"Why, the rider is barefoot!" exclaimed the pig-boy, and the other children giggled.
Jaric sighed. They seemed enviably carefree. Any other time, he would have been cheered by the laughter of children; but now Anskiere's geas throbbed like a wound in his chest, and he had no inclination to smile. Beyond the spring lay a tall, sprawling structure with a shingled roof. A board hung on chains from the gables. Faded letters identified the building as a tavern, but the sign was unnecessary; Gaire's Main offered little else but peasant cottages. Jaric knew from keeping accounts that the folk traveled to Morbrith for goods. He could not recall whether the village boasted a smith. He would have to inquire.
The horse snorted loudly, and resumed drinking. Summoned by the noise, a weathered man in dusty coveralls emerged from the wing which held the stables. His hair was white and his cheeks sunburned. He braced sinewy arms on the lip of the trough, and regarded Jaric suspiciously.
"Ridden all night, have you?" His voice was rusty, with an inflection as quaint as the town. "What brings you to Gaire's Main?"
Jaric reddened. A ragged woman shambled out of the stables and joined the old man. Ancient and gnarled as treebark, she peered at Jaric with eyes turned pearly white by cataracts. Assuredly she was blind; yet she stared as though she were sighted. Jaric shivered with apprehension. Resigned to the fact the entire village was listening, he answered in the cultured accents learned at court.
His voice came out hoarse, as though he had forgotten the use of it. "No doubt you think me childish. I wagered my cousin that I could ride fifty leagues in my nightshirt and still defend my honor without weapons. The contest was made in drunken folly. Do you wonder, now I'm sober, that I chose to ride at night?"
Intrigued, the children clustered closer. The ragged woman pinned him with eyes like fish roe, and the man stared pointedly at Jaric's soft hands and blistered knees. He grimaced in contempt.
"Your horse needs a shoe," he said carefully. "Shall I see to it?"
Jaric nodded, his throat too tight for speech. The folk had not believed his lie, but apparently no one present chose to question it. Relieved, he slid from the saddle, but to his dismay, his knees buckled the instant his feet struck ground. The pain of tortured muscles made him gasp.
The beggar woman caught his shoulder with gnarled hands and steadied him. Her grip felt like ice. Jaric flinched, startled by the chill. Through a wave of dizziness, he saw she was wizened and small, and clothed not in rags but in knotted leather skins like the hill tribe's dress. Not every inhabitant of Gaire's Main was civilized; with a jolt, Jaric recognized what he had been too tired to notice earlier; the woman could only be the Lady of the Well. Blinded by ritual as a maiden and dedicated to oracular vision, she would tend the shrine until death, though the place had probably changed much since she was a girl. She smelled of the byre. Never the less, she deserved respect. The boy drew breath to offer thanks.
But his words were blurred by a cry as eldritch as the mystery which surrounded the spring. Jaric's spine prickled horribly. Darkness arose in him, and his senses reeled.
"Fire!" said the woman clearly. "I see thee a man, ringed with the living fire. The ravens of discord fly at thy heels."
She added more in the tongue of the clans. But Jaric heard none of her warning. Lost in a rushing tide of faintness, he collapsed, and even his slight weight was too great for the Lady. She staggered against the stable master, who caught the boy in his arms.
Shaken by the upsurge of the old powers, the stablemaster lifted a pale, uncertain face to the blind priestess. For years she had been senile and helpless, little more than a beggar-woman who slept in his hayloft. "What shall I do with this boy?"
The woman blinked, relapsed into the blankness of advanced age. But her reply was lucid. "Do all that is needful for him, as well as his mount. You'll find silver in his saddlebag. Take what fee you earn, and set him on his way. He must not be delayed." She subsided into muttering. The children who had lingered to observe scattered suddenly and ran.
Alone by the spring, the stablemaster left the gelding with its reins trailing. The animal had been ridden to exhaustion; it would not stray while he carried the young master inside to the innkeeper's wife.
* * *
Jaric revived, coughing, to the sharp taste of plum brandy. He swallowed, stinging the membranes of his throat, and opened his eyes. A plump middleaged woman with blowsy hair bent over him. When she touched the flask to his lips for a second draught, he shook his head, momentarily unable to speak.
"What's wrong? Can't you hold a man's drink?" The woman set the flask on a trestle by her elbow. Out of habit, she wiped damp hands on her skirt, her manner softened by the matronly kindness Jaric's frailty invariably inspired. "You'll stay scrawny, lad, if you don't learn to handle your liquor."
Jaric sighed and wished the advice was true. In the copy-chamber his delicate stature had been no disadvantage. But alone on the road, he was unable to avoid the fact that he was unfit to survive the rigors of his own culture. For the first time, the thought shamed him. He could not meet the woman's eyes.
"Drink the rest if you can," she urged gently. "I'll send my daughter Kencie out with a meal."
She passed through the doorway to the kitchen with the comfortable self-possession accumulated through years of hospitality. Jaric studied his surroundings uneasily. He sat in an armchair built of plain wood which was dwarfed by an immense stone fireplace. No logs burned, but a tallow candle on the table illuminated a beamed ceiling, whitewashed walls, and trestles and benches well-polished with use. Except for a man whittling by the tap, the common room was deserted. For all the notice the elder gave the boy, he might have been deaf.
Presently Kencie appeared with a tray of food. Large-boned, blond and close to Jaric's age, she set her burden on the table, and regarded the boy with curiosity. Startled by her likeness to her mother, Jaric stared back.
"Quit gawking and eat." Kencie rubbed knuckles still damp with dishwater on her apron. Her cheeks dimpled faintly with disdain. "By your looks you need to. Got wrists so thin I'd suspect you'd have trouble lifting a fork."
Jaric plucked a roll from the tray and bit into it, as though to blunt the taste of bitterness. Accustomed as he was to taunts from the women at Morbrith, Kencie's comments cut him; her brisk observation granted no respect, even for a stranger who shared the inn's hospitality. Jaric tasted the stew, and even in Kencie's presence could not keep his hand steady.
Hoping to soften her contempt, he said, "The food is quite good." But exhaustion left him barely able to eat.
Kencie shrugged. "You look half dead. I'll wrap what you can't finish. You can take it in your saddlebag." She wrinkled her nose and smiled. "At least they can't make me polish your boots."
Her banter appeared friendly. But as she swept the floor beneath the trestles, Jaric caught her staring when she thought he would not notice, and once, from the corner of his eye, he saw her raise crossed fists in the sign to avert evil sorcery. Plainly, the wise woman's prophecy had marked him; the townsfolk of Gaire's Main treated him well because they wished to be rid of him. Unhappiness raised a lump in Jaric's throat. How could he possibly manage, without Morbrith's walls and the sanctuary of the library? Kencie's teasing made Anskiere's geas seem bleak and hopeless as exile. Caught by fresh terror, Jaric felt his stomach clench.
He set the spoon aside, afraid he would drop it, afraid Kencie would notice his weakness and laugh anew. Jaric shoved his hands into his lap to hide their trembling. "I can't finish any more," he said desperately.
Kencie propped her broom against the bar. "Come along, then. Mother asked me to show you to the front room."
Jaric stumbled to his feet. "You're very kind."
"No. You're paying." Kencie fetched a candle from her apron pocket and touched the wick to the one already alight on the trestle. "Mother saw you carried only silver. She said she'd charge you half, since the Lady spoke for you. But you can't stay more than a night."
> Relieved to discover the Earl's saddlebags had at least contained coins, Jaric limped stiffly toward the stair. The villagers need not have worried. Hounded by the sorcerer's geas, he doubted he could linger in Gaire's Main an hour longer than necessary.
* * *
Jaric slept dreamlessly through the afternoon. Fully clothed and dusty from travel, he lay crumpled across the bed exactly as he had fallen when Kencie closed the door to his chamber. He never stirred, even at sundown when the innkeeper's wife brought him hot water to wash. She left the steaming basin on the stand by the window, and quietly departed, convinced the boy would rest until morning. Left to himself, he might have; but the sorcerer whose summons had claimed him seemed to permit no allowance for weakness. Jaric was jabbed out of sleep by restlessness which brought him fully and instantly awake.
The room was dark. Beyond the window, the moon drifted, yellowed as old ivory above the hills. Though a full hour remained before dawn, Jaric could not stay in bed. The geas goaded his muscles into aching knots of tension. His skin tingled as if the very air might scald him if he stayed still any longer.
Jaric rose, groped blindly for candle and striker. He bashed his wrist into the basin. Water slopped over the side, wetting his fingers, but its coolness did nothing to ease the discomfort which increased steadily with each passing minute. Jaric endured only long enough to rinse his face, and bolted for the door.
Movement brought respite. Shivering with relief, Jaric hurried down the corridor. He would have to find his horse quickly and settle his account with the inn before uncertainty and the cruel effects of the geas overwhelmed him.
The common room was deserted. Outside, Kencie leaned over the spring with a yoke and two buckets, drawing water for the kitchen. As the main door to the inn swung open, she glanced up, surprised by the sight of Jaric on the steps.
"Leaving?" She set her burden down and approached him, careful to avoid the puddles which gleamed in dull silver patches on the ground. "You're early. The stablemaster isn't up yet."
Irked that she should regard him as helpless, Jaric said, "I can saddle my own mount."
Kencie shrugged, her face a blurred oval in the predawn mist. "Very well. If you wait, I'll fetch your saddlebags. The rest of your horse's gear is in the tackroom, just beyond the ladder to the loft."
But Jaric could not stay still. The compulsion set upon him would relent for nothing, far less courtesy, and while Kencie retrieved her buckets, the boy hurried on into the stables.
He located the tackroom by touch in the dark; his was the only saddle and bridle on the rack. Aroused by the noise, the Earl's black gelding lifted its head, the blaze on its muzzle visible in the gloom of the aisle beyond. Jaric dragged the tack to the stall, reminded by the damp straw under his soles that his feet were bare. His hands shook with nerves as he caught the horse's halter.
The gelding shied. Leather burned the boy's palms, and the clang of the tether ring startled pigeons from the loft. Driven by necessity Jaric tried the singsong words he had heard in the forges since childhood; yet where his efforts then had failed, this animal responded. Its eye stopped rolling; taut muscles relaxed and the blazed head lowered, nostrils widened in a soft inquisitive snort.
Jaric slipped the bridle over the broad forehead with un-practiced clumsiness, but the horse seemed not to mind. The saddle, with scabbard and sword attached, proved too bulky for the boy to lift above his shoulder. He had to clamber onto the manger just to reach the gelding's back. Kencie returned as he hauled the girths tight and jumped down. Unaware he had stopped trembling, Jaric led the horse from the stall. Kencie buckled the saddlebags in place, covering his silence with a spate of chatter.
"Mother charged you one silver for bed and board. The stablemaster took a half-silver for grain and resetting your horse's shoe. Five and one remain in the purse in the left pocket. I put food in the right, with your cloak." She stepped back to discover Jaric inspecting the near hind hoof of his mount. "Is the shoe set to your satisfaction?
Jaric released the gelding's fetlock and straightened. "It will pass." His words masked irritation. The work was poorly done. At the tender age of four, the exacting standards of his guardians had been drummed into his head; but without enough muscle to wield the hammer, the boy could do nothing now but regret the stablemaster's ineptness. He caught the bridle and led the horse from the stable, careful not to look back lest his toes get crushed by steel-shod hooves.
The time had come to mount and ride. Kencie hovered uncertainly to one side as the horse splashed through the puddles by the spring. Jaric set his foot in the stirrup while the animal drank.
"Wait," Kencie blurted. She whirled and ran into the tavern.
Jaric paused, and suffered the first tingling warning of the geas for the sake of her request. He braced himself to resist, but Kencie was gone no more than a moment.
She emerged through the entrance to the courtyard, clutching a pair of boots. Fine double-stitched leather was well cut, and trimmed with coral beadwork and fur.
"Here." Kencie pushed the boots into Jaric's arms. "These are yours. Their owner died of fever while lodging at our tavern. Rich clothes don't suit anyone in Gaire's Main. Wager or not, you can't continue to go barefoot."
Jaric reddened, embarrassed by the transparency of his lie, and the vulnerable need behind it. Ashamed before Kencie's generosity, he bent quickly to try on her gift, before she noticed and thought him ungracious.
The boots were ludicrously large. Inches of extra cuff flapped around calves thin as twigs. Jaric bit his lip and stood up. "I'll think of you with thanks at every step." He smiled gravely and granted Kencie the courtesy due Morbrith's court ladies. "May your inn and its patrons prosper well."
He hastened to mount, and the horse sidled, spoiling the grace of his gesture. Kencie caught the bridle, steadied the gelding until Jaric had gained the saddle. As he gathered the reins, she looked up at his face, into sensitive dark eyes, and an expression pathetic with fear.
"You're so small," she said softly, and instantly regretted the words.
Jaric stiffened. Kencie had given the boots because she was sorry for him. Rage tore through him. He had asked for nothing. Anonymity and a scholar's position in a library had contented him perfectly. At a stroke of fate, a sorcerer's geas and a priestess' prophecy had plundered his self-worth, transformed him into an object of pity; now he was dependent upon charity every bit as much as the lame who begged in the gutter.
In taut-lipped silence, he jerked the gelding free of Kencie's hand. With a jab of his heels he sent it thundering out of Gaire's Main on the south road.
Behind him, Kencie rubbed skinned fingers on her apron, sick at heart for the blow she had dealt his pride. Strange, she thought; if not for Jaric's wretched skinniness, she might have admired more than his courage. The hoofbeats faded slowly in the distance. With stoic practicality, Kencie recalled her neglected chores. But as she walked toward the inn, the ancient priestess of the Well shuffled out of the barn and blocked her path.
The woman scratched her belly through a rip in the skins which clothed her, then lifted blind eyes to the lane where Jaric and the horse had vanished only minutes earlier.
"Do ye know?" The hag caught Kencie's sleeve. "The boy won't walk twenty paces in that pair of boots."
The girl's breath caught. She shoved the priestess rudely aside and fled into the kitchen; and not even her mother could coax her to explain why she looked so pale.
* * *
The Earl's gelding stretched into a gallop and the rooftops of Gaire's Main soon disappeared behind the curve of the hills. Tilled farmland gave way to thorny scrub and the heat of Jaric's anger ebbed, leaving loneliness. Ahead the road wound through a wide valley, mist-clothed and deserted. Rendered in shades of charcoal under a pearly sky, the land framed him with solitude. Everything he valued lay behind him. The boy shortened rein to slow the gelding's pace, but the animal proved unexpectedly spirited; it flattened its ears and leaned sullen
ly on the bit. Jaric felt its stride lengthen until mane whipped his wrists and the earth became a blur under its hooves.
The frightened boy cursed and dragged at the reins until his shoulders ached. The animal had already been ridden hard the night he had stolen it. Now, after rest and grain, the gelding was too strong for him; until it had spent its first fresh energy, Jaric could not hope to control it. Weeping tears of frustration, he clung to the mane and prayed the brute would keep to the road.
Distance unwound like clock chain to the rhythm of the horse's gallop. Its hooves struck with a pure and solid ring, raising tiny puffs of dust. The breeze flung mane and tail and Jaric's light hair like a rough caress. Beneath knees that stung with sores, the boy felt the healthy thrust of the shoulder muscles; the animal enjoyed its resilience, and the run through the cool morning became not a threat but a celebration of its own being. Jaric discovered harmony in the beast's simple pleasure; his panic transformed to wild exhilaration. He relaxed his grip on the reins. The horse stretched its neck and went faster.
When the sun's edge sliced above the horizon, Jaric's cheeks were flushed with excitement. He felt more at ease in the saddle than ever before, and as though attuned to the change in its rider, the gelding gradually slowed. With a shake of its head, it dropped to a trot. And struck by disappointment, Jaric lost his nerve.
He pulled the horse down to a walk, happiness marred by the unchanged fact that his body was no match for a spirited mount. The thrill he had tasted now added edge to his misery. With a tearing pang of sorrow, he understood that Morbrith's library could no longer shelter his frailty, or his innocence. For the first time, he felt imprisoned by his physical limitations, and the grief of that recognition branded his soul.