The Ages of Chaos

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Shocked by the crudeness of the insult, Romilly recoiled, her face flaming. "You've no right to say that to me; Dom Carlo put me in charge of the birds and bade me see they were properly fed, and I obey the vai dom as you do yourself!"

  "Aye, I may say so," the man sneered, "Maybe you'd like to put that pretty girl-face and those little ladylike hands to-" and the rest of the words were so foul that Romilly literally did not understand what he meant by them, and was perfectly sure she did not want to know. Clinging to what dignity she could - she honestly did not know how one of her brothers would have reacted to such foulness except, perhaps, by drawing a knife, and she was not big enough to fight on even terms with the giant Alaric - she said, "Perhaps if the vai dom himself gives you his orders you will take them," and moved away, clenching her teeth and her whole face tightly against the tears that threatened to explode through her taut mouth and eyes. Damn him. Damn him! I must not cry, I must not....

  "Here, here, what a face like a thundercloud, my lad?" said Orain, his lean face twisted with amusement, "Hurt? What ails ye-"

  She clutched at the remnants of self-possession and said the first thing that came into her head.

  "Have you a spare glove I can borrow, Uncle?" She used the informal term for any friend of a father's generation. "I cannot handle the sentry-birds with my bare fist, though I can manage a hawk; their talons are too long, and my hand is bleeding still from yesterday. I think I must fly them on a line to try and let them hunt for small animals or find carrion."

  "A glove you shall have," said Dom Carlo behind them, "Give him your old one, Orain; shabby it may be, but it will protect his hand. There are bits of leather in the baggage, you can fashion one for yourself tonight. But why must you fly them? Why not give orders to one of the men to catch fresh food for them? We have hunting-snares enough, and we need meat for ourselves too. Send any of the men to fetch fresh food-" and as he looked on Romilly, his reddish eyebrows went up.

  "Oh, is that the way of it?" he asked softly, "Which of them was it Rumal?"

  Romilly looked at the ground. She said almost inaudibly "I don't wish to make trouble, vai dom. Indeed, I can fly them, and they should have exercise in any case."

  "No doubt they should," Carlo said, "So fly them for exercise, if you will. But I'll not have my orders disobeyed, either. Give her a glove, Orain, and then I'll have a word with Alaric."

  Romilly saw the flash of his eyes, like greyish steel striking fire from flint; she took the glove and, head down, went to take down Temperance from her block, attach the lure-lines and set them up to fly. She found a cast feather and used it to stroke the bird's breast, at which the great wicked head bent and dipped with something like pleasure; she was making a good beginning at accustoming the large, savage birds to human touch and presence. When she had flown Temperance and watched her pounce on some small dead thing in the grass, she stood and watched the sentry-bird feed; standing on one foot, tearing with beak and claw. Later she flew Diligence in the same way; then - with relief, for her arm was growing tired - the smaller, gentler Prudence.

  They are ugly birds, I suppose. But they are beautiful in their own way; strength, power, keen sight . . . and the world would be a fouler place without birds like this, to clear away what is dead and rotting. She was amazed at the way in which the birds had found, even on lines like the lure-lines, their own food, small carcasses in the grass, which she herself had not seen or even smelled. How had the men managed to ignore their real needs, when it was so clear to her what they wanted and needed?

  I suppose that is what it means to have laran, Romilly thought, suddenly humbled. A gift which had been born in her family, for which she could claim no credit because it was inborn, she had done nothing to deserve it. Yet even Dom Carlo, who had the precious laran too - everything about the man spoke of easy, accustomed power - could not communicate with the birds, though he seemed able to know anything about men. The gift of a MacAran. Oh, but her father was so wrong, then, so wrong, and she had been right, to insist on this precious and wonderful Gift with which she had been dowered; to ignore it, to misuse it, to play at it, untrained - oh, that was wrong, wrong!

  And her brother Ruyven had been right, to leave Falconsward and insist on the training of his natural Gifts. In the Tower he had found his proper place, laranzu for the handling of sentry-birds. One day that would be her place too...

  Prudence's scream of anger roused Romilly from her daydream and she realized that the sentry-bird had finished feeding and was tugging again at the lure-line. Romilly let her fly in circles on the line for a few moments, then made contact with the bird and urged her gently back to the ground; she hooded her, lifted her (grateful for the glove Orain had given her, for even through the glove she could feel the fierce grip of the huge talons) and set her back on the block.

  As she made ready to ride, she thought soberly of the distance still ahead of them. She would keep as close to Orain as she could; if Alaric should find her alone. . . . and she thought, with terror, of the vast and empty chasms over which they had come the day before. A false step there, a slight nudge, and she would have followed that stone down over the cliff, rebounding again and again, broken long before she reached the final impact at the bottom. She felt faint nausea rising in her throat. Would his malice carry him so far as that? She had done him no harm....

  She had betrayed his incompetence before Dom Carlo, whom he evidently held in the highest respect. Remembering Rory, Romilly wondered if there were any men anywhere, alive, who were motivated by anything other than malice and lust and hatred. She had thought, in boy's clothing, she would be safe at least from lust; but even here, among men, she found its ugly face. Her father? Her brothers? Alderic? Well, her father would have sold her to Dom Garris for his own convenience. Alderic and her brothers? She really did not know them at all, for they would not have shown their real face to a girl whom they considered a child. No doubt they too were all evil within. Setting her teeth grimly, Romilly put the saddle on her horse, and went about saddling the other horses for Orain and Dom Carlo. Her prescribed duties demanded only that she care for the birds, but as things were now, she preferred the company of horses to the company of humankind!

  Dom Carlo's kindly voice interrupted her reverie.

  "So you have saddled Longlegs for me? Thank you, my lad."

  "She is a beautiful animal," Romilly said, giving the mare a pat.

  "You have an eye for horses, I can see; not surprising, if you are of MacAran blood. This one is from the high plateaus around Armida; they breed finer horses there than anywhere in the mountains, though I think sometimes they have not quite the stamina of the mountain-bred. Perhaps it does her no kindness, to take Longlegs on these trails; I have often thought I should return her to her native country and get myself a mountain-bred horse, or even a chervine for this wild hill country. Yet-" his hand lingered on the glossy mane, "I flatter myself that she would miss me; and as an exile, I have not so many friends that I would be willing to part with one, even if she is a dumb beast. Tell me, my boy; you know horses, do you think this climate is too hard on her?"

  "I would not think so," Romilly said after a minute, "Not if she is well fed and well cared for; and you might consider wrapping her legs for extra support on these steep paths."

  "A good thought," Dom Carlo agreed, and beckoned to Orain; they set about bandaging the legs of their lowlands-bred horses. Romilly's own horse was bred for the Hellers, shaggy-coated and shaggy-legged, with great tufts of coarse hair around the fetlocks, and for the first time since she had fled from Falconsward, she was glad that she had left her own horse. This one, stranger as he was, had at least borne her faithfully.

  After a time they set off, winding downward into the valley, which they reached in time for the midday meal, and then along the gradually broadening, well-travelled road which led into Nevarsin, the City of the Snows.

  One more night they camped before they came to the city, and this time, noting wha
t Romilly had done the day before, Orain gave orders to the men that they should groom and properly care for their riding-chervines. They obeyed sullenly, but they obeyed; Romilly heard one of them grumble, "While we have that damned hawk-boy with us, why can't he care for the beasts? Ought to be his work, not ours!"

  "Not likely, when Orain's already made the brat his own pet," Alaric grumbled. "Birds be damned - the wretch is with us for Orain's convenience, not the birds! You think the Lord Carlo will deny his paxman and friend anything he wants?"

  "Hush your mouth," said a third, "You've no call to go talking like that about your betters. Dom Carlo's a good lord to us all, and a faithful man to Carolin, and as for Orain, he was the king's own foster-brother. Haven't you noticed? He talks all rough and country, but when he wishes, or when he forgets, he can talk as fine and educated as Dom Carlo himself, or any of the great Hastur-lords themselves! As for his private tastes, I care not whether he wants women or boys or rabbithorns, so long as he doesn't come after my wife."

  Romilly, her face burning, moved away out of earshot. Reared in a cristoforo family, she had never heard such talk, and it confirmed her opinion that she liked the company of men even less than the company of women. She was too shy, after what she had heard, to join Orain and Dom Carlo where they spread their blankets, and spent that night shivering, crouched among the drowsing stag-ponies for their warmth. By morning she was blue with cold, and huddled as long as she dared near the fire kindled for breakfast, surreptitiously trying to warm her hands against the sides of the porridge-pot. The hot food warmed her a little, but she was still shivering as she exercised and fed the birds - Alaric, still grumbling, had snared a couple of rabbithorns, and they were beginning to smell high; she had to overcome surges of nausea as she cut them up, and afterward she found herself sneezing repeatedly. Dom Carlo cast her a concerned glance as they saddled and climbed on their horses for the last stage of the ride.

  "I hope you have not taken cold, my boy."

  Romilly muttered, eyes averted, that the vai dom should not concern himself.

  "Let us have one thing clearly understood," Dom Carlo said, frowning, "The welfare of any of my followers is as important to me as that of the birds to you - my men are in my charge as the birds are in yours, and I neglect no man who follows me! Come here," he said, and laid a concerned hand against her forehead. "You have fever; can you ride? I would not ask it of you, but tonight you shall be warm in the monastery guest-house, and if you are sick, the good brothers there will see to you."

  "I am all right," Romilly protested, genuinely alarmed now. She dared not be sick! If she was taken to the monks' infirmary, certainly, in caring for her sickness they would discover that she was a girl!

  ''Have you warm clothing enough? Orain, you are nearer his size than I - find the lad something warm," said Dom Carlo, and then, as he stood still touching her forehead, his face changed; he looked down at Romilly sharply, and for a moment she was sure - she did not know how; laran? - that he knew. She froze with dread, shivering; but he moved away and said quietly, "Orain has brought you a warm vest and stockings - I saw your blistered feet in your boots. Put them on at once; if you are too proud to take them, we shall have it from your wages, but I'll have noone riding with me who is not warm and dry and comfortable. Go round the fire and change into them, this minute."

  Romilly bowed her head in acquiescence, went behind the line of horses and stag-beasts, and pulled on the warm stockings - heavenly relief to her sore feet - and the heavy undervest. They were somewhat too big, but all the warmer for that. She sneezed again, and Orain gestured to the pot still hanging over the fire, not yet emptied. He dipped up a ladleful of the hot brew and took some leaves from his pouch.

  "An old wives' remedy for the cough that's better than any healer's brew. Drink it," he said, and watched while she gulped at the foul-tasting stuff. "Aye, it's bitter as lost love, but it drives out the fever."

  Romilly grimaced at the acrid, musty-tasting stuff; it made her flush with inner heat, and left her mouth puckered with its intense astringency, but, later that morning, she realized that she had not sneezed again, and that the dripping of her nose had abated. Riding briefly at his side, she said, "That remedy would make you a fortune in the cities, Master Orain."

  He laughed. "My mother was a leronis and studied healing," he said, "and went among the country-folk to learn their knowledge of herbs. But the healers in the cities laugh at these country remedies."

  And, she thought, he had been the king's own foster-brother; and now served the king's man in exile, Carlo of Blue Lake. What the men had said was true, though she had not noticed it before; talking to the men, he spoke the dialect of the countryside, while, speaking to Dom Carlo, and, increasingly, to her, his accents were those of an educated man. Contrasted to the other men, she felt as safe and comfortable near him as if she were in the presence of her own brothers or her father.

  After a time she asked him, "The king -Carolin - he awaits us in Nevarsin? I thought the monks were sworn to take no part in the strife of wordly men? How is it that they take King Carolin's side in this war? I-I know so little about what is going on in the lowlands." She remembered what Darren and Alderic had said; it only whetted her appetite to know more.

  Orain said, "The brothers of Nevarsin care nothing for the throne of the Hasturs; nor should they. They give shelter to Carolin because, as they say, he has harmed none, and his cousin - the great bastard, Rakhal, who sits on the throne - would kill him for his own ambition. They will not join in his cause, but they will not surrender him to his enemies while he shelters there, either."

  "If Carolin's claim to the throne is so just," Romilly asked, "Why has Rakhal won so much support?"

  Orain shrugged. "Greed, no doubt. My lands are now in the hands of the chief of Rakhal's councillors. Men support the man who enriches them, and right has little to do with it. All these men-" he gestured behind them at the followers, "are small-holders whose lands should have been inviolate; they had done nothing but hold loyal to their king, and they should not have been involved in the struggles of the highborn and powerful. Alaric is bitter, aye - know you what was his crime? The crime for which he lost his lands, and was flung into Rakhal's prison under sentence of losing a hand and his tongue?"

  Romilly shuddered. "For such a sentence it must have been a great crime indeed!"

  "Only before that cagavrezu Rakhal," said Orain grimly, "His crime? His children shouted 'Long live King Carolin' as one of Rakhal's greatest scoundrels passed by their village. They meant no harm - I do not think the poor brats knew one king from the other! So the great scoundrel, Lyondri Hastur, said that he must have taught his little children treason - he took the children from Alaric's house, saying they should be reared by a loyal man, and sent them to serve in his Great House, and flung Alaric into prison. One of the children died, and Alaric's wife was so distraught with what had befallen her man and her babies that she threw herself from a high window and died. Aye, Alaric is bitter, and thinks good of no one, lad; it is not you he hates, but life itself."

  Romilly looked down toward her saddle, with a deep breath. She knew why Orain had told her this, and it raised still further her admiration of the man; he had tolerance and sympathy even for the man who had spoken such ugly things of him. She said quietly, "I will try not to think half so evil of him as he thinks of me, then, Uncle."

  But still she felt confused. Alderic had spoken of the Haste-kin as descended from Gods, great and noble men, and Orain spoke as if the very word "Hastur" were an insult.

  "Are all the Hastur-kin evil men, then?"

  "By no means," Orain said vehemently, "A better man than Carolin never trod this earth; his only fault is that he thought no evil toward those of his kin who were scoundrels, and was all too kind and forgiving toward-" his mouth stretched in what should have been a smile, "bastards with ambition."

  And then he fell silent, and Romilly, watching the lines in his face, knew his thoughts we
re a thousand leagues away from her, or his men, or Dom Carlo. It seemed that she could see in his mind pictures of a beautiful city built between two mountain passes, but lying low, in a green valley, on the shores of a lake whose waves were like mist rolling up from the depths. A white tower rose near the shores, and men and women passed through the gateways, tall and elegant as if wrapped in a silken glamour, too beautiful to be real . . . and she could sense the great sorrow in him, the sorrow of the exile, the homeless man....

  I too am homeless, I have cast away all my kin . .. but it may be that my brother Ruyven awaits me in Tramontana Tower. And Orain, too, is alone and without kin....

  They rode through the great, frowning gates of Nevarsin just as dusk was falling and the swift night of this time of year had begun to blur the sky with rain. Dom Carlo rode at their head, his cowled hood drawn over his head concealing his features; along the old cobbled streets of the city, and upward along steep paths and narrow winding lanes toward the snow-covered paths that led to the monastery. Romilly thought she had never felt such intense chill; the monastery was situated among the glacier ice, carved from the solid rock of the mountain, and when they paused before the inner gates, under the great statue of the Bearer of Burdens bowed beneath the world's weight, and the smaller, but still larger-than-life image of Saint-Valentine-of-the-Snows, she was shivering again in spite of the extra warm clothing.

  A tall dignified man in the bulky brown robe and cowl of a monk gestured them inside. Romilly hesitated; she had been brought up a cristoforo and knew that no woman might enter into the monastery, even in the guest-house. But she had chosen this disguise and now could not repudiate it. She whispered a prayer - "Blessed Bearer of Burdens, Holy Saint Valentine, forgive me, I mean no intrusion into this world of men, and I swear I will do nothing to disgrace you here."

  It would create a greater scandal if she now revealed her real sex. And she wondered why women were so strongly prohibited. Did the monks fear that if women were there they could not keep to their vows of renunciation? What good were their vows, if they could not resist women unless they never saw any? And why did they think women would care to tempt them anyhow? Looking at the lumpy little monk in the cowl, she thought, with something perilously near a giggle, that it would take more charity than even a saint, to overlook his ugliness long enough to try and tempt him!