When I was done I folded it with care, making sure that the rose shine was visible, but I wondered if those symbols I had not used might have been visible too. That was a risk I must take.
I had worked the night through, still my head was clear, I had no aching of back, no redness and pain of eye. Not yet would I return it, I thought, let them think that the task was such a labor that I was kept to my needle for hours yet.
Opening my casement to the brightness of the morning I drew a deep breath of the freshness of the air before I turned again to where my work lay and performed one last task—that of passing above the folded cloth the amulet I wore. In my hand as I did so there was a pleasant warmth. Then all at once all the weariness I had earned came upon me and I stumbled to my bed, not taking off my jerkin or skirt, and fell upon it, sleep already sealing my eyes.
It was late afternoon that I awoke to another’s shaking and saw above me Maug’s lean, ill visage and smelled that sourish, bitter odor which she carried always with her.
“Fool—where is the work!” She raised her hand as if to slap me and then dropped it as one who would bide her time a little to deliver punishment.
“There—” I said, and pointed to the table.
She turned swiftly and snatched up first the parchment, tucking it into some pocket hidden within her fusty robe. Then her grayish-skinned fingers came to the folds of cloth. But she did not quite touch it. Instead she now shook forth another fold of material and gestured for me to place my handiwork upon that and cover it well.
With this she left me, but at the door she turned her head a little and I saw on her face a smile which was more the grimace of one steeped in malice. Again I suspicioned that those two meant me no good. Yet that suspicion did not really trouble me. It was as if I were sure that I wore armor against the worst they could attempt, and I gave thanks to Gunnora. For I truly believed that it was her amulet which had so hearted me. That and what still clung gloved tightly to my hands and which tingled a little now.
It was three days later that the news spread through the Keep that the Lady Tephana, wishing to make sure that her lord not be disappointed again, would go for the birthing to the very shrine of Gunnora where she could be sure that The Lady’s favor would be hers. My lord was quick to give in to this plea of hers. But it was unexpected that she also asked for me to accompany them, her plea being that I was a devout follower of The Lady and was known to have her favor.
Thus, though there were clouds hanging over the crown of the not too distant hills we set out. The Lady Tephana was in a horse litter, the mares it was slung between being hand-led by my lord’s men, Maug striding on foot by her side, while I rode behind with two of the castle maids who were experienced somewhat in the mysteries of birthing.
We went at a slow pace in spite of the gathering of storm warnings, and I was not surprised that we did not turn aside at the hillside path leading to the shrine, for no horses, even the most, surefooted, could make that climb. Instead we were to go around, to approach from the other side taking the slight risk of traveling on one of the Old One’s roads which for the most part the Dalesmen avoided.
Our snail’s pace brought us but barely on that road when the threatening storm broke and Lady Tephana cried out that she could not travel through its fury. The only shelter nearby was one of those half ruins which the Old Ones had erected at places along their roads. Into this we reluctantly crowded.
Luckily there were two half chambers left, and, having loosened the litter, the men bore Lady Tephana into the inner one whereupon we who had been chosen to serve her crowded.
It was then that she began to writhe on her resting place and cried out that the babe was coming too soon and in an evil place and she misdoubted that anything would be well. Maug held her hands and spoke to her softly but still she uttered cries, and it was plain that her time was indeed upon her.
Thus we made ready to do what we might for the babe, and I prayed to Gunnora that it would come alive and well. For—though I believed its mother to be tainted by some shadow I could not understand—the small new one would come sinless into the world.
Come it did, and it was a son, squalling lustily. It was I who received him upon the birthing cloth while Maug tended her mistress. And when I looked down at what I held, I near dropped the child. For the well-formed small legs ended not in feet but in hooves such as one sees upon a kid, and the eyes which opened wide when I rolled the cloth about him were as gold as the glint of that metal in the sun!
Maug swung about as I uttered a cry of my own and reached for the babe. Only at that moment there was a sound which rose above the fury of the storm and the faint moans of the lady. It was like the passage of wings through the air, and so did I indeed see what seemed to be a great wing, larger than anything living could weld, and this swept down between Maug and me. At the same time there was a voice—though whether it spoke aloud or in my head I could never afterward decide.
“Son sealed to me!” There was triumph in it and I saw Maug cower backward with both hands over her eyes and I heard a sharp cry of fear from the lady. But to me came peace, and I knew that this was well and good and what I held was no demon’s brat but only one marked by nature with a brand even as the one I wore. And there was in me a vast pity as I cuddled him tight against a breast which would never know the weight of a child of my own.
The wing was gone and I heard sounds from the two maids who were crowded back against the wall shaking, their eyes squeezed shut as if they had been near struck blind. As I turned to give the child unto his mother as custom demanded that I should so that she could have the naming of him, Maug threw herself between us.
“Demon’s get!” she mouthed and would perhaps have struck the babe out of my hold, and the Lady Tephana screamed full voice and thrust also outward, warning me off.
That was the way of it. They brought us back to Ulmsdale, but the lady would not look upon the child. Those who had been with us were quick to blame it on both the curse of the house and the fact that he had been birthed in a place of the Old Ones.
Since she would not feed it or even look upon him, the babe was mine for a measure of days and I was forced to allow him to suck warm milk from my finger. Yet he throve, and despite his eyes and those hooves he was a child good to look upon, and I came to cherish him.
But the Lord Ulric was determined that, having gotten his heir, he was fane to raise him. So he called in a forester with whom he had himself been fostered for a space when he was a child—the two of them being as brothers. To him the babe Kerovan was given and thus disappeared into the far reaches of the Dale. It was quickly made known by the will of my lord that no one was to speak of his son’s deformity. The maids who had been present at the birthing were sent with him. As for me, I asked for speech with Lord Ulric and spoke of what had long been close to my heart, that I go unto Norseby and be with my lady there. He made me swear upon the mighty amulet which guarded the keep that I would not speak concerning Kerovan, and this I agreed to very willingly.
There was only a small glimmering thereafter of all which had been my lot. For the tingling invisible gloves were gone from me when I gave the babe to his foster mother. I could not forget, but neither could I speak. And, when I reached Norseby, I had much else to occupy my mind, for I found my lady ill of a deep cough and saw well that death was not far away. Out of their kindness they allowed me to nurse her. And there was one summer night when the moon was full that she spoke to me alone, for the Lady Sister who helped her with potions had gone to get more of a cordial which stifled the cough.
“Ylas—”
I had to bend very close to hear her faintest of whispers. “The foreseeing—you have done what the Powers would have of you. He—he—” she sucked in air as if she could not get enough to hold her with us— “he who—was—so—born—has his heritage. No demon as those two tried—no demon—” and so saying she crumpled back a little into the pillows about her and I knew that she had gone.
For me thereafter there was no more ensorcelment. I was given charge of the linens and the robes. Only in my dreams did I seek other places—which were always just a little beyond my reach. Yet never did I forget that great voice which greeted Kerovan at his birthing and thereafter my own dear lady’s words concerning his destiny.
Rider on a Mountain
Friends of the Horseclans (1987) Signet
Nancee pushed back under a screen of drooping willow branches. The wad of wet clothing she had snatched from the stream launched a runnel of water between her small breasts. Her skin was roughened by more than just gully breeze as she quivered and shook from raw bursts of fear and pain in her head. This was not hearing—though she was also dimly aware of shouts and cries from the camp over the hill behind—this was rather a feeling which racked her slim, near-childish frame.
There was pain and death, and also a wild excitement and need to cause both pain and death—running with it a cold calculation which was like a stab between her narrow shoulders, a greed which fed upon attack, the lust for death. She crouched, as frozen as a rabbit cornered by a tree cat, the sandy gravel of the river’s edge grating against her legs and buttocks.
That mind thread of pain arose to torment—then snapped as might a cord pulled too tightly. She smothered an answering cry with her hand, her teeth scraping her knuckles. Someone had died—someone close to her. Now the triumphant greed wreathed about like the smoke of a wild fire. If she stayed here—
She had learned well wariness and resolution during the past half year. Now she burrowed yet farther into the thickness of the willows until she had her back to the trunk of the largest, the rough bark grinding into her shoulders.
Would the raiders come questing along the stream? Did they realize that one of their prey was missing? She began to pull on the limp dampness of her clothing. How soon?
Would they come pounding over the hill where the river made a turn, or would they ride upstream in the stream bed itself?—the water ran shallow enough. She chewed on her lower lip.
Loincloth, then divided shirt weighted with water, but still smelling of horse and her own sweat, the shirt which her fingers fumbled so that she could hardly fit lashing cords to hole.
She squeezed the water out of her hair and knotted back the lank strands with a greasy thong, trying the while to stifle her hard breathing as she forced herself to accept the worst which must have happened—inwardly marveling that she had this small fragment of time still unhunted. She must prepare—
For Dik Romlee. Her lips stretched in a mirthless line.
Nancee studied the ground around her. Weapons? She remembered the Horseclans woman with whom she had shared a fresh roasted rabbit only two days ago. Then she and her uncle had still been part of the caravan, before Dik showed his hand. That prairie rover had had weapons in plenty, a knife hilt showing an inch or two above boottop, another at her belt, a sword of deadly promise, a bow—
The girl wiped her sweating hands on the skirt. She had nothing but those hands and her teeth. And she might well consider herself already captive. Except she was a Lowree of the House of Bradd.
Her head jerked as she raised her pointed chin. A Lowree was not truly mastered except by death. If she could not defend herself she could use those same teeth to open her own veins. Did not the Song of the House of Bradd tell of just such a deed when Mairee of the Sun Hair was taken by the Lord of Kain? Little good he got from that!
Firmly she closed her mind to that other’s cold triumph, which beat at her as if a fist thudded into her face. She tried to pick up any call, the slightest hint of message from Uncle Roth, from Hari or Mik. There was only blankness to answer. So she was truly alone—
But she was startled out of that grim thought for a moment by a high squealing sound, a battle cry of another kind. Boldhoof—they had the greatest treasure left to Bradd’s line, the giant Northhorse. She could use—
Only she could not. The Horseclan guards could bespeak their mounts at will. With the Northhorse Nancee had no such a bond. Her mindspeak was limited more to a sensing of emotion—the identification of those who had been long known to her. She could not now stir Boldhoof into any rebellion which would count. Rather did she already feel the reassurance which was flooding the camp. That mind which had betrayed itself with greed and cruelty was now striving to bring the huge horse into obedience. And Dik would certainly win. She had seen him with animals before. It was the one part of his character she could not understand, for it was not part of the evil which walked two-legged under his name.
He would not be satisfied with the loot he had taken, the deaths which already answered the steel of his followers. Her body would not lie there, and he would come seeking—
Nancee dropped to her belly, her head raised only inches from the gravelly soil, as she began to wriggle from the temporary shelter she had found farther along under the screen of the willows. This was another hunt in which she was the quarry, only this time there were none of those who had been with her before.
Back in the east where Bradd’s Hold had once stood tall and defiant against the sky there had been swords in a plenty. Until that black-mouthed traitor Dik Romlee had caught them from their blind side—where they had had no watchful eyes, since no man expected treason from an oathed kinsman.
Uncle Roth, his right arm useless from the witch curse Dik must have laid upon him, had gotten the two of them out and away. She might not be as dear to him as a daughter in truth, but it was from her body—Nancee levered herself up a fraction on one elbow and listened with ear and mind. Yes, only she could birth an heir the kin would accept. And Dik was sure to lay within her his treacherous seed should he take her. Her outstretched fingers dug painfully into the gravel and she pulled determinedly ahead.
Still there gnawed upon her that belief that they would come a-hunting. What chance had she against the foul pack of them? Already they had accomplished half their plan. Dik had maneuvered the Traders’ trail chief into leaving them behind, spreading his tale of their being outlawed in the west on Uncle Roth’s first trip hither—that the Horseclans would not treat with any from a train giving them shelter. It was Dik’s word against her uncle’s. And Dik’s hand deep in a money purse as he said it all. Gold pieces were few on the frontier—those looted from Roth’s own strongbox had sentenced him to death in the end.
She turned her head to the river, of which she sighted only a little between the well-leaved branches. There was an inner core there with a current, but she could not swim. With a piece of the dried storm wrack which was between the rocks farther on could she hold herself afloat? Yet she would be in the open, easy for them to take.
Tentatively she tried a mindsend toward the hidden camp. And snapped it free and away as she breathed fast and shallowly. No one there except those who followed Dik. But not even Dik now—which meant—
She could look ahead to that pile of drift which had drawn her this far. No spear, no bow, no keen-bladed knife. What she might have—
Her hand loosed its tight grip upon the gravel and she made a quick grab with hooked fingers which closed iron-tight on a length of sun-and-wind-dried sapling.
What Nancee jerked into her willow screen was bone-yellowed wood ending in a mass of snapped and broken roots. She broke off several of those and hefted her find. A club of sorts—at least the best weapon she was to find except for some water-smooth stone. But a sorry and useless thing with which to meet a well-armed raider.
Yet they were not going to take her until—
She started, one hand dropping back to the ground to steady herself, her eyes wide in her sun-browned face. What—
“Where are the wagons, two-legs? This one is sore-pawed—also hungry—”
No foggy beam of hate or fear or calculating menace—this was as clear in her head as if she heard it by ear instead of by mind!
“Two-legs—”
Again that imperative and irritated call. She hunched over the crude club, her ha
nds rubbing along its length. Then there came a quiver of leaves ahead, a swinging of branches, and a fur-covered head arose into her line of astounded sight.
She had seen tree cats in plenty, and Uncle Roth had in the presence chamber of the hold two rugs made from great cat beasts with spotted hides for which he had traded some years back. But this was—
Nancee drew a deep breath, and a little of her hold on the club loosened. Here was one of those great cat people with whom the Horseclans had a treaty-of-assistance. Of that she had heard even before she had come to envy the caravan guards and talked as much as she could with Oonaa, the archer.
“Cat lord—” She spoke in a hoarse whisper. She was no woman of the Clans; this furred death before her had no kincall for her. But what had Dik done which had given him the power to call such into his service? The Horseclans alone shared shelter with the cats.
“Where is the wagon?” Once again the clear words in her head.
“No wagon.” She spoke aloud, but perhaps the cat could understand speech too, for it stared with great green eyes at her, the grayish brindle of its fur seeming to fade into the maze of branches wherein it crouched.
“This one is sore-pawed—this one is hungry—” There was a low throaty growl to underline that. “This one wishes to ride—”
“There is nothing to ride,” she returned bitterly, and then, wondering if she could indeed communicate without words which it might not understand, she tried to form the message in her mind, haltingly, as one would speak a language of which one knew but a phrase or two. She pictured the camp as she had seen it last before she had sought the stream. Then deliberately she beamed what she had not seen but what was clear to her mind had happened—the complete killing raid led by Dik.
Again the cat growled, and it pulled back under the willow boughs until she feared it was going. Why she should cling to this one animal which might mean her no good, she could not have said. But she felt that she could not bear to let it go.