The Silver Mage

by Katharine Kerr

“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 grays, 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 midwinter 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. 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 honor-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 an 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 anymore, 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 wave
red, 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 armsmasters 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 favor 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 slantwise 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-face 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 her. “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 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’ 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 semicircle 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 leaped 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 leaped 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. Other 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’ 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.