So far, on this campaign, the weather had held fine. But now, as the day waned, the sky grew dark with thickening clouds and toward evening snow began to fall, softly, but with persistence; first a few thick, clumped, wet flakes at a time, then thick and fine and hard, coming down and down and down with idiot persistence. Melora, back on her donkey, swaddled herself in her gray cloak and wrapped a blanket over her head. The soldiers, one by one, got out scarves and mufflers and thick hoods, and rode, sullen and glowering. Bard knew what they were thinking. By tradition, war was a summer business, and in winter, all but the mad, or the desperate, kept to their own firesides. There was a certain amount of danger in a winter campaign. The men might say, and with some justice, that while they owed service to King Ardrin, this went beyond what was customary and right, and riding like this into a snowstorm which might easily turn into a blizzard in intensity was not customary and therefore the king had no right to ask it of them. How could he command their loyalty? For the first time he wished he were not in command here, but that he was riding north to Hammerfell at King Ardrin’s right hand, his sovereign’s banner bearer. The king could command loyalty from his troops, use his personal influence and power to demand loyalty beyond custom. He could make the men promises, and make those promises good. Bard was painfully aware that he was only seventeen years old; that he was only the king’s bastard nephew and fosterling; that he had been promoted over the heads of many seasoned officers. There were probably men in the ranks, even among these picked men he had chosen for this campaign, who might be waiting to see him come to grief; to make some dreadful mistake that he could never recoup. Had the king given him this command only that he might overstep his powers, see himself as the green and unseasoned warrior that he was?
Despite his triumph and promotion on the field of Snow Glen, he was only a boy. Could he carry through this mission at all? Was the king hoping he would fail, so that he could deny him Carlina? What would lie ahead for him if he failed? Would he be demoted, sent home in disgrace?
He rode ahead to join Master Gareth, who had wrapped his lower face in a thick, red, knitted muffler under the gray sorcerer’s cape. He said with asperity, “Can’t you do anything about this weather? Is this a blizzard coming up, or only a snow flurry?”
“You ask too much of my powers, sir,” said the older man. “I am a laranzu, not a god; the weather is not mine to command.” A touch of humor wrinkled up one corner of his face in a wry smile. “Believe me, Master Bard, if I had command over the weather, I would use it to my own advantage. I am as cold as you, and as blinded by snow, and my bones are older and feel the cold more.”
Bard said, hating to confess his own inadequacy, “The men are grumbling, and I am a little afraid of mutiny. A winter campaign—while weather held fine, they did not care. But now—”
Master Gareth nodded. “I can see that. Well, I will try to see how far this storm extends, and if we will ride out of it soon; although weather magic is not my special gift. Only one of his majesty’s laranzu’in has that, and Master Robyl rode north to Hammerfell with the king; he felt he would be needed more, on the northern border of the Hellers where the snows are fiercer. But I will do my best.”
And as Bard turned away, he added, “Cheer up, sir. The snow may make it hard for us to ride, but not nearly as hard as for the caravan with the clingfire; they have all those carts and wagons to push along through the snow, and if it gets too deep they won’t be able to move at all.”
Bard realized that he should have thought of that. Snow would immobilize the carts and wagons of the caravan, while the light horsemen of the picked group were still well able to ride and to fight. Furthermore, if it was true that Dry-town mercenaries had been hired to escort the caravan, they were accustomed to warmer weather, and the snow would confuse them. He rode among the men, listening to their grumblings and protests, and reminded them of this. Even though the snow continued to fall, and even grew heavier, that thought seemed to cheer them a little.
However, the clouds and falling snow grew ever thicker, and after a word with Beltran, they called a halt early. Nothing was to be gained by forcing grumbling men to press on through the same snow that would immobilize their prey. Riding through the snow, the men were weary and disheartened, and some of them would have eaten a few bites of cold food and rolled into their blankets at once, but Bard insisted that fires must be lighted and hot food cooked, knowing this would do more for the men’s morale than anything else. With fires lighted on stone slabs and blazing away, fed by the fallen tree branches of an abandoned orchard—hit by the nut blight of a few seasons ago—the camp looked cheerful, and one of the men brought out a small drone-pipe and began to play, mournful old laments older than the world. The young women slept in their shared tent, but Master Gareth joined the men around the fire, and after a time, though he protested that he was neither minstrel nor bard, consented to tell them the tale of the last dragon. Bard sat beside Beltran in the shadows of the fire, chewing on dried fruit and listening to the story of how the last dragon had been slain by one of the Hastur kin, and how, sensing with the laran of beasts that this last of his folk was dead, every beast and bird within the Hundred Kingdoms had set up a Wail, a keen, even the banshees joining in the lament for the last of the wise serpents… and the son of Hastur himself, standing beside the corpse of the last dragon on Darkover, had vowed never again to hunt for any living thing for sport. When Master Gareth finished his tale, the men applauded and begged for more, but he shook his head, saying that he was an old man and had been riding all day, and that he was away to his blankets.
Soon the camp was dark and silent; only the small red eye of the fire, covered with green branches against the morning’s need for hot porridge, sizzled and watched from its cover. All around the fire dark triangles marked where the men lay in their blankets, beneath the waterproof sheets, stretched up at an angle, to protect them from the still falling snow; miniature open half-tents pitched on a forked stick apiece, each with two or three or four men beneath, huddled together and sharing blankets and body warmth. Beltran lay at Bard’s side, looking curiously small and boyish, but Bard lay awake, staring at the fire and the white-silver streaks of snow that made pale arrows across the light. Somewhere, not far from them, the enemy lay immobilized, heavy carts mired in snow, pack beasts floundering.
At his side Beltran said softly, “I wish Geremy were with us, foster brother.”
Bard laughed almost noiselessly. “So did I, at first. Now I’m not so sure. Perhaps two green boys in command are enough, and we are well off to have Master Gareth’s experience and wisdom; while Geremy as an untried laranzu rides with your father who is well skilled in command… Perhaps he thought if we three went together it would seem too much like one of the hunting trips we used to ride on, the three of us, when we were only lads…”
“I remember,” Beltran said, “when we three were younger and we rode out like this. Lying together and looking into the fire and talking of the days when we would be men, and on campaign together, in command, in real war and not our mock battles against chervine herds… Do you remember, Bard?”
Bard smiled in the dark. “I remember. What mighty campaigns and wars we planned, how we would subdue all this countryside from the Hellers to the shores of Carthon, and beyond the seas… Well, this much has come true of what we planned, that we are all on campaign, and at war, just as we said when we were boys who hardly knew which end of a sword to take hold by…”
“And now Geremy is a laranzu riding with the king, and he thinks only of Ginevra, and you are the king’s banner bearer, promoted in battle, and handfasted to Carlina, and I—” Prince Beltran sighed in the darkness. “Well, no doubt, one day I will know what it is that I want from my life, or if I do not, my father and king will tell me what it is that I will have.”
“Oh, you,” Bard said, laughing, “some day the throne of Asturias will be yours.”
“That is no laughing matter,” Beltran said, and
he sounded somber. “To know that I will come to power only over my father’s grave and by his death. I love my father, Bard, and yet at times I think I shall go mad if I must stand at his footstool and wait for something real to do… I cannot even go forth out of the kingdom and seek adventure, as any other subject is free to do.” Bard felt the younger lad shiver. “I am so cold, foster brother.”
For a moment Beltran seemed, to Bard, no older than the little brother who had clung to his neck and wept when he went away to the king’s house. Awkwardly, he patted Beltran’s shoulder in the dark. “Here, have some more of the blanket, I don’t feel the cold as badly as you do, I never did. Try to sleep. Tomorrow, perhaps, we’ll have a fight on our hands, a real fight, not one of the mock battles we used to take so much pleasure in, and we must be ready for it.”
“I’m afraid, Bard. I’m always afraid. Why are you and Geremy never afraid?”
Bard snorted brief laughter. “What makes you think we’re not afraid? I don’t know about Geremy, but I was afraid enough to wet my breeches like a babe, and no doubt I’ll be so again, Only I haven’t time to talk about it when it’s happening, and no wish to do so when it isn’t. Don’t worry, foster brother. You did well enough at Snow Glens, I remember.”
“Then why did my father promote you on the field, and not me?”
Bard half sat up in the darkness and stared at him. He said, “Is that flea still biting you? Beltran, my friend, your father knows you have all you need already. You are his son and his legitimate heir, you ride at his side, you are already acknowledged just one breath away from the throne. He promoted me because I was his fosterling, and a bastard. Before he could set me over his men, to command them, he had to make me somebody he could legitimately promote, which he could not do without acknowledging me specially. Promoting me was only sharpening a tool he wished to use, no more, not a mark of his love or special regard! By the cold whirlwind of Zandru’s third hell, I know it if you don’t! Are you fool enough to be jealous of me, Beltran?”
“No,” Beltran said slowly in the dark, “No, I suppose not, foster brother.” And after a time, hearing Beltran’s silent breathing in the dark, Bard slept.
* * *
Chapter Four
« ^ »
In the morning it was still snowing, and the sky was so dark that Bard’s heart sank as he watched the men going glumly about the business of caring for their horses, cooking up a great pot of porridge, making ready and saddling up to ride. He heard muttering among the men to the effect that King Ardrin had no right to send them out in winter, that this campaign was the work of his fosterling, who didn’t know what was proper and right; who ever heard of a campaign like this with winter coming on?
“Come on, lads,” Bard urged. “If the Dry-towners can ride in weather like this, are we going to stand back and let them bring clingfire to hurl against our villages and our families?”
“Dry-towners are likely to do anything,” one of the men grumbled. “Next thing, they’ll be holding harvest in springtime! War is a business for the summertime!”
“And because they believe we will stay snug at home, they think it safe to strike at us,” Bard argued. “Do you want to stay home and let them attack?”
“Yes, why not stay home and let them come to us? Defending our homes against attack’s one thing,” a burly veteran growled, “but going out looking for trouble, that’s something else!”
But, though there was grumbling and muttering, there was no open mutiny or rebellious behavior. Beltran was pale and silent, and Bard, remembering their talk last night, realized that the youngster was terrified. It was easy to think of Beltran as younger than himself, although in solid fact there was less than half a year between them; Bard had always been so much the larger of the foster brothers, the strongest, always best at swordplay and wrestling and hunting, their unquestioned leader.
So he made occasion to speak to Beltran about his fears that the men would mutiny, and asked Beltran to go among them and try to sound out their mood as they rode.
“You are their prince, and you represent the will of their king. A time might come when they would not obey me, but they would not be willing, I think, to defy their king’s own son,” he suggested guilefully, and Beltran, looking at Bard with a sullen scowl—after all, should he take orders from Bard?—finally nodded and drew back to ride alongside first one, then another of the men, asking questions, talking to one after the other. Bard watched, thinking that perhaps in this task Beltran had put aside his fears—and perhaps that touch of personal concern from their prince had quieted the men’s rebelliousness.
And still the snow continued to fall. It was up, now, to the fetlocks of the horses, and Bard began seriously to worry about whether the horses could get through. He asked Master Gareth to send out the sentry birds, but received the halfway expected answer that they would not fly in such weather.
“Sensible birds,” Bard grumbled. “I wish I needn’t! Well, is there any way to find out how far from us the caravan is traveling, and whether we will come up with them today?”
Master Gareth said, “I will ask Mirella; this is why she is with us, so that she can use the Sight.”
Bard watched as Mirella, seated on her horse amid the falling snow, her hair showing bright copper through the thickly salted flakes on her braids, sat staring into her crystal. The light reflected, faintly blue, on her face; the only light, it seemed, anywhere in that dismal day, was the blue light and the flame of her coppery hair. She was muffled in cloak and shawls, but they could not hide the slender grace of her body, and Bard found himself, once again, letting his mind linger on her beauty. She was, doubtless, the most beautiful young girl he had ever seen; next to her Carlina was a pale stick. Yet Mirella was completely beyond his reach, sacrosanct, a leronis, vowed virgin for the Sight, and there were uncanny warning tales about what could befall the manhood of any man who would assail the virginity of a leronis against her will. He told himself that he could, with his gift, assure himself that it would not be against her will, that he could force her to come to his bed willingly…
But that would make an enemy of Master Gareth. Damn, there were enough willing women in this world, and he was handfasted to a princess, and anyway this was no time to be thinking of women at all!
Mirella sighed and opened her eyes, the blue light dimming from her face, and her glance rested on him, shy, serious, so direct that Bard wondered, a little abashed, if she could read what he had been thinking.
Instead she only said, in her still neutral voice, “They are not far from us, vai dom. Three hours’ ride over that ridge yonder—” She pointed, but the ridge she spoke of was invisible in the falling snow. “They have encamped because the snow has fallen deeper there, and thicker, and their carts cannot move. They are up to the hubs of the wheels, and the draft animals cannot move. One broke a leg in the harness and the others tried to stampede and nearly kicked themselves to death. If we ride on as we are going now, we will come upon them soon after midday.”
Bard rode to relay this news to his men, and found them grim, not at all pleased by the news.
“That means we have to fight in deep snow, and what do we do with the caravan when we have captured it, if their pack beasts are not working?” one old veteran inquired sourly. “I suggest we make camp here and wait for a thaw, when we can take it easier. If they’re unable to move, they’ll wait there for us!”
“We’d run out of food and fodder for the horses,” Bard said, “and there’s an advantage to doing battle when we choose. Come on, let’s get there as soon as we can!”
They rode on, the snow continuing to fall. Bard watched the gray-cloaked leroni, frowning. Finally he rode forward and asked Master Gareth, “How shall we protect the women in battle, sir? We cannot spare a man to guard them.”
“I said it before,” Master Gareth said. “These women are skilled leroni; they are capable of looking after themselves. Melora has been in battle before this, and although
Mirella has not, I have no fear for her.”
“But these men we shall fight are accompanied by Dry-town mercenaries,” Bard said. “And if your daughter and foster daughter are taken prisoner—leroni or no—they will be dragged in chains to be sold in a Daillon brothel.”
Melora, riding near them on her ambling donkey, said quietly, “Have no fear for us, vai dom.” She put her hand on the small dagger she wore at her waist, under the cloak. “My sister and I will not fall into Dry-town hands alive.”
The calm, matter-of-fact way she spoke made a cold shudder run up Bard’s spine. Curiously, the note was one of kinship. He, too, had known that he faced death or worse in battle, and had come early to that knowledge, and the note in Melora’s voice made him think of his own early battles. He found himself grinning at her, a tight, spontaneous grin. He said, “The Goddess forbid that it should come to that, damisela. But I did not know there were women capable of such decisions, or courage in war.”
“It is not courage,” Melora said, in her sweet voice. “It is only that I fear the chains and brothels of the Dry towns more than I fear death. Death, I have been taught, is a gateway to another and better life; and life would have no sweetness for me as a chained whore in Daillon. And my dagger is very sharp, so I could end my life very swiftly and without much pain—I am, I think, rather afraid of pain, but not of death.”
“Why,” he said, reining in his horse so that he rode beside her donkey, “I should use you to hearten my men, mistress Melora. I did not know women were capable of such courage.” He found himself wondering if Carlina would be able to talk this way when she rode into battle. He did not know. He had never thought to ask her.
It occurred to Bard that he had known many women intimately, since his fifteenth year. And yet it seemed to him, suddenly, that he really knew very little about what women were like. He had known their bodies, yes, but nothing of the rest of them; it had not occurred to him that any woman could be interesting to him, except for coupling with them.