Читать книгу The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr - Страница 9

‘You should leave me,’ Gerontos said. ‘Just leave me here and save yourselves.’

‘Never!’ Rhodorix laid a blood-stained hand on his brother’s shoulder, then glanced at the druid, standing nearby. ‘Think your god will intervene and save us?’

Galerinos merely shook his head, too exhausted to speak, and leaned, as bent as an old man, onto his heavy staff. Rhodorix considered his cousin’s wounds, slight if Galerinos had been a warrior, but grave enough for a softer man. The young priest’s arms, bare in his linen tunic, bled from a hundred scratches, the work of the thorny bushes and low-growing trees of this stretch of countryside. Blood stained the hem of his tunic as well from the cuts and scratches on his bare thighs.

All that hot autumn day the three of them had been scrambling through the underbrush in the rocky hills, trying to find a hiding place, taking turns supporting Gerontos, whose broken leg could bear no weight.

‘No use in you dying with me, Rhoddo,’ Gerontos said. ‘Either of you.’

Rhodorix helped his brother sit down among the boulders. Gerontos’s leg, snapped below the knee by a savage axe, had turned purplish-black; blood oozed from under the bandages Rhodorix had improvised from strips of their tunics. He helped Gerontos settle himself, then got up and looked down the long slope of the hill to the valley below. Somewhere among the tall grass and the patches of forest waited their clan and safety, somewhere too far to see. Unfortunately, he could all too clearly see a small mob of their enemies, still some distance below them, but coming inexorably up the hill.

Just after dawn that morning, Rhodorix, eldest son of the Dragon clan, and his warband had been guarding Galerinos as he dowsed for water. Instead of a spring they’d discovered a trap set by the white savages. All fourteen of his men lay dead down in the valley; only he himself, his brother Gerontos, and the druid had survived the attack. Unhorsed, desperate, they had taken too many wrong paths during their attempt to escape.

I made too many bad decisions, not anyone else but me, Rhodorix thought. ‘The shame’s mine,’ he said aloud. ‘Better I just die with you here. Even if we got back, what am I going to tell the vergobretes?’

Neither Galerinos nor his brother could look him in the face. Neither said a word.

‘But Gallo, you can hide or suchlike,’ Rhoddo went on. ‘Get away after they kill us.’

‘If Great Bel wants me to die, then die I will,’ Galerinos said. ‘There’s no use in running.’

‘Well, how by the hells do you know what he wants? You keep praying, and we keep getting more and more lost.’

‘That’s why I think he wants us to die. If he’d only led us to water right away –’

A cry drifted up on the hot and dusty air, a shriek of triumph, an answering howl from a band of men.

‘They’ve spotted us,’ Rhodorix said. ‘Naught else matters now.’

‘Help me up!’ Gerontos said. ‘Cursed if I’ll die sitting down.’

Between them Rhodorix and Galerinos hauled him up and helped him prop himself against a boulder. Gerro’s face had gone pale under the smears of dust. Sweat plastered his dark hair to his forehead. Had his leg been sound, Rhodorix knew, the two of them could have scored some kills before the superior numbers against them brought them down. As it was, they could no longer fight back to back. Not long now, he thought. Soon we’ll all be drinking in the Otherlands.

Twelve men were making their way uphill through the rocks and the underbrush, twelve savages with manes of dark hair and milk-white skin, scored with the black lines and dots of tattoos. Ten of them carried spears; the others bore the heavy war-axes that had so efficiently shattered the Devetians’ wooden shields that morning. Some hundred yards downhill they paused to argue among themselves, pushing each other in their eagerness to be the first to attack.

‘Gallo, run!’ Rhodorix snarled. ‘Get out of here now!’

‘I won’t.’ The young priest stepped forward and raised his staff to the sky. ‘I’ll beg Bel’s help and try to curse them.’

‘A load of horseshit would do us more good than that.’

Galerinos ignored him and took another step forward. He stared straight at the enemy and began to chant, a low rumble of sound at first, then louder and louder. His words came punctuated with deep breaths, and every breath seemed to draw power from the very air around him. Each curse vibrated like a swarm of angry wasps as it streamed toward the enemy below. Rhodorix had never heard such a sound out of any man’s mouth. He felt himself turn cold as the chant rose and fell. More to the point, their enemies seemed as transfixed as he. They stood and listened, weapons slack in their hands as Galerinos cursed them, their women, their offspring, their clans, their future offspring, their crops, their herds, and anything else they might touch or cherish.

With one last bellow of sound, Galerinos cried out, ‘Begone!’ and swung his staff down to point straight at them. All of the ill luck of the curse sprang out at them – and a good deal more. With a hiss and crackle like lightning from a clear sky, blue fire leapt from the staff in a long sizzling bolt and struck among them. They screamed, began to back away, screamed again as a further shower of blue flames burst out of the staff and struck. One man fell backward, writhing and foaming at the mouth. Two others grabbed him, but he continued to twitch and foam. All at once the enemy band broke. They ran this way and that, for a brief moment hysterical and leaderless, then turned and began to race downhill, howling as they ran. A last bolt of blue fire followed them.

Galerinos stood staring, his mouth half-open, his eyes stunned.

‘What did you do?’ Rhodorix grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘How did you do that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What – you have to know!’

‘The curse never worked like that before! Back in the homeland, I mean.’ Galerinos paused to gasp for breath. ‘You heard me. I asked the god to send ill-luck down upon them, and from the look of things, I’d say he did.’

Laughter sounded behind them, an odd laugh, more like the plucking of a cithara’s strings than a sound made by a throat. Rhodorix spun around. The strangest man he’d ever seen stood leaning against a tree trunk and smiling at them. A slender fellow, he had yellow hair as bright as the paint on a Rhwmani standard, and his lips were a paint-pot red as well, while his eyes gleamed sky blue. His ears, however, were the strangest feature of all, long and furled like lily buds.

‘I doubt if your god had anything to do with those bolts of fire,’ the fellow said. ‘You know sorcery, don’t you?’

‘What?’ Gallo gaped at him like a dolt. ‘But that’s unclean!’

‘Sorcery such as my friend Caswallinos studies is not unclean.’ He pried himself off the tree trunk and walked over. ‘My name, by the by, is Evandar.’

Rhodorix dropped to his knees. ‘Forgive my brother, Mighty One,’ he said. ‘He can’t kneel before you. He’s badly hurt.’

‘So I see,’ Evandar said to him, then turned back to Galerinos. ‘Your master, in fact, that very same Caswallinos, asked if I might find you for him. Come walk with me.’

Galerinos obeyed, striding uphill to join the being that everyone in the migration of the Devetii assumed was a god. Together they moved a few paces off. As Rhodorix got up to keep a watch downhill, he felt the air turn cool around him. He glanced up and saw a mist forming in the sky, a strange opalescent cloud shot through with pale lavender gleams and glints. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.

‘Ye gods!’ Gerontos said abruptly. ‘They’re gone!’

Rhodorix spun around to look where his brother pointed. Sure enough, Evandar and Galerinos both had vanished. As he watched, the cloud of peculiar mist began to shrink into a swirl of grey and lavender. In a heartbeat it had disappeared as well. Rhodorix tried to speak, then merely shook his head in bafflement.

‘Do you think Gallo will bring us back some aid?’ Gerontos said.

‘I hope so,’ Rhodorix said. ‘I’d think so.’ Yet he felt that he lied. Why would the clan care about two shamed men such as themselves? Especially me, he thought, I’m the one who led us right into the trap.

With a curse and a groan of pain, Gerontos let himself slide down against the boulder until he sat upon the ground. Rhodorix sat down next to him and prayed that the gods would allow his clan to take mercy on his brother.

To Galerinos it seemed as if he and Evandar had walked but a few feet away. The god, as he thought of the being next to him, paused and turned to face him.

‘Your master worried when you lads didn’t come back,’ Evandar said. ‘He and some of the other men found that battlefield, if you can call it that. A slaughter yard, more like.’

‘So it was,’ Galerinos said. ‘I’m surprised that any of us got away.’

‘They assumed you’d been taken prisoner, so I said I’d fetch you back.’

‘You have my humble thanks.’ Galerinos glanced around and saw nothing but mist all around them. ‘Where are the other two?’

‘Back where I left them. I told Casso that I’d bring you back. He said naught about your friends.’

‘I can’t desert them!’

‘You already have.’ Evandar grinned with the wide-eyed innocence of a small child and pointed off in the distance.

Galerinos spun around to look downhill. The mist was lifting, revealing a clear view of the camp, only some five hundred yards away. Horses, wagons, people – they spread out in a dusty spiral on the plain, desolate except for grass, crisping in the autumn heat, and a few straggly trees. A faint umbrella of brown dust hung in the air above the conjoint tribes of the Devetii, refugees from the Rhwmani wars.

Out in the open grass stood Caswallinos, his hands on his hips, his staff caught between his side and the crook of his left elbow. For someone so blessed by divine power, he was an unprepossessing fellow, almost as skinny as his staff and bald except for a fuzz of grey stubble round the back of his skull. As they hurried down to join him, Galerinos was expecting his master to kneel before the god. Instead, the old man merely smiled and bobbed his head in Evandar’s direction.

‘My humble thanks for returning this stray colt to me,’ Caswallinos said. ‘I take it the other lads are all dead.’

‘Two were still alive last I saw them,’ Evandar said.

‘Then where are they?’

‘Still up on the mountain. They were wearing iron, and so I left them there.’

Caswallinos sighed and ran a hand over his face as if he were profoundly weary. ‘What have I told you about wyrd?’ he said. ‘And how things undone redound upon you?’

‘Do you think those two are part of my wyrd?’ Evandar said.

‘They are now, since you left them somewhere to die.’

‘But they were wearing iron.’ Evandar stamped his foot like an angry woman. ‘Iron swords, iron shirts. It aches me.’

‘I know that,’ Caswallinos said. ‘No one was asking you to touch them.’

The supposed god – Galerinos found his belief in Evandar’s divinity crumbling – stared at the druid for a long moment, then turned away. He seemed to be watching the white clouds drifting in from the south.

‘We need our two lads back,’ Caswallinos said, ‘and we need water.’

‘You’re not far from a big river.’ Evandar kept his back to the druid. ‘Head to where the sun rises. It won’t take you long to reach it.’

‘I wish you’d told me that this morning.’

Evandar merely shrugged.

‘If you had,’ Caswallinos went on, ‘those lads wouldn’t be dead, and the last two stranded on a mountainside.’

‘Oh.’ Evandar turned around to face him. ‘Mayhap their wyrd is mine, then.’

‘It is.’

Evandar pouted down at the ground for a long moment. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said at last. ‘But I shan’t bring them here.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’ll be leaving to find that river.’

‘Will you bring them to me there?’

‘I shan’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the river’s too wide. Too much water!’ He vanished, completely and suddenly gone without even a shred of the opalescent mist to cover his departure.

Caswallinos muttered a few words under his breath, something highly unpleasant from what Galerinos could hear of it.

‘Master?’ Galerinos said. ‘Is Evandar truly a god?’

‘Of course not! I’m not sure what he is, mind, but he’s most assuredly not divine.’

‘But he opened the sea road for our ships, and he comes and goes –’

‘Just as the gods are supposed to come and go?’ Caswallinos snorted profoundly. ‘In the old tales, fancies of the bards, lad, fancies of the bards. I’ll explain later. Come with me. We need to tell the vergobretes about this river.’

‘True-spoken. We’d best get there today. The horses have to have water.’

‘Indeed. My heart aches for your two friends, but I’m afraid we’ll have to leave them to Evandar.’ Caswallinos paused to look Galerinos over. ‘Ye gods, your arms, lad! It looks like you’ve been fighting a few savages yourself. By the by, did Evandar drive your attackers off?’

‘He didn’t.’ Galerinos paused, wondering if his master would believe his tale. ‘I uh well er I did. Not that I know what I did. I mean –’

‘What by all the hells do you mean?’

‘I cursed them by the power of Great Belinos, just as you taught me. I pointed my staff at them, but then these long bolts of blue fire leapt out of it. Evandar called it sorcery.’

Caswallinos glared at him with narrow eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, seemed to think better of it, opened his eyes wider, then shrugged. ‘He warned me, Evandar that is,’ the old man said, ‘that our magic would be a fair bit stronger here than in the homeland. I had no idea what he meant until this moment.’

‘What did he mean?’

Caswallinos smiled. ‘Let’s find Adorix,’ was all he said. He turned and strode away with Galerinos hurrying after him.

The tribesfolk stood beside their horses or sat on the ground in the little squares of shade cast by the loaded wagons. A fine film of brown dust covered everyone and everything. Children whined or wept while exhausted women tried to comfort them. The horses stood head-down; the dogs were panting open-mouthed. As Caswallinos walked through, people turned to him and wordlessly held out desperate hands.

‘There’s a river ahead!’ the elder druid called out repeatedly. ‘The gods have promised us water. Not far now. Big river ahead!’

The news spread in ragged cheers. Even the slaves, white savages captured in one battle or another, managed tired smiles in their chains.

Eventually the two druids found Adorix in conference with the cadvridoc, Brennos, as well as Bercanos, head of the Boar clan, and Aivianna, the Hawk woman and moon-sworn warrior. Although none of them wore armour or carried shields, each had their long sword slung in a baldric across their chests, and all four of them had warriors’ hair: bleached with lime until it stood out stiff and straight, as if a private wind had blown it back from their faces. The faces in question were all grim, tight-lipped, narrow-eyed, as they turned to the druid and his apprentice, though Avianna’s was the grimmest of all, scarred as it was by the blue tattoo of the crescent moon on her left cheek.

‘Water straight ahead to the east,’ Caswallinos said. ‘Evandar his very self told me that a big river lies nearby.’

Brennos smiled briefly. The others nodded.

‘I don’t suppose,’ Adorix said, ‘that he had any news of my two cubs.’

‘He didn’t.’ Caswallinos lied smoothly. ‘But Galerinos does. They’re alive up on the mountain. He can lead some horsemen back to them.’

‘There’s no time for that now.’ Bercanos stepped forward. ‘If the savages attack us, our men and horses are barely fit to fight. We’ve got to reach that river.’

Adorix laid his hand on his sword hilt and turned toward him. Aivianna stepped in between them. She stayed silent, merely looked at each in turn, but Adorix took his hand away from the sword hilt and Bercanos moved a good pace away.

‘There’s no time for arguing amongst ourselves, either,’ Brennos said.

The heads of the two clans agreed in sullen mutters. Aivianna’s expression never changed as she returned to her place by the cadvridoc’s side.

‘Evandar brought my apprentice back but not the others,’ Caswallinos said. ‘I don’t know why. The gods are like that, truly. But Gallo here can tell us what happened.’ He cocked a thumb at Galerinos. ‘Tell them the truth, lad.’

‘Just at dawn we rode out to find water,’ Galerinos began. ‘I chanted the prayers and held out my staff, but we rode till the sun was halfway to zenith before my staff began to tremble. It seemed to be tugging toward the hills, so that’s the way we went. We saw a little valley twixt two of the hills where the trees looked fresh and green. You couldn’t see clearly into it, though, and our god sent me an omen about it. Just as we reached the trees a raven flew up, squawking and circling over the valley.’

‘Here!’ Brennos interrupted. ‘Didn’t Rhodorix realize you were riding for an ambush?’

Galerinos felt his stomach clench. He hated to betray his cousin, but Caswallinos was glaring at him, his arms crossed over his chest, in a way that brooked no argument.

‘He didn’t,’ Galerinos said. ‘He led us right into it. I tried to warn him, truly I did, but Rhoddo just spurred his horse forward, and everyone followed him.’

Adorix grunted once, then shook his head. ‘Let them rot, then.’ He held out his hand to Bercanos, who laid his own palm against it.

‘Forgive me,’ the Boar said. ‘My foul temper –’

‘Mine’s no better,’ Adorix said. ‘We’ve got more to worry about at the moment than my stupid son. If he was coward enough to live when his men died, then he can freeze in the hells for all I care. I have other get to take his place.’

‘But –’ Gallo began, then swallowed his words. Arguing with Adorix was a good way to die young. ‘As you wish, honoured one.’

‘Well and good, then.’ Brennos took command. ‘We can’t stand here jawing like a pack of old women. If there’s a river ahead, let’s get on the move. We can’t risk losing our horses.’

‘Let us hope that Belinos and Evandar lend us their aid,’ Caswallinos said and folded his hands with a pious expression on his face, one that Galerinos had seen before, whenever his teacher was hiding something.

Shouting orders, the warleader strode away with the other warriors trotting after. Galerinos turned to Caswallinos. ‘I thought you said Evandar wasn’t a god.’

‘He’s not,’ the old man said, grinning. ‘But they don’t need to know that, do they now? Keep silence, lad, whenever you can, and your life will be a fair bit easier. Now let’s find you a new horse and move out with the wagons. Tonight, however, I want to hear more about this curse of yours.’

The sun crept down the western sky and shone full-strength onto the hillside. Gerontos’s face had turned a dangerous shade of red. ‘If only we had some water,’ he whispered.

‘True spoken,’ Rhodorix said. ‘This cursed stretch of country is all dust and thorns.’

‘I wish we’d stayed by that harbour. We could have built a city there.’

‘The omens weren’t right.’

Gerro nodded, then closed his eyes.

‘It’ll be cooler when the sun goes down,’ Rhodorix said.

Gerro never answered. It’ll be too cold, most likely, Rhodorix thought, and us with not one cloak between us.

As if in answer to his thoughts, a shadow passed across the sun. He looked up to see a lavender cloud, a small smear of colour at first against the blue. The cloud grew larger, sank lower, and formed a perfect sphere of mist. Out of the mist swooped a hawk, an enormous red hawk, shrieking as it glided down toward them. For the briefest of moments it hovered a few feet from the ground, then with a shimmer of silver light Evandar dropped down lightly and stood, back in his more or less human form. The lavender sphere vanished.

‘I’ll take you somewhere safe,’ Evandar said. ‘Can you get your brother onto his feet?’

‘He can’t stand up,’ Rhodorix said. ‘Maybe I can carry him over my back.’

The god frowned, considering Gerontos, who had slumped down against the boulder. Rhodorix had a panicked moment of thinking him dead, but he opened his eyes with a groan.

‘I’ll bring help.’ Evandar snapped his fingers and disappeared.

And how long will that take? Rhodorix wondered if Gerro would live long enough for this promised help to arrive. He scrambled up and stood between his brother and the sun to cast a little shade. He heard Gerontos mutter something and glanced back to see him trying to swat away the flies that were crawling on the blood-soaked bandage.

‘Leave them be,’ Rhoddo said. ‘Save your strength.’

When he returned his gaze to the hillside he saw the lavender mist forming in mid-air. A vast cloud of it hovered in the form of an enormous ship under full if ragged sail, which first settled to the ground, then began to thin out, revealing Evandar and a tall man wearing what seemed to be a woman’s dress, a long tunic, at any rate, with gold embroidery at the collar and hem. Around his waist he wore a belt from which hung a good many pouches. This fellow had the same peculiar ears as Evandar, and his hair was just as yellow, but his cat-slit eyes were a simple grey. He started to speak, saw Gerontos, and trotted forward, brushing past Rhodorix to kneel at the injured man’s side.

The last of the mist-ship blew away. Four stout young men appeared, carrying a cloth litter slung from long poles. They wore plain tunics, belted with leather at the waist. From each belt dangled a long knife in a leather sheath.

‘A healer,’ Evandar said, ‘and his guards.’

‘You have my humble thanks, Holy One,’ Rhodorix felt himself stammering on the edge of tears. ‘My humble undying thanks! I’ll worship you always for this. If I swear a vow, I’ll seal it with your name.’

Evandar smiled in the arrogant way gods were supposed to smile, judging from their statues, and waved one hand in the air in blessing.

The healer pulled a glass vial filled with a golden liquid from one of the pouches at his belt. He slipped one arm under Gerontos’s shoulders and helped him drink, one small sip at a time. Gerontos’s mouth twitched as if he were trying to smile. The healer got to his feet and began barking orders in a language that Rhodorix had never heard before. With a surprising gentleness the guards lifted Gerontos onto the litter. The healer put the vial away, then from another pouch took out a peculiar piece of white stone – a crystal of some sort, Rhodorix realized, shaped into a pyramid. For a long moment the healer stared into it, then nodded as if pleased by something and put the pyramid away.

No time for a question – the lavender mist was forming around them with a blessed coolness. Everyone followed Evandar as he led them uphill, only a few yards, or so it seemed, but when the mist lifted, they were standing on a different mountain, and the sun was setting over its peak. Rhodorix felt as giddy and sick as if he were drunk.

He tipped his head back and stared uphill at a massive fortress above them, huge, far grander than anything the Rhwmanes had built in the homeland. To his exhausted eyes it seemed almost as big as an entire Rhwmani walled town. Over the stone walls he could see towers rising and the slate-covered roof of some long structure in their midst. Beyond, at the peak of the mountain, three huge slabs of stone loomed over the fortress, dwarfing it. The sun had just lowered itself between two of the slabs, so that a long sliver of light flared and gleamed like a knife-blade on the mountainside.

‘Garangbeltangim,’ Evandar said. ‘And safety, at least for now.’ He tipped back his head and laughed in a ringing peal. ‘Indeed, at least for now.’

His laughter lingered, but the god had gone.

As they walked the last few yards, massive wooden gates bound with bronze bars swung open with barely a squeak or puff of dust. Rhodorix looked around him, gaping at everything, as he followed the healer inside. Big slabs of grey and reddish slate covered the courtyard in a pattern of triangles that led to a long central building. Its outer walls gleamed with tiny tiles of blue, white, and green, set in a pattern of half-circles so that the enormous rectangular structure seemed to be rising out of sea-foam. To either end stood towers, built square like Rhwmani structures, but far grander, taller, and the top of a third tower, standing behind the main building, was just visible. Off to each side he could see various small huts and houses. Even the lowliest shed bore a smooth coat of bright-coloured paint.

A number of people were standing around, watching their procession straggle into the courtyard. They all had the same furled ears and cat-slit eyes as the healer; they all wore tunics and sandals like his as well. Off to one side someone was leading a horse around the end of the main building, a stocky warhorse whose coat shone like gold and whose mane and tail flowed like silver. Rhodorix had a brief moment of wondering if he’d died without noticing and now walked in the Otherlands, but his thirst drove the fancy away. Dead men didn’t long for water.

Bells chimed over the courtyard, followed by the louder boom and reverberation of huge metallic gongs. The sound came from the top of the tower to his left. When he looked up, Rhodorix saw men on the roofs, and the gleam of metal swinging as they struck the gongs. Up on the mountain peak the sun slipped a little lower. The long knife-blade of light disappeared. The gongs fell silent as the healer urged his men forward again.

They entered the largest building by a narrow door at one end. More colours, more mosaic walls – they turned down a corridor with walls painted with images of trees and deer, then passed red-curtained alcoves and went through a gilded room into a mostly blue corridor, decorated with a long frieze of circles and triangles. Glowing cylinders topped with flame burned in little tiled alcoves on the walls. In this maze of design and brightness, Rhodorix could barely distinguish what he was seeing, nor could he tell in what direction they walked.

At last the healer ushered them into a small chamber with a narrow plank bed, a round table, a scatter of chairs, and a window open to the air. The men with the litter transferred Gerontos to the planks, then pulled off his hauberk and his boots. They bowed to the healer and left.

Rhodorix was just wondering how to ask for water when four cat-eyed servants came trotting in. He assumed they were servants because they carried plates of bread, silver pitchers, and a tray of golden cups. One of them filled a cup with water and handed it to Rhodorix without being asked. Thirst and dust choked his mouth so badly that he could only smile for thanks. The fellow pointed to the food on the table with a sweep of his arm that seemed to mean ‘help yourself’.

Other servants carried in big baskets and set them down beside the plank bed. The healer took out several sticks with spikes at one end and put them on the table. Onto the spikes he put thick cylinders of wax with a bit of thread coming out of their tops. When he snapped his fingers, the threads caught fire, and a soft glow of light spread through the shadowed room. Rhodorix took a fast couple of steps back. The healer smiled at his surprise, then pointed to the food and water before returning to Gerontos’s side.

Rhodorix drank half a pitcher of water before his head cleared enough for him to consider food. He took a chunk of bread and stood eating it while he watched the healer and two of the servants washing Gerontos’s broken leg. By then his brother had fainted. And a good thing, too, Rhodorix thought when the healer grabbed Gerontos’s ankle with one hand and guided the leg straight with the other. Gerontos woke with the pain, groaned, and fainted again. A servant came forward with a bowl of some thick, reddish substance. At first Rhodorix thought it blood, but the smell told him that it was in fact honey mixed with red wine and some ingredient that made the liquid glisten.

The healer dipped strips of cloth into the mixture, then bound them round the break in the leg, over and over until he’d built up a thick layer. A servant came forward with a bowl of water and held it out while he washed his hands. Another slipped a pillow under Gerontos’s head. At that Gerontos woke again, groaning repeatedly, turning his head this way and that. Rhodorix strode over to the opposite side of the bed from the healer and caught his brother’s hand. Gerontos fell silent and tried to smile at him. His mouth contorted into a painful twist.

Two servants hurried over to help Gerontos drink from a cup of the yellow liquid. A third handed Rhodorix a cup of red wine, which he sipped, watching his brother’s pain ease with every swallow of the yellow drink. The healer himself considered Rhodorix, seemed to be about to speak, then smiled, a little ruefully, as if perhaps remembering that Rhodorix wouldn’t understand a word he said. He went to the doorway and spoke to someone standing just outside. A woman’s voice answered him; then the woman herself strode into the chamber.

She stood by the bed and set her hands on her hips to look Gerontos over while the healer talked on. Now and then she nodded as if agreeing with something he said. Tall, nearly as tall as Rhodorix, she wore her pale hair pulled back into a pair of braids. Under thin brows her eyes were the blue of river ice and deep-set in a face that most likely became lovely when she smiled. At the moment, frowning in thought as she considered Gerontos’s leg, she looked as grim as a druid at a sacrifice. Gerontos looked at Rhodorix and quirked an eyebrow. Once, during Vindex’s ill-fated rebellion, they’d seen a contingent of Belgae warriors, all of them as pale-haired and pale-eyed as this woman.

‘She must be a Belgae woman,’ Rhodorix said.

‘Indeed,’ Gerontos whispered. ‘Unless she’s from Germania.’

Neither the woman or the healer took any notice of their talk. She wore a long tunic, belted at the waist like the healer’s, pinned at one shoulder with a gold brooch in the shape of a bird with outstretched wings. Around her neck hung a cluster of what Rhodorix took to be charms on leather thongs. One of the Belgae wise women, he assumed – he’d heard about them back home in Gallia. Eventually she turned to him and spoke. He understood nothing. All he could do was shake his head and spread his hands to show confusion. Her eyes widened in surprise.

The healer came over to him, made a questioning sort of face, and pointed to his ear.

‘I’m not deaf.’ Rhodorix made a guess at the meaning. He pointed to his own ear and smiled, nodding. ‘I can hear you.’

The healer seemed to understand. He in turn nodded his agreement, then spoke to the woman. They left the chamber together.

‘What was all that?’ Gerontos said.

‘I don’t know for certain,’ Rhodorix said. ‘But I’d guess they were expecting us to understand her talk. They were certainly surprised about somewhat.’ He paused to sip from the cup. ‘This wine is very good.’ He pointed at a servant, then at his brother.

The fellow filled a second cup and brought it over. With Rhodorix’s help, Gerontos raised himself up enough to take a few sips. He sighed and lay back down.

‘Enough for now,’ Gerontos whispered. ‘Go eat. I have to sleep.’

The servants took themselves away. Rhodorix got up and returned to the table, but even though he ate, he was considering suicide. He could go outside to the courtyard, find a corner where no one would see him, and fall upon his sword. Or, if the guards would let him, he could climb one of the high towers and step off into death on the stones below. Death seemed the only honourable act left to him after his failure of the day, yet at the same time, how could he abandon his brother here among these strange folk?

If only Galerinos were still with them, he could ask the young druid to cast omens or deliver some kind of opinion based on the holy laws, but Gallo was far away – safe, or so he hoped. He finished his wine, downed what Gerontos had left, then poured himself more. Lacking a holy man, he sought his answers in drink. After the fourth cupful, the room began dancing around him. Rhodorix lay down on the carpeted floor and slept.

‘I don’t understand,’ Nallatanadario said. ‘If they don’t belong to your people, who are they?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hwilli said. ‘But they certainly didn’t understand a word I said to them.’

The two apprentice healers, one human, one elven, were sitting in Hwilli’s tiny chamber, Hwilli cross-legged on her bed, Nalla on a high stool beside Hwilli’s slant-top lectern. On the walls, frescoes of rose gardens gave the small chamber illusory depth. Distant birds flew in the painted skies. While they discussed the two strangers, resting in a chamber just down the corridor, Nalla kept combing her silvery-pale hair. It tumbled in waves about her slender shoulders and down her back, so different from Hwilli’s own fine, limp hair that would have hung in ugly tendrils, or so Hwilli felt, had she worn hers free like Nalla did.

‘Could Master Jantalaber tell you anything more?’ Nalla said.

‘He thought perhaps they belonged to some northern tribe. With the Meradan on the move like this, their lands might have been attacked, too, and their tribe might have fled south.’ Hwilli shrugged uneasily. ‘If that’s true, there must be thousands of Meradan out there. It makes my flesh crawl, thinking that.’

‘Mine too.’ Nalla looked down at the carved bone comb in her hand. Her fingers clenched tight around it. ‘I wonder sometimes what’s going to happen to us. I truly do.’

Hwilli turned and looked out of the small window, set into the frescoes at the chamber’s end, that looked out to the actual sky. She could just see the tops of the fortress’s towers, gleaming in moonlight. We’ll be safe here, she thought. Won’t we? Nalla shuddered, as if she were wondering the same. She resumed combing her hair, then paused, and with a quick frown shoved the comb into the pouch hanging from her belt.

‘Anyway,’ Hwilli said, ‘the master’s going to ask the Guardians for help. He thinks the crystals Evandar gave him might allow us to talk to the men, since they transfer thoughts and images. But he doesn’t know how they could actually translate our speech.’

‘No one’s ever sure how Evandar does anything.’

‘That’s very true. And Evandar might not help with this, either. So I suppose there’s nothing we can do but wait and see.’

‘That’s the Guardians for you.’ Nalla slid off the stool and walked to the door. ‘Are you coming to the refectory? The men will be waiting on table tonight in the great hall, so it’ll be just us women.’

‘Good. I don’t want to sit in the hall with the prince and his warriors.’ Hwilli got up to join her. ‘All they talk about is the war.’

‘What else is there to talk about?’

‘You have a point, unfortunately. The master did say he was going to consult with the prince about the strangers. He was thinking that the prince might want send out a squadron to find the tribe they came from and see if they’d join the People.’

‘Ah, to be allies, you mean.’ Nalla frowned, considering something. ‘I wonder where Evandar found them, though. They could have been up on the Roof of the World, for all we know.’

‘Quite so. I’ll wager that the prince realizes that. I doubt if he’ll want to risk losing any of his men on a scouting expedition. The Guardians never seem to grasp the idea of distance.’

‘That, alas, is very true. Or the idea of time, either.’ Nalla abruptly shuddered with a little shake of her head.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know, maybe an omen, maybe not. There’s so much to be frightened of, these days.’

‘Well, that’s true.’

Yet Hwilli assumed that some long wisp of the cloud that covered future events had touched her. Nalla’s marked for the dweomer, Hwilli thought, while I’m only here to learn herbs and the like. Master Jantalaber had made it clear to her from the beginning, that only the People could use dweomer, never the humble village folk that they treated like children at best and slaves at worst. As she and Nalla walked down the long corridor to the special dining area set aside for the healers in the fortress, Hwilli fought her endless battle between gratitude and envy.

Once they were sitting in the refectory with food spread on the table in front of them, gratitude won a temporary victory. Hwilli reminded herself, as she generally did, that she’d been lucky to be chosen to study with a master healer, to live here in the fortress and have plenty to eat. She’d been born and raised in huts that always smelled of the manure and mud that filled in the chinks in the walls. Her parents had worked so hard that their backs were permanently bent and aching. Her father had died, feverish and half-starved, long before he’d grown old. Her own life, even though brief compared to the spans allotted to the People, would be comfortable and respected because of her knowledge. But so brief, she thought. Still so brief.

Envy rose like bile in her throat. While the other women ate, chatting and laughing, she crumbled a bit of bread between her fingers and watched them. Despite their cat-like eyes and furled ears, they were beautiful, young and beautiful, and they would still be lovely hundreds of years on, when she’d been dead and forgotten for those same hundreds of years.

‘Hwilli!’ Nalla said. ‘Try some of this roast partridge.’ She leaned over and placed a choice slice onto Hwilli’s plate. ‘It’s awfully good.’

‘My thanks.’ Hwilli managed to smile. ‘I was just thinking.’

‘About that handsome stranger?’ Nalla said. ‘And he is handsome, or he will be after a bath. His brother’s good-looking, too. Now, don’t deny it.’

‘Oh yes, I suppose they are. For men of my kind.’

‘Well.’ Nalla paused for a grin. ‘If you shut your eyes, you could ignore their ears.’

When the other women laughed, Hwilli decided that hatred tasted like sour wine. She gathered a few bitter remarks, but when she looked Nalla’s way, Nalla rolled her eyes with a shrug toward the laughter, and Hwilli kept the remarks to herself.

Caswallinos, or so he’d often told his apprentice, had also realized that distance and time meant nothing to Evandar, but much to the elder druid’s surprise and Galerinos’s relief, the river did lie where that supposed god had told them. As they came down from the hills they could see the gleam of water far ahead, winding through a grassy plain scattered with huge boulders and dotted with the occasional copse. Laughter and cheers rippled up and down the line of wagons. The horses and cows raised their heads and sniffed the air, then walked a little faster.

As they hurried across the plain, Galerinos noticed several long and oddly straight lines of small stones. The savages had laid them out, he assumed, though the landscape made him think of old tales about the giants of olden times and their furious wars. Perhaps the Devetii had wandered into an armoury of sorts, with rocks laid ready for some battle that had never occurred.

Just at sunset they reached the river. The Devetian line of march spread out along its banks to allow their weary horses to drink. After them came the cattle and sheep. Only when the animals had drunk their fill, and the mud had had time to settle, did the humans wade into the river to drink and to collect the precious water in amphorae and waterskins. As priests, Galerinos and his master received their share first. After they slaked their thirst, they stood by their wagon and looked out across the stone-studded plain.

‘This is a very strange place,’ Caswallinos remarked.

‘It certainly is, your holiness! All those rocks! Do you know why they’re here?’

‘The Wildfolk told me that a big sheet of ice crawled down from the north. When it melted, it dropped them.’ Caswallinos shook his head sadly. ‘The Wildfolk lack wits as we know wits.’

‘So they must.’

‘But rocks or no rocks, the land looks good enough to plant a crop in. We need to get the winter wheat in the ground.’

‘Are we going to settle here for the winter?’

‘We can’t march in the snow, can we? Think! Besides, we’re going to have to build a bridge to get the wagons across that river. It’s far too deep to ford.’

‘You’re right, and my apologies, but it wearies my heart. This will be our second winter in Evandar’s country. Do you think we’ll ever stop wandering?’

‘Eventually even our cadvridoc will grow tired of slaughtering the white savages. I’ve given him that omen to look for, one we can arrange when we find a suitable place.’

‘Arrange? You mean you lied to him?’

‘Let’s just say I created a soothing truth.’

‘But that’s still lying –’ Galerinos caught the grim look in his master’s eyes and stopped talking in mid-sentence. ‘Apologies.’

Caswallinos snorted with a twist of his mouth.

Cadvridoc Brennos had reached the same conclusion, that the Devetii would set up a temporary settlement near the river and plant their carefully hoarded seed grain. That night, in the midst of campfires he called a general council of the vergobretes, the clan heads, and every free man who wanted to attend. Once the crowd had gathered, he stood on one of the smaller boulders and raised his arms for silence. In the firelight his golden torque and arm bands winked and gleamed. His stiff limed hair gave him the look of a spirit from the Otherlands.

‘You all know,’ he began, ‘that we travel east in search of the omen granted to us by the gods. By another river we’ll find a white sow who’s given birth, and there we’ll found our city.’

The gathered men murmured their agreement.

‘But the year turns toward the dark,’ Brennos continued. ‘According to the bronze marker of days that our druid carries, soon Samovantos will be upon us. We must plant our crops somewhere and build ourselves shelter. Now, right here the gods have given us plenty of stones to work with – an omen, or so I take it. I’d say that this is the place for our winter camp.’

More murmurs, a few cheers – as usual, Brennos had carried the day. Not even Bercanos of the Boar stepped forward to argue, an omen in itself, or so Galerinos thought of it.

‘For the first days here,’ Brennos began speaking again, ‘we’ll camp in our usual order, all together in case the savages attack us. After that, we can build farmsteads and walls to protect ourselves.’

More cheers, more murmurs of assent.

‘While everyone was watering our stock,’ Brennos continued, ‘I rode a little ways south. I found a grand supply of stone, waiting for us right beside a spring. We can use that to build a dun that’ll strike fear in the hearts of the savages. What say you?’

The entire assembly cheered him. The men of the council of vergobretes stood and threw a fist into the air to show their support. As the crowd scattered back to their various wagons and tents, Caswallinos and Galerinos left the camp to walk down by the river, rippled silver with moonlight.

‘Now,’ Caswallinos said. ‘Tell me about that curse.’

In as much detail as he could remember, Galerinos described what had happened up on the hillside. Caswallinos listened, nodding now and then.

‘I never dreamt you had this much of a gift,’ he said at last. ‘It’s time to let you know a few secrets, lad. The first is very simple. The power behind that curse didn’t come from the god. It came from your own soul.’

Galerinos stared at him with his mouth slack. I must not have heard right, was his first thought. Caswallinos laughed, just softly.

‘Don’t believe me, do you?’ the druid said.

‘Of course I believe you, but I’m just surprised.’

‘There are bigger surprises ahead. This will do for tonight.’ Caswallinos glanced at the sky, where the full moon hung like a beacon. ‘I’d ask you to show me that blue fire, but I don’t want you setting fire to the grass or boiling any undines out in the river, either. Huh. That reminds me.’

The elder druid frowned at the water and whispered a message to Evandar. Galerinos waited, unspeaking.

‘There, I’ve told the Wildfolk,’ Caswallinos said at last, ‘though I’ve no idea if they’ll find Evandar or not. I haven’t forgotten your two cousins, lad. I know how close the three of you are, raised together like that.’

‘They’re more like brothers, master.’ Galerinos’s voice went unsteady with fear. ‘I’ll pray he brings them back to us.’

But Evandar never returned. Late that night Galerinos woke from an omen-dream of loss and realized, deep in his heart, that he’d never see his bloodkin again.

Rhodorix woke to the sound of the bronze gongs booming over the fortress. Dawnlight streamed through the window, touching the painted walls with silver. His back ached from his night’s drunken sleep on a thin carpet over a stone floor. He sat up, yawning and stretching the pain away. The chamber door opened to admit the healer and the pale-haired woman. They ignored him and marched over to the plank bed where Gerontos was lying. The healer held a knife with a long, thin blade.

Rhodorix scrambled to his feet – what were they planning on doing to his brother? But as he watched, the healer deftly ran the blade under the cast around Gerontos’s broken leg. The honey had stuck bandages and leg both to the planks as the cast had dried overnight.

With the leg free, the pale-haired woman helped Gerontos sit up, then slid him back to lean against the wall at the head of the bed. She turned away and called out. Servants hurried in, carrying food, fresh water, and an empty shallow pot covered by a cloth, which one of them handed to Rhodorix. Puzzled, he stared at it until the healer laughed and took it from him. With a few deft hand gestures he explained its use. The woman was grinning at him. Rhodorix felt his face turn hot with a blush, but he knew that he needed the thing after all that wine. The woman obligingly stepped out of the chamber.

Once he and Gerontos had relieved their aches, the servant whisked a cloth over the chamber pot and took it away. The woman came back in, carrying a basket.

‘Ah gen Evandares,’ she said.

She set the basket down on the table, then brought out a pair of crystal pyramids, one black, one white, glittering in the morning sunlight. She handed the black to Rhodorix but kept the white. When she gestured with her free hand, Rhodorix realized that she wanted him to hold the pyramid close to his face. She smiled when he did so, then spoke into her crystal.

‘My name is Hwilli.’ Her words seemed to come out of the black crystal, yet at the same time he heard in the normal way her speaking in her unfamiliar tongue. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Rhodorix, and my brother is Gerontos.’ He aped her mannerism and spoke directly into the crystal.

‘What strange names!’ Yet her smile made the comment pleasant. ‘My master has asked me to talk to you and for you, because you and I are both children of Aethyr.’

‘Children of what? My apologies, but I don’t know that word.’

‘The word doesn’t matter.’ She smiled again. ‘Let’s just say that you and I are more alike than we’re like his people.’

That’s as true as it can be! Rhodorix thought. Aloud, he said, ‘Then my thanks. Can my brother’s leg be saved?’

‘It can, though I doubt me if it’ll heal perfectly straight. Still, he should be able to walk without pain.’

Tears of relief welled up in Rhodorix’s eyes. He brushed them away, then repeated the news to Gerontos. Gerro grinned so broadly that his smile was all the thanks that anyone needed. The healer patted him on the shoulder, then spoke to Hwilli, who in turn spoke to Rhodorix through the crystal.

‘Your brother needs to rest. Give him plenty of water whenever he asks. And make sure he eats, too, will you?’

‘I will, and gladly.’

‘In a little while a servant will come to lead you to the bath house. Others will help your brother get clean here. Um, your people do bathe, don’t they?’

‘Whenever we can.’ Rhodorix ran one hand over his stubbled face. ‘We shave, too.’

‘I’ll tell the servant that. I’ll leave this piece of stone with you. If you need something, give it to the servant and ask through the black one.’

‘Very well. One last thing, though. What’s in that stuff you smeared on his leg?’

‘Wine, honey, and egg whites. It stiffens the linen as it dries.’

‘So I see, and my thanks.’

Hwilli set the white crystal down upon the table. The healer and his retinue left, talking among themselves. Much to Rhodorix’s surprise, he could pick out three words that he understood – heal, leg, and water – words Hwilli had used when she spoke to him through the pyramid.

A bath, a clean tunic, and a good bronze razor went a long way to making both Rhodorix and Gerontos feel like men again. Later that day Hwilli returned with a flock of servants and a litter. She put the crystals into their basket, then gave orders to the servants. Rhodorix followed as they carried Gerontos to another chamber, this one with a bed that sported a straw mattress and blankets, big enough for the two brothers to share. Once they’d got Gerontos settled, Hwilli dismissed the servants. She handed Rhodorix the black pyramid and took up the white.

‘You’re a fighting man?’ she said.

‘I am that.’ He hesitated, then decided that she needn’t know of his shame. ‘So is my brother. We know swordcraft.’

‘Good. Our rhix needs swordsmen. Will you fight for him?’

‘It would gladden my heart to repay you for the aid you’ve given us, but truly, who is your rhix? Is he the head of your clan? I’ve never heard of him or this dunum until Evandar said its name.’

She stared at him slack-mouthed, then laughed. ‘You must come from very far away.’

‘We do. We were fleeing the Rhwmanes.’

‘Ah, so that’s what you call them! Master Jantalaber thought your tribe might have been trying to escape them. The master is the man who set your brother’s leg, by the by. The rhix is Ranadar of the Vale of Roses, cadvridoc of the Seven Cities, Master of Garangbeltangim.’

‘My thanks. I’d not heard of him before this day.’

‘I see. Master Jantalaber mentioned that Evandar favoured you.’

‘Well, he saved my brother and me from death.’

‘A sign of favour, sure enough!’

For the first time it occurred to Rhodorix to wonder why the god had come to their aid. Perhaps he wanted them to join this clan’s warband. Doing the will of the god, in that case, looked far better than either killing himself or returning to his own clan and facing his father’s outrage at his blunder over the ambush.

‘Is your rhix fighting those white-skinned savages?’

‘He is.’

‘Then it will gladden my heart to serve him.’ He glanced at Gerontos, who was listening intently, at least to Rhodorix’s half of the conversation. ‘Evandar brought us here to help the rhix who’s the master of this dunum. His name’s Ranadar.’

‘Then as soon as I can stand, I’ll fight for him,’ Gerontos said. ‘I owe these people my life.’

‘So do I.’ Rhodorix returned to speaking into the crystal. ‘It will gladden our hearts to swear loyalty to your cadvridoc.’

‘Splendid!’ Hwilli said. ‘I’ll tell the master of arms.’

Some of the words she spoke in her own language, those he heard as an echo to the words from the crystal, made sense to him, he realized. Somehow the crystal was teaching him her speech at the same time as it transformed it into his own. I wish we’d had these in the homeland, he thought. It would have made learning that wretched Rhwman tongue easier. As the eldest son of a clan head, he’d been expected to learn Latin in order to speak to the conquerors and a little Greek as well in order to bargain with merchants.

Rhodorix and Gerontos received their chance to swear to Ranadarix, as they called him, when the prince himself came to their chamber. His retinue, six men with spears, four with swords, marched in first. They all wore polished bronze breastplates, each inlaid with a red enamel rose, over their tunics.

The prince followed, unarmed, wearing no armour, though a glittering belt, inlaid with gems in a pattern of overlapping triangles and circles, clasped in his rich red tunic. Around his neck he wore an enormous sapphire, as blue as the winter sea, set into a gold pendant three fingers wide. He was a tall man, dark-haired, with lavender catslit eyes and the strange furled ears of his people. Behind him came a child, dressed in a simple white tunic, who looked so much like him that Rhodorix could assume him to be the prince’s son.

A swordsman picked up the white crystal and handed it to the prince. Rhodorix took the black, then knelt on the floor in front of the cadvridoc.

‘I understand that you’ve chosen to join my warband,’ Ranadarix said.

‘We have, honoured one,’ Rhodorix said, ‘in gratitude for the aid your people have given my brother. We both can fight on foot with swords or on horseback with javelins.’

‘On horseback?’ The prince suddenly grinned. ‘Well, now, this is a welcome thing! None of my men can do that. Horses are new to me and my people.’

Rhodorix stared, his mouth slack, then remembered that he was talking to a cadvridoc and a rhix. ‘Forgive me, honoured one. That surprised me, about the horses, I mean. We’ll be glad to show you what we know.’

‘Splendid! Then you shall be weaponmasters and serve me doubly.’ He turned and beckoned one of the swordsmen forward, a pale-haired man with deep-set green eyes. ‘This is Andariel, the leader of my personal guard. In the morning, he’ll fetch you, and he’ll show you what horses we have. Obviously your brother needs to rest.’

‘So he does, honoured one. If Andariel approves of my skill, then I’ll teach your men everything I know.’

Ranadarix repeated this to Andariel, who smiled and nodded Rhodorix’s way. Ranadarix set the white crystal down, then turned and walked out with his son and the guard following. Rhodorix got up from his kneel and sat on the edge of the bed to talk with Gerontos.

‘What’s so surprising about the horses?’ Gerontos said.

‘He told me that they were new to his people.’

‘New? That’s cursed strange!’

‘So I thought, too. Well, it’s good luck for us, though. If we prove ourselves, we’ll be weaponmasters and have some standing here.’

‘Splendid.’ Gerontos abruptly yawned. ‘Ye gods, I tire so easily! But truly, Evandar’s brought us good fortune. This Ranadarix must be as rich as a Rhwmani propraetor!’

‘And a lot less corrupt.’

‘Huh! Who isn’t?’

They shared a laugh, interrupted by the boom and clang of gongs from the towers outside. When Rhodorix went to the window and looked out, he saw that the sun had reached zenith.

Servants appeared, carrying food, which they silently put on the table, then bowed their way out. While they ate, Rhodorix found himself thinking about Hwilli. If he and his brother became weaponmasters, he’d have the standing he needed to keep a woman. She appealed to him a great deal more than the longeared people who ruled this dun. When he considered their cat-slit eyes, he wondered if they were truly human. He doubted it, but as long as they treated him and his brother so well, he would serve them as faithfully as he could.

Since they kept the herbroom locked, the scent of the pharmacopeia lay heavy in the air. When Hwilli walked in, she could smell a hundred different tangs and spices. Master Jantalaber was standing by the marble-topped study table. He was turning the pages of a small leather-bound book, but when he glanced up and saw her, he shut the book and shoved it to one side. Hwilli glanced at it but saw no name on the plain brown cover. Beside it on the table sat a basket of dried plants.

‘A good morrow to you, child,’ he said.

‘I am not a child.’ Hwilli drew herself up to full height. ‘By your own reckoning, I’ve seen seventeen winters.’

‘That’s true.’ He smiled at her. ‘I call you “child” out of affection, you see.’

‘I –’ Hwilli felt her anger spill and run like water from a broken glass vessel. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Come now, I know it must be hard on you, living here, so far from your own kind. But you have a mind, Hwilli, true wits, something I’ve not noticed much among your people, and you belong with us.’

Who has the leisure to grow their wits? We work too hard growing crops for your kind to gobble up. Aloud, she said, ‘Thank you. I know I’m lucky to be here.’

‘And someday, after you’ve passed over the great river and seen the black sun rise in the otherworld, you’ll be reborn as one of us. I know that deep in my heart.’

Tears filled her eyes, hot tears of rage at a promise, oft repeated, that seemed utterly empty to her, but she mumbled another thank you. When the master turned his back to arrange the dried plants on the study table, she wiped the tears away before he noticed them. He set the empty basket down on the floor.

‘Before we start our lesson, I want to ask you about those strangers,’ Jantalaber said. ‘Have they ever told you where they came from?’

‘Only that it’s very far away. Their name for the Meradan is “Rhwmanes”, though. Roseprince told me that much.’

‘Roseprince? Is that truly his name?’

‘Well, that’s how the crystals translate it. It sounds like “Rhodorix” in his own tongue. His brother’s name is Oldman, or Gerontos.’

‘Ah, I see. The crystals find the root meaning of words.’

‘Yes. The strangers’ word for prince seems to be rhix, but I have the feeling it doesn’t mean quite the same thing as our word.’ Hwilli considered for a moment. ‘The words that come from the crystals have odd echoes to them. I’m afraid I can’t explain it any better than that.’

‘The whole thing is very odd, but then what else would one expect from the Guardians?’

They shared a smile.

‘Every now and then,’ Hwilli continued, ‘Rhodorix uses a word that sounds familiar to me, one that my own kind would use, I mean.’

‘I see. No doubt his people are related to yours somehow, then. You see, that’s what I mean about your wits. You observe things, you’re precise.’

‘Thank you.’ Hwilli could barely speak. The master rarely praised any of his apprentices. He smiled as if he understood her confusion.

‘Now, you’ve studied very hard, and you’ve learned remarkably fast. I’m going to put you in charge of healing Gerontos’s broken leg. You can always ask me for advice, of course, but the decisions will be yours.’

‘Do you truly think I’m ready?’

‘Yes, I do. In a bit you can go to his chamber and take a look at him. See if he’s feverish or ill in any way beyond the pain of the break. Report back to me when you’ve finished. Now, however, let’s look at our plants. These five are all vulneraries.’

When Hwilli returned to the sickroom, she found Gerontos sitting up. His colour looked normal; his forehead felt cool; the skin on his thigh above the cast looked normal as well.

‘You’re doing as well as we can expect,’ she said through the crystals. ‘The Rhwmanes smashed the bone, I’m afraid, and there are chips.’

Gerontos blinked at her, then spoke to his brother. Rhodorix laughed and took the black crystal from him.

‘The Rhwmanes aren’t the white savages,’ Rhodorix said. ‘Our homeland’s across the great ocean. The Rhwmanes conquered it, so we left with Evandar’s help. We wanted to be free, you see, not their subjects.’

‘I do see,’ Hwilli said. ‘Now.’

Rhodorix grinned at her. He had an open, engaging smile that made her feel pleasantly warm. His dark blue eyes, so different from the ice-blue common to her people, intrigued her. She liked the way he moved, too, with the muscular grace of a wolf or a stallion. One of my own kind, she thought. It’s a relief, to see a man of my own kind after living here so long. ‘So,’ Hwilli said, ‘your homeland lies to the west, then?’

‘Well –’ He hesitated, and his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. ‘It must. Except, when we left, we sailed west, you see, toward the setting sun. But then when we arrived at the harbour up north, we were sailing east, toward the rising sun.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

‘I know. That’s why I’m puzzled.’ He frowned at the floor for a long moment, then dismissed the problem with a shrug and looked up. ‘But here we are.’

‘Indeed. I didn’t know there was a harbour up north.’

‘I think it was north. The way everything changes direction around here, who knows?’

They shared a laugh.

‘The white savages,’ he continued, ‘had some villages near the harbour, anyway. What do you call them?’

‘Meradan.’

‘Very well. Meradan it is.’

Hwilli was tempted to linger, chatting with him, for a while more, but the master had asked her to return to the herbroom when she’d finished with her patient.

‘I’ll be coming back often,’ Hwilli said, ‘to keep an eye on your brother’s progress. But if he shows the least sign of fever, call for a servant and have them come tell me immediately.’

‘I will. A thousand thanks.’

When she walked to the door of the chamber, Rhodorix hurried to join her out in the corridor. She waited for him to speak, but he merely smiled, studying her face, then held out the white crystal. She took it.

‘Um,’ she said, ‘is there something you want to ask me?’

‘A great many things, but since we’ve just met, it would be rude of me.’ He winked at her. ‘May you have a pleasant evening, fair one.’

Hwilli felt her face burning from a blush. She handed back the crystal, turned on her heel, and strode away as fast as she could whilst still retaining her dignity. Yet she had to admit to herself how deeply his teasing had pleased her.

Later it occurred to her that she should tell Master Jantalaber about the actual meaning of the name Rhwmanes. To her surprise she realized that she disliked the idea of doing so, even though she knew that the master would find the information interesting and even, perhaps, important. She decided to keep it as her secret, a scrap of knowledge that the ever so learned People didn’t know and wouldn’t know if she never told them, something that she shared with Rhodorix alone.

In the morning Rhodorix went with Andariel to examine the herd of forty-two horses, mostly roans and greys, which they kept in a paddock behind the fortress, all of them captured in the various battles with the white savages. Some had been wounded; they trembled at the approach of the two-legged beings. Others came right up to the fence to nose the men’s tunics in the hope of a bit of extra food. All of them showed good breeding with their long legs and deep chests.

Two white cows with rusty-red ears stood against the back fence. Rhodorix had never seen that particular bovine variety before. Since Rhodorix had brought the pair of crystals with him, he could talk with the captain.

‘Those cows?’ Rhodorix pointed to them. ‘What are they doing in here?’

‘Oh, they belong to the priests. They’ll be the mid-winter sacrifice,’ Andariel said, grinning. ‘We do know the difference between a cow and these new beasts.’

That’s why they’re white, Rhodorix thought. That’s always best for the sacrifices.

Not far from the cows stood the golden warhorse with the silver mane and tail that Rhodorix had seen on his first day at Garangbeltangim.

‘Has anyone spoken for that horse?’ He gestured at the golden gelding.

‘No one’s spoken for any of them,’ Andariel said.

‘Very well. I’ll take him, then.’

‘Um, should each man have a particular horse?’

‘He should, truly. And he should be caring for it as well, not leaving it to the servants. It makes a bond, like, twixt horse and rider.’

Andariel looked utterly surprised at the idea.

‘How many of your men know how to ride?’ Rhodorix said.

‘None.’ Andariel smiled, a wry twist of his mouth. ‘We save these beasts when we can, and we have some captured seat-things and some head-strap things, but riding on their backs – we don’t know what to do or how to climb onto them.’

‘I see. Do you know how to feed them? They need grain, not just grass.’

‘I’m truly glad you’re here. We didn’t know that, either.’

As they examined the riding stock, Andariel told him more. The People, as they called themselves, lived mostly in the mountains and foothills, where the narrow valley croplands and the terraces cut into the slopes raised barely enough food for themselves. Cattle, goats, and sheep could graze on mountainsides too steep for terracing. Horses were a luxury better suited to flat ground.

Still, when the Meradan warbands had swept down on them, the People had seen the value of speed. The savages never fought on horseback, but the ability to ride fast from one scrap to another, or to make a quick retreat, had given the Meradan too great an edge in the constant raiding and skirmishing. Rhodorix and Gerontos had arrived like one of Evandar’s best gifts.

With Andariel’s help, Rhodorix chose forty guardsmen to learn riding and some of the menservants in the fortress to help tend the horses, then returned to his chamber to see if Gerontos had need of him. Rhodorix found his brother sitting on the edge of the bed and contemplating a wooden crutch while Hwilli stood nearby, watching him. When Rhodorix walked in, she grabbed the white crystal out of the basket.

‘I wish you’d leave them here,’ she snapped.

‘My apologies, but I had to talk with the captain,’ Rhodorix said into the black. ‘Here, Gerro, I hope that leg is going to heal up fast. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. For starters, these people don’t even know how to build a stall, and if they did, they wouldn’t know how to rake it out.’

‘I hope I’ll be up and around soon.’ Gerontos looked at Hwilli. Rhodorix repeated the question through the crystal.

‘He’s doing well,’ Hwilli said, ‘but I don’t want him walking very far.’

‘Out to the courtyard?’ Gerontos said.

She shook her head. ‘Too far. In a few days, maybe.’

‘When can I ride again?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone ride a horse, so I don’t know how difficult it is.’ Hwilli paused, thinking. ‘Well, you’ll have to get well enough to walk first. We’ll decide about the riding later.’

‘It’s probably too soon to start training with the actual horses, anyway.’ Rhodorix perched on the end of the bed. ‘I told some servants how to build a couple of wooden horses. We’ll put them out in the courtyard so the men can learn to vault and mount.’

‘It’s always best to start at the beginning.’ Gerontos grinned at him. ‘That’ll keep them busy until I can walk.’

Coming as he did from a warlike and honour-bound people, Rhodorix had seen plenty of broken limbs in his short life, but he’d never seen one as painless as his brother’s leg seemed to be. The cast did bother Gerro’s skin, however, especially in the warm afternoons, when he complained of the way it itched. Hwilli came in often, and several times a day she gave him a small quantity of the golden liquid. Not long after drinking it, Gerontos would drift off to sleep. Once she was satisfied that her patient was doing well, Hwilli would linger to talk.

‘That yellow stuff must contain a powerful herb,’ Rhodorix said one evening.

‘Powerful, yes, but we make it from mead and the seeds of a red flower, not from a herb,’ Hwilli said. ‘I can’t give it to him constantly, though. If you use too much of it, patients come to crave it. Then when you tell them they can’t have it any more, they weep and rage and carry on like madmen.’

‘Dangerous stuff, then.’

‘A great many things here are.’

‘Was that a warning?’

‘Of a sort, perhaps.’

‘About yourself?’

‘What? Hardly!’ She smiled at him, then let the smile fade. ‘I meant the Meradan, the white savages as you call them. They’re bound to attack us, sooner or later.’

‘Now that’s true-spoken, alas. With a cadvridoc like Ranadarix commanding us, we’ll beat them off again.’

‘We can hope so.’ Her voice wavered.

‘You’re frightened, aren’t you?’ Rhodorix walked over to her.

‘Of course! Any sane person would be frightened.’

‘Well, true spoken. Fortunately, men like my brother and I were born insane.’ He grinned at her. ‘So we’ll protect you. Ranadar’s men are just as crazed as we are.’

‘I’ll hope so.’

‘Are any of them mad for you?’

Hwilli blushed.

‘I’ll wager they are,’ he went on. ‘May I escort you back to your chamber?’

‘You may not.’ She drew herself up like a great lady. ‘I’m going to join Master Jantalaber in the herbroom.’

‘Then I’ll escort you there, if you’ll allow me.’

She wavered, looking away, glancing back at him, then shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t be seemly.’ She thrust the white crystal toward his hands.

Reflexively he took it. With her head held high, she hurried out of the chamber. With a yawn Gerontos woke and propped himself up on one elbow.

‘Huh!’ Gerontos said. ‘You never stop hunting, do you?’

‘Why not? We’ll be here the rest of our lives.’ Rhodorix walked over to him. ‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘Awake enough to hear you chattering away.’ Gerontos lay down again. ‘How long will we live, once the fighting comes our way? From the things Andariel’s been telling you –’

‘True enough, it doesn’t look good.’ Rhodorix paused to pull over a chair. ‘But once these men can fight from horseback, we’ll have better odds. They’re cursed good with bows, Gerro. Andariel set their arms masters to making javelins. He was talking about some kind of bow that they can learn to aim and loose from the saddle. That’ll give the Meradan somewhat new to worry about.’

‘And give us some hope. Good. Huh, I wonder if Hwilli has a sister?’ Gerro smiled at him. ‘Or at least, a friend who’s from our kind of people, a lass who’d favour a weaponmaster’s brother.’

‘I’ll ask her. It’ll be somewhat new to talk about besides your gimpy leg.’

At first Hwilli doubted that Rhodorix was courting her, not in the midst of the beautiful women of the People. Why would he want her, so plain and awkward? The other women knew how to smile in a wicked way and say witty things, how to hold their hands just so and how to look at a man they fancied slant-wise with just the right amount of invitation. She felt so sure that she’d look ridiculous that she never tried to imitate them. Yet Rhodorix spoke only to her, he smiled only at her, he kept asking to escort her places and giving her compliments.

‘Of course he’s interested,’ Nalla told her. ‘Doesn’t he follow you around?’

‘Well, he does, but –’

‘But what? If naught else, he’s a man of your people, and he’s new to our country. He’s not used to us like you are.’ Nalla laid a hand over her ear. ‘I’ll wager he thinks we’re all very strange and ugly.’

Wrapped in her envy as she was, Hwilli had never considered that possibility before.

‘Ask him,’ Nalla went on, grinning. ‘But if he says yes, he does think so, then don’t tell me.’

They were walking together on their way to the herbroom, where Master Jantalaber taught groups of students every afternoon. When they arrived, they found the long narrow room already half-full and the Master laying out herbs on the marble table. In one corner Paraberiel, a pinch-faced young man with moonbeam pale hair and emerald eyes, sat on a stool, but he was reading in the book that had no name on its cover rather than looking at the herbs or the herbal that sat open on the big lectern. With a smile Jantalaber called Hwilli and Nalla over to him.

‘There’s no need for you two to stay,’ he told them. ‘I’m going to review some very basic principles for the slowest pupils. Go amuse yourselves, if you’d like.’

‘Thank you!’ They said it together, glanced at each other, and laughed.

Nalla hurried off on some errands of her own, while Hwilli decided to go and see what the horse-riding looked like. She went outside to a cool afternoon that threatened autumn rain and hurried across the ward to the back wall. She climbed the ladder up to the catwalks and leaned between two merlons to look out.

Behind the fortress lay a long stretch of ground that had once been open and covered with grass. The horses had eaten the grass down to dirt, and masons were building new walls to enclose the area at each side and along the back. She saw no sign of the horses, however, or of Rhodorix and the guardsmen. Her disappointment clutched her so sharply that she felt tears rise in her throat. Oh don’t be so stupid! she told herself. It’s not like he’ll ever be interested in you anyway.

When she climbed down to the ward, one of the women servants hailed her. ‘If you’re looking for the riders,’ she said, ‘they took the horses out to the first terrace.’

‘Thank you,’ Hwilli said. ‘But I was just looking at the clouds. Do you think it will rain?’

‘Tonight, maybe. Winter’s on the way.’

Hwilli argued with herself all the way to the front gate of the fortress, but in the end she left and walked down the hill to a spot just above the first terrace, a narrow strip of tall grass that ran along the face of the mountain for some hundreds of yards. At one end, some of the men were harvesting the grass with scythes, while others laid it out in the sun to dry. Seeing the arrogant men of the prince’s guard working like farmers made Hwilli laugh aloud. They could barely handle the scythes, though they did keep at the task with a certain grim determination. Good! she thought. Let them see what my people go through to feed them.

At the other end of the terrace the horses were grazing in the grass, watched over by the fortress’s kennelmaster and his dogs. In the middle, where the grass had already been cropped short, Rhodorix stood by a wooden structure, vaguely horse-shaped, and talked to Andariel through the black crystal. In turn, the captain repeated everything to a semi-circle of guardsmen.

Eventually Rhodorix handed the white crystal to Andariel, who held the black. Rhodorix turned, stuck two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. Out in the herd of horses a golden horse nickered in answer. Rhodorix whistled again, and the horse trotted free of the herd and came straight to him. Even at her distance Hwilli could see how the guardsmen looked at him, worshipful, almost frightened by his command of the large and – to her – ugly beast.

The golden horse stood still when Rhodorix patted its neck and whispered to it. He walked a few steps back, then ran up and leapt for the horse’s back. It wasn’t a graceful gesture, more of a twist and a wiggle with a kick of one leg and a wave of his arms, but Rhodorix was sitting astride the horse’s back and holding the horse’s halter rope in one hand before Hwilli had quite seen what he’d done. The guardsmen all cheered, and Rhodorix, grinning, bowed to them from the horse’s back. He slid down again, and with a gentle slap on the horse’s rump, he sent it back to its herd.

Rhodorix pointed to one of the men, who walked forward. A few more instructions, and the guardsman took a deep breath, then trotted forward and leapt for the wooden horse’s back. He landed hard, stomach first athwart the wood, and slid right over and off, landing with a clumsy roll on the ground, where he lay gasping for breath. Andariel handed the crystals to Rhodorix, then hurried over to help the guardsman up. Clutching his stomach, the fellow hobbled off to join his fellows.

One at a time, the guardsmen resumed their futile attempts to mimic Rhodorix and leap onto the wooden horse. Some made it, barely, squirming and grasping at any part of the wood they could get their fingers on. A few slid off before they could get all the way on, some falling flat on their stomachs, some smack on their posteriors. Others ended up like the first guardsman and sailed right over. Hwilli could assume that many of them would end up limping into Master Jantalaber’s infirmary later, seeking poultices.

The wind strengthened, chilly and sharp through her linen dress. And what if Rhodorix should notice her watching him? Hwilli turned around and hurried back up to the fortress. She returned to her chamber and spent the afternoon studying her herbal at the lectern, but her mind drifted often to the handsome man of her own kind, who had awed the arrogant men of the People with his skill.

That evening, after she’d made her usual visit to check on Gerontos’s progress, Hwilli allowed Rhodorix to escort her back to her chamber, with each of them carrying one of the crystals. Once they were well out of his brother’s hearing, she asked what he thought of the People. Much to her surprise, he proved Nalla right.

‘They’re as generous as ever any people could be,’ Rhodorix said, ‘and our prince strikes me as a man more noble than any I’ve ever met. But ye gods, they look peculiar!’

‘Even the women?’

‘Especially the women. Now, here, I don’t mean to insult your friend Nalla, but her eyes make me uneasy, and those ears! Like a donkey’s.’

‘Oh, they are not! How mean!’

‘Very well, then, not as bad as a donkey’s.’ He reached out and touched the side of her face. ‘But she’ll never be half as lovely as you are.’

‘Come now! You’re just flattering me.’

‘And why would I do that?’

Before she could answer, he bent his head and kissed her, just a quick brush of his mouth across hers, but she felt as if he’d touched her with fire. He grinned, took the white crystal from her, and left without another word. She stood by her doorway and watched him disappear around the corner before she went inside.

That night she dreamt about Rhodorix. When the dawn gongs sounding on the priests’ tower woke her, she lay abed for some while, smiling and remembering the dream.

After the morning meal Hwilli went to the herbroom. The day before, the apprentices had cleaned several bushels of plants and set them to dry on wooden racks. They would need turning so that they’d dry evenly. When she came in, she saw Paraberiel perching on a stool and reading from the unnamed brown book. When he looked up and saw Hwilli, he said nothing, just ostentatiously put the book into a cupboard and made sure that the door stayed shut. He caught her watching him and gave her a bland little smile. You swine! Hwilli thought. Master Jantalaber hurried in from the corridor.

‘Ah, there you are, Hwilli, good,’ Jantalaber said. ‘If you’d finish working with those herbs? I’m afraid the prince has summoned me for some reason. The servant didn’t know why, so I have no idea how long I’ll be gone.’

‘Of course, Master.’

‘Thank you. Par, come with me.’

Paraberiel hesitated, turning toward the cupboard.

‘You can leave the book there,’ Jantalaber said. ‘Hwilli can look at it if she wishes.’

Paraberiel opened his mouth as if he were about to protest, but Jantalaber was striding out of the room. Reluctantly he followed the master. Hwilli waited until they were well and truly gone, then went to the cupboard and took out the little brown book. As soon as she opened it, she realized why the master had been so casual.

Although it was written in the usual syllabary, and the language seemed the usual language of the People, she had no idea what anything meant, simply because the scattered notes – mere jottings, really, in Jantalaber’s familiar script – contained a welter of unfamiliar words. Astral, convoluted, etheric, a long list of what seemed to be names, a variety of words marked with various verbal forms, another list of what seemed to be places – dweomer terms, she realized suddenly, referring to things that she’d never be judged fit to know. The master had drawn a few sketchy diagrams here and there of something he seemed to be planning on building, but she understood none of them. She shut the book with a snap and shoved it back into its cupboard.

Had the master been mocking her, when he’d told his other favoured apprentice to let her see the book? While she carefully turned each leafy plant on the wooden drying racks, that question tormented her. Jantalaber returned alone just as she’d got about half-way through her task.

‘My apologies for letting you do all that,’ he said. ‘Par resents you, you know, because you’re smarter than he is, so I knew he’d hinder rather than help you.’

Hwilli nearly dropped the rack she was carrying. Jantalaber smiled, then picked a stalk of eyebright from the tray and sniffed it.

‘Yes, you can put those back,’ he said. ‘They’re not quite ready. Did you look at the book?’

‘I did. I understood none of it. Of course.’

‘Of course?’ He quirked a pale eyebrow.

‘Isn’t that why you let me look at it? Because you knew I couldn’t make sense of it?’

‘That wasn’t it at all.’

Hwilli felt herself blush. She hurriedly turned away and carried the rack to the drying room, lined with shelves to hold the wooden racks. The scents of over fifty different herbs seemed to thicken the air, as if she’d walked into a foggy day. The master followed her.

‘I’ve often got the impression,’Jantalaber said, ‘that you’re very much interested in dweomer workings.’

‘I know they’re forbidden to me.’

‘By tradition, certainly. By common sense, not at all.’

Her hands started shaking. She slid the rack into its place on the shelves before she did drop it and disgrace herself.

‘I’ve learned as much from you as you have from me, Hwilli,’ the master continued. ‘All our traditions say that your folk cannot learn dweomer, simply cannot. I suspect that those traditions arose because none of the People ever bothered to get to know your folk.’

‘I –’ She spun around to find him smiling at her.

‘Now, I’ve taught my apprentices to put any guesses and surmises about healing to the test, haven’t I? I’d like to put my suspicion to the test. Do you want to share Nalla’s lessons?’

‘I’d like naught better in the world!’

‘So I thought. If you hadn’t bothered to look at the brown book, I never would have offered, by the by. But I felt that you’d be curious enough, and you were.’

‘Thank you, I don’t know how to thank you enough –’

‘You’re very welcome. Now, about that book. Doubtless you noticed that it only contained notes in my hand.’

‘I did.’

‘They’re notes toward an idea that lies near to my heart, a special place we could use for healing and naught but healing. This fortress exists to serve death. We healers exist to serve life, and we need a place free of death to study healing, somewhere that possesses healing in its very nature. You won’t understand all this at first.’ Suddenly he laughed, and his eyes took on an excitement she’d never seen there before. ‘I don’t truly understand it all myself. For now, let me just say that other masters in the healing arts agree and are planning on helping me build such a place.’

‘It sounds splendid.’

‘It might well be splendid, when we’re done.’ He let the smile fade. ‘Assuming, of course, that we can finish the work now, with the Meradan raiding and killing. Ah well, who knows what the gods have in store for any of us?’

‘Or what our destiny will be.’ Hwilli felt abruptly cold and shivered. ‘And perhaps that’s just as well.’

Jantalaber laughed again, but his normally silvery voice took on a hard edge. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘For now, though, I want you to look at the first three pages of that book again. I’ll wager there are words there you don’t know. Memorize them, then ask Nalla or me what they mean.’

‘I already have. Memorized them, I mean. I never thought I’d be allowed to ask.’

‘Well, you are.’ He paused, turned toward the door, and listened to a noise outside. ‘Ah, yes. Nalla, come in. Hwilli’s agreed.’

Laughing, Nalla rushed into the herbroom. She caught Hwilli’s hands in both of hers and squeezed them. ‘I know it,’ she announced, ‘I know you can do this!’

‘Thank you.’ Hwilli was thinking, I know it, too. ‘But the others? What will they say?’

‘I’m going to teach you the first steps myself, just the two of us,’ Nalla said. ‘Once you’ve caught up to the others, there’ll be naught for them to say.’

Which means they won’t like seeing me among them, doesn’t it? Aloud, Hwilli said, ‘That will be splendid, then.’

While the two apprentices finished turning the drying herbs, Hwilli learned the meaning of the words that had so puzzled her. Nalla also gave her the first principle of magical studies. All things are made of a light that has shone since the beginning of the world, but light that has convoluted, twisting around itself, bending around other rays of light, gaining substance and form with every twist and interaction, melding itself into matter in the way that a master blacksmith pattern-welds a sword from separate strips of iron.

‘Meditate on that,’ Nalla told her. ‘The teachers say that it’s the key to everything. I don’t know why, because I’m not advanced enough.’

‘You mean you’ve not worked hard enough,’ Jantalaber said, grinning. ‘Follow your own advice, Nalla.’

Nalla blushed, but she managed to smile.

For the rest of that day, Hwilli felt as if she were floating through her usual work and study. The door to the treasure chamber had swung open, a door that she’d been sure would always remain shut and locked. When she went to Gerontos and Rhodorix’s chamber to examine her patient, her splendid mood withstood Gerontos’s own foul temper. That evening he did little but complain into the black crystal. The leg ached, when could he walk on it, he hated lying still all day, the cast smelled bad and itched him, on and on until she was tempted to drug him into silence.

‘If you’re patient now,’ she said instead, ‘you’ll heal properly. If you refuse to lie still for a few more days, the leg will be twisted and strange. Which do you want?’

Gerontos set the crystal down, then crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. Rhodorix got up from his seat by the window and walked over to pick up the black pyramid.

‘There’s a third choice,’ he said, grinning. ‘Your older brother can tie you down to the bed so tightly that you can’t move until the cursed leg heals.’

Gerontos said something that made Rhodorix laugh. ‘Just try,’ he answered. ‘Not that you could right now, anyway.’

Gerontos said something else in a less angry tone of voice.

‘That’s better,’ Rhodorix said. ‘He tells me that he’s sorry if he offended you. Offending me is somewhat else again, but I can’t begrudge it to him.’

‘Just so. Please tell him that he really will get better if he lets the leg heal in its own time.’

Rhodorix repeated what she’d told him. With a sigh Gerontos nodded his agreement. Hwilli gave him his carefully measured dose of the opium tincture, then packed up her supplies.

‘I’ll carry those back for you,’ Rhodorix said, ‘if I may.’

She hesitated, but the night had turned late enough that Master Jantalaber would have left the herbroom.

‘My thanks,’ she said, ‘I’d like that.’

Rhodorix carried her sack of medicaments, then waited, glancing around the herbroom, watching her put things away by candlelight. Without asking he escorted her back to her chamber. Neither of them spoke on the short walk, but Hwilli could feel her heart pounding so hard that she wondered if he could hear it. At the door she hesitated, clutching the white crystal in one hand while he held up the black.

‘You look particularly beautiful tonight,’ he said. ‘Your hair’s like the winter sun, it gleams so.’

‘Oh, listen to you! You should be a bard.’

‘You inspire me, that’s all.’

He caught her chin in his free hand and kissed her, a long lingering kiss that made her gasp for breath. She leaned back against the corridor wall, and he stepped closer to kiss her again.

‘Could you favour me?’ he murmured.

‘Can’t you see I already do?’ She regretted her bluntness the instant she’d spoken.

He laughed. ‘I had hopes that way, but I’d not get you in trouble with your master. What will he do if he finds out you’ve got a man?’

The question puzzled her. The women here in the fortress had always taken lovers when they wanted them, whether anyone else had approved or not.

‘Naught,’ she said. ‘Why would he do anything? I’m only his apprentice, not his daughter or suchlike.’

‘Well, then.’ He smiled, his eyes eager, as if he were waiting for something.

‘Then what?’

‘Then will you invite me in?’

‘Oh!’ She realized that despite everything he’d said and done, she’d still been doubting herself. ‘Of course.’

As they went inside, he shut the door firmly behind them. He put his crystal down on the stool by her lectern, then slipped his arms around her before she could do the same. He drew her close and kissed her with the white pyramid caught between them. When his hands slid down to her buttocks, she felt so aroused that she nearly dropped the precious crystal. He laughed, caught it in one broad hand, and turned away to put it down next to the black.

Hwilli pulled her dress over her head and let it fall to the floor. She lay down on her bed, so narrow that he barely fitted next to her, but once his arms were around her, it became all the comfort they needed.

After their love-making, she drowsed in his arms, only to wake when a pale grey light filtered through the window. He woke as well, to turn onto his side and contemplate her face. He was smiling, and with a gentle finger he traced the shape of her lips.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said. ‘I’m honoured that you’d favour a man like me.’

‘Oh don’t say daft things.’ She kissed his fingertips. ‘I’m the one who’s honoured.’

‘Indeed? You’re a healer, you can read and write, and what am I? Just a fighting man who happens to know horsecraft.’

‘I’d say you know women just as well. I –’ Hwilli stopped, abruptly surprised. ‘Wait! I’m understanding every word you say. The crystals are still over there.’

Rhodorix sat up, twisting to look at the lectern and the stool, where indeed the two crystals sat some five feet distant.

‘Ye gods!’ He lay back down. ‘Well, that’s a handy thing, then.’ He started to say more, but the priestly gongs began announcing the dawn in a racket of struck bronze. Rhodorix swore and winced, then waited till the sound died away. ‘Why in the name of every god do they keep making that wretched noise?’

‘In the name of every god, just like you said.’ Hwilli grinned at him. ‘It’s the priests’ duty to mark the points of the passing days, and the days themselves, the cycles of the moon and the sun, the rising of some of the stars, all of the heavenly things. That’s why the prince built this fortress up so high, so the priests would be closer to the stars.’

‘I think me that the sun would rise without them making all that cursed clamour.’

‘So do I, but the priests don’t.’

‘Ah. Like the cocks that crow on the dungheap, then, and the sun obeys.’

She laughed until he kissed her again, and neither of them had any need of words or laughter.

Yet once their love-making finished, sunlight was flooding in the window, and he needed to leave to rejoin his men out in the horse yard. Hwilli lay on her side and watched him pull on the funny, baggy legging-things he called brigga.

‘Will you come back tonight?’ she said.

‘If you’ll have me back,’ Rhodorix said.

‘Of course!’

He paused to grin at her, honestly thankful that she would want him. Me, she thought. He loves me. Nalla was right!

‘Well, then, let’s settle somewhat.’ Rhodorix turned solemn. ‘From now on, you’re my woman. I don’t want you looking at any other man.’

‘Fear not! There’s not a man in this fortress I’d want, not after you.’

He smiled again, as bright as the sunlight coming through the windows. ‘Let me take the crystals with me,’ he went on, ‘and at the morning meal today, I’ll tell the guard captain that if any other man looks at you wrong, he’ll have me to answer to.’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly. That way if I get you with child, everyone will know the child’s mine, so you’ll not have to worry that I’ll refuse to maintain it.’

His generosity surprised her so much that she had a hard time answering with more than a murmured ‘my thanks’. He sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots. She cuddled against his back and tried to think of some generosity she could offer in return.

‘Rhoddo?’

‘Imph?’

‘Then from now on, your people will be my people, and if I have a child, I’ll raise him that way.’

‘Well and good, then.’ He turned to look at her. ‘That’s a grand thing you’re giving me.’

‘You’ve done the same for me. I’ll swear it on your gods, because they’re my gods now.’

‘Then swear it by Belinos and Evandar.’

‘Evandar’s not truly a god, you know.’

‘Of course he is! Our priests said so. When he saved my life, I promised him I’d swear all my vows on his name.’

If it pleases him, she thought, why does it matter? Belinos she knew nothing of, but if Rhodorix considered him a god, then she would honour him too. ‘I swear by Belinos and Evandar,’ she said.

‘So do I, that you’re my woman now.’

They both smiled, yet deep in her heart she felt sombre, as if a cold wind had touched her. Somehow, she knew, they’d sealed some sort of bargain, one that resonated far beyond the first days of a love affair.

The guardsmen ate in Prince Ranadar’s great hall, a long narrow room with tables enough for several hundred men. At one end stood a narrow dais, where the prince dined with his intimates. Frescoes covered the walls with pictures that reminded Rhodorix of those in Rhwmani villas, though these were far more magnificent. Painted roses bloomed in a vast garden that wrapped around the entire room. In the landscape behind the garden, one wall sported a view of rolling hills and forest; the other, a distant city on the far side of a river. A spiral made of bits of white glass covered half the ceiling. At night this spiral glowed with an eerie blue light, but during the day it merely glittered in the sun streaming through the windows.

Since Rhodorix sat next to Andariel at the warband’s head table – an honour, he realized, to a stranger who knew so many useful things – he could talk with the captain through the crystals. When he told Andariel that he considered Hwilli his property and his alone, Andariel relayed the warning to the guardsmen, who mostly laughed and saluted him with their wine cups.

‘She’s always been the stand offish sort,’ Andariel remarked. ‘Cold as ice, we all thought. I’m impressed that you could warm her up, and so are the rest of the lads.’

As the days went by, the warning had the desired effect. From time to time, Hwilli came down to the terrace to watch the riding lessons. The other men made a great show of looking elsewhere whenever she did, and if for some reason they needed to speak to her, they made the encounter as brief as possible.

‘They’re afraid of you,’ Andariel said. ‘If you’ve not noticed.’

‘Why would they be?’ Rhodorix was honestly surprised. ‘I’m naught, just an exile, in a way, a man who’s lost his tribe.’

‘Just for that reason. You have every reason to be desperate. You’re more than a little reckless, I’d say, judging from the way I’ve seen you ride. No one wants to face you in an honour duel.’

‘I see. Well, truly, the only trouble I’d ever cause you and the warband would be over Hwilli.’

‘Good.’ The captain smiled briefly and put a sliver of ice in his voice. ‘That’s the answer I’d hoped for. There, you’d be within your rights.’

But nowhere else, Rhodorix thought. ‘Well and good, then,’ he said aloud. ‘That’s fair.’

Once they’d eaten, Rhodorix and Andariel left the great hall together. They were walking across the rear courtyard when the gongs boomed from the priests’ tower. A blare of horns answered them from a doorway at its base. Andariel caught Rhodorix’s arm and made him stop.

‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘We have to kneel.’

‘Who?’

‘The priests. Don’t say a word to them unless they ask you a question.’

‘Well and good, then.’

Rhodorix knelt beside the captain on the hard cobbles. When he glanced around, he saw that everyone within sight had knelt as well. Bronze horns, as harsh as the tubae of the homeland, blared from the fortress walls. Silver horns answered with a chiming melody. To the beat of small drums, carried before them by two lads, four men emerged from the tower.

Long robes of cloth of silver swirled around them with each measured step. They held their heads high and rigid, balancing the weight of their plumed and studded headdresses. Gold and sapphires gleamed at their throats and in their earlobes; a long trail of peacock feathers swayed down their backs. As they passed each person kneeling along their route, in perfect unison the priests raised one hand and lowered it again, most likely in blessing, but they never spoke a word. Behind them came eight lads marching two abreast, dressed in dark blue linen, each carrying a silver sword two-handed and upright in front of him.

They marched the entire length of the fortress, turned in a perfectly executed sweep, and marched back again. The horns blared, the drums beat steadily, until the priests and their retinue returned to their tower by the door they’d left from. After so much processional music, the silence rolled around the courtyard like sound.

‘Ye gods!’ Rhodorix shook his head to steady down his hearing. ‘What was all that about?’

‘I’ve got no idea,’ Andariel said. ‘Maybe they just wanted a bit of fresh air.’ He stood up, dusting the dirt from his knees. ‘They don’t tell us anything, and we don’t ask them anything. Those young lads with the swords? They have the right to kill anyone who insults a priest, and you never know what might insult them.’

Rhodorix got up to join him. ‘Those swords don’t look like they’d cut meat at table.’

‘They look soft, but they’re not true silver. It’s some kind of mix. I don’t know what it is, but the Mountain Folk up in Lin Rej make it.’

‘Oh. Well and good, then, captain. I’ll remember what you say about the priests. They look a fair bit different from the ones from my own tribe, not that I would have crossed them, either.’ Rhodorix paused, remembering Galerinos. ‘Well, except for the one who was a cousin of mine, but he was just an apprentice. Ye gods, no doubt I’ll never see him again, and that’s a pity.’

‘It’s a hard thing, exile.’ Andariel paused to look up at Reaching Mountain and the huge slabs of stone towering above. ‘I hope to the gods I never have to face it.’ He reached out and gave Rhodorix a friendly slap on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go round up our lads and get to work.’

After the day’s riding lessons, Rhodorix went first to the bath house, then back to the chamber he shared with Gerontos. His brother was sitting in a chair by the window and eating bread and fruit from a tray on the table.

‘What’s this?’ Rhodorix said. ‘Does Hwilli know you’re out of bed?’

‘She does. I’m not to walk any farther than this, but it’s time, she said, to see if the leg can bear weight.’ Gerontos gestured at the tray of food. ‘There’s more there than I can eat.’

Rhodorix sat down across from him and picked up a chunk of bread and a knife to butter it.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ Gerontos said. ‘Does Hwilli have a sister or a friend who might –’ He let the words trail off.

Rhodorix grinned at him. ‘She doesn’t, not one who’s our kind of people.’ He let the smile fade. ‘But she’s mine, Gerro. I know we’ve shared women before, but not this time.’

‘Well and good then. I just asked.’

‘Naught wrong with asking.’ Rhodorix bit off a mouthful of bread and ate it while he thought. ‘She has a friend named Nalla, though, who’s a bit of a spark in tinder, if you ask me. She might find a different sort of man interesting, like, if you can ignore the ears.’

‘I’ll ask Hwilli if I can meet her, then. It’ll let her know that it’s not her I want to bed.’

‘Very gallant of you.’ He grinned again and reached for an apple. ‘How is the leg, by the by?’

‘Healing, she says, and fairly fast as these things go.’

‘Good. You’ll be riding again by winter, or so I hope.’

Eventually Gerontos managed, with the aid of a crutch and with Hwilli’s help as well, to hobble out down to the terrace to teach beside his brother, though generally Rhodorix and one of the men carried him back up again. The forty men under their instruction learned to handle the captured mounts in a much shorter time than Rhodorix had been expecting, not that any of them turned into splendid riders in a fortnight’s work.

The difficulties lay in the mount and dismount. Eventually the guardsmen all learned how to leap onto the wooden horse, but their nervousness communicated itself to the real horses, who usually refused to stand and hold for the practice. Until they could mount, the men would never learn anything else about riding, so Rhodorix reluctantly agreed to a set of wooden steps, such as the kitchen servants used to reach the nets of onions and apples, the smoked pork and other such preserved foods that hung from the kitchen’s high ceilings. Rhodorix made his men pay for the device with jests and shaming remarks that made them struggle all the harder to learn.

On a sunny day turned cool by a crisp wind, Prince Ranadar himself and his retinue came down to watch the riding practice. Skipping along beside him was his little son, Berenaladar, or Ren, as he was usually called. Through Andariel and the crystals, Ranadar asked Rhodorix to show him what ‘this riding thing is.’

Rhodorix whistled for Aur, the name he’d given his chosen horse, who trotted out of the herd at the command and joined him. His previous Meradani owner had trained Aur well; Rhodorix had spent many a morning learning what his new mount could do. When Rhodorix surreptitiously tapped the gelding on his off-fore, Aur bent the leg and seemed to bow to the prince. Ranadar smiled, and Ren clapped his hands with a laugh.

‘I want one of those, Da,’ the child said.

‘You shall have one when you’re older,’ Ranadar said. ‘Now hush!’

‘Begging the cadvridoc’s pardon,’ Rhodorix said, ‘but he’s of an age when he should be learning to ride. The younger, the better, honoured one.’

Ranadar considered him with a twisted smile, then shrugged. ‘Very well, perhaps we’ll both come have some lessons with you. Show me what this all entails.’

Rhodorix saddled and bridled Aur, then leapt into the seat and caught the reins. He walked the horse down to the end of the terrace to let it warm its muscles, then trotted back. He dismounted, made Prince Ranadar a bow, then turned to the guardsmen.

‘Saddle up, lads!’ Rhodorix said.

The men rushed off to fetch their horses, since none had yet trained them to come when called. While they struggled with the tack under Andariel’s supervision, Rhodorix lifted young Ren to Aur’s saddle and told him how to sit properly. The boy’s catslit eyes, lavender like his father’s, widened with delight at the sensation of being up so high on horseback. He followed every instruction Rhodorix gave him, then repeated every move on his own. If we live long enough to teach the lads, Rhodorix thought, the People will be as good as we are with horses.

The presence of their rhix and cadvridoc made the guardsmen even more nervous than usual. Several of them refused to use the wooden steps, but the first man to try the leap put too much spring into his jump, overbalanced on the saddle pad, and slid off to fall in a heap. His horse snorted, danced, and very nearly kicked him. He got to his feet, his face as red as a sunset, and stared at the grass to avoid looking the prince’s way until Rhodorix sent him and his mount back to their respective herds. A second man and a third tried and failed. The entire guard unit turned hang-dog, standing heads down with humiliation.

‘Ye gods, that looks difficult!’ Ranadar said. ‘Here, let me try.’

Andariel protested in a flood of words that Rhodorix couldn’t follow, not even with the crystal, but the prince laughed and insisted. Rhodorix brought Ren down from Aur’s saddle.

‘This is the best trained horse in the lot, honoured one,’ Rhodorix said. ‘He’ll stand still for you.’

On his first try the prince very nearly managed the leaping mount. In fact, Rhodorix suspected that if he’d wanted to, Ranadar could have got himself onto the saddle, albeit in an ugly flurry of arms and legs and clutching hands. Instead, the prince made a great show of sliding off and falling into the grass. He laughed and picked himself up before anyone could rush forward to help him.

‘Very difficult,’ Ranadar announced. ‘Don’t feel dishonoured on my account, men.’

The guardsmen cheered him. Rhodorix felt utterly stunned. He’d never seen a man of authority, not Devetianos nor Rhwmanos, voluntarily shame himself for the sake of the men who served him.

On a wave of good feeling all round, Ranadar collected his retinue and his son and left the guardsmen to their practising. Rhodorix watched them as they walked uphill. He’d finally found a leader worth dying for, he realized, someone with ten times the honour of a Vindex or even a Brennos.

At the end of the day, when they returned to the fortress to let the men care for their mounts in the newly built stable, Rhodorix and Andariel discussed the various problems that the lesson had shown them.

‘If we ride to battle, then dismount,’ Andariel said, ‘how are we going to get them mounted again after the fighting’s over?’

‘It’ll be worse yet if they’re unhorsed during a retreat,’ Rhodorix said. ‘You’ll have to leave them behind. They’ll never manage to remount a panicked horse.’

‘We don’t have enough men to leave anyone behind.’

‘Well, then, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s all very well to provide a set of wooden steps here in the fortress, but we can’t carry those with us to battle.’

Andariel sighed and considered the line of saddles perched on a railing. Crystals in hand, the two men were standing in an improvised tack room, part of a storehouse that the prince’s servants had roughly converted to a stable. The saddles were much like those Rhodorix knew from the homeland, simple leather pads with a cinch that went over a heavy saddle blanket.

‘Carry the steps with us?’ Andariel said eventually. ‘That gives me an idea. What if we hung a step of sorts from the saddle itself?’

‘What?’

‘I’m thinking of the rope ladders that lead up to the catwalks on the walls. What if we put straps down on each side of the saddle with loops for a man’s foot to go into?’

Rhodorix grinned in sheer admiration. ‘That just might work splendidly, once we got the horses used to the device. Stick your foot in the loop and swing your free leg over.’

‘Just so. I’ll go to the armoury and ask.’

The People knew their craft work. One of the prince’s armourers delivered a saddle with the new idea attached the very next morning. Rhodorix first accustomed Aur to having straps dangle against his sides, then tried out the new way of mounting while the armourer stood watching. Although the foot-loop certainly made getting onto the horse’s back easier, the simple saddle twisted to one side under the pull of his weight. Rhodorix dismounted and led the horse over Andariel and the armourer.

‘We need to work on the saddle,’ the armourer said through the crystals. ‘Give it back to me. I think I see what’s wrong.’

Back and forth the saddle went over the next eightnight between the armoury and the horse yard. Each time it returned, it was heavier and stiffer, until finally the leather ended up stretched over a wooden frame. The cinch had spawned two additional straps. One went round the horse’s chest, one round its behind, and the new side loops included iron bars to keep them open and stiff. Although Aur disliked this new version of its usual tack, Rhodorix heartily approved.

With the armourer and Andariel in tow, he rode down to the first terrace, then galloped along its length once. As he walked the horse back to the waiting men of the People, he tried standing with his weight on the new, reinforced loops, then sat back down and howled with laughter. He walked the snorting, dancing horse over to Andariel, who was watching from the side of the courtyard. Still grinning, Rhodorix leaned down to retrieve the black crystal from the captain.

‘A man could swing a sword from horseback like this,’ Rhodorix said. ‘It’ll take some practice, but I think we can put the fear of our gods into the Meradan with these.’ He leaned forward and patted Aur’s neck. ‘Whist! You’ll get used to it in a bit, lad.’ He straightened up again and looked at the grinning armourer. ‘A splendid job! Captain, can he make us more of these things?’

Andariel spoke briefly with the armourer, who nodded his agreement. ‘He says,’ Andariel said, ‘that he’ll set his men to work on them this very afternoon.’

‘I have good news for you,’ Hwilli said. ‘Master Jantalaber is going to take the cast off this afternoon.’

‘Splendid!’ Gerontos grinned at her over the white crystal, which he was holding. ‘Although, alas, I’ll miss seeing you every day.’

‘Oh, you’re not rid of me yet! Wait till you see what your leg looks like.’

‘Good.’ His smile turned soft.

Hwilli set the black crystal down on the table beside the bed. She felt uneasy enough to gather up her supplies and hurry out of the sickroom. Brothers always squabble, she thought, but I don’t want them squabbling over me.

When she returned to the herbroom, Nalla was standing at the table, studying a row of freshly pulled plants.

‘What are those?’ Hwilli said.

‘Comfrey,’ Nalla said, ‘I think, but the roots don’t look right to me.’

Hwilli glanced at them. ‘They’ve grown in very poor soil, I’d say. The rest of the plant certainly looks like comfrey.’

‘Ah, you’re right! I hadn’t thought of that. How’s your patient doing?’

‘The master’s going to cut the cast off this afternoon, and then I’ll know. I hope he’s healing well. He’s been terribly bored, and it worries me.’

Nalla looked up with a grin. ‘What’s this, he’s interested in you too?’

Hwilli felt her face burn. ‘My heart belongs to Rhodorix,’ she said. ‘And only him.’

‘It’s not your heart that’s the problem, but a very different portion of his anatomy.’ Nalla grinned again. ‘He’s not bad-looking, really, despite those funny eyes.’

‘I’m not going to –’

‘Who said anything about you? I was thinking of providing him a little distraction.’

Nalla’s grin turned so wicked that Hwilli had to laugh.

‘Just be careful of his leg,’ she said. ‘Don’t undo all my work.’

When the cast came off, the leg had shrivelled from sheer lack of use, and the skin lying underneath had turned as wrinkled as a toad’s. Master Jantalaber brought all his apprentices into Gerontos’s quarters to see the effects of wearing a cast for nearly two months, tested the leg, pronounced the break mended, but urged him, through the crystals, to keep his weight off it as much as possible.

‘You’ll be fine by the spring, lad,’ the master said, ‘if you’re careful now. Hwilli, let’s go to the herbroom. I’ll give you a recipe for salve that you can make up for his skin.’

Hwilli followed the master into the herbroom as the other apprentices dispersed. Jantalaber went to the massive herbal on the lectern, thumbed through its heavy parchment pages, and opened it flat at a particular page.

‘There you are, Hwilli,’ he said. ‘The formula I promised you. Before you start preparing it, though, tell me how your work with Nalla’s going.’

‘Nalla says I’m doing well,’ Hwilli said, ‘but I think she’s just being kind. I can remember all the information she gives me, but I can’t put it to use.’

‘That takes time, a great deal of time. Keep at it, and the results will come. Can you see the elemental spirits yet?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘In good time, then, in good time.’

Hwilli could only hope that the ability would come. It galled her to think that the tiniest child among the People could see the Wildfolk, while to her and her kind, they existed only as tales and jests. And what would ‘good time’ be? Compared to the long lives of the People, she had very little to spare. A few days later, however, her worry proved unnecessary.

‘After dinner tonight,’ Jantalaber told her, ‘Maraladario wants to see you.’

Maraladario, the head of the dweomermasters’ guild, the most powerful mage that anyone in the Seven Princedoms had ever known – Hwilli caught her breath in an audible gasp. The master smiled at her.

‘She won’t eat you,’ Jantalaber said. ‘In fact, she wants to give you her blessing.’

Hwilli found herself unable to answer. She laid her hand on her throat and wondered if she’d gone pale. Finally, after another gasp for breath, she managed to say, ‘I’m so honoured.’

The Tower of the Sages stood at the north end of the main palace, opposite the Tower of the Priests. As they entered through the door at its base, Master Jantalaber cast a silver dweomer light on the end of his staff, which he held up before him like a torch. Steep wooden stairs switchbacked up past landings, each with a chamber door marked with various sigils, none of which Hwilli could decipher.

Maraladario lived at the very top. The stairs ended at a landing of polished wood in four different browns, laid in a pattern of triangles. In the silvery light, the pattern rose up into interlocking pyramids, or so it appeared, rather than forming a flat surface. As her shadow fell across it, Hwilli noticed that the pyramids seemed to flatten under the shadow’s weight.

Master Jantalaber stepped onto the landing boldly. When he didn’t trip and fall, Hwilli followed him and discovered that the floor was indeed perfectly flat. The red door to Maraladario’s suite bore no sigil or decoration. When Jantalaber knocked, the dweomermaster herself opened it and ushered them into a wedge-shaped room lit by golden light. Although Hwilli had seen her from a distance many times, she’d never been this close to the great sage. Maraladario was tall, even for a woman of the People, and slender with long, delicate fingers. She wore her jet-black hair bound up in a green gauzy scarf that matched her eyes, but one long tendril hung down over her cheek. Her long blue tunic shimmered as she moved.

‘Come sit.’ Her voice was soft, pleasantly husky. ‘Would you care for wine?’

‘None for me,’ Jantalaber said.

‘Nor me either, mistress,’ Hwilli said. ‘Though I thank you.’

‘A prudent girl, and well-spoken.’ Maraladario grinned at her.

Hwilli bobbed her head and hoped she looked humble rather than terrified, her actual feeling. The dweomermaster led them to simple chairs, with wooden backs and cushioned seats, placed near a shuttered window. A small table with a mosaic top sat nearby, the only other furniture in the room. As Hwilli sat down, she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. When she turned her head she saw a strange little being lurking under the table. Roughly human in shape, with purplish skin and a warty little face, it stood about two feet high. When it saw her looking its way, it stuck a bright red tongue out at her and wrinkled its nose.

‘My familiar,’ Maraladario said, ‘and a very rude little gnome, really.’ She snapped her fingers, and the gnome disappeared.

I saw him! Hwilli nearly blurted but managed to keep silence. Jantalaber, however, must have noticed, because he smiled and nodded, pleased.

‘So, you’re Hwilli.’ Maraladario sat down opposite her and considered her over folded hands. ‘Do you like studying dweomer, child?’

‘Very much, mistress. I’ve longed to study dweomer – well, not my whole life, perhaps – but as far back as I can remember.’

‘Very good. Tell me, suppose you gain great power in our craft. What will you do with it?’

‘To be honest, I don’t know.’ Hwilli felt herself blush. Her answer sounded absolutely flat and silly to her own ears.

Maraladario, however, nodded as if she were taking it under serious consideration. ‘Honest of you,’ she said at last. ‘I suspect, though, that you’ll find out what to do with it once you gain it, assuming you do. There are great dangers on your road ahead, Hwilli. Once you finish the first studies, believe you me, there are dangers for all of us, whether Children of Air or Children of Aethyr.’

‘So I’ve been told, mistress.’

‘Good. Keep the dangers always in mind.’ Maraladario turned her calm emerald gaze on Jantalaber. ‘She has a strong aura. I think me you’ve chosen well.’

‘Thank you,’ the master said. ‘I have every hope she’ll succeed.’

‘Have you discussed our other plans with her?’

‘I have, if you mean the place of healing, but only briefly.’

‘Very well.’ She looked at Hwilli once again. ‘If we succeed in building this place of healing, it must be for everyone, not just the People, but your folk, and the dwarven folk of the Northlands, and yes, even the Meradan, those among them who prove worthy. Healing cannot be hoarded or begrudged, Hwilli. Your place in the work is crucial, because it means that your folk will have a share in the healing just as the People will. Do you understand that?’

‘I do, mistress.’ Hwilli swallowed heavily to clear her voice. ‘I’m frightened I won’t be worthy.’

‘Work hard, and you will be worthy.’ Maraladario glanced at Jantalaber. ‘Thank you for bringing your new apprentice.’

Jantalaber smiled and rose with a quick gesture to Hwilli to follow. The audience had ended.

That night, when Rhodorix came to her chamber, Hwilli considered telling him about her studies and in particular, the meeting with Maraladario, but he’d been drinking with the other guardsmen and seemed muddled. Besides, she suspected that talk of sorcery might frighten him, perhaps even turn him away from her. She’d had so little joy in her brief life that she lived in terror of losing what she now had: her healing knowledge, her dweomer studies, and a man of her own, a man of her own kind who still had as much honour as a fighting man of the People.

Instead of talk she let him fall asleep on her bed. For some while, though, she stayed awake, watching him by candlelight and thanking the gods for letting him love her.

‘You have to learn to ride wet and cold sooner or later,’ Rhodorix told his men. ‘Today’s a good day for it.’

The guardsmen grumbled, but when Andariel snapped out a string of orders, they obeyed. Rhodorix had judged it time to take his new troop of mounted soldiers off the terrace and into the real terrain beyond. They rode armed. Most of the guardsmen wore a bronze breastplate and carried a long slashing sword in a baldric, though Rhodorix had his own chain hauberk and pattern-welded sword. Five of the mounted men carried the new short bows and quivers of arrows. Andariel had deemed it wise to ride ready for trouble, since trouble lay all around them.

Under a thick grey sky the men walked their horses down the mountain, following a narrow dirt track through the system of terraces, where the farm folk were planting the winter wheat despite the chilly drizzle. Like the farm folk that Rhodorix had grown up with, they were thin, bent-backed, dressed in scruffy brown clothes with their feet wrapped in rags. Overhead birds wheeled, desperate to steal the seeds that the folk flung broadcast on the ground. Children with sticks chased them away.

Back in the homeland Rhodorix had paid little or no attention to farmfolk, but here everything struck him anew.

‘These farmers–’ Rhodorix waved his arm in their general direction ‘– they’re Hwilli’s folk?’

‘They are,’ Andariel said. ‘We bring this lot up here in the summer. Soon they’ll go back down the mountain with the cattle. The snow up here – it’s too hard on the stock. We send them to the Vale of Roses for the winter.’

Rhodorix had the distinct feeling that he was including the farmfolk with the cattle when he referred to ‘the stock’. He rose in the stirrups for a last survey of the farm folk, but none of the women looked attractive enough to give to Gerontos. They rode on, heading down the mountain. Below in a narrow valley a village of wattled huts stood around a well. More fields spread out to either side. A wider road ran the length of the valley, leading to the foothills at either end.

‘This isn’t the Vale of Roses, is it?’ Rhodorix said.

Andariel tossed his head back and laughed aloud. ‘No. In the spring we’ll ride back there, and you’ll see how splendid it is.’ His face suddenly darkened. ‘Well, with luck.’

‘And if the gods are willing. Are the farmers down there Hwilli’s folk, too?’

‘No, not at all. In the southlands around Rinbaladelan, the farmers and herders all come from the People themselves.’

‘Ah. I’d wondered.’ Which meant, he supposed, that he wouldn’t find another woman for his brother there, either.

‘It’s a hard life they have,’ Andariel continued. ‘The priests say that they did somewhat in their last lives to deserve it, just like we earned our place as warriors.’

‘Our priests always told me the same thing.’ Rhodorix touched the hilt of his sword to ward off any evil that might appear at the mention of such arcane matters. ‘Which way shall we go now?’

‘South,’ Andariel said. ‘The prince told me that some bands of Meradan are raiding to the south. They must have stayed down on the flat and just bypassed us.’

‘Have messengers come in? I haven’t seen any.’

‘The prince doesn’t need messengers. He has farseers.’

‘Has what?’

‘Mages who can see things from afar.’

Andariel was watching him with a slight smile, as if he expected the stranger to argue. While Rhodorix had never known men with true magic, he’d heard about them back in the homeland. What about Galerinos and that blue fire? he told himself. That must have been magic. ‘Well and good, then,’ Rhodorix said. ‘South it is!’

Although they saw no raiders that first day, after a few more days of riding patrols the mounted guardsmen had their first battle test. They had ridden a little farther than usual, once again to the south some ten miles from the fortress. When they crested a grassy hill, they saw below them some fifteen Meradan, riding along as easily and openly as if they owned the road.

‘Here’s a chance to try those new bows,’ Rhodorix said, ‘but tell the lads to try to spare the horses. We need every mount we can get.’

Andariel turned in the saddle and called back the orders. The archers looped their reins around the saddle peaks and brought their bows from their backs. Down below the Meradan had seen them. They paused their horses, then called out and waved to the guardsmen, who must have appeared from their vantage point as small figures silhouetted against the sky.

‘Ye gods!’ Andariel said. ‘They think we’re some of them!’

‘Of course.’ Rhodorix grinned at him. ‘We’re on horseback.’

Andariel shouted more orders. The archers lowered their bows but held them ready, hiding them as best they could behind their horses’ heads. Rather than charge, Rhodorix led the squad downhill at a steady walk, just as if they were planning on joining up with allies. They had reached the flat before the Meradan realized their mistake.

The five archers whipped up their bows and loosed the first volley. Arrows whistled, then sank into targets as the Meradan yelled war cries – then screamed. Three of their men pitched over their horses’ necks into the road. More arrows, more screams, but over the shrill rage and fear Andariel yelled for the charge. Rhodorix followed the captain as the mounted swordsmen left the archers and charged straight for the remaining Meradan.

The Meradani horses that had lost their riders bolted, galloping back south down the road. The others were milling and rearing, bucking and trying to grab their bits. Their riders could barely control them, much less fight. Rhodorix saw one savage whose black hair bristled like a boar’s, tied as it was with a plethora of charms and beads. He urged Aur straight for him. Foolishly the Meradan tried to turn his horse to run. Rhodorix swung straight for his spine at the neck. His sword slashed through the man’s pitiful leather hauberk with a spurt of blood.

With a last scream the rider fell just as Aur slammed into the rear of his horse. The Meradani pair went down, and Rhodorix nearly followed. Only a lifetime spent on horseback saved his balance and his life. He managed to stay on Aur’s back and balance his weight at the same time so that the golden gelding kept his feet. Aur tossed his head, foaming in panic. Rhodorix threw his weight forward and kept him from rearing while he stroked the horse’s neck.

‘Whist, whist, lad! It’s all over.’

The swordsmen had cut to pieces the few Meradan that the archers had missed. When Rhodorix turned his horse back to the battle, he had a moment of nausea at the sight – severed limbs, hacked torsos, heads rolling under hooves, and still the swordsmen cut and slashed until every single enemy had been reduced to so much butchered meat. Battle fury he knew, but he had never seen so much hatred on the field of war.

‘The horses!’ Andariel was calling out in what amounted to bad Gaulish, words he’d learned from Rhodorix. ‘Round up the horses!’

Blood spattered and grim, the swordsmen followed orders. Andariel urged his foaming, dancing horse up to Rhodorix’s mount.

‘Well, that’s a few less Meradan in the world,’ the captain said through the crystal. ‘Once we catch these horses, let’s head back to the fortress.’

‘What about the bodies?’ Rhodorix said.

‘Leave them for the ravens and foxes. They don’t deserve anything better.’

With the captured horses came an equally valuable prize, a leather saddlebag with painted insignia upon it, the ship crest of the Prince of Rinbaladelan. One of the guardsmen handed it to the captain, who opened it and peered inside.

‘Messages,’ Andariel hissed. ‘What happened to the messengers, then?’

‘What do you think?’ Rhodorix said. ‘They must be dead.’

‘I don’t understand. Why didn’t the farseers tell us about the messengers? We might have saved their lives.’

‘Good question,’ Rhodorix said. ‘Maybe the savages can hide from magic. Maybe they have magic of their own.’

The colour drained from Andariel’s face. Rhodorix abruptly realized that the captain – and doubtless the entire fortress – had been considering magic an important weapon on their side.

‘I could be wrong,’ Rhodorix said. ‘Be that as it may, we’d better get these back to the prince.’

‘Just so. Let’s ride.’

Leading their captured horses, the guardsmen rode back to Garangbeltangim. As they entered the gates, half the servants in the fort rushed out to cheer the riders, blood-spattered and exhausted, but victors in their tiny battle. Everyone had been desperate for some kind of victory, Rhodorix realized, so desperate that the insight gave him a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Maybe they could find and kill a few bands of raiders, but what would happen if his pitiful handful of mounted guardsmen had to face an army?

Andariel insisted that Rhodorix accompany him when he took the captured messages to the prince. They found Ranadar in his great hall, sitting on the dais with his advisors, all of them lounging in chairs around a small inlaid wooden table and drinking from golden cups. Rhodorix wondered which ones were the mages. All three of the men with the prince looked too young, too smooth and handsome to be learned counsellors to a cadvridoc. He realized that he’d not seen one old person in the entire fortress, though Hwilli had certainly implied that her master in herbcraft had reached some great age.

Rhodorix and Andariel knelt before the prince, who leaned down to take the saddlebag from them. When he showed his advisors the crest, they all leaned forward, faces suddenly grim. Ranadar handed the messages to the nearest one, then spoke to Andariel. Rhodorix could pick out a few words and phrases of what the prince said, and he understood even more of the captain’s report of the skirmish, since he of course knew what had happened. The prince listened, nodding now and then. Behind him the advisor was reading through the messages; as he finished a sheet, he handed it over to the next man at the table. All of them had turned grim as death itself.

When he finished, Andariel handed Ranadar the white crystal, apparently at the prince’s request. Ranadar turned to Rhodorix.

‘I’m well pleased with how you’ve served me,’ the prince said. ‘From now on, you shall have the title of horsemaster and be an honoured man among us.’

‘My thanks, honoured rhix,’ Rhodorix said, ‘but at least half the honour goes to Andariel. He’s the one who thought of the new saddles, and without them, we couldn’t fight half as well.’

‘Indeed!’ Ranadar turned to Andariel. ‘Then you’re too modest by half, my friend.’

Andariel smiled, but his eyes looked suspiciously moist. Rhodorix could guess that the prince rarely referred to any man in the fortress as a friend.

‘Your armourer deserves honour as well, my prince,’ Andariel said.

‘He shall have it, then. You must be tired and hungry. My honour goes with you.’

It was the best dismissal he’d ever heard, Rhodorix thought with a grin. They both rose, bowed, and took themselves away. At the door Rhodorix looked back to see the advisors standing up to huddle around the prince, each of them waving one of the pieces of parchment that held the messages.

Rhodorix followed his usual routine, bath house first, then back to his chamber. As he came up to the door, he heard Gerro’s voice and a woman giggling in answer. Suspicion flared in his blood like fever. He flung open the door to find Gerro lying half-naked on the bed and Hwilli’s friend Nalla sitting beside him. She held a pot of some sort of salve in one hand, but judging from the disarray of her hair, and from the fact that her tunic was hiked up around her waist, she’d been doing more for Gerro than treating his withered leg.

‘You might have knocked,’ Nalla said. She handed the salve to Gerontos and grabbed her tunic to pull it down.

‘My apologies.’ Rhodorix knew his face must have turned scarlet. ‘I’ll uh just uh go find Hwilli.’

He turned and beat a hasty retreat, slamming the door behind him. Yet despite the blush, he felt gratified that his younger brother had found a woman of his own, partly because he liked seeing Gerontos happy. And he won’t be sniffing around mine this way, he thought.

All too soon, however, things changed.

‘Hwilli, Nalla, all of you.’ Master Jantalaber appeared in the door of the refectory. ‘I have something important to tell you.’

At their long table the apprentices, male and female both, fell silent as he walked into the room. Jantalaber looked weary, that night, his hair uncombed, his eyes heavy-lidded and sad as he looked over his students.

‘The prince has made a decision,’ the master said. ‘I don’t agree with it, but he’s the prince. Today the guardsmen brought back messages from Rinbaladelan, begging his aid. Ranadar’s sending all but two of you to Rinbaladelan. Refugees are pouring into the city. Many are wounded. They need healers badly and supplies as well.’

Everyone went tense, glancing at each other.

‘Hwilli, you’ll stay with me,’ Jantalaber said. ‘I’ll keep Paraberiel here, too, because he’s been helping me with – well, our project. The rest of you, once you’ve finished your meal, go to your chambers and begin to collect your belongings. In the morning, we’ll load up a wagon with supplies, and you’ll set out with an escort of archers and some of the new horse soldiers.’

Hwilli caught her breath. Would the prince sent Rhodorix away? Jantalaber looked at her and smiled, just briefly. When he spoke, he used her own language, that of the Old Ones. Since he was the only person among the People who had ever bothered to learn it, they both knew that no one else would understand.

‘Your friend will stay here with you,’ Jantalaber said.

Hwilli let out a sigh of sheer relief.

‘I decided to keep you here for two reasons beyond our project,’ he continued. ‘You’re the best of my students, and the healers at Rinbaladelan might not treat you as you deserve.’

‘My thanks, Master,’ Hwilli said, and in this instance nothing poisoned her gratitude.

Jantalaber returned to speaking the language of the People.

‘Par, you’ve advanced far enough to teach others. It will be your duty to instruct the archers in binding wounds. Hwilli will show them which herbs are vulneraries and how to prepare them. They need to be capable of healing themselves if something happens to the three of us.’

‘As you wish, Master,’ Paraberiel said.

‘I won’t lie to you all,’ Jantalaber continued. ‘Things are looking very grim. Apparently the Meradan have wits, after all. They’ve simply bypassed Ranadar’s realm and are striking at the heart of the Seven Princedoms.’

Nalla’s face turned white, and she caught the edge of the table so hard that the blood drained from her knuckles as well. Hwilli laid a gentle hand on her friend’s arm.

‘The prince is beginning to think that the best we can hope for is to fall back to Rinbaladelen eventually,’ Jantalaber continued speaking, ‘and help defend the city, but no one’s ready for that move yet. Still, who knows? With luck and the favour of the gods, I may see you all again in Rinbaladelan one fine day.’

No one spoke. Only a few of the apprentices so much as moved in their chairs or glanced around. Hwilli felt as if a north wind had swept into the refectory and laid a coating of dirty grey frost over everything in it.

When they finished eating, Hwilli helped Nalla fold her clothing and place it into two leather sacks for the travel ahead. Her few other possessions – combs, a silver brooch, a pair of blue ribands – Nalla tucked into a small pouch that she’d carry on her belt. Neither of them spoke until they’d finished.

‘Hwilli, this is horrible,’ Nalla said. ‘The prince believes he’ll lose the war, doesn’t he?’

Hwilli tried to speak, but tears clogged her voice.

‘You see it, too,’ Nalla continued. ‘And your family – ai! they live outside the walls.’

The tears spilled and ran. Nalla threw her arms around Hwilli and held her, just for a moment, before drawing back. Hwilli tried to speak, then hurried to the door before she wept again.

‘I’ll pray I see you in the spring,’ Nalla called after her. Hwilli ran down the corridor and took refuge in her chamber. The last of the sunlight gleamed through the window, a distant gold. She flung herself onto her bed and fought down her tears. This is no time for weeping, she told herself. We all have to be strong. Perhaps if she pleaded with Master Jantalaber, he could convince the prince to allow her mother to come into the relative safety of the fortress. Perhaps.

‘Beloved?’ Rhodorix opened the door and stepped into the chamber. ‘Have you heard the news?’

‘That the healers are leaving?’ Hwilli sat up and turned on the bed to sit facing him.

‘Not just the healers.’ He paused to shut the door. ‘The prince is sending all the farm folk with them. The Vale of Roses isn’t a safe haven anymore, the captain told me. Tomorrow our warband’s going to strip every bit of food they don’t need for the journey south.’

‘I hadn’t heard that.’ How like a man of the People, even Master Jantalaber, to forget to tell me! What does he care about the slaves outside?

Rhodorix sat down next to her and caught her hand between both of his. ‘Do your bloodkin still live out there?’ he said.

‘Only my mother. She’ll be safe, then, for a little while. Well, if she doesn’t starve at the gates of Rinbaladelan, anyway.’

‘The prince won’t let his people starve.’

‘Our prince wouldn’t, true. I know naught about the prince of Rinbaladelan.’

Rhodorix started to speak, sighed instead, and drew her into his arms. His love-making gave her more comfort than any words could have done.

In a grey dawn turned cold by a drizzle of rain, the healers led out their expedition from the fortress. Hwilli walked with them down to the valley, where the farm folk waited for them in a mob of weeping humans, bleating goats, and lowing cattle. The farmers pushed wheelbarrows and handcarts laden with pitifully small bundles of household goods. Hwilli worked her way through until she found her mother, Gertha, a big-boned woman who wore her long grey hair bound back into a single braid. In one hand she held the halter ropes of two milk goats, who were complaining softly and rubbing up against their human’s hips.

‘Mama!’ Hwilli threw an arm around her shoulders. ‘I’ve brought you a cloak and some extra food.’

‘Well, thank you.’ Gertha’s smile displayed the few brown cracked teeth left to her. ‘I was thinking I was going to have a cold walk of it.’

Hwilli laid the cloth-wrapped bundle of bread at her mother’s feet, shoved a curious goat away with one foot, then took off her cloak and placed it around her mother’s shoulders. She pinned it at the neck with a bronze pin. She’d considered giving her the golden bird brooch, but she knew that someone would only steal it along the way if she did. Gertha stroked the cloak with her free hand.

‘Very nice wool,’ she said, ‘but don’t you need it?’

‘No. Master Jantalaber will give me another one.’ She picked up the bundle again and handed it over. ‘Bread and cheese. Eat it first, before the overseers take it.’

‘I will. It’s kind of you to remember me. I wondered if you did, up there in the palace and all.’

‘Mama, how could I ever forget you?’

Sudden tears ran down Gertha’s face. Hwilli hugged her again and wept with her. The horse soldiers were riding up and down the line, yelling at everyone to get ready to move. Whips cracked, the horses tossed their heads and snorted. Hwilli gave her mother one last embrace, then turned away, half-blind with tears. She worked her way free of the mob just as the villagers began to walk away. Some turned for a last look at Reaching Mountain, the huge slabs of rock that had loomed over them every summer of their lives. Most concentrated on pushing their belongings ahead of them down the rocky path.

Hwilli stood on the first terrace and watched until the last figure, the last wisp of dust, had faded from sight. By the time she returned to the fortress, she’d managed to stop weeping.

A few nights after the refugees had started their trek to Rinbaladelan, the first snow fell, but it stayed up high on the mountains. The fortress itself received an icy rain that froze only in the deepest shadows. As soon as the sun climbed half-way to zenith, the frost melted again, but winter had arrived in a swirl of north wind as cruel as thrown knives. Hwilli worried about her mother and Nalla incessantly. Not even Rhodorix could lift her spirits.

‘I feel an evil wyrd coming,’ Hwilli told him one night. ‘I don’t know what, but I can feel it deep in my heart.’

He said nothing, merely stroked her hair, twining it lightly around his fingers, then releasing it.

‘Do you feel it, too?’ Hwilli said.

‘I don’t.’ He smiled at her. ‘In the spring, now, when the Meradan are on the move again, then mayhap I will. But we’ll have a winter here first.’

For his sake she voiced nothing and let his kisses distract her. The spring will come too soon, she thought. Far far too soon.

With Nalla gone, Master Jantalaber took over the task of teaching Hwilli her first lessons in dweomercraft, which amounted to her learning proper words and definitions. The universe, it turned out, encompassed far more than the world Hwilli had always seen, and each of these worlds contained their own proper order of beings and creatures. At times, the lesson over, Jantalaber would talk of his dream of building a place of healing as well, particularly when Paraberiel joined them.

‘I’d thought of building it of stone in the usual way,’ Jantalaber said one evening. ‘Down by the Lake of the Leaping Trout, I thought.’

‘That’s a lovely place,’ Paraberiel put in. ‘Very restful, if someone was ill.’