Flesh and Spirit tld-1

by Carol Berg

  As the path leveled out, and the air spoke of damp pine, a smoky fire, and horses nearby, my guide halted. She released my arm and reached around my neck, tugging my head downward. “Let me get this off of you. We’re almost there.”

  As she untied the cloth binding my eyes, I inhaled deeply, her hair tickling my nose. No, nothing at all like Jullian. “Thank you,” I said most sincerely.

  “For what? Allowing our thick-skulled bodyguards to suffocate you? Giving you a laugh at my inept playacting?”

  “I had a pleasant walk in the nighttime and an interesting conversation. My head remains intact. And I smelled someone who was not Jullian.”

  The cloth fell away. I blinked. Her hair shone bronze in the starlight. Her pale lips curved upward. And the eyes that gazed up at me…great gods…so deep…reflections of heaven…

  “Come, Brother Valen.” A slight emphasis on the Brother.

  The blood rushed from my tonsured head, and no logical thinking prevented it going where it had no place. Blessed goddess of love, what had I done to abjure such a gift, even for a season? I touched her cheek…cool, silken…and felt the heat rush to meet my finger. “Ah, mistress, you are…”

  Her breath caught and held one moment, suspending my thought. I bent my head toward hers…

  A distant bell chimed the half hour. She shuddered and jerked her head away. “Time runs, Brother. You must be back in the church by Matins.” Her voice was hoarse. She pulled up her hood and strode away. How had I ever thought her male?

  The path led between a stony bank and a forested gully, curving sharply upward. Slightly dizzy, aching with a need far deeper than lust—which great vice had most certainly tainted my soul as well—I watched her move as we walked. Had she led me into a blazing forest or a raging torrent, I would have followed.

  Chapter 15

  The Thane of Erasku awaited us with the impenetrable solemnity of a standing stone, the smoke of the small campfire curling about his solidity like the telltales of midsummer sacrifice. His thick arms enfolded the solid, leathery bulk of my grandfather’s book. Behind him, away from the fire, a gaunt, dark-haired man tethered a horse beside two others—Gram, the lord’s sickly secretary. No guards, tents, pots, or baggage were in evidence. No Brother Gildas in evidence, either, which surprised me. Likely he was yet suffering the effects of the Harrower lashes. The bruising always got worse before it got better.

  “I thought you would never come.” The lord was fair bursting with impatience.

  “We were delayed at the abbey, sire,” said the woman. “My apologies.” She bowed to the thane, and then moved around the fire to join him without acknowledging the secretary.

  I remained on the near side of the fire.

  “I am Stearc of Erasku, Brother,” said the thane. “I presume you know that. You’ve not endured too taxing a walk? My lad guided you properly?”

  I bowed. “Indeed he kept me on the straight-and-narrow path, sir. And I managed not to plague him to distraction with my questions, though they are legion. I was too busy trying to determine where on Iero’s good earth we were.”

  “And were you successful?” No excessive pleasantries here. The intensity that had shivered me to my boots at my first glimpse of him had not diminished. He was every quat a warlord; it was more difficult to imagine him a scholar.

  “I am turned hind end first, my lord. In a thorough muddle.”

  “You look a thorough mess. Mud, scrapes. Corin, is the monk’s courtesy hiding some mistake of yours? If such simple squire’s duties are beyond you, I’ll put you back to mucking stalls.”

  Woe to the man-at-arms who mistook this commander’s orders. Why would such a man ever permit a woman—? Ah! A flash of inspiration struck me. A step to the side, where fire and smoke could not obscure my vision, confirmed that the lord’s long braid took on a certain hint of bronze in the firelight. And the arch of their noses was identical. Sire, indeed.

  The woman lifted her chin as if weathering a familiar gale. “I was unable—”

  “My Lord Stearc, we suffered an unpleasant mishap tonight,” said Gram, as he joined the other two in the firelight. No mistaking his firm, rich tone. Hard to imagine my decisive savior from the hedge garden to be the frail secretary I had glimpsed being helped onto his horse at the guesthouse. “The two guards who accompanied Corin to fetch Brother Valen set upon him as if to make him a prisoner. Something in their orders charged them wrongly. I’ve restricted them to camp tonight in your name and will investigate thoroughly tomorrow. Surely this good brother’s generous and forgiving nature has brought him here after so rude a meeting.”

  I pressed a knuckle to my mouth to muffle a snicker. Generosity and forgiveness would never have brought me so far. But curiosity…Every moment with this odd troop—all of them angles and edges and raw passion—left me more enamored of their puzzle.

  “Is Gram’s assessment accurate, Brother?” Lie at your peril, Stearc’s tone warned.

  “It is more Abbot Luviar’s influence that induced me to come, my lord,” I said. “He intimated that your interests were of great importance to Navronne, which, of course, makes them of great importance to any loyal subject. And these two gentlemen were most sincere in their apologies.”

  He nodded. Not happy, but immediate fury tamed.

  The secretary had a convincing way about him with lords, brutes, and novices alike. As if to cinch my good opinion, Gram offered me a skin of ale he’d brought from his saddlebags.

  “Your abbot explained what we need from you?” The thane wasted no time.

  I was still relishing the robust ale, wondering if Gram would notice if I drained the skin completely. Reluctantly, I replaced its plug, yielded it to the secretary with a grateful nod, and returned my attention to the lord. “Only that you wished me to demonstrate what I knew of using the Cartamandua maps, which, as I warned Father Abbot, is little enough. And that I am to keep silent about this company and its interests.”

  “Good. We need not waste time with discussion. Sit here.” Stearc pointed to a fat log rolled near the fire and shoved the book into my arms. “Open to the marked page.”

  I’d not expected to be treated as a schoolboy. Hackles bristling, I sat on the log and opened the book to a place marked with a scrap of leather. The map filled the broad right leaf of the open book. Its features had been meticulously drawn in red-brown ink and delicately washed with green and rose. The emerald-green-and-black border had an exotic pattern to it.

  From the time I’d left the cradle, I had been taught the rudiments of maps: the concepts of distance and proportion, the common symbols, the uses of compass rose, cartouche, and key. I had trailed about Palinur in my father’s wake, marking straggling lines on tablets of wax, and pens and brushes had been stuffed in my hands as soon as I could hold them. The shapes and colors of maps had pleased my eye, and I liked to imagine that I could envision the grass and rock, cities and rivers they represented. But never was I taken on a journey of discovery beyond Palinur’s walls as my brother and sisters were, because I could not master the most mundane of a cartographer’s skills. I could neither write the names and distances, nor read nor write a traveler’s notes. Maps spoke with shape and color and symbols, but the key to their wonder was written words. Of which I had none.

  “What is it you wish to know, my lord?” I asked, suppressing long-festered bitterness. “I never used this particular map when I served Mardane Lavorile.”

  The thane stood over me like some oak tree out of Ardra’s ancient forests, craggy and thick and overpowering. “If you have used other maps from the book, then you should be able to use this one. We have brought you to a place that appears on this map. Here.” He placed a thick finger on an angular mark near the center of the map—a hill. “We wish to discover if you can find your way here.” His finger skipped to another spot on the far right-hand side of the page.

  I gaped up at him. “Now? At night?”

  He lifted his finger to reveal the symbo
l—a tiny waterfall—my grandfather’s common designation for a waterfall, pool, small lake, or any other watery landmark. The name lettered beside the feature would clarify which one it was.

  “If you can invoke the guide spell properly, you should have no difficulty, day or night. The distance is not far. Your abbot promised you would make the attempt. So do it, or end this before we waste more time.” He crossed his great arms and did not blink, his disdain as odorous as a pigsty.

  Could I do what he wanted? Without knowing its bounds and scale, I could not judge distance from this map. Nor could I invoke a spell I could not read nor even discover what kind of water I was looking for without deciphering its name. But I had wits and other skills, and the lord’s game posed a challenge interesting enough to overcome my distaste for the family business. For, certainly, this whole evening was a game. These fine conspirators had brought me here blindfolded, assuming I could not judge distance or direction from the abbey, believing that the moonless night would obscure paths and landmarks. I’d wager they had staged the attack, just to throw me out of sense before we began. They expected me to fail.

  I touched the skin of my throat, abraded by their drawstring bag. They believed me a thick-skulled vagabond pikeman who had fooled a lord by pretending to use his magic book. Perhaps, with a touch of pureblood instinct and magic, I could do exactly that.

  Leaning closer to the blazing firelight, I examined the map—a simple fiché—more closely. Somewhere in its tangled mysteries of words, numbers, and symbols, a fiché would reveal place names and distances, compass headings, landmarks, and obstacles to travel. This particular map detailed a countryside of forested hills, a river and its side streams, one town and three villages, a few cart roads and common walking paths. A solicale designated some Karish landmark. Other symbols I was less sure of. Each mark had a neatly lettered name that could place it in this valley or far Estigure for all I knew. Dangling from the solicale was the impish aingerou my grandfather sketched into every map.

  So start with the solicale. It must certainly represent the abbey. We had walked briskly for perhaps an hour to get to this starting point. That gave me an idea of distance and proportion. And we had walked northeastward, in the main, more east than north; I closed my eyes and remembered the wind teasing my right cheek and the shaven patch on my head, a frost wind from the south. Only when we started climbing had we changed heading back and forth a number of times, but no matter, for I had but to follow the path back down to the base of the hill. The night was clear, so I could use Escalor, the guide star, to get my bearing. If the direction from the abbey to this hill was northeast, then the watery spot they wished me to find would be southeast, half again the distance we had come—leaving a conveniently short return to the abbey for a novice who must be prostrate on the church floor by Matins.

  “So, can you do it?” Stearc had his hands on his hips.

  “I believe I can, my lord. I suppose you would not consider telling me what I’m looking for or why this is so important?”

  “You’ve no need to know more.” For certain this man had not approved me for the task. Well, let him watch.

  Making a great show, I placed my finger on the mark for this hill, drew it downward toward the abbey, and then across the page till I touched a walking path of the sort oxherds used to lead their beast carts to market or villeins might tread to field or woodland. Following the lines of path and road as far as they would take me, southerly through the fields and easterly into the hills of the valley wall, my finger traced a reasonably direct route to the water symbol. I noted the orange flame mark of Deunor along the way—likely a roadside shrine to the Lightbringer. Three short lines marked a dolmen, and near it lay two small arcs that told of burial mounds. That should give me enough. I closed the book.

  “Will you not speak the invocation, Brother?” Stearc’s skepticism rang clearly.

  “When I used the book before, I always read the spell words silently, my lord. I thought to follow the same practice here…” I paused, all innocence, as if expecting him to contradict me.

  He did not, which confirmed another suspicion. He’d had the book from the abbot—which explained its absence from the library—and he had tried to use it himself without success. Why else would he waste this time on an unlikely prospect such as me?

  “We should be off then,” I said, placing the book into his hands and suppressing a grin, “unless you wish me to go alone and find my way back here to report.”

  “No need for you to return. We’ll know if you succeed.” His great jaw snapped shut. I was dismissed.

  I bowed. “My lord. Gentlemen.”

  As I walked down the path the woman and I had ascended, the three of them stood beside their fire, watching me. I assumed they would follow or ride out to catch me near the end. Or perhaps the thane had his own pureblood or a mage to observe me from a distance or who had set some magical beacon to announce my success. As to what waited at the end, a place no ordinary map could take them, my curiosity outweighed my caution. The abbot did not want me dead.

  At the bottom of the hill I sought southeast, keeping the guide star on my left, and holding a balance between winter sunrise and the mountains of Evanore to the south. I knelt as if to relace my sandal. Touching fingertips to the earth, I spilled but a fragment of magic into the simple seeking, hunting a route to a sheep path and a roadside shrine dedicated to Deunor Lightbringer. A spare image resolved in my head, a simple pattern laid upon the landscape.

  Once sure of my course, I set out across the open country. Even if someone was watching me, I doubted they could hear, so I sang the fifty verses of “The Doxy and the Bandit” as I walked, imagining clasping Corin’s slender waist as I spun her dizzy. Earth’s mother, what was her true name? Why hadn’t I asked?

  Deunor’s shrine was little more than a chipped and gouged body, missing one arm, its head, and privy parts. The stones of the altar had been carted away, and the astelas vines that twined every shrine of the elder gods had been dug up. Country folk thought boiled astelas roots made a man virile. I’d no need for that unless this pestilential drought went on too long and my body forgot its dearest pleasures. Near three months had gone since I’d lain with a woman, and here the night air felt like velvet on my skin. Another brief seeking at the split of a path and I angled northerly again toward the dolmen and burial mounds.

  The table stones and barrows were only dark outlines against the stars to the north. And just beyond them, the track branched three ways instead of the two marked on the map—assuming I had come to the right place so far. Instinct sent me down the southernmost, the oldest branch, judging by the myriad layers of feet that had trod there. As the map had suggested, the path petered out in the slopes of patchy grass and rock at the base of the craggy ridge east of the valley.

  Now came the most difficult part—to find the water source in these trackless hills. A hint as to its nature would have been useful. With no more paths made magic by centuries of feet, and no sure destination, this seeking would require more power.

  I scanned the horizon in a full circle. As far as starlight and good eyesight could tell me, no one watched. Kneeling on the rough ground, I closed my eyes and laid my palms on the earth. The wind blustered over and around me, scouring away the barriers of distraction and wariness, allowing my magic to flow freely. Where is it?

  Images of pools and wells and bubbling springs passed through my mind, but none held for that one moment that proved it true. A little more…

  I laid my forehead on the earth and released another fragment of power, expecting the pattern to resolve as it had earlier. My instincts would tell me the way. But before I knew it, I had pushed up my sleeves, hiked up my gown, and lay prostrate as I had been in the church a few hours earlier, bared arms spread. Instead of masonry and gilding, the dome of stars rose above my head, and beneath me lay the cool damp earth.

  As I inhaled the scent of dirt and rotting grass, the boundaries of stars and fle
sh and earth dissolved. Worms burrowed beneath me, and ground beetles ticked their wings in their holes. A hare breathed anxiously in its den. Clouds drifted across the patterned stars above me, tickling the wool layers on my back. Far below, water trickled…deep…

  Strip off these prisoning garments…touch skin to earth and air…feel the night’s embrace…reach through the welcoming earth to find the water… Against the urgency of these demands—spoken in the language of mind and flesh and bone—only some remnant thread of present sense kept me clothed. But the rest…

  Reach…feel…embrace. Open your mouth…taste stone and stars…inhale the night…listen… I plunged my hand deep…felt the gritty loam give way…dry sand and pebbles graze my knuckles…until I touched the sweeter moisture…the secret places…the pulsing flow of life that told of moving water, deeper yet.

  A bell pealed in the distance—a sonorous touch of bronze borne on the breeze. I jerked my head off the ground and rose up on my elbows. What had happened here? My heart raced like a fox at the hunt. I shook my head. Sat back on my heels and examined one bare arm to assure myself that it was not covered with dirt or crawling with beetles and worms from plunging it through the earth. Felt a rush of heat across my skin as I realized I was more than halfway roused in altogether unlikely ways, as had happened on the journey back from Elanus. Fires of heaven…chastity was making a madman of me.

  I forced my thoughts back to business. The bell signaled another hour gone. How many since day’s end? I needed to head northeasterly again, for the water that trickled under this spot fed the abbey spring and its source lay in the ridge ahead of me. Though no overlaid image dwelt in the forefront of my mind, my body understood perfectly which way to go now, in the same way my blood knew which direction to flow in my veins. I scrambled to my feet, hurried across the barren field, and pretended I was not shaking.