A Child of Great Promise: An Altearth Tale

by Ellis L. Knox

  “Sit down, girl,” Saveric shouted and now more heads turned. “Don’t be stupid.”

  Talysse wanted to tell him what she thought about stupid, but the three men began to push through the crowd, shoving people out of the way. Cries of indignation rang out and other voices grew more quiet. She looked all around her, but could not see a way out. A wall to her right. Saveric, now standing in front of her, almost in arm’s reach, with his own men to her left and behind.

  Then, abruptly, the three on the left fell and there was Jehan, quarterstaff in hand, with other elves behind him, also armed: knives and short clubs, two bare-fisted, one wielding a metal tankard. All looked as dangerous as a pack of dogs with teeth showing.

  Saveric gave her a pained look. “You have allies, it appears.”

  A few of the men moved to block the two gens d’armes who were closing in from behind. Jehan stepped forward. One of the men with him, a big human with an enormous red beard, said loudly, “See yourself out, brother. We can keep these entertained.” He pointed with a long knife.

  Jehan leveled his quarterstaff at Saveric. “This one’s a wizard,” he said. “Best sit him on his hands.”

  The elf chevalier moved closer. Without taking his eyes from Saveric, he spoke. “Talysse, step to the doorway,” he said, his voice tight as rigging in a high wind. “Wait there. Do not go outside without me.”

  Talysse hesitated, her pulse galloping. The wizard’s eyes glinted in the torchlight. “It is a misunderstanding,” he said through tight lips.

  “Speak again, wizard,” Jehan said loudly. “I wish to break your head.” Rough laughter came from the crowd. To Talysse he said, “Best be quick.”

  Talysse climbed down and helped Detta after her. She edged her way past Saveric as if he were a coiled snake. The whole tavern had fallen so quiet she could hear the crackle of the cook fire. With a soft shuffle, a way cleared to the door. She stopped at the first step and turned. Jehan was right behind her. “Out we go,” he said softly.

  They went through the door into the vestibule. Talysse started to go outside but Jehan tapped on her shoulder and pointed to the door with the bed on it. She looked at him questioningly but he put a finger to his lips, then went through to the rooms. Talysse followed, but her mind raced. Why was he not fleeing? The wizard would have men looking; she pictured scores of armored men rushing through the streets shoulder to shoulder. Once in Jehan’s room, she whispered her concern.

  “Grab everything, quickly. We have only moments,” he said, scooping up his own armor and throwing things into a pack.

  “But—”

  “My friends can delay them for minutes, not hours. Hurry!”

  Detta was already packing. Talysse snatched up her own pack. “Fine. Whatever you say. But if we’re caught, it’s your fault.” It was ungrateful, but she was bewildered and frightened, and anger was her familiar retreat. Within a single minute, the elf was ready. He turned. Detta stood and nodded. Talysse stuffed her boots into her pack and shrugged.

  Jehan led them across the hall and into another room. Judging by the armor on the bed, it too belonged to a tournier. This room had a window. Jehan opened the shutters and leaned out, then signaled. He climbed through and dropped to the ground. A moment later, they were all three moving down an alley a few feet wide. Where it opened into a street, Jehan stopped and leaned close.

  “The inn opens back the other way. There were sure to be guards waiting for us that way,” he whispered into her ear.

  “You could have said so earlier,” she replied.

  “We had to get out of the room. All rooms will be searched, soon.”

  “Where do we go now?”

  “Away.”

  “Away where?”

  “Later,” Jehan said. He gave her a push not at all gentle. “Stay close to me.” He crossed the street into another alley. Over his shoulder he added. “Madame must run, likely.”

  “Oh, mercy on me,” Detta muttered, but she broke into a brisk trot.

  Jehan led them on a path so roundabout, Talysse thought they might be visiting every district of the city. Jehan strode purposefully but never got too far ahead. He kept a constant watch, pausing at each crossroads to look up and down each street, and looking behind them so often Talysse felt sure they must be being followed. After a time, Detta’s breathing grew labored. Her own legs were starting to sing.

  Jehan drew them up short. They stood near the city wall, in deep shadow under a slim moon obscured by thin, fast-moving clouds. Impoverished wooden houses leaned tiredly against the big wall, which loomed like a black cliff in the gloom. Jehan positioned them between two lightless shacks.

  “Stay,” he whispered, then faded into the dark. That he whispered seemed ominous. Talysse and Detta looked at each other. Jehan returned before either could do more than recover her breath.

  “Come.”

  He led them past two more shacks and into a gap: a small door in the wall. Jehan herded them through. The door closed behind, though Talysse never saw anyone. She looked around.

  They were outside the walled city.

  “One more rush, mes filles,” Jehan said, still in a whisper. “Then, safety, or so I hope.”

  The elf was off again, across the roadway that ran at the base of the wall, and into a street. Buildings rose on either side, the same that had looked friendly and bustling by day; now they loomed darkly, each a lair to hold an ambush.

  The buildings soon gave way to wide fields, some marked by fences. In the more open areas she could just make out the shapes of wagons, nose to tail in big circles. Jehan headed for one of these circles, then paused at the edge. Between the wagons glowed a campfire. Voices murmured as they do late at night. He seemed to debate something with himself for a time, before going on.

  After the camps there were no more lights. A rustle now and then spoke of deer or owls or raccoon moving through underbrush. The only other sound was an occasional liquid murmur sliding away on her left. The smell of water and mud confirmed that they were close to the river. Was the elf about to have them swim? A hundred questions and concerns crowded each other. Just as she thought she might burst from them, Jehan held up a hand. He signaled them to stay, which he repeated until both women nodded assent. Then he slipped into the darkness.

  “Where’s he going?” Detta whispered.

  “I don’t know. Where are we ourselves going, that’s what I want to know.”

  The big form of the elf reappeared silently. He put his face in front of Detta’s and put one finger to her lips. Detta nodded, head down. Talysse scowled at him, but realized the look was lost in shadow. She nodded, but added a long sigh.

  Jehan vanished again. Talysse fretted in silence.

  What was she doing? She barely knew this man. He fought well—amazingly well—but he appeared to have any number of his own problems. She would follow him, because she had little choice just now, but that didn’t mean she would trust him.

  Why was she the object of such attention? She was no beautiful princess, was not even pretty, despite what Detta might say. The men showed no interest in her that way. Yet a wizard and a chevalier had both made her the center of their attention. Why? She kept finding people she did not want, while she could not find the ones she sought. It was all too maddening, and she couldn’t even get mad.

  “Come.” Jehan’s voice sounded from nearby. “The bridge is unguarded, but we must hurry. Someone may think to set a watch.”

  Talysse squinted through the darkness. A shadowy figure gestured, then stepped closer.

  “If mademoiselle pleases,” Jehan urged through tight lips. “Once we cross the river, we can vanish onto side roads. Even the king himself does not have enough men to search them all. And once over the river, we will be outside the kingdom anyway. Do hurry!”

  Talysse did not move. Finally, a chance to get angry.

  “Mademoiselle, I beg you.” His tone was so sincere, it nearly moved her.

  “I’ll go,” she said
, “but you must promise me something.”

  “Anything!”

  “You must answer all my questions.”

  “Done.”

  “And teach me the quarterstaff.”

  “What? Absurd!”

  “Ooh,” Detta murmured.

  Talysse folded her arms and tilted up her chin.

  “Not absurd,” Jehan amended, “just mad.”

  “Well?” she asked.

  He sighed loudly.

  “Anything, if you will only go now, as fast as you can. Be grateful for such a dark night, or someone would surely see us on the bridge.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Cierzo Karwan

  “Where are we going?” Talysse asked on the first morning after fleeing Arles.

  “Away,” Jehan said.

  “Obviously,” Talysse said. “But where to?”

  They walked for a time without speech. She was starting to get used to these pauses and knew better than to try to hurry them. Their pace was slow, for after a night of running, Jehan appeared content to match his speed to the gnome’s.

  “Toulouse is possible,” Jehan said at last.

  “Who is Toulouse?” Detta asked.

  “Toulouse is a city,” Jehan said. “The County of Toulouse lies beyond the borders of the Arelat kingdom and beyond the reach of the Gaulish king. The Count goes his own way. I am thinking he may protect us, at least long enough for mademoiselle to choose a direction for us.”

  That halted her questioning for a time. Choose a direction? How was she supposed to know that? All her thoughts and hopes had been focused on Arles. With the king gone and the city too dangerous for lingering, she felt as if she were a tiny boat dropped into the midst of a featureless ocean. Or a boat dropped into a forest, she thought bitterly. No idea where to go and no way to get there. She supposed Toulouse might be as good a place as any, but she did not say that. She wanted to pretend like she knew how to choose.

  “Is this city very far away?” Detta asked.

  Talysse took the gnome’s hand.

  “A week or more,” Jehan said. He showed no sign of hearing Detta’s small squeak, but Talysse felt the clutch of her hand. “For we must move by devious routes.”

  The routes were plenty devious, as far as she could see. Jehan kept them to the side roads of side roads, encountering animals more often than people. They cut through glades, sought out shadows, ate beneath willow trees or behind brakes and hedges. When near a village, he had them wait until nightfall, always making sure the three of them were never seen together.

  “It is better we be secret than speedy,” he said. He had to say it more than once, for Talysse was inclined to impatience.

  “So what if we are seen by villagers or a goose girl?” she asked. “As long as it’s not by Saveric. Even if word got back, we would be days gone—or could be if we didn’t keep sitting down.”

  Jehan considered, or pretended to. “Imagine yourself as Saveric,” he said.

  “Why should I?”

  “Learn to think as your enemy.”

  Talysse shook her head and gave Detta a look. The gnome’s shoulders lowered in a shrug.

  “You are at the inn,” Jehan continued. “Your quarry has just escaped. What do you do?”

  “I look for her,” Talysse said. She made a sour face at the elf.

  “No, you don’t. You are a wizard. You have gens d’armes at your command.”

  “All right.” She was beginning to understand it was no good trying to talk past Jehan. She pictured the inn: the smells, the noise, the people.

  “There would be some fighting,” she said, “but I would want out of there as soon as I could. By the time I got loose, the girl would be gone. I probably go out into the street anyway, but that’s no good. My men show up.”

  “Some are hurt,” Jehan said.

  “Very well, some are hurt. But that’s not important.”

  “Correct,” Jehan said.

  “The point of them,” she said slowly, “was to gain a little time. Once we had some distance, Saveric would not know which way to go.”

  “Now you do well, but stay with the wizard. What would Saveric do next?”

  “Look for us.”

  “How? Do you wander about?”

  “No, I would ask questions. Obviously.” She walked in silence, then said, “Do they have rooms? Where are they staying?” She began to walk more quickly, like a hound picking up a scent. “Ask there first. Yes, the elf has a room, just next door.” She glanced at Jehan. “No wonder you hurried us through that window.”

  “You are Saveric. You don’t know about the window.”

  That nettled her for only a moment. She was in the room, frustrated. Angry.

  “There are no belongings. The quarry has been here and left. I don’t know which way, but they cannot be far.”

  “Good. Now what?”

  “Send my men. Spread out. Search every alley!” She was caught up.

  “And you, yourself?”

  “Um… I don’t go. I’d just be one more pair of eyes.”

  “Can you search magically?”

  Chilled, she said, “I don’t know. We don’t know.”

  “Perhaps not,” Detta said. “If he could do that, he would have found us already.”

  “Madame is right,” Jehan said.

  “Why, tante, that was quite good.”

  “You were thinking the same,” Detta said, touching fingers to forehead in deference. “I interrupted.”

  “Then you must interrupt often,” Jehan said.

  Detta smiled broadly. Talysse was already back on the problem, in character.

  “I stay in the room to look for any clue.” She frowned. “I don’t think I find one. I go back to the tavern, asking what anyone knows. Who is the elf? Where does he come from, who are his friends, where might he go? I offer bribes.”

  “You hear many things,” Jehan said.

  “All lies,” Talysse said with unfeigned irritation. “I waste my time here. I go back to… where do I live? Not in Arles; he said he was from Paris.”

  “In a hotel,” Jehan said. “A fine one. But the question is not where you are staying but what you do next.”

  She worked on this for a while, head down. Abruptly her head snapped up. “The Syndicat. I call upon the Syndicat to search for them.” A pause. “Saveric doesn’t need to catch up with us,” she added quietly. “He can have his people intercept us. He can look in every direction at once.”

  Talysse regarded Jehan. “We must stay hidden,” she said. Her eyes were wide.

  “We must stay hidden,” Jehan confirmed. “Learn to think as your enemy does, Talysse, or be captured by him.”

  But they did not hide for much longer. The next day—the third since leaving Arles and crossing the wide, dark bridge over the Rhône River—they were forced onto a main road by encroaching marais to their south and west.

  “We do not want to hide so well we sink into the mud,” Jehan had blandly observed.

  So they walked along a good road, mostly empty, with Jehan scanning constantly in front and behind. In the late afternoon, with the sun starting to descend into their eyes, he stopped them, then hurried them off the road into a tangle of scrub oak and buckthorn.

  “Wagons are coming from behind,” he explained. “We will wait for them to pass.”

  Jehan had said the town of Vauvert was not far and Talysse had been hoping for lodging, or at least a warm meal.

  “It would be wiser,” the elf said. “Merchants talk, and innkeepers talk even more.”

  She resigned herself to eating dried meat and stale bread, washed down by tepid water.

  The rumble of wagon wheels soon sounded. Peering through the buckthorn branches she saw not a wagon but a parade of wagons—she counted nine, with more hidden by a bend in the road.

  Jehan stood up.

  “What are you doing?” Talysse demanded. “You’ll be seen.”

  “I know these people,”
he said. “Stay here. I’ll go talk with them.”

  “What—?”

  “We may have caught some luck,” he said. He glanced down and, for once, trouble had left his brow. “I won’t be long. Wait for my return.”

  Like I would just leave, Talysse thought. For the briefest moment she entertained that idea. All she’d been doing was following others for over a week now, and where had it got her? Hiding in the bushes, that’s where, with a wizard hunting her.

  “Talysse?” Detta touched her shoulder, her eyes questioning.

  “We’ll wait,” she said. “For now. What are these people, I wonder?”

  “Wagoneers,” the gnome said.

  Talysse looked over at her. “What? You know them?”

  “My da told me stories,” Detta said. “Wagoneers are elf folk who travel… well, in wagons.” She waved an arm toward the line of wheels and dust.

  “Where do they live?”

  “In the wagons.”

  The elf strode toward the wagons, one arm raised in a hail. Talysse gazed in wonder at the parade, which was as colorful as a sunset. Every wagon was painted, even to the wheels. Each was pulled by a horse that itself was decorated with ribbons and even flowers. The people, hard to make out at a distance, wore clothes every bit as colorful.

  “Living in wagons,” Talysse whispered. “Sounds wonderful.”

  The line of wagons—more than a dozen were now in view—slowed to a stop. Jehan approached the lead wagon, which was painted with elaborate designs over a black base, making it look slightly sinister. In the silence, Talysse could hear voices but no words. After a short exchange, Jehan started back. The wagons moved again, but now they pulled off the road onto an empty meadow. By the time Jehan returned to the stand of buckthorn, the wagons were forming into a circle. The elf looked satisfied.

  “We must wait here for the routiers to make camp,” Jehan said, “then Brasc will see us.”

  “Who is Brasc? What are routiers?”

  “Wagoneers,” Detta said.

  “They are also called that,” Jehan said, nodding.

  “I’ve never heard of them,” Talysse said.

  “No doubt there are many things of which you have not heard,” Jehan said.