A Child of Great Promise: An Altearth Tale

by Ellis L. Knox

  In Arles she had felt overwhelmed, swallowed up, as Detta had said. Here, she felt like she was peering over a wall at a lovely home, knowing no one inside. The hours moped by. She only knew the routiers had returned when she saw Brasc.

  “Has Jehan returned as well?” she asked him.

  “He has,” the wagonmaster said. He was scarcely taller than she was. His skin was almond brown. “The chevalier is away over there, among those trees.” He pointed to a stand of olive trees.

  “What is he doing there?”

  “Carving.”

  Carving? She didn’t bother to ask why. She told Detta to remain at the karwan, and set off toward the trees.

  She found him sitting on a rock beneath a gnarled, ancient olive tree. He had his quarterstaff locked between his knees, with his knife out.

  Yes, carving. She shook her head. More puzzles. She tried again, mainly because being utterly idle was beginning to wear on her.

  “Teach me to fight,” she said, without preliminaries.

  He replied without looking up. “I cannot teach you to fight.”

  “Of course you can,” she said. “Besides, you promised.” She sat down next to him, to show that she wasn’t going to be dismissed easily.

  “Fighting is a study, as I have said,” he told her, “a discipline. I still practice, even though I am very good.” Without even standing up, he spun the quarterstaff so close to her face, she felt the rush of air as it passed. She flinched, then she insisted.

  “Show me.”

  He ignored her, and returned to his carving. She saw he was cutting a figure into the staff. Sunlight glinted off the knife as he worked. They sat quiet for a time. She looked out over wide fields of poppies in the distance. The open space made her long to fly.

  “Jehan, trouble really does follow me, doesn’t it?”

  “It appears so.”

  “Then I should be ready to meet it, shouldn’t I?”

  He regarded her without replying.

  “Show me how to fight,” she said again.

  “We have spoken of this. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Don’t you be ridiculous. When trouble comes, should I lie down and let it walk over me?”

  “I shall defend you,” the elf said gravely.

  She wanted to leap over and slap him. “Are you going to follow me around all day, every day? Shall we never be apart?”

  Jehan frowned.

  It is, Talysse thought, quite a satisfying thing to irritate an elf.

  “Teach me the sword and buckler, Jehan, and maybe one day I’ll be the one to defend you.”

  “Women don’t fight.”

  “Hah! Shows what you know of women.”

  “It would be unseemly.”

  “I’ll show you unseemly!” She let her voice rise to a shriek.

  “Too loud,” Jehan scolded. She reined herself in.

  “I am a good student when I want to be, and I want to be. I’ll suffer your instruction without complaint.”

  His knife whispered at the wood and tiny nicks fell onto the grass. “Why?”

  She started to reply, then took a moment to think. “I need to do this,” she said. “I’m tired of feeling helpless. The only thing I know how to do is to flee.”

  “That is often the best choice.”

  He was delaying, but he was not denying.

  “Sometimes a person can’t just fly away. Sometimes,” and her voice grew thick, “a person can, but ought not. If they went after Detta, I would stand, even if standing was all I could do. But I’d be ashamed of myself if I didn’t fight. Why not make me a better fighter?”

  He looked up from his whittling. He had decided, she could see it. His eyes glinted like the knife’s edge.

  “Mademoiselle is relentless.” He smiled his slow grin.

  “And don’t forget it,” Talysse said. She loved him for that smile, but refused to return it. She was determined to be serious.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. He nodded once, then set knife to wood once more.

  The single word hung in the air, shimmering like a hummingbird. She sat still. To move or speak might make the thing fly away, so she held her breath and held the thought.

  Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow she would learn to fight.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Fisher Elves

  Jehan got her up before dawn, before the karwan was even stirring. Motioning Talysse to silence, he led her back to the same olive grove, where he picked up something from the ground seemingly at random.

  “Here,” Jehan handed her a branch nearly as tall as herself. Smaller twigs grew from it.

  “What’s this?”

  “It is a branch.”

  “Obviously,” she said. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  He held out his knife. “You are supposed to fashion it into a weapon.”

  She took the knife but glared at Jehan. “It’s not even straight,” she protested.

  “It will serve.”

  “I came here to learn the quarterstaff, not woodworking.”

  “To learn the quarterstaff, you first need a quarterstaff.”

  “Can’t we buy a proper one?”

  “When you learn proper use.”

  “Gah!” She threw down the branch. “You’re infuriating. It’s not even big enough.”

  “It will serve,” Jehan repeated, “for learning.”

  She kept up her glare, but it was like glaring at a wall trying to make it into a door. I will not quit. Her words mocked her temper.

  “Very well,” she said, picking up the branch again. She cut away a twig, then realized she would need to trim the bark off as well. She hacked angrily.

  “Be careful you do not cut yourself,” Jehan said. “It will delay your training.”

  Talysse shot him what she hoped was a withering look, but he did not wither, so she attacked the branch instead. One twig after another fell before her blade. More carefully, she peeled away bark. One end of the branch was too thick, so she carved at that, slimming it. She became absorbed with keeping the surface smooth. Satisfied at last, she handed the knife back. Her temper had abated.

  “Hold out two fingers,” he said, “like this.”

  He extended his arm and pointed with two fingers. She copied him.

  “Now, balance the staff, like so.” He placed his own quarterstaff athwart his fingers, adjusting until it balanced.

  “Do you see? Mine balances exactly in the middle.”

  She tried her own. When it was balanced, her fingers were a couple of inches from the middle.

  “Make it balance properly.” He handed the knife back to her.

  It took her half an hour, but she managed to get the staff—it no longer resembled a branch—to balance properly.

  “It is still not straight,” Talysse said after Jehan nodded approval.

  “No matter,” Jehan said. “This is only for beginning. But already you know two things to look for.”

  “Straightness and balance,” she said.

  “Just so. Now. Hold the staff across your body, thus.”

  They spent an hour among the olive trees. After a while Talysse heard the karwan awakening—horses and elves speaking each in their own way, wagons creaking as people came and went—but Jehan continued the exercises. She refused to call it training. Eight different ways to hold a stick, that’s what it was. She was about to storm off when he showed her the first strike.

  More time passed. Unmistakably she could hear the routiers preparing to leave, but he kept her there because now he began to spar with her. The staves cracked loudly, sending birds aloft. With every exchange, he showed her a new place to strike an opponent, by striking her.

  “Why do you hit me so hard?”

  “Because you do not stop me.”

  “I’m just learning!”

  “So you will get hurt often. An enemy will not be so kind. Are you ready? It will hurt again.”

  The exchanges intensified. She refu
sed to cry out, but she could not help flinching as he came at her again and again.

  “Do not flinch! If you flinch, you will die.”

  “It hurts.”

  “That is the point. It will hurt every time. You must learn to accept pain as part of combat. You cannot let it affect how you fight.”

  “I don’t plan to be a warrior,” she sulked.

  “Your enemy will not care about your plans. He is there to end your plans. Do you intend to yield?”

  “No.”

  “Bon. Again. On your guard.”

  She stepped back. “The karwan is leaving,” she said.

  He appeared to notice for the first time. “Once more,” he said. “Then we go.”

  She took the last strike on her left shin.

  When the karwan stopped at midday, Talysse went looking for Jehan. She hurt all over, but she was going to ask for another session, just to show him that she was not afraid and was not weak. He had been spending most of the midday meals at the wagonmaster’s fire, so she went there first. She approached from the far side of the wagon, not to be snooping but only because she had wandered a bit trying to walk off the ache in her legs, so she heard them before she saw them.

  Their voices were low, intimate.

  “You look better, my friend,” Brasc said.

  “I feel better.”

  “It is because you recovered your armor. You have left that life on the road behind.”

  “True, but more than that. I had to get my father’s armor back from that cur. But it is Talysse who gives me hope now.”

  “Ah,” said Brasc. “Your geas.”

  “I hear doubt in your voice.”

  “I don’t doubt your calling,” Brasc said quickly. “It’s the girl I doubt.”

  Talysse edged closer. She strained not to miss a word.

  “Don’t give that face,” Brasc said, “you know what I mean. That story about her parents.”

  Talysse moved closer still, and her heart moved up her throat.

  “The girl did not lie,” Jehan said.

  “I do not say she lied. But the story. Gonsallo knows it well, for it is Catalan.”

  “So claims the trovador.”

  “I have heard it myself,” Brasc went on. “In Pau, and a much grander version in Bordeaux. The girl has been told a lie.”

  Talysse swallowed hard. She put a hand on the wheel to steady herself, for the world seemed to be tipping, and it was suddenly hard to breathe.

  “She has been told something,” Jehan said. “We do not know what is a lie, what is exaggerated, and what might yet be true. I know she is a donata. I know she wishes to find her parents. I know she is in danger from a wicked man. That is enough for me.”

  Talysse spun on her heel and staggered away like a drunkard. A lie? What did this mean? She would go to Gonsallo and make the singer tell her the truth. If, she added, angry with herself for the thought, I even want to hear it.

  Gonsallo sat on a stool at the guest wagon. He was bent over his cittern, plucking individual strings and listening intently. Talysse strode up to him, fearing that if she hesitated for even a moment, her resolve would melt away. She barely noticed Detta, who was busy making up a cookfire. Gonsallo glanced up.

  “Ah, demoiselle. I have a new song. Would you care to hear it?”

  “No,” Talysse said, so curtly that the trovador’s face fell. “I have to ask you something,” she added.

  “Well enough,” Gonsallo said. He poked at a string, ran a trill up the bottom string, making it sound like a question. “I shall listen.”

  “Is the story of my parents only a song?” The question burst from her like a single exhalation.

  A look passed over Gonsallo’s face. Compassion? Pity? It lasted no more than a single heartbeat, the shadow of a passing bird, then he spoke. “Only a song? Is that how you would say it? You might as well say Jehan’s quarterstaff is only a stick.”

  Talysse looked down and spoke to the ground. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” he said, “and I have no answers for you.” He inspected the body of the cittern closely, as if answers might be found in the wood.

  “Talysse,” he said, “when I was a boy, my father was away all the time. My mother said he was an important man at court, the king depended on him, and so he must needs be absent.” He paused, but Talysse said nothing and did not look up, so the trovador continued.

  “Others said he was a nobody, a peasant who tended the hounds. All I knew of the man was that when he came home, he drank too much, was cruel to me, and I hated him. When I grew up, I learned it was all true. The king loved to hunt and loved his dogs, and no one was so good with them as my peasant father, who drank too much and who despised my music.”

  Talysse heard the despair in his voice, but her own pain was louder.

  “You tell me this why?”

  “The stories about my father were legends of a sort. I never knew the real man. Perhaps we never know the whole person, but only the songs we hear about them.”

  Talysse kicked at the dirt. “At least you have a father,” she said.

  “Many times I wished I had not.”

  A silence sat between them for a while. She pushed at the dirt with her toe, but inside she was pushing against the world, which seemed determined to cave in on her. “Remigius lied to me,” she said at last.

  “Possibly. But is all of it a lie, or only part?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She looked up, caught Gonsallo’s eye. “What do you think,” she asked, “truthfully? Are my parents elf and human? A chevalier and a noblewoman? Are they even alive?”

  Gonsallo put down his instrument and faced her. “Brasc did not wish to tell you, neither did Jehan. I must respect their decision.”

  “Why? It’s not their parents. It’s not their story. Do you know the truth?”

  “Please, demoiselle, I have already said I do not know where lies the truth in this. I believe the wagonmaster and your elf chevalier are searching for the true story. I know it pains you not to be told anything, but can you not see it may pain you worse to be told a thing only to find out it is not true?”

  “I think I might have already been told that,” Talysse muttered. She looked down at her hands to find they were twisting each other. She forced them to her sides.

  “Your patron told you a story,” Gonsallo said. She looked up and saw only compassion in his eyes.

  “I will not say he deceived you, for a story is not a lie. He told it to you for a reason. He told it—not very well, I must say—when he could have merely lied. He might have said your mother died in childbirth and your father is unknown. Or the two of them went over the sea, to Outremer. Or that they were quite ordinary people, carried off by a plague and you were found abandoned, squalling in a hut. A dozen other lies come readily to mind, but instead he told you this sweet, sad tale. Why do you suppose?”

  This question sat between them like an unwelcome visitor. She considered it, but did not know how to think about it. She leaned forward.

  “To spare me something?”

  “It is one possible reason,” Gonsallo said. “There could be others. As I said, I do not have answers for you. But your patron did not tell you this for no reason at all. And it was not without reason that he continued to be your patron all these years.”

  “You think I should find Remigius first, then look for my parents.”

  The trovador shrugged. “I sing songs,” he said, “I do not sing advice.”

  Talysse did not let it go—could not let it go, for a fear was in her that would not leave—but she did manage to stop asking about it. She rode inside the wagon in silence that afternoon. To her surprise, Detta opened a conversation instead. She sat next to Talysse on the bench, with Gonsallo sitting across from them. Jehan and Neus rode up top.

  “Where is your home, sir trovador? Have you traveled very far? Whoof!” Detta grabbed at the bench as the wagon lurched over a hole.

  “Care
ful, madame!” Gonsallo said, reaching across to steady the gnome. “Neus tries to avoid the worst of the holes.”

  “That was not the worst?”

  Gonsallo laughed, an easy sound. “The worst of them can swallow the whole wagon.”

  Detta’s eyes widened.

  “Well, perhaps not quite. But no, that’s not the worst. I have found that the best way to ride in the convidat is to be always prepared to fall onto the floor.”

  “Ayi, ayi,” Detta said.

  “But you asked about my home. I come from Catalunya, near the mountains.”

  “Which mountains? I believe there are many.”

  “Indeed.” Gonsallo laughed again. “Our mountains are called the Pirinaeus.”

  Detta repeated the word slowly. “How does one live, in mountains?”

  “We live near, not in. You should not picture us living on the side of a cliff. We grow some wheat, raise a few sheep. My family is poor, but we come from noble stock.”

  “Do you go back to visit?”

  “No,” Gonsallo said. The interior was full of shadow, so Talysse could not see his face well, but his trovador voice was as expressive as a face. A long sadness dwelt in that single word.

  “That is unfortunate,” Detta said. “I could not do without family.”

  “Have you not already done without them?” Gonsallo asked. “Your vill is far behind you, madame.”

  “It is,” she said, “and I miss each of my brothers, my parents, aunts and uncles, and most of my cousins.” He smiled at that. “But Lyssie is my family now. She calls me tante,” she added proudly.

  “Tía, in my language,” Gonsallo said. “It is good you have family with you, but I must walk in the wide world.”

  “Lonesome,” Detta said.

  “Sometimes. It’s unavoidable, I suppose. If I let loneliness hold me back, though, I’d never be more than just another sheepherder, living on memories of castles.”

  “You want to be more,” Detta said.