Cups were refilled now, another toast was proposed, and they all drank again. Cephelo called loudly for the music. Stringed instruments and cymbals were brought forth, and their owners began to play. The music was at once wild, haunting, and free as it rose into the night. The laughter of the Rovers rose with it, careless and gay. More wine was poured and quickly consumed, followed by shouts of encouragement for the musicians. Wil felt himself growing light-headed. The wine was strong, too strong for one not used to drinking it as the Rovers did. He must be careful, he thought to himself, raising his cup once more as a new toast was proposed, yet sipping this time rather than draining the amber liquid. In the toe of his right boot, he felt the reassuring bulk of the Elfstones pressed against his foot.
The musicians played faster, and now the Rovers were on their feet and dancing, half a dozen or eight, forming a circle with arms interlocked as they wheeled about the fire. More rose quickly to join the procession, and those still seated began to clap wildly. Wil joined them, setting his cup on the bench beside him. When he reached down for it a moment later, it was full again. Caught up in the spirit of the music, he drank it down without thinking. The dancers broke apart, pairing off now, spinning and leaping before the flames. Someone was singing, a wistful cry that blended eerily with the music and the dance.
Then suddenly Eretria was there before him, dark and beautiful, her slender form clad all in scarlet silk. Her smile was dazzling as she reached down for his hands and brought him to his feet. She pulled him into the midst of the dancers, broke from him for an instant, and twirled away in a flash of ribbons and trailing black hair. Then she was before him once more, slim arms holding him as they danced. The fragrance of her hair and body mingled with the warmth of the wine coursing through his blood. He felt her press close against him, feather light and soft, speaking words that he could not seem to hear clearly. The movement of the dance dizzied him; everything about him began to blend in a maze of colors that whirled against the backdrop of the night. The music and the clapping roared louder, and the shouts and whistles of the Rovers. He felt himself begin to leave the ground, still holding Eretria close.
And then she was gone as well, and he began to fall.
XV
He came awake with the worst headache of his life. It was the sensation of being shaken like a slender branch in a high wind that brought him around, and it took him several long minutes to realize that he was stretched out in the back of one of the Rover wagons. He lay on a straw-filled pallet in a wooden frame bed against the rear wall of the mobile house, staring upward at a strange assortment of tapestries, silks and laces, and metal and wooden implements, all swaying with the motion of the wagon as it bounced and rolled across the grasslands. A shaft of bright sunlight slipped through a partly cracked window, and he knew he had slept the night.
Amberle appeared next to him, a look of reproof in her sea-green eyes.
“I don’t need to ask how you’re feeling this morning, do I?” she declared, her words barely audible above the rumble of the wheels. “I hope it was worth it, Valeman.”
“It wasn’t.” He sat up slowly, feeling his head throb violently with the movement. “Where are we?”
“In Cephelo’s wagon. Since last night, if you can remember that far back. I told them that you were still recovering from a fever and that you might be sick from more than the wine. So they put me in here with you to look after you until I was sure you were feeling better. Drink this.”
She handed him a cup with some dark liquid in it. Wil eyed the unpleasant-looking concoction suspiciously.
“Drink it,” she repeated firmly. “It’s an herbal remedy for excessive use of wine. There are some things you don’t need to be a Healer to know.”
He drank it down without arguing. It was then that he noticed that his boots were gone.
“My boots! What happened to …?”
“Be quiet!” she warned, motioning quickly toward the front of the wagon where a small wooden door stood closed. Wordlessly, she reached beneath the bed and produced the items in question, then pulled from the sash about her waist the small leather pouch containing the Elfstones.
The Valeman sat back with a look of relief.
“The party proved to be a bit too much for you,” she continued, a trace of sarcasm in her voice. “After you passed out, Cephelo had you carried to his wagon to sleep. He was about to have that old woman strip you when I convinced him that if the fever had come back, it would be contagious and that, any case, you would be offended if your clothes were taken without your permission. Apparently he didn’t consider the matter all that important because he ordered the old woman out. After he was gone, as well, I searched you and found the Elfstones.”
He nodded approvingly. “You’ve kept your wits about you.”
“Good thing one of us did.” She brushed aside his compliment with an arch of her eyebrows. She glanced again toward the closed door. “Cephelo left the old woman in the next compartment to keep an eye on us. I don’t think he was entirely persuaded that he knows everything he should about you.”
Wil leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. “That wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Then why are we still here—other than the fact that you drank too much wine last night?” she wanted to know. “For that matter, why are we here in the first place?”
He reached for the Elfstones and she gave them to him. He put the leather pouch back into his right boot and pulled both boots on firmly. Then he motioned for her to lean close.
“Because we have to find a way to get Artaq back from these people and we can’t do that if we don’t stay with them,” he whispered loud enough for her to hear him over the creaking of the wagon. “And there’s another reason. The Demons that chased us from Havenstead will be looking for just two people—not an entire caravan. Perhaps traveling with the Rovers will throw them off. Besides, we’re still traveling west, which is where we want to go, and we’re traveling faster than we could on foot.”
“Fine. But this is dangerous as well, Valeman,” she pointed out. “What do you plan to do when we reach the Westland forests and Cephelo still refuses to give you Artaq?”
He shrugged. “I’ll worry about that when it’s time.”
“We’ve been over this ground before.” She shook her head in disgust. “At least you might try confiding in me a bit more than you have so far. It is not very reassuring to have to rely on you and not have the faintest idea what you’re about.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I’m sorry about last night. I should have told you more before we entered the camp, but, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t made up my mind what we were going to do until just after we found it.”
“I believe that.” She frowned.
“Look, I’ll try to explain some of it now,” he offered. “Rovers travel in Families—you already know that much. The term ‘Family’ is somewhat misleading though, because its members are not always blood-related. Rovers frequently trade or even sell wives and children to other camps. It is a kind of communal property situation. Each Family has one Leader—a father figure who makes all the decisions. Women are considered subservient to men; that is what is called the Way. For the Rovers, that is the natural order of things. They believe quite firmly that women are to serve and obey the men who protect and provide for them. It is a tradition among them that those entering their camp should observe this custom in order to be made welcome. That’s why I took the water first. That’s why I left you to clean up after we treated the sick. I wanted to convince them that I understood and honored their beliefs. If they believed that, there was a chance they would give Artaq back to us.”
“It doesn’t seem to have worked out that way,” Amberle remarked.
“No, not yet,” he admitted. “But they have let us come along with them; ordinarily they would not even consider such a thing. Rovers have little use for outsiders.”
“They have let us come along because Cephelo is
curious about you and wants to find out more than he has been told.” She paused. “Eretria has more than a passing interest in you as well. She made that quite apparent.”
He grinned in spite of himself. “And I suppose you think I enjoyed all that dancing and drinking last night?”
“If you really want to know—yes, that is exactly what I think.”
She said it without the faintest trace of a smile. Wil sat back, his head throbbing with the movement.
“All right, I admit that I overdid it. But there was a good reason for what I did, despite what you may think. It was necessary for them to believe that I wasn’t smarter than they were. If they believed that I was, we would both be dead. So I let myself drink and dance and behave as any other outsider would under the same circumstances—just to keep them from becoming suspicious.” He shrugged. “I cannot help what Eretria thinks about me.”
“I am not asking you to.” She grew suddenly angry. “I don’t care what Eretria thinks about you. I only care that you don’t give us both away by being foolish!”
She saw the look of surprise that crept into his eyes and she flushed darkly.
“Just be careful, will you?” she added quickly, took the empty cup from his hands, and turned away, moving to the far end of the wagon. Wil stared after her curiously.
A moment later she was back, calm and collected once more.
“There is something else you should know about. Early this morning the caravan met with an old line trapper traveling east. He had just passed through the Tirfing—the lake country fronting the Westland forests below the Mermidon. He warned Cephelo not to go in. He said there was a Devil there.”
Wil frowned. “A Devil?”
“He called it a Devil—it is a name the Rovers use for something not human, something evil.” She paused meaningfully. “It may be that this Devil is one of the Demons that has broken through the Forbidding.”
“What did Cephelo say about this Devil?”
Amberle smiled faintly. “He is not afraid of Devils. He intends to go into the Tirfing anyway—his mind is made up on that. I think he has business that requires that he pass that way. The rest of the Family is not too happy about his decision.”
Wil nodded. “I would be inclined to go along with them.”
The Elven girl gave him a long, careful look. “I would not be inclined to go along with anyone in this camp, if I were you. Keep that in mind if you are offered any more wine.”
She wheeled without a word and moved back once again to the far end of the wagon, hiding her movements from the Valeman. Wil started up after her irritably, but the pain in his head made him reconsider quickly. He sat back carefully, resting his throbbing head against a piece of woven reed backing lining the wagon wall. One thing was certain, he thought glumly. She need not worry about him drinking any more of that wine.
The caravan traveled steadily westward until midday, then halted long enough for the Rovers to partake of a quick lunch. By this time, Wil was feeling much improved and was able to eat some of the dried meat and vegetables that comprised the meal. Cephelo spoke to him briefly, inquiring politely as to his health, then moved away, his mind clearly on other matters. There were vague mutterings among the Rovers of the rumored Devil, and it was apparent to the Valeman that the Family was more than a little concerned with the old trapper’s report. Rovers were a superstitious lot anyway, and Cephelo’s decision to ignore a warning such as this one was not popular.
The remainder of the afternoon passed quickly. Wil took a turn at driving Cephelo’s wagon while the old woman napped in the back. Amberle rode beside him as he guided the four-horse team forward in the caravan line through the broad expanse of the grasslands, humming and singing softly to herself but saying very little to him. The Valeman left her alone, concentrating on the task at hand, staring out thoughtfully into the emptiness of the plains. Several times Cephelo rode a big sorrel past them, his forest green cloak billowing out behind him, his dark face covered with a sheen of sweat from the heat of the day. Once Wil caught a quick glimpse of Artaq as the Rover relief horses were driven past the wagons toward a watering hole somewhere ahead of the caravan. He was not being ridden, and it appeared that as yet Cephelo had not decided how he would use the big black—which meant, hopefully, that he had not decided if he intended to keep him.
A little more than an hour before sunset, they entered the Tirfing, a land of small lakes and surrounding woodlands spread out beneath the rim of the grasslands. Far to the west, beneath the red ball of the setting sun, lay the dark mass of the Westland forests. The Rover wagons wound their way down out of the plains into the wooded stretches of the Tirfing along a rutted earthen trail worn by the passing of countless other travelers before them. The heat of the open grasslands dissipated quickly as they entered the sheltering trees, shadows lengthening across the trail before them with the onset of dusk. Through breaks in the woodlands, they began to glimpse bits and pieces of the lakes that dotted the country about them.
It was dark when Cephelo finally brought them to a halt in a large clearing, ringed by oaks and overlooking a small lake several hundred feet to the north. The wagons swung into the familiar circle, rumbling and creaking to a weary halt. Wil was so stiff that he could barely move. While the Rover men worked to unhitch the teams and the women began preparations for the evening meal, the Valeman climbed down gingerly from the hard board seat and tried walking off the stiffness. Amberle chose to walk another way, and he did not bother to follow her. He limped through the caravan circle to the fringes of the surrounding trees, pausing there to stretch himself painfully and allow the blood to circulate through cramped limbs.
Moments later he heard footsteps and turned to find Eretria approaching, her slim form another shadow in the evening dusk. She was dressed in high boots and leather riding clothes, a red silk scarf about her waist and another at her throat. Black hair tumbled down about her shoulders, loose and windblown. She smiled as she came up to him, her dark eyes twinkling mischievously.
“Do not stray too far, Wil Ohmsford,” she advised. “A Devil might find you and then what would you do?”
“Let him have me.” Wil grimaced, rubbing his backside. “Anyway, I do not plan on doing much straying until after I’ve been fed.”
He eased himself down into the tall grass, placing his back against one of the oaks. Eretria watched him wordlessly for a moment, then sat down beside him.
“Where have you been all day?” the Valeman asked conversationally.
“Watching you,” she replied, then smiled wickedly as she saw the look that appeared on his face. “You didn’t see me, of course. You weren’t supposed to.”
He hesitated uncomfortably. “Why were you watching me?”
“Cephelo wanted you watched.” She arched her eyebrows. “He doesn’t trust you—or the Elven girl you claim is your sister.”
She was staring at him boldly now, as if daring him to contradict her. Wil felt a quick moment of panic.
“Amberle is my sister,” he stated as assertively as he could.
Eretria shook her head. “She is no more your sister than I am Cephelo’s daughter. She does not look at you as a sister would; her eyes say that she is something else. Still, it makes little difference to me. If you wish that she be your sister, then so shall she be. Just don’t let Cephelo catch you playing this little game.”
Now it was Wil’s turn to stare. “Wait a minute,” he said after a moment’s pause. “What do you mean she is no more my sister than you are Cephelo’s daughter? He said you were his daughter, didn’t he?”
“What Cephelo says and what is true are not necessarily the same—in fact, very seldom the same.” She leaned forward. “Cephelo has no children. He bought me when I was five from my father. My father was poor and could offer me nothing. He had other daughters, so one would not be missed. Now I belong to Cephelo. But I am not his daughter.”
She said it so matter-of-factly that for a moment Wil could thin
k of nothing to say in response. She saw his confusion and laughed merrily.
“We are Rovers, Wil—you know our ways. Besides, it could have been much worse for me. I could have been given to a much lesser man. Cephelo is a Leader; he has respect and position. As his daughter, I benefit from this. I have more freedom in my life than most women. And I have learned much, Healer. It has made me more than a match for most.”
“I would not want to be the one to test that,” he admitted. “But why are you telling me this?”
She pursed her lips teasingly. “Because I like you—why else?”
“That is what I am wondering.” He ignored the look.
She straightened abruptly, her face petulant.
“Are you married to this Elven girl? Is she promised to you?”
His surprise was evident. “No.”
“Good. I thought not.” The petulance disappeared. She paused, her smile wicked once more. “Cephelo does not plan to return your horse to you.”
Wil considered the statement carefully. “You know this?”
“I know how he is. He will not return your horse. He will let you go on your way if you do not cause him any trouble or try to take back the horse, but he will never give it back to you willingly.”
The Valeman’s face was expressionless. “I’ll ask again—why are you telling me this?”
“Because I can help you.”
“And why should you do that?”
“Because you, in turn, can help me.”
Wil frowned. “How?”
Eretria crossed her legs before her and placed her hands on her knees, rocking back. Her dark eyes danced with amusement.