Two To Conquer ELF

  Perhaps a leronis could calm the waters, as Melora had done at Moray’s Mill; and his men could swim their horses across.

  “Melisendra!”

  She came quietly. He wondered if she had been laughing behind his back at his struggle with the boat.

  “If the priestesses have put a spell on the water, you can calm it and reverse it!”

  She looked straight at him and shook her head.

  “No, my lord. I dare not risk the anger of Avarra.”

  “Is she the Goddess of whom you prate?” he demanded.

  “She is the Goddess of all women, and I will not anger her.”

  “Melisendra, I warn you—” He raised his hand, ready to strike her.

  She looked at him with deadly indifference. “You cannot do anything to me worse than you have done. After what has already befallen me, do you think that a few blows will make me obedient to your will?”

  “If you dislike me as much as all that, I would think you would be glad to help me recover my wife! Then you will be free of me, if I am so hateful to you!”

  “At the cost of betraying some other woman into your hands?”

  “You are jealous,” he accused, “and want no other woman in my arms!”

  She kept her eyes on him, straight and level. She said, “If your wife were held captive on that island and wished to rejoin you, I would risk the anger of Avarra to help her to your arms. But she seems not very eager to leave her place of refuge and come over to you. And if you are wise, Bard, you will leave this place at once before something worse happens.”

  “Is that the Sight?” Frustration made his words sarcastic.

  She bowed her head. She said, and he saw that she was weeping silently, “No, my lord. That is—gone from me forever. But I know the Goddess cannot be defied with impunity. You had better come, Bard.”

  “Would you grieve if some dreadful fate befell me?” he asked, savagely, but she did not answer, only turned her horse about and rode slowly away from the lake.

  Damn the woman! Damn all women, and their Goddess with them!

  “Come on, men,” he shouted. “Swim the horses; the spell is only on the boat!” He urged his horse right up to the water’s edge, although it fought, shying nervously and backing, from the water under its feet. He swiveled his horse and saw that they were not following him.

  “Come on! What’s the matter with you? After me, men! There are women on that island, and they have defied me, so I make you free of them all! Come on, men, plunder and women—not afraid of some old witch’s jabberings, are you? Come on!”

  About half of the men hung back, muttering fearfully.

  “Nay, Dom Wolf, it’s uncanny, it’s forbidden!”

  “The Goddess forbids it, Lord! No, don’t do this!”

  “Blasphemy!”

  But one or two of the others urged their horses forward, eagerly, hauling at the reins, forcing the unwilling beasts into the water.

  The fog was rising again, thicker and thicker; and this time it had a strange, eerie greenish color. It seemed that there were faces within it, faces that grimaced and leered and menaced him, and slowly, slowly, the faces were drifting ashore. One of the men hanging back, unwilling to go near the water, suddenly howled like a madman, and cried, “No, no! Mother Avarra, have mercy! Pity us!” He jerked the reins savagely and Bard heard his horse’s hoofs suck and splash as he turned about and galloped back the way they had come. One after another, although Bard rose in his stirrups and yelled and cursed them, his men turned and bolted their animals back up the trail, until Bard was alone at the water’s edge. Damn them all! Frightened of a little fog! Cowards, he’d break them all and reduce them to the ranks, if he didn’t hang them one and all for cowardice!

  He sat defying the fog. “Come on,” he said aloud, and clucked to the horse, but she did not move, quivering beneath him as if she stood in the chill of a blizzard. He wondered if she could see the horrid faces, drifting nearer and nearer the shore.

  And suddenly a blind terror chilled Bard, too, to the bone. He knew, with every fiber in him, that if one of the faces touched him through the fog, all the courage and life in him would drain out, cold, and he would die, the fog would bite through to the bone and he would fall from his saddle, strengthless and screaming, and never rise again. He jerked at the reins of his horse and tried to gallop after Melisendra and his fleeing men, but he was frozen, and the mare sat trembling under him and did not stir. He had once heard that the Great Mother could take the form of a mare… Had she bewitched his horse?

  The faces drifted closer and closer, horrible and formless, the faces of dead men, ravished women, corpses with the flesh hanging from their bones, and somehow Bard knew they were all the men he had led into battle and death, all the men he had killed, all the women he had ravaged or raped or burned and driven from their houses, the screaming face of a woman in the pillage of Scaravel, when he had taken her child from her and flung it over the wall to be shattered on the stones below… a woman he had taken in the sack of Scathfell, her husband lying dead beside her… a child, bruised and bleeding from a dozen men who had used her… Lisarda, weeping in his arms… Beltran, all the flesh melted from his bones… the faces were so close now that they were formless, lapping at his feet, his knees, swirling higher and higher. They wrapped about his loins, sucking, biting, and under his clothing he felt his genitals shrink and wither, unmanning him, felt the cold rise in his belly; when they rose to bite at his throat his breath would fail and he would fall, choking, dying…

  Bard screamed, and somehow the sound gave him life enough to grab at the reins, to kick frantically at his horse’s flanks. She bucked and bolted. He clung for his life, letting her run, letting her take him anywhere, anywhere away from that place. He lost the stirrups, he lost the reins as she bolted, but panic somehow gave him strength to cling to her back; at last he felt her slowing under him to a walk, and came to consciousness dazed, finding that he was riding at the rear of his men, next to Melisendra.

  If she said a single word, he resolved, if she spoke a syllable indicating that she had warned him, or that he should have taken her advice, he would hit her! Somehow that damned woman always seemed to come off best in their encounters! He was sick to death of having her there to sneer at him! If she said one word about what a ludicrous figure he had cut, fleeing, clinging to his horse…

  “If you’re so damned well suited by piety and chastity,” he snarled at her, “and so glad of my defeat, why don’t you go back to them yourself and stay there?”

  But she was not jeering at him. She was not looking at him at all. She had her veil pulled over her face and she was weeping quietly behind its shelter.

  “I would go,” she said in a whisper. “I would go, so gladly! But they would not have me.” And she lowered her head and would not look at him again.

  Bard rode on, sick with rage. Once again, Carlina had escaped him! She had made a fool of him again, when he had been so sure of her! And he was tied still to Melisendra, whom he was beginning to hate! He turned as they rode up the steep path, and shook an angry fist at the lake which lay silent, pale in the falling dusk, behind them.

  He would come back. The women there had defeated him once, but he would devise some way to come back, and this time he would not be driven away by their witchcraft! Let them beware!

  And if Carlina was hiding there, let her beware too!

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  « ^ »

  Summer had come to the Kilghard Hills, bringing fire season, when the resin trees burst into flame and every available man was called out on fire watch. On a day late in summer Bard di Asturien rode slowly southward, with a small group of picked men and bodyguards, and at last crossed the border from Marenji into Asturias.

  No longer, he thought, truly a border. The Shire of Marenji, despite the protests of the sheriff, lay under arms, protected by soldiers quartered in every house and village in Marenji. A system of beacon fires a
nd telepathic relays had been established to warn the people of Asturias of any attack from north or east, from bandits from over the Kadarin, or riders from Serrais.

  The people of Marenji had protested. When had the people, he wondered, ever known what was good for them? Did they want to stand unarmed between Serrais and Asturias, being ridden over by armies every few years? If they did not want soldiers there from Asturias, they should have had their own armies to keep them out.

  He spent one night in his old home, but no one was there except the old condom; Erlend had been sent to join his mother at court. Soon, Bard thought, he would have to take thought about suitable fosterage for his son in some nobleman’s house. Even if Erlend was destined to be a laranzu, he should know something of war and arms. Bard remembered that Geremy, who knew he would never carry arms in battle, had been nothing behind his foster brothers in sword-play… he cut that thought off, clean, setting his jaw, refusing to think about it

  Erlend should be a laranzu, if his gifts lay that way; he was only a nedestro son. When he had found the right way to reclaim Carlina, she could give him lawful sons enough. But Erlend must be fostered as befitted his rank, and he supposed Melisendra would make some sort of scene over that. Damn the woman, all the disadvantages of having a wife, and none of the advantages! If she were not his father’s most valued leronis he would send her away at once. Perhaps one of Dom Rafael’s men would be willing to marry her, surely his father would give her some kind of dowry.

  He rode in to Castle Asturias at dusk, finding the courtyard filled with strange horses, Hastur banners, embassies from all over the Hundred Kingdoms. What had happened? Had King Carolin sent at last to ransom Geremy?

  That, he learned, was only a part of it. Forty days before, the Lady Ginevra Harryl had borne a son to Geremy Hastur; Geremy had chosen, first, to legitimatize the boy, and at the same time had chosen to marry the woman di catenas. As a way of proving that Geremy Hastur was no prisoner but an honored guest (the legal fiction, Bard thought wryly, about all hostages), Dom Rafael had chosen to perform the marriage himself, and to hold the wedding with great ceremony, with Hasturs coming from far and wide to attend the wedding. And while Dom Carolin would not venture, himself, into Asturias, he had sent one of his ministers, the laranzu Varzil of Neskaya, to solemnize the ceremony.

  Bard cared little for this kind of merry-making, and the preparations reminded him, painfully, of the fact that he had hoped to hold this kind of wedding for himself some time this summer, before his defeat at the Lake of Silence. Nevertheless, the commander of the king’s armies must be present; brooding, he got into his embroidered tunic and ceremonial cloak of blue, richly trimmed with copper threads and fine embroidery. Melisendra, too, looked noble and proud, her hair done high in looped braids, in a gown of green and a cape of marl-fur. Before they left the suite little Erlend came in, stopping wide-eyed to admire his parents.

  “Oh, Mother, you are beautiful! And you too, Father, you are beautiful too!”

  Bard chuckled and bent to lift up his son. Erlend said wistfully, “I wish I might go down and see the wedding and all the fine clothes and noblemen and ladies…”

  “There is no place for children—” Bard began, but Melisendra said, “Your nurse may take you into the gallery for a peep at them, Erlend, and if you are a good boy she will fetch you some cakes from the kitchen for your supper.” Bard put him down, and Melisendra knelt to kiss him.

  Bard, jealous of the way the boy clung to his mother, said, “And you shall ride with me tomorrow.” Erlend trotted away with his nurse, quite dazzled at the thought of the promised treats.

  But Bard frowned as he went, at Melisendra’s side, down the great stairway.

  “Why in the name of all the gods did Father choose to hold Geremy’s wedding in such state?”

  “I think he has a plan, but I do not know what it is; I am sure it was not because of any good will he holds toward Geremy. Nor, I suppose, toward Ginevra; although Dom Regis Harryl is one of the oldest nobility of Asturias, and of the Hastur kin a few generations back.”

  Bard thought about this. Of course, Dom Rafael sought to hold the throne for Alaric, and must do it in part by keeping the goodwill of all the nobles who owed allegiance to the di Asturiens. A court wedding for the daughter of a valued supporter was a simple diplomatic move, well worth what it cost. Although personally Bard would have hesitated at showing such favor at one of his own allies marrying into the Hasturs when the Hasturs could, all too soon, be enemies.

  “Do you really think we shall have to go to war with the Hasturs, Bard?”

  Bard scowled, annoyed at Melisendra’s habit of reading his mind, but said, “I see no way that it can be avoided.”

  Melisendra shivered a little. “Why, you are pleased…”

  “I am a soldier, Melisendra. War is my business, and the business of every loyal man of Asturias, so that we have to keep this realm by force of arms.”

  “I should think it would be easy to make peace with the Hasturs. They don’t want war any more than we do.”

  Bard shrugged. “Well, let them surrender to us, then.” He wished Melisendra would stop talking about things that did not really concern her.

  “But it does concern me, Bard. I am a leronis, and no stranger to battle. And even if I were not, if I were such a woman as had nothing better to do than bide at home and keep my house, I should still have to deal with wounds and pillage and bearing of sons to ride into war… war is a concern of women, not only of men!”

  Her face was flushed with indignation, but Bard only said, roughly, “Nonsense. And if you read my thought again, Melisendra, without leave, you will be sorry for it!”

  She shrugged and said with composure, “I am sorry for anything I have to do with you, my Lord. And if you wish me not to read your thoughts, you should refrain from sending them forth so that no one can help but hear them; I am seldom sure whether you have spoken aloud, or no.”

  Bard wondered about that. He had never thought he had any measurable laran. Why did Melisendra find him so easy to read?

  The Great Hall was crowded with men and women. There was also the howling of two or three young infants; there had recently been a silly fad among noblewomen for suckling their babes themselves, instead of giving them properly to wet nurses, and Ginevra was recently a mother so that many other young matrons had seen fit to bring their unweaned babes into the hall. He hoped they would be carried out before the ceremonies began! He decided that when Carlina came to court he would insist that she should behave in a more dignified fashion; with all these squalling weanlings about, the place was like the pasture of mares in foal!

  But Lady Jerana had evidently insisted that all the babies be taken away before the ceremony. The marriage bracelets were locked, with great solemnity, on the wrists of Geremy and Ginevra, as the Regent of Asturias said, “May you be forever one.” Well, Geremy had a wife, and at least she was of proven fertility. He shrugged and went to congratulate his kinsman.

  Ginevra and Melisendra were hugging one another and squealing inanities as young women always did at weddings. Bard bowed.

  “I congratulate you, cousin,” he said courteously. If Geremy were halfway intelligent, he thought, he would chalk their differences up to the fortunes of war, and have done with it. He bore Geremy no special ill will; he supposed that in Geremy’s shoes he would have done much the same.

  “I see your kinsmen have come far and wide to do honor to you, foster brother.”

  “Mostly, I think, to my lady,” Geremy returned, and presented Ginevra to Bard. She was a small, swarthy woman, who looked almost as if she might have been born to the mountain forge-folk; even though Geremy did not stand straight, she came only up to his shoulder. She was flat-chested too, and had followed the stupid fashion of having her gown made with lacings so that she could nurse her infant in public; how undignified!

  But he spoke politely, bowing.

  “I hope your son is strong and hearty as a man-
child should be.”

  She said a courteous word or two; and Geremy evidently shared Bard’s feeling that it was prudent for them to be seen in civil chit-chat for a moment or two.

  “Oh, yes, the women say he is a fine boy. I am no judge of such things. To me he looks like any other newborn babe, soggy at both ends, and howling early and late; but Ginevra thinks he is pretty, even after all the trouble he gave her.”

  “I was fortunate,” Bard said, “for I made the acquaintance of my son only after he could walk and talk like a reasonable person, not an untrained puppy.”

  “I have seen young Erlend,” Geremy said, “and he is handsome and clever. And his mother, I have heard, is a leronis; is the boy laran-gifted as well?”

  “His mother tells me so.”

  “I should expect it, with the red hair of the Hastur kin,” Geremy said. “Have you given thought to having the boy fostered at one of the Towers, Hali or Neskaya? I am sure they would be glad to have him. My kinsman Varzil of Neskaya is here, and he could arrange for it.”

  “I doubt it not. But it seems to me that Erlend is over young to be sent out of this realm in time of war, and I have no wish to see him held hostage.”

  Geremy looked shocked. “You misunderstand me, kinsman. The Towers are sworn to neutrality, which is how a Ridenow came to be Keeper at Hali. And after the burning of Neskaya, when the Tower was rebuilt, Varzil came there with a circle, and swore they would observe the Compact of the Hasturs, and fight no more wars with laran weapons.”

  “Except in the cause of the Hasturs, you mean,” Bard said with a cynical grin. “Clever of Carolin, to insure their loyalty like that!”

  “No, cousin, not even that. They are sworn not to fight even for the Hasturs, but to use their starstones only in the cause of peace.”

  “And Carolin lets their Tower stand unburned within his realm?”

  “My father wishes it so,” said Geremy. “This land is torn yearly with foolish and fratricidal wars, so that the peasants cannot even get in their crops. Clingfire is bad enough, but worse weapons are made now by sorcery. The Lady of Valeron used air-cars to spread bonewater dust north of Thendara, and I think perhaps no crops will ever grow there again, and any man who travels through that country dies, afterward, with blood turned to water and bones gone brittle… and worse things, such things as I would not speak of at a festival. And so we have all sworn that we will use no laran against any foe from these Towers, and all the lands near the Hastur realms have pledged themselves to observe the Compact.”