds, and she didn’t have enough money on hand to buy it? Would she tax the villagers and farmers to get the gold, even if it beggared them?”
Anya was silent for quite a long time.
“I think the dogs wouldn’t let her,” she said. “But … but she might try.”
“The dogs may only advise. Not decide,” Bert pointed out. “They would try their best, it’s true. At least they remember the Bill.”
She glanced over at Ardent, who had been given a bone by a kindhearted robber who missed his own dog. The royal dog was contentedly gnawing it near Anya’s feet, but he was still listening.
“The All-Encompassing Bill of Rights and Wrongs?” he said now. “Have to recite it twice a year, c-c-closest full moon to midsummer and midwinter. Over at the old stone circle on the Hanging Hill. Tanitha leads the recitation and then we howl.”
“I always wondered what that howling was about!” exclaimed Anya. “Why didn’t I get to go? I like howling too.”
Ardent shrug
ged.
“I don’t know. It’s a dog thing, the reciting. No humans c-c-ome.”
“It doesn’t sound like a dog thing at all!” protested Anya. “What are these rights and obligations in this All-Encompassing Bill of Rights and Wrongs?”
Ardent looked at his bone.
“You want to hear me recite it now? It isn’t the time. And we aren’t on the hill.”
“Yes, I would like—”
“Keep your jaws for your bone,” said a voice from a higher terrace. “I will recite the most important clauses of the Bill, straight from my beak.”
“Ah,” said Bert, half turning around to glance up. “This is who I wanted you to meet. Anya of Trallonia, greet Dehlia, the last surviving warden of the High Kingdom of Yarrow.”
Anya peered up at the moonlit terraces, looking for a human silhouette, but she saw nothing till her eyes were caught by movement. She squinted, unsure what she was looking at, before Dehlia spoke again.
“Yes, I am the last warden, but there will be others again, one day.”
A large white bird with an almost translucently white beak hopped down to stand next to Anya. For a moment Anya thought Dehlia must be an albino raven, till she noted the one sharp eye she could see wasn’t red, but dark and lustrous. Nor was she entirely white. There still a few silver-wreathed black feathers in the ruff around her neck. The bird must once have been entirely black like a normal raven, and the white and silver was the result of tremendous age.
“Yes, I am very old,” said Dehlia, unerringly picking out what Anya was thinking. “It is one hundred and eleven years since the Deluge and the fall of the last High King, curse his name, which shall as ever remain unspoken. I greet you, Anya, and wish you good fortune on your Quest.”
The white raven dipped her head, her sharp and strangely luminous beak tapping the stone of the terrace.
“An honor,” said Anya, bowing. “Uh, Your Ravenship.”