by Greg Bear
And then, he thought, Greek.
The four paused just yards away on the pathway and turned slowly, like weathervanes, until they faced where he was hiding.
“What is this?” one of the brown-haired women asked.
“Widsith!” the black-haired woman exclaimed, and laughed. “He speaketh o’ a new boy who hideth thoughts and memories—a poor and pure son o’ the sea. This is his lad!”
“Come out, English boy. We mean no harm. We are gentlefolk thou shouldst ken.”
Reynard stepped from behind the bushes. The ladies—for clearly they were used to a kind of deference, looking at him, addressing him as if he were a wayward hunting dog—surrounded him and stroked his hair, his face, his clothes, intent, until they drew breath and sighed as one.
“Not ours to ply,” the first brown-haired woman said, and asked her companions, “Do we fetch him back?”
Another, with locks longer and hair darker brown and straight, falling like a third garment almost to her calves, said, “Knowing his blood, he’ll find a way.”
They all sighed again, like a soft breeze in the woods, then continued forward on the path, away from the town, speaking to each other with sharply sibilant words that seemed to penetrate his ears, like the flash of bird wings fleeing a snake—and yet, words he almost knew, had once heard spoken, but had never bothered to memorize. Words of travel, questions buried in each—questions he could not answer!
“I do not belong here!” he cried out, tears coming to his eyes.
The black-haired woman suddenly stood before him. He had not seen her move! “Why hast thou no memory of place and line? Here, on this blessed isle, no memory for a boy maketh him like a knight without armor. Remember, or another will find and use thee—less gentle than we who are conjured by the King of Troy.”
They each touched three fingers to their rosy lips and laughed again. “Or not. Is Widsith young and favored once more?”
“Such fickle charms!”
“Follow us, then,” the last lady said, smiling over her shoulder. “Our time is short, our candles dim, and we are going.”
And so he followed. The way through this wide, shadowy glade seemed to wind back past trees he had already seen, and yet the women, in a loose grouping, laughing and singing alternately, waving their hands as if in pure enjoyment, seemed always to be walking straight ahead, always away from the village, the town—
But here was the bush he had hidden behind when the women first passed—he remembered the broken branches from his emergence and saw an impression of his foot.
It was on the fourth loop of this game that he saw the four women walking through a wedge of sunlight. The sun, angling under the clouds, was late and golden, almost orange, and as Reynard struggled to keep up, he realized that the slanting light passed through the women, as if they were made of gauzy silk. Their clothes, their hair, and a kind of stick outline of their bodies shadowed within.
He stopped and bit his lip—
And from the corner of his glance saw Manuel, Widsith, perched on a rock beside the path, whittling a stick with a small knife. The formerly old man smiled in sympathy. He looked thirty, at most forty years of age. He still had a bandage on his arm, but he moved the arm freely, and it appeared strong.
Reynard squatted before him, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, and studied the man’s clothes, his demeanor.
“Now dost thou learn,” Widsith said, highly amused.
“Learn what?” Reynard asked.
“Not to follow the toys of the King of Troy.”
“And who might he be? A true king?”
“No king, ’struth,” Widsith said. “An old mage, powers weakened by time and foolishness. Still, he hath a certain skill.”
“He maketh women to walk in the woods?”
“A favorite subject, I think. They last the length of a candle, and then fade to the sticks and old bones he keepeth in piles near his hut. He deviseth clever names for his illusions. These he calleth bone-wives.”
“How long doth the candle last?” Reynard asked, surprised by his calm.
“A few hours, no more than a day,” Widsith said. “The King of Troy is benign, mostly—and so some in Zodiako, used to wandering magicians and childers, and sometimes hallows, like to think they tolerate his toys, even ask him to provide entertainment for village parties—though he can be unpredictable. Oft his hallows look saintly, but approach too close—and they bite! But now thou’rt here, and all on thine own instinct, while the town maketh grieving and mending, let us visit the old mountebank.” His look was at once crafty and guilty, and Reynard dug deep to find any trust. Yet Widsith had yet to do him wrong, and had shown courage throughout, whatever his deal with the island might be.
Reynard got to his feet. “Why go to this king who is no king?”
“I want his judgment o’ thee, to confirm or deny mine own. Other than that, he can inform us of where we need to go.”
“He is human?” Reynard asked.
“He may not know anymore.”
“And you are human?”
“Aye, as I have told thee already,” Widsith said. “By the grace of history, and the will of this island, I am still human. Ready?”
Reynard allowed he was still more hungry than ready to go witness illusions. “I have eaten, but not enough!”
“On occasions, Troy feedeth his visitors, though the hunger is assuaged only for the length of a candle—like his bone-wives. But our visit will not take long, methinks. And we must return to Zodiako soon.”
The King of Troy
* * *
THE WOODS EAST of Zodiako seemed ancient and mostly undisturbed, unlike the forests in England, so often cleared to make ships or charcoal. These were not lively woods, Widsith pointed out—those tended to hug the shore, like prickly thorns, to protect the island. “Not that they are all that effective,” he said. “They mostly display a stubborn individuality, not a communal defense.”
Here, many of the trees were overarching wonders, bigger than any oaks Reynard had seen, rising to the mist-filtered sun, as if it were their proud duty to push through the canopy and cast all else in dappled shade. The lower decks of shorter, broader trees—Reynard guessed they were related to walnut—sometimes spread out like thick-rooted spiders through the litter and blankets of leaves, roots crisscrossing and humping the trail so that no wagon, and not many horses, could pass.
Widsith picked carefully along the half-obscured and winding path, stepping or climbing up and over the greater roots, making little bird whistles or muttering some or other incomprehensible name, as if he recognized some of the trees and was wary of them. Reynard saw deer, or something like deer, three or four of them, peering through a far veil of branches, unafraid. Suddenly they disappeared—and just as they did so, seemed to become people—small, lithe people. Were these the hreindyr Dana and her blunters had tried to warn the Spaniards about? Perhaps they were just ordinary English fallow deer, their shadows playing tricks. They did not make themselves obvious, whatever their breed.
The Pilgrim observed that the island’s day was showing signs of being short. The glade was already slipping into murky shadow, which Reynard did not much like, however benign the King of Troy might be.
“His toys deceive,” he said as he followed Widsith, nearly tumbling over a big root. He recovered and observed, “They speak riddles and nonsense.”
Widsith looked back and smiled. He was definitely getting younger—only a few gaps remained in his teeth. “Troy’s powers rise from etymon, and he knoweth many ancient tongues.”
Pay heed.
Reynard stiffened at the voice in his head. “Etymon—what are those?”
“First words that give birth to later words. The roots of all language—and much sorcery. Hel, I am told, saw that something was lacking in her creation, a blankness that must be filled. So she swept across the endless grasslands she had already made, and found the first Travelers trying to live there. She h
ad forgotten making people, but thought these might be useful. So she walked among them, first as a gazelle, then as a lion, and finally as a woman, and in this form, the Travelers were willing to listen to her. And so, at her command, they spread out from their herds and horses. They listened to birds and insects, and took from their sounds and music many words.
“Still, this was not enough—the birds and insects had their own flesh and need. So she ordered the Travelers to look inward and draw up, as if from a well, their own human etymon. She told them to listen and remember the words they found in their own flesh and blood. In time—which she spun out as a lark, a fancy, very little like the time we know today, at least beyond these islands—the first Travelers carried these words over the new lands and seas, across their known world—those parts that had been finished—and offered them to other tribes, other humans. So began human languages other than grunting and whistling. Then they reported back to Hel, who used these new people to finally fill the blanks in her creation—though not all.”
Reynard was surprised by this long and doubtless blasphemous tale. Widsith chuckled. “I have long held my peace on such affairs,” he said. “The Spanish would have gutted and hanged me.”
Reynard could hardly believe any of it, so much did it differ from what he had heard in church. Still—his grandmother had spoken of such things, and his mother had not denied them, nor his father in the time before his death. The first word is the first mother.Reynard felt his own pulse quicken.
He asked, “The world is not finished?”
“No more than this island. Many more words remain to be found and fill in more blanks. So listen inside and out to Troy’s nonsense. What doth he hide in riddles? Where will deception cross over to instruction—at least, to hints?”
“But you called the King of Troy a mountebank!”
“Oh, he is that. His powers amuse and even cause alarm. But he is a kind of scholar as well.”
“He is an old friend, is he?”
“And an old teacher,” Widsith said. “Some think he hath met Hel, and learned much from her own lips—but I am not sure of that.”
“He is that old?”
“Without Eaters, he is sustained across the centuries. Someone favoreth him, but I know not who—or what. Perhaps he brought with him his old Greek gods.” Widsith seemed to lose himself in memories. “Be alert and listen close. To hear an etymon, a first word, is to feel one’s heart quake and bones shiver.”
“What words did the Travelers bring?” Reynard asked. “What were the first languages heard here?”
“I do not know,” Widsith said. “I have not lived that long! Quite a few arrived from England and Ireland when Norse raiders cut misery along those coasts. Others of Danish and Norse stock arrived from Greenland when the seals failed them and the trade in walrus tusks moved south, to Africa, where elephant tusks now have greater worth. I have heard from Sea Travelers like the tattooed man that much older folks, furtive and cautious, took their carved gods and sailed north to settle other islands around the circle. I know not if they are still there. The Norse and Danes and Swedes fought with the English at first, but both lost and learned, and now they abide mostly in peace. Those early times were rich for the King of Troy.”
“He deceived them all?”
Widsith nodded. “Deceived, guided, and protected. A gentle enough old soul, he did not wish destruction on any. And he did not wish them to destroy each other. So . . . What think’st thou he showed those who fought, till they recovered their senses?”
Reynard tried to imagine gentler battles on the beach, magic wars back and forth. “He could have sent forth bone-soldiers, till the living broke their blades and tired.”
“In sooth, that was the way of it,” Widsith said, tilting his head in admiration.
“But the Eaters are not kind! In the village, and in the woods, how many Spaniards did they drain?” Reynard asked, with a frown, as if the question itself tested his borders.
“Eaters share purpose with all the islanders,” Widsith said. “It is their pact with Hel. Though not all Eaters obey. Some say that is because it has been so long since Hel walked these shores.”
“And what about Crafters? Did Hel make them for her own purposes?
“Thou dost not know even what a Crafter is.”
“Do you?”
“Fair enough. I have yet to meet one.” Widsith looked at him with a peculiar wrinkle of his lips, as if remembering his own youth and envying Reynard. “Who asketh . . . in thy head, boy?”
Reynard considered for a moment. “There is my uncle’s wit and my gram’s knowing. They would ask.”
“They seem wise as voices go.” A last tinkle of laughter echoed from up the narrow lane between trees and bushes. Widsith frowned. “Best be with friends when night falleth, no?”
“Yes, but what do we fear?”
“We stray from town, and not all Eaters observe the pact, but others just beneath the sky, more powerful than those who stray, have interest in thee, and would keep thee safe to speak, boy.”
“What have I to tell?”
“Gossip!” Widsith says. “Not just Guldreth, but Maeve, and possibly even Maggie and Dana, are eager to hear news of the King of Spain and the Queen of England, and their war, and how English and Spanish women bear up under all that, and how valiant strong and handsome men fight and die for Queen and country. Even better, thou canst tell them what dress be favored by women in the court.”
“Oh.” Reynard looked unhappy. “I do not know that! This King of Troy, was he really ever the King of Troy?”
“Was he ever Priam?” Widsith laughed. “No, boy. Likely that was his stage name in Makedonia before he arriv’d here.”
Reynard had never heard of some of the places Widsith talked about, and he frowned again.
“Makedonia,” Widsith repeated. “Home of Alexander, called the Great. Ask the King of Troy about him sometime. Get him drunk, and he’ll claim he knew Alexander . . . in the Biblical sense.”
Reynard flushed, though he was hardly innocent. He had heard the Spanish were more forgiving in such matters, but suspected that was war talk, to make English sailors hate them more—not actual truth. So his uncle would have judged. “Is it all queens and no kings here?”
“A king was defeated. To the west, and across the blasted waste at the center, a mountainous, icy desert now belongs to powerful Sister Queens, who do not believe in Queen Hel, or the island’s history as most often told here. But they are far away, at least . . . they were when I last departed.” He looked uneasy. “Most around here serve the Travelers, who serve the Crafters, of course.”
“Have you ever been summoned by the Crafters?”
“No,” Widsith said.
“But how do you report to them?”
“I deliver my story to those who serve them—the Travelers.”
“Who commandeth the village and on this coast?”
“You have met Dana and Maggie. They serve Maeve, and in truth, all are the humblest and sweetest,” Widsith said, with another wry face. “But in the Ravine . . . who can know?” He frowned at a strange glow from the far side of the forest. “This is not normal night. Something is casting a deep shadow—and it is not Troy!”
Around a bend in the path, a man stumbled between the trees, then fell to his knees and pitched onto his face. The hiss-crack-POP of a harquebus resounded, followed by shouts and what sounded like cannon or powder blasts.
Widsith grabbed Reynard and hid him in a thicket of alders, keeping close while the battle seemed to move off, or diminish. Then he walked from the thicket and bent over the fallen man. “He hath semblance to a grumete of Cardoza . . . but that boy was younger than thee, and this —”
Out of the gloom, half visible in the best of lights, came a glassy figure, dressed mostly in black furs, like the Russian sables Reynard had heard of.
Widsith got to his feet and faced him.
“Pilgrim,” the figure said. “That on
e is mine. Back away and let me finish.”
Widsith wiped his hands on his pants, bowing slightly in his retreat.
The Eater seemed to slip between one shadow and another, and suddenly stood beside the fallen grumete. He knelt and bent over the man’s torso, then rolled him over and laid his ear on the man’s sternum, as if checking for a heartbeat. Deep-pitted eyes watching Widsith and Reynard, the Eater’s face became a fog, a swirl, and then merged with the fallen man, who now simply folded inward, like one of the collapsed houses in the village.
Leaving a pile of drifting ash.
“His time is done,” the Eater said. He rose slowly and touched his face with both hands. The face reacquired a sort of definition. “Didst thou know this man?”
“He was but a boy,” Widsith said, not looking directly at the Eater, but not backing off any farther.
“He is still here,” the Eater said, and tapped his chest, then peeled back a fur and showed pale ribs beneath the flesh. “He hath bright memories. I will savor him. It is mine only amusement.” He looked between Reynard and Widsith. “Thou art both protected,” he said. “I used to be pacted to Calybo. In those times, when thou wast a young sailor, I served thee at his behest,” the Eater said. “Dost thou remember?”
“I know nought of that,” Widsith said.
“Sometimes I hide and listen! Now I have no tribe and live nowhere, and sleep everywhere. I know mine hours fade. I take what I must where I can. It is not to my glory thus to be seen.”
The Eater turned and vanished back into the forest.
“We should move on before more arrive,” Widsith said.
“How far to Troy’s camp?”
“Near.” The Pilgrim studied the gloom. “There likely will be tests and barriers. We may have to cross a trod.”
“Like a fairy trod?”
“A road for Travelers,” Widsith said. “I hope they remember me!”
They walked on, avoiding tree roots and the deepest shadows.
