LoG 2 Liar's Oath

by Moon, Elizabeth

  “The baby lived?” asked the Marshal-General.

  “Oh, yes. She’s a healthy child; it was just something about the birthing.” He paused, trying to think what to tell next. Not how frightened he had been; Gird wouldn’t want to hear that. The shepherd had assumed his talent came from Alyanya; he himself wasn’t sure. The only magery he’d seen was a dance of light by his father and brothers when he was very small, one Midwinter Feast. He’d been told Esea gave them magery, and that made sense, for the light dance. But healing? No one had even mentioned the possibility. In that remote village, once the war passed, all anyone cared about was sowing and tending and harvest, the daily routine, into which he fit happily. No one really cared how he healed, or where the power came from, so long as it worked.

  “But you had no family—who’d you live with?” asked Luap, leaning forward. Aris grinned and spread his hands.

  “After the war, sir, there’s many not in the right place… we worked in well enough, here and there, until things settled a bit. Then that shepherd, he took us into his family.”

  “It must have been—” Luap coughed, spat, and went on. “It must have been very different from what you knew before.” Aris did not miss the keen glance the Marshal-General shot at his luap.

  “It was, sir, but—but for missing the people I knew, it was better.”

  “Better!” That from both of them, clearly surprise and disbelief. Aris felt his face reddening. “Before, sir… my tutor and some others, they didn’t think I should spend so much time with Seri, or in the stables with the animals. We’ve been lucky; I know that. Except for that one bad winter, we’ve always had enough, and we’ve always been together. Once I found out what I could do, what the feeling was for, I felt happier than I’d ever been.”

  “Hmmph.” That was the Marshal-General, giving his luap another look Aris couldn’t read. “Well, then: if things have gone so well, why come to me?”

  This part he could tell without a hitch. From the shepherd’s child, to another in the vill born apparently dead, from those to a child with fever, a man injured by falling rock, a woman poisoned by bad grain… he had begun testing his powers on people as well as livestock. When the village saw how each attempt at healing wore on him, they were careful in their requests, and Seri protected him as best she could. Then came the first request from a neighboring vill in the same hearthing, a child kicked by a plowhorse. Another, from another vill, then another and another. He had come to be known all through that hearthing, as the boy who could heal what herblore could not. Most of the time, he worked with animals, learning all he could of each kind, but when the calls came, he would go and heal the sick and injured. Seri stood between him and the world, the warm hand at his back, the one who remembered that he needed food after, the one who would sometimes scold those who hadn’t tried herblore first.

  “Then the Code came,” Aris said, meeting the Marshal-General’s gaze directly. “Of course we’d all heard of you, sir, and I’d seen a Marshal in the market towns. Our vill has a yeoman-marshal; Seri and I drilled with the other younglings as we grew tall enough. No one thought anything wrong about my healing and being in the barton as a junior. I don’t know how many knew I was mageborn, but no one questioned me. Until last harvest-time.”

  Last harvest-time, the new Marshal of Whitehill grange had come to inspect each barton on his rolls, and with him, he’d brought the new version of Gird’s Code. All the village stood in the barton to hear him read it, nodding their heads at familiar phrases—it wasn’t that different—until the clause about magery.

  Aris felt the now-familiar tremor in his hands, and locked them together. “It said, sir, that no form of magery could be tolerated, that what seemed good was really evil in intent and act, and forbade the mageborn to use, or anyone to profit by, magery. Of course everyone looked at me, and the Marshal stopped reading. ‘Do you have a mageborn survivor in this vill?’ he asked. Some nodded, and some didn’t—I think they wanted to hide me, protect me. I raised my hand, and he called me forth. ‘Do you practice evil magicks, boy?’ he asked. Sir, I could hardly answer. I had healed, yes: that hand of days, I’d healed a serpent bite. But evil? I said so, that I had healed, and he drew back as if I’d thrown fire at him. Our yeoman-marshal stood up for me, then, and said I’d caused no trouble, nor had a bad heart, but the Marshal was firm that my magery was evil. If I had no bad heart, he said, I’d be willing to forswear it, never use it again. The people sighed at that, but he overrode them. I could not be in the barton, he said, if I used magery, nor could they harbor me. It was in the Code, he said.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I said I was sorry, and would do so no more, though I couldn’t see how healing was evil. He bade the yeoman-marshal watch me closely, and warned me that he would tolerate no magery in his grange.” Aris looked at the Marshal-General again. “He said you knew best, sir, and if you said it was evil, then it was. I did my best, after that. The village folk were troubled in their minds; a few said I must have charmed them, to make my power seem good, but most wished naught had happened. They still came to me, many of them, when someone was sick, or a beast hurt. The yeoman-marshal tried to make them quit, but he couldn’t. He asked couldn’t I do something, short of using magery, but I don’t have what Seri’s folk call a parrion of herblore: I don’t know any way but the power. And it came to hurt, sir… it rises up in me like water in a spring, when I see someone in need… I fell sick myself, late in winter, and Seri said that caused it. She said we had to come to you, because the Code is yours, and perhaps you didn’t know that magery could be healing power.”

  “I had heard it could be; I never knew it so.” The Marshal-General leaned forward; Aris could see doubt in his expression. “You say you had seen little use of magicks by your own folk before—did you never see someone charmed?”

  Aris shook his head. “Not that I know of. Others have told me… it makes them think they want to do something, or like someone.”

  “And people do like you.” The Marshal-General said that flatly. “Seri says everyone in your household liked you.”

  “You think I charmed them?”

  “Perhaps you didn’t mean to; a child may not know what it does. But I worry about it, lad. From what Seri says, even my own reaction to you…”

  Aris could not think of anything to say. He had been ready for anger, even punishment… but he had not expected this. The Marshal-General, looking steadily at him, apparently saw an expression that meant something, and relaxed, sighing.

  “No, I don’t think you are using magicks, not even without your knowledge. You’re too relaxed; you weren’t like that while healing. I’ve seen Luap here make light; he gets a faraway look. But I’m still worried. You seem a nice enough lad, no harm to you; Seri’s talked my ears half off explaining about you and your family. Yet… there was a reason for the Code to forbid all magicks.”

  Aris let out the breath he had held. Gird waited, as if for Aris to say something, then went on.

  “The magelords misused it, misused it so badly that what everyone remembers is the misuse, not the right use.” He said “right use” as if it hurt his mouth. “None of us know what the right use would be like, not having seen it, so judging the difference—knowing when the use is right and when it’s wrong—would be difficult, if any of us could do it at all. Tell me, lad, have you ever misused your healing magick?”

  Aris had followed the argument Gird was making; it made more sense than what his own Marshal had said, that magery was inherently evil. He spoke his thoughts aloud. “I had thought, Marshal-General, that healing was good in itself—and because it was good, then that use of magery was good. I never used it for anything but healing; but…” He stopped, trying to remember all the details of each healing, even in that abstraction he noticed that Gird’s luap watched him closely. “I suppose, sir… if the gods meant someone to die, for some reason, then healing that person would be bad, and not good. Or not being able to heal
completely…” He remembered the child kicked in the head by a horse, whose life he had saved, but the child remained mute and subject to fits, dying a few years later of a fever… the parents had not sought his help then. He told Gird about it. “Perhaps that was a misuse of magery, although at the time, I thought only of the child’s life.”

  Gird nodded. “It may have been, though I agree you did not mean harm. But I’ve seen a man who meant no harm bury the tip of his scythe in a child’s belly during harvest: the harm is done, with or without malice. I am glad to see that you recognize that, that you are willing to consider what harm you may have done.” He glanced at his luap before going on. “Have you ever used your healing magicks to gain something unfairly? To force others to do what you wished? To cause a pain that you might gain approval for relieving it?”

  “No!” Aris heard his voice rise, childishly, and took a long breath before continuing. “Sir, I would not know how to cause a pain; the pains people come with hurt enough. I have—I have told people what they must do to help me, sometimes, as in pulling a broken limb straight, or cleaning a wound. As for gain—some have given me food, afterwards, and if that is wrong, then I have been wrong, but I never asked, sir. Seri will tell you.”

  “Seri,” Gird said gruffly, “is a young lass growing into a woman, and you are a young lad; in Seri’s eyes you are a hero who will never do wrong.”

  Aris felt his face burning; it took all his will to meet Gird’s eyes. “Seri doesn’t lie, sir,” he said through locked teeth. “She wouldn’t, even if she were—”

  “A lass in love?” finished Gird when he hesitated. “You may be right—but even if you are, I had to hear it from you. You are about to cause me a lot of trouble, lad, and I want to be sure it’s worth it.”

  “Cause you trouble?” The last thing he wanted to do was cause trouble, and he could not imagine what trouble he would cause.

  Gird’s deep laugh surprised him. “Yes—how do you think your Marshal will like it when I change the Code to allow healing? Or the others who think as he does that all magicks are evil, that there are no good uses of a bad tool? And Luap here will have a lot of work to do, writing out new versions of the Code to be sent all over. I will have arguments from the Marshals and others who are afraid of any magicks; I will have complaints about changes—you don’t think that’s trouble?”

  He could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Then—”

  “Aris, I believe your healing is good, and your intentions good. I will insist on some restrictions, both for your own good and to calm peoples’ fears: you are still young, you would have guidance if you were a farm lad learning to scythe, let alone someone who can save lives. But of course you must heal, and more than that I give you leave to train other mageborn in the use of that gift, if you can. If anything will reconcile our peoples, it will be the right use of magicks, using them to help and not harm.”

  Chapter Seven

  Gird’s ideas of proper guidance surprised Aris and Seri both. For a hand of days, they lived in the old palace, free to run about and meet the others who lived there. The lad Aris had healed woke to comfort and health; he was shy at first, but soon treated Aris like a favorite brother. Gird’s luap tested their knowledge of reading, writing, and accounting, and argued that they should be kept among the clerks where those skills would be most useful. Aris decided he liked the man, though he didn’t want to spend all his time hunched over a desk. He found Luap’s mixture of grave courtesy and sadness fascinating, and hoped that he would be able to learn the healing magery. Seri, for once, did not agree with him: she didn’t exactly dislike Luap, but she could not, she said, see any reason for Aris’s fascination.

  On the fifth day, Aris widened his explorations to the stables and cowbyres, where he met Gird’s old gray horse.

  “You’re—you’re not old at all,” Aris said, staring wide-eyed at the gray. It looked nothing like a carthorse now, in the sunlight that speared through the doorway. Hammered silver, an arched neck, great dark eyes that looked Aris full in the face. Then it turned to Seri, whose breath caught in her throat.

  “It’s not just a horse,” she said softly. The horse fluttered its nostrils and made a sound like a growl. Aris, entranced, put out his hand. Warm breath flowed over it.

  “I don’t think anyone’s supposed to know,” he said. The horse bumped his hand with its muzzle. He wanted to touch it, stroke that head and that glossy mane. With a twitch of its ear, it gave permission. His hands moved without his thought, gentling and caressing, as he would have touched any horse. He always liked handling animals; he felt better when he touched them. This was more; he felt strong, safe, and alert “Does Gird know?” he asked softly, into an iron-gray ear. The horse drew back its head and favored him with a look combining mischief and warning.

  “No,” said Seri, coming up beside him to fondle the horse’s other ear. “Father Gird doesn’t know, and he—” she meant the horse, —thinks it’s funny. And in the legends, no one quite believes it. They don’t want to think about it. But how can anyone think you’re an old broken-down carthorse?”

  In the way of horses, each of them received the full power of one dark eye, then the horse seemed to collapse in on itself. Suddenly it was thicker, stubbier, paler—no longer hammered silver, but the dirty gray of white cloth left out to mildew and weather. The hollow in its back deepened; it stood hipshot, head sagging over the stall door. It yawned, disclosing long yellow teeth; its lids sagged shut over those remarkable eyes.

  “But why did you show us?” Aris asked. He was sure it had, that the horse had its own reasons for revealing to them what it concealed from others. Without a change in shape or color, this time, the eyes opened, and the horse looked deliberately from one to the other. Aris felt the hair rise all over his body, as if he’d been dipped in cold water. He felt even more alert, as if some great danger had passed near. Every sense came to him sharply. He could hear a horse five stalls down licking the last oats from its manger, and another slurping water. The voices of men in the yard outside, bantering about their work, were almost painfully loud. He could smell everything, from the pungency of the horses to the smoke to the last apples frost-pierced on the trees in the meadow. He could feel the clothes on his body, the slick hair of the horse’s neck, the pressure of the air in his nose that promised an autumn storm.

  He glanced at Seri. She looked as if she felt the same. Her hair stood out from her braid as it did on cold clear winter days, more alive than some people’s faces. Now she looked the old horse full in the face. “We’re supposed to do something? We are? But we’re newcomers; we don’t know anyone. What—”

  As if a large, warm hand had touched his shoulder, Aris felt calm rest on him. Not his calm: the horse’s. The horse shook its head sharply. “Not yours, then,” he said. “A god?” No answer, but it must be. A god wanted something from them, which meant they must give it, whatever it was. And they were to be ready—that much was clear—but whatever it was would come later, not now.

  The gray horse yawned again, and when it was through stood looking even more aged and decrepit, if possible. “So,” said Gird from behind them. “You’ve found my old horse.” Aris managed not to look from the horse to Gird and back again. “He’s a good campaigner,” Gird said, rubbing the horse’s poll, “but getting long in the tooth.” The eye nearest Aris opened an instant; he felt the horse’s secret laughter. “You said you liked cows, boy,” Gird went on. “Come see ours. We’ve got two of the dun milkers and four of the spotted ones.” Aris glanced back as they left the horse stables and saw the gray horse watching them.

  Gird lavished the attention on the cows that Aris and Seri had given the old horse. He and the cowman discussed them in detail, from their broad black nostrils to their carefully curried tails. Gird ran his hands over them, looking inside their ears, stroking their broad sides and velvety flanks, feeling the udders for any inflammation. Aris liked the smell of cows, and their complacent belief that grass co
unted for more than anything else, but he could see that Gird’s affection went beyond that. Finally Gird was done, and led them out into the meadow west of the palace complex. A few fruit trees, the remnants of a larger orchard, clung to their last leaves and some wizened apples.

  “If you could live as you liked,” Gird said, “what would you do between healings?”

  Aris thought. “Well—I could work in the stables—or I suppose with your—with Luap in the copying rooms.”

  Gird looked at Seri. “I’d like to work with the horses,” she said. “If Aris is, that is.”

  Gird nodded, as if that confirmed something he’d been thinking about. “That’s about it. You two have lived and worked together for years, but—but if one of you died, what would the other do? You, Aris, are willing to do whatever’s needful; you have the mage-born courtesy; you won’t say what you want most, and I’m not sure you know. Seri knows, and will say it, but then thinks she must stay with you. I would not split brother from sister or friend from friend, but the two of you need to learn that you can live out of each other’s pockets.”

  Aris felt cold. Would Gird send Seri away?

  “I’ve been talking to Luap and the Marshals,” Gird went on. “I don’t like to see younglings cramped inside with scribe’s work. Unless that’s what you wanted most, I wouldn’t have it so. You both need grange discipline, and you both need a chance to find your own balance. So here’s my thought.” He looked from one to the other, as if to be sure they were paying attention. Aris could hardly hear over the blood pounding in his ears.

  “You, Aris, need to know herblore as well as your own magicks, and you need to be around others who heal in different ways. There’s a grange in the lower city that has three women with parrions of herblore in it; they have agreed to teach you what they know, and the Marshal can supervise your use of your own healing. You will be a junior yeoman, as you were in your own barton; you will spend your days in grange work and healing and study. And you, Seri, seem like to grow into a Marshal someday. For you I’ve found a grange with a healthy group of junior yeomen; if you have the abilities I suspect, you will be a yeoman-marshal soon enough. And yes, before you ask, these are separate granges. But both are in Fin Panir, and you will live here, near me, for the first year. You will still be together part of every day; but you will learn to trust others, and work with others, not just yourselves.”