We had a second problem, one which had slowed this band of fugitives from the first. Martine, who had been wedded only last fall to the son of the village headman, was heavy with child, her time near upon her. I knew we must find, and shortly, a place wherein we could not only camp for a space, but also have food. Yet nowhere in this rugged land did there seem any welcome.
On the fifth day of our frighteningly slow travel, Rudo and Timon, scouting ahead, returned with brighter faces. We had not cut across any invader trail now for more than a day and so we had a faint ray of hope we had gotten beyond their ranging. What our scouts offered us was a camping ground. And none too soon, I believed, for Nalda, who had kept an eye on Martine, looked very sober.
If we turned a little south, Rudo reported, we would find a valley with not only water but game. He had also discovered a thicket of pla-plums fully ripe. And there was no sign of any visitors.
“Best foot in there, Lady Joisan.” Nalda spoke with her usual frankness. “That one”—she nodded at Martine, who sat on the nearest pony, her head dropping, her hands pressed to her swelling belly—“is nigh her time. I do not think she is going to get through this day before her pains come.”
We came into the valley. As Rudo promised, it had many advantages. And the men, though Insfar could use only one arm and Angarl one hand, set about hacking down saplings and setting up lean-tos—the first of which Nalda took for Martine.
She had foreseen rightly. By moonrise our party had gathered a new member, squalling lustily, and named Alwin for his dead father. Thus also our staying here for some time was ordered.
It was the next morning I set my will against Yngilda's. If we were to survive, we must gather all the food we might find, keeping ourselves on spare rations while we dried or otherwise prepared the rest for the trail ahead.
I was learned in the provisioning of a keep, but here where there was no salt, no utensils with which to work—nothing but hands, my memory, and what I could improvise—it seemed I faced an impossible task. Yet it was one I must master.
The village women made no murmur, and even the two children did as they were bid at their mother's side. It made me hot with anger when Yngilda did not bestir herself from the lean-to or make any move to join our foraging party.
I went to her, a bag roughly woven from grass and small vines in my hand. Coaxing would not stir her, that I was sure. This was a case for the rough of one's tongue, and that, exasperated and driven as I was, I could easily give.
“On your feet, girl! You will go with Nalda and take heed of what she says—”
She looked at me stony-eyed. “You are bondswoman to us, Joisan. If you would grub in the dirt with fieldwomen, that is your choice. I do not forget my blood—”
“Then live upon it!” I bade her. “Who hunts not food does not eat by another's labor. And I am no bondswoman.”
I threw the bag to her, and she spurned it with her foot. So I turned and tramped away to join the others. But I swore that I would hold to my promise. She was able-bodied and young—I would share with the Lady Islaugha, but not with her.
Of the Lady Islaugha I thought now impatiently. She had sunk into herself: for no better way could I describe her appearance since I had reported Toross’ death. As with Dame Math at the last, age had settled upon her in a single day; so, though she was still in middle years by reckoning, she was to all eyes an aged woman.
She had retreated into her own thoughts, and sometimes we could not rouse her, even to eat what was put into her hand, without a great effort. Now and then she muttered in whispers of which I could not catch more than a word or so, and from these I guessed that she spoke with those I could not see and who, perhaps, were long gone from this world.
I hoped that this was a temporary state born of shock and that in time she would be herself. But of that I could not be sure. If I could only get her to Norstead Abbey where the Dames were learned in nursing, perhaps she might be brought back to the world. But Norsdale seemed farther from us each day.
Yngilda had no such excuse, and she must take upon herself a share of our hardships. The sooner she learned that fact, the better! It was with no pleasant feelings that I went out to hunt.
I had a long bow and three arrows. At Ithkrypt in practice shooting I had proven myself marksman. But shooting at a target and at living prey were, I knew, two different matters, and I must not waste any more of those arrows. So my greater hope this morning was fixed on the river.
With patience and care I had worked at the edge of my mail shirt and broken off a couple of links, shaping them roughly into hooks, raveling my cloak hem and twisting together fibers for a cord. It was poor equipment for a fisherman, but the best I had. And as the foragers separated, the men heading for the grassland where rabbits might be found, the women for the plum thicket, I kept on along the river bank.
Only necessity made it possible for me to bait the first hook with a living insect. I had always shrunk from hurting any creature, and this use of a small life was to me another horror to be added to those of the immediate past.
I found a place where I could wade out to a square rock around which the water washed. There were trees here, and it was cool, shadowed from the sun. But it was still so warm that I shed my mail and the padded jacket under that, keeping on only my undershift; but wishing I might drop that also and slide into the water to wash clean, not only from the dust and sweat of our journeying, but from memory also.
The gryphon swung free, but it held none of the life it had shown the night when Toross and I fled together. I studied it now. It was marvelously wrought. Where had it come from? Overseas—a fairing bought from some Sulcar trader? Or—was it a talisman of the Old Ones?
Talisman—my mind played with that thought. Had it served us as a guide on our flight from Ithkrypt to the star place in the wood? That had been of the Old Ones, and this—could it be, I speculated, that such baubles as this had connection with remains of the Old Ones?
It was an interesting thought, but not one to produce food. I had best attend to the reason for my being here. I dropped my baited line into the water.
Twice I had a strike, but the fish got away. And the second time it took my hook. I had never possessed great patience, but that morning I forced myself to cultivate it as I never had before.
I gained two fish with the second hook. But neither was large. And I feared that unless luck changed, this was no way to replenish our supplies. Leaving my rock, I trudged farther along the stream and, to my joy, found in a side eddy a bed of watercress I plundered.
As the sun turned westward, I turned back to camp. I had eaten some berries and chewed on a handful of my watercress. But I ached with hunger as I went, hoping that the rest had had better luck. When I struck away from the river, I came across the first piece of real fortune I had had all day.
There was a snarl and a deeper answer. Dropping my bag of fish and watercress, I put arrow to bow string and stole forward past a screen of brush.
On the body of a fresh-killed cow crouched a half-grown snow cat, its ears flattened to its skull, its teeth bared in a death-promising grin. Facing it was a broc-boar.
These grim scavengers were meat eaters, but this one must have either been wild with some private fury, or ravening with hunger, or it would not have challenged the cat over its own kill. And it would seem that the cat was wary of the boar, as if it sensed that the other's challenge had a double element of danger.
The boar was digging its tusks into the earth already softened by its pawing forefeet, tossing bits of sod into the air and squealing in a rising crescendo of sound.
Side by side on the ground the boar would outweigh the cat, I thought. I had seen only two broc-boars in my life, and both had been well under the weight and shoulder height of this monster.
The cat screamed in fury as it sprang, not at the boar, but back from the prey it had cut down. And the boar moved after it with a nimbleness I would not have guessed possible. With another prote
st of feline rage, the snow cat leaped to a crag and up, soon gaining the heights. From there I could hear its hissing and growling growing fainter as it left the field to the boar who stood, its head cocked, listening.
Almost without planning, I moved then. It was dangerous. Wound that tight package of porcine fury, and I might be horribly dead. But as yet the boar had not winded me, and I saw in it such a promise of food as I could not, in my hunger, resist. Also it was standing now in just the position where I could get a telling shot.
I loosed my arrow and a second later threw myself backward into such hiding as the brush gave me. I heard a terrible squeal and a thudding, but I dared not wait. If I had failed, that four-footed death would be after me. So I ran.
Before I reached camp I sighted Rudo and Insfar and gasped out my story.
“If the boar did not follow you, Lady, it was because it could not,” Insfar said. “They are devils for attack. But it may well be your shot was lucky—”
“It was folly,” Rudo commented sourly and directly. “It might well have slain you.”
He had the truth of it. My hunger had betrayed me into the rankest folly. I accepted his words humbly, knowing that I might now be lying dead.
We returned together, scouting the terrain as if we expected an attack from ambush. We had circled, going upslope. When we finally reached the scene, there lay the cow and, beyond, on bloodstained ground torn by hoofs and tusks, the boar also. My arrow had sunk behind its shoulders and into the heart.
I found this stroke of fortune earned me awe from the rest of the party. Such a happening was so rare that it might be deemed an act dictated by the Power. I believe that from that hour my people held that some of Dame Math's knowledge and skills were also mine. Though they did not say it to my face. I saw them send favor signs in my direction, and they paid heed to all I said, as if what I uttered were farseeings.
Yngilda remained my thorn-in-the-flesh. I kept to my resolve that first night, and when the flesh was roasting on spits above the fire, so that the savor of it brought juices flowing into the mouth, I spoke aloud so all could hear.
The able-bodied who did not labor equally to supply us all would not share in the fruits of our seeking. So I said, after I had given full praise for the results of that day's harvesting. I saw that all shared that night—save Yngilda. But her I refused openly, that all might note I did not accept rank as an excuse for idleness.
She flung at me that I was under blood-curse to her family. But I said as firmly that I accepted the Lady Islaugha as my charge, and her I would serve. To that these assembled could bear witness. However, Yngilda was young, of strong body, and therefore she would find none here to wait upon her—it would be equal sharing.
I think she would have liked to fly at me, to rake my face and eyes with her fingers. But in that company she stood alone, measured for what she was, and she knew it. So at last she turned from us and crawled back into her lean-to, and I heard her crying, but such weeping as comes from anger and not from sorrow. I had no pity for her. But I also realized that I had made an enemy who would remain an unfriend.
However, it seemed as one day followed another Yngilda had reconsidered her position and thought the better of her obstinacy. She did not do her share of the work graciously, but work she did, even to the odorous business of helping to spread the strips of beef to sun-dry after we butchered the cow that had fallen to the snow cat.
We were frugal, even making use of the bones of both slaughtered animals, their hides (though these could only be rough-cured), and the tusks of the boar. Martine regained her strength, so I had hopes that before the warm weather was past we could fight our way to Norsdale and I could at last lay down my burden of leadership.
Lady Islaugha took to wandering away, in search, perhaps, of Toross. One of our number had to guard her ever, since while so driven to this wandering, her strength seemed the greater and she would set off briskly, often struggling with her guardian if he tried to thwart her, only to falter later when she tired. Then her guardian would lead her back.
Timon fashioned some better fishhooks, and I continued to try my luck along the river. I think out of stubbornness, determined to win a victory here as I had with the boar. But, judging by my continued failures, my luck did not hold in water as it had on land. So clear was that water that ofttimes I sighted the shadows of what were indeed giants compared to the unwary fish I managed to pull out. But either there was some trick of baiting I did not understand, or else these were warier than most fish.
It was during the third day when I followed the river that there came upon me the strong sensation of being watched. So acute did this grow that my hand went to Toross’ knife in my belt. From time to time I halted to look around, certain that if I turned quickly enough I could sight some face framed in the grass or in a bush.
I grew so uneasy that I decided to return to camp and alert my people. Some scout of the invaders might have found our backtrail. If so, we might be already doomed, unless we could find and slay him before he reported to his force.
As I turned, the bush parted and one stepped into the open. I had drawn steel in the same instant, ready to defend myself.
He held up empty hands as if he knew what passed in my mind. At the same time, seeing him in full, I knew he was no invader. His battle hood was loosened to lie back on his shoulders. And he wore no over-jerkin or tabard with arms emblazoned on it. Rather did his mail and leather look dulled and dingy, as if purposefully darkened.
But—as my eyes swept down his slim body I stiffened. He wore no boots, his leather breeches were in-fastened at his ankles with straps and his feet—but he had no feet! He stood upon hoofs like one of the cows.
From that impossibility I swiftly looked to his face again, half-expecting to find it monstrous also in some way. But it was not. A man's face truly, browned by sun and wind, the cheeks a little hollowed, the mouth firm-set. He was not as handsome as Toross and—my eyes met his, and in spite of my control I took a step or so back. For those eyes, like the hoofed feet, were not of human man.
They were the color of that amber known to us as “butter,” a deep yellow, and in them the pupil was more slit than circle. Not a man's eyes—
When I drew back there was a change in his face, or did I only imagine that? And now I remembered Dame Math's teaching (had she ever in the past, before she had joined Norsdale, met such a one?), so between us in the air I drew a certain sign.
He smiled, but it seemed that smile was a wry, almost twisted one, as if in some manner he regretted that I knew him for what he was—one of the Old Ones. For the first time he spoke:
“Greetings, Lady.”
“And to you—” I hesitated, for by what honorific should an Old One be courteously addressed? That had not been in my training. Thus I gave him what I would grant one of my rank in the dales. “Lord, greeting.”
“I do not hear you add ‘fair meeting,’” he said then. “Do you deem me without testing unfriend?”
“I deem you beyond my measuring,” I answered frankly, for I believed that to be true, and perhaps he could read my mind. Such was child's play for one of them.
He looked puzzled. “Who think you that I am, Lady?”
“One of those who held dominion here before my blood came to High Hallack.”
“An Old One—but—” His wry smile came again. “So be it, Lady. I shall say you neither aye nor nay, since you have named me so. But you and your folk yonder seem in a sorry case. It may be that I can be of some assistance to you.”
I knew so little—there were those among the Old Ones who were said to be favorable to men, who had on occasion given them assistance. There were others of the Dark whose malice meant great peril. Trust is a precious gift. If I chose wrong now, we would all suffer. Yet there was that about him which argued that he was not of the Dark.
“What have you to offer? We would reach Norsdale if we can, but the way—”
He interrupted me. “If you seek
to go westward there are many perils. But I can bring you to a shelter that will serve you better than here. There is fruit and game there also—”
I gazed into those golden eyes, troubled. When he spoke so, I wanted to believe. But I was not alone; there were these people of mine. And to trust an Old One—
His smile went as I hesitated. There was a coldness in his face, as if he had held out his hand and been rebuffed. My unease grew. Perhaps he was one disposed to aid my kind, but would take offense if that aid were refused, thus bringing on us his displeasure.
“You must forgive me.” I sought for words to assuage the ire I feared might be rising in him. “I have had no meeting with—with your people heretofore. If I do not comport myself as I should, it comes from ignorance alone and not from any wish to offend. Among the dales you appear only in our legends. Some of those are favorable; some deal with the Dark Ones who give us hate instead of friendship. Thus we walk warily in your presence.”
“Because the Old Ones have what you call the Power,” he said. “Well, that may be so. But I mean you nothing but good, Lady. Look upon what you wear there on your breast—hold it out that I may touch it with my fingertip—you will see that this is so.”
I looked to the crystal gryphon. Though there was bright sun on us, not moonlight, I could perceive that it was glowing; almost it appeared as if the creature within the ball was about to give tongue and speak for this stranger, so oddly knowing did the carving look. I did then as he suggested, took the chain from about my neck and held the globe in my hand, stretching it forth to him.
He touched it with fingertip only, and the globe flashed into such radiant glory that I near dropped it. In that moment I knew that all he said was the truth, and that here had come one out of the unknown past of this land to do us service. So my heart lightened, though my awe of him was greater.