A Child of Great Promise: An Altearth Tale

by Ellis L. Knox

  “Gonsallo, how is the horse stuck, do you think? Is he in mud?”

  “Non, jovencita. The river bed is sandy. He has caught his leg on something. A sunken tree limb, I think.”

  “Could you get him free?”

  “Perhaps. Alas, I do not walk on water.”

  “No, but I can fly.” She looked at him steadily. “I can take you there.”

  Jehan overheard and broke in.

  “You should take me,” he said. “I am stronger than the Catalan.”

  “True, but you are also much heavier. I’m not even sure I can carry Gonsallo. I’ve never carried anyone.”

  Gonsallo laughed nervously. “She jokes.”

  “I do not,” Talysse said.

  The stallion plunged again. Now that Gonsallo had drawn her attention to it, she saw that the animal’s left hind leg did not budge more than a little.

  “I cannot ask you to do this,” Brasc said, “though it is a brave thing.”

  “So don’t ask,” Talysse said. “But I can’t bear to watch and do nothing.”

  “Talysse?”

  Detta stood next to her. Her wet fur was like a brown mat thrown over her. “You will come back?”

  “I will, tante. I promise.”

  “Oh, do not promise, Lyssie. It tempts the gods. If you fall, I will come after you.”

  Talysse fought back sudden tears. She must be tired, she thought, to cry so readily. “You stay right here,” she told the gnome. “I’ll come back.” To Gonsallo she said, “Up that tree, as high as we can go.”

  Jehan boosted them both onto a lower branch. Just as they began to climb, Brasc called to them from the base of the elm.

  “Hurry,” he called. “The gens d’armes are not far behind.”

  She had nearly forgotten the pursuit. If they see me fly, she thought, they will know they have found me, but once we are in the water, the men will not risk coming out. All the more reason to hurry.

  She wondered how high she should climb. As much height as she could, but every moment spent climbing might prove to be one second too long. She refused to look down, keeping all her attention on the branches. They kept getting smaller. Still without looking down, she selected a solid branch that swept out toward the river.

  “This one,” she called down.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she said, not at all sure. Now it came to the moment, doubts crowded around her, even as she edged out onto the bare limb. The river crossing had tired her and the scramble up the elm tired her even more. Did she need her muscles to fly? Were the soldiers already at the other shore? Was she high enough, or too high? Would she be in time? Could she even carry another person?

  The last thought came to her as she reached the furthest safe point of the limb. Always before, she had crouched on a branch and sprung out, like jumping over a hedge. That wasn’t going to work with a second person. They might hold hands, but a solid jerk could break their grip, sending Gonsallo to his death.

  “Shoulderback,” Gonsallo said from behind. “I see you hesitate. I am thinking of ways as we climb and this is best. I hold around your shoulders, from in back. Shoulderback.”

  Talysse stood, one hand on a branch. Gonsallo put his arms around her chest.

  “Apologies, jovencita,” he said, his mouth at her shoulder blade. “This is ungallant.”

  Talysse felt her cheeks burn. She scowled. She was about to plunge into empty air and she worried about modesty?

  “It is necessary,” she said tersely. “Hold tight. We will fall at first.”

  Gonsallo said, “What?” before Talysse leaned forward and the two shot almost straight down.

  Almost. The wind currents threaded the air like massive vines. Talysse grabbed hold of one then another, sweeping beyond the line of willows and out over the river. Gonsallo held so tightly she thought he might break her ribs. He was praying loudly into her back.

  The extra weight kept forcing her down. She felt the currents keenly, but every vine, every broad snake proved porous. She sank through them as if a giant hand were pressing her through a mountain of threads. She could not fly. All she could manage was to try to fall more slowly.

  They shot out over the water, which was coming much too close. The river was a curtain of gray, dotted with raindrops, its fabric torn by debris broken loose by the flood. If they fell, they would drown. Swirls and eddies spoke of powerful forces beneath the surface. She refused to consider how they were going to get back.

  A powerful wind ran down the spine of the river. She gathered it beneath her and rose a few feet. She angled toward the stallion, which stood with its head low. Its hind leg jerked a moment, then the horse stood still again. He’s still fighting, Talysse thought. What spirit!

  At the last moment she suddenly worried about how to land. She came down hard a few feet upstream from the horse. Gonsallo released his hold and they both stumbled into the horse.

  Talysse sputtered. Gonsallo called over the noise of the rain, “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” Talysse said, amazed to find it was true. She had two seconds of elation, then the horse uttered a shuddering cry.

  “Hurry, Gonsallo, we’ve no time.”

  He was at the horse’s rear flank. The river swirled at his knees, and he fought to keep his balance, bending so far he submerged his face.

  The horse reared and plunged. The arrival of people seemed to give it a new strength, but its struggles were wild.

  “There is a log down here, all right, but I can’t work the leg free. The horse tries to kick when I get near.”

  Talysse put one hand on the stallion’s neck. He was quivering and snorting, his muscles spasming. The river shoved at her, threatening to snatch her away, but she focused only on the terrified animal. She spoke to him, careless of her words, except to make them calm and warm and steady. She pressed her body to his, trying to lend her strength to him. She kept her hand to his neck.

  “That’s better,” Gonsallo yelled over the storm. “Keep doing that.”

  She wasn’t sure she was doing anything at all, but she kept doing it, kept talking to the horse. Into her voice she put a warm breeze through tall green grass. Strong legs ran across an open field. She spoke to him of white horses crashing through ocean surf, long manes flying. The sun was warm and gentle, and every living thing ran strong as daylight.

  The stallion snorted and moved forward.

  “Got it!” Gonsallo cried.

  She heard the words, but they made no sense at first. She was still far away in the Camargue.

  The stallion moved forward again. Gonsallo called out, “Hang on,” and Talysse at the last instant took hold of the mane before the horse plunged into the water. Her head went under, came back up. She gasped, swallowed water. The current pressed her against the animal. She felt powerful muscles work, though her own were failing fast. With what remained of her strength she climbed onto the horse’s back and clung there with both arms around his neck, fingers locked into his mane. Though the horse must have been exhausted, it now swam smoothly. She felt its strength close to her body. Stretched out as she was, it felt almost like flying.

  She turned her head to look back, expecting to see Gonsallo abandoned on the sandbar, but he trailed behind like an otter, holding on to the horse’s long tail. She lay her head against the stallion’s neck and told him over and over that he was wonderful.

  The wagons were strung out between alder trees. Three men came and took the horse away. He was shivering badly, but one of the men assured her he would live. All three men looked at her as if she… as if I could fly, she thought. She smiled at them, then Gonsallo hustled her to the convidat and warm blankets.

  Brasc came by not long after. He heaped praise upon her until she asked him to stop. It was embarrassing.

  For a time, only the rain spoke. Then Brasc called out.

  “Lop! Over here, lad.”

  The driver of another wagon sloshed through the mud to join the small gro
up.

  “Minado has a broken axle,” Lop said as he approached. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  Brasc considered this a moment, then cocked his head to one side. A smile crept onto his face.

  “What?” Lop said. “I know that look.”

  “A thing occurs to me.”

  “A scheme?”

  “Oc.”

  Lop grinned. Brasc spoke to the others. “Let me set out this scheme before any of you start telling me it won’t work.”

  Talysse listened in silence as the wagonmaster spoke. She stole glances at Jehan, to see what the elf thought, but she couldn’t read him.

  Brasc’s plan was to give most of the karwan to Lop—fourteen wagons. He was to go to Carcassonne, cross there, and continue to Toulouse, taking the customary route from there to Bayonne. He was the Cierzo Karwan now.

  Somewhere before getting to Toulouse, they would be stopped and questioned. Their story was simple and sad.

  “The karwan crossed the Aude River at a ford during a storm. The river had shifted and the ford was no longer safe, but the elves did not know that. Five wagons were lost. Minado’s wagon will provide proof. Your wagonmaster, the tragic Brasc, perished in the crossing.”

  Lop snorted. “They will wonder why we did not use the bridge at Homps.”

  “Yes, they will. We had heard rumors—all humans know how elves gossip—that armed men were questioning all routiers. That fool Brasc was smuggling and feared a search. And he believed the ford was an easy crossing.”

  “They will ask about Talysse.”

  “Who? Oh yes, we heard about that back at Arles. You’ve not found her yet? A mere girl? And a gnome, you say? Bait them as far as you judge wise, Lop.”

  The young man looked eager.

  “They will nevertheless insist on a search. Let them—be sure to dump all your contraband here; put it into Minado’s wagon.”

  “He will not be happy,” Lop said.

  “No indeed, but we cannot replace the axle and to leave the wagon here gives lie to the tale.”

  Lop nodded.

  “Meanwhile,” Brasc went on, “I will take five wagons to the rendezvous at Puig Balabor. We can do some good trade there.”

  He turned and spoke directly to Talysse.

  “That will end our road together. Your way goes into the high mountains; I will not take my wagons there. Many peoples come to the rendezvous—hunter elves, Andorran dwarves, trapper folk, shepherds of the Merino herds, sometimes an ogre. Someone will know of your Remigius and his Redoubt. Even the trovador has heard of him.”

  “Heard of who?” Gonsallo emerged from the rain. He looked around the group. “What did I miss?”

  Brasc ignored him.

  “So you see, Talysse, you need not go on alone, at least not yet.”

  “Alone?” Gonsallo repeated. “Of course she cannot go alone; what nonsense. I shall go with her, and the chevalier and the good madame, I should think.”

  Detta moved closer to Talysse’s side.

  “That is very kind,” Talysse said, “but you have all endured too much because of me. You have lost business.” She said this last to Brasc.

  “Aye.” Lop shook his head sadly.

  “And you seem to be making new enemies. Now you want to split up the karwan? More risk. It’s not right. I don’t even know where I’m going or what I’m doing.” She took an uneven breath before adding, “Or who I am.”

  “You are Lyssie,” Detta said, low.

  “Dividing the wagons is exactly the right thing to do, for it will repair some of the damage. After the rendezvous at Puig Balabor, my wagons will go to Foix and Pau, which have ever been independent of Gaul and of Toulouse alike, then on to Bayonne. Some will say they heard Brasc had perished in a storm crossing the Aude. Ah, but not. He was washed down river many miles. All save one wagon made it. Three horses lost, alas.”

  Talysse saw he was enjoying his own fable.

  “You see?” Brasc said, a smile at the corners of his mouth. “We slip through their fingers, deliver you to the mountains, and Brasc of the Cierzo gains still more fame.”

  The rain fell steadily well into the afternoon, the clouds so heavy no one could find the sun. The Cierzo Karwan divided itself in a meadow, where the tracks would quickly disappear under the new grass. The wagon with the broken axle was pushed into the Aude, and the river swept it quickly out of sight. Lop and Brasc parted with a few more words of planning, and Talysse was on her way south, into the Pirinaeus Mountains. On her way to answers, she hoped. All she had so far was a pocket full of questions.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Puig Balabor

  Brasc still called it the karwan, though he refrained from naming it Cierzo. Wagons divide, he said, then join together again, like any wind.

  He took them away from the river, traveling up a side valley in order to skirt Limoux. They would avoid cities now.

  And roads, evidently, for what the wagons followed were only parallel tracks made by carts, with the grass worn down by feet and hooves. People did not talk much, even on the wagon, even around the campfires. When they did speak, it was in lowered tones, without gaiety, as if there had been a death in the family. Most people, whenever Talysse happened by, seemed to be looking elsewhere.

  “Three days, jovencita,” Gonsallo counseled her. “Then you will be finding your patron and your answers. Until then, you must endure.”

  Jehan insisted she continue her practice with the quarterstaff.

  “I know how to fight,” she said. “I killed the wolf, you know.”

  “Yes. Now you practice so you do not forget.”

  She tried to avoid him, tried to put him off, and tried open refusal. None of it worked, so she practiced trying to hit Jehan.

  He was quicker than the wolf.

  Once they gained the Aude River again, late that first day, the road began to climb. The next day, they entered a deep valley whose sides eclipsed the sun by mid-afternoon, then emerged into more open country. The valley was festooned with red poppies and pale asters. Beyond the valley, the hills piled layer upon layer, losing color at each rank until blue mountains faded to blue sky, divided by a thin, uneven line of white. Lavender scented the air.

  The towns gave way to villages, the villages to hamlets. The buildings in all these were of rough-hewn stone, capped by steep roofs of red tile like little red hats. Here and there, stone towers rose two or three stories high, with no door at the base. Jehan told her that the families in the area could retreat to these in times of war.

  “Is there often war here?” Talysse asked.

  “Once there was,” Neus replied, “but few armies come through these days. Mostly the towers are a refuge for bandits or for nobles during their endless squabbles. When things get dangerous, the peasants go up into the mountains to hide among the dwarves.”

  Besides the towers, standing like posts that had lost their fence, they came upon isolated farms with walls and barred windows and strong gates. Everything about these foothills spoke of prowling dangers.

  After another day of travel, the oak and poplar began sharing the ground with pine and cedar. The mountains crowded close as they went over a little stone bridge, beneath which the Aude River rushed in a torrent of white and spray. Then they emerged into a pleasant valley with an actual town, beyond which lay yet another gorge.

  Near the town rose spires of gray rock, like enormous stalagmites rising from the cave of the world. Among these, looking much like them, was a tower. Brasc skirted wide around these. Neus said it was held by an irascible old baron who robbed passing merchants by claiming they owed him a tax. He was impregnable in his tower, and the people of the town simply left him alone. Talysse said this was irresponsible and that the people would not leave a wolf to prey on travelers. To this Neus observed they might, if the wolf were fierce enough, and Talysse decided to let it go.

  Later, she said to Detta that she was getting tired of meeting so many new people. “They all behave d
ifferently, and I’m getting exhausted trying to understand them all.”

  “To each vill its hearth,” Detta said. “You get tired, my dear, because you don’t just understand them, you judge them. This one is worthy, that one is not. This one is sensible, that one is not. It is more wearying to judge.”

  “Well, I don’t really see another way. If you meet someone, you must decide what sort of someone they are.”

  Detta said nothing, which Talysse knew was her way of disagreeing. Back in Saldemer, this was always a signal for Talysse to disagree openly and try to provoke a discussion. Lately, though, she herself stayed silent, and instead thought more about what had been said. She wasn’t sure this was wisdom, but it felt like it might be.

  After the next gorge came another, even more dramatic. The road edged below gray cliffs that rose straight up from the River Aude which frothed white with rapids. Between the two was barely room for the wagons themselves. The crashing of the river echoed off the stone walls, and they crossed over narrow bridges without sides. Talysse wondered what sort of people built these things. Dwarves, she decided.

  Once past the cliffs, the forest crowded close, with tall pines that stretched their dark green arms right into the roadway. Above them was a ribbon of blue sky darker and harder than the blue of the seaside. Everything around her was harsh and unforgiving—stone, hard earth, even the trees with their needles instead of gentle leaves. And always beyond, the mountains, now covered in a mantle of snow.

  Doubts crept close as well. She felt herself as crowded as the road, with dangers on every side. Despite the closeness, she felt exposed, like a stone on a mountainside, prey to wind and sun. She knew her friends were near, but they seemed somehow fragile as well. Behind her, only a couple of days away, lay cities and towns and lush farms. Further on, the sea which she now loved more than she ever had when she lived next to it. Why shouldn’t she turn back? Trouble chased her, so why keep running?