by Wilf Jones
‘Why cannot ye tell me more?’
‘I have told you enough, and that is more than I should. There is a balance, you know, and I have disturbed it. Others like me actually oppose our design, but they are similarly forbidden to act. My talking to you allows a response. Who knows what trouble this has caused. Now I shall take my leave of you.’ He looked at the door and it opened gently for him. ‘That is better, well done.’ he said. Tregar could restrain himself no longer:
‘Who are ye?’ he demanded, thinking it would be his last chance. The old man was gleeful.
‘Heh, heh,’ he cackled, ‘you still have no idea, have you? Eh? I’d spend a while working on that memory if I were you! Must have been all those parties in Ayer: addled your brains. Ah me. Well now, I hate to see a creature suffer, so I’ll tell you this: I have been called a God, Tregar. They called me wild and furious and said I was the god of battle and victory. Quite ironic really. To others I have been inspiration and that is better, though I started out as the god of wind. You could call me Greybeard and in fact you have already.’
Tregar flushed red at his own stupidity but he was determined to stand his ground. ‘It is a poor god to be half blind,’ he said, looking for confirmation. The god smiled.
‘I gave my eye to gain wisdom and wisdom can see more clearly than any eye.’ Tregar had guessed right. ‘Now, I bid you keep to luck and common sense. Just remember what I said to you. It may not have sounded important but I hope the meaning comes clear. Goodbye Wiezart. I shall leave the paths bent but you’ll find a way with a little skill. Farewell!’
He was gone and the door pulled shut rather sharply behind him. Tregar rushed to the door and wrenching it open was not surprised to find the yard empty.
Though not a religious man, Tregar found himself offering up a prayer of thanks to Imvar, the god of his childhood. How else was he to respond to divine intervention? He could hardly pray to the same god he had shared a supper with. But pray he must for the first time in twenty years. It did not matter that he understood very little of what had been said, he just knew that with this visitation he was blessed and his cause just, whatever that cause might prove to be.
‘Uovin!’ he cried to the empty room, ‘Uovin Himself has spoken to me!’ and such a mood of exhilaration took him that he danced across the yard and told Sirrah all about it.
FOUND AND LOST
The Saddle, Aegarde 3057.7.24
The villagers of the Skirt and the Saddle were running before the storm. It was amazing to Roar that one small company of villains could create such chaos. The impromptu refugee camp on the Gotherian border was swelling by the hour. The border guards were outnumbered by two hundred to one already and it was only down to the placid nature of the refugees that they had not been overwhelmed. Inevitably enough, the more determined, more adventurous types had bypassed this crossing completely. The Saddle, so called because here the cliffs fell away like a seat between pommel and cantle, had just the one major road crossing the border but on either side acres of farmsteads and woodlands and small tracks provided no obstacle for anyone travelling light. The fifty guards had enough on their hands to even think of policing a border ten miles wide. Here on the main road they held back the greater tide. The villages of the Skirt, a fertile scoop of land nestling under the tall cliffs to the north of the Saddle, had been quiet and prosperous places far removed from criminality, disturbance or the threat of war for years out of mind, and quiet places made for quiet but prosperous people. Desperate to avoid the Black Company but, doing their best to salvage some hope for a future, they were decidedly unwilling to relinquish their worldly goods. It was as though they had attempted to relocate their lives. All around him were carts laden with furniture and ornament, baskets of hard pressed chickens, dogs up on the bench seats growling people off as their owners struggled with the tents and bedding. The earliest birds had quickly taken up all the best pitches and now sat comfortable in roped-off enclaves, their relatives all around them, sitting in their best chairs, drinking their hot rahi or cold tea, shooing off the neighbours’ goats from nibbling round their tents and tending their cooking fires. A regular parade of children, laden with skins and pans, ran, skipped and chattered their way down the path to the Gate Water with the warnings to ‘come back soon’ flying unheeded over their heads. Donkeys, still in harness, tired from their labours, surveyed the scene with utter disdain. Roar McAndre looked on with mixed feelings. He didn’t know whether to admire these people or despise them. It was only as he looked at the children, faces open, busy with children’s things, that he understood. Normality in the face of disturbance: that was their aim; denial of the oncoming storm, the determination to seem ‘in control’. But not for themselves: it was all for the sake of their children. This was courage.
Roar, now feeling very humbled, walked alongside those children, leading-on the two horses, his own Calliope and Colm’s Gyrax, and listening-in to the piping voices and all the reckless clatter. It was really very wholesome. And looking around him, the day was warm if promising showers, the fields were green though uncut and the hedgerows still were full of promise. A good place to be in the normal way of things. Roar trawled through his memories of twenty years gone. As he recalled, the way of things hereabouts was that twice a year, Spring’s End and Autumn’s Crack, these very meadows were home to a popular and famous three day fair. Crowds came down or up from either side of the border to trade goods and news and to share the entertainments. For these lads and lasses, moved by their mum’s orders or dad’s warnings, or more likely their own overwhelming indifference to both, this ground was actually a place of holiday; for their parents of course, it was a place of commerce. The familiarity with this ground was for all a matter of some comfort.
Roar stopped to allow this new, more accurate understanding get a view of the proceedings. The familiarity was perhaps what made the atmosphere of the camp, increasingly, more like a fair or market than anything more desperate. In fact, now that he looked at it in the right light, forgetting his own petty grumbles, it became obvious to him that this familiarity had so shifted the perceptions and attitude of the refugees that the whole affair had become less like an escape from horror, and more like a straight and inviting opportunity for open trade and serious business. From somewhere behind the line of trees to his right, he could hear a lot of neighing and snorting and the tell-tale cadence of an auction in full swing. Ha! There’s the human race for you, he thought crossly, never let a chance for gain pass you by. Sometimes he despaired. His new born admiration for these people, quite unfairly, collapsed in an instant.
If only he wasn’t so tired he knew it’d be easier to take heart from all this, but the fact was his backside was sore from too much riding, his thigh muscles were cramping more and more often as their journey progressed, and, dear gods, today even his bones seemed to hurt. It was all getting to be a bit too much. At his age. And everything seemed so much the worse from having to travel with young Colm Peveril. He found just trying to keep up with the lad truly draining, and the brashness and the fitness and the cheerfulness Colm seemed to delight in just made the old man want to spit. Waldin interfering again, that was the root of it. He seemed to have some bizarre notion that Colm would be Roar’s perfect apprentice, and all because he was good with his hunting dogs. Hunting dogs! All they ever needed or wanted was occasional praise and the odd bite on the ear. Colm, of course, rounded that out with his dog whip for good measure. And Waldin, of course, thought that sort of thing demonstrated ‘an affinity for animals much like your own.’ Waldin could be very annoying sometimes. Ear biting! How vile. The thought of that really made him want to spit.
And, of course, it was for the cause of him getting a break from that irritating young man, rather than for any reason of efficiency, that Roar McAndre was leading their horses to water while Colm had been sent off to gather information. Roar had a plan, a simple plan for his
next few hours on this earth: he’d picket the horses next to some decent little pool, tell them to relax and enjoy it, and stay where they were, and then find himself a nice sunny spot somewhere nearby where he could put up his feet and catch up on some sleep. With that in mind he glanced skywards and watched the sun disappear behind a think bank of cloud. Typical! he thought.
‘Nice horses Mister.’
Roar looked around. Dipping his head to see under Calliope’s neck he saw a cheeky looking lad, in rough clothes and without shoes, no more than thirteen, peering back at him.
‘They are; well spotted. Do you like horses?’
The boy grinned. ‘I’m like to: m’dad’s a trader. Teaching me the business, ent he.’
‘You’re a bit young for business, son. Shouldn’t you be at school?’
The boy pulled a face. ‘School? No thanks, mister. M’dad says s’long as I can read a contract an’ do me sums I’ll be alright. Don’t need none o’those teachers yammerin’ on at me ‘bout kings and stuff.’
Roar, with seventy years of experience under his belt, could not honestly disagree with the lad. This one would find his way in life whatever happened.
‘So, you don’t belong with this lot then,’ Roar said, indicating the mass of humanity washing about them, ‘All these townies and villagers?’
The boy looked all around and then shook his head slowly, the look on his face indicating quiet amazement at the way others seemed to live their lives.
‘A travelling family?’
‘Ar, we travel alright. Buy the horses cheap over by Valdez, drive ‘em up into Gothery and then down into Sullin Part – we get best prices down there.’
Roar nodded. ‘But now you’re all caught up in this and it’s not good for business I suppose?’
‘Longer we keep ‘em, more we have to feed ‘em. Border guard won’t let none o’ that lot through an’ they won’t let us through neither. M’dad reckoned a bit of offloadin’ ‘ud be best. You can hear’m over there,’ the boy nodded in the direction of the auction. ‘Fair old voice ‘e got on him.’
‘And do you know why all this is happening?’
The lad wrinkled his nose, thinking back on it.
‘Not much,’ he said, ‘We were down in Altiparedo, just passing through, when this great fuss set up in the market place. There was this man, all messed up and bothered, an’ shoutin’ ‘bout somethin’ or other; an’ all the people round were shoutin’ back and gettin’ all aeriated. It was all upsettin’ to ‘em. I don’t know what exactly – you’d have to ask m’dad. He just said ‘Time we were gone from here!’ and away we went. But I reckon it must be to do with these bad’uns they got up north of here.’
‘And how long ago was this?’
‘Couple or three days? ‘S’only thirty mile round the Hammerhand.’
‘This Altiparedo, is it a big place?’
‘Big place? Well, I reckon; more like a town than village. What I saw of it. Big market anyway. If you go there you’ll find out won’t you? But look Mister… I… er… Can I… er…’
The lad seemed to have lost interest in Roar’s concerns.
‘Something wrong?’
‘Wrong? Sorry?’
‘You’re a little distracted. Is there a problem?’
The boy was looking up at Calliope with a strange look in his eyes.
‘Oh. No. No problem. Well, yeah; look Mister, can I ask you a question, given I’ve been answerin’ all yours?’
Roar snorted in disbelief. ‘The answer is No! I won’t be selling you either this horse or the other.’
The boy laughed.
‘Tell truth, Mister, I did think o’ makin’ an offer – m’dad’d expect it – but no: you di’nt look like the sort for tradin’. But that there: what’s that perch for, up on your pommer? Ent never seen one as big as that. You a falconer or somin’?’
‘Well, not exactly. It’s for a friend of mine.’
The boy raised his eyebrows, trying to imagine what sort of friend.
‘So,’ said Roar, ‘you’re interested in birds as well as in horses.’
The boy wrinkled his nose again.
‘No, not really. Just saw you goin’ past and… well, I just thought I’d ask…’
The boy seemed puzzled somehow. Roar wondered about that.
‘Would you like to see him?’
‘He’ll come for you, just like that?’
‘If I call. But let’s move over a bit. We need somewhere quiet. Wouldn’t want him to scare the animals hereabouts; or the people for that matter. My name’s Roar, by the way; what’s yours’?’
‘Sammy. Sammy Tozer.’
‘Well Sammy Tozer, today you will meet someone truly remarkable.’
Sammy looked at him in appraising sort of way.
‘You know, Mister, thought I already ‘ad.’
Sammy followed Roar without any qualms. They left the river path for a small field banked all round by hedges and tall poplars and so far free of settlers. There was something here Sammy didn’t understand, but none of it seemed wrong and whatever might happen the boy knew he could always take care of himself. Besides, the old guy was still grinning away. Normally Sammy would have counted that grin a bit of a victory: his line an easy manipulation to make the mark feel good – but no, not this time. He’d said what he meant.
He looked up above him. What with the limited space and the high hedges, the heavy grey-blue clouds looked like some giant tent roof rucking in the wind. A storm was closing in on them. Roar’s black cloak whipped up behind him but the man himself was unmoved; in the gathering gloom the light in his eyes seemed brighter than was possible. Sammy felt almost giddy with excitement.
The old man threw him a look, an eager and a challenging look, and then turning his face to the ragged sky he let out a tremendous cry. Sammy nearly staggered at the power of it. With no sort of word in the cry, or at least not one Sammy could understand, the old man’s voice soared and roared and wavered and cracked and pierced the clouds. It was thrilling…
And yet Sammy had an idea that it didn’t really mean anything at all, that it was just for show, to give him something to remember, or to give him something to explain. Somehow Sammy knew that the real call was more in Roar’s head and more in the head of whatever he was calling to. And that was an idea that completely enthralled him. Over such a distance!
Watching the old man’s face carefully Sammy saw clearly the moment when Roar realized his call had been answered.
‘He’s comin’ then, Mister?’
‘Yes, he’s coming; very soon.’
‘You’re a wizard, ent you Mister.’
Roar took a deep breath and then turned to look at him.
‘Yes, Sammy: that’s what they call us. Though I feel no wiser than anyone else.’
‘But you’re not like anyone else. You’ve a power.’
‘Some power. But there’s nothing to be scared of in it. It’s merely a skill, like any other. Just like you’re good with horses.’
‘Some horses.’
‘Only some horses?’
‘Well, yeah.’ The nose wrinkled yet again but this time there was a smile in there too. ‘Some are that dozy there’s no dealin’ with’em. But there’s others… well, you can talk to ‘em.’ Sammy wouldn’t normally have said as much to anyone, not his dad, nor his brother, but somehow he reckoned that such a notion would hardly bother a wizard, especially not this one.
The old man’s eyes widened.
‘That was a more surprising answer than I was looking for, young Tozer. Are you telling me you can talk to horses?’
Sammy laughed freely, released from a tension that had bound him all his life. ‘Anyone can talk to horses, Mister. Just that most people ent understood b
y ‘em. An’ they don’t reck the answers they get neither.’
The old man laughed with him.
‘Do you know, Sammy, I think you and me need to get better acquainted, and soon, but look over there, down by the river. My friend is coming.’
Sammy held his breath. Up above the trees, in bright splashes against the purpling sky, white barred pigeons burst into the air in sudden fear and then dropped hastily into the canopy looking for cover. A chorus of children’s voices whooped in delight and then, like a lightning bolt given freedom, a huge golden eagle hurtled into the sky, climbing higher and higher, without any need for a current of air, so powerful was each beat of his tremendous wings; and then, as he reached an apogee directly above where they stood he dropped like damnation upon them.
Sammy actually threw himself to the ground, covering his head with his arms, not knowing any way to escape. There was a great thump as something hit the ground not five feet behind and Sammy rolled away in terror. Nothing happened. Sammy sat up and suddenly realized how silly he must have looked. The eagle, if eagle was a word that could properly describe the creature, was already perched upon Roar’s saddle pommel casually ripping the head off a fat rabbit. But the rabbit looked tiny in its talons.
Roar pulled Sammy to his feet.
‘Come along young ‘un, and be polite: rabbits are starters not main course. Sammy Tozer, this is Cuahtemoc, my very powerful friend.’
The amazing thing was that the boy, after his initial panic – and who wouldn’t panic – didn’t seem at all scared. Cuahtemoc regarded him mercilessly and continued to rend his catch. But then again, Roar got no better. Cuahtemoc was a friend who took a lot of getting used to. Respect came before loyalty. Weakness did not gain respect. The boy seemed to know that. He stepped forward, without wavering, to introduce himself. No matter the words he spoke, now it was as if he were a King talking to a King.
