Lady Cherusay's Daughter, Book I: The People

They swam the Nanfeill, rather than ford it several miles up, and pressed on for hours more, Rothesay clinging still to the dangling tail of the horse. He was an uncommon animal, who thought of himself in a way she understood roughly as Dark Walking; gravely courteous to this shy new humanling, he allowed the abuse of his tail like a tolerant uncle, but she sensed a wild, black humor in him, remote now, but unsleeping. She held his tail respectfully.

They camped an hour or so before midnight, by the stars. Stupid with fatigue, Rothesay blinked at their jewelled glory and yearned only to shut her eyes against them and sleep for a week. Dav swiftly laid and lit a small but encouraging fire, gave her a large, sweet bannock and a leather flask of water, then, settled himself, asked gruffly, “You have something for me?”

Remembering, she passed over Padriag’s letter hastily. He snapped the seal and spread it open with a sharp crackle, and leant to turn it towards the fire. By chance or design, she could not see the text; she watched his face closely, anxiously. It was a lean face, a hard face, but above all it was an intelligent face, fierce with a white fire of concentration and alive with curiosity. It was not necessary to like it. It was folly, possibly fatal, to disregard it.

“Is that the sword?”

Disentangling herself from the baldric, she handed it to him without comment. Still no trace of his thoughts was forthcoming, as he perused the marks on scabbard and blade. Rising quickly to his feet, he tried the sword, sliced the air with practice moves, first with one hand and then the other.

He was frighteningly beautiful to watch. The beauty of his gesture was clean and pure, free of ornament, free of any meaningless move. Controlled as a hawk’s strike, as abandoned as a meteor’s fall, ultimately it was precisely as the Master meant it to be.

She forgot to eat. Not till he sheathed the steel again and melted suddenly back down to his seat, did the spell break.

“You’re beautiful!” she blurted, and at once wished she had not: she did not want his reciprocal attention, still less his admiration. She remembered how uncannily hard to hold he had been at the inn, when she laid him out, and was not about to count on either capricious skill or ungovernable strength against his focused intelligence, if he had a mind to ‘try’ her like—

Pieces fell into place. There was the Darian baron whose lust had driven her out on this road; and the Runedaur had asked her what—someone—had wanted with her: the name escaped her, but she recalled that it had a foreign, even Darian, sound.

“Yes—?” The Runedaur master, observing the change in her thoughts with an accuracy that would have humiliated her, probed for the result so delicately that she never noticed it as intrusion.

“Who’s—that lord you asked me about? What was his name?”

“Hautiger an-Velaker?”

“Thank you; I don’t know if it’s the same one, but I didn’t meet him, only some of King Kelmhal’s guards, because he had this foreigner come visit who—um, who’d heard something of me—at least that’s what Master Padriag heard from Kri or Minalece. They’re kind of spies of his: Kri is the rat and Minalece is the cat; I don’t know why she doesn’t eat him except she’s not stupid.”

“Chit,” the Runedaur interrupted, “can you tell a coherent story?”

She flushed and tried again, her earlier resolve to reveal as little as possible completely forgotten. “I went into a barrow—”

“Why?”

Writhing away from the memory, she hedged, “I—was being chased . . . .”

“By—”

“Some—some duck hunters . . . .”

“Duck hunters don’t go in barrows?” he asked next, deliberately skirting the objective of the chase.

“I couldn’t think of any place else to go. People there don’t know it’s a barrow, just this hole in the Hill; nobody goes there because it’s haunted. It’s supposed to be a door to the peerie-king’s halls, and a place where the Lord of Death walks sometimes. . . .” Her voice trailed off as she remembered sinkingly that her audience was no one less than Death’s high priest, the Venheuri notwithstanding.

“Ah, the so-holy site,” he murmured dryly. “You hoped they would fear to follow you in?”

“Yes, but it only challenged them, so I had to think of something to scare them off.”

That, he demanded to see, and she found herself reenacting her play in the barrow. He forwent having her muss her hair again and was perfectly willing to imagine the weedy garlands, but otherwise the rendition was exact, down to the magelight and the drool. The Master laughed till the tears came. It was the most nearly human she had yet seen him; it almost made him likeable.

“An inventive chit, take her for all!” he conceded, overriding the last spasms and wiping his eyes. “So, girl, having routed your enemies: what next did you devise?”

Few men regard questions as anything more than verbal mining tools for extracting nuggets of information, useful, even indispensible, but only picks and shovels. Heedless, or ignorant, of the power of a question to alter the mind of the one who answers or even contemplates an answer, the unaware risk a change that may well be the design of the one who asks. Many men, on discovering that the man they fought was the lord of fighters who were themselves legendary for their skill, generally considered it prudent to yield, to cast down their own weapons and answer him promptly and courteously, and never knew that they thus moved from his lesser to his greater sphere of power. For skill at swordplay, Dav of Colderwild was justly ranked among the best; at the arts and powers of questioning, the community of Runedaur, at least, held him to be incomparable.

By midnight, Rothesay was as well known to him as to Padriag. She told him more of her fears and dreams, her sorrows and joys, than she had ever expressed openly to the wizard, and what she shied away from putting to words, nonetheless showed itself in gesture, in tone of voice and body, in her unflaggingly honest eyes: a language the Runedaur knew very, very well. He saw her whimsy; and her charitable worry for the rest of the world, echoed in that absurd half-coil of copper Lauren now prized above all the gifts ever sent in supplication—or bribery—to the Knights of Death. He saw an irrepressibly cheerful soul wrapped still in the veil of childish dreams, a threadbare veil now and no shelter at all from the storms of Daria sure to follow the errant babe. He thought of Hautiger, the guest of Dunford, and wondered how close behind her the first gales blew. True, he had a mind to summon a storm of his own, as Padriag must surely know; and he wondered greatly what had possessed the old wizard to send this child into his power.

Of the Master’s power, Rothesay discovered only that things sounded different when told to Dav, than to Padriag. For one, her wistful wish to know more of her mother’s place in the world, Padriag regarded as a vanity, a triviality unworthy of the scholarly intellect and a preoccupation with the pitifully small human world while the vast realms of Otherness, from snakes to stars, went begging. Yet she sensed that Dav considered it a perfectly legitimate quest for real power, and if anything damned her for faintness of purpose. She lost her own trail of thought and wavered confused between the two perspectives. Where was the true path?

The Runedaur broke in on her confusion. “Your friend Padriag wants you to become one of our Order; shall I honor his wish?”

Rothesay had no way, then, to know that Dav had already decided to take her, nor that every part of his apparently irrelevant question, each word of its phrasing as well as its timing hard on a bewildered moment, was perfectly crafted to elicit her acceptance. But she was astonished by the request. Dav let her jaw flap for a moment, mildly surprised at her surprise, and handed her the letter to read Padriag’s request for herself.

She had to grin, wryly, at the paper. “He’s like that, you know,” she said, sighing. “People things don’t matter much to him. If you had been a badger, he probably would have explained everything in excruciating detail, before he ever let me out the door.”

“Indeed. . . . What have you to offer?”

She took stock anxiously. Not wealth, certainly; and birth did not count with their Order, for, as Padriag had succinctly written, ‘birth is of no consequence to Death’: if green-cloaked Tarrant seemed more farmer than lord, it was probably because he was. If the Runedaur, as legend said, might welcome a runaway slave’s bastard yet refuse a prince’s child, what was it they sought?

She felt strangely impoverished. Discounting her grotesque strength and erratic skill as adventitious, she rummaged through her soul, ransacked her inner house for something truly her own, that this stern lord might even remotely value.

In fact, Dav needed no reply: that she wanted to answer at all, was all the point of his query in the first place. Long before she opened her mouth, he knew she had already done as he willed and joined his ancient Order in her dreams, where it counted. Still, he let her find something to offer, something to value, as a first exercise in her education—and his own.

She thought. She liked to be useful; she liked to make people happy; she wanted to love as many people as possible and be loved by them in return: not, she thought, items of great interest to a world of warriors. What, then? She liked to be fair, and honest; playmates and neighbors had sometimes turned to her for mediation; but fairness and honesty she imagined were the very least the Order demanded of her postulants. Only one other quality presented itself: she might be unwise, but she was not stupid. Padriag had often praised her for a quick wit. If she did not know what the Runedaur wanted of her, she could certainly find out.

“Well,” she ventured at last, “I learn fast.” And she flushed with unexpected pleasure at his nod of grave approval.

He showed nothing of it to this lanky scrap of girl, but of all the wonders he had yet seen of her, nothing startled him like the simple answer she gave now. It was a good answer, a plain and humble answer; but was it accident that it went to the very heart of those things he himself cherished most? The Master of Runedaur recognized coincidence—much the way he recognized poisonous vipers. He made a mental note to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance with Padriag, then gave his attention to his new charge.

“Then, chit, we make it your turn. What would you learn now?”

There were a great many things, but one was uppermost. “Sir—you haven’t seemed the least bit surprised by me—”

“You mistake me: I have been little but surprised by you. Only observe that I am not paralyzed by it.”

“Oh. Then you don’t, er, know why I’m this way, strong and all? I was thinking, or hoping, that since this was on account of your old knight Arngas, or seemed to be, that maybe you knew what it was all about. Master Padriag was thinking a strength-spell charged on the sword; but that does not quite fit right.”

“No, it does not. Yet I am not sure I like the more fitting tale any better, girl.” His glittering gaze stabbed at her as if the difficulty were somehow in her, and answered briskly, “This would seem to be that Arngas who, old legend holds, once did some favor for Dere, the Lady Night. She is said to have rewarded him by giving him the strength of a giant—”

Rothesay’s fists clenched convulsively. The water bottle was in one of them.

Shooting a surprised glance up at the former contents, she beheld a wavering, wobbling jewel of darkness, rippling with golden and silver lights, swelling with appalling speed. She had just time to realize that her body would never respond fast enough.

Cold rivulets tickled into her ears and down her neck, and off her cheeks to her collarbone; drops hung in her brows and droplets spangled her lashes. Her sodden tunic clung to her breast and her heartless companion convulsed on the ground in the throes of a silent and deadly glee. Rothesay hoped he choked.

Presently, still quivering, he drew from his saddlebag a white cloth; and broke up again as he handed it to her. “—drowned cat!” was all she caught, and all she needed. Not till she was dried did she realize the cloth was his shirt. She could not in decency return it all dank and dirty, nor could she keep the rich silken thing as if it were a gift; he made no move to reclaim it, however, and she was left fidgeting it into folds and refolds.

He did not at once take up his story again, but wanted to try out her strength, and test her limits and possibilities. A moment’s reflection, however, and perhaps her despairing expression, bought him off with the lateness of the hour; he relented and resumed his telling of the legend of Arngas.

“He had made himself the finest swordsman of his day, and in a notably short time: that training which a thousand years of Runedaur interest had winnowed to fifteen years of study, Arngas alone reduced to a mere five.”

“How?” Rothesay breathed.

“Because, chit, he studied first, not the art of the sword, but the art of learning itself. His fighting skills are lost to us—or, ah, were—but his techniques of teaching and of learning are the very soul of us today.

“But as to you, girl, there is a little more to the tale. Dere gave Arngas strength, and a wish: legend says that he wished that his strength and skill with a blade would endure forever. There are a few more years of many deeds, in the wars of that time; and then we know only that he vanished.” He paused while Rothesay rubbed her eyes and tried to work out what this meant to her.

“He—he didn’t wish that he himself would endure forever,” she observed.

“An unlikely wish, for one of us. I should very much like to see that barrow for myself. Peria has many wild and empty regions; we are not always lucky enough to die at home, or with a friend at hand. Yet someone buried him, well enough by your account: not Runedaur, though, nor did they send word. But it seems he had his wish—sword-mistress.”

A small squeak escaped her under the impact of the title. “But I’m not! Er, not always. Why?”

He shrugged dismissively. “A triviality. I would guess that you are your own ruling power, and you know nothing of swordplay: you seem to do best taken at unawares. That is often the most difficult transition for a student: once he has developed his art to a fineness, to trust himself, to surrender will to skill. Of more interest to me is the matter of a fanciful story proving to be both factual and accurate. Much more interest.”

“You don’t believe the old stories, sir?”

“You use the word ‘believe’ too carelessly, chit. Now: is there anything else you would learn quickly before bed?”

“No, sir,” she sighed, taking the hint gratefully. “Um, what should I do with your shirt, sir?”

“My shirt?” When she held it up, he repeated, more pointedly, “‘My’ shirt?”

“It isn’t mine—!” she protested.

“Nor yet yours. Still another thing to learn quickly. Hang it on yonder bush till morning.”

She obeyed skeptically, dubious of what was to learn about the ownership of a garment, and unwilling to pursue the issue now. She cleared a flat space by the fire, plumped her pack into a pillow, draped her thin cloak loosely over her, and, curling into a half-ball, stared into the fire for a full minute before glaring up at Dav, who had been watching with great interest.

“So, another legend proves true?” he said, grinning at her ire.

“What legend?”

He turned his head and blew a pale plume of breath into the cold night. “Yet, damp as you are, you seem comfortable enough. You are truly a child of the Ceidha, then?”

“I guess so.”

He continued to watch her, knowing that his attention distressed her, and why. At the moment she was wondering what other tales he had heard of the elder race, and what he meant to do about them. She was miserably afraid of him: she had almost a warrior’s alertness for his least gesture, and jumped like a cat if any move crossed a certain radius, unconscious to her, almost a visible entity to him. He characterized her fear as being some nine parts superstition to one part sex. Gender, he amended wryly. For while she surely had some idea what a man did with a woman, and probably recognized lust when she saw it, if she had ever felt the yearning for ecstasy in her own flesh, he would cast off his Chain of office and bust himself back to acolyte. In a real way, she feared him in that one part simply for not being female. A pointless fear this night, or even this year: though admittedly lovely, with the clownish grace of an adolescent cat, all legs and wide-eyed wonder, still, ignorance was not to his taste: he liked a partner who could give as avidly as receive. Seventeen was a rare old age to be still the innocent; he wondered how much was owed to the protective patronage of the wizard (though he doubted the yokels of Harrowater grasped the extent of Padriag’s reputation), and how much might be some attribute of her father’s race.

He was pleased, however: she was not letting her fear overmaster her, no shrieks or hysterics, and even now settled for sleep with the intent, at least, of ignoring him if he was only going to stare. That reminded him.

“Bravely done tonight, girl,” he observed, pleased also with her spirit in the town. Then he pulled his own thick cloak warmly about, and prepared to sleep, lightly.

Rothesay thought it was nice of him to say so, but, frankly, she knew better. If bravery meant doing the sensible, constructive thing in spite of all fear, then the last thing she could recall doing bravely was running away from Blackhand Fil.

“Master?” she ventured softly, granting him his lawful title at last, “Does it count as courage if you were more afraid not to?”

A heartbeat later she all but jumped out of her skin as Dav appeared suddenly in front of her. He seized both her shoulders as she leaped to fumbling feet; but his expression drove out all fright.

Half-turned to the fire, she stared amazed into a face that seemed a hundred years younger than when she had last seen it. The role of Master of Runedaur, with all its cares and concerns, had fallen away, leaving only Dav, a naked boy of maybe thirty-three, staring back at her with an astonishment that bordered on reverence. Then suddenly he enveloped her in a powerful hug, full of passion but not the passion that she blindly feared: so might a man, searching without hope through the ashes of war, greet the unlooked-for survivor.

“That you can even ask—!” he murmured in her hair.

Astounded, she endured the embrace, till after a moment, and very gingerly, she ventured to return it, and patted his shoulderblades hesitantly.

He laughed aloud and broke out of the hug to clasp her shoulders again. “What is that for?” he asked, grinning broadly.

She thought that was her question. “I don’t know! I just thought maybe you needed it.”

“No, you don’t know, do you,” he agreed, pointing up her ignorance once again, but with incompatible warmth, and thumped her forehead as he had in the Floodholding alley. “But by all the Holies, there is fertile ground in there! Good night—again—chit.”

Not all her puzzlement over the Master’s bewildering, chaotic ways could fend sleep off for long now. Her heavy eyes closed finally over a vision of him, back in his former place, gazing into the fire, smiling the half-smile of an unfathomably joyous soul.