A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  “How do you judge, my dear?”

  Inos frowned. “Judge what?”

  “Whom. How do you judge the candidates? Against Sir Andor?”

  “Against Father.”

  That could never be true. “Then you are comparing very young men in a difficult and unfamiliar setting against a mature king in his own kingdom. Is that fair?”

  “Is it fair that I should have to judge at all?”

  The situation was hopeless. Holindarn had insisted that his daughter be allowed to choose, and obviously she would have the Andor man or no one, and the Andor man was not available. Maybe in another year or so, when she had grown up more and had time to forget that first awesome flash of romance … all of which was exactly what Kade had told Ekka half an hour ago.

  She sighed and rose. “Just be grateful that you have the chance to judge at all, dear.”

  “Is that a threat?” Inos was reaching for her anger.

  “Of course not. I’m trying to give you a warning: Remember what your father said.”

  The anger was held back, momentarily. “About what?”

  “About war. If the Impire and Nordland went to war over Krasnegar … whichever side won, do you think you would be allowed to choose a husband then?”

  But Inos had not forgotten the stakes. The Kinvale lacquer cracked to show the frightened child hiding under the ladylike decorum. “Ah, yes! What a pity Thane Kalkor is married! What a pity you and Ekka can’t invite him here, also, so you could parade me around in front of that one!”

  Kade had no need to fake a shudder. “His manners would be the problem, dear, not his marriage. If he fancied you, then he’d just give his current wife to one of his churls and take you in her place. They do that all the time.”

  7

  Faint daylight was seeping through the chimney hole in the roof when Rap was jerked away by a snowy boot being wiped on his face. The nightmare figure of Darad was looming over him, swathed again in furs, with his gap-toothed leer somewhere near the ceiling.

  Rap had found a tattered rug to wrap himself in and had even gained a place fairly close to the fire by the simple method of throwing some of the smaller boys out of the way. The older ones had found this action amusing and had not objected. They had allowed him to drink from their communal bucket, but he had still not been fed. His belly cramps came from hunger as well as the aftereffects of Little Chicken’s haymaker.

  Woodsmoke from a single hearth, the rank stench of bodies and rancid grease, smelly rugs on a packed dirt floor—the boys’ hut was a smaller version of the adults’. At the moment Rap was the only occupant. He had slept well and felt rather pleased at that.

  “I came to say good-bye, Stupid.”

  Rap lay and scowled up at Darad for a moment, gathering his wits. “Good-bye.” What else was there to say?

  The big man glowered. “This is your last chance, Stupid.”

  He had said that the night before. “What’s my choice, then?”

  Darad took a moment to answer, while frowning with the pain of thinking. “Tell me your word and I’ll get you out of here.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or you get tested. Against Little Chicken.”

  “What sort of test?” Rap made a quick scan with his farsight and discovered that the missing boys were all over in the big building, eating.

  Darad had struggled through to a decision, and now he dropped to one knee, poking at Rap with a mitted hand the size of a small shovel. “They like lots of wives, see?”

  Rap did not see, but he stayed silent.

  “So they get rid of the weaklings, see?” Darad sorted out another thought and continued. “It’s their winter fun. When two boys are old enough, they test them. The winner gets his tattoos.”

  “And the other dies?”

  “Right!” Darad smiled at Rap’s brilliance.

  “And I look like a pushover, so the chief’s son gets me?”.

  Darad nodded vigorously. “And you haven’t got a hope.”

  “I haven’t got a word, either,” Rap said. “Tell me yours and I’ll get both of us out of here.”

  Darad jumped up furiously. “You think I’m crazy? Give you half my word? You’re stupid.” He drew his foot back, and Rap hastily curled up, waiting for the kick.

  But the giant merely laughed and stalked away, slamming the door. Relieved, Rap rearranged his furs against the cold air. Then he watched Darad’s departure.

  Joyboy staggered when that huge carcass scrabbled up onto his back. He didn’t want to go, and the giant kicked him hard enough to bring tears to Rap’s eyes. Eventually Darad prevailed and rode off into the forest, leading Peppers.

  He was heading south. Darad would have no interest in visiting Kinvale to warn Inos of her father’s illness. There would seem to be no reason why Andor should do so, either, were he to reappear in Darad’s place. But Inos must be told—which meant that Rap would have to escape and do it himself.

  Stubborn, his mother had called him. Inos had, also, although usually she had preferred pigheaded. Well, if stubborn was what it was going to take, then stubborn he would be.

  Rap sat up, wrapped himself in fur, and again scanned the big house. He had never felt hungrier, but somehow he was certain that he was not going to be fed. The boys must have crept out very quietly, deliberately not waking him—big joke! He was expected to run over and try to join them, so Little Chicken could have the satisfaction of making him beg, and then refusing.

  Rap decided he could stand the pangs a little longer, and postpone his captors’ satisfaction. If torture was what they had in mind, then they would not let him become too weak.

  He began to puzzle again over the mystery of Andor and the monstrous Darad. What was Darad? Man or demon? Would a demon be as lean-witted as that? The minstrel Jalon had mentioned Darad, and Andor knew Jalon. They had all wanted his word …

  Then something Darad had said finally registered. Revelation fell over Rap like grain from a burst sack.

  Give you half my word?

  That was why Andor had refused to share! When you shared a word you divided its power. If that was not so, then the words would be passed around like jokes—everyone would know words. Pandemia would swarm with sorcerers. There had to be a reason why words were not freely shared, and that must be it—sharing reduced their power!

  Andor had not mentioned that!

  Nor had Jalon.

  Nor had Sagorn.

  The king had. “Remember to guard your secret,” he had said, thinking that Rap would understand.

  Now he understood! Inspiration after inspiration flashed through his mind. Words were usually passed on deathbeds. Sagorn had said so, and Andor, also.

  Two people sharing a word each got half the power. But the words had been passed down for generations. Obviously they did not lose half their power at every telling, or they would long since have disappeared completely. So! So—if two people shared, they each got half the power, but when one of the two died, the other had all of it again?

  Right! That was certain.

  Died—or was murdered.

  That was why it was dangerous to know a word.

  And why it would be even more dangerous to share one.

  If Rap had possessed a word to share and had told that word to Andor, then Andor or his Darad-demon would have killed Rap at once, to gain the other half, also.

  That was something else that Andor had not explained.

  Demon lover:

  A savage place! as holy and enchanted

  As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

  By woman wailing for her demon lover.

  Coleridge, Kubla Khan

  SIX

  Forest weeping

  1

  Soon after Darad departed, the boys returned from their meal. Little Chicken beckoned Rap and led him out across the compound, barefoot and virtually naked. The air felt worse than ice water, freezing the tears that ran down Rap’s cheeks. Within seconds he was shak
ing uncontrollably; his toes and ears were numb. Little Chicken was wearing no more than he was, but he grinned at Rap’s discomfort and sauntered at a leisurely pace to show how little the cold bothered him. Their destination turned out to be a garbage tip at the back of the big house, where scraps were being dropped out through a flap. Fleabag and his pack were snuffling and growling as they scavenged among the remains. Anything worth eating was grabbed by the nearest dog, which then raced off to dine in private. Everything else was soon trampled and frozen to the ground.

  Little Chicken made eating gestures and pointed.

  Rap shook his head and turned away, but not before he had seen the gloating amusement—a man would eat anything when he was hungry enough. Tomorrow, or the day after, Rap would be at the garbage, disputing with the dogs for offal.

  Back in the hut, Rap soon discovered the rules. He could go out any time he wanted, but he must not take any of the fur robes or the buckskins that lay heaped by the door. Bare feet and his shorts were all he was allowed. That restricted his movements like a chain on an ankle. Nor might he enter any of the other buildings.

  The log house was home to thirty-four boys, ranging in age from toddlers up to Little Chicken, who was easily the oldest and largest, and certainly the ruler. Males had little to occupy them in the great forest in winter, for the women did all the work. The boys spent their time in sleeping, combing their long hair, and rubbing themselves with the well-matured bear grease that gave them their loathsome stench. Thinking it might have some value for keeping out the cold, Rap tried it himself, but the only advantage he could find was that it stopped his skin cracking. He felt no warmer for it and thereafter he stank as badly as the others.

  They also played complicated games with sticks and a board; and they wrestled. Little Chicken loved wrestling, but there was no one there large enough to give him a reasonable match. Rap would have been the closest, but there seemed to be some reason why Little Chicken must not tackle him, for which Rap was duly grateful. Little Chicken, therefore, would organize teams of the others, usually Fledgling Down and Cheep-Cheep, the two next in age, but sometimes four or five of the smaller boys. Then he would take on the whole team. He always won, usually ending by bouncing his opponents off the walls.

  Within a few hours, and merely by sitting and listening to the boys’ chatter, Rap began to uncover the secrets of the language. It used comparatively few words, and only in simple ways. Many were exactly the same as the words he knew, and many others were almost the same with certain sounds switched in a predictable fashion—th to t and f to p, and a few others. Soon he was making sense of the talk.

  Then he made the mistake of asking a question. Little Chicken barked out, “Not answer!” and jumped up. He scrambled across and arranged himself cross-legged in front of Rap. “You speak now?” he demanded intently.

  “I speak slow.”

  That was very satisfying news. “Seven days I get my name!” Little Chicken grinned, showing his oversize goblin teeth.

  Rap looked blank.

  “New name! Not Little Chicken—Death Bird.”

  “Good name!” Rap said politely. Not knowing the word for tattoos, he waved a finger around one eye, and a vigorous nod showed that his guess was correct.

  Obviously this was all a cheat. Little Chicken was at least two years older than any of the other boys, and Rap had already noted some tattooed and married men who could be no older. So Little Chicken had been held back, the fruit kept on the tree until it was overripe, so that he would have an unfair chance in the testing, whatever that might be. Now this pushover stranger had arrived to make the contest even more unfair. Little Chicken was justifiably confident.

  “Tell me about testing?” Rap asked.

  Little Chicken looked surprised, and then an expression of great delight came over his big ugly face as he realized the extent of Rap’s ignorance. “No!” He swung around and snapped orders to the others—no one must talk of the testing. Happily he turned back to his victim.

  “After testing I have good ideas!”

  “Yes?” Rap was certain that he was going to disagree.

  “I light small fires on your chest!”

  Rap did disagree.

  “I pull off ears and make you eat them!”

  “I pull feathers off chickens,” Rap said firmly.

  “Flat Nose!” Little Chicken sneered. “I push your toes up your nose.”

  Rap made a loud clucking noise and flapped his arms. That worked. Little Chicken almost gnashed his teeth with fury, while a few of the braver boys behind him snickered.

  Frequently thereafter Little Chicken would come to sit and stare gloatingly at Rap and announce some new atrocity he had just thought of, but the clucking noise was a potent reply. It drove him almost to distraction, and often drove him away. Either some rule prevented him from using violence, or else he was saving that for later.

  The grisly threats were unbelievable, Rap decided—just another strategy to unnerve the victim, as the garbage had been. He firmly resolved not to let it rattle him, but that was not an easy resolution to keep. By the time the village settled down to the sleep that night, his head was swimming with the weakness brought on by hunger.

  But he had farsight. He had easily located the food store, in a room at the back of the single women’s lodge, and there seemed to be no locks on any of the doors. Kept awake by his howling stomach, he lay in his fur robe among the sleeping boys and waited through the long hours until the whole tribe seemed to be asleep and all activity had ceased, even in the married quarters. Then he arose, dressed himself in the largest buckskins he could find in the heap by the door—they could only be Little Chicken’s—and quietly staggered out into the dark.

  There were no sentries in that climate. The dogs kept guard and Fleabag himself was the first to notice him, but Fleabag seemed to be peculiarly susceptible to whatever it was Rap could do with animals. He came up sniffing and allowed his ears to be scratched. If Fleabag was not a purebred wolf, he was something close to it, but for his new friend he lay down and required that his chest be rubbed. Then he accompanied Rap past the big lodge where the men slept among their wives, over to the house of the single females.

  Gratefully Rap slipped inside, blocking Fleabag’s attempts to follow. He stood in the dark, until his violently shaking limbs were under control again. At the far end lay the young girls, old women were at the front. There were two hearths, but the fires had been banked and the room was dim. Quivering with hunger and nervousness, he began picking his way very slowly toward the big larder that made up the rear half of the building, stepping around or over the sleepers. Here was the tribe’s holy of holies: the winter food and the unmarried girls. Nowhere could be more off-limits for a stranger, but certainly Rap had nothing to lose.

  Holding his breath, mouthing a, silent prayer against creaking hinges, he eased open the big door and swiftly grabbed up a lump of frozen fish. He closed the door again, turned—and his heart made a wild leap, as if trying to escape on its own and fly away to Krasnegar. A very tiny woman was standing right in front of him, peering up with difficulty because of her extreme stoop—a dim, hunched figure canopied in the voluminous robe and hood of a female goblin. Her face was dark and dim, unclear in the crawling glow of the embers, but he could see wrinkles, and she was obviously very old.

  For what seemed a small eternity, neither spoke. He felt sweat trickle down his ribs like ice. Why did she not raise the alarm?

  “Faun?” she said softly. Her voice was the dry crackle of a boot on frozen grass. “Why a faun here?”

  Rap said nothing. He tried to lick his lips and tasted blood from their open frost sores.

  “Far from the vales,” the crone warbled in a tuneless but fortunately quiet croak, “Where his ancestors manifest … No, that’s not right. Not manifest! Magnify?”

  She showed a few sharp goblin teeth, gnawing her wrinkled bottom lip. “Why is he using power here, eh?”

  Rap tried t
o speak, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Apparently she had not thought to shout an alarm. He forced his quaking limbs to obey, sinking down on one knee to be less conspicuous if anyone else roused. Now their eyes were about level.

  “I’m hungry,” he whispered. “That’s all.”

  She did not seem to hear. “What goes creeping where my love lies sleeping? Eh? Fauns near my sweeting? Power in the dark woods. Fauns!”

  “Please don’t wake the others.”

  “He uses mastery on the dogs, that’s all.” She was very, very, old, and probably mad.

  Then his heart made another frantic bound—she was not there! His farsight was detecting nothing where his eyes saw her, and his eyes could also see the embers on the hearth shining through her robe.

  An evil spirit? He tried to rise and his legs would not move. He rubbed his eyes, and the vision seemed to solidify, blocking out the gleam of the hearth. He clenched his teeth to stop them chattering.

  “Strange,” she muttered. “Can’t see him properly.”

  “I’m hungry,” Rap repeated, barely hearing the words himself. “That’s all. I mean no harm.”

  He moved a hand, to see if it would pass through the apparition, and his fingers touched buckskin—he whipped them away. The old hag had noticed. Her eyes seemed to narrow and focus more securely on him. “You! Faun! Why can’t I foresee you?”

  Rap shook his head, confused. “I’m hungry,” he whispered again.

  “Hungry? You?” She cackled in sudden mad merriment, and Rap cringed, expecting all the sleepers to leap up; but no one stirred.